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January 2, 2024
Growing Up In Bandera
By Glenn Clark
The Bandera Prophet
On a recent cool and windy morning, I was walking around the front yard under my two big pecan trees, and it brought back memories of a long ago time. We were usually in a group of three or four boys, and we would spend hours picking up pecans on the river around Bandera. We could earn enough money to go to the Bantex Theater on Saturday, or maybe make a trip to McGroarty's Store to get a bag of penny candy and bubble gum. It caused some difficult decision making times, as a quarter earned might be the admission for a movie, or it could get you a pretty hefty bag of candy. Either way, it made good times for us down in Polander Town.
Anytime I am along the Medina River on a chilly, windy winter day, I think back to those special times when I was with friends, but often alone. The water was always crystal clear and icy cold. The river bank had a carpet of reddish brown cypress needles, which provided a soft resting place when I would find a nice warm, sunny spot out of the wind. Just lying back and looking up at a blue clear sky as the wind whistled overhead, I was without a care in the world. Now that I often have serious adult situations to deal with, it would be nice if I still had access to those childhood places of solitude.
Arrival of the cooler north winds always signaled the coming of deer season in the Hill Country. If you are from around these parts, you know how important that is to our town. I did quite a bit of hunting in my younger days, but it has been many years now since I killed a deer. Much to the dislike of some friends and neighbors, I prefer to feed the deer in front of my house and just shoot them with my trusty Canon camera. I no longer have a desire to kill anything other than maybe a fly, fire ant or mosquito. I even try to dodge the tumble bugs with my truck tires as they cross the street while doing their part to clean up our town.
This year, I won't be doing battle with squirrels in an effort to save a few pecans for myself. I guess it was the drought that caused the trees to skip producing nuts this year. Probably a survival technique of Mother Nature. I did see pecans on some of the native trees along the river, so the local squirrels may have to do a little traveling to store up for the winter. My big red oak is producing acorns, but they are much smaller than usual. Still, the squirrels are making use of them. They sound like a herd of elephants as they cross my metal roof heading back to the power line they use as a path to get back to my neighbor's oak tree.
Around this time of the year while still a kid Growing Up In Bandera, we would make a trip to Granddaddy Kindla's pasture out on the Tarpley Highway to cut a cedar Christmas tree. The story was always the same. Searching for a perfectly shaped tree and settling on something way less than perfect. We cut extra cedar branches to fill in gaps on a tree that always turned out to be bigger than it looked out in the pasture. Those were good times with just me, along with my mom and dad, in our old Chevy truck back in the day.
#394 2024
Anytime I am along the Medina River on a chilly, windy winter day, I think back to those special times when I was with friends, but often alone. The water was always crystal clear and icy cold. The river bank had a carpet of reddish brown cypress needles, which provided a soft resting place when I would find a nice warm, sunny spot out of the wind. Just lying back and looking up at a blue clear sky as the wind whistled overhead, I was without a care in the world. Now that I often have serious adult situations to deal with, it would be nice if I still had access to those childhood places of solitude.
Arrival of the cooler north winds always signaled the coming of deer season in the Hill Country. If you are from around these parts, you know how important that is to our town. I did quite a bit of hunting in my younger days, but it has been many years now since I killed a deer. Much to the dislike of some friends and neighbors, I prefer to feed the deer in front of my house and just shoot them with my trusty Canon camera. I no longer have a desire to kill anything other than maybe a fly, fire ant or mosquito. I even try to dodge the tumble bugs with my truck tires as they cross the street while doing their part to clean up our town.
This year, I won't be doing battle with squirrels in an effort to save a few pecans for myself. I guess it was the drought that caused the trees to skip producing nuts this year. Probably a survival technique of Mother Nature. I did see pecans on some of the native trees along the river, so the local squirrels may have to do a little traveling to store up for the winter. My big red oak is producing acorns, but they are much smaller than usual. Still, the squirrels are making use of them. They sound like a herd of elephants as they cross my metal roof heading back to the power line they use as a path to get back to my neighbor's oak tree.
Around this time of the year while still a kid Growing Up In Bandera, we would make a trip to Granddaddy Kindla's pasture out on the Tarpley Highway to cut a cedar Christmas tree. The story was always the same. Searching for a perfectly shaped tree and settling on something way less than perfect. We cut extra cedar branches to fill in gaps on a tree that always turned out to be bigger than it looked out in the pasture. Those were good times with just me, along with my mom and dad, in our old Chevy truck back in the day.
#394 2024