These two gents

Tuesday afternoon.

Thursday afternoon.

These two gents have been working on the façade of The Heckler Building on Earl Garrett between Water and Main Streets, across from Schreiner Goods. I’m sitting on a metal bench toward the east end of the store.

I’m not going to research anything about Heckler. It’s pointless. Because anything I learned about it or said would have been already learned, digested, and written about extensively with original sepia photographs by Joe Herring Jr. here. He probably knows the history of the typeface of the name and why the border around it looks like a loaf of bread in elevation view.

But back to these two guys.

I watched them on Tuesday as I had coffee with a friend on this bench. The coffee was from PAX across the street. My friend’s treat. We chatted about important things: guy things, spiritual things, and drones (the personal kind). All important.

One of the gents is now cleaning the masonry dust off the street with a large shop vac, which has a hose no smaller than some of the exhaust pipes on the Super Duty pick-up trucks around here, the kind that pull up next to me on Sidney Baker and spew diesel exhaust into “Gracie,” my 20-year-old, shuddering and gasping Ford Contour.

“Please, sir, can’t you see my car can’t breathe?” I whisper to the man tapping his hand on the steering wheel while Kenny Chesney sings “You and Tequila.” Yesterday, I was with one of my sons near the “small” HEB, and a Super Duty pulled up with spikes on its hub caps.

Spikes.

Did he think Gracie was a threat?

Gracie couldn’t hurt a flea.

Gracie can barely make it up the hill on Washington Street.

“Please, sir, do not Mad-Max or Gladiator us into the breakdown lane,” was my immediate thought.

So, you see? It’s pointless for me to write about the history of Heckler, because it’s been done better than I could ever do it. I enjoyed my PAX coffee the other day, so that too is done. And my talk–with my friend about guy stuff and drones (the personal kind)–is between us guys, so that’s off the docket.

All I can do is to sit here and admire the hard work of these two guys–no, I’ve not forgotten about them pining about Gracie’s rapid demise–getting the Heckler building looking renewed and ready for business.

Oh…and there was this tag on the end of this metal bench that my friend and I found on Tuesday. The QR code on back leads you to an art event highlighting Schreiner U seniors and held at the Kerr Arts & Cultural Center (about 50 yards to the left of this bench).