Anyone that's moved away ever want to go back? I miss it out there. Or, am I just crazy? Home is home though, miss the wide open spaces and wonderful sunsets.

You aren't the only one, tlh. My friends think I'm an absolute lunatic for thinking this way, but I'll take the dry, flat and wide-open country of West Texas any day over the humidity and clutter of Southeast Texas.

Make this your background ... maybe it will help.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/8240f75514.jpg

[This message has been edited by LoudestWHOOP! (edited 3/1/2006 11:17a).]

I know just how you fellows feel, (sniff, sniff), I miss those dust storms rolling in off the plains with the grit under my collar and in my eyes. I miss going up and down endless rows of 3 inch high cotton that I know will never grow more than 3 more inches, with the sun baking my brains with its 110 degree oven. And I miss those six foot high forest of mesquite brush ... and the dry, dead grass in pastures and ........... (sigh).........

Ask your grandparents about the drought that lasted from '49 to '56 and what their feelings were about west Texas then. (Assuming they remained in west Texas.)

"If I owned Hell and all of west Texas, I would rent out west Texas and live in Hell."

I'm with Fossil. I grew up in Kermit, and I don't miss the sandstorms and tornados, and it's nice to have rain more than a couple of times a year (which makes my lawn in B/CS lots easier to care for than our yard in Kermit!)

That said, there's nothing like a West Texas sunset!

I miss it for my friends and family. And it is nice being able to see down the road, a long way!

With that said, I sure was surprised how bad the brown looked when I flew in last fall. When you spend time in the green hills of eastern Tennessee and see the fall color, I found out why the Ags I have met here say you won't want to go back.

I do know when I retire I will still call WT home. May not be there to much, but it will always be home for me.

Funny,
I grew up in Katy Texas and can go back and see the green all I want but the humidity and traffic will always leave me with wanting to visit and never stay in Katy(Houston), Dallas, Austin, San Antonio.

[This message has been edited by LoudestWHOOP! (edited 3/3/2006 1:22p).]

My granddad came to West Texas in 1880, in a cart pulled by two oxen, and settled in Jones County near a trading post at Neinda. This was before Jones City (later Anson), Abilene and Sweetwater were founded. His description of the land at that time was quite different from what we know today ... then, there was no mesquite or other brush, no cactus (that stuff was brought in by trail drives)... only grass about knee high or better for a far as he could see. His meat diet was antelope which were plentiful and about the only thing one could successfully hunt. Trees of any size were only located along river and creek banks. He lived alone for six years in a sod hut half carved out of an embankment and covered with a wagon tarp. He scratched out a plot and raised cotton which he carted about 60 miles to Colorado City to trade for supplies. In 1886 he traveled back to Lamar county and married a young lady on her 16th birthday and returned her to the sod house in a buckboard. After five more years there (and four children) the family moved further west to Fisher County which was just being formed. That man and his young bride were destined to have 13 children over a 26 year period, building a family and a farming and ranching enterprise virtually with bare hands. That is what makes West Texas and West Texas people special ... a common heritage of hardships and perseverance that tempered the souls. Most of you reading this, if you had had the chance to talk with your great grandfathers would have heard a comparable story.

[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 3/3/2006 11:22p).]

i miss el paso mexican food but then i think about the mess that makes and how much i love my colon.

very glad to be out of west texas.

quote:

---

My granddad came to West Texas in 1880, in a cart pulled by two oxen, and settled in Jones County near a trading post at Neinda.

---

That would be back of Skinout Mountain. . .

Sheik! You are the only person other than members of my family I have heard refer to those hills as Skinout Mountains! I had always figured the name and the tale about how they got their name was a fable my dad hatched for us kids. My brother once owned the south side of those mountains. My granddad's original place was about three miles north.

Anyone in San Antonio wanna trade jobs? I'm kinda homesick, too.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Check out "Unsolicited Sports Opinions"
at fourthandshawn.com

quote:

---

Sheik! You are the only person other than members of my family I have heard refer to those hills as Skinout Mountains! I had always figured the name and the tale about how they got their name was a fable my dad hatched for us kids. My brother once owned the south side of those mountains. My granddad's original place was about three miles north.

---

I'm from Anson

I have spent many many nights coyote hunting and riding around on the backroads of Jones County. My cousin farmed a couple of places out there at Nienda and while working for him, I've cut wheat and plowed stubble all over out there.

During a rain storm one afternoon in May, I slid a truck full of wheat off the road into a deep bar ditch and turned it over about 2.5 miles SE of Nienda

and then one night at 2am, I bottomed out and broke the transmission pan on my car on "thrill hill" and had to walk back to Anson with a buddy and our dates.

yeah Shiek, but have you ever REALLY seen the Anson lights? or drank a Cherry Limeaide at the Hataho?

The Hataho drive-in restaurant chain was started by an old country kid in Roby sometime about 1970. The name derived from "Hate To Hoe" ... as any of you ex-cotton choppers might relate to. (The restaurant chain only got as far as Anson before imploding ... but the expectant franchiser never chopped cotton again.)

squid - I seen the light many many times !

In fact, the place where you start is right there at what used to be my family's place. You want to know what the lights are ?

That might require a thread of its own. . .

I drank lots of sweet cherry limeades and I ate lots and lots of HataHoe cheese burgers. In the old days you just dial 3-2251 and they be happy to start one for you (by the way, that's without looking up the number.....) I'd call and say, this is Brandy, and Joyce would say, "you want the usual ?" I think Doug Browning is back in the old place. He got in the car business for a while and let his kids run the hamburger joint. But I think he's back now.









[This message has been edited by TheSheik (edited 3/6/2006 8:55p).]

