Trails, Trials, and Tears: The Life and Legacy of Texas Lil

By Texas Lil Arnold

Handcuffed and arrested while TV cameras rolled and newspaper reporters scribbled notes this wasn't how Texas Lil's dream was supposed to end. She'd spent 27 years turning the Texas Lils Dude Ranch into a premier vacation spot. Now it was smoldering from a fire so huge that the glow was seen as far away as Fort Worth. Police accused Texas Lil of being the arsonist and made a public spectacle of arresting her and ruining her reputation.

Texas Lil was destined to be an entrepreneur. Despite a philandering, money-burning husband as a business partner, Texas Lil used savvy and sweat to turn a tiny shop in her garage into a thriving, popular business. She parlayed that into the Texas Lils Dude Ranch, 200 acres of gorgeous rolling property near what would become the Texas Motor Speedway

She accomplished all this while raising children and dealing with a drunken, abusive husband. But personal tragedies have never been strangers to this determined woman. She handled the sensational murder of her brother Stan Farr, who was shot along with Priscilla Davis and two others at the Cullen Davis mansion in 1976.

This amazing story of how a single mom overcame a never-ending series of tragedies, built a successful business, and lived a roaring good life comes to life on the pages of Texas Lil's book, Trails, Trials, and Tears. It's a completely revealing look into the life of a remarkable woman who keeps pushing forward no matter how many times she stumbles along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479713172

Texas Lil Arnold

An everlasting optimistic entrepreneur best known in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and the worldwide international travel industry by the distinctive trademark name of “Texas Lil”, veteran businesswoman Lynda F. Arnold founded, established, owned and operated, as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, the Southwest’s foremost recreational ranch and entertainment complex facility. During the twenty-seven years of highly-successful operation, she individually acquired, designed and developed all-phases of land improvement, including the property gas-well production, extensive multiple on-premises building construction, while independently managing the administration of the 200-acre western-theme guest ranch’s daily business operation and premier family entertainment entities. Such personal achievement and business activity continued until participation in the operation and individual ownership concluded significantly in November of 2004. Over the years, she enjoyed the creation of Children 2000 Foundation, which was dedicated to the security and advancement of all children and offered a core curriculum to promote basic values, increase literary interests and standards, and teach essential life management proficiency. In addition, was encouraged to formally run and was subsequently elected by the citizenship to keep the peace by serving as presiding Honorable judge with the general judicial governmental responsibilities of Justice of the Peace, in and for, the Precinct Court No. 7, notability officiating civil and public proceedings for the local and county region.

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Copyright © 2013 by Texas Lil Arnold.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 04/14/2014

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

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Trails, Trials, and Tears: The Life and Legacy of Texas Lil

Texas Lil Arnold

Xlilbris, 216 pages, (paperback) $19.99, 978-1-4797-1316-5

(Reviewed: February 2014)

Texas entrepreneur and politician Lynda Arnold, known this side of the Pecos as Texas Lil—a branding nickname she bestowed upon herself—writes an eventful memoir about her life and times as owner of Texas Lil’s Dude Ranch, located in Northlake, Texas, north of Fort Worth.

Arnold’s narrative begins on Nov. 4, 2001 as she looks upon the smoldering ashes of three buildings on her foreclosed dude ranch. She then flashes back to her childhood, where her memories are Leave It to Beaver perfect—in stark contrast to her tumultuous adult life.

Arnold always loved the Old West theme, and Texas in particular. She writes that she was a cowgirl from the get go. Growing up around Hollywood movie lots, where her father worked as a bit player in Western movies, punctuated the point.

Eventually, Arnold marries an abusive husband and suddenly loses two brothers—one in car accident and another in a high-profile murder. After her divorce, she purchases a 194-acre fixer-upper ranch she’s been eyeing for years. With the aid of people she’s helped back on their feet in the past, Arnold builds Texas Lil’s Dude Ranch, a successful recreational destination for tourist and corporate parties.

Trails, Trials, and Tears is chock-full of enough colorful characters and anecdotes to fill several books. These asides could have been streamlined, so that the memoir would be more direct and linear, leading into the compelling third act that gives readers a fascinating look inside the good old boy Texas justice system. It takes its time getting there.

Arnold’s memoir comes full-circle to the night of the fire and the tragic impact the event had on her life—both legally and emotionally. Through it all, dealing with shady lawyers, judges and police, Arnold manages to keep an optimistic view of life. Despite its overstuffed feel, her memoir will resonate with those who are driven to realize their dreams and who enjoy heartfelt stories.

Also available as an ebook.

This book is dedicated to all the wonderful employees who passed through the gates of Texas Lil’s Dude Ranch and helped make it the success it was.

I’d like to thank Tina Howard without whose help this book would have never come to pass. For her love and devotion trudging through all the hours it took to type, edit, and finalize this book. My deepest appreciation to Greg Murrill, who is not only a beautiful writer but a beautiful editor who helped pull it all together.

