One of my earliest memories of my mom comes from when I was four, or possibly five. I was playing with one of those toys where kids pound plastic objects of different shapes into the corresponding shaped holes. As usual, I was trying to put a square peg in a round hole. My mom came outside to say she was going to the store and asked if I wanted to go with her. Normally I would have jumped at the chance and the prospect of perhaps talking my way into a piece of candy. But this time I said no, I would rather stay home and play.
She looked vaguely disappointed but said OK and left. I’m sure my dad was in the house or perhaps perched over his artist’s easel in the converted barn behind our house that served as his studio. She wouldn’t have left me alone at that young age. And as she turned the corner and started the car, I came to the realization, for the first time that I was separate from my mother, that I would always be me until I left this sphere. And she would always be my mom, until her time came.
Sadly, that time has arrived. My mom passed away at night last week with family at her side, fighting until nearly the very end. As I wrote a few months ago on her 81st birthday, my mom was a tough old bird. But it was time for the fight to end, for her to have peace. Our family came to accept that. After more surgeries than we can recall — heart, hip, tailbone, gall bladder, neck — her body shut down over four days until she just slipped away while unconscious.
My mom was hell on wheels when I was a kid. There’s no getting around that. She was tough and willing to go toe-to-toe with me when I was a smart-aleck teenager. (Short as I am, I still had four inches on her. I come from a long line of short people, including my mom.) I learned to avoid her wrath, and truth be told, I was about half scared of her. So were my brothers.
I became independent financially and personally at a young age, 17, similar to the path my mother took and probably for the same reasons. Neither of us liked being told what to do, though of course you eventually learn someone is going to be telling you what to do the rest of your life — boss, spouse, caregiver. The latter term is what best describes my mom’s greatest achievement. She was trained as a nurse but didn’t work much outside of the home when we three boys were under the roof, though she did teach nurse aides classes in Longview for a few years.
In 1990, my father became disabled at 59 because of a botched surgery. That is when my mom became truly a shining star. For the next 17 years, until I took over and placed them both in assisted living, she cared for my father at home. She took him to doctor’s appointments, cooked, cleaned, and made sure he took the medications that covered an entire shelf in the kitchen. She paid the bills, filed insurance claims and continued to take pleasure in her six grandchildren.
It wore her out. By the time we figured out neither of our parents could safely stay in their home anymore, she had become a brittle diabetic. Worse, she kept losing her car in the parking lot of the doctor’s office. Even worse, she thought she owned a black Maxima. It was a bronze Altima.
In her final years, my mom mellowed tremendously. After my dad’s death a little over two years ago, she lived alone in nursing care, loved by the staff for her good humor and even disposition. Even in the last days, when she could still talk, she invariably answered the question of how she was feeling with, “Pretty good.”
She cared for my dad and lived out her last years with dignity and grace. That befitted her name: Grace Adrian Bourque Borders.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
Busking on Sixth Street
Busking — Chiefly British: To entertain by dancing, singing, or reciting on the street or in a public place. (From dictionary.com.)
|———|
Guy Forsyth said while on stage in Longview a few weeks ago that he started out busking in Austin, a word with which I was just vaguely familiar. I thought I knew what it meant, but I have learned not to rely on guesswork when it comes to words I don’t really know. Such carelessness has caused past problems when I mangle words, using them in the opposite way as intended. Once I used “opprobrium” when I should have used “approbation.” The latter means approval, the former the opposite. If I had good sense, I would have used neither, since I was unsuccessfully trying to pretend I own an extensive vocabulary. An alert reader pointed out my error. It was a humbling experience.
Forsyth is a popular and frequent performer on the Austin scene whose reputation has spread. A friend first alerted me to his music four years ago. He adeptly plays guitar, harmonica, ukulele and the saw, on which he wobbles a haunting version of Gershwin’s “Summertime” at most shows. His voice is his greatest instrument, with a wide range as he sings in a genre his website describes as Americana and blues. He works hard, playing the other night in front of perhaps 75 appreciative folks at the Longview Museum of Fine Arts. The museum in my hometown hosts a fine music series that features folks one often sees in Austin — including in the past few years Jimmy LaFave, Eliza Gilkyson and Slaid Cleaves. It’s quite a treat to see such stellar artists in a cozy venue, so I make a point of catching these shows when possible.
Guy, his band and I share a couple of bathroom experiences. The last time I saw him before Longview was three years ago at Antone’s in downtown Austin. I was with a group of friends and family. Guy and I ended up in the bathroom together. I recognized him, of course, as we both stood facing the wall. “Good luck, tonight, Guy,” I said. He said thanks. That seemed to be stretching the limits of conversation one should have in a men’s bathroom with a stranger, even a semi-famous one, so I stopped at that, not wanting to violate men’s bathroom-conversation protocol.
|———|
I headed toward Longview early on a Friday afternoon, figuring I would make it to Guy’s concert with 90 minutes to spare. Just south of Belton traffic suddenly stopped on I-35 in that sickening way that anyone has experienced, if they have traveled this “Highway From Hell,” which is what I would call this interstate if it starred in a movie. Drivers go from 75 mph to zip in seconds and for the next 30 minutes crawl along. I had no idea why and how long the delay would be, so began plotting an escape route by cell with help from my fiancé and her brother, who works for the highway department. If I could just get to the exit, I would cut across on a different highway and avoid I-35, which could be a parking lot all the way to Waco, where I start heading east.
Before I got to the exit I came upon the wreck, which involved a couple of 18-wheelers — one of which was hauling carnival rides and ended up upside-down, straddling the median and tying up both sides of I-35. I arrived about 45 minutes later than planned but still made the concert in time.
As it turns out, Guy and his two band members, traveling in a white box van, were stuck in the same traffic jam. He apologized while tuning up just minutes before showtime. There was a terrible wreck on I-35. Later, during a break, I end up next to his drummer in the dual restroom line and ask her if it was the same accident that waylaid my journey. Turns out we were likely within a few hundred yards of each other. We should have saved gas and shared a ride.
|———|
A few weeks later I wandered Sixth Street on a hot Sunday afternoon during the Pecan Street Festival and happened along a world-weary busker. He was a one-man band, sweat-soaked and wearing a fedora, a drum and cymbal contraption strapped on his back and operated with a foot strap, a banjo in front, a harmonic rack in front of his mouth. He was about my age, I figure, flirting with the double-nickel. Painted on his drum was a caricature of the musician and the words, “MR. TOJANGLES, ONE-MAN BAND.” He did a credible version of “Blue Moon,” and received several dollar bills in the glass tip jar propped in the banjo case.
I joined others in filming his performance with my iPhone and tossed in a buck as well. This is hard work, especially when the temperature is knocking on 100 degrees. My hat goes off to all those street musicians who start out on street corners, hoping someday like Guy Forsyth, to get to play at places like Antone’s. But even Guy has to hit the road and play modest-paying venues like the Longview museum. For that, I’m grateful.
Originally published in The Hill Country News, (Cedar Park, Texas), May 19, 2011.
|———|
Guy Forsyth said while on stage in Longview a few weeks ago that he started out busking in Austin, a word with which I was just vaguely familiar. I thought I knew what it meant, but I have learned not to rely on guesswork when it comes to words I don’t really know. Such carelessness has caused past problems when I mangle words, using them in the opposite way as intended. Once I used “opprobrium” when I should have used “approbation.” The latter means approval, the former the opposite. If I had good sense, I would have used neither, since I was unsuccessfully trying to pretend I own an extensive vocabulary. An alert reader pointed out my error. It was a humbling experience.
Forsyth is a popular and frequent performer on the Austin scene whose reputation has spread. A friend first alerted me to his music four years ago. He adeptly plays guitar, harmonica, ukulele and the saw, on which he wobbles a haunting version of Gershwin’s “Summertime” at most shows. His voice is his greatest instrument, with a wide range as he sings in a genre his website describes as Americana and blues. He works hard, playing the other night in front of perhaps 75 appreciative folks at the Longview Museum of Fine Arts. The museum in my hometown hosts a fine music series that features folks one often sees in Austin — including in the past few years Jimmy LaFave, Eliza Gilkyson and Slaid Cleaves. It’s quite a treat to see such stellar artists in a cozy venue, so I make a point of catching these shows when possible.
