Old Guy's Rambling Remembrances #39

WHAT HAVE I DONE????
6/19/03  (There is nothing new under the sun)


It’s now official.  The once Democrat, now Republican  Governor of Texas has called a special session of the legislature to reapportion the state for the express purpose of securing the dictatorial authority of the Republican Party in Texas.

I can remember when I voted for any Republican who managed to make it onto the ballot, because I believed that Texas needed a two party government.

I remember when, in the days of Governor Mark White, I had my “Gee, I miss Governor Clements” bumper sticker proudly displayed on my pickup.

In retrospect, I can’t help feeling guilty.

Tom Delay says that this reapportionment, having no connection whatsoever with the census, is necessary, because most of the major offices in the state have gone to Republicans, and that we need to change the voting boundaries to reflect the “will of the people”.

When my co-worker Chuckie said, back in the aborted election of 2000, that “the person with the most votes should win the election”.  That would have made Al Gore president.   I strongly disputed that concept, although as everyone knows, I would much rather have seen Al Gore as President.

When we have finally become a single party Republican state, I will remember that many of the politicians who were Democrats in the seventies are now Republicans, and that little has really changed in Texas.

I sometimes wonder what Thomas Jefferson would say about his United States of America if he could see what we have done to it, but I also sometimes wonder what Jesus would say about Christianity if he were to speak out about what we have done to it.

A Place For A Wandering Man

Memories often take strange turns.  Yesterday, I was thinking, as I often do, on a single subject, a tune played by the younger brother of a school classmate.  On his trombone, he'd play a jazzy version of, "Believe me if all those endearing young charms", and he had it well perfected.

So, often without provocation, I will suddenly begin to hum or whistle that jazzy tune.  Sometimes, I will give my tune words, such as:
Believe me if all those
Endearing young charms
Which I gaze on so fondly today
Were to change by tomorrow
And fleet in my arms,
And the skies are not cloudy all day....
Home, home on the range...etc.

And so, I started thinking of my dad, and am forced to once more relate another "dad fact", which, I'm sure, may be boring to some.

The first three years of my life were spent on the road.  My dad, who had started his working life at age 14, after the untimely death of his father, was a "traveling salesman".

The family went along with Dad on his work, living for no more than a short while in many towns across Texas.  I was first, then my younger sister and I, traveling with Mom and Dad, occasionally stopping for awhile in Nacogdoches, the city of my birth, to allow we little ones to stay with Granny for awhile.

Of the products he sold in those early days, I only remember a line of glass mixing bowls, and subscriptions to Progressive Farmer magazine.  It was work that he loved, however.

In the year that I was four, we moved to Nacogdoches, and lived there until shortly before I reached five.  My dad worked for a time in the woods with my grandfather, who was a logger, and tried a small scale printing business in a building behind our house (a duplex shared with one of Mom's cousins), and I suppose, filled in part time at the post office.  Then, we packed up and moved down to the Texas coast, to Bay City, Texas, where he worked for awhile in an appliance store owned by an old family friend who had previously traveled with us.

Then, one evening, he walked into our little house, and announced, "I'm a FULL substitute!"  Not knowing for sure what that meant, I later found out that he had accomplished a goal.  He had become a postal employee at the Post Office in Bay City.

When I was eight, and my dad was away in the South Pacific during The War, my mom bought a second hand upright piano, and was very insistent that I take piano lessons.  She probably should have taken them herself rather than waste her money, but she felt that my sister and I needed the experience of learning music.  One thing she really wanted me to master was, "Home, Sweet Home".  It had always been my dad's favorite.

Once my sister and I were away at college, my dad began to sell a brand of recliner chair and aluminum cookware locally, and soon hooked up with a representative for several furniture factories.  He gave up his job with the post office, which, I later understood, he had never come to love.  Once again, he became a "traveling salesman".

He later separated from the senior representative, and began representing furniture factories on his own.  My mom chose to stay home, and traveled with him only occasionally, and on numerous trips to Furniture Markets.

It was not until many years later, during the year that I was fifty-eight years old, and we sat with the minister preparing Dad's eulogy, that I suddenly realized that the year in Nacogdoches, and all those years in the post office, which frequently gave him headaches, were to provide my sister and me with a stable environment during our "growing up" years.  I had never been aware of the sacrifice he made for us, because he never gave us reason to think about it.

My dad was a traveling man, who loved the road, and the interaction with people of all temperaments in countless places across the country, but he always came home on weekends, and carried with him always the sentiment he had held as a boy,
"Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;"

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MY CHRISTMAS CAROL OF THE BELLS

I am known by my family and friends as "Scrooge", resulting from my negative attitude of the end of year holidays, which I'd prefer to call "Potlatch" for its crass commercialism and excess...centered, oddly enough, around the traditional birthdate of our Lord Jesus.  However, I will always be cheered by the beautiful music of the season, and most especially, "Carol of the Bells", which has been a symbol of joy throughout my life.

12/05/11

Last week we attended a choir and orchestra concert at our local high school, with Christa's sister Brianna performing.  Once again, I was treated to "Carol of the Bells", sung on the move as the choir marched onto the stage.  Then again, to "Carol of the Bells" as the orchestra STEAMROLLERED it!!!  Gosh, what am impressive sound, on that magnificent, large stage in that acoustically impressive Performing Arts Center.  


Remembering the tiny little space in this same high school when my daughters were enrolled, and the much less elaborate performances that space required, I was thrilled by the progress made in the production of high school performances.  


When I was in high school down on the Texas coast, the gymnasium was our performance space.

Moving back in time to another holiday season,

12/13/02

Last evening there was another choir concert at Christa’s school, another evening to miss CSI, but to be rewarded with lovely choral presentations by a terrific bunch of kids.

The show opened with the women’s choir (tenth graders as women? Wow!) singing “Carol of the Bells”. I was immediately nineteen again, hopelessly in love at Christmas, and constantly accompanied by my “buddy for life” Jerry, who was also deeply in love (fortunately for both of us, with a different girl). 


