Katrina's Path

As Katrina approaches the Louisiana coast, it is important to pray for the people of that state, and Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.  This blog is devoted to people and places in this region and my heart goes out to everyone affected by this monster storm.  http://www.ericwilder.com   http://ericwilder.blogspot.com   http://energyissues.modblog.com  http://justeastofeden.blogspot.com 

GORGEOUS ARKANSAS

Everyone knows that Arkansas is a gorgeous State, but it is also wonderful place to visit if you love geology. Here are some pictures taken on the banks of Lake Catherine, a locality near Hot Springs. Two of the pictures show intensly folded strata resulting from plate tectonics and the resultant building of the Ouachita Mountains. The man in the red jacket is Dr. Ron Konig, former head of the geology department at the University of Arkansas. The man in the red cap is John Rogers, co-author of a famous geology textbook. Also present are several other geologists whose names I can't recall. The bridge picture is actually in the Ozarks, but still gorgeous. http://www.ericwilder.com http://ericwilder.blogspot.com http://energyissues.modblog.com http://justeastofeden.myblogsite.com

GHOST OF A CHANCE

After traveling to a mysterious lake situated on the Texas-Louisiana border, Buck McDivit soon meets gorgeous Lila Richardson. He is instantly smitten. Lila runs an antique store in Deception, a little tourist town on the lake. Like the little town, Lila has her secrets.

She is the daughter of Colonel Clayton Richardson, the richest man in East Texas, and they live in an antebellum mansion rivaling Tara. Lila, in fact, is a latter-day Scarlett O'Hara, as Buck soon learns.

Ghost of a Chance is available on the web at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Buy.com, and many other places. The best price is from the publisher at this link - http://www.publishamerica.com/shopping/shopdisplayproducts.asp?catalogid=9061

VIVIAN CONFIDENTIAL, PART II

Vivian is about a mile from the Texas border. There was a gas station on the Texas side then (still is) and we used to go there to get a few gallons because it was always a tad cheaper (still is) in Texas than in Louisiana. Not far from the gas station, the blacktop ends and a rutted dirt road disappears into thick pine forest. I'm not sure if the road is in Texas or Louisiana, but if you follow it successfully for about ten miles without hitting a deer or running into the ditch, you'll reach a little forest-shrouded body of water known as Stratford Lake.

In the 60's, someone got the idea to sell lots around the lake and develop it as a place to get away from the rat race of town. Someone should have told them that Vivian is away from the rat race of town. Anyway, a few dozen cabins and mobile homes soon sprang up around the little lake, each bulldozed lot fighting to retain its freedom from the always-encroaching southern forest replete with creeper vines and creepie-crawlies.

What few people knew was that Stratford had already been a community, long before the Civil War. They soon found old foundations, crumbling into damp Louisiana (or maybe Texas) earth. And there was a graveyard.

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Arklatex Map

Here is a map of the Arklatex, after a map by James H. Conrad.

ERIC'S MOONFLOWERS

Moonflowers are saucer-sized blooms that open toward late afternoon to early evening and close the following morning. This vine climbs walls and trees. Toward late August, early September, they can be seen blooming in the highest boughs of neighboring trees, exuding a wonderful, midnight perfume. A single bloom lasts only one short night, but a moonflower vine will spawn many delicate and fragrant flowers during the growing season. Tonight, the humidity in Edmond, Oklahoma is like a damp sheet, a storm approaching from the west saturating the air with heavy moisture -- a perfect evening for moonflowers, as I counted 25 blooms in the backyard. http://www.ericwilder.com http://ericwilder.blogspot.com http://justeastofeden.blogspot.com http://energyissues.modblog.com

VIVIAN CONFIDENTIAL - PART 1

Vivian is a little town lying amid the pine forests of hilly Northwest Louisiana. The one-block area that makes up downtown Vivian is mostly vacant, its once bustling store fronts now all but empty. No one has seen a movie in Vivian in twenty five years. Not since the Bijou shut down. At least I think that’s what it was called. The drive-in closed long before that, replaced by a bowling alley that’s also long gone.

