Monthly Archives: November 2009

Keep Austin Weird (and real)

Passion Flower and Lantana

Gregor Mendel. Emily Dickinson. Margaret Morse Nice. One a geneticist, one a poet, and one an ornithologist. Each burrowed to deeper truths within arm’s reach, close to (or at) home.

Each morning we (my wife, Virginia, and I) walk through the oldest parts of Austin, Clarksville. Once the plantation of Governor Elisha Pease, after the Civil War he sectioned part of his land for his emancipated slaves. Freedman Charles Clark established the community of Clarksville in 1871. He subdivided his land among other freedmen from the Pease plantation.

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Locivorous, After All These Years

Austin Farmers Market

I spent many summers with my grandparents in Paris, Texas. I worshipped them, and never tired of the time I spent there. We would eat take-home barbeque from Bono’s on spindly TV trays, watch Lawerence Welk , sip Coke floats, and play Scrabble and 42 until the wee hours. I saw Jim Shoulders splattered against the fence at the Paris rodeo, squirmed through interminable wakes, and listened, awed, as she told stories of my mother before she became “mom.”

This is a preview of Locivorous, After All These Years. Read the full post (383 words, 2 images, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)