Today marks two years since I underwent lower back surgery for a herniated L5-S1 disk. A common injury for manual laborers and desk-bound professionals (at the time, I was both), the odds for a successful operation hovered around 70%, according to my surgeon. Fortunately, my surgery was a success in that it immediately eliminated the intense sciatic pain that had become unbearable over the previous 4 months. However, I faced all kinds of challenges during my recovery – physical, mental, professional, social – this post seeks to chronicle the lengthy process of regaining my mojo, and exactly what it will take to continue on an upward trajectory into the future.
My microdiscectomy was a comparatively easy procedure: I was under anesthesia for about 2 hours and able to leave the hospital the same day with an incision the size of a thumbprint. I rested for a week or two, walking around every hour per the surgeon’s instructions and limiting my workload when I couldn’t stay home entirely. My spine felt uncomfortably compressed for several weeks, a persistent dull ache that my surgeon assured me was perfectly normal as the location of the excised hernia was healing with healthy tissue. I began physical therapy in April, first regaining basic movements in my lower trunk and right leg then slowly adding balance and strength. It took nearly 3 months of daily ‘nerve glide’ exercises to straighten my sciatic nerve from where the disk once impinged, a continuous cycle of patience to progress to pain again. I was cleared for gentle activity like hiking and kayaking by summer, though every so often I would feel the compression in my spine while doing simple movements like washing dishes or picking my shoes up off the floor. Once again I would end up on my back for a day, avoiding painkillers but returning to square one in my physical therapy regimen.
At times, I felt frustrated. My surgeon had nonchalantly spoken about a healing period of 6-8 weeks, but that’s just the time it took for the wound to close. I could feel that my lower spine was usually misaligned, that there were little knots that would flare up in localized pain, that my tight hamstrings were preventing my sciatic nerve from permanently returning to its proper position. After my physical therapy ended in July, I began regular Pilates exercises; gradually, these workouts built up essential deep core strength that helped stabilize my spine. I now swear by Move with Nicole on YouTube, following her core-focused Pilates workouts at least 5 times per week. To improve my hamstring flexibility and alignment, I gradually peppered in some trail-running, which seemed to be helping greatly until I developed some Achilles tendinitis last summer. Only recently do I feel like I’ve regained my full range of motion, that both legs are balanced and that my spine can withstand normal activities. I have learned to diligently prepare for any strenuous physical activities with stretching and core stabilization exercises; as I result, I can still lift at least 50 pounds and do high-adventure sports like skiing, surfing, mountain climbing, ziplining, and whitewater rafting. Gone are the days when I could take my good physical fitness for granted, but I can feel the benefits of mindfully maintaining this fitness program and intend to continue for many years to come.
Perhaps more challenging than the physical recovery, it has taken a long time for my mentality to bounce back. To make light of my physical limitations, I would introduce myself as the “guy who needed back surgery upon turning 30”… fun, right? However, this was problematic for a number of reasons, foremost that a victim mentality, even when justified, can adversely affect a wide range of social interactions and relationships. In a time when we were collectively sweeping the pandemic under the rug, I was breaking under the cumulative weight of everything that had happened since 2020. I sought therapy for the first time in my life, which helped me unpack then compartmentalize the painful experiences of working for negligent criminals in west Texas, losing my car in a jarring accident, entrapping myself within a different backward company, tabling my passion project indefinitely, and straining several close relationships in the process. Time helped to heal these wounds, as did spending a year close to my grandmother and taking a few truly awesome trips. Now I am motivated to wake up every morning, take a walk, and get to work, a major step forward from where I was even a year ago.
The last piece of my recovery, taking even longer than the physical and mental components, is putting my career back together. Complicating matters was a fractured relationship with my last employer: after my initial injury occurred when a 300-pound impeller assembly fell on my back as I was inspecting a blend tank, my supervisors refused to acknowledge my incident report and exacerbated my hernia by giving me physical labor assignments on the packaging line. When I needed to seek treatment for sciatic pain and wanted to report this as a workplace injury, they threatened to fire me and fought my time-off requests. After my final physical therapy session, I resigned and immediately consulted a personal injury attorney, who helped alleviate the burden of belated bills. But despite pouring my soul into that job for 2 years, I have no professional reference from that period – how would I explain this situation to a future employer? After 120 applications and 30 interviews, I was surprised to find myself still without full-time work to begin 2024. Not to say I stagnated in 2023, because I learned from several code consulting assignments, earned my FE Certification, and practiced my Spanish intensively, striving to improve my skills but also understanding that my self-worth is not contingent upon career success. At long last, I have a job offer in hand – to be a patent examiner and subject-matter expert in chemical engineering for USPTO. With no more reasons to scrutinize the past, I am looking forward to the next steps of this journey!
For the last several months, I have stepped away from the frantic pace of life to assist with the care of my 97-year-old grandmother in Connecticut. When you live to be 97, life eventually slows down. Daily tasks become more difficult. Body and mind become less reliable. Any health concern becomes imminently important. As much as my care has helped Gram navigate the challenges of living at that age, she has helped me even more, unknowingly, by simply being the person that she is. At the risk of sounding too cliché, I want to share the wisdom that she’s given me over the past year, as perhaps you will also find helpful elements within:
Don’t take life for granted. Gram’s heart stopped beating last fall. She was rushed to the hospital for an emergency pacemaker surgery, which she took surprisingly well for 96. After a grueling month of rehabilitation, she was released to return to her home, with assistance, perhaps healthier than she was when I saw her last summer. Instead of “dying of old age,” she survived, and I am determined to make the most of this extra time we have together.
Exercise. During her rehab, Gram’s physical therapy team put her on a daily regimen of repetitive exercises and periodic walking, to be continued at home. Although she had never been a ‘workout person’ before, she willingly does her high knees, toe raises, and mini-squats every day. Even with modest fitness goals – to get out of bed unassisted and walk short distances with a walker – the exercises are making a noticeable positive impact on her physical health.
Eat well. When asked her secret to a long life, Gram once replied, “Popcorn and cake!” This answer is oversimplified, of course, especially since her diabetes and acid reflux require careful dietary planning. But she has been fortunate to keep her appetite, enjoying a breakfast of over-easy eggs and turkey bacon nearly every day. She especially enjoys finer foods, and I treat her to her favorite meals – including roasted lamb shank, gyros, lobster, fried whole-belly clams, shrimp scampi, Chinese takeout, kielbasa and pierogies – as often as I can. And she’s always had a sweet tooth, which we satiate with frequent trips out for ice cream.
Lookyour best. For my entire life, Gram has donned a perfectly curled bouffant, colored auburn and set weekly before the pandemic rendered her homebound. I learned how to work the curling iron so that I could maintain this style daily, becoming the unlikeliest master stylist after a few weeks of practice. Even if no visitors come by to see, her “Ooh, yes!” when she looks in the mirror is always worth it, since she clearly feels better when she looks better.
Relax. Especially during the cold months, Gram spends a lot of time in her recliner, which she affectionately calls her ‘lounge.’ She is very comfortable and content to spend entire days here – “I think I’ll just relax, read my book, take it easy,” she’ll say to anyone who calls. Sometimes I hear her small voice call out “popcorn” when I’m in the other room, and I scramble to make her snack appear. She’s a queen, and she deserves it.
Accept help. In the same spirit, she requires assistance to do many of her tasks, assistance that even 5 years ago she was very hesitant to accept. Her caregiver, Olga, is an absolute godsend when it comes to helping her bathe, change clothes, and maintain personal hygiene. We all work together to keep up Gram’s house, do her laundry, prepare her meals, and manage her medications, enabling Gram to move through her routine without needing to stress.
Say ‘yes’ to opportunities. One morning in March, we woke up to an unexpected 6 inches of snow. I asked Gram if she’d like to go for a drive, and she surprised me by responding, “Sure, why not?” Instead of just another day in the lounge, we made memories by driving around town with no destination in mind, marveling at the colonial town green and the tall trees of Mohegan Park peacefully blanketed in white.
Keep your mind active. Gram reads the newspaper every day, though she quickly tosses aside the articles in favor of the Cryptoquote and Jumble. Her other favorite puzzle is Word Search, in which she vigorously circles every little 2- and 3- letter word in addition to ones you’re supposed to find. She loves game shows, watching Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune nightly – our little thing is trying to ‘win the car’ by guessing the final puzzle of Wheel, and we’re really good at it! We’ve also played countless games of Uno and Scrabble, perhaps bending the rules on occasion but always having a good time.
