This story was produced by Grist and co-published with the Texas Observer.
In the far corner of the Crockett County Senior Center, 75-year-old Cynthia Flores almost always has a puzzle going. She and her friends sort colors and look for edge pieces while they gossip—“faster than the telephone”—in the Tex-Mex blend of Spanish and English they grew up speaking in Ozona, a tiny ranching and oil outpost in far West Texas. A couple of days before Valentine’s Day, their puzzle surface was one of the few in the center not covered in red and pink hearts; preparations were underway for the big dance the following night.
