Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2017 i Texas Highways Magazine

Stee-rike! Arlington’s International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame THE INTERNATIONAL BOWLING Museum and Hall of Fame in Arlington captures the enduring appeal of the sport so well that it could compel famous TV bowler Al Bundy to say “stee-rike!” Outside this 130,000 square-foot facility, a 20- foot metal bowling pin beckons passersby in for a closer look at a sport played by 95 million people in 90 countries. The venue, not far from the city’s highpro .le AT&T Stadium and Globe Life Park, serves myriad functions: It honors the accomplishments of the world’s greatest bowlers, preserves artifacts relating to the sport, serves as a training facility for tomorrow’s champs, and o.ers a wealth of materials for researchers, for starters. But its mission for casual visitors and bowling fans is…

Reader Service Guide to Advertisers For information from our advertisers, use the forms in this issue, or go to www.texashighways.com. (Reader service numbers are in bold.) 1. Amarillo Convention & Visitors Council pg. 25 2. Bastrop Art in Public Places pg. 79 3. Bastrop County Tourism pg. 9 4. Beaumont Convention & Visitors Bureau pg. 23 5. Brady/McCulloch County Visitors Center pg. 37 6. Brazosport Fine Arts Council-Centerfest pg. 80 7. Brenham/Washington County pg. 72-73 8. Bryan-College Station Convention & Visitors Bureau pg. 12 9. Bullock Texas State History Museum pg. 77 10. Cedar Park Tourism pg. 32 11. City of Bryan pg. 36 12. City of Buda Department of Tourism pg. 87 13. City of Canton pg. 83 14. City of Gonzales pg. 40 15. City of Grand…

AUSTIN MUSICIAN CARRIE RODRIGUEZ BRIDGES TWO WORLDS with her most recent album, Lola, which made both Rolling Stone’s list of best country albums and NPR’s list of best Latino albums in 2016. The diverse scope of the bilingual album is exactly what the songwriting ?ddler had in mind. “I wanted to make a ‘Tex-Mex’ album, but one that is authentic and relevant to me—a modern-sounding Tex-Mex album,” says Rodriguez, the daughter of Austin painter Leslie Nail and the late expat songwriter David Rodriguez. “I was thinking about how I ?t in in terms of ?nding the meeting place of the two di.erent cultures in my background. I’m a ?ddle-playing Chicana who grew up with artist parents. That’s my story.” A classically trained violinist, Rodriguez embraced ?ddle-style playing and her Texas…

GOT SOMETHING TO SAY? OUR FAVORITE SOCIAL MEDIA OF THE MONTH I wouldn’t have survived this pregnancy without Oxbow Pies [in Palestine]! DENA LEE SWANSON, NECHES The Rio Grande Valley—lots of palm trees and warm weather, and lots to see and do. Love it! HILDA MCGUIRE, BURKBURNETT Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram Cowboy Up I really enjoyed the article on Ty Murray [March], having watched him compete and win in our Little Britches Rodeos in Gunnison, Colorado, in the ’80s. I don’t recall how many times he competed there, but he always took home a trophy saddle or two. I also watched him compete several years later in a PRCA rodeo in Albuquerque. Along with a love of rodeo, Ty and I share both a love of motorcycle…

DIONICIO RODRIGUEZ’S CEMENT SCULPTURES look so much like tree trunks and branches, they even fool wily woodpeckers. Woodpeckers have been spo_ed pecking the concrete “bark” hoping to _nd a tasty insect lurking within the rails of Rodriguez’s footbridge in Brackenridge Park or his bus-stop palapa at the corner of Broadway and Pa_erson. Created in San Antonio from the 1920s to the 1950s and called faux bois (false wood) and trabajo rústico (rough work), Rodriguez’s utilitarian cement pieces, cra.ed to appear as though made of wood or stone, can be seen at the San Antonio Museum of Art, the Spanish Governor’s Palace, the Japanese Tea Garden, and other Alamo City sites. Comfort, Castroville, Port Arthur, and Houston also preserve Rodriguez’s work, and his work in seven other states includes an Old…

