Phone calls, live performances at the Baker, nature sounds, conversations, field recordings, half-formed skits that got abandoned, interviews… this is the kitchen sink thrown in…. Experimental and for the adventurous only.

Peggy Engledow is a librarian and researcher at the Historical Society, which is located in the back of the Luling Public Library. She is also the author of Bad Boys of Caldwell County, which is now on its third volume.

Luca apprenticed at Lockhart's now-closed Southwest Museum of Clocks and Watches from 2023 until its closure in 2025. She now operates Central Time Clock Repair Company alongside Lazarus Dugas, serving the horological needs of Caldwell County.

Luca was also the star and central subject of my film Clockmaster, which documented the museum during its final year of operation.

While many of these conversations on Clockmaster’s Hour are with old-timers, I'm just as interested in the threads that connect one generation to the next. Luca is part of that weave.

He is the son of Pablo and Frances Mendez, from San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

This conversation is recorded in Henry's Restaurant, where Roberto drinks coffee every morning.

And as a bonus, my conversation with Roberto is followed by a conversation with his son, Richard Mendez, age 61. Richard manages A-1 Bail Bonds with his sister, Belinda, in the building on Market Street that Roberto bought in 1969.

I was connected with Jessamin through her cousin, Philip Norman, who told me she had been researching her family's history with the goal of turning it into a graphic novel. That research became the starting point for our conversation.

As a quick note, you’re gonna hear us mention Jack Jackson several times throughout this episode. Jackson was a Texas-born illustrator, historian, and pioneer of the underground comix movement. He created books such as Los Tejanos, Lost Cause, Commanche Moon, and The Alamo: An Epic Told from Both Sides. And you should check him out.

In this first episode, I’m joined by cousins and lifelong friends Velia Sanchez and Rose Marie Lockwood. Velia is the daughter of Cruz Garcia Sanchez and Adela Mayo Sanchez. Rose Marie was raised by her grandparents, Monico and Dolores Cisneros.

As children in the 1940s, they attended the Navarro School, Lockhart’s segregated school for children of Mexican ancestry and Spanish-speaking families. Before it became known as the Navarro School, it was simply called the Mexican School. It closed shortly following integration in the 1950s.