Guy, his band and I share a couple of bathroom experiences. The last time I saw him before Longview was three years ago at Antone’s in downtown Austin. I was with a group of friends and family. Guy and I ended up in the bathroom together. I recognized him, of course, as we both stood facing the wall. “Good luck, tonight, Guy,” I said. He said thanks. That seemed to be stretching the limits of conversation one should have in a men’s bathroom with a stranger, even a semi-famous one, so I stopped at that, not wanting to violate men’s bathroom-conversation protocol.
|———|
I headed toward Longview early on a Friday afternoon, figuring I would make it to Guy’s concert with 90 minutes to spare. Just south of Belton traffic suddenly stopped on I-35 in that sickening way that anyone has experienced, if they have traveled this “Highway From Hell,” which is what I would call this interstate if it starred in a movie. Drivers go from 75 mph to zip in seconds and for the next 30 minutes crawl along. I had no idea why and how long the delay would be, so began plotting an escape route by cell with help from my fiancé and her brother, who works for the highway department. If I could just get to the exit, I would cut across on a different highway and avoid I-35, which could be a parking lot all the way to Waco, where I start heading east.
Before I got to the exit I came upon the wreck, which involved a couple of 18-wheelers — one of which was hauling carnival rides and ended up upside-down, straddling the median and tying up both sides of I-35. I arrived about 45 minutes later than planned but still made the concert in time.
As it turns out, Guy and his two band members, traveling in a white box van, were stuck in the same traffic jam. He apologized while tuning up just minutes before showtime. There was a terrible wreck on I-35. Later, during a break, I end up next to his drummer in the dual restroom line and ask her if it was the same accident that waylaid my journey. Turns out we were likely within a few hundred yards of each other. We should have saved gas and shared a ride.
|———|
A few weeks later I wandered Sixth Street on a hot Sunday afternoon during the Pecan Street Festival and happened along a world-weary busker. He was a one-man band, sweat-soaked and wearing a fedora, a drum and cymbal contraption strapped on his back and operated with a foot strap, a banjo in front, a harmonic rack in front of his mouth. He was about my age, I figure, flirting with the double-nickel. Painted on his drum was a caricature of the musician and the words, “MR. TOJANGLES, ONE-MAN BAND.” He did a credible version of “Blue Moon,” and received several dollar bills in the glass tip jar propped in the banjo case.
I joined others in filming his performance with my iPhone and tossed in a buck as well. This is hard work, especially when the temperature is knocking on 100 degrees. My hat goes off to all those street musicians who start out on street corners, hoping someday like Guy Forsyth, to get to play at places like Antone’s. But even Guy has to hit the road and play modest-paying venues like the Longview museum. For that, I’m grateful.
Originally published in The Hill Country News, (Cedar Park, Texas), May 19, 2011.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Trot-Fishing In America, East Texas style
WRIGHT PATMAN LAKE, ATLANTA STATE PARK — A soft drizzle falls across the lake as the wind blows out of the south. Everything is a uniform shade of gray on this unseasonably cool final day of April in East Texas, as my future father-in-law and I whiz across the placid water in a flatbottom boat. We are running two sets of trotlines, each containing 50 hooks with plastic jugs bobbing on either line. We hope to have landed a mess of catfish.
H.K. Teel will turn 80 in October. He complains about having slowed down in old age, that he is not as strong as he used to be. That certainly is true, but he’s still tough as the skin on an old Appaloosa catfish. Most mornings, during the two-week period in May and October that he runs lines, he is out on that lake by himself. A few years ago he hauled in a 60-pound App (not the computer type) while running the lines alone. As he tells it, “One of two things was gonna happen. Either I was going to get that fish in the boat or y’all would find me at the bottom of the lake, my arms wrapped around that sucker’s throat.”
He got that fish in the boat.
I have been on the mouth-stuffing, food-cycle finale of the fish harvested from this lake for more than three years. Both H.K. and his son, George, love to deep-fry fish, hush puppies and fries for family gatherings — of which there are many, this being a big family. These are hands-down the tastiest catfish I have ever eaten — light, flaky meat that melts in your mouth, especially if you grab a piece right after it is pulled out of the fryer. This is about the only time I eat fried foods. At least it is cooked in canola oil. You have to live it up occasionally, right?
The rain covers my eyeglasses, casting everything in a gauzy haze. H.K. heads to the first trotline, marked by two white bleach jugs. How he can find a gallon jug barely bobbing in this mass of water escapes me, but he goes right to it and hands me a plastic jug with the top cut out. It is filled with chicken hearts, which he is using as bait today. Yesterday he used bream. It depends on the weather, wind, moon and air temperature as to what bait is used. My job is to pull up the line and spear a chicken heart on each hook, while hoping we’ll come across a mess of catfish as we reload.
Someone apparently ran over the first trotline, knocking it down. H.K. is not happy about this development and mutters a few imprecations. There isn’t a single catfish on the trotline. With tutoring I learn how to pull up the line and in so doing pull the flatbottom from one buoy to the other. By the time I’m finished baiting 50 hooks my hands are sore. We head to the other trotline, a few hundred yards away.
A few tugs and chicken-heart baiting later, a blue catfish has swallowed the hook. H.K. hands me a small net to get the fish into the boat. With some effort I finally get the hook of its mouth and toss the fish in the five-gallon bucket.
Several more about the same size — maybe 24 inches long — follow. I put on gloves after getting cut by a fin. H.K. does not approve of this, saying he has never seen anyone wear gloves to unhook a fish. I know it’s wimpy, but I need all ten fingers to type and would rather not sustain injury.
We hook a big one, about 12 pounds and at least three feet in length. I get it into the boat with no problem, but the hook just won’t come out. H.K. is getting a bit impatient, so we trade places. I’m secretly relieved that it takes him a few minutes and a pair of needle-nose pliers to get the hook out. The 12-pounder is too big for the bucket and flops about on the boat’s bottom.
We finish running the lines, head to shore. I redeem myself by successfully backing the truck and trailer down to the ramp. I may not be worth a flip at unhooking catfish, but I can back up a trailer with the best of them. We head to his farmhouse. I take more photographs of him cleaning the fish and carving out fillets. I don’t volunteer to help, and he doesn’t ask. When he is done, there is a large bowl of fillets, enough to feed at least a half-dozen people. He kindly offers to fry some fish up for brunch (my term, not his), but I need to get back to civilization.
I keep thinking about H.K. wrestling that 60-pounder into the boat. I bet that was a sight.
Originally published in The Hill Country News, (Cedar Park, Texas) May 12, 2011.
H.K. Teel will turn 80 in October. He complains about having slowed down in old age, that he is not as strong as he used to be. That certainly is true, but he’s still tough as the skin on an old Appaloosa catfish. Most mornings, during the two-week period in May and October that he runs lines, he is out on that lake by himself. A few years ago he hauled in a 60-pound App (not the computer type) while running the lines alone. As he tells it, “One of two things was gonna happen. Either I was going to get that fish in the boat or y’all would find me at the bottom of the lake, my arms wrapped around that sucker’s throat.”
He got that fish in the boat.
I have been on the mouth-stuffing, food-cycle finale of the fish harvested from this lake for more than three years. Both H.K. and his son, George, love to deep-fry fish, hush puppies and fries for family gatherings — of which there are many, this being a big family. These are hands-down the tastiest catfish I have ever eaten — light, flaky meat that melts in your mouth, especially if you grab a piece right after it is pulled out of the fryer. This is about the only time I eat fried foods. At least it is cooked in canola oil. You have to live it up occasionally, right?
The rain covers my eyeglasses, casting everything in a gauzy haze. H.K. heads to the first trotline, marked by two white bleach jugs. How he can find a gallon jug barely bobbing in this mass of water escapes me, but he goes right to it and hands me a plastic jug with the top cut out. It is filled with chicken hearts, which he is using as bait today. Yesterday he used bream. It depends on the weather, wind, moon and air temperature as to what bait is used. My job is to pull up the line and spear a chicken heart on each hook, while hoping we’ll come across a mess of catfish as we reload.
Someone apparently ran over the first trotline, knocking it down. H.K. is not happy about this development and mutters a few imprecations. There isn’t a single catfish on the trotline. With tutoring I learn how to pull up the line and in so doing pull the flatbottom from one buoy to the other. By the time I’m finished baiting 50 hooks my hands are sore. We head to the other trotline, a few hundred yards away.
