High traffic on a little country road

- Rigs and things -

It's been a busy morning out here on FM 1614 as trailer houses, platforms, a rig and much more paraphernalia is being brought in for more of Moriah's endeavors.

There are about six permits in the location the equipment is being taken to, four for Fisher County and two for Scurry County.

Adams 1H, Adams 2H, EA 6869 1H, EA 6869B 2H are permitted in Fisher Co; Adams 3H and EA 6869C 3H are in Scurry.

I'm wishing I had a store on this corner, I could be selling a lot of burritos and cokes.

Sale of Sweetwater Brookshire's grocery

According to a September article in the New England Real Estate Journal, the Sweetwater Brookshire's grocery store has changed hands. The deal was brokered by Cleeman Realty Group on the buyer's side, and Jones, Lang, LaSalle on the seller's.

The NEREJ reported that the store sold for over $3 million.

The Nolan County Appraisal District lists the new owners as RVE Interests out of College Station.

Rotan City Council to swear in new mayor

The Rotan City Council will convene Monday, 7 a.m.

Newly appointed Mayor Zachary Johnson will be taking oath of office, as well as new council members Frank Miranda, Loyd Greene, Joy Dennis, Randy Cox and Scott Toliver.

Items on the agenda include bids for the emulsion tank pad; cemetery maintenance; approval on property deed auctions; and getting a new dog catcher.

The meeting will take place at the Rotan city offices.

Commissioners Court special meeting tomorrow

Fisher County Commissioners will meet Monday to discuss approving a temporary water line policy and approving a contract for legal services. Isaac M. Castro, a lawyer whose office is in Hamlin, is being put forth for said legal services.

The meeting will be held at 9 a.m. in the Fisher County Courthouse courtroom.

Texas artist Rogers brings past to present

- Rogers' Tartan of 6666 -

While wandering through my thoughts this morning, I was day-dreaming about a full-length portrait of Jim Vernon in a duster that I saw many years ago hanging on the wall in his Sweetwater home. I couldn't remember if it was done by Mondel Rogers or the late Billy Martin, both being local artists and acquaintances of Mr. Vernon.

I pulled out my worn copy of Rogers' book, Old Ranches of the Texas Plains, to see if the portrait was in there. While perusing the pages, I came across this painting of the Four Sixes barn, titled Tartan of 6666.

The artist's comments on this painting were as such:

   "Part of the renowned Four Sixes headquarters at Guthrie is this red barn. Built about 1917 for Burk Burnett, it has stabled some of the finest horses in the Southwest. Stalls, hayloft, tack room, granary, and shoeing facilities are included, making it a complete unit.

    "The barn seems like a bit of ranch heraldry. Two brands, the 6666 for cattle and the L for horses, appear to make a coat of arms. The sliding metal doors might be two escutcheons And the batten boards, the vertical strips of corrugated sheet metal, and the crisscrossing of many fences, posts, lines, and corrals seemingly combine to interweave a special tartan for the 6666."

Another, nicer copy of this book, with dustjacket, lay on my mother's coffee table for decades. That copy was lost in various moves, but I pounced on this thrift-shop find and hoarded it away in my book collection. 

This 1976 book has an interest not only for current fans of the show Yellowstone, but for those interested in a way of living from a time gone past.

Annie Mae (Morrow) Weems funeral set for Friday

Annie Weems, 89, of Rotan, died Monday, December 12. 

Services will be at 10 a.m., Friday, December 16, at the First Baptist Church in Rotan, followed by burial at the Texas Veterans Cemetery in Abilene.

Visitation begins at 9 a.m., at the church.

The funeral is under direction of Weathersbee-Ray Funeral Home in Rotan. 

Flowers for services can be ordered from Southern Touch Flower Shop in Rotan, 325-735-1101.

Bitter Creek files bankruptcy

Bitter Creek Water Supply in Sweetwater filed for bankruptcy in the Texas Northern Bankruptcy Court November 21, 2022. The final filing was today.

Seventy-five creditors are listed on the account, including the Fisher County Appraisal District and Big Country Electric.

This information was found using Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER).

Commissioners Court to meet Monday morning

The Fisher County Commissioners Court will meet in the Fisher County courthouse courtroom December 12, 2022 at 9 a.m. 

Items on the agenda, along with the usual county reports, bill paying, burn ban and sheriffs department requests, are: discussions about pipelines placed on county roads by companies and individuals; using an outside attorney for contract and road issues; turning over funds to the Rotan Chapter Think Tank Fund;  approving the 32nd Judicial District Attorney (Ricky Thompson) working protocols.

The meeting can be attended by the public.

