I'm Just Sayin'...

Our hotel burned Sunday. It was an old building, it had not been used as a hotel in years. When I was a kid, an antique store was there briefly. The building was old and in disrepair. That being said, it was our building, a part of our town's history. Once upon a time, people spent the night there. Perhaps they enjoyed a meal in the cafe, bought groceries from the store there or even got a haircut and a shave.

This article appeared in the Amarillo paper today. Boys ranging in age from 9-12 are facing arson charges. I am saddened by that. I am also outraged by the fact that kids thought it was okay to do this and by the comments at the end of the article. Some people believe that the boys shouldn't be punished because they are young and because the building was an "eyesore." I wonder if they'd think that if it had happened in their town, or to their house, or to their property. I wonder if they'd think that if 3 fire departments had to come to their town and spend 7 hours and use no telling how much water to put it out.

The owner of the building is probably not going to take responsibility for the cleanup. More than likely it will fall to our city to foot the bill. We are not a rich community, the cost will certainly hurt our town.

I like to think that we may live in one of the few places that still has a sense of right and wrong. How safe will our town be if kids are allowed to set fire to random buildings? Are we in danger of losing our small-town greatness??

I'm not saying that the people responsible should be sent up the river, I'm just trying to say that it is time we started making people accountable for their actions.

I'll step down from my soap box now...


My sister has great thoughts here. A friend of mine from Happy had this to say. I'm so proud of both Kelly and my sister for capturing what makes our community great.

You can see pictures of the fire here. (Aren't cell phones amazing? I'm told that pics were on Facebook as the fire was in progress...modern technology at its finest.)

(Sorry for the lack of spaces between paragraphs...Blogger is not cooperating!)

Happy

Here are the last of my "Happy" shots until I have time to get to town and take some more. We have several historical markers around town, which I think will be fun to share. My sister has posted some of her pictures from our stroll around town on her blog. I liked reading what she remembers from our childhood.

This is the Brooks Memorial Chapel. It used to be the Presbyterian church. It's the church where my brother, sister and I were christened. We were the last babies christened there. When the church membership decided to close because of numbers and age, they sold the building to a funeral home in Canyon. Brooks did an outstanding job refurbishing/remodeling the building. It is neat that a piece of our history is still a usable asset to the community.

This is the top of one of the elevators. You can faintly see the words "Harman-Toles." It's now owned by Attebury Grain. My dad worked here until Attebury bought it, then he started farming.

Here the cousins are on our shoot. You may have noticed that our Main Street is brick. I think that makes it cool.

More shots of Happy

This is the south side of Main Street. The brick building houses Happy State Bank. It was founded here in 1908 (I think). It has grown into a very competitive regional bank with branches all over the Panhandle. My Aunt Judy has worked here for as long as I can remember. My kids always look forward to the sucker and balloon they get when we stop by. On our photo shoot last week, Judy invited us in to the back to watch coins being rolled.

Beside it is the Grand Theater. A local lady, Carolyn Bloodworth has refurbished the outside and is in the process of doing some work on the inside. She had her annual craft fair there. She's also working on a pictorial history of Happy. The Masons used the building after the theater closed. I've been to many a Rainbow meeting there. The Bloodworths purchased it when the Masons and Eastern Star quit meeting. We're lucky that someone is interested in keeping a building up. unfortunately, most of the buildings on Main Street have fallen into disrepair.

This is a very poor shot of our fire station. It sits on the North side of Main Street. We have an outstanding volunteer fire department with great equipment.

I'm not sure who owns the part of the building on the corner. I do remember it being a drug store and then a restaurant in my lifetime. The white building to the west of the fire station is the old Lions' Den. The Lions no longer meet, but I believe the Cub Scouts use the building for their meetings. A chiropractor from Lubbock (with Happy roots) comes either weekly or monthly and sets up shop there as well.

This building, the "Happy Center" is where the senior citizens meet. A group of ladies quilts weekly. I believe they have monthly luncheons and either weekly or monthly game nights.

You can see our "new" water tower in the background. To the west of the Happy Center is Jackson's Tax Service. She does taxes and keeps books for people. One more store to the west (not shown) is where my grandparents used to have Tirey Hardware. I'll try to get to town and take some better pictures if it ever warms up.

Around Town

I bought myself a new camera for Christmas. I have no idea how to use it yet, so I'm just leaving it on Auto. Yesterday, my sister and I took our kids for a photo shoot around Happy. For the next several posts, I'm going to share some shots of my town with you. It was a very overcast day yesterday, so the sky was terribly gray.

First off, proof that there really is a place called Happy, Texas. This is our post office:

Our old water tower:

A shot of the elevators along the railroad tracks. The elevators you see are concrete and were built by POWs during WWII. I'm not sure about all of the details, I'll try to go read the historical marker and get back to you on that.

