More Marfa

Posted on April 9, 2026 by admin

Entering Marfa, Texas, from the east on US 90, I spotted this off to the side of the road.

A side road offers a view but not, as far as I could see, access to the site.

Also no signage, which I took to be a bonus. Like the Cadillac Ranch, the thing was just there. It can be looked up later, of course, to reveal that it’s a large bit of sculpture called “Sleeping Figure” by Los Angeles-based artist Matt Johnson and only moved to Marfa in 2024 from its original place in the Coachella Valley.

In town, we took a stroll down Highland Ave. and around the courthouse. The former Marfa Opera House.

Later the Palace Theater. Various sources, which seem to be copying each other, say that the theater closed in the 1970s, which is probably accurate, and that an artist uses it as his studio now, which I’m less certain about, since there place looked wholly vacant. Still, as an art town, you’d think Marfa would use the space for something closer to its original uses – live events, maybe standard theater and movies, but also popup performance art from time to time.

A number of churches ring the courthouse. St. Paul’s Episcopal.

First United Methodist.

First Christian Church.

It’s a coincidence of placement, probably, but it still looks like the church and the pickup truck are a set. An answer to the longstanding theological question, WWJD, What Would Jesus Drive?

Elsewhere in Marfa, an example of something you see when doing something else – in this case, buying gas.

West from Marfa on US 90, on the road to Valentine and Van Horn, are characters from the last of James Dean’s three movies, the one in which he implausibly grows old. Some of that movie was filmed in the area – on the ranch behind the barbed wire, in fact.

“A donation to the city of Marfa, the mural by artist John Cerney honors the movie Giant (1956), which was partially filmed in this small west Texas town,” says Texas Time Travel. “The mural is a collaboration with singer/songwriter/musician Michael Nesmith who made possible the addition of an audio element to the mural installation. The sounds of Nesmith and his First National Band Redux play continually on a loop from hidden speakers near the automobile in the scene.”

Further down the same road, in fact close to the hamlet of Valentine, is the Marfa Prada. Not the Valentine Prada, because who has ever heard of Valentine, Texas (pop. 217)?

Texas Time Travel again: “Prada Marfa is a site specific, permanent land art project by artists Elmgreen & Dragset, commissioned by Art Production Fund and Ballroom Marfa. Modeled after a Prada boutique, the sculpture houses luxury goods from the famed brand’s fall 2005 collection of bags and shoes.”

Detail near the road. Not sure if it was added by the artist or someone else.

The fence partly around the locked building is festooned with love locks.

And a love chain? For a more spicy time.

The San Angelo Riverwalk

Posted on April 7, 2026 by admin

Saw an ad today about paleovalley beef sticks (no caps on the package). Not only is that the funniest thing I saw all day, that brand name is genius. Also, Paleovalley could be the title of a gritty reboot, as there are no other kinds, of the incredibly obscure Korg: 70,000 BC.

Into the rabbit hole: that made me wonder whether Cro-Magnon is even a scientific term anymore. Has it been replaced by some newer and more precise, or more politic, term?

No. It’s still Cro-Magnon. Most definitely. Who has the first Cro-Magnon skull discovered? The Smithsonian.

The Smithsonian notes about its Cro-Magnon: “Cro-Magnon 1 was among the first fossils to be recognized as belonging to our own species — Homo sapiens. This famous fossil skull is from one of several modern human skeletons found at the famous rock shelter site at Cro-Magnon, near the village of Les Eyzies, France.”

So the Cro-Magnon were actually early Frenchmen? Never mind the gritty reboot, this is comedy: cavemen with goofy French accents (and I know about Gaul and the arrival of the Franks in historic times, but this is TV we’re talking about). It probably would be bad comedy, for sure. As It’s About Time and Cavemen tell us, it’s hard to wring good comedy out of Paleolithic material.

