Sunday, August 31, 1997
Mystery of the pasture markings solved
By Ken Ellsworth / Abilene Reporter-News
I would not be surprised if a few area pilots and airplane
passengers are irritable, impatient and short on sleep.
They might look puzzled, too, or distracted.
"So, what's so different about that?" I can hear
you saying. "That's typical pilot/passenger behavior. It's
caused by holding patterns, ugly airports, bad in-flight meals,
and lost luggage."
That, of course, is true.
But this is different.
These flying folk cannot sleep and are irritable at this particular
moment, I imagine, because their minds are filled with mystery
and awe, if not wonder.
"What the heck is that down there on the ground between
Eastland and Cisco that you can only see from the air?" a
pilot might grumble at three in the morning to his or her unfortunate
mate.
Well, if you saw what these people have seen, you might be
sleepless, too.
There, smack dab between Cisco and Eastland is a pattern, or
maybe it is not a pattern, cut into the grass of a pasture.
It looked so curious to Clois E. Purvis, who is dean of instruction
at Cisco Junior College, that he and his pilot brother, Dr. Kenneth
Purvis, circled the area two or three times and took pictures.
In the aerial photos you can easily see straight lines, zig
zag lines, circles, x-patterns, egg-shapes, and triangles. If
you are imaginative, you might make sense of the patterns or see
a picture, possibly made by an artistic mower for the enjoyment,
or bewilderment, of flyers.
Or, if you, putting it nicely, are more imaginative yet, the
pattern is obviously a coded message to Earthlings from Martians
that says, "Catch a ride on the next comet and come see us.
We accept major credit cards."
Well, I have investigated these strange pasture markings and
discovered the truth and now you fliers can go to sleep and let
your spouses sleep, too.
This is the truth:
A mysterious librarian did it.
Well, that is what I would say if this were a tabloid. Actually,
the librarian is nice, down-to-earth and does not even claim artistic
intent. She just wanted the lines that were supposed to be straight
to be straight.
"I did it with my riding lawn mower," said Rosalie
Johnston when I tracked her down at the Eastland Centennial Memorial
Library. "I cut the patterns for riding paths for my horses."
Johnston said she and her husband, William, a retiring civil
service worker, moved to the Eastland area in March from El Paso
and acquired a few acres for themselves and their two horses,
Buddy and Jud.
Buddy, she said, was pretty nervous in his new home because
he was unaccustomed to tall grass and trees.
"He was used to sand dunes and desert riding and had not
seen trees before, so he was afraid of trees. He would jump sideways
when you turned him around a tree," Johnston said. "So
I was just trying to think up a way I could work Buddy, when I
thought of cutting the paths. And, number one, I was also concerned
about rattlesnakes."
I asked her why she cut all the zigzags, circles and triangles.
"So I could train the horses to make all the possible
turns," she said.
The paths are wide enough to allow two horses to go side-by-side.
Johnston said she had never seen her handiwork from the air,
but agreed it must look pretty curious. She and her neighbor,
Charles H. Ralls, who cut some similar paths for Johnston on his
property, had talked about it.
"He (Ralls) warned me that people might show up claiming
there were aliens around here," Johnston said and laughed.
This column covers the cities and communities of this part
of West Texas. To contact Ken Ellsworth, call (800) 588-6397 or
(915) 676-6777, or write to P.O. Box 30, Abilene, TX 79604.
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Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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