It’s hard to believe, but there was a four-year period when Rick Smith wasn’t a journalist. It followed his stint as a reporter for the Austin American Statesman and preceded his time at the Sherman Democrat. It was before Annie and Kate were born and before he and June packed everyone up and moved back to San Angelo, when he became a columnist for the Standard-Times. It was 1981, and he and I were attending West Texas State University, working on Master’s degrees in English. At the time I thought of him as the old guy. I was twenty-two, fresh out of college, and Rick was all of twenty-seven.
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| Graduate Students, WTSU (1983) |
We struck up a conversation the first week of the semester, and I knew immediately that I had met a kindred spirit, someone who loved a good adventure. Before long, we were combing through the archives of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, pretending to do research when we were really just looking at historic photographs and reading about our favorite place to explore, Palo Duro Canyon. Around that time we often found ourselves sneaking away from campus to go hiking. Nobody played hooky better than Rick.
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| Palo Duro Canyon (1983) |
Palo Duro was a place we revisited many times over the years. In 2006 we explored the newly opened CCC Trail, which followed the path used by Civilian Conservation Corps workers in the 1930s. On a blistering day in August, we met 74-year-old Red Spicer, who was clearing rocks and stumps from the path. When we stopped to talk, Rick pulled out his reporter’s notebook, which he always carried in his back pocket, and conducted an impromptu interview. After taking a few photos of Red swinging a pickaxe, we continued our hike and Rick was already writing his next column.
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| Rick Interviewing Red Spicer (2006) |
Rick could get almost anyone to open up to him. He once struck up a conversation with legendary author Larry McMurtry outside his Archer City bookstore, Booked Up. Standing under an awning during a rainstorm, the two of them chatted about the unpredictability of Texas weather. Rick had a knack for pulling extraordinary details from ordinary people or, in this case, sharing a mundane moment with a remarkable person.
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| Cadillac Ranch (2008) |
If you were lucky enough to go on one of Rick’s great adventures, you were in for a treat. When he asked me to travel the Texas Forts Trail with him, I had to admit that I knew nothing about the Texas Heritage Trails Program. When I informed my wife Susan of my plans, she struggled to understand the appeal of driving 650 miles through the likes of Abilene, Jacksboro, and Brownwood. “If anybody can make the trip interesting,” I explained, “it’s Rick,” a point Susan was quick to concede.
As always Rick had a plan, which he spelled out before we started our journey, pointing to his official folding Forts Trail map. We would begin at Fort Concho, travel clockwise, and end at Fort McKavett, whose story is central to his and June’s family histories. St. James Episcopal Church, where Rick and June were married in 1977, is on the grounds of Fort McKavett, and Annie’s middle name, after all, is McKavett.
As we left San Angelo, Rick insisted that we stay on the designated
route, following every highway and farm-to-market road marked with a
green line, veering off only for food or fuel. Over two days we would
visit nine forts, spending one night on the road.
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| Fort Phantom Hill, Texas Forts Trail |
Rick had visited the forts many times and knew each one’s history inside out, the details of which he was eager to share. As always, the magic occurred when we least expected it. Pulling into Mineral Wells after dark, we paused in front of a downtown building, where we could see senior citizens gliding past the windows. Rick parked the car and immediately walked inside the senior center. Before long he was talking to the staff, a few of the dancers, and, during a break, the fiddler in the western swing band. After he scribbled several pages of notes, we left in search of Natty Flat Smokehouse, a barbecue joint he was eager to try out.
Heading out of Brownwood the next day, Rick detoured from our designated route. “It isn’t cheating,” he pointed out, “if you have a valid reason for doing it.” He wanted to show me the geographic center of the state, the proverbial “Heart of Texas,” as a historic marker northeast of Brady explained. If there was a little known or offbeat site, Rick was sure to know about it—from the statue of Old Yeller in Mason to the Menard Ditch Walk to Prada Marfa to the ghost town of Shafter, where the sci-fi film The Andromeda Strain was filmed.
My favorite adventures with Rick occurred when we were still in graduate school, before each of us left the Texas Panhandle for good. We spent months looking for a rock formation in Palo Duro Canyon called The Kneeling Camel. In those days, before GPS technology, we had only a USGS topographic map and a compass to guide us. We eventually found the Kneeling Camel, but even then I knew the most important part of the experience was the journey itself and sharing it with a good friend.
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| Kneeling Camel, Ceta Canyon (1983) |
On a particularly long and rough hike, we took a break in the shade of a juniper tree. Running low on water and having eaten the last of the trail mix, Rick taunted me by asking, “Wouldn’t it be great to have an orange right now?” Before I could reply, he reached into his canvas rucksack and produced two navel oranges. I have never eaten an orange that tasted so sweet, and I can’t imagine that I ever will.
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| San Angelo (2017) |