Then again, consider this from the Wiki entry about Cavemen (2007): In the series, cavemen were never really fully supplanted by modern humans, but integrated into Homo sapiens civilization as a separate species sub-group. Cavemen are a small but widespread minority group that have been present in every global civilization since the dawn of recorded history… Effectively, Cavemen form another ethnic minority in the modern world, which faces several prejudices from Homo sapiens... Although these cavemen self-identify as Cro-Magnon, their facial appearance and physical anatomy is reminiscent of the Neanderthal.

I’d guess that the writers of the show, and the original GEICO commercials, didn’t invent that idea. But what a good idea for fiction, comedy or drama. I didn’t see any episodes of Cavemen, but by all accounts the show was very stupid indeed, so as often the case, it’s an example of a terrific idea badly executed. Too bad.

The San Angelo Riverwalk

San Antonio has a great riverwalk. Everyone should know that. Not as great, but still a pleasant place for a stroll on a warm day, is the riverwalk along the Concho River in San Angelo, Texas. Technically the North Concho River, since it joins the South Concho not far downriver, on its way to the Colorado. It has everything a riverwalk needs: a river, sidewalks and park lands next to it.

Artwork along the way.

A foot bridge.

The Abe St. bridge.

And a mermaid.

“Pearl of the Conchos,” it’s called.

“The bronze statue is an enlargement of Jayne Charless Beck’s original mermaid sculpture,” says Mermaids of the Earth. “Jayne was a San Angelo resident artist, who passed away in 1993. In 1994 this bronze casting was donated by friends of Jayne Beck to the City of San Angelo, and was placed next to a pedestrian bridge close to the San Angelo Museum of Fine Art.

“In this area, a freshwater mussel species produces lustrous pearls in many colors, famous since the time of the Spanish conquistadors.”

Downtown San Angelo

Posted on April 6, 2026 by admin

I had a fondness for maps as a kid, and few were better than the Texas State Highway Maps produced by the Texas Highway Department, a predecessor agency of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). One of the maps’ features was a small stroke of genius – one later dropped, of course – that put the very largest urban areas in yellow, mid-sized ones in green and relatively small cities in brown. At a glance you could size up the size of a place you might be driving, if you didn’t happen to know.

Under that scheme, San Angelo, Texas, came in green, if I remember right. Not in the same league as yellow Houston, Dallas, San Antonio or Austin, or even El Paso and Waco, but bigger than places like Pampa, Killeen or Orange, again if I remember right (the old maps are tucked away in San Antonio). Why was there a mid-sized city in San Angelo’s location, I don’t ever remembering asking.

Easy enough to find out now: a frontier fort at confluence of two sizable rivers whose town grew as nearby cattlemen prospered, and oil services took root. In our time, there are also other usual-suspect major employers, such as schools and hospitals, and the military never left, considering the presence of Goodfellow Air Force Base, which managed to survive the wave of base closures and consolidations in recent decades (unlike some).

On a drive from DFW to West Texas, San Angelo seemed like a good place to stop for a night, and we arrived just before dark. The next morning, we took a look around, especially downtown. First, a handsome train station.

Mostly, San Angelo isn’t a high-rise city.

With some small-city exceptions, such as the Hotel —– building.

Street art.

Chicago has cows, San Angelo sheep. Back the USDA for ag stats: cattle are by far the most common livestock in Tom Green County, with $49.5 million in sales in 2022. But there are a fair number of sheep, with sheep, goats, wool, mohair and milk selling $4.2 million that year. For cattle production, the county comes in at only the 30th highest sales volume in Texas; but for sheep etc., the county ranks fifth statewide.

Again with the overrepresentation of cowboys. If there are art sheep on the streets of San Angelo, why no art shepherds? Then again, a modern shepherd probably looks a lot like a modern cowboy, so maybe that is a shepherd.

I had to look him up. Elmer Kelton (d. 2009), San Angelo resident, wrote a lot of Westerns.

