Opening sentences rarely tumble out easily. I might never find this one, caught as it is in a nostalgic tangle at the chute. We are back in Texas, a state that, while not my native state, is my heart’s home. Our end goal is a conference held in a resort north of Austin, renowned for its spectacular water park. The little grandkids traveling with us do not know about the waterpark yet, but I can already hear their pleas to forego the kiddie section and slide down water-structures designed for teens. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

En route we squeezed in two nights in Bowie, the dusty, quiet, colorful North-Central Texas town where we spent the most instructive decade of our lives on a little ranch, learning to raise goats and cows.

Driving down, we left the interstate in Texarkana and took the ranch-populated Highway 82, passing through Paris, Texas. Its international fame came from a somewhat depressing, award-winning film made in 1984. Around these parts today, Paris, Texas is better known for a small recreation of the Eiffel Tower, topped appropriately with a cowboy hat.

A climbable Eiffel Tower? What would better enchant a granddaughter who dreams about studying in Paris. Her room overflows with Paris paraphernalia (luckily all the rage these days), so you can imagine her glee to see a mini-version of this landmark of landmarks. Her joy was countered by her younger brother’s skepticism. He half listened to my meticulous explanation about this structure installed in 1995 to capitalize on the town’s namesake. Once he realized you could climb on it, he catapulted away to join his sister.

The Eiffel Tower in Paris, Texas belongs to a category of curiosities that, over time, become their own historical treasures. Plenty of people stop to photograph the tower, and to visit the striking War Memorial next to it. That memorial is laid out in a large circular design, replete with sturdy benches and handsome blocks embedded into the walkways bearing the names of locals who served in the military. Flanking the circle are tall, dark-grey marble tablets listing the names of those from Paris, Texas who died in America’s wars: World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Wars of the Middle East. The list of names seems extensive for this little Texas town. But where else has the defense of our nation come from if not such towns?

Eerily, five or six blank tablets complete the circle around the memorial site. These, I explained to the grandkids, are to hold the names of those dying in wars to come—wars that will define their future. This explanation gave them pause, which is what memorial sites are intended to do.

Reaching Montague County (pronounced ‘mon-taagh”), we took a shortcut down the long, gravel road past the ranch where we lived with our dogs, cats, goats, horses, and cows. The place is barely recognizable. Its new owners have installed the things we dreamed of: an additional barn, new fencing, metal canopies to protect the round-bales harvested off that good land, sheds for equipment, and a real Texas-style entry gate, replete with key-code. The glorious rickety windmill that passersby wanted to buy is gone. Maybe it collapsed in the last tornado? The 1930s barn others stopped to sketch is hanging by a thread. Sad, but it’s no wonder. The place we jokingly called the “Wounded-Leg Ranch” is now a profitable operation. The bottom-line value of restoring a classic barn lies far down their list.

Later, we walked around downtown Bowie, hearing the music of the BNSF trains which barrel through, day and night. Train traffic established Bowie in the late 1880s, instigating two main streets filled with taverns, old-style hotels, and places of useful commerce. The oilman-turned-art-collector-and-donor Amon Carter grew up in Bowie, earning pennies as a “Chicken and Bread” boy—lads who stood alongside the trains and held up sticks so that passengers not stopping in hotels or saloons could reach out the windows and pluck off pieces of chicken and biscuits.

We started Professor Carol in one of those saloons—a high ceilinged structure wherein Hank continued to practice law and I sat to do my academic work. The whole thing turned on a dime the day we decided to turn a large bookcase into a backdrop and actively respond to a volley of supplications to create new, serious courses in the arts at the secondary level.

The birth of Discovering Music, though, was hardly painless. I have a pretty good idea how to teach actual people. But point a camera at me and take away the people? Let’s just say that tears were shed as I struggled to ignore that camera and “talk to the filing cabinets.”

But I learned to do it. We filmed the 17 units of Discovering Music in the evenings and late at night. Filming during the day was impossible due to the racket of stock trailers and pickup trucks rolling down Bowie’s brick street. We learned to avoid Wednesday evenings, too, when folks got out of church and flowed homeward in those same pickups.

We also learned to discern the whiff of train horns coming out of Decatur and heading north our way. Off clicked the camera, as we waited for long freight trains to pass. I’ve often wondered whether students of the course hear the one or two occasions when a faint whistle might have been caught on film.

But all of that is in the past. We are North Carolina residents now, and merely visitors here, reliving memories. Tomorrow we will turn south towards Austin. The clatter of books and banners loading into a convention hall awaits us. So do the embracing arms of friends, students, and families from the Southwest who helped us grow across the past 13 years. Kids too young for Discovering Music when we started will likely come into the booth to tell me they are now graduated from college and thank me for our courses that helped make a difference in their study.

Meanwhile, this final evening brought a brief, fierce Texas storm that dropped the temperature 20 degrees within minutes. Ranchers grateful for the downpour rest easier tonight, knowing that the water in their tanks will hold out a bit longer for the cattle. There is never a break in ranch work or worry. Tornados, wildfires, rattlesnakes, and ice storms: this is not a land for weaklings. It’s a place where the adage “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” means something. I often wish I had been born here so that I could claim its heritage more justly.

But Texas gave me its gifts nonetheless, from sticker burrs and first-hand knowledge of skunk infestations to blindingly starry nights and endless horizons where dreams could take root and grow.