Stratford, TX

Other than gas stations (the big name brand ones at least) the only thing thriving along the back roads of the South are churches and porn shops. Humans have been mostly decimated and it’s down to a battle between God and Satan in the backcountry.  And, I kid you not, but we saw a church in Georgia called The Deliverance Church of Jesus Christ.  Come on people, that’s not going to help with the reputation.  We did not, however, see the Purdy Lips Adult Video.  

In any given town most all of Main Street is a ghost town.  Big brick buildings with grand edifices and rotting porches sag in between the fluorescent bookends of thriving convenience stores.  It’s really pretty sad.  All the mom and pops blow away into the West Texas wind while Chevron and McDonalds sit like big, fat pimps at the edge of town.

But there’s at least one place where you’ll yearn for the comfort of a Big Mac.  It’s Stratford, Texas.  

If anyone ever tells you they’re from the biggest craphole in the world, ask them exactly where that place is.  If they say anything other than Stratford, remind them lying is not very nice and you won’t tolerate it.   Because it only took one step outside the car for Sarah and I to conclude we were in the biggest craphole in the world.  The welcome sign into the town actually says, “Home to God, Grass and Grit.”  Sarah responded, “God had better live here.”  There really is no grass, at least not the good kind that you imagine rolling around in without a thousand cockleburs stabbing you to a painful death.  And grit?  How desperate of a town are you if you’re selling “grit”?  Not grits, the sticky, cardboard-like substance that gives MSG purpose, but grit.  Something people must have in order to survive crappy circumstances, like living in Stratford.  That doesn’t exactly scream, “Move your kids here!”   

And in that sense you can see why Texas high schools have such good football programs.  They must know that making it to the state playoffs means traveling to a big city with trees and such.  

The first thing that hit us beside the gale force winds was the essence of poop on those gusts of dust and, the pride of the town, grit.  In Stafford they put up with more BS than any town I’ve ever been in.  Even Greeley, CO, home to a massive slaughterhouse, can’t match the pungent, it’s-almost-like-you’re-eating-bowl-of-it aroma of cow feces fluttering on their fierce breeze.  And with ferocity it blows.  The sign on the door at the Subway where we dined said to hang on to the handle or the wind could “cause serious injury.”   Shouldn’t of all places the entrance to your business be a safe place to go?  Maybe they should move the door?  Or just move, period.  

God, we can rent you a room in Englewood if you’d like.