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Since a newspaper
is the heartbeat of a town, we are including a review of a book
written by the Founder and Editor of The Luling Newsboy and Signal
:
"Tall Town Tales by a Country Editor"
Although
our brief and unplanned visit to Luling
occurred five minutes after the Chamber was supposed to have closed,
we were treated like the day's first visitors. All questions were
answered in a "that's-who-we-are" manner by Trey Bailey, Director
of the Luling Economic Development Corp. Our inquiry about the
Luling newspaper's name brought not only the answer, but the additional
fact that Mr. Bailey's Grandfather had started the paper.
We bought the
current issue and paid .50. We then asked for last week's issue
and were told that that would be 35 cents. We got the feeling that
if we didn't like the news, we might get a refund. We then asked
a passer-by the library's location, and they knew! Always a good
sign.
In the library,
we found "Tall Town Tales by a Country Editor",
written by R. E. Bailey. After spending a half-hour reading
Grandfather Bailey, it reinforced what we had heard about apples
not falling far from the tree.
In this volume
that deserves reprinting, we learn about the ordinary and extraordinary
events of Luling in the 1940s and earlier.
There's the story of the possum that broke into a taxidermy shop
and was made a permanent exhibit. Another was the farmer who brought
a wagon load of melons to market only to be turned away because
they weren't "shippers" (melons good enough to leave Luling). Determined
to sell them for whatever price he could get, he set up alongside
the RR Tracks. His luck changed when an unscheduled train appeared
carrying troops just back from Europe, recently paid and famished
for the taste of watermelon. He sold out in five minutes with most
soldiers telling him to keep the change from a dollar.
Editor Bailey
also addressed the problems of using the Editorial "We" when he
wrote about his cat Stinky and how stepping on the cat caused a
fall. "One of our right ribs was cracked, and it popped like a Chinese
firecracker shot out of season".
© John Troesser
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