I began my study of Kansas entomology on a recent weekend as I attacked an area below my house with the weed whacker. The house I have leased sits on a lovely piece of land, heavily wooded with much of the front yard planted in ground cover and ivy. The basin below the house became overrun with weeds. I pay a fellow to mow the grass, since there is a bunch of it, but opted to do the trimming and weeding. There are a lot of flowers and lovely vegetation that might get beheaded by accident.
I enjoy getting out there and sweating, running the weed whacker and blower. It took most of the afternoon and filled up three large leaf bags, since it was the first time this spring any such work had been done. I rewarded myself with a cold beer and grilled some chicken outside when finished, eventually shedding my nasty clothes and cleaning up. I took my time in doing so.
I didn’t really notice the chigger bites for a day-and-a-half. It was only when getting ready to walk early Tuesday morning that I noticed my legs were itching. I bent down to inspect the situation. At first I thought I had contracted the annual case of poison ivy that has been a family tradition for a half-century.
But this was different. Both legs from ankles to knees were covered in hundreds of tiny bumps that itched rather insistently, with a burn that increased as hours, then days, passed. Why I hadn’t noticed this for 36 hours or so I can’t explain. Maybe Kansas chiggers have a delayed-reaction venom. Maybe I drank too much wine while watching the Celtics in the playoffs, after grilling that chicken. But now that I had noticed that my legs looked like an amateurish pointillist painting, of course I couldn’t keep my mind off those chigger bites.
I tried counting bites and gave up at 300. That was just on my left leg. It was a slow night. The Celtics weren’t playing, and there wasn’t anything worth watching on HGTV.
It has been many years since I have been a chigger victim. Not to denigrate Kansas chiggers, but they don’t pack the bite of their Texas cousins. I once hosted a catfish fry on a lovely hill under red-oak trees in San Augustine, (Texas) on some land I owned there — figuring it would provide shade from the wicked summer heat. I didn’t know that it was host to one of the greatest collections of East Texas chiggers that side of the nearby Sabine River.
My friends cussed me for weeks, because East Texas chiggers start biting within minutes, with considerably more venom than the Kansas version. There seem to be a lot fewer of them, and the pain doesn’t last as long, but they come spring-loaded on permanently teed-off. I haven’t been chigger-bitten since that fish fry, which was in 1985. You remember such events, when friends threaten to hunt you down with weapons because they are in such misery.
So I called Chuck Otte, the local extension agent, knowing that after nearly three decades here he would have plenty of advice on Kansas chiggers. He started chuckling in sympathy as I explained my plight. At the time, I was in Day Nine of itching. He said to figure on another five days more of irritation. Jeez. I’ve gotten over poison ivy in less time.
As I figured, none of the folk remedies work. Forget plugging the bites with nail polish. The mites are long gone, for one thing. For another, given the number of bites I had, I would appear ready to join the circus as the half-man, half-painted lady.
Looking on the bright side, Chuck says chiggers only have one life stage where they require a warm-blooded meal — “ you, your dog or cat” as Chuck put it. The rest of the time they are content eating plants or each other. The downside is they don’t tell fly up little flags saying, “All is safe now. We’re just eating each other or your irises.”
Chuck gave sound advice, of course. Spray down your clothing with Deet or something similar. Take off your clothes soon after working outside and shower. When bitten, Benadryl and cortisone are about all that provide relief. If it’s any consolation, Kansas chiggers usually go away by mid-July, but there is no guarantee.
There are a heck of a lot more chiggers here than in Texas, which has plenty of other biting critters. And, as Chuck sagely put it, “You never see the little rascals.”
I stand prepared. Scarred, but prepared.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, June 5, 2010.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
A Memorial Day Anniversary
My parents married on Memorial Day in 1953, which occurred then always on May 30. I have their marriage license in my files. As the oldest of three sons, I’m the keeper of the records, the family photographs and all things that prove they were on this planet — apart from the collective memory of those of us who know them, of course.
Or knew them, in my dad’s case. He died in February of last year. I figure most of you reading this have lost a parent, sibling or someone close to you. I miss him every day — but especially on days like this — what would have been their 57th anniversary.
Mom is still relatively hale and hearty, watching Court TV and, right now, the Boston Celtics in the playoffs, in a retirement center in Longview, Texas. That is where we moved in 1968 from New Hampshire much against her will — which she continues to complain about with hardly any prompting. She turned 80 this year, has several internal body parts missing and enough artificial devices inserted to make air travel problematic. It would be tough for her to get through security without setting off all sorts of alarms. Her flying days are over anyway, so I’ll be going to see her this weekend.
Still, I would not bet against her voting in the 2028 presidential election. She likely would vote for the Democratic candidate, unless he or she is from Texas — then all bets are off. As I said, she bears a grudge about being moved to Texas. She likely would root for the North Korean National Football Squad if it were playing the Dallas Cowboys.
Mom is one tough old bird.
My parents met on a blind date in Boston, where my mom was a nursing student at Massachusetts General Hospital. My dad was in the Navy. His destroyer, the U.S.S. Norris, was docked at the Boston Naval Shipyard for repairs. He was a radar man during the Korean War. He enlisted after graduating from Willow Springs High School in Missouri, though he spent his early years growing up in Casper, Wyoming.
His dad, my grandfather, was a rambler — a man who outlived a pair of wives and finally was outlasted by his third bride as he neared his ninth decade. I attended his third wedding in December 1968 in the First Baptist Church of Longview, Texas. Not many grandchildren attend their grandfather’s wedding, at least in the 1960s. She still lives on her own in his house at age 98.
My grandfather worked as a rancher, police chief, insurance salesman and eventually found his niche as a Boy Scout executive. His grandfather — my great-great-grandfather — was married five times to four wives. He double-dipped once, though I can’t remember with which spouse. Family lore has it all four spouses are buried alongside him, two on each side, somewhere in Kentucky. Grandpa Buck had one reburied next to him years after she had passed. Buck definitely had his peccadilloes.
But I digress.
I have seen a few photographs from the years when my parents met and fell in love. My mom is short with full lips and big hair. My dad is skinny with a shy smile and glasses, no giant either. Over the years I have looked at photographs, trying to figure out which parent I take after. I lean toward my dad, because I’m quiet in person like he was. But I’m short and swarthy as is my mom’s French-Canadian side. So there you go.
My dad was proud of his service years. He got to see the world in the Navy, and he was lucky enough to meet my mom as a result of that service, on that blind date in Boston.
On Memorial Day, I’ll be back in Texas for the long weekend. Thanks to the nonstop American Eagle flight from Manhattan to Dallas, I can be there in five hours, tops. I plan to take Mom to lunch on their anniversary. We’ll bust her diet and have fried catfish with all the fixings and catch up on the news.
And remember Dad, of course. He loved catfish as well.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, May 29, 2010
Or knew them, in my dad’s case. He died in February of last year. I figure most of you reading this have lost a parent, sibling or someone close to you. I miss him every day — but especially on days like this — what would have been their 57th anniversary.
Mom is still relatively hale and hearty, watching Court TV and, right now, the Boston Celtics in the playoffs, in a retirement center in Longview, Texas. That is where we moved in 1968 from New Hampshire much against her will — which she continues to complain about with hardly any prompting. She turned 80 this year, has several internal body parts missing and enough artificial devices inserted to make air travel problematic. It would be tough for her to get through security without setting off all sorts of alarms. Her flying days are over anyway, so I’ll be going to see her this weekend.
