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Foreword
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F O R E W O R D Throughout his long career as a columnist and author, Jon McConal (his friends call him Bunky) has earned a position of trust among his readers. He has done this by listening to everyone he interviews as if they are disclosing to him the secrets of the universe, the meaning of life and death, and the formula for Coke. But they’re telling him no such things. They’re telling him something much more important to them. They’re talking about themselves. All of us, I believe, in any age, want to be proud of who we are and what we have achieved. McConal patiently indulges this need in people. He’s more than a writer. He’s a doctor with the bedside manner of Dr. Kildare . . . uh oh, CODGER ALERT! Oh, well. It’s disclosure time. I’m an honorary member of Bunky’s Camping Out and Codger’s Club. I even went on one of his walks, a twentyfive mile trek from Weatherford to Mineral Wells. So, allow me to start over with another metaphor. Bunky is a literary photographer going down the road. He centers interesting people in his viewfinder and seldom, if ever, inserts himself into the picture. He touts everybody he interviews because he chose them for a particular reason that was important to his story, and his instincts seem always to be right. A cherished eccentricity in their possession sometimes brings them together. It might be something he recognizes as iconic, a symbol, a precursor, or a rustic objet d’art held in esteem by its owner such as an old plow point that once turned dirt on a plow pushed by Bigfoot Wallace’s nephew’s best friend. It might be displayed over some proud owner’s mantle. For the time it took to hear the story of the revered relic, Jon would take sincere, diligent, and prolific notes. During this ritual, the relic connects him, I believe, with its owners and previous owners and with history. Again, most of us, sooner or later, learn the significance, and importance, of placing ourselves in a genealogical or historical context, at a location on a generational schematic in which we can pinpoint our unique place with our family. Rural people have always done this. Three or even four generations once lived together. Grandparents told the young ones stories of their ancestors and showed them fading photographs and other artifacts of the heart. The more people join the rush to suburbanize America, the more they alienate themselves from their past and a sense of community. It is fading fast. But it is still longed for. And, this is where Jon McConal comes in. He places such store by these values that he is willing actually to put the boots on the ground, if I might appropriate that current political cliché. He goes into the Texas outlands and discovers this world that is now as foreign to most Americans as the Taj Mahal. But a literary photographer traveling down the road would never say such a thing. His job is to report, not opine. If Bunky has any such urges, he leaves them hanging in his Granbury closet. In a moment of irony during the 450-mile walk across West Texas that is the subject of this book, Jon and his two walking companions, Eddie Lane and Norm Snyder, encounter a scene that Eddie describes as something to “really test your ability as a writer, Jon.” But, again, this is what Jon does best. His eye goes as readily to outworn, abandoned remnants of another time and place as easily as the eye of the average member in good standing of the consumer generation might turn to the newest gadget that is at once a cellphone, a camera, a vibrator, a razor, and an automatic celebrity locator. On they travel, into far West Texas and to Miami for information about the exciting cow-calling contest. In Miami he interviews a local denizen who avers that he’d rather dress up like a woman and get on stage than get in a cow-calling contest. In Turkey he and his companions visit the Bob Wills Museum, where in a display case they see a biography of Al Stricklin, the piano player in the band. The author? Jon McConal, of course. Then on to the West Texas towns of Matador, Dickens, and points west. At this juncture I would like to honor...