Chapter One

The chill of morning revealed smoldering embers and ashes. All that remained of my dreams. I tried to conjure the image of a phoenix rising up stronger and more beautiful than before, but reality that comes with age and experience won out.

November 4, 2004, would begin the test of my true Texas mettle and bring out the resolve I was fortunate enough to have inherited from my mother. I would need these characteristics to survive what I was about to discover and endure at the hands of people and institutions that I had always trusted. I felt as if I were visiting the aftermath some ancient battle as I witnessed my dreams consumed by evil dancing flames, plumes of smoke giving testament to those far away that I was in defeat. Emergency vehicle lights made a kaleidoscope of colors while sirens were screaming raucously. I couldn’t breathe. Was it the smoke or the lump left in my throat?

My name is Lynda Arnold—Texas Lil to most people. This is the story of how I became Texas Lil—how I realized my dream and how I lost it. It’s a bizarre story best reserved for fiction as surely it couldn’t really be happening to me. Being my final account for posterity, you will witness the fearless fight against a seemingly boundless host of unsavory characters who finally managed to wrest the dream from my grasp and how I was forced to leave my beloved land under a cloud of public suspicion.

SOME NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT THE GUILTY, COWARDLY, AND SHY.

I had become known as a flamboyant woman and was recognized everywhere by my collection of colored cowboy hats, distinctive Western attire and mischievous smile. As a teenager, I never in my wildest dreams imagined that people would one day call me a Texas icon. Through it all, I was fortunate to savor countless moments of triumph and learn from tragedies most would prefer to forget. I’d had torrid love affairs and met some notorious characters along the way that shaped and firmed my quest for living a meaningful life.

They say the best place to start is at the beginning, the formative years. My childhood memories were "Leave It to Beaver" perfect. It was typical for those times. There was no abuse, no beatings or alcoholism. The oldest of five siblings, I was born just across the Texas state line in Texarkana, Arkansas. That’s because the best hospital was located there. My father really wanted a boy, but when a bouncing baby girl came along, he named me Lynda because his name was Lynn. Eighteen months later, my sister I’Vanne came along. Two years after I’Vanne, the real junior came. My brother would be dubbed Lynn, after dad.

My father was selling cotton combines when his arm got caught in one of the machines and became mangled. His unyielding determination and mom’s infinite dedication saved that arm, but it was mutilated beyond repair. His hand was severely deformed. He had always dreamed of going to Hollywood and never let the inconvenience deter him from that destination. World War II was going on when he moved the family to Uvalde, Texas, and bought a tire-recapping business. My second brother, Stan, was born premature. He was a scrawny and sickly preemie who grew to six feet-ten inches tall. In addition to the tire business, Dad put in a riding stable. With our location being close to an Army base, many soldiers came to ride. My job as a three year-old veteran was walking the horses to cool them off. The soldiers nearly rode them to death and would bring the poor things back foaming at the mouth, heaving heavily. In the days that people were allowed to ride without guides, they treated those wonderful animals brutally. Being a cowgirl from the get-go, I believe my love of the Old West must have started from walking those horses at an early age. Then later, hanging around those Western movie lots with Dad and watching movies being made—I was really into it, (studies now indicate what I already knew as a child. Learning to care for animals teaches empathy and stimulates social skills). I never could figure out, though, why all the movies were filmed in Hollywood and old California movie towns. After all, those cowboys in the movies always said they were in Texas.

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My parents finally saved enough money to head for California. We were Hollywood-bound! The move to California was a big move—four little kids under the age of seven, an old car loaded to the gills, and a huge moving van. Dad went to Hollywood first to scope it out. Mom and the kids followed. The San Fernando Valley seemed like the perfect place to set up housekeeping. Purchasing five acres in Canoga Park, it was like paradise and a great place to raise kids. We had a big two-story house with hardwood floors and high ceilings. The land was loaded with fig trees, olive trees, grapevines, orange, grapefruit, and lemon trees. There were barns and pens for chickens, goats, and a couple of horses. I can remember our terror the first night when we heard a woman screaming! My dad ran outside to see what was going on and came back grinning. Our neighbor, Bob Burns, had peacocks at his place. If you have never heard one of those birds screeching, you would just think one or more women were being beaten.

Dad hit the streets of Hollywood. He was movie-star handsome, but his damaged arm cost him a lot of work. He always wore a black glove. He was a bit player in many old Western movies with Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Robert Taylor, Red Barry, Smiley Burnette, and many more.

My third brother, Paul, was born in California. He was such a joy and seemed to be a combination of all of us. Raising five kids and lack of steady work in the movie business was taking its toll on the family savings account so dad decided to invest in an amusement business back in Texarkana. He thought it would support us until he started making some big money in the movies, but soon found that his new business couldn’t run itself. His employees were robbing him blind. Taking money out of jukeboxes and pinball machines was easy to do with a clear conscience for them I guess because they didn’t see actual goods being traded.

