We are having a cold snap here today, so I decided to drive around and do some documenting.

You can see that I have the A/C on full blast and the seat coolers are on too.

I believe we moved here exactly 58 years ago, just before my sophomore year in high school. It was during the cotton farming boom and my father was going to work in that business with my uncles after having worked in the oil fields of Oklahoma since coming home from “The War,”

I thought it was wonderful.  The population here then was about 15,000. Previously the largest town I had gone to school in had about 2000 souls.  Big excitement.

I only lived here my last three years of high school and I came back for a couple of summers when I was in college, so I don’t have a lifetime of memories from here.  But those three years were important ones in my life.

First we rented a little house on Cherry Street while our new house was being built.  We moved in here at Christmastime.  I thought it was a wonderful house.

When we lived there, there was a beautiful green lawn and a lovely mimosa tree.

I attended church here with my family and fell in love with the minister’s handsome son. Looking back, I can see that was one of the “biggies” in my life. “Our Song” was “When I fall in love, it will be forever.”  The heart of the young girl that I was then was, indeed, given away forever.   But, I digress.  Another story.  Another time.

It’s a little run-down now, but my mother still supports it with her monthly check and my sister has been a faithful member all her life. Recently, they lost a regular pastor of their own, as is the case now with a number of the churches in town.

This congregation is the sort that flourishes here now.  Its young parishioners were converted by fundamentalists, away from their traditional Roman Catholic faith.  Mothers’ hearts were broken.

I always thought this one below was the prettiest church in town:

Disciples of Christ

There was a cotton boom when we moved here.  The company Daddy joined was Acid Delinters.  After the ginning and baling, the cotton seed had to have the fuzz removed before the cotton seed oil could be rendered.  It was sort of a middle-man step.

That boom busted, as they all do. The plant is long-abandoned now.

After that, Daddy bought the franchises on some Phillips 66 gas stations around town.  I liked to joke that my father was a big Texas oil man.

They are all abandoned now too.  The Interstate bypassed them all.  I’m not sure if these are they or not.  But close enough.

Now here’s a relic:

This is all that’s left of an old evaporative air cooler, sometimes affectionately referred to as a swamp cooler.  They worked great in this arid climate. I loved the way they smelled.

You would think that the fracking boom would have saved the lovely heart of this little town.  Sadly, most of the business has moved out on the Interstate, where there are dozens of “man-towns,” chain motels, and convenience stores.

Around town, lots of great old buildings are boarded up now.

Don’t get all excited about that horse.  It’s a piece of statuary.

There is a brand new Caesar’s Hot and Ready $5.99 Pizza store that opened this week.  The line to try it out queued around the block at the drive up window.  Folks here do not get out of their air-conditioned pickup to venture inside.  Maybe I’ll take a picture of it when I drive through to pick up my hot and ready tonight.

This entry reads like a slice of life with no closing paragraph.  It is just that.