AUGUST 2017
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CONTENTS
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Marjorie Hagy History Marjorie is a bibliophile, a history nut and an insomniac, among several other conditions, both diagnosed and otherwise. When she's not working tirelessly to avoid getting a real job, she nurses an obsession with her grandson and is involved in passing legislation restricting the wearing of socks with sandals. She is an aspiring pet hoarder who enjoys vicious games of Scrabble, reading Agatha Christie, and sitting around doing nothing while claiming to be thinking deeply. Marjorie has five grown children, a poodle to whom she is inordinately devoted in spite of his breath, and holds an Explore record for never having submitted an article on time. She's been writing for us for five years now.
Old Timer Just Old Timer The Old Timer tells us he's been a resident of Boerne since about 1965. He enjoys telling people what he doesn't like. When not bust'n punks he can be found feeding the ducks just off Main St. or wandering aimlessly in the newly expanded HEB. Despite his rough and sometimes brash persona, Old Timer is really a wise and thoughtful individual. If you can sort through the BS.
Kendall D. Aaron Spiritual
12
From The Publisher
16 Calendar 18 Art of Innovation 22 History
I’m just a normal guy. I’m not a theology student, I don’t preach in church, and I’ve never written a book. I’m just a normal guy that thinks, and feels, and is on a never-ending journey attempting to be the best person I can be. I fail frequently at this quest, yet each day, the quest continues. I’ve lived in Boerne since the late ‘80s, I’ve got a most beautiful wife, three wonderful children, and just really, really love God. Thanks for going on my spiritual journey with me.
30 Summer’s Last Hoorah! 34 Spiritual
EXPLORE magazine is published by Schooley Media Ventures
36 This Month in Texas History
in Boerne, TX. EXPLORE Magazine and Schooley Media Ventures are not responsible for any inaccuracies, erroneous information, or typographical errors contained in this
38 Old Timer
publication submitted by advertisers. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the opinions of EXPLORE and/or
26 Chronicles: Chairs
Schooley Media Ventures. Copyright 2016 Schooley Media Ventures, 930 E. Blanco, Ste. 200, Boerne, TX 78006
Publisher Benjamin D. Schooley ben@hillcountryexplore.com
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Operations Manager Peggy Schooley peggy@smvtexas.vom
Creative Director Benjamin N. Weber ben.weber@smvtexas.com
ADVERTISING SALES 210-507-5250 sales@hillcountryexplore.com
Authentic AN
WAK E U P
518 River Road | Boerne, TX | www.littlegretel.com | 830-331-1368
DEAREST EXPLORE READER, I spent the better part of my formative years growing up in Boerne. It was a cool time to grow up in Boerne, as it afforded me the opportunity to experience a lot of things here that the current kids probably don’t get to do. Riding a horse around town, no traffic, and skipping rocks while standing on the Cibolo Creek dam. It was a cool place (and still is) and created a good environment for kids. I had a friend in middle school that lived way out Hwy 1376 named Matt Stokes. He was a good kid, and we met when he showed me how to wrap my math book with those Butter-Krust book covers they made back in the day (remember those?). He liked to play basketball and talk about girls, so we got along nicely. He lived on a sizeable ranch out there near Wasp Creek, and I stayed overnight at his house a few times. A simple ranch house, he lived there with his parents. His father was the size of an oak tree and had hands that matched. Every time I stayed over, his dad was gone before we were awake, even the weekends. He returned at sundown, and while we had spent our Saturday playing basketball and talking about who we could beat up at school, he returned looking like he had been in battle. His cowboy hat was dusty, his jeans were dusty, and well…. every inch of him was dusty. He would dust off on the front porch, Matt’s mom would hand him an enormous glass of iced tea, and he would drink it in one gulp. And with that, he would go inside. To my adolescent mind, this guy was pretty much the equivalent to John Wayne. Or some sort of Viking warrior. I asked Matt what he did all day, and his reply was poignant: “Everything.” Matt explained that he worked on the ranch all day, and that every once in a while, Matt got to go with him. And soon enough, we both went with him. I’m not sure why he decided to take us with him one Saturday morning, but there was no mistaking that it was time to go. “Get up boys” he said as he flipped on the light in Matt’s room. “We’ve got some work to do this morning.” 10 minutes later, we stepped out onto the porch in the pre-dawn light. He loaded us up in the cab of his old truck, and off we went for parts unknown. We drove down dirt roads and listened to bad country music. Matt was ecstatic. We all jostled around the cab as his dad sipped his coffee and said very little. Our lights danced on the gravel, the sky was just light enough to see, and we had to dodge a deer a time or two. It was exhilarating. He asked us if we had brought our work gloves. “Did you get the thermos your mom made for us?” he asked. Still not knowing where we were going or what was about to happen, I was ready for anything. Pre-dawn in Texas. Middle of nowhere. Three “men” about to go do something adventurous. It was AWESOME.
It turned out that our “adventure” that morning was helping him dig post holes for a cattle enclosure. It was back-breaking work, but I don’t really remember that. But I can remember with crystal-clarity that 20 minute drive in the early morning hours as we embarked on something exciting. The cool air. The gravel as it hit the underside of his truck. All the random tools, empty beer cans, and assorted crap littered around the floorboard. I can even remember the smell of leather and sweat and tall tales. 30 years later I was thinking about Matt the other day. I was driving to work at 5:30am and stopped off at the gas station here in town. Inside were men that reminded me of Matt’s dad. Big, husky men with huge hands and beat up boots that were sharing a cup of coffee and some conversation with the local sheriff. They were somehow already dusty. Outside, work trucks pulled up for gas and one of the 6 guys inside jumped out to fill ‘er up. The guys inside were laughing or wiping sleep out of their eyes. The cash register guy in the gas station knew each of these patrons and even asked them “Are you heading up to Kendalia today?” or “Are ya’ll still working on that well in Sisterdale?” And he really wanted to know the answer. I pulled out of the parking lot and drove Main Street in the pre-dawn hours. The traffic light blinks yellow. Streetlights buzz above me. The air whooshes through the cab of my truck and I even turn on some bad country music. I’m probably in the minority when I say that if I’m left to my own accord, I really enjoy getting up VERY early and heading out for my day. It’s not that I have a burning desire to be sitting at my desk. Nor do I have amazingly high goals for my day. I think it’s just because for my 10 minute drive to work, I’m not really heading to work. I’m heading off on an ADVENTURE. I’m in my truck and I’m driving down dusty roads to work with my hands and return home dusty. I’m going to dig post holes and cut trees down and break a wild mare. The day could bring me ANYTHING, and by golly, I’m ready for it. I get to imagine that no matter how mundane my life may be at times, there’s still a part of me (and I think most every man) that yearns to hike across Africa, or camp out under the stars, or to head up a cattle run. And the mystery of the forth-coming day is as exciting to me as that one morning on an old ranch in the Hill Country. Enjoy the month of August. Sure, it’s hot and sleepy, but never forget that there are adventures to be had. EXPLORE, enjoy your families, and travel Main Street in the pre-dawn hours. Just wave at me as you pass by. Smiling,
ben@hillcountryexplore.com
12 | EXPLORE
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AREA EVENTS
Get out and enjoy the great Texas Hill Country!
