I’m starting a new series of essays. The title is,
“Growing Up Catholic in a Small Texas Town.” After all, sometimes you just have to laugh at life.
Theodore Felix Kaska, my dad, my hero.
He could do anything: build a house, fix a car, tend a garden and pickle everything that grew in it, butcher a cow, and make chop suey. He took me everywhere with him: the hardware store, the automotive store, the lumber yard, the bait shop, and once to watch him butcher a cow. He told me later that the cow incident was probably what turned me into a vegetarian. He was right.
But he also took me to the Tip Top Café. Dad would have coffee, and I’d have a Dr. Pepper, and we both have a kolache—a Czech pastry. Years later, West was proclaimed by the State of Texas as the Kolache Capital of Texas. The only type of business in town that out-numbered bakeries were bars.
Dad also took me to my favorite place—Henry’s Place, a bar on Main Street, located between the hardware store and dry cleaners. I loved going to Henry’s. It was dark and quiet. The only lightning came from neon beer signs. My favorite sign was the Hamm’s beer sign with a bear and what appeared to be a running waterfall. Dad would order a Lone Star beer and a Dr. Pepper and a little bag of peanuts for me. Henry would give us each a frosted beer glass. I remember: the ceiling fans ticking; a Hank Williams’ record playing on the jukebox, old men patting me on the head and telling me how cute I was. I felt so special.
Unfortunately, my visits to Henry’s Place didn’t last. My mother worked part-time at the dry cleaners. One day she walked in.
The chatter stopped. The ceiling fans stopped. The jukebox shorted out. The water on the Hamm’s beer sign stopped running, and the bear ran away. I left Henry’s that day with my mother. You’ll learn more about Marcella Helen Kaska in a future newsletter.
(If you’re from West, don’t worry, except for my family, the names in my essays are changed, and I’ve embellished a little.)