Water planning board seeks member

The Brazos G Regional Water Planning Group is looking to fill a board member seat. 

Fisher County is one of 37 counties that make up the region G area of the Texas Water Development map. Brazos G is the board that oversees this region. 

Explore the Brazos G Water Planning Group website to review board member qualifications and to request an application packet. 

Nomination packets may be submitted until December 30.

Pretrial for Dunlap on Monday docket

Sweetwater - In Nolan County, a pre-trial hearing is set for 9:30 a.m. tomorrow in the case of the State of Texas versus Gary Don Dunlap, Sr. 

Dunlap was arrested in June 2021 for the negligent homicide of Jessica McQueen. He is accused of abandoning her after she died of a fatal dose of illicit drugs.

Dunlap was 57 at the time, McQueen, 33.

Update, Nov 28: Before court began, the bailiff announced that Dunlap would not be coming to court because he broke his ankle during transport. Pretrial will be rescheduled.

About books

When giving a book as a gift, one should ask the recipient exactly which book they would like, otherwise one might offend the recipient or make the gift feel like homework, if it isn't a book to the person's liking.

I managed to offend and repulse both my parents with books. Back in a time when I was younger and didn't understand strict political and religious lines, I thought I was giving my folks enlightening literature.

To my father, a pure Baptist and God-loving man, I gave Nostradamus. I think he read it, but he deemed it the devil's work.

To my mother, a usually fair, bi-partisan individual, I gave Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope. I think she read it, as she tossed it to me later and said, "He's a socialist."

I say my mother was bi-partisan, and voted for the candidate that was best, not along a party line, because we once had an argument where I yelled, "I've never supported George [W.] Bush!" and she yelled "Neither have I!", and she watched both CNN and Fox news, to get both sides, she said.

I believe in knowing thy enemy, and diving into a fear-mongered book is a good start. I think it would be interesting if the people who ban books are made to read the books they ban. 

I don't understand the bans, as one can simply go to the internet and conjure whatever book is wanted in an instant. Do kids still check books out of the school library? I'm too long out of the loop to know.

Maybe it's a diversion tactic so Texans won't look at the 3,803 laws that were passed in the last legislative session. 

By the way, the next session begins January 10, 2023.

A poem from the past

While looking through the newspapers on The Portal to Texas History site, I came across this poem written by my great-grandfather Percy Templeton, from Atlas, Texas. It was in a 1915 edition of a socialist newspaper called The Rebel, which seemed to have a lot to do with the farmers lament. Funny, they were talking about fake news even then. Here's the poem:

How the Farmer Gets Him

Come all you people if you want to know

How to us farmers milk and honey does flow

Made fifty bushels of smutty corn

Never had such luck since I was born

Work from morn till the close of day

Poor old Beck did not have a feed of hay

The cow went dry, the old sow died

The hens quit laying and seemed satisfied

The garden burned up when the weather got hot

So there was not anything to bile in the pot

The children’s hats, they had no crown

On top of all this the cotton went down

Everyone we owed he wanted to say

I sure must be first and get my pay

The Landlord said he sure must have his

For he needed it badly in his biz

The banks tell us what to plant and how to do

But will not say I’ll see you through

They say raise a living and stay out of debt

That is good advice all right you bet

But how will a fellow, till he makes a crop, go

Without something to eat? Is what I want to know

The wise Guys are ready with their advice

What to plant and how to work it, “oh, how nice!”

A certain hardware man tells us how

Nobody belongs to God but farmers now

That the old farmers are a favored lot

And will not have to go where it is very hot

Tells us how cheap everything is now

Such things as rakes, and hoes and plow

And what enormous prices we get for what we raise

Such as chicks, cattle, corn and maize

They say sell your cotton pay what you owe

Cut out such luxuries as candy and the show

Wear less, eat less, and be sure to work more

And get ready to meet Mr. Sanford on the Beautiful Shore

Commissioners meeting, election results

- Mesquites losing leaves -

The season seems to be changing in a more normal fashion this year. That may just be my perception, but the frost seems to have come at the right time and it has been cold enough to wear sweaters. If I still had my 1980's sweater collection, I would be decked out, in an out of style type of way.

The commissioners meeting last Tuesday was more interesting than Yellowstone. Not to denigrate the tv show, just showing how exciting the meeting was.

Fisher County Third Precinct Commissioner Preston Martin took the floor to relate a compelling and succinct chain of events leading up to and following his arrest and dismissal of charges for theft of material and payroll. It appears his indictment was folly, with no evidence or investigative resources being presented against him in court.

Commissioners court videos can be viewed on YouTube. 

