Aspermont, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1100
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 387
School Colors Black/Crimson/White
2012 Record 11-1
Mascot Hornets
Enrollment 106
Hamlin, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1119
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 368
School Colors Green/White
2012 Record 8-4
Mascot Pied Pipers
Enrollment 134
Anson, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1128
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 359
School Colors Red/Black
2012 Record 10-3
Mascot Tigers
Enrollment 203
Hawley, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1139
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 348
School Colors Maroon/White
2012 Record 4-6
Mascot Bearcats
Enrollment 237
Abilene, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1151
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 336
School Colors
Cooper High Red/Blue
Abilene High Black/Gold
2012 Record
Cooper High 9-3
Abilene High 12-1
Mascot
Cooper High Cougars
Abilene High Eagles
Enrollment
Cooper High 1898
Abilene High 2280
Tuscola, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1166
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 321
School Colors Red/White
2012 Record 1-9
Mascot Indians
Enrollment 331
Winters, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1182
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 305
School Colors Royal Blue/White
2012 Record 2-8
Mascot Blizzards
Enrollment 191
Ballinger, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1196
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 291
School Colors Red/Black
2012 Record 7-4
Mascot Bearcats
Enrollment 291
Paint Rock, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1214
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 273
School Colors Maroon/White
2012 Record 4-6
Mascot Indians
Enrollment 122
Junction Boys
“If you quit here, you will quit on the goal line.”
Paul“Bear” Bryant, Junction, TX, August 1954
It is striking how barren this place is, even by West Texas standards. I have driven 350 miles south on US Highway 83 from Canadian, TX, burning a tank full of $3.57 a gallon gas in the process, just to reach this particular patch of arid Texas rangeland.
I am here to pay homage.
I am in the small town of Junction, TX, standing on ground that, 57 years ago, was witness to perhaps footballs’ most legendary ever two weeks of summer practice. Coach Paul ”Bear” Bryant brought his 1954 Texas A&M team, his first at the College Station school, to this 400 acre“campus” to conduct for his Aggies a pre-season training camp. The Bear intended to find out quickly who of the 114 prospects he brought west to Junction wanted to play football, and who didn’t.
The facilities for the camp, as Bryant had demanded, were Spartan. In 1954, this area of West Texas was in the midst of the worst draught anyone could remember, in a summer that had seen the thermometer climb over 100 every day for six straight weeks. In 2002, when the movie The Junction Boyswas made, to reconstruct the environment of the camp, the filming was done in the Australian Outback.
Bryant’s methods were brutal, maybe even inhumane. By today’s standards, they would be considered criminal.
Practices started before dawn and, with only a few breaks throughout the day in barracks lacking air conditioning, lasted until dark. Water breaks were not allowed during practice and it was not unusual, due to the sweltering heat and humidity, for a player to lose 10% of his body weight in one day. Bryant’s methods were not for the meek. According to sportsjones.com, during the camp, Bryant head-butted tackle Henry Clark after a blown assignment, leaving the player on the ground, dazed and holding a broken nose.
Dr. Arnold LeUnes is today an A&M professor of sports psychology. He was an A&M undergrad during the years the Bear ran the Aggies football program and has studied Bryant’s methods. According to LeUnes, Bryant’s word was the law in a time, especially at a military school like A&M, that authority was not questioned by subordinates. "He was strict, enforcing iron discipline," LeUnes said. "At the time, a coach could get away with pretty much anything. You wouldn't find something like that today."
LeUnes is correct. The sport will never again see the days of the Bear Bryants. The lawyers will see to that. Legend has it that of the 114 players who went to Junction in August of 1954, by the end of the two week camp, the roster had melted away in the West Texas desert sun to only 27. The hand full of survivors became the legendary “Junction Boys.”
our buses took the squad to Junction. Only one was needed to transport those left, back to College Station. Those who did persevere through the two weeks of pure torture at Junction, two years later, formed the core of A&M’s only national championship football team.
The 1950’s was a time when the legendary football coach, especially in the South, was a symbol of unquestioning and unbending discipline. He was often larger than life. His word was the law. This strong jawed, no nonsense coach was often viewed as unapproachable by parents, players, boosters, and in extreme cases, even the college president. The 1950’s were the peak decade for the limitless power of coaches like the Bear. As the nation rode the wave of the radical 60’s into the “me generation” of the 70’s and 80’s, the likes of these giants disappeared like dinosaurs from the college and high school football landscape, many, like Bryant, riding off into legendary status.
It is surprising that Junction’s local chamber of commerce has not attempted to cash in on the famous events of over 50 years ago that occurred in their back yard. The civic boosters of Junction are not exactly working with the Garden of Eden when attempting to convince outsiders to spend their tourists’ dollars in this barren land. Yet the county tourism web site does not even mention the Junction Boys. It does promote the area’s hunting, fishing, canoing and other outdoor activities; and plugs the area museums that depict early life in the west Texas desert; but not a hint of the Bear and his legendary two weeks spent in Junction. There is not even a small marker at the site to recognize what took place here.
In 1979, the survivors of this football style death camp held a 25 year reunion. Bryant was invited back as a special guest of honor. Some of these men - his boys- Bryant had not seen since his coaching days at A&M. He was not sure as to what kind of reception he would receive. He need not have worried. The reaction of the players to their demanding old coach was one of, if not love, then of genuine respect. A commemorative ring had been minted for each of the players and Bryant. It was a memento that linked these men and their coach together in a special bond. As a group, they had endured a living hell that would forever bind them as one. No matter what else these, just over two dozen men had accomplished in life, they would forever be known as “The Junction Boys.”
