In Fort Worth, Texas, employees at the massive Cabela's -- a retailer that caters to the hunting, fishing and outdoor crowd -- said this Black Friday seemed quiet compared to last year's.

Early shoppers browsed for guns, fishing rods and camping gear beneath row upon row of stuffed animal heads. New York-listed Cabela's claims to be the world's foremost outfitter for hunting and fishing gear and specials included a pink (for the ladies) Ruger .22 rifle with a 10-round magazine at $259.99, a $30 savings. Various handguns were going for as much as a $120 off.

Business appeared brisk, though there were no long lines at the cash registers and store employees said Black Friday last year was busier. Several shoppers said they were loosening their wallets and buying more this year. Almost all of them said they were using cash or debit cards.

Shawn Scott, 48, has his own company training corporate jet pilots. He said his business had picked up this year after faltering during the depths of the recession. He still has an office in Fort Worth, but his family had moved to a remote part of Colorado and he was stocking up on ammunition that he said was hard to get in smaller towns these days.

"We are in a remote area and so we are stocking up," he said, noting that he was uncertain about the economy and so it was good to be prepared. "We're not survivalists but self-suffiency is important, given the distribution system in the United States today," he said.

Several shoppers came from other parts of north Texas and as far away as Oklahoma City -- 190 miles (300 kilometers) to the north. Walter Overtown, a 59-year-old who said he was in the aquaculture business, came from the town of Bowie in north Texas, about 100 miles (160 km) away. He said he was buying more this year "because my stocks are up." He had a big gun case in his shopping cart.

One middle-aged woman who just gave her name as "Mary" was browsing for sweaters and said she was "buying about the same but I wasn't hurt by the recession. My husband didn't lose his job and he even got a raise."

Amber Pletcher, 29, and her husband Brad, have their own business contracting out to a major tire company and came from Ardmore in Oklahoma, two hours' drive north, with their preacher's teenage daughter. They had also been to outlet stores in the Fort Worth area from midnight and were completing their Christmas shopping. "I think I'm shopping more this year because we are blessed," Amber said as she pushed a shopping cart filling up with outdoor clothing and outdoor-themed toys.

Debbie Braudaway, a 47-year-old school administrator, said she and her husband probably would buy no more or less this year as they both had steady jobs and incomes. She was disappointed that they had not found the knife their son wanted and so they planned to go to another store.

(Photo: A customer enquires about a weapon in the firearms section of a Cabela's store on the shopping day dubbed "Black Friday" in Fort Worth. Reuters/Jessica Rinaldi)

MARLIN, Texas – Our journey to Kosse, Texas, to see the food bank in operation took us through Falls County, which is one of the poorest counties in America.

And it showed, with rural decay all too evident as we drove through the area.

We passed through the town of Marlin, just 30 miles from Waco, where the siege at the Branch Davidian ranch at Mount Carmel in 1993 ended in a fire that killed 76 people. Four agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and six Davidians were also killed in a firefight.

Marlin’s main street looks like it has been struck by a disaster and it has, though the disaster here is purely economic.  Most of the shop fronts are closed and faded, a sad echo of an era gone by when this was clearly a bustling little town.

Apart from agriculture, the town thrived in the late 19th century with the discovery of mineral water said to have curative qualities. For a time the town took the moniker of the “Mineral Water City of Texas.”

Those days are gone, as is clear from the nearly deserted main street.

Even worse of is the small village of Chilton, some 10 miles away, where the only business open on the main street is a branch of the U.S. Post Office. All of the other buildings along the road are in an advanced state of decay.

Figures from the U.S. Census Bureau tell a tale of decline in Falls County.

The median household income in Falls County in 2007 was $30,265, some 40 percent lower than the national median income of $50,740. The poverty rate in Falls County is nearly 28 percent, more than double the national rate of 13 percent.

Even more important, and an ominous sign for the future of this area, the population of Falls County fell 9 percent between 2000 and 2008, while the population of America grew 8 percent during the same period.

Traveling through this area was a saddening experience, all the more so because the ruins of Marlin’s main street are a depressing reminder of how prosperous this community once was.

Picture of a farmer preparing to work on his fields in Marlin by Lucy Nicholson

Click here for more stories from the Route to Recovery

AUSTIN, Texas – Chris Perry says that virtually everything that is wrong with Austin’s office property market is global.

