Buddy Holly was born Charles Harden Holley in Lubbock, Texas in September 1936.

He learned to play the guitar and sing alongside his musical family absorbing influences of gospel music, country music and rhythm and blues acts, and performing in his home-town alongside friends from school.

In 1952, Holly made his first appearance on local television, following which he formed a band called “Buddy and Bob” with his friend Bob Montgomery. In 1955, he opened for Elvis Presley, which he repeated two more times before permanently shifting his musical style from country and western to rock and roll. Later in the year he opened for Bill Haley and His Comets where he was spotted by a Nashville scout who helped him secure a contract with Decca Records.

Holly was unhappy with the recording sessions at Decca and moved to producer Norman Petty in Clovis, New Mexico where he recorded a demo tape of “That’ll Be the Day”. Petty sent the tape to Brunswick Records which released it as a single and credited it to “The Crickets” which became the name of Holly’s band. In 1957, as the band toured, “That’ll Be the Day” topped the US “Best Sellers in Stores” chart and the UK Singles Chart. Its success was followed later in the year by another major hit, “Peggy Sue”.

Holly’s album “Chirping Crickets”, released in November 1957, reached number five on the UK Albums chart. In early 1959, he assembled a new band and embarked on a tour of the Midwestern US. After a show in Iowa, Holly chartered a plane to travel to his next show. Soon after takeoff, the plane crashed, killing Holly, the pilot and two others. Holly was 22 years of age.

The tragic and premature loss of Buddy Holly is immortalized in Don McLean’s song “The Day the Music Died”.

 

 

 

Buddy Holly was one of the first artists inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

 

 

Following a visit to Lubbock in August last year, Mike returns home with a kitty who is begging outside his hotel room! We name the kitty Buddy Holly until we can determine its sex. Meet our very own Buddy Holly who now answers to Holly!

Spread over 1,800 acres, the Texas Tech University campus is stunning! Built in a style of Spanish Renaissance architecture, over 36,000 students wander around the extensive campus each day.

As you enter the manicured campus, there is a statue of gentleman called Will Rogers and his horse Soapsuds. Legend has it, that the backside of the horse points towards College Station, the hometown of rival Texas A&M University! Cute!

The student recreation centre is vast and includes seven basketball/volleyball courts; an indoor soccer arena; weight areas; cardiovascular machines; and a four-lane, elevated jogging track. There is also a 53-foot climbing wall, an indoor Olympic-size swimming pool, and an outdoor leisure pool and access to all of this is free for students!

The Office of International Affairs integrates the global vision of Texas Tech University by fostering international leadership, awareness, education, research, and outreach for the university and the greater community.

The university even has its own classical music and public radio news stations that operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week providing service to listeners within a 75-mile radius of Lubbock. And, its own Police Department employing 56 officers and 38 civilian employees. The officers are licensed by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and are fully commissioned.

Top Left: My stepson Chris who is a senior at Texas Tech University majoring in Maths. Top Right: the department of Maths and Statistics; middle, the statue of Will Rogers and his horse Soapsuds; bottom, the department of Chemistry building in the Spanish Renaissance style. In 2016, Texas Tech had an endowment fund of $662.6 million.

 

 

Texas Tech University, located in Lubbock, was formally known as Texas Technological College and fielded its first inter-college football team during the 1925 season. The team was originally known as the “Matadors”, a name suggested by the wife of the first football coach, to reflect the influence of the Spanish Renaissance architecture on the campus. The school’s short-lived Matadors logo was officially replaced in 1937 with “Red Raiders”, a nickname given to them by a journalist impressed by their bright scarlet uniforms that remains to this day.

Today, the Red Raiders are playing Iowa State University and Mike, Chris and I went to the game. Wow, what a spectacle it was even though the home team played miserably and lost, again!

The Red Raiders’ stadium – branded the Jones AT&T Stadium – is a 60,000 seater, state-of-the-art facility which includes luxury suites, club seating, decks for television cameras and the press and a 1,000-car park.

It has a unique Double T scoreboard modeled in the fashion of Texas Tech’s logo which sits on the roof of the athletic department offices in the south end zone and was installed prior to the start of the 1978 season. The scoreboard has remained in place through multiple renovations due to its iconic and symbolic value, and received upgraded white LED panel installations in 2013.

