september nts

North Texas StarJAMESThe man with his knife

BOWIE

ALSO: Outdoors Along the Brazos • Not a typical summer vacationOde to the Cross Timbers

September 2015

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September 2015 • NORTH TEXAS STAR •

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North Texas Star 4OUTDOORS ALONG THE BRAZOSBefore Cell PhonesBy Don Price

6JAMES BOWIEThe man and his knife Part II

By Jim Dillard

10WANT TO MEET NEW PEOPLE?Make new friends? Read the North Texas StarBy Wynelle Catlin

16ODE TO THE CROSS TIMBERSBy Jim Dillard

14NOT A TYPICAL SUMMER VACATION

By Randall Scott


OUTDOORSBRAZOSalong the

By DON PRICE

Before Cell Phones

Reverend R.A. Highsmith of this Spa City is the villain who persistently lowers the water level of our cherished city lake to the

rationing stage by gleefully extracting lunker bass and whiskered catfish.

Last week the local preacher executed this display of pomposity without hesitation. Feat accomplished, he raced from lake to town via motorcar as quickly as possible – with his status symbol flouncing within his securely locked car trunk.

With his not showing a speck of remorse Reverend Highsmith skipped over the threshold of a local mer-chant's shop – all the while dragging behind him the scaley thing which had already stirred up a cloud of pandemonium.

A crowd gathered... both sportsmen and innocent bystanders who gazed at the ugly monster turned away in a fit of pique. With a positive action the

preacher shook his behemoth prize in the merchant's face.

The merchant, a pseudo – fishing expert, was shocked when he ran his eyeballs up and down the cord stringer, for he found the fish on one end and lo, the preacher on

the other. What a paradox, he must

have thought.(There was

a lull in the story because this huge shock wave inun-dated peo-ple and merchan-dise. But then the shopkeeper regained his

gasping composure.)

In the merchant's shop was an ancient weighing device, used frequently to determine the maestro of piscatorial achievement. The ancient weighing devise was just as absurd as the rest of this story, running up-and-down the aisles to escape the burly bass. Teamwork was employed and the poor weighing devise was trapped in the center aisle.

The scales winced, the merchant grunted, the preacher sighed.

Congratulations, Reverend Highsmith! Our contest is now over but your six-pound bass will be remem-bered for a long time to come.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Jess Turner of Palo Pinto and Ray Passions of Possum Kingdom went plugging last week near Scenic Point. They boated nine bass on black & white Knight (H&H) lures. Jess claims the largest fish on their stringer, a 5 lb., 14 oz., bronzeback.

Part IIBefore Cell Phones

Do you know where Fortune Bend lies? It lies within a large coil of the Brazos River, somewhere between the big gray dam known to all of us as Possum Kingdom, and Dark Valley Bridge north of Palo Pinto town.

It is remote in Fortune Bend country. Speaking of man and his chattels, there is a dirth of carbon foot-prints in this remote bend of cedar and post/live oak. The owl hoots, the fox barks and the big golden carp smacks the surface. Usually all are unmolested.

It is serene, the kind of serenity one yearns for; the country's starkness holds a beauty all its own. It builds strong character, strong enough that today's youth would change for the better in a year or two were they to trek there.

The scars of yesterday's generation are sparse there; however, there are some tenuous links with the past; one has to grope somewhat to find them.

If this Fortune Bend hinterland is remote today,

imagine how stark it was in 1906 when the loner arrived. His name was George Harrison. Everyone who knew him called him Hermit George.

Hermit George had to wait 31 years to find some-one to share the tempo of Los Brazos De Dios with him.

It was Philip “Snaky” Harter, who arrived at the very busy freight yard in Mineral Wells in 1937; Snaky walked from the depot to Dark Valley to find his harmless water snake, later to meet Hermit George. They became friends because they seemed to share the same philosophy. Both became local leg-ends. Did they know where Fortune Bend was? What do you think?

On a hillside in Fortune Bend squatted a little one – room schoolhouse with high windows, smoke ris-ing lazily from its chimney. Within its wooden walls could be heard the clamor of children, individual bundles of energy, each one coming from some par-ticular environmental hardship, for this nation was in the throes of the Great Depression.

Like a hen among her offsprings a 19-year-old teacher stood, reaching for discipline, for hygiene, for an education of some sort to be meted out to each pupil.

The teacher, then 19-year-old Miss Nola Marshall, now Mrs. M. F. Garland, still lives on the banks of the Brazos but she moved up river in Garland Bend, every bit as remote – beautiful and tranquil – as Fortune Bend.

“Paved roads were more than 20 miles away, even the nearest telephone was almost inaccessible,” Miss Marshall said.” Either you rode to school horseback or walked a familiar trail.

“I had 36 pupils in my class, and they ranged in age from 6 through 15. The depression was on us and money was hard to come by for clothes, one boy wearing the same shirt for one month. As a new teacher in my first rural school, my main con-cern was to adjust. This necessitated a change and mode of living. You could buy two bars of soap for 5¢, bananas 5¢ per dozen, and a bushel basket of pineapples for 25¢, that is if you could only obtain the money. The river people made this money


largely by cutting cedar.“When the crash came and the bot-

tom fell from the market, the impact was felt in every city, farm, and even

in our little school. Very wealthy, influential men, losing everything they had, jumped from skyscrapers,

stepped in front of trains, hanged or shot themselves, and were not able to think or see that something good might come from all this.”

No one took his own life because of the depression in Fortune Bend.

“Because of such an impact time seemed to stand still. Suddenly the rich became

poor and the poor became poorer. In making this

adjustment we drew from a strength, God.

