The building said “Invisible”.  Just that, nothing else.

It wasn’t really, of course.  I could see it perfectly fine.  Red brick, medium-sized, just off the square in Wellington, Texas.  What is now a window and a mysterious sign look they were once a door.  The brick patchwork is pretty sketchy, but it’s the sign you really see.   Since it’s a non-opening, greenish colored glass I would guess the addition was made in the sixties.

The broken glass looks like a new addition, since the curtains are not yet dirty, and the glass is still lying about.  The hole in the pane is large enough to admit a person bent on using it as a flophouse or a few teenagers wanting to drink some beer indoors rather than out.

But why is it “invisible”.  What could that possibly have meant?

I love old buildings.  I love the ratty, falling-down ones like “invisible” and “used cars”, both of which were in Wellington (there are some nice buildings there too, by the way, just none that caught my eye).  Sitting not far from the Wellington Depot building, “Used Cars” is only a block or so off the square where some of the streets are still not paved.  I find that fascinating.  Why did these streets go unpaved?  There are houses on them, and they are much closer to the center of town than other, newer homes.  One or two of the houses or outbuildings look very old.  How did they weather all the booms and busts of little Panhandle towns without there having once been a “boom” big enough to pave their street?

The town of Shamrock had two inhabited buildings that I found fascinating.  One is the oldConoco  station which now houses the Chamber of Commerce offices.  It has a fascinating story which you can read here.  I’ve never seen anything quite like it.  It’s certainly a shining beacon of interest in a very small town.

The other building I loved is a residence that is for sale.  You can’t help but see it as you enter town driving northward.

Covered with ivy and surrounded by huge shrubs and very green grass, this is a house with a past.  It’s very large – according to the realty site on which it is listed it’s nearly 4,000 square feet.  I saw this house as I drove through Shamrock on my way to Canadian on Sunday night and promised that I would take a picture when I performed there on Thursday.  

I don’t know what it is about this house that so sings to me. It’s romantic and green and speaks of another era.  Pictures of the inside can be seen on the realty company site Shannon’s 66 Realty, but I found those disappointing.  It’s neither wonderfully new nor wonderfully old inside, just plain.  Also it’s expensive at $215,000 which is a lot of money for an old house 12 feet from Hwy 83 that needs a lot of work.

Still it looks like a house with a soul, if you believe such things.  My good friend Shelly Kneupper who runs the ghost tour in Denton, Texas would surely tell you that houses have souls – that’s where the ghosts live.