SEPTEMBER 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
32 This Month in Texas History
14
Calendar
34
18 Art of Protection 22 History 28 Spiritual
Texas Music
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.
EXPLORE magazine is published by Schooley Media Ventures in Boerne, TX. EXPLORE Magazine and Schooley Media
36 Steve Tye
Ventures are not responsible for any inaccuracies, erroneous
40 Great American Hot Dogs
information, or typographical errors contained in this publication submitted by advertisers. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the opinions of EXPLORE and/or
42 Old Timer
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
DEAREST EXPLORE READER, Much like you, I look at pictures of myself frequently and grimace. The scars. The wrinkles. The shadows. The greying hair. I’ve got my battle wounds and until you stop and look at them (via pictures), you don’t really remember that they’re there. My Publisher photos don’t help. High-quality, highly detailed pictures of myself that Ben (our graphic designer and photographer) likes to make as big as possible and I just look at them and sigh deeply. I’m so much “younger” in appearance in my mind, and to see the reality of my appearance can be…well…depressing. I don’t think I’ve ever told this story to you before, but my right eye droops a fair amount. It’s not because of age, it’s because the entire right side of my face is titanium. Seriously. As I have chronicled in these letters, I used to race motorcycles as a kid, and I bought one with my brother in college. I bought it on a Saturday, and by Sunday afternoon I was in the ER. I was fully protected (helmet, pads, etc) but sure enough, I can remember flying through the air just before impact I can remember thinking “This is probably going to hurt.” The next thing I remember was the ER folks cutting my clothes off. From there, I remember a bright blue light above my eyes and a booming voice that said “Don’t MOVE.” I was in an MRI machine as they were searching for brain damage on me and the machine operator was telling me to hold still. In the months that followed, I ultimately had to have reconstructive face surgery that included a metal cheekbone and an eye socket that had to be rebuilt. It was pretty intense and my kids think it’s super cool that you can feel screws in my eyebrows. When I was in my 20s, you couldn’t tell that the work had been done and most people said “REALLY?” when I would explain what my face had experienced. As I have aged, the damage is beginning to show itself. I figure by the time I’m 80 the whole right side of my face will droop and, well, I’ll have a cool story to tell I guess to all my old cronie friends down at the Duck. And no, I don’t set off the metal detectors. I also have dark eyes. This isn’t unique to me, because who doesn’t complain about the bags under the eyes, but I have them and they irritate me just as yours irritate you. Middle age and stress has brought me sleepless nights, and they happen way more than I’d prefer. Don’t we all hate it when your friend walks up to you and says “Man, you look tired!”? You want to throttle them and say “That’s because I am, jerk.” I am stressed, I don’t sleep enough, I have 1000 things I’m trying to do, and yeah… it gives me dark rings under my eyes. It happens. Just the same as for you. Scars. Dark circles. Laugh lines. Wrinkled foreheads. I suppose I’m just getting a perspective for what these things really mean, and how to handle them. I stare at my own photos of late and scratch my chin as I wonder who this rough looking middle-aged man actually is. Because it’s not me.
I’m 26 in my mind, and behave as such. Sure, I’m wiser, but I also catch myself playing basketball with my 11 year old with an abandon that middle aged men surely should not exhibit. I still ride motorcycles (much to my mother’s shagrin). I’m still climbing those trees, jumping in the surf, and cannon-balling into the pool with the best of them. But I’m “middle aged”, dammit. Shouldn’t I tone it down a little and grab an iced tea and watch from the patio while the youngsters engage in such shenanigans? Perhaps. But here’s the thing that I’m learning: my scars, my wrinkles, the screws in my eye socket that kids like to feel…well, those are nothing but evidence of LIFE. And boy have I had some adventures in this life. I don’t like to look at my drooping face, but I can sort of chuckle about the entire story with my brother and my misadventures with motorcycles. The lines in my forehead trouble me, but they’re evidence of thought, and learning, and struggle. My laugh lines are just that: remnants of laughter. The bags under my eyes, while annoying, simply mean that I have things to worry about…and if you have things to worry about, you probably have more than some that have nothing. So I guess I’ll take it. Give me “worry” as opposed to giving me nothing. I’m not getting any younger, and neither are you. My late friend Bill Zaner used to tell me all the time, “I don’t need a good memory – I have a great imagination!” and it’s so very very true. I can choose to remember the pain, the struggles, the heartaches and all of the things that led me to my current wrinkled-but-not-yet-broken state of appearance. I can choose to moan about my wrinkles and drooping eyes and grumble about my inability to keep up with my 11 year old playing basketball. OR I could choose to wear my scars and wrinkles like a badge of honor and remember that some people don’t get the privilege of aging. Let us all remember those that don’t see their 20th birthday, or their 10th, or their 1st. So here’s to you, friends. Those of you that catch yourselves poking at the newly found wrinkles on your face each morning while you ready yourself for the day. For the ones that sigh when you stare at yourself while brushing your teeth and think “Who in the HELL is this old codger staring back at me?!” I’m with you, and I feel your pain. But let’s take it in stride, let’s appreciate our scars and wrinkles as simply battle wounds dished out by LIFE, and let’s give thanks that…so far…we have survived the war. Welcome to September. It’s not any cooler, but it’s going to be soon. May we turn the page to a new season, EXPLORE our lives, and give thanks that we are here to see a new chapter unfold. Smiling,
ben@hillcountryexplore.com
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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
September 9 Gruene 10K Participants enjoy a leisurely or competitive run through the Texas Hill Country with medals for each age group. All participants can enjoy post race music at Gruene Hall with food and beer. Sponsored by the New Braunfels Running Club and benefiting a local charity. Gruene Historic District. gruenetexas.com or athleteguild.com September 16-17 Old Gruene Market Days Nearly 100 vendors offer uniquely crafted items and packaged Texas foods. Gruene Historic District. gruenemarketdays.com September 21 Come and Taste It A featured winemaker showcases three of its newest released, top-selling, or hardest-to-find wines, alongside a craft brew hand-picked by The Grapevine staff. The complimentary tastings are held on the patio and garden. Samples of food that is offered for sale will be provided, and each event features live music and prize giveaways. The Grapevine, 1612 Hunter Road. grapevineingruene.com BANDERA September 2 Market Days Arts and crafts vendors on the Courthouse lawn in downtown Bandera. Bandera County Courthouse Lawn, 500 Main St. banderatexasbusiness.com September 5 Cowboy Capital Opry Grand Old Opry-style entertainment hosted by Gerry and Harriet Payne. Refreshments and door prizes. Silver Sage Community Center, 803 Buck Creek. silversagecorral.org September 23 Cajun Festival and Gumbo Cookoff Enjoy live Cajun and zydeco music on two stages, a gumbo cookoff, homemade Cajun food, dancing, arts and crafts, games, and souvenirs at the 37th annual event. Lakehills Civic Center, 11225 Park Road 37. cajunfestival-medinalake.com September 28-October 1 Lace, Grace, and Gears Attempting to set a world record for the largest gathering of female motorcycle riders in one place. Four event-filled days include tent camping, music, rides, and more. 2E Twin Elm Guest Ranch, 810 FM 470. lacegracegears.com BOERNE September 1-3 Kendall County Fair and Rodeo The 112th annual fair supplies homegrown fun in a carnival, rodeo, and livestock show as well as homestead heritage exhibits. Enjoy a multitude of food booths, craft booths, live music, clowns, children’s activities, and more. Each evening is capped by a dance with a variety of bands and dance music. The parade on Main Street in downtown Boerne starts at 10 a.m. on Saturday. Kendall County Fair Grounds, 1307 River Road. visitboerne.org September 9. Second Saturday Art Beat and Photo Septiembre Join us and our guest artist for Photo Septeimbre. Meet the gallery artists along with invited artists, Jeannie Hartford Sheppard for this special event! As always, there will be wine, hors d’oeuvres and fine art. It’s an event you won’t want to miss! 