Some days will be better than others.In April, Gram had a viral cough that persisted long enough to cause a muscle strain in her diaphragm and aggravate her hiatal hernia – for a couple weeks, I supported her every movement from laying to sitting to standing with the singular goal of getting through the day without increasing her pain. Sometimes it’s an inconsolable skin itch, or an ingrown toenail piercing her foot, or a particularly severe case of heartburn or reflux. Some days she’s simply not feeling it and takes out her hearing aids to thwart me. It’s best to just put these mishaps to bed and wake up to a clean slate tomorrow.
Sleep well. Gram usually doesn’t have a problem with this, sleeping at least 12 hours per night then taking an occasional nap during the day. And when she does her unique loud yawn, I know that she probably could use even more. Fortunately, a good night’s sleep is likely to bring a wakeful next day, which is far better for visiting.
Laugh often. Unless you’re recuperating from a strained diaphragm, laughter is truly the best medicine. I try to make Gram laugh with clever remarks and funny stories, but her humor has changed with age. Olga gets her to crack up laughing every time she coaches Gram on deep breathing, and my aunt provokes uncontrollable giggling fits when helping Gram roll into bed. I don’t fully understand it, but I love to see it when it happens!
Get outside. Nothing makes Gram perk up like going outside on a nice day. She has the perfect covered patio for sitting, complete with a serene view of her many potted plants and wooded backyard. She keenly watches for hummingbirds that visit her hanging fuchsia, and we had a lot of fun watching a nest of wrens hatch and eventually fledge. My favorite place to take her is Olga’s lake, where she can sit on a small beach in the shade while kids play in the sand and boats pass by…truly these are our best days together!
Nurture your hobbies. Growing up, I associated Gram with a few of her hobbies: knitting, making jam, watching baseball, reading, shopping, attending church, going out to restaurants. While many of these activities are now impossible, we bring what we can to her home – a gentleman from church brings her the holy sacrament, she still chooses outfits from the shopping expeditions of others, and I’ve offered various menus to spice up her home dining experience. I loved watching her rediscover her enthusiasm for reading and get hyped for making jam with my cousins – they were the sous chefs, but Gram was an active supervisor!
Agency matters. Another hobby of Gram’s was curating her patio flowers every summer. I tried my best to assemble flowerboxes according to her tastes, but she insisted on picking out other flowers to fix my work. I ended up pushing her in a wheelchair down row after bumpy row at the nursery, showing her 360° views of various potted annuals right as a thunderstorm blew in. It was stupid and irresponsible, but not entirely in vain as we picked out a luscious planter that she was proud of for the rest of the summer.
Keep your family and friends close. Because of who she is and how she treats people, Gram has a steady stream of visitors all the time. Her two daughters spend several weeks a year here, and she gets frequent visits from cousins, church friends, neighbors, even the mailman. Life could be isolating as a homebound nonagenarian, but instead Gram has a community that loves her, takes care of her, and provides her with that extra bump of energy.
Maintain a positive outlook. Above all else, I am proud of Gram’s attitude. She has to deal with chronic pain, diminished faculties, and the prospect of finality; yet she still approaches every day like it will be a good one, and always has something to look forward to. Her outlook not only makes her an exceptionally pleasant person, but it also provides her an intrinsic happiness. And I think that’s a lesson we can all take to the bank.
By the time I boarded Swiss Air flight 55 from Boston to Zürich, I was already running on fumes. The previous 36 hours had been a roller coaster of caffeine and melatonin, owing to the insomnia accompanying taking the FE exam and making last-minute preparations for this trip. As soon as I got off the standby list (an added frustration, as I had purchased my ticket in full months ago) and onto the plane, I popped the maximum recommended dose of melatonin, fully intending to wake up 7 hours later across the pond.
Alas, even the best laid plans tend to come undone. My eyes drooped as we stalled on the runway for over an hour, sans explanation, a delay that would certainly jeopardize my connection. The moment we finally cleared 10,000 feet, I reclined my seat into an onslaught of punches and kicks from the energetic, inconsolable 4-year-old behind me. I had managed to just fall asleep when I was promptly awakened by the flight crew, who bafflingly insisted that all passengers be seated upright during the dinner service. This was a debacle that lasted over an hour, including a passenger tirade about dietary restrictions and the dramatic spillage of scalding hot tea on the lady sitting in front of me. Why did I have to stay up through all of this? Something about not inconveniencing anyone, I was told. A particularly hard kick to my lumbar and I turned to give the kid behind me a piece of my melatonin-drunk mind, and his mother said to me defensively, “Okay, but maybe you should move your seat more forward.”
Half asleep, stewing over my reheated beef stew, the man seated directly to my left started chatting with me. I couldn’t imagine an occasion when I was less inclined to small-talk, but since I was forced to sit up anyway I begrudgingly returned conversation. It didn’t take long to realize that this man was one of the most interesting individuals I’ve ever had the fortune to meet. He was an American expat living in Vienna. His father played in the NBA in the 50s. He grew up in New Jersey and had a budding career as a sportscaster in the 80s. Around age 30, he suddenly quit to travel the world and raised his daughter across 17 countries. He has written 3 books that weave scattered anecdotes from his unbound life experience. We talked some sports, being fans of pro basketball and collegiate baseball. But we mainly talked travel, as he recounted stories of writing about random encounters for Tokyo Monthly magazine, backpacking through India and Nepal, hitchhiking across Mauritania and Senegal, learning from elders in Vietnam, and making educational trips to the Galapagos as his daughter was growing up. He spoke incisively, voicing strong convictions formed from years of listening to people from all walks of life and various corners of the world.
This man, with his jeans ripped, face gray-stubbled and sun-worn, living his retirement dream as a vagabond for a few hundred dollars per month, was special – I realized in my middle-of-the-night melatonin stupor – he is the embodiment of Worldly Observations. He represents the future that I did not take, but may have if I had the fortitude to follow my freelance tornado modeling vision to its furthest end. For better or worse, social and physical pressures pushed me to refocus on engineering, career growth, and stability. But I have to admire this man’s perseverance toward his own dreams, traveling to places from the top of my bucket list to places that I can’t imagine experiencing in my wildest dreams. That’s how one winds up with perhaps the most fascinating Amazon bio, all wild and all true. Connecting with people is truly one of the most rewarding aspects of traveling, and I consider myself lucky to be seated in that exact middle seat on that horrible, horrible flight. To crossing paths again under more wakeful circumstances, somewhere in the world, and continuing conversations!
On May 20th, 2013, an EF5 tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma, marking the fourth major tornado in 15 years to carve a swath of devastation through the suburban town near Oklahoma City. I was a 21-year-old rising college senior, beginning a research internship developing lithium-ion battery materials and trying to decide what direction to pursue in my career post-graduation. I had recently lived a few months in Joplin, volunteering with the recovery efforts from the deadliest tornado of this century, so I was deeply affected when I heard the news. I spent the next 3 nights sleeplessly reading about tornadoes, their causes and behaviors, their physics of intensification, and why they might take similar paths. On the third night, I had what can only be described as a lightbulb moment, where within minutes my basic governing theory coalesced and I could envision the warm-air pockets rising and rapidly cooling into the rotating low-pressure core. I followed this idea deep into the rabbit hole but was surprised to find very little literature linking topography with tornadogenesis, an unnerving but exciting prospect for a young and passionate STEM student.
Rather than keep my potential discovery close to the vest, I immediately ran the theory by anyone and everyone I knew. Russel and George, scientifically-minded connections I had met in Joplin, corroborated that many Midwesterners believe that tornadoes tend to take certain paths preferentially. I asked several Rice professors across multiple departments – anyone with a background in fluid mechanics, transport phenomena, or atmospheric science – for their input, which refined my then-raw understanding of wind flows over complex terrain. I received perhaps the most impactful advice from my research advisor, Dr. Lisa Biswal, who told me that a truly original discovery is worth pursuing because a scientist may not have another one for their entire career. During a few pivotal meetings, she gave me a roadmap for testing my theories, seeking outside support, and undergoing the arduous but rewarding process of drafting a scientific paper. This advice really meant a lot coming from a young professor who had built a successful lab based upon an open-minded approach, keeping several projects active simultaneously in the hopes of that big, defining breakthrough.