Highway 1 cuts through Vivian, paralleling the railroad track. They both disappear on the outskirts of town, heading toward Shreveport, some 20 miles away. Several businesses, including the booming local Walmart, a Pizza Hut, a barbecue place and a couple other drive-throughs line Highway 1. When I was growing up, we had a lone ice cream place, the Tastee Freeze, and a drive-in café at the far end of town. Oh, and there were a few honky-tonks such as Mrs. Ray’s that mostly catered to old drunks and young people coming across the borders from Texas and Arkansas. 18 was the drinking age in Louisiana, 21 in Texas and Arkansas.
There was little going on in Vivian during the 60's. My friends and I would put a few dollars of gas into someone’s car and drive from one end of town to the next, hoping to attract girls. The girls had their own cars, own friends and were out flirting with the boys. Occasionally, we’d get lucky, the girls would leave their car at the Tastee Freeze and ride around town with us. When this happened, talk often turned to ghosts, the boys hoping to scare the girls and have them draw close; the girls usually feigning fear and cuddling up to us. Much of the 60's occurred before the sexual revolution and copping a quick feel of Sally’s breast was about as much excitement as any of us ever got.

TO BE CONTINUED

RED RIVER RAFT

The Red River begins in Colorado and flows east, toward Louisiana. It forms a physical barrier between much of Texas and Oklahoma, Texas to the south and Oklahoma to the north. In 1806, President Thomas Jefferson sent Peter Curtis and Thomas Freeman to explore the southern portion of the Louisiana Territory. They found the Red River clogged from bank to bank with trees, brush and impenetrable debris. The Great Raft acted as a dam, effectively raising the water level north and west of what is now the city of Shreveport. This system of interconnecting bayous and lakes, with time, became a watery pathway from New Orleans to Jefferson, Texas.

What did Jefferson have that brought up to 15 riverboats a day from New Orleans? Cotton. Michener talks about the superior quality of East Texas cotton in his novel Texas. Fortunes were established and antebellum mansions sprang up around Jefferson as goods and celebrities reached the booming town. At one point, Jefferson was the largest seaport in Texas.

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Sabine Uplift

A huge subsurface feature known as the Sabine Uplift underlies part of Northwest Louisiana, Southwest Arkansas, and East Texas. The surface expression of this buried structure is represented by the rolling, pine-covered hills of the region called the Arlatex by locals. The Sabine Uplift has trapped a wealth of oil and gas from formations both deep and shallow. Pictured are rows of tiny pumping units near Vivian, Louisiana that produce oil from a depth of around 1,000'. Subtropical vines with brilliant blooms grow in the tree tops near these little wells that are located a mile or so from Black Bayou.

Potter's Point

This article was reprinted in its entirety from The Handbook of Texas Online

AMES, HARRIET A. MOORE PAGE POTTER (1810-1902). Harriet Ames, subject of an early Texas community-property case, the daughter of Francis Moore, was born on August 18, 1810. She left her home and small retail business in New Orleans and accompanied her improvident husband, Solomon C. Page, to Texas before the revolution of 1836. Not long after their arrival Page joined the army, abandoning Harriet and their two small children without provisions in an isolated house on the prairie surrounding Austin Bayou. They survived by gathering wild plants until they were finally rescued and brought to Brazoria, where Harriet sold some store goods she had brought from New Orleans and learned farming from her brother's wife. During the Runaway Scrape^qv Robert Potter,^qv secretary of the Texas Navy,^qv took her and her children to Galveston under his protection and gave them refuge on a navy vessel until after the battle of San Jacinto.^qv Refusing Solomon Page's plea for reconciliation, she journeyed to New Orleans with the intention of setting out for Kentucky to live with her grandmother. Potter, who was with her, offered to arrange the journey; but instead, he executed a series of deceptive maneuvers that ultimately took them back to Texas and his property on the Sabine River in Shelby (now Harrison) County.

