THE DUMMKOPH AND HIS KARMA

Wednesday, June 17 through Saturday the 20th. Fredericksburg is in the heart of the Texas hill country,  with lots of green and rolling hills.  It also is German.  Back in the 1840s, Germany was not unified, but was a collection of fiefdoms under various princes, dukes and the like.  It also was in economic distress.  A group of 19 princes formed a company that enlisted families to join together and relocate to America, with the intention of creating a settlement to raise cotton and tobacco for the profit of the company (and the princes and dukes).  120 souls made the initial trip and somehow ended up in Galveston, then made the trek to the hill country.  After being fleeced a couple of times, they purchased acreage first in New Braunfels, but ended up in the area they named Fredericksburg, after one of the princes that sponsored the company.  They nearly starved, but were saved, of course, by the local Indians.  The company went bankrupt, but the farmers stayed on and eventually thrived.  Today, there are original structures from that time, along with reconstructions from back in the 1930s.  Many in the town still speak German (to the delight of some German tourists we followed into one of the attractions).  This also is the birthplace and boyhood home of Adm. Chester Nimitz, the architect of the victory in the Pacific in WWII.  There’s an excellent museum devoted to his life, and he was an extraordinary guy throughout his naval career.  Got the Navy to convert subs from the dangerously explosive gas engines to diesel, and later gave key support to Rickover for having subs go nuclear.  He even met Togo as a shavetail lieutenant decades before the war.  The town also has the National Museum of the Pacific War, which was the principal reason I wanted to make this stop.  Of course, it had just closed for six months of renovations.  But I could use the stub from the Nimitz museum for admission when it reopens!  Thanks.  I don’t think we’ll be passing this way again soon.  Fbg, as they refer to it here, has a lot of nice art galleries, an incredible number of furniture and furnishings boutiques, ice cream parlors, and . . . a brewpub!  Just the thing for a 102 degree afternoon.  For one day of our stay, it also sported the world’s biggest dummkopf.

We took the scoot into town from the LadyBird Johnson Park, parked it on the Main Street drag through down, carefully locked up the helmets, and left to go tour the town by foot.  All day.  With hundreds of passersby.  It’s a good thing that we had ended the afternoon with a brew from the brewpub, and I was feeling mellow, because when we got back to the scoot I saw the flapping yellow.  Of the tag.  To the keys.  Still in the ignition.  Thank you, honest Texans and tourists, one and all.

One of the things we toured was the Pioneer Museum, a collection of buildings – houses, school, workshops, barn, outhouse (recognize the shnoz?) – dating from the 1800s that were moved to this site in town (one house was there already) and set up as a preservation of the pioneer heritage of those early German settlers.  You take away a sense of admiration for the craftsmanship, fortitude, and endurance of those folks.

But, you say, what about the karma?  We extended our stay from the intended two days to four when we found out that the neighboring town of Stonewall was hosting its 48th annual Peach Jam-boree and Rodeo on Saturday,  We scooted over there early to catch the parade with the requisite beauty pageant floats, horses, tractors, assorted goofballs (it’s a peach festival, get it?), and an alleged African beast supposedly called a Wasubi, which looked like a Brahma, but had the hugest horns (girth, not length) I’ve ever seen.  Hmmmmm.  Calling Ripley’s.  We listened to texmex music (guitars and squeezebox), ate peach cobbler with peach ice cream, watched the eleven queen hopefuls answer the question portion of the contest, saw the infamous armadillo race reduced to a battle between one painted juvenile armadillo and a pet possum that was scrounged up at the last minute when no other dillos arrived, ate peach ice cream by itself, enjoyed the peach eating and pit spitting contests, gazed bewildered at the tractor goings on in the arena (here comes the karma), and sat amazed (and silent, with our hands under our thighs) at the auction of the fruit baskets from the local farmers which went for . . . wait for it . . . between $450 and $2,500!  We foolishly had thought we might get one for around $40, but this is an auction for the local businesses (and one rich guy who was showing off) to drop bragging-rights funds as the principal fundraiser for the chamber of commerce.

We went over to the grandstands about an hour before the rodeo was to start and nabbed primo seats in the top row, with a railing back to lean against.  The stands slowly filled up, but we, being insulated by lower rows, enjoyed footroom on empty seats in front of us.  That is, until . . . oh, no.  The, ah, woman tractor driver whose posterior I just couldn’t keep from photographing (see above) was gazing up at the empty spaces before us.  She nudged her almost equally porcine husband and started to climb.  Slowly.  With great effort and much exhalation.  With seas of spectators parting like the waters as she progressed.  She then got to us, turned around.  And sat.  Oh, how she sat.  Our footroom?  Forget it.  Our legs?  Might as well be amputees.  We could either stand on our seats all night, or move.  We moved.  See what I get for being an insensitive smartass?  Yup.  The ass.

Once we relocated, the rodeo was fine, with an opening prayer that was decidedly and unapologetically denominational, hilarious sheep-dogging for the kids, pretty fearsome broncs, even nastier bulls, and something called a wild-cow milking team contest, where 6 teams of 3 race on foot from one end of the arena towards 4 cows at the other end, the object being to retrieve at least a centiliter of milk.  Cows naturally scatter and run.  Mayhem ensues.  The crowd goes wild.  Again we are reminded:  ah, America.