Shallowater, Texas

A few weeks ago we drove to the little town of Shallowater, out on the Clovis Highway, and looked for the downtown area. We could not find it. Last weekend we tried again, with our cameras, and made a surprising discovery. This new photo series documents the drive. My wife even took pics "on the road", to provide a sense of what one sees in this area, just driving around. A lot of these road pics were taken in Lubbock. 

The surprising discovery was, when we took the pics above, we were IN downtown Shallowater. There is really nothing there!  There will be more pics to come, and I'll explain how we learned Shallowater's strange secret.

Last Pics From Slaton

The next series will feature Shallowater, the town with no downtown!

 This F-105 flew 200 combat missions!

  Apollo capsule boilerplate, used to determine flotation characteristics.

 Wide open spaces!
 

 More of the same!
 

Another Set From Slaton, Texas

Some very interesting stuff here!

 Buckeye trainer at Air Museum just outside Slaton.

 An old two-seat F-101!

 Phantom jet!

 Above, you see something of historical interest that my wife spotted: it is a vintage South Western Bell utility manhole lid. This dates back to before the infamous breakup. Was THAT ever a bad decision! This was in downtown Slaton, in front of an old telephone switching center that is probably still in use. My wife knows a lot about such things.

 F4 canopy-- I assume the ejection seat was disarmed...
 

 This old Navy Jet was something new. 
 

This poor old F-14 is slowly sinking into the ground. The Tomcat was pretty much a fiasco. What the Navy needed was the F-18. The swing wing idea died hard.

Balanced. And Fair.

Life in a really small town must be awful. Jobs few and opportunities limited. Low pay, especially if you work for the city. Small towns have a lot of trouble attracting good applicants for their police forces. It's a low-paying job with a lot of risks. Somebody has to do it. Small towns around here have gang problems and drug problems. Meth labs proliferate in this area, or at least they used to. What I would really hate about the small town life is the gossip and complete lack of privacy. Small towns are noted for their caste systems, dominant families, old money. But maybe I've read too many novels.

On the other hand, my wife lived in Slaton years ago and she still hates the place. You can live there for twenty years and still be treated like an outsider. Slaton is a good example of a town dominated by a few prominent families. If you don't have a connection to one of those families, you aren't going to fit in. That was the situation as my wife found it, and for her Slaton was a stifling and rather hostile place. But it's OK if you are just passing through, just visiting to drop some money around town. But living there seems to be another matter.


 

More From Slaton

Slaton is laid out funny. That's just the way it is. You might find five streets coming together in a ragged star-shaped intersection, with some streets one way and others not, stop signs here and yield signs there, and if you want to make a right it might be a HARD right of 120 degrees. Many buildings in Slaton's downtown area are wedge-shaped to accommodate the ridiculous street plan. Whose idea was that?

On the other hand, you can buy some good German sausage there. If you crave beef jerky, go to Slaton. Try not to have a wreck. My wife used to live in Slaton and she informs me that the local cops are jerks. Think of "In The Heat Of The Night". Think Archie Bunker in uniform. Do not get crosswise with the law in Slaton is probably good advice. We drove around trying to locate what my wife refers to as the MEAN BANK. It's still there but it's changed its name. Probably as mean as it was when my wife tried to deal with them, years ago. Merciless. Sarcastic. Rude. My wife detests Slaton, and she has good reasons to. But we ventured there to take pictures. We also go to the annual sausage festival at a local Catholic church. The food is too good to stay away.