Another highlight of my week was Texas History. Many a lecture an hour and half whizzed by at breathing taking speed as the facts provided the framework for the real story of Texas History. In Texas history I learned about how the first wetbacks were white Anglos crossing the Sabine and Red rivers illegally into Mexican territory. My Hispanic pride grew when I heard that. I made note as I now had yet another counter to play when some people would bring up comments about too many Mexicans being in Texas. In late October I decided to go to New Braunfels to Wurstfest and see Myron Floren play.

I drove from school to the airport and pre-flighted my trusty steed for her first trip to New Braunfels. The night air was slightly chilly the first major cold front of the year had passed through chilling things out a bit. That same cold front left great conditions for night flight severe clear severe smooth. I climbed out and New Braunfels was hard to miss it was a big mass of lights on the horizon intercepted by another mass of lights running southwest to Northeast. I saw the NB rotating Beacon five minutes after take off from Kerrville navigation to that was simple. The flight over there was smooth. My uncle drove me to Wurstfest he was also an Opa.

I had a fixed belly agenda. I knew what I wanted 1st a sausage on a stick from the Breakfast Lions club. I walked in after getting my hand stamped into the area meant to resemble a village. There was pavement beneath my feet and a steel roof over my head. I came to booth and paid for it the sausage. The head JROTC served it and quickly recognized me. Mixed emotions came. I wanted to chew him out but was civil earlier I had indicated to him that in no uncertain terms I knew what he was and the games that he played with a simple comment on who was going to be the JROTC battalion commander. The sausage was good greasy and spicy. It scorched my mouth and clogged my arteries I could not help but grin as I ate the 2nd bite. I washed it down with a sprite as I headed into the old cotton gin now the Wursthalle and Myron Floren took the bandstand. Myron Floren was is an accordionist who gained fame playing on the Lawrence Welk show. He had become an old stand by and regular at Wurstfest where New Braunfels proudly flaunted its German heritage. The hall was packed as if witnessing a swan song not quite certain that it would return again. It was a ritual that had become far too well publicized. The feel was almost that of a freak show of some sort. There was a feeding frenzy for sentiment and nostalgia. I thought to myself,"the heck with this." The small town I treasured and memories I held so dear were nowhere to be found that night so I headed out stopping at the Green booth where Potato Pancakes were being sold. I ordered a couple and headed out the river walk of New Braunfels. The night air was chilly and dry but the potato pancakes were good warm and with the apple sauce crispy and sweet. I ate them as I walked down the shot of fountains that led to the Comal River, which flowed freely and beautifully. Less then half a mile down stream I caught my first bass on a fall morning as steam billowed off the river covering my dad and I as tossed four spinner baits beyond a weed bed into a deep drop off in the water.

I ran into Ashley Koepp. He was still in New Braunfels trying to find out what he wanted to do with his life. His father coached my soccer team and he was always hyper. I pitied him and issued a warning straight out of Pink Floyd song,"The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older shorter of breath of and one day closer to death." He paused for a moment shook his head. I realized at that moment how big city I had become, and how little I now had in common with the town I once called my home. I started thinking my schism from the Catholic Church and realized how much I had changed. Kerrville and the Hillcountry would eventually link my small town past to my big city future but that was a long time away.

On the ride back to the airport my uncle informed me that Brauntex was still holding on valiantly for life. I paused for a moment cheering it on. It was one of the last real vestiges that New Braunfels had of being a small town instead of suburb. I found it odd New Braunfels stuck on 1 the busiest stretches of interstate in Texas having a downtown movie theatre of the Brauntex's vintage. Then again this was New Braunfels the town that ignored time.  Its ignorance cost lives.  Despite this knowledge I cheered it on knowing all to well its cost my cheering was done in secret.  The very thing I hated I was fond of.    

A few days afterward I called the Smokehouse. They had an overstock of Kolbassa from Wurstfest. I offered to take it off their hands at the café they gladly accepted for just the cost of the trucking it over. It was a great business deal. I paid eighty bucks for all the sausage and I sold it fifty cents a link and made a modest profit for a week and still had twenty pounds left one week before it was to be all sold by.