The tornado project would go through several iterations over the next few years. First, I developed a steady-state model of a tornado using Matlab, a 3-dimensional numerical simulation that allowed me to conceptualize the forces present at various points in and around a tornado. Two years later, I enlisted the help of brilliant Vanderbilt undergrad Lily Williams to help me transfer this model into Python and begin to add perturbation conditions. When I left Vanderbilt in 2016, I studied land-surface models intensively and eventually coded one to reflect the steady-state conditions of the pre-storm environment. I attended multipleconferences and presented the work to academics and NOAA scientists, who were broadly impressed by my determination but wanted to see more (read: years of data on predictive efficacy). Seeing that it would be very difficult to accomplish my goals as an independent scientist, I pivoted toward the private sector, testing the entrepreneurial waters at Springfield Startup Weekend and presenting my work to investors. I had planned to launch a web platform that can generate real-time surface heatmaps, a goal that I was pretty close to accomplishing during the first couple months of the COVID lockdown.
When various pressures brought me to Texas in June 2020, the project was abruptly tabled. Over 2 years passed before I had the time to pick up where I left off, and sadly this did not go well. It took me about 200 hours of work to rebuild my Python environment and get the old code running on my new laptop – I was that far behind on package updates and had lost a step when it came to writing code. Many of my former connections had either sold their atmospheric models, moved on to different research pursuits, or retired. I had lost the fiery passion to solve the mystery of why tornadoes take the paths that they do, in part because of my separation from the tragedy of tornadoes and in part because I saw that the lifesaving value of my work would be ultimately limited. Despite this cynical ending, I am proud that I took a major leap and developed the land surface model for tornado simulation – though somewhat sad to lose what had become a major part of my identity. Perhaps the tornado project will take on life again in the future, but for now, I am trying to enjoy the fair weather while finding my professional next steps.
In the year since Russia began its full-scale invasion against Ukraine, we have all witnessed the brutal side of the world’s largest nation. Russian forces continue to bomb apartment buildings and other civilian infrastructure, war crimes frequently caught on tape for the world to see the plight of Ukrainians. Beyond graphic images of war, the stories of Russian soldiers raping women and pillaging from occupied territory are numerous and abhorrent. President Putin and his small group of advisors have made unilateral decisions that imperiled millions of Ukrainians and Russians, all while shutting down any dissent among the Russian populace. State propaganda paints this war as a broader crusade against the encroaching West, and with no other choice the Russian people are forced to support it. The whole situation is dehumanizing and despicable, with Russia as the clear aggressor and no end in sight as long as Putin retains control.
I used to be proud to mention my connection with Russia. I have family members who speak Russian and attend Russian Orthodox Church. We exchange letters in Russian with a distant cousin who lives in Estonia. We enjoy Russian cuisine as a family, preparing dishes including pierogi, pirozhki, blini, borscht, shchavelya, golubtsi, and kielbasa. But for a few reasons, the invasion of Ukraine chief among them, I have stopped claiming Russian heritage. The truth is that Bakshti, the village that my great-grandparents emigrated from in the mid-1910s, is located in Belarus close to the Lithuanian border. The dialect that my grandmother speaks, as learned from her parents, is actually Belarussian, which (like Ukrainian) is a distinct language with many similar roots to Russian. Much of the Russian culture that my ancestors brought to America was imposed on them from Russian imperial times. In fact, my great-grandparents left their homeland due to scarcity on the eve of the Russian Revolution, as increasingly limited resources were funneled to the heart of Russia to support the lavish lifestyles of the elites and to run the empire. Russia has a long history of sapping the wealth from its outlying provinces and leaving behind a wake of suffering, and Ukraine has suffered particularly harsh outcomes from the Holodomor to Chernobyl to the last 9 years of military aggression. My ancestors’ experience in Belarus and Russian-occupied Poland shares much more in common historically with Ukraine, making it particularly easy to sympathize with Ukraine’s current plight.
When someone asks about my family history, I now proudly claim Polish heritage. Which is actually a more truthful response, as 50% of my great-grandparents were Polish immigrants to only 25% Belarussian (to 0% Russian). I am excited about this development in my identity, too, as the magic of Facebook recently connected me with many second- and third-cousins on my maternal grandfather’s side. My family now has a videocall with our Polish relatives every Christmas, and we hope to all meet one another in their hometown of Krosno this upcoming summer. Their community has housed and supported Ukrainian refugees since the beginning of the war, which gives me both pride and hope. I look forward to visiting and sharing Polish foods like pierogies, kielbasa, and golabki – fortunately I don’t have to disavow these family favorites! And of course, my thoughts remain with our brethren in Ukraine as they summon the strength to continue into another year of defending their homeland against Russia.
For the holidays this year, I return to Prosper, Texas for a family gathering at my sister’s house where she lives with her fiancée and two dog children. Their home is a very nice, two-story ‘starter’ home, which I find an ironic designation since just about any fully formed family could fit in the expansive 5-bedroom space. The neighborhood is racially diverse, attracting primarily young people between the ages of 25 and 45 who want an affordable home in a good school district while avoiding the urban crowding closer to Dallas. The streets are otherwise homogeneous, where each house has a neat yard with a privacy fence, a two-car garage, and a Ring doorbell cam. The neighbors don’t really know one another, but that’s not the point: each resident has achieved the “white picket fence” ideal for their family. A pretty ordinary example of suburban America, at least at first glance.
As soon as you venture outside the neighborhood (by car, presumably, as that’s the only real option for getting around), the explosive growth of Prosper immediately comes into focus. Highway 380, whose four lanes were probably empty as a rural bypass a decade ago, is constantly snarled with traffic as a massive widening project is underway. Miles of identical strip malls have popped up along the highway seemingly overnight, so the selection of chain stores and restaurants expands with every visit. Across the road is the beautiful planned community of Savannah, where new homes mimic the old southern townhome style with large porches, colorful shutters, and tall oak and magnolia trees. Amenities (for homeowners only) include a lake with a serene walking path, a giant clubhouse with a gym and a ballroom, a water park, sports courts and even its own elementary school. All of this is somehow outdone by another development, Windsong Ranch, which has, among almost everything else Savannah has, a 5-acre swimming lagoon with a resort-style beach. I don’t know what’s more remarkable: the size and grandeur of these neighborhoods, or the speed at which they’re built!
My dad and I like to take our mountain bikes out when we visit – behind Lauren’s neighborhood, a guy opened his private property in the floodplain with a small system of seasonally maintained trails. Our favorite place to ride is just past Windsong Ranch, where the concrete boulevard ends at a steep earthen embankment beyond which lies a hidden network of narrow dirt roads. These vestiges of the former farm country weave silently between hay fields and blocks of brick houses, blocked off by ‘road closed’ signs and tall privacy walls. We passed two signs indicating the future locations of Prosper middle and high schools, currently in a large field with no houses in sight. A bulldozed swath cuts through some other fields where the Dallas North Tollway will one day serve thousands of paying long-distance commuters traveling up to 50 miles into downtown Dallas. The patchwork of concrete and brick developments gradually subsides into beautiful ranching country as we ride further north, a stark contrast to the manicured suburban sprawl of the DFW metroplex.
While Lauren and Quinn have carved out a lifestyle that they love here, with two dogs and lots of space and a regular rotation of carry-out restaurants, there’s something that feels artificial and distant to me about the pop-up neighborhoods in Prosper. There are many positives, certainly, not least that success and affluence are practically universal here as the rising tide lifts all boats. People in Prosper are building their own communities, with HOAs and youth sports and dog parks and a plethora of other activities available to neighborhood members. But there is very little broader sense of community, which I find essential to make any place I live into home. I would be hesitant to raise any future children with the structured separation of these idealized suburbs, especially since other DFW-area school districts have made national news for harboring old-fashioned racism. While it’s exciting as a visitor to see what Prosper evolves into over the coming years, I am hoping to find roots in more established communities with a move to the outskirts of Boston next month!