Harriet refused Potter's proposals of marriage until he convinced her that her marriage to Page was invalid in Texas because it had not been solemnized by a priest, and in September 1836 they were married by bond. They lived for a year on the Sabine while they built a home at Potter's Point on Ferry (Caddo) Lake in Red River (now Marion) County. They had two children, and Robert Potter served in the Fifth and Sixth Texas congresses; he assured Harriet that he had introduced a law in Congress validating marriages like theirs. Potter became involved in the Regulator-Moderator War,^qv and on March 2, 1842, he was murdered by William P. Rose^qv and a contingent of Regulators. When his will, made in Austin less than a month before his death, was probated, it revealed that he had left the land on which the homestead stood to a Sophia Mayfield of Austin, and another part of his headright and some horses, slaves, and all of the household furnishings and farming stock to Harriet, named in the will as Mrs. Harriet A. Page.

Harriet remarried in August or September 1842, and with her new husband, Charles Ames, continued to reside on the Potter homestead. Sophia Mayfield died in 1852 without ever attempting to take possession of Potter's bequest, and it was sold by the administrator of her estate. In July 1857 the purchasers filed suit to try title against Harriet and Charles Ames. After years of amended pleadings the case of Lewis v. Ames was tried in Marion County District Court in April 1872 and judgment was rendered in Harriet's favor (Ames had died in 1866). The case was reversed and remanded by the Texas Supreme Court in 1875. The controlling issue was whether Harriet had been Potter's legal wife and was therefore entitled to assert a community interest in the property. Chief Justice O. M. Roberts^qv held that the remedial statutes passed by the Texas legislature to validate irregular marriages contracted under Mexican sovereignty did not affect Harriet Ames's alleged bond marriage: Potter's failure to mention a wife or children among the enumerated beneficiaries and his reference to Harriet as Mrs. Page indicated that he did not regard their living arrangement as a marriage. Harriet was dispossessed from the property at Potter's Point and lived in New Orleans for many years with the children of her third marriage. At the age of eighty-three she wrote her reminiscences, which are now in the Barker Texas History Center,^qv University of Texas at Austin. She died in Covington, Louisiana, on March 18, 1902.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Louis Wiltz Kemp, The Signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence (Salado, Texas: Anson Jones, 1944; rpt. 1959). James Norvell, "Ames Case Revisited," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 63 (July 1959). Texas Supreme Court, Texas Reports: Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court, Vol. 44.

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Dogs

I have two big dogs, Lucky and Velvet. My deceased wife, Anne, bought Lucky a few months before she passed away. He is a full-blood Labrador Retriever and he has been my best friend for many years. When I would sit in my chair and cry, feeling sorry for myself, Lucky would stare at me with his big brown eyes. "Is there something I can do?" his eyes seemed to say.

For a couple of years, I took him with me every where I went. He is such a large dog -- 110 pounds -- this became hard to do. When I had an appointment, I had to leave him at the house. He was so needy! While visiting a PetSmart, I adopted a dog named Slick, a gorgeous Gordon Setter. He and Lucky got along and, for awhile, I could actually get a little work done during the day.

Slick had a problem! He could jump over a six-foot stockade fence and he liked to run. Every night, I would have to track him down and bring him home. He took to following two twin boys that lived in my neighborhood. When their mother called, I knew what she wanted before she showed up at my door.

"My family loves Slick. The boys, my husband and my other children are crazy about him. You don't have time to give him your full attention, do you?
I had to admit that I didn't.

Once again, Lucky and I were alone (I had my cats, but those of you that have kitty's know that they own you, not the other way around).

Anyway, I was visiting my pool service on Western in OKC. A pretty puppy came from the back, wagging its tail. "What a nice dog," I said.

"If you like her, you better take her. The boss says we're going to put her out on the street at five."

I took the puppy with me. She had an attitude, putting my 110 pound Lab in his place with a nip. I fully intended to put an ad in the paper and give her away to some well deserving family. Before that happened, I got attached. So did Lucky! Velvet, a German Shepard mix, became part of the family.

