Along the Geronimo Creek

Where to start.....? Two months ago we made plans to hear Sally's favorite country artist, Jason Eady, perform at Devil's Backbone Tavern, which claims to be the oldest dive bar in Texas. John and Kara Barber(Spicewood) and Bruce and Ann Forester (Lockhart) were joining us. Meanwhile, one of my ex-students, Jim Bob Barker, had contacted me about starting a beehive. I knew he. lived on the edge of the "backbone" so I gave him a call. I wanted to see if he would come hang out at the tavern that evening and we could catch up on our lives and I could start answering his beekeeping questions. He came by and we had an hour to visit before the concert and it flew by as we relived some our shared adventures in the 1970s. It turned out that we had little time for bees so will just have to wait til spring.

What I could have never expected was the connections that we both had with Devil's Backbone Tavern. I'll tell my connection first .... "my favorite teacher was hands down Mrs Lillian who lived in an old log house just down the road from the tavern. She was quite a character ( I wrote a short story about her in my book to my grand kids.). It was well known that if you were looking for her on Saturday evening, she would be at the Tavern indulging herself. After she retired, I would stop by and visit with her on occasion until her death in 1999.

Jim Bob's connection goes like this.... his grandfather did rock and concrete work in this area and built the tavern's devil fireplace back in the 1930s. Inlaid in the rock is a single special rock that when you get just the right angle you see a devil face. Devil's face at Devil's Backbone has led to many scary haunting tales through the years. That was interesting enough by itself but then came the clincher. Jim Bob knew my 5th grade teacher, Mrs Lillian, because she was his grandmother's best friend.

Concert Time

Jason was on a roll with all his best stuff like "Cry Pretty", "Black Jesus", "Old Guitar and Me" ........ It was a grand evening!