…and other tales from two years living in rural Texas
I find that the most interesting stories almost always happen by accident – the tale of my two years living in rural Texas is no different. After a chaotic month in Junction, a dusty town on the cusp of west Texas, I was hit head-on by an old man driving an old pickup truck mere miles from the Mexican border. Desperate for a new car and stable work situation, I stumbled into a different job in a similarly small town of 2500 people, Hallettsville, tucked in the rolling hills of south-central Texas’s Czech country. I only found the job because of a fleeting connection I met in Junction, and I only accepted the job because there were few opportunities at the height of the pandemic. However, the next two years would unfold as some of the most surreal, simple, fascinating, and definitive times of my life.
I began my post staying at the Hotel Texas, a faux-rustic motel with limestone facades and wagon wheel furnishings on its wraparound porch. It was brutally hot in late July – I didn’t care as much about the kitschy Texas ambiance as that my room had a strong air conditioning unit. After working 10 or 12 hours in the day, much of it surveying our facility in 100-plus degree heat, I would slump on the bed and crack open a Shiner seasonal brew from my well-stocked mini-fridge. For the first month, this was my only taste of the culture – the sweet overtones of Strawberry Blonde, Peach Wheat, and Mango Kolsch, brewed at the Shiner brewery in the next town over, were my nightly cure for heat exhaustion and loneliness. I did not explore either town, simply stayed in my cool dark hotel room until morning, when I would grab a Texas-shaped waffle from the continental breakfast on my way to work.
Eventually, I did need to get acquainted with Hallettsville – when my month at the hotel was nearly up and I couldn’t find a place to live. The town is so small that there were no rental units listed online, and the only property with a visible “for rent” sign was restricted to senior citizens. My new coworker Jen, amused by my misadventure but eager to help, showed me that most business in Hallettsville is conducted via Facebook groups, and she quickly found me a small rental home in a central location. I met my new landlords, Donna and Mark Nevlud, the next day as they handed me the keys over a signed lease agreement. Setting up utilities was simple, a one-stop shop of co-ops managed by the city. Finding high-speed internet was harder…it’s not something most people use here. Without any recommendations, we eventually managed to find one provider who could run a new fiberoptic line into my unit for a solid 50 Mbps connection. I met my neighbors soon after moving in, and even in the distance of the pandemic, I felt welcomed by the warmth of interaction.
My “downtown apartment” had a face and a personality
A little about my humble abode: it’s a converted garage, pictured above, with a washer and dryer in the lower story “man cave” and everything else in a miniature flat above. I say miniature because of the four main rooms – kitchen, dining nook, living room, and bedroom – the kitchen was largest at 10’ x 10’ (about 9 square meters). The bathroom was also compact, as I had to straddle the vanity to use the toilet and hop over the toilet to access the shower. Did I mention that the ceilings were only 7 feet upstairs and barely 6 feet downstairs? The door frames were scaled down accordingly, so I learned to duck at the bottom of the stairs or when entering my basement or closet. This dollhouse of a home was part of a makeshift apartment complex, behind the turn-of-the-century anchor house and its duplex addition, a small two-room cottage that was plopped in the side yard, and the stripped-down shell of a 100-year-old farmhouse that was propped up on cinderblocks opposite the driveway. This homemade hodgepodge of residential architecture is common around here, as it turns out, which gives Hallettsville a character that doesn’t exist in most rural or suburban areas.
After moving in, I finally wandered into Hallettsville’s central square, the nexus of commerce for most of Lavaca County, a town center that looks much as it did 50 or 100 years ago. Hovering over everything is the brownstone courthouse, a towering monument to the law and order that tamed the West and influences Texas culture to this day. A stone clocktower rises a couple stories higher, the hands on each clock face perpetually reading 5:13, like a snapshot of nostalgia in a Norman Rockwell painting. A number of other turn-of-the-century buildings remain around the square, many marked by the Czech names of their original proprietors. The 1893 store of A. Levytansky is now subdivided into the county headquarters for the Republican Party. The Victorian redbrick florist building is juxtaposed against the modern steel-and-glass People’s Bank (lined with an impressive collection of exotic taxidermy visible from the outside at night). Several other businesses remain in aging storefronts: Ehler’s furniture, Rainosek’s Hardware, Cole Theater, two barber shops and two salons, a boutique, several offices, a restaurant, an ice cream parlor, a bodega, and more. My favorite storefront belongs to a dusty computer repair shop, unironically crowned by the “The New Era” below the building date of 1923. Granite and iron hitching posts line the sidewalks, hearkening to a time when the parking spaces were occupied by horses and wagons instead of large pickup trucks and farm trailers.
Lavaca County Courthouse, crown jewel of Hallettsville since 1897My favorite frozen-in-time storefront on Main Street
The more time I spent in the square, the more I appreciated how special it was to have a very-much-alive downtown within a short walk from home. Despite scouring all the furniture stores within a 50-mile radius, my mom and I found the best furniture fits at Ehler’s – the sleek dining set and ladder bookshelf that ended up in my apartment were new additions to their constantly rotating inventory, and at a good price too. Anytime we needed odds and ends setting up the house, Rainosek’s usually had what we needed. If not, there was another hardware store, two auto parts stores, two lumberyards, and a Dollar General a few blocks away. I could get the freshest meat from Glen’s Meat Market, the freshest mangoes and avocados from Tienda San Miguel, and most other grocery items from Brookshire Brothers or Hoffer’s. For such a small town, Hallettsville was stocked – thanks to liberal subsidies from the city government. In the same vein as the MAPS program in Oklahoma City, the citizens had agreed upon a 1-cent sales tax to fund, among other public goods, a business development program through which local businesses can receive up to a $10,000 grant, provided that they spend all of that money at other Hallettsville businesses. The result was a climate where small businesses survive, even thrive, to the point that locals often don’t even consider making the 40-mile drive to Victoria to get a slightly better deal.
I had the special privilege of visiting City Hall early and often, giving me an exclusive look into the operation of small-town government. My company did not yet have the permits to build a large-scale hand sanitizer manufacturing operation on its property, and one of my first assignments was to “strong-arm the City” into allowing our construction to proceed. I arranged a meeting with the city administrator, chair of the chamber of commerce, fire marshal, and head of the permitting office, which took place in a drab conference room with folding tables set up in a large U-shape around a set of American and Texas flags. After we were given a warm welcome for setting up in their proud little town, the tide of the meeting turned rather quickly as the city representatives informed us that there are no exceptions to the permitting process. Rather, since the town is too small to have resident code experts, all permit reviews (except for the simplest things like residential outbuildings) are outsourced to Bureau Veritas, a private firm that specializes in all levels of code consulting. As no one in the room had undertaken a building project on our proposed scale, my company was sent away to assemble the team of requisite code experts ourselves. Every time I went back to City Hall, however, the staff was warm and helpful, appreciative that I was working closely with them even if red tape limited the extent to which they could help me.
As the summer days became more bearable in September, I settled into my new home and routine. Work from sunup to sundown, relax for a couple hours in the evening, and head out of town each weekend. One evening while sipping a cold Shiner on my balcony, I noticed a phenomenon at the vacant and dilapidated Ford dealership across the street: every night, shortly after sundown, a few hundred bats would emanate from the broken windows, make a beeline for the pecan trees in my yard, then disperse into the night. In a cacophony of echolocation clicks, the swarm of bats would feast on all the insects in the neighborhood as the frogs and other night sounds came alive. I caught COVID during this awkward time when many people were beginning to treat COVID as an unserious or even nonexistent condition while simultaneously shunning those who contracted COVID like biblical lepers. In my isolation, I would walk outside every evening, watching this nightly wildlife show against the glowing backdrop of a Sahara dust sunset before making my rounds on the empty streets of the town.
Upon my recovery, it wasn’t long before I had my first visitors! A group of friends who lived in Houston, working as nurses during the worst of the pandemic, passed through on the way back from a weekend in the hill country. I was excited to take them around the photogenic town square, culminating with some rolled ice cream from the adorable Flamingo Diner. Unfortunately, their visit coincided with one of the two times during the year that local farmers turn over their fields. The muggy air was heavy with the stench of manure, a nauseating smell that pervaded the whole town. The odor stuck to my clothing, hung in my nostrils, penetrated my pores. Our visit was rushed indoors, which stunk a little bit as well. I had to work to convince my friends that I didn’t live in a literal shithole, coughing, “It’s not usually like this here!” as they hurried back to their vehicle.
