I just read on facebook that if you owe less than $ 625k on your home mortgage then you may qualify for the President’s new refi offer.  I hardly know what to say.  I am so pleased that I am under the cap.  I have really been struggling with the decision to refinance my $ 620,000.00 loan on my house.

Friends, if you have a home mortgage that gets anywhere close to a balance of $ 625k, then you need to reassess your living standards.  You dont need a refinancing bailout, you need an ice water enema and a strong reality check. At our age, we really only need about 800 square feet which includes the kitchen, one bedroom and a nice walk in shower.  Anything above that is for the comfort of someone else who should probably stay at a motel anyway.  Why would anyone live in a house that cost that much.  I know, prestige.  However, that concept is way overrated if you are going to have to refinance at a lower interest rate.

We have become two seperate classes of people here in the USA.  One is the group that thinks our country owes them a living and everything that goes along with it.  The other group, which I proudly admit to being a member of, is the group that knows that the federal government doesnt owe me a damned thing.  I have been employed steadily since about 1961 and part time for a few years before that and pretty much think I have earned every damned thing I have.  I may have had some help along the way and cant remember not thanking any of those folks that helped out.

We keep hearing that we are facing massive budget problems.  I can remember in our early days of marriage when a budget problem was making $ 1.00 per hour working nights at a Texaco gas station and having the owner taking shortages out of my check because I was the night manager.  By God, that was a budget problem.  We are being told that one group is to blame and then the other.  Both are up to their ears in the blame cesspool.  I have a long memory as some of you may have surmised.  I wont get to vote for every one of these hoodlums but the ones I do see on my ballot will get assigned the blame they deserve.

Chuy the disgruntled

The following letter went to the editor this morning.  I was aroused after reading the morning addition of our paper.  Some of the stories kinda soured my milk, so to speak.

” I have read, with interest, the stories about the loss of job at CCAD, cuts in spending at national parks and some cuts of military spending.  Cuts at national parks were for things like waste management and trail maintenance.  Not picking up the trash on a regular basis will cause an influx of bears in the campgrounds and less trail maintenance will cause broken ankles, etc.

What I havent read anything about are stories about cuts in Congressional office expenses and staff, cuts in Congresstional salaries or cuts at the
White House.  Will there be such cuts.  I doubt it.  They will continue to enjoy the perks of office and will continue to slather us with indifference toward the common folks.”

I am not sure such a letter will be printed but perhaps.  Next will be a well-penned letter to my congressman and senator concerning the same subject.  Why do they get to be on top?

Gary, the concerned citizen

Doesnt this campfire look warm and inviting?

Just spent a couple of days down on the Old Rio with some friends celebrating the life and times of the late great artist, Walter Falk.  We have a nice picnic spot which we have been using for the last 14 years for our picnic lunch, beer drinking and some use it to work up enough courage to go skinny dip in the Rio Grande.  I am not one of the swimmers.   It is amazing how this little get together has progressed over the years.  We had 7 people this year from Australia.  Why would 7 Aussies want to come to Sanderson Texas to go to a beer bust?

Sunrise over ole Mexico

The sunrises never get old.  I love to look at them.  Everything is so fresh in the morning.  Too bad it cant be that way all day.

Chuy the explorer

Having lost enough weight to make a difference I broke down today and went to rent the tuxedo.  I found out that I will be attired in a lovely dark gray Vera Wang creation with matching vest, white shirt, blue tie and black shoes.  The young man helping me, who just happened to have the longest fingers of any person I ever met, asked if I wanted the accoutremants?  I said, Accoutremants? and he said, underwear, etc.  I told him that I figured that Vera Wand jockey shorts would be like the old Brandon Hotel in Pecos, no ballroom.  I declined to rent the underwear.  No came the fitting.  Lord, why havent they come up with some type of exray machine that you could just walk thru and they know what size your wear.  I get pretty damned antsy when a guy with fingers as long as Kobe Bryant starts measureing my inseam.  We got it done. 

Now, here is the kicker.  While I was in this particular store, I tried on a suit.  Fit well, looked better so I purchased it.  Well turns out you buy one thing and get another free.  Picked out a nice sports coat.  Looked spiffy as a bouncer at a dance club.  Oh, if you buy more than $ 500.00 worth of stuff you get a $ 50.00 coupon and I was $ 15.00 short.  The only thing I could find was a french race car drivers hat so I got that.  That required that I get another free gift.  This was getting kinda embarrassing.  I ended up taking a shoe shine sponge and got the hell out of there.

I succeeded in turning a tuxedo rental excursion into a major shopping spree.  I am sure this wont be the last shopping trip that I have to make as still have a couple of things that I know we have to get.  I think I am gonna need a skillet and a couple of pots in order to feed the family on the morning of the wedding.

Chuy the Best Man

Next week I will travel to Sanderson Texas for the annual Falkfest art festival.  I think this may be the 12th year that we have gathered in this small west texas town to pay tribute to the late, possibly great artist, Walter Falk.  His one painting that I own was purchased at a discount because we were in a cantina in ole Mexico when I bought it. He said all things are cheaper in Mexico.  I am hopeful that it has increased in value since his untimely death.  Dorothy doesnt care much for the picture and it keeps getting put in different corners of our living room.  It has yet to appear in my bathroom but only time will tell.

Attendees of the festival come from all walks of life and from wide rangeing parts of the globe.  A couple from Sweden have attended for the last 5 years or so.  Many bartenders and waitresses from the Austin area are always there because one of the sponsors is a microbrewery from Austin.  They furnish the beer.  A number of residents of Sanderson always attend because there is free beer.

There is the annual cave party, where we gather to drink beer, eat oysters on the half shell and generally just hang around.  I have often wondered what some archeologist of the future is going to think about all the oyster shells in a cave in deep west Texas.  Our food usually ranges from bean dip, oysters rockefeller, summer sausage, chips, dips and beer.  When everyone is fully tanked, well what else to do but go skinny dipping in the Rