The introduction of the Ball fruit jar was extensively used and was a commonly known product in the Aubrey area.. My Aunt Sis (Lillian Goin) was involved with the local home demonstrations office. She demonstrated the use of the fruit jar for canning all sorts of home-grown vegetables as well as the successful canning of most types of meat.

The Fruit Jar was also a term that was used by the conductors of the passenger trains as they arrived from the different directions at the train depot.

According to the old newspapers, the passenger trains made regular stops at the newly named town of Aubrey. The conductors announced, "All aboard the Fruit Jar Special" and as they arrived into Aubrey, they yelled, "Next stop, Fruit Jar Junction."

The passengers would gingerly step out of the old passenger cars and quickly find the Mullins Hotel, and the next stop would be the Saloon which was located on Main Street in the 100 block of Main Street, just about where the City Hall is now located.

Activity would pick up on Main Street as if the activity compared to Galveston Island where the tourists were making their way around on the beach.

My cousin Billie McCauley now lives on Galveston Island. She is an artist who is handily turning out art work and poems in her retirement years. Since Billie and I are the same seventy-five-year-old kissing cousins who formerly romped as teens in the Aubrey streets, we share a kinship and friendship of early day adventures in Aubrey.

Billie is always sharing some of her hastily written poems with me via the internet, and sometimes her art work as well.

I received the following poem from Billie last week. I want to share it with you because it is a reminder of the "All aboard the Fruit Jar Junction Special." She is telling of an adventure that reminds me of adventures we shared long ago here at the Aubrey Depot. The only difference is that she has little seventy-five-year-old ladies going to a movie on Galveston Island.

The poem is:

(Not a one under sixty) began sedately enough.
I needed to drive the 1972 Buick Limited,
A carefully crafted classic car,
which sleeps in my garage between State Occasions.
The girls gathered at my house and we set out
To eat the Senior Early Bird Special at IHOP
where everyone ordered too much food, then got our
take home cartons to put in the refrigerator later.
We all went to the Ladies Room before and after
we saw the movie, arriving early enough for the showing of
"Ocean’s Twelve" so house lights were up and
aging eyes could see to find our seats.
We loved the action movie, which moved much faster than
we could as we filed out of the theatre slowly, holding the handrails.
Everyone put on their seat belts for the ride home.
I was very glad that Lynn, an unflappable head nurse,
was seated beside me when I tried to put on the brakes
to stop for a red light on the Seawall, but did not even slow down.
My foot went flat to the floor as we sailed through the light,
the first of several. Lynn shut up and hoped for the best,
while screams that we were going to die from the back seat
did not help my nerves, which were sticking out a foot
and wiggling at this point. I was extremely glad we were
headed down Seawall Boulevard, not across it to the Gulf of Mexico.
Our collective Guardian Angels worked frantically
as we careened through red lights, narrowly missing frightened tourists.
I managed to make a left turn and run only one stop sign
before bringing the five thousand pound monster to a squealing halt
on 33^rd Street, blocking driveways beside my house.
The girls crept out of the dormant beast with fluttering hearts and hankies.
Cell phones appeared to inform families of the near death experience.
The girls all forgave me. But they will never, ever, ride in the Buick again.
Billie McCauley January 2005