Category: Thanks - Leon Atkinson

Atkinson, Maine

My grandfather, Kenneth Kinsman Atkinson, was born in Fryeburg, Maine. His family moved to California before he was 10, but I had long dreamed of going there. I own a pair of oil painting by B. T. Newman. One is of Sebago Lake, the other of Jockey Cap. Newman was a well-known artist from Fryeburg. Sebago Lake is nearby, and Jockey Cap is right in town. I remember my grandfather telling stories about rolling Easter eggs down it’s steep side. The two paintings hung in my grandparents’ house for many years. They were gifts to my grandfather from his sister Leona.

In July 2025, my own family vacationed in Maine. We started in Portland, which is was a very long trip that included two changes of planes. A couple of days after, we drove to Fryeburg and climbed up Jockey Cap ourselves.

Leon and his sons standing on the top of Jockey Cap

The feature itself isn’t any taller than the hills that rise up behind my home in Martinez, though the general area of Southwestern Maine is mountainous. It was an easy walk up to the top, which remains a bald cap of granite. Trees have filled in around it over the past hundred years as compared to the painting.

Jockey Cap from the parking lot of the nearby school

I don’t know where my grandfather’s family lived other than it being North Fryeburg rather than in Fryeburg itself, which is where my great grandfather, Leonard Woods Atkinson, practiced medicine. We drove up to North Fryeburg just to look around. There wasn’t much.

From Fryeburg, it was easy to venture into New Hampshire, and we drove up Mount Washington, which was was a very steep climb into frigid temperatures.

Partway up Mount Washington, New Hampshire

Then we moved on to Atkinson, Maine. This is the township from where my father told me our lineage of Atkinsons originated in the Americas. We stayed in a cabin surrounded by farms. It had a very well stocked collection of liquor with a written rule that you must add as many bottles as you take, on the honor system, of course.

It was a peaceful spot, and I couldn’t help but think of my ancestors from hundreds of years before clearing out the wilderness.

One of the days we were there, we drove over to Bingham to do a trip with North Country Rivers, doing a rafting run down the Kennebec. We hadn’t been on a rafting trip for several years. The weather was just right. The guides were like characters out of Meatballs.

After leaving Atkinson, we went farther north, all the way to Machias. Along the way, we stopped at the Big Chicken Barn, which sells used books and antiques. I have been a serious hunter for used fantasy paperbacks, and this place didn’t really hold up to the better places I’ve been to in California, Nevada and Utah. There were lots of odd antiques to amuse us, though.

Since we were so far north, we make a trip over the border into Canada one day, over the bridge at Lubec onto Campobello Island. FDR had a summer home there. All around the Lubec area were beautiful views of the water.

We wrapped up our trip in Bar Harbor, staying in another vacation cabin outside of town. We rented bikes one day and rode around a lake. Another day we did a pelagic tour to see puffins.

I was thankful that my wife, Vicky, planned this trip for all four of us. With the boys growing up and being more busy, it was nice to be all together for an extended time, having adventures. And I really appreciated visiting my ancestral home.

Thankful for Texas

In May 2025, I visited Texas for the first time. It was one of the best vacations I’ve had, and one day in particular was truly amazing. My wife did all the planning, and part of the plan was her going down a week before me to do some birding around Galveston. She worked out an itinerary that had us bouncing around different spots so that we could see all the attractions I was interested in. We stayed in San Antonio, Abilene, Austin and Houston.

I flew into Houston from Sacramento. My flight left around 6am, which meant I got in an Uber around 3:30am. The guy showed up in Tesla with no battery charge. Was it OK if we spent time charging up? I didn’t think I had much choice, figuring another Uber at this time of day might not be available. Anyway, we sat in the grocery store parking lot for half an hour so he could get enough charge to make it to Sacramento. That gave us enough time to chat about how he had an electronics engineering degree, got laid off and had been driving for about a year. He was bent out of shape because the Tesla was leased and the the owner caught him hooking up a small gas engine to charge the battery. Converting a Tesla to a hybrid is an amusing concept. Despite the delay, I got to the airport with more than enough time.