“Long forgotten was honesty, love,

loyalty and integrity. We today as yes-teryear are fast losing everything good and decent.”

Unfortunately it takes a setback, a buckling of knees, so to speak, for a man to pull away from corruption.

“As the shock subsided and we began to change our way of life, things began to happen. Life took on a glorious meaning. One stood a little bit taller.

“In our school a weekly questioner was supplied to each child: Have you brushed your teeth twice a day?... and if you didn't have a toothbrush, a good elm root chewed slowly did it. Have you had a whole bath? etc.

“The commonplace things were real-ly what counted: the first leaves and robins of spring to the russet of fall. There were fewer broken homes then, no time to keep up with the Joneses.”

A flower just peeping through win-ter's blanket of snow was brought to Miss Marshall in a little grubby hand

that soap scarcely ever touched; it was cherished and kept by her for years in a Webster's dictionary.

And so this was the daily life of a schoolmarm in the wilderness, now Mrs. M.F. Garland, who taught in a one-room school forty years ago in Fortune Bend and who still lives in Garland Bend, a very quiet place on Los Brazos de Dios.

And may it never change, for where would we be without musing over the concreteness, the strength, the peoples of the past?

(Ad-lib. Robert Herring's mother, Delia Watson, also taught school in either Fortune Bend or Garland Bend, perhaps both. She was Elsie Herring's mother-in-law. Have you ever heard Robert play old-time gospel songs on the piano? My, my!)

He's been playing the piano religious-ly for four score and two years.


JAMES BOWIE:The man and his knife by: JIM DILLARD

(This is a two-part series on the life and times of James Bowie, revered for his name-sake Bowie knife and death at the Alamo in San Antonio during the Texas Revolution against Mexico in 1836. His larger-than-life persona gave rise to myths and legends that to this day remain in the cultural folklore of Texas.)

Part 2:

During the early 1830s, Mexico began tightening its grip on citizens in the province of

Coahuila de Tejas (Texas) with the estab-lishment of military posts and passage of laws that discriminated against colonial Texans. During July 1832 when James Bowie heard news that Mexican army commander Jose de la Piedras in Nacogdoches had demanded all residents in the area turn in their firearms, he cut short his visit to Natchez, Mississippi, and returned to Texas to help contest the new decree.

On August 2nd he joined a group of 300 Texans led by James W. Bullock and marched to Nacogdoches to present their demands and grievances to Piedras. Before reaching the building in town where Piedras was located, they were attacked by a force of 100 Mexican cavalry and the Battle of Nacogdoches began. The Texans were successful in forcing the Mexican unit to retreat and began a siege of the garrison. During a second fight, Piedras lost thirty-three men and fled the town during the night. Bowie and eighteen men ambushed the fleeing Mexicans and marched them back to Nacogdoches but Piedras escaped.

Tragedy struck Bowie in September 1832 when he received news his wife Ursula, their two chil-dren, her brother and her parents died in Monclova, Mexico, of cholera. At the time,

Bowie himself was ill in Natchez with yellow fever and prepared his will on October 31, leav-ing half of his estate to his brother Rezin and half to his sister Martha Sterrett and her husband. He

recovered and soon returned to Texas to answer the call for action and leadership in the coming struggle for independence.

In 1833 the Central Committee in Texas called for a convention to be held in San Felipe de Austin (in present Austin County on the lower Brazos River that served as the capitol for Stephen F. Austin's first colony) to address their griev-ances. Fifty-six delegates were elected to represent their munici-palities including James Bowie from San Antonio de Béxar who was known to be an outspoken advocate for change. The final documents that were adopted at the convention consisted of a new constitution for Texas to become an independent state of Mexico, a twenty-seven article bill of rights, and other resolutions benefiting an independent state of Texas. When Austin took the documents to

Mexico for consideration by the government there, he was arrested on suspicion of treason and thrown in prison where he would remain until 1835.

Lucrative land speculation opportunities abound in Coahuila de Tejas following the pas-sage of laws in Mexico during 1834 and 1835 allowing large tracts of land to be made available for sale. Mexican officials saw this as an oppor-tunity to add needed funds to the state treasury and bolster frontier defense. With additional col-onization in Texas, settlers would provide a buf-fer against Indian raids into Mexico. Bowie was appointed a commissioner to promote the sale of 400 leagues of land in Texas that had been pur-chased by John T. Mason. However, in May

1835, Santa Anna abolished the Coahuila-Texas government and ordered the arrest of any Texans doing business in Monclova. Bowie fled back to Texas and wrote a friend in Nacogdoches that troops were boarding ships at Matamoros for the Texas coast and Mexican forces were marching from Saltillo toward the Rio Grande. During July, Bowie led a group of Texas 'militia' to San Antonio de Béxar and seized a stack of muskets from the Mexican armory located there.

As Santa Anna began to exert his tyrannical rule over Mexico after his election as president in 1833, he abolished the Mexican constitution of 1824 during 1835 and began to centralize power by installing his dictatorial regime backed by the military. The revolution movement by colonists in Texas was something he would not tolerate and began moving his forces north to crush the rebellion against Mexico. Following Santa Anna's abolishment of all Mexican state legislatures on October 3, 1835, Stephen F. Austin was elected in Texas to organize and command a volunteer army and ordered a call-to -arms to recruit volun-teers to confront the looming tide of conflict. By late October, Mexican General Perfecto de Cos with 750 men arrived in Texas and fortified the plazas in San Antonio de Béxar and the San Antonio de Valero (Alamo) mission.

