Heaven and Red-eye Gravy

When I was in high school,one of my first jobs was as a go-fer for my Grandpa Tom in the oilfield.  I first worked on Saturdays during the school year with Grandpa.  We just did the odds and ends jobs that were left over from the week.  I think the main purpose of the job was to activate my "mechanical genes."  For some reason, I just never got it.  My brain understood the concepts, but just never connected it with the job at hand.  Electronics, I got.  Even electrical problems.  Not mechanics though.  Those aptitude tests where they show a gear turning one direction and ask which direction the fifth one in the series will be turning?  I'd get better results with a coin toss!  Grandpa tried to teach me some.  To his credit, I did learn to use some of the tools.  And how to work hard.  

I remember laying for what seemed like hours underneath one of the old trucks trying to figure out where to put the starter I held in my hand.  And I had just removed the old one!  I finally got it just a few minutes before he got back.  And to my relief, it even worked.  

One of the best benefits of working for Grandpa Tom, was lunch.  We came home everyday for lunch, and Grandma Mae could cook lunch.  No cold sandwiches or even leftovers.  She really cooked lunch.  My favorite was her chicken-fried steak and homemade biscuits.  One day, we had the best gravy ever.  When I asked her what was different, she said it was "red-eye gravy."  Red-eye gravy substitutes coffee for some of the milk in the gravy.  I think red-eye gravy is proof that there is a heaven.  Anything that good had to be divinely inspired. 

Grandma Mae joined Grandpa Tom in heaven yesterday.  I hope they are enjoying a good meal that includes red-eye gravy. 

Hometown and Roots

If you aren't familiar with Steinbeck's Travels with Charley:  In Search of America, it is his observations about America and Americans as he travels from Maine to California with his dog Charley.  From the very beginning of the book, he writes about his yearning to be on the move.  He also notices the longing looks he gets from both friends and total strangers when he talks about his plans.  He feels that Americans have an inborn need to travel and explore.

One of his observations early in the book is of the large numbers of mobile homes he is seeing on the interstates.  At one point, Steinbeck has dinner with a family whose mobile home sits alone on a hill near the highway.  He asks about the lack of roots such a lifestyle provides.  The man says that his family has never had roots.  His father came over from Italy and lived in New York apartments moving with the availability of work.  His wife's family had the same experience coming over from Ireland, where their "roots" tied them to a land during famine.  They welcomed the opportunity to cut the roots and come to America.

Steinbeck predicts that the mobile homes will become more popular, since they offer a nice, inexpensive home that is, by definition, mobile.  If work or opportunity presents itself in a new location, all the mobile home owner has to do is pay for a trucking company to move their home to a new location.  No more being tied to a specific area because of a home that you may not be able to sell.  Maybe that will be the next recycled new idea to come out of the current tough economy and housing market.  

Steinbeck also speculates about the previously mentioned American need to be on the move and to explore.  He thinks that maybe the need is genetic.  Other than the relatively small Native American population, all of us came here from somewhere else.  Our ancestors pulled up their roots and came to America.  Whether we inherited the desire to move, or we learned the behavior from our ancestors, it has always been there.  And, as Steinbeck points out, from the beginning of mankind, we have moved constantly in search of food or a better climate.  Today we do the same in search of better employment or business opportunities.

Another interesting observation is about communication.  He mentions calling home at least twice a week to get in touch with his wife during his journey and reconnect with who he is.  He uses the analogy of a comet.  His past and responsibilities are the tail he carries with him like a comet's tail.  Steinbeck muses that only 100 years prior to his cross country journey, families moved from east to west going years without communicating with friends and family "back home."  Today,50 years after Steinbeck's travels, with cell phones, we are rarely out of touch for more than an hour. Even in the unpopulated, mountainous area that I live in, I am very rarely in an area where I can't be reached by cell phone.  Does that make me more mobile, or just give me a longer tail?

  

 

Hometown

One advantage to business being down this winter is that I'm not working 60-80 hours a week this year.  That leaves some time to do more recreational activities.  Of course the disadvantage to working less hours with slower sales is the decrease in income.  That seems to be one of the unfair facts of life.  If you are making money, you have no time.  If you have time, you are not making money.  Such is life.

So, I have been reading more than I have in several years.  Two books I read this week both have hometowns and roots as a major theme.  The first one is Larry McMurtry's wrap-up of his first protagonist, Duane Moore from The Last Picture Show.  In this new book, Rhino Ranch, Duane feels disconnected from his hometown of Thalia.  A wealthy philanthropist has started a preserve to save the rhino and the town welcomes the business and money, but not the people involved.  Duane is torn between loyalty for his town and disgust for the way they treat outsiders (anyone who hasn't lived there for their entire life).  And even worse, as he ages, he is becoming one of the outsiders.  His successful oil company is now being run by his son, and now if the young people know him at all, it is just through stories or rumors about his series of wives and scandals.  He even goes through the stereotypical you young 'uns get off my lawn old man stage.  Well, sort of.  His involves the omnipresent meth cookers.  I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has read the previous books in the Duane Moore saga:  The Last Picture Show, Texasville, and Duane's Depressed.  It's a good, quick read.  As longtime Dallas sportswriter, Blackie Sherrod once said, McMurtry has written great books and good books.  The story might not be great, but he can't write a bad book. 