The most comprehensive events calendar. Send submissions to info@hillcountryexplore.com
GRUENE August 13 Gospel Brunch with a Texas Twist In the tradition of a New Orleans-style gospel brunch, this event serves aweinspiring gospel music coupled with a mouth-watering buffet catered by the Gristmill River Restaurant and Bar. Gruene Hall, 1281 Gruene Road. gruenehall.com August 19-20 Old Gruene Market Days Nearly 100 vendors offer uniquely crafted items and packaged Texas foods. Gruene Historic District. gruenemarketdays.com KERRVILLE August 19 Kids Off-Road Triathlon Swim, bike, and run for ages pre-K through 18. Everyone’s a winner. Distances designed for your average kid. Must provide your own off-road bike and running shoes. Singing Wind Park, 2112-2116 Singing Wind Dr. kerrville.org August 24-Sep. 24 “Photoquest” Hill Country Camera Clubs’ annual judged show. Kerr Arts and Cultural Center, 228 Earl Garrett St. kacckerrville.com NEW BRAUNFELS August 4-5 Miranda Lambert in Concert The country singer brings her Highway Vagabond tour to New Braunfels. Whitewater Amphitheater, 11860 F.M. 306. whitewaterrocks.com August 18-20 Lone Star Gourd Festival Features award-winning gourd artists and their art, an American Gourd Society sanctioned competition, live demonstrations, and more. Classes are available August 16 and 17 prior to the festival. New Braunfels Convention Center, 375 Castell Ave. texasgourdsociety.org
BANDERA August 1 Cowboy Capital Opry Grand Old Opry-style entertainment is hosted by Gerry and Harriet Payne. Includes refreshments and door prizes. Silver Sage Community Center, 803 Buck Creek Dr. silversagecorral.org August 5, 12, 19, 26 Cowboys on Main Cowboys, steers, horses, wagons, strolling cowboy musicians, and gunfighter reenactments are just some of the Western-themed action you might see on Main Street every Saturday afternoon. Downtown Bandera. banderacowboycapital.com August 5, 12, 19, 26 Flying L Chuckwagon Dinner Enjoy barbecue, wagon rides, roping lessons, hat and pistol branding, archery, old-time photos, cowboy stage show, gunslingers, line dancing, and other entertainment. Flying L Hill Country Resort, 566 Flying L Dr. flyingl.com August 5 Market Days Arts and crafts vendors on the courthouse lawn in downtown Bandera. Bandera County Courthouse, 500 Main St. banderatexasbusiness.com BOERNE August 1 Abendkonzerte The Boerne Village Band is the longest continuously playing German band in the world outside of Germany. Concert regulars come early to grab their favorite spot at the Plaza, to hear the oompah-pah of their favorite tunes and watch the kids do the chicken dance. Bring lawn chairs, blankets, and picnics. Main Plaza, 100 Main St. visitboerne.org August 5, 19 Hot Rod Night Hot Rod Saturday Nights are reminiscent of old-fashioned Americana street parties—a gathering place for old and new friends. Soda Pops, 103 N. Main St. visitboerne.org August 5 Moondance Concert Series Enjoy live music under the oaks and evening stars. Bring your lawn chairs, blankets, food and drinks, family, and friendly dogs on leashes for an evening full of live music, dancing, and fun. Cibolo Nature Center, 140 City Park Road. visitboerne.org
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August 12-13 Market Days Artists, crafters, and vendors share their creative talents and wares to the sounds of homegrown Texas musicians. Main Plaza, 100 Main St. visitboerne.org August 24 A Thirst for Nature Join presenter Justin Moore of Airborne Aerial Photography as he explains how he provides high-resolution, fine-art images and video that helps companies and organizations view their world and tell their story in whole new ways. Cibolo Nature Center, 140 City Park Road. visitboerne.org FREDERICKSBURG August 5-6 Pacific Combat Living History Reenactment See equipment and weapons used during WWII and a battle reenactment set on an island in the Pacific. National Museum of the Pacific War Pacific Combat Zone, 508 E. Austin St. pacificwarmuseum.org August 11-20 “The Marvelous Wonderettes” Fredericksburg Theater Company presents this musical featuring more than 30 classic ’50s and ’60s hits—a must-take musical trip down memory lane. Steve W. Shepherd Theater, 1668 U.S. 87. fredericksburgtheater.org August 12-13 Grape Stomp at Armadillo’s Leap Winery Leap into the grape harvest, literally, at Armadillo’s Leap. Souvenir T-shirts will be available to put your purple footprints on. Armadillo’s Leap Winery, 6266 U.S. 290. armadillosleap.com
STONEWALL August 11-13, 18-20, 25-27 Grape Stomp at Pedernales Cellars Celebrate the grape harvest by stomping grapes, listening to live music, and enjoying award-winning wines. Pedernales Cellars, 2916 Upper Albert Road. pedernalescellars.com August 26-27 Grape Stomp at Becker Vineyards Celebrate the end of grape harvest; barrels will be cut in half and filled with grapes to stomp. Becker Vineyards, 464 Becker Farms Road. beckervineyards.com August 26 Grape Stomp at Chisholm Trail Winery Celebrate the grape harvest by stomping on grapes and enjoying food and live music. Chisholm Trail Winery, 2367 Usener Road. chisholmtrailwinery.com August 26 Movies Under the Stars: “All the Way” Enjoy a film on the LBJ Ranch—just like friends of President Lyndon Johnson experienced. The LBJ biopic “All the Way” (2016) will be shown on a large outdoor screen. Guests are encouraged to bring lawn chairs, blankets and refreshments. The program is free. LBJ Ranch, LBJ National Historical Park. nps.gov/lyjo August 27 109th Anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Birthday Visitors are invited to attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the Johnson family cemetery. In honor of President Johnson’s birthday, tours of the Texas White House will be free. LBJ Ranch, LBJ National Historical Park. nps. gov/lyjo
August 12-13, 26-27 Live Pari-Mutuel Horse Racing Fun for the whole family featuring a full slate of live quarter horse and thoroughbred races. Gillespie County Fairgrounds, 530 Fair Drive. gillespiefair.com
August 27 President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 109th Birthday The public is invited to participate in this free event commemorating LBJ’s birthday. Check in at the Visitor Center first for information on the day’s activities. Lyndon B. Johnson State Park and Historic Site, 199 State Park Road 52. tpwd.texas.gov
August 18-20 Trade Days Shop more than 400 vendors in seven barns and acres of antiques, a biergarten, live music, and more. 355 Sunday Farms Lane. fbgtradedays.com
WIMBERLEY August 3-5, 7-12 “Macbeth” Enjoy Shakespeare under the stars. EmilyAnn Theatre and Gardens, 1101 F.M. 2325. emilyann.org
August 24-27 Gillespie County Fair and Parade Agricultural, livestock, and home skills displays at the 129th annual event. Horse racing, concerts, dances, a carnival, and midway all at the longest continuously running fair in Texas. The parade starts at 10 a.m. on Friday on Main Street. Gillespie County Fairgrounds, 530 Fair Drive. gillespiefair.com
August 5 Market Days More than 475 booths along a windy, shady path featuring treasures of all sorts. Live music and great barbecue too. Lions Field, 601 F.M. 2325. shopmarketdays.com
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314 Schweppe St $515,000 MLS# 1234208
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C ibolo C reek H ealtH . org
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210.507.5250 • 930 E. Blanco, Boerne 78006 we’re so good, you thought this was an article. didn’t you?
