Turn South at the Second Bridge
Ratings2
Average rating4.5
15
Ratings2
Average rating4.5
Leon Hale reacquaints us with the unforgettable breed of individualists who once populated the backroads of Texas. Here we meet extraordinary "ordinary" people of humor, wisdom, and courage - all brought to life with the warmth and affection that characterize Hale's work. He takes us with him into a world of surprises - from barroom alligators, to runaway cars, to home grown philosophers - as he roams the countryside from Aransas to the Big Thicket in search of a memorable story. With Turn South at the Second Bridge, Leon Hale has insured that the language and spirit of this vanished portion of his state's social and oral history will not be forgotten.
Reviews with the most likes.
I loved this book. A lot. I grew up in a small town a lot like the ones the author describes in these pages, and I feel the deep nostalgia for the characters he introduces us to. They’re real.
This book was written in 1965, and some of the vocabulary hasn’t aged well. I read the second edition from 1980, and the author admits as much in a new introduction. I ordered the third edition while reading this to see if there was another introduction to go further down that path, but it was the same 1980 intro. I suspect he had changed even more by 2020 when he passed. He left a lot of pages behind for me to explore that. Even in 1965, the author seemed to tiptoe around some things I had expected to cringe at, both acknowledging them while not contributing to them.
He does well to paint a picture of the friends he made on his travels. He was after their stories, and he got them. Some harder to coax out than others. I recommend this book for anyone wanting a portrait of the time. I’ve already made a list of locations I want to visit to see what might remain almost 60 years later.
I love Leon Hale. I do. I really do. He knows people. In fact, he knows my people. That's who he interviews. People I wish I had met in my life. These are real people, too. Not namby-pamby folks, but people who have definite ideas about the world and people who live. Not stick figures, but real blood-and-guts people. This is a whole book of his interviews with such people.