TRACY PITCOX STILL REMEMBERS THE F IRST record he ever bought. “It was a casse?e of Ernest Tubb’s album Thanks A Lot,” he recalled. “I was 15 years old, and I paid $3.95 for it at Kmart in Brownwood.” Since that purchase, Pitcox, the founder of the Heart of Texas Country Music Museum in Brady, has done as much as anyone to honor traditional country music and preserve its stories and sounds. Pitcox launched his popular radio program, Hillbilly Hits, when he was 17 on his hometown station in Brady, KNEL, and he still holds court on Thursday and Saturday evenings with four hours of classic country music. Se?ing the tone at the outset, the first record Pitcox played on the show’s 1989 debut was Hank Thompson’s “Kindly Keep It…

The beauty of wild_owers is a joy in its own right, but the li le-known folklore behind spring bloomers adds extra sparkle to the spectacle. “People talked about trees and shrubs because they were useful—they had fruits and purposes as medicines,” explains Ma Turner, author of Remarkable Plants of Texas. “But annual wild_owers, while they were pre y, were talked about as a ‘kaleidoscope of colors,’ ­lling prairies as far as the eye could see; they didn’t talk about individual _owers.” The Texas bluebonnet is one exception, singled out from the _oral tapestry in folklore, perhaps because it tends to be one of the ­rst colorful _owers to appear each spring. One of the be er-known legends tells the tale of a Comanche tribe su.ering a.er a bi er winter.…

If bluebonnets are the star of the spring wild- _ower show, the Indian paintbrush is their costar. Well, perhaps it’s more of a sidekick; it’s a parasitic plant, meaning it relies on other plants to grow—one of the many reasons it’s o€en found embedded in a .eld of bluebonnets. About 200 di.erent species of the _ower exist, and nine of them are native to Texas. While Indian paintbrush is by far the _ower’s most common name, it’s also occasionally nicknamed bu.er_y weed, prairie .re, painted lady, and grandmother’s hair. The la.er name is a.ributed to the Chippewa tribe, who used the _ower to make a hairwash and treat women’s illnesses in addition to rheumatism. The _ower’s common name comes from Native American folklore. A young painter, obsessed with capturing the…

MIDLAND–Midland is a great place to eat, play, shop & stay as you explore West Texas! Midland International Air & Space Port is the closest airport to Big Bend National Park. visitmidland.com Apr 6 - Midland RockHounds Season Begins May 27 - Alice Cooper @ Wagner Noël Center ODESSA–Known for breathtaking sunsets, wide-open spaces and warm West Texas hospitality; you’ll enjoy shopping, dining, unique cultural attractions and events. Odessa: your gateway to the Big Bend. odessacvb.com Apr 11-May 14 - 59th Annual Permian Basin Art Exhibition @ Ellen Noël Museum Apr 27 - Terry Crews @ Wagner Noël Center FORT STOCKTON–Lodging, Dining, Entertainment and History. Experience our Visitor Center, Historic Sites, Museum, Fort Grounds, Golf Course, and Unique Shopping, West Texas style. historicfortstocktontx.com Apr 20-23 - Big Bend Open Road…

Star Park 29º13'34.54" N 103º18'09.73" W EXPANSIVE VIEWS OF Big Bend National Park and northern Mexico reward South Rim Trail hikers. This strenuous trek of more than 12 miles (round trip) begins at the Basin Trailhead and ascends about 2,000 feet, using the Pinnacles (steeper) or Laguna Meadows trails (more gradual). To enjoy the night sky, backpackers should plan to camp overnight; a permit is required. The cooler months of November to April provide the best weather for the hike. Part of the trail is closed during peregrine falcon nesting season (February to May). For more information about the hike and camping, visit www.nps.gov/bibe.…

WHILE DRINKING COFFEE IN MY ROOM IN El Paso’s hip new Hotel El Indigo, I can feel the pull of Mexico. From my window, I witness how the orderly concrete grid of El Paso’s downtown gives way across the border to a warren of pastel, one-story houses framed in mountains still purple from the sunrise. I watch cars scu_le back and forth toward the international bridge, heading for El Norte or south into Juárez. This is la frontera, a metropolis of almost 3 million people on both sides of the Mexico-United States border, and the buzz is infectious. I have a shiny new book in my lap, a recuerdo from yesterday’s visit to the El Paso Museum of Art—the catalog companion to Gaspar Enríquez’s 2014 exhibit Metaphors of El Barrio.…

