Unusual items to the north
Headed north and west one day just to see what was there. Went through the town of Bertram, Texas, "Home of the Oatmeal Festival." I think I missed it this year, but I sure will try to get there next year, just to see what it is. The town is small enough that one would call it a village in New England or olde England, but that name "village" just doesn't seem appropriate here. The town lies along both sides of the railroad tracks, the road and the new commercial buildings on the one side, south, the old commercial buildings and residences on the other. One street on the old side looked like a scene from a Western, lacking only hitching posts and horses. The big building on the corner is the Antiquestone Tile Building, 1904, a beautiful old thing still with etched and painted glass.
Farther out the road, near Buchanan Dam, I came on a lakefront neighborhood of some note. Unusual house: a double-wide trailer with a satellite disk (common) and a tennis court (rare). The court was clearly in use recently, net up, swept clean. A few doors down the road was a house with a collection of antique cars out front, and I don't mean carcasses up on blocks. They were in various stages of restoration, and many in good repair or actual running order. A Morgan, wood frame and all. Others I didn't recognize. But the oddest was a Renault 2CV with a boat trailer and boat behind it. I didn't know that a 2CV had enough power to get out of its own way, much less tow something substantial.
Copyright (C) 2000,2001, 2002, Richard Ball Landau. All rights reserved.
2000 summer