Still, I would not bet against her voting in the 2028 presidential election. She likely would vote for the Democratic candidate, unless he or she is from Texas — then all bets are off. As I said, she bears a grudge about being moved to Texas. She likely would root for the North Korean National Football Squad if it were playing the Dallas Cowboys.
Mom is one tough old bird.
My parents met on a blind date in Boston, where my mom was a nursing student at Massachusetts General Hospital. My dad was in the Navy. His destroyer, the U.S.S. Norris, was docked at the Boston Naval Shipyard for repairs. He was a radar man during the Korean War. He enlisted after graduating from Willow Springs High School in Missouri, though he spent his early years growing up in Casper, Wyoming.
His dad, my grandfather, was a rambler — a man who outlived a pair of wives and finally was outlasted by his third bride as he neared his ninth decade. I attended his third wedding in December 1968 in the First Baptist Church of Longview, Texas. Not many grandchildren attend their grandfather’s wedding, at least in the 1960s. She still lives on her own in his house at age 98.
My grandfather worked as a rancher, police chief, insurance salesman and eventually found his niche as a Boy Scout executive. His grandfather — my great-great-grandfather — was married five times to four wives. He double-dipped once, though I can’t remember with which spouse. Family lore has it all four spouses are buried alongside him, two on each side, somewhere in Kentucky. Grandpa Buck had one reburied next to him years after she had passed. Buck definitely had his peccadilloes.
But I digress.
I have seen a few photographs from the years when my parents met and fell in love. My mom is short with full lips and big hair. My dad is skinny with a shy smile and glasses, no giant either. Over the years I have looked at photographs, trying to figure out which parent I take after. I lean toward my dad, because I’m quiet in person like he was. But I’m short and swarthy as is my mom’s French-Canadian side. So there you go.
My dad was proud of his service years. He got to see the world in the Navy, and he was lucky enough to meet my mom as a result of that service, on that blind date in Boston.
On Memorial Day, I’ll be back in Texas for the long weekend. Thanks to the nonstop American Eagle flight from Manhattan to Dallas, I can be there in five hours, tops. I plan to take Mom to lunch on their anniversary. We’ll bust her diet and have fried catfish with all the fixings and catch up on the news.
And remember Dad, of course. He loved catfish as well.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, May 29, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Unpacking, An Unfortunate Simile, and Lost in JC
JUNCTION CITY, KANSAS — I have unpacked after my migration from Texas, except for setting up the woodshop, which is this weekend’s planned activity — along with yard work and other domestic chores to make this place feel as if it belongs like home on the outside. It already feels that way inside, with great help from my fiancé, aka the Beautiful Mystery Companion, who alas won’t be arriving here for some months to come. Thanks to her the household was unpacked quickly.
I admit to OCD tendencies on most matters. Unpacking brings out the worst of them. My mover — a gentle, semi-retired rodeo cowboy from Gladewater, Texas — showed up here with a 34-foot gooseneck trailer on Saturday, May Day. James drove nonstop from Texas and hired local folks to help unload. I followed behind with a 14-foot U-Haul truck filled with the stuff that didn’t fit in the gooseneck, pulling my little hybrid SUV on a tow-bar.
By Tuesday night, the new house looked as if I had lived here forever — not counting the shop. My BMC, who heretofore has not endured a move with me, was ready to kill me, or at least cry calf rope. I strongly suspect the former. She’s not prone to cry calf rope.
In a brief interlude of male stupidity, I informed my BMC after the third 14-hour day of unpacking that moving to me was akin to childbirth. After a few weeks, the painful memory just sort of wore off, and it didn’t seem all that bad. What remained were the good images — for example, now I’m walking around smiling because nearly everything was put up in this house after four days of you-know-what. Sorta like bearing a baby, I said.
This didn’t go over so well, being as how obviously I have never given birth to anything and didn’t have any idea what I was talking about. Poor choice of similes, I immediately realized, and suggested it was time to go grab a bite of Mexican food.
|———|
I have been trying to establish a new walking route, leaving from my house as soon as first light arrives to get in the three-mile routine that starts off my day. Luckily, I have a lot of choices in the neighborhood where I leased a house, because it is filled with side streets and hills. Hills are good for working up a sweat. I walk briskly while listening to Kansas Public Radio on my iPhone, getting my first news fix of the day, as the sun begins the peep over the Flint Hills. (Be patient with me. I’m trying to learn the geography.)
Being OCD, I need the same route each workday morning. It should take 45 minutes, because that equals three miles at the pace I walk. It should have variety yet familiarity, so I don’t get lost. I am still experimenting with side streets interspersed with vertical climbs. There are some really nice views from fairly high up, looking south across the interstate from a few points on this walk, especially in early morning light.
On the third day, as I was still tinkering with my walking route, I headed out into a blanket of fog. The view across the interstate was gone, obscured in a white haze. Soon I realized I didn’t really know where I was exactly, at least in relation to my house.
I know. Being lost in Junction City does seem to be a bit of an oxymoron. I have learned how to get around here pretty quickly. I am appreciative of the city planners, whoever they were, naming one set of the city’s central streets after presidents and almost-presidents, another set after trees, while a third set are numbered. I appreciate this kind of logic.
So I was walking on a ridgeline in Junction City — at least that is what I would call it — and didn’t know how to get back to my house, because in the fog all my newly learned landmarks were shrouded. After several false turns, I finally recognized a remodeling sign in front of a rent house and made my way back to the street on which I live. I was just a few minutes late to work.
I haven’t gotten lost since, but I’m still trying to perfect the walking route. Maybe I’ll start dropping bread crumbs when the fog sets in, just in case.
Originally published in the Junction City Daily Union, May 22, 2010
I admit to OCD tendencies on most matters. Unpacking brings out the worst of them. My mover — a gentle, semi-retired rodeo cowboy from Gladewater, Texas — showed up here with a 34-foot gooseneck trailer on Saturday, May Day. James drove nonstop from Texas and hired local folks to help unload. I followed behind with a 14-foot U-Haul truck filled with the stuff that didn’t fit in the gooseneck, pulling my little hybrid SUV on a tow-bar.
By Tuesday night, the new house looked as if I had lived here forever — not counting the shop. My BMC, who heretofore has not endured a move with me, was ready to kill me, or at least cry calf rope. I strongly suspect the former. She’s not prone to cry calf rope.
In a brief interlude of male stupidity, I informed my BMC after the third 14-hour day of unpacking that moving to me was akin to childbirth. After a few weeks, the painful memory just sort of wore off, and it didn’t seem all that bad. What remained were the good images — for example, now I’m walking around smiling because nearly everything was put up in this house after four days of you-know-what. Sorta like bearing a baby, I said.
This didn’t go over so well, being as how obviously I have never given birth to anything and didn’t have any idea what I was talking about. Poor choice of similes, I immediately realized, and suggested it was time to go grab a bite of Mexican food.
|———|
I have been trying to establish a new walking route, leaving from my house as soon as first light arrives to get in the three-mile routine that starts off my day. Luckily, I have a lot of choices in the neighborhood where I leased a house, because it is filled with side streets and hills. Hills are good for working up a sweat. I walk briskly while listening to Kansas Public Radio on my iPhone, getting my first news fix of the day, as the sun begins the peep over the Flint Hills. (Be patient with me. I’m trying to learn the geography.)
Being OCD, I need the same route each workday morning. It should take 45 minutes, because that equals three miles at the pace I walk. It should have variety yet familiarity, so I don’t get lost. I am still experimenting with side streets interspersed with vertical climbs. There are some really nice views from fairly high up, looking south across the interstate from a few points on this walk, especially in early morning light.