On October 16, 1835, Austin's force was assembled and camped on Cibolo Creek twenty miles east of San Antonio de Béxar. Bowie arrived with a group of friends from Louisiana and was placed on the staff as a colonel by Austin. William B. Travis also joined the fledg-ling army as they prepared to attack San Antonio de Béxar. When Sam Houston arrived on the scene as commander of the regular Texas army, he discouraged Austin from making an attack due to his weak and untrained army and advised him to move back to the Guadalupe or Colorado River. Nevertheless, Austin sent Bowie and James W. Fannin to the south of the town to search for a new campsite. In the process, Bowie ran into a Mexican patrol but was successful in running it off. On October 26, Austin moved his

William B. Travis


ALLISON

JAMES BOWIE: force of 400 men to the San Francisco de la Espada Mission located on the San Antonio River in present southeastern San Antonio.

The following day Austin ordered Bowie and Fannin to lead a four-company force of ninety men to locate a more protected site nearer to the town and secure any provisions that could be used by the volunteers. Many of the men in this unit were mem-bers of the New Orleans Grays that had only recent-ly arrived in Texas. After engaging a group of Mexican scouts, they moved onto the grounds of Mission Concepcion, located on a protected bend of the San Antonio River nearer to the town, where they went into camp for the night. The following day, General Cos sent a detachment of 275 soldiers and two cannons from San Antonio de Béxar through the early morning fog against the Texans. Since the Texans were well entrenched, they were able to drive back three charges by the Mexicans. Bowie led one charge and captured a six-pound can-non and thirty muskets.

After the fight, it was determined that fourteen of the Mexican soldiers had been killed and thirty-nine wounded with only one Texan wounded and one killed. Austin and the remainder of his force arrived too late to take part in The Battle of Concepcion. The battle lasted three hours and according to Noah

Smithwick in his first-hand account of the battle written years later, he wrote... "Bowie was a born leader, never needlessly spending a bullet or imperil-ing a life. His voice is still ringing in my old deaf ears as he repeatedly admonished us. Keep under cover boys and reserve your fire; we haven't a man to spare."

Two days after the Battle of Concepcion, Bowie resigned from Austin's army because he didn't have an official commission as an officer and disliked "the minor tasks of scouting and spying." After Texas declared itself an independent Mexican state on November 3, 1835, Henry Smith was elected provisional governor, and following Austin's resig-nation, Sam Houston was named chief of the army. Henry Burleson was put in temporary command of the troops then around San Antonio de Béxar. Although Bowie pleaded before the council to be given a commission, he was refused as there were still resentments against him over some of his prior questionable land dealings. Houston offered Bowie a commission as an officer on his staff, but Bowie declined, stating he wanted to be where the fight-ing was. Instead, he enlisted as a private under James W. Fannin.

On November 26, 1835, Texas scout Eustace 'Deaf' Smith reported that a large pack train of mules

Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna


accompanied by 50-100 Mexican soldiers was approaching from the south. There had been rumors that a shipment of gold and silver was arriving to pay the Mexican soldiers in San Antonio de Béxar and to purchase supplies. Burleson ordered Bowie to take 35-40 men, includ-ing twelve of the best marksmen, to investigate the train. Another group of 100 infantry led by William Jack (for whom Jack County is named) was assigned to support Bowie and his men.

About a mile from San Antonio de Béxar, Bowie and his men encountered the Mexican soldiers crossing a dry ravine and attacked, scattering the mules and horses. As a raging battle ensued, the remainder of Burleson's men arrived at the ravine and helped repulse the Mexican force that had been reinforced by General Cos from his position in the town. After a desperate fight, the Mexican forces withdrew back into the town, leaving four Texans wounded and three Mexicans killed and fourteen wounded. To their dismay, when the Texans examined the bags on the forty or so cap-tured mules and horses, all they found was grass that had been cut to supply the horses of Cos's army in San Antonio de Béxar. This battle would be later known as the Grass Fight.

Following the Grass Fight, Bowie traveled to Goliad to determine the conditions there. While he was away from the siege of San Antonio de Bexar, Ben Milam and his force of volun-teers attacked the town on December 5th, forcing General Cos and his soldiers to retreat to the Rio Grande. Following the fight, most of the Texas volunteers returned home or joined a group intent on attacking Mexico. A fili-buster campaign was promoted to take the fight directly into Mexico with support from local sympathiz-ers in the area around Matamoras, located near the mouth of the Rio Grande River. Bowie received a letter from Sam Houston on December 17th, asking him to par-ticipate in the filibuster but he declined. The ill-fated Matamoras Expedition was unsuccessful and accomplished little other than to divide loyalties between the Council led government under governor Smith and those loyal to Houston and his leadership as commander of the Texas army. It did, however, drain many of the

resources from San Antonio de Béxar as provi-sions, horses, and firearms were taken away in support of the Matamoros Expedition.

On January 19, 1836, James Bowie arrived in San Antonio de Béxar from Goliad with a detach-ment of thirty men with orders from Houston to demolish the fortifications there. Colonel James C. Neill was in command of seventy-eight men garri-soned at the Alamo mission where most of his men were in poor condition due to the lack of clothing and pay. They also lacked adequate ammunition and firearms to defend the fortifications around the old mission and wanted to leave. On February 2nd, Bowie wrote to Houston that he believed San Antonio de Béxar should be held due to its strate-gic location. The following day William B. Travis arrived with thirty men and five days later David Crockett rode in with twelve men bringing the total to around 150 volunteers. Neill relinquished his command on February 11th and left to attend fami-ly matters at home. The next day Bowie was elect-ed commander of the volunteers and regular army troops gathered at San Antonio de Béxar. To cele-brate, Bowie got drunk and released certain Mexican prisoners which were paraded under arms through the city.

