Although now legally blind and largely confined to his home, Vernon Tuck’s mind is still razor sharp.

Speaking in a husky voice bursting with a pure Texas-bred accent, the former real estate developer turned sustainable living enthusiast can talk with insight on everything from solar water heaters to politics to his days living through the Great Depression.

Few know of these oral history lessons better than Tuck’s own daughter, Jo Anne, who remembers taking her father on a driving trip of his hometown in Goose Creek – now Baytown – a few years ago when his sight was better.

“If you’ve ever seen the movie ‘Driving Miss Daisy,’ this was like Driving Mr. Vernon,” Jo Anne said. “He remembered everything.”

Today, as Jo Anne and the rest of the Tuck family gather at her father’s home located on a secluded stretch of road between Bastrop and Buescher State Parks for Christmas Eve, they will be celebrating more than just the holiday spirit. Today Vernon Tuck turns 90 – a milestone that as he himself will tell you, has allowed him the opportunity to witness “astonishing changes.”

From Tom Sawyer to businessman

Born in 1919 in Goose Creek, Tuck grew up amidst the marshlands and swamps of the Texas Gulf Coast. Here he lived something of a Tom Sawyer-type existence, hitchhiking and jumping trains when he needed to travel or explore new sections of the region’s then free-range landscape. When the San Jacinto Monument was in the process of being built outside Baytown in the mid 1930s, for instance, Tuck was there, even scaling down a steel ladder more than 60 feet into the dark recesses of the structure’s foundation one night with a friend. Acting on another whim around the same time, the young Tuck hitchhiked to El Paso then hopped a California-bound train and found himself riding headlong into the night with those same hoards of migrant workers described so eloquently in the works of John Steinbeck.

“The word had gotten out there was work in California,” Tuck said. “I rode the train out there and the people were hanging on it like fleas on a dog. When they caught you, you had a choice to walk back and buy a ticket to the east, buy a ticket at the next train station or go to jail. It was terrible.”

Tuck located an uncle living in California and stayed with him for only three weeks before deciding it was time to return to Texas.  Back in the Lone Star State, he gradually began saving money and investing in real estate deals with his father. Tuck then took over a Woolworth’s Store in Baytown that he operated over the ensuing years while starting a family with his first wife. In the early 1960s, Tuck decided to relocate to Bastrop County after learning of some promising real estate deals – namely a large swath of Camp Swift that was being auctioned off to the public. With a small group of investors, Tuck purchased a section of the land and began the Lake Bastrop Acres subdivision. A number of other housing developments soon followed and Tuck has called Bastrop County home ever since.

Living off the land

Perhaps just as interesting as Tuck’s vivid 20th century recollections is his seemingly boundless enthusiasm and curiosity with the present. Instead of spending his days in a retirement home or resigned to enjoying life’s simple pleasures, Tuck wakes every morning and begins composing his infamous “list.”

“He has been making his daily list of things to do his whole life,” Jo Anne said. “And if you happen to be in the same room, you can bet he is going to make one for you too.” Often making their way onto Tuck’s lists are tasks related to what has become his primary interest in recent years: exploring green technology and practicing sustainable living.

Although Tuck says he has long been interested in living a more simple lifestyle, it was not until moving to his rustic retreat in the woods seven years ago with his wife, Odilia Tuck-Juarez, that he moved towards a more pronounced form of self-sufficiency. After building the two-story cabin from pine lumber he purchased for $5,000, Tuck laid down a raised-bed organic garden from which the bulk of his household’s vegetables are now garnered. A composting toilet was built next to the garden and chickens were brought in for eggs. Numerous fruit trees were also planted around the two-acre property.

For the Tucks’ water needs, a cistern with a purifier was built to catch rainwater collected from their metal roof. One small well on the property was dug as a backup water source and has since been reserved mostly for use on the garden. Using information from the Internet as his guide, Tuck then had a solar-powered shower fed entirely from rainwater installed just adjacent to the main house. Consisting of two 1,500 gallon concrete septic tanks that have been painted black to conduct heat, the shower means Tuck is only forced to turn on his regular water heater during winter months. As far as future endeavors, the next plan is to install a solar cooker, an effort which Tuck is quick to point out, has seen more delays than he would like.

“I have still got it on my list,” he says with a wry smile. “I have given the plans to three carpenters but I guess they just haven’t been able to get around to it.”

Lessons of the past

Considering that most of the men in his family did not live past 66, Tuck says he feels extremely fortunate to still be going so strong. He attributes his longevity to both his diet and the fact he gave up drinking in the early 1980s, a habit which he does not mind admitting could be relished in abundance during week-long forays to Mexico.

Yet there is much more involved with Tuck’s sustainable living model than merely staying healthy. The true driving force is the understanding of just how drastically the world around him has changed over the course of one lifetime.

“I am going to be 90 years old and looking back, I have seen the rape of mother nature that the young people today have not seen,” Tuck said. “Unless you have seen it, is hard to comprehend what has happened.”

As just one example, Tuck recalls the days when he didn’t think twice about drinking from streams in the Houston area.

“I can remember as a kid we would be traveling in a Model T-Ford from Liberty County to Harris County and if we passed a stream we would stop and cook a meal and drink the water,” Tuck said. “We would fill our jugs and put them in the car and go on. Those days are gone. I don’t know a stream in Texas where I would drink the water from today.”

Observing the diminishing water supplies in his home state over the years has also been a disheartening lesson.

“When I was a kid, probably between 10 and 12-years-old, our science teacher told us of hearing this guy speak who had said that during our lifetime we would see water become as precious as oil,” Tuck said. “Everybody said he was nuts, but that stuck in my mind. Now we are almost there.”

Going hand in hand with his observations on the natural environment, Tuck says he has become increasingly concerned with America’s consumption habits. During his long career in real estate development, for example, Tuck watched with dismay as homeowners’ expectations of living standards rose ever higher. He says he remembers when many well-to-do middle-class families had no qualms about building homes under 1,200 square feet with a single bathroom. Like those streams he used to dip into for water, the situation is no more.

“I never dreamed people would be living as opulent a lifestyle as they are now,” Tuck said.  “When two-bath homes and two-car garages not only became the custom, but a necessity, I thought to myself, ‘what in the heck is this world coming to.’ I do think that with everything that has been going on recently in the housing market the standard of living will start to move back to a more reasonable level.”

Regardless of his sensitivity to the dire environmental hazards facing planet Earth, Tuck is by no means all gloom and doom. As he perches back in a chair inside his cozy office surrounded by old family photos, Mexican artifacts and the folk art sculptures of a now departed friend, Tuck seems to be relishing every moment he is able to spend in his wooded retreat with his wife.

“I can still see well enough that when we come down the road out here I can make out the trees arching over it and I just feel so good because I remember it so vividly,” Tuck said. “And it’s so quiet here. When we first moved out here the silence could be crushing but now we are used to it. We just love it.”