The second book I'm reading this week is John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley.

I think I'll write about it in tomorrow's post.

More Childhood Pyromania

Like I said yesterday, one of my few regular chores was taking out the trash and as I got older, burning it.  In our small town, the city only picked up our trash a couple of times a month.  So, we burned it in our trash barrels at least a couple of times between pick-ups.  I don't remember if there was a regular pick-up schedule, or if Don just came by when he had time.  He was kind of the do-everything city employee.  I think he was the maintenance department, animal control, and waste management department combined.  Anyway at least a couple of times that I can remember, Don provided our entertainment on a summer day.  Burning trash in the barrel and an irregular pick-up schedule was a dangerous combination.  Trash burned the day before the pick up would not be flaming, but would be smoldering.  Smoldering trash compacted on top of the other trash would eventually produce a flaming garbage truck.  I remember Bobby and I racing our bikes down the street trying to keep up with Don as he sped through town to the city dump with flames trailing out the back of the truck.

I also remember a scary trash burning incident with Jeff. We had difficulty getting the trash in his alley to burn.  His parents had their own gas tank, unfortunately within fairly easy reach of the trash barrels.  After several failed attempts to get the trash to burn, we had the brilliant idea to pour gasoline on the trash.  The tank had a long hose and just reached the barrel.  A few cautious shots of gasoline were dumped on top of the trash.  Being reasonably intelligent boys, we took the hose back to the tank before trying to light the trash.  Jeff lit a match on the side of the barrel and tossed it in.  Instantly there was a fwoomp and the flames shot up out of the barrel, just like in the cartoons!  And just like in the cartoons, the trail of gasoline that dripped down the side of the barrel to the ground and along the wooden fence toward the gas tank also lit up.  I stomped on as much as I could and Jeff ran for the water hose, which of course reached almost to the fire.  Fortunately for us, the gasoline trailed out into the dirt of the alley before crossing back into the grass to the gas tank.  The gasoline burned off before the flames had a chance to get back to the dry grass.  That was end of my trash burning career, and probably for Jeff too.

Back to Don, the city worker, he also drove the truck that sprayed for mosquitoes in the summer.  That was another form of entertainment for Bobby, Jeff, and me.  We would chase behind the truck on our bicycles, inhaling the ddt fog that would keep the mosquitoes from carrying us away.  There's a line in a James McMurtry song titled, 12 O'Clock Whistle,that says about DDT, "that stuff won't hurt you none, the neighbor lady'd say, but encephalitis, now that'll ruin your day. "If you like country-folk-rock music, I'd recommend James McMurtry.  And this one,It Had to Happen, is my favorite album. For some reason, this song reminds me of spending time in the summer with my Grandma Mae. Besides how can anyone resist a song that successfully works "encephalitis" into its lyrics!

Rednecks, Global Warming and President Obama

I'm almost starting to feel sorry for the global warming guys.  Not only are real scientists backpedaling faster than Deion Sanders, but now it's snowing in Texas!  My cousin posted photos on Facebook of his redneck snow skis. 

For those of you with more education than imagination, redneck snow skis consist of old cowboy boots, a couple of 1x8's, a few nails, and plenty of duct tape (he may have used bailing wire).  Now plenty of people would make the skis, take a couple of pictures, post them and get a few good laughs.  But that's the difference between posers and real rednecks.  A real redneck has to actually put his creation to use.  And my cousin is a real redneck!  Very few people go snow skiing in north Texas.  And for good reason.  It's pretty flat.  So how to use the skis?  Duh, that's why God made ATV's!

Now you know what purpose redneck kids serve?  If you are driving the ATV, who's going to ski behind it?  Your kids of course!  They heal quicker, just in case there's a design flaw.  

It looks like they had lots of fun and without any injuries.  And that's what really matters.  You're probably wondering if there are any redneck moms?  Of course there are.  Who do you think took the pictures?


I know that a snowstorm in Texas, or two, or three don't mean that global warming is not a problem.  Or that a year or two years, or fifteen years of cooling temperatures don't mean that we are in a cooling trend. They already fell for that one back in the mid-1970's.  Scientists lose a little credibility when they alternate their panic over global cooling (1968-1978) with panic over global warming (1996-now).  They finally wised up and changed the name to Climate Change.  That should cover all the bases now.

