Vol. 1 No 5

Editorial

by Voni Glaves

Hey, it's Spring Break!  We've got lots of fun stuff going on here

 in the Big Bend of Texas.  More serious topics next week.

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Hoops and Wigs were the theme of Sandi Turvan's

 Big O Birthday Party

Photo Essay by Voni Glaves

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Excerpt from Big Bend People after the passing of Cowboy Connie Chris Calvin

      By Carlton Leatherwood

Chris Calvin at his non-alcoholic saloon

The Cowhead Ranch has always butted a hardscrabble environment, and the drought this year brought no exception.

As hay costs skyrocketed, the animal population at the unusual guest ranch (25 miles north of Terlingua on Highway 118) was peeled away. "I gave away three horses," Chris Calvin, the ranch owner, said. "I just couldn't afford to feed them."

He posted a sign at Cottonwood General Store asking for a new home for some goats and pigs, too. "It was not long before they were all gone," he said. "Everybody got a good home."

He kept two horses and some good laying hens. He usually gets about 10 dozen eggs every week and sells those to the Cottonwood on Sunday mornings.

The ranch was started seven years ago on a piece of land as plain as a nearby greasewood hill. Cowboy Chris, as he is sometimes called, didn't have a plan, and he only worked with a pick ax and a couple of other hand tools. He built one building at a time.

"I tore down old barns," he said. "I tore down the old Baptist church in Terlingua. People would call and offer a little shed to tear down. These buildings are made out of whatever I could drag up."

Over the years, he has erected enough sleeping units for 20 people, the Nine Point Social Club, where people gather for breakfast around a wood stove, and a saloon, which doesn't serve alcohol, among other buildings. "The church came from right on the other side of neighbor Charles Jenkins," he said. "I put some 20-foot posts under it and pulled it here with a tractor."

If a building isn't square, not exactly right, guests just like it more, he said.

Calvin was raised on a dairy farm in Northeast Texas and had one of his own. He became a champion cattle auctioneer.After 15 years, he rambled a bit, ending up at the Alamo movie set near Brackettville, where he played guitar and staged shootouts in the streets. Then he and a fellow named Doug Davis got in his pickup with $150 between them and headed for Terlingua.

After wrangling for Linda Walker's Big Bend Stables for five years, the dream of a guest ranch was born.

"This is where the Lord dropped me, right here," he said. "He said, this is where you belong. I had a chance to be something totally different."

“People love it, and I love this old country,” he said. “I don't charge very much. I get a lot of young couples with three or four kids, and I know they are strapped. If they have any money, good. If they don't have any money, I tell them to enjoy the Big Bend.”

He has had guests from Belgium, Germany and Switzerland, among many other places. They leave their signatures on the walls of the Social Club. "I've built up a pretty good clientele," he said. "Quite a few motorcyclists stop by now" to enjoy such things as the cowboy shower tub.

Some mornings he sits out at the saloon with a cup of coffee, ready to enjoy his creation himself, looks around and thinks, how did I build all this by myself?

And he misses auctioneering some. He can still belt it out and does for benefits, raising money with such items as pies and homemade quilts in Terlingua.

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Terlingua School students listen to and learn from ex-Globetrotter Melvin Adams

By Bernadette Devine

A surprise visit from Melvin Adams last Wednesday (March 5) brought laughter, shenanigans and food for thought to Terlingua School students.

Adams, a former Harlem Globetrotter and gifted youth speaker, brought his compelling message of overcoming adversity and following your dreams.

Adams shared his own story with candor and humor to inspire our students to look beyond themselves to create and discover their own futures.

The students speak for themselves about his visit:

“I thought Melvin Adams was very motivational and he believes in the good in people. That is a great trait to have.” — Kaeli, Grade 9

“Melvin Adams was so funny and had some good rhymes. I liked when he was doing basketball tricks. I felt sorry when he told the story about his dad and mom.” — Maritza, Grade 4

“He was funny and athletic. (He made me feel) like I could have my dreams and even go to space!” — Caleb, Grade 5

“I thought Melvin Adams was funny and cool to be around. He had a good attitude. He was telling us the truth.” — Eduardo, Grade 9

 Terlingua students visit and “play” with motivational speaker Melvin Adams. He played basketball at San Jose Christian College in California and led the nation in scoring his junior year with 28 points per game. He also played professionally in New Zealand, Europe, South America, South Africa 
and Central America.

 (Photos by Bernadette Devine and Jennifer Pena)

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Journey to the Edge of Texas

A Memoir by Carlton Leatherwood

Chapter 4--Hospital Daze

Morning broke hard in Herman Hospital on the first day of the first confinement for going mad. Still mired in delusion, I was allowed to rest from the exhaustive pace outside. But a blaring radio brought my horror inside.

The news of the hour was a massive traffic accident on the Southwest Freeway interchange next to the Houston Post building. A truck loaded with chemicals had gone off a ramp, and in a chain reaction cars were smashed up. The poisonous vapor from the chemical would soon denude the lush landscape at the newspaper plant, but there was a more immediate, graver concern, and Hobby, the owner, marshaled the staff to the top floor to escape the deadly onslaught.

It's almost transparent what I though next. I linked this happening to yesterday's concern for the well being of myself and Hobby. My mother was still at the hospital and said, "I hope (a cousin) isn't involved." And I concluded that the cousin had sent the truck bomb to avenge my conceived treatment at the Post.

The hospital called out its heavy weapons to combat my evil forces. A psychiatrist was assigned, and he ordered a large daily dose of the drug Prolixin. We didn't talk about delusions, which surprised me, for they were still very much my reality. But then again we didn't talk very much at all. I was, of course, green to the process and didn't know the doctor and his couch had been replaced by the doctor and his pills, pharmacology. Still, as my care under that psychiatrist lengthened, I was known to comment with derision that I couldn't talk to my psychiatrist.

I think my experience--indead, all of my experiences, from the first to the last, and fifteenth, episode--all underscore my complaint with a degree of legitimacy. I entered Rusk State Hospital in East Texas and said that I had stopped my medication, Depacote, because I could no longer bear the diarrhea that was its side effect. I added that I had often voiced this concern to my doctor. The facilitator was critical of the doctor "He wasn't hearing you," she said.

In the Houston hospital's arsenal, however, the real talk came in group therapy, usually in the morning.

Evenings I played chess with a staff member.

After three weeks I was well enough to walk across the street to visit the Hermann Park Zoo.

With my head mostly clear, though questioning some of what I had thought, I was free to go home.

Freer still to drive through the western United States for a rendezvous with other Sierra Club canoeists on the Main Eel River in northern California.

And then work. I was welcomed back with handshakes, and a note from Hobby saying, "We missed you."

My troubles with employment and my caregivers would come when I slipped several cogs further into involuntary commitments.