A few tugs and chicken-heart baiting later, a blue catfish has swallowed the hook. H.K. hands me a small net to get the fish into the boat. With some effort I finally get the hook of its mouth and toss the fish in the five-gallon bucket.
Several more about the same size — maybe 24 inches long — follow. I put on gloves after getting cut by a fin. H.K. does not approve of this, saying he has never seen anyone wear gloves to unhook a fish. I know it’s wimpy, but I need all ten fingers to type and would rather not sustain injury.
We hook a big one, about 12 pounds and at least three feet in length. I get it into the boat with no problem, but the hook just won’t come out. H.K. is getting a bit impatient, so we trade places. I’m secretly relieved that it takes him a few minutes and a pair of needle-nose pliers to get the hook out. The 12-pounder is too big for the bucket and flops about on the boat’s bottom.
We finish running the lines, head to shore. I redeem myself by successfully backing the truck and trailer down to the ramp. I may not be worth a flip at unhooking catfish, but I can back up a trailer with the best of them. We head to his farmhouse. I take more photographs of him cleaning the fish and carving out fillets. I don’t volunteer to help, and he doesn’t ask. When he is done, there is a large bowl of fillets, enough to feed at least a half-dozen people. He kindly offers to fry some fish up for brunch (my term, not his), but I need to get back to civilization.
I keep thinking about H.K. wrestling that 60-pounder into the boat. I bet that was a sight.
Originally published in The Hill Country News, (Cedar Park, Texas) May 12, 2011.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Good Memory? Fuhgeddabout It
My middle brother Scott and I got into a mild argument the other day about what our phone number was when growing up in Allenstown, N.H. in the 1960s. That is where we lived until June 1968 when my parents came to their senses and came to Texas. They hired a mover to load up most of our possessions and pulled a U-Haul trailer with their 1964 Mercury Comet containing the immediate necessities — clothes, etc.
It was a grand adventure, three sons and the parents leisurely winding our way south, stopping at Gettysburg, in the Smokey Mountains, finally arriving in Longview — where I learned that I talked funny. Further, I had no idea how this nearly 13-year-old Yankee kid was going to survive an East Texas summer. It felt as if the world was on fire, and it was only June. Forty-three years later, I still wonder as summer begins — about two weeks ago here in Central Texas, just before Easter for Pete’s sake — how I’m going to survive the next six months. But I always do.
Anyway, I think our phone number was Hunter 4-3656. He thinks it was Hunter 4-8898. We both agree on the area code — 603. New Hampshire still has only one area code, which is part of the state’s charm. I do love visiting my native state and try to do so annually, though job responsibilities and economics have kept me away for a couple of years. But the Granite State is always on my radar when perusing the news. I would love to live there from July through September and then come back to Texas. I’m just one winning Lotto ticket away from being able to do so. Scott, who used to teach math, says the lottery is gambling for the mathematically challenged. He can be a bit of a spoilsport.
Anyway, this was a peculiar argument. For a number of years both Scott and my youngest brother Gregg have served as my institutional memory. Since Gregg is nearly nine years younger than me, and Scott and I are just 29 months apart naturally I lean more on Scott for childhood information. Both have a greater grasp of what actually happened when we were all too young to shave than I do.
I don’t know why my memory is so bad. This is not a recent development though it clearly is getting worse as I age. My one claim to memory fame used to be a better-than-average recall of phone numbers. Hence, my contention that I accurately remembered our New Hampshire home phone number. I know the phone numbers of every newspaper for which I’ve worked, and dumb things like the main line for the Ford dealership in Nacogdoches, which I haven’t patronized in nearly 10 years.
Cell phones have ruined that talent, useless as it was. Neither my daughters nor my brothers or most of my friends have landlines. Their cell phone numbers are plugged into my iPhone, so it isn’t necessary to memorize numbers anymore. Like most of you, I just scroll down until I find the name of the person I’m calling. So now I can’t even remember phone numbers.
I worked for a couple years running the Longview newspaper, where I went to junior high and high school. I was constantly being stopped by folks who said, “Hi, remember me? We went to high school together.” I would truthfully recall about one out of every 10 people who asked that question. Quickly I brought my high school yearbook to work so I could look people up and try to jog my memory. Most times that didn’t work, either.
It’s not just people that I can’t remember. I have gone to used-book sales at the library and come home with copies of books I already own. Worse, I’ve actually already read them. I have rented movies only to realize about 30 minutes into it that I have already watched this flick.
Oliver Sachs is a neurologist and writer for the New Yorker. He wrote in August about his personal struggle with prosopagnosia, which is the inability to recognize faces or locations. It’s a fascinating piece. Sachs can eat dinner with a colleague and meet her on the sidewalk 15 minutes later and not recognize the woman. There are times I wonder if I have a minor form of that malady.
I emailed a buddy in New Hampshire, my childhood friend with whom I still stay in touch and asked if he remembered our home phone number. Amazingly, he did. More surprisingly, I was right. A small victory but one that I will remember.
At least I hope so.
Originally published in the Hill Country News (Cedar Park, Texas), May 5, 2011.
It was a grand adventure, three sons and the parents leisurely winding our way south, stopping at Gettysburg, in the Smokey Mountains, finally arriving in Longview — where I learned that I talked funny. Further, I had no idea how this nearly 13-year-old Yankee kid was going to survive an East Texas summer. It felt as if the world was on fire, and it was only June. Forty-three years later, I still wonder as summer begins — about two weeks ago here in Central Texas, just before Easter for Pete’s sake — how I’m going to survive the next six months. But I always do.
Anyway, I think our phone number was Hunter 4-3656. He thinks it was Hunter 4-8898. We both agree on the area code — 603. New Hampshire still has only one area code, which is part of the state’s charm. I do love visiting my native state and try to do so annually, though job responsibilities and economics have kept me away for a couple of years. But the Granite State is always on my radar when perusing the news. I would love to live there from July through September and then come back to Texas. I’m just one winning Lotto ticket away from being able to do so. Scott, who used to teach math, says the lottery is gambling for the mathematically challenged. He can be a bit of a spoilsport.
Anyway, this was a peculiar argument. For a number of years both Scott and my youngest brother Gregg have served as my institutional memory. Since Gregg is nearly nine years younger than me, and Scott and I are just 29 months apart naturally I lean more on Scott for childhood information. Both have a greater grasp of what actually happened when we were all too young to shave than I do.
I don’t know why my memory is so bad. This is not a recent development though it clearly is getting worse as I age. My one claim to memory fame used to be a better-than-average recall of phone numbers. Hence, my contention that I accurately remembered our New Hampshire home phone number. I know the phone numbers of every newspaper for which I’ve worked, and dumb things like the main line for the Ford dealership in Nacogdoches, which I haven’t patronized in nearly 10 years.
Cell phones have ruined that talent, useless as it was. Neither my daughters nor my brothers or most of my friends have landlines. Their cell phone numbers are plugged into my iPhone, so it isn’t necessary to memorize numbers anymore. Like most of you, I just scroll down until I find the name of the person I’m calling. So now I can’t even remember phone numbers.
I worked for a couple years running the Longview newspaper, where I went to junior high and high school. I was constantly being stopped by folks who said, “Hi, remember me? We went to high school together.” I would truthfully recall about one out of every 10 people who asked that question. Quickly I brought my high school yearbook to work so I could look people up and try to jog my memory. Most times that didn’t work, either.
It’s not just people that I can’t remember. I have gone to used-book sales at the library and come home with copies of books I already own. Worse, I’ve actually already read them. I have rented movies only to realize about 30 minutes into it that I have already watched this flick.
Oliver Sachs is a neurologist and writer for the New Yorker. He wrote in August about his personal struggle with prosopagnosia, which is the inability to recognize faces or locations. It’s a fascinating piece. Sachs can eat dinner with a colleague and meet her on the sidewalk 15 minutes later and not recognize the woman. There are times I wonder if I have a minor form of that malady.
I emailed a buddy in New Hampshire, my childhood friend with whom I still stay in touch and asked if he remembered our home phone number. Amazingly, he did. More surprisingly, I was right. A small victory but one that I will remember.
At least I hope so.
Originally published in the Hill Country News (Cedar Park, Texas), May 5, 2011.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Signs of the Times
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign.