Crushing it at Messina Hof 40 years of winemaking in Bryan ON AN UNCHARACTERISTICALLY COOL AND overcast August morning, rows and rows of Lenoir grapes grow fat on the vines at the Messina Hof vineyard in Bryan. At sunrise, visitors armed with grape hooks will descend upon them, eager for the experience of squishing the grapes between their toes during the winery’s annual grape harvest tradition. Lenoir grapes, also known as Black Spanish or Jaquez grapes, are resistant to phylloxera (root rot), which plagues many grapes grown in Texas. But Paul and Merrill Bonarrigo, two pioneers in the state’s winemaking industry, didn’t know that when they ventured out to stake a few vines 40 years ago on their acreage in Bryan. In the 1970s, Merrill remembers, a farmer driving his…

Donna Cummins steps out of the Chappell Hill fog and into my room at Southern Rose Ranch bearing a tray laden with rosemary cream-cheese scrambled eggs and pecan praline cobbler. “I’m so sorry about 3 a.m.,” she says. I shake my head, wondering what she could mean. “The cows and chickens were really noisy. There must’ve been a predator in the pasture.” Could’ve fooled me. Without car horns, emergency sirens, or other urban sounds, I felt swathed in silence and didn’t even notice the mooing and clucking. That’s the bucolic beauty of Washington County, where the Blackland Prairie’s rolling hills are rich in Texas history, picturesque ca?le and horse pastures, and ?elds of colorful wild-  owers during springtime. I expected the rural  avor. What I didn’t expect was that Washington…

Like these bright red-and yellow-flowers in the height of spring, the legends surrounding the Indian blanket’s origin have grown wild through the ebb and fiow of time. Three stories have become the most widespread in modern culture. The . rst, of Mexican origin, tells how the fiower was once entirely yellow and beloved by the Aztecs. A. er Hernán Cortés invaded the Valley of Mexico beginning in 1519, the flowers were said to have been permanently stained red by the blood of the Aztecs. Another legend, . rst wriflen down in 1928, tells the story of a young Native American girl lost in the woods, and as the cold night falls, she asks The Great Spirit to cover her with the beautiful blanket she had seen her mother weaving for…

Among the showiest and pre_iest wildowers in Texas is the foxglove, one of the two dozen penstemons native to Texas’ rolling plains and Blackland Prairie. While modern medicine relies on European foxglove extracts to treat heart conditions, the variety is extremely poisonous—hence its nicknames, dead man’s bells and witches’ gloves. Texas’ native penstemon, however, has never been known to be toxic, so it’s dubbed false foxglove. Some legends imply the plant brings protection. One Old English fable says foxes’ tails hold potent charms against the devil, so mankind was constantly hunting these sly creatures. The king of the foxes appealed to the gods for help, and the gods gi.ed the foxglove ower. It was said that the animals hid in .elds of these plants, and as their tails brushed against…

Native Texans held the yucca in high regard for many practical uses. “Literally every part of the plant yields something of value,” Turner says. Hispanic and Anglo selers, the Apaches, and Kiowas all roasted the yucca’s stalks or dried them for eating in times of need. Prehistoric humans reportedly twisted the yucca’s  ber into twine and rope, used for anything from belts to bow strings. And the yucca’s roots can be pounded to a pulp and mixed with water to make a shampoo of sorts; the Comanche and Pueblo tribes believe it makes hair long, strong, and glossy, so using it before partaking in traditional ceremonies is required. Hopi tribal members wash the head of a newborn with yucca soap when they are 20 days old, and similar products are…

Reimagining the Alamo A new project aims to enhance the site’s depiction of the historic mission and 1836 battle IN SECOND GRADE, I R ECEIVED A B EAUTIFUL Alamo diorama for Christmas, complete with plastic soldiers and a cardboard backdrop, perfect for replaying the ba_le over and over with alternate endings. That same year my class visited the “Shrine of Texas Liberty,” where we listened to holograms of William B. Travis and David Crockett recount their experiences in the infamous ba_le. Like many Texans, my childhood fascination with the Alamo inspired a deep appreciation for history, and now, 20 years later, I teach the subject to high-schoolers and live only a mile from the hallowed mission site. And so, I’ve followed closely as the Alamo has become the focus of…