Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Speaking German in Texas

Ok. The only thing I can remember of consequence back in the area of the 60's were that the dimocraps sent Shriver down to tell the Texas Rangers to lay off the rioting Mexican farm laborers.

I live in Boerne, another German settlement from 1849. Yes, the Hill Country is full of 'em.

I was born and raised in New Braunfels and my grandfather has a ranch there and I could ABSOLUTELY see him doing something like this! This is classic!

It's actually Gruene, pronounced "Green", if anybody wants to google it. I used to bartend at Gruene Hall and it's an awesome little historical district with good restaurants and awesome little shops! Anybody visiting the hill country should hit up Gruene!

WoW!!! I see several members are either near or from my neck of the woods.

Sadly, I don't hear German spoken much anymore in the NB area while out and about like I did 20 years ago.

Is there anything at Mountain Home besides the Post Office? That's all I see from the 4way stop.

Guess I should clarify and say I've been in the vicinity of Mountain Home on the way to the YO.

And here I thought it was Mezzikans.

huntsonora- yeah I know it is "Green", and saw I fat fingered too. Lucky man -can't imagine a cooler place to bartend than that hall! Wouldn't you have like to have met that man- Gruene I mean? Talk about having your own little corner of heaaven.

Tony- I like Boerne too (bernie!), cool place to loiter a while. Say hi to my relatives if you run into them.

POBOY, There is a Volunteer fire department about 1/2 mile east of the Mountain Home Post Office on Hwy. 27. That's pretty much IT. You were about 4 miles from my house when you saw the post office.

I just read a book about cowboys and outlaws and such. "A Days Ride From Here". The author lives near Mt. Home. It was printed in 2111. I go thru there on the way to Leakey.

A rodeo-clown friend of mine taught me how to speak Spanish � 'sta frijole, caballo? (How you bean, Hoss?)

Once was aquainted with an old guy who grew up in Texas, and he would tell about going down to "the German colonies" for dances. Sounded weird to us then, but not as wild as his stories of Texas style "adobe wall" justice!

Got any good Jerry Jeff Walker, Robert earl Keen, Bruce or Charlie Robison, etc. stories for us?

Shiner Bock comes from the good German folks at the K. Spoetzel Brewery in Shiner, too.

Used to be able to drive down to Shiner at buy it off the dock. Any beer brewery and distributer actually. But this was about 1974, before it was well-known. I think part of that George Strait movie "Pure Country" was filmed at Gruene Hall.

My grandmother was a German from new Baden,Texas. Her great grandparents were the ones that emigrated but German was her first language and she had a very heavy accent. When ever she would get excited she would always lapse back into German and none of us could tell what she was talking about other than a word here or there

I do have a few good stories, some of em I can even tell here on the fire

Had a guy come in one night and sit down with his parents and ordered a couple beers. I knew who he was and knew he was playing that night as I had a tape he had put out in college and he was a fraternity brother of a good friend of mine up at SMU. I told him and his parents how much I appreciated his music and that I actually had a tape he had sold and they looked stunned that I recognized him. I guess it didn't happen much back then. Anyway, we exchanged numbers and I was going to take him and his band floating the river if they were ever down when it was running good. We chatted a couple time over a 2 year stretch and I can tell you as a point of fact that Jack Ingram is a GOOD DUDE!

Another time I had a guy come over and ask if I could deliver a fried catfish dinner to the bus parked on the side of the dance hall. We weren't busy so I said no problem. I went to the Grist Mill and picked it up and took it to the bus and knocked on the door. Merle Haggard answered the door and invited me in. I set him up with all the goods and left but he was real cool and appreciative. Seemed like a nice guy and he put on a hell of a show.

Jerry Jeff Walker always put on a great show but they were better when he used to drink

I lost a wallet with $800 in it before a shift one night and didn't realize it. I got to my truck about 2am and there was a note that said look underneath your tire. I looked under all 4 tires and found nothing and 30 min later I realized that my wallet was missing. Next morning I called every shop in Gruene and a lady at Buck Pottery finally told me that she had eaten breakfast with the bass player for the Jack Ingram band and he found my wallet and put it underneath the spare tire in my truck bed. Sure enough, there it was! Guys name was Mitch Marine and last I checked he was playing bass for Dwight Yoakum. Every Jack Ingram concert after that I'd send up a round of beers for the band and Mitch referred to me as the "wallet guy".

Hal Ketchem is from NB and used to work at Gruene Hall. There is a basketball goal there that has a sign on it that reads "Hal Ketchum put this up" or something to that effect and one night a few coworkers didn't believe me that I had won a huge slam dunk contest in TX back in high school and they bet an absurd amount off money that I couldn't dunk on that goal. Well, I'm not one to turn down a bet, especially when I know I'm good so I grabbed a ball and did a reverse dunk and in the process tore the entire damn thing down. I had to fix it the next day and I'm not sure if its still there or not but it probably is

I had a JC college teacher who said that the Germans were "recruited" into Texas to boost the population of the new "Republic". Does that float around down there? He also said the issue of sour cream in chile/mexican food came from the Germans not being able to handle the heat. Can't remember the guys name beides "Frank" but came from a working cattle ranch in Tx.

Back in the republic days Texas had a lot of land but no cash so they had agents going throughout Europe selling land for colonies. Most who came over were German but there were also french, Czech and polish colonies.

You will also find lots of Texans with German names that don't speak German. I know in my family my Great Grandfather was the first born in the US. He was fluent in German and English as he needed both languages. My Grandmother his daughter was born in 1927, when she asked to learn German he adamantly refused telling her they were Americans...