— Five Man Electric Band ( I think)
|———|
Have you noticed the number of people standing along carbon monoxide-choked highways and at busy intersections, holding signs, prancing about in front of businesses? They are trying to entice drivers to pull in for a Mexican-food meal, a massage, vitamin supplements, or a car wash, to name a few I have seen. These were called sandwich boards back in the Depression when folks paced sidewalks with signs strapped over their shoulders covering both sides of their body in an a-frame fashion.
Hoo boy. I know people need jobs. The unemployment rate is still far too high. McDonalds just held its widely publicized National Hiring Day with the goal of adding 50,000 new workers. As of this writing, I don’t know if the burger behemoth was successful. I am quite certain I would rather work at Mickey Ds than stand out in the hot sun, eating exhaust while waving a sign at passersby.
Admittedly I am biased when it comes to what type of advertising I think works best. I have been in the newspaper business since Lyndon Johnson was about to leave office, most families had black-and-white televisions, and newspapers were about four feet wide when spread open. But I’ve never believed that newspapers are the only place folks should advertise. I always tell folks who ask that a mix of different media likely work best, depending on the type of business.
But there are some goofy places that folks spend their advertising dollars, and hiring some poor soul to stand out and wave a sign doesn’t seem a terribly efficient way to reach one’s target market.
I guess I’m glad it provides jobs for folks who probably would not be working, since the skill level required isn’t terribly high. But the economics don’t make much sense to me. I saw four guys holding signs along Highway 183 and 620 the other day for the same business. Let’s say the business is paying each only minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour. And let’s assume those poor souls are out there eight hours a day, five days a week. That totals $1,160 a week being paid out to people holding signs on street corners, which can barely be read by motorists whizzing by at 50 mph while talking on their cell phones. Give me that $1,160 a week and I’ll put together a nice ad campaign in the newspaper and even let you have a little — not much — left over to run some radio spots.
A search online using “holding signs in front of businesses” led me to
bumvertising.com, which uses homeless people to attach advertising placards to their panhandling signs. If you go to the site, it shows photos of folks who are down on their luck holding their crudely-lettered signs — “Need Food. Please Help,” and the like. Attached to the bottom is a professionally printed sign for “Strategic Domination.com. The Game of all Games.”
The now 28-year-old Seattle entrepreneur who came up with this idea didn’t return my e-mail, so it isn’t clear to me if bumvertising.com is still in existence.
The last post was in 2005 so probably not. I’m always glad to see folks down on their luck make money, but “bumvertising?”
Again, that doesn’t sound to me like a great business plan, especially since calling someone a bum isn’t exactly a compliment.
And a placard attached to a poor homeless fellow’s “Need change for the bus stop” sign isn’t exactly going to entice me to visit a website.
I also don’t understand buying ads on park benches or restaurant tabletops.
Be honest. Have you ever decided to buy a product or use a service because you saw an ad plastered under your basket of fries? I think not.
And if someone is using the park bench as intended, you can’t see those ads either because they’re obscured by somebody’s backside.
I know everybody is just trying to get by these days best they can. And I do admire some of the dance routines displayed by the more energetic placard holders.
Some of them know some pretty slick steps.
Originally published in the Hill Country News (Cedar Park, Texas), April 27, 2011.
— Five Man Electric Band ( I think)
|———|
Have you noticed the number of people standing along carbon monoxide-choked highways and at busy intersections, holding signs, prancing about in front of businesses? They are trying to entice drivers to pull in for a Mexican-food meal, a massage, vitamin supplements, or a car wash, to name a few I have seen. These were called sandwich boards back in the Depression when folks paced sidewalks with signs strapped over their shoulders covering both sides of their body in an a-frame fashion.
Hoo boy. I know people need jobs. The unemployment rate is still far too high. McDonalds just held its widely publicized National Hiring Day with the goal of adding 50,000 new workers. As of this writing, I don’t know if the burger behemoth was successful. I am quite certain I would rather work at Mickey Ds than stand out in the hot sun, eating exhaust while waving a sign at passersby.
Admittedly I am biased when it comes to what type of advertising I think works best. I have been in the newspaper business since Lyndon Johnson was about to leave office, most families had black-and-white televisions, and newspapers were about four feet wide when spread open. But I’ve never believed that newspapers are the only place folks should advertise. I always tell folks who ask that a mix of different media likely work best, depending on the type of business.
But there are some goofy places that folks spend their advertising dollars, and hiring some poor soul to stand out and wave a sign doesn’t seem a terribly efficient way to reach one’s target market.
I guess I’m glad it provides jobs for folks who probably would not be working, since the skill level required isn’t terribly high. But the economics don’t make much sense to me. I saw four guys holding signs along Highway 183 and 620 the other day for the same business. Let’s say the business is paying each only minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour. And let’s assume those poor souls are out there eight hours a day, five days a week. That totals $1,160 a week being paid out to people holding signs on street corners, which can barely be read by motorists whizzing by at 50 mph while talking on their cell phones. Give me that $1,160 a week and I’ll put together a nice ad campaign in the newspaper and even let you have a little — not much — left over to run some radio spots.
A search online using “holding signs in front of businesses” led me to
bumvertising.com, which uses homeless people to attach advertising placards to their panhandling signs. If you go to the site, it shows photos of folks who are down on their luck holding their crudely-lettered signs — “Need Food. Please Help,” and the like. Attached to the bottom is a professionally printed sign for “Strategic Domination.com. The Game of all Games.”
The now 28-year-old Seattle entrepreneur who came up with this idea didn’t return my e-mail, so it isn’t clear to me if bumvertising.com is still in existence.
The last post was in 2005 so probably not. I’m always glad to see folks down on their luck make money, but “bumvertising?”
Again, that doesn’t sound to me like a great business plan, especially since calling someone a bum isn’t exactly a compliment.
And a placard attached to a poor homeless fellow’s “Need change for the bus stop” sign isn’t exactly going to entice me to visit a website.
I also don’t understand buying ads on park benches or restaurant tabletops.
Be honest. Have you ever decided to buy a product or use a service because you saw an ad plastered under your basket of fries? I think not.
And if someone is using the park bench as intended, you can’t see those ads either because they’re obscured by somebody’s backside.
I know everybody is just trying to get by these days best they can. And I do admire some of the dance routines displayed by the more energetic placard holders.
Some of them know some pretty slick steps.
Originally published in the Hill Country News (Cedar Park, Texas), April 27, 2011.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Keep Packing Pols Out of Pubs
God bless the Texas Legislature. School districts are laying off hundreds of teachers and other school employees as the state grapples with a massive deficit, which was caused by the shortsighted actions of that same august body. Meanwhile, legislators who possess a concealed handgun license may soon be able to legally pack heat in places where the rest of us common folk can’t — bars, schools, churches, football stadiums, even Six Flags. Now that’s important stuff.
State Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, is sponsoring the measure out of what he said is a question of logistics. Legislators have to go from one place to another, often five or six places in one evening. If the stops include either a watering hole or a place that distributes holy water (the former is considerably more likely, especially at night), then legislators would have to unholster and leave their weapons in their vehicles — or back at the office.
Well, cry me a river.
Let me establish some credentials lest I be branded an anti-gun, bleeding-heart liberal. I belong to a not-so-elite group known as gun-toting liberals. I’m fiscally conservative, socially progressive and a strong believer in both the First and Second Amendments. Further, I have owned a concealed handgun license for nearly five years. In fact, this summer I will have to suffer through taking the daylong class to renew my license so I can upgrade to legally carrying a semi-automatic. I originally qualified only with a revolver because that was the only type of handgun I owned.
I own several handguns, a 20-gauge shotgun, and a really cool pellet rifle with a scope. I revel in firing off rounds from my brother-in-law’s .223 machine gun out in an East Texas pasture, shooting clay pigeons (or trying to, anyway), and generally engaging what is referred to in the Piney Woods as “blowing stuff up.” Some folks substitute a different word for “stuff,” but this is a family newspaper. I once watched a young woman obliterate a discarded porcelain toilet with a single round from an SKS that a buddy owns. It was a thing of beauty.
However, I have never cared for hunting, though I have nothing against it. I’m just not enthusiastic about shooting and skinning an animal. That is messy work, so I prefer what little meat I consume arrive already shrink-wrapped and USDA approved. I’m not that crazy about eating wild meat anyway, such as deer or dove. I am willing and capable of shooting a wild hog. Feral hogs are a dratted nuisance. I have killed a couple of snakes, operating under the premise that any reptile dumb enough to take up residence in my garage deserves to die. This did not involve gunfire, since the threat of ricochets gave me pause.