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ART OF INNOVATION On the Move, located on IH-10 just north of Flagstop is one of those businesses that you have driven past hundreds of times, and might not have the slightest idea of what they do. You’ll see several box trucks for sale out front, but there’s a lot that goes on inside this business that you don’t see. CJ Steen, Marketing Director and granddaughter of the founder, finds that fully unpacking her company is both exhausting, yet she finds it truly exhilarating.
Originally founded in the 70s to serve the storage industry, the company soon pioneered the storage industry rental truck industry. The niche, where storage unit companies provide customers with free box trucks to assist with their moves, proved immensely popular and helped propel the company forward. Steen’s grandfather is still on site every day, and her mother is the CEO. Upon graduation from Hawaii Pacific, Steen joined in 2008. She begins, “Everybody always asks us what we do, and I always have to take a very deep breath. We sell a rental truck program to storage customers and from there we branched out into so many other things. We sell those used trucks as well as other vehicles, we are licensed for insurance specific to storage unit owners, we offer vinyl wraps for the trucks, and in fact we can do them for ANY vehicle. We have a patent on food truck design, and ultimately bought a 2nd patent on a food truck ,so that’s opened doors for us to design virtually any food truck. We’re working with multiple universities throughout the country and also clients like Six Flags. Our truck is more spacious and these universities and theme parks are using them to service the kids across the campuses and their customers throughout the theme parks. At last count, we had over 1400 storage facilities on the insurance program now.” Obviously a complex operation, the family owned business is in a daily goal of innovation with products well separated from the storage facility industry. Steen explains, “My mom, grandfather and myself….we are all constantly trying to find a need that must be fixed. From web based solutions to software to custom products… we’re all constantly looking for a reason to create something new. We’ve innovated a closet organization system, pens, software, even a potato peeler. We’ve even taken our automotive experience and we sell/rent 1903 Oldsmobiles that we have turned electric and call them ‘Replicars’.”
This ever-changing environment of creation is where Steen finds her true inspiration and motivation. She continues, “I work on projects every day that haven’t even come to creation yet. We begin the marketing before the product is even complete yet, and it’s so much fun with the conceptualization of our advancements. It’s so fun sitting down and brainstorming and trying to figure out how to solve the problems and create these new products and innovations. My grandfather worked at Ford for several decades and so he has learned that we should always be trying to improve things and we continue that philosophy each and every day.” As with any small business, her customers are both necessary for the revenues, but they also keep her and the entire company motivated to deliver a product that exceeds their expectations. “My customers are unsure of what we do when we first meet but they get so excited to learn what we do and understand how we work. Taking their desire to market their business via our trucks and tools and then having them send me a photo of themselves when we deliver their products…it’s just wonderful. The return on investment for most of them is so crazy and I can see it in their smiles. Additionally, working on the food trucks is so fun, too – seeing their trucks around town and around the country – it’s just a beautiful thing. Our food trucks are custom built here and are delivered all around the country, so to see them as I travel around the country is super cool and keeps me so motivated.” As stated at the beginning, you have driven past On the Move countless times and probably knew but a fraction of the work that actually occurs in their facility. A true spirit of innovation and creation exists inside, and the entire family works tirelessly to realize dreams for their clients and customers. Steen finishes, “I’m proud of my family and how we’ve taken this company and grown it so much and how we’re not complacent in what we do – we’re constantly growing and looking for new ways to innovate.”
On the Move 28825 I-10, Boerne, TX 78006 www.onthemovetrucks.com 800-645-9949
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WWW.HILLCOUNTRYEXPLORE.COM | AUGUST 2017
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Amazing Hill Country vistas and gently rolling terrain on 140 ac. This is an Executive Style property with horse friendly pastures, spring fed pond & asphalt roads. The 3700 sq ft main gouse is 3B-3Bath stucco with new metal roof and beautiful pool. The 1100 sq ft 1847 original log cabin is 3B-that will sleep 10 & is completely furnished. Plus a 1200 sq ft hunters cabin/guest house w/ 2B-3 bath & 8x10 refrigerated walk-in- cooler. Metal hay barn, equipment barn, main storage barn with attached covered barn and 2 wells.
Sha McCumber, GRI • ABR • PMN RE/MAX Genesis, Owner 210-286-5202 shamccumber@remax.net | www.shasellsthehillcountry.com TREC # 0546088
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ALL’S FAIR AT THE FAIR By Marjorie Hagy
W 22 | EXPLORE
When I was a kid, long ago and far away (in 70s-era Pleasant Valley) my brother and sister and I looked forward to the Fair in the way that many children of a forgotten past must have anticipated the coming of a traveling circus.
So we made do in Pleasant Valley. There was a group of us urchins who ran around together, every one of us barefoot from the day school let out to the day they made us go back- except for church and VBS times- our feet inevitably growing as tough and impermeable as shoe leather so that we could tear across a field of sticker-burrs, stepping on snakes and scorpions and pointy rocks with not so much as a flinch. Seriously, once I actually DID step on a scorpion, and thought it was a sticker-burr- true story. I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with scorpions, and that one was by far the least painful- much, MUCH less than the time I sat on one in a lawn chair while wearing shorts. Now where was I? Oh yeah, our intrepid band of waifs in Pleasant Valley- we got up in the mornings, got on our bikes and were gone for the day- remember being a kid when your bike was your WHEELS? You thought that bike could take you anywhere, your friend might come up to you and go ‘Man I’m bored, you wanna go to Australia?’ and you would go, ‘K, lemme get my bike.’ That was us. We spent whole days at a stock tank owned by someone of whom we knew nothing save for the fact that he wasn’t us. One summer we spent every waking hour building a raft in which to set sail on the high seas of the tank, which when launched (with about twenty-three hands on deck) immediately sank, to which emergency our friend Jimmy responded by trying to rescue all us girls by means of forced artificial respiration and what I believe might be called chest compression, for which troubles we swiftly beat him up. But still, we were starved for some real fun, the kind you could only get at the Fair.
From the beginning of summer- nay, from as far away as those waning days of the school year when we slumped in our desks drowsing, the County Fair loomed ahead on the other end of summer like a kind of shimmering mirage at the end of a long, hot road. I’ve made mention before of how my parents always behaved as though instead of being only eight miles or so outside of town we lived somewhere on the lonesome frontier of yore and civilization and was many a hard-fought mile away, a journey which not only entailed loading up a wagon and team of oxen with all our worldly possessions but which also almost certainly would involve perilous encounters with everything from bears to unfriendly Indians to plagues of grasshoppers. Maybe it was the oil embargo of those days and the fact that gas prices were spinning wildly out of control up to such dizzying heights as 79 cents a gallon, or perhaps it was just the spirit of the times that made my folks pretend as if we were squatters in a sod hut breaking the prairie with our bare hands- my dad, friends and readers, was a faithful subscriber to a screamingly funny magazine called Mother Earth News and my mom had discovered the Foxfire Book, a how-to manual for wanna-be hippies, under which influence she often attempted to make us swallow things like vinegar and hogwort and eye of newt. At any rate, our revels in town were severely limited to Mom’s bimonthly pilgrimages to Boerne to buy a sack of flour and a dress-length of calico, or catching rides to the pool from unwary neighbors.
