{"id":66396,"date":"2026-05-19T15:21:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T20:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/?p=66396"},"modified":"2026-05-19T15:21:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T20:21:26","slug":"intersectionality-niue-and-dime-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/?p=66396","title":{"rendered":"Intersectionality: Niue and Dime Box"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At our early morning WLBOTT<\/strong> staff meeting, Sister Magdalena<\/strong> was quite excited this morning. She’s all about connecting people, sharing joyful connections, and trying to manage in her late night Wikipedia random article obsession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today’s topic was the intersectionality of Niue<\/strong> and Old Dime Bo<\/strong>x, Texas<\/strong>. We’re not sure about the sunglasses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A Little Bit About Niue<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Niue is a self-governing island country in free association with New Zealand. It is situated in the South Pacific Ocean, is part of Polynesia, and is predominantly inhabited by Polynesians. As one of the world’s largest coral islands, Niue is nicknamed “The Rock”, which comes from the traditional name “Rock of Polynesia”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of 2006, between 90% and 95% of Niuean people live in New Zealand, along with about 70% of the speakers of the Niuean language. Niue is a bilingual country: 30% of the population speak both Niuean and English; 11% speak only English; and 46% speak only Niuean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first Europeans to sight Niue sailed under Captain James Cook in 1774. Cook made three attempts to land, but the inhabitants refused to grant permission to do so. He named the island “Savage Island” because, as legend has it, the natives who “greeted” him were painted in what appeared to be blood. The red substance was actually hulahula, a native red fe’i banana<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\nWikipedia<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Behold the Coconut<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Niue <\/strong>was known as “Savage Island” until its original name, “Niue”, which translates as “behold the coconut”<\/strong><\/em>, regained use.<\/p>\nWikipedia<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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A Little Bit About Dime Box<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Dime Box<\/strong> is an unincorporated community and census designated place in Lee County, Texas, United States. As of the 2020 census, Dime Box had a population of 207. The Dime Box Independent School District serves area students and is home to the Dime Box High School Longhorns. It is named after what is now called Old Dime Box.<\/p>\n\n\n

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By Larry D. Moore, CC BY 4.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=31617545<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>Wikipedia<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
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Ker<\/strong>nut<\/strong> the Blond<\/strong> does a deep dive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Of course, this begs the obvious question: Which came first? Was there a dime in the box and people built a town around it, or was the town already named Dime Box and someone with a sense of the ironic built a big dime and put it in a box?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To add to the mystery, the town welcomes you with a massive mailbox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A long time ago, like when horses brought the mail, if you wanted a letter delivered you left it, along with a dime, in a wooden box for weekly delivery to nearby Giddings. This wooden box was inside the Brown\u2019s Mill post office.<\/p>\nKernut the Blond<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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The Dime Box Heritage Society<\/a><\/strong> has an active Facebook<\/a> <\/strong>page, with lots of photos of the community dating back many years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An Elder Has Fond Memories of Old Dime Box<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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I remember now why I called the area around Old Dime Box the Old Dime Box Triangle<\/strong>.  Old Dime Box (ODB) lies on Hwy 21 between Bastrop and Caldwell and I would pass through it on every trip between UC and Texas A&M.  Very early in my freshman year, a buddy was driving down to San Antonio for the weekend and several of us crammed into his car to car pool.  About 5 miles north of Old Dime Box, his car died and we pulled it over on the side of the road.  Since it was kinder simpler days, A couple guys hitchhiked back to A&M in the dark and retrieved another car, picked us up and took us to SA.  Not sure what happened to the dead car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Thanksgiving of my freshman year, I went back to San Antonio and was driven by two girls I knew from high school.  Over the weekend, there was a big ice storm, so we waited to drive back to A&M on Monday.  The temperatures had melted the ice all the way to Old Dime Box, but just outside ODB, we hit a patch of ice on an overpass.  The driver lost control and the car smashed into a guard rail and we spun around and ended up in a ditch.  We didn\u2019t roll and since we were wearing seatbelts, we were safe.  However, one of the girls was bringing a bunch of clothes back to school and had them hanging on a bar across the backseat.  The clothes all fell down and the girl in the back was covered under a big pile of clothes.  We had the car towed to ODB and then called the driver\u2019s dad on a coin phone from a feed store.  He proceeded to have a tow truck come up from UC to pick up the car and he drove us from ODB to A&M.  While waiting for 3 hours in the ODB feed store, I went to the bathroom and a guy was selling condominium timeshares<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Less interesting, but also in my first year, we were pulled over just outside ODB by a Highway Patrol cop and were given a speeding ticket.  This was a known speed trap since it was the main road to Austin or SA from A&M.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, 3 incidents in less than 1 year very close to ODB and thus, I named it the ODB Triangle where bad stuff happened. \u00a0On the bright side, ODB is 10 miles from Snow\u2019s BBQ in Lexington, but I never visited it until recent times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\nElder JimZim<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
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Commonalities<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Let’s focus on the things that bind our two communities, that emphasize our shared sisterhood\/brotherhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s start here: Niue has the hard-shelled C<\/strong>oconut <\/strong>C<\/strong>rab<\/strong>, while Dime Box has the hard-shelled A<\/strong>rmadillo<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Unavailability of Snow Shovels<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

(note: Niue’s record low is 9\u00b0C\/48\u00b0F).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Agriculture: the Foundation of Both Economies<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Niue:<\/strong> Taro, sweet potatoes<\/strong>, yams, bananas, papayas (pawpaw), passion fruit, guavas, and limes
Dime Box:<\/strong> Hay, corn, pecans, sweet potatoes<\/strong>, and beef<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Agriculture is a major factor in our cultural exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tourism<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Family<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The biggest commonality is family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And a Word about Coconut Crabs<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Most families grow their own food crops for subsistence and sell their surplus at the Niue Makete in Alofi, or export to New Zealand. Coconut crab<\/strong>, or uga, is also part of the food chain; it lives in the forest and coastal areas.<\/p>\nWikipedia<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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The coconut crab<\/strong> (Birgus latro) is a terrestrial species of giant hermit crab, and is also known as the robber crab or palm thief. It is the largest living terrestrial arthropod, with a weight up to 4.1 kg (9 lb)<\/strong>. The distance from the tip of one leg to the tip of another can be as wide as 1 m (3 ft 3 in)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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By P\u00efnpin – own work from Inscape site CoconutCrab and Image:BlankMap-World6, compact.svg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=3494176<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A popular internet urban legend suggests that Amelia Earhart<\/strong> crash-landed on Nikumaroro and her remains were rapidly consumed by coconut crabs on the island. However, as no evidence of Earhart’s plane has been found on or near Nikumaroro, this theory is generally discredited by historians.<\/p>\nWikipedia<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Our photo archives also dispel this myth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The coconut crabs are preparing to send a diplomatic delegation to the WLBOTT <\/strong>Niue consulate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At our early morning WLBOTT staff meeting, Sister Magdalena was quite excited this morning. She’s all about connecting people, sharing joyful connections, and trying to manage in her late night Wikipedia random article obsession. Today’s topic was the intersectionality of Niue and Old Dime Box, Texas. We’re not sure about the sunglasses. A Little Bit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[137,174,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brotherhood-sisterhood-of-man-woman","category-south-seas","category-texas"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66396"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66413,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66396\/revisions\/66413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}