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm www. carriagehousegalleryofartists.com September 9-10 Market Days Artists, crafters, and vendors share their creative talents and wares to the sounds of homegrown Texas musicians. Main Plaza, 100 N. Main. visitboerne.org September 9 Moondance Concert Series: Lost Mule Band Enjoy live music under the oaks and evening stars. Bring your lawn chairs, blankets, 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 September 16, 30 Hot Rod Night Reminiscent of old-fashioned Americana street parties—a gathering place for old and new friends. Soda Pops, 103 N. Main. visitboerne.org September 23 Science In Nature This free back-to-school kickoff shows elementary-age children how to use nature to learn science. Activities include making seed necklaces and seed dissections, coloring with soils, drone technology and how it can be used it to help the environment, the neat way insects move, and more. Cibolo Nature Center, 140 City Park Road. visitboerne.org
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September 28 Sip and Savor Join Kendall County Women’s Shelter for a tasting event with an impact. The event will feature the area’s upscale restaurants, wineries, distilleries, and breweries. Each vendor will highlight a specialty item from their menu. Cana Ballroom, 202 W. Kronkosky St. visitboerne.org September 29 Oktoberfest A celebration of Bavarian culture, history, and great beer. Enjoy good food, German-Texas craft and domestic beer, special events, and the finest in live music. Olde Town, 265 S. Main St. visitboerne.org September 30 Pints For Polio This is a free fundraising event at RANDOM Beer Garden. Starting at 6:30 p.m. Proceeds are matched 2 for 1 by the Bill Gates Foundation. A donation of $25 or more gets you a Pints4Polio glass and craft beer. Live music by Two Tons of Steel. pints4polio.org COMFORT September 3 Founders’ Day Celebration Established in the mid 1850s, Comfort features authentic 19th century Germanstyle architecture. The celebration includes a scavenger hunt to find architectural features in Comfort’s historic buildings with prizes from local businesses. Enjoy historic walking tours, music, and entertainment. Historic Downtown. comfort-texas.com
KERRVILLE September 1 First Friday Wine Share A fun way to meet new or different wines, people, and places of business or art. Please bring no more than one bottle of wine per every two people. Singles may feel free to bring a bottle every other month. Try to find the themed bottle of the month (if you can’t, just default to your favorite). Finger foods are always welcome. Bring your own wine glass—which could be a conversation starter in itself. firstfridaywineshare.com September 1-3 Kerrville Fall Music Festival This annual three-day event combines camping, music, and the best Texas wines and beers. Quiet Valley Ranch, 3876 Medina Highway. kerrville-music.com September 2 Kerr County Market Days An indoor marketplace for vendors of original handcrafted goods, artwork, and homegrown plants and produce. Pets on a leash are welcome. Kerr County Hill Country Youth Event Center, 3785 Texas 27. kerrmarketdays.org September 9-10 Texas Gun and Knife Show New and used guns, knives, gold and silver coins, jewelry, camping gear, military supplies, and several businesses under one roof. Kerr County Hill Country Youth Event Center, 3785 Texas 27. texasgunandknifeshows.com
September 12 Music in the Park Texas musicians provide free outdoor music. This month’s performer is the Almost Patsy Cline Trio. Comfort Park, 427 Main St. 830-285-9345 September 16 Fall Art Festival Roughly 25-30 area artists will sell their works, including jewelry, painting, glass, and ceramics. Historic Downtown. comfort-texas.com
September 29 Texas Heritage Music Day and Community Concert A free educational, community event featuring singersongwriters, a tribute to Jimmie Rodgers, and an evening concert. Schreiner University, 2100 Memorial Blvd. texasheritagemusic.org
FREDERICKSBURG September 1 First Friday Art Walk Tour fine art galleries offering special exhibits, demonstrations, refreshments, and extended viewing hours the first Friday of every month. Various locations. ffawf.com
NEW BRAUNFELS September 26-October 1 Comal County Fair The largest county fair in Texas features a barbecue cookoff the weekend prior, a parade through historic downtown New Braunfels, a PRCA rodeo, bull riding, pig racing, a livestock show, carnival games and rides, and food of all kinds. Comal County Fairgrounds, 701 E. Common St. comalcountyfair.org
September 9 Boys & Girls Club Shopping Tournament Costumed teams of four compete to see who can spend the most money at participating stores on Main Street, with a portion of the sales going to the Boys & Girls Club of Fredericksburg. Main Street. shoppingtournament.org September 15-17 Trade Days Shop more 400 vendors in seven barns, with acres of antiques, a Biergarten, live music, and more. Sunday Farms, 355 Sunday Farms Lane. fbgtradedays. com September 16 Nimitz Foundation Symposium “Behind the Wire: POWs and Internees” will feature internationally recognized scholars, authors, historians, and veterans. Steve W. Shepherd Theater, 1668 US 87. pacificwarmuseum.org GRUENE September 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 Friday Afternoon Club A Gruene Hall tradition, now in its 19th year, where hipsters, oldsters, suits, locals, and drifters mix it up to start their weekend rite (pun intended). This quintessential Friday happy hour celebrates the warmer weather with great beer prices, prize giveaways, and the best in Texas tunes broadcast live by KNBT 92.1 FM Radio New Braunfels. Gruene Hall, 1281 Gruene Road. gruenehall.com
September 29-October 1 River Revival Music Festival A collaboration between Houston-based Splice Records and St. Arnold’s Brewery, the annual fest was created as a place for music lovers to share good times, great tunes, and camaraderie, all while enjoying the beauty Texas nature has to offer alongside the mighty Guadalupe River. KL Ranch Camp-On the River, 5455 River Road. splicerecordstx.com/ events/river-revival WIMBERLEY September 1-24 “The Winter’s Tale” Performed in the Burdine Johnson Indoor Studio Theatre. EmilyAnn Theatre & Gardens, 1101 FM 2325. emilyann.org 512-847-6969 September 2 Market Day Walk along a shaded path to discover treaures of all sorts and enjoy lots of great food and live music. Lions Field, 601 FM 2325. shopmarketdays.com September 8-October 1 “Making God Laugh” Sean Grennan’s dramedy follows 30 years with the same family as they celebrate the holidays, squabble over family issues, and avoid eating the dreaded fantasia dip. What ensues is an equal mix of light-hearted humor and a poignant look at the many changes we encounter as we age. Wimberley Playhouse, 450 Old Kyle Road. wimberleyplayers.org
l a u n n 3rd A
RANDOM FREE EVENT - Starting AT 6:30
PINTS FOR POLIO September 30th - PINTS4POLIO.ORG C A SK TA P P I N G A N D M E E T & GR EE T B Y : Al Axuier
Ron Cisneros
Nicole Bishop
210-294-0025
Kirsten Cohoon
11 Upper Cibolo Creek Rd.
LIVE MUSIC BY A Rotary event
$25 Or More Donation Gets you a P4P Pint Glass & Craftbeer Proceeds are matched 2 for 1 by the Bill Gates Foundation!!
HAVE FUN & HELP ERADICATE POLIO!! /RandomTexasFamilyFun
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Charming cottage on .66 acre lot one block off Main Street. 3/2 Main house 2403 sq. ft. 1/1 Guest suite off garage (not included in footage). Mature trees and meticulous landscaping.