An unassuming exterior, but a fair amount going on inside, at least most evenings. I had to look up FiFi DuBois, too. The association of the San Angelo establishment with New York entertainer isn’t quite clear — is Fifi an owner or part owner, or is there some kind of licensing agreement?

Anyway: “The House of FiFi DuBois in downtown San Angelo is on the market for $1.3 million as its owners seek a new buyer to continue its legacy,” San Angelo Live reported in February.

“The property is located at 123 S. Chadbourne St. and is approximately a 16,250-square-foot building that includes the ground-floor bar and venue, an Airstream trailer feature, plus a massive upstairs loft and additional rentable spaces that offer potential for multiple income streams, such as office use, short-term rentals, or expansion.

“The business remains open, thriving, and operating normally, according to information found online…”

Now I’m repeating information “found online.” But it’s probably reasonable to assume that the House of Fifi DuBois, with a lineup like this, is alive and well. Looks like the joint has both kinds of music, country and western, and plenty of drag shows. Cowboys and drag shows: now that’s West Texas variety, if you asked me.

Airstream feature? Tucked away in the venue is an Airstream that can be rented separately, it seems.

Meeting Chadbourne St. at the perpendicular is Concho Ave., named for the river, which was named for its bounty of shells. Near that intersection is a building that looks a tad underutilized.

I’ve interviewed too many real estate developers not to think, man, if that building could only be teleported to Brooklyn – or even Scott’s Addition…

The nearby block is mostly occupied, however. With local shops.

Also, it sports a stretch of raised, plank sidewalk.

The plates are flush enough with the boards not to be a trip hazard, fortunately.

A stuff shop: J. Wilde’s.

Is Miss Hattie’s a serious museum about underrepresented local history or a commercial venture romanticizing 19th-century prostitution? I don’t know. Miss Hattie’s, like Fifi’s, was closed at that moment.

One more detail from Concho Ave.

The only reason I know what that is, is that St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in San Antonio, a place I knew well, was founded before the advent of the motor-car. As such, a few iron rings were mounted in the curb in front of the sanctuary – exactly like the ring pictured above. A place to tie up your horse. I might have asked about the feature, or my mother might have pointed it out, but anyway I learned about the iron rings. Does it matter to us auto-mobile drivers that we know this? No. But it adds just a touch of hyperlocal color.

Stephenville & Ballinger, Texas

Posted on April 2, 2026 by admin

Regards for Easter. And Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and Easter Saturday. Back posting on Easter Monday.

This seemed like a fitting set of images for the occasion.

A 100-foot steel cross rises on a small hill a few miles south of Ballinger, Texas, seat of Runnels County. Couldn’t very well pass that up, considering that we were passing through Ballinger (pop. about 3,600) anyway, toward the end of our drive that day from metro DFW to San Angelo, Texas.

“The Ballinger cross was built by a local construction company and commissioned by Jim and Doris Studer, owners of Buddy’s Plant Plus,” notes the Austin Chronicle. “The company is the only U.S. factory making water-soluble fertilizer for Miracle-Gro. After 20 years of making fertilizers in Florida, the Studers went looking for a drier climate. In 1988, they moved the company to Ballinger, where it quickly became one of the largest employers in the county.”

Jim Studer reportedly had been considering the construction of a cross about half that height, as a token of gratitude for a successful business. Then, during a visit to Florida, he was nearly electrocuted in what could easily have been a fatal accident – and decided to roughly double the size of the structure. A thanks to the Lord for not being offed at that moment, perhaps, but no doubt sincere gratitude regardless, for his thriving business. The cross went up in 1993.

We’d left Dallas that morning in mid-February, skirting the cities on I-20 West, except for a brief stop in the Fort Worth museum district. Specifically, at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Yuriko had heard about my visit in 2019 and been slightly miffed, since she too wanted to see the Tadao Ando-designed structure. So we shoehorned a visit for a look at the structure on the day’s itinerary, though not the museum collection. It loses nothing on a second viewing. Gets better.