There are more behind me and some to the west of the tracks. Unfortunately only one is open all the time now and one is open seasonally.

Happy sprang up along the railroad when it went through. It was important to the cattle industry and eventually to the grain industry. My grandmother told us about how they used to drive the cattle to town and put them in the pens (that would have been south of the current post office) by the tracks and then load them up to ship north. She told about how her uncle road the train with the cattle in 1918 and caught the flu and eventually died because of complications. (All of this happened before she was born.)

When we have a good wheat year we cut our grain and bring it to town to the elevator. Sometimes we even harvest maize in the fall. The grain is eventually shipped out on railroad cars.

Why I Love Trick-Or-Treating in Happy...

Last night I was again reminded of how blessed we are to live in our little community. Here are a few reasons why:

• You don't have to get out at every house with your kids for two reasons. 1. Everyone knows them. 2. You'd never finish trick-or-treating because you'd visit too much.
• My kids received candy from some of the same people that used to hand it out to me.
• If you do get out with your kids, you can almost bet you'll walk away with a piece of candy, too.
• When someone opens the door, you hear, "Come on in here."
• The first year T.S. went trick-or-treating, a friend of ours opened both hands and gave T.S. a choice--candy or a golf ball. T.S. chose the golf ball. He's gotten a golf ball from him every year since.
• I came away from one house with new crocheted pot holders.
• Sadie was sad that we, "couldn't stop by Roberta's this year." How often does a 9 year old remember that a 90+ year old passed away since last Halloween? You could never leave Roberta's house without a sack of candy and a hug/kiss. She always wore bright lipstick, too.

The City Skyline

These pictures aren't great (remember, I want a new camera--this would be one more reason why). But, I thought they were cool. I took them the other evening when I was helping Mom get vehicles situated. I guess we were about 3 miles from town.

Happy "sprang up" along the railroad when it went through in the early 1900s. Grain elevators soon followed. The ones you see in the picture are concrete (a few may be metal, I need to go to town and check). Anyway, the original ones would have been wooden. I guess you'd call these "modern" even though some were built by POWs during WWII, which is a whole different post.

Happy Draw

A view of our house from the dam in the pasture.

The draw was running last night--something that doesn't happen very often anymore. The boys and I ventured out on the four-wheeler to get an up-close view of the water that's left today. (because, well, we don't see water in the draw that often)
This is where Happy Draw flows through the pasture south of our house. You can see Happy in the distance (off to the west). The draw is dammed up in our pasture. I'm guessing they did this to water livestock. I've seen water flow around the dam once or twice in my lifetime; we were nowhere near close to that last night.

Happy Draw starts in Randall County (north of here) and flows south until it reaches the Prairie Dog Fork of the Red River. It is so-named because a bunch of Cowboys were so "happy" to find water. I looked up a brief explanation of all of that here. It is/was a spring-fed draw. I don't know if the spring still flows. I'm pretty sure it is dried up. Either way, lots of people have dammed the draw in places so it wouldn't run all the time.

In 1891, Hugh Currie established a homestead and post office on a site near the trail that followed the draw. A stage coach exchange was set up here as well. (We have a dugout--or the impression of a dugout--that was a line camp as part of the JA Ranch on our land--it would have set very close to the draw.) The original Happy is about 2 miles Northwest of our house. When the railroad came through, Happy moved two miles west to its present location. You can read more about that here.

These last pictures are of the draw as it meanders through the pasture just East of our house. We spent lots of evenings following the draw with my grandmother and poking sticks in holes. You can see that we have been extremely dry. The native grass in the pasture has been waiting for moisture before it greens up. I imagine that we'll be green sometime next week.

Happy, Texas--The Town Without a Frown

Yes, there really is a place called "Happy." I've been thinking for a while about posting a little about our town. We'll start today with some frequently asked questions and interesting facts.

Is everyone "happy in Happy?" For the most part, yes. If you would have asked that question on Saturday when the wind was blowing around 70 mph there might have been some who were unhappy.

The film Happy, Texas was not filmed here. We have very few trees and certainly have no orange groves. As far as the plot of the movie, to my knowledge nothing remotely like that has ever happened here.

A Blue Bell Ice Cream commercial was filmed here when I was a kid. At that time Blue Bell was only available in the area close to the Blue Bell plant. The commercial said something like, "We'd be happier in Happy if we had Blue Bell Ice Cream."

Parts of the movie Leap of Faith with Steve Martin were filmed in Happy and in the area. Also, a French film did some shooting here.

Happy has a population of around 675. We have one fillin' station, 1 cafe, 4 churches, 1 fantastic school (K-12), 2 grain elevators, and 1 bank (Happy State Bank). What we lack in size we make up for in the type of community we are. More on Happy (how we got our name, some history) this week as time permits.