Parnell, Texas

Parnell, Texas—it’s a ghost town now—a collection of old concrete foundations, dilapidated lumber, some sheets of corrugated tin that once served as roofs, all barely visible above the tall weeds.

It was April of 2006, and my buddy Clark and I were taking a final mountain-bike ride down the lower portion of the Caprock Canyon Trailway. Due to funding cuts, Texas Parks and Wildlife would close this section of our favorite rails-to-trails path later in the year.

So I was understandably nostalgic about the ride, and Parnell, located near the end of this 30-mile stretch between Turkey and Estelline, accentuated those thoughts.

For Parnell was once quite a place. In 1929, when the Fort Worth Denver Railway laid tracks through here, the town boasted a population of 500 and had three stores, a hotel and café, two barber shops, two cotton gins, a lumberyard, a garage, a church and a brick schoolhouse.

As we rested beside the old Parnell Station sign, I thought about those people, whose works, in less than a century, had been reduced to weeds and rubble.

So this is the place in the blog where I’m supposed to talk about values—i.e. the importance of spending one’s life building things that last.

But that’s not what was on my mind that spring day. I was sad. Because I know what it’s like to invest in stuff that dissipates. The problem is you’re clueless at the time. Who knew the Parnell railway would one day go away? Who knew Lehman Brothers would do the same in 2008?

Even for the best informed, life is somewhat of a guess. I like to think those Parnell people knew that. They dreamed big, worked hard, accomplished a lot and moved on when the dream dried up.

Which is all any of us can do.