People like President Obama and former vice-president, internet creator, and global warming climate change guru, Al Gore don't understand rednecks.  They mistake a redneck's humor, creativity, and common sense for ignorance.  At least in my experience, the redneck is closer to the average U.S. citizen than our President thinks.  The redneck is your neighbor that comes to help you cut up the tree that the storm knocked over in your driveway.  Sure, any excuse to get the chainsaw out, but he also wants to help.  The redneck is the one that drags the 2.5 ton jack out of the back of his truck (yes, it's got a hemi) to help you change the flat on your Prius.  The redneck mom is the one who brings you peanut butter cookies when you move into a new neighborhood, and offers to watch your kids anytime you need.  The redneck is the one who helps you put a new commode in your bathroom so you don't have to hire a plumber.  And the redneck wife recycles it.  I doubt Al Gore replaces his own commode.  And I will guarantee that if he did, Tipper would NOT use it for a flower planter on the front lawn.

While campaigning, candidate Obama said that in tough times, some Americans "cling to their guns and their religion."  For once he was right.  Where he was wrong was in thinking that that was a bad thing.  He and many others in politics, the media, and education underestimate the "redneckedness" of the average American.  We do cling to our guns and religion,in addition to our other rights granted by our Creator, and guaranteed by our Constitution.  That is what the Tea Party movement has been about.  Hopefully some real redneck leaders will come to the front and our country will get out of the mess we are in.  In the meantime, let's go skiing.   

Childhood Memories

Like the protagonist in the book I mentioned a couple of days ago, River Season, I grew up in a small Texas town.  Gruver, in the panhandle of Texas, was very similar to Jim Black's Archer City.  One of the few chores I remember being required to do, was taking our trash to the barrel.  In the pre-environmentally conscious 1970's we burned our trash in the barrels.  That's what made the job worth doing!  I think all young boys are pyromaniacs at heart.  

I had a little sister, Lori, who was still eating baby food in the old Gerber jars when I was at my pyromaniacal trash burning peak.  Mom made sure I took the lids off the jars when I put them in the barrel.  One day I finally got curious enough to ask why.  Well, mom must've missed the mommy class that told about boy's pyro tendencies.  She said that if the jars were sealed, they would explode when they got hot.  With visions of mushroom clouds in my head, I ran to tell my best friend Bobby the wonderful news.  Bobby and I were a dangerous combination.  While I would come up with all kinds of destructive, dangerous theories, Bobby was a do-er.  I might plan and revise for months and never actually execute the plan.  I was happy just visualizing the massive explosions we could create.  Lori had at least three meals a day.  One meat, one vegetable, and a dessert at each sitting.  Now she wasn't a big eater, but we could count on collecting at least six jars a day.  Six jars times seven days (we burned just once a week and Don Evans emptied our barrel every other week)would be 42 jars!  That would be one heck of an explosion.  Again, being the planning type, I argued that we could stash jars in the garage and collect an extra week's worth jars. We could create an explosion that could be seen in Spearman, or maybe as far away as Guymon!


Well, like I said, Bobby was an action man.  He knew that if he let me collect jars for two weeks, I would convince him that four would be even better.  After four weeks, I would have visualized the explosion thousands of times and probably chicken out.  So at his insistence, we took the paper grocery bag full of baby food jars and lids out to the alley.  I started the fire while Bobby started putting the lids on the jars.  Well, a little not so common sense and caution came into our 11 year old heads in the meantime.  We decided to put just half the jars into the fire at first.  No sense in burning Hansford county down.  Once the fire was going really good, we folded down the top of the paper bag half full of jars and tossed it in and ran and ducked behind the pile of dirt left behind when the railroad track was laid.  We waited and waited and waited.  Finally there was a pop, then another pop, then another and another.  Each pop was followed by a ping as the metal lids smacked against the side of the metal trash barrel.  Not exactly the Hiroshima-like explosion we were going for, but still kind of cool.


By then, even I was getting a little braver.  I suggested that we toss the remaining jars in one by one.  Just for fun, you know.  So we, well actually Bobby first, with me following a little behind, started tossing jars into the burning barrel.  Pretty soon we had about a quarter of the barrel filled with Gerber baby food jars.  Pop, ping, pop, ping.  Then pop, pop, pop, pop, it sounded like the Jiffy pop popcorn on the stove top.  Then the red hot strained pea lids started raining down.  It was funny until I had visions of hot lids landing on the dry grass and setting the great plains on fire.  I was sure that our fire would burn all the way to Kansas.  Bobby's dad would tease that I was too cute to go to jail.  I didn't know what that meant and I didn't want to find out either.  For once, I was the quick action person and grabbed the cut out top of the barrel and risked life and limb putting it on top of the barrel.  I couldn't cover the whole top, or it would fall in the fire. I had to angle it across the top so it blocked enough of the opening that the lids stopped flying and started pinging again.  While I ran around stomping on hot lids, Bobby laughed until he was rolling in the dirt.  But he wasn't as cute as me, so he wasn't afraid of prison.
 

