Ho-hum

Pretty much a ho-hum week this week.  I guess the high point was Halloween when we had an actual trick-or-treater, the first in several years other than A&R.  The little feller was accompanied by his big brother and may have been part of the family that lives down the street in the Simmons place.   Simmons place, that’s how I refer to house in the neighborhood, by the names of the families that lived there as I grew up.  Anyway, they visit us ever so often to sell us candy for their school fund-raisers.  A&R and their parents also visited us after they finished the trunk-or-treat at the soon-to-open new church campus in northeast Amarillo.  They have committed to attending that campus for a year once it opens in the next few weeks.  I guess the idea is to have a core congregation while they build it up.  It is a less privileged part of town but no doubt in need of the Word.

I did play golf Thursday.  Gary Shewbert is back in town but I guess he has been too busy to call so I decided to play by myself.  I fell in with another fellow who claimed he had only been playing a month.  He was maybe around 50 and said he played every day.  He played much better than someone who had only been playing a month but who am I to doubt him.  He left after nine holes because there was a pretty strong north wind.  I didn’t mind the wind since I was for whatever reason playing at the upper end of my skill range.  Oh, and I saw Gary out there playing with another fellow who zinged his t-shot in my direction.

Saturday morning in spite of the cold wind I participated in a history walk out at Wildcat Bluff I’d signed up for.  I’m not sure of the leader’s bio, maybe he was an archeologist.  Anyway, he had participated back in the 90’s in a survey of the area that comprises Wildcat Bluff, listing the historic sites.  Some of them were those left by the ranchers and cowboys that worked the Frying Pan ranch and some were left by much earlier folks passing through.  He pointed out three areas where clay was quarried and used at a brick manufacturing enterprise on Western Street in the early 20th century.  It is my understanding the bricks that paved Polk Street came from there.  He also showed us the remains of a dock along West Amarillo Creek that runs through the area.  The creek has been dry for some time due to the use of irrigation in this part of the world, a plight of many such water ways around the area.   I guess I wouldn’t want to give up modern amenities but it would be so nice have some of the features of the Panhandle the way they were back in the day.  I can remember as a boy playing in the creek that runs through McBride Canyon.  It use to run as far as the rock house but I don’t think it has done that since sometime in the 60’s.

Joyce’s cat-breeding operation is going well.  There is the mother tabby, her two nearly grown kittens and five new kittens.  The latter are three tabbies and two solid black ones.  They show up about sundown for dinner and recreation and they are of course very cute.