On the third day, as I was still tinkering with my walking route, I headed out into a blanket of fog. The view across the interstate was gone, obscured in a white haze. Soon I realized I didn’t really know where I was exactly, at least in relation to my house.
I know. Being lost in Junction City does seem to be a bit of an oxymoron. I have learned how to get around here pretty quickly. I am appreciative of the city planners, whoever they were, naming one set of the city’s central streets after presidents and almost-presidents, another set after trees, while a third set are numbered. I appreciate this kind of logic.
So I was walking on a ridgeline in Junction City — at least that is what I would call it — and didn’t know how to get back to my house, because in the fog all my newly learned landmarks were shrouded. After several false turns, I finally recognized a remodeling sign in front of a rent house and made my way back to the street on which I live. I was just a few minutes late to work.
I haven’t gotten lost since, but I’m still trying to perfect the walking route. Maybe I’ll start dropping bread crumbs when the fog sets in, just in case.
Originally published in the Junction City Daily Union, May 22, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Back Buying Ink By the Barrel
Greetings from Junction City, Kansas.
I have taken up residence and work here as editor and publisher of the Daily Union, as well as publisher of the weekly Wamego Smoke Signal — with responsibility for a printing plant to boot.
I’m happy there is a printing press, and that the papers aren’t printed elsewhere. I love being able to walk to the back of the building and hear that press running, though mostly that occurs at night — and with luck I mainly work days. But there is something about a press on site that is reassuring to me. We really do buy our ink by the barrel and newsprint by the truckload.
Since 1888, the Daily Union has been owned for four generations, by the same family. The newspaper’s lineage goes back to 1861, when it was known as the Republican Union. Back then being Republican meant opposing secession in a state that was fractured by the issue of slavery. The northeast part of the state tended to be more pro-Union than not, though that was certainly not a unanimous sentiment. The paper’s politics continue to be progressive, which means I will fit in. What a relief.
It certainly is nice to work for a family owned newspaper again, where the sole motive for existence isn’t profit. Making money is important, of course. You don’t stay in business long if you don’t make a profit. But, I maintain, you don’t stay in the newspaper business long if that is your sole motive, because you end up sacrificing quality for short-term gain, especially when times are lean. Ultimately that costs a newspaper its readers, so it is a self-defeating process.
That has happened at newspapers across America — big, medium and small. Newspapers are thinner, staffs are smaller, the amount of local news produced is considerably less and — guess what? Fewer people are reading local newspapers. Shocking isn’t it?
Small-town newspapers have a unique franchise, in that usually they are the sole provider of news about the area they cover. As long as they do their job, I believe community newspapers will be around for a long time, even though they do face considerable challenges — the chief of which is whether young people still feel that connection to their community that makes them care about what happens in their schools, city councils and the traditional areas that newspapers cover. Metro newspapers face different and larger challenges because big-city residents have so many more outlets for news, and often are only interested in what goes on in their own small enclave of the city in which they live.
As I wrote in a piece that was published in this weekend’s Daily Union, “I have come to Kansas because I believe this family owned newspaper and this area offer an opportunity to practice the type of journalism I am best suited for: grassroots, close to the ground, no layers between me and you — the readers.”
Then there is the terrain. This is lovely country, rolling hills with limestone outcroppings and lots of trees along the rivers and streams. This part of Kansas is in the Flint Hills, not the wheat-filled flat part those of us unfamiliar with the state usually think the entire place appears. It is similar it to how folks unfamiliar with Texas believe the whole state looks like a dusty, cactus-filled movie set — when East Texas, with its pine trees and red-dirt roads, looks more like it belongs in the Deep South.
The weather in Junction City now is lovely — morning temperatures in the 50s and highs barely reaching 70. Summer exists in northeast Kansas, but it doesn’t last five months, thank goodness. Winter will be a challenge, as one reader mentioned, wondering if my Yankee blood has permanently thinned after four decades behind the Pine Curtain. I’ll find out in six months or so, I suppose.
I plan to continue to write on this site weekly. Sometimes it will be the same piece that appears in the Daily Union, and it will be identified as such. I’ve been writing a weekly newspaper column for nearly 28 years, and one reason I started this online blog was I was loath to quit, even after losing a print venue. Sometimes I will write a separate piece, such as this one, just for the Web site. Sometimes I’ll tweak the print piece.
Regardless, I’ll be here every week, Lord willing. I hope you will, too.
I have taken up residence and work here as editor and publisher of the Daily Union, as well as publisher of the weekly Wamego Smoke Signal — with responsibility for a printing plant to boot.
I’m happy there is a printing press, and that the papers aren’t printed elsewhere. I love being able to walk to the back of the building and hear that press running, though mostly that occurs at night — and with luck I mainly work days. But there is something about a press on site that is reassuring to me. We really do buy our ink by the barrel and newsprint by the truckload.
Since 1888, the Daily Union has been owned for four generations, by the same family. The newspaper’s lineage goes back to 1861, when it was known as the Republican Union. Back then being Republican meant opposing secession in a state that was fractured by the issue of slavery. The northeast part of the state tended to be more pro-Union than not, though that was certainly not a unanimous sentiment. The paper’s politics continue to be progressive, which means I will fit in. What a relief.
It certainly is nice to work for a family owned newspaper again, where the sole motive for existence isn’t profit. Making money is important, of course. You don’t stay in business long if you don’t make a profit. But, I maintain, you don’t stay in the newspaper business long if that is your sole motive, because you end up sacrificing quality for short-term gain, especially when times are lean. Ultimately that costs a newspaper its readers, so it is a self-defeating process.
That has happened at newspapers across America — big, medium and small. Newspapers are thinner, staffs are smaller, the amount of local news produced is considerably less and — guess what? Fewer people are reading local newspapers. Shocking isn’t it?
Small-town newspapers have a unique franchise, in that usually they are the sole provider of news about the area they cover. As long as they do their job, I believe community newspapers will be around for a long time, even though they do face considerable challenges — the chief of which is whether young people still feel that connection to their community that makes them care about what happens in their schools, city councils and the traditional areas that newspapers cover. Metro newspapers face different and larger challenges because big-city residents have so many more outlets for news, and often are only interested in what goes on in their own small enclave of the city in which they live.
As I wrote in a piece that was published in this weekend’s Daily Union, “I have come to Kansas because I believe this family owned newspaper and this area offer an opportunity to practice the type of journalism I am best suited for: grassroots, close to the ground, no layers between me and you — the readers.”
Then there is the terrain. This is lovely country, rolling hills with limestone outcroppings and lots of trees along the rivers and streams. This part of Kansas is in the Flint Hills, not the wheat-filled flat part those of us unfamiliar with the state usually think the entire place appears. It is similar it to how folks unfamiliar with Texas believe the whole state looks like a dusty, cactus-filled movie set — when East Texas, with its pine trees and red-dirt roads, looks more like it belongs in the Deep South.
The weather in Junction City now is lovely — morning temperatures in the 50s and highs barely reaching 70. Summer exists in northeast Kansas, but it doesn’t last five months, thank goodness. Winter will be a challenge, as one reader mentioned, wondering if my Yankee blood has permanently thinned after four decades behind the Pine Curtain. I’ll find out in six months or so, I suppose.
I plan to continue to write on this site weekly. Sometimes it will be the same piece that appears in the Daily Union, and it will be identified as such. I’ve been writing a weekly newspaper column for nearly 28 years, and one reason I started this online blog was I was loath to quit, even after losing a print venue. Sometimes I will write a separate piece, such as this one, just for the Web site. Sometimes I’ll tweak the print piece.