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1440 River Road • Boerne, Texas 78006 • 830.816.5095
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F
ART OF PROTECTION For Kirsten Cohoon, currently the City Attorney for Boerne, this community means a lot to her. With deep roots going back to the early settlers of this area, Cohoon is passionate about her career, but also ensuring that she is just as deeply involved in the community as well. As the past President of the Kendall County Bar Association, Cohoon turned that passion into a program designed to help first responders throughout the area.
While the practice of law is her chosen profession, it wasn’t Cohoon’s first choice. “Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to fly jets in the Navy. That was my dream. I signed up, took and passed all of their tests, but then came the last one: the height test. As you can see, I failed,” she laughs. So as a student at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, Cohoon began to modify her plan and decided that she could join the JAG program with the military. As she honed in on her plan, she explained it to her then boyfriend, Patrick. “I had met Patrick while in law school and we had been dating a while. I explained my plan for the JAG program, and he asked ‘Well, what about us?’ I bluntly said, ‘I don’t see a ring on this finger!’ and sure enough, we were engaged shortly after.” Upon graduation, Cohoon entered private practice with Bracewell & Patterson, LLP as a trial lawyer in Houston. As she and Patrick began a family, they both knew that they wanted to get out of Houston. Cohoon’s roots in this area are extremely deep, as she is a descendant of Fritz and Charlotte Haag, who came direct from Germany to Kendalia. She continues, “I’m a mixture of new Boerne and old Boerne. I can remember coming out here as a kid and going to the old family farm. I have the roots, though, and I know why people are coming.” As the family began searching for employment throughout the area, Cohoon eventually stumbled upon the job that would bring her home to Boerne. “My sister in law calls me and says ‘Kirsten, I found the perfect job for you! It’s the City Attorney’s job!’ I simply figured that if I could just get the interview, I could do it. And sure enough, I got the interview and the job.” And with that, the Cohoons’ were Boerne’s newest residents. Cohoon continues, “We moved around so much when I was a kid, and I lived in Houston for 11 years, which was the longest I had lived anywhere. When we got here I looked at Patrick and said ‘I’m never moving again. This is HOME’. And he agreed. The sense of community here is so strong and I forever want to be part of it.” As her career blossomed and the family became more and more
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attached to the community, Cohoon was eventually elected to the Presidency of the Kendall County Bar Association. When she gained the position, she quickly set out to initiate a program that she had wanted to see realized since 9/11. She explains, “After 9/11 I thought to myself that we need to be doing stuff for these men and women that are getting in the line to help us. Fire, deputies, Police, and the Sheriff ’s department. They need to have wills and a medical directive, and so many of them don’t. At the beginning of the summer, I send out a form for all the officers to fill out that want to participate. I send it to the lawyers who then meet with their officers, and we execute their wills on 9/11. We’ve done over 35 wills currently.” The program, dubbed “Wills for Heroes” has enjoyed great success since its inception. “The first year we did a will for the Fire Chief here in town and the Fair Oaks Police Chief. They go out there every day and they do this job, and I’m so happy to see them get their will and have the coverage that they need. There are a ton of officers that aren’t taking advantage of it….and they go out there and put their life on the line and it just worries me. I’m so proud of our local lawyers that step up to help. I love seeing them step up to help, and giving back to the community is so important to me, and I know it’s important to my fellow lawyers that volunteer their time for this.” The program has continued past her term as President of the Kendall County Bar Association, and shows no signs of slowing down. She finishes, “For those that have given much, much is expected. Lawyers need to be giving back to the community, and they’ve responded great. I had 10 lawyers this year, and I’m so proud of them. I’m just so proud of the entire program, as I know it’s truly doing something good for some of the greatest among us.” For more information about the program: Kirsten Cohoon City Attorney – City of Boerne 830.249.9511
WWW.HILLCOUNTRYEXPLORE.COM | SEPTEMBER 2017
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48 CRABAPPLE ROAD, KENDALIA
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.
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GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN By Marjorie Hagy
L
Like most grown people not only living in the world today but all down through history, I am nostalgic for a past I never knew. Wistful, perhaps- yearning. I may be groping for the word sehnsucht, which I find means longing, maybe, or pining- but then, the description goes on to say that it’s hard to really translate the feeling this word describes. In a wider sense, it means a kind of intensely missing… something. It’s a sort of sense of melancholy, or nostalgia, but somehow morea kind of regret for something you’ve never experienced. An intangible thing.
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We all know that nostalgia for youth, our own youth wasted on us in a sense because none of us ever realized while it was passing that it would be so fleeting, or that it was to become so precious down the years as we got further away from it and looked back with longing. I often drone on at you guys about my own magical memories of youth: those long summer days in Pleasant Valley, drinking out of the hose and swimming in the stock tank, or the everlasting afternoons in the aura of chlorine and Hawaiian Tropic by the edge of the Boerne pool. Dancing around a coffee table a long, long time ago with my brother and sister and my mom, all of us together dancing to a record of Disney songs. But I can also sit down with all those kind of blissful memories- they’re all tinged with an autumnal glow and scented like a cold day’s bonfire, or they have glistening drops of vividly blue water sparkling in the sun on their edges, like when water droplets land on a camera lens- I can take them out of the album in my mind and look at them in the harsh light of day and recall, with an effort, that they weren’t all as sublime as they appear to me now. I was so often sad as a child- all kids have so many nebulous fears, and such very real ones as well, which are as enormous and as terrifying as anything we may come to fear later in our life- but some inner machinery edits out all of those desperate tears and feelings of misery, leaving behind only the divine, only the consecrated. All the unhappiness I experienced as a child when everything was so much more intense, all the hurt that I felt, they were enormous in my heart when I was little, but when I thumb through my memories all the pictures show is the contentment, the laughter, the golden glow of a childhood wild and free in my dusty old hometown. In the looking back, what Kurt Vonnegut called our ‘forgettery’ gets to work. He called it a protective mechanism against unbearable grief and, I think, against all of the things that hurt to remember. I remember this line from The Great Gatsby, a description of a character’s golden youth, and even the dirt had a magical quality: ‘a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the shining dust.’ In real life, when I was living through it, the dust was gritty and got in my eyes and my teeth and plagued my sleep at night, but when I look back on it from here it was pixie dust, and it shimmered in the sunlight. A whole lot of us old-stock Boerneites feel like Boerne has slid straight down the hill and it isn’t the same anymorethat this new version of Boerne is awful and we hate it. A lady and I were commiserating once about the decline of Boerne civilization and I found out late in the bitch session that she’d been here for nine years- so as far as she was concerned, the old cowtown was still in pretty good shape as of 2008, and only fell to hell sometime after that. I think of myself as real old-school Boerne, I started school here in the 5th grade, and I’m pretty sure things set off downhill when Walmart came to town in the late-ish 80s- but then there are still others whose people were among the very first settlers in the Latin commune of Tusculum, and they feel pretty strongly that Boerne hit the skids a long time before 1974 when the Hagys got to town. Or maybe they think we were the turning point. Anyway, whenever I see an old photograph of my hometown taken a hundred years ago or so, I have this almost overwhelming desire to somehow climb right into the frame and just live there- before Walmart, before I10, before anybody discovered us and there were any shoppes on Main Street and if anyone ever called it the Hill Country Mile everyone would’ve looked at that person in disbelief and some suspicion. Back when you went to Main Street to get your shoes resoled and to shop at Adler’s store, when a favorite pastime was running to the depot to meet the train hoping the Duerler Candy guy and his pet monkey might be onboard, and Kronkosky Hill twinkled with fairy lights and echoed with the sound of orchestra music and the laughter from the Camp Funston soldiers and their girls dancing the night away up there, before they went off to war in Europe. Now those were the days. Those were the days before fast food and microwaveable Hot Pockets and Mickey D’s, when people ate wholesome,
