LETTERS

We want to hear from our readers. Send letters to: Editor, Texas Co-op Power, 1122 Colorado St., 24th Floor, Austin, TX 78701, or e-mail us at letters@texas-ec.org. Please include the name of your town and electric co-op. Letters may be edited for clarity and length and will be printed as space allows. Read additional letters at www.texascooppower.com.

JULY 2009

Honor Texas Heritage

I love to read your magazine—lots of fun articles. I would love to see a write-up on Texas dance halls. This is another Texas heritage being brought back to life by Texas Dance Hall Preservation, which has helped restore Sengelmann Hall in Schulenburg. The dance hall was mentioned in your May 2009 issue in the “Hit the Road” travel column.

Paula Jungmann
Bandera Electric Cooperative

Editor’s note: “Texas Dance Halls” was our cover story in January 2006. There are plans to return to them in a future “Hit the Road.”

Which Was First?

In the May 2009 issue of Texas Co-op Power is an article about the first washateria. A report from my wife’s kinfolk indicates the original was in Hollis, Oklahoma, a year earlier than the Fort Worth one.

Dee Brannan
New Braunfels

Editor’s note: According to the family genealogy, the Helpy-Selfy Laundry was founded in 1933, a year before the much-publicized Laundromat in Fort Worth.

JUNE 2009

Pottery Abounds

In your April 2009 Hit the Road article “Tyler to Marshall,” you say Marshall Pottery is the only company in Texas still producing wheel-thrown utilitarian gray stoneware.

That is so untrue! We own Bluebonnet Pottery near Brenham at the entrance to Lake Somerville and have been in business here since 1983. We have been producing wheel-thrown utilitarian gray stoneware for 26 years here in Washington County. We have been told we are the best-kept secret in Washington County! 

Although we aren’t as large as Marshall Pottery, we do make our own pottery right here in our studio, and it is just myself and my husband who do all of the work. We invite people to stop in at our studio and see the work being done right here. There are a lot of other potters in Texas who also make wheel-thrown utilitarian gray stoneware.

Bonnie Todee
Brenham

Editor’s note: We apologize for the oversight.

MAY 2009

‘The Strutters’ Are Great, Too

Clay Coppedge’s article on the Kilgore Rangerettes in the February 2009 issue (“Sweethearts of the Gridiron”) was great reading. I kept waiting to see the name of Barbara Tidwell mentioned in connection with ex-Rangerettes doing well. She will be honored in October for the 50th anniversary of a drill team she organized many years ago called the Texas State Strutters from Texas State University in San Marcos, formerly known as Southwest Texas State Univer- sity. They have had fame under her direction to match the Rangerettes.

Nelda Dunn
San Marcos

More Servings, Please

There are lots of great articles in your magazine. It is “clipped to pieces” after we finish reading it! We prepared the Sauerkraut Potato Salad from the March 2009 issue and loved it! The only change I recommend is that the recipe serve even more than 12, because everyone wants seconds. Thanks to B.J. Willis for sharing it.

Susan Wilson
Cherokee County Electric Cooperative

Rainwater Harvesting

The resurgence of rainwater harvesting (“Make the Most of Rainy Days,” March 2009 issue) brings back the joy and pleasure of a shower in rain-water; or a cold glass of pure “cloud juice”; or that hot cup of morning coffee with no hint of chlorine from treated water or hardness from the well water.

Having now relied on captured rainwater for all our indoor—and much of our garden—water needs for 10 years, you could not pay us to go back to that hard, hard water we can pump from underground.

Dave Collins
Pedernales Electric Cooperative

Hoeing Got Us Through Hard Times

I enjoyed reading the story “A Hard Row to Hoe” by Camille Wheeler (March 2009 issue). Growing up southwest of Lubbock on a dry-land cotton farm, my two sisters and I had some of the same memories of summertime: getting up and in the field at 7 a.m., home at 12 for Mom’s lunch, then back to the field from 1 to 6 p.m.

We learned the same lessons of contributing to the family, getting along with each other and helping each other out when we got to the “flat” and the end of the row. Lessons that have been applied all through our lives.

It was in the summer of 1968 that hoeing helped our family deal with the unexpected death of our father, Boots Cozart. We stayed in the field longer than usual so that when we went to bed we would be too tired to think of our loss. Mom, who before sometimes hoed with us, went out with us every day that summer. Even our brothers, who drove the tractors, joined us in the field at the end of the day.

Sometimes I still go out and hoe in our cotton fields, but I am truly thankful for the modern-day miracle of chemical-friendly cotton.

Pat Stephens
Lyntegar Electric Cooperative