Elections resulted in Greg Abbott continuing to serve as Texas Governor for four more years. Locally, Zach Johnson won as Mayor of Rotan; Randy Cox, Loyd Greene, Joy Dennis, Frank Miranda and Gordon Scott Toliver won Rotan City Council seats; Michele Terry, Kevin Kelly, Stormy Rasberry and Dakota Rasberry won spots on the Roby School Board; Gerald P. Rodriguez, David Digby and Christy Garcia are school trustees for the Hermleigh Indendent School District. That's my take anyway, the unofficial results can be viewed on the Fisher County Election page.

Charges dismissed for county commissioner

At the beginning of district court in Roby this morning, the state moved to dismiss felony charges against Fisher County Commissioner Preston Martin.

Also in court today, Brandon Baldiva and Anthony Hernandez were offered a plea deal, dropping felony assault and disarmament of Officer Josh Benitez to a Class A Misdemeanor. Both accepted the plea and were sentenced to jail time plus fines, minus time served.

Other cases were deferred.

A pretrial hearing for Shawn Adkins, indicted for the murder of Hailey Dunn, will be held at the Nolan County Courthouse, Nov. 9.

Texas unofficial voting turnout

For those who are interested in the play-by-play of the Texas November 8, 2022 General Election, the Texas Secretary of State website has a myriad of information, right down to the names of voters.

On the site link provided above, go to Unofficial Early Voting Turnout By Date>Date>Submit to get a breakdown of unofficial early voting reports from each county. One more click to the right, on Voter Details Report, will show who has voted so far.

Fisher County reports 2,680 registered voters.

Historical newspapers available online

- Downtown Rotan -

Newspapers are available online from Texas Tech University and the University of Texas.

UT's Portal to Texas History and Texas Tech's Southwest Collection both allow searches by keyword. 

The Portal will highlight the word being searched within the document. 

The Southwest Collection has contiguous capability, allowing the user to scroll through an entire newspaper.

The Texas Tech collection has Rotan/Roby newspapers.

Texas newspapers in the archives date back to the mid-1800's.

Hazel Woods place

- Alamo Street -

I was doing some research on Sweetwater when I came across a 1932 article about a drowning at Lake Trammell. People familiar with Sweetwater know there is a long history of drownings at that lake.

The article seemed innocent enough, an accidental drowning when a family fishing trip went awry, but subsequent articles told a different story: a man accused and arrested for murdering his wife practically in front of their children. He wanted to cash in on several life insurance policies, and to make a future with a prostitute from Oklahoma.

Court documents from the case mentioned that the prostitute was staying at Hazel Woods place before the accused man put her up at a nice hotel.

I thought "Hazel Woods? Who is Hazel Woods?"

I went searching, searching for Hazel Woods, and, finally, found a 1937 death notice for her. She was otherwise known as Clara Bowman.

I wondered why a woman at that time would have an alias. I guess if you were a lady running a "bawdy house", you might not want to use your real name.

After reading many newspaper, book and court articles, I ascertained that Hazel Woods place was in the vicinity of 605 Alamo Street in Sweetwater. Somewhere between 1901 and 1913, Clara bought the property from Kate Morse, a madam who had arrived in Sweetwater from Stephenville in 1901.

After Hazel Woods aka Clara B Webb Bowman died in 1937, there were newspaper ads offering rooms for rent at the property, known as the Alamo Hotel. 

References: Portal to Texas History, Caselaw Access Project, Casetext, Sins of the Pioneers, Polk City Directory: Original drowning article; Parks arrest; Parks v State, Hazel Woods place mentioned; Bowman v State, Clara admits to a lot, as well as buying the house from Morse; Kate Morse in Stephenville

Martin to continue serving Fisher County

An attempt to oust Fisher County Precinct 3 Commissioner Preston Martin has been delayed.

Judge Ernie Armstrong, filling in for Judge Glenn Harrison of the 32nd District Court, announced that "additional matters need to be prepared and a future date and time will be set".

The judge made the decision after talking to council for both sides in chambers. 

Court was scheduled for 9 a.m. The announcement was made at 11 a.m., leaving spectators, plaintiff, and defendant in suspense for two hours.

The hearing today was to determine if Martin should be allowed to finish his term in the wake of being accused and arrested for felony theft of $30,000 or more and tampering with time sheets. 

The felony case has not yet gone to trial.

Martin is currently serving a four-year term, 2021-2025. He has been Precinct 3 Commissioner since 2009.

History of a house

- Former H B Allen residence -

I've always liked this certain house in Sweetwater, even though I've never been inside it. During the 1980's, I went to a party in the little apartment out back, but I don't remember what it looked like. 

