Uncle Corky, known as the Sage Of 3 Mile Creek* spends many hours each day pondering the ills of Pine Island, Waller County, Texas and the world.
*(Three Mile Creek, the largest waterway in Pine Island, runs through the back pasture. It's at least 15 or 20 foot across above the beaver dam.)
Poverty Acres
Poverty Acres is kinda almost a subdivision in the city of Pine Island. Uncle Corky and 3 different family's of his kids all has houses on the property. Uncle Corky says if it's good for them Kennedys up there in Hyannis Port it's good enough for his family too, down here in Pine Island, Texas.
The Big Y2K Scam
Down here on Three Mile Creek, we always knew that the Y2K scare was a plot from a bunch of miserly merchants to make a fortune offen peoples fears.
However, after years of dedicatedly scrutinizing stacks of dusty ancient archives and studying the good book, I have discovered that all those doom
sayers have been wrong. Y3K, that's the big one.
Therefore in keeping with our policy of keeping the citizens Pine Island enlightened we are instituting the first Y3K Watch. Preparedness is gonna be the goal. Remember there's only a little over 999 years left.
There are only
days 'til the year 3000.
Yankee Dimes
Lets have a show of hands. How many of you Pine Islanders remember getting paid with a Yankee dime for work done when you were young? You outsiders can raise your hands too, if you used to get paid that way. Both my grandmother and my mother used to trick me that way when I was a little kid.
Now days, my wife pulls the same trick. Of course, for a man my age, it's more of a treat now days instead of a trick, but I don't never see the neighbor women wanting to pay me in yankee dimes. For those who never got paid that way, a Yankee dime is a kiss. I reckon that's what they call it a Yankee dime for, because it's a good example of Yankee stingyness and scrimping.
A Budding Metropolis
OR the First Victim
of the Devil's Corridor???
The Pennington General Store and Post Office
The Pennington General Store and Post Office was first and a going thing. It was doing pretty good so old John Garrett decided to became a merchant and maybe quit farming. You know they don't call farmers red necks because they blush easy. It's cause they are out in the hot sun all day a working and a sweating and gettin their neck sunburned.
Anyhow, old John opened him a store about a mile up the road on The Old Houston Highway. He had a small store next to the depot, where he sold groceries and sundries along with gasoline and kerosene. It was located between the railroad track and the old Houston highway, directly across the road from Frank Echol's farm.
After John Garrett's store started pretty well, Frank Echol looked across the road and decided his neck could stand a little bleaching too. He built a competitive store across the road from John's store and joined the merchant class. About that time Buster Milam opened an automotive repair shop across the road from the post office.
Pine Island was a growing fast and destined to butt heads with Houston some day. That's when the curse of the Devils Corridor struck the first time and old Satan just sat back and laughed as us poor mortals were ground down.
Frank and John became very forceful (even ruthless?) competitors. Both stores swapped a few bullet holes through their front walls for a few years. From unknown sources of course, until Frank's store finally caught fire and burned to the ground late one dark night, ending the competition.
Shortly after Frank's store burned, John Garrett prudently moved his enterprise to Hempstead. The Pennington store closed, just leaving the post office. Some years later the Pine Island post office was closed and merged with Hempstead . After the post office was closed, Buster moved his garage to Hempstead and Pine Island's existence as a budding metropolis was doomed to die. Now everybody has got to drive all the way to Hempstead, 5 miles away, just to find a Wal-mart.
