Lockhart is a neat small town about thirty miles away. It is the county seat of Caldwell County, with the county courthouse holding supreme in the center of the town square with most of the businesses around the square doing fine, quite unlike so many small towns which seem to have abandoned their town center where the local shops move in the direction of all the newly built action, like Walmart, Tractor Supply and all the fast food places. But in the case of Lockhart, this ruination of the town center has not occurred---mainly because the original courthouse still serves the county. That means that the banks stay, the lawyer offices stay and when they stay, other fine business are attracted. Also on this town square is the Southwestern Museum of Clocks and Watches, a place not to miss.
We had lunch at Loop and Lil's a small cafe noted for its pizza and subs. It was good, but not the place for great pizza that it was in years past. It sure raises the question of how a café, once good, keeps raising their quality, since we all know that it is easier to go downhill than to go uphill.
We decided to go to the Chaparral Coffee house for our after lunch shot of coffee. We had sort of written this place off our list when it turned a bit funky on us and we found good coffee at the Chevon station down the road, a place where we met Bud, a storyteller of the oil patch gang some years ago. The Chaparral coffee house seemed good again and we settled into chairs out on the sidewalk for our sipping pleasure as it was a balmy day and we could provoke some conversations with the locals. There were only two tables out on the sidewalk and only two tables inside. We preferred the one outside.
Next to us was a young lady doing a crossword puzzle which was my entrée into a conversation with her. We got into all sorts of topics and traded information on our book writing and with her piano teaching. We had a full ten minutes of conversation when an acquaintance of hers came upon the scene while walking her dog. Her dog was one of those fluffy kind and when I noticed that its tail was dyed red and blue I asked if it could hunt rabbits, and the owner said that the dog thought it was a rabbit. It turned out that both these young ladies were new residents in Lockhart, one having escaped Austin and the other haling from Nebraska--or Iowa---not sure which. Both made it clear that they found living in a city oppressive and already happy they moved to this small town. Over the last year, we have found other evidence that there is a substantial migration of people from certain states to others, and from cities to rural areas in general. Most of the reasons stemming from political biases.
Part of our conversation centered around face to face communication as opposed to social media. Since we are not into social media the subject was of high interest to us. These two young ladies made it clear that they were looking for any opportunities to just talk to people rather than trade tweets or read the Facebook pages of others and made that point clear by thanking us for the conversation of that day.
From the coffee shop, we visited Lockhart Motors, the local Ford dealer where I wanted to meet Glen Germer, a car sales representative of the first order as a straight shooter. Some dealers have this kind of representative and it must be the philosophy of the owner in choosing who to hire. In their hiring practice, I would have no doubt that they have a diversity policy, but excellence in their approach to customers is apparent that it is the topmost aspect.
Good day was had by all.
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