Disgusted with Bowie's actions, Travis withdrew with the regular army troops to the Median River until a compromise was reached, placing Travis in

command of the regulars and Bowie over the vol-unteers. They agreed to shared responsibility over orders and correspondence. Intelligence was obtained on February 23rd that 1,500 Mexican troops under General Santa Anna were advancing on San Antonio de Béxar. A courier was sent to Fannin at Goliad for assistance. Bowie, without Travis's knowledge, parlayed with the Mexicans soon after they arrived and asked for and received terms: they were to surrender or die.

No help ever arrived from Goliad or Houston's army. Bowie became incapacitated from illness, likely advanced tuberculosis, leaving command at the Alamo to Travis. Santa Anna's troops over-powered and killed 188 Texans at the Alamo on March 2, 1836. Bowie was killed as he lay on a cot in a room on the south side of the old mission although various versions of his death have been portrayed. After the battle ended, Santa Anna asked the mayor of Béxar to identify the bodies of Bowie, Crockett, and Travis. His body along with the other defenders of the Alamo was placed on funeral pyres and burned.

James Bowie did not just show up in Texas and fight to his death at the Alamo with his big knife, he cloaked himself in revolutionary passion and threw himself into the fray as a individual seeking to help establish a free and independent republic called Texas. To say the least, Bowie was a rascal

of sorts but also possessed physical and leadership quali-ties that elevated him above others. Many have found fault with his checkered past, but no one can question the signifi-cance of his contribution to Texas' beginnings through his sacrifice and determination that Texas become a free and inde-pendent place for future gener-ations. I don't own a 'Bowie knife,' but the next gun and knife show I attend, I think I am going to buy one.

Sources: Handbook of Texas Online (tshaonline.org); wicka-pedia.org; and other internet sources.

Jim Dillard is a retired wild-life biologist and freelance writer from Mineral Wells. Question/comments to [email protected]

The Alamo

September 2015 • NORTH TEXAS STAR • Page 8 September 2015 • NORTH TEXAS STAR •


READ THE NORTH TEXAS STAR

Want to meet new people? Make new friends? By WYNELLE CAITLIN

Rob and Evie Roberson read the story about Petra and Mike Kagi and their Valley View Ranch (July issue). Petra and Mike speak

German. So do the Robersons. And the Robersons live near the Kagis in the south-

ern part of Palo Pinto County. They read the story, went up to meet the Kagis and had a wonderful time conversing and becoming friends.

Evie, who was born in Hungary and grew up in Germany, only spoke the one language until she met and married Rob. And came to this country to live.

Rob was stationed in Germany in the armed forc-es. Evie was a German telephone operator who spoke no English so their romance was conducted in German which Rob spoke fluently. He was born on the air force base in Germany where his father was stationed. He also attended a dual-language school in Germany.

After he and Evie married, they moved to the U.S. and eventually purchased a delightful two-story home from noted country-western singer Annie Golightly.

Evie tells about her: “Annie told us about her memories in this house so vividly that she had tears in her eyes. Famous county-western singers, among them Willie Nelson and his friends, visited often, spending weekends. They all sang together and as they say, let the good times roll.

She told us of sitting in the jacuzzi with Chuck Conners, drinking champagne. She said that Tom T. Hall, while sitting behind the house on the bank of Buck Creek wrote, “I Love”... lit-tle baby ducks, old pickup trucks and so on. He never expected it to become such a big hit.”

I went down to visit the Robersons in

their Annie Golightly home. After turning off the highway, I followed an overgrown trail of a road through a forest of trees until I came to the attractive large house. We went inside through a sun porch filled with artifacts. The spacious liv-ing-dining-kichen area was also filled with artifacts collected from various parts of the country.

Rob and Evie share the house with five cats, two African gray parrots and one tiny goldfinch Evie rescued when it was an injured baby.

The yard is enclosed in a solid three-foot sandstone wall. The back patio overlooks Buck Creek. As we visited, a raccoon mother brought her babies to the patio eat their lunch. The couple enjoy other wildlife visitors, too, but they don't enjoy the copperhead snakes which are prevalent in the area.

The multi-talented couple stay busy with their various enterprises. Rob is a licensed pilot and a computer whiz. And he works as agent for a Rock Leasing enterprise. Huge boulders are paid for, picked up and carried to cities where they are used in landscaping.

Evie is an accomplished artist and writes, in German, for rela-tives and friends about her experiences in this country. She has been published there.

Following are Evie's memories of her arrival in this country:

“It was two days before Christmas Eve when my husband and I arrived, tired and jetlagged, in Dallas. My expectations and excitement about what my new homeland was going to offer me and how I'm going to love it, had me all bubbly and nervous. (And I was going to meet my new mother-in-law.)

“We actually arrived a day late, because in Germany, one of the worst snowstorms picked our big day to dump tons of snow on the runways at Frankfort International Airport to the point they had to close it down. No planes came in, no planes went out. We were stranded at the airport. Time didn't move and I searched my mind for

things to discuss since there was absolutely nothing to do and we still had to spend the night in a hotel.

“During the night the snowstorm stopped (there is also a god in Germany) and working crews pushed

masses of snow all morning aside to clear the run-ways. Finally we got ourselves into the big plane that was going to bring me to my new home in Texas, USA.