The house sits on the northwest corner of Texas Street and Sam Houston Street, directly across from the old Trammell House (the Trammell House faces east, the Texas Street house faces north).

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving by and it caught my eye, again. The lions and planters are additions from the '80's, I believe, when a local retailer (and one of the former owners of the house) had a thriving import business. It seems like it was during this time that the house was refurbished and looked grand.

A quick trip up the stairs and a peek in the window will show that this place is in deep decline. The front glass is broken and the entire ceiling in the front room has caved in. It seems it's now a home for pigeons.

There is still something about it, something that is compelling. It draws me in, and I can imagine living there in another time, when the structure wasn't compromised. Bare feet on a cool floor, windows open, television grumbling in the background, making tea in a grandmotherly kitchen on a mild summer day.

I became determined to figure out the provenance of this house, and here are some facts that I found: 

• Texas Street (Highland Addition) was not on the City of Sweetwater Sanborn Fire Insurance map in 1922, but it was in 1930.
• H B (Horace Bernard or Bun) Allen was listed as the resident there (507 West Texas) for 1929-30. He was listed at 506 West Texas for 1927-28.
• Bun Allen came to Sweetwater in 1921. He was a city commissioner 1927-1931. He was responsible for building the (Sweetwater) famous Bluebonnet Hotel.

While tracing the property as it went from family to family, some lascivious information, having no bearing on the house itself, spilled over onto my relevant facts. There were incongruencies between obituaries and county records, too many records for trades and liens between family members, and multiple loans from different banks at the same time for a single piece of property. The stories that have been publicly allowed are quite different from the actuality.

Back to the basic facts, though: I will guess that the Texas Street house was built  in the 1920's (1926-27?). 

The architecture is the most fascinating element of the building. It doesn't seem to match the style of J E Morgan, whom Bun Allen used to design the Bluebonnet, or the Mission Revival style used by John Young in designing the Trammell house.

It looks like a bungalow type home. Somewhere in the Arts & Crafts, Craftsman area, maybe. It could possibly be a Sears kit, those were very popular during that era. 

Some of the Sears houses are detailed and intricate, but I can't find one with elaborate porch beams like the one on Texas St. As you can see in the photo, the beams are not solid. They're made up of four pieces of wood put together to form the long beam, with a wooden square cap on the end.

There is probably a full historical evaluation of this house out there somewhere, but these are my conclusions after a fairly thorough perusal of websites (such as Texas File Nolan County, Nolan CAD, find-a-grave, Library of Congress, Google in general) and the Polk City Directories at the County City Library. A trip to the Pioneer Museum in Sweetwater would probably be worth looking into, even if no evidence of the house was found.

Sam Houston Street can be driven end to end, south to north, through the entire south side of Sweetwater. Start at the Interstate 20 access road (North Georgia), turn at the Texas Department of Public Safety office, then go all the way down to West First Street, just after crossing the railroad tracks at the Union Pacific Depot. The Trammell and Texas Street houses are en route.

Palomino Motel lots up for auction in Sweetwater

The lots where the old Palomino Motel used to sit on East Broadway in Sweetwater will be up for auction on October 4. The estimated minimum bid is $27,980.00, according to Perdue Brandon (Perdue, Brandon, Fielder, Collins & Mott), tax attorneys for Nolan County.

The .434 acre site is one of 19 parcels in Nolan County that are being sold for back taxes.

The address of the former Palomino is 1500 E Broadway. More information can be found on the Nolan County Appraisal District site. 

The neon sign from the motel now resides at Cook's Garage, a bar and grill in Lubbock.

The Texas Historical Commission estimates the motel was built in 1935.

The motel was razed in 2020 by the city. A photo of the demolition appeared in the October 1, 2020 issue of the Sweetwater Reporter.

The auction will take place on the north side of the Nolan County Courthouse in Sweetwater, scheduled for 2:00 p.m.

Miracle Fishing

It's funny how a random thought or action can lead me down a path, sometimes to the future, in this instance to the past.

Someone sent me a photo of themself, holding a piece of paper with their name and date on it, in front of a blown-out tire, to prove to me that their tire was indeed ruined on the day in question. Okay, it was my son, asking for money to fix yet another tire. He goes through about five a month.

I texted him back that I appreciated the proof of life. I first heard that term from Tom Hargrove when he was telling me about his Colombian kidnapping, and that the kidnappers would send a picture to the family of the victim holding a recent newspaper to prove they were still alive. 