The haunted Lavaca County Jail preparing for Halloween
Fall sneaks up on you in Texas – it’s still hot like summer, but the days are shorter and there’s an occasional tropical depression that drops several inches of rain in one weekend. One place in town leans all the way into spooky season, though, and that’s the old Lavaca County jail. A foreboding stone edifice that looms over a vacant lot behind the square, the old jail was built in 1885 and held prisoners as recently as 2005 (crazy!). Inside, there are massive vault-style doors concealing several concrete cells upstairs, with no air conditioning, only windows fortified with wrought-iron bars. I only briefly peeked inside the former jail, getting a view of the cage-like holding cells along a sterile white guard hallway. If you’re particularly bold, there is an option to rent the building for events, mostly attracting experienced ghost hunters/paranormal investigators. For Halloween, the outside gets decked out with cobwebs and scarecrows for a family-friendly haunt with no mention of the real ghosts inside. That’s in addition to the year-round décor, a wall of pro-Trump banners and other Republican campaign signs that might frighten someone from San Francisco but is about as common as the American flag here.
The 2020 election was a huge deal here, though not for the reasons you might think. Since Republican victories were all but assured in the statewide races, county and city offices were the most hotly contested. The challengers for sheriff and judge ran on a joint platform to “end the tyranny” of masks and shutdowns, and I only caught wind of a raucous debate about the constitutionality of any COVID precautions a week before election day. The race for Hallettsville mayor was perhaps more intriguing, as challenger Gordon Clark stuck colorful flyers in every mailbox to detail his qualifications as a down-to-earth cattleman and thrifty small-business owner. I saved one of the flyers – an instant classic – my favorite line was one where he likened incumbent Alice Summers’s policies to “horse manure.” Mayor Summers prevailed in her election, as did the “end the tyranny” duo, which means that change candidates uniformly lost their races. It did bring me solace, however, that my little Texas town finally had a proper sheriff to protect it, I mean look at this guy!
Odd but colorful mural at the police station that I would pass daily
High school football is king here in rural Texas. For a school district with only 80-100 kids per graduating class, Hallettsville High School is well-endowed with a brand-new astroturf field and 3000-seat stadium that would fill to capacity for Friday night home games. The Hallettsville Brahmas were the talk of the town as they dominated opponents en route to a runner-up finish in their 3A-1 state tournament in 2020. So the hype to play rival Shiner, who won their state championship in the next division down, was at an all-time high when I took in my first Brahmas game. Though I knew none of the players, the names were familiar – “Patek in the pocket, pass is…caught by Rainosek, quickly brought down by Janak just short of the first down.” About half the names I knew as prominent families in the area, either from the names of businesses or from my other interactions in town. Also during this game, I was dismayed to learn that Brahma is pronounced with a hard “a”, rhyming with Alabama…I am certain that I poshly mispronounced their mascot on several occasions yet never received a single “bless your heart,” at least not to my face.
To get away from the bright lights, I would often drive out of town on a nameless dirt road to gaze at the night sky. At my favorite spot a few miles outside of town, I would park on a grassy hilltop with a 360° view and throw a mattress pad on top of my car to lay on. Once my eyes adjusted, I could see the diffuse glow of Victoria, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio off toward the horizon, but directly above was a deep black sky littered with thousands or millions of stars. On a crisp night in November, I was laying out under a drafty quilt watching a meteor shower in full clarity when, suddenly, the sky behind me glowed bright yellow. A column of flames, tall and wide as a building, roared up from the flare of the oil well a hundred yards away, blazing with the hungry whoosh of an old steam engine and radiating an ominous warmth that I could feel in my face and chest. I was transfixed, watching in awe as the massive fire burned for several minutes, an unsupervised bonfire of thousands of liters of high-pressure natural gas released (somewhat paradoxically, at least to me in that moment) to preserve the safe operation of the well.
The oil and gas industries, while integral to the economy and culture of Texas, inspire mixed feelings among the residents of Lavaca County. On one hand, rich crude oil deposits boosted the area to a level of affluence throughout most of the 20th century, as I read about in a featured book display at the local library. Many residents still receive small royalty checks from wells that operate to this day. However, a series of oil busts wiped out the high paying industrial jobs that many residents relied on, and the bulk of the drilling activity has migrated to the massive Eagle Ford shale formation that begins 20 miles to the west. Nowadays, cattle ranching is held to a much higher esteem, as cows outnumber people 3-to-1 in Lavaca County (in fact, Lavaca translates to “the cow” in Spanish). Brahmas may be the favorite mascot around Hallettsville, but the area is also known for other varieties such as Hereford, Angus, Longhorn, and Shorthorn (the mascot of the next town to the north, Schulenburg). Since my company took over the old Fair West Trailers building, I had many uncomfortable conversations as locals stopped by expecting us to service their cattle trailers. It was a personal affront to many of them that Fair West Trailers would go out of business, as the shop was central to the cattle raising culture around the community.
Ranch scenes taken during bike rides outside of Hallettsville
After the first frost in late autumn, a windy day blanketed my yard with hundreds of pecans. The windfall littered the streets of the town with a scree of raw nuts that crunched underfoot. I didn’t mind this at all, as after cracking the shell by rolling the nut with my shoe I would eagerly extract the edible flesh and savor the aromatic overtones, grazing as I walked. Capitalizing on the inconvenience of the hard shell, signs advertising shelling for $5 to $10 per pound sprang up in front of many homes and businesses. While I slowly peeled my ~10 pounds of pecans by hand over the next several months, I understood why mechanized shelling equipment was such a hot commodity. Unfortunately, pecan trees only bear fruit every 2 years, as I found out the following year when none of the trees in my yard, outside my work, or in the public park dropped any delicious nuts.
Hallettsville’s city park was an underrated gem. Situated around a 9-hole public golf course, the park contains several baseball and soccer fields, a public pool, sand volleyball courts, a covered basketball court, a wooded half-mile walking path, a garden club, and more playground equipment per capita than anywhere else I’ve been – again, the power of local tax revenue. The park was a refuge for me, as I was often the only person shooting hoops or walking the loop. Along the path are signs detailing the history of Hallettsville as a land grant community given by the widow of John Hallett, as the original mecca for youth rodeo competitions, and more. One sign, titled “The Hanging Tree,” nonchalantly tells the story of Pocket the Indian while commemorating a giant, crooked oak for its cruel past. In the official account, Pocket was a young, friendly, half-white Sioux who was turkey hunting with his British companion Leonard Hyde when he impulsively (some accounts blame “firewater” for this erratic behavior) shot the poor guy. After a year of trials and appeals, Pocket was sentenced to death by hanging, an event that allegedly gathered a crowd of about 3000 spectators. A smaller park on the other side of town houses a couple of unassuming monuments to local Confederate officers, another memorial that is easy to overlook but points to a checkered history.
In a quiet cemetery, these Confederate monuments receive neither protests nor adoration
Downtown Hallettsville in full Christmas glowSome holiday art…yeehaw!
The Christmas season is magical in Hallettsville, as the downtown transforms into a Hallmark scene for a few joyous weeks. Thousands of lights are strung from the spire of the clocktower down to every corner of the square, a magnificent scene accompanied by Christmas carols broadcast from on high. In addition to the traditional holiday window-dressing, businesses around the town center participated in a Christmas mural competition, won by a detailed realization of Ebenezer Scrooge’s moneylending office painted on the massive windows of People’s Bank. There are also several decorative dioramas that illustrate the Christian origins of holiday items like candy canes and the twelve days of Christmas. I found Christmas in Hallettsville to be as authentic and wholesome as anywhere, in no small part because the feared cliché of “taking Christ out of Christmas” seems to have not yet reached holiday celebrations here.
Like other places in rural America, Jesus Christ is eminently visible at the forefront of life year-round. While the town is home to congregations representing several denominations of Christianity – Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopal, Church of Christ, three varieties of Baptist, and a few nondenominational churches – the Catholic church is a dominant political and cultural force, dating from the original settlement of the area by Czech and Bavarian Catholics. Sacred Heart Catholic Church has a campus that occupies the area of several blocks, including a large 1960s-style sanctuary and a K-12 parochial school that once rivaled the public high school. I attended mass at Sacred Heart a few times, but I preferred visiting the famous European-style painted churches in the outlying hamlets of the countryside. These small churches, constructed board-by-board by the original settlers in the late 1800s, feature ornate, hand-carved altars along with beautiful biblical imagery painted on the walls and ceilings. These historic churches are kept alive by a rotation of mainly younger priests dispatched from Sacred Heart to revive the magic of the old-country mass at least for a couple hours each month (albeit with more creaks from the aging floors and congregants).
