Hi, Evrybudy!
This is Old Bear ritin 2 u agin and I jist cum bak frum our Mystury Trip a couple of days ago so I maybe kan member
everything we did. Miss Rosemary, who guided us on this trip sed it wus a mystury to her how we got to our destinashun.
But she wus jist kidding cus she knew wear we were all the time.
There were 29 of us who met with Mr. Phil and Miss RoseMary at the church my man goes to at 7 on Saturday morning to
go on this trip. Evrybudy wus purty sleepy but evrybudy got there on tyme sew we left right after 7. Mr. Billie was our
driver man and he sure is a gud driver.
The first place we stopped wus at Glen Rose but before we got there we had to go thru other towns lyke Alvarado and
Cleburne. Miss RoseMary told us stories about each town wen we kum to it. And she did that for the hole trip and it wus
intereStin cus she knows a hole loT about Texus history.
Glen Rose is purty famous cus dinosauruses used 2 live near Glen Rose and they no this cus science peoples
have found their traks. But we didn't go C the dinosaur traks. Insted we went 2 C the Barnard's Mill Art Museum.
Nobody xpected 2 go 2 a art museum but du U know that it wus a reel interestin museum cus it had mostly
little ststues of cowboys doin Cowboy stuff on horses. And there were lots of western pitchers hangin on the walls of the
museum. It wus in a house with a lot of rooms and U culd go up sum stairs to C sum more on the 2nd floor and if U wanted
2 walk up sum reel steep stairs to the third floor U culd see a game room with a pool table and a jukebox. Those sure
luked funny in an art museum but my man red in the ritin about the museum that it is used for parties and other social
activities. They even hold classes there 2 teach childrun how 2 du art stuff. Here's sum pitchers of the game room.
I think there wus 2 rooms that had art stuff done by skool childrun.
Here's sum more of the pitchers my man tuk at the museum.
I guess we stayed maybe an hour at the Barnard's Mill Art Museum goin into all the rums and lookin at the statchews
and paintings. Do you know I don't think there wus a single sign sayin "don't tuch the statues" and there were no guard
peoples there at all cept for one man who stood around and drank a sody pop and wuld answer a question if some one asked it.
Here's a pitcher of Miss RoseMary talkin 2 this man. Maybe she is gettin direcshuns of wear we were goin next.
After everybudy had luked at everything in the museum we all went back to Mr. Billie's bus and went 2 drive around
downtown Glen Rose. After we went around the square a couple of time Mr. Billie parked the bus sew we culd walk around
a little bit. He jist happened to park across the street frum a pie sellin store and a lot of us got a piece of pie.
My man bought a piece of rhubarb and strawberry pie that he likes real well.
While we were walkin around eatin pie we culd luk thru the fence at a purty place that wus a bird
sanctuary and peoples were workin down in the bottom of this nice valley makin it look even purtier.
When everybudy got thru eatin their pie we all got back on the bus and continued on our trip, going
thru some more small towns. Stephenville was one of them and wen we got there Mr. Billie drove around the campus of
Tarleton State College and Miss RoseMary give us the history of it. Then we went on to Dublin. Dublin, Texus, not Dublin,
Ireland, but we didn't stop there. Instead we went on to a town named DeLeon to have our lunch.
It tuk us maybe another hour to get to DeLeon after we went through Dublin. The town was named DeLeon cus it is right
near the Leon river.
My man sez that wen he wus little Saturday was a busy day in the small towns cus evrybudy cums to du shoppin and stuff
like that. But I guess that is changed cus there shure weren't many people in downtown DeLeon wen we got there. And
there were only maybe four or three peoples in the eatin place we went to. I guess Miss RoseMary had kalled sumbudy there
cus they were waitin 4 us and tuk us to a big back room where we wuld all eat.
This wus one of those all U kan eat places where you culd pick out wat U wanted and then go back and get sum more.
They had all kinds of gud luking things to eat, even had some diffurnt kinds of pizzas and most everybody got a slice or
two of pizza. It wus not a very fancy eatin place but everybudy had enuf good food. Here is pitchers of us eatin our
lunch in this big back room. The man in the white shirt sittin in this pitcher is Mr. Billie the bus driver.
Wen we left DeLeon Miss RoseMary sed that now we Were going to our real surprise destinatshun in Cross
Plains, Texus. Wear we were going wus to another Museum but not another art museum. It wus the home where Mr. Robert E.
Howard wus born and lived until he killed himself when he wus jist 30 years old.
Nobudy in our group ever had heard of
Mr. Howard and we were real surprised to find out that he wus a reel famous writer of the kinds of stories that my man
used to read. Detektive and western and sports and especially fantasy stories. Here is a pitcher of Mr. Howard's most
famous character in his ritins.
Cross Plains is a real little town but every year peoples cum frum all over the world to visit where Mr. Howard wus
borned. My man thought it wus a wus a purty interesting place 2 visit cus he used to read that kind of story a hole
lot but probly nobody else did cus we didn't stay there very long.
After we left Cross Plains we went to Eastland to go to the courthouse 2 C a dead horny toad. That's right. A DEAD
HORNY TOAD!
Way back in 1898 when a new courthouse Wus being built they put a live horny toad in the cornerstone of the building.
Then in 1928 that courthouse was torn down and when the cornerstone was opened the horny toad was still alive. He was
named Old RIP after Rip Van Winkle and the Eastland peoples tuk him all over the Unity States 2 show him off. But then he
got newmonia and died in 1929 so they put him in a purty box and put the box inside of a glass case and since then U kan
go to the courthouse and see Old RIP. There were sum ladys on the bus who had gone to TCU and the mascot at that skool is
the horny toad. Sew these ladies were all real excited about seein Old Rip.
There wus a couple of things more interestin than Old Rip at this courthouse. One was a window made completely out
of postage stamps. My man's
pitchers weren't very gud cus of the reflexshun but the writin that went with it sed that the lady who made it, the
postmasterr of the Eastland post office, had used 42,117 stamps to make this window and it wus dedicated on flag Day in 1968.
The other was a map of the Unity States with different state stamps marking locations like Dallas and Chicago.
After seein the horny toad we started back home and stopped to eat in Thurber, but it wus too earley for dinner and
there wus nuthin 2 see in Thurber cept some abandoned buildings sew we kept on going until 4:30 or 5:00 and stopped at a
Cracker Barrell to eat. Then we cum on back 2 Dallas and about 6 Mr. Billie let us all out at the church where we started
jist lyke the skedule sed we would du.
We didn't do anything espeshully excitin on our trip but it wus fun jist rydin through the purty Texus country and
seeing the blue bonnets and other stuff and going through lots of little towns that me or my man had never seen before.
My man sez we R goin on another trip in October if we kan save up sum money by then. I sure hope we kan go whereever
it is.
Note: If you have a sound card but didn't hear music it is probably because you do not have the appropriate MIDI plug ins. Download Crescendo from www.liveupdate.com. Remember, if you want a copy of the Child's Play font that allows you to read Old Bear's stories the way he writes them, please send him a request. It will be returned as an e-mail attachment.
J. Sage (Old Bear's Man).
Copyright 2005/2007 James Sage,
