History not found in books

“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.”
— John Lennon

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Nothing defines the perspective of time for a writer better than aging manuscripts in a life’s collection of work. Less than subtle reminders of lives chronicled half a century or more ago; people who were witness to history not available in books.

May 1 will mark 50 years since I penned a piece printed in the Naples Monitor on Thursday, May 1, 1975. An interview with a gentleman born when Ulysses S. Grant, commanding general of the Union Army in the Civil War, was serving as the 18th president of a United States with only 38 states.

Burgess Peter Jacobs, aka “Papa Jake,” had just celebrated his 99th birthday when we talked. “Came here the 15th day of January 1907,” he said with a big smile. “I stepped off the train at the Naples depot with a wife and five kids. Came from North Carolina where I worked in a sawmill and raised a little patch of cotton.

“There were no brick buildings,” he reminisced, recalling dirt streets and wood sidewalks as if it were only yesterday. “Charlie Pope built the first one in 1908 or ’09. You know where the Lee Davis’ store is? He put his name in the brick on that building. Course, when Lee moved in, he covered up Charlie’s name.”

“We call these “Mama’s blooms.”

His crystal-clear mind revealed knowledge like someone reading from a history book. “The big business here was the sawmill, but it shut down a few years after.”

When questioned about occupations through the years, he called on quick wit and humor. “Like everyone else — as little as I could. Two years in Bowie County and a year in West Texas before settling down near Naples.

“I farmed mostly. Until about 17 or 18 years ago,” Jacobs continued. “My house was in Morris County, but I farmed in Cass County. About as far as from here to the street,” he said, looking out the window.

“Tax collector came one day. Spent the whole day measuring,’ lookin’ and askin.’ When he discovered I lived in Morris County, he tore up the papers and Ieft. I could have told him if he had asked,” he chuckled.

Laughter and a zest for life filled his stories. “This fellow was runnin’ for sheriff in Cass County once and came by to ask me to vote for him. I told him that no one was coming that far to get me, and no one there was going to bother me. So I didn’t need a sheriff.”

Shifting to birthday cards, he showed me one from President Gerald Ford. “Seen a lot of presidents come and go,” Jacobs said, proudly displaying the greeting. “But sure was surprised to get a letter from one.”

According to Jacobs, family has commemorated his birthday since the early 1920s by staging the family reunion on the Sunday falling nearest his birthday. And family came large for Papa Jake.

Looking fondly at a picture of him and his wife, Quincey Adalee, he added, “I was married to her for 69 years, five months and a few days. I liked a little being 20; she was a little over 16 when we married.” After a noticeable hesitation, he said softly, “She’s been gone about ten years now.”

The couple had nine children and 42 grandchildren. Asked about great and great-great-grandchildren, Jacobs shook his head and laughed. “I don’t know. I can’t count ’em all. I just call ’em my dirty dozen.”

Papa Jake reported his daily activities included “watching a right smart of television. Like to watch the wrestling. Listen to the news on radio. I walk to the mailbox every day. Used to get the mail for the ladies around here ’till I got to where I couldn’t see too well.”

Jacobs expressed pride in seeing roses growing around his house. Especially the white roses. “We call them “Mama’s blooms,” he said, holding his wife’s picture.

I attended his birthday party Saturday night at the Naples Community Center and the family reunion Sunday. “He did not miss a minute of the activity while spreading  humor and warm smiles,” I wrote. “Posing for pictures with family that came from as far as California to attend.”

You can read history books all day long. But none will touch your soul the same as talking to someone who has lived it.

Papa Jake was a living example of the old saying that you are only as old as you feel. Smiles on a weathered face and laughter in an aged voice recalling family, friends, and a century of living left me thinking I was the old timer in that conversation.

Fifty years ago, come May 1.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling.’

Adventures meant to be

“Blessed are the curious, for they shall have adventures.”
— Lovelle Drachman, author

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Adventure was not on my mind after another day at the newspaper office almost 40 years ago. I was simply cruising the day’s mail that included the newest issue of Hemmings Motor News (aka “the car nut’s bible). And the best place to satisfy anyone’s curiosity about any car for sale.

I braked to a stop in the Chevrolet ads when I saw, “For sale by original owner, 1965 Malibu SS, factory L-79 engine. Stored in Iowa.”

Cars collectors are known for many strange behaviors. Including, but not limited to, buying long lost siblings to something they had back in the day and “shoulda kept it.” Or wanted to have but couldn’t afford it then. And just about anything hidden away in storage for some time. Better known today as a “barn find.”

My story is no different. While still a student at East Texas State University, I became the third owner of a 1965 Chevy Malibu SS factory born with that same L-79 high horsepower motor as the car in the ad. I parted with the vehicle too soon, vowing quickly to replace it … if I ever found another one.

It was way after dark the night I saw the ad some 15 years after taking that vow. But I dialed the number anyway, apologizing profusely for the late hour when a lady’s voice said, “Hello.” My inquiry was met with, “My husband is working the night shift, all I can do is read the window sticker for you.”

That’s when I sensed my first adventure that was meant to be.