home-cooked food, especially on farms in the country, where most of the population of Kendall County lived a hundred years ago. In 1917, around thirty-one (31) million Americans lived on farms, compared to about three million people today. Most of their food was homegrown or came from wild game- cows, pigs- either their own or feral- chickens, deer and beans provided most of the protein for the family. The pig also provided many other needs on the farm- most folks know the old saw about using every part of the pig except the squeal. While commercial laundry soap was available one hundred years ago, the vast majority of rural folks still made soap the old-fashioned way: they boiled the guts of a freshly butchered hog for the tallow, made lye from ashes and mixed this mess up in water. And it was the same soap for everything one needed soap for- the same stuff for doing the laundry and scrubbing the floors and for washing up your own bits and pieces in a tub of water the whole family shared. The pig also provided another crucial staple for farm families, speaking of all that good wholesome food: lard. In fact, in all that home cooking they did a century ago, Americans managed to pack away nearly twelve pounds of lard every year, on average. Let me say that again, so it can sink in: ONE person ate TWELVE pounds. Of lard. This means people used to eat roughly the same amount of lard as they did chicken, on a yearly basis. A kid might tote his lunch pailliterally, a metal pail- with whatever veggies she fancied accompanied by a nice lard sandwich on a couple slices of home-baked bread. Yummy! Cooking all that lard and chicken wasn’t quite like popping an egg roll in the microwave either, or preheating your electric oven or flipping a dial on a gas stove and causing a flame to leap into existence. Pretty much no farms, nor even little towns, especially in the South, had electricity in 1917, and all the cooking was done on a wood stove. You kept the fire lit all day in the wood stove- and yes, right here in Boerne, Texas, where the temperature gets downright tortuous in the summertime. But producing a single meal was an hours-long task for the housewife, the dishwater had to be heated on it too, and by the time one meal was prepared and cleaned up, it was time to start the next one- not to mention bread needing baking in between, and wash water to heat. There were no built-in cabinets, or sinks or fridges, just a room where the stove sat in the corner and a table for a work surface, or a Hoosier cabinet if you were really lucky, with storage for flour and sugar and spices, plates and silverware and a work surface for rolling dough and the like. For cold storage, folks either kept food fresh by putting it on a block of ice or keeping it in a root cellar- of which there were precious few in the limestone country of Kendall County- or in cooler weather, burying it in the yard or storing it on a window sill. In town, the iceman came around every day, and so did the meat wagon- driven in this town by Henry Fabra, in 1917, who announced his presence by hollering ‘Meat! Meat for sale!’ when his wagon came down the street. Boerne hausfrau would meet him at their carriage blocks on the street and buy whatever they needed to feed their family for the day. Out on the farms, the people hung the hand-butchered carcass in a limestone smoke house to preserve. All that wholesome food though, and the primitive methods of cold storage, could cause problems, including cholera, smallpox and yellow fever. Contaminated food, milk, and water caused foodborne infections, including typhoid fever, tuberculosis, botulism, and scarlet fever, and poor refrigeration caused salmonella and staphylococcus. Pellagra, a vitamin deficiency disease caused by a lack of niacin in the diet and known as the disease of the four Ds: diarrhea, dermatitis, dementia, and death, was a scourge on the former CSA states of the southern US after the Civil War, and it raised its ugly head again a hundred years ago, in the early 20th century. Goiters and rickets were another couple of things that happened to people because of lack of the right nutrients in the diet. The sorely beset farm wife had a lot of other stuff to do in her day besides feeding her family and hopefully fending off diseases that might be passed to them through their
food. She turned ‘boughten’ fabric or upcycled cotton flour, guano, and chicken feed sacks into blouses, dresses, shirts, underwear, sheets, dish towels, and even curtains for her family (but she might spend actual cash money on denim overalls, which had become widely available by 1917 and which might be purchased at HO Adler’s, ‘the store of a million articles!’ or up the street at Joe Dienger’s). She tended an extensive vegetable garden and took care of her kids and often helped out in the fields too, did the laundry (often outdoors over a boiling kettle filled with water she drew out of the well or fetched from the river, an old mop or broom handle called a punching stick and the ubiquitous lye soap). President Lyndon Johnson’s own mother ‘grew stoop-shouldered lugging buckets of water from well to kitchen,’ in the Texas Hill Country, and she had plenty of company. Wives and mothers a hundred years ago also sold extra milk, butter, eggs, and other homegrown and homemade commodities for cash, which they then used for all the things they couldn’t make themselves: those denim bib’alls, salt, coffee, and sugar, material to make clothes, and school books and shoes for the kids. She dried and canned vegetables for the winter, she smoked hams and made sausage, she knitted socks and milked cows and churned butter. Her work was literally never done. In 1917, the Gibson Girl personified the very ideal of feminine beauty, and the New Woman- that liberated precursor of the feminist- was daring to sport revealing bathing suits and pushing the envelope by donning trousers in public- but not in rural Boerne, Texas. Farm women still wore floor-length skirts with petticoats underneath, button-down blouses and button-up boots and instead of what we think of as a bra, she would’ve worn an undershirt or some kind of cloth binding for support and modesty. Imagine that ensèm in a kitchen with a fire burning all day long, or while throwing her shoulder to the wheel alongside her man in the cotton field! And we must not ignore another delicate issue: in an age before disposable feminine products, the woman of 1917 often made her own, utilizing everything from cotton rags or plain old field cotton, to sheep’s wool and rabbit fur to knitted pads and even grass in their undies to deal with the visit of their Aunt Flo. (I’m sorry for that info, but haven’t we all wondered? There were disposable sanitary pads available a hundred years ago, first thought up by nurses as a way to staunch bleeding on the battlefield, and in 1896 Johnson & Johnson put the first American version on the market, called Lister’s Towel: Sanitary Towels for Ladies. Now I don’t know whether or not HO Adler or Joe Dienger carried Lister’s Towels in their stores- Adler did advertise that he carried a million articles but I don’t know if this was one of them, and a hundred years ago most farmwives in Kendall County wouldn’t have had a lot of spare cash to go blowing on such frivolities anyway. They were very expensive, and a staid German hausfrau in 1917 asking the counter clerk for a box of sanitary pads is too great a stretch of the imagination.) A quick visit to the powder room was no easy task a century ago either- most houses, even in the big cities, had no indoor plumbing, and virtually nobody in the country towns or down on the farm enjoyed the mod-cons. Most houses and many businesses in the actual town of Boerne still had outhouses in the 1940s, and the percentage must have been even greater in the country. Instead it was the chamber pot or the privy for one’s dirty business, and don’t think there was a whole lotta disposable toilet paper going around either- an old Sears catalog served for some folks, while a corncob served the purpose for other, more unfortunate users. One woman remembered the very limited options available to her on a dark night in the Texas Hill Country: ‘I had a horrible choice of either sitting in the dark and not knowing what was crawling on me or bringing a lantern and attracting moths, mosquitoes, nighthawks and bats.’ Nighthawks and bats. Sit with that a minute. Food was in tighter supply in many places in the country in 1917, the year the US entered WW1, and farmers were asked to produce more to feed Our Boys overseas, and families to tighten their belts. Canned foods had recently