“Well, we had mixed feelings about the flight because I always had a problem with motion sick-ness (this was my first flight) and just to be ready for anything, our hand luggage contained plenty of paper sacks in case I should get sick.

“However, I enjoyed flying thoroughly with a big smile on my face and especially got a kick out of the take off. I still believe there is no feeling like a takeoff, being swept up swiftly while tucked in safely in an air-plane seat. It's such an uplifting experience like nothing else.

“Our first stop was Philadelphia, where Rob had to get his discharge papers from the army.

Another long day with nothing to do but the next day, on Christmas Eve, we flew off into my new life, to Dallas, Texas. Getting out of the plane was some-thing quite memorable. It almost felt like walking into a glass door without seeing it. The hot air hit my face like a sheet. I was dressed in a fur coat, winter clothes and boots with a fur lining. Temperatures must have been in the 90s! The sun was scorching from a cloudless blue sky and generated unexpected heat for this time of the year.

“Off with that furry coat, then I pushed my long


Shop Historic Granbury

sleeves up and felt immediately how my skin heated up. Getting a sun tan in December? Why not? Wow, that is something fantastic to write to my friends in Germany....they're going to be quite envious.

“Then we got packed into a big roomy car and left Love Field and drove on to a wide roomy highway through a wide flat, mostly beige-col-ored countryside under wide blue skies to the town of Fort Worth. Everything had much more space and was so much wider than what I was used to in Germany. On my map Ft. Worth is very close to Dallas. It was hard to understand that the drive went on and on. But finally we arrived. I was introduced to my new family and new life and I had my first iced tea—in Germany they only drink hot tea.

“Every day brought new surprises and every morning, I jumped out of bed ready for anything. The first time we were invited to new friends, I was asked if I liked German Chocolate cake. Stupid, I asked back in my lim-ited English, 'which one.'

“They told me there is only one and that one is the best cake ever. The lady of the house showed me the box in which the cake mix came. It was


really a very good cake, moist and sweet and flavorful but I have never eaten or seen a cake like that before. I won-der if a German or an American came up with the recipe.

“The most amazing thing I experienced happened to be the huge portions that one gets in restaurants, especially the steaks that fill a whole plate. Since I was always told to eat my plate clean, I did my best but there came a time when I asked my husband if he still had some room in his stomach to help me clean my plate, until I learned about the practical doggie bag, another thing they don't have in Germany. The restaurant portions there are just a frag-ment from the generous portions served here. You can always eat your plate clean.

“One day I felt really embarrassed when we talked to someone and the lady said, very friendly, 'come see us sometimes.' I asked very friendly back, 'when should we do that.' Rob explained later people say that only to be friendly. In Germany when someone says that to you, it is a real invitation.

“But every country has its own rules and niceties. I thought it was extremely unusual that you get a glass of water first thing when you sit down at a table in a restau-rant. I said what am I supposed to do with it? In Germany hardly anyone drinks water in a restaurant, unless it is carbonated water. Ice is also a rarity in a drink unless it's Whiskey on the Rocks. I found out that water is there in case someone chokes on their food or someone needs it in between a stronger beverage.

“And I found out that some areas in Texas are dry and you can't get any alcohol at all. Why is that, I asked, because in the mind of Germans the words Texas and Whiskey are inseparable. They go together like salt and pepper.

“I cannot come up with anything negative about my life in Texas since one gets used to scorpions climbing upon the curtain or across the floor. For years I helped the little fellows by shooing them into a paper grocery bag and pouring them outside behind the house. Have to admit that gets tiresome and its so much easier to call my husband.

“There is so much wilderness around us. Wildlife thrives and we see deer, armadillos, roadrunners, foxes, raccoons, possums and skunks and lots of birds and liz-ards. We hear the dog-like calls of coyotes at night, espe-cially in the wintertime, but rarely see them in the sum-mer. Cicadas keep the air thick with noise. Texas has been good to us ... we absolutely love it here in Texas. Signed, Evie Roberson.

(Author's note: Readers are not the only ones who make new friends from the North Texas Star. Writers make new friends, too. I have four delightful new friends!)


Not a typical summer vacationBY RANDALL SCOTT

In the early 1960s, a Colorado vacation was an elusive indulgence that only a daring few pur-sued. At the time, most Texans were devout

flat landers, uninterested in even the slightest mole-hill. Tall mountains intimidated them.

Their fears were made worse by death-defying tales of daredevils who'd scaled their summits and lived to tell about it. It was seemingly forbidden to challenge a mountain peak, which made the allure even that much more enticing. This high-altitude curiosity spawned the old adage, “Why did you climb that mountain?” and of course, the proverbial answer, “Because it was there!”

After all these years, I still don't know what that means. But it spoke volumes to brave vacationers who wanted more than just a boring campsite by still waters.

For years, we'd fished the mighty Brazos River and camped along the shores of Palo Pinto County's Possum Kingdom Lake, but never had we con-quered the grandeur of America's Rocky Mountain range. Such was the beckoning call for Dad (Bob Erwin) and Granddad (J.L. Odom). They conceived a plan whereby two families could scale the Rocky Mountains in a rented RV trailer towed behind Granddad's farm truck.

These were the barest of essentials poor folks could expect to use on cross-country camping trips. And by today's standards, it could hardly compare

to modern recreational vehicles designed and built for mountain travel. Back then, government agen-cies didn't dictate our lives to every precaution imaginable. We didn't need it, nor did we want their pompous direction. God forbid, we were free to explore the American wilderness as we so desired, even at our own peril, and life was in our own hands where it belonged. Not withstanding, our family patriarch, Granddad, said it was safe to trav-el, and so we did.

