Some more interesting people

On occasions we go to the KwikSave market at the Exxon station in Wimberley for coffee and light lunch from their food selection. Plus, they have gasoline prices competitive with the lowest in the area.
Its always interesting to find some local people to chat with who come to the store for drinks or food. Some sit to rest and eat, others just buy snacks and leave.
Recently two men and a small boy arrived in two large dump trucks. The trucks were red, rather new looking and really well maintained. They parked out in front of the gas pumps as that is the only place to park vehicles this large. The drivers and the small boy came into the store and as they were about to leave, walked past our table. I could not resist commenting on their trucks and how well they were maintained. That seemed to spark their interest in conversation, so we chatted at length.

Seems as if they were drivers for a local man who owns the trucks. What was especially noteworthy was that we were chatting with three generations of one family. The oldest was 66 years, and the youngest maybe10.

We got into a lot of stuff. They learned all about us and that we were experts at rearing children because we had none to bias our skill at this. They were both at one time heavy users of speed and did some drinking, now they have given up all this stuff and feel that they have beaten the addiction problem. The middle aged man takes his son with him on trips with the truck a few days of the summer. Can you imagine how this kid will treasure that time when he gets older?

We joked about a lot of issues for about 5 minutes, then we let them escape our grip and they left. They had to make one more job yet this day before they were finished for the day.

These are the working men and solid citizens of the area.

Comments

Aermotor Windmill Lives

The Aermotor windmill is probably the oldest iconic windmill In the United States today. We bought one that was very old at a seller's booth at the Round Top antique market. This was back in the late 1900s. So that makes it 20 years ago or so. We first erected this windmill In Fulshear in the backyard. We had to get Architectural Control Committee approval to do this. Because some of our neighbors may have some bad experiences with a neighboring windmill, we had to assure them that we would not let the brake slide and provide that nasty shrieking noise. Other than that, there was no objection to looking at a windmill. W e erected the windmill in Fulshear. It was quite a chore for us as we had no idea where all the parts fit together and how they were arranged. For example, we learned that the sail wheel with its struts is built with the same concept as a bicycle wheel with its spokes. After much head scratching and consulting the internet we had it to ...

St. Josephs Church Picnic in Yoakum

Off on this nice day to visit the old town of Yoakum. Yoakum is like many towns of this size, they grew to moderate size in the mid 1900s, then plateaued and now are not growing at all. Yoakum has a central area that consists of old brick buildings that are mostly unoccupied or are occupied with marginal businesses. We attended a church picnic in Yoakum a year ago, but that was the Lutheran Picnic and this one is sponsored by the Catholic church. We first drove directly to the Church, but this was not the place where the picnic was held---it was at the Community center in the old part of downtown, along the rows of warehouses paralleling the railroad tracks. This town was once a shipping center for agricultural products, like especially tomatoes. Now there is little of that produce and so the warehouses sit there rather bleak looking. The dinner was the usual, beef stew, sausage, smashed potatoes, sauerkraut, and bread. And don't forget the desserts...

Cause and Effect

We have this great world atlas book published by the National Geographical Society, which by the way, we bought at the local library used book sale for $2. Probably this low price of the book pains the Society but it sure makes my reference to maps an easy task without having to wake up my computer. The book occupies a permanent spot on a book stand in our breakfast room, standing ready to supply map information on request. The book happened to be open to the page showing the whole of Antarctica featuring all the outposts and even some commentary of scientific significance. One such comment was on ice coring data of historic temperatures and carbon dioxide content. I can understand how the CO2 content of the ice can be preserved over many centuries at varying depths, but I am unsure how the prevailing temperature of some thousand years ago can be preserved in the ice cores--but that's another issue that we will not get into here. So here is the comment on the data of the ice...

NQ99HQ

Search This Blog