Ascension of the Lord Catholic Church, MoraviaSt. Mary’s Catholic Church, Praha
The German-Czech heritage is visible elsewhere too, not just in the names of businesses and surrounding villages (Moravia, Breslau, Vsetin, Praha, Henkhaus, Weimar, etc.) but also in the local cuisine. Besetsny’s Kountry Bakery, a local chain based in Schulenburg, has a popular outpost on the main drag in Hallettsville that sells kolaches and other baked goods along with homestyle diner food. Novosad’s barbecue joint only opens for a brief period on Fridays and Saturdays, but people line up out the door for the ribs and pork steaks prepared using traditional Czech recipes – they’re delicious, and worthy of the ‘Top 50 BBQ in Texas’ status proudly painted on the old plaster walls. Janak’s sausages are also famously tasty, competing with Maeker’s in Shiner and Hruska’s in Ellinger for the regional crown (I think Janak’s are the best, but I am admittedly biased). I went into Janak’s country store one day asking for kielbasa, since the seasoning in their raw pork sausages reminded my mom of the recipe she used to make with her Belarussian grandmother. The staff donned looks of complete confusion as I described the boiled kielbasa that I was craving…very few people buy their sausages unsmoked, and it had not occurred to these Texans that a sausage could be prepared in any way besides barbecue.
Across the road from Janak’s market is an odd landmark that I can’t omit from any account about Hallettsville. Numerous handmade signs point to the Pecan Grove Apparition Park, which contains a small hand-built shrine where you might find travelers who stopped to pray or reflect. As the story goes, the landowner had gotten his pickup truck stuck near the creek when a vision of the Virgin Mary appeared to speak to him. Magically, his truck became unstuck, and he proceeded to build this outdoor worship space by the highway in the hopes that people would learn about this miracle and feel closer to God. I don’t know what came first, the shrine to the Virgin Mary or the outdoor roller rink that has fallen into disrepair nearby, but the place is an interesting stop nonetheless.
When the entire state of Texas was hit by a devastating winter storm in February 2021, Hallettsville was blanketed by 3 inches of ice and snow for the first time in at least a decade. The town took on an entirely new character, silent without trucks or people, landmarks covered by the white stuff that was the only missing element from the Hallmark Christmas set. The courthouse stood over it all, its frozen clocktower resolute above the sea of white. I fared through the disaster just fine, never experiencing an electrical blackout because I lived across the street from the police and fire stations. But I heard horror stories from people living away from the town center: pipes freezing and breaking, homes dipping below 40 degrees, livestock suffering from hypothermia. I hope that the community stepped up to help those affected, though I don’t have any strong evidence for that. A few weeks before this calamity, my landlord Donna lost her battle with breast cancer, leaving Mark alone without the love of his life. Though Mark was a former teacher for the Hallettsville ISD and a weekly attendant at Sacred Heart, he didn’t exactly receive an outpouring of help, more an acknowledgment of thoughts and prayers. I felt deeply sorry for Mark, but fortunately he could lean on his family (and a sense of rugged individualism, which comes with the territory) for support.
Snow scenes of the courthouse and Cole theater during the winter storm emergency in February 2021
Every few weeks, I would get my haircut from a barber whose small studio hangs off the back of the feed store. He had been working in the same shop for nearly 50 years, offering a standard haircut (you’d have to convince him if you wanted something else) for a bargain price. He told me several stories, most of which lamented the decline of Hallettsville since its apex in…the 70s, the 50s, or 20s, this was never clearly articulated. For my favorite of these stories, he had a prime view when PETA protested Glen’s Packing Company across the street: the townspeople had a grand time heckling the protesters, who fled when a young hog was released to run wild in the crowd. Glen’s is an unassailable fixture as the best place for locals to bring cattle for processing, and once I got past the outdoor chute where trailers of cows are unloaded for slaughter and the alternating smells of dead animals/manure/bleach, I began to understand its popularity. Glen’s Meat Market sells the most delicious steaks, any cut you might desire as long as it’s massive, never frozen but always fresh from the cow, meat so delectable that I would bake (I know, blasphemy!) a ~2 pound sirloin in its own juices with minimal seasoning and it would come out to a perfect tenderness every time. The store also sells other meats along with local sauces and seasoning blends, supplying the barbecue needs around Hallettsville all year long.
One Saturday morning, I went into Glen’s with Veronica when a skeleton crew of mostly family was manning the counter. The entire store fell quiet, leaving only the resonating thwack of a meat cleaver striking an age-old chopping block. Customers stared at Veronica, an outsider with cool hair and visible tattoos, and the clerk ignored her salutation and proceeded to serve me (even though I stood behind her). There are signs all over the store saying that they “reserve the right to refuse service to anyone,” though I was surprised by the follow-through. Around the same time, I was getting a haircut when my barber looked at me sternly and said, “Big things are coming. The Lord will, with our help, reinstate the right people as leaders. And when it comes time [for Texas] to secede, you better know whose side you are on. ‘Cause if you’re on the wrong side…let’s just say a lot of people will be lined up and shot.” It was chilling, revolutionary talk that I had heard murmured before but never in such a specific, pointed manner. Though I would return to Glen’s periodically thereafter, needless to say I found another barber.
I don’t wish to characterize the people here as hostile to outsiders; I was greeted warmly with small talk by many strangers who genuinely wanted to know more about me. The number of times I was asked about my last name and whether I had any family in the area was staggering, too large to be counted using both hands and feet. But the people are definitely guarded, cautious when talking about themselves and wary of businesses owned by out-of-towners that have a history of promising big things then vanishing with unpaid debts. My friend Jen moved to Hallettsville over 20 years ago as a single mom and still feels like an outsider. She recounted when she tried to get her daughter, who was around 10 years old at the time, a membership to use the public pool during her summer vacation – they were put on a waiting list for over a year while some sort of unofficial vetting process undoubtedly took place. Beyond a ‘members only’ pool, the legacy of racial segregation still persists here 50 years later. Black residents make up about 10% of Hallettsville’s population, and the majority live south of where the railroad tracks used to bisect the town, near the public junior high school (which used to be the black high school when segregation was legal). Occasionally, someone I didn’t know very well would utter a derogatory remark to me in hushed tones, most commonly a criticism of how a black acquaintance behaved or a complaint about the preponderance of Mexican restaurants in town. The same nostalgia that makes Hallettsville’s small town vibe so one-of-a-kind also holds the community back, keeping people at arm’s length from one another under the veneer of Southern manners.
Fields of bluebonnets blanket the rangeland around Hallettsville every April
As spring arrived and the fields of wildflowers began to pop, I became extra busy at work: our building permits were approved, and I was coordinating work crews during the day as well as offering my recommendations for food, drink, and entertainment. My hands-down favorite restaurant in the town is Los Jarritos Taqueria, a traditional Mexican establishment that serves the most incredible pork al pastor on soft homemade flour tortillas (along with other specialties like barbacoa, lengua, carne asada con nopales, horchata, and aguas frescas). The best spot for drinks is Cabo San Lucas restaurant, where you can order their very dangerous margarita by the punchbowl-sized goblet. Entertainment was a little harder to come by for our work crews, since they wouldn’t be as interested in the Hallet Oak Gallery (a lovely art gallery on the square that features rotating exhibits of local artists and offers free art classes). Cole Theater shows a new movie on its single projector screen every couple of weeks, packing the house nightly for movies like Top Gun: Maverick and leaving me a whole row to stretch out while watching The Lost City. Hallettsville proper can be a little quiet, admittedly, but I find that there were a lot of things to do if you include my adventures farther afield.
