1) One of the favorite pastimes of my school chums and myself was to sneak up and see if we could actually find something the ornery old cuss of a billygoat (who was tied to the front of the saloon every day) actually would NOT eat. I am ashamed to say… we never succeeded. That old boy ate every last thing we ever fed him… tin can included.

2) My brother and I once found two kittens out front of the school late one afternoon. My mom agreed to let us keep the male (best cat ever… R.I.P. Felicity Feline) and we gave the female kitten to our friend (and piano teacher) there in town. The young female ran off soon after and we all had given her up as lost after much searching… that is… until we went in for a Star Burger one early evening only to see none other than that (rather uniquely marked) little tabby cat come strolling past the bar… extremely pregnant… and missing all but the bottom 3 inches of her tail (the rest was lost in an unfortunate run-in with the heavy door of the Star’s walk-in cooler… the folks there at the Star got her the best medical care the wonderful town vet could offer tho… conveniently located right next door). The owner was more than happy to return the (newly renamed) Mrs. Stubbs to us once we told our part of the story. I rather suspect the folks there were a bit relieved to not have to find homes for the six kittens she soon thereafter gave birth to. Mrs. Stubbs and 4 of her kittens (we kept two) soon moved in with Father Virgil and all the other monks out at the monastery, and I rather like to think that her many descendants still patrol the barns out there for mice to this very day.

I particularly thank you for the photo of the mounted Saint Bernard head as no one outside of Huntsville has EVER believed me when I shared our family story of the glass eye falling out and landing in my father’s plate one evening. Up until that moment my mom had always assumed that it was a smallish bear’s head that hung above our favorite table (it was exceptionally dim and gloomy in the Star back then… don’t know about now). The looks on my parents’ faces were rather priceless when the truth finally dawned on them after looking up to peer more closely at the source of the offending eye. The story back then, as best I recall, was that the old fella had been the beloved and faithful companion of the saloon’s then current owner and that when he shuffled off to doggy heaven the proprietor couldn’t bear to not see his pup’s face looking after the saloon each day… so… up on the wall he went… may or may not be true… but there’s my two cents of local color.

I was just introduced to the Shooting Star yesterday, though.

Had I known it was there when I moved here, I’d have been a regular for almost 30 years now.