The very first fair in the United States was a soon-tobecome annual sheep-shearing held in rural Virginia in 1803, so it’s hard to imagine that the local kids way back then were as excited by the prospect as we Pleasant Valley rugrats were in our heyday, but who knows, children back when life was simpler liked a lot of weird things, like pig bladders and dolls made out of corn cobs, and were a lot more isolated than even we were. The first official county fair, the Berkshire County Livestock Fair, was held in 1811 in western Massachusetts and organized by a chap named Elkanah Watson who was called the father of American agricultural fairs, and I take my hat off to that guy. What a great idea! That first fair consisted of fourteen farmers parading their animals to the fairground for speeches, picnics and socializing. It had all the elements of every fair to follow: exhibits, competitive judging with prizes awarded, and social events like dances, dinners and speeches about improving agriculture and new techniques. In fact, improving agriculture was the main point of fairs in a brand-new America where 97% of the general populace lived in rural communities and most people were involved in one way or another with farming. “Women’s work” such as sewing, baking and preserving- was also judged and awarded. County fairs were the venues for all kinds of innovations in both farming and homemaking, hosting the debut of such new technology as steel plows, gas-driven tractors, cream separators and electric lights. Farmers who experimented with new breeds and methods were publicly recognized and honored for doing so, which encouraged others to do the same. The whole idea of the county fair caught like a wildfire, and by the end of the Civil War there were over 1,300 all around the country. With all this going on it was natural that Kendall County, obviously farming country, would get in on the action and throw a fair of our own. Boerne, the Big Town around these parts, functioned as a happening hub of commerce and industry where denizens of neighboring bergs would come to pick up supplies and do business, so
it only stands to reason that it should also be the home of the fair. Also, of course, it was the county seat. The first Kendall County Fair was held in 1906 at and around the Metropolitan Opera House here in town- once located on the southeast corner of Main Street and what is now San Antonio Street. Now, the Metropolitan Opera House sounds like a fine place; the type of swanky music hall where Jenny Lind would perform; but in reality the Opera House was a lot more down-home than the name would lead one to believe. This place was basically a hall where folks went to hear speeches and lectures and public readings, to catch a play or a medicine or magic show, or to listen to the Village Band and the Gesang Verein (singing society)- the kind of good clean fun that entertained the masses in the mythical days before radio or TV. They would even sometimes clear the place out and roller skate on its wooden floors. At that first fair the Opera House held all the “women’s fancy work”; their articles of sewing, knitting, tatting, quilting, as well as the baked goodies and home-grown veggies, fresh or put up in jars. As the SA Express put it, they also “displayed all the arts that little girls learned at their mother’s knees,” and for their various efforts participants were awarded prizes for all kinds of things, from “the highest loaf of bread to the best-turned stitch.” The kids could compete in the fair with youth corn and calf and canning clubs which would prove to be the earliest versions of the modern day 4-H Club. There was a baby contest, too, with prizes of $5 and $2.50 for the first and second bestlooking babies in the county. The livestock to be judged were quartered in the Plaza caddy-corner from the Opera House where all the farmers, ranchers and their families could stroll among the pens on the square and check out what their neighbors were up to in the way of horse, cow, pig and goat flesh. “The pride of the livestock exhibit,” again quoteth the Express, “were jacks and mules from all over the county,” but it also included horses, cattle and pigs, chickens and turkeys and calves and piglets and all that kind of stuff, and everyone roamed back and forth between the Opera House and the Square goggling at the sights. The Fair was held at the Opera House and its environs for a few years, and for a brief time after that in a small building around the corner from the Opera House, with the livestock still kept at the Square. Somewhere in there a parade was added to the festivities, and by the time it made its debut the Fair had already become THE social event of the year in Kendall County. In 1913, the Fair entered the big leagues. In March of that year a mass meeting took place with the intention of forming a Kendall County Fair Association and by July the corporate charter was granted and a Board of Directors appointed. The directors included County Vocational Ag teachers, the Kendall County Agricultural Agent, the County Home Demonstration Agent, and a Lady Manager of the Women’s Department, among others. The first president of the KCFA was local businessman H.O. Adler and the first Lady’s Manager was Miss Martha Fabra. That year also marked the dedication of the brand new fairgrounds. The Herff family donated 40 acres from their property (which once stretched from Sheep Dip Crossing all the way to Sisterdale.) The SA Express enthused that the site was “just about topographically perfect for such a purpose... the ground is adjacent to the SA&AP Railroad and all trains stop at one of the gates of the Fair.” Fairgrounds all over the US usually shared a lot of the same features: a grandstand and an oval racetrack (the purpose of which
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was supposedly to perform “trials of speed” but were actually used for horse races with a lot of illegal betting going on), a Women’s Building (sometimes called a Floral Hall) and an exhibition hall, with other smaller things clustered around, like cook tents and lemonade stands. That first year at the Herff Park fairgrounds there was only the lone exhibit building and the livestock were kept penned out in the open, unsheltered, which, after all, was pretty much how they were used to spending their time anyway. The Fair Association and volunteers all over the
county got to work right away and by 1914 the Old Dance Hall, the Old Exhibit Hall and livestock barns were built, along with “a deep well, race course, pens for hogs, sheep, goats and cattle and barns for horses...attractive ladies rest room, [and] a modern log cabin erected by the Woodsmen of the World for use as the KCFA headquarters,” according to the Comfort News. And of course, the Beer Garden. In a county full of Germans, you weren’t gonna have a Fair without a lotta beer. Even without all those niceties, though, that first year at the Fair’s permanent home was a bumper year, with 1,000 people attending on the first day, Friday, and an attendance of over 5,000 on Saturday. Fredericksburg, Kerrville, Comfort and many other surrounding towns sent “large delegations and numerous representatives” to our Fair and, gushed the Express, “visitors in large numbers gathered here from countryside, town and city to renew friendships and acquaintance to enjoy the entertainment, inspect the splendid exhibits and put aside the cares of life for one day.” That last bit really is what the Fair was all about. From the time Kendall County was settled through 1906 when they had the first Fair and all the way up to the 50s and even the 60s, all the folks who lived scattered all over the countryside were pretty well isolated- oh, there were all the little communities, the little churches and shopping trips to town and visits with the family, but up until the last fifty years or so it wasn’t just as easy as hopping into the car and running into town for a sno-cone, especially before cars were invented. Even when there were cars the country people often couldn’t afford one, nor the luxury
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of gas for getting about the county. All the people living on their outlying farms looked forward to social events like the Fair with an eagerness we can hardly imagine now, we 21st century people who can’t go out into the backyard without our phones, for whom a conversation with someone in India, say, or Antarctica, is only a mouse click and webcam away. In those days the Fair was about hearing the latest innovations in farming and in learning the newest technology while checking out the latest farm equipment, it’s true, but it was so much
more. By far the most anticipated and important aspect was the opportunity to meet with friends you rarely got to see, to wander the cavernous exhibit hall checking out the fancy work, the flower arrangements or the enormous cucumber one of your neighbors had grown. To sit under a tent and listen to music and toss back some fresh lemonade, and to dance on the wooden floors of the Old Dance Hall. It was a time out of time for the hard-working farmers and their wives, and for the kids- a time of wonder and magic. Strolling down the midway, with its games and rides and the barkers beckoning you into the freak show tents, the simple rural folk of Boerne garnered rare thrills, mystical moments that only existed one weekend out of the whole year. Ah, man, the magic of that midway when I was a kid! In the week or so before the Fair started, my mother, if tempted off the old homestead and into the Big City by any chance, would watch the influx of carnies with a wary eye, warning us kids not to wander away from the pool or wherever we might have the good fortune to be visiting lest the carnies should snatch us- like any of ‘em would want us! On the other hand, maybe she was worried we would run away and join up- an idea which certainly crossed our minds. My brother and sister and I spent many an hour discussing the amazing paradise that life would become if we hit the road with the carnival, and encountering the carnival folk in droves all over town right before the Fair we studied them, fascinated by these free-spirits who were living the dream. And the midway at nightoh, those hot summer nights of the Fair, the flashing