Heading out of town on FM 957, you quickly arrive in the heart of the pastoral German-Czech countryside. A pair of wineries offer locally-produced wines in peaceful surrounds – Majek Vineyard with its open-barn pavilion, live music performances, and farm vistas; and Moravia Vineyard with its traditional craft wine cellar and better wines. The town of Shiner is synonymous with Spoetzl Brewery, where you can take a tour of the shiny new manufacturing space then unwind in the biergarten. Nearby Schulenburg lacks drinking options but has a small museum dedicated to the area’s polka bands, past and present. Further up the road are La Grange and Round Top, where interior designers and collectors of Americana flock to the antique furniture exchanges. The region is also central to Texas revolutionary history, as you can easily make a daytrip to Goliad, where Texans were massacred at the Spanish colonial fort (nowadays, the Presidio de la Bahia is as peaceful as it is historically interesting). The next skirmish occurred near Gonzales, a half hour detour from Hallettsville; this battle is famous for the Come-And-Take-It cannon, which is displayed prominently in the city museum. Between Gonzales and Goliad, Cuero houses a museum dedicated to Chisholm Trail history and a fascinating Frontier-era pharmacy, where an effusive docent described the array of antiquated powders, tonics, and medical devices (even bringing out a 100-year old fetus from the ‘secret collection’)… some off-the-beaten-path fun!
The canonical symbol of Texas independence is so tiny!
Hallettsville has a few festivals every year that bring the community together at the large KoC event center. Fiddle players and fans from across Texas come out every April for Fiddlers’ Frolics, a weekend-long festival headlined by a multigenerational, cross-genre fiddling contest. The Texas State Domino Competition is less spectator-friendly, but that’s not the point: the community gathers outside the hall mainly for epic barbecue competitions. During Fiddlers, my coworker Rodney competed against 140 other teams judged across 10 categories of barbecued meats. It’s a weekend long cookoff, with families and friends tailgating outside in the field of smokers – but it’s surprisingly hard to get any samples, as nearly every cut has already been claimed by judges or family. Even the Kolache Festival in the fall is less about kolaches (which were served room-temperature in plastic wrappers) than the barbecue. With a car show and craft fair tacked on, each citywide gathering was a rollicking good time, even if the headline reason for the gathering was often barely noticeable.
In May of this year, I was invited to my coworker Kevin’s wedding. Donning slacks and a blazer, I was severely overdressed for the ceremony at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Yoakum (the “Land of Leather” and of stonewashed jeans, apparently). After a low-key service in which the pastor repeatedly razzed my guy Kevin, the entire party proceeded to a dance hall outside of town, where Bud Light and barbecue flowed. After an extended dinner and social hour, everyone threw down for an evening of country dancing that shook the old wood floors and metal siding of the hall. It hardly mattered that I knew nobody and stuck out like a sore thumb; I had fun participating in a moment (mainly from the sidelines, but I was there!) of authentic celebration for Kevin and his new bride.
Wedding cakes for a happy couple moving in together on a ranch
At some point during my second year in Hallettsville, the clock above the square was repaired! All four faces of the clocktower now tell the correct time, with bells chiming on the hour. And sure enough, the passage of time had brought several changes to Hallettsville during my relatively short stay. The bat colony across the street had been exterminated to make way for a comfy new Vietnamese nail salon in the old Ford dealership showroom. Hallettsville Seafood and Steak finally opened to much fanfare – finally, a restaurant that isn’t Mexican! (Sidebar: there were 3 such restaurants before, and now there are 5.) Next door, the even newer Vicenza’s Restaurant deserves the shine for some of the best Italian food I’ve eaten outside of the northeast. A trailer selling “BBQ/Menudo” was plopped into what looks like the beginnings of a food truck park. My company halted its construction before meeting the permit scope, but blending operations were allowed to commence anyway. Once the City had fired the fire marshal earlier this year, it no longer had any recourse for mandating inspections or enforcing code compliance, a return to the free-for-all building philosophy that individualists love until something weird gets erected next door.
With much less need for a facility design engineer, I amicably resigned from my company in July 2022, ending an employment term of exactly 2 years. After my last day of work, I wandered next door to Sammy’s Night Club, a windowless cinderblock building that usually appeared closed during the pandemic. There, a bunch of guys around my age gathered to play pool and drink beer, flocking from the oil field to the west and the large pipeline construction site to the east. I met Terri, the owner and bartender, who described her role as chaperone to these wild wildcatters of today; evidently, the area still has a huge problem with drunk driving, that’s why sensible people stay off the roads after about 9 pm. It’s a problem that’s not exclusive to young people, as a table of octogenarians played dominos in a corner and accumulated 5-6 empty pint glasses apiece. I made it safely back to the apartment, where I spent the weekend packing my belongings into a storage unit before moving away.
A few months after leaving Hallettsville, I returned to vote in this week’s elections. The town is, of course, much the same as when I left, save for a few more new businesses rotating in where others went out. I paid a visit to the Lavaca Historical Museum, where Ms. Janice took me through exhibits commemorating various histories of the area. It’s funny how in a place so seemingly frozen in time, the faded photos from 50 and 100 years ago portray people and places that seem so far removed from the present. The stark differences between generations were particularly evident when reading a long-form account from 1976 about Hallettsville, the author describes a completely different cast of characters who were even more connected with the traditions of the original settlers who built the community. I felt a sense of nostalgia, not because I loved living here or meshed with the community at all, but because I got to experience something that is rare in today’s world: a small town that not only preserved its history but continues to actively live it!
Last week, I returned to my home state of Maine for the first time since I turned 18. I knew it would be different this time, returning as a tourist with my girlfriend Veronica. My childhood friends have all grown up and moved out of the neighborhood, pursuing their various careers all over the east coast and beyond. I have also changed as I came of age, training as an engineer at Rice and Vanderbilt while following a fascination with tornadoes to deeper roots in Oklahoma. I may call Oklahoma home now, but I was a Maine kid through and through.
Looking back, my childhood in Maine was idyllic. The neighborhood was full of kids my age, and we played outside together practically every day. The kickball and whiffleball games were frequent and intense, almost as good as the spontaneous games of bus stop tag. We had free rein of the woods behind the houses – Ryan and Sam and I built forts, climbed trees, and explored every field and stream within yelling distance of the back porches (and some beyond). We grazed on fresh apples and wild blueberries in the summer. We skied and sledded every slope in the winter. Our snowball fights with the boys across the street were next-level, complete with fortified igloos and combat trenches. It was truly paradise for a 10-year-old boy, and I didn’t know how great I had it until I had to leave it behind.
After my family moved to Oklahoma, we came back for a few days every summer. Some of my fondest memories come from when we were returning guests, often making day trips down to the picturesque coastline or going “upta camp.” Ryan’s family cabin is among my favorite places in the entire world, with so many fun things to do – swimming, kayaking, taking the skiff out to Blueberry Island, tubing while Ryan’s dad drove death circles in the boat, four-wheeling through the fragrant fir forests, playing flashlight tag in the quiet of night, stargazing without light pollution from the dock. Of course, it would be difficult to recreate the exact vibe that combines the homely Maine scenery with the warmth of those friendships, but I gave it my best shot for this three-day visit.
As an introduction to the Maine coast, we spent the first afternoon in Ogunquit, a coastal village in southern Maine that my family had previously bypassed in favor of other popular beaches farther up the coast. We strolled the scenic Marginal Way, watching the waves crash on the rocks then wading into a sandy cove at Lobster Point. We hopped on a sailboat for a private cruise along the coast, watching the picturesque cliffs drift past as we tried our hand with the rudder and rigging. Absolutely perfect, calm, sunny weather for a relaxing time!
After a delicious Eritrean dinner in eclectic Portland, we checked in for the night at Happy Hippie Lane (the ultimate Hipcamp experience…we stayed in a bus!). This was the best “upta camp” substitute I could’ve hoped for, tucked next to a homey log cabin in the woods on rural Westport Island. Around the communal campfire, we quickly got to know our host, Cary, her little dog with a huge personality, and the other visitors staying in tiny homes and glamping tents scattered around the property. For a nightcap, I snuck away from the fire to lie in a hammock under the stars, framed by the shadows of tall pines and accompanied by the sounds of summer crickets.
We spent the next day on Pemaquid, a quiet peninsula on the coast of central Maine. While sea kayaking in the calm harbor, we spotted an osprey, a loon, and several other shorebirds out for their morning hunts – we even glimpsed a seal at close range! We explored the historic lighthouse (of state quarter fame) at Pemaquid Point. We relaxed the afternoon on the beach, poking through tide pools and collecting hermit crabs as I did as a kid. A hike through evergreen thickets near the estuaries of Back Bay captured the peaceful essence of the Maine woods, a cherry on top of a weekend of outdoor activities.