Like gypsies traveling in caravans, we drove U.S. Highway 281 north to Wichita Falls, turning west onto Highway 287 to Palo Duro Canyon. Down in the deep gorge of the canyon, our camps were made comfortable around fire pits lined with tar-paulin tents for shelter. This 10-year-old boy thought he was in campers' heaven. I had no use for them, but family members did, and they used the shower house to perform their ablution. While they did that, I was back at camp rolling out my sleeping bag for the night. About sundown, Granddad saw them in the faraway distance towards the western horizon. He pointed his bony finger at dark clouds building high into the sky like giant mounds of ice cream. By his reckoning, we'd be swept away in a flash flood of raging water. If we didn't leave immediately, Granddad said that Palo Duro Canyon could be a death trap. Curiously, I looked up and down the canyon and saw nothing but dry auroras

in both directions.Tired as we were, we begrudgingly obeyed his

orders to fold camp. By the time our little caravan topped the plateau it was late at night in pitch-black darkness with no place to go. Just as he'd predicted, buckets of rain fell from the skies in such torrents the downpour flooded roadways. The car that Mother (Wynell Erwin) was driving stalled in deep water and left us stuck on the side of the road. We could've been left there to float away had she not flashed distress signals using the car's headlights. Dad saw her signals and ran back through the downpour to save us. Thanks to Mother, Dad and Granddad, we were safe and secure above the flooded canyon area.

My thoughts turned to the safety and well being of so many people stranded down below. We heard later that it took days before campers were evacuat-ed from the flooded canyon area. Sadly, there was loss of lives drowned in the tragedy. Granddad's skills as an old cattle rancher had once again saved us from the perils of nature. Making our way through the New Mexico Badlands we stopped below the foothills of the mountain pass to camp in Raton for the night.

Despite the day's heat, my brother, Bobby, went inside the trailer to fetch us blankets for the night. I never knew temperatures could change so dramati-cally in high altitude. It was an enjoyable relief


from the heat and I quickly adapted to the climate. Traveling up the rugged mountain pass, pine trees soared high above rocky escarpments where only images of Christmas cards came to mind. Yet, to my amazement, this was real. Who knows? Maybe Santa Clause was real!

Pulling over to rest at a roadside Trading Post, we drank soda pops and played with toy guns and Indian trinkets. Dad bought me the authentic Daniel Boone coonskin cap just like the one he wore in my favorite TV show. And as boys will do, I even slept in it, 'cause I never took it off my head.

Grinding gears up the mountainside took us deep into the Colorado Rockies to a beautiful green valley. There, our encampment lay nestled beside Bear Lake, where we fished its cold waters for trout. My grand-mother, Mom, (Cedric Odom,) put those fish together with fresh potatoes to make a delicious meal. Other times, we indulged ourselves in beefsteaks from our cattle ranch and grilled them over an open fire. We cooked all our meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, for the entire trip. Every morning, Mom baked homemade biscuits in the trailer's tiny oven. Dad and I had har-vested 100 pounds of potatoes, 50 pounds of corn, and various vegetables from our garden, all of which we stowed away in the pickup truck. Our entire entourage ate like royalty, or at least I thought so.

Several days were spent happily fishing along the banks of the lake, hiking at leisure, and relaxing in the bright sunshine. Ain't nothing big about mountain camping, right? Then, it happened. On the third night, a storm gathered blowing icy cold winds and leaving a light blanket of snow on the ground across our camp and up the mountainside. We weren't prepared for sin-gle-digit temperatures in July. That morning, my younger sister, Laurie, was the first to puke. Then, older siblings got the stomach virus and spread it to the remaining family campers. Before it was over, everyone was heaving-up their toes, including my grandparents. In full retreat we hastily came down from that cold mountaintop for warming relief.

Winding our way down a rough gravel road, a stone flung upwards and underneath the truck to knock a hole in the engine's oil pan. Oil pressure quickly diminished, which was made evident by a downward pointing needle on the dashboard gauge. It prompted Dad to pull over and stop. To confirm our fears, oil stained tracks stretched along a thin trail up the gravel road to accentuate our dire predicament. The caravan sat precariously stranded on the curve of a switchback mountain road with no choice but to make camp for the night. Parking our trailer by the roadside, it barely fit crammed in between two pine trees. Down a steep embankment we set up our fire pit, benches and tables. Still further down the mountainside, a narrow pad gave just enough room for tents near a small run-ning stream.

Dad took the truck down the steep mountain road and into town for repairs. Little did we know he'd be gone for five days. Meanwhile, Granddad kept us entertained. The family patriarch became the teacher, and my brother and I learned how to make arrows from willow branches and a bow from poplar. Digging

out flint rock from nearby cliffs, we honed the flint into sharp arrowheads. Our weapons became useful against the onslaught of killer squirrels and giant chip-munks, none of which were seriously threatened. As time went on, our weapons expanded to tomahawks and knives all rough-hewn from wilderness materials. I wore my coonskin cap to help master small-arms weaponry and hone my skills just like Daniel Boone. Soon, I had the ability to stick that tomahawk in the side of a tree at 10 paces. But I was severally bow-and-arrow challenged, (a personal inadequacy that would be my failing in the near future.)

