Toad Lick, TX. Pt 2

PART II
The lady who owns the coffee shop is named Maria Schroeder. She is an excellent cook. Puts on a very decent meal, and doesn’t seem to mind all of us hanging out at her place. She tells us that if we didn’t come by so much that she’d think there was something wrong. Says we all keep her company. Her husband, Bill works for the Rail Road. It’s the only job he’s ever had. When the shop closed up here, he was lucky enough to transfer to the big city yard, about 30 miles away. Most of the guys that worked there didn’t get the chance. The older ones got their retirement, and the middle-aged ones got a pay-out, and everybody else just got the opportunity to go find another career path. It almost killed our town at the time, but we’ve recovered over the years since then. We’re doing pretty well now. Well, at least holding our own, anyway.
A few of the guys went to work at the Sheriff’s Department, and old Bill Conroy, the Sheriff at the time, hired as many as he could, as deputies if they had prior experience or military backgrounds, and as jailers if they didn’t. I think he hired about 30 people. God Bless that man. He sure made a difference during a hard time.
Dave and I were off in the Army when all that happened. We were, “Seeing the World!” We went in under the buddy plan, right out of High-School. Little did we know what we’d gotten ourselves into. Anyway, over the course of four years, we both came to the conclusion that there was no place any more special to us than home. Actually Dave had always planned on coming back, he knew his dad needed help on the farm, and that someday he’d inherit the place. I wasn’t so sure I’d come back at all, but one time when we were home on leave Old Bill came and looked me up at the coffee shop and asked me what I was doing in the Army and how much longer I had it to do. Then he told me to come and look him up after I got out. That’s exactly what I ended up doing. Incidentally, I met Donna, or rather really noticed her for the first time on that same leave. Before that, she had always been just one of the girls a couple of years behind us in school. Amazing what a couple of years can do!
I had some legal work I needed to have looked over while I was home, and went down to our local Lawyers office to talk with Gary Dulick and there she was, one year out of High-School, working as Gary’s Receptionist. I could barely speak! She was SO beautiful! Gary came out of his office when he heard me stammering out front and rescued me from my own ineptness. He told me that she was his niece and that she was interested in the legal profession, so he’d hired her out of high school as his receptionist slash gopher. Gary brought me back out, and introduced her to me. When he presented me she said, “Of course I remember you, big football hero turned soldier and off to all those mysterious places.” I had to ask her out, and by the end of that leave I was caught, hook, line and sinker. By the time I got out of the Army, she was in college, and we were engaged.
Gary, by the way, is now our local County Judge. He also advises the city in legal matters, and sits one night a month as the City Judge, on a volunteer basis. He’s a pretty busy guy, too. I try to go over and have dinner with him and his wife about once a month, and they generally come into the coffee-shop once a week, at dinner time on Saturday Night.
A lot of our local folks are truck-drivers now. They either drive long-haul, or for one of the rock-hauling outfits around here, of which there are several. I’ve gone out to all of them, and given safety lectures for the drivers, and talked with their management about what I will, and will not tolerate in town so far as these folks driving through here. So, they all know me, and they all know I’m watching them. They all come into the coffee-Shop and have a cup and a little conversation. I joke at our local Ministers that I do more counseling than they do. I’m not sure that they appreciate that.
We have all the usual Texas churches here, the Southern Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Catholics and a few others, not quite so large. The Ministers have a breakfast meeting here at the coffee-shop every Wednesday morning, where they spend the first hour having breakfast with as many local officials and business leaders as will show up, sort-of a “Community leadership, let’s keep everything going in the same direction,” type of affair, which I always attend. Then afterwards, a smaller meeting between themselves to discuss next Sunday’s Sermons, and to coordinate their outreach programs. Dave and I also attend that one occasionally because we’re out here in the community and can help them reach out to help people that we know are having a hard time. They also share the Chaplaincy duties between them for the Fire and Police Departments.
©F.Pierce