"Carol of the Bells" was one of our favorites during that Holiday season of eternal love and adventure.  Jerry and I took the girls first to his mom's home in Fort Worth for a few days, then down to the coast to spend the weekend at my parents' home.  All the while, whenever we were on the road, we frequently sang, hummed, or otherwise intonated the melody of "Carol of the Bells".

Only three years later, I was hopelessly in love with a different girl (not Jerry’s different girl, my own different girl), married, and looking forward to becoming a dad. I hadn’t heard from Jerry in more than a year, and would never see him again.

Now I’m an “old guy”.  I’ve done a lot of things since nineteen, but "Carol of the Bells" will always be a source of extreme pleasure for me.

Epiloguetaph...For several days now, I've heard the tune of "Carol of the Bells" used in a number of TV commercials. When I hear them now, I cannot help but overlay Family Guy singing "Ding! Fries are done!"  If ever I had illusions that Carol of the Bells could rekindle my Christmas spirit, those illusions are now shattered.  WalMart wins!  Just call me Scrooge.

Santa Clara Day, 1961...Our Last Day Before Donna

It was the evening of August 15, 1961 when my mom and dad arrived in Santa Fe.  It wasn't their very first visit, but they were still newcomers to the enchantment that I felt in the small 'city' in northern New Mexico.  I'm not sure they ever understood that enchantment.

The purpose for their visit was to be the birth of our second daughter, whom we were expecting "soon".  Mom was to stay a couple of weeks to help out with the new baby while dad hit the road to get back to his work of traveling to different cities as a factory representative for several furniture manufacturers.

The next day, we decided to make a sightseeing day of it, showing the "old people" the world we had discovered.   We left our apartment at 530 E. Garcia Street in the morning, and headed up the hill to Camino del Monte Sol, where I worked at the corner of Camino Monte Sol and Camino Cruz Blanca, in the shadow of the prominent landmark, Monte Sol.

From the office, we wound our way along Camino San Acacio to have a look at Cristo Rey Church, a prominent monstrosity which is attractive to tourists, before heading up the "more or less" paved Upper Canyon Road.  Looping back toward town on the unpaved Cerro Gordo Road, we turned back uphill when we encountered pavement at Gonzalez Road, and proceeded to the mountain.  No newcomer to Santa Fe should tarry too long without going up the mountain!  We actually went all the way to the ski lodge, but in August, it was pretty well deserted, and whatever snow lingered was hardly noticeable, as it was dirty enough to blend into the soil.   The park road down to Tesuque was unpaved then, and somewhat rough, so we took it for its scenic quality.

Arriving back to the highway at Tesuque, we turned north to Española, and crossed the mighty Rio Grande. It was Santa Clara's Feast Day at the pueblo, so we joined in the festivities for awhile before heading down NM route 30 past Black Mesa and making a right at the intersection to go back up to Los Alamos.

We looped through Los Alamos, and apparently my old (forty-six year old) dad must have been getting tired, and certainly not knowing where we were by then, saw the sign pointing to "Bandelier",  and mistook it for "Bernalillo", and remarked that we must be close to Albuquerque, which was a known quantity, and wanted to take it as a "short cut".

I took that as my cue, and headed for home.  We arrived back home in the early evening, having felt that we'd put in an eventful day, even though the telling of it was not nearly so adventurous.  Needless to say, we turned in early, both the old folks, my wife, and I.  Our only daughter Adrienne, who had recently turned two, was never ready for bed, and she often would get up and wander around the apartment for long after we were asleep.  She was asleep before dawn the next morning, however, when we determined that "it was time".   I alerted the obstetrician's service and we left Adrienne with the old folks while we headed down to Saint Vincente's, which was only a short distance away, at the corner of Paseo Peralta and E. Palace Avenue.  Apparently, we had timed it well, or pitifully, depending on your point of view, because I had only just settled into a chair in the waiting room, in order to wait for the long hours of anticipation, when the doctor himself came in and escorted me to where I found a wide awake Donna, casting a sidelong glance at me (a look which has a certain distinction which has remained with her throughout her life), and I almost expected her to say something, she seemed so alert.

Of our four daughters, Donna was the nearest to "natural childbirth", that we've experienced, and not necessarily by choice.  My wife assured me that she didn't want to do it that way again, but it happened so fast that they didn't have time to "put her down" in the normal "hospital" manner.  I'm sure it was our Santa Clara Day adventure that made our Donna unique among her sisters, who themselves, are each unique in the context of human existence.

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View PreDonna Day in a larger map

ANOTHER RUSH

I have thought that, as much criticism as I've given him since the 1980s, that I still believed that it has been since the 2008 election and subsequent inauguration that Limbaugh's become more flaky than ever.

Looking back at this memory, one which I've always cherished, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he's always been a flake.


GET REAL, RUSH

7/13/98

Last week when President Clinton was in Florida, he stayed at the mansion of Sylvester Stallone. Rush remarked on his Thursday show “You know, I guess I’ve always thought that Stallone was a Republican. You know, like Willis or Schwartznegger.”

I guess Rush hasn’t seen Willis in the pre-Jake days of “Moonlighting”, Schwartzenegger in “Kindergarten Cop”, or Stallone in the soft porn movie, “Party at Kitty and Stud’s”. Rush, these guys are all actors. Like Ronald Reagan, they get paid a lot of money to play parts that other people have written.

I think, Rush, that you’re losing your grip on reality. These actors are very good at what they do. Even though they are all quite competent at playing the part of mentally challenged macho men, they can also play other parts. Those are not their real personalities, Rush!




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AQUAMANIA

My Granny was born in 1885, five years before the massacre at Wounded Knee finally settled the physical aspects of our differences with the natives. There were no gasoline powered vehicles used in combating the native people of our land.

I was born in 1936, and my mother was 26 years old. Granny was 51. Until they moved to Houston, Granny got her water from a hand-dug well in the back yard, and her brother, who lived "out in the country", also used a hand dug well, which was connected to the back porch for convenience. One could look down into these wells and see the water.