Regardless, I’ll be here every week, Lord willing. I hope you will, too.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
My Last Week As a Texas Resident
This is my last week as a resident of Texas, at least for the foreseeable future. Nearly everything I own — save my car, a suitcase and the laptop on which I’m typing this — now are ensconced in a house in northeast Kansas, which is where I take up shop next week. I’m purposely being vague about my next gig so as not to scoop the newspaper for which I’m going to work, which will make the official announcement next weekend.
The past few weeks have flown by in a haze of activity. I managed to finish building a desk in the shop before the movers came, of knock-down trestle construction so it could be easily moved from house to house. It is made in the mission-style I favor to match the other pieces in the study built over the years — a Morris chair and ottoman, side table and prairie sofa — all built of black walnut. I ran a piece of white oak down the middle of the desktop for contrast, with breadboard pieces on the end of the top for contrast and oak dowels to secure the joints.
I finished building and staining the desk and almost immediately started packing up the shop, no mean feat. At first I thought the shop would have to be placed in abeyance with my son-in-law, but God smiled upon me. I found a lovely house with a perfect shop, so all my tools save a lathe I never used and a few rolling tables that were too bulky to move are now in Kansas, awaiting unpacking when I go back for good next week.
I made a quick trip to Austin the other day after coming back from Kansas. It was as if my posterior had not endured enough time seated behind the wheel after more than 1,200 miles driving to and from the heartland. I had to pick up the freshly printed copies of the second collection of columns from the printer (Shameless promotional aside: “The Loblolly Chronicles” is now available. Click on the books link on the main page of this Web site to order. I’ll send you a copy and an invoice.)
It likely will be some time before I make this road trip from East Texas to Austin, one I have made countless times over the years. That’s not to say I won’t be back in River City, just that I’ll be coming from a different direction. No more stopping, as do many travelers along Hwy. 31, at Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, for a pit stop and a pastry. Or enjoying the pastoral vistas further west closer to Waco, as the soil turns blacker and cattle graze under a wider sky than one sees in East Texas.
In Austin, I briefly visited with family and friends, handed out a few books, made the obligatory visits to Whole Foods and Book People and then flew home in time for a fish fry in my honor out in the country near Jefferson.
Luckily, it doesn’t take much of an excuse for these folks to hold a fish fry, throw back a few beers, and fire off several hundred rounds of ammunition. That is why I love my extended family. So that is what we did on a May afternoon when nature smiled and blessed us with cool weather rarely seen here this time of year. As the guest of honor, I got to shoot a fully automatic rifle and a semi-automatic loaded with tracer rounds, just as the sun began to sink below the treeline. When darkness fell, a couple of the younger men hauled in large logs and quickly had a bonfire going.
A bonfire in May in East Texas may not be rare, but it is rarely needed. On this night we all hovered close, wearing shorts and T-shirts for the most part. All my warm clothes are already in Kansas, awaiting winter there. The stars twinkled brightly above, and I wondered if they would shine that bright two states north. I expect they will.
I know the next week will pass in a flash and soon I will load up the hybrid SUV and head to Kansas, returning to Texas often but now as a visitor, not a resident. I am excited about my new job, its challenges and opportunities. But I would be lying if I said I won’t miss Texas, my adopted home for more than 40 years. I leave behind family, friends and more.
Life takes some sharp turns down unexpected roads, doesn’t it? You just have to hold on and enjoy the ride as best you can.
The past few weeks have flown by in a haze of activity. I managed to finish building a desk in the shop before the movers came, of knock-down trestle construction so it could be easily moved from house to house. It is made in the mission-style I favor to match the other pieces in the study built over the years — a Morris chair and ottoman, side table and prairie sofa — all built of black walnut. I ran a piece of white oak down the middle of the desktop for contrast, with breadboard pieces on the end of the top for contrast and oak dowels to secure the joints.
I finished building and staining the desk and almost immediately started packing up the shop, no mean feat. At first I thought the shop would have to be placed in abeyance with my son-in-law, but God smiled upon me. I found a lovely house with a perfect shop, so all my tools save a lathe I never used and a few rolling tables that were too bulky to move are now in Kansas, awaiting unpacking when I go back for good next week.
I made a quick trip to Austin the other day after coming back from Kansas. It was as if my posterior had not endured enough time seated behind the wheel after more than 1,200 miles driving to and from the heartland. I had to pick up the freshly printed copies of the second collection of columns from the printer (Shameless promotional aside: “The Loblolly Chronicles” is now available. Click on the books link on the main page of this Web site to order. I’ll send you a copy and an invoice.)
It likely will be some time before I make this road trip from East Texas to Austin, one I have made countless times over the years. That’s not to say I won’t be back in River City, just that I’ll be coming from a different direction. No more stopping, as do many travelers along Hwy. 31, at Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, for a pit stop and a pastry. Or enjoying the pastoral vistas further west closer to Waco, as the soil turns blacker and cattle graze under a wider sky than one sees in East Texas.
In Austin, I briefly visited with family and friends, handed out a few books, made the obligatory visits to Whole Foods and Book People and then flew home in time for a fish fry in my honor out in the country near Jefferson.
Luckily, it doesn’t take much of an excuse for these folks to hold a fish fry, throw back a few beers, and fire off several hundred rounds of ammunition. That is why I love my extended family. So that is what we did on a May afternoon when nature smiled and blessed us with cool weather rarely seen here this time of year. As the guest of honor, I got to shoot a fully automatic rifle and a semi-automatic loaded with tracer rounds, just as the sun began to sink below the treeline. When darkness fell, a couple of the younger men hauled in large logs and quickly had a bonfire going.
A bonfire in May in East Texas may not be rare, but it is rarely needed. On this night we all hovered close, wearing shorts and T-shirts for the most part. All my warm clothes are already in Kansas, awaiting winter there. The stars twinkled brightly above, and I wondered if they would shine that bright two states north. I expect they will.
I know the next week will pass in a flash and soon I will load up the hybrid SUV and head to Kansas, returning to Texas often but now as a visitor, not a resident. I am excited about my new job, its challenges and opportunities. But I would be lying if I said I won’t miss Texas, my adopted home for more than 40 years. I leave behind family, friends and more.
Life takes some sharp turns down unexpected roads, doesn’t it? You just have to hold on and enjoy the ride as best you can.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
St. Joseph Flipped This House
More than 20 months ago I put my house up for sale when the owners of the newspaper did the same. I didn’t have a great feeling about my job prospects if and when the paper sold, which turned out to be prescient. There were personal reasons as well, such as wanting a larger house for my fiancé and her daughter, since this lovely old house has doodly squat for closet space. I had no idea it would take this long to sell a house. The fact the market crashed the next month should have told me something. My house sat on the market with few lookers and no offers, month after month.
When I was unceremoniously cut loose from the paper in mid-March, the sense of urgency to get out from under home ownership rose exponentially, since it was clear I would be leaving town as soon as possible to go run someone else’s newspaper. That is when I found out about St. Joseph, Patron of Families & Homes.
My Beautiful Mystery Companion learned about St. Joseph from her hair stylist. We asked around. It turned out it was common knowledge, just not to us. If one wanted a quick sale of a house, we were told more than once to bury a statue of St. Joseph upside down. Soon, you will be sitting at the conference table in the title company office, signing papers. Sales price is not guaranteed.