I did an internet search of "Tom Hargrove proof of life" to get a photo to send back to my son, and I came across a link to a documentary titled "Miracle Fishing: Kidnapped Abroad", produced by Miles Hargrove, Tom's son.

I used to be in contact with Tom and I wrote a few articles about him. He was a fascinating person, brilliant, really. His work with rice and its life-saving properties was on the scale of miracles. 

That time in Tom's life has been thoroughly pored over in books, interviews and feature film, but this documentary brings it all together. It is the overlay needed to completely understand and fathom what the family went through to get Tom back.

I watched it for free on Plex, a streaming service I found through Roku. It looks like it's also available on Prime Video, Vudu and Redbox. I highly recommend it.

If only I could find that file

I wish I could find a list of all the books I checked out of the school libraries during my time at Reagan Junior High, Sweetwater Middle School and Sweetwater High School. I'd also like a list of the books I had in my childhood library at home. As it is, I can only recall about three standouts out of the hundreds of books I've read. 

Not all spectacular literature, there was a pretty trashy bout during eighth grade, books that the girls passed around and hid from teachers and mothers. No titles will be mentioned.

I have a lot of favorite authors and books that I go back to, but the three that I'm thinking about today are The Diary of Trilby Frost by Dianne Glaser, The House of Stairs by William Sleator, and The Mirror by Marlys Millhiser. The first two might be juvenile, but the last has adult themes in it, which means it talks about sex, sometimes. Not gratuitously, it's just in there in a contextual way. 

Now, I might get all crazy and start naming other excellent books that are popping into my head, like A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck, but I'm going to hold back. 

I guess I haven't lost all the files. A little nudge might help me find a few.

Fisher County Commissioners to meet Monday, vote on budget

Well, I was right about the last meeting (meetings, rather, it lasted for two days, with breaks). There was yelling, cursing and a walk out. Invigorating!

Once again the question of whether or not to close the jail was raised, and it was the contributing factor for much of the hubbub. It wasn't on the agenda, but the topic was introduced by County Judge Ken Holt, presiding officer of the commissioners court. It seemed an odd time to bring it up, after numerous presentations from vendors for services at the jail.

Anyway, during the budget meeting the next day, the court decided to leave the jail open. Holt was not present. Everyone agreed, or understood, the jail is not a money-making proposition, but a needed service for the community.

Tomorrow the Court is scheduled to discuss and vote on the following items:

• Purchase of a new truck for the sheriff
• Engagement and payment for services to monitor inmates and the jail
• Engagement and payment for telephone services at the jail
  
• The county budget
• The tax rate

Tune in to the live feed on The Double Mountain Chronicle facebook profile at 9 am.

Fisher County Commissioners Court, today. Oughta be a doozy!

 9 AM today, Fisher County Commissioners will meet to discuss the following items:

• Department reports
• Bills, budget amendments, burn ban
• Presentation, conversation and budgeting regarding the various companies the sheriff’s office is doing, or wants to be doing, business with
• Computer software and tech contracts for the county
• Presentation of the tax rate by Purdue, Brandon, Fielder, Collins & Mott
• Outside audit
• Order of general election
• Fix or replace the sheriff’s pick-up
• Talking about that danged tree outside the senior center, again
• Rescind prior authorization for county judge or attorney to negotiate or enter into any contract on county's behalf
• Accounting policies
• Budget workshop

The meeting can be viewed live on facebook, on The Double Mountain Chronicle profile.

These aren't the Barkleys

- Mitchell Co horses, 2017 -

The Dutton family is not benevolent. They have very little likeness to the Cartrights or the Barkleys of western yore. Fathers will not be kissing sons the way Lucas did Mark. There will be lots of horses and machine guns.

Yes, I have been sucked into the vortex of Yellowstone, an hour long per episode cowboy mafia soap opera. I didn't want to like it, but now I find myself wondering what Teeter's doing and babbling to strangers about how to mark a horse for war. It wasn't even a horse I was using as an example, it was a buffalo statue in front of the Arrowhead Motel in Ruidoso, but I couldn't be stopped.

There are unlikely things that happen, but with a good show, I'll suspend my belief after I complain about it. Such as, I was thinking that these business tycoons would keep a closer eye on local land sales, but they could have been too busy to look at them, what with all the attempts to kill their family and all.

Speaking of land sales, there was all kinds of speculation about Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of Yellowstone, buying the Four Sixes Ranch in Guthrie. I don't know why there was any wondering, because the information is right there in the TexasFile database, searching King County. Memorandum of sale last December, memorandum of exclusions in June. Sheridan Ranch Properties with Taylor Sheridan's signature, plain as day. I'm not always able to find what I'm looking for, but this took about five minutes. TexasFile and county appraisal websites are powerful tools for finding information.

