MUSEUM HAPPENINGS

IN 1888, THE CITIZENS of Canadian lined Main Street to watch and bet on competitions between cowboys in roping and bronc riding for an event that later would be cited as the first rodeo in Hemphill County, and perhaps in Texas. On April 27, 1888, Freeman E. Miller, the editor of the Canadian Crescent newspaper, ran an editorial asking citizens to make plans for big doings on the Fourth of July weekend. While Miller gathered the crowds, the cowboys at the Laurel Leaf Ranch organized the competitors. Thus, the first rodeo was born. The festivities lasted for two days and ended with an all-night dance.

I think my next-door-neighbors might be superheroes.

HOT SPOT? That’s right. I live in a remote Texas county that last week was added to The New York Times list of CO- VID-19 “hot spots.” Tom Green County, Texas is one of those big (1,541 square miles) remote counties in Texas that the state of Rhode Island fits in quite comfortably. Tom Green has one city, San Angelo, which has between 90,000 and 100,000 residents. The rest of the population lives in eight unincorporated settlements, and on farms and ranches. You have to drive over 100 miles to get to Abilene. Odessa and Midland are 150 miles away. It is 183 miles to Lubbock.