Hats, a Commodity Vital to Texas

Because I'm planning to go out for a beer with my pal, Ken, I'm a bit stuck for time, I'm working on a few long posts, full of pictures, but I thought I'd hurl these pictures into the aether for you folks, I know you all think I'm not working hard enough at this blogging. Truth is, I was up til 3 a.m. this morning, reviewing dense reams of paperwork for the U.S. Embassy in London, and booking rail tickets and a hotel, for next thursday, when I'm away to the big city for my K1 Visa medical. If you've not been there, you can't imagine just how complex the process is, and the embassy warns you, in no uncertain terms, that if you're deficient in one piece of paperwork, then it's turn around and go home, and wait another month. They have a little youtube video showing the hapless applicant who has failed to properly check the list of vital documents. The barbarian is always turned around at the moat. If I had known it would be so difficult to get permission to enter the United States, in order to marry a U.S.citizen, I'd have arranged to be born there. I'd certainly have started keeping an accurate journal and huge scrapbook of significant events and dates when I was sixteen, which is so long ago that I can barely remember who I was back then, let alone every place I lived, for over six months, and the dates I arrived and left. I can't remember the name of the guy who was my immediate supervisor in the job I had in 2001. Well, I do know he was called Chris, and someone told me he died a couple of years after I left. So I don't suppose he'd give me a reference anyway. I lived quite a few places since I was sixteen. More than many, less than some. Study and then work. I digress as usual. As I have to go out for a beer, I'll have to vaguely promise more text later. 

Texas. Old hats. 

And new hats, at High-Brehm Hats, New Braunfels, near San Antonio, Texas.

Here, you can buy yourself a new hat, or take your grand-daddy's hat in, to be cleaned, repaired, re-blocked, and fitted to your head. 

The best known names in Western hats are probably Stetson, and Resistol, who are, these days, both made in Garland, Texas by the same company.  They're not the only hatters in Texas though. There are a very few individuals left who still make made to measure, bespoke hats. 

Here in New Braunfels, we met one. And it may be that one day, I get a new hat from him.

I do wear a hat, the top of my head has less thatching than it did when I was sixteen, and I find it appreciates a little shelter from both the noonday sun and the cold and wet of winter. Mostly, I wear an Australian Barmah hat, not too dissimilar to a western hat, a narrower brim though. When the weather is really nasty, I wear a Rogue leather hat, made in Mpumalanga, South Africa. I've had that hat for fifteen years now, it's been submerged in mud and in sea water, it's been used as a makeshift water bowl for my dog, it's been driven over, stomped on, and somehow it just gets better. 

But it might look a bit out of place in Texas.

Raw hat blanks, felt awaiting steaming and blocking to shape.

The workshop.

Still simple sewing machines and hand-work.

We were made welcome, I'd actually come in to buy a pair of shoes, the  store sells shoes and workwear, the shoes I  really wanted were not in stock in my size, sadly, I'd have been happy to purchase here rather than at a possibly cheaper big outlet, because I believe in supporting real, traditional local businesses.

High-Brehm history link.

'Sugarfoot', and Bandera, Texas.

Back in the day.... When I was a little kid, we didn't want to be spiderman, or ironman or...

No, our heroes were cowboys. I was born in 1953, and my early years happened to be in something of a heyday for the westerns. By the time I was five or six, I had my collection of cowboy and indians figures,I had shiny 'Lone-Star' guns which shot caps,with a bang and a smell of gunsmoke. I had a black hat,with wide brim and sheriff's star,.  We hid behind haybales, and shot it out with the baddies, we ambushed stagecoaches, we rode the pony express through injun country. I was an equal-opportunity kid, I also had a feathered head-dress, a bow, and some arrows. 

We didn't have a television in our house,  but my grandparents did, and it was a treat to lie on the rug in northern england, and be transported into Texas, and adventure. There was Cheyenne, Bonanza.... Bronco Layne, Hopalong Cassidy, .................................................................and 'Sugarfoot'!

Imagine... The Red Dirt Girl and I were in the little Texas town of Bandera, ('Cowboy Capital of Texas'), and found this autograph, scratched in the concrete, outside the 'Dogleg Coffee House'.