Of course, I pooh-poohed the entire idea. It sounded a bit too close to voodoo to me. But after at least three people avered it had worked for them, or someone they knew, I decided to give it a try. I checked online to ascern where to find a statue of St. Joseph. It only took a quick trip to amazon.com to find Discountcatholicproducts.com. (No, I am not making this up. Go look yourself if you doubt my word.) As the name implies, the site sells every product imaginable that one might associate with the Catholic faith. Even though I was raised in the church, I must tell you I had no idea of the depth and breadth of items one could purchase, or that such a site existed.
For a mere $3.99, plus the requisite shipping and handling, a 3-inch plastic statue of St. Joseph soon was headed my way — complete with instructions, which were simple and precise:
“When burying a St. Joseph statue, it is commonly placed upside down next to the ‘For Sale’ sign or near the property line. When the property is sold, unearth the statue and display it in a place of honor.”
I didn’t want to be spied burying a statue out by the street, so I elected to bury St. Joseph near the backyard property line. Further, I didn’t want the little guy to get dirty; thus I used a nice wooden box with a sliding lid in which the pocket watch arrived that my middle daughter gave me when she got married last year. To complete my OCD tendencies, I encased the entire operation in a freezer bag to keep out dirt and moisture.
Less than two weeks later I received the first offer on my house. Admittedly it was for a lot less than I was asking. We dickered for a few weeks. I settled for thousands of dollars lower than I expected but considerably more than I owed, which is better than a whole lot of folks are doing these days. St. Joseph did his job. I will be leasing for a while in the next town I land, to recover financially, but that’s OK.
As instructed, I dug the statue of St. Joseph back up a few days before closing. The freezer bag kept both the box and the statue pristine. This deal is going through. The new owner has already changed over the utilities to her name, forwarding her mail to my address.
I’ll put the wooden box back in the junk drawer and place St. Joseph in a place of honor in the new house — silently awaiting his next tour of duty, when it comes time to buy a new home.
Life goes on. New adventures await.
When I was unceremoniously cut loose from the paper in mid-March, the sense of urgency to get out from under home ownership rose exponentially, since it was clear I would be leaving town as soon as possible to go run someone else’s newspaper. That is when I found out about St. Joseph, Patron of Families & Homes.
My Beautiful Mystery Companion learned about St. Joseph from her hair stylist. We asked around. It turned out it was common knowledge, just not to us. If one wanted a quick sale of a house, we were told more than once to bury a statue of St. Joseph upside down. Soon, you will be sitting at the conference table in the title company office, signing papers. Sales price is not guaranteed.
Of course, I pooh-poohed the entire idea. It sounded a bit too close to voodoo to me. But after at least three people avered it had worked for them, or someone they knew, I decided to give it a try. I checked online to ascern where to find a statue of St. Joseph. It only took a quick trip to amazon.com to find Discountcatholicproducts.com. (No, I am not making this up. Go look yourself if you doubt my word.) As the name implies, the site sells every product imaginable that one might associate with the Catholic faith. Even though I was raised in the church, I must tell you I had no idea of the depth and breadth of items one could purchase, or that such a site existed.
For a mere $3.99, plus the requisite shipping and handling, a 3-inch plastic statue of St. Joseph soon was headed my way — complete with instructions, which were simple and precise:
“When burying a St. Joseph statue, it is commonly placed upside down next to the ‘For Sale’ sign or near the property line. When the property is sold, unearth the statue and display it in a place of honor.”
I didn’t want to be spied burying a statue out by the street, so I elected to bury St. Joseph near the backyard property line. Further, I didn’t want the little guy to get dirty; thus I used a nice wooden box with a sliding lid in which the pocket watch arrived that my middle daughter gave me when she got married last year. To complete my OCD tendencies, I encased the entire operation in a freezer bag to keep out dirt and moisture.
Less than two weeks later I received the first offer on my house. Admittedly it was for a lot less than I was asking. We dickered for a few weeks. I settled for thousands of dollars lower than I expected but considerably more than I owed, which is better than a whole lot of folks are doing these days. St. Joseph did his job. I will be leasing for a while in the next town I land, to recover financially, but that’s OK.
As instructed, I dug the statue of St. Joseph back up a few days before closing. The freezer bag kept both the box and the statue pristine. This deal is going through. The new owner has already changed over the utilities to her name, forwarding her mail to my address.
I’ll put the wooden box back in the junk drawer and place St. Joseph in a place of honor in the new house — silently awaiting his next tour of duty, when it comes time to buy a new home.
Life goes on. New adventures await.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Do You Have Any Questions For Us?
I interviewed for a faculty/media position a few weeks back at a university that shall remain nameless. Suffice it to say that the main campus is about five hours southeast of Longview. Its fans wear lots of purple and are considered quite rabid in their devotion to their athletic teams — football in particular. And the mascot is a large feline. You can take it from there.
Anyway, I didn’t get the job. Nobody got the job, as it turned out. I was informed that the search would begin anew, that the committee elected not to choose any of the three finalists, including yours truly. I don’t know who the other two finalists were.
I suspect money woes might have had more to do with the decision, or non-decision, since the job has not been re-posted. The entire three days I was there, the newspaper was filled with dire headlines about draconian budget cuts proposed at said university — a common practice these days, sadly. Lord knows the football program won’t see any real cuts, but most other programs at universities across the country face cuts, hiring freezes and layoffs.
This is the first time in more than 20 years that I have interviewed at a university. (I didn’t get hired that time, either) My Beautiful Mystery Companion, who has experience in these matters, had warned me it would be a grueling experience. Truth be told, now that I have endured such a session, I would rather eat busted glass with a bleach chaser. And actually, there were really nice people. But after two-and-half days of non-stop smiling and talking, making nice and continually being asked one question again and again, I was ready to: well, no matter.
Here is the question:
Do you have any questions for us?
My BMC warned me this is an academic trick. What she didn’t warn me is that I would be asked this by every dadgum person with whom I spoke, and I was flopped on the griddle with about 15 different people.
Do you have any questions for us?
I did all right the first couple of times when asked because actually, I did have a couple of questions. Except the two questions I really wanted answers to can’t be asked, I was told by folks in the know. Those questions are:
How much does the job pay?
When are you people going to make a decision?)
It is considered poor form to ask either of these — which to my way of thinking are pretty darned basic questions that shouldn’t even have to be asked. They should tell you up front so if it doesn’t pay enough, or they’re not going to decide, being academia — which moves typically at glacial speed — until next Christmas, you can move on to the next job listing.
Newspaper jobs are usually up front about those key details. Not academia. You just have to wait until eventually the two main items you really care about — money and timing — are revealed from upon high. It is a goofy system, in my view.
Do you have any questions for us?
Good grief, I thought at one point. If I sent out a reporter on an assignment who sat there and asked the person being interviewed, “So, do you have any questions for me?” I would be looking for a new reporter quite soon. I am the one being interviewed. These people are the ones supposed to be asking the questions, and I am supposed to be dazzling them with my brilliant answers. Instead I am having to make up questions so as not to repeat myself.
At the final dinner, with the department chair, I broke the interview rule and had a glass of wine, since he did as well. The rule, again according to those in the know, is that the applicant should never drink, even if everyone else is downing tequila shots and licking the salt off each other’s wrists. By the final night, I bent the rule and had a glass of cabernet. Sure enough, he asked me:
Do you have any questions for us?
I looked at him and said I was flat questioned out. We spent the rest of the night talking politics and sharing war stories. We got along well.
On the way home I popped the question. Exactly how much does this job pay, anyway? He told me.
Of course, it turned out to be a moot point. But I had to ask.
