Presidio: a novel

From some list, maybe the library’s recommendation? Looks like 2018 imprint. The first few pages really gripped me, such an evocative rendering of the plains of West Texas. Set in the early 1970’s, it’s that time when the world was both fresh, new, and old. Another recent recommendation was some Larry McMurtry mid-list novels, and that brought back recollections of that canon. Which, in turn seemed so familiar in Presidio.

It’s the details, the textures, the personalities in the high plains of West Texas, along that hard, New Mexico Line. I started reading McMurtry’s canon while I was in school in Arizona, and the tones, the language, made me homesick. There’s an old Robert Earl Keen song, with a lick about “On the plains of West Texas…”

Presidio: a novel

A car thief, like a more modern cattle rustler, and set in 1972, when life was different.

“He’s fine. We like to say he just got lost in thought one day and never found his way back out again.” Page 288.

Easy enough to hear in my mind’s eye, the laconic Texas drawl.

In the afterword, listed as an influence? McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show. Adds an elegiac tone, the death of the old west, and new west, clawing its way out of the dirt and soul of the people.

There is something about the land, the way it gets into a body’s sol and then, never lets go.

Presidio: a novel

June 21, 2026 Eagles Nest Elite

Healing Arts Festival
Eagles Nest
1235 Basse Rd
San Antonio, TX 78212

Store phone: 210-354-7343

11:00 AM — 4:00 PM

Sun into Cancer 6/21 3:25 AM solstice
Mars into Gemini 6/28 2:30 PM
Mercury Retrograde 6/29 12:36 PM 26°15’ Cancer
Full Moon 6/29 6:56 PM 8°14’ Cancer/Capricorn
Jupiter into Leo 6/30 12:53 PM

astrofish.net/travel

Stuart Woods’ Deep Water (A Stone Barrington Novel)

Stone Barrington, bon vivant, up by his own bootstraps, living a high stakes game of cat-and-mouse.

From New York, to Maine, and across the pond to London, a killer out for revenge. It’s up to Stone and friends to stop the carnage.

Stuart Woods’ Deep Water (A Stone Barrington Novel)

But about the Stuart Woods’ books, and my growing collection of hardcover, first editions. I trace this back to a childhood event. Some part of a distant upbringing, I had, maybe, three or four Hardy Boys books, the blue cover, part of the collection, and there were two or three Nancy Drew books, as well. Yellow cover on those. Now, I’m basing this solely on personal recollections, and as such, subject to leaky memory, but the way I recall it? I was told that books like Hardy Boys were best as library books, even though my wee mind back then saw shelf full of the books. I wanted my own library.

Old girlfriend, some years later, got me started reading the Stone Barrington novels, and I got hooked on the absolute lack of style in the prose itself. Ripping good yarns. Plot, pacing, story, character, and best of all? Straight narrative prose, no filler, just enough words. Pared down prose. Stylistically bland. I liked that, learned from it. Well, maybe I didn’t learn, but I did enjoy it. Do enjoy it. Start Woods, himself, shuffled off the mortal coil, but his literary estate lives on. There’s a subtle shift in the new authors and their attempts to copy that lack of style. Little voices creep in. Still, for my reading experience, I like the material.

Stuart Woods’ Deep Water (A Stone Barrington Novel)

This Sunday: Eagles Nest Elite

Eagles Nest
1235 Basse Rd
San Antonio, TX 78212

Store phone: 210-354-7343

11 AM – 4 PM

This Sunday: Eagles Nest Elite

Sun into Cancer 6/21 3:25 AM solstice
Mars into Gemini 6/28 2:30 PM
Mercury Retrograde 6/29 12:36 PM 26°15’ Cancer
Full Moon 6/29 6:56 PM 8°14’ Cancer/Capricorn
Jupiter into Leo 6/30 12:53 PM

NB: Bill King’s Brake-O

astrofish.net/travel

Coastal Connections

Many years distant, buddy of mine drove down, while I worked in Corpus Christi, he popped out to Mustang island, spent the day — I don’t know. One of his recommendations, “Next time we’re here, stay at Laughing Horse Lodge.” He’s never been back with me. The rest is mired in memory.

Walking down Avenue G, go towards the water, the Gulf is maybe two or three blocks? But walking back, coastal sands tracing patterns in the street, along the pavement, and the minimal curb? There’s a quality about the timelessness. Year, maybe two years back? I stayed at the new construction, big condo building, not fully aware of the location.

It as where the old Laughing Horse used to be.

Add gas station coffee from Stripes.

Coastal Connections

Walking alone, headed back to the rental, left friends and family on the beach under an awning? Walking along the sandy version of that avenue, follow it to its end and it dumps into the bay at the ferry dock. Going the other way? At my back? The Gulf.

Port A — Port Aransas on the map — is on Mustang Island. It’s the northern terminus of the longest coastal barrier island in North America, I think, separated from South Padre Island by a narrow cut, and then, defined by the shipping channel, Aransas Pass.