Combing the huge auto Pate Swap Meet near Fort Worth the next day, the car in the ad still weighed heavily on my mind. Near dawn the next morning, DFW airport was fading from view at my American Airlines window seat. Before lunch, I was shaking hands with the man who had special ordered the car as a high school student. Drooling over all the paperwork he had on the car and loving his stories.

“Because I wasn’t 18 yet,” he laughed. “The dealership required my mother to sign for the car because of the high-horsepower engine. And the car took five months to get, not because of the motor, but because I ordered a vinyl top. Figure that one out!”

Just days before my arrival, He had brought the car to his home in the northern Chicago suburb of Northbrook, Illinois, from his father’s home in Iowa, where it was stored. “They don’t salt the roads in the winter like they do here,” the car’s owner said, “Salted roads are the best way I know of to get the rust worm in your car.”

Technically speaking, a barn is not required for an old car to gain the status of barn find. When the rescue story is told, any neglected shelter leaving a coat of dust on a desirable relic will elevate that hidden ride to “barn find” status at the next storytelling night.

“Barn finds” are on the opposite end of the spectrum from beautifully restored cars bought at televised auctions for stratospheric prices. Often a little more revered in some circles. And almost always, the beginning of an automotive adventure.

The first decision with a barn find is whether to drive it home or trailer it. The owner had already changed the oil, filled the tank with fresh fuel, and washed away the “barn” dust. I checked fluids, tires, hoses, belts, and electrical.

My curiosity satisfied after a short test drive, I opted for the adventure … “Let’s drive ‘er home.” By 5 a.m. the next day, I was beating rush hour traffic out of the city. On board were some basic tools, an extra fan belt, a fire extinguisher, and a spare quart of oil. All acquired from an auto parts store the previous evening.

And a hand full of fast food joint coupons pulled from the newspaper.

Now, if you’re considering something similar at home, let me be transparent on this one point. Taking time to thoroughly assess a stored vehicle before driving it any distance is critical. Looking back, I could have been — should have been — much more thorough in this, my first rodeo, before putting Chicago in my rear-view mirror and a smile on my face.

Another point of perspective is that was back when gas station road maps were the only form of navigation, interstate highways were not as connected as they are today, and the only decent coffee was at truck stops.

GPS says in 2025 the nearly 1,000-mile trip will require 13 hours of driving time with good traffic. I made the same trip non-stop again in 2016, attending the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals, using only Waze and hot, black coffee. Took me fourteen hours in a rental car.

The mid-1980s adventure in an aged muscle car that hadn’t seen daylight in a long time consumed 21 hours. On tires that “looked pretty good” but were manufactured before date coding where the rubber meets the road was a thing. I was easy on her, too. Monitoring gauges, listening for noises, and stopping regularly for visual inspections.

Granny always joked that “God takes care of old folks and fools.” Whatever the case, He was with me on that trip right up the time I turned into my driveway at 1 a.m. Without incident. Four tanks of gas, one quart of oil, and a myriad of tasteless fast food later.

Other trips would follow. The value of the treasure rescued aside; the adventure has always been the best part. Because even when the journey is without incident, there is always an interesting story to tell.

Like this one. One I’ve shared countless times in almost 40 years.

Every time with a smile.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and “A Story Worth Telling.”

How do they possibly know

Sometimes I think we are alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.
— Arthur C. Clark, (1917 – 2008) English science fiction writer.

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Mount Pleasant friend and MPHS classmate Dick Zachary noted on social media a couple of weeks ago, his struggle to comprehend how much “six trillion times several billion” might be.

I agree with him. We had great teachers. I mastered the slide rule that I never used outside of class and was able figure out the cost of a Frito pie and a Dr. Pepper at the Tiger Den across the street from the campus. But even Mount Pleasant High never equipped us with calculation capabilities involving billions and trillions.

Dick’s mathematics mystification was triggered by a newspaper article he shared with his post. I didn’t see a source on it, but a portion of what looked to be an Associated Press byline was visible. The headline read, “Sneaking a peek at distant galaxies — Data trove from European telescope previews areas of new six-year study.”

The text reported, “A European space telescope launched to explore the dark universe has released a trove of new data on distant galaxies.

“The images and other data released Wednesday by the European Space Agency’s Euclid observatory includes a preview of three cosmic areas that the mission will study in finer detail mapping the shapes and locations of galaxies billions of light years away. A light-year is nearly six trillion miles.”

And this is where Dick asked his first question, “How do they possibly know? It blows my mind. At the speed of light, it would take around 20 years just for a light beam to reach a billion miles.”

I bring up my friend’s curiosity not to imply that I have an answer. Oh no, far from it. I still get cross-eyed trying to figure out how the GPS app on my phone knows where I am, where I am going and that I missed the last three turns. And that’s just traveling a few miles in East Texas. Heaven forbid I should attempt six trillion miles into deep space.

Dick’s doubts about grasping distance in space, however, does remind me of my daughter Robin. And a conversation we shared on the back porch one night at our home in the Texas Hill Country near the Medina River. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away … about three decades ago.

My beautiful daughter inherited my gift of gab and thirst for questions that make one think, which led to some wonderful and often spirited conversations. That heritage, and the fact that she excelled in high school debate — a skill she practiced on me every day when she was a teenager — made for moments I remember as if they had happened just yesterday.