“The problems we’re facing are not local in the making,” said Perry, a realtor at AQUILA Commercial, LLC.

The freezing up of the credit markets following the implosion of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 plus the virtual collapse of the global financial sector have left this market in suspended animation. That's occurred even though Austin has lower unemployment than the national average and none of the structural problems of northern industrial cities like Detroit.

Austin’s housing market has also got off lightly. While some parts of America have seen steep drops in property prices, the median home price in Austin was down just 0.1 percent in the second quarter.

But nothing is happening in the office property market here.

“We haven’t seen a single major transaction in this area this year because no one really knows what properties are really worth,” said Michael Kennedy, president of commercial real estate company Commercial Texas.

Gary Farmer, president of title insurance firm Heritage Title Company of Austin Inc, described the office property market as “constipated.”

“The capital markets are in disarray, debt is hard to come by so everyone is waiting for the market to settle and find out what is the new normal,” he said. “Things are pretty much frozen right now.”

Nationally, some analysts believe that the office property market, and commercial real estate as a whole, has yet to truly suffer following the crisis in U.S. residential real estate.

According to Perry, part of the problem in the office market is that sellers and prospective buyers have vastly different expectations.

“There is a major disconnect between what sellers think they can get for a property and what the vultures out there think they can pay for a property,” he said. “The real value lies somewhere in between, but no one has got there yet.”

Perry said there are doubtless financially distressed office property owners out there who are holding on for now, but cannot do so forever if the market doesn’t pick up.

“There has yet to be some kind of reckoning in the market,” he said. “The majority of people in this business still think that the worst is yet to come.”

Photo by Lucy Nicholson

Click here for more from the Route to Recovery

KOSSE, Texas – By the time the mobile food pantry rolls to a halt in this struggling rural community of 479 people, the parking lot of the local social hall is already full and a line of people snakes out of the door.

Half a dozen ladies in their 50s and 60s swarms the truck and within minutes they have set up tables and are bagging up food with an efficiency and single-mindedness that is impressive to watch.

The Capital Area Food Bank of Texas, which covers 21 counties and an area twice the size of the state of Massachusetts, makes monthly visits to Kosse. Every month this year it has set new records for the amount of food it hands out -- currently about 2.2 million tons. CEO David Davenport said he expects that number to rise as unemployment forces ever more people to become “food insecure.”

“The makeup of the hunger line has changed a great deal over the past two years,” he said. “We’re seeing more educated people and those who have been laid of in well-paying industries like the tech sector.”

“These are people we would never have expected to see lining up for food two years ago,” Davenport added.

The food bank has seen a 60 percent increase in demand for free food and in some places, including parts of the state capitol Austin, demand is up 300 percent.

Jason Steelman, 32, who is here with his girlfriend Amber Nash, 22, was a computer software analyst – a trade he picked up in the armed forces – but hasn’t worked in his chosen field for more than three years. He managed to make ends meet working as a truck driver, but the recession put paid to that job.

“All the work that’s left in this area is either seasonal jobs on the farms or working at gas stations,” he said. “We have three kids between us to feed and it’s tough to put enough food on the table.”

As Texas does not support the government food stamp program, the food bank is reliant on the U.S. Department of Agriculture and local donors like supermarket chain HEB.

“Without HEB we’d have problems finding enough food to hand out,” Davenport said. “On the state government level there is an unbending political belief in Texas that when you’re in trouble you have to pull yourself up by your boot straps.”

“That’s assuming that you’re not too hungry to pull them up,” he added. “Or that you even have boots.”

The first time the food bank came here six months ago, 60 families showed up for food. That number has now reached nearly 170.

According to the most recent statistics from the USDA, more than one in 10 Americans had low or very low “food security” in 2007, even before a the recession that began in December of that year. The recession may have ended in the third quarter of this year, according to recent U.S. government statistics, but one in five Texans are now hungry, as are one in four children in the Lone Star state.

“It comes down to economic hardship,” said Kosse mayor Ben Daniel. “There aren’t many jobs in this area right now. It’s hard times for folks around here.”

Danee Binion, 21, here with her seven-month-old daughter Madison, looks after her disabled mother and mentally disabled sister. Her husband works on a ranch, but the full household has stretched their means.

“We need some help to get by,” she said.

Janice Procter, 49, said that he husband, 66, is retired and just had knee surgery, and they have two children at home under the age of 18.