I first worked down here in the early nineties, and for several dozen years, it was a regular stop, once, maybe twice a year. So there’s a familiarity. Fished the bays and backwaters, the inshore fishing is almost phenomenal.

There are older images of me grinning while holding big fish. Or just holding fish.

Remembered that gas station coffee from Stripes.

Coastal Connections

Still, on this last trip, I kept having a haunted feeling, a sense, a remembrance of people and places passed, what was before, and isn’t now.

The Laughing Horse was a not fully retrofitted old tourist court, a number of cinderblock structures scattered over a small compound, pet-friendly, the one I remembered staying in? It had a corrugated sheet metal divider, held in place with two-by-fours as the shower’s screen. Interesting architectural choices.

No amenities. I mean, there was a nice covered porch, and the parking was sort of paved, aged, cracked asphalt, and in the season, riotous colors of flowers in the metal pots. Nothing of great values because there is no way to reason with hurricane season.

Looking at the sand blowing on the street, I had a shirt in hand, and sunglasses, a phone in my pocket, not much else, I remembered a girl. Woman. Person. Lover and friend? Don’t recall the real motivation, work, play, something, but a coastal trip and staying at Laughing Horse, then, the next morning, getting up and realizing there is no coffee or coffee maker in the room?

I recall walking two blocks up to the Stripes, the convenience store that was across the street, and the weirdest connection, getting gas station coffee from that place, and this must’ve been more than two decades distant.

No third generation coffee. Not even a Starbucks, and I don’t think Mustang Island’s Coffee Waves was even an idea, not back then.

Gas station coffee.

Coastal Connections

There’s a final part of this, two more pieces, one was a radio station, played Texas Country Music, and that opened a door to a store by the old Texas Surf Museum, in Corpus Christi, with rows of local musicians’ musics.

That radio, a kid crooning about a “Gulf coast romance,” and the first bands of a hurricane, blowing overhead.

Gas station coffee from Stripes.

I can’t recall the exact situation, but walking up and getting coffee, asking the person behind the counter what her birthday was, and ambling back with two cups of coffee.

Watching as waves of rain washed over the beach, dull wind roaring in the background, bands of weather roiling along the coastline, stopping for gas and some plain, gas station coffee from Stripes.

Coastal Connections

I looked it up, it was November of ’96.

1997: cowboys and surf boards

That always echoes back, at the time, it was bleeding edge technology. The world has changes since then. The beach echoes back those passed lives lived.

I kept thinking about getting a cup of coffee at the Stripes, on Avenue G, close to the beach.

Coastal Connections

Where is Kramer?
astrofish.net/travel

Analog and EDC

I don’t “road warrior” much, not anymore. However, on more frequent occasions, I’ve been called upon to offer a ride to the ER, or doctor’s office, and I see one doc, almost every other week, now.

Means I’ve got a half-hour scheduled, and usually runs on time. More or less. But that scheduled treatment means I’ve got to be prepared for half an hour of sitting in a waiting room, at the very least. Most — observed — most people younger than me look at their phones for the duration. Some of the older patients bring a book to read. I do both, a book and tablet, sometimes a book on the tablet, plus my usual “EDC go-bag.”

I took it upon myself, when I saw the mention of an “Analog Bag,” I figure I’d upend my own, and look. Two zippered pouches, one with nothing but wires and chargers, another with a selected assortment of OTC meds, connectors, adaptors, trinkets, a crucifix blessed by the pope, and a good luck charm. Plus a toothbrush.

Got caught exactly one time with no toothbrush, and therefore? I pack one in everything I own.

Couple of pens, reading glasses, penlight, and most important? A blank notebook. That one is partially filled, spurious notes and reminders I don’t need, but still want. Odd images, sketched out as well.

A more recent addition? It’s a key ring with a clip, and there’s a small medicine tube, a spare lip balm, a tiny flashlight, and small universal key tool, really just used as a bottle opener. All clipped together so it safely rides in the bottom of the bag, easy enough to grab, when necessary.

In the background, there’s an older, portable Bluetooth keyboard. Forgot about that, but it rides around as a handy resource. Also serves to give the back of the bag a little stiffness to help retain its shape. More important, though, that keyboard and its fold-up cover? Useful as portable stand for the tablet.

They call it an analog bag.

Ironwood

Murder and mayhem at the edge of the world. Or, at the edge of Los Angeles?

“The percentages said that in most divorces based on adultery, the husband was the unfaithful one.” Page 215.

Cop observation.

Crooked cops? The power of the free press? California as its own little slice of the world?

Didn’t want to put the book down.

Ironwood

Catalina Island, follow-up to last summer’s Nightshade.

Enormous Wings

Interesting premise, suppose someone in a retirement center (old folks home, independent living) got knocked up?

“My standards have just gotten higher as I’ve aged.” Page 11.

Speaks to an age. Retired English teacher.

Enormous Wings