Skip to main content

A Saturday in San Marcos

Well, earlier this week we saw an ad in the SM Daily Record for a church bar-b-que lunch for today, this Saturday.  So we decided to check it out, because, heck, we always liked church lunches from our experience in the Painted Churches area. 
Remembering that the address for this Wesleyan church was on Fredericksburg Street, we headed for the church called Wesleyan up on the hill that the elephant calls home-(TSU).  Got there, no line, no shortage of spaces to park in the church lot within stones throw of the University.  What luck, got out and asked the group selling drinks at the sidewalk if this was the place for the bar-b-que lunch.  This took them totally by surprise, as well as us, so Dee asked if this was Fredericksburg (street).  They said, no, ma'am, this is San Marcos, Fredrickburg is 75 miles north of here.  No, no, the street.
Well, after some frustration they acknowledged that the Wesleyan Church we were looking for was the historical Wesleyan Church on MLK Blvd, down by the old Tuttle Lumber Company.  So off to that part of the town, behind the old lumber company.
Looked and looked for lines of people to be fed, and cars parked hither and yon, nothing to be seen.  Finally again out of frustration, we went to a door in a building associated with the Church, and there it was, the bar-b-que all set up and ready for sale.
Its a church in the black neighborhood, the bar-b-que is the whole effort of an older black man and woman of the church, with a few young ones to help out.
Got our lunch, sat down at one of the long tables, and as we were the only ones there, we had our pick of spots to dine.  Lots and lots of people of all sorts came in for takeout, none stayed and sat down to enjoy their lunch.  It would appear that the takeout customers were  all local people, many who walked to the church to get their feed.
The food was excellent, brisket, beans, potato salad, and water to drink.
Then, the young ladies, ages 10 through 13, all who were helping with the lunch line,  approached us with a placard advertising their fund raising game of bidding on a sucker, and depending on the one chosen, the bottom end of the sucker stick (hidden from view) would tell us the price, ranging from $.25 though $1.25. Being good at their craft of extracting money from guests, the smallest girl said that if we did not want a sucker, we could just donate the money to their church.  We opted for the sucker. Must have been rigged as we blindly picked the most expensive.
When departing, we learned that this church sponsors a turkey dinner with all the trimmings every first Saturday of the month as well as these sporadic brisket lunches. Will have to put it on the calendar for The 5th of September if we are not totally tied up with planning for NM.
Now off to the Calaboose African American Museum just across the park.  Here we met Linda KJ, the curator, and the head of the board, Mr.xxx.  Really a great museum of old times.  One of the notables of San Marcos was the jazz musician Eddie Durham, famous for his "Kansas City Jazz".  Will have to look  for it in archive.net.
Then back to the car and on to look for Mr. Reveille's place near the Dunbar Center, but it was not apparent, so saved that for another day.
Now on to City Bakery (good Mexican baked goods, but no bread) a few blocks away, but it was closed for the day, as most bakeries are in the afternoon.
On to the coffee shop where we had our afternoon coffee.  Many (of what appears to be families) of students and parents walking the streets, getting the feel for new life at TSU.
Now to the grocery store where we looked for and found Mayocorba beans---the bean for making barrocho.  We will give making boraccho a try, since the beans of note were told to us by a fellow customer in the grocery store as the bean for making this tasty bean side.
Having enough frivolity for the day, we headed home.






Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Encounter in Blanco

 We often drive to Blanco to get outdoors and seek a cure for our cabin fever, to enjoy the local barbeque, and to hunt for books at the library.  We could get addicted to this if it weren't for some concern that this routine would lead to just another form of cabin fever. This time, we stopped for some gasoline and found the local people all in a buzz about the sighting of an extraterrestrial ship.  The first accounts were that it was all a hoax and then others came forward and told of the sighting which made us think that a mysterious ship did make a visit.  Nobody witnessed the craft's landing, but most sensed that there was some form of transport of a group of beings that somehow made the craft exit and then, without any commotion, they just melded into the mix of people of the area. Now that was a problem because we had always thought that ETs would not look and dress like us but instead have exaggerated bodies and some dress that suggested space travel.  We were assured t

Must be the Moon

It could be the phase of the moon, or it could be the combination of the moon and the fall equinox. but no matter what the cause, people were really talkative today, Wednesday the 28th of September 2022. We decided to journey off to Blanco because this small town, the ex-county seat of Blanco County is a friendly place and is the home of the Old 300 Barbeque shop.  I call it a shop because it is not really a cafe nor is it a restaurant.  It's just a place to buy barbeque plates or sandwiches and of course beer and the essential cobbler for dessert. Calling it a joint would be derogatory in our minds. We always opt for the pork loin sandwich that we share because one is too large for either of us.  We bypassed the cobbler because we had also planned to visit the gelato place on US281 that we had prospected for the last few years. We did justice to our sandwich outside on the front porch and made an offhand comment to an older fellow who was reassembling his leather get-up.  We chatt

Smithville, USA

 If you are not observant while traveling northwest on Highway 71, Smithville will be in the rearview mirror and so then you will have missed it all.  It's not on the main road but off to the south a block or so. We have driven past Smithville many times but this time, in order not to miss it, we decided to make that our destination. Smithville's main street runs parallel to the highway that runs north-south and therefore parallel to Highway 71.  Highway 71 connecting Houston with Austin runs on the north side of the Colorado River and Smithville is on the south side of the river.  This narrow separation from the main trunk line highway is what has spared Smithville from the ultimate doom of either death from isolation or ruin from big city influence.   We often travel miles and miles for a new lunch experience and this trip was no different in that it was a 90-minute drive to reach our destination of the Old World Bakery and Cafe.  The bakery part is what caught our attention