Anyway, Yellowstone is not for the faint of heart, but the characters are vivid and there's never mundane action. The continuity of story is satisfying. Sometimes I'll ask a question (out loud or in my head), then it's immediately addressed. The downside is that I blew through three and a half seasons, not realizing I only have a handful of episodes available to watch before season five starts in November.

Top ten Fisher County oil leases

- EA6869 -

The EA6869 lease is using one location to drill two wells, one with a bottom hole on the Emily lease in Fisher County, the other on the Adams lease in Scurry County. It looks like a city being built out there. Access is from Fisher County Road 347. That's a long way to go across pasture and field. The site is visible from FM 1614, north of the Emily 1H and Emily 2H wells.

The top ten oil producing leases in Fisher County from January to April 2022, most to least, were:

• Grand Canyon W 31-46 at 68,222 BBL (barrels of crude oil, 42 gallons)
• Saguaro W 105-58 at 66,936 BBL
• Carlsbad Caverns 54-55 at 59,928 BBL
• Canyonlands E 61-60 at 51,338 BBL
• Tennie Unit at 44,328 BBL
  
• Jill Unit at 40,054 BBL
• Johnson Unit at 38,094 BBL
• Sequoia E 63-6 at 35,838 BBL
• Hannah-Stevie Unit at 35,497 BBL
• Sequoia 63-6 at 32,865 BBL
  

Clear Fork, Peregrine and Moriah are the operators on these leases. The Railroad Commission doesn't have reporting for production beyond April. More information can be found by going to the RRC website and clicking Query>Production Data Query>General Production Query.

Changes in the view

- Bugs on FM 419 -

Besides the oil and wind industry changes in the landscape, a few other things are looking different around here.

Up on Rooster Corner, named by me and my kids, just north of Nunn Hill (what TxDOT guys called it) and Bus Wreck Curve (named by me, from a school bus wreck I saw in 1968 or '69), nothing is left except two eternal Volkswagen Bugs. It was always a topic of conversation to try to identify whether the old brick house that sat there was occupied or not. A long time ago there used to be roosters in the extensive pens, but trees had grown through them and they sat empty for decades.Sometimes there were dogs there. It's looking pretty good, now.

About a month ago, I noticed the old jail in Roby was being cleaned out. I mean desks, shelves, everything. I wonder what they're going to do with it. It has the best facade in the county, I hope it's not going to be razed.

The Rotan school looks like a big purple building as you drive in from the west. That's just the new construction, not the final exterior. It looks like it's where that weird little sidewalk from the south side of the cafeteria used to be. My kids were always falling down and hurting their legs there.

I took a drive back into Rough Creek, where I recently saw my first Mountain Boomer (Collared Lizard). He was so colorful he didn't even look like he was from here. He was so quick, I didn't actually see his collar, just a lot of aqua-blue and green. On a second drive, I saw the female, pretty, but mostly brown. I didn't see the male that time, but I'm glad he's not out there alone.

Driving farther down that road and coming up behind Koonsman, I saw a huge solar farm in the beginning stages. It had Criswell in the name, so I'm guessing it's on that ranch. It's in Scurry County.

A visit to the city

- Dallas rain -

I saw rain this weekend, but it was in downtown Dallas, not west Texas. It rained on and off during the drive back home, as far as Mineral Wells, where I was standing in the rain getting gas. It was fabulous.

I went to the big city to attend an anime/comic convention at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center. I have about as much interest in these things as I do a Saturday afternoon college football game (none), but my daughter likes to go and I'm not willing to let her drive or be in Dallas alone.

There is a small contingent of that crowd that uses these events as an opportunity to be nearly naked, sort of like the girls who dress as prostitutes in the name of Halloween. I'm pretty sure I saw one young lady who had no top on, but security gently moved her and her entourage off to a stairwell, presumably to clothe.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Katee Sackhoff was one of the thirty or so celebrities that were there for autographs and photo opportunities. She played Vic on Longmire, a series that I'm making my way through. I guess she was there for her role in The Mandalorian, a show that I'm unlikely to see. I saw her from afar, unwilling to pay the eighty bucks or so for a signature.

The Omni Hotel where we stayed was nice and fancy, but we left by noon the next day. There's really not much to do at these things but buy merchandise and look at other people's costumes. The traffic from the convention was overwhelming, and there were too many bodies stuffed into that huge space. 