Bryant went on to win three national championships. Yet when he died in 1983, his wishes were that the only piece of jewelry commemorating his great career that he would wear into the here-after would be his Junction Boys ring.
After asking directions, I locate, what I am confident, is the site of the camp. A few out buildings still stand, a former mess hut and several barracks are upright, but crumbling. The open area is over grown with weeds and littered with trash. It takes some liberal use of my imagination to picture in my mind how this neglected piece of desert could possibly have been the setting for the legendary events of the summer of 1954.
As a nation that loves our heritage, it is startling that this important part of football lore has been left with no care taker. Along Highway 83 alone, for commercial purposes, we have immortalized the world’s biggest prairie dog, largest buffalo, largest ball of string and Lawrence Welk’s birth place; but we have forgotten the Junction Boys.
It is not near as hot today as it was that drought summer of 1954. The four hour drive down required the use of the rental car air conditioner, but right now, it is comfortable outside. The sun is setting, the dry desert wind from the south beginning to pick up. If I close my eyes and use my imagination, I can hear the shrill whistle from almost 60 years ago, blown by a no nonsense and focused coach determined to build champions under a relentless West Texas desert sun, no matter what the cost; calling a dwindling group of exhausted but determined non-quitters to the next descending level of hell.
83 Trivia on 83
1. Best Restaurant on Highway 83 for a “I don’t care about cholesterol” Down Home Cooked Meal: Canadian Restaurant, Canadian, TX
2. Best Steak Dinner on Highway 83: Beehive Steakhouse, Abilene, TX
3. Best Mexican Food on Highway 83: Taco Palenque, Bismarck, ND
4. Motel With the Best Free Breakfast on Highway 83: Super 8; Valentine, NE
5. Best Home Made Pizza on Highway 83: Hot Stuff Pizza, Larkin, KS (a few miles off the path, but worth it)
6. Best Small Town Newspaper on Highway 83: Emmons County, ND Record
7. Best High School Sports Writer on Highway 83: Steve Kodad, McCook, NE
8. Best High School Football Rivalry on Highway 83: Abilene, TX Cooper vs. Abeline,TX High
9. Best High School Football Tradition on Highway 83: The McCook, NE Pre Game Motorcycle Escort
10. Best Small Town Tradition on Highway 83: The Green Flag announcing the arrival of the weekly paper, Canadian, TX
11. Most Affluent Area on Highway 83: Good Question didn’t see any.
12. Most Poverty Ridden Area on Highway 83: Rosebud, SD Indian Reservation
13. Best Tourist Attraction on Highway 83: North Dakota State Fair, Minot, ND
14. Best Historical Museum on Highway 83: Lewis and Clark Winter Fort, Mandan, ND
15. Runner-up Best Historical Museum on Highway 83: Museum of the High Plains, McCook, NE
16. A Town on Highway 83 I Would Most Consider Relocating to: McCook, NE
17. A Town on Highway 83 I Would Least Consider Relocating to: Crystal City, TX
18. Best School Mascot on Highway 83: The Blizzards of Winters, TX
19. Runner-up Best Mascot on Highway 83: The Pied Pipers of Hamlin, TX
20. Most Out of Place School Mascot on Highway 83: The Clippers of Strasburg, ND
21. Most Common School Mascot on Highway 83: tie: Bulldogs and Wildcats
22. Runner-Up Most Common School Mascot on Highway 83: Eagles
23. Most Common School Color on Highway 83: Maroon
24. Runner-Up Most Common School Color on Highway 83: Gold
25. Least Imagination for Choosing School Colors on Highway 83: Black and White, Rexford, KS
26. Best Local Reason for Choosing School Mascot and Colors on Highway 83: Kelly/White, of the Shamrock, TX Irish
27. Best High School Football Record in 2012 on Highway 83: Scott City, KS 14-0
28. Worse High School Football Record in 2012 on Highway 83: Crystal City, TX 0-10
29. Best Road Tripping Oldies Radio Station on Highway 83: KBYZ 96.5 FM Bismarck, ND
30. Runner-up Best Road Tripping Oldies Radio Station on Highway 83: 100.7 KOOL FM Abilene, TX
31. Best Road Tripping Oldies AM Radio Station on Highway 83: KRRZ 1390 AM Minot, ND (there are still a few out there)
32. Stretch of Highway 83 a Traveler is Most Likely To Experience a Radio Inspired Evangelistic Religious Conversation: The South Texas Hill Country
33. Stretch of Highway 83 a Traveler is Least Likely to Find a English Speaking Radio Station: The Texas Rio Grande Valley
34. Stretch of Highway 83 Least Likely to Find a Decent Oldies Station: Valentine, NE to Pierre, SD
35. Loneliest Stretch of Highway 83: North Platte, NE to Valentine, NE
36. Friendliest Motel Proprietor on Highway 83: Don of Don’s Motel in Linton, ND. I stayed those so many times he became like family and he always laughed at my jokes
37. Least Friendly Motel Proprietor on Highway 83: A Lady who will remain nameless at a Texas Panhandle Bed and Breakfast (woke me up and wanted to know “what my damn problem was” for not checking out when I had already paid for another day. She never did apologize.)
38. Fastest Growing Boom Town on Highway 83: Minot, ND
39. Miles of Unpaved Surface on Highway 83: 33, along the northern stretch of South Dakota
40. Stretch of Highway 83 a Traveler will most likely be forced to listen to Hungarian Peasant Folk Dance Music on NPR: Valentine, NE to Pierre, SD
41. Area on Highway 83 Most Likely to Take Your Breath Away: Sand Hills, NE
42. Cheapest Gas on Highway 83: Mission, SD
43. Most Expensive Gas on Highway 83: Minot, ND
44. Number of State Troopers Patrolling Highway 83 Who Prefer a Free Well Written Book on High School Football to Writing Speeding Tickets: Three and counting.
