Renck Hall, Yard & Field

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CitizensTruck

“A novel way to give back”

BY LOU CHRISTINE

Serving fresh-roasted Central-American coffee and other eclectic treats with profits funding needy causes.

“CitizensTruck” a vintage, 1948, Chevy, Road Master farm truck refitted with a cabin added to its rear, is the symbolic-namesake of a non-profit benevolent organization spearheaded by, Houstonite, Kyle Buthod. Kyle, originally from Kansas City, Missouri, has had a diverse career since arriving in Houston in 2012 from oil, to coffee, to media, ministry, and now to full-time ministry and entrepreneurship.

For CitizensTruck being at the Warrenton Show is a home-coming of sorts. The truck was rescued from a rusty existence and probably a junkyard ending. Originally manufactured in Detroit, the truck served as a loadmaster truck, hauling farm equipment and heavy items. Decades later, it was converted by a Michigan based church into a food truck to serve the homeless. Later, it was sold and hauled to Round Top, and soon thereafter ended up tucked away inside an antique shop in La Grange. Finally in 2020, the truck made its way to Houston.

Some of Buthod’s local supporters, aka: the “We Are” team, aware of what he was seeking, steered him to the heap. Buthod, says, right away he recognized the potential to restore the tin lizzie. Since the refit, CitizensTruck serves as a do-good coffee-wagon. There you can buy freshroasted Central-American coffee and other eclectic treats and know the profits fund charitable causes.

Buthod is the hinge connecting those importing Guatemalan and El Salvadorian coffee that have come to represent an enterprising pathway for upstart purveyors who are like-minded and and the various non-profit causes that reap the profits. He believes it is about people and always has been. This truck was not only manufactured for people—those working on farms—but now seven decades later is serving people and supporting people.

CitizensTruck is a local business supporting an incredible cause—100% of all proceeds go to local nonprofits. Every time you buy an item or rent the truck, you’re supporting people and supporting local—not only because the truck is local, but all vendors that supply the truck are local!

Look for the truck at Zapp Hall and Farm Loft during the antique show. For more about Citizens Truck, check out their website www.citizenstruck.com □

From The Editor, from page 13

need many more like y’all to carry the message that there’s no other show in the world quite like this. Proudly I declare that “Texas Antiques Week Extravaganza” is the best. “Don’t miss it...don’t miss it …don’t even be late,” sung to the tune of “State Fair” the theme song from a favorite musical of mine circa 1962 with tunes by Rodgers and Hammerstein and featuring Ann Margret, Pat Boone and Bobby Darin.

We think a promotion committee of field owners should be formed to gather a collective effort to buy bill boards up and down the Texas highways leading to the Round Top-Warrenton area. After a survey we undertook recently, we discovered most people in these big cities have never heard of this twice yearly event. Yet we still get a couple hundred thousand visitors every year. I leave you with that thought dear readers.

As for us, we will be set up at Cole’s field again this season--at least for a few days. Come by and say hey! After the shows, most know where we live. We’re local. I’m always there. You won’t see me at the local shuffleboard courts but Thursdays for sure I’ll be at my shuffle dance classes. I gotta stay nimble because no wise man would ever wish to be young again. Thanks for reading and hope to see ya at the shows. Love always.

Roberto

Key West Florida Gypsies Land in Warrenton

A story from Show Daily number 3 for those who missed it

As told by Show Daily Editor Roberto Alvarado.

The early years before the birth of our publication. After seven years of entertaining tourists in our cantina, restaurant and antiques shop in Key West, Florida, my wife and I called it quits. I was eating and drinking too much and it was all I could do to keep up with those college kids who came for week-long party vacations in waves. My job, of course, was to delight them with tales of old Key West lore over drinks. A body can only take so much.

Hemingway never ate here

from pie safes to antique mirrors, prints, photos, carved ivory, and trinkets galore. By the time we got to the outskirts of Warrenton we had succeeded in depleting our ready cash. We were broke. “But honey. I thought you had more cash.” “No, honey, you’re the caretaker of the petty cash fund.”

Now what?

So, we packed a twenty six foot Ryder truck, bid adios to our friendly island home, and left in search of slower pastures.

Since we weren’t in a hurry, we decided to meander through the good ol’ USA, taking any country road that pointed in a southwesterly direction. It was a cool, rainy day when we pulled onto Texas highway 237, off 290 West. The sign read, “Historical Market, 5 miles,” so we decided to take a look. Approaching the intersection at Carmine, we were surprised to see so many big tops and people scurrying about with an air of purpose. “Holy Moley!” I exclaimed to Suzy. “We hit the jack-pot, this is an antiques fair.”

Off we went, hitting as many fields as we could. stopping every couple hundred yards to marvel at the varied offerings. We had space in our truck, so we bought indiscriminately,

Groomed gypsies that we are, we decided to set up a tent at Renck Dance Hall and sell some trinkets We had a truck full of never-before-seen mud-sketched goodies from the exotic islands of the Florida keys: old ships wheels, brass stanchions, port hole windows, a stuffed macaw, a shark and even a dolphin. For Texans, this was surely as foreign an offering as it gets.

There were lots of curious lookers but no takers. “

Why, shoot podner, what am I going to do with a stuffed parakeet?”

“Well amigo, by the sheer size of it, you can say that it’s a Texas parakeet— Jumbo size.”

“Well, by golly you’re right. I can put it in our bar.”

I was really lucky to sell that stuffed macaw, ‘cause it was starting to lose its feathers every time we shifted it from one place to another.

“But dear, you can’t tell him it’s a parakeet.”

whimpered, setting down a six-foot trunk that she’d dragged from the truck, leaving swaths of mud on the ground behind her.

“Darling, why don’t you call me to give you a hand?”

Oh, that’s all right. I know you’re having a hard time as it is, struggling to hold down that overstuffed chair. Look what I found!” she exclaimed, pulling out a bunch of old spurs.

“But darling, that’s Mexican stuff.” Soon the floor was scattered about with old bits and branding irons, colonial locks and hardware from old Mexico that we had used to decorate our Mexican cantina in Key West.

“And those old chaps, tattered and torn, who’s going to buy that junk?” I complained.

“Hey, podner, how much for those two ol’ rawhide reatas? That’s just what I’ve been looking for. Oh, and how about those ol’ Mexican saddle blankets?”

Before long we had sold everything from the trunk and my gal was back in the truck looking for more. From old Mexican movie posters to Pancho Villa pictures, we about sold everything that used to hang on our restaurant walls.

“Sure honey, sweetie-pie, parakeets on steroids get that big, don’t they?”

But my Vermont gal would have nothing to do with such high seas piracy. She scurried after my first sale of the day to undo it.

After the show was over we sat down to count our money and figure out where to go next. It was pretty much a no-brainer.

“You know, honey, I got kinfolk in ol’ Mexico. What say we go down there and check it out? We can buy more of this stuff and bring it up to sell in the shows.”

All this happened many years ago. We’re still here twice a year, selling our Mexican goods in Warrenton. We’re still here twice a year, but working on the Book. □

“Where’s the bird?” I asked when she returned. 902

“Well, he said he knew it wasn’t a parakeet, but he loved the story too much to pass it up. He’s going to put it in his bar anyway. Hey, you didn’t show him the two headed duck?”

I guess I wasn’t too surprised that our island antiques brought little interest in Texas. My gal began rummaging through the truck to see what else she could come up with.

“This will get ‘em,” she

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