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come onto the scene and were a great boon because of the labor they saved, but botulism and lead poisoning were a couple of risks one had to contend with in those early days. Fortunately, fresh produce and eggs were still plentifully available in Boerne, and the farmers hauled their goods to market in town via horse-drawn wagon or in rare cases, one of the new horseless trucks. In 1917 there were just two million cars on very few paved roads, or about one for every fifty people in the US. That kid we mentioned earlier, carting his lard sandwich to school in his old tin pail? He’d be going to one of the one-room schools that dotted the countryside, from Panther Creek and Pleasant Valley to Wasp Creek and Welfare and Waring, or to the ‘new’ two-story limestone school on the hill in town that nowadays serves as the City Hall. He and his buddies got to school however they could- some rode horses with siblings clinging on the best they could, while some lucky kids had pony carts for the horse to pull along behind. A lot of kids walked. At least the fear of running into native tribesmen was no longer a potential hazard, as it had been just a generation earlier when their parents made their own way along the well-worn paths. School supplies consisted of a slate and a stick of chalk and whatever books the family could afford, and learning was often achieved by rote memorization and students were terrified into doing their schoolwork by primers that warned about the fate of bad children who wouldn’t study their alphabet- they were frequently devoured by bears. Kids in town tended to go to school longer and more often than their cohort in the countryfarm kids were needed on the home place, to help with the planting and the harvest and all the grueling work of producing a crop, and they more often dropped out early when the family figured he’d accumulated enough knowledge to take over the place someday. In 1920, just twenty-eight percent of young Americans between the ages of fourteen and seventeen went to high school, and the numbers were far, far less for children of color. Women had more children back then, three, on average, and those kids were expected to help on the farm, in some cases by the time they were five years old. But there was an additional and more heartrending reason that women had more children than just to provide extra hands for the farm: their children were much more likely to die. Ten percent of babies died before their first birthday. In fact, everybody was a lot likelier to die before their time: in 1917, the average life expectancy for men was fortyeight (48) years old, and for women it was fifty-four (54). Some of the leading causes of death in the US included tuberculosis, diarrhea or enteritis, heart disease, stroke, accidents, cancer, senility, and diphtheria, and coming soon, in 1918, a horrific epidemic of Spanish influenza
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and pneumonia would hit the country like a bombshell. This forgotten scourge was to kill more than fifty million people on the planet, and at least a million Americansten times as many as were killed in WW1. The Kendall County death registry reflects the same causes of death: the flu, called ‘La Grippe’; stroke, termed ‘apoplexy’; senility (and possibly Alzheimer’s) was called ‘hardening of the arteries’- and a surprisingly high rate of suicide. One hundred years ago no so-called social safety net existed, and unless you were able to save money against your own old age, you just hoped you were physically able to work until you died. Otherwise you were just broke, and you didn’t eat. With this grim reality in mind, and instead of becoming a burden on one’s family in one’s infirmity and old age- or when one didn’t have any familysome people saw suicide as their only option. It wasn’t until the Social Security Act of 1935- hotly contested as pure socialism- that older Americans could face their declining years with any hope of supporting themselves. Before that, poverty among the elderly was so crushing that writers of the time referred to growing old as the “haunting fear in the winter of life.” Another reason for the high rate of suicide was that there was no treatment for, and no real recognition of, clinical depression. Soldiers returning home from the Great War in 1918 would bring back with them a condition that came to be known as shell shock or battle fatigue, and from that start medical doctors would eventually devote more study to diseases of the mind. But if you suffered from what they called melancholia or hysteria to any marked extent in 1917, there was a very real possibility that you could be checked into the ‘insane asylum’ and never seen again, while your shamefaced family by tacit consent might never mention your name again in polite company- or in any company, ever again. Tragically, untreated depression often results in suicide. As difficult as daily life was for most folks in and around Boerne a hundred years ago, it was a thousand times more grueling for people of color. Hispanic and African-Americans were far less likely to own their own homesteads than their white counterparts, and much more liable to the abuse of the sharecropping or tenant farming system. Under that system, a tenant lived in a house provided by the owner- often in a state of squalor and disrepair- and the owner also provided seed, horses or mules, the plow and all of the equipment to grow a crop. He would also pay the sharecropper advances during the growing season, for anything the family needed that they couldn’t produce on the farm. Come harvest time, the landowner and the tenant shared out the profit from the harvest, usually by halves, and then the cost of the seed and the equipment, etc, and any advances were deducted from the tenant’s share. The vast majority
of the time, in the case of black or Hispanic farmers, the owner informed his tenant that his expenditures outweighed the profit made on the sale of the crop, and therefore the tenant was left owing the owner money. The sharecropper was then unable to leave the owner’s farm until the money had been paid back, and was thus he was sucked into an unbreakable cycle of ever-mounting debt, and virtual enslavement to the boss. This is called debt slavery, and the practice persisted far past the end of the Civil War and tied millions of African-Americans to the land as irrevocably as race-based slavery ever did. In the Jim Crow South, there was no conceivable way a black man could ever challenge his white landlord on his accounting of the value of the crop, or hope to receive a fair settlement, but in the bleak landscape of the South where the law, mob rule and the threat of violence ensured that blacks remained meekly subservient, they simply had no other choice. The lot of Latinos was not much better. One sharecropper’s son remembered his father’s backbreaking labor growing cotton on shares with his white landlord, and the misery of settling-up time. ‘You bought things—it was just on a handshake back then,’ he said of the cash advances made before harvest time. ‘So at the end of the year you pay the boss man.... And my daddy would say that money left his hands sore. He said so much money went through his hands, that's all they have left, sore hands.’ In a scant few years, the boll weevil would arrive from Mexico and lay waste to Texas’ cotton industry, and the poorest of the poor would, as usual, be the most sorely affected. However, in 1917, African-Americans all over the Southern slave states would begin to leave behind the misery their people had known for generations, often forced to flee in the middle of the night to avoid the wrath of their white neighbors. Up North, plants were emptying out when the men who manned the factories and assembly lines went off to fight the Great War, and black Americans packed up and left the South forever to take those jobs and seek out new lives and new freedoms. ‘They did what human beings looking for freedom, throughout history, have often done,’ wrote Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration. ‘They left.’ And their struggle for equality and just treatment, for respect in this nation of their forefathers, continues today. We look back on those times as a paradise, a time when life was simpler and somehow more pure, less complicated. Things were better then, we believe, looking down through the mist of the years, through the haze of all the intervening troubles that we had not yet lived through. We’re too far away now to feel the grit of daily life, to feel the ache in our shoulders from hauling the water, to smell the acrid odor of blood when the pig is slaughtered or the bone-weariness at the end of the day with the sheets plastered to our bodies by the heat of the oil-lit night. But there was grit and there were troubles, mothers who stood stoic by the newly-dug graves of their babies after the dry-heaving misery of their loss, black men who bit back their fury and the red hot coal of their despair as they allowed themselves to be cheated because they had no choice. And yet- we dream our dreams of the good old days. I am alive today for a million reasons, most of which I will never know. My life was saved because I had pancreatitis in 2007, not a hundred years ago, and no one thought of bleeding me or applying leeches. I have a trach that lets me breathe through a useless windpipe. I keep my house at 72 degrees and I’m about to nip over to the fridge for a bowl of ice cream. These- these are the good old days.
• 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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HELL By Kendall D. Aaron
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Sometimes I struggle with the concept of hell. As in, a place of eternal suffering with a lake of fire and demons tormenting you, pitchforks and the whole shooting match. It’s beyond horrifying, and I can’t quite understand why it exists. Created by a loving God that died for me? Huh?
Christendom; and it has the support of reason.” I’m with that guy – the concept of hell is a harshness that I cannot fathom, and wished that it had never been created. The concept of punishment is one that all humans can comprehend, however, punishment always has an end, even if it’s death. How can a punishment NEVER end? How can the human mind ever possibly endure an ETERNAL damnation? And perhaps most profoundly, how could my behaviors and rejection of God in one measly little lifetime warrant that destruction?