Granny never learned to drive an automobile. When my mother was growing up, she began driving at 14 so she could transport Granny. When Mom wasn't available, Granny had to hitch up a horse to her buggy and drive herself.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the media's insistence that this drought, so seemingly inconsequential to me, is the "worst of the century". Perhaps "worst" is the keyword. It's easy for me to see that springs in our limestone country which once ran freely and dependably, have begun to flow more sporadically and infrequently. Our immediate ancestors were able to subsist on the precious water which flowed so freely. In places where there was no spring, an atmospheric windmill could provide plenty of fresh water from a source only a few feet below the surface (maximum draw depth for a windmill is not quite 34').

A drought in "the old days" was much more serious than today, but the people were more flexible in adapting to it. Right here in central Texas, adobe, which is now considered an expensive fashion in the desert areas of the southwest, was once used as a building material because labor was virtually all that was required to convert your site into a usable living space. It required very little water or mechanical devices.

I think we have come to take water for granted, just as we take petroleum for granted, in fact, down south of San Antonio, a great deal of water is expected to be used for the extraction of the last dregs of gas and oil through a process called "fracking". I do not deny that we need that petroleum. For forty years at least (and much longer from people who have greater vision), we've known the resources we've squandered are becoming much more difficult and expensive to obtain.

I complain constantly about the gu'ment using that large dam they built upriver to steal our river for the use of citizens who want green lawns.....and though it's all in fun, there certainly is a tone of seriousness to it.

Water wells which once cost a few hundred dollars to drill are now many thousands, as they must go deeper and deeper to find a dependable source. This not only disturbs the natural flow of the everpresent limestone country springs, but, in the Houston area, it once caused entire subdivisions which were built on dry land to gradually subside below sea level, as the water table which supported the land was sucked up by Houston's need for water.

I think, although I hate to admit it, that this may truly be our "worst drought", because we, as shortsighted humans, cannot accept that we should learn to live with nature rather than try to conquer it and constantly demand tribute from it.

We can never do that. "The earth abides".



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Old Guy's Rambling Remembrances #35

This evening, just as I was preparing to turn off the TV and go upstairs to read awhile and have a Scotch before going to sleep, I heard of the death of Jill Clayburgh.

I suppose my persistent question will forever continue to go unanswered.


WAS SHE, OR WASN’T SHE?.......AND THE ONLY WAY TO KNOW FOR SURE IS TO ASK HER.
4/7/99

In January of 1987 I was in Santa Fe, hanging out. I had told myself that I was there to look over the job potential. We were well into the mid-80's "voodoo economics" catastrophe that eventually led me to give up my business and get a paying job with a manufacturing company.

I didn’t find much activity there, and really didn’t try as hard as I should have to justify being there. My wife was home with Julie, who was expecting Christa “soon”.

I did have a word processor with me, and wrote down a lot of thoughts, but they have all been lost or misfiled over the years. One of the persistent thoughts has been the “sighting”.

Every afternoon about the same time, I’d walk around the plaza. I could swear I thought I’d seen Jill Clayburgh. She seemed to be making a routine trip each afternoon to Hagen-Daas, then walking back toward La Fonda with a cup in each hand. On the third afternoon of this routine, she gave me a sweet smile and walked on. It was at that time I decided that she probably wasn’t really Jill Clayburgh, but a secretary, and was not headed for the hotel with ice cream, but to one of the downtown offices with coffee from Woolworth’s.

Last night I accidently saw a new sit-com which featured Jill Clayburgh as the mother of the main character. Then this morning, I happened to catch a few minutes of some movie where Jill was playing the wife of Michael Douglas, who was dressed at the time in a baseball uniform. That’s all I saw of the movie, but once again I’m trying to decide if it wasn’t really Jill, and not a secretary, that I saw on the plaza that week back in 1987. Who really cares anyway?

I guess I do, but who else?





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Old Guy's Rambling Remembrances #34

LANGUAGE BARRIER

10/4/98

Friday, someone at the place where I work was iterating the phrase vaca caca. Since this did not come from a real Spanish speaking person, I let it pass at the time, saying only that a Spanish speaking person would never say that.

Since then, however, my mind has wandered to the Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, an excellent movie starring Edward James Olmos.

Gregorio Cortez is based on a corrida written by Americo Paredes, who, along with his other great accomplishments, was my freshman English teacher at the University of Texas.

The story, which is supposed to be based on a true story, happened in Karnes County, Texas around 1912 or so. The sheriff went out to the home of Gregorio to question him about a horse trade he had been reported to have made. In his best Spanish, the gringo asked Gregorio if he had traded a caballo that morning. Gregorio, who knew almost no English, answered truthfully (in Spanish) that no, he had not traded a caballo. The sheriff interpreted this as a lie, and pulled his gun to arrest Gregorio. Not understanding what was happening, Gregorio pulled a gun, and in the ensuing gunfight the sheriff was killed.

Gregorio hit the road, and was pursued over a large portion of Texas until finally apprehended. He was tried and sentenced to life, even though the State of Texas released him a few years later. The root of all of poor Gregorio’s trouble was that the sheriff had asked him if he had traded a caballo (horse) and Gregorio had actually traded a yewa (mare). A simple misunderstanding had turned a case of self defense into murder, and done great damage to the lives of two men, the sheriff of course, and Gregorio Cortez.

When Humble Oil Company decided to become not so humble, going blantantly international, they chose the name “ENCO”, a cute name for “Energy Company”. This worked fine in the good ol’ USA, but in some foreign countries with which they did business, it was an offensive word. After much careful research, they became “EXXON”, so that they wouldn’t offend anyone (until they killed all those fish at Valdez).

For more than forty years, my lack of fluency in the language of women has caused me a great deal of torment. It is very difficult to know what to say, and when to say it, and when to not say anything at all..

Be careful what you say, you never know who might be listening.




