Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Into The Void with John Miller

Recently I took a much-needed three-day weekend off. I went to visit a friend who lives in Texas, about an hour west of Dallas.

It was good to get away, gave me time to think about a lot of things, see what was on the horizon, have a chance to breath without a deadline staring me in the face and just relax in general.

The drives down and back were long, tedious and uneventful. There's a whole lot of nothing 'twixt here and there.

While there another newspaper, which had been trying to hire me for about a year now, wanted to talk with me. We had a nice chat. They offered me an interesting position, good salary, great benefit package and more time off than I now enjoy.

It all sounded good. The staff was friendly. It was a very tempting offer, but one turned down.

The more I looked into the situation the more I learned about the inter-office politics. This is a game I've had to play before and didn't like. Nobody wins.

Still, the idea of going down wasn't to look for another job. If and when I leave here, Texas isn't where I plan on ending up.

I went to recharge the psychic batteries so I could keep going. This, after all, is a busy time of the year with graduation and politics along with the Chicken and Egg Festival right around the corner, followed by the 2000-2001 school year with another football season, etc.

Now, I have an addiction, but it's one of the better kind  I'm addicted to books. While in Texas, I found a Mecca where bookstores are concerned. None of these "McBooks," like Books a Million or Waldenbooks, but a place called Half Price Books, where you can trade what you no longer want and look through a virtual warehouse of printed words.

Half Price Books was great, but not the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae. No, it was only the appetizer. The main course was a trip to a little hole-in-the-wall of a town called Archer City.

Archer City is 20 miles west of Wichita Falls. It's a nondescript little place with the downtown area built around the courthouse square.

It's also the home of Larry McMurtry, author of such tomes as The Last Picture Show, Texasville and Lonesome Dove. McMurtry also is the owner of a business called Booked Up  a booklover's paradise.

Booked Up is four buildings, circling the courthouse square, filled floor to ceiling with books of all types. Each building houses different topics, such as history, art, fiction, etc.

A weekend isn't enough time to properly see what's in stock. The mind rebels at the sheer volume of books in just one building and shuts down completely when the other three are visited. It is literally mind-numbing to see.

When we arrived at "building one" as it's called, we saw a small, stocky man with thinning grey hair. He was dressed in work pants and a white T-shirt. He was also pushing a trundle stacked with books. This gentleman turned out to be McMurtry.

It was fascinating to watch a best-selling author carting books from one building to another with the wind blowing about 40 mph and sun beating down as it does out there. He was also helpful when questioned as to where a particular book might be found.

Believe me, it was hard not to go nuts while there. It would have been easy to drop a bundle on books, too easy.

Still, Booked Up wasn't the best part of the trip. While in Sherman we went to a little barbecue joint called "Twymans." It would be easy to overlook as it isn't much of a building.

However, within the confines of those walls lies the best barbecue sauce these lips have tasted to date, including the sauce yours truly makes.

It's a mom and pop operation, with the husband and wife doing everything. I had what they called a "superman" sandwich, which is a combination of barbecue beef and chopped polish sausage piled so high the bun can't contain it and it slops over onto the plate.

The meat is so tender it virtually melts in the mouth. But, when the sauce is applied, the diner is transcended to another plane of delight altogether.

Mr. Twyman, a loquacious gent, developed the sauce after much trial and error, mostly error, he says. When the current combination of ingredients was hit upon, he stopped. "I was sick of barbecue sauce," he joked when asked about it.

It is pure ambrosia, fit for the gods. No, it's too good for the gods and should be consumed solely by mortal man. The gods, of late, have done nothing to deserve such a taste sensation.

Anyway, this is pretty much how I spent my summer vacation, and I was more than glad to get back home and back to work  I needed the rest.