On the Road

Senior editor Michael Hall, who wrote about Arnold "Pee Wee" Kornegay, and others tell the story behind this month's cover story, "Drive, We Said."

May 2002

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PB: Getting stuck in the mud outside of Quanah, the last town before the Red River. I went out to look at the Medicine Mounds, four low hills on an otherwise featureless plain that the Comanche regarded as sacred ground; they rolled in gypsum that occurred naturally there, believing in its healing powers. It was a cold, blustery, wet morning. I drove east of town and took a farm road to the settlement of Medicine Mound. I could see the mounds, but every time I got near one, the road veered away. Finally, I saw a sign that said Little Mound Road and turned onto it reflexively. Big mistake. It was gooey red dirt, and my Suburban sank into the muck. There was nowhere to turn around. I slowed down to try to back up and almost slid off the road into the ditch. I put it in reverse and just spun my wheels. Stuck! I was nine miles from the main highway in the middle of nowhere, wearing a short-sleeved shirt in 53-degree weather with rain and a steady wind. This is what cell phones are for. I reached for mine and . . . no service. There were a few houses scattered about, so I trudged through the goo for about 150 yards, reached the farm road, and started out for the houses, separated by a couple of hundred yards. At the first one, nobody answered. At the second, a very large, very loud dog suggested that I look somewhere else. I passed the Medicine Mound store—long shuttered, now a museum that, according to a sign, was open on Saturdays. It wasn't Saturday. The third house had several trucks and trailers in the side yard. A voice responded to my knock: "Come in." Three men were there, a father, son, and friend of the son. I asked if I could use their phone to call for help; I had gone looking for the mounds and had gotten stuck. The father, a balding man with a round face and tufts of white hair, broke into peals of laughter. "You went down that dirt road in the rain?" "I was stupid," I said. "I saw the sign and went down the road without thinking." Well, I was the morning's entertainment. And they were great folks. They did cowboying and cattle hauling and had the equipment to pull me out, which they did, from the rear. The son drove a truck and his friend got behind the wheel of my Suburban. The tow truck kicked up so much red mud that the friend couldn't see through the back window or use the side mirrors, so we had to open the windows and look at their truck, to make sure we didn't slide into it. Rain poured in through the windows, and the truck's wide wheels slung clods of mud through the opening onto the dashboard, my clothes, my hair. We slid into the ditch. Had I been driving, I would have panicked—actually, I panicked anyway—but the driver said, "I think it's steadier here. Less mud." So he angled the wheels in a way that kept the front wheels in the ditch while the back wheels were sliding over the road. We made it out without incident, or perhaps I should say additional incident. When I walked up to the other driver, I looked back at Little Mound Road. It was so churned up, it looked plowed. I went over to the driver of the tow truck and gave him twenty dollars. He said, "Take a look at your car." The back was covered in mud, from bumper to top, caked four inches thick. "Well," my rescuer said, "You look country now."

ES: One of the things that comes to mind immediately was a vivid full rainbow that had come out after a storm. It was to the west of us, and James said, "Let's follow the rainbow." We drove west for awhile on some country road driving toward it until we passed a paper mill. The rainbow's arch started on one side of the plant and stretched over to the other side of it. And under the rainbow there was this big outpost of industry with thick clouds of white steam coming out of it.

MH: Rustling through the brush and finding concrete foundations leftover from Camp Hearne, the German POW camp on the outskirts of Hearne.

KJ: The most interesting thing on my trip was revisiting Guerrero Viejo, the ruins of a Mexican town that was evacuated when Falcon Lake was built and partially submerged for years. In the long drought, the town has reemerged and visitors are free to visit and walk around. Getting to the ghost town is a long trip that will consume the better part of a day, but it's a hauntingly beautiful and eerie place. Part of the town is in rubble, but many of the buildings, constructed of big sandstone blocks, are still standing. The church across from what used to be the plaza is the most architecturally striking building with its columns and arches. I also visited for the first time the old cemetery, which had some headstones dating back to the 1800's and some beautiful tombs. Guerrero Viejo is certainly worth a trip not only to see the remains of a significant colonial town, but also to see the high price that people have paid for the construction of Falcon Dam. This town was deemed expendable at the time. In hindsight it seems like such a travesty to sacrifice a place like this in the name of "progress."

texasmonthly.com: What did you find boring about your drive? Why?

KV: There wasn't anything boring about it; I love driving. I just blast music and watch the scenery. I could go for hours and hours. What I don't like is parking.

PB: What other people may find boring, I find uplifting—the great emptiness of the West. I'm never bored when I'm driving. The least interesting part of the drive was when I wasn't driving, just creeping through suburban Houston, miles and miles of strip malls and every chain store and fast-food restaurant known to man.

MH: All those antique stores. Many of them are full of phony antiques or boring ones.

PS: I wasn't bored with any part of my drive until I got almost to Wichita Falls; the towns are few and far between up there and they're pretty small, so there aren't a lot of attractions like little museums and such. But I like the look of the country—it feels like Texas.

texasmonthly.com: Was the drive what you were expecting? Why or why not?

KV: Something that surprised me: The pies along the whole route were outstanding. I didn't include them all in my write-up, but I must have tried ten pieces of pie. Apple, blueberry, fudge, you name it. I had no idea I wouldn't get sick of it and that there would be even more waiting for me every few miles.