“We’re finding it tough to make ends meet and every little helps,” she said.

Democratic Senator Kirk Watson said that “Texas could do better in providing for its people," and that the state government must take action as the level of hunger in parts of the state has reached crisis proportions.

“Our political leadership should be ashamed of itself,” he said. “Here we are in a state that produces enough food to supply the entire country. Yet we can’t even feed our own people.”

Photos by Lucy Nicholson

AUSTIN, Texas– Even before we got to Austin, we were presented with a bold claim by residents – that Austin is home to the best Tex-Mex in the world.

We decided to put this claim to the test and, after consulting with Mike Rollins and Dave Porter of the Austin Chamber of Commerce, we chose Chuy’s.

Apart from the fact that this chain with restaurants in Texas and Tennessee comes highly recommended for the food, we were reminded that the Chuy’s restaurant nearest to us was where Jenna Bush, daughter of former President George W. Bush, ended up in trouble for underage drinking in 2001. If it was good enough for Jenna, we thought, then it was good enough for us.

A popular place – it was a long wait for a table – this Chuy’s also turned out to be a massive memorial to Elvis. Evlis posters on the walls, a guitar decorated with images of The King and a couple of full-on shrines.

One of them was located just inside the front door, complete with a blue bust of Presley with an inscription on it that read “Elvis lives.”

Our unflappable waitress Michelle told us that the Elvis shrine had built up over the years with donations from regulars customers who no longer have room for their collections at home.

“Now those customers can come here and see their Elvis memorabilia while they eat,” she said.

There is also the Elvis Presley Memorial Combo on the menu, an artery-congealing medley with enchiladas and queso wings – essentially deep-fried tortillas with melted cheese on them – which The King would doubtless have been proud to eat. Tasty, but deadly.

On the whole the food was good. The fish tacos were great, the fresh salsa with jalapenos was fiery and fantastic and the tortilla chips freshly made. Like the queso wings, the creamy jalapeno sauce was just a little odd and rather dangerous.

Definitely worth a repeat visit for the Elvis memorabilia alone. As for the claim that Austin has the world’s best Tex-Mex, our test was inconclusive, We’ll just have to come back for more.

Photos by Lucy Nicholoson

Natural gas is regarded as a relatively clean source of energy but there is mounting evidence that it has a dirty side.

My colleague Jon Hurdle has reported on Wyoming water woes that have been linked to the booming gas industry. You can see his stories here and here.

In August U.S. government scientists reported that they had for the first time found chemical contaminants in drinking water wells near natural gas drilling operations, fueling concern that a gas-extraction technique is endangering the health of people who live close to drilling rigs.

The Environmental Protection Agency found chemicals that researchers say may cause illnesses including cancer, kidney failure, anemia and fertility problems in water from 11 of 39 wells tested around the Wyoming town of Pavillion in March and May this year.

On Monday, I reported that high concentrations of harmful compounds have been found in the air in a north Texas town that is in the heart of the region's gas industry, according to a report released by an environmental consultancy.

The study by Wolf Eagle Environmental Engineers and Consultants found high concentrations of carcinogenic and neurotoxin compounds in the atmosphere at seven locations around the rural town of DISH, which is about 50 miles northwest of Dallas.

Carcinogens are linked to cancers while neurotoxins are toxins that act on nerve cells.

The report said the levels of several of the substances exceeded those that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) uses as benchmarks or triggers that could prompt it to investigate or take action. This does not mean that these levels are an immediate hazard but the town's mayor Calvin Tillman told me that he would like to see the several compressor stations in the area shut down until people are reassured that they are not emitting toxins.

DISH is on the Barnett Shale, a large geological formation in north Texas that contains vast amounts of natural gas.

What do you think? Is natural gas a viable option in the quest for an energy source cleaner than coal, which emits about twice as much carbon dioxide? Or must the industry first clean up its own act?

(Photo: A worker at EnCana's Frenchie Draw gas-drilling rig in central Wyoming guides sections of steel pipe into an 11,000-foot well on September 19, 2009. REUTERS/Jon Hurdle)

- Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own -

On the first Sunday of October, the Texan city of El Paso recorded its 10th murder of the year. On the same day, El Paso's Mexican sister city, Ciudad Juarez, recorded its 1,809th murder of 2009. Mayhem on one side of the border, relative peace on the other.

