Middle of the week greetings, I hope the day finds you doing quite nicely indeed,
Cloud cover and cool this morning, it is quite pleasant. I’m waiting on the call that the new coils have been found for the inside air conditioning unit.
Yesterday afternoon with the air out, I felt why the early settlers to Texas built “dog-run” log cabins. The dog-run cabin is really two log cabins separated by a covered breezeway. The breezeway provides a shaded area for the cooling breezes to circulate between the cabins. The name derives from the fact that the dogs loved to sleep there. In the summer, I bet a few family members found it more comfortable out there than in the bedroom, which had a door to the dog run, as all the rooms did, but tended not to have windows, so no cross breeze in bed. For one and all, the coolest and most comfortable location was the dog run. Move over, Fido.
In the mid-1800’s, dog-run cabins could be found throughout Texas. In fact, the dog-run design was used on the frontier through the US and into Canada. I still see a few around, most hauled in from the country, prettied up, and stocked with bows, bangles and trinkets to attract customers to the weekend fairs and festivals that are prevalent in Texas for much of the year. Salado is my favorite Texas cowboy town to walk the shops, talk to the folks, and have a cold soda in a tastefully decorated dog-run. If only those settlers could see us now. I bet they’d sit right down, marvel at our pops and have a nice long talk.
Things change, but in some ways not much at all.
Come visit. We’ll save a place for you.
Grandpa Jim
PS: Don’t forget Mary and the Young Gals are visiting Friday. I wonder what they will be doing?
PPS: The coils are in! I can feel the dog-run breezes already.
gpajim@unclejoestories.com