I am firmly opposed to a lawmaker being able to carry a .357 into the Texas Chili Parlor or Scholz Garten if the rest of us can’t. Besides, why should they be able to do so when the mayor of Cedar Park or a Leander city councilwoman can’t do the same? So if we allow state legislators to pack a Glock into Gueros, the next logical step is to allow all elected officials to do so. Pretty soon county commissioners from East Texas will be in Austin for a convention, getting tanked up at the strip bar. Gunfire could erupt over a discussion about the unit road system. Do we really want an Upshur County commissioner bringing a gun into the Yellow Rose when visiting the big city? I think not.
OK, be honest. How many of you reading this even know what your state representative or senator’s name is, let alone what the person looks like? I do, but that’s a job requirement. So the notion that these folks need the added protection of being able to pack heat while drumming up early voting mail ballots at the nursing home is just a bit far-fetched.
I saw the play about Molly Ivins last month down at Zach Scott Theatre. The late columnist is one of my heroes. In the play, the woman playing Molly quotes a story from Ann Richards, our late governor and another very funny woman. Seems the ACLU was complaining about a crèche constructed on the Capitol grounds at Christmas. Violation of church and state and all that. Personally, as long as the state allows folks to put up a statue of Buddha on his birthday, I’m good with a crèche at the Capitol.
So was Ann. She said, “Oh, honey, leave them be. That’s the closest three wise men will ever get to the state Legislature.” Bills like Patrick’s only confirm that sentiment.
Originally published in The Hill Country News (Cedar Park, Texas), April 21, 2011.
State Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, is sponsoring the measure out of what he said is a question of logistics. Legislators have to go from one place to another, often five or six places in one evening. If the stops include either a watering hole or a place that distributes holy water (the former is considerably more likely, especially at night), then legislators would have to unholster and leave their weapons in their vehicles — or back at the office.
Well, cry me a river.
Let me establish some credentials lest I be branded an anti-gun, bleeding-heart liberal. I belong to a not-so-elite group known as gun-toting liberals. I’m fiscally conservative, socially progressive and a strong believer in both the First and Second Amendments. Further, I have owned a concealed handgun license for nearly five years. In fact, this summer I will have to suffer through taking the daylong class to renew my license so I can upgrade to legally carrying a semi-automatic. I originally qualified only with a revolver because that was the only type of handgun I owned.
I own several handguns, a 20-gauge shotgun, and a really cool pellet rifle with a scope. I revel in firing off rounds from my brother-in-law’s .223 machine gun out in an East Texas pasture, shooting clay pigeons (or trying to, anyway), and generally engaging what is referred to in the Piney Woods as “blowing stuff up.” Some folks substitute a different word for “stuff,” but this is a family newspaper. I once watched a young woman obliterate a discarded porcelain toilet with a single round from an SKS that a buddy owns. It was a thing of beauty.
However, I have never cared for hunting, though I have nothing against it. I’m just not enthusiastic about shooting and skinning an animal. That is messy work, so I prefer what little meat I consume arrive already shrink-wrapped and USDA approved. I’m not that crazy about eating wild meat anyway, such as deer or dove. I am willing and capable of shooting a wild hog. Feral hogs are a dratted nuisance. I have killed a couple of snakes, operating under the premise that any reptile dumb enough to take up residence in my garage deserves to die. This did not involve gunfire, since the threat of ricochets gave me pause.
I am firmly opposed to a lawmaker being able to carry a .357 into the Texas Chili Parlor or Scholz Garten if the rest of us can’t. Besides, why should they be able to do so when the mayor of Cedar Park or a Leander city councilwoman can’t do the same? So if we allow state legislators to pack a Glock into Gueros, the next logical step is to allow all elected officials to do so. Pretty soon county commissioners from East Texas will be in Austin for a convention, getting tanked up at the strip bar. Gunfire could erupt over a discussion about the unit road system. Do we really want an Upshur County commissioner bringing a gun into the Yellow Rose when visiting the big city? I think not.
OK, be honest. How many of you reading this even know what your state representative or senator’s name is, let alone what the person looks like? I do, but that’s a job requirement. So the notion that these folks need the added protection of being able to pack heat while drumming up early voting mail ballots at the nursing home is just a bit far-fetched.
I saw the play about Molly Ivins last month down at Zach Scott Theatre. The late columnist is one of my heroes. In the play, the woman playing Molly quotes a story from Ann Richards, our late governor and another very funny woman. Seems the ACLU was complaining about a crèche constructed on the Capitol grounds at Christmas. Violation of church and state and all that. Personally, as long as the state allows folks to put up a statue of Buddha on his birthday, I’m good with a crèche at the Capitol.
So was Ann. She said, “Oh, honey, leave them be. That’s the closest three wise men will ever get to the state Legislature.” Bills like Patrick’s only confirm that sentiment.
Originally published in The Hill Country News (Cedar Park, Texas), April 21, 2011.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
An Ill Wind Blows This Spring
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.
- Bob Dylan
Apparently, the answer would be pollen. At least that's all I see blowing in the Central Texas wind, which lately never ceases. I'll wake up at night and glance out the second-story bedroom window, on the miniscule chance that it might actually be raining. What a quaint notion, April showers. There will be no raindrops lashing the windows, but the treetops sway as if dancing to an celestial salsa band. Night and day they swing, shaking off oak pollen by the wheelbarrow load in the yard.
This is my first spring living in Central Texas in nearly 30 years. I have spent virtually all the past three decades in Deep East Texas, where pine trees dominate. Spring in those parts means a fine coating of yellow powder on every outdoor surface. One quickly learns to give up washing the car for a month or so, to never leave a vehicle's window open - and never, ever raise the windows of one's home. That is, unless, one enjoys a patina of golden dust on every surface.
Most years a gullywasher will sweep through those piney woods, washing yellow rivers of pine pollen down gutters and into the storm system. A good thunderstorm might leave some branches to pick up - pine trees being rather brittle - but at least the pollen would disappear. All would once again be bright and clean.
Fortunately, I developed an immunity to pine pollen as a callow youth growing up in the land of virgin pines and tall women. Or maybe it was the reverse. Sorry, old East Texas joke. The season was aesthetically annoying but didn't cause me sneezing fits, watery eyes or a runny nose. I did not suffer as so many do, until arriving here in the land of cedar, live oaks and prickly pear. I discovered a few months after moving here that cedar fever is indeed as foul a malady as others have described it. It took me a while to figure out that I didn't have a common cold, that the winter pollen from cedars was kicking my behind.
Considering I live in Cedar Park, and my back yard contains five trees of that species, one would have thought this diagnosis might have occurred to me earlier - but no matter. I loaded up on over-the-counter drugs and hobbled through, taking comfort in learning that cedar fever ends at springtime.
Then oak pollen season arrived. I honestly had no idea such existed. I lived in Austin during my last stint here, attending graduate school at The University starting in 1980 - a year marked by a Gil Scott-Heron song titled the same, which we played incessantly. Maybe the grackles distracted me. Or oaks were scarce in the yards of the cheap houses we rented, trying to elude burglars who seemed to follow us. Seriously. We were burglarized twice in two years and narrowly escaped a third attempt. That's enough to distract one from pollen. Now I seem to have more time on my hands and have noticed a yellow coating on everything outside.
And inside, at least briefly. I revel in fresh air and open windows when possible. As the cool spring air (which lasted about a week) arrived, I flung open second-story windows. (I learned my lesson about leaving first-story windows open). An hour's worth of vacuuming and dusting after work coupled with a grand mal sneezing attack convinced me there is a reason God invented air-conditioning and ceiling fans.
Finally the pollen is beginning to abate, but the wind shows no sign of settling down. The paper had a booth at the Cedar Park Heritage Festival recently, which I manned on a Saturday afternoon. I spent a half-day getting ready, mounting photographs on a tri-fold display board, gathering bound copies of old papers for folks to peruse, ordering a new banner.
