Column By Mike Bibb
Since retiring from United Parcel Service (UPS) about 20 years ago, my wife, Eilene, and I have been constructing and donating religious icons and crosses to various churches, senior citizen homes, and medical facilities.
We’ve fabricated and installed dozens of them in Arizona, New Mexico, Mexico, and now in a small town in Texas.
Alpine is about 450 miles from Safford.
The community is located in southwestern Texas, in the Big Bend area, at an elevation of approximately 4,600 feet. Primarily based upon a ranching economy, supplemented with a four-year university, the usual array of commercial stores — no Walmart — and of course, a multitude of churches.
Amazingly, there is even an Amtrak Station, a transportation convenience one doesn’t normally expect when exploring the outback of anywhere.
Texas is universally recognized as a state with wide-open spaces and a strong emphasis on oil, football, colleges, and churches. Seems nearly every town has at least three of the four.
Although there are no oil wells in the surrounding vicinity, there is Sul Ross State University nearby. Alpine’s contribution to the college category is a small, four-year school, slightly larger than Eastern Arizona College.
Eilene and I journeyed to Alpine to donate and install a couple of wall niches to Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church, an older facility built of native stone in the early 1940s.
The church and related buildings are adequately staffed and well-maintained. At least, it appeared to us.
As the above picture indicates, Alpine is surrounded by mountains of a size and appearance similar to those of the Gila, located north of Safford. Only, they were green-colored since there has been an abundance of rain in the area this summer, and the range grasses are at least a foot high.
Actually, it’s not uncommon to see deer grazing in town. We saw two of them nibbling on the church’s lawns. Also, when leaving Alpine, we encountered a small herd of Javelina, a few more deer, and even three or four wild turkeys, all roaming close to the road.
Overall, it was a pleasant trip — saw beautiful scenery, learned a few things, and met some very nice people.
Can’t get any better than that.
