A South Texas Chronicle
Leslie knew there were fruit stands with good, cheap, clay pots if we drove down close to the border. And she was right. Along the way we checked out a few small towns.
Riviera, Texas, pop. 350? was once somebody’s dream of a boom town. Because nearby, less than a ten minute drive, is Baffin Bay, saltwater, and a fishing destination which could take you all the way out into deep Gulf waters. A few substantial homes and stores are left along with a school and vacant lots – all are nestled in this sweet, wooded valley called Riviera. It’s a place out of time whose glory must have been back in the 1940-50’s. And not much has changed.
Lots of places up and down the coast like Riviera where speculators figured to find prosperity and power, and built seaside houses, boats, docks and businesses – only to go bust. Further south, we drove through a piece of the powerful King Ranch, and through cotton fields that went on forever, as far as you could see an emerald green carpet. Money is made on the land in Texas, not at the ocean. And we’ve had a warm spell of late which has everything green and blooming.Exhibit A: we have a bunch of bananas growing in the front yard. They popped out two weeks ago and are fun to watch. The hummingbirds are back now, too, as they load up with food before they begin their journey north. We have two feeders up and have seen 20-30 come by. The size of your little finger when they land at the feeder. After about 20 sips they look like your thumb and fly off and you can hear them: Burp!
Leslie never told me about her attraction to Dracula until she brought home a big jar of bat guano (thirty dollars!) from the Botanical Garden plant sale last month. Turns out, she reads on the label, that if you mix one tablespoon to a gallon of water and let it make “tea” overnight, and spray it on your plants, it will keep the mosquitoes away. Plus, it’s good fertilizer. Bats eat skeeters by the hundreds, and you get the connection. And so far, it seems to work, but it is a nasty, black brew. So now L is handing out packages of bat guano to her friends with gardens. Not cookies or lasagna (hers is killer – she lived in Italy for two years).
Amazing how things and times change. And how difficult some of these changes are right now. Spending fifty bucks on gas to drive somewhere nearby is a real change of perspective to me and you.
Turning 60 is a change of perspective for me, too. I still feel like I am 18 inside and am startled when people call me “sir” and open the door for me. They don’t see how light on my feet I really am (sorta), but they do see the gray hair. Although I can forget someone’s name for a day, it comes back with capital letters in my mind when I quit thinking about it. I also think: 60 is just a number. The Bull in me barely takes notice.