Raising a glass for Texas tales to come
The last time we got together, dear reader, I had just finished insulting the good people of Shiner by intimating that a goodly number of them were drunks. I didn’t mean this, of course, but a number of hyper-sensitive Shinerites thought I did; they let me know. I tried to explain that I like their self-proclaimed “Cleanest City in Texas” and meant no disrespect when I mentioned bars and beer. I can attest to the fact that Shiner’s neat. And clean. And sober (for the most part.)
Having made it out alive from the little town in southeast Texas that beer made famous, I thought I might mention what I’ve been doing during my column’s absence in recent weeks and then suggest where we might be going in columns coming up.
Sixty-five miles southwest of Shiner, just south of Seguin, is Sutherland Springs, the nondescript, little community that many of us had never heard of before it became the site of unspeakable tragedy in November 2017. As I’ve mentioned in this space before, I’ve spent a lot of time the last couple of years with members of the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, researching a book about the long-lingering aftermath of mass tragedy. (“Sutherland Springs: God, Guns and a Small Texas Town” will be out March 17.) Although I’m no longer a regular at Sunday services and Thursday-night Bible class (and supper,) I can report that church members are meeting in a spacious, new building near the little sanctuary where 26 worshipers lost their lives in a mass shooting; membership is at least double what it was on that
horrific day. Survivors and their families seem to be getting on with their lives as best they can, knowing that things will never really be the same.
The Sutherland Springs surprise is that Pastor Frank Pomeroy, the public face of the congregation in the tragedy’s aftermath, is running for the state Senate as a Republican against veteran incumbent Judith Zaffirini. What makes the minister’s decision surprising is that I never once heard him mention politics from the pulpit, nor has he ever run for public office of any kind. It would take a miracle for Pomeroy to beat Zaffirini, a powerful and influential Democrat in a staunch Democratic district. I guess you could say, though, that Pastor Frank’s in the miracle business.
Once the book was done, I spent some time preparing
an advance obituary for a prominent Texan of a certain age. Newspapers and magazines try to compile a cache of advance obits of prominent people, so they won’t have to scramble when the time comes. For example, when I worked for the Washington Post, I had a year, off and on, to craft an obit for the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy. (Even so, editors were leaning over my shoulder minutes before I hit the key sending the obit to press.)
Although there’s a writerly satisfaction in having space and time to craft a compelling obit — like writing a mini-biography — there’s also one minor problem: Friends and family members aware of what I’m doing occasionally look askance when I ask, “How are you?” I have to remind them that I’m just being my courteous, caring self; it’s not a professional inquiry.
Had I been writing obits 60 years or so ago, I might have written about one Katherine Chaves, a prominent New Mexican who was murdered in her Santa Fe home in 1961, the motive, if there was one, a mystery to this day.
Her family, with distinguished roots that trace back to 12th-century Spain, ran a rustic guest ranch up from the banks of the beautiful Pecos River 30 miles north of Santa Fe. Los Pinos, high in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, opened in 1923 and catered to guests from the Northeast and elsewhere who were drawn to the enchantment of northern New Mexico. The high-toned crowd loved to ride horses along the steep mountain trails during the day and then dress for drinks and dinner in the evening, afterwards enjoying spirited conversations, poetry readings and music.
A few years after Los Pinos opened, a brilliant, young New Yorker found his way to the guest ranch. The young man’s parents hoped the mountain air and the rigorous outdoor life would be good for his fragile health. Like most male guests, young Robert fell in love with the captivating Katherine, even though she was a decade older. He and “Kia,” as she was called, became lifelong friends. A few years after Robert discovered Los Pinos, he and his brother built a rustic cabin near a previously undiscovered mountain lake that Robert christened Lake Katherine.
In the throes of world war a couple decades later, when the federal government was searching for a site to build the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer thought of New Mexico and Los Pinos; he proposed a boys school near Los
Pinos as the site for a hidden, super-secret facility. It became, of course, Los Alamos, where, when the pressure on Oppenheimer became almost too much to bear, he would mount a horse and ride over the mountain to visit Katherine at Los Pinos.
Nearly a century after its founding, Los Pinos still exists — wife Laura and I stayed there recently — although it’s lost much of its Katherine-era lustre. I bring up Los Pinos, because my New Mexico-born wife has gained access, through the Chaves family, to poems and limericks, recipes, musings and letters that Oppenheimer wrote to Katherine through the years. Our visit to Los Pinos recently was an effort to determine what to do with the material.
Back on this side of the state line, I’ve also been spending time along the
Canadian River, a body of water Texans beyond the Panhandle might assume flows a couple of thousand miles to the north. The Canadian is in Texas, though; it’s the only river to cross the Panhandle. You don’t hear much about the 906-mile-long stream — originating in southern Colorado snowmelt and eventually merging with the Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma — even though it provides water to 11 Texas towns and cities, including Amarillo and Lubbock. Coronado, Kit Carson, Bat Masterson, buffalo-hunter Billy Dixon (whose stupendous rifle shot during an Indian scrape is the stuff of southwestern legend) — they all had Canadian River connections. I hope to tell some of their tales in the coming weeks.
I also hope to hear from you; your suggestions help to keep the column going. Here’s one among a number of ideas I plan to explore soon, this one from Houston resident Jack Casimir: A Calvert native, Jack has told me about Indians kidnapping two little girls in Calvert in the 1850s. One was the daughter of a prominent pioneer resident, the other a slave; they ended up in Mexico. Jack insists, and I believe him, that their adventure is a tale worth telling.
Meanwhile, I suggest we raise a glass to all those Texas tales waiting to be told throughout this great state. I suggest we make it a Shiner.