Rainy Days and Starry Nights: Growing Up in the South Texas Brush Country

$14.95
(softcover)

112 pages, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches, 20 illustrations
ISBN 1-893271-30-7

Depression and the worst drought in Texas history did not make it easy for a large family on a small South Texas farm in the mid-twentieth century. Lawrence Zook tried cotton, corn, peanuts, even black-eyed peas on his 100 sandy acres 30 miles southeast of San Antonio near Floresville, now known as the Peanut Capital of Texas. His family survived, though he tended to be disagreeable when it didn’t rain—-which seemed to be most of the time.

Lois Zook Wauson, the oldest of Lawrence and Bertie Lee’s eight children, does not flinch from reporting the difficult aspects of this life, which casts into greater relief her telling of everyday pleasures and triumphs. “My parents instilled in us the importance not of money or material things,” she writes in a preface, “but of love, commitment and hard work. Because of that love, long after our parents are gone we are still very close.”

Brush Country natives will quickly relate to her moving descriptions of sweeping the family’s sunbaked, grassless lawn, of six-man football on Friday nights, of dance hall rituals on Saturday nights. Those who grew up elsewhere will enjoy being introduced to the lifestyle of a Texas region that is too often overlooked.

Maverick Publishing Company
P. O. Box 6355, San Antonio, Texas 78209
210-828-5777, FAX 210-828-7874
email info@maverickpub.com