“Do you ever wonder how far the sky goes,” she quizzed me one night as we gazed at stars in the Hill Country sky and discussed her report card.

“That’s easy,” I replied. “The sky never ends. The heavens go on forever.”

Silence.

“W-w-what do you mean … it never ends,” she responded slowly.

“It never ends,” I repeated. “Some things are infinite, and space is one of them. It has no end.”

More silence. Silence indicated differing processes with my children. It made my son, Lee, smile. He was the quiet type who was always thinking about something. With Robin, the more you offered, the more freely she vocalized her thoughts while processing them.

“No wait,” she recovered sitting up on the edge of her chair. “That’s not possible. It has to end somewhere. Everything has to have a beginning and an end.”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “Space is one thing that has no beginning and no end.”

More silence.

‘Dad, there has to be an end. Nothing can go on forever without end.”

“OK,” I proposed. “Let’s say that you are right, that trillions and trillions of miles and light years out there is a stop sign that says, ‘The end. Space ends here. Please take an alternate route to wherever you were going or go back from where you came.’ Something has to be on the other side of that sign. A brick wall. A different kind of space. Something. With space and the universe, there cannot be just nothing.”

Longer silence.

Before she could arrive at a response, I added, “Let me give you something else to think about. Just as the heavens have no end, time also has no end.”

“Daaaddd!” Her falling tone of voice was filled with frustration. “I’m still working on this space thing.”

“Work on this while you are at it,” I added. “God has always existed. There never was a time when there was not God. He has always been and always will be. And He created ‘the heaven and the earth.’ It’s all in the Bible.” Just start at Genesis one and one.”

The silence by this time was deafening.

“Do you want to know something else,” I asked?

“No,” she replied sharply. “We’ve covered enough space and time for one night.” She got up, turned toward the door, and paused. “Good night, Dad. All of this makes my brain hurt. I’m going to bed.” Then added with a smile, “This conversation has an end … for tonight.”

So, how do modern space researchers really know? Maybe I can get my daughter and my friend together to figure this out. Then they can let me know. I’ll even loan them my slide rule.

Goodness knows I can’t help them, though. I can’t even follow a GPS out of the county without missing a turn.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Will the circle be unbroken

 “… Havin’ fun sittin’ shotgun ‘cause I’ve come full circle.”
— song lyrics by Ben Kweller

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“I didn’t know you rode motorcycles,” the voice behind me said.

Sunday morning Bible class had just ended. I was marking my place on the front pew as song leader by stacking my songbook, Bible, and other assorted paraphernalia.

It’s just a habit. Goodness knows I’m not competing with anyone for Sunday morning front-row seating.

The voice behind me belonged to one of the sweet ladies at church. Before turning around, I thought for a fleeting second about her perception of me after learning I used to ride motorcycles. Then laughed at myself for thinking that sweet little church ladies might have questionable connotations about cycle riders.

Riding was something I did for almost 50 years before contrasting my aging reflexes and vision with the noticeably increasing number of drivers who have no concept of what they are doing at 75 miles per hour other than texting or talking on a cell phone.  

“Yes,” I said as I turned her direction. “Steve Windham asked me back around Thanksgiving last year what I was doing. I told him, ‘Just sitting home bored, trying to dispel the ugly rumor that I retired.’ He said he needed help in parts and service at his motorcycle dealership, so there I am.”

Her questioning statement was understandable. It’s been long enough since I sold my last bike that someone who knew me only by my mild-mannered news reporter image could easily be surprised.

Truth is, though, I wanted a motor scooter way back in the sixth grade after my friend Gary Cornett did something that kindled one of my life’s more serious love affairs. Just as I threw a leg over my bicycle to go home for lunch, Gary rolled up on his Cushman. “Nice scooter,” I said.

Before I could start peddling, he hit me with, “Wanna ride it to your house for lunch?”

Some questions have only one logical answer at age 12. I thanked Gary, jumped once on the kick-starter and was gone. Arriving at home two blocks away, Mom met me with, “I don’t like those things. You could get killed. Eat your lunch and get it back to school. And I never want to hear of you getting on one again. Do you understand me, young man?”

“Yes ma’am,” I said. Another easy answer for a 12-year-old. Or at any age for a son responding to his mother.

Scant weeks later, my grandfather in Pittsburg invited me to go to W.R. DeWoody’s Western Auto with him. Yet another question with only one answer because I knew what he was thinking. A stop at the Piggly Wiggly parking lot where he would let me drive his ’57 Ford the remaining few blocks to town.

“And, don’t tell your grandmother I let you drive,” he always added.

Once inside, he sought help for his needs, and I went straight to the new Cushman scooters lined against the wall to fantasize. I was still dreaming when my grandfather found me, took the price tag in his hand, looked at it and said, “Two hundred and nineteen dollars!” Then whistled loudly, registering his opinion of the cost.

“Reckon you could ride that if I bought it,” he asked?

“I rode my friend’s,” I said as my heart raced. Then, just as fast, it flatlined. “I better not. If I bought that for you, your mother would have my hide.”