45. Town on Highway 83 Most Likely to Enforce No U-Turn Ordinances: Ballinger, TX
46. Best Bar Town on Highway 83 to Slam Back a Few With the Local Good Old Boys: Childress, TX
47. Worst Bar Town on Highway 83 to Slam Back a Few With the Local Good Old Boys: Pierre, SD
48. Most Convenient Airport on Highway 83: Bismarck, ND
49. Least Convenient Airport on Highway 83: Abilene, TX
50. Most Picturesque High School Football Stadium Setting on Highway 83: Hamlin, TX
51. Most Picturesque Sunsets on Highway 83: Lake Oahe, SD
52. Best Motel Rates for the Value of Your Dollar on Highway 83: Linton, ND
53. Worst Motel Rates for the Value of Your Dollar on Highway 83: Canadian, TX and Minot, ND
54. Windiest Stretch of Highway 83: Texas Panhandle in the Perryton, TX region
55. Most Dangerous Area for a Traveler on Highway 83: Laredo, TX
56. Best Motel Name on Highway 83: The Elephant Fart
57. Cheesiest Motel Name on Highway 83: Nights in White Satin
58. State Activity Association on Highway 83 Most Likely to Hassle a Poor but Hardworking Writer: North Dakota State High School Activates Association (After spending the whole season at the elbow of Linton Coach Dan Imdieke, when the Lions made it to the state championship game, I was told by the head bureaucrat from the NSSHSAA that I would not be allowed on the sideline and to make sure my mere presence did not disrupt this solemn occasion, he left one of his neo-Nazi workers to make sure I didn’t violate his edict.)
59. State Activity Association on Highway 83 with the worst “let them eat cake” Attitude: Once again, the NDSHSAA. (When I opinioned to one of the group's directors that $15 for admission and $5 to park seemed high for a high school game, I was told that if schools didn’t like it, they didn’t have to play. When I asked how much it cost him and his family to attend the game, he smuggly commented that as directors he and all of his family’s admissions were free. Ok, I guess it is a good deal.
60. Dumbest rule on Highway 83: In North Dakota, you can only dress 50 players for the state championship game. If you dress 53, like Linton did one year, the NDSHSAA will levy a fine and threaten you with expulsion from the next year’s playoffs. It is all about the kids; yeah, right.
61. Coolest Small Town Name on Highway 83: Satanta, KS
62. Worse Small Town Name on Highway 83: Porcupine, ND
63. Least Likely Looking Town on Highway 83 to Produce an Accomplished Professional Athlete: Turpin, OK; hometown of Dallas Cowboy All-Pro Lynn Scott
64. Cheapest Town on Highway 83 to Buy a New Buddy a Beer: Childress, TX
65. Most Expensive Town on Highway 83 to Buy a New Buddy a Beer: Minot, ND
66. Friendliest Town on Highway 83 to a non-Descript Traveler: Uvalde, TX
67. Least Friendly Town on Highway 83 to a Non-Descript Traveler: Pierre, SD
68. Most Conservative State on Highway 83: A six way tie: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.
69. Most Liberal State on Highway 83: No qualifiers
70. Best Developed Down Town on Highway 83: Canadian, TX
71. Hilliest Stretch of Highway 83: North of Pierre, SD
72. Longest Flat Stretch of Highway 83: anywhere in Kansas
73. Best Strip Club on Highway 83: Didn’t see one, but there was a wet tee shirt contest advertised for a Bismarck Bar
74. Least Picturesque College Campus on Highway 83: Liberal, KS
75. Most Picaresque College Campus on Highway 83: Minot State, ND
76. Worst Stretch of Highway 83 to Run Out of Gas: The Sandhills of southern NE
77. Town on Highway 83 with the Most Fast Food Franchise Per Capita: Garden City, KS
78. State on Highway 83 With the Most Heavy Metal Radio Stations per Capita: North Dakota
79. Most Overhyped Tourist Trap on Highway 83: Lawrence Welk Homestead, Strasburg, ND
80. Least Developed Historical Site on Highway 83: Bear Bryant’s Junction Boys Practice Field, Junction, TX
81. Town on Highway 83 With the Largest Concentration of Political Power: Pierre, SD; state capital and home to two US Senators, population 15,000, the same representation as the state of California, population 12,000,000.
82. Best Town Name on Highway 83 to Have Produced a Famous Football Coach: Winner, SD; hometown of legendary Notre Dame Coach Frank Lahey.