I'll confess, it wasn't until some time later that I remembered 'Sugarfoot', the young would-be cowboy, who got into all sorts of scrapes, yet somehow always came out on top. But how cool is that? We're on our travels and I see a pavement signed by a guy who was a god to me, back when I was a fearless cowboy.

 

 

Bandera was fun, we were  made welcome in a little bar, and it was a pity we had a long way to go that night.

More City Centre Walking

Leeds, Yorkshire, England. I'm in the Trinity Centre again, on the top deck. There's a bar called The Alchemist. I'm drawn in by these sofas, I really need to sit down, and I really want one... Just like this. Well, a bit of background. At about 4:30 this morning I wake, stretch, point my toes... SPANG! my calf muscle in my left leg goes into spasm, a huge cramp, I'm in as much pain as I can ever recall, oh my its bad, It hurts so bad that sweat is pouring out of me, within a minute I'm soaking wet. Gradually, gradually, it subsides. I want to get up, go pee, get a drink of water, but not a chance, because that spasm has torn things, I'm in continuing pain, my muscles still tight and bunched, but trying to massage it seems to do no good. And I can't stand, let alone walk..

Hence,  later in the morning, I'm hobbling around Leeds, having taken Ibuprofen, and massaged topical anaesthetic into my leg. by the time I get here, I'm crying out for a sit-down. Southern Comfort with ice. Lots of ice. Oh. And I really want the sofa, did I mention that?

So, I looked them up... Andrew Martin Design.... £4,195.00 This bar has £16,000 worth of sofas just inside the door.... So that means, by the size of the place, it probably cost a quarter of a million or so to fit out.

 

 

 I liked the place though, I was comfortable, popped another couple of painkillers, and hobbled on my way.

 

To the Turk's Head, alias Whitelocks.  It's been down this alley since 1715, and it seems like a good idea to revisit more of my youth, get some sandwiches and a pint of Timothy Taylor's Landlord.

 

 

As you see, time pretty much stands still in Whitelocks, An Edwardian gent time-travelling to 2013 might be pleasantly surprised by the electric lights, but otherwise it would feel just like home. The Burmantofts Tile works made those tiles around 1895, I'll bet people back then were shocked when the old Turk's Head unveiled this avant-garde ultra-modern bar!

Whitelocks, mirrors, polished copper, dark wood, tiles, good beer, and great sandwiches.

 

 

 

Look up!

Tempus Fugit

The new arms of a United Kingdom. 1603, accession of James I of England, who was already JamesVI of Scotland. For the first time, the scottish unicorn and the english lion both known as kings of the beasts, met on a shield. Neither the Scottish nor the English, felt particularly united.

"The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown
The lion beat the unicorn all around the town.
Some gave them white bread, and some gave them brown;
Some gave them plum cake and drummed them out of town."

Look down! This is one of Briggate's oldest 'yards'.

That's it, I'm done for a while, time to find something to eat.

A Man About Town

Yesterday,I had to go into the city centre. It is about two, maybe 2.5 miles from my home, yet I rarely go there. Strange, is in not? I buy my groceries in suburbia, other stuff I buy at out of town shopping malls, or smaller towns further away. The city centre? Well, mostly it has stuff I don't want or need. I'm not a window-shopper, I do a targeted hit on stores to get what I want, I go in, head for my goal, and get out as soon as I can. But I broke my phone. As in, I dropped it and cracked the screen, and the whole thing became unresponsive, brain-dead. Let me warn you, the Google Nexus 4 is an awesome thing, but if you bust the glass, as I did, about a five-foot drop, smack, onto hard tarmac, then you''ll discover that it's a far more expensive repair than most, as the glass isn't a separate veneer, you need an expensive unit of screen, digitiser, and glass, all in one.

I'd decided to take it to a reputable manufacturer approved repairer, rather than risk a cheaper back street shop, where I'm paranoid they'll strip my passwords and other stuff out...

Hence the city centre trip. Truly, it's more than a couple of years since I've been on foot-safari here.

All sorts of things change. It has more of a vibe of a cosmopolitan euro-city than I remember, lots more pavement cafes and bars, more modern apartments in buildings old and new, and a new mall, or centre, as we call it, Trinity Centre. A redevelopment of an area that was always a bit of a shabby seventies construction. I liked it. Holy Trinity Church, on Boar Lane, stands at the edge of the centre to which it gives its name.

Holy Trinity, commenced 1722, known locally as The Wedding-Cake church, after its pillared spire.