Some More Politics and the Overall Degeneration of Society as We Know It

Like a lot of Americans, I knew absolutely nothing about Barak Obama before the democratic primaries just over a year ago.  And very little about him on the day he was elected.  As Hillary Clinton said, his qualifications and achievements were limited to a "pretty speech" at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.  So how did we make him President with so little (or no)knowledge of his views and beliefs?  


I got a very interesting glimpse of the way the average, or quite possibly above average, American gathers information about politics and politicians.  I was in a hardware store and overheard the young - middle 20's - cashier telling his co-workers about the unfair criticism of President Obama's delayed response to the Christmas day attempt by a terrorist to blow up an airliner with an underwear bomb (brief bomb?, probably not, boxers are less constricting!).  He said that Jon Stewart said that the President's critics weren't being consistent.  Stewart said that President Obama spoke to the nation only 10 days after the attempt.  Mr. Bush (it's never President, or former President Bush, always Mr.) waited two weeks to say anything about the 9-11 attacks!  I was pretty sure that President Bush spoke on the evening of the attacks in a national telecast, but I am over 40, 45 now, so my memory might be foggy at best.  So I did a very un-old fogey type thing and did a search on Youtube for President Bush 9-11 speech.  And guess what?  My foggy memory wasn't as foggy as I feared!  


One week later when I was in the store again, the same young man (I have spoken to him a lot and he's very intelligent and friendly, which in itself makes this story scarier), was working.  I mentioned what I had overheard the week before and he repeated his concern about the unfair treatment of the President.  I asked him to do the same Youtube search I had done and said he would get videos of President Bush's great speech that begins "TODAY America came under attack."  Some creative, obviously young, techie types have created some very moving videos with President Bush's speech over photographs of the World Trade Center towers collapsing, spliced in with the day's news reports and music by REM and Enya.  He was very polite and said he'd look it up.


I saw him again a couple of days later and he said he had seen the videos and that obviously Jon Stewart was wrong (I'd say LYING).  Being well on my way to becoming a grumpy old man, I recommended that in the future, he should get his facts from more than one source, and the Comedy Channel is probably not the best place to start!  In complete contradiction to the stereotype, he agreed.  Maybe there's hope for us after all.

Patriots

I've always enjoyed American history.  I never have been able to get interested in world history too much.  I guess I just don't have the imagination to be able to identify with Charlemagne, the Russian czars, or King Louis I-XXXIV, or whatever.  But I love American history.  I am currently reading A Patriot's History of the United States. Unlike a lot of history books, it is very readable. And very informative.  Just a trivia note, I learned today where Cajun originated.  At the beginning of King George's War in 1755, a group of colonists took it upon themselves to take Acadia (Nova Scotia) from the French settlers.  At the end of the war, the British gave much of the conquered territories back to the French, but kept Acadia.  They were concerned about having French loyalists in their Nova Scotia, so they deported them.  A group of the deportees relocated in current Louisiana and were called Cajuns, a slurred version of Acadians.  That also explains the presence of their French influenced dialect.  Impress your friends at the bar with that little bit of trivia.  

One side note, I am reading this book on the Kindle Reader for PC.  It seems that as I am getting older more mature, those evil publishers are printing books with smaller type.  With the free Kindle Reader,I can download Kindle books to my laptop and read them in a slightly larger font.  I can also read in a poorly lit room (i.e. any room in our built in the 40's house).  Another advantage is that the Kindle version is generally cheaper than the hardback and I get it within seconds of ordering it.  There are also a lot of free books available for the Kindle.  The only downside is the fact that they aren't books.  As a former bookstore owner, I really like the smell, feel, and look of a book.  So I will probably end up buying hard copies of this one and a couple of others I have read on the Kindle.

A Thousand Words

I am changing the title of my blog to A Thousand Words.  As in a picture (or photograph) is worth...  

I just finished reading River Season by Jim Black.  It's a quick read, but a deep one.  Anyone who grew up in the 60's or 70's in a small town will identify with the teen narrator.  One of the feelings I came away with, was one of loss.  I don't think my daughter will have the same nostalgic sense of her childhood.   While the characters in this book went through some trauma, it was all tempered by an innocence that is not present today.  Even in a town as small as the one we currently live in, my wife and I would never allow our daughter to wander and explore the way we did as children.  And that is a great loss.  I think the world is a much more dangerous place than it was 30 years ago, even in small western towns.  On the more optimistic side, my parents probably felt the same way about the world I grew up in.  And my daughter will probably feel the same for loss for my grandchildren's childhood world!  I think this caution has cost my daughter some of the sense of adventure my generation enjoyed.  That is a very big loss.