Puncher Dome

Well, Amber and I drove into Goldthwaite yesterday afternoon to get a loaf of bread. We ended up in San Saba walking through their beautiful park and enjoying the quiet excitement of the water features meandering through the immaculate  grounds . Then Amber remembered seeing a couple of metal jack-o-lanterns setting outside a crafts store in Llano about  a month ago as we were driving through town at thirty mph, so, we drove on to Llano and we are now the proud owners of two more jack-o-lanterns.  Then, in an effort to shut  Amber's shopping down before it became a full blown spree, I mentioned we were only thirty four miles from Mason and just so happens Goldthwaite was playing them in football that evening.

We arrived in Mason a little early and hungry so we stopped into The Willow Cafe on the Mason Square and had a delicious chicken fried steak. There was sure a lot of purple (the school color) all over the cafe. I guess, because Amber and I were the only folks in the establishment not wearing purple, several folks strolled by and said "Y'all must not be from around here, where are y'all from?"

I responded, " Brownwood!" and Amber blurted out, "Cleburne!" and they just patted us on the shoulder and said it was good to have us in their town.

The Mason football field is called The Puncher Dome. I was told it used to be an old race track, either horses or dogs, but my money would be on horses. It was a beautiful setting for a Friday night football game. We sat amongst  the Black and Gold faithful from Goldthwaite and fully enjoyed watching the Goldthwaite Eagles win the first two minutes of the game. After that it became painfully  obvious that on that night Mason was the better team, or at least the healthiest. It appeared nearly a third of Goldthwaite's team was on the sideline without pads on. However, it was nice setting with kinfolks and once again receiving  the charge of energy that high school football brings.

Somewhere around the first part of the third quarter Amber and I decided we might ought to head back home, after all we had told Beaux Bo we would be right back, that we were just going to get a loaf of bread. As we left, we wished everyone good luck and a safe trip home and they warned, "Look out for deer!" as we said farewell to the Puncher Dome.