New city visit: FARMERSVILLE

Oh, how we love to visit a small city we haven’t been to, and Farmersville was no exception. Did you know it was known as the Onion Capital and sold onion cough syrup, cold cream and lotion, among other oniony things. (Hmm..not sure we’d want to lather ourselves with onion scented lotion, but to each his own). We started with the Farmersville Heritage Museum and learned quite a bit, in large part due to the friendly curator, John. He was more than happy to walk through the museum and comment on what we saw. Audie Murphy, war hero and actor, though not actually born in the town, is claimed by them and they have nearly half the museum dedicated to his wartime honors and then his movies. We had no idea he made so many movies, even one named after both our home town and new state, “Texas, Brooklyn, Heaven.”

The rest of the museum mentioned some other men and women of a bit of fame but the thing we thought was funny was when John talked about their old-fashioned telephone booth. He told us that when he shows it to children and tells them that the first thing you do when you want to make a call is to see if there’s a dial tone, they look at him with blank stares. We had seen some kids in the past who didn’t know how to work a rotary phone, but it never dawned on us that the youth today haven’t even heard of the concept of a dial tone!

On we went to the 12 Stories Coffeehouse for a wonderful cup of espresso and a combination croissant/cinnamon bun. Their motto is: “We pride ourselves in embodying the stories of 12 people and organizations that exemplify the characteristics we value.” Their 12 characteristics are excellence, innovation, invitation, education, journey, humility, unity, service, discipleship, honor, passion and equality.

Last but not least, we visited a couple of antique stores where we gave in to our impulses. Laura likes to buy something that makes her smile or laugh when she looks at it so this little monkey hit the key and Barbara loves to wear vintage hats so this hat from the 30s suited her just fine.