During the game a “Good Year” blimp flew over the stadium providing us with fantastic aerial views of the players, the audience and the “show” that took place – the band, the cheer leaders, the mascot and a masked Lady Raider riding a horse!

 

Top: an aerial view of the stadium. Bottom row, from left: a Red Raider’s cheer leader, Lady Red Raider and Raider Red, the team’s mascot.

 

As we drive between the Texas towns of Sweetwater and Lubbock (where we are now staying), the landscape reflects the county’s economic evolution that is now in its second century!

In 1910, cotton was first planted in and around the Sweetwater area accounting for almost 72 percent of the county’s cultivation income. Except for a brief recession after World War I, cotton cultivation continued to expand in the area and by 1930, 80,000 acres of cotton were planted.

The cotton economy was severely shaken during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and although World War II helped to revive the local agricultural business, by the 1950s farm consolidations, the decline of farm tenancy, and an extended drought caused a drop in the population.

With the impact of the Great Depression hitting farming community, families packed their belongings and headed west to California, so oil was discovered in the Sweetwater area in 1939. Although production was initially low, it peaked in 1956 at over eight million barrels of oil a day – a day!

Driving along the road you see what the US calls a “Pump Jack” which in the UK we know as a “Nodding Donkey.” They are both one and the same thing and refer to the equipment used to extract oil from an onshore oil well – the mechanical arm moves up and down pumping oil from the well – in this area usually around two to three thousand barrels a day.

In 2000, wind energy developers arrived in the area erecting over 1,300 wind turbines and pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the local economy.

As you drive from Sweetwater to Lubbock, all you can see, as far as you can see, are wind turbines spinning in the ever-present breeze, cotton balls swaying on their plants and all too often a Nodding Donkey sitting in the middle of the field!

Fields of cotton with wind turbines as far as the eye can see!

A nodding donkey/pump jack!

Day one of this road trip sees us traveling some 360 miles to Sweetwater, Texas (located around 180 miles west of Dallas Fort Worth) which lays claim to an interesting title! This comparatively small town with a population of around 11,000, is home to the world’s largest Rattlesnake Round-up!

Held annually, the purpose of the event was originally designed to eradicate a portion of the rattlesnake population and lessen its threat to the town and surrounding communities. While still doing this, these days the round-up, which can also be called a rattlesnake rodeo, is a common festivity in the rural Midwest and Southern US, which has morphed into a fair-like event with trade stalls, food and rides alongside information on rattlesnake identification and safety.

Held each March, Sweetwater’s 2017 Rattlesnake Round-up attracted some 40,000 visitors and pumped over $8 million into the local economy. The main attractions are captured wild rattlesnakes which are sold, displayed, killed for food or animal products such as snake skin or released back into the wild.

Each captured snake is weighed and measured, its sex recorded and compiled into data given to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Service. Most of the snakes are then skinned, beheaded and milked of their venom which is made into anti-venom and sold to pharmaceutical companies. The skin, heads, tails and rattles are preserved while the meat is deep-fried and served at the festival!

Sweetwater’s 2017 “Miss Snake Charmer” in the rattlesnake pit.

We hit the road today on our latest road trip! This time our route will take in Lubbock in Texas to see my stepson Chris and then onto Pueblo and Colorado Springs in Colorado.

Our traveling companions include the entire gang of fur babies – Miss Poppy-dog and kitties Abigail, Archer, Artie and Holly. This is a first for us, and we are going to test out a new arrangement to see if it can work for future road trips.

In Lubbock, we will drop off kitty Artie with Chris, who adores him, and take off with the three remaining kitties and Poppy. This sounds a little strange but on our last road trip we took Abigail and Archer and left Artie and Holly at home. On returning from the road trip I forgot to put on my kitty psychology hat and world war II broke out between the two kitties who had had the house to themselves for five weeks and the two who had been away. Oh my, it was a full two weeks before kitty order was restored!

Not wishing to repeat that again, and due to bullying of Artie by Archer, we thought we’d try this experiment and see how it goes. Artie gets to be spoiled by Chris and have an Archer-free holiday, and with the liberal use of a water spray bottle, we can prevent Archer venting his bullying tendencies on Miss Holly, who gives him as good as he gives out. This way, no one is left at home to create their own fiefdom and fingers crossed, it will work although I will dearly miss my beloved Artie ……………. we shall see!

Hi Everyone,

Apologies for not taking my blogging responsibilities seriously since sitting out hurricane Harvey in Texarkana! I promise to get the hang of this communicating malarky someday soon, which is somewhat cute coming from a former communications professional – see what retirement life does to you!