Many scholars have determined that Jesus Himself said more about hell than He did about heaven. It was a serious topic that He addressed time and again, and the descriptions are not good. He described it as a “fiery lake of burning sulphur”, “The realm of the dead”, “everlasting destruction”, “eternal fire and destruction”, “a blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”, and many, many more horrifying depictions.
I don’t suppose any of us on earth will ever be able to truly answer these questions until we get to heaven, and let me tell you, I’m certainly choosing heaven over hell. I suppose that the only knowledge I can take away from the horrors of hell is this: God really, REALLY loves us.
I read an account once of a guy that died in a drug overdose and claimed to go to hell. I had read stories of people that claimed to have gone to heaven, with the bright light and the feelings of peace, but had never read one about going to hell. It gave me goosebumps. An excerpt: “And I began going down and down and down like in a deep pit and I started smelling the stench of hell. It’s the most rotten thing that you could ever smell in your life. In fact, you can’t even imagine it. I began to feel a tugging and pulling like the Bible says the demons tug and nag at you. They were calling my name. ‘We got you. We got you. We got you. You belong to us now.’ I saw souls. Lost souls that were in torment in the lake of fire. They were crying and calling on God. Endless calling. They were hopeless. I was hopeless, and I knew it was eternal.” It goes on and on with his descriptions of demons cutting at him, people naked and writhing in the pit of fire, and about how they began his time in hell with his very own crucifixion. Yikes. I have no clue if his version of hell is accurate or a drug-induced oddity, but really, I don’t think it matters. With the ways that Jesus describes it, I want no part of it. The entire concept of hell is something that I think is really hard to grasp. Most of us don’t even really think about it, but if you spend some time really considering the reality of it, it’ll send a shiver up your spine. C.S. Lewis said of hell, “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of Our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by
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Think about it – He came to earth to save us from this very place. He died to save us from it. He told us about it. His words were put into the Bible, the most widely read book in the history of human existence. He warned us about it. Again, He died so that you would never have to experience it….all you have to do is choose Him. The anguish that He must feel for lost souls has to be agonizing. Can you imagine warning your own child about not doing something lest they be eternally damned, and then watching them choose that very thing you warned them against? Or the love you would feel for your child if you died in attempt to ensure they never have to experience something truly awful? But as CS Lewis said, while we might want the entire place stricken from existence, it is still there and it is very, very real. You know that feeling when the cops pull in behind your car and you tense up, terrified that you might get pulled over? And then when they pull away and you breathe this big, silly sigh of relief and kinda laugh at yourself? That’s the best way that I can describe my thoughts as they pertain to hell: terrifying in a way that I cannot even begin to understand, but then I can remember that I’m saved. Eternally saved. And that brings about one giant sigh of relief. Life is short – sometimes it’s so short that you’re walking down the sidewalk one day and you are run over by a dump truck. Your life can end in 9 minutes or 90 years. Take the hand extended to you from God above and save yourself the eternal agony and instead enjoy the eternal happiness. The choice is simple, and it’s yours.
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
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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.”
September 2, 1945 Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz signed the treaty with Japan that ended World War II. Nimitz, born in 1885, was the descendant of German pioneer settlers of Fredericksburg. He was named commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet shortly after Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, and later commander in chief of Pacific Ocean Areas as well. With authority over the entire Pacific theater except for Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific sector and the inactive southeast, Nimitz coordinated the offensive that brought the Japanese to unconditional surrender. He signed the peace treaty aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Nimitz later spent two years as commander in chief of the United States Fleet, and also served as a roving ambassador for the United Nations and chairman of the Presidential Commission on Internal Security and Individual Rights. He died in 1966. In 1964 a local citizens’ group established the Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz Memorial Naval Museum in the old Nimitz Hotel in Fredericksburg. The project evolved into the National Museum of the Pacific War.
September 3, 1895 William Carrol Crawford, the last surviving signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, died while visiting his son in Erath County. Crawford, a native of North Carolina, moved to Texas in 1835 and settled near Shelbyville. He and Sydney O. Penington represented Shelby County at the Convention of 1836, which wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the Republic of Texas and established the ad interim government. Crawford, who later lived in Camp, Hill, and Johnson counties, died ten days before his ninety-first birthday.
September 5, 1836 On this day in 1836, Sam Houston, the victor of San Jacinto, was elected president of the newly founded Republic of Texas. Candidates for the office had included Henry Smith, governor of the provisional government, and Stephen F. Austin. Houston became an active candidate just eleven days before the election. He received 5,119 votes, Smith 743, and Austin 587. Mirabeau B.
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Lamar, the “keenest blade” at San Jacinto, was elected vice president. Houston received strong support from the army and from those who believed that his election would ensure internal stability, hasten recognition by world powers, and bring about early annexation to the United States. He served two terms as president of the republic and was subsequently a United States senator and governor of the state of Texas.
September 8, 1900 A catastrophic hurricane struck the city of Galveston on the Texas coast. A third of the city was destroyed, and 6,000 to 8,000 people died. Galveston Island was completely inundated. Property loss was estimated at $30 million. The storm is considered the worst recorded natural disaster ever to strike the North American continent.
September 18, 1944 Two Medal of Honor recipients from Texas were killed in separate actions during World War II. Lt. Robert G. Cole, born at Fort Sam Houston in 1915, was cited for “gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life” near Carentan, France, on June 11, 1944. He was personally leading his battalion in an attack on four bridges when the entire unit was pinned down by intense enemy fire from heavily fortified positions. After an hour, he issued orders to attack with fixed bayonets and personally led the assault. His heroic action so inspired his men that a secure bridgehead across the Douve River was established. Cole was killed by a sniper on September 18 during “Operation Market Garden” while taking the bridge at Best, Holland. Charles Howard Roan was born in Claude, Texas, in 1923. He volunteered for the United States Marine Corps in 1942 and was sent to the Pacific in June 1943. On September 18, 1944, Roan was with a party of five in the Palau Islands when a live grenade was thrown among them. Roan flung himself on the grenade and saved his comrades. He was honored with the Medal of Honor, the Purple Heart, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal. A Texas historical marker has been placed on the Roan family plot in the cemetery in Claude. A destroyer in the United States Naval Fleet was named in Roan’s honor.
September 20, 1865 Pioneer aviator Jacob Friedrich Brodbeck may have made the first flight in an airplane--almost forty years before the Wright brothers--in a field about three miles east of Luckenbach. The Württemberg native settled in Fredericksburg in 1847. He had always had an interest in mechanics and inventing; in Germany he had attempted to build a self-winding clock, and in 1869 he designed an ice-making machine. His most cherished project, however, was his “air-ship,” with a propeller powered by coiled springs. The 1865 model featured an enclosed space for the “aeronaut,” a water propeller in case of accidental landings on water, a compass, and a barometer. The machine was said to have risen twelve feet in the air and traveled about 100 feet before the springs unwound completely and the machine crashed to the ground. Another account, however, says that the initial flight took place in San Pedro Park, San Antonio, where a bust of Brodbeck was later placed. Yet another account reports that the flight took place in 1868, not 1865. All the accounts agree, however, that Brodbeck’s airship was destroyed by its abrupt landing, although the inventor escaped serious injury. After this setback, his investors refused to put up the money for a second attempt, and he embarked on a unsuccessful fund-raising tour of the United States. Brodbeck returned to Texas and lived on a ranch near Luckenbach until his death in 1910.