Go southwest from Fort Worth on US 377 and soon enough you’ll arrive in Stephenville (pop. 20,800 or so), seat of Erath County.

A dairy industry in Erath County? Yes, indeed: sales of $350.9 million in 2022, according to the USDA, by far the largest ag product in the county, and third highest for milk sales among all the 254 counties in Texas, and 24th in the nation. Meat cattle in Erath County are a distant second at $82.7 million that year, so a milk cow standing in the shadow on the Erath County courthouse is just about right.

I had to look it up: number one county in nation for milk production by dollar volume is not in Wisconsin, but rather Tulare County, California, at more than $2.8 billion in 2022. First out of 1,770 counties nationwide producing milk. Now there’s a Jeopardy answer to stump everyone.

We ate lunch in Stephenville at Greer’s, which served a chicken-fried steak to beat all, then took a constitutional around the Erath County courthouse. Starting with one hefty former bank building, vintage 1889.

For Texas county courthouses, James Riely Gordon (d. 1937) is a starchitect, but of course that wasn’t all he did. When he designed this bank, he was 26.

Every town worth its late 19th-century salt has to have an opera house.

Also, a musical favorite son: Milton Brown.

Wiki: “Brown began his musical career in 1930, when he met Bob Wills and guitarist Herman Arnspiger. They were performing at a local Fort Worth dance and Brown joined the duo on a chorus of ‘St. Louis Blues.’ The trio decided to team up to play medicine shows around Texas and Brown landed a regular radio spot on WBAP for the group, where they played a show sponsored by Aladdin Lamp Company, which had the band change its name to the Aladdin Laddies.”

Man, there’s another streaming platform limited series for you: the founding of western swing. Add a fictional love triangle between Bob Wills and Milton Brown and a fictional fetching woman, and some fictional tension between Bob and Milton, who nevertheless produce terrific music to enthusiastic audiences early in the Depression, until Milton dies suddenly in the last episode in a car wreck, as the real musician did in 1936 at age 32. Bob is left to carry on.

Milton’s not the only one honored near the Erath County courthouse.

There were a fair number of plaques like this, too many to read, so I picked one.

Chicago had its art cows (that was in 1999?!?) and Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, has its sturgeons, so Stephenville had boots?

You’d think maybe, considering the importance of dairy locally, there would also be — do dairy workers wear special boots? If so, there should be one of those on display too.

More Stephenville.

US 67 joins US 377 for a run southwest of Stephenville, through such burgs as Dublin, Comanche and Brownwood. Then US 377 peels away to the south; but we followed US 67 west to Ballinger. That town was mostly a stop to get our bearings, really, but I also did a short walkabout while Yuriko napped in the car.

I made the acquaintance of Charles H. Noyes (d. 1917).

Charles was a young Runnels County man who died by being thrown from his horse while minding cattle. His parents tasked no less than Pompeo Coppin to do the sculpture honoring his memory. Nice work, Pompeo. RIP, Charles.

Palestine, Texas

Posted on March 31, 2026 by admin

Terrific lightning storm rolled by to the south last night at about 11. Little rain but a prodigious amount of cloud-to-cloud lightning, unlike anything I’ve seen in years. The last time might have been when we were under such a near-rainless storm in North Dakota nearly 20 years ago. After watching in fascination from the back door, I got my phone and recorded about 30 seconds of the spectacle.

As usual, video only conveys a fraction of the visual power of the moment. But, in spite of the channel it’s on, it isn’t AI.

I was curious today which volume of the Encyclopedia Brown books — whose protagonist is a sharp grade-school boy who solves crimes and mysteries — mentioned the town of Palestine, Texas. Even though I grew up in Texas, I’d never heard of the place until I read an EB story in the early ’70s that mentioned a string of places that some international jewel thief was traveling to: Moscow, Odessa, London, Paris, Palestine and Athens. The boy detective determined that the criminal would be in Texas, since those are all places in that state, and especially because “Palestine” is called “Israel” now, as he said.