83. Best 24 Hour Casino on Highway 83: Rosebud, SD
Texas Rio Grande Valley
Eden, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1233
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 254
School Colors Blue/White
2012 Record 2-8
Mascot Bulldogs
Enrollment 138
Menard, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1256
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 231
School Colors Black/Gold
2012 Record 1-9
Mascot Yellowjackets
Enrollment 119
Junction, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1291
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 196
School Colors Black/Gold
2012 Record 3-7
Mascot Eagles
Enrollment 216
Leakey, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1327
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 160
School Colors Red/White
2012 Record 1-9
Mascot Eagles
Enrollment 197
Uvalde, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1367
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 120
School Colors Maroon/White
2012 Record 3-8
Mascot Coyotes
Enrollment 1413
La Pryor, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1384
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 103
School Colors Maroon/White
2012 Record 5-6
Mascot Bulldogs
Enrollment 225
Crystal City, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1402
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 85
School Colors Green/White
2012 Record 0-10
Mascot Javelinas
Enrollment 593
Carrizo Springs, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1470
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 70
School Colors Purple/Gold
2012 Record 4-7
Mascot Wildcats
Enrollment 704
Asherton, TX (Inactive)
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1427
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 60
School Colors Gold/Maroon/White
1997 Record 2-8
Mascot Trojans
Enrollment 1927 - 1997 (RIP)
Laredo, TX
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Canadian Border 1487
Miles on Hwy 83 to the Mexican Border 0
School Colors
Alexander Navy/Gold
United High Orange/White
United South Black/Silver
Johnson Purple/Gold/Blak
2012 Record
Alexander 8-5
United High 3-8
United South 4-6
Johnson 2-8
Mascot
Alexander Bulldogs
United High Longhorns
United South Panthers
Johnson Wolves
Enrollment
Alexander 2242
United High 2700
United South 2010
Johnson 1781
“But Not Too Far to Come to Kick McCook Ass”
I get to the stadium early –“If you aren’t an hour early, you will have no place to park;” I was told numerous times. I arrive at 5:45 for a 7:00 kickoff. I only have to walk a few blocks from my car to the stadium gates, but I don’t make it as far as the gates. A Booster Club member, manning the truck entrance gate, recognizes me. “You are the writer guy,” she says. “I saw your picture in the paper today.” As she waives me in, she must also be reading my mind, “Here get in line, I bet you haven’t ate yet.” For $4.75 I am treated to a Bison Dog, a cup of baked beans. two (gloved) hands full of chips and an ice cold Pepsi in a plastic bottle.
I take my supper on a nearby park bench behind the west end zone. The weather has taken an unexpected turn for improvement. The showers have stopped, the sky has cleared and the temperature has dropped over 30 degrees in the last 24 hours to a now very comfortable 81. The football gods are once again smiling on Bison football.
As I eat my dinner, which is made to order perfect, for this made to order perfect moment –the only improvement might have been a glass bottle for my Pepsi, like when I was a kid – I stop for a moment to take it all in. The weather, the cozy and rapidly filling stadium, the coaches of both staffs milling together on the grass eye blinding green field, renewing old friendships – these are two stable and long-time staffs who truly respect each other - the Bison band marching into the stadium to take their seats in the south bleachers, the players, out of sight in their respective locker rooms, dressed in battle gear, adorned in the colors of their home town; nervously awaiting the agonizingly slow count-down to kick off.
The bench where I sit will accommodate three. A well-dressed couple whom I judge to be in their 70’s appears. The gentleman asked in a polite voice if the two seats next to me are taken. I wave for them to join me. It is nice to have company at such a time, someone to share in this pristine, middle of America special moment.
I ask where they are from and the man informs me “Aurora.”He appears to be someone who at one time worked a white collar job. He does not have a farmer’s hands and his complexion is fair, hints of a man who spent his working years inside an office. He speaks quietly, but his diction is clear. I imagine this man a success in whatever he did. He has that air of quiet confidence that successful people exude, and the ability to make a stranger feel comfortable upon a first meeting.
The couple has a grandson playing for Aurora, I am told. “We never miss a game. We will also be in Lincoln for the game tomorrow. We do like football,” he says. The University of Nebraska Cornhuskers open their season tomorrow at home. The University of Nebraska football team is a state wide treasure, even in the western portions of the state, four hours from Lincoln. The stadium, in Lincoln, which holds just less than 90,000, has been sold out for every home game since the 1960’s, making Memorial Stadium, on game days, the third largest city in Nebraska. “But,” my new friend informs me, “I like the high school games better. If I had to choose between one and the other, I would be here.” I nod in agreement
After several minutes of idle chatter about the merits of the university’s recent move from the Big 12 Conference to the Big 10, I ask how far Aurora from McCook is. “About 90 minutes,” he says. Before I can respond, the nicely dressed wife seated to her husband’s left, who has not yet spoken and who reminds me somewhat in her neat dress and stately manner given off by her lady like and feminine body language, of my own sainted mother, finally joins the conversation, “But not too far to come to kick McCook ass,” she says. The man laughs nervously, the wife says no more.
The Ghosts of the Asherton Trojans
"If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise."
William Blake
As a society, we hold self-responsibility as a base rock for our nation’s strength. Hopefully tempered still with compassion, we treasure a culture of self-sufficiency forged through a cause and effect dynamic that we pass down to each succeeding generation. Sounds noble, but deep down inside, we know it is hogwash. In reality, we live in a random world; our destiny dependent upon a hopeful fortuitous draw of life’s cards.
For example, take the structure of our DNA; that personal genetic code pumping through each of our veins, making us the unique individual who we are. It is all achieved by a random genetic lottery we have no control over, much like a crap shoot. We each have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so, doubling each generation as we trace through time our roots. Think about it, if Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grandpa Nikolay had not ventured to the village peat fire back in the old country 200 years ago, at just the right time; he would not have caught the eye of Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grandma Izolda. Maybe an hour later, it would have been the Blacksmith’s daughter Lidiya. If so, then our entire genetic makeup, our DNA, would have been severely altered, rendering our path through life much different than the one we now travel. The happenstance occurrences in each of our family histories that make us who we are today, depending how far back you choose to search, are in the millions. (Note of caution: if you live in the Ozarks, like I do, make sure you have an equal number of Greats for each couple. We do not want to record any family incest).
The same holds true with the hollowed grounds that we treasure as crown jewels of our national heritage. Let’s use battlegrounds for an example. We have been fortunate that most military engagements in the history of our nation have been fought in foreign lands, but we do have the Civil War to hammer home in first person the horrors of war. What if General Meade had decided to take his army 20 miles farther north for that decisive engagement in the summer of 1863? Would school children today study the Shippensburg Address? Or what if General Lee had camped 20 miles to the south? The Thurmont Address? Neither rings with the respectful tone of Gettysburg. Maybe history has a way of making matters of national heritage work out the way they should.
