Well, I ain’t much of a storyteller…but here goes.
There was always somethin’ funny goin’ on in my hometown. When I was in school I had to do this history project, lookin’ into the meanin’ of our town’s name? An’ what I found was real surprisin’. My town had been founded by two men, William L. Gordon and Steve Allison—the latter also bein’ called the Sonora Kid. Both of ‘em were cowboy types, rough ‘n’ tumble gunmen of the Old West. William’s son Francis Xavier Gordon and Steve’s son Steve Allison Jr. became friends, as their fathers had been. They were adventurers who went on weird adventures all over the world together. Anyway, when William Gordon and Steve Allison Sr. founded the town, they named it Alldon, a combination of their names. This was simplified to Allon, then Allen, and then what it is today. I guess town names in Texas used to be pretty flexible in the old days. I blame beer.
What stood out to me at the time was the fact that William Gordon kept talkin’ about the town “puttin’ somethin’ away.” Like it was built over somethin’ bad that the buildings and roads helped keep packed down. I remember learnin’ in a separate school project that some of the Indians who lived in the area supposedly practiced cannibalism about seven centuries ago, but I don’t think this related to any of that. No, this was somethin’ different. Somethin’ that ran a little deeper.