Anyway, I didn’t get the job. Nobody got the job, as it turned out. I was informed that the search would begin anew, that the committee elected not to choose any of the three finalists, including yours truly. I don’t know who the other two finalists were.
I suspect money woes might have had more to do with the decision, or non-decision, since the job has not been re-posted. The entire three days I was there, the newspaper was filled with dire headlines about draconian budget cuts proposed at said university — a common practice these days, sadly. Lord knows the football program won’t see any real cuts, but most other programs at universities across the country face cuts, hiring freezes and layoffs.
This is the first time in more than 20 years that I have interviewed at a university. (I didn’t get hired that time, either) My Beautiful Mystery Companion, who has experience in these matters, had warned me it would be a grueling experience. Truth be told, now that I have endured such a session, I would rather eat busted glass with a bleach chaser. And actually, there were really nice people. But after two-and-half days of non-stop smiling and talking, making nice and continually being asked one question again and again, I was ready to: well, no matter.
Here is the question:
Do you have any questions for us?
My BMC warned me this is an academic trick. What she didn’t warn me is that I would be asked this by every dadgum person with whom I spoke, and I was flopped on the griddle with about 15 different people.
Do you have any questions for us?
I did all right the first couple of times when asked because actually, I did have a couple of questions. Except the two questions I really wanted answers to can’t be asked, I was told by folks in the know. Those questions are:
How much does the job pay?
When are you people going to make a decision?)
It is considered poor form to ask either of these — which to my way of thinking are pretty darned basic questions that shouldn’t even have to be asked. They should tell you up front so if it doesn’t pay enough, or they’re not going to decide, being academia — which moves typically at glacial speed — until next Christmas, you can move on to the next job listing.
Newspaper jobs are usually up front about those key details. Not academia. You just have to wait until eventually the two main items you really care about — money and timing — are revealed from upon high. It is a goofy system, in my view.
Do you have any questions for us?
Good grief, I thought at one point. If I sent out a reporter on an assignment who sat there and asked the person being interviewed, “So, do you have any questions for me?” I would be looking for a new reporter quite soon. I am the one being interviewed. These people are the ones supposed to be asking the questions, and I am supposed to be dazzling them with my brilliant answers. Instead I am having to make up questions so as not to repeat myself.
At the final dinner, with the department chair, I broke the interview rule and had a glass of wine, since he did as well. The rule, again according to those in the know, is that the applicant should never drink, even if everyone else is downing tequila shots and licking the salt off each other’s wrists. By the final night, I bent the rule and had a glass of cabernet. Sure enough, he asked me:
Do you have any questions for us?
I looked at him and said I was flat questioned out. We spent the rest of the night talking politics and sharing war stories. We got along well.
On the way home I popped the question. Exactly how much does this job pay, anyway? He told me.
Of course, it turned out to be a moot point. But I had to ask.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Packing It Up
I am preparing to leave Longview. No surprise there, because I’m unemployed and on relief, as my aged friend puts it. Job prospects are poor here, since I’m only interested in running a newspaper. That job has been taken, rather rudely I might add.
I received my first relief check the other day. Actually, now one receives a debit card with a weekly amount placed on it, which is mighty handy. This is the first time in my 40-year work history that I have received unemployment, so I have a clear conscience. What is more, it will be short-lived. It is too early to make an announcement. It is not too early to begin packing, so that is how I have spent my days lately.
In celebration of my first “relief” check, I took my debit card and went over to Harley’s, the closest package store to my house and bought two bottles of sauvignon blanc, since the weather is getting warm. I tend to switch to cold wine as the temperature rises. Besides, I wanted to make sure the PIN on the debit card worked.
It did. This is a great country.
The last move, a little more than two years ago from Lufkin to Longview, spoiled me. The company paid the full deal, packing everything and moving me 90 miles north. I insisted on unpacking so I would know where everything ended up. This time I will get to handle the boxes on both ends, though my new employer is generously financing the transport costs.
All of the other moves over the past 20 years, save for the one from Lufkin to Longview just mentioned, were cross town or across the Angelina River and self-financed. I packed sloppily, made lots of trips, paid hefty fellows to do the heavy lifting as I grew older, and stretched the move out over a week or more. I can’t do that this time, since I’m headed several hundred miles away.
So I pack and pack, and pack some more, in the course of which I find dumb stuff that it is time to shed. There is the Carlos n’ Charlie gimme cap from Cozumel that I never wore. I am too old to wear a Carlos n’ Charlie’s cap. Heck, I was too old to wear it when I bought it, since I would be trying to look hip when I decidedly am not.
I chunk the massive wine opener that came as a gift for joining some wine of the season club. It never worked and mainly served as a fur-gathering place for Maggie the cat, who has since has moved on to other quarters. Gone is the odd collection of book bags gathered at conventions and never used. Tossed are too-tight sweatshirts one hoped to shrink back into. Tattered jeans that simply shouldn’t be worn in public anymore head out the door. And so forth.
When you are either letting other folks pack you or are only moving across town, you get lazy about moving stuff that isn’t needed. At least I did. This move, I am ruthless. The Goodwill store folks are seeing a lot of me. I have made at least a half-dozen trips thus far, once the back of the hybrid SUV is filled. You get more tax-deduction receipts that way. (Only kidding, IRS people who might happen along this column.)
I still haven’t tackled packing up the woodshop. Not long after this is posted, I’ll finish staining my desk, the last piece I will build here. It matches three other mission-style pieces I’ve built over the years: a sofa, a Morris chair and ottoman, and a side table. When I get to where I am heading, that is where I will sit most nights — writing these missives and other pieces, at that desk.
Soon I will start packing up the shop. Most of the large power tools will go into the care of my son-in-law (it is weird to think I have one of those — makes me feel old) who does woodworking and has the space, until I again have time and a shop of my own. I will take to where I am going hand tools and enough stuff to putter around. More on all that later.
Meanwhile, it is back to packing. Who ever knew one middle-aged guy living by himself could acquire so much stuff? A few more trips to Goodwill are definitely on the agenda.
I received my first relief check the other day. Actually, now one receives a debit card with a weekly amount placed on it, which is mighty handy. This is the first time in my 40-year work history that I have received unemployment, so I have a clear conscience. What is more, it will be short-lived. It is too early to make an announcement. It is not too early to begin packing, so that is how I have spent my days lately.
In celebration of my first “relief” check, I took my debit card and went over to Harley’s, the closest package store to my house and bought two bottles of sauvignon blanc, since the weather is getting warm. I tend to switch to cold wine as the temperature rises. Besides, I wanted to make sure the PIN on the debit card worked.
It did. This is a great country.
The last move, a little more than two years ago from Lufkin to Longview, spoiled me. The company paid the full deal, packing everything and moving me 90 miles north. I insisted on unpacking so I would know where everything ended up. This time I will get to handle the boxes on both ends, though my new employer is generously financing the transport costs.
All of the other moves over the past 20 years, save for the one from Lufkin to Longview just mentioned, were cross town or across the Angelina River and self-financed. I packed sloppily, made lots of trips, paid hefty fellows to do the heavy lifting as I grew older, and stretched the move out over a week or more. I can’t do that this time, since I’m headed several hundred miles away.
So I pack and pack, and pack some more, in the course of which I find dumb stuff that it is time to shed. There is the Carlos n’ Charlie gimme cap from Cozumel that I never wore. I am too old to wear a Carlos n’ Charlie’s cap. Heck, I was too old to wear it when I bought it, since I would be trying to look hip when I decidedly am not.
