After I published my three-part reminiscences of my time in the small Texas town of Henrietta, I decided to expand the story, if not into a full book, at least a longform memoir. Thus over the last year I have been widening the scope of the piece to include other reflections on Texas concerning such things as food and music and adding some family history. Many of these elements have appeared as individual columns herein over the years.

I am nearing the end of this odyssey and have been looking for a way to bring it to a close. So I decided that when I was visiting my siblings in Dallas this past Christmas I would take a day and return to Henrietta. My partner graciously agreed to accompany me since she had heard much about the town and was curious to see it for herself.

The Dallas-Ft. Worth (DFW) metroplex has grown considerably in the last 60 years so it took longer to escape the sprawl than when my family and I used to make the drive. Nevertheless, by the time we reached Decatur, about 66 miles northwest of Dallas, the housing developments and shopping centers had thinned out along with the traffic, and we cruised along US 287, passing the small towns whose names were so familiar: Alvord, Bowie (home of The World's Largest Bowie Knife), Belleview. Finally, mileage signs for Henrietta began to appear. Soon we arrived at the turnoff that led into town. I took a deep breath and turned right.

When I first decided to include a side trip to Henrietta in my travel plans, I was excited about the prospect of a return after 60 years to a place that had possessed my memory to the point of becoming nearly mythical. On the morning of the departure, I couldn't wait to get on the road. I was looking forward to the drive through the prairie, past the towns I mentioned above, hoping that at least some parts of it were still relatively unchanged. I delighted in the scenery, unspectacular as it was, when we cleared the DFW sprawl and hit open country. The open fields and wide expanse of land, the windmills and water tanks all brought back memories of this trip I made so often with my family. As ever, cows, horses, even the occasional sheep populated the grassland on either side of the highway.

Curiously, as we pulled off the highway, my anticipation was tinged with apprehension. What if the town turned out to be very different than what I remembered? What if my memory had led me to create a sort of golden aura about the place that the reality didn't measure up to?

Prior to coming, I at least didn't expect Henrietta to seem smaller than I remembered—the way one's childhood house often does when viewed again as an adult—since it appeared very small in my memory. Oddly, however, the distance from the town limit to the town square was much shorter than I recalled, a phenomenon repeated throughout the visit. On the other hand, the square and the surrounding streets matched my memories almost exactly, except for the fact that few businesses were occupied and there was virtually no foot traffic and only the occasional car. The movie theater was long gone, though the boot store and feed store remained, as did the Post Office. And the courthouse, despite being scaffolded and under repair was still magnificent with its red stone façade and cupola atop the roof. Small-town Texas courthouses are generally quite remarkable architectural feats, often at odds with the slow dwindling of their surroundings. We walked around all four sides, happy memories and the aesthetic pleasure of viewing the building, mixed with the sadness of the signs of abandonment. The town itself had lost little population since I left, so I imagine that somewhere on the road to Wichita Falls, the nearest city about 19 miles to the west, a Wal-Mart or similar big box store had drawn away downtown business.

Further exploration, however, proved to be much more uplifting. Just across the street from the courthouse stands the former Clay County jail, built in 1890, a structure I had no memory of whatsoever. It is now the county historical museum. Though it was closed that day, even walking around it was a fascinating experience. As with similar projects around the country, much of the fundraising was accomplished by rewarding a donation with an engraved brick or paving stone. It was very interesting, even moving, to see the various inscriptions, some simply peoples' or business names, others memorials or tributes to school classes. Two of the larger paving stones gave me a rush of nostalgia: One had been donated by Trinity Episcopal Church, our parish that my father had been called to lead. The other said simply "Boddy Ranch." In one of the previous installments I described visits to that very ranch because the son of the family was my contemporary and classmate. I wondered if my friend Brad was still alive, if he had taken over the ranch or if it passed into someone else's hands or broken into smaller parcels.

The next stop was even more affecting. I'll resume with that in Part 2 next month.