“We can keep it at your house,” I pleaded.

“Then your grandmother would have my hide,” he chuckled.

Mom still objected years later when I bought my first motorcycle at age 20. She continued to do so for the rest of her life every time I shared with her accounts of my trips traveling the U.S. Riding to Florida, crossing Colorado Rocky Mountain passes, or cycling through the Smokies. “I don’t like those things. You could get killed.”

“So, you see,” I told the sweet lady at church. “Me working for a motorcycle dealership is nothing new. It’s actually like coming full circle.”  

Going in circles has been a positive and rewarding way of life for me. I started my publishing career at the newspaper in Center, returned for a short stint about ten years ago, and came full circle to presumably finish it there last year.

Full circles cross my mind every day at the motorcycle dealership. I look longingly at the variety of two-wheeled rides on the showroom floor and think, “Maybe just one more time—one more circle.”

I could even ride it to church.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Fondness for a family motoring icon

Let’s leave town on a permanent vacation,
Lock up the house, pack up the station wagon.
— “Outta Here” song lyrics by Kenny Chesney

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“Station wagon—where did that come from,” a friend laughed loudly, talking about her new sport utility vehicle approaching the size of a World War II Sherman Tank.

Station wagons disappeared from dealership model lineups in the mid-1990s. But, for those of us whose first driver’s license predated man’s landing on the moon, there’s usually a lingering fondness for the one-time icon of family motoring.

Two things likely paved the road south for true station wagons. One is the demise of “full-sized” cruiser automobiles that served as the station wagon’s platform. Caprices. Roadmasters. Galaxies. The other was the introduction of minivans and the gussied-up domestication of truck-based work vehicles.

The term “station wagon” originated in the early 1920s during the age of train travel. A wooden wagon body mated to an automobile chassis served to transport people and freight to and from train stations. Hence, “station wagon.” The wood look remained in fashion through the last true station wagons of the 90s, long after metal was the better suited method of manufacturing. The last of the “woody wagons” utilized decorative vinyl to obtain the popular faux wood look.

Old station wagons are cool today. I’ve long harbored a secret lust for a ’55 Ford Country Squire wagon. Black with a red interior.

“My father had a station wagon,” my friend said, recalling where her words came from. “I backed it into a pole and bent the bumper when I started driving. Didn’t think he would notice right away,” she laughed. “I was wrong.”

“We also had one,” I replied. “A 1958 Ford Country Country Sedan. Beige and white. And huge. Dad traded in a ’56 Chevy sedan when he brought the Ford wagon home in about 1960. Mom made frequent after-school trips in those days from Mount Pleasant to Granny’s house in Pittsburg, checking on Dad’s parents.

One memorable day, Mom and Granny were engaged in one of their spirited conversations, I’m guessing over one of my grandmother’s critiques on child-rearing. My grandmother, bless her heart, could ruffle Mom’s feathers in a heartbeat. She really meant well, it was just in her personality to be everyone’s life coach.

Nearing tears over their discussion and deciding it was time to go home, Mom loaded us in the wagon and gave ‘er the gas heading south on Cypress Street. As the motor revved up and the car gained speed, Mom took the column-mounted shift lever and threw it up into the “second gear position.”

Now, that would have have been just fine had she still been driving the recently traded-off Chevy. It was a standard shift. What Mom forgot in her aggravated emotional state was that the wagon was the first car Dad bought with an automatic transmission.

For anyone never having experienced this automotive faux pas, it’s something you long remember. Shifting an automatic transmission car from “D” to “P” at about 20-25 miles per hour and still accelerating produces a conglomeration of noises. The loud and ugly grinding kind coming from under the car. Almost always accompanied by violent lunges when the rear tires start bouncing up and down on the pavement.

Inside the big station wagon, three wide-eyed children flew off the seats and onto the floor. The seat belt craze was still a relatively new fad as a seldom purchased extra cost option. In brief silence after the car screeched to an abrupt and unexpected stop, my mother uttered one of her rarely used vocabulary words usually called on in extreme frustration. Words we kids were sternly forbidden to repeat.

In that moment of silence in the middle of the street, Mom folded her arms on the steering wheel and the tears came. Soft sobs soon became subtle, muffled laughter. Mom had that quality about her.

She carefully moved the shift lever back into “D.” Luckily, the big behemoth continued under its own power. We arrived home without further incidents or subsequent strange noises.

For the next couple of years, the reliable wagon transported everything from camping gear to groceries and Christmas trees to Cub Scouts. It also took us on memorable family vacations including one in the summer of 1960 when we lodged at the Rose Motel in Mena, Arkansas.

Still a year or two away from buying our first television, I was enamored watching the black-and-white set in the motel room. Gazing at the news of John F. Kennedy being tagged by the Democratic Party to appear on the ballot in November against Republican nominee Richard Nixon.

My fondness for old station wagons remains to this day. Maybe one day I’ll find that ’55 Ford Country Squire wagon I’ve been longing for. Perhaps I’ll even offer my friend a ride for old time’s sake.

But I don’t think I’ll let her drive—not if backing up is required.