The wind howled across that park, tossing canopies about. Luckily, we were under an industrial-strength cover installed by city workers who pounded rebar into the rocky soil. I would likely still be trying to hang our banner if not for the help of a kindly volunteer with the Austin Steam Train Association. I had to abandon the notion of displaying photographs on the display, some of which would have ended up north of Leander before sunset. Instead, I settled for only showing the bound books, the pages of which had to be carefully turned in the wind.
But I met lots of nice folks, who mainly remarked on the wind. One person noted that we would be missing these gales come August.
Well, there's that.
Originally published in the Hill Country News (Cedar Park, Texas), April 14, 2011.
- Bob Dylan
Apparently, the answer would be pollen. At least that's all I see blowing in the Central Texas wind, which lately never ceases. I'll wake up at night and glance out the second-story bedroom window, on the miniscule chance that it might actually be raining. What a quaint notion, April showers. There will be no raindrops lashing the windows, but the treetops sway as if dancing to an celestial salsa band. Night and day they swing, shaking off oak pollen by the wheelbarrow load in the yard.
This is my first spring living in Central Texas in nearly 30 years. I have spent virtually all the past three decades in Deep East Texas, where pine trees dominate. Spring in those parts means a fine coating of yellow powder on every outdoor surface. One quickly learns to give up washing the car for a month or so, to never leave a vehicle's window open - and never, ever raise the windows of one's home. That is, unless, one enjoys a patina of golden dust on every surface.
Most years a gullywasher will sweep through those piney woods, washing yellow rivers of pine pollen down gutters and into the storm system. A good thunderstorm might leave some branches to pick up - pine trees being rather brittle - but at least the pollen would disappear. All would once again be bright and clean.
Fortunately, I developed an immunity to pine pollen as a callow youth growing up in the land of virgin pines and tall women. Or maybe it was the reverse. Sorry, old East Texas joke. The season was aesthetically annoying but didn't cause me sneezing fits, watery eyes or a runny nose. I did not suffer as so many do, until arriving here in the land of cedar, live oaks and prickly pear. I discovered a few months after moving here that cedar fever is indeed as foul a malady as others have described it. It took me a while to figure out that I didn't have a common cold, that the winter pollen from cedars was kicking my behind.
Considering I live in Cedar Park, and my back yard contains five trees of that species, one would have thought this diagnosis might have occurred to me earlier - but no matter. I loaded up on over-the-counter drugs and hobbled through, taking comfort in learning that cedar fever ends at springtime.
Then oak pollen season arrived. I honestly had no idea such existed. I lived in Austin during my last stint here, attending graduate school at The University starting in 1980 - a year marked by a Gil Scott-Heron song titled the same, which we played incessantly. Maybe the grackles distracted me. Or oaks were scarce in the yards of the cheap houses we rented, trying to elude burglars who seemed to follow us. Seriously. We were burglarized twice in two years and narrowly escaped a third attempt. That's enough to distract one from pollen. Now I seem to have more time on my hands and have noticed a yellow coating on everything outside.
And inside, at least briefly. I revel in fresh air and open windows when possible. As the cool spring air (which lasted about a week) arrived, I flung open second-story windows. (I learned my lesson about leaving first-story windows open). An hour's worth of vacuuming and dusting after work coupled with a grand mal sneezing attack convinced me there is a reason God invented air-conditioning and ceiling fans.
Finally the pollen is beginning to abate, but the wind shows no sign of settling down. The paper had a booth at the Cedar Park Heritage Festival recently, which I manned on a Saturday afternoon. I spent a half-day getting ready, mounting photographs on a tri-fold display board, gathering bound copies of old papers for folks to peruse, ordering a new banner.
The wind howled across that park, tossing canopies about. Luckily, we were under an industrial-strength cover installed by city workers who pounded rebar into the rocky soil. I would likely still be trying to hang our banner if not for the help of a kindly volunteer with the Austin Steam Train Association. I had to abandon the notion of displaying photographs on the display, some of which would have ended up north of Leander before sunset. Instead, I settled for only showing the bound books, the pages of which had to be carefully turned in the wind.
But I met lots of nice folks, who mainly remarked on the wind. One person noted that we would be missing these gales come August.
Well, there's that.
Originally published in the Hill Country News (Cedar Park, Texas), April 14, 2011.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Keeping the Home Fires Burning
t was the last fire of winter, burning on a night that teetered on the cusp of being cold enough to justify going to the trouble. I stoked the small hearth with post-oak logs and put the lighter to the gas pipe that tends to singe my hands when it ignites. My right hand has been hairless since late November, the skin occasionally reddened from the whoosh of pent-up gas combusting. The fireplace in this suburbia rent house bears watching.
Despite the epidermal damage, I have enjoyed burning real wood once again after four years of living with a gas-log fireplace. There are merits to both, the latter providing low maintenance but an antiseptic flame, the former being messy — requiring purchases from men peddling stacks on highway corners and shoveling out the ashes every few week
I left East Texas on a cool gray Sunday afternoon — my lovely fiancé, aka the Beautiful Mystery Companion — about to stretch out in front of a roaring fire I had built. She planned to catch up on reading as I headed back to the Hill Country. My only consolation for leaving was that I could build a similar fire here once I finished the 4.5-hour drive. And so I did, our parallel home fires burning.
Disaster was narrowly averted in East Texas when I piled red-oak logs — split by my BMC’s nearly 80-year-old father and hauled to town for his only daughter — into her fireplace and lit that gas pipe, which isn’t as prone to blowing up, since the hearth is much larger. After about 30 seconds I asked, “Is the damper open?” Admittedly this question is best asked before putting flame to gas, igniting the shards of lighter pine and kindling at bottom. It was getting a tad smoky, but you never know. Sometimes damp heavy air discourages wood smoke from heading upward.
“I’m not sure,” she replied. Time to grab a flashlight and peer upward, trying not to singe eyebrows and read the “Open,” and “Close” markers her landlord had written with a Sharpie on the metal insert. Sure enough, the flue was closed. I quickly flipped it to the left and with flashlight made sure the damper truly had opened. My BMC was none the wiser of my near-doofishness. Until now.
Twenty years ago, in a house outside Lufkin where I relied heavily on wood to heat in winter because the alternative was an expensive and balky propane tank, I blithely built a fire. I was keeping my daughters on a divorced-dad weekend. After igniting yet another gas pipe, I went outside to do manly things, such as spit and gather more firewood, perhaps even indulge in a bit of Skoal before I gave up that nasty habit. I re-entered the home to discover smoke alarms screeching and a viscous cloud of smoke that reminded me of following the mosquito-fogger truck on a bicycle during an East Texas summer. The damper was closed, so the smoke took up residence throughout the house. It took a while to get oxygen levels back to a breathable status. My children were so busy playing with Barbies in the back bedroom that they barely noticed the commotion.
My favorite fireplace was in a house owned in Kilgore, a few blocks north of the college. It was the home of a family that owned a funeral home next door. They are still in that business but have since moved both their business and residence. It was a fine old house, built in the 1940s with pine-knot paneling in the family room, which contained a double fireplace. One side was for building a fire for warmth. The other side contained a smoker and an electric spit, so one could, for example, slow-cook a pork loin on one side while enjoying a crackling fire on the other. I plan to have a similar arrangement again someday, though I’ll probably put the cooking portion outside.
The fire is starting to die down as I write this on a laptop, listening to Jackson Browne on the stereo, the television on mute as I watch occasionally scenes of tragedy and sadness in the world beyond. It has gotten warm enough, and a bit smoky, so I have to open the windows. I’m almost certainly the only fellow here in suburbia burning a fire on the next-to-last day of March.
Originally published in The Hill Country News, April 7, 2011.
Despite the epidermal damage, I have enjoyed burning real wood once again after four years of living with a gas-log fireplace. There are merits to both, the latter providing low maintenance but an antiseptic flame, the former being messy — requiring purchases from men peddling stacks on highway corners and shoveling out the ashes every few week
I left East Texas on a cool gray Sunday afternoon — my lovely fiancé, aka the Beautiful Mystery Companion — about to stretch out in front of a roaring fire I had built. She planned to catch up on reading as I headed back to the Hill Country. My only consolation for leaving was that I could build a similar fire here once I finished the 4.5-hour drive. And so I did, our parallel home fires burning.
