Daily Archives: August 22, 2012

The TimeWarpVille Saga – Other Local Attractions – Food – Corn – Rain and Wireless Phoneless

As good as Barbeque’s likely to get

The locals I talked to all seemed to agree Lum’s is either the best barbeque in town, or tasty enough to balance the high cost of Cooper’s, down the road.  I’ve eaten there three times now, found them to be clean, friendly, and surrounded by an ambiance unusual enough to be almost distracting.  Good food, Lum’s. 

As I finished my meal an older guy with a cane walked past my table.  He sported a hip-holster with a Glock, ready for action.  If I’d finished earlier, and if I’d arrived in town heeled, I’d have waited for him outside and shouted, “Fill your hand you SOB!”

Then he could have shot me down, gazed sadly at my bullet-riddled corpse and muttered, “Just another young tough trying to build a reputation.”

It would have provided a great denouement.

This could be a lot more important than you imagine

There’s corn here to be had.

A worthy cause that gives no offense except to those [such as myself] who don’t even like to be told what kind of day to have.

Too small for Clark Kent

A futuristic wireless, cordless, phoneless booth.

We middle-of-the-roaders try to be there for one another

And a bull trotting along the centerline blocking the highway for a mile or more.  I took him to be another, spiritual kinfolk to myself, called to serve on the Big Jury, and headed home unrequited.

Old Jules

The TimeWarpVille Saga – Junction, Texas Cemetery

A robe that’s so wooly it scratches

Hi readers.  I don’t recall when I first discovered the joys of hanging out in cemeteries.  I don’t remember ever not doing it.  Somewhere back there I discovered that old cemeteries, tombstones and the ways individuals choose to remember their dead tells a lot about the communities, the local histories and priorities.

Vandalism’s a problem in a lot of the older graveyards, has been for a considerable while.   But up-keep of some of the older graves where the families have died or moved away also reveals itself.

A visitor’s left to mull over how those folks standing beside the hull of someone they cared for enough to construct this managed to forget so completely.  A few generations, a few wars, depressions, and something went away.  Every cemetery in the US, probably in the world, has a lot of graves of 1918 flu victims.  Frequently they’re all grouped together, but this one’s not arranged in that way.

The Junction cemetary has 50-100 graves of Confederate Civil War veterans, mostly marked by government-provided stones, each with a Confederate Battle Flag, Confederate flag, or Texas Confederate flag.

A dozen-or-so Texas Rangers are also buried here.  Most were also Confederate veterans.

I’m wondering whether this one mightn’t have been a relative of Sherrod Hunter, commander of the troops that occupied Tucson.  The world was a smaller place back then.

Not necessarily in that order

Sometimes the survivors had the stones marked with the life experiences of the dead they considered most important, sometimes the nicest things they could think of so say about them. 

Sometimes just the way the dead wished to be remembered.

But Junction people have another, more visible way of remembering their dead.  This one’s nearer the center of town.  Almost certainly a lot of those antlers were contributed by people now residing in the cemetery.  Thrilling moments of their lives, or mundane moments in hard times, bringing home meat for the table.

Old Jules

The TimeWarpVille Saga – Remembering Isaac Koontz

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by.

TimeWarpVille: “We Will Never Forget!”

Every year in TimeWarpVille on Christmas day a posse of local horsemen armed with modern weaponry meets at this spot, where they display their determination to never forget Isaac Koontz.   

After passing around all the new firearms they got for Christmas they somberly climb these stairs to the now-somewhat-neglected shrine.

We’ve maybe forgotten something?

Surrounding the shrine, they kneel and remove their hats, whispering among themselves what a fine lad Isaac must have been, though none have a distinct recollection of him.

After five carefully timed minutes they descend the staircase, mount up and the elected leader shouts, “Forwarrrrrd, HO!”  Waving a Texas flag, he motions forward.  “Let’s KILL us some INDIANS boys!” 

They ride to the top of the hill behind the monument searching for Comanche spying on the highway and the monument.

Finding no hostiles there they gaze respectfully down at the monument, pass around their hip flasks, swallow solemnly, and descend the hill.  Usually no shots are fired.

As they load their horses into their stock trailers they ask how Aunt Tillie’s doing, order one another to have a merry Christmas and happy new year, gun their engines and return to their families, better men for having remembered something they didn’t experience and someone they never knew.

Their lives more secure in the knowledge the Comanche haven’t killed anyone around TimeWarpVille in recent centuries thanks to their vigilance.

Old Jules

The TimeWarpsVille Saga – Civilization Arrives

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Visitors Not Having Fun Will Be Prosecuted

Civilization is seeping into TimeWarpsVille, and it’s rearing its ugly head in the Junction City Park.

Rules Carefully Disambiguated

Enjoyment is facilitated by clarifications and footnotes to entrance rules.

Dive Risks Deferred to Others

But who the hell wants to swim at his own risk?

ALL chains must be securely fastened to craft.

Several safe flying saucer tiedowns are provided.

I didn’t feel much like skinny-dipping at my own risk and suspected I was having more fun than the law allows.  Decided it was time to head for the graveyard or one of the museums.  Maybe look over some historical marker sites.

Old Jules