—Leon Aldridge

(Image above — 1958 Ford Ford Motor Company original advertising piece that today, not only boldly portrays an iconic American automotive vehicle, but also subtly reminds of a long lost lifestyle in the U.S.)

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Still trying to remember where …

“Take care of all of your memories, For you cannot relive them.”
— Song lyrics by Bob Dylan and The Band

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Memories. I write about them often. Because at this age, I have a lot of memories to keep up with. And possibly because that’s all I can remember.

Most amazing are moments remembered when I forget everything else. My phone. My keys. My checkbook. It will come to me in a minute, but while we’re waiting, let me share a conversation with a good friend not long ago. We talked about what we remembered as new South Ward Elementary students in Mount Pleasant. Back when Fred Flintstone was still in Bedrock kindergarten .

By chance or destiny, we arrived in northeast Texas just a few years apart; coming from opposite directions. The reminiscing was fun. But what we agreed was really the amazing part was how much we remembered about grade school.

My first-grade year was 1954 at Crockett, Texas. The small white frame structure my parents rented sat in the middle of an empty field next to the only nearby residence. Two houses not far from downtown with a long, shared dirt driveway, surrounded by woods on three sides.

We didn’t have a television, or a telephone. What we did have was the sound of rain falling on a tin roof, the smell of Mom’s morning glories covering the trellis on the front porch, and late-night crackers and milk with Dad. It was his favorite bedtime snack.

A green Studebaker was transportation for our one-car family until the fateful Sunday afternoon when Dad and the neighbor, Mr. Hooks, went fishing. Old timbers on a country bridge failed, sending them off into a dry creek bed below.

The crumpled car and my father in bandages are scary memories. He and Mr. Hooks were banged up and bruised, but otherwise, all right.

My youngest sister, Sylvia, was born in Crockett. I remember Dad showing off our newborn sibling at the hospital’s back door, where middle sister Leslie and I waited in the car. Mom in a bathrobe, ws standing behind Dad. Both beaming with smiles.

My father worked for the long gone five-and-ten-cent store chain, Perry Brothers. Small wooden crates in which china dishes were received at the store served many uses, from garage storage to creative kid’s activities. One pinnacle of playtime was the day I launched one in the creek behind our house to see if it would float.

It did.

Basking in that delightful discovery, I then talked Leslie into boarding it to see if it would still float.

It didn’t.

Thank goodness the creek was shallow.

The bungled boating caper, plus the time I talked Leslie into jumping off the roof, certain that a bed sheet was a good parachute, probably accounts for less-than-good memories of parental punishment. Mom seldom administered any, deferring that chore to Dad. But her warnings were stern enough. “You just wait until your father gets home!”

Dad was good to take me to town following his lunch break on summertime Saturdays. Clutching a quarter and a dime, I walked to the nearby theater where the two coins were ample funding for a double-feature matinee plus popcorn and a Coke.

The last of 1954 summer movies was the beginning of first grade in the basement of an old brick school building.

The quintessential teacher, whose name I don’t remember, wore gray hair up in a bun and lace-up, high-heeled shoes. We wrote 1+1=2 on black chalkboards over which hung examples of cursive writing and the obligatory portrait of George Washington. The unfinished one that renders the appearance of clouds at the bottom.

First grade was my first and last playground fight. It went down near the front steps of the old schoolhouse. I don’t remember what it was about or who won it.

I do remember thinking that I didn’t particularly enjoy it and made a mental note to never get into another exchange of fisticuffs if I could help it.

First-grade classes moved into new classrooms after the Christmas break, from the basement into the modern mid-1950s structure with lots of glass and open spaces. That’s where we stood in line for the Salk polio vaccine. It’s also where a spring tornado turned the sky black, dark as night, as we huddled behind the new green chalkboards.

We left Crockett with our memories in 1955, arriving in Seymour where we lived until 1959 when we moved to Mount Pleasant where we stated long enough to call it home. It was the last relocation my parents would make.

I could tell you about our arrival in Seymour. It was about the same time that a young entertainer named Elvis performed at the Seymour High School gymnasium.

But that’s a different memory for a different day.

Right now, I’m still trying to remember where I laid my keys five minutes ago.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, , The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

We were just there for the fun

“Life is about the adventures you take and the memories you make.” 
— Katie Grissom, author

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News that Jimmy Mason in Mount Pleasant had passed away reached Center a couple of days ago.

Everybody in town knew Jimmy. Soft-spoken, kind-hearted, and ready to help anyone he came in contact with, he never gave anyone the option of not liking him.

He was also the hardware store guy. Third generation. The Mason Family Hardware store was a reliable resource for nails to nuts and bolts, and gift items to garden supplies. They were located on the north side of the downtown store when I was a youngster in Mount Pleasant. By the time Jimmy retired in 2022, the iconic store was on North Jefferson in the old Safeway building.

After I left Titus County, I stopped in to say “hello” every chance I got when I was back in town. Because Jimmy and I shared a friendship and a couple of common memories related to airplanes. One easily classified as an adventure I’ve recounted before. One worth telling many times.