 

I really like this giant pack-horse sculpture, made of small pieces of welded and galvanised steel, to make perforated form,through which the light penetrates, the sculptor was Andy Scott. This shopping centre is near the conjunction of two of the oldest roads in the city, Briggate, which runs north south, and Boar Lane, east west. Back in the past, before railways, pack-horses were the major transporters of freight, and just north of Leeds Bridge, on Briggate, was where traders set up their stalls. The woolpacks and the woven cloth from the Pennine hills came here, were traded in the cloth halls, loaded onto fresh packhorses for the long journey south, to London. Not far away, also off Briggate, is the Pack-Horse pub, first mentioned, selling food, ale, and beds for weary travellers in 1615.

So it's fitting that a pack-horse be remembered here. Nimble footed, hardy traveller.

The old Pack-Horse Inn. Still there 400 years later.

 

Close by, the Corn Exchange, a hall built specifically for the trade of corn. Not the corn Americans think of, nothing to do with maize, this hall was where wheat, oats, and barley were traded, farmers selling their harvests to the corn merchants, the merchants selling to flour mills, breweries, and  export trade.

This is my favourite building in the city, because its elliptical form on the outside is so unusual, but more so the wonderful arched zeppelin of the roof, enclosing a bright, airy space with no intruding pillars.

 

 

 

The coat of arms of the city, "Pro Rege et Lege" , for King and parliament. After the 17th century bloodbath of the civil war, the city came up with this motto to declare allegiance to both sides, also, clearly, to remind both that together, not separately, they rule, checks and balances. Owls, well, they're supposed to be wise, and the centre is a woolen fleece, from which the city made its wealth.

Where traders stood, now we sit and drink coffee.

 

Memories remain. John Smiths Brewery is still active, in Tadcaster, about twelve or so miles to the north-east. I've bought their beers in Texas!

 

The packhorses would have been here in great numbers.

 The building on the right of the entryway to the city markets was, when I was a kid, the horse-butchers. There was a big slaughterhouse behind these buildings, stockyards of lowing cattle, just on the edge of the city centre.  In the 1970s there was a huge fire, and all the slaughterhouse and much of the old market were destroyed.

 

Butcher's Row in the market. Keen pricing. My dad used to know all the old butchers, and get the sunday roast from here. Of course, he loved to haggle, and knew that the best prices were to be had in the half-hour before closing on a saturday.

 

 

RDG loves dragons and wyverns, (these are wyverns) And these are for her. A few years ago, we were in the market together, sought permission from the manager to go up onto the balconies to take photographs. And of course, as I took these photographs, I was missing her.

Not for much longer, all being well.

More pics later.
Updated:

  I'm allergic to fish, but that doesn't lessen my interest in the arts of the fishmonger.

 Up the fish aisle, then out of the market, and across Vicar Lane.

 Town planning from 1900. Queen Victoria street and King Edward street, this whole area, now known as The Victoria Quarter. I used to park on these streets, but they've undergone a transformation, pedestrianised, and QV street enclosed with a glass roof. Interestingly we see a social divide here. The market is a place where all go, in search of value, bargains, fresh produce, market folk shouting their wares, interacting with the customer. Cross the road and it's all more subdued, upmarket stores targeting upmarket custom. You notice the shouty beer-belly guys, the foul-mouthed women and the gaggles of brats with adhd just aren't there. Maybe it's too quiet, and they need the barrage of noise and bustle to survive. The tough pubs used to be around the market too. The Scotsman, ha, that used to be the place for the serious all-day drunks, and the Market Tavern, well, that was pretty basic, dare I say smelly? And was also full of all-day drunks. When I was a teenager, it was a pub of choice, on the grounds that it never asked for i.d., hell if you had money, of course it would serve you. Sometimes you had to be nimble to get out of the way of fights though.

 I like cupolas, and turrets. Always wanted to have my bedroom in a pointy topped turret.

 Arcades were what came before malls, covered streets.

 1901

 I was fascinated by a window full of vintage sewing machines

 The Horse and Trumpet. Had a few pints in here too, in my youth.

 There's a chocolateier in this arcade, Ladies.

And a mechanical clock. The Ivanhoe Clock. On the hour, the knight and the bowman take turns to strike the bell, the figures move. Wait, maybe it's on YouTube?