You might wonder (I do now, anyway) what business an international jewel thief would have in a place like Moscow, Texas (pop. 170) or London, Texas (pop. 180), but never mind. It didn’t take long for me to find a YouTube review of Encyclopedia Brown Keeps the Peace (Book 6, originally published 1969), including the case that mentions the Texas towns. The reviewer takes the book to task, asking “can grade-schoolers be expected to know this information?” No, of course not. They can be expected to learn it, however.

Now I know exactly where I learned about Palestine (Pal-es-TEEN) more than 50 years ago. I didn’t arrive in Palestine in person until this February, on my way to Dallas from Nacogdoches. During my visit, I made the acquaintance of this fellow.

The sculpture is called “Chuggin’ ” (2020), created by Dewane Hughes, a sculpture professor at the University of Texas in Tyler. Railroads are important in the history of Palestine, so much so that one terminus of the Texas State Railroad – a linear state park along a former short line RR – is in the town. The other terminus is in Rusk, about 25 miles away. Not running in February, unfortunately.

“Chuggin’ is near the town’s visitor center, a former RR depot.

Also nearby is “Forging History” (2014) by Dale Montagne, with the base made of three actual rail car wheels.

Parking was easy to find in downtown Palestine, traffic light. Parallel parking was available right across from the splendid Sacred Heart Catholic Church, as it happened, an 1890s creation by Nicholas Clayton, who was most active in Galveston before the hurricane. Originally many of the congregation were workers on the International-Great Northern Railroad Co., which had a major presence in Palestine.

Palestine still has a sizable rail yard south of downtown.

Took a walk around downtown. Like most large towns, or small cities, there is a mixture of ongoing businesses –

— with vacancies.

Got some buildings with really good bones, as it’s been said in the real estate biz.

The Palestine City Cemetery is to the east of downtown, but not very far. Nowhere is that far in town.

The crumble is on.

Something you don’t see that often. Not just the Stars and Bars, but the very first version with seven stars. In the fullness of not much time, six more stars were added.

Unknown CSA soldiers.

I assume United Confederate Veterans, the Southern equivalent of the GAR, placed this stone and those like it.

The cemetery has an impressive number of worn, broken stones, soldiering on through the elements.

Victorian sentiment in stone, said with due respect.

Would that kind of soft decay, the romanticism of stones worn by time and the elements, have appealed to Victorian sensibilities? Could be.

Downtown Houston

Posted on March 24, 2026 by admin

Who made these skyscrapers possible?

Considering that they are in Houston, Texas, that would be Willis Carrier, father of modern air conditioning.

Heat wasn’t an issue in Houston in February, which was one reason to make my way downtown for a walkabout. Another reason is completely idiosyncratic: I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been downtown. Not 2019, though we could see downtown from Buffalo Bayou and visited Houston’s alt downtown, the Galleria district; or 2015, when we made it to the Menil Collection. Close each time, but no cigar.

A surprising amount of pre-air conditioning Houston remains downtown, though of course even the oldest building has been retrofitted for HVAC.

Nice ironwork on the green one.

Structures surviving from the 1880s.

Imagine those 1880s buildings back in the 1880s. In July, say. Couldn’t have been pleasant. Or any of Houston in 1873, the date of this map.

The 1880 Census counted 16,513 residents of Houston, a near doubling from 1870. Hardy souls who endured the heat and malaria and fetid dung underfoot, among other conditions. Back then, Houston wasn’t quite the port it would be later. The major port then was Indianola, Texas, pop. 5,000 in 1875, before the vicious hurricane that year, that is, the first of two that reduced Indianola to the status of ghost town.

Not all the remnants of an older Houston are buildings, but are underfoot.