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Old Guy's Rambling Remembrances #31

SMILE A WHILE
3/25/00

When I was a callow college youth, without the consummate wisdom with which I am now endowed, I would brag to my buddies, “I know how to get any girl to smile at me.  Just walk along with a cheerful attitude, smiling instead of leering, and they’ll smile at you”.

Much, much later, when I finally became a man, I learned that the smile was a primal feminine defense mechanism that transcends species. It is widely used among human females, as well as others of higher forms of life to say, “I acknowledge that you are stronger than I, and that I have something that you desire greatly, but if you can resist your natural impulses to make the unspeakable demands, then, as an individual like yourself, and not an object to be exploited, I can become an affectionate and loyal friend, for as long as we both may live. If you like, we could have a cup of coffee, and some meaningful conversation. My husband would think it’s OK, so long as you behave yourself.”

The smile rarely means (as the college youth might be inclined to surmise), “She wants me”.

I’ve tried to remember this throughout my adult life, and the very knowledge of it has earned me a lot of nice hugs over the years.

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Remembering an adventure of fate....

This evening (I'll probably finish this tomorrow, so perhaps I should say, "Monday evening"), I went to a choir concert at my ninth-grader granddaughter's school.

As I sat there waiting for the show to start, I thought about how times had changed since I was in ninth grade. In MY day, performances were staged in the gymnasium. Some gyms even had a stage built into one end for the times when the space was used for a play or concert. The acoustics were usually insufferable.

The theater at the ninth grade center where our granddaughter goes to school this year had a nicely functional space, with a large stage, sloped floor, and fixed seats. Looking up, one sees some acoustical devices which someone once told me were called "clouds". The "clouds" reminded me of a period in my life which I thought was somewhat anecdotal.

For my design thesis for graduation from the University of Texas School of Architecture I decided to design a "Fine Arts Center" for a particularly attractive site at the confluence of Bouldin Creek and The Colorado River (which later became Town Lake and is now Lady Bird Lake).

It was not until I started researching my project that I found that, in those days, Fine Arts Centers were not a regular fixture of virtually every reasonably sized city. I found, among the meager resources of the Architecture Library, only a single Fine Arts Center, the one in Colorado Springs, designed by John Gaw Meem.

I feel that I did a very mediocre job with my thesis project, and was quite disappointed with the way it turned out. Often I'm my own worst critic, and perhaps someone saw some merit in my design that I didn't, because I got a passing grade, and left The University, to go out into the world and complete my education in Architecture with a correspondence course to remedy a failing grade in American History.

During my first summer of working for an architect in Baytown, Texas, we made a trip to Albuquerque to visit some of my wife's relatives who lived there. We vowed to move to Albuquerque as soon as we could.

It happened that we were free to move to New Mexico in December of that year, and we promptly did so. I'm sure that it was sometimes, even usually, done differently, but I was accustomed to "pounding the pavement" looking for work. That's what I did (however, I drove around in my new VW instead of actually pounding the pavement). After looking unsuccessfully in ABQ for more than a week, Uncle Bill, who was making a trip up to the Taos area, offered to drop me off in Santa Fe to check around there while he went up to Taos, and would pick me up on The Plaza in the afternoon. sounded like a plan to me. I had been to Santa Fe the day before, and was quite impressed with it, although it was snowing just enough to keep me from seeing more than a block or so in any direction.

At the second place I visited, the architect looked at the work samples that I presented (featuring my Fine Arts Center), and made a phone call. I heard him say that the person to whom he was talking might be interested in my work. I asked him how far it was, because I was on foot, and he called up one of his employees, asking him to "take this fellow to Meem's office".

It turned out that the firm of Holien and Buckley, John Gaw Meem's successors, was working on.....A FINE ARTS CENTER for the University of New Mexico!

One of the very first things that I worked on at Holien and Buckley was the suspension for the concrete acoustical clouds in the recital hall, using steel rods. I doubt that those clouds weighed more than five or six thousand pounds (some details can be lost to time when you're an old guy), but a couple of boisterous Okies who worked in the office made up a rowdy story about a heroine opera singer on the stage, and a villain standing on the cloud above her head with a hack saw!


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On Christmas Day, what could be better than the 1975 Mother's Day Funfest

Author's note: This tale has been told before by Fred, and without doubt published in the Austin Chronicle, as was his habit, under the title, "The Great Mother's Day Massacree" I'm simply recounting the experience from MY viewpoint.

We were all involved in some capacity with the melodrama, "Secret of the Mine" with our local community theater. I was playing a school board member, while my wife was Lulu, a saloon girl.

A young member of our group, who will recognize herself if she reads this, will remain nameless in this story.

On opening night, we were backstage, and the young member of the group was in costume. The director had written in a part for her as a "master of ceremonies". She grabbed me by the shirt front, and we stood there motionless (except for her trembling hands) as she recited all her lines in my face!

The show went rather well, I think, that first weekend, and on Sunday, since no matinee was scheduled because it was Mother's Day, Fred, his wife K, my wife, KR, and I had planned a canoe ride down the San Gabriel

K and KR transported our combined total of six kids down to my mother's house in Austin, and brought back some delicious deli items for lunch. After lunch, we put the canoe into the river, and started our trip downstream. Our goal was Marie's house, about seven miles by road, and maybe eight or nine miles by river. We had been to a cast party at Marie's house the night before, and knew she still had some left over beer in the keg.

We had had rain during the days before this trip, but it was not raining then, although there was the typical overcast, which we normally ignore unless it's doing something more.

About half way to Marie's house (Marie also lived adjacent to the river, downstream from us, in Jonah), we began to notice bits of wood and tree branches floating along with us. About three-fourths of the way to Marie's, there was a low water bridge at Mankins Crossing.  When we reached it, tne bridge was not submerged yet. By then, we were aware that the river was rising, but we were almost there, weren't we????