lights from the rides and the canned music, the barkers hollering you over, “Hey blondie!” the name they always called at my sister and I, (way back when we were natural blondes), the taste of a hot funnel cake and the smell of cotton candy, roaming the midway with your friends. And then there was the Kendall County Queen’s Contest. In the way back, the Queen’s Contest was very formal, the contestants in beautiful gowns and the queen herself donning her elaborate train like those of the Fiesta Court. The queen was always “attended by visiting royalty,” as the Boerne Star put it: such stars as Miss Fiesta de San Jacinto and the Queen of the Peach Festival in Fredericksburg. Jonnie Jo of the House of Reynolds was a contestant one year, as was Patricia of the House of Schmidt, and, although they weren’t using that phrasing anymore, in 1981, Marjorie of the House of Hagy. Oh yeah, readers, many moons and many pounds ago this reporter succumbed to the pressure of her peers and found herself competing for the highest office in the county, and was sadly denied her chance to reign. I coulda been a contender. And so the Fair endures, and the Beer Garden and the Old Dance Hall endures, but the Old Exhibit Hall was burned down by arsonists in 1984- seventy years old, and with all its permanent exhibits as well as all the Berges Fest records along with it. Also up in smoke went a particularly horrifying yet strangely compelling creature who used to haunt my childhood dreams- a stuffed two-headed calf, born at some ancient time to a surely puzzled farmer and who lived but for a few weeks on earth, but forever in the hot little brains of every Boerne child for generations. I never did go into the freak shows on the midway, the ones where the barkers enticed the curious with promises of mysterious wonders inside- I could’ve, certainly, even though my folks strictly forbid it, because my folks strictly forbid several things that I did on a regular basis, but I knew my limitations, and was pretty sure that if I were to encounter the Elephant Man or the Bearded Lady in there a complete emotional breakdown was sure to follow. As it turns out, I discovered on the Tuesday morning after Labor Day when we were all back in school and from friends who had been suckered in, all I’d missed were a couple of dusty old gallon-jars containing pig fetuses they were trying to pass off as mermaids, or some damn thing. Still, I’m glad I didn’t give in- just the thought of jarred pig fetuses is making me shaky right now as I write. But yes, the Fair endures, and Kendall County-ites as well as large delegations of out-of-towners still wander through the exhibit halls gawking at the quilts and the preserves and the floral arrangements, and folks still indulge in a couple of off-the-record bets around the trials of speed at the race track. They still sit under the tent in the dusty heat and toss back lemonade, still prop up at the beer garden haling people with whom they went to old Boerne High School. Girls still dream of wearing a fairytale gown and being crowned the queen of the county and kids still run alongside the parade route and somebody’s mother will still warn em to stay away from the freak shows and somebody will sneak in anyway, a kid will puke on the Tilt-A-Whirl and an accountant will recall how he used to dream of running away with the carnival. And a kid’ll still stroll along the midway with a herd of her friends, in the heat and the canned music with funnelcake-dust bearding her chin, and know that for a fact this is the best night of her life.
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CHAIRS By Steve Ramierz
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In these times, chairs seem to be invisible. They often sit alone and forgotten in a corner. People pass them by, and move them out of the way, like the inconvenient homeless person who sleeps on a bench - which is itself just a big chair. They pull them up and sit on them as if they aren’t there, or as if they are always there and therefore worthy of being forgotten. Sometimes, I have felt like a chair. There was a time, when chairs had meaning, and beauty, and value. They still do, but the mass of humanity has lost the ability to appreciate their simple elegance. Vincent Van Gogh painted a portrait of his bright yellow chair. The painting is entitled, “Vincent’s Chair.” It is one of my favorite paintings. He had only one chair, and so he understood its intrinsic value; like a man with a single lover, instead of as a man with many women who pass anomalously through his life. Vincent’s chair is not just a chair; it is a memory of restful times, and thoughtful moments, and friendships. Vincent’s chair invited him, and only him, to sit and rest. It is a lover, and I must admit wanting it for myself from the very first moment I saw it. “Thou shall not covet thy neighbors chair,” commands the burning bush; but still, I am a sinner. There was a time, when chairs were built by artisan. They began as sections of wood that began as sections of living trees. The chair maker never really made the chair; he simply released it from the wood. That is the way of life
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and art; nothing is really created, it is released; it has already happened in another dimension. The chair is a part of the tree, the tree is a part of the chair, and we are all a part of it all. When the artisan finished releasing the chair from the tree, he could sit back, on the chair, and see what they had done together. He understood its meaning and its value and like God on the seventh day, he knew that it was good. We need to go back to the times where it was good. Sometimes people are like chairs. They can seem invisible. We have become enslaved by our technology; slavery wrapped in the promise of freedom; chained to our cell phones and blackberries, encased in the exoskeletons of our cars, and entombed inside our houses that somehow never become homes. These are distant and lonely times. We text each other in broken, dispassionate, semithoughts, and have legislated away our freedom to be kind in the workplace. Today, a well-meaning hug or kind word can leave you broken, ruined, permanently damaged and wondering where the humanity has gone in human kind. In our attempts to protect our “rights”, we have taken them away. So now, we each walk past each other, looking straight ahead, avoiding eye contact, avoiding any contact, and then returning to our pseudo-lives by way of the exoskeleton freeway, that isn’t free, and isn’t a way. Like the chairs that we pull up without thought or appreciation, we are now mass-produced, anonymous, and largely alone. Each morning, I wake before sunrise and go to my favorite local coffee shop. A large round “Table of knowledge” is surrounded by chairs that to the uninitiated all look alike. Mine is the one that sits at one o’clock, facing the door. I always know if it has been moved. From
that chair I spend time with some good souls, “salts of the earth,” if a little rough around the edges and unacceptable by our current plastic national standards. From our chairs we talk and laugh, and “solve” the world’s problems one by one. Most importantly, we are honest, true, natural, open, failing, forgiving, involved, connected, forgiven, and in general, we are all the things that American culture seems to be losing. Isn’t it ironic how a group of chairs in a circle around a campfire or a small town coffee shop table can bring worlds together? Maybe we need more good chairs and small town coffee shops. As I write these mental ramblings, I sit in Steve’s writing chair. It is a simple chair, dark mahogany in color, with a small khaki seat pad and an inviting nature. I love it, and appreciate it. Steve’s writing chair is the anchor from which all of the artifacts in my home office are attached. It is like the mother of a family, whose passing reminds all of the void she once filled. In the corner, sits my “adventure chair.” Made by hand in India, it is a dark wooden camp chair whose seat, back, arms, and hassock are made of thick, dark, adventurous, leather. From its seat, I have read many books of hunting in Africa and passages though distant lands. Both of my chairs are different. Both are appreciated for what they are, and for the journey they have taken. I do not expect them to be the same, or conform to my expectations. I take them just as they are. Maybe if we could find it within ourselves to stop to appreciate the hand crafted chair, with all its imperfections, we could then begin to accept the differences between each other. Maybe we could begin to reject the mass produced and plastic that surrounds us both in furniture and in the masses of people that used to be humanity. Maybe we should all take the time to sit for a while, and think about that.
