Brazos Burns

I didn't read John Graves' "Goodbye to a River" until a few decades after it was published. And I hadn't thought much about the Brazos beyond awareness of it being mentioned in B westerns now and again over those decades, but then I started working at Possum Kingdom Lake building boat docks and eventually did a lot of open canoeing there, and over long stretches of the Brazos. As I was wrapping up coursework for a college degree, I found a copy of Graves' book at the university book store, bought it, and got to know the Brazos.

News of Rochelle's Canoe and Kayak Rental burning in the Ross Fire this week saddenes me. It was where I launched my first float on the Brazos from the lake dam back downstream to Rochelle's. They lost everything built by five generations of their family on the fifty acres purchased for $10 an acrea almost a century ago. Now they have to start over from scratch.