Anyway, we are heading out on Thursday on our latest trip to explore Colorado and enjoy some much cooler temperatures. It remains unbearably hot for this time of year in Magnolia where today’s temperature will hit the late eighties – we have been in the late eighties and mid nineties since April and we need a break. Temperatures in Colorado will be much cooler and in the mornings likely below freezing as we near the end of the month so I’m packing Miss Poppy’s winter jacket as she hates being cold!

I look forward to having you along for adventures in Colorado – see you Thursday!

We left Paducah, Kentucky on Wednesday morning headed to Memphis, Tennessee and to Davis motor home mart to get some things installed and fixed on the rig. This is not our first trip to Memphis and to be candid, we are a little fed up with the minor things that need to be fixed on a brand-new rig. All Tiffin folks tells us to get used to it as this is how it is!

En route to Tennessee we learn about tropical storm Harvey which seems to be making a march on Texas and increasing in strength as it goes.

By Thursday morning, they believe Harvey will turn into a hurricane and by all reports be a pretty bad one. By 2 p.m. Mike has changed Chris’ flights and got him on a flight out of Memphis to Houston and then onto Lubbock the same day to ensure he can re-start school on Monday and not get stuck in Texas.

Mike and I are going to head 250 miles to Texarkana which sits on the border of Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana where we can hunker down and see what happens with the impending storm.

Texarkana is a truck town where three states come together along with a number of major interstate roads. It is what I would call a “drive through” city and just to emphasize my thought that there is literally nothing here, according to Trip Advisor one of the things to do in Texarkana, is to visit the town’s first roundabout …! Really!!

Fortunately, we are staying in a RV park a little out-of-town which has great internet connectivity and we are using the time to catch up on our favourite TV shows and enjoy a little downtime!

Sitting it out in Texarkana!

When you meet Tom DeCillis, the first thing you notice are his bright, twinkling eyes offering an insight into a highly intelligent and driven individual.

Throughout his globe-trotting career, he kept those bright eyes focused on his target – retirement! And, at the age of 55, Tom reached his goal and set about living a life he had foregone for decades.

Once he had transformed his magnificent Victorian home in the centre of Paducah, Kentucky into his own style, he looked for a new project, especially one where he could build stuff!

Hey presto, along comes “the property” as Tom calls it, a sixty-acre lot, 30 minutes from his home. This is where he and brother Jim spend most days working on projects to enhance the lot and fulfill their collective passion of building and fixing things.

I could have stayed at “the property” for ever! It was simply stunning. Acres and acres of woods surround a lake and it was so peaceful that you could hear worms wriggling in the earth!

They have planted herb and a fruit gardens, built retaining walls to prevent erosion, installed drive ways, fixed draining, rebuilt the deck surrounding the A-frame building, and on and on it goes. You name it, they have done it or will do soon!

What a joint! What talented, fun and interesting brothers and what a wonderful day Mike, Chris and I shared with them.

The herb garden and lake.

Top right, the A-frame home alongside which the boys have built an entertainment area with a sauna inside and hot-tub outside! Top left, stairs to a zip-line that you can take over the lake! Middle left, talented Tom DeCillis and bottom, all projects need the right tools (or toys)!

When Jim and Tom DeCillis settled in Paducah, Kentucky, the one thing they had no need for were classes on how to live their lives in retirement; and, likely their only challenge were having enough hours in the day to complete their long list of projects!

Jim, a lifetime collector of memorabilia, ranging from classic gas pumps, advertising signs, miniature store department mannequins and all other things in-between, bought the former St. Mary’s Music Hall in the centre of town which he and his brother Tom set about converting into a two-story home including one floor dedicated to Jim’s collection, and a second floor for living space.

As you enter the first floor, you are immediately transformed into an old-fashioned street scene complete with storefronts of a Wells Fargo bank, a gas station, a year-round Christmas store, a diner and a barber shop to name a few. Each storefront is immaculate in its design and execution, but what really makes the place special, is how family photographs are displayed of Jim growing up with his brothers alongside the actual costumes and toys shown in the pictures.

It must be such a delight and pleasure to be able to walk through your family history and lifelong collections each day, with the ability to “tweak” or move something and to enjoy them, not by rummaging through boxes tucked away in the attic, but through the ability to live it daily!