Changing form in a Magical Way Our mission at ShapeshifterS is “Forever Changing” meaning we want our returning customers to find fresh new inventory and offerings every time they stop by to visit. Our vision is to be an inviting destination, offering a multi-faceted environment for everyone. Craft and project classes will be offered featuring a vast assortment of subjects and fun projects. Varying special events will be held to enhance the seasons and support the community. Parking is available, so come by and enjoy a relaxed place to rest your feet and share good conversation with neighbors and new friends. An open invitation awaits everyone to visit the”Monkey House” (our restoration workshop) where the magic of ShapeshifterS takes place! Beware though, you can easily get caught up in the intrigue and activities and find yourself helping out. The perfect place for the guys and gals to hang out, swap stories and kill some time while their significant other shops! Come by and say hello to Pam and Hank and enjoy some history, a cup of coffee and experience the “Spirit of the ShapeshifterS”.
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720 N MainStreet Boerne,Texas 78006 830-331-7421 www.shopshapeshifters.com www.facebook.com/shopshapeshiftersBoerne www.instagram.com/shapeshifters.boerne
SUMMER’S LAST HOORAH!
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It’s August and summer is drawing to a close. However, it’s not over just yet. True you probably won’t be able to make a quick trip to the Grand Canyon or Disney World but there are some pretty great things to do much closer to home. Definitely not day trips, these are places to go and things to do that you’ll want to take a bit longer on. But nothing you can’t accomplish over a three day weekend.
BALMORHEA STATE PARK Balmorhea, TX
Are you the type of family who likes to take trips off the “grid”? Then this is definitely the place for you. Spring-fed swimming is Balmorhea’s claim to fame, and it doesn’t disappoint. Beautiful, crystal clear spring water is a welcome refreshment to the August heat in Texas. The hotel there is relatively spartan in terms of amenities, so be sure to pack food and activities for the family while you’re in your room at night. The Davis Mountains are right on your doorstep making for some pretty spectacular scenery. The McDonald Observatory is a relatively short drive which is always good family activity. They even offer “star parties” so check out their website before your trip to see if they’re offering one when you’re there.
PADRE ISLAND / SEA TURTLE RELEASE Corpus Christi, TX
KEMAH BOARDWALK Kemah, TX
Unfortunately you have to drive through Houston to get there from here, but we think it’s worth the risk. This place is a trip back in time so to speak. Amusement park rides, midway games, an arcade, playground, shopping, and dining. What more could you ask for in terms of family fun? They even have special events year round. Houston’s only three hours away. Eight with traffic. So why not go? You could even stop in Brenham for some ice cream or Shiner for a beer on your way there. See? Lots of family stuff to do on this trip.
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The coast is always an obvious choice when it comes to long weekend getaways. Bay fishing, deep sea fishing, the Texas State Aquarium, USS Lexington, eating seafood that is only hours old instead of days are just a few of the things you can do with the family. Something you might not know about is that the park service releases a WHOLE BUNCH of baby sea turtles around this time of year. After digging up freshly laid eggs, the conservationists incubate the eggs until their time to hatch. They then release the new baby turtles at the Padre Island National Seashore. You can watch these little guys flip and flop their way into the surf all while being protected (relatively) from scavenging gulls. And the best part? It’s free. They do the release at 6:45 in the morning which, admittedly, with a family can be a pain. But if you can muster the motivation to do it you can stay at a pretty nice beach, by Texas standards, all day for free. Check out their website and call the turtle release hotline to see if there is a release scheduled for when you want to go. www.nps.gov/pais/naturescience/releases.htm Hatchling Hotline (361) 949-7163
GREAT WOLF LODGE Grapevine, TX
If parents ever questioned the existence of God, we submit this place as proof. Paradise on Earth with an 80,000 square foot indoor water park, multitude of kids activities, shopping, kid’s and adult spa, movie theatre, and multiple dining options. Kids love it because kids love sensory overload. Parents love it because they can relax while jr goes on his water park induced psychedelic activity trip. Then at the end of the day everyone comes back to eat and sleep like bricks after the day’s activities. No, it’s not cheap. But if you’re like any other parent, you can’t put a price on your child’s happiness. Or a few hours of peace and quiet. www.greatwolf.com
DINOSAUR VALLEY STATE PARK Glen Rose, TX
Long ago, dinosaurs left footprints in the mud at the edge of an ancient ocean. Today, you can walk in their tracks in the bed of the Paluxy River. Find dinosaur tracks, camp, picnic, hike, mountain bike, swim and fish in the river, watch for wildlife, ride your horse, or visit the interpretive center. The park is a short drive from Fort Worth, so if you don’t feel like camping in the middle of summer you’re not far from the big city. There’s also the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Glen Rose. So when you’re done looking at the fossilized remains of dead animals, you can go see some live ones.
DIGGING FOR DIAMONDS Crater of Diamonds State Park, AK
This one is a little further than the others here. But let’s face it. You get to dig for freaking diamonds. Granted, you need to keep your expectations realistic here. The chances of you digging up a 40 ct. uncut white diamond (it happened here in 1924) are pretty slim. But for a family with youngish kids it’s great. I mean, they get to dig in the dirt and get messy without mom and dad getting mad at them. And mom and dad get the kids to do all the dirty work with the potential to retire to Puerto Rico next month. It’s win win. The park offers tools for rent to aid in your expedition as well as free identification of any potential money makers you might find. However, you’ll have to employ your own gemologist and diamond cutters to get $$ value out of your find. Most diamonds found in the park are too small to cut and are eventually set into pendants. But it’s fun to think of the possibilities while you get your hands dirty with your now happy, if not a little grubby, kids.
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STILL WONDERING WHAT WE DO?
STOP IN TO CHECK OUT OUR INVENTORY WE GUARANTEE A PLEASANT BUYING EXPERIENCE. YOU SHOULD GET EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT AND YOU SHOULD ENJOY GETTING IT.
Family owned and operated since 1992
CHECK US OUT AT WWW.ONTHEMOVEVEHICLES.COM CALL US AT 800-645-9949 | 28825 IH-10 W BOERNE, TX 78006
• Ken Nietenhoefer •
Premier Custom Home Builder in the Texas Hill Country For over 40 years, KCN has been building beautiful custom homes of all sizes in Boerne, Comfort, Bandera, Castroville and throughout the Texas Hill Country. Our reputation for honesty and integrity, combined with our commitment to deliver excellent quality, expert craftsmanship, and customer service, has afforded us the opportunity to build many long lasting relationships with our clients. In fact, we have constructed two or more jobs for 32 different customers.