September 25, 1922 WOAI-San Antonio, the first radio station in South Texas, began broadcasting. The station, founded by G. A. C. Halff, had an initial power of 500 watts. It grew to 5,000 watts by 1925--considered powerful at that time. On February 6, 1928, WOAI joined the world’s first communication network, the National Broadcasting Company. It eventually became a clear channel operating with 50,000 watts. WOAI was one of the first stations to employ a local news staff. One of its greatest achievements was a regular Sunday broadcast of “Musical Interpretations,” featuring Max Reiter, conductor of the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra.
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T TEXAS MUSIC Check out some of the songs and artists tearing up the charts of our great state.
PAT GREEN - DRINKIN’ DAYS
JESSE RAUB JR. - SITTIN’ HERE
Known for his rousing live shows and energetic stage presence, Pat Green is a three-time Grammy nominee who has sold over two million records, had a string of top ten singles, and appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Letterman and Austin City Limits. His last album, Home, saw his duet with Lyle Lovett, “Girls From Texas,” spend a massive 10 weeks at #1 on the Texas Music Chart and his new single, a perfect song for the summer, “Drinkin’ Days,” might just find the troubadour atop the charts once again. Written by Jaron Boyer, Ben Burges, and Phil Barton and recorded at Arlyn Studios, “Drinkin’ Days” is a nostalgic look back at a younger time when perhaps an adult beverage or two made the best of times just a little bit greater.
Some artists claim to have what it takes to not only perform for a crowd but to also capture their hearts. Jesse Raub, Jr is one artist that can make that claim with complete conviction and truth. A native Texan hailing from Magnolia, Texas, Jesse uses his roots and captures his love for his family and friends in the songs that he writes and sings. As the frontman of his own band. Jesse has spent the last 10 years traveling throughout the great state of Texas, rocking every venue he’s entered. By bringing in the traditional Texas Country sounds and merging them with true Southern Rock, Jesse has created a show that will keep the crowd on their feet throughout the entire show. His unique voice and true country twang continue to captivate his audiences as he merges the classic sounds of Haggard and Jones with the rocking sounds of Hank and Dwight Yoakam to create a high energy and entertaining show every night.
NATALIE ROSE - CONFORMITY
JOSH ABBOT BAND - TEXAS WOMEN, TENNESSEE WHISKEY
Proud to be born and raised a Texas girl, Natalie Rose grew up on a horse ranch just outside of her small town in South Texas. At just 4 years old, she quickly fell in love with Country music, admiring many artists. Her favorites include Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, Reba McEntire and Martina McBride, and her songwriting and vocal talent display those influences. A little girl who never outgrew her big dreams, she went on to take lessons for guitar, vocals, and anything else she could grasp to widen her knowledge of music. Her blend of classic and modern influences invite all ages to enjoy her show. Her show is high energy, and she enjoys connecting with the crowd. Additionally, she wants to resonate on a more emotional level with her audience by being a role model and inspirational figure for young girls and women.
Josh Abbott Band‘s “Texas Women, Tennessee Whiskey” is a danceable, good-time country song that’s a little bit of a 180 for the independent Texas country-rockers. The mid-tempo song opens with a classic rock-esque electric piano that quickly bleeds into a modern country production with horns reminiscent of Lady Antebellum‘s recent hit “You Look Good.” It’s not rocket science and it’s not meant to be; the song’s only objective is to be groovy and fun. The band is simply blending a little bit of Texas song with a little bit of Nashville production and hopefully meeting everyone in the middle on the dance floor. Look for “Texas Women, Tennessee Whiskey” on Abbott’s forthcoming Until My Voice Goes Out album.
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JAKE WORTHINGTON - HELL OF A HIGHWAY In 2014, Jake Worthington was named “Runner-Up” on Season 6 of the hit NBC TV Show “The Voice”. While on the show Jake released 3 songs that reached top 20 on Billboard. Success from “The Voice” led to a Social Media presence that reaches nearly 250,000 people across the US. In October 2015 Jake released his first EP debuting at #16 Billboard Heat Seekers and #44 Billboard Country Albums. The first single off the EP “Just Keep Falling In Love” reached Top 50 on The Music Row Chart and Top 30 on The Texas Regional Radio Report. The Music Video was featured on GAC, CMT and many other outlets. In the summer of 2016, he released his follow-up single “How Do You Honky Tonk” and hit the road on the “How Do You Honky Tonk” Summer Tour sponsored by Amspec, Cinch Jeans and Ernie Ball. The tour featured 26 stops in 16 states. Jake recently released his sophomore EP featuring his #1 Single “A Lot of Room to Talk”. The EP debuted Top 10 on iTunes Country Albums Charts.
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DRIVE IT LIKE YOU...
T
KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING By Delaney Young
The trademark philosophy of Tye’s Driving School is that, sometimes, being successful means being different.
Last November, Steve Tye, who is primary driving instructor and owner of the business, set up shop off Interstate 10 Frontage Road, just three miles down the road from Rhodes Driving School. In most scenarios, two companies running the same kind of business in such a small mile radius would seem synonymous with curried competition. But Tye has nursed his business on an approach that is entirely different from that of most driving schools. “Coming into it, we wanted it to be different. What I noticed was that most driving schools were run like public schools. And with my private school background, I knew that things could be different.” This background—namely, the six years he has spent teaching at Geneva School of Boerne, in addition to the two years he taught at Our Savior Lutheran School in Livermore, California—has allowed him a peek at the mechanics of private education and some of its distinctions from public education. One, Tye cites, is the relational, personal connection between students and teachers. He has noticed that smaller class sizes, combined with the heavy emphasis placed by private school education on classroom discussion, often create an environment conducive to student-teacher friendships. Observing this relational aspect of private schools inspired Tye to create a similar setting at his own driving school. “It needs to be more of a relationship based on mutual trust and shared excitement,” Tye says. “So we don’t keep office hours so much, but we’re always available by phone, which is a little different. Students can text us and ask, ‘hey can we go driving tomorrow?’ or ‘I need another observation hour, when are you available?’ We are pretty quick and responsive.” These are just some of the ways that Tye’s desire to cultivate friendships and build trust with his students has played out. Additionally, he regularly tends to the driving school’s Instagram account (@tyesdrivingschool), updating the account’s followers with pictures and videos in order to, in his words, “get people involved in the adventure side of what we do.” Most of the kids who come flocking to Tye’s Driving School are from Champion High School. This summer, Tye has received several Boerne High School students, too. Even students from as far as Kerville and Seguine commute to the driving school for Tye’s excellent instruction. Impressively, the majority of his clientele first heard about the school through word of mouth. And he has been careful how and where to invest money in advertising: “We’ve been sponsoring local teams so that we are not just spending advertising dollars but actually helping enrich the local community as well.”
