I found this house at the laundromat.

I stumbled upon a little black and white photograph last night, looking for pictures for a house-shaped book I'd made.

It was taken in 1969 or '70: me leaning over a stone ledge in the yard, my so very young husband below, his mama sitting on the ledge.  We two on the ledge are looking with interest at something he is showing us.  Behind us is the rock cabin, the house I found at the laundromat.

When we first moved to Helotes, we rented a concrete block house behind the Baptist Church.  The Bandera Highway was a two-lane road then.  A stone's throw from the church and our rent house was Flores Country Store where a young Willie Nelson sang on Saturday nights.  Next to that was the General Store where we bought groceries, "put it on my tab."

Since we didn't have a washer in the concrete house, I drove about a mile to the laundromat, always asking people if they knew of anything to rent.  

One day the manager, a woman named Charlotte, said, "My uncle has a little house he's wanting to rent, but it's very remote, a little hard to get to."  

It was a tiny stone house, the one in the picture, atop a hill.  To get there, you had to drive a long and extremely bumpy driveway, Beckmann Hill.  We could even hear Willie singing from our porch on Saturday nights.  

At the base of the hill was an open field we made into a motorcycle track.  My young husband got himself a 250 Bultaco, and for me, a 250 Montessa. 

So many memories are evoked in that photo.  We lived there for 11 years, first with just Tony, then Tony and baby Day.  Friends came out on weekends and we took long walks and cooked, tended babies and listened to loud Janis Joplin and Ray Charles and Otis Redding. By the time Mr. Beckmann sold the whole 65 acres, and we moved a mile down Scenic Loop, we had Baby Will.  

From the first day to the last, we paid $125 a month for that little patch of Texas Hill Country.