830-816-5202 920 East Blanco Road Boerne, TX 78006 www.kcnbuilders.com
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REJOICE By Kendall D. Aaron
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Here is the story of a climber, determined to reach the summit of a high mountain. After years of preparation, he began his adventure. Only he journeyed alone, because he wanted all the glory. He began his ascent, and as daylight faded, he decided to continue until night fell. The night fell heavy as he was overcome by total darkness. The moonlight and starlight were hidden within the clouds. There was zero visibility. He was only a few yards away from the summit when he slipped climbing a ridge and fell off, falling at a frightening speed. While falling, he could only see shadow-like figures in the darkness and felt the tug of gravity sucking him down. In those anguishing moments, he saw his life pass before his eyes. He thought death was near when suddenly he felt the tightening of the rope around his waist that tied him to a nail embedded in the rock wall of the mountain. In desperation, suspended in mid-air, he screams "GOD, please Help me!" Then unexpectedly, a deep voice from heaven responds: "What would you have me do?" He replies, "Save me!" "Do you really think I can save you?" "Of course, my Lord."
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"Well then, cut the rope." There was a moment of silence, and then the man tightened the rope around his waist. The mountain rescue team tells a story of a man they found frozen to death, his hands wrapped firmly around a rope tied to his waist...hanging two feet from the ground. I’m not sure where I first read this little parable, but I think of it frequently. If you’re anything like me, the entire concept of “letting go” is one that borders on the impossible. We are the unfortunate souls that complicate our own lives by grabbing hold of the steering wheel (of life) and white-knuckling our way through virtually every situation. We know the destination that WE want, and come heaven or hell, we’re going to do everything we can to ensure that we reach it. Although that’s not always the plans that God has for us, and that’s where “letting go” becomes a necessary exercise in faith and trust. And I’m the first to raise my hand say that I’m AWFUL at this. We have two conclusions to our situation: one is good, and one is bad. Obviously we aim for the good conclusion. We pray for it. We put in the work to reach it, and we tirelessly seek the good conclusion. But sometimes, we are not destined for that conclusion despite our efforts. We arrive at the “bad” conclusion, and we are distraught. It could be an illness, a broken marriage, or a rebellious child. No matter how badly we want issues such as these to resolve in the “good”, sometimes they don’t. And we may never know the WHY, but God had it written that our stories would play out in ways that we don’t desire. So what are we to do? Well, unfortunately, the answer is simple: LET GO.
I read a little quote the other day that said “I was very sad that I didn’t have shoes and then I met a man with no feet.” The act of “letting go” is one that calls us to simply rejoice in our blessings, in the MIDST of our troubles. You lost someone important to you due to a disease, so rejoice in the time that you did have. You lost your marriage, but rejoice in your children. Your finances are wiped out, so rejoice in the fact that you have friends that are helping you get back on your feet. Every instance of our lives leaves room for rejoicing. Is it easy? No. We want to mourn our present circumstances (and perhaps there is a time for that), but there is also a time to praise God for the blessings that we have. I’ve been through this current exercise of late, and one thing that’s helping me is that I keep trying to picture myself on the other side of my trial. Would I hope that I spent countless hours wringing my hands over the issue and drive myself to near hysteria with anxiety only to ultimately end up where God wanted me? Or would I hope that I prayed earnestly for God’s wisdom, trusted His plan, stayed calm, and then stood at the conclusion in the exact spot that He wanted me (even if it’s not where I wanted to be)? We both know the answer. Let go of your fears. Let go of your control. Breathe slowly. Pray like never before. Find the peace that He wants for you. And most of all, REJOICE.
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H AUGUST 1ST, 1731
Capt. Juan Antonio Pérez de Almazán, the commander of San Antonio de Béxar Presidio, presided over what was probably the first election in Texas history. In March he had welcomed a group of settlers from the Canary Islands by laying out a place for their homes and by establishing a municipal government. The immigrants formed the nucleus of the villa of San Fernando de Béxar, the first regularly organized civil government in Texas. On August 1 the new city council met to elect alcaldes, and electoral politics was off and running. On this date in 1966, Charles Joseph Whitman began a killing rampage that left seventeen dead and thirty-one wounded in one of the worst mass murders in modern United States history. Whitman first killed his mother in her apartment and his wife in their residence. He then went to the tower on the University of Texas campus where he clubbed a receptionist, who later died, then killed two other people and wounded two more. Gaining the observation deck at an elevation of 231 feet he began firing on persons crossing the campus and others on nearby streets, killing ten and wounding thirty-one (one died a week later). Police returned his fire from the ground while police officers Ramiro Martinez and Houston McCoy gained the observation deck, where they shot and killed Whitman. An autopsy revealed a tumor in Whitman’s head but medical authorities disagreed over its effect on his actions.
AUGUST 2ND, 1832
Texas settlers refused an order to surrender their arms to José de las Piedras, commander of the Mexican battalion at Nacogdoches. The ensuing battle of Nacogdoches is sometimes called the opening gun of the Texas Revolution. Piedras had issued his inflammatory order in the wake of the Anahuac Disturbances. The ayuntamiento of Nacogdoches resisted the order, organized a “National Militia,” and sent messengers to outlying settlements requesting military aid. Those who responded elected James W. Bullock their commander. On the morning of August 2 Bullock demanded that Piedras rescind his order and declare for Antonio
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History is a popular topic with our readers. Marjorie Hagy’s HISTORY piece is probably the most popular article in our illustrious publication month after month. With that fact, we thought we’d share some broader Texas history each month. Nothing earth shattering, but we hope you might find something to make you pause and say, “Huh. Well I’ll be.”
López de Santa Anna and against the Centralist Mexican government, but Piedras refused. Bullock’s men entered the town that afternoon and eventually captured the Old Stone Fort and other key locations. That night Piedras evacuated his soldiers and headed for San Antonio. A detachment of mounted Texans, including James Bowie, caught them the next day; after a running fight along the Angelina River, Piedras’s men turned against him and surrendered him to the Texans. In the battle of Nacogdoches, Piedras lost forty-seven men killed and forty or more wounded. Three Texans were killed (a fourth died later) and four were wounded.
AUGUST 9TH, 1908
Blues pianist Robert Shaw was born in Stafford, Texas. His parents had a Steinway grand piano and provided music lessons for his sisters, but Shaw’s father did not permit the son to play. Years later Shaw told an interviewer that he would “crawl under the house” to catch the musical strains coming from the piano lessons, and he played the piano when the rest of the family was away from home. Reportedly, the first song he learned was “Aggravatin’ Papa Don’t You Try to Two-Time Me.” By the time he was a teenager, Shaw would slip away to hear jazz musicians in Houston and at the roadhouses in the nearby countryside. In time, despite his father’s opposition, he decided to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz musician. Shaw learned his distinct brand of “barrelhouse” piano playing from other musicians in the Fourth Ward, Houston, the center of black entertainment in the city. His career flourished in the 1920s and 30s, then suffered a thirty-year hiatus while he ran a grocery store in Austin. Shaw began performing again in 1967 and gained international recognition before his death in 1985.