Searches to find firewood took me deeper and deep-er into the forest. Without a saw to cut wood, I could only gather what was on the ground. But way over there was a large mound of dry wood, just for the tak-ing. Before making three steps closer I heard her growling low and deep. Slowly backing away, I saw her crawl out from under her wooden den followed by two small cubs. She stood erect on her hind legs to show nursing teats like an old sow, which were tar-gets-a-plenty for my bow and arrow. But in my haste, I nervously fumbled them to the ground 'cause I was scared out of my wits.

I flung my tomahawk at her and turned my back to run, never knowing if my aim was true. Running uphill at top speed, I knew the side of that mountain like the back of my hand – running from tree to tree for deep cover in places where bears couldn't go. I dove into the RV trailer and slammed the door shut to the laughs and giggles of family members. Peering out the windows, they didn't see any bears coming up the mountain and accused me of shirking my wood-gathering duties. In turn, I told them where a big pile could be had, if they themselves were so inclined to fetch firewood.

Dad returned early that next morning. Excited to once again be on our way, we broke camp in record time, loaded our gear, and bounced down the moun-tain in our newly repaired pickup truck. Everyone was in high jubilant spirits now that we were back on the road. I fell asleep somewhere on Highway 90 and awoke several hours later to find myself in the big city of Denver. We rolled the caravan to a stop in a parking-lot by the Denver Museum of Natural History. There, we ate our picnic lunch on the truck tailgate. Yes, uppity folks stared at the Texas backwoods hill-billies eating off their dirty farm truck. So what? Let 'em look. We had better manners than to stand over their lunch and gawk at them.

It was nice and cool inside the museum 'cause they had conditioned air. Booths lined the walls of the mar-ble hallway and inside them were stuffed animals in static display. They were depicted on scenic terrain so natural and authentic as to appear lifelike. A uni-formed forest ranger came near us and talked to Granddad, but I couldn't hear what they said. He pre-sented each booth with a prepared short story behind the scene's representation. The next booth displayed life-sized Indians throwing spears into this huge buf-falo. They looked real enough to scalp us, except for the red paint. Even a 10-year-old could tell it wasn't blood.

To my astonishment the next booth emblematically displayed my dangerous bear encounter in exacting detail. The scene depicted a lifelike Daniel Boone manikin with his Kentucky rifle jabbed in the face of a bear, valiantly fighting the monster barehanded. The posed bear, in this confrontation, looked to be no less the size of my ferocious beast. Recanting my story only gave doubts to my family's original suspicions. I was just a young boy with an overactive imagination engendered by too many TV episodes of "Daniel Boone".

When I got to the part about her nursing cubs, long fangs and the stench of her breath, everyone laughed and taunted me. Giggling under their collective breaths, they asked me if that stuffed bear was the one that attacked me, which drew roars of laughter. I replied that she couldn't be my bear. My bear had a metal tag in her ear just like the ones our cattle wore back home on the ranch.

The ranger stepped forward and asked me which ear. I promptly replied that the tag was in her left ear. He said that she was probably one of the bears they'd tagged last year. Mother's jaw dropped open and her eyes went wide as fried eggs, and for some reason, she grabbed me up and hugged me. Funny thing, nobody joked about my bear for the rest of the trip.

We felt fortunate to have an uneventful ride home. Looking back, we were nearly flushed down a can-yon, frozen in a snowstorm, sickened by stomach viruses, broken down on the side of the road and chased by a bear. We made it unharmed. Our adven-ture had been taxing at best, challenging individual values, and testing the strength of one's character on several occasions. Everyone stood firm, did their chores, and maintained their composure. But, I wasn't surprised. My family are descendants of rugged pio-neers who settled Palo Pinto County, Texas, in the 1870s, deep in the wilderness of Indian country. They'd survived countless wars, The Great Depression, The Dust Bowl days and hardships beyond belief. Yet, they still kept their faith in God, their optimism, and belief in a better tomorrow.

All the dangerous encounters, breakdowns, and set-backs didn't deter us from another vacation that fol-lowing year, nor the year after that. In fact, every summer of my childhood was spent on long family vacations with multiple families in tow. It wasn't com-plicated. Just throw in another tent and bag of pota-toes for ever family added to the caravan. If disaster strikes, find the best course of action to fix it and go on like it never happened. No big deal, just another story to tell in the pages of our family album.

Many years later, traveling in luxuriously large, ful-ly-equipped RVs, there was fun and laughter telling stories around the campfire of those bygone days when the family pulled a tiny rental trailer behind an old farm truck.

Randall Scott is a resident of Santo, Texas,and an author of “The Tinner” and “Marxonville.” He is a member of Western Writers of America, Western Literature Association, Sons of Confederate Veterans and Texas Historical Association. You can find Scott on the Internet at http://randall-scott.com.


The Cross Timbers and Prairies Ecological Region of north central Texas is a special place with a rich cultural and natural history.

During the early settlement of Texas, it was literally the jumping off place for westward expansion – the edge of civilization. It represented the most western region of the southeastern United States' deciduous forest where oak woodlands met the southern exten-sion of the vast Great American Plains. Some early travelers described the area as nearly uninhabitable, whereas other saw a virtual Garden of Eden, espe-cially the cattlemen. On his travels through the west-ern frontiers of America during the 1830s, Washington Irving described the Cross Timbers region as "forests of cast iron," a fitting metaphor for the gnarled oaks and other trees and brush that grow on the surface of ancient sandstone and limestone sedimentary deposits that underlie the region.

The Cross Timbers and Prairies Region is sand-wiched between the Blackland Prairie on the east, Edwards Plateau on the south, and Rolling Plains to the west (see map.) The region encompasses approxi-mately ten percent of the land area of Texas and extends into eastern Oklahoma and southeast Kansas Drive from Denton to Graham or Arlington to Abilene and you are within the Cross Timbers. In Texas they extend from the Red River in Montague and Cooke counties to just north of Waco and north-westward to east of Abilene and back across the Red River.