With all his savings gone, we had to load up, sell out, and move back to Texarkana. Moving back to Texarkana in the seventh grade was a psychological blow. There’s an enchantment that comes with Hollywood. The school social cliques were already set. I went from living a fantasy life in California by going to the movies with the likes of Natalie Wood, living next door to Bob Burns, and working on movie sets, to the mundane life of a typical child. I now lived a small rural frame house and rode the school bus. My father purchased some land on the outskirts of town to develop a subdivision. I knew the type of girls I wanted to hang out with, but it wasn’t going to be an easy task fitting in at this stage of school life. I knew some of them from the six months we were in Texarkana when dad bought the jukebox business. They were all from Highland Park. It took me until the ninth grade to be invited to one of their slumber parties. These girls were already experimenting with cigarettes and beer.

When my father started the development, we moved into the first model house built. It didn’t take me long to make my new home the party place and center of activity. My parents had rules, and the kids respected most of them. The subdivision property had several large gravel pits on it, and when the boys had to leave by 11:00 PM, the plan was for them to crawl back across vacant land to the gravel pits and meet the girls, who would sneak out of the house. The girls would each bring a carton of cigarettes. They puffed all night and put the butts in empty Coke bottles. Before the sun came up, they would take at least two cases of soda bottles brimming with butts and sink them in the gravel pits. My parents wouldn’t approve of girls smoking and my father could walk into the room where the girls were gathered, immediately noticing which ones were missing. I had learned to drive at fourteen, and we owned a big yellow 1949 Buick convertible. My dad would get in that yellow car and collect all the kids at the gravel pits. He’d drop the girls off at our house and take the boys to their homes. They were strict parents, but they were fair in the way they preserved your dignity.

I had several horses in those days and mostly rode with the guys from my class because the girls were real idiots when it came to horseback riding. I never had a boyfriend in high school—just a lot of buddies. As a late bloomer, I didn’t seem to have a lot of self-esteem when it came to boys. I helped the other girls get their dreamboats with food, not horses. They would hire me to come to their homes and cook dinner, and then quietly sneak out the back door as the boys came in the front. Of course, the boys were always impressed by their girls’ cooking which doomed them later in life. I had learned to cook because my mother always had a big garden, and she gave me a choice—I could work in the garden or cook dinner. I hated getting dirt under my fingernails.

College never seemed to be an option or a demand on my parents’ part. They gave me the choice, but I wanted to go to modeling school in Dallas. I enrolled in Patricia Steven’s Modeling School and found three girls to share an apartment with. A whole new world was opening up to this naive country girl. There were men everywhere. I got my first job at Titch’s in the record department. I actually got fired because there were so many men hanging around. My mother had preached to me forever to save my virginity for the man I would marry. I maintained that lesson from my mother, and the boyfriends didn’t last long when I wouldn’t put out.

I finally met a football player who loved me despite the longing that a young woman can create for a man raging with testosterone when she says no. It was love, and he asked me to marry him. My best friend at the time, Diana, had just gotten engaged. With that in mind, I thought that maybe I should as well. Billy bought me the ring and I wore it like the trophy it was. The romance was destined to be pretty short, though, because I just wasn’t ready to be tied down doing someone else’s laundry. As many young women now are discovering, there was a personal destiny to fulfill.

At the end of summer, I had decided to go home and go to Texarkana Junior College. There were good-looking guys there from all across the country drafted to play football. Football was the thing then. I spent a lot of my time flirting and having fun with them at the school snack bar, so my mother called me the party queen of the snack bar. Life had turned around for this tomboy, and I was finally being called hot. One of the football players entered me in a National Guard beauty contest with me going up against all of my high school friends who were voted Most Beautiful and Miss Personality. I actually won the competition and was a runner-up for the state title of Miss Forty-Ninth Armored Division. I had to travel to Fort Hood to receive the trophy, so my mother went with me. Since I had to stop every few miles to go to the bathroom, she finally figured out that I was smoking cigarettes when I returned reeking of smoke. That first year of junior college was an amazing, fun-filled time in my life.

The next summer, I went back to Dallas and found three American Airlines flight attendants, (called stewardesses back then), for roommates. Wow! What an education in living I got. I wanted to become a flight attendant, but I was too tall standing at five-feet, nine-inches. I met a lot of guys though. One of them was the barefoot water-skiing national champion. He taught me to water-ski. The first time he took me out for a lesson, I was wearing a demure one-piece swimsuit. When he went to pull me out of the water, the suit went to my feet and I dropped back into the lake, mortified. That was the day I lost my modesty. One guy was a medical student studying to become a brain surgeon. I met him when he came to the apartment to visit one of my roommates. We talked for hours, and though I never learned much about brains that night, received a lesson or two in hearts and chemistry.