A short distance past the bridge, we pulled over onto a shelf to "think about it". As it happened, Dr. Otti, one of the faculty at our local high school, was standing at the top of the bluff above our shelf, watching the river. We asked him how it looked from up there, and he mentioned that it was coming up, but not a lot. OK, we couldn't be more than a mile from Marie's, so, "Let's go!"

Before we'd gone a hundred yards from the shelf, Fred, who was in the bow, called, "Let's turn this sucker around!", and as he said that, I was looking almost straight UP at him, past the girls, who were seated between us. The water was really beginning to "pitch and roll".

And then, we were all in the water, holding onto the canoe from outside the gunwales. KR was not a swimmer, so we made sure she got back into the water-filled canoe to hold on from inside. Then Fred and K swam to the south bank (Marie lived on the north bank).

KR and I continued on with the canoe, edging toward the north bank, where many low hanging branches kept us occasionally ducking under water, until I was finally able to grab a sturdy branch that could stop us, and WE LANDED! We tied the canoe to the branch, and climbed the bank, to find that we were on Marie's land, and less than a quarter of a mile from her house!

We quickly crossed the pasture to Marie's, and had a beer! While we were settling in, thinking it would be hours before we would see Fred and K, Marie mentioned that she'd found the young "Master of Ceremonies" asleep behind her couch in the morning, but she had left by now. The girl was definitely one of us now!

While we were waiting for our fellow travelers to find their way across the river, I walked down to the Jonah bridge with Marie's son, who was visiting. We found that the river was flowing about six feet above the bridge, and cascading with at least a ten foot drop to the water below the bridge.

I think I decided then what a foolhardy stunt we had pulled. If we hadn't caught that branch which stopped our forward motion down the river, Grandma and Grandpa might have found themselves with four kids they'd never expected. The Jonah bridge was only a couple of hundred yards downstream from Marie's.

We'd hardly gotten back to Marie's, when a panel truck pulled up, and let Fred and K out. They had quickly found a ride with someone who was well acquainted with the county roads, and he'd been able to get them from one side of the flooded river to the other much quicker than any of us had expected!

Before the gu'ment messed with it, our river sure was a lot of fun!

On the second week's performances of the melodrama, KR was very concerned that her skimpy costume could never hide all the bruises she'd gotten on Mother's Day. Another of our group, our Mickey Finn, assured her that the bruises just added to her character!

I still get a little thrill when I think of that young "Master of Ceremonies", who has gone on to make a performance related career for herself out there on the Left Coast.



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An Old Man's Rambling Remembrances #30 or 31

Properly, this memory should not be posted until a more appropriate date. It's several months until 1/16/10, but if I wait that long, I may have forgotten. Memories rely on memory.


A DAY FILLED WITH BEAUTY
1/16/05

TODAY WAS CELEBRATED AS MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY. AS I WAS DRIVING TO
WORK, MY FAVORITE RADIO STATION WAS PLAYING A RECITAL BY A TEENAGE
CHORAL GROUP OF THE “I HAVE A DREAM” SPEECH. I WAS OBLIGATED TO SPEND A
FEW MINUTES SITTING IN MY CAR IN THE BELCO PARKING LOT WHILE THEY
FINISHED THIS BEAUTIFUL WORK OF ART.

I AM PROBABLY, AT THE VERY LEAST, ONE OF A VERY FEW PEOPLE AT BELCO WHO
HAVE ADULT MEMORIES OF THE DAYS BEFORE DR. KING, AND IT SADDENS ME EVEN
WHILE GIVING ME A SOMEWHAT HOSTILE FEELING TO HEAR ANYONE MAKING FUN
OF OR BELITTLING THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THIS GREAT AMERICAN.

WHILE DRIVING HOME, I WAS TREATED, ON THE SAME RADIO STATION, TO AN
INTERVIEW WITH BETTY CLAIBORNE, A BLACK LADY WHO, AFTER FORTY TWO YEARS,
WAS PARDONED TODAY BY KATHLEEN BLANCO, THE NEW GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA.
MS. CLAIBORNE WAS APPREHENDED AND CONVICTED IN BATON ROUGE IN 1963, AT
THE AGE OF 20, AFTER ATTEMPTING TO ENTER A PUBLIC SWIMMING POOL.
http://theadvocate.com/stories/011505/new_blanco001.shtml

ARRIVING HOME, I WAS HANDED A CAN OF ”CAMPBELL’S CHUNKY GRILLED SIRLOIN
STEAK WITH HEARTY VEGETABLES” SOUP. MY WIFE HAD TO ATTEND A MEETING,
AND I WAS ON MY OWN FOR DINNER. I HAVE HAD THIS SOUP BEFORE, AND,
ALTHOUGH MORE COSTLY THAN I THINK SOUP SHOULD BE, IT’S JUST ABOUT MY
FAVORITE. SOMEHOW CAMPBELL HAS BEEN ABLE TO PRODUCE A SOUP THAT TASTES
AS IF IT WERE SLOW COOKED ON A COLEMAN STOVE AT AUNT LIZZIE’S. A VERY
NOSTALGIC FLAVOR. MY GRANDMOTHER HAD ELECTRIC LIGHTS WHEN I WAS A TOT,
ALTHOUGH SHE COOKED ON A WOOD STOVE AND DREW WATER FROM A HAND-DUG
WELL. HER SISTER° HAD THE SAME, EXCEPT WITHOUT THE ELECTRICITY. KEROSENE
LANTERNS, WITH THEIR ACCOMPANYING AROMA, LIT AUNT LIZZIE’S HOUSE.

I WAS ABLE TO FINISH THE DAY WITH “THE BLUES BROTHERS” ON AMC, AND THEN
TO READ A CHAPTER FROM “COLD MOUNTAIN”. ON THE WHOLE, A TRULY
WONDERFUL, SENSUALLY PLEASING DAY!!!!! ALTHOUGH I FREQUENTLY WALLOW IN
NOSTALGIA, I’D STILL NEVER LONG FOR THE DAYS BEFORE MLK.


