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…
Read moreMystery and Science
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…
Read moreShould I Stay or Should I Go?
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…
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