I was a brand-new licensed pilot in 1974 with less than 100 hours in my logbook. Jimmy was a student pilot working on his license. We shared a common instructor in Grady Firmin, who instigated this adventure turned good memory.

“Let’s go to the CAF air show down in Harlingen,” Grady offered during hanger flying conversation one evening. For decades, the Commemorative Air Force has produced one of the best air shows in the country that celebrates vintage warbirds.

 A plan was forged for flying to the southernmost Texas border, packing bags and bedrolls for camping under the wings. I was designated pilot-in-command for reasons lost to time. Student pilot Jimmy filled the right seat. Grady, the Vietnam veteran combat pilot and military instructor with Huey gunship experience in his logbook, took the back seat. Jimmy and I looked at each other and shrugged. “OK,” we agreed.

Ready for an evening departure with a planned stopover in Corpus Christi, Grady said, “Let’s go.”

“Wait,” I objected.

“Yeah,” Jimmy added, “We haven’t done a weight and balance check with all this baggage and full fuel.”

Grady countered, “Give it ten degrees of flaps, run up full power and release the brakes. If it doesn’t rotate by mid-field, stop and we’ll throw some stuff out and try again.”

Jimmy and I also agreed that we never met a Vietnam vet pilot that wasn’t fearless or fun.

The plane groaned a time or two, hesitated, and lifted off. We were on our way south as sunlight slipped below the right wingtip. In my book, sunsets and sunrises viewed from a mile high or more are the best.

With Jimmy’s navigation, we found the Corpus airport a few hours later, and we were on the runway.

The next morning, I prefilghted the plane and Jimmy went to grab a sectional to get us to Harlingen. Navigation then was with paper “sectionals.” Think aviation version of a Texaco road map.

“They’re sold out,” Jimmy reported. “No problem, though,” He added. “Someone suggested we fly the coastline south until we don’t understand the radio language. Then fly back about 30 miles and we should be pretty close.’”

“He was kidding … I think,” Jimmy laughed.

Airborne again, a welcome stretch of early morning serenity along coastline viewed from low altitudes was soon disrupted by hundreds of other planes swarming the area, all headed for Harlingen.

We tuned to the assigned frequency for air show traffic where a recording repeated, “enter holding pattern over Combes, maintain 500-foot vertical spacing, listen for the last digit of your N number to breakout, switch to tower frequency and enter left downwind for 36 left maintaining one-mile spacing.”

We circled until we had the instructions memorized. Then Jimmy heard it. “Our turn.” In the pattern at Harlingen, we were about to land; a good thing because fuel was low. That’s when the tower instructed, “Green Cessna on final, go around—too close to aircraft ahead.”

“Forget it,” Grady said from the back seat, “Go!” I looked at Jimmy, he looked at me, and we agreed, “OK.” Keying the mic, I replied, “Harlingen tower, green Cessna, negative go around. Insufficient fuel.”

We breathed a sigh of relief when the plane’s tires reconnected with terra-firma issuing a reassuring chirp. We were on the ground.

Two days of memories later, we headed home. After one late-night landing for fuel at a sleepy Bryan, Texas airport, we made our final touch down at Mount Pleasant around midnight with no clue regarding the value those memories made with friends would hold in the years to come.

Because Jimmy, Grady, and I … we were just there for the fun.

The soundtrack of our lives

“Music is probably the one real magic I have encountered in my life. It’s pure and it’s real. It moves, it heals, it communicates and does all these incredible things.”
— Tom Petty (1950 – 2017) American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. 

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Leadville, Colorado, came to mind. 1976. Or was it ’77? Me, Oscar Elliott, and others from Mount Pleasant. We were in the middle of a motorcycle sabbatical through the Rockies.

The same trip where we topped Monarch Pass and crossed the Continental Divide. Elevation 11,312 feet. Which was the first time I rode a motorcycle over the Continental Divide. And the first time I rode one on snow-covered roads. With snow still steadily falling.  

The song playing on my Pandora today brought back those memories. The same tune was playing on the jukebox in the bar at the back of that restaurant where we we ate supper that night in Leadville. The one next to the motel where we were staying the morning we woke up to find the city and our bikes covered in snow. The song was “The Y’all Comeback Saloon” by the Oak Ridge Boys.

Funny how music works that way.

As a kid, it amazed and amused me when my Uncle Bill, mom’s little brother, told stories about how he and his Navy buddies spent time listening to music. “When a song came on the radio,” he told me with a smile, “the objective was to describe the car we owned at the time, the exact place where we were when we heard the song, and the name of the girl we were with when we heard it. Any additional information was optional at the storyteller’s discretion.”

As a writer and journalist introduced to the news business through the art of photography, the adage, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” makes a great deal of sense to me. But it’s also apparent that any wordsmith worth the paper their thesaurus is printed on can likewise argue for a thousand words expressing as much as one photo.

As a lifelong music lover, however, I will concede the power of both words and images to the magic of music when it comes to shaking memories loose in the lost caverns of our past.

My mother introduced me to that musical enchantment with a collection of 78 r.p.m. records from her Kentucky high school days. I remember Saturdays, her playing records and singing along with them as she completed weekly house cleaning rituals. Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Patty Page, Eddie Arnold, and Hank Williams, Sr.

