YES, I REMEMBER MERTZON!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TEXAS TOWNS....FRIENDS.....STORIES!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I had a dear friend, from high school days, and we corresponded about twice a week by email or sometimes regular mail since he traveled a lot. His home was in the Texas Hill Country (and I made the bad mistake once of not capitalizing "Hill Country.") Traveler that he was, there was no telling where he would turn up next--Nuevo Laredo...or even Terlingua! (Find that one on the map!)

We had a running joke: he'd be leaving on a trip and off email for awhile and I'd say, before he left, "There'll be a letter waiting for you in a large empty mayonnaise jar on the front porch of the John Deere dealership in Merkel, Texas."

Well, anyway, this is not about Merkel, but close...My son told me a couple of years ago, when leaving on a trip: "I'm going to drop by, on the way, and visit a co-worker friend of mine who recently retired and is living  on a ranch outside of Mertzon. Do you know where that is?"

Then, just this week, I got an email from a long-time high school friend who told me: "We lived in Mertzon, Texas when I was a small boy; I started to school there. Do you know where it is ? " Isn't it strange that everyone who mentions Mertzon, Texas, follows with the question: "Do you know where it is?"

Yes. Yes, matter of fact I DO know where it is. I ought to---in the spring of '55, it was Mertzon where I  bought gasoline most Sunday mornings for my trusty '48 Chevrolet.  I was half asleep! You want to hear the story? Okay, it is a worthy piece of history.

In my junior year of studying music at Hardin-Simmons University, Abilene, Texas, I had a weekend music-directing job at Colorado City for a semester, and a two week revival at Aspermont. I was asked during my senior year to take the Sunday job at First Baptist Church, Ozona, 150 miles from Abilene, and I took it. It entailed my leading the music for two services, having an adult choir practice, and leading a youth fellowship after church on Sunday night. For a college kid who was broke most of the time, it was a great thing---the pay was $50.00 a week, at a time when family men were earning only $100.00 a week. Gas, you will remember, was about 25 cents a gallon then, in 1955.

So each Sunday morning my dreaded alarm would go off at five a.m. Have you ever had an early-get-up-time like that when you slept fitfully with one eye open, as if you didn't even deserve what little sleep you were getting? My dear readers; Let me ask you a riddle--- Where is the stillest, quietest, most peaceful place on earth on a Sunday morning at 5 a.m.? It is a boys' college dorm!

I was up and out, dressed nicely in my suit and tie, my coat hanging behind me in the car, so as not to wrinkle it on the two-and-a-half hour trip. (I was not a speeder.) I headed southwest out of Abilene for San Angelo. Fifty miles down that highway, there was a highway crossroads with a blinking yellow light. It was called Bronte. (Check your map.) Now, Greater Bronte was not much---two or three buildings, but it had a small truck stop cafe where each Sunday morning I stopped to get a cup of coffee and a sweet roll!

I reached San Angelo and turned a little bit southwest I think, went about 35 miles, and there was Mertzon! Yes, Mertzon, with that filling station on the right, I told you about, where I filled up with that twenty -five cent gas...many  Sunday mornings!

On down to Barnhart from there, turned and went about 28 miles south to Ozona, arrived about nine o'clock and prepared for the Sunday service. After church different church members took me home with them each Sunday for some fried chicken and a place to catch a nap.

You know the rest. After the hard day was over, I was on my way back to Hardin-Simmons.and on reaching San Angelo, stopped at my favorite drive-in and bought as big a coke as I could get, with ice, for I was always a sleepy-head when driving and it was 90 more miles home. Eating ice kept me busy. (I had a friend once, who traveled all time and he had this system for staying awake...He, before a long trip would buy a sack of grapes, and eat one every eight-tenths of a mile, or whatever.)

Arriving back at school late, we guys who had Sunday jobs around the area, would congregate in someone's room and unwind 'til the wee hours. Next day, Monday, we would go downtown to Mack Eplen's Cafeteria for lunch and all splurge big-time on chicken fried steaks, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, fried okra, corn bread and butter, and I don't remember "what-all," plus a piece of their great coconut pie! All for about 1.90! Maybe we deserved it---the Sunday thing was hard for all of us.

Yes, I remember Mertzon...and alarm clocks...and sleepy driving...and 25 cent a gallon gasoline! Now my readers also know where Mertzon is!

---------30---------
BY MIL
6/18/12






Sent from my iPad