Of course, we hit a fair share of tourist checklist items along the way. Expensive but delicious lobster roll and fried clams under the Ogunquit drawbridge. Pictures from every angle of Portland Head Light. Racks upon racks of flannel at the LL Bean flagship store. But what I adore most about Maine is unrated, uncrowded, and ubiquitous – the evergreen forests, peaceful ponds and lakes, and outdoorsy ethos that pervades the culture. While it may be impossible to recreate the magic of growing up in Maine as a child, I am deeply satisfied to have uncovered some old memories along with some new and exciting experiences!
Now that the saga is long over, I feel that I can share the story of my first car accident. It happened suddenly, as car accidents do, mere hours after leaving a job in Junction, Texas. I’m fine, thankfully, but my poor car took the brunt of the collision. Typically, or so I’ve heard, the other driver stays around to exchange information, take pictures, and describe the incident with law enforcement. Insurance agents then assess the damages swiftly, with all parties in communication until the claim is resolved. This story does not go like that.
It was July 9th, 2020, around 5pm, a blistering 108 degrees in the desert. As my first real day off in what felt like ages, I visited the scintillating Caverns of Sonora then angled south toward the Mexican border, driving leisurely with no place to be. On a whim, perhaps persuaded by the hot sun beaming through my moonroof, I turned off the highway into Amistad National Recreation Area in search of a place to swim. I could see the lake at the bottom of the hill, a steamy mirage in the rocky desert, when the gold pickup entered my view. I had a split second to slam on the brakes and stare into the windshield of the oncoming truck, before the loud crunch.
Whiplash, then pure powerlessness. My car was slammed backward by the larger vehicle, the hood folded inward to obscure my forward view. The brakes wailed as the pressure of my hardest stomp leaked out from the destroyed fluid lines. A column of steam enveloped my car as I sat, stunned, the sinking feeling of total loss setting in. I managed to pull myself together enough to step out of the car, in shock, my neck throbbing and balance off-kilter. The old man who hit me had already backed his 70s-style F250 pickup away from the point of impact and was now hobbling toward me, tiptoeing irritably around the fluids and debris. Without a word of apology, he told me that he was late for an important engagement, let me take quick pictures of his documents, and just hopped back into his truck and drove away.
Alone in the blazing sun, my head and neck throbbing, I fought back my tears and tried to call ‘911’ for help. No service. The tears came streaming as I urged myself up the hill, trudging in the loose gravel because my soft rubber soles were sticking to the scalding asphalt. After the longest quarter of a mile, I reached a small convenience store/café where I was able to patch through calls to the police and to my insurer. To add insult to injury, the cashier gruffly confronted me as I waited in the air-conditioned seating area and proceeded to charge me a dollar-fifty for taking a cup of ice water from the soda fountain.
After another hour, I schlepped back down the hill when the police arrived. The two young officers surveyed the damage and took notes as I described the crash, incredulous that the other guy left the scene – not only did he not have the opportunity to defend his honor, but he would be pursued for a hit-and-run. It would turn out that the perpetrator had borrowed that gold truck and had a DWI on his record, but fortunately for me, the truck had liability insurance. The officers also summoned a tow truck, instructing me to take all I could carry out of my car because they didn’t know where it would be taken. The tow truck driver, a tall vaquero with timeless wrinkles stretching across his stern profile, wordlessly gave me and my beloved hunk of twisted yellow metal a ride to town as the sun set over the treacherous desert.
The other truck came flying out of the driveway from the right as I coasted slowly down the park road.It was very difficult to watch my beloved car bleed out in front of me.
I checked into a motel in Del Rio, and the next few days went by in a blur. I had call after call with insurance companies, wherein I gave my testimony to adjusters who were also incredulous that the perpetrator (whose name I still didn’t know) hit me head-on and left the scene. My insurer provided me with a rental allowance of $500, which got me about a week of a clunky Dodge SUV from the lone rental car agency in town. One last visit to my car in the wrecker’s garage, a chance to swipe any last belongings/loose change, and that was it. No further information from law enforcement about what happened with the other guy, no further updates from the insurance companies as they sent their people to assess the wrecked car and reconfirm the details of my case. Several weeks later, I was given a direct deposit of $5200 for my “total loss”, which I accepted knowing that a civil dispute would likely only diminish the payout.
Eventually, life had to move on. After two months of uninspired weekend car shopping, I finally settled on a new Subaru Crosstrek Sport as my replacement. I love the car, but it cost me an additional ~$20,000 for about the same level of driver satisfaction. It still hurts to imagine that if my old yellow Baja had lasted me a few more years, I’d have a much better selection of new 2022 or 2023 models – I’d possibly even buy electric! But it turns out that I needed some of the new car’s features to safely navigate the Texas highways, especially once my right leg was afflicted by sciatica. I learned the hard way that life can present unexpected setbacks and expenses that any amount of insurance or outside support can’t fully resolve.
Over a year later, I still miss my old car from time to time. Everyone’s first car is sentimental, but mine was particularly colorful and unique! It was a frequent conversation starter at gas stations, the subject of adulation from strangers and friends, even garnering a couple of notes on the windshield offering to buy it outright. Every time anyone in my inner circle sees a Subaru Baja out in the wild, they still send me pictures and messages. I like to think that my baby is still driving somewhere, that it was taken across the border and refurbished, possibly given a new life as a lowrider truck attracting eyes at car shows across Mexico, that maybe it was fulfilling its destiny as a “Baja” by escaping as soon as it was driven close to the Mexican border… farfetched, sure, but I did feel some magic about that car. I had named her Joy – for the joy of joyriding on country roads in Missouri and Tennessee – and it’s undeniable that some joy was taken away from me on that fateful summer day.
The new car – looks and performs great wherever I take it! But there are small things, like waving at the other Baja drivers on the road, that I will likely miss for a long time.
I’ve been 30 for 3 months now – to be honest, I’m not loving it. A couple weeks before my birthday, some mild back soreness suddenly morphed into severe sciatic pain down my right leg. Friends, family, WebMD, and a family medicine doctor all said that my pinched nerve would right itself in a few weeks. When the pain didn’t go away, I went to see Dr. Eliot Young in San Antonio, thinking that if his team could keep David Robinson’s back functional for two late-career championships with the Spurs, mine would be an easy and quick fix. I got an MRI, which revealed a 7mm-by-10mm hernia in my lowest disc, impinging directly on the sciatic nerve. I had two steroid injections, wherein an x-ray helped to guide where the doctor should ram a massive needle into my upper buttock (ouch). Without any improvement after those treatments, I am scheduled for a microdiscectomy this upcoming Tuesday, a minimally-invasive surgery that aims to shave away this bulge and return the problematic disc to its original shape. If all goes well, I will be cleared to walk around and go home that same day, hopefully healing within 4-6 weeks.
In the meantime, the pain has been ever-present, distracting, and frustratingly limiting. My favorite recreational activities – hiking, canoeing, camping, mountain biking, disc golf, basketball – have all been completely out of the question. I can’t even sit properly, as that puts a torso-load of pressure squarely on that pinched nerve. Driving requires mental and physical preparation, choosing routes where cruise control can take over if pain or numbness impairs my right leg – even getting in and out of the car can be a painful ordeal. I jolt awake when I change positions at night, resulting in restlessness and more pain in the morning. I never fully sympathized with those who deal with chronic pain before this, but now I completely understand the urge to depend on medication for momentary relief, even at the risk of addiction. If my doctors had been willing to prescribe an opioid, for example, I likely would have accepted it over the unreliable pain mitigation provided by over-the-counter pills.
Back issue aside, I do have a lot going in my favor. My girlfriend’s family, as well as my own family and friends, have given me loads of support through this hardship and recovery. At work, I persevered through a few months of setbacks and professional stagnation, and we are weeks away from completing a major phase of plant construction under my leadership. With that feather for my cap pending, I have started looking for new jobs in other states and across a few different fields. This happens to be my 100th blogpost, which feels like an accomplishment – thanks for your continued support and interest in my wide-ranging thoughts. I have a few exciting posts in the pipeline, finding inspiration to write about my trip to China in 2013, my formative experience after the Joplin tornado, and my nearly two years embedded in a rural Texas community. With only the surgery, a recovery period, and a few conclusive weeks at work left in front of me, I am looking forward to a fresh start to my 30s, which promise to be a decade of growth, adventure, and giving back, wherever my path may lead.
Worldly Observations 