I spent the fall of 2011 traveling US Highway 83, from the Canadian border town of West Hope, ND to the Mexican border town of Laredo, TX. My intent was to look into what it is like to live on the High Plains of our heartland, one of the least populated areas of our nation. I chose high school football as the thread that would tie the story together, but the exercise was much more sociological in nature than it ever was about high school football. The experience was gratifying to the extreme; the fruits of my labor became the book Prairie Blitz: High School Football on America’s 50 Yard Line (Barnes and Noble or www.davealmany.com).
On this journey I took up the side task of photographing each small town football field that lie along Highway 83. I found there were 61 active fields and one inactive. The inactive gridiron, located in the south Texas town of Asherton, unexpectedly became part of my busy itinerary more by accident than be design. Finding the trash strewn lot more eerie than ominous, I spent three afternoon hours that I really didn’t have simply walking back and forth from one over grown scrub brush end zone to the other. On a day that the 3 pm temperature reached 107 degrees, I could only wonder the assessment being drawn by the half a dozen occupants of a public housing complex across the street were compiling about this strange gringo with the out of state license plates. What could I have possibly found so fascinating about this 120 yard by 55 yard eyesore?
My stopping in the small south Texas town of Asherton, population 386, on that hot, late summer afternoon in 2011, can be filed as another of those random acts that determine the path our lives follow. I was an hour north of the southern-most stop on my Highway 83 journey, Laredo, TX. The gas gauge said you will not make it to the trail’s head without one more pit stop. My middle aged bladder agreed. Having no high school listed in the State of Texas Public Educational Directory, Asherton was not on my itinerary for that day's stops. I wanted to get to Laredo, snap a quick photo of the Public School Football Stadium, then get back on the road north and make San Antonio before night fall.
The area of south Texas I was traveling through that day, from the Hill Country in the land of Lyndon Johnson to the boarder territory of the Rio Grande, is steeped in romantic sounding names that conjure up images in the mind’s eye of the classic Old West. I had started the day in Menard, crossed the West Brazos, the Rio Grande, the Colorado, had lunch in Rim Rock and bought gas in Sweetwater. In reality, the landscape is as barren and as unattractive as any I have ever traveled through. The level of poverty is striking, the small towns in the area riddled with trash and populated by many structures, although inhabited, in various stages of collapse. It is an area that appears to the traveler to be overcome with despair. The farther south I drove the day, the worse it got. Asherton, as I pulled off or Highway 83, looked like a village from a third world nation, with no obvious redemptive values or civic reason for its survival. And it was just plain hot that day. I was in no mood to spend any more time than was needed to fill the car’s tank and to empty my bladder.
As I exited the metal building that housed both the station’s attendant and a public restroom fitting in its lack of cleanliness to blend nicely with the rest of the community, I came face to face with a stooped old man entering the same door I was attempting to exit through. We were not going to both fit. “Too damn hot to be in such a big hurry,” he said. We stood with his nose level to my sternum. The man’s appearance also blended nicely with the local scenery. The only noteworthy trait I picked up on was his skin; white. He was the only non-Hispanic I saw in the store or gathered around pickup trucks in the parking lot. I stepped back into the store to let him pass, although he really didn’t give me an option.
“Always this hot,” I asked, avoiding that awkward silence that settles in when dealing with someone, no matter how slight or short the duration of contact; that you would rather avoid. “Shit no,” he said. I waited for a qualification, such as “worse last week,” but none was forth coming. I moved towards the gas pump and my refueled vehicle. “I got a brother in Missouri,” he called after me. He must have noticed my license plates. I turned back to face him. “But I can’t stand the bastard. Hell, he might be dead for all I know. Married to a bitch and I can’t stand her either.”
I have a real weakness for the belligerent and the profane. Their “kiss my ass” attitude and lack of pretense to genuflect to any type of acceptable social norms, stokes my rebellious furnace and raises my inquisitive antenna. Janis sang all those years ago that freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose, and this gentleman was as free as the hot South Texas wind that whipped through his disheveled mane of thick white hair. I had a new friend.
Elmer was his name. I would guess his longevity to be somewhere around his 8th decade. I leaned against the car and he joined me. “Where do kids here go to school,” I asked. “ Bus em up to Carrizo Springs,” a town I had just passed through 10 miles north on Highway 83. “Closed the high school here about 10 years ago,” he continued, “and this place been going down the shitter ever since.”
Elmer had my attention, any thoughts of making San Antonio by night fall, forgotten.
He may have not known it, but from my sociological based analysis of the rural High Plains, Elmer was right on. It was not long into my journey on Highway 83 that I had learned a truism that my new friend in his own crude way had reaffirmed: American communities, urban, suburban and rural, are defined by their local public schools. Let the school die and the town will follow. Bus the communities’ young to a nearby bigger school and soon the town square will be empty of all but the weeds of neglect, store front windows boarded up and doors locked.
Gather as many educational, societal and economical school consolidation experts as you can fit in your hat of demigods, then let them spout their expert findings, plan their innovative strategies for rural renewal and disaggregate their data to their little bureaucratic heart’s desire; bottom line is: lose the school, lose the town. Drive Highway 83 back and forth between Mexico and Canada, as I have multiple times, and your eyes will hammer home to your brain a simple truth of the economic reality of dying High Plains communities: every dead town I passed through contained a dead school.