Disaster was narrowly averted in East Texas when I piled red-oak logs — split by my BMC’s nearly 80-year-old father and hauled to town for his only daughter — into her fireplace and lit that gas pipe, which isn’t as prone to blowing up, since the hearth is much larger. After about 30 seconds I asked, “Is the damper open?” Admittedly this question is best asked before putting flame to gas, igniting the shards of lighter pine and kindling at bottom. It was getting a tad smoky, but you never know. Sometimes damp heavy air discourages wood smoke from heading upward.
“I’m not sure,” she replied. Time to grab a flashlight and peer upward, trying not to singe eyebrows and read the “Open,” and “Close” markers her landlord had written with a Sharpie on the metal insert. Sure enough, the flue was closed. I quickly flipped it to the left and with flashlight made sure the damper truly had opened. My BMC was none the wiser of my near-doofishness. Until now.
Twenty years ago, in a house outside Lufkin where I relied heavily on wood to heat in winter because the alternative was an expensive and balky propane tank, I blithely built a fire. I was keeping my daughters on a divorced-dad weekend. After igniting yet another gas pipe, I went outside to do manly things, such as spit and gather more firewood, perhaps even indulge in a bit of Skoal before I gave up that nasty habit. I re-entered the home to discover smoke alarms screeching and a viscous cloud of smoke that reminded me of following the mosquito-fogger truck on a bicycle during an East Texas summer. The damper was closed, so the smoke took up residence throughout the house. It took a while to get oxygen levels back to a breathable status. My children were so busy playing with Barbies in the back bedroom that they barely noticed the commotion.
My favorite fireplace was in a house owned in Kilgore, a few blocks north of the college. It was the home of a family that owned a funeral home next door. They are still in that business but have since moved both their business and residence. It was a fine old house, built in the 1940s with pine-knot paneling in the family room, which contained a double fireplace. One side was for building a fire for warmth. The other side contained a smoker and an electric spit, so one could, for example, slow-cook a pork loin on one side while enjoying a crackling fire on the other. I plan to have a similar arrangement again someday, though I’ll probably put the cooking portion outside.
The fire is starting to die down as I write this on a laptop, listening to Jackson Browne on the stereo, the television on mute as I watch occasionally scenes of tragedy and sadness in the world beyond. It has gotten warm enough, and a bit smoky, so I have to open the windows. I’m almost certainly the only fellow here in suburbia burning a fire on the next-to-last day of March.
Originally published in The Hill Country News, April 7, 2011.
Friday, April 1, 2011
How I Learned to Curse in French
Spring means a change of wardrobe. I trade button-down long-sleeved shirts for short-sleeved polo style shirts. Gone are the sports jacket worn in winter. It feels foolhardy to wear a sports jacket when it is more than 90 degrees outside, unless attending a funeral or similar formal event. And I only wear a tie under duress.
It also means switching hats, literally. Spring means that, when not working, my bald spot will be covered with a Boston Red Sox cap purchased at Fenway Park two years ago. Major League Baseball season is about to commence. Life is good.
I became a Red Sox fan in the womb, up in Concord, N.H., where I lived the first 13 years of my life. I had no choice in the matter of which team I followed, though my dad — not a native New Englander — rooted quietly for the Cardinals. He was outnumbered by my mother’s French-Canadian family, which had immigrated from the Quebec province into the Granite State in the 1920s. They promptly took up rooting for one of baseball’s most star-crossed teams.
I learned a wide array of profanities seated near kinfolks, watching the Red Sox on television during the 1960s. These included French phrases that comprised my only foray into that language. I have since learned how to curse in Spanish but forgotten nearly all the French imprecations learned at the knee of my grandfather and uncles. My grandmother, who outlived her husband by more than three decades, didn’t curse. She would just cluck her tongue and talk to the television as the Sox blew yet another lead.
That all changed in 2004, when incredibly, the team came back from a three-games-to-zip deficit to the hated Yankees to take four straight and win the American League pennant. They next dispatched the Cardinals in four straight. The 86-year-old Curse of the Bambino, so named after the team traded Babe Ruth to the Yanks in 1918, had finally ended.
I have attended games sporadically at Fenway Park since 1967, when my dad bought tickets to the next-to-last game of the season. That was the year of the Impossible Dream. The Sox won the pennant on the last game of the season. We sat in the bleachers the day before, watching our team win to tie the Twins for first place. My best friend Bruce Courtemanche and I held up a banner in hopes of getting on television. My father was our hero for having bought tickets back in the spring. None of us suspected our ragtag Sox would be vying for a World Series berth in autumn. (This was when there were just two leagues, no divisions or playoffs. The Sox lost in seven games to the Cardinals. The Curse continued.)
I visited Bruce in New Hampshire a couple years ago. He still lives a couple of blocks from our elementary school and confessed that he still has that banner, more than four decades later. As for me, I acquired a baseball a few years ago signed by my boyhood hero, Carl Yastrzemski. Yaz won the Triple Crown in 1967, leading the American League in batting average, runs-batted-in and home runs. No player has repeated that feat since. My baseball, perched in Lucite, has his signature and “TC 1967” inscribed. It’s part of the Red Sox décor that makes up my upstairs bedroom and study, along with a large black-and-white photo of the famed scoreboard at Fenway and a 1967 photo of Yaz leaping to catch a line drive in left field.
The photo I shot in Fenway of the first game of the 2007 World Series between Boston and the Arizona Diamondbacks also hangs in my bedroom. It shows Josh Beckett throwing the first pitch as the crowd watches. It is framed together with my ticket to the game. Naturally, I’ve since changed my mind but at the time thought the Lord could go ahead and take me now. I’ll die a happy man. Since then I’ve conjured up other events, goals, etc., to keep me plugging away on this planet. But that was a moment of pure happiness.
Like spring, the opening of baseball season is a time of hope and renewal. There are 162 games to be played — starting on April 1 for the Sox against the Texas Rangers. The latter is my second-favorite team, though a distant second. I’ll never trade my affection for a team that’s been part of my life since I was old enough to know what the phrase, “You *@**@&@& bums” meant.
In French, no less.
Originally published in The Hill Country News, March 31, 2011.
It also means switching hats, literally. Spring means that, when not working, my bald spot will be covered with a Boston Red Sox cap purchased at Fenway Park two years ago. Major League Baseball season is about to commence. Life is good.
I became a Red Sox fan in the womb, up in Concord, N.H., where I lived the first 13 years of my life. I had no choice in the matter of which team I followed, though my dad — not a native New Englander — rooted quietly for the Cardinals. He was outnumbered by my mother’s French-Canadian family, which had immigrated from the Quebec province into the Granite State in the 1920s. They promptly took up rooting for one of baseball’s most star-crossed teams.
I learned a wide array of profanities seated near kinfolks, watching the Red Sox on television during the 1960s. These included French phrases that comprised my only foray into that language. I have since learned how to curse in Spanish but forgotten nearly all the French imprecations learned at the knee of my grandfather and uncles. My grandmother, who outlived her husband by more than three decades, didn’t curse. She would just cluck her tongue and talk to the television as the Sox blew yet another lead.
That all changed in 2004, when incredibly, the team came back from a three-games-to-zip deficit to the hated Yankees to take four straight and win the American League pennant. They next dispatched the Cardinals in four straight. The 86-year-old Curse of the Bambino, so named after the team traded Babe Ruth to the Yanks in 1918, had finally ended.
I have attended games sporadically at Fenway Park since 1967, when my dad bought tickets to the next-to-last game of the season. That was the year of the Impossible Dream. The Sox won the pennant on the last game of the season. We sat in the bleachers the day before, watching our team win to tie the Twins for first place. My best friend Bruce Courtemanche and I held up a banner in hopes of getting on television. My father was our hero for having bought tickets back in the spring. None of us suspected our ragtag Sox would be vying for a World Series berth in autumn. (This was when there were just two leagues, no divisions or playoffs. The Sox lost in seven games to the Cardinals. The Curse continued.)
I visited Bruce in New Hampshire a couple years ago. He still lives a couple of blocks from our elementary school and confessed that he still has that banner, more than four decades later. As for me, I acquired a baseball a few years ago signed by my boyhood hero, Carl Yastrzemski. Yaz won the Triple Crown in 1967, leading the American League in batting average, runs-batted-in and home runs. No player has repeated that feat since. My baseball, perched in Lucite, has his signature and “TC 1967” inscribed. It’s part of the Red Sox décor that makes up my upstairs bedroom and study, along with a large black-and-white photo of the famed scoreboard at Fenway and a 1967 photo of Yaz leaping to catch a line drive in left field.