AUGUST 10TH, 1935
The Texas Department of Public Safety was established by the Texas legislature, prompted by the election of Governor James Allred, who ran on a platform of better law enforcement. The department was to enforce laws to protect public safety and to provide for crime prevention and detection. A three-member Public Safety Commission, appointed by the governor for six-year terms, oversaw
the department and in turn named the director and assistant director. Homer Garrison, Jr., the first assistant director, became the director in 1938, and led the department for almost thirty years. Originally department operations were classified into six divisions: the Texas Highway Patrol, Texas Rangers, Bureau of Communications, Bureau of Intelligence, Bureau of Education, and Bureau of Identification and Records. Through the years the Department of Public Safety continued to reorganize and expand its operations into such activities as licensing of drivers, investigation of drug trafficking, accident records, emergency management, automated fingerprint identification, combating organized crime, and motorvehicle theft.
AUGUST 20TH, 1866
President Andrew Johnson, declaring that “the insurrection in the State of Texas has been completely and everywhere suppressed and ended,” officially ended the Civil War by issuing a proclamation of peace between the United States and Texas. Johnson had declared a state of peace between the U.S. and the other ten Confederate states on April 2, 1866. The last land battle of the Civil War took place at Palmito Ranch near Brownsville on May 13, 1865, more than a month after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse.
AUGUST 22ND, 1977
The charter class entered the Texas A&M University College of Medicine. The school had its beginning in 1971, when the Texas legislature authorized the Texas College and University System Coordinating Board to designate a state institution of higher learning “for the establishment, operation, and maintenance of a medical school to be located at or in connection with any Veterans Administration facility that may be made available for that purpose.” Two years later the Coordinating Board designated Texas A&M University as the state-supported university system to administer a program in medical education. Application was made to the Veterans Administration later that year, and announcement was made in 1975 of an award of $17,071,609 in support of the new program. Negotiations were completed with the Veterans
Administration in Washington and with Scott and White Memorial Hospital in Temple for conduct of the newly funded program. The first class of thirty-two physicians graduated on June 6, 1981. In 1991 the board of regents of the Texas A&M University System established the Texas A&M University Health Science Center, with the College of Medicine as its initial focal program.
AUGUST 27TH, 1990
Texas blues musician Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash on the way to Chicago from a concert in Alpine Valley, East Troy, Wisconsin. Vaughan was born in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas on October 3, 1954. His exposure to music began in his childhood, as he watched his big brother, Jimmie, play guitar. Stevie’s fascination with the blues drove him to teach himself to play the guitar before he was an adolescent. By the time he was in high school, he was staying up all night playing guitar in clubs in Deep Ellum, a popular entertainment district in Dallas. Vaughan moved to Austin in the 1970s, and by the early 1980s he and his band, Double Trouble, had a solid regional reputation. His career took off in the 1980s, and his work eventually garnered four Grammy Awards. Vaughan was killed at the height of his career. More than 1,500 people, including industry giants such as Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, and Stevie Wonder, attended his memorial service in Dallas. On this day in 1908, Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th president of the United States, was born on a farm near the town of Stonewall in the Texas Hill Country. His father was a state legislator, and his mother also encouraged her son’s interest in public affairs. Young Lyndon graduated from Southwest Texas State Teachers College (now Texas State University) in San Marcos in 1930. The following year he became secretary to Congressman Richard M. Kleberg. Thus Johnson was set on the path of a lifetime of politics--from director of the National Youth Administration, to U. S. congressman and senator, and ultimately to the White House. His notable achievements include signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
WWW.HILLCOUNTRYEXPLORE.COM | AUGUST 2017
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OLD TIMER Bergmann Lumber is closing. This is a very, very bad thing.
Main Street was a place of commerce, just as it is today, but it was much more personal than now. Let’s be honest, how many locals actually go “shopping” on Main Street a lot? I know it happens, but the true lifeblood of commerce for retailers on Main Street now are tourists. Folks that come in from random locations to visit the little German town and window shop on Saturdays. Back in the day, it was a place that you went for the things that you needed. Heck, the original Ford dealer had his cars parked in the parking lot next to the Boerne Grill. There were insurance agents, and law offices, and auto parts stores. Clothing stores that carried cowboy hats and Wranglers. They would even fix your boots. Cheap lunch places where you could take a break and would invariably see a dozen people you know. It was HOME, and it was familiar, and it was quiet.
I don’t fault the Bergmann family for closing, and I can’t blame them for choosing to do so. They have been in operation continuously for 60 years, and well, all good things must come to an end. I know that the daughters (Shanna and Christina) probably had some other plans for their lives, but were sucked into the family business and worked tirelessly to keep it afloat. They are probably also ready to break out and seek new adventures. Randy, the father, lost his wife in 2000 to cancer and has been working his fingers to the bone for decades at the shop. Fishing probably sounds like a little more fun than working the store, I’m sure. For all involved, it was probably a hard but necessary decision to hang it up. I find it to be a very, very bad thing because their shop was one of the last hold-outs to a bygone era of the “truest of the true” Mom and Pop stores that were built, not on their inventory or amazing website, but on the strength of their handshake and for the fact that they knew your kids and your spouse and about how well your son played last week at the football game. They also were the last of the dinosaurs on Main Street that weren’t there to sell you fancy, over-priced retail crap…
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but instead, they sold you nuts and bolts and parts and a shovel and some well-made tools. Tangible necessities that people NEED…located right in the heart of this silly “Hill Country Mile” thing that the CVB is always trying to call it. I’m not cranky about them closing…I’m sad. I don’t have any reason to bitch at the City (as I typically enjoy doing), and I have no excuse to moan about growth as the cause for their closing. It’s just a moment in time, but for me, this is truly one of the last great foundational families that has made Boerne what it is, and now they’re leaving. I think I’m sad because it makes me feel old, and Lord knows I’m well aware of my age. It makes me one of the last dinosaurs that remember what Main Street USED to look like, and I yearn for it. It was a place of relationships and friendly faces. Women that would walk along and fuss at children that were misbehaving and weren’t their own. Men drinking lemonade under the awning in front of the Auto Parts store. It was a necessity of life in a small town in rural Texas, and Bergmann’s Lumber was always a central character in that story.
Bergmann’s Lumber represented that to me as it has remained the same familiar store with the squeaking wooden floors for 60 years. They’ve added some more “tourist-friendly” stuff over the years to compete, but the heart of Bergmann Lumber was that it was a time capsule to a different time. A place where you could enter, see the same smiling faces, and share a laugh with a friend while you picked out a new socket set or some more fencing wire. And now they’re gone and boy, I feel super duper OLD now. I know that I like to get snarky with this column and bitch about something stupid that the City is doing, but today is a day of both celebration and mourning. I’ll celebrate the legacy that Bergmann Lumber leaves on this town and how they are forever etched into the history books of this town. At the same time, I will mourn the permanent loss of what once was and will never be again. Our town is exploding with growth, and smart businessmen and women are finding ways to capitalize, as it’s their job to do so. The main section of Main Street will probably forever be a bit of a tourist trap now, and there’s little to remedy it. So here’s to you, Bergmann Lumber! We salute your dedication to this community for so many decades, we respect your legacy, and wish you well in all that you have planned for your futures.