°A footnote:
I grew up thinking that Aunt Lizzy was Granny's sister, because when I was little, I thought they looked alike. In truth, if you study old photographs, you'll easily see that, in the early days of my youth, everyone looked alike. From the generation before my parents, it was often hard even to distinguish the men from their women, except for the way they dressed.

Living with Aunt Lizzy was Uncle Tom Allen. But Granny's maiden name was Allen! In all the years, I never asked my mother the question I should have. My mother only confirmed that Aunt Lizzy's husband was her Uncle Tom Allen.

It was only after my mother was deceased, and after I originally wrote this memory, that it occurred to me that Uncle Tom was Granny's brother, and Aunt Lizzy was Granny's sister-in-law! Such a simple answer to a puzzle that had hounded me all my life!

..

Return To Blue Hole

Unlike Rufus, who wonders how many of us may have been conceived here, I am a relative newcomer to Blue Hole Park. My kids all hung out here once upon a time, but I only casually passed through (passing though is no longer allowed for motorized traffic), until the spring floods of 2007 took Blue Hole away from us.

It was then that I became interested! My hostility grew as our "conservative" infested city gu'ment waited nearly a year for FEMA funds, which they decided they needed for the resurrection of the park. I hope they at least said "thank you", if they indeed got the funds which I feel should not have gone for civic projects.
...A view of Blue Hole from north bank
Today, after my last Saturday's trip down to Austin and Bull Creek Park, I vowed to check out the cliffs on the north side of Blue Hole. It appears that these cliffs are the living rock of which the ancient seabed was made. These have not been upended or fallen into position like the "gravity wall" at Bull Creek. So, while I was on this side, I took an overview photo of the picnic area I visited last week.
...A different world
In the years it has taken me to grow up, things have changed on our world. This access to the cliffs is still used, but seems quite adventurous by today's standards.
...Sign of the times
We often see relics of times gone by, and do not know for sure what purpose they served. Here on the cliffs is a sign saying "Unlawful to jump or dive from the cliffs", and ironically, it's directly adjacent to a footing which looks very much as if it once supported a diving board.
...WTF?????
Another footing? This is not the same as the one near the sign. Could there have been a second diving board, even higher than the first? How fun-loving and adventurous were our forebears! (And of course. those of our younger generation who scoff at oppressive city rules).



...

A Pleasant Memory of My Beloved Home

In 1961, Labor Day was on September 4, and I lived with my wife, my daughter Adrienne, who was two, and my daughter Donna (who had not yet finished her first month out in the open air of our world), in an apartment in Santa Fe, New Mexico, my spiritual home.

On this Monday, July 13, 2009, with a predicted high of 102°F, I think of the day before Labor Day in 1961.

I worked for a firm which had been inherited from John Gaw Meem, with a couple of raucous Okies, a Yankee from New York, a Texan with whom I'd had classes at UT, and a New Mexican who had met the Okies while in school at OU, and coerced them into coming to Santa Fe.

Our firm was a partnership. We had a laid back boss, and a skittish boss, who worked well enough as partners, but sometimes were both a source of amusement as well as consternation for those of us who worked under them.

It came to pass, sometime about mid-summer, that the skittish boss wanted to build a new house. He put his old house on the market before he got started on the plans, thinking it would take months to a year to sell it, but it sold within the first month. Not too good for a skittish fellow, who must get high behind and get his project under way.

He, his wife, and their son moved into an apartment, but the apartment was certainly not adequate to house their vast collection of house plants, so they were arranged on the portal of the office building, virtually filling the fairly large space.

On Sunday, September 3, I was thrilled to awake to a moderate snowfall which was still under way, and I quickly roused our neighbors upstairs, who were from New Jersey. The lady of the neighbor couple exclaimed, "Snow on September 3, why, that doesn't happen even in Jersey!" (I hate it when Damyankees judge everything to the standards of Yankeeland).

After church at St. Francis Cathedral, we packed the neighbors and our kids into our 1960 VW and drove out to view the white. We drove by the office, which was only a few blocks away, expecting devastation on the portal, but there was not a house plant to be seen!

Arriving at work on Tuesday morning, I noticed that all the plants had been moved indoors.

I asked the boss about it, and he explained that they knew better than to leave house plants out later than Labor Day, and they had come in on Saturday and moved them all inside.

Many years later, on September 3, 1977, we had a beautiful cool, fall-like day (not all that normal for Central Texas), and even the kids, who really knew little of Santa Fe, remarked, "It's just like Santa Fe!"

Some things that puzzled me at the crossroads

Let me preface by telling you that I'm something of a feminist (and perhaps just a little bit of a conspiracy freak). I do not know if it's the way I was raised, of if I was influenced by having four daughters with my wife. Although I often caught a little friendly ribbing about being "henpecked", I was the first member of the family to join NOW.


Several days ago, I rode the trail to the lakeshore. I came to this intersection, at a pleasant park which seems to cater to family gatherings, but is also a trailhead.

From the photo, you may be able to discern that the trail to the lower right goes back the way from which I came. Going off toward the left is the Corps of Engineers trail leading to the lake, while another branch leads to the trailhead parking, which also serves the park.

As I approached the intersection, a lady on a bicycle crossed and headed uphill on the portion of trail that centers the photo. Not too far behind the lady, was a man on another bicycle who called out, apparently using the lady's name. "You're going the wrong way!", he shouted.

And I'm still wondering, "Was she going the wrong way, and, if so, how did he know?" The way she was going led directly to the restrooms and water fountains. Why was he so sure she'd taken a wrong route?

For so many years, since antiquity, the male has always dominated in virtually every human culture. Is there a reason for this, or was it simply a matter of brute force, or brawn over beauty? Does might automatically make right? I'll always wonder.

Does anyone remember the movie version of "Hawaii", when Julie Andrews (Jerusha) asked the young native girl, "Whose baby is it?", to which the girl replied without hesitation, "It's MY baby!" We all know it takes two to make a baby, but why is it usually implied that children belong to the father, and the mother was just an incubator?

