Straight from the Porch

Inspired by the Texas Mountains

Viva Indian Emily!

By Vivian July 26, 2016 Apache Indians, Barry Scobee, Fort Davis, Indian Emily, Mike Cox 16 Comments

Traveling Texas Highway 118 from Alpine to Fort Davis is Western eye-candy and guaranteed to fire up your imagination. After a flat stretch leaving Alpine, you encounter towering rocks on both sides of a curvy, climbing state highway. It’s the kind of road where you think, “Apaches could hide behind those rocks.” Or maybe you only imagine that if you grew up watching 1950s-era Westerns or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In Fort Davis, you find more going on than its tiny size suggests. The night we visited, the Hotel Limpia featured live music under the patio’s big-leaf trees.…

My GIANT Pilgrimage Part I

By Vivian April 16, 2016 General 1 Comment

At summer’s end six decades ago an enormous cast and crew rolled into tiny Marfa, Texas to film Giant. Still the life-defining moment in Marfa’s history, the movie is eclipsed by today’s world view of Marfa with its hipster Austin visitors and wealthy Houston patrons. Unaware in 1955 of Hollywood’s invasion of West Texas, I lived 200 miles east of Marfa. My mother was a teacher and my father worked for the utility company—a not uncommon family trope for the times. Impulsive and frivolous were not how I’d describe my mother. Fun, yes, but I never imagined Movie Tone and…

GIANT Pilgrimage Part II

By Vivian April 15, 2016 Elizabeth Taylor, General, Marfa 11 Comments

Mother possessed a sure-fire tip on how to see Miss Taylor. The plan was to pull our car in front of her rented frame house at sunset, the exact moment before dark when we could see inside the house, but she couldn’t see out. Timing was crucial because shades would be pulled and curtains drawn at dark. Sundown is short on the high plains of Marfa so we were quick. We parked across the street, and Mother got out of the car while we five children and two mothers crouched in the floorboards. I thought she was going to go…

Veterans Day: Voice of a Silenced Soldier

By Vivian November 11, 2015 Infantry, Marfa, Veterans' Day, WWII 4 Comments

Millions of soldiers fight valiantly for their country, and millions die doing so. I pray for those who were the victims of so-called friendly fire. It’s not better or worse than any other war death, but it is its own special hell. The letter below, surrounded by paper poppies, is a letter my grandmother copied about her 20-year-old son’s death in World War II. Carefully crafted by the captain, the words do not mention how my uncle died. That was left to me to find out. The facts were never shared with my family, thus their mantra until the day they…

Boom!

By Vivian October 17, 2015 Big Lake Texas, Texas Boom Towns 54 Comments

Let’s move from the mountains of Far West Texas to the oil and gas fields. To a porch at the corner of Eighth Street and North Pennsylvania Avenue in Big Lake—a town peppered with houses that were trucked in, porches included, from closed oil camps where workers had lived during the last century’s big boom. Unlike those 1920s communities built around the oil fields, this house sits where it was built—in the town of Big Lake. I haven’t been to Big Lake in more than two years. I haven’t lived there since 1967. The small town I remember might just…

Mystery and Science

By Vivian May 1, 2015 General 2 Comments

I believe there are McDonald Observatory people and Marfa Lights people. My sons’ favorite sports radio show from Dallas took their broadcast on the road to Alpine and Marfa a few years ago. “They agreed with our opinions about pretty much everything,” one son texted me. Marfa’s nice, but not much to see there especially on a Monday, and Alpine was buzzing with life and commerce. These citified radio personalities didn’t make it to McDonald Observatory, but they did try to observe the Marfa Lights. They often referred to the Observatory, but they were talking about the viewing site for…

Mexico on my Mind

By Vivian April 23, 2015 Mexico 5 Comments

My parents lived in Presidio, Texas when I was born. The then tiny town and its Mexican sister, Ojinaga, sit across the international border from each other on the Rio Grande—known as the Rio Bravo del Norte in Mexico. My parents were mostly bilingual and traveled easily “across the river” to shop or eat dinner. You paid the bridge owner small change and over you went. Driving on the rickety wooden bridge was more worrisome than any Border Patrol presence. Presidio and Ojinaga were two sides of the same coin, but because Ojinaga was in another country, it felt romantic…

Unchaperoned Reader

By Vivian March 17, 2015 Big Lake Texas, General 7 Comments

Are libraries on their way out? When I attended a memorial service months ago, I started wondering and thinking about my nerdy relationship with libraries and their caregivers. The memorial service was for Mrs. Havenhill who was the librarian at my high school. Yes, I guess my favorite classroom ‘teacher’ was the librarian. Reagan County High School’s library was then located at the end of a long linoleum-floored hall. When classes quietened after the bell, you could hear Mrs. Havenhill rhythmically walk the hall in her spiky high heels. Reagan County was a 200 student, four-grade high school in the…

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

By Vivian January 22, 2015 Alpine Texas, Second homes 8 Comments

It was almost a divorce this week. Between me and Alpine. Town of my birth and my spiritual home for 66 ½ years. Like no other, it’s a home in the Texas Mountains, which most of world doesn’t even know exists. I’m forced to consider the question: “Should I stay or should I go? If I go, there will be trouble, if I stay there will be double.” And so on. Maybe you know the song. The pros and cons of keeping my grandparent’s house, when I actually live hundreds of miles away, rolls around in my head like the…

High and Tight

By Vivian May 10, 2014 backyard baseball, Mother's Day, Mothers and Sons 7 Comments

Baseball fans will enjoy the following guest post by Newton Jones. During summers of my youth, our backyard in Northbrook, Illinois was transformed from a grassy expanse into a baseball field for the Jones boys and their friends. Our fervent desire was to grow up and play for the Chicago Cubs. Our infield had no home plate…only the bare spot in front of the crabapple tree. First base was an unused baseball glove or the arm of a lawn chair. Second base was the…

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