The photo I shot in Fenway of the first game of the 2007 World Series between Boston and the Arizona Diamondbacks also hangs in my bedroom. It shows Josh Beckett throwing the first pitch as the crowd watches. It is framed together with my ticket to the game. Naturally, I’ve since changed my mind but at the time thought the Lord could go ahead and take me now. I’ll die a happy man. Since then I’ve conjured up other events, goals, etc., to keep me plugging away on this planet. But that was a moment of pure happiness.
Like spring, the opening of baseball season is a time of hope and renewal. There are 162 games to be played — starting on April 1 for the Sox against the Texas Rangers. The latter is my second-favorite team, though a distant second. I’ll never trade my affection for a team that’s been part of my life since I was old enough to know what the phrase, “You *@**@&@& bums” meant.
In French, no less.
Originally published in The Hill Country News, March 31, 2011.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
On a Train Bound for Somewhere
On a train between two cities, I knew that I had gone wrong. I was headed east when I should be going west. — Jeff Talmadge
|———|
Singer-songwriter Jeff Talmadge dug through his repertory of songs last week while performing at Opal Divine’s on West Sixth Street in Austin to come up with a train tune. He was marking the one-year anniversary of Capital Metro launching its rail service from Leander to downtown Austin. I had e-mailed him of my plans to ride the rail for the first time, for a story and column, plus see him perform live — also for the first time.
I’ve been a fan of Jeff’s music for several years after being introduced to it by his wife. She was my boss in a former life. Jeff gave up practicing law in Austin in 2003 to pursue a musical career. His seventh studio recording, “Kind of Everything,” was just released. Check it out at jefftalmadge.com. He’s a fine writer, and the latest CD has some strong support from veteran session musicians.
|———|
SXSW, the massive music, film and high-tech conference recently concluded in Austin, attracts tens of thousands of folks to downtown. Riding the train in from Leander meant a one-hour trip with seven stops between there and downtown, where the line ends next to the Austin Convention Center. That is where much of SXSW was taking place. Literally dozens of other venues were within easy walking distance, which explains why the train I boarded in Leander at 8:30 a.m. had standing-room only by the time it stopped near the moribund Highland Mall.
The train was big-city subway crammed by the time we got downtown. A one-time round trip ticket costs just $5.50 — far less than paying to park, if one can find a spot. I doubt I could have driven there and found a parking space in an hour, even if I avoided rush hour. Not to mention the gasoline it takes to get there.
Cap Metro in March as an experiment extended hours into Friday night and also added a couple of Saturdays. It seems to me that the service is going to have to run permanently during those times to attract a significant ridership. As someone who loves both trains and not having to drive into the city, I’m rooting for the system’s success and expansion.
The trip into town was stress-free and on time. For the first few stops, it felt like taking a leisurely drive through the country with someone else at the wheel. My oldest daughter, Kasey, joined me at Lakeline, the first stop south of Leander. Passengers spent their time fiddling with cell phones, texting or Googling. A few actually read books. We showed up exactly as scheduled and began trekking toward Opal Divine’s, about 10 blocks away.
|———|
I spied Jeff and introduced myself. He was the second act performing on the front porch of this bar/restaurant. Jeff walked around for a time with guitar strapped to his shoulder, warming up. He graciously introduced us to other musicians playing that day, including Patterson Barrett and Ray Bonneville. Look them up. They’re legends, consummate musicians, writers and singers who rarely crack commercial radio’s limited playlist. Patterson accompanied Jeff on his brief set, one friend helping out another — neither likely making much more than tip money for the effort.
I read earlier that 2,000 or so bands were in town for SXSW. Kasey and I wandered around until early evening sampling the offerings. At one club with an outside garden, we listened to Brite Future, a dynamite band from Seattle, formerly known as Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head. Seriously. I can’t make this stuff up. The lead singer pointed at me and said, “You in the sunglasses over there, what’s up?” I had no clever rejoinder, just gave a thumbs-up. Kasey asked, “Daddy, was he talking to you?” Yep, the aging hipster in the back badly in need of a haircut, wearing the beret. That would be me.
|———|
We reluctantly headed back north. The train’s last departure from downtown on a weeknight is 6:34, but we caught the next-to-last one at 5:30 to be safe. The train started out full and stayed that way again until about halfway north. By the time it stopped in Leander, about a dozen passengers remained. I dozed a bit during the 15 minutes after my daughter got off and the last stop.
Sure beats driving. Just saying.
|———|
It’s not the wrong train that you’re on. It’s just another way to go. It’s not the wrong train that you’re on. You’ve found another way back home. — Jeff Talmadge
Originally published in The Hill Country News, March 24, 2011
|———|
Singer-songwriter Jeff Talmadge dug through his repertory of songs last week while performing at Opal Divine’s on West Sixth Street in Austin to come up with a train tune. He was marking the one-year anniversary of Capital Metro launching its rail service from Leander to downtown Austin. I had e-mailed him of my plans to ride the rail for the first time, for a story and column, plus see him perform live — also for the first time.
I’ve been a fan of Jeff’s music for several years after being introduced to it by his wife. She was my boss in a former life. Jeff gave up practicing law in Austin in 2003 to pursue a musical career. His seventh studio recording, “Kind of Everything,” was just released. Check it out at jefftalmadge.com. He’s a fine writer, and the latest CD has some strong support from veteran session musicians.
|———|
SXSW, the massive music, film and high-tech conference recently concluded in Austin, attracts tens of thousands of folks to downtown. Riding the train in from Leander meant a one-hour trip with seven stops between there and downtown, where the line ends next to the Austin Convention Center. That is where much of SXSW was taking place. Literally dozens of other venues were within easy walking distance, which explains why the train I boarded in Leander at 8:30 a.m. had standing-room only by the time it stopped near the moribund Highland Mall.
The train was big-city subway crammed by the time we got downtown. A one-time round trip ticket costs just $5.50 — far less than paying to park, if one can find a spot. I doubt I could have driven there and found a parking space in an hour, even if I avoided rush hour. Not to mention the gasoline it takes to get there.
Cap Metro in March as an experiment extended hours into Friday night and also added a couple of Saturdays. It seems to me that the service is going to have to run permanently during those times to attract a significant ridership. As someone who loves both trains and not having to drive into the city, I’m rooting for the system’s success and expansion.
The trip into town was stress-free and on time. For the first few stops, it felt like taking a leisurely drive through the country with someone else at the wheel. My oldest daughter, Kasey, joined me at Lakeline, the first stop south of Leander. Passengers spent their time fiddling with cell phones, texting or Googling. A few actually read books. We showed up exactly as scheduled and began trekking toward Opal Divine’s, about 10 blocks away.
|———|
I spied Jeff and introduced myself. He was the second act performing on the front porch of this bar/restaurant. Jeff walked around for a time with guitar strapped to his shoulder, warming up. He graciously introduced us to other musicians playing that day, including Patterson Barrett and Ray Bonneville. Look them up. They’re legends, consummate musicians, writers and singers who rarely crack commercial radio’s limited playlist. Patterson accompanied Jeff on his brief set, one friend helping out another — neither likely making much more than tip money for the effort.
I read earlier that 2,000 or so bands were in town for SXSW. Kasey and I wandered around until early evening sampling the offerings. At one club with an outside garden, we listened to Brite Future, a dynamite band from Seattle, formerly known as Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head. Seriously. I can’t make this stuff up. The lead singer pointed at me and said, “You in the sunglasses over there, what’s up?” I had no clever rejoinder, just gave a thumbs-up. Kasey asked, “Daddy, was he talking to you?” Yep, the aging hipster in the back badly in need of a haircut, wearing the beret. That would be me.
|———|
We reluctantly headed back north. The train’s last departure from downtown on a weeknight is 6:34, but we caught the next-to-last one at 5:30 to be safe. The train started out full and stayed that way again until about halfway north. By the time it stopped in Leander, about a dozen passengers remained. I dozed a bit during the 15 minutes after my daughter got off and the last stop.
Sure beats driving. Just saying.
|———|
It’s not the wrong train that you’re on. It’s just another way to go. It’s not the wrong train that you’re on. You’ve found another way back home. — Jeff Talmadge
Originally published in The Hill Country News, March 24, 2011
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