More Views Of Shallowater, Texas

Shallowater is kind of bisected by the Clovis Highway. We searched both sides for "Downtown" in vain. Finally we stopped at a convenience store and talked to a lady selling Girl Scout cookies with her daughters. She said there really was NO downtown. The place we were standing could be considered that, or the area where we entered, just off the Clovis Highway. So that settled the issue. We bought cookies and moved on. We saw no supermarkets. We saw no municipal buildings. We saw no big box stores. We found convenience stores and a Dollar General. Since Shallowater is only 11 miles from Lubbock, I guess it seems pointless to build anything of consequence there. Shallowater does have a huge high school, however. My wife calls it a "bedroom" community. Most inhabitants work and shop in Lubbock. 

There are some nice residential areas and some that are not so nice. But there is no downtown! By the way, we couldn't find a movie theater or library or bookstore or antique store or furniture store, either. Or, for that matter, a place to get your car serviced, apart from shade-tree mechanic operations. 

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.