I took time off yesterday to spend a lazy afternoon on the square in the nearby town of Granbury. My sister-in-law had an enjoyable time at a wine bar there during her vacation in Texas last summer and she had sent us a gift card for the holidays.

Granbury is about an hour’s drive along a pleasant country road from us. It’s a touristy sort of place that has catered for years to daytrippers and weekenders at the cabins and B&B’s around the nearby lake. Tricia and I had a nice lunch and browsed a few antique shops and a western furniture store before heading to the wine store to use our card.

Trouble was, my sister-in-law had bought this card over the internet; this store was actually part of a small chain; and the personnel here had never seen one of these cards before. But the manager was really good and vowed to get it all straightened out if I did not mind waiting.

Which is how I came to spend an afternoon drinking in a bar with a couple of Ron Paul supporters while Tricia shopped for quilting fabric on the other side of the square. I used to live in Houston and the name Ron Paul is not at all new to me, because he has been running for Congress there for as long as I can remember. I thought I had an idea what his supporters were like. But these guys did not fit that pattern. They were young white guys dressed in black with piercings on the face; just back from New Hampshire where they had been campaign workers and had stories to tell. They were idealistic and enthusiastic and kept talking about change. Why weren’t they Obama supporters? Maybe they just liked being as far out on the fringe as they could be.

The card snafu eventually did get straightened out. The sidewalks roll up pretty early on Fridays in Granbury in the wintertime. By dark we were heading into the sunset on the way back home.