As a grade-schooler in the 1950s, that genetic appreciation for music led me to saving my weekly 25¢ allowance to spend on records at Richardson’s White’s Auto Store in Mount Pleasant. Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, Fats Domino.

High school and college band memories from the 60s are infused with John Phillip Sousa marches. “King Cotton ” and “The Washington Post” performed at goodness knows how many football games.

At the same time, my car radio was always tuned to KLIF in Dallas during the day. Making radio music memories at night cruising the streets or watching the moon rise over the city lake required tuning to WNOE in New Orleans.

Viet Nam era music by The Box Tops, Creedence Clearwater Revival, or Country Joe and the Fish still remind of the PA systems at drag strips filling pauses in racing action. Music for changing spark plugs at Interstate 20 Raceway in Tyler on Saturday night one weekend, and the next, listening for the next round of class call to the Dallas International Motor Speedway staging lanes.

Even work memories are bookmarked by music. Let me hear “Crazy” by Patsy Cline, and I’ll tell you about the night Johnny Garner and I sprayed a late-night paint job on a big truck at Sandlin’s Body Shop in Mount Pleasant with the radio keeping us awake.

And should I hear George Strait’s “Does Fort Worth Cross Your Mind,” you might have to endure my memories of good times with a dear friend 30-plus years ago at Joe T. Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant.

Long-time American Bandstand host Dick Clark, whose name is synonymous with music, is credited with saying, “Music is the soundtrack of our lives.”

Maybe that’s why mom always appeared as though she was in a different world, lost in time while vacuuming or folding laundry.

It might also be why you can catch me at home on any given evening after work. Sitting and strumming a few chords on a guitar. Singing. Smiling. Remembering that time that me and …

—Leon Aldridge

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© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

Unleashing my inner cowboy

He wears some mighty fancy boots.
And a two-hundred-dollar Stetson.
By the way he dresses up,
You might think he’s a Texan.
But, he’s all hat and no cattle.
— Song lyrics recorded in 1992 by Wylie and the Wild West Show

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There’s a new subculture in the world of “adventure travel.”

Fox News reported last week how the popular TV show ‘Yellowstone’ and its spin-offs, ‘1923,’ and 1883,” are prompting tourists to invade Montana, Wyoming, and even Fort Worth to experience “open spaces of the great outdoors.”

The latest spike in this avenue of travel, according to the story, was credited to the upcoming debut of “1923’s” second season on February 23

They’re calling this phenomenon “cowboy core.” The story cites Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker crediting the trend for increases in Cow Town visitors, adding, “… it’s good for the economy.”

A travel advisor quoted in the article said that “dude ranches” are the draw for viewers seeking the “American frontier” experience. “It looks so magical and majestic. The best way to unleash your inner cowboy is on a dude ranch.”

Inner cowboy was the last thing on my mind when I discovered dude ranches some 30-plus years ago in Bandera County, Texas. For me at the time, a dude ranch was simply a place to live while in the throes of house hunting, having relocated there to manage newspaper operations in Boerne, Bandera, Fort Stockton, and Gonzales.

Three weeks spent at “The Lightning Dude Ranch” turned out to be fun mixed with neccesity. However, finding my inner “drug store cowboy” would be a more fitting description. I would say “all hat and no cattle,” but I never got around to owning a cowboy hat.

Bandera’s reported 2020 census was 829, varying little from what it was when I lived there. Community legend allows that the census is taken in somewhat of a Groundhog Day fashion. I heard it told more than once at the O.S.T. Restaurant in downtown Bandera, that once a year at census time, someone stands on the courthouse steps and counts only souls that can be seen.

The self-proclaimed “Cowboy Capital of Texas,” Bandera actually offers more than just dude ranches. In addition to genuine working cattle ranches, there are places like the aforementioned O.S.T. restaurant with a great chicken-fried steak and a John Wayne room, the legendary Arkey Blue’s Silver Dollar honky tonk where Hank Williams carved his name on the bar top, and several fantastic barbecue joints. My personal favorite being B-Daddy’s.

Lightning Dude Ranch’s colorful  owner and host then was Sybil Broyles. She dressed in cowboy western flair and hosted nightly after-dinner campfire get-togethers. That’s where I learned she was also the ex-wife of William (Bill) Broyles, co-founder and original editor of Texas Monthly magazine in 1973.

Broyles graciously entertained my journalistic curiosity about her well-known ex. In addition to Texas Monthly, Bill Broyles served as Newsweek’s editor from 1982 to 1984. Leaving journalism for screenwriting, he created the television series China Beach and Twin Peaks. During his career, he wrote for films like Apollo 13, Cast Away, Planet of the Apes, Unfaithful, and The Polar Express. His work on Apollo 13 earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Living at Lightning’s was my second horseback riding experience, for which I earned no awards. Neither did I earn any for my first horseback ride as a youngster when, to everyone’s surprise, the steed decided to jump a gate. By the time someone got me off, I vowed never to get on another one. Not even the mechanical variety at the supermarket.

Before the trail ride at Lightning’s with my kids almost 40 years later, I shared my childhood experience with ranch hands. They graciously assigned me to an older mare guaranteeing no problems with the gentlest horse they had.