Sixty or so years ago Brownings had a farm about 7 miles south of Roby on the Sweetwater highway. They always had a great watermelon patch just real handy off the road. Doug was self appointed guardian of the patch ... not only from neighboring kids (who all had watermelon patches of their own) ... but from crows and coyotes. He put up a nice scarecrow hoping to keep all the raiders out. Unfortunately, that scarecrow was a kid magnet and that poor thing had its clothes changed 3 or 4 times a week. They finally moved the scarecrow up from the watermelon patch to the highway so it would attract fewer trespassers. Some of the garbs were truly outlandish. (Mention the watermelon patch today and you will probably get a rise out of Doug.

anything to get a rise out of Doug is worth a trip to Anson. . . .

I'll report back

come on....lets hear it with the lights....

http://www.ghosts.org/ghostlights/ansonlights3.html

http://www.wirenot.net/X/Stories/Ghost/Ghost%2000-B/AnsonLights.shtml

don't read this if you don't want to know what I think it is
http://www.sgha.net/tx/anson/anson2.html

we used to drive from Abilene to Anson for no other reason than to get a large order of fries and a cherry limeaide from Doug. Great guy, I had no idea he was back at the old place. What's he calling it these days?

I've seen those lights!

It Fish House or Chicken shack or something like that. I say he's back. Somebody told me that. It might be his son-in-law or something too.

There's a Sonic coming in right next door, which no doubt will affect business for them.

man I hate Sonic. Wish everyone of 'em would burn down and take all their plastic tasting trash it. We need more Hatahos and Storms and less Sonics and Dairy Queens....

My dad was ag teacher in Anson for one year(1969). That would have been my third grade year. I may have been to young but I never remember hearing anthing about Anson lights. That is interesting. You guys are probably younger than I am. Wondering if we ever crossed paths. I still remember names of a lot of people we were friends with while in Anson.

I'm about the same age you are. You probably would have been in my high school class 77 ?

I wasn't in Anson at that time, but I'm sure a bunch of my buddies were there then. Mitch Hall, Joey Spraberry, Tim Nix, Benny Tubbs, Greg Boyd,

do you remember any names.




ps
the Anson Hatahoe is now the Hatahoe Chick and Fish. Doug Browning himself made my hamburger the other day. He said he remembered that old scarecrow. Figures its probably still out there. And the Sonic is up and running.

I graduated class of 79. I was in school with with Trey Goza, Mitch Terrel, Patrice Propst,Mary Roland, Betsy Thompson( dad owned the feed store). I remember we lived close to somebody who had a dairy. Joey Sprayberry and Tim Nix sound familiar to me.

I've refrained involving myself in the discussion about Anson as long as possible because, well, it's Anson, and we Stamfordites don't care too much for that town in the center of the county.

Okay, okay, I'm at least half kidding. Anson's not too terrible of a town, not on the level of Stamford, but certainly not as objectionable as Hamlin.

I remember getting Cherry Limeades at the Hatahoe all the time when I was a kid, on the way to Abilene. I'm glad to see that it's back in Doug's hands, that was the last time it was a decent restaurant. Doug is a unique fellow, I was witness to a few of his dealings when my dad was on the Stamford City Council and he built his rather unique Video Mania building on the corner of the square. I didn't realize that scarecrow on the Sweetwater highway was his family's.

I never have gotten around to making the drive to Anson to see the famed Anson Lights, they never did really interest me a whole lot, though I have a lot of friends who ventured over there on Saturday nights in high school (probably after I had gone to bed).

Looking at that list of Anson names, I recognize most of them, at least their families'. Mitch Hall is a good friend of my dad's and I know him quite well, he's certainly an interesting character. He's done quite well over the last few years with show pigs and steers, and he's got a pretty fair accumulation of ranchland back towards Lueders now. Joey Spraberry's daughter is a few years younger than me, and she and I are very good friends.

got1, our thread fell off the General Board pages, so if you want to continue that show hog discussion over on this board, that's certainly fine with me.

[This message has been edited by WestTxAg06 (edited 3/19/2006 4:04p).]

I know all that gang. My sister was a year or two behind all them. Mary Rowland was my first girlfriend ! I see Trey Goza periodically, he drives for UPS around here.

Mitch Terrell is a rodeo rough stock provider. TNT Rodeo or something like that. Patrice married Tony Watts the stud HS QB from the year before me.

WTA06 - agreed on the failings of Hamlin. Granted, Stamford has its benefits, but most of them revolve around the businesses on the north side of town. Kenneth at Farrell's was an especially good friend of mine!

And there was a hamburger drive-in that had absolutley wonderful steak fingers. And hot BBQ sandwiches from the Pinkies.

TCR Rodeo is certainly worth a trip.

Back in my day, the women in Stamford were certainly fun to chase . . . . I mean, hell they're nearly in Haskell County.

and yes, Mitch Hall is an interesting character. . . . . one of my favorite friends, but certainly an interesting character.

I suppose most of you are too young to know all of Doug's adventures during the early days of the Hatahoe. Does anyone recall that not long after Doug opened, a neighboring business put up a sign that Doug thought blocked a clear view of his? ... so Doug got and axe and chopped it down. It was quite a squabble for a few days before Anson's attention turned to other subjects.

Yeah, I'm out here now and I miss College Station.

Doug now has a commercial running on the local TV stations....'Yall dont need to go to those New York chain restaurants, come out to the country for real food for real people!' He's on the floor cleaning up a busted watermelon while he's saying that.....

At least we can all agree on our hatred of Hamlin, but you guys from Stamford and Anson are still loathed to a lesser degree by us Albany folk.

Albany was just a bunch of hick cowboys back in my day. I'm talking deep redneck right off the ranch, took a bath in a water trough last week kind of hick cowboy. don't get me wrong, nice guys and much better than any of those people from Hamlin. . .