The contrast is stunning. According to an annual ranking compiled by CQ Press, a Washington publishing house, El Paso is the third-safest large city in the U.S. (after Honolulu and New York). According to a Mexican think tank, Ciudad Juarez became the world's most violent city this year, torn by a vicious free-for-all involving warring drug cartels, hit squads, common criminals, and the military.

The two cities form a sprawling metropolitan area of some 2.5 million, divided by a river and a border fence; united by family and business ties, history and now a shared fascination with Ciudad Juarez's gradual descent into criminal anarchy. El Paso's citizens follow the bloodletting across the river with rapt and horrified attention.

Border mayors, business executives and many residents along the 1,240-mile frontier between Texas and Mexico - more than half the 1,951-mile line between the U.S. and its southern neighbour - tend to frown at such phrases as "spillover violence" and "border war" because they conjure up an image of the U.S. border region as a lawless no-go area.

"There's a wide gap between perception and reality," says Manuel Ochoa of the El Paso Regional Economic Development Corporation, a non-profit consultancy for companies considering setting up shop in El Paso, southern New Mexico and the Mexican state of Chihuahua. "And the figures speak for themselves."

You hear similar remarks elsewhere along the frontier. "Crime on the Texas border is still on the way down after decreasing 65 percent over the past several years," according to Chad Foster, the mayor of Eagle Pass (its Mexican twin is Piedras Negras) and chairman of the Texas Border Coalition of mayors, county judges and economic development experts.

Many of them complain that politicians in Washington and Austin, the Texas state capital, make decisions on the border region without consulting the people most intimately familiar with its problems. The coalition reacted with irritation to an announcement by governor Rick Perry in September that he would send National Guardsmen and Texas Rangers to "high-crime areas along the border."

"Your remarks...create a public impression of lawless hordes overrunning the border region and do not reflect our collective experience," the coalition said in a letter to Perry. "While each of our communities has their own unique issues, being overrun by criminal elements from Mexico is not one of them."

CARTELS AND BUSINESS SENSE

If that is the case, why not? Answers to that question range from a strong law enforcement presence in border towns to tightened border controls. Last but not least: it doesn't make business sense for the drug cartels to export their violent disputes across the river.

"Let's not forget the economics at stake here," Richard Wiles, the sheriff of El Paso county and a former El Paso police chief said in an interview. "These are illicit business enterprises which exist to make profits. The last thing they want are even tighter controls of the ports of entry in response
to violent actions here. They remember what happened after September 11."

After the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, scrutiny at border crossing points was so intense that south-north traffic backed up for endless hours in delays that crippled both legal and illegal trade. "They don't want that to happen again."

For good reason. According to estimates by the Department of Homeland Security, smuggling drugs across a port of entry presents less than 30 percent risk of detection, compared with a 70 percent risk for those crossing the Rio Grande and the open spaces between crossing points.

The sharply different levels of violence south and north of the border do not mean that American border cities have entirely escaped contagion. The suspect arrested in El Paso's tenth murder this year, for example, was a teenager from Ciudad Juarez. And in May, three gunmen killed Jose Daniel Gonzalez, a drug trafficker turned informer for the U.S. government, in front of his suburban El Paso home.

Still, these cases are exceptions - so far. Curiously, the two American cities most affected by disputes between drug traffickers do not sit astride the border but are several hours' drive from it. They are Tucson, 60 miles from the Arizona-Mexico frontier, and Phoenix, 120 miles away.

Tucson has been plagued by a rash of home invasions, most of them tied to the drug trade, that often feature criminals pretending to be law enforcement officers. They burst into houses to steal drugs, cash or guns. In Phoenix, kidnappings for ransom have become so routine that law enforcement officials call the city the U.S. kidnap capital. Most of the kidnappers, and their victims, have ties to Mexican criminal organizations.

Their activities in the U.S. have grown quietly and relentlessly. In 2006, according to a Senate hearing on Mexican drug cartels in March, they were active in around 50 U.S. cities. Now, they dominate the world's richest drug market (move over, Colombians!) and have a presence in at least 230 cities, says the National Drug Intelligence Center. Its website has a map showing those cities.

Economics 101. Supply meets demand, as far away from the southern border as Kalamazoo, Michigan and Billings, Montana.