“She never moves any faster than a slow walk,” said one. “You drop the reins, and she’ll bring you slowly back to the barn.”

We were doing fine until the trail went down one side of a dry creek bed and up the other. The old mare eased down but lunged up the other side in a surprise gallop and headed home.

“We never expected that surprise,” the ranch hand apologized.

“I couldn’t have been more surprised myself,” I replied.

Cowboy core aside, three weeks at Lightning’s left me with many memories.

One, my kids didn’t want to leave Lightning’s. “Forget about a house,” my daughter pleaded. “We want to live here.”

Two, that was my last horse-riding attempt.

Third, my inner cowboy today includes a passion for cowboy boots, a trait acquired in the Hill Country, where business attire included boots, starched Wranglers, and dress shirts.

I’ll add that my record of never owning a cowboy hat remains intact. And the closest you’ll ever see me approaching a cow will be with a fork at a good steak house.  

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025.

The best part of the experience lingers

“To attract men, I wear a perfume called ‘New Car Interior.’”

– American comedian Rita Rudner.

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That new car smell. It’s intoxicating. Should be considered a controlled substance.

It tempted me last week, but I’m in this long-term relationship with a 2009 Chevy Tahoe. We’re celebrating 237,000 miles together this month. And to borrow love song lyrics from The Carpenters, “So many roads to choose, and yes, we’ve only just begun.”

New car dealerships are fun though. Everyone I saw at the luxury brand car store last week was wearing a sports coat and tie. And they was just the mechanics. A coffee pot is a standard fixture at most auto dealership customer lounges. But the upscale lounge at this one approached a soda fountain, coffee shop, and short-order bistro.

I was along for the ride and a day of shopping and dining in the big city. But this dealership even offered to pick up my friend’s car at home (70 miles away), leave a loaner, and return the car once the work was done.

You miss out on little perks like that when a 16-year-old Tahoe that’s traveled the equivalent of nine and a half times around the world calls your driveway “home.” My trusty steed comes with unique challenges, but I know what I’m dealing with.

The dealership loaner with a window sticker approaching what I paid for my house came with a steep learning curve and no idea what to do with it. Things like a small shift lever on the console that anyone driving a car dating back three presidential administrations would assume operated like any other shifter to determine direction of travel.

Think again. “Drive” required an ever so slight and delicate nudge to the left. A similar tender touch back rendered reverse travel. “Hey, we’ve got this,” I thought. “Park with this joy stick must be forward.” Wrong. Park was a completely separate button.

Once underway, 20 minutes later, the newest ultra-luxury car from dealership row began offering more chiming reminders than you could shake a non-shifting gear shift stick at. One, we presumed, was for any car coming too close. Another for any car in front and a third for … approaching vehicles of a different color, or that car trying to grab that good parking spot in front of TJ Maxx before you do?

Not to be outdone, my old Tahoe sounds an alarm when backing too close to an object. Like a car, a tree, a post, litter on the street, or the neighbor’s mailbox. And it will send alerts to the dash when I take off with a door open, a seat belt not fastened, almost out of gas, emergency brake on … and similar trivial emergencies.

The luxury loaner handled those situations in a completely different manner. The emergency brake? Just pretend it doesn’t have one. You can’t do anything about it anyway. It sets automatically when you find and touch the park button, and it releases once you figure out which way to nudge the faux shift lever to accidentally engage the drive position.

Shopping done, packages piled in the back, and you’re ready to roll? Don’t get in a hurry. The car absolutely refuses to start until everyone is seated, buckled in, wind-blown hair adjusted, makeup fixed, attitudes adjusted, and all doors closed and locked. Period.

This one was also a hybrid. The motor would quit running at every red light, then restart with a small lurch when the accelerator was applied. Reminded me of my old ’51 Chevy in high school. It was way ahead of its time. Sometimes quitting at red lights as well. The only difference was that it didn’t restart until I got out and tweaked the carburetor.

My biggest takeaway from the last week? This was the first car that told me what it would do or not. And just how it would do it. Or not. No amount of begging, pleading, or threats changed any operational procedure.  It was the car’s way or no way.

It made me laugh, though. Thinking about my father. Dad scoffed at any car with convenience or fanciness. In an era when cars came in only two or three models, he chose options with his checkbook. The cheapest model with a six-cylinder engine, standard shift transmission, power nothing, and no air conditioning. His idea of luxury was splurging for the extra cost AM radio. About $35 back then. Yes sir! First class all the way.

Dad was quick to point out that the extra cost options meant expensive repairs when something malfunctioned. It was a big day when, mostly at Mom’s insistence, Dad bought his first air-conditioned car. Oh, it was still the base model Chevrolet Biscayne, six-cylinder engine, standard shift transmission, power nothing with a radio. But it had factory air. He used it sparingly, however. “Takes extra gas to run that power stuff,” he cautioned.

Dad wouldn’t know what to do with a car that told him what to do, or did anything for him. I’m not sure I handled it that well myself. But, the best part of last week’s luxury car experience lingers in one aspect.

That intoxicating new car interior smell.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2024. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.