Kyle City Limits
by BRENDA STEWART

When I landed in Kyle I was totally lost. It had been a long journey, figuring out where to move my family after we had outgrown our little wooden house in downtown Austin. We had to make a break for it and this tiny town on the railroad tracks offered a respected elementary school and a hundred-year-old beaut of a house a block off the square.

Kyle turned out to be a hard nut to crack, though. Even though I lived right downtown, I was in the barrio and my neighbors offered little relief from my isolation. So, I hung out with my kids, explored the back roads and then waited for my Hays Free Press to arrive. I read it cover to cover, week after week, resolving that I was going to open that door someday and put my hand on its heartbeat.

My first memory of Bob Barton was as I was pulling my tiny little girls in their Radio Flyer down a Center Street sidewalk about eight years ago, just past the rubble of the BonTon. He was set up at a crooked table in an empty storefront of what is now Bordeaux’s, talking politics to anyone who would listen (and, actually, to some who wouldn’t), trying to get folks registered to vote. I remember his voice, booming. I kept walking.

But I kept hearing that voice. At festivals and at city hall on election days. And every Sunday morning at Fonzies. My family would tease me about becoming so fascinated with that long table of locals huddled together conspiring, or laughing so hard they were choking on their coffee. Like a southern Baptist minister he was preaching to the choir. I began to recognize that crowd. Judges and councilmembers and commissioners. All seeming to pivot around the white-haired original boom box. And I knew then that that was the energy I wanted in my life.

And I was right. In retrospect, I should have just walked into the Hays Free Press building and asked for Bob. Just pleaded my case of being totally captivated by the original city of Kyle and small town politics and newspapering and, if truth be known, him in specific. He was loud and passionate and when he laughed, really laughed, his nose crinkled up like a leprechaun and I thought it was totally unique, until I saw his son Jeff crack up and watched his nose crinkle up too. I guess it’s a Barton thing.

So, here’s to Bob Barton on his 80th birthday. I wish you years and years of health, Bob, and day after day of things that make your nose crinkle up like a leprechaun.

brenda@haysfreepress.com