Many other small towns along Highway 83 are even worse off, having not survived, fallen into the state of a ghost town. Despite that most are no longer even listed on a map, I still on my travels passed through their decayed remains, municipal road kill, a rotting carcass on the side of the road. The crumbling buildings tell the story of a community that for whatever reason, did not adjust its sails to the changing economical winds. Now mere memories -deserted and forgotten - boarded up buildings that once housed a living community. It is sad even to a stranger like me, passing through at 65 miles per hour. The demise of each town and the broken dreams that accompany any failed community, I am sure, would make a good book in itself. However, is anyone left to tell the tale?
In almost every one of these deserted hamlets I encountered, I could identify the building that once was the community school. I would speculate that the section of the “school house” that is two stories tall was the gymnasium. I imagined years of basketball games played on frigid January Friday nights when two small prairie towns packed it to the rafters, necessitating the opening of the windows, just to cool the place down. From the banker to the town drunk, everyone was there to witness the drama and the heroics of the local team, a respite for one night a week to the drudgery of life in a lonely prairie town. And I wonder what happened to the trophies, earned by sweat and blood and once displayed with such pride, won on those long ago cold winter nights?
I asked Elmer to tell me about the days of public education in Asherton, Texas.
Surprisingly, to me at least, Elmer proved to be an excellent civic spokesman for the town of Asherton, TX. He was knowledgeable and passionately proud of “the only damn place I have ever lived, only damn place I have ever wanted to call home and damn proud this is where they are going to bury my poor ass, someday, and that someday is probably pretty soon.”
Doomsday humor aside, he was, he stated proudly, an Asherton lifer.
“Dad did what he could,” Elmer said, after we had retreated from the boiling afternoon sun of the parking lot, and relocated to a wooden bench on the side of the store, where we could rest our backs against a shady east wall of the metal building. “It was hard back in those days,” said. “It has always been hard around here. I was the youngest of six, three girls and three boys, when Mother died. I was four years old, but I have good memories of my mother. I remember her being sick, but not much else about her death. In those days, out here in the poor lands, people just died. Nobody really questioned why. We just buried ‘em and life went on. Probably, if I had to guess, it was the cancer, but who knows for sure. She here one day, gone forever the next. She just got sick and died.”
Still a young man, Elmer’s father remarried and sired a second family, once again there boys and three girls.” I guess six was his lucky number,” Elmer said. “I had six sisters and five brothers, all born right here in Asherton. Two - a brother and a sister from my mom -died before I was even born. I couldn’t even tell you their names. Once again, back in those days, death was pretty common and often happened real quick, especially with little kids. I am sure mom and dad mourned for them. But what are you going to do? There were lots of others to feed and money scarce around here so you had to get up and go on. People now days are always complaining about this or that; the government, the weather, bills to pay. All I knew growing up was hard times. We were the poorest of the poor; the Depression then the War; that was my childhood. Still, I remember those days with good memories. We didn’t know any better, I guess.”
“The other nine (siblings),” Elmer continued with the litany of his family history, “Are scattered to the wind. Some of them I couldn’t tell you if they (are) alive or not. Everybody just went their own way. Dad died back in 1978 and my step mom passed within a year of that, right here in Asherton,” enunciating the name of his hometown with a prideful emphasis. My new friend, I was to learn, had a sharp memory for dates and historical sequences.
I set off on my journey with the knowledge that challenges for 21st century small towns along US Highway 83 are numerous and enormous. The national media has hammered home that point to our national conscious. I found the problem to be not overstated. Many rural hamlets along America’s 50 yard line could be labeled as still functional, but barely. Asherton fit this perception like a glove. A faint pulse was still present, pumping a minimum amount of oxygen into the few operating businesses that were still open. But it was obvious that a slow and irreversible death was occurring. Government social service programs in the dying rural towns on Highway 83 can at times appear to be nothing more than a hospice for terminally ill communities, making those left behind as comfortable as possible, as they wait for the inevitable end. Asherton, TX belongs on this civic terminal list, hanging on, barely, in critical condition.
When I would take the time, as I sometimes did, to stop and talk to the few old timers still hanging out in these depressed towns, my simple inquiry as to local history will almost always unleash a stream of community pride, based on “how things used to be.” Tales of famous sons who moved away and made good or the undefeated 1948 high school football team- “line outweighed Kansas State’s line that year” – or the town doctor who worked until the day he died at 93 years of age, or how many troop trains use to pass through and stop each day during the war; all told with a pride that defies the downtrodden current state of a once thriving community.
I asked Elmer about the history of public education in Asherton.“Graduated here myself,” he said. “Class of 1948, I was a Trojan.” Why did the school close, I asked. “Not enough kids, not enough money, too many damn Mexicans, it was a lot of things. Young families don’t want to live here. No work. The ones that are here ain’t worth squat. Mostly get by on unemployment and whatever they can steal. But as you can see,” he motioned in a wide circle with his right hand, “ain’t much around here worth stealing.”
So what did they do with the old school, I asked. “It is still standing. Up that street,” he pointed to a gravel road that ran up a slight hill to the east. And the football field, I pushed on with my nosiness? “Still there, but what a mess. Some guy bought it right after the school closed and was going to put government housing in, but somehow that didn’t work and now it just sits there.”
"Jump in,” I said, motioning toward my now fully fueled car.
“Did you follow the football team,” I inquired as we drove the half mile to the eastern edge of town and what had been for 71 years -from 1927 to 1998 - the home field of the Asherton Trojans. I was soon to learn, what a dumb question I had just asked.
