El Rancho

The last in this series from this most recent time in the valley.

The Solis Ranch has been around for as long as I can remember. Somewhere in La Feria, TX and it sits right next to a field that rotates out crops. Sometimes it's corn. Sometimes it's cotton. Right down the short stretch of road that the ranch sits on is the Solis family cemetery which is where quite a few relatives on my Dad's side are buried. Aunts, an uncle. A great uncle. This is the place where, when they buried my tío, who I like to think of as "The Last Great Cowboy," they walked his horse behind his casket as he was carried to his final resting place.

When I was a kid, The Last Great Cowboy once showed up to a family reunion in the middle of a hot Texas summer dressed in his finest western attire: pressed pants, a button down shirt, cowboy boots and an impressive cowboy hat. Head to toe, all of it black.

The house itself stands mostly empty now. My tía was the last to live there and she's gone now too. But the road is still there. So is the field for crops and the Solis family cemetery nearby.

And, it turns out, maybe a little of me as well. 2024.