Dac Crossley's Western Blog

Going Back Home

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I received an invitation to read from my western novels at the public library in Kingsville, Texas, the home town of my childhood. Couldn’t pass it up, but my expectations were low. I have no friends there, not any more. We’ve all scattered to bigger and better places. The MoPac railroad shops offices and shops are now gone, along with the jobs they offered. Kingsville is no longer the little of my youth. I do know – I’ve heard it said – “You can’t go home again.”

We drove into Kingsville at dusk and located the Hampton Inn – reservations seem safer at motel chains. And I asked about the old seafood place on the bay, the Kings Inn.

“Better call for reservations,” the lady said. We did, and drove the 20 miles in the dark. A 30-minute wait with your name on the list.

An elderly lady made room for me on a bench. The room washed over me. And suddenly I was home. Quiet friendly faces, soft voices, the laughter of children, the gentle lilt of Spanish. The Grandmother beside me explained about a birthday. Two ranchers slipped in, belts and big buckles, the ubiquitous resistol hats. Smiles all around; a Friday night’s outing. Yes, sometimes you can make it home again, for a little while.

And my reading, the next day? Kingsville was having its annual street fair. We authors sat under a tent, in a light rain, with rock music blasting from the adjacent booth. None of us could read over the heavy bass notes blasting from a refrigerator-sized speaker. Nevertheless, we hawked our books, made friends, laughed at each other. I sold all the books I’d dragged along with me.

“A sense of place.” It’s overused and trite, I know, but I did get that feeling of belonging, of re-visiting a place and a time I thought I’d lost forever. A hypnotist once told me – you should have a quiet memory to serve as a retreat when you feel stressed. Now, I have that memory of a night in Kingsville.

Dac Crossley
November 28, 2014

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” – Greek Proverb.

The Texas Iron

Mother was washing dishes when I burst into the back door.

“Mom, I found a meteorite!”

She shook her head and tried her hands. “Really?”

I handed her the rock I’d found – heavy, black and pock-marked. I’d seen pictures of meteorites and this looked like one to me. I’d run across it back in the mesquite brush. Astronomy fascinated me. Living out there on the far edge of town, I had a good view of the heavens. Night skies tend to be clear in south Texas, down in the Mustang or Wild Horse Desert. My grandmother gave me a book – The Stars for Sam – and I’d studied the pictures. I was sure I was right. I'd found a real meteorite. Mom wasn’t so sure.

The first Texas meteorite ever discovered was a huge one. Early traders heard the tale from Indians – a big rock that never rusted. The first white man to see it thought it might be platinum. Indians thought it was holy. They left offerings beside it.

After several tries, a crew moved it to the Red River and floated it down to Shreveport. It weighed over a ton. They labeled it “The Texas Iron.” But what was it? Rocks had been discovered that seemed to come from – where? Some other world? Was this one such rock?

The Texas Iron was eventually shipped to New York, where an assay confirmed that it was an iron-nickel meteorite. For a time in the 1800’s the Texas Iron was the largest one known. Today in resides in the Peabody Museum at Yale, where it’s labeled the “Red River Iron.” The Texas Iron is still the largest meteorite yet found in Texas.

My little meteorite was examined and confirmed to be genuine – Dr. Leroy Brown, my uncle, certified it. Sad to say, it was lost some place during our move from the country into the city of Kingsville.

But I still have the memory, stored with all the other happy memories of growing up in South Texas.

Dac Crossley
November 2, 2014

“We all have our time machines. Those that take us back are memories. And those that carry us forward are dreams.” – H.
G. Wells.