By Pat Orr
Apple Valley Review
On Sunday, we said goodbye to Mike “Tex” Meeken (pictured).
Tex was one of the earliest sales leaders at the Apple Valley Ranchos Land Company. He and sales partner George Newton devised a plan to buy telephone numbers with local prefixes in several cities around Los Angeles. Potential land buyers would respond to ads featuring a “local” number and Tex or George would set up an appointment to “come see Apple Valley.”
Eventually Bud Westlund realized these two were booking twice the appointments of the other salesmen and called them in to get the truth behind their “success.” Even back then, Tex was disarmingly intelligent.
He was a long, lanky fellow who looked the part in his western clothes when he corralled a prospect after the Steak Fry at the Inn and drove out in the desert to show off a piece of paradise that was for sale. Tex was a proud Stanford graduate and came from a well respected San Francisco area family.
I still haven’t been able to nail down where the “Tex” moniker came from, but perhaps it related to his old fashioned “my word is my bond” way of doing business.
Tex kept his promises and he never left the Apple Valley dream he sold to hundreds of others. He and his wife, Gretchen donated a great old Ranchos map to Apple Valley for use at the Town Community Room when it opened. He could point out several of the lots he sold on that map.
He sold a dream of Western open spaces — a dream he died with and one we honor every day as we cherish the example of his life and his love for our town.
Happy trails, Tex.
East California’s time has come
Perhaps you’ve heard about the supervisors in Siskiyou County who voted to join neighboring counties in Nevada and Oregon and form their own new state.
I don’t think they’re wrong, they just used bad boundaries.
Anyone who studies voting trends, demographics, job statistics and quality of life issues will tell you there are two Californias. Within 100 miles of the coastline, people think, act and vote like socialist idiots — for the most part.
I’m a live-and-let-live kind of guy, so let’s just split into Eastern and Western California and be done with it once and for all.
The “Westies” can have the beach, all the transgender bathrooms and tofu burgers they want, while we “Easties” can have hunting, water (yes, we get the Sierras) and large tents filled with criminals way out in the desert. Our Eastern California logo will be a pioneer man and woman, he leaning on an assault weapon, she with a babe in arms. On one side, a pine tree, on the other, a Joshua tree with a skinned liberal strapped over the back of a mule in the background.
Seriously though, all these dumb laws are passed for the benefit of the Westies and their big cities. Great, let ’em live together and pay for all their political correctness and such. This is an idea whose time has come.
Let’s support Siskiyou County in their quest for freedom and hope it spreads.
Pat Orr is a local business owner, community volunteer and political junkie.