There’s a story behind the ghost tiles advertising Loewenstein’s Cigars: an early Texas mercantile family.

Also underfoot.

The splendid former Rice Hotel, designed by John Mauran and completed in 1913, though it only had two towers at the time, becoming triune with a later addition. These days, it’s an apartment building.

The 1910 Harris County courthouse, with enough heft to be a state capitol building.

“An imposing, domed neo-classical edifice, it is a prime example of the civic architecture of Houston of the 1900s and 1910s and is the only example in Houston of the work of Lang & Witchell, a leading Dallas architectural firm of that period,” notes the Texas Historical Commission.

Downtown Houston is also a city of murals. Tall murals.

Even on the parking garage I used.

That one lauds the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which just ended for this year. “A total of 2.6 million people attended the Houston rodeo this year held across three weeks at NRG Park,” Houston Public Media says.

Austin ’26

Posted on March 22, 2026 by admin

South Austin Strolls

Tom’s neighborhood in south Austin is carved into the sides of the dry low hills near the Balcones Escarpment, its streets as much of a grid as possible, which isn’t that much. During my visit, we took a couple of walks in the neighborhood, as we were enjoying an unusually warm February, even for Texas. I started noticing the odd mailboxes. The last one isn’t that odd, but I liked it.

Never mind the five-cent cigar. That’s what this country needs, more whimsical mail boxes. Or little free libraries that offer books, but also sticks and tennis balls for dogs.

More neighborhood ambiance: I call it the TR Elephant.

I took the TR Elephant to my casual AI studio, and once again only proved that image-to-video via text is still a very, very stupid process. Maybe my prompts weren’t clear, but then again, I told the program very specifically what not to do — namely change the eyeglasses or the mustache or the hair — and alternatively phrased things more positively (e.g., “elephant’s mustache and hair remain the same”). Damned if it didn’t change those things anyway, every time, including one time the elephant grew a sort of man bun.

This was as close as I got to what I wanted.

And apparently the program doesn’t know “rimless spring bridge Pince-Nez eyeglasses” (the kind TR wore) from its AI ass. It could not be persuaded to provide the elephant that kind of glasses, after I gave up on trying to keep the glasses the same.

More neighborhood sights.

Do they receive a paper copy of the Texas Observer? Or just enthusiasts, whatever the physical media? Tom took that moment to hone his considerable photobombing skills.

It wouldn’t be the last time.

Austin Skyline

I’ll walk a mile for a good skyline, and in the case of Austin recently, that’s pretty much what we did. We did a walkabout around the banks of the Colorado River not far from downtown. We crossed the river at one point, via a pedestrian bridge under the Mopac Expressway.

The Colorado.

Our stroll took us to the other side of the river, up mild hills on twisty paths, and through copses of gnarly South Texas trees in the massive Zilker Park.

The view from the far bank.

From the near bank, including a kite.

The crowded roads are annoying, and I’m glad I don’t have to deal with property prices in the city, but even so the shiny, growing skyline is a thing of wonder.

Downtown Austin

Nighttime downtown Austin was our choice for another stroll. One reason: Austin neon.

Some public art.

Saw a mural being created: honoring Austin City Limits, looks like.

More Austin, But No Moon Towers This Time

Popped into a joint called JuiceLand for refreshing beverages during my visit. One of many such locations in Austin, Houston and Dallas, the kind of place that has an “Our Ethos” subpage on its web site: “Our veggies and add-ins are always organic, and we source healthy, high-quality, sustainable ingredients to provide our guests & crew with progressive, healthy, uniquely tasty food and drinks.” All that aside, they served some good concoctions. Guess it’s good to have an ethos.

Not photobombing per se by Tom, but who could resist a photo op with the JuiceLand Gorilla?

Yet another walk took us near local infrastructure. The plastic cup was mine, a recent souvenir of Cosmic, a wonderful outdoor food and beverage venue just off South Congress. If it isn’t an Austin institution, it ought to be.