I'm not used to an urban setting, and while it was almost Fantasy Island-like around the hotel, just going a few blocks away to forage at a 7-11 freaked me out. Someone was sleeping in the middle of the parking lot next door, just laying out there. I don't like going somewhere that I don't know what neighborhood I'm in.   

So, we skipped out on plans to go to the aquarium and got the heck out of dodge. Sometimes the big open roads of Texas are quite a relief. I was glad to be headed back home.

Oil, deep drill, players

- Holloway Unit 3H -

West Texas Intermediate has been hanging around $120 for a few weeks. That can be good or bad, it depends on which side of the oil well you are sitting. If you have a well, you can say you are just paying yourself at the gas pump. If you don't have a well, hit up a relative or friend who does to help you fill your tank.

The photo is of a new drill in Scurry County, just north of Camp Springs, up County Road 1154. Information on the Texas Railroad Commission site indicates it is the third well permitted for the Holloway Unit. Total depth is reported as 7000 feet. It is operated by Moriah.

RRC records show that only two wells have been drilled to the depth of 10,000 feet, back in 2012, but there's been a new one permitted by Endurance, out by Busby, on the Gillespie survey. It's a horizontal well, Whiskey Dent 1H.

Endurance Resources III is one of the new players in the area. A couple of other new operator names are Arrington Oil & Gas, Patton Exploration, and L.C.S. Production. The familiar names around here are Clear Fork, Browning, Moriah, Cholla, Sojourner, Peregrine, and Gunn.

Check out the RRC for more information.

Reporting arrests versus reporting convictions

I often wonder why it is that the news reports arrests, but doesn't follow up with the results of arrests, unless it's a high profile case. Anyone can be arrested: me, you, grandpas, grandmas. It doesn't mean a person is guilty.

Actually, we all know why the news reports arrests. It's easy gossip and it's a "look-a-here" tactic to get eyes on a page. Arrests are also easy information to come by; it's not so easy to get the results of an arrest, be it a dismissal or conviction, or one of the many other words to describe a judicial outcome.

Here's an example of the difficulty in finding records. In Nolan County, during 2019, there was a series of drug busts resulting in 27 arrests. First, I looked on the Nolan County Online Records Search page to see what sentences the accused received. I couldn't find any records about the charges. By the way, if you want to look, go to Guest Login>Continue to use the site without an account.

Then, I went to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Inmate Information site. I found that eight of the 27 were currently in prison, one on unrelated charges. This was just a topical perusal, using the names as spelled by the news outlet.

I looked up a couple of the suspects on the Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal History Name Search page. It's $3.25 per search, so I only looked up about ten people. Some got six months probation, some were paroled, and some of them appear to have not been charged. A few had gone to prison for other offenses.

Looking on court websites led to more frustration and a headache. 32nd District Court, 1st Multi-County Court, 11th Court of Appeals, PACER, TAMES, etc. & etc.

Anyway, I wanted to demonstrate that an arrest is only a half-told story and that getting "the rest of the story", as Paul Harvey would say, is not always easy, and sometimes seemingly impossible.

Here are the rabbit holes I went down while researching this article:

-State Bar of Texas Ineligible Attorneys 

-State Bar of Texas Discipline Report April 2021

-Litigation Strategies LLC, former attorney John Young's latest endeavor

-Texas Taxable Entity Search, an oldie, one of my favorites

Update on internet

- Behold, the internet -

The latest and greatest in my search for a country connection is a little Netgear hotspot gadget. It's about the size of a handheld transistor radio (hahahaha, whatever that is, mine was red in 1978). I bought it refurbished or second-hand because a new one costs too much. I buy a $55 AT&T pre-paid wireless card for 100 gigabytes per month. It sounds simple, but it was hard to figure out. 

First I took the device to an AT&T store and they set me up on a $65 plan. I was told it was unlimited. That was $10 more than I had seen advertised, but I thought it would be worth it not to run out of data. 

It was not worth it, it was not unlimited, and the price kept changing every month, up. Finally, when I was automatically charged by-the-byte for going over whatever random number they decided was past unlimited, I cancelled it.

I went to Walmart, got the card, set up the hotspot, now I'm rolling. That was not an easy process, though. It took a couple of days of trying over and over to get it going, and I can't even tell you what the magic combination was that finally worked. It just finally did. So far it's good, when I run out there are no overcharges. No internet, but no overcharges.

I was pretty excited when I read that internet was to be expanded to rural communities by using electric structures already in place (poles) to run fiber cable, but then I read that it was going to towns that already have good internet. Even small towns like Rotan or Loraine already have fast and large data service. I still think that incentivizing AT&T to replace their ground fiber would be a real good start.

