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So I got up early on Thursday morning, had breakfast with my aunt, got coffee at the local Buc-ee’s (for my aunt does not do coffee, and even those that do coffee very often get it at Buc-ee’s), and hit the road for Comfort, TX, where my parents live. It was about at 4 ½ hour drive, about the same as from Lebh Shomea to Clute, and I managed to avoid the Interstate for most of it, which meant I had 70 mph 2-lane highways pretty much to myself for a couple of hundred miles. I passed more cattle (including a few longhorns) and more sorghum; found some of the rice paddies, a bit more corn, a lot of soybeans, a nuclear power plant out in the middle of nowhere, and some more cattle; navigated my way onto the loop around San Antonio, and on out to Comfort, which is about 45 min northwest of the city. Somehow I got there ahead of time, having calculated my trajectory at 5 hours even, not 4 ½. It was okay; they held lunch for me.
After lunch, we needed to fetch steaks for dinner, so we drove into Kerrville, some 13 miles away, and, since I was looking for a pair of boots, we stopped at a couple of places where I eventually found a pair, ones such as I wore for years: plain, black Justins with a B-point toe. They fit like a firm handshake (as they should, per the sweet young thang that sold them to me), and having no room for another pair of footwear in my luggage, I had them shipped home. Good steaks are easy to find in Texas, if you know where to look, and we knew where to look, and had a fine dinner.
Having gotten up early on Friday morning, my step-daddy and I went to the local Mexican restaurant to hang with his cronies and get breakfast. I had some of the best tacos de carne guisada I ever put past my lips. You don’t know what you’re missing if you’ve never had carne guisada on thick homemade flour tortillas for breakfast.
Friday was the day we had originally planned to go into San Antonio to go boot shopping, and it was now free, so, taking my presence among them as a Sign for Greater Things To Come, my parents opted instead to head out the other way, northwest, to Llano (pronounced LAY-no in Texan), to make pilgrimage to Cooper’s for barbecue.
Of course, passing a rummage shop that was going out of business in Fredericksburg, my parents, as if compelled by Calvinist predestination, had to stop, and knowing how these stops work out, I begged to be let out in downtown Fredericksburg, where I wandered the stores until my parents had satisfied themselves that the rummage shop had nothing they couldn’t live without.
Good steaks are easy to find in Texas, and good barbecue is common enough, but exceptional barbecue, well, that’s worth driving 80 miles one way to get, and Cooper’s is worth the drive. I direct your attention to the slide show at the beginning of this post for pictures.
Cooper’s has ten (10) big ol’ outdoor pits, and they serve out of the one nearest the restaurant. The day we were there for lunch, they had pork (sausage, chops, tenderloin, and ribs), beef (sausage, brisket, sirloin, prime rib, and ribs), chicken (in quarters), and cabrito (that’s “kid goat” for you non-Texans, in miscellaneous, unidentifiable chunks, which is the way it is always served). You just pointed out what you wanted, and how much, and the gentlemen with the big knife and fork cut you off a hunk and threw it onto a cafeteria tray. Once you had all you wanted, he gave you the tray, which you passed to a man inside the restaurant, who weighed it out while you got your potato salad, cole slaw, peach and blackberry cobbler, ‘n’ such; then you paid for the whole mess, got a few sheets of waxed paper to serve instead of a plate, and went to sit down.
At Cooper’s, many things come free with the meal. The big ol’ pot o’ pinto beans, for example, is free (and Cooper’s makes better beans than the hermitage), along with raw onions for garnish, and refills on your soda and iced tea; loaves of bread are just set out on the tables, along with gallon jars of jalapeno peppers, and rolls of paper towels with which to daub the chins of the dainty, or to wipe yourself ear to ear, for those who know how to eat.
Whatever you (or I) are having for our next meal, well, it just pales in comparison. I have eaten fine meals with silver and china, but a miscellaneous, unidentifiable chunk of cabrito on a piece of waxed paper in Cooper’s seems to rank right up there among the best.
Having sated ourselves on barbecue and cobbler, my step-daddy wanted to get a couple of more Western shirts, so we headed another 30 miles to the northwest, to San Saba (Serbians take note), where Harry’s Western Wear is the place in the Hill Country to shop. Having been to Harry’s, I wished I had bought my boots here; simply to try on boots in such an establishment would be an experience. Having gotten shirts, we set out to buy some pecans for Mamma to shell while she watches TV, but on the way, we were distracted by the prospect of seeing the Regency suspension bridge over the Colorado River, which is famous in a local, not-very-well-known sort of way. This took us only 35 miles out of our way over unpaved gravel roads, but the bridge was worth a visit, I suppose, and it made for a little adventure while we digested our lunch. We got Mamma 10 lbs of Texas native pecans, cracked and ready for shellin’, and, being some 110 miles away from home by now, had a rather long drive back.
We had left over barbecue for dinner, though by oversight or by design, my blackberry cobbler did not make it to the dinner table, nor was it ever seen by my eyes again.
On Saturday, my step-daddy brought home potato and egg tacos for breakfast, and I left early for the airport, where I had an uneventful trip home.
I am home for some 2 ½ weeks now, until I attend Acton University in Grand Rapids, MI, in the middle of June, where I will be lecturing on an Orthodox approach to environmentalism. (That has nothing to do with the sabbatical, but it’s what I’m scheduled to do.) I suppose I will have some reflections to post, but, alas, no fine pictures, at least, not for a while.
Fr Michael's Sabbatical 