I’d like to say I wasn’t surprised, but somehow I was.

Glenwood Cemetery, Houston

Posted on March 16, 2026 by admin

Another in the very large file of Things You Don’t See Everywhere.

Go to a Texas cemetery of any size and of an older vintage, and you might well see one. While in Houston, I made my way to the Glenwood Cemetery, which isn’t far from downtown.

Expansive, slightly rolling but also partly hilly, and chock-a-block with stones for the departed.

Pretty lush in the spring or summer, but earth tones take over for the winter. Glenwood Cemetery is Houston’s rural cemetery movement cemetery, opening in 1871 and since becoming the permanent residence of citizens of the Republic, but also assorted mayors, governors, business men and other Houston notables, including those with the scratch for some sizable memorials. Some monumental.

Others more artistic.

Goyen is an angel, looking rather not like one you might see on a Hallmark card. Below, looks like St. Michael body-stomping Satan.

A large section of the cemetery, among the hills, uses artful bricks and intricate layouts and other features to convey old money – as old as Houston’s going to get, anyway, so we’re not talking about the Rothschilds.

All very nice, but it’s good not to overlook more ordinary folk.

Including the usual sort of sad memorials you always find.

Well worn by time, but you can tell it memorializes a child.

A Short Visit to the Chinati Foundation

Posted on March 10, 2026 by admin

Rain. All the way from Illinois to Texas. We got mighty bouts of it that had died down ’round midnight. As if to remind me, about time I’m home. Huh?

Come to Marfa for the West Texas art city vibe, stay for the concrete structures. Even if they are off in the distance, at least from the parking lot.

How to think of the untitled works by Donald Judd (d. 1994) on the grounds of the Chinati Foundation in Marfa? Brutalism in a brutal environment? Man’s – that is Humanity’s – longing for angular order in world of irregularity? The strange coprolite of giant angular creatures barely known to paleontology?

I could go on like that all day. Yuriko and I arrived at Chinati early in the warm afternoon of February 18. I can’t say we weren’t warned. The foundation’s web site says: “Our collection is installed across 21 buildings and two off-site locations; additionally, three works are site-specific, outdoor installations. Guided tours are the only way to see the majority of Chinati’s collection and grounds. Purchase your tickets in advance; tours often sell out.”

As we told a volunteer behind the desk, we didn’t have time for a tour. What to see on one’s on?

A long line of concrete structures in the West Texas scrub, that’s what. No tour guide, just a wander among the structures. But not inside them, according to instructions that we did follow.

After a little wandering, I came to think it isn’t just the structures, but the shadows too. What is it that the shadow knows? Right, the evil that lurks in the hearts of men.

I could turn on the art-speak spigot to describe Chinati (one of those infinite AI spigots, I figure), but no. I will note the tumbleweeds we saw.

A little less permanent than the Judd works, but only a little.

I Like Ike, And Abilene Wasn’t Too Bad Either

Posted on December 2, 2025 by admin

In Abilene, Kansas, not long ago, I found myself wondering, whatever happened to Manus Hand? That’s because I stood at that moment near the graves of President and Mrs. Eisenhower, Ike and Mamie.

The 34th President of the United States and the First Lady repose in a chapel-like structure on the grounds of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home in Abilene, pop. 6,400 or so, the town where the president came of age.

I’ve been told I visited before, with my family during a trip to Kansas when I was a wee lad, but I don’t remember that at all. So I count this as a new visit to a presidential sight, including a grave site, which makes 21 presidential graves all together. But for the federal shutdown in October, there would be four more at least: Adams père et fils, FDR and TR.

I thought of Manus Hand because, back in the Neolithic age of the Internet, he had a web site featuring photos of him at presidential grave sites. In my own dead presidents days, I found Hand’s site at some point. He had visited almost all of them by then, 36 by his count. His site is still in existence, without much change, except an update to note that George H.W. Bush had died (2018), but not Jimmy Carter.