PB: I was excited about the drive, because some of it was familiar and some of it was totally unfamiliar. Almost everything was as good as or better than I thought it would be—even that awful stretch of Galveston County mainland (I'm speaking with the lifelong prejudice of a BOI, which in case there is anyone who doesn't know this, is a Galveston term for "Born on the Island") was as splendidly awful as I remembered it. There are great things to see on this drive—the Nolan Ryan museum in Alvin; Peckerwood Garden in Hempstead; the pre-revolutionary Fanthorp Inn in Anderson; the historic district in Calvert; the George Bush presidential library exhibit of the two father-son presidents, the Adams and the Bushes, at Texas A&M; and the Old Jail Art Center in Albany. These are all three-star attractions (out of three). Even the little diversions were worthwhile, like buying a Dr Pepper made with the original formula in Dublin, seeing the open coffin of Old Rip the horned toad in Eastland, and visiting the Billy the Kid Museum in Hico, which I thought would be a tourist rip-off. The woman in charge tells the story that Billy the Kid lived in town until 1950 in a way that lets the visitor make up his own mind. It's clear that the guy did claim to be Billy the Kid and that he had some documentation to support his claim. The biggest disappointment was Marlin, which has not made the most of a fabulous past—mineral baths, grand old houses, and the New York Giants spring training site from the twenties. When I called the library to ask where the Giants had trained, all anyone could tell me was that it was a cow pasture somewhere south of town.

ES: Yes and no. I expected the natural beauty of the Piney Woods, but was surprised by the diversity of the landscape. I also found the people I met along the way to be more accepting of outsiders than some prevalent stereotypes would have us believe.

MH: Yeah, to tell the truth, I've been that way enough times to know what to expect. The most unexpected thing was the Michelson Museum in Marshall.

KJ: The drive lived up to my expectations, since I had done it before, but it also surprised me. Taking the time to stop in each town and explore along the business route was so much more rewarding than taking the much faster expressway (which runs outside Harlingen to Mission). The expressway is certainly much faster, but it's a different world with its string of fast-food restaurants, chain motels, and gas stations. The business route is a lot slower but so much more interesting.

texasmonthly.com: What was the funniest thing that happened to you while on the road?

PB: It wasn't funny to me, at least not at the time, but my newfound friends in Medicine Mound certainly thought my getting stuck on Little Mound Road was hilarious.

ES: On most road trips there comes a point where you have become just a wee bit weary of your travel companion. You're also sick of all the CDs you've brought along. When we had reached this point, during a period of uncomfortable silence, James was impatiently jabbing at the radio tuner button, which landed on a country music station. He left it there (just to annoy me, of course). Then a hit by Toby Keith came on. By the end of the song—the lyrics of which we found so clever and fitting—we were both singing along, holding hands, and smiling. We were perfectly in love again—and totally countrified.

MH: When the miniature donkey kept nudging me in the crotch.

KJ: The funniest thing that happened to me was when I was driving on the jarring, rutted road from Guerrero Viejo back to Highway 2 in Mexico. It's so remote, with only a scattering of ranches along the way and prickly pear that was taller than me. I was enjoying the solitude and thinking about how I was so alone in this austere landscape when I spotted a tour bus lurching ahead along the road. A few tour companies run buses to Guerrero Viejo during the winter and early spring when the Winter Texans are still living in the Valley. I had to pull over to let the bus pass. So much for being alone.

texasmonthly.com: Did you meet any interesting characters? If so, will you tell us about one?

PB: I wish I had had more space to write about Brent and Gena Cain in Calvert. Brent is a fifth-generation Calvertite, and all of his male ancestors were dentists. He became interested in mountain bike racing, went to Colorado, and saw Gena there. Whether he was more interested in the bike first or in Gena is a standing joke between them. She is from Utah. They moved back to Calvert and live on a ranch. Their shop, Rustique, which incorporates several of their interests (bikes, handmade furniture, coffee), is located in a building his family has owned.

MH: Pee Wee Kornegay was pretty interesting. He's been breeding Brahman bulls for almost three decades and the donkeys for four years. He's a gospel singer and travels a lot with a local singing group. He also makes and sells little birdhouses out of gourds.

KJ: One of the best parts of the trip was chatting with people I happened to meet along the way. I enjoyed talking to several of the custom bootmakers in Mercedes and learning how boots are made. And I loved talking to the owner of Smitty's Juke Box Museum in Pharr and learning about the vintage jukeboxes on display. There was no one else in the museum when I visited, and Leo "Smitty" Schmitt, Jr., gave me a personal tour, explaining how his father, Smitty Senior, had started the museum. He played a few records for me and showed me his workbench strewn with wires where he works on broken machines.

texasmonthly.com: Is there anything you would like to add?

MH: Caddo Lake is one of my favorite places in the state. It's like going to a netherworld between Texas and Louisiana.

KJ: I'd like to add that I just scratched the surface on the Los Caminos trip. There were so many places I didn't get to visit for lack of time, including battlefields, wildlife refuges, and other historical sites along the way. And I think it's an important trip because you get to see how closely interwoven Mexico and Texas are and how that makes the state so much richer. I hope to return soon.

PB: One of the side trips I took en route was to Crawford, where George W. and Laura Bush have their home. I went to the store in town in the hope that the president and/or first lady might be eating lunch there. No such luck, but I did run into a couple of aides I knew. My cell phone must have been on the blink again, because I was just sure I'd get a call to come out and visit the ranch. But the call never got through.

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