A Trip To Texas, by Karla

 Photo by Professor Farnsworth

A Letter to his grandkids.

    "Well kids, one time back in 2024 when yer dad was about yer age, yer grandma and me decided we'd all go to Texas to check out a solar eclipse. Yer dad, yer uncle Calvin, yer aunt Lucy and Scooter, who was a little mutt we had back then, who was crazy 'bout your grandma, so we couldn't just haul her off and then leave him home by himself, so we all loaded everybody up in that old Chevy Wagon we had and headed out. 

    When we got to a place called Gatesville, TX we stopped to look at this really nice lookin' courthouse building they had there and then we saw they also had some fliers tellin' folks all about the eclipse thing, and selling weird little pieces of carboard with holes in 'em, to hold up to the Sun when the Moon was blocking it out, so folks didn't burn out their eyeballs from just plain lookin' at it, so we knew we had reached our destination. 

    Then we noticed a sign sayin' "Prayer Tent", and so we went on over there and found out we could get yer Uncle Calvin saved and baptized, right there in that parking lot!

     Your Uncle hadn't made that decision yet, but by golly when he saw he could bypass all the fuss and embarrassment involved at the church and just get 'er done right there in that parking lot he was all for it. They had a preacher and a stock tank all set up right there for just that very thing!

     Yep, so we went ahead and got that done, and then headed on over to The Feed Mill and had us some Texas steaks for supper before we went looking for a spot to park for the night 'cause all the motels was full and they probably would never have let Scooter stay in one of 'em anyway. 

    Then, since it was still light out, (eclipse stuff didn't start till the next day) we went on out to look at all the prisons. By golly they had 5 of the dang things right there in that one little town! I figure not enough folks in those parts got around to gettin' their savin' and baptizin' done on Sundays, so they had to open all them prisons up later on to put all them poor lost souls in. So I reckon then all the churches decided to start puttin' them little prayer tents up all over town so folks could just go ahead and get saved whenever they really felt like it. Probably not such a bad idea. Anyways, tomorrow I'll tell ya all about that eclipse thing."

Part Two

    Well kids, I don't want to make this here letter writin' a habit, but I did say I would tell ya about that eclipse thing! Bein' here in Texas made it pretty easy too. Here's a photo we got of it that people was sellin' all over town. Shore glad all these other folks was takin' pictures. Anyway, here's what the eclipse thing looked like from here in Gatesville! Some folks say this is what it looked like all over the whole state of Texas! Sure hope that it's is good omen of things to come! Bye for now... keep your powder dry and maybe I'll write to yall again if we head out on another adventure someday, holdin' that the creek don't rise.

                           Love from Gramps