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Cinnabar Mine

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A century ago cinnabar mining was common across the Big Bend region in Texas. Thousands of people were engaged in back breaking manual labor, digging, transporting and refining red cinnabar ore into mercury. Every part of the process is dangerous; some such as handling the mercury are deadly. Even so, honest work is a rare commodity in the wild Texas/Mexico borderlands.

Today these abandoned mines are nearly as deadly as they were when in production. They are largely ignored and unmonitored. Little grows on the contaminated land. The wind blows mineral laden dust into the homes of everyone living within miles of the mines.

A short distance from this site is the historic cemetery in Terlingua. There you get a sense of the price paid by miners to feed their families. The graves, mostly hand made by relatives or friends shelter those laid to rest. They are evidence of traditions stretching back into the distant past.

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Jazz Night – 2

Jazz Night in Helotes Texas is an unlikely event for a small Texas town more accustomed to country Honky Tonks. Still it draws a very large crowd every year. There were two groups who played for a solid four hours. They ended the night by jamming together for more than an hour. It was some of the best live jazz I’ve ever experienced. Hopefully this photo montage captures a feeling of the performance at the small town festival.

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Old School

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The Big Bend region of Texas is one of the grand American landscapes. There are only a few ways into the Bend and one runs through the town of Marathon. It has about four hundred residents, some essential services and a rather unique hotel. For travelers it’s a good place to stop for gas and coffee. In fact it is the last place to stop for anything for more than a hundred miles when heading into Big Bend National Park.

Old School

Marathon is where I met Billy Faier, sitting on the patio of my usual coffee shop playing the banjo. He was a veteran folk singer, friend of Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, traveling companion of Woodie Guthrie, contemporary of Pete Seeger and practitioner of progressive politics. He was old school in ways that are hard to imagine in the twenty-first century. Now at eighty five years old, transplanted to this faraway spot.

It was clear he was someone special from the moment I heard his music. You don’t find many musicians in those parts playing folk tunes from the forties and fifties. Given where he was in remote West Texas it was like he had beamed in from another place and time.

We talked and I listened for about half an hour as he played and told stories. He fiddled with the banjo constantly as he spoke of his experiences. He had the wry sense of humor of a literate man well met. I bought a couple of CDs and told him I’d see him next time I was out that way. Sadly he died before I got back to Marathon. It was a privilege to meet Billy Faier.

More About Billy Faier

Billy archived some of his writing and music on the website http://billyfaier.com in his later years. It is an interesting view into a nearly forgotten world of itinerant musicians and progressive politics.