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There is adventure guaranteed with practically every driving lesson at Tye’s school. Boerne and its surrounding zip codes offer everything from parks and pizza places to free-entry canyons and Fredericksburg flowers, and Tye has combed the area looking for every drivable adventure. For example, Tye lists Kruetseberg Canyon, the creek on Upper Cibolo Creek Road, and Electric Coffee as just a few of the destinations that he has visited with students. And there’s always a method to his mapped-out adventures: “We stop at electric coffee a lot, actually, and I always buy their coffee when we do because, again, I like to support local business. Also, sometimes they’re tired and I’m tired and we just need to get out and stretch and caffeinate.” Every student is different and, in keeping with his emphasis on student-teacher friendships, Tye makes sure that these escapades are okay-ed by the student. “Number one priority is always finding the right environment for the student. If I need or want to go somewhere, that’s always secondary. But usually by the fifth lesson on the freeway, it’s agenda driven. So we will go up to Comfort and search for zebras or go down to La Cantera and buy a record,” Tye says. More than any other aspect of his business, Tye loves witnessing each student experience the steep and predictable learning curve of driver’s education. “The most fun is when a student is first learning to drive and they kind of just get it. They’re struggling with slamming the breaks or peeling in the parking lot, and they can’t really turn the wheel, but after spending an hour with it, they start to get the car under control and you can see they are actually having fun. And I love that.” Driver’s education, he explains, happens in two phases. The first happens in a classroom, with creative expression exercises and whiteboard diagrams (and the occasional pizza night). The second happens in a moving vehicle, and requires the kind of motor skills and quick reflexes with which the arts are taught and mastered. “Driver’s instruction is more like training. I think it’d be closer to a musical or dance education with its muscle memory and repetitive physical motions to try and get something down,” Tye says. “And as the instructor, you hope that knowledge is being shifted down from the brain to the body. I think that’s really what we’re seeing when they get it they’ve trained themselves to drive without overthinking.” Though education in an academic setting evolves in a way similar to the first phase of driver’s education, Tye makes an important distinction—he gets to monitor his students’
learning progress from start to finish. Whereas an English teacher may read only a few essays or grade only a handful of tests before passing off their student to the next teacher, a driving instructor is able to oversee a novice driver’s entire education, start to finish. “It’s nice because there’s a finished product aspect to it… With a driving lesson, you can put them in the car and they might suck, but by the end of the lesson they will suck less and they may even be really good,” he says with a grin. As the owner of a driving school, Tye has had the opportunity to watch each individual student encounter this learning curve. But even before he opened Tye’s Driving School, he was well acquainted with that “finished product aspect” of the business. Before moving to Texas, Tye worked at a driving school in California—the same school that taught him how to drive when he was fifteen. When he and his wife moved to Oklahoma, Tye was employed by Merkley’s Driving School. During his time there, Tye was offered another job at a driving school in California; this time, as the owner. Though he declined, a seed was planted, and Tye held onto the dream of some day owning his own driving school. “It’s exciting that this has actually worked. I was freaked out when we started it, but it seems like the word is getting out and we are getting a reputation… It’s been so cool to see it actually work,” Tye says. Now that his dreams of opening a school have materialized, he must focus on managing the rapid growth that Tye’s Driving School will no doubt face in the upcoming years. Tye is intent on staying involved with his business. He confesses, “I don’t like the idea of a business being run by an absentee owner, so everything from the way I’m paid to the way I want the company to run by hiring, it always requires my involvement. I don’t want to be the kind that has a successful business and employees and thinks, ‘I don’t really have to show up.’ I always want to be involved!” In a Facebook post celebrating nine months at Tye’s Driving School, wife of Tye and administrative assistant at the school Jane Alice wrote, “It feels good to be an understanding ear on the other end of the line when parents call stressed out, it feels good to be a part of these kids lives in a small way, and to be a part of the small business community. I wanted to say thank you to all the friends and family who have supported us in this new adventure—the encouraging words, helpful hands, and understanding through busy times has been so meaningful. We’re doing it! It’s hard work, but we’re doing it!”
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STILL WONDERING WHAT WE DO?
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GIFTS • DECOR • FURNITURE • NEW ITEMS WEEKLY Unique decor and gifts. Featuring natural, vintage, antique and one-of-a-kind trinkets and treasures from around the globe!
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Just because the kids are back in school doesn’t mean you have to put your grill into storage. Labor Day is one of the largest get-together holidays of the year. Fire it up and THE CONEY ISLAND DOG:
Steamed bun, topped with a beanless, all-meat chili, diced yellow onion, and yellow mustard.
impress your friends and family with these unexpected twists on the typical
THE SEATTLE DOG:
Cream cheese and grilled onions on a toasted bun.
backyard cookout.
THE CHICAGO DOG
Chopped onions, sliced/diced/wedged tomatoes, both a dill pickle spear and sweet pickle relish, yellow mustard, pickled sport peppers, celery salt, and a steamed poppy seed bun.
THE MICHIGAN DOG
Steamed bun, topped with a runny beanless, all-meat chili.
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THE CINCINNATI DOG
Chili topped with cheese mustard and a small amount of diced onion.
THE NEW YORK DOG
Mustard and sauerkraut. Often cooked in a warm water bath by street vendors - they have also been given the semi-affectionate moniker "the dirty water dog."
THE KANSAS CITY DOG A Kansas City-style hot dog includes sauerkraut and melted Swiss cheese.
THE JERSEY DOG
Diced stewed potatoes, roasted peppers and brown mustard
FIRE
GOURMET
PIZZA
IT UP
CRAFT BEER & WINE SANDWICHES * SALADS
A FAMILY RESTAURANT WHERE CRAFT BEER & WINE MEET CRAFT PIZZA IJK
118 Old San Antonio RD. * Boerne TX * 830.331.1212 We dn e s da y - S unda y 11 :0 0 a . m. - 9:3 0 p .m.
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T
OLD TIMER THINGS THAT HAVE PISSED ME OFF THIS MONTH:
TAJ-MAH-CITY-HALL
HURRICANE HARVEY
DUCKS
Did any of you even read the article from the Express News (why doesn’t our local media actually cover NEWS) that $chultz found a new way to finance his City Hall, despite the petition that would have forced it to a vote? Oh, you missed it? After candidate Schroeder got the required votes to force the City to put the City Hall proposal to an election, $chultz flipped his lid. After doing so (in open session and was recorded for posterity), he hunkered down, figured out that he could just raise taxes – and VOILA – he just financed City Hall and was able to bypass putting the project to a vote. Ta-da?
I loved Rockport. I have so many memories from there, and to see it utterly wiped out was tough to see. I know that hurricanes and major storms are a part of life, and I also know that the coast will rebuild. But it still pisses me off. The fact that it flooded Houston was unfortunate, but as I loathe that town, I wasn’t nearly as upset.
I still hate them. But you already knew that.
17 HERFF Oh, you thought that this project was dead? Nope. The developers are rebranding it “Legacy at the Cibolo”, hired a PR firm, and have made a few tweaks to the development plans. With that, they’re re-submitting it to Council, and since you’re not paying attention, it’ll pass as requested. I’ve met the developer, who seems to be a smart and genuine guy, but it’s just kinda sad that the entire populace screams to Council what they do and don’t want, and they actually won one. Only to have them get distracted and lose the war.
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THESE NEW-FANGLED COP CARS THAT ARE INVISIBLE Boerne PD has a new Ford Explorer that you have to really stare at to understand it’s even a cop car. No lights on the hood. Barely any identifying marks. I don’t like it and think it’s a bad trend that will never stop. The purpose of the police is citizen protection, not revenue generation. Everybody with a brain knows why police departments are rolling out cars like this: so they can hide better. They need to write more tickets. Back in my day, cop cars were distinctly marked, with gigantic light bars across the top and you could spot them a mile away. THAT WAS THE POINT. They were screaming “We are here so you can see us and not break the law.” These new cars are saying “Please break the law. Mayor $chultz needs a City Hall and I need to write a ticket.”
NON-TIMED TRAFFIC LIGHTS I lived in Lubbock for a period, and they have a light damn near every 50 feet. Not one of them are timed. Perhaps it was the birth of my crankiness, but why do municipalities refuse to time their lights so that drivers can hit most of them on green? WHY? Hitting every light on the new Esser Road is maddening and turns a 45 second drive into a 5 minute drive. I’m old – quit stealing time from me, dammit. Time the stupid lights, please. That’s it – now slow down, turn off that crappy music, stay off my lawn, and pull your damn pants up.