The Eisenhower Boyhood Home, moved to the site. No tours available when I came by.

The Eisenhower Museum.

Midcentury, and what could be more fitting for Eisenhower? It’s chronologically organized: early Ike in Abilene; his Army career before WWII, including his cross-country epic; during that war and right after the war; his presidency and post-presidency, and a gallery about Mamie. Well organized, interesting artifacts, but (for me) none more interesting than a titanium sphere.

The sphere is a replica of the pennant sphere that traveled to the Moon in 1959 aboard the Soviet spacecraft Luna 2, which was the first manmade object to reach the lunar surface, or any celestial body. The sphere was a detail that I remembered from long-ago reading about space exploration. I didn’t realize one existed any more, even in replica form. Khrushchev presented it to Eisenhower during his famed visit to the U.S. that year (Khrushchev’s due at Idlewild!).

Luna 2 carried two spheres filled with liquid and an explosive charge, designed to burst apart on impact and scatter pentagonal pennants, the Moon Registry says. The pennants were imprinted with: 1) Sentiabr 1959 (September 1959); CCCP… ; and the state seal of the USSR, a wreath of grain around the hammer and sickle. It is theorized that the medallions vaporized on impact.

Russia is still shooting Luna missions to the Moon. The most recent, Luna 25, crashed near the lunar south pole in 2023 but, unlike Luna 2, not on purpose. Oops. More about the many pennants the Soviets sent into space is here. On display next to the sphere is a lunar rock, which must have been a posthumous gift, since Ike didn’t live quite long enough to benefit from astronauts rock-gathering on the surface, though he was still alive during Apollo 7, 8 and 9.

A close second excellent artifact was a dagger Marshal Zhukov presented to General Eisenhower on the occasion of the defeat of Germany, a good-looking blade with an ivory hilt and gold decorations. I picture an exuberant Zhukov, as in The Death of Stalin, handing the knife to Ike and saying something earthy. Apparently the two, Ike and Zuke, got along well in the early months of the joint occupation of Germany. Differences aside, they had job experience in common. I don’t remember seeing anything about that in the museum, but there was a lot of material, so that could have been easily missed. That and any reference to Kay Summersby.

It was hot that day, September 24, but after visiting the museum, I took a look around Abilene anyway. The town hasn’t forgotten its most famous native son. Also, Donut Palace was closed.

A lot of the detail would be different, but I’ll bet Ike would still feel at home with the scale of Abilene. Small town, small buildings, but some solid touches.

Including at least one building Ike would have known.

Chicago had cows, Abilene has cowboy boots.

The Hotel Sunflower. Former hotel, that is, now apartments.

The Sunflower State. The flower looks a little ominous, peering down at the settlers.

Structures that aren’t grand, but stately even so. Petite stately, you might call them.

The third one is a Carnegie library. Though the Carnegie grant was large, other fundraising for the library’s erection had been done in the early 1900s, including a benefit lecture by William Jennings Bryan.

Out near the highway: truth in naming. But note also, the bowling alley is closed. I could go either way on the reopening of an alley in that location, but I really want the sign to stay.

One more thing Abilene is known for, at least since 2022.

The World’s Largest Belt Buckle. Says so right there on it. How large would that belt have to be?

“Designed by local artist Jason Lahr, Fluter’s Creek Metal Works, the buckle features Dwight D. Eisenhower, Wild Bill Hickok, Abilene & Smoky Valley Railroad, Historic Seelye Mansion, C.W. Parker carousel horse, C.L. Brown telephone, a racing Greyhound and Chisholm Trail longhorn inlaid with blue quartz,” says the city of Abilene, Kansas.

“The buckle is a project of the Abilene Convention and Visitors Bureau which hopes the new roadside attraction will entice travelers to stop and visit the Best Historic Small Town.”

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Public Art