The Light poles still stood erect and straight, although it had been almost 15 years since they had illuminated any games. Other than the wooden poles, which upon close inspection were visible form the downhill path of Highway 83, the rest of the former stadium had the sad look of civic abandonment. If not for the necessary amenities of the sport that still stood: the scarred goal posts, the rusting scoreboard, the collapsing grandstand which supported a rotting press box, and at the former stadium’s entrance, a combination concession stand and public restroom with one wall already collapsed and a second not far behind; I would have never guessed that the sagebrush covered lot we now stood on had for over 70 years been the sacred battle ground for the Friday night warriors of Asherton High Schools. Above the iron wrought passage that spectators would pass through upon entering the stadium was a weathered but still readable sign: Trojan Pride.
Highway 83, as a north-south passage, has none of the up and down topography one finds as they travel the nations’ cross country east/west routes. The elevation from the Canadian border to the Mexican border remains constant – flat as a pancake. As I would travel Highway 83 I could always spot the next community on the horizon by two common landmarks rising above the level land line; the town grain elevator and the lights on the high school football field.
When passing through towns that had lost their public schools; normally swallowed up by a consolidation with a larger neighboring district, the former school buildings still stood and was easy to recognize. Sometimes abandoned, but most often they had been sold and converted to private use. It became my habit to stop and pay my respects to the former anchor of a once thriving community. I compiled a list; often accompanied by a photo I would take with my digital camera, a sort of morbid death mask tribute to commemorate the soul of ghost town public education. I found former schools filling roles of antique shops, senior center apartments, community centers, private homes; and in one sad case, a shelter for hogs.
But nowhere, until Asherton, did I find an abandoned football field that stood exactly as it had been left after the final whistle of the last game, now subjected to neglect and the elements of time. It was a sad sight, even for a stranger like me, as if a loved one had died 15 years prior, left to lie where they had fallen, never given a respectful and proper burial. Trojan Stadium was a field lost in time, as if the lights were simply turned off after the last game ever played on this now rotting gridiron, a 33-28 Trojan triumph over Medina. Elmer told me as we stood in the west end zone under the goal posts looking out to the scoreboard, “It was like everyone just went home after the last game (in November, 1998), expecting to be back next year.” But next year never came.
“We really didn’t see it coming,” he told me of the school’s closing. “I am really kind of glad we didn’t. I never had to go through coming up here and knowing this was the end. I loved this team. Most years we were bad, a lot of those years, worse than bad. But I never gave up. I always knew there would be another day and every once in a while we would reach up and surprise everyone. That is what we lived for. It gave us hope and not winning much all those years made when we did win really sweet. But it is like I told you about how poor we were growing up. We never had much, but we didn’t know any better, so we never expected much. No we never knew it was the end of the school, and that is the way it should be. I would rather go out hit by a truck than lying around knowing I was dying and nothing I could do but watch myself wither away.”
Elmer was an encyclopedia of local lore. The Trojans were first organized into a football team back in 1927, then proceeded to lose every game played that first season. The total number of contests that inaugural year has been subject for debate over the years, Elmer told me, but he put the tally at somewhere between two and five. The winless year proved to be a beam of light illuminating what the future held for the Trojans of Asherton High.
The first official football win for the Trojans came the next season, 1928, a 28-0 whitewash of Carrizo Spring, the neighboring bully 10 miles to the north, who, ironically, at the turn of the millennium would cannibalized through forced consolidation the Asherton Public Schools.
The football teams of Asherton had never been very successful, Elmer said, “but people got use to it. But when we did win, knowing how much we had to overcome, it made the wins just that much sweeter. I never gave up on the team until the very end. From the time I could get myself to the field, on fall Friday night’s, I was here. We had lots of disappointments (from the best my research could gather, over the 70 plus years Asherton fielded a football team, the Trojans were victorious less than 1/3 of the time), but we also had our moments, for sure.”
As Elmer had been pointed out, Asherton was never known for winning football. Between 1967 and 1972, Elmer remembered clearly, the team had a 40 plus game winless streak. “At the time it might have been a state record. But we never gave up and I was here for every game. Then we finally got a coach in here that would stay for a while, who believed in the poor kids from this poor little school. That is all we needed, someone to work and say we can. As I said, my daddy raised 10 kids on starvation wages through a depression and a war, but he always found a way because he had no choice, he had nowhere else to go. That is the attitude we had here in the 70’s and we stood proud, the Trojans did, they surely did. For years neighbors beat on us like a step child, but for one good run, in the 70’s, we did the beating.”
Between 1974 and 1979, the Asherton Trojans struck pay dirt, six consecutive winning seasons; with two seven game back to back finishes, in 1974 and 1975. Records, although sketchy at best, document only two other seasons with winning records over a seventy year stretch, a 4-3-2 mark in 1934 and one last surge of accomplishment, a 7-2 record in 1992. The football well then ran terminally dry as the Trojans won only 6 games over the next seven years, until the plug was pulled for good after the 1998 season.
Why was it so difficult to win here, I asked?
"We don’t win often in Asherton cause we don’t have the tools to win. Look around, would you want to live here? Bet you would not have even stopped if you hadn’t needed gas, now would you,” Elmer said with a mocking twitch of his head? I silently noted that, when discussing the Trojans, he had changed the tense from the past to the present.
But what about that good run in the 70”s, I asked, steering the conversation away from the general condition of the town and back to the specifics of Asherton Trojan football. “Fool’s gold,” was his response. “We caught lightening in the bottle, we finally got some breaks and everything fell into place. We got a good coach, we had a few kids with some ability coming through, whose moms and dads had the goods to give, that always helps, and wanted to see their sons do well and they put their money where their mouths were. It was a good time. There was pride around here those years. Place wasn’t so gloomy and the kids started achieving, not just in football, but in all kinds of things up at the school. But it wasn’t going to last. I knew it when we were going through it, but I didn’t let that distract me, I just enjoyed the hell out of it cause it was a long time coming.”