Another puzzling thing to me is Genesis. Think about it!

Chapter I:26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Then in Chapter V, which is the one used by Bishop Usher to count up the days since God created the earth:
1: This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him.
2: Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

In Chapter II comes that story about Adam and Eve, who began to lose favor with God through the actions of the woman, who, by nature, should be subservient according to this account. After all, she would not exist except for the sacrifice of a body part from Adam.

This third account, stuck in between the two other equally valid ones, is the one taught to kids in Sunday school, so it's the one we think of most often. Is there method in this?

There are those (some much more learned and historically oriented than Dan Brown) who believe that Mary Magdalene was never a prostitute. Is it possible that this conjecture was fabricated by the male priesthood to diminish her? I sorta think that "prostitution" and "priesthood" probably developed concurrently in the history of mankind. The bad rap given to prostitution over the ages could easily be a successful attempt to thwart competition.

Perhaps the concept of male dominance in society has always been just that. Allowing the "weaker sex" too much authority would certainly make life more difficult, wouldn't it?




..

This was not intended to be about you, Rufus!

I was once again baited by my old friend Rufus this afternoon, and I decided not to take the bait. I thought I'd say something about my daughter, Sifu Donna.

I have started on a GoogleMap, Willie C's Santa Fe, and I intend to elaborate on my adventures in New Mexico back in prehistoric times, around 1961. I will add to it as time goes by.

But as I sat thinking about Rufus's challenge, the History Channel was on, with a feature about the terrorist aspects of The Ku Klux Klan.

For those of you who are not familiar with the 1960's, this should be required viewing! You think that the battle over civil rights is pretty serious now, you really need to know what it was like then!

I'm not sure that they will ever be able to tell the story of the civil rights movement and the injustices surrounding it as effectively as it should be. It can never be publicized enough that people who believe in the founding principles of this country must be always watchful.

There are people at large who deny that Hitler's treatment of the Jews actually happened, and I'm sure it will not be long before people begin to take the attitude that the things shown in this treatment of the Klan are simple fabrications, and could not possibly be real.

I was an adult at the time they were happening, and I'll assure you that they are real. Learn, and remember! Someone once said the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

Be vigilant!


..

Does History Repeat?

For a long time I have been interested in the American Southwest. It probably goes all the way back to the time I first experienced the scent of rain on the desert in 1944, but I did not get really serious about it until I was adult.

As I became aquainted with the "ancient" ruins, through first-hand observation as well as reading everything I could find on the subject, I was amazed by their quantity throughout the Southwest.

I thought that there must have been a fantastic number of people to have created so many permanent structures. I have come to realize rather recently in my life that these "permanent" edifices were not so permanent after all. They simply last a long time in the mild, dry climate of the area.

The many, many stone buildings, caves, and such structures would be used over a period of time, then, for varying reasons, among them the depletion of resources, or sometimes climate change, the people would move away to build other structures elsewhere, leaving the old buildings to fall into decay, but making a permanent mark on the landscape.

When I first moved to the town where I now live, it was a small town, under 10,000 people. The business area was clustered around the courthouse square, traditional for small county seats. Now the town has more or less tripled in population, but the number of buildings has increased much more than that. I will mention banks, because at first there were only a couple, whereas now they build at least that many every six months or so.

It's not peculiar to my little town, it seems to be happening everywhere. Big box stores seem to follow some sort of mathematically determined grid pattern. There seem to be far more than should be justified under the old standards we grew up with.

Shopping centers and malls are built, and used for a time, then new ones are built, and the shoppers are attracted to the new ones, leaving the old ones to deteriorate. The number of outmoded shopping centers seems to increase yearly.

I'm wondering if someday, some young man will be observing our towns and think that there must have been a fantastic number of people living here, but it looks all run-down and dead now. Where did all the people go?

An Old Guy's Rambling Remembrances #20

These observations were set down on June 15, 1996, and are obviously somewhat dated, but their reality lives on. Rush no longer takes very many calls, but he still reads many of his own ads. Apparently I was dead wrong, thinking that a talk show depends on phone calls from listeners, but the attitudes expressed on his show have changed neither jot nor tittle.

The President who referred to 'Hate Radio" is no longer president, but he still does much good work in the public arena, which is not likely to be the case for our immediate past president.

LIMBILIA

WHY STRIP, RUSH?
Whether you believe that God created man in his present form on the fifth day, or through millions of years (of time as measured by puny man), have you ever wondered why that loving, omnipotent God would give to man a nose which would require a spring-loaded bandaid in order to "breath right"?

BECAUSE RUSH TOLD ME TO,
Tomorrow I will check the grocery shelves for Laredo & Leftie's Salsa. Do you suppose I'll find that it's made in New York City?

AS THE PILOT OF OUR DESTINY,
Rush claims he "single-handedly" got for his followers the congress
they deserved. If they also get the president they deserve, what can
be done about those of us who do not deserve this kind of treatment?

I HAVE NOTICED
Rush always has to tell his listeners when he is joking but they also have to tell him when they are joking. Sophisticated humor is wasted on dittoheads, they just don't seem to get it.

FOR SOME TIME, NOW,
Rush has opened his program with praise for his new computer, which is "state of the art" (this week). Since computers have become a public necessity, the industry has grown by leaps and bounds, and electronic products have become very reasonable in price. Electric automobiles, however, will never be of any use to the public, and their excessive price can never be justified, according to Mr. Limbaugh. If you didn't hear it, you certainly should have heard the dressing down that he gave the poor woman who has an electric car, and finds it to be very practical and desireable. There's nothing to be gained by disagreeing with Rush.