The more narrow East Cross Timbers portion of the region was once referred to as The Grand Forest or Lower Timbers which is bound on the east by the Blackland Prairie and on the west by the Grand Prairie. Remnants of stately post oak trees still visi-ble from eastern Fort Worth, Arlington, Denton, and north to the Red River remain as sign posts of the once dense forest that extended from north of present Waco into Oklahoma. The larger portion of the Cross Timbers lies west of the Grand Prairie (a.k.a. the Fort Worth Prairie) and was called the Upper Timbers by earlier settlers due to their higher elevation. This West Cross Timbers region extends from Oklahoma southwesterly to east of Abilene and north to the Red River. It is an irregular conglomeration of woods and prairies with its most dense post oak-blackjack wood-lands found along its eastern boundary. The southern portion of the Cross Timbers region is referred to as the Lampasas Cut Plain where vast open and undula-tion terrains dotted with brush and trees dominate the landscape. A drive from Hamilton to Lampasas will take you through that portion of the Cross Timbers and Prairies. Understanding the Cross Timbers region

is fundamentally an exercise in the study of the geo-logic history and sedimentary formations deposited over eons that gave rise to the vegetation on the sur-face of the land we see today.

Early travelers through the region coined the name “Cross Timbers” for their repeated crossings through the wooded hills, valleys, and interspersed prairies, often with dread due to the dense thickets of woods, brush, rocky terrain, and lurking Indians. Only a few military roads and trails crossed the region then as settlers began to expand the frontier of Texas west-ward. Native Americans tenaciously held onto the Cross Timbers country where their peoples had been in habitation for generations. Not until the 1880s did they relinquish their hold on the land, albeit by force, as the tide of settlers poured into the region. Today, you can cross through the Cross Timbers in any direction in a few hours along bustling highways lined with homes, businesses, farms, and ranches.

With the beginning of settlement of the region dur-ing the 1840s, change on the landscape was inevita-ble and that change continues today at an accelerated rate. Fragmentation of larger tracts of land in the Cross Timbers into subdivided parcels, urban sprawl, changes in demographics, and the growing influx of people from other states has and will continue to impact the landscape and character of the region. Lands once devoted to agricultural pro-duction of crops and live-stock have become attractive as home building sites, small-acreage ranchettes, rural subdivisions, or com-mercial development loca-tions. Diverse native plant communities have been altered by overgrazing by livestock, land clearing, and lack of naturally occurring fire. Invasive species such as nonnative grasses, juniper, and mesquite now dominate once open rangelands throughout the region.

Wildlife populations in many areas are now reduced to minimal numbers as habi-tats become restricted or totally eliminated. In many areas, only islands of native

plants vital to wildlife as food and cover remain. The disconnect between the human population and the land of the Cross Timbers is exacerbated through time as one generation to the next becomes less edu-cated or interested in matters relating to natural and cultural history of the region. I highly recommend reading “The Cast Iron Forest: A Natural and Cultural History of the North American Cross Timbers” by Richard V. Francaviglia for a complete review and understanding of the natural and cultural history of the Cross Timbers. Another good reference on the maps, history, geology and vegetation found in the Cross Timbers can be found in Shinner and Mahler’s Illustrated Flora of Northcentral Texas.

The following poem laments the passing of the Cross Timbers as it once was in all its natural beauty and rugged character with the hope that generations to come will once again embrace the land to pre-serve, protect, manage, and understand its intricate workings as a natural wonder region of Texas. (Sources: The Cast Iron Forest: A Natural and Cultural History of the North American Cross Timbers by Richard V. Francaviglia; Shinner and Mahler’s Illustrated Flora of Northcentral Texas)

ODE TO THE CROSS TIMBERSby: JIM DILLARD


This vast land of woods and grasswas meant to last forever.

But now it slowly slips awayby change it cannot weather.

The ancient ones who came beforeand dwelled beneath its trees.

Scarred not the land nor took too much their gods they did appease.

For food and fur it did supply thosenoble men of red.

And sheltered them from mighty storms that filled their lives with dread.Although the land was wild and free

its fate would never be.To be the land of ancient men for all

eternity.

The land was rich for those who came to start a new beginning.They cut the oaks with hearty strokes their axes loudly ringing.

By plow and cow and works of menits bounty did decline.

No longer did the stately oakson hillsides intertwine.

As prairies felt the bite of plows andfire no longer reigned.

The native grasses stole away tohide beneath the grain.

The beast and fowl that languished there were soon to disappear.To fade away or find a place to live

another year.

The creed became to tame the land and take away the wild.Improve upon the Master’s plan

and treat it like a child.

Old rock fences stand against the wind where rugged men and women.Did tame at least a little land to

make a meager living.

But most moved on to fresher landsless hostile to the plow.

And dug into another spot togrow another cow.

When no rains came to cool the landor bring it back to life.

He packed the load and hit the roadto satisfy the wife.

To town, to town their destiny would be.To get a job and settle down and

make economy.

And now they come upon this landlike locust and the bee.

to live again upon its breastand breathe its air so free.

The ancient oaks that once theythought they’d always ever see.

Upon this land of sand and rock theywonder where they be.

Heed now the land and make a stand for all the world to see.The fate of the Cross Timbers is up to you and me.

ODE TO THE CROSS TIMBERSby James E. Dillard

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