Three days later, he called and invited me to lunch at the Golden Pheasant, a real hoity-toity place to me in those days. He presented a huge engagement ring and asked me to marry him. I told him I was way too young to think about marriage, but I’d hold the ring for him. After a blank stare and moment of silence, he countered that he would hold it until I agreed to be his wife. Shortly thereafter, he crashed his plane in which he suffered a severe head injury. I never heard from him again and it made me awfully cautious about relationships for a while.

When my second year of junior college rolled around, I had decided to move back home. Midway into my second year, I got a job with J. C. Penney having convinced the manager that I could decorate windows and write store ads for the Texarkana Gazette. That was a costly con job. Some nights I was in those windows until two or three in the morning in order to get them perfect. I taught myself on the fly how to do it all. I had learned in-store displays, seasonal decorating, and of course, the ads. Finishing my second year of college with a major in business, I continued to work at J. C. Penney another year. It was a happy time for me, and I was having fun watching my brothers—Lynn, Stan, and Paul—grow up. I was so proud of them. They were growing into giants who were into sports. I loved my brothers and spent all my extra money buying them things.

The lure of Dallas was always there, and by January 1960, I decided to pursue my modeling career. The head designer for Penney’s offered me a job in Dallas, but I declined. I moved in with three girls who were listed with the agency. One of my new friends was a cute blonde who lived next door. She had a deluxe apartment, maid, and new Chevy convertible with a continental kit. The blonde worked selling memberships to a luxurious new private club called the Gaslight Club. I never could figure out where she got the money for a maid, a new convertible, and all the other goodies she acquired. She hired me to be her secretary. When I walked into her apartment in the mornings she would be asleep, and the table would be covered with dirty breakfast dishes. I quickly surmised that some guy had spent the night, and she had cooked breakfast. When her gentleman friend left, she’d hit the sack.

She had a picture by her bed of a cute guy, which as it turned out, was her boyfriend. He was a disc jockey in Odessa by the name of Hap Arnold. One day that cute D.J. appeared, as he was moving to Dallas to work at the radio station KVIL. I couldn’t believe how good-looking this guy was. He brought buddies over for some double dates, but he was the one I really liked. One night, the blonde stood him up and he visited the girl next door—me. When the blonde finally came home, she blew Hap off because he was at my apartment and wouldn’t leave to go home with her. That was the end of my friendship with the blonde. I was in awe that such a prize wanted me, but could still hear my mother’s voice saying, Save yourself for the man you marry.

One night, my roommates were having a party. I was helping my dreamboat, (Hap), with his taxes because it was April 15. We got them done and mailed before the midnight postmark. When we got back to the apartment, food and glasses were everywhere. The party was over, and the roommates were in bed. We settled on the couch and were making out when he started trying to unzip my shorts. I told him no, but he kept on. Finally, he grabbed my shorts at the waist and ripped them off. I jumped up, covered myself with a pillow, and told him to leave. It was dark, and he couldn’t find his shoes under the coffee table. He kicked the coffee table to the ceiling—while it was covered with empty food dishes and glasses. The commotion woke up all the roommates, and they came out screaming at him to get out and never come back. I was devastated.

I was floating in the pool the next morning when he came moseying out of the blonde’s apartment. I just ignored him. By 5:00 PM, he was calling and begging to come apologize. My roommates said no way. I let him fret for a week when he finally went to beg for mercy from the roommates. Shortly after that, he proposed.

As it turned out, my sister I’Vanne wanted to get married and got to our parents first. I’Vanne absolutely refused to have a double wedding. Having felt that I robbed her of everything throughout her life, she was to be wed in August while I set September 25th as my date. Hap and I went back to Dallas disappointed love birds, but we came up with a plan. We would secretly get married by a justice of the peace and get an apartment. We confided in his grandmother, who was an adorable, wise woman. She furnished the wedding ring and stood as a witness in the home of the JP. We got an apartment near Southern Methodist University and combined our meager belongings. Now, this girl, never having had more than a few make-out sessions with guys, married a man who was a sexual god. He taught me all the ways of good lovemaking. I was his virgin. We were on a virtual honeymoon in our secret apartment for three months. His mother was suspicious that we were living together, but never would have thought that we were married. I had some wonderful in-laws who helped find us a house to live in soon after our formal wedding, (Goodbye, love nest), and we furnished it from garage sales. The wedding was a beautiful event with six bridesmaids and all the goodies. I felt so guilty that my parents had to spend the money. My sister’s wedding was enough for them. I even wore my sister’s wedding dress to help save money. My mother added a bustle to it to change the look. It was all so traditional, but I didn’t want to disappoint my parents. I spent my life until I was forty