OFTEN WHEN RUSH ANSWERS HIS PHONE
He hears "Gosh Rush, thank you for taking my call. I've been waiting an hour and a half to talk to you. It's quite an honor to be able to talk to you." Rush usually answers with a modest "my pleasure" (I have never heard him say "you idiot, if you didn't call, I wouldn't have a job"). The caller will often go on to say that "the reason that all these liberal wackos get voted into office is that those of us who are hardworking citizens don't have time to go to the polls, we're too busy. The only ones who find the time to vote are the good for nothing deadbeats who live off the government". That's when I crack up, and Rush expresses gentle agreement with the caller, and goes on to his next carefully screened call. Anyone who calls Limbaugh, but is too busy to vote, leads a poorly organized life.

HAVE YOU NOTICED
That the same dittoheads who bemoan the dumbing down of America, condemn the public school systems, and cry about our kids' lack of knowledge and their increasing stupidity, claim that increasing numbers of young people are attracted to Rush, Newtie, and the "conservative" views of the Republicans?

WHAT DO DITTOHEADS THINK
When Rush raves on and on about the FBI's finding a copy of Algore's
book in The Unibomber's cabin, but was loudly insisting after the
Oklahoma Federal Building bombing that there is no way that people
could be inspired to violence by reading or listening to Rush Limbaugh
(or as pronounced by The President, hate radio)?

3-7-09 The Steadfast Tin Frog

3-7-09 The Steadfast Tin Frog
Originally uploaded by Willie C

You started it, Gary!

My Flickr friend from down the faultline has expressed the idea that this could perhaps be the "the elusive Aztec frog, once believed to be extinct".

Is it possible that it was last seen at Aztec, New Mexico? Since my youth, I had been skeptical of things relative to Aztec. That's the site of the renowned Aztec ruins and the restored Great Kiva.

For fifty years or more, I thought of the restored great kiva as a hoax, much elaborated and enhanced to hype it up for the attraction of tourists.

I saw the restored kiva in November of 1995, and thought it was quite impressive, but I still thought that very much of it was most likely conjecture, and veneered with modern ideas and styling. It was not until December of 2005, when I returned to Frijoles Canyon after many years of absence, and later in September of 2006 when I visited Chaco Canyon, that it began to work its way into my stubborn brain that great kivas were a significant feature in the ancient cultures spurred by the phenomenon of Chaco Canyon. There was a fine example at Frijoles Canyon, which had been excavated since the last time I'd been there.

The Great Kiva was most certainly not a one-of-a-kind tourist attraction. There are countless great kivas in the southwest, and it takes only a little imagination to believe that the restoration at Aztec is no doubt historically accurate.


Am I talking here about ancient cultures or amphibians? I've lost track now.

Tonight, just as The Mentalist was getting under way on our TV I heard, through the front door, the trilling of the toads! They have come to join the living leopard frogs, which have been serenading me nightly for weeks.

Tonight I will hear their voices in concert close by, beneath the open windows of our upstairs bedroom. Perhaps the Aztec frog will be so emotionally moved as to join in their song. We shall see.

Then, a predicted cold front will bring rain and chilly weather, and my wife will surely nag me to close the windows.

I'll still hear the concert, but it won't be the same.


An epilogue on the morning after....March 11, 2009

The toads retired before I did last night. The singing stopped before 10 PM. Perhaps it was because of the impending change in the weather, perhaps it was simply that they were tired after their mass incursion from wherever they had been, and needed to rest. Whatever the reason, I did not get my bedtime serenade last night.

This morning, about 6:12 AM, I awoke to the sound of swiftly moving air, and raindrops. Being well aware that my wife would not savor the idea of rain on her freshly painted window sill, I got up and closed the windows. Tonight, I feel fairly certain that it will be cool enough that I will leave the windows closed tonight as well.

I'll still hear the toads, mingled with the voices of the leopard frogs, but it will be muted. The direct communication with nature will not be happening for a few days longer.

A FOOTNOTE:
The friend from down the faultline is no longer down the faultline, He's out on the Chihuahuan desert taking photos and living his dream! Live it up, with your EyeOnTexas. I'll envy you always.



..

An Old Guy's Random Rememberings #17

This event in my life happened only a few days after the Story Circle adventure.

A Delightful Day in October
10/28/01

A couple of weeks ago, Aunt Macrina invited my wife and me to come to an Oktoberfest celebration they were having at the “old ladies home” where she lives. I grew up calling her “Aunt Margaret”, because that was the name she was normally called until a few years ago. Actually, I learned Aunt Macrina’s name when I was ten, and Aunt Macrina was about thirty. She, her son Charlie and daughter Suzanne, and I were spending a week in Galveston. We stayed at the home of Macrina’s sister Micky, whom I fondly remember as the most beautiful woman in the world.

I heard my aunt on the phone one day, saying to someone “yes, this is Macrina”. I chuckled, thinking that she must be pretending to be her niece, who was near my age, and was named Macrina.

Yesterday, I went to Dallas without my wife, who had a previous commitment at her mother’s house this weekend. After traffic and trouble finding the correct street, I finally found the “old ladies home”. I was almost forty-five minutes later than I had intended, and I wasn’t sure I had the right place, because the address didn’t match Aunt Macrina’s stationery. After the third pass by the only place on the block, I decided I had to stop and ask for directions. As I approached the sign that claimed “information”, I noticed Senator Ted Kennedy sitting on a bench talking to a white-haired lady. Then I realized that it wasn’t Teddy Kennedy at all, but my cousin Charlie (who carries a smidgin more of the Irish blood than I do). He looked up and I waved. The white-haired lady stood up and held out her arms to embrace me.

The place where Aunt Macrina lives is a beautiful, up-scale community. The majority of the ladies there showed signs of having been well cared for beauties in their earlier years. Aunt Macrina’s classic features seemed almost plain in that room. It’s not actually an “old ladies home”, it’s just that the female residents outnumber the males by about twenty to one.

The last fifty years dropped away, and Charlie and I were once again the Snamloh brothers, Selrahc and Yllib, dining with our gracious hostess-mother, who was giving orders to the waitresses, pushing food at us, making sure that we got enough to eat, and in general, treating us like the teen-age boys she treated the same way half a century ago.