-- You can contact the author at Debusmann@reuters.com --

Former Congressman Tom DeLay, aka "The Hammer," hung up his dancing shoes on Tuesday, but we may not have seen the last of his smooth moves.

The Texas Republican scored low in the polling, but still got enough votes to remain in the running in ABC's "Dancing With The Stars."

DeLay lived up to his nickname during his years as the tough Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives. But he could not hang tough with two sore feet, so he bowed out of the dance competition.

DeLay ignored doctor's advice on Monday and danced anyway, aggravating stress fractures in both feet. Was that the softer side of the Hammer talking when he said he would not be able to continue?.

"You can't practice and if you can't practice you make a fool out of somebody. I don't want to do that to Cheryl," DeLay said of dancing partner Cheryl Burke.

Had he not been forced to sit out the rest of the season, DeLay said his next dance would have been the Texas Two-Step. He may get another chance to strut his stuff. He left the show with an open invitation to come back at the end of the season -- if he's feeling better.

DeLay was House majority leader from 2003-2005 before being forced to step down on charges of violating campaign finance laws.

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Evan Sisley. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay walks away from the U.S. Capitol on the day his resignation took effect. Sept. 6, 2006.

What could be more mainstream than the president of the United States addressing the country's school kids on their first day in class after the Labor Day weekend? That must have been what White House officials were thinking when they set up a speech by Barack Obama for next Tuesday.

The theme, according to the presidential Web site, couldn't be blander: work hard, be responsible and stay in school. Even the White House recognized the possibly low excitement level of the subject and in addition to a video promo by the president, there's also one featuring NASCAR drivers, urging students and their parents to tune in.

That's not how some parents -- and political conservatives -- saw it, especially in Texas.

Houston radio station KTRH made it the question of the day: "How do you feel about President Obama's plan to speak directly to school children in an address next week?" Some parents worried the speech would be laced with politics and others were concerned that it hadn't been reviewed by the state board of education, according to a front-page New York Times story. CNN's morning news headline on the subject read, "Obama talk to my kids? No thanks!"

UPDATE: White House spokesman Robert Gibbs responding to the controversy says: "I think we've reached a little bit of the silly season when the president of the United States can't tell kids in school to study hard and stay in school."

At issue for some was a line in government materials made available to teachers that suggested students write themselves a letter asking what they could do to help the president. That was later deleted. Material from the Department of Education now suggests asking older students:

"Why does President Obama want to speak with us today?    
How will he inspire us?   
How will he challenge us?  
What might he say?"

Presidents talking to students is nothing new. In fact, the classroom photo op is a staple of American political life. So why has this speech hit such a nerve? Is it the times? It it the economic climate? Is it a new turn in U.S. attitudes toward Barack Obama? Or something else altogether?

Let us know what you think.

Photo credits: REUTERS/Larry Downing (President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle at Capital City Public Charter School, Washington, February 3, 2009)

REUTERS/Win McNamee (President George W. Bush reads at Nalle Elementary School, Washington, February 9, 2001)

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (President Bill Clinton reads to children at the White House, December 19, 2000)

As part of a Reuters series on long-term unemployment, reporters spoke with those who are struggling to find work. For other profiles click here and here.

ALVIN GAINS, 56, former Chrysler worker

For the second time in 30 years, Alvin Gains is leaving his home state of Michigan and moving to Texas to find work.

"There are college kids who can't find a job, so there's no chance for someone my age," said Gains, 56. "But people are hiring in Houston, so it's time to go."

Gains has moved to the Houston area once before. He joined thousands of Michiganders drawn to jobs in a Texan oil boom in 1979, after he was laid off by Chrysler. He returned to Michigan in 1984, when Chrysler was hiring again.

He has been retired since the end of 2007 from a job as an inspector at a Chrysler plant in the Detroit suburb of Sterling Heights. "This time I knew what signs to look for and I could see what was coming, so I knew it was time to get out," he said.

But now his wife has lost her job and money is tight for the couple and their two two young sons. A local job search was fruitless.

"This downturn is so much worse, there's no work for people here," he added. "But I need to have some money in my pocket."

So Gains and his family will move to Houston in the next few weeks, having already found a place to live there. He has applied for jobs at gas stations and supermarkets, while his wife has a promising lead for an office job.

As for the family's condominium, which he hasn't been able to sell, Gains is planning to walk away it. "I don't see how I have much choice if I want to work.