A lot of what I knew about Texas, I learned from songs of the legendary artists such as Ray Price, Willie Nelson, and Lyle Lovett who sings, “That’s right, you’re not from Texas, but Texas wants you anyway”. My favorite, above all the rest, is Dale Watson. In What I Like About Texas, he says, “We salute the red, white and blue. The other flag, y’all fly, too.” I like the idea of being more loyal to smaller community units, as I have long maintained that Martinez is the center of the universe. Consider the long chain of loyalty from Universe to Earth to United States to California to Contra Costa County to Martinez to Gilger Avenue to my family home.

Other songs mention specific locations, and one in particular has rattled around in my brain since I first heard it in 1996, then escaping via a spontaneous singing it aloud. This is when I discovered Dale and saw him at the Starry Plough in Berkeley. The song is Truck Stop in La Grange.

They got a damn good cup of coffee
And a mighty, mighty fine kolache.
And the girl behind the counter, partner,
She’s a real fine thing.
Well, I bought me a tape of Ray Price gold,
And they shuffled me along my way.
Thank God for that little bitty truck stop in La Grange.

As near as I can figure, this song is about Texas One Stop, which is the truck stop in La Grange. They do have coffee and kolaches, which are a Czech pastry. They also serve great BBQ. Vicky and I had to stop here on the drive from Houston to San Antonio because to paraphrase Hank Jr., I have to live out the songs that [they] wrote.

BBQ Chicken lunch from Texas One Stop, plus blueberry kolache on the side.

In San Antonio, we visited several of the Spanish missions, which reminded me of those in California. And we checked out the river walk. Mariachi bands were playing on boats. The next day, we drove to Abilene by way of Fredricksburg, which is significant in my mind for being the home of Adam Curry, podfather, MTV VJ, and host of No Agenda. We had lunch at Altdorf Biergartden. The Pioneer Museum nearby was great.

Saturday, May 3rd, was just an amazing day for me. We started by driving to Cross Plains, home of Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane, and many other memorable characters. The REH Museum occupies Howard’s home. It’s fully restored, including his original writing desk and much of his personal book collection. Arlene, president of Project Pride, opened up the museum for just us and gave us a personal tour. I had a feeling of awe being in the same space where REH wrote all those amazing stories, and I couldn’t help but compare it to the John Muir National Historic Site here in Martinez, except that REH fans are doing all this on their own.

I just learned that the house requires foundation work, and there’s a fundraiser to cover the costs. Their about a third of the way towards the goal.

After a fine BBQ lunch in Cross Plains, we drove down to Austin. Dale Watson was playing at the Broken Spoke, a legendary honkytonk. I had not seen Dale since 1996, though I listen to his music often. Up front is the saloon. Out back is the dance hall, which you pay to enter. While we ate another great BBQ dinner, we listened to a pair of pickers play some familiar tunes. They work for tips.

Before Dale came on, we watched Terri White give dance lessons to a crowd of students, which was hilarious. There was time to snap a picture of the stage beforehand.

Dale came on and played bunch of dance numbers suitable for two-step, one after the other, for several hours. He only paused for a few impromptu promotions of Lone Star Beer, about which he made several claims about mental and physical health. I have no reason to doubt him. Around midnight, the band took a short break. I concluded they were going to play all night. Dale is a true troubadour.

So, that was a truly amazing day. We spent a few more days in Austin. We saw the Congress Avenue Bats come out at dusk while kayaking on Lady Bird Lake. We went to the Texas Music Museum, where we once again were given a personal tour of every room that includes music played on various vintage turntables. We had lunch at Terry Black’s. On our way back up to Houston, we stopped at a Buc-ee’s.

While in the Houston area, we visited San Jacinto Museum and Battlefield, where Texas won its independence. We rode the elevator all the way to the top of the monument, which is about 15 taller than the Washington Monument in D.C. The view from the top was great. We also got in a lot of hikes in nature, and Vicky saw more birds.

I’m not thinking of moving to Texas. I like living in Martinez, but the hill country of Texas was a nice place to visit, and I’ll probably go back there again.