I asked how he felt about his personal current status. “Am I happy? Am I sad? Who knows,” Elmer confessed. “I just live the best I can. I don’t need much. Never been married, have no kids that I know of. Do I wish I had kids? It’s dumb to think that way. How would I know? I never had any. You can’t miss what you don’t have and that’s a pretty good way to survive in a shit hole like this place.”
Why, I asked, would he defend his hometown with such passion and eloquence just prior to labeling Asherton a “shit hole?” “Look around,” he countered. “It is a shit hole. Look, I didn’t ask to be put here. It just happened. It was like when we still had the football team, if I wanted to go to the games, I had to go to Asherton games, crappy team or not, I had no choice.”
Elmer had adopted a philosophy of survival; you simply play the cards life deals you, don’t expect too much and you will never be disappointed; just hang in there and take life as it comes. Perhaps necessary for survival in an environment as harsh as the South Texas Plains, but certainly not romantic, certainly not the sentiment we like to consider as the lore of our culture; for sure Elmer was certainly not the feel good type character I like to write about .
“This is not a sentimental place,” Elmer told me. “If you are a dreamer, you don’t live here. I play the Power Ball (which on this day was up to record 274 million dollars), but if I ever win, what would l do with all the money? It would be a full time job just trying to spend it all. I would buy a couple of bottles and couple of women and just sit in the shade. I got a Mex buddy here in town and I kid him all the time that (when I win) I am going to buy him a classic El Camino, a low rider,” he said with a soft laugh. “After that, I don’t know what I would do with the rest. Wouldn’t be worth the hassle of hearing from all my long lost brothers and sisters,” he said, with not a hint of sarcasm.
I asked about his mode of transportation. “Don’t have a car,” he said matter-of-factly. “Don’t need one; I just walk wherever I need to go. Use to have a license and that Judge over in Carrizo keep taking it from me, so finally I said, ‘why don’t you just keep it.’ You see, I have been known over the years to drink a bit.”
We were now back in my car, headed west down the hill and back to the Highway 83 convenience store where we had met. I asked if he had ever thought of leaving Asherton, as all nine of his surviving siblings had done.“And go where? I have lived other places for short periods on account of work,”Elmer shared. “I have driven a truck and I have done a lot of construction work. I have a way with mechanics, fixen cars and stuff, but I don’t like being shut up in a garage all the time. I did live in the Dakota’s one winter. Let me tell you it took me two years to get the chill out of my bones. Dakota winter, no thank you. This body was not made for the cold. For some reason, I have always been drawn back to Asherton.”
How do you survive, what do you live on, I asked? “Don’t need much,” Elmer said. “Life would be a lot easier (for some) if they ever figured that out. Two fifty pound bags of potatoes, 10 pounds of bacon and a couple of big cans of coffee will get me through the winter. I get a check each month and it really is more than I need.”
“I live back across the highway on the first farm-to-market road on the right,” he offered, without my prompting. “Go back about a mile and a half and you will see a shack on the left. (That has) been my home going on over 35 years now. First, I did some work for the old lady that owned the farm out there in return for the house. She died way back and I just stayed. Not a farm anymore and legally I don’t own one square inch of the place. I don’t know who pays the taxes. I guess her kids? Nobody has told me to leave and until they do, it is where I intend to stay. Figure squatter’s rights are worth something. Besides, if you ever saw the place you’d understand ain’t a whole lot of developers lining up to evict me.”
On the surface and evaluated against the American dream, Elmer’s lot in life - and perhaps analogised to Asherton as well - would be judged by most as a failure. He has not a legal claim or right to even one square inch of the worn out old building he has called home for over three decades.
The philosopher in him had been unleashed and was now rolling.“Think about this, how much money is spent by people today trying to lose weight? Back when I was growing up we would have thought that was the craziest thing we had ever heard of. Our worry was getting enough to eat just to stay alive. The thought of getting fat was only a dream. Want to lose weight, don’t make so much money.”
“I like to read, lots of different types of stories. I don’t watch TV. On a cold winter night, no one on the planet, not the richest man in the biggest of mansions, sleeps as warm, as dry or as safe as I do, cozy in the wood burning warmth of my wooden shack. It is the one place on this earth that I feel connected, content in a life that many do not understand. But I do.”
There is wisdom and a sense of inter peace in giving one’s life a complete self-evaluation. “When I am true to myself,” he continued, “I must admit, I feel blessed to have my ‘home,’ even as only a squatter, It is not much, most would call it at best, a shack.”
Often, happiness can sneak in through a door you didn't know you left open. It was clear that Elmer viewed his hometown like a well-worn but time proven lover; the years having not diminished his true loyalty or connection to this crumbling community. In many ways the Asherton Trojans still lived in the body and soul of this broken old man, a self proclaimed Asherton “lifer.”
We were parked in the convenience store lot. “Laredo not getting any closer,” he said, reminding me of my original destination.
“Can I take you home,” I asked.
“Nope.”
Elmer was out of my car and headed back to the coolness of the store’s AC.
The chance potential encounters along Highway 83 are mind boggling, lending credence to my hypothesis, as I said in the beginning, that we live in a much more random world than we like to acknowledge. Life is really nothing more than one big crap shoot. If I would have had that piece of pie that day in Sweetwater at lunch, as I had contemplated, then I would have been 10 minutes later stopping in Asherton for gas, thus never exposed to the“Ghost” of the Asherton Trojans.
I made a right out of the gravel lot and headed again south on Highway 83, my estimated time of arrival in Laredo now pushed back by three hours of time well spent; with a full tank of gas far from the only accrued value of my Asherton lay over.
Dave Almany
636-232-4688
