When I started my reporting career with the Kerrville Daily Times in the early 70s, I found myself covering my high school friends’ parents - either in government or other events.
When I was teenager before those years in the 1960s, these people were parents and not the people I hung out with.
Later in my 20s I struck up friendships with them and I learned many of my friends’ fathers were veterans of World War II.
One of them was a pilot in the Battle of Midway – a decisive U.S. carrier victory June 4-7, 1942, in the Pacific that was an early war boost for America.
Other fathers had fought with Patton across Europe.
They’re mostly gone now, but I’m grateful I heard their stories about a time before their sons and daughters – my high school friends – were born.
Memorial Day then and now turns out the tourists in Kerrville.
As my reporting days were starting in the early 1970s, Memorial Day weekend introduced the Kerrville Folk Festival and the Texas State Arts and Crafts Fair.
I would cover the fair during the day and the folk festival at night.
I wrote stories about artisans and the singers who performed at night.
The newspaper supported both of the events, of course, because it put the community on the map.
In those years, the groups and singers at the folk festival included Ray Wiley Hubbard, Asleep at the Wheel, Bill and Bonnie Heard, Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary fame, Kenneth Threadgill and Flaco Jimenez.
You have to be a certain age for those names to resonate I suppose.
I was told to cover every performance and turn in a writeup the next morning.
I was allowed to go backstage in those days and it was exciting to meet people that the festival founder Rod Kennedy introduced to me.
Over time I became accepted – my writeups helped.
I always smile over the years when I run across some of those performers and grieve when one of them passes on.
I’ve enjoyed living in places that are tourist destinations.
It feels like we’re on vacation too.
I was in Matagorda Saturday and that place screams holiday with all the traffic and hustle and bustle.
We drove down to Matagorda Bay Nature Park to have a look at the cabins LCRA is building.
The cabins will certainly be a great addition to the park – they’ll be finished later this summer.