I chunk the massive wine opener that came as a gift for joining some wine of the season club. It never worked and mainly served as a fur-gathering place for Maggie the cat, who has since has moved on to other quarters. Gone is the odd collection of book bags gathered at conventions and never used. Tossed are too-tight sweatshirts one hoped to shrink back into. Tattered jeans that simply shouldn’t be worn in public anymore head out the door. And so forth.
When you are either letting other folks pack you or are only moving across town, you get lazy about moving stuff that isn’t needed. At least I did. This move, I am ruthless. The Goodwill store folks are seeing a lot of me. I have made at least a half-dozen trips thus far, once the back of the hybrid SUV is filled. You get more tax-deduction receipts that way. (Only kidding, IRS people who might happen along this column.)
I still haven’t tackled packing up the woodshop. Not long after this is posted, I’ll finish staining my desk, the last piece I will build here. It matches three other mission-style pieces I’ve built over the years: a sofa, a Morris chair and ottoman, and a side table. When I get to where I am heading, that is where I will sit most nights — writing these missives and other pieces, at that desk.
Soon I will start packing up the shop. Most of the large power tools will go into the care of my son-in-law (it is weird to think I have one of those — makes me feel old) who does woodworking and has the space, until I again have time and a shop of my own. I will take to where I am going hand tools and enough stuff to putter around. More on all that later.
Meanwhile, it is back to packing. Who ever knew one middle-aged guy living by himself could acquire so much stuff? A few more trips to Goodwill are definitely on the agenda.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Swapping Stories, Sipping Whiskey
OUTSIDE OF WACO — We sat swapping stories and sipping whiskey on the back porch — five newspapermen with plenty of mileage on us — as March blew out through a haze of pollen. I calculate together we have logged somewhere around 180 years in this business. All those years working at newspapers guaranteed some fine tales to tell. But first we feasted on ribs, grilled shrimp, Uncle Dan’s famous white potato salad, and beans — all washed down with ice-cold beer. The whiskey came later. As Texas songwriter Radney Foster put it, “Good whiskey never done me wrong.”
Our host retired as a publisher a few years back, unretired last year for a temporary stint, and unvoluntarily re-retired the day after my association ended with the Longview paper. It’s a bit complicated. He did all the cooking — though he confessed heading down to Uncle Dan’s Barbecue to buy the potato salad. I eat beef and pork only rarely, since I battle high cholesterol and would rather not risk a second heart attack. The first one, albeit minor, gained my attention a few years back.
But that night I chomped on those ribs as if I were 19 years old with arteries as free-flowing as a sewer pipe once Roto-Rooter has made a pass. It was time to celebrate the five of us being together again — an event that may never recur, so my arteries were on their own.
We used to work for the same newspaper company and loved it. Two of the five grizzled guys are retired. The youngest of the bunch is still gainfully employed with a regular paycheck. Another is doing quite well with Web-site contracting work, after having been cut loose in one of those waves of layoffs that sweep through metro newspapers far too often these days. Then there’s me — recently unemployed but itching for work. It lurks just around the corner.
Two of the guys told a rather convoluted tale about a fellow at the paper where they worked who killed his lover and stuck her body in a barrel in the closet at the paper. The stench finally found him out. At the paper also worked a grumpy maintenance fellow, who one of the guys used to regularly visit when he was in a bad mood, because it always cheered him up. “No matter how bad my day was, I could always count on his day having been worse,” my buddy said. “He was just that kind of guy.”
“Dave did it,” the maintenance man said “He killed that woman.” Turns out he was dead-on. The killer spent 16 years in prison.
I had a hard time topping that story, as one might imagine. I think I told them about the sports editor at the Round Rock paper who tossed his manual typewriter out of our second-story newsroom, then walked in and handed the publisher 50 bucks in reparation. If I didn’t tell it, I meant to.
Three big dogs lay at our feet, as the wind shook the magnificent live oaks out back. Earlier, I had admired the longhorn cattle hanging back at a distance, and the burros waiting for someone to feed them. Someday I want a place with critters to feed.
The stories continued into the night — crotchety bosses, the time one of the buddies, for whom I was working at the time, was picketed in Nacogdoches by a wacko cult as he attended church. He’s a Methodist. Who pickets Methodists?
One of the reasons I’m loath to leave this business are the stories, the people you meet, knowing every day likely will be an adventure. If you find the right folks to work for, even in these uncertain times, running a newspaper is the most fun I know how to have with my clothes on. The trick is finding the right folks to work for, I’m learning.
So if things go well, that is what I will be doing again soon — newspapering. All five of us got in this business because we wake up every morning and can’t wait to pick up that daily miracle, praying to God there isn’t a misspelled headline or other egregious error. Even the guys who are out of the day-to-day still read their hometown paper as if it were their own.
Hanging out with longtime newspaper friends on a breezy spring night, swapping stories and petting dogs — heck, it doesn’t have to get any better than that. I told them I would stay in touch, urged them to do the same. By then any more whiskey would have laid lie to Radney’s sentiments about the stuff never doing one wrong, so we all wisely shuffled off to our separate beds at a reasonable hour.
I wish I had left them with my favorite farewell: See y’all in the funny papers.
Our host retired as a publisher a few years back, unretired last year for a temporary stint, and unvoluntarily re-retired the day after my association ended with the Longview paper. It’s a bit complicated. He did all the cooking — though he confessed heading down to Uncle Dan’s Barbecue to buy the potato salad. I eat beef and pork only rarely, since I battle high cholesterol and would rather not risk a second heart attack. The first one, albeit minor, gained my attention a few years back.
But that night I chomped on those ribs as if I were 19 years old with arteries as free-flowing as a sewer pipe once Roto-Rooter has made a pass. It was time to celebrate the five of us being together again — an event that may never recur, so my arteries were on their own.
We used to work for the same newspaper company and loved it. Two of the five grizzled guys are retired. The youngest of the bunch is still gainfully employed with a regular paycheck. Another is doing quite well with Web-site contracting work, after having been cut loose in one of those waves of layoffs that sweep through metro newspapers far too often these days. Then there’s me — recently unemployed but itching for work. It lurks just around the corner.
Two of the guys told a rather convoluted tale about a fellow at the paper where they worked who killed his lover and stuck her body in a barrel in the closet at the paper. The stench finally found him out. At the paper also worked a grumpy maintenance fellow, who one of the guys used to regularly visit when he was in a bad mood, because it always cheered him up. “No matter how bad my day was, I could always count on his day having been worse,” my buddy said. “He was just that kind of guy.”
“Dave did it,” the maintenance man said “He killed that woman.” Turns out he was dead-on. The killer spent 16 years in prison.
I had a hard time topping that story, as one might imagine. I think I told them about the sports editor at the Round Rock paper who tossed his manual typewriter out of our second-story newsroom, then walked in and handed the publisher 50 bucks in reparation. If I didn’t tell it, I meant to.
Three big dogs lay at our feet, as the wind shook the magnificent live oaks out back. Earlier, I had admired the longhorn cattle hanging back at a distance, and the burros waiting for someone to feed them. Someday I want a place with critters to feed.
The stories continued into the night — crotchety bosses, the time one of the buddies, for whom I was working at the time, was picketed in Nacogdoches by a wacko cult as he attended church. He’s a Methodist. Who pickets Methodists?
One of the reasons I’m loath to leave this business are the stories, the people you meet, knowing every day likely will be an adventure. If you find the right folks to work for, even in these uncertain times, running a newspaper is the most fun I know how to have with my clothes on. The trick is finding the right folks to work for, I’m learning.
