Hiram Butts, a big time developer and construction man back in the fifties, had a dream of building the perfect retirement village. He had the time, the money, and the staff to do it . . . and Hiram's Cove became a reality. Lots of folks just call it Crab Apple Cove because Butts loved those trees and planted lots of them. He planted apple trees of all kinds, in fact, but the Crab Apple Trees are a signature thing at Hiram's Cover. It's very near a nice lake in the brush country of Texas, and it's imaginary. Author Philip Martin Cawlfield created it for a book he's been working on for years. It's been around a while, used to have a site of its one some years back.
Phil created the place as a home for some highly unusal characters, like Chuckie Phat Nguyen. He's a cowboy, a rancher, and the owner of Chuckie Phat's Rodehouse, a hangout for lots of older folks looking for some fun and entertainment. But the most dynamic resident of Hiram's Cove is Percy B. Hand - a self made writer. You'll find his blog there at Hiram's Cove (on Weebly), but don't expect anything in the way of mainstream writing from Percy. He's a retired mechanic, a big time animal lover, and a social critic. He dropped out of school after the sixth grade and went to work to help suport a poor and struggling family, but hard work and some luck allowed him to live a comfortable lower middle class lifestyle. He quit working on cars when Detroit started putting computers in them, and he flunked retraining at the local Ford garage where he worked. He divorced is wife after thirty years of marriage, due mostly to her habit of liking to point her feet toward the ceiling, if you get my drift. He caught her in the act with some old boy he couldn't stand, so he pinged the guy on the noggin with a small aluminum baseball bat. He must've liked the sound because that wasn't the last time he used the bat. In fact, he almost got famous for pinking people who needed it. He singled handedly broke up a local dog fighting group with that bat . . . and went to jail for it.
Percy got sympathetic with a cause that also got him thrown in jail several times. He had a daughter living in Austin, and he fell in with some homeless people there. He even tried teaching them a better way of getting people to give them change. Instead of begging for money, he found a good spot along the highway and built a small mound of broken bricks. Then he put up a sign that read, "A buck keeps me from throwing a brick through your windshield." That's when the cops came and hauled him off to jail for a week. Anyway, Percy wore out his welcome in Austin, and in the small town he'd lived in all his life, and moved down to Hiram's Cove. And he hasn't used his bat once since he moved there, although he's threatened to a time or two.
Percy got tired of being undereducated and went to a local juco and signed up for some adult eduction classes. He did well, and they even allowed him to take some regular classes. He learned some English, how to use a computer, and that's when he decided to be a writer. His first writing attempts weren't likely to draw much interest. He wrote some how to essays - like how to make a slingshot out of rubbers, or how to cook roadkill, or how to fix a loose muffler with bailing wire. Then he got interested in writing about things like animal care. He even wrote a piece on how not to castrate a tomcat, and it got lots of reads (and complaints) on the internet. Anyway, Percy is different. Look him up at Weebly under Hiram's Cove. He's just started writing a few blogs again, and he's a hoot!
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