I have had a wonderful spouse and so many personal friends pass away, leaving me to cope on my own, and so many pets, King Tut, Chani, Mad Max, Silky -- I just have to take a deep breath and remember that I still have both of my wonderful parents (I didn't always believe they were so wonderful! But they are), a couple of favorite Aunts (no better in the whole world!), a few cousins, in particular, and so many friends. Thank you, God. I am blessed. Eric

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Myrtis Mill Pond

Like country towns all over, there was little to do growing up in Vivian. Located ten miles from the Arkansas and Texas borders, the pines are tall and hills rolling. The drinking age in Texas and Arkansas is 21, the same as when I was a young man. In Louisiana, it was 18. Because of this, many honky-tonks lined both sides of the road. On Fridays, young Texans and Arkansans would stream across the border and populate the many roadside taverns. Fights and arguments often ensued. Like the rest of Louisiana, the elevation around Vivian is low. The town is surrounded by water, Black Bayou, Caddo Lake and hundreds of ponds and streams. Toward the Texas border is a small body of water called the Myrtis Mill Pond. During high school, a killing took place near there, a hammer the murder weapon. I wrote a short story about it called Southern Fried Murder and it was published in the Red Herring Mystery Magazine. Some of the characters, Sheriff Harmon Antley and Mrs. Bea, the honky-tonk owner, were drawn from memory. Later, when I wrote Ghost of a Chance, I used some of the characters from Southern Fried Murder. You can check out the short story, if you'd like, on my blog http://ericwilder.blogspot.com/ http://ghostofachance.blogspot.com/ http://www.ericwilder.com/ http://energyissues.modblog.com/

Ghost of the Headless Conductor

There is a scene in the novel Ghost of a Chance where Buck Mcdivit sees a light coming from the water’s edge. Having recently witnessed what he thinks is a ghost, he investigates to find Wiley Johnson, fishing off the marina’s dock by the light of a flickering lantern. Wiley offers Buck a beer, listens to his ghost story then tells him one of his own.

“Sounds like a paranormal occurrence, at the very least.”

Wiley explains that he once checked out the local legend of a ghost that supposedly haunts the railroad track near Crossett, Arkansas — the ghost of a train conductor that literally lost his head during a railroad accident.

As every writer knows, there is a little truth in all fiction. This is true of the story about the headless conductor — a ghost I saw with my own eyes.

While attending college in Monroe, Louisiana, I worked at a bowling alley. Much in the manner of all fine Louisiana establishments, the bowling alley had a lounge. After closing at midnight, I, along with Trellis, the mechanic, Chuck, my roommate who also worked at the bowling alley, and Joe, the manager had a few drinks in the lounge. The discussion led to ghosts, the headless conductor of Crossett in particular, and we were in the right frame of mind to check it out for ourselves.

Crossett is a little town in Southern Arkansas, not far from the Louisiana border. We stopped at a convenience store along the way to make sure we had enough beer for the trip. After passing through Crossett, we crossed the railroad track and parked beside the road. A jillion stars lit the clear Autumn sky — a good thing as we hadn’t thought to bring a flashlight. Joe waited in the car while Trellis, Chuck and I walked down the dark track in search of the headless ghost. Even in our advanced state of inebriation, we never really expected to see it, but see it we did.

Darkness and surrounding trees and vegetation made it hard to judge distances, but we almost immediately saw something on the track in front of us — a hundred yards, perhaps a thousand yards away. It was a dim, incandescent blob of light that danced just above the tracks. When we moved toward it, it moved away. When we walked away from it, it chased us.

We stayed on the tracks for what must have been an hour, the dancing blob of light present the entire time. We all saw it, even Joe, the bowling alley manager that had driven us to Crossett. Joe didn’t drink alcohol.

We saw something. Granted, it may have been swamp gas, or some other unexplained phenomena. What it seemed like to me was an entity, a real being that sensed our presence, meant us no harm but had fun “playing” with us. Don’t believe me? Then I urge you to go to Crossett, Arkansas and check it out for yourself.

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Uncertain Texas

Yes, Virginia, there really is an Uncertain, Texas. It's a little hard to find, but it's worth the look.