So if things go well, that is what I will be doing again soon — newspapering. All five of us got in this business because we wake up every morning and can’t wait to pick up that daily miracle, praying to God there isn’t a misspelled headline or other egregious error. Even the guys who are out of the day-to-day still read their hometown paper as if it were their own.
Hanging out with longtime newspaper friends on a breezy spring night, swapping stories and petting dogs — heck, it doesn’t have to get any better than that. I told them I would stay in touch, urged them to do the same. By then any more whiskey would have laid lie to Radney’s sentiments about the stuff never doing one wrong, so we all wisely shuffled off to our separate beds at a reasonable hour.
I wish I had left them with my favorite farewell: See y’all in the funny papers.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Fooled By The Lovely Cover
A few months ago I received a postcard. Its cover displayed a photograph of a magenta camellia blossom, a raindrop about to slide off the lowest petal. How lovely, I thought. Fan mail.
The canceled stamp featured legendary black baseball pitcher Satchel Paige, who pitched three shutout innings at the estimated age of 60 (nobody, apparently including him, knew his actual birthday) for the Kansas City Athletics in 1965. Paige was a legend in the Negro Leagues, a showboat who backed up his boasting with his deeds, a precursor to Muhammad Ali. Paige finally got his chance in the Major Leagues at the age of 42, where he pitched sporadically for another two decades.
Paige was eminently quotable. One of my favorites lines is: “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” Excellent advice.
Anyway, I didn’t at first recall what I wrote that prompted this postcard from a fellow named George. It was an editorial, not a column, the difference being that the editorial purports to represent the newspaper’s viewpoint and not just mine. Also, an editorial is unsigned for that reason. That’s a bit of inside baseball. Whatever I published set off George, who wrote:
You should read David Duke’s book — “MY AWAKENING” and Evans’ book — “BLACKLISTED BY HISTORY.” You seem to be educationally disadvantaged about Americanism and truth. And Racist.
All you bleeding heart liberals & socialists are useful idiots for Zionists and Communists. America is doomed. Read & learn — See the Truth. Love — Don’t hate!
George
When I recently found the postcard, I again tried to remember what set George off in mid-January when I received this postcard. Looking up what “Blacklisted by History” is about reminded me. It is a revisionist biography of Joseph McCarthy, the Wisconsin senator who ruined hundreds of people’s lives by falsely accusing them of being Communists. McCarthy eventually was censured by the Senate for his ham-handed tactics and died as a result of alcoholism before reaching his 50th birthday.
Far as I’m concerned, Joseph McCarthy is one of the villains in American history.
That’s why I wrote an editorial in January blasting some members of the State Board of Education, who wanted to rewrite history and praise McCarthy for fighting Communism.
Right. While we’re at it, let’s praise George Wallace and Lester Maddox for their racial tolerance. I believe I will pass on reading “Blacklisted by History.” I put it in the same genre as those Holocaust denial books.
As for David Duke, I don’t plan on reading his autobiography either. Duke was just another run-of-the-mill racist white supremacist until he scared the pants off everyone in 1991 by nearly capturing the governorship of Louisiana. Folks over there were forced to elect Edwin Edwards for a third time. I remember seeing “Vote for the Crook” bumper stickers in Shreveport. That referred to Edwards, who is still serving time in a federal prison for taking kickbacks.
Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the KKK, now claims to have a doctorate as he peddles his book and other merchandise online. I didn’t know one could get a PhD in racism.
The contradictions in this postcard abound, curving around each other like a Satchel Paige screwball headed toward the plate. A camellia blossom on the front, one of my favorite flowers because it blooms all winter. I will soon be leaving this old house. One of the things I will miss most is the camellia tree on the south. It reaches the roofline and boasts hundreds of pink blooms until early April.
There’s that stamp of Satchel Paige, the famed black pitcher, and a recommendation to read David Duke’s autobiography. Duke says, according to his Web site, “belief in racial equality is the modern scientific equivalent of believing that the earth is flat.”
There is the implication that I am a bleeding heart liberal and a socialist, as if they are the same. As if those labels even mean anything. And that makes us tools of the Zionists and Communists.
And then there is the final admonition on the card: Love. Don’t hate!
I wish I could believe George was sincere when he wrote that last line. But I can’t.
The canceled stamp featured legendary black baseball pitcher Satchel Paige, who pitched three shutout innings at the estimated age of 60 (nobody, apparently including him, knew his actual birthday) for the Kansas City Athletics in 1965. Paige was a legend in the Negro Leagues, a showboat who backed up his boasting with his deeds, a precursor to Muhammad Ali. Paige finally got his chance in the Major Leagues at the age of 42, where he pitched sporadically for another two decades.
Paige was eminently quotable. One of my favorites lines is: “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” Excellent advice.
Anyway, I didn’t at first recall what I wrote that prompted this postcard from a fellow named George. It was an editorial, not a column, the difference being that the editorial purports to represent the newspaper’s viewpoint and not just mine. Also, an editorial is unsigned for that reason. That’s a bit of inside baseball. Whatever I published set off George, who wrote:
You should read David Duke’s book — “MY AWAKENING” and Evans’ book — “BLACKLISTED BY HISTORY.” You seem to be educationally disadvantaged about Americanism and truth. And Racist.
All you bleeding heart liberals & socialists are useful idiots for Zionists and Communists. America is doomed. Read & learn — See the Truth. Love — Don’t hate!
George
When I recently found the postcard, I again tried to remember what set George off in mid-January when I received this postcard. Looking up what “Blacklisted by History” is about reminded me. It is a revisionist biography of Joseph McCarthy, the Wisconsin senator who ruined hundreds of people’s lives by falsely accusing them of being Communists. McCarthy eventually was censured by the Senate for his ham-handed tactics and died as a result of alcoholism before reaching his 50th birthday.
Far as I’m concerned, Joseph McCarthy is one of the villains in American history.
That’s why I wrote an editorial in January blasting some members of the State Board of Education, who wanted to rewrite history and praise McCarthy for fighting Communism.
Right. While we’re at it, let’s praise George Wallace and Lester Maddox for their racial tolerance. I believe I will pass on reading “Blacklisted by History.” I put it in the same genre as those Holocaust denial books.
As for David Duke, I don’t plan on reading his autobiography either. Duke was just another run-of-the-mill racist white supremacist until he scared the pants off everyone in 1991 by nearly capturing the governorship of Louisiana. Folks over there were forced to elect Edwin Edwards for a third time. I remember seeing “Vote for the Crook” bumper stickers in Shreveport. That referred to Edwards, who is still serving time in a federal prison for taking kickbacks.
Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the KKK, now claims to have a doctorate as he peddles his book and other merchandise online. I didn’t know one could get a PhD in racism.
The contradictions in this postcard abound, curving around each other like a Satchel Paige screwball headed toward the plate. A camellia blossom on the front, one of my favorite flowers because it blooms all winter. I will soon be leaving this old house. One of the things I will miss most is the camellia tree on the south. It reaches the roofline and boasts hundreds of pink blooms until early April.
There’s that stamp of Satchel Paige, the famed black pitcher, and a recommendation to read David Duke’s autobiography. Duke says, according to his Web site, “belief in racial equality is the modern scientific equivalent of believing that the earth is flat.”
There is the implication that I am a bleeding heart liberal and a socialist, as if they are the same. As if those labels even mean anything. And that makes us tools of the Zionists and Communists.
And then there is the final admonition on the card: Love. Don’t hate!
I wish I could believe George was sincere when he wrote that last line. But I can’t.
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