Little by little, bit by bit

- Just words -

I've noticed how technology has caused me to change my ways. The way I spell, the way I fill out forms. It causes my narrative to change.

Take the word y'all. I used to write it ya'll, but autocorrect doesn't like that so I just go with the suggestion it makes. Looking back at old letters, though, I see that we spelled it ya'll. 

I've tried resurrecting letter writing with a few people, but it didn't take. It's like I was being a weirdo and they let it pass by without comment.

I'll admit, sometimes letter writing was boring. There was more pleasure in seeing familiar handwriting than the content. Phone calls could be the same way, enjoying hearing a familiar voice more than what was actually being said.

I can't believe I didn't have a constant phone line until after I had my second child. It was nice, my parents lived across town, but they were in another world as far as I was concerned, since they couldn't instantly access me. They were always in another quadrant, in my mind, anyway. I loved them, but I was living a different life, even when I lived in their house.

Another way technology has noticeably changed my story is how I am allowed to answer when filling out online forms.

Insurance companies won't let me say that I got my license when I was 15. I did, though. It was called a hardship license. Like many kids around here, I was driving long before I got my license. Some time around the age of 11. Somebody had to follow Dad on the tractor.

Since I was forced to lie on my insurance form, I just say whatever seems to be wanted on other forms. I gave up trying to be correct, in that sense. Except on my taxes. I try to be precise there, but my stomach still hurts when I turn in my 1040. 

Oil dreams and other things

- Big dreamer -

This doodle came from an old book I found, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by S. T. Coleridge. This particular volume, from the Eclectic English Classics series, must have been used as a college class text, because inside the covers it has a few different names (one of them along with "Carlton College") written, erased and marked through. One name is dated 1917, so I'm surmising this drawing came from that era. That's over one hundred years of dreaming! I thought I had been thinking about it a long time, like it was something new.

The oil field is deeply embedded in my culture. When I was three, I moved to Sweetwater with my mother, where she went to work for Big State Welding, which became Big State Roustabout. My dad worked for Reef in Snyder, when it was still a local business, first driving a treater truck, then as a supervisor. My uncle Hack had an oil transport business. Boyfriends, friends and my son have worked on rigs. I really don't know much about the oil business, but I find I'm able to have a literate conversation about it because it's always been part of my life. Learning by osmosis, I guess.

I liked hearing my mom talk on the radio. In her no-nonsense manner of speaking, she would call up "Piss Ant" or "Sleepy" on the radio to relay information.

Even now I still have Big State stickers and paraphernalia floating around in boxes and drawers.

That business ended in 1986, when oil crashed and everything had to be auctioned off.

It's good to remember that the dream can come to an end. Such a volatile market. Save now! Be an ant, not a grasshopper!

New selling platform for Texas Unclaimed Property

- Tx Comptroller ad -

I received a flyer in the mail announcing that Texas Unclaimed Property will now be sold on GovDeals. The Texas Comptroller has been using ebay for years to auction off unclaimed deposit box items. I have them on my ebay sellers list, and I've been wondering why they haven't had anything for sale in a while. They have some weird feedback on ebay, where the buyer says good things, but marks it as negative. Maybe the comptroller got fed up with the head games.

The GovDeals set up isn't as pretty and easy to use as ebay, and there's a buyer's premium of 9.5%. They're shipping using FedEx and won't ship to post office boxes, something I've never understood (the P.O. box thing, I mean). You can pay using PayPal, I like that. I guess the thing to do is to make an account, bid on something, and see how it goes. ebay isn't the be-all, end-all, right?

A tale of two cellars

- A new cellar -

I had a new cellar put in by U. S. Storm Shelters out of Decatur a couple of weeks ago, right next to my old cellar. 

The old one, that was home-made, leaks and the door is janky. I remember when it was being built, in 2002, we had a flooding rain that half-way filled up the hole and the kids swam in it. Good times.

The new one is a bit steep and the door, being new, is hard to open, but it's watertight. I've put rugs in it and plan to get a camp toilet (believe me, needed!) and some battery-operated push lights to stick around. Maybe a cube foam couch or something. It'll be so full, there'll be no room for me. 

It's about half as big as my old one. Also, I like to run in and out of the cellar to use the bathroom, get a drink, look at the radar, etc. and it's easier to do that with the old one. Maybe I can open both doors and use the leaky one when I'm only half-frightened and the new one when I'm scared out of my wits. It would be more correct to say I'm scared of clouds, instead of just storms, because it doesn't take much to have me heading to the cellar. 

It only took the guys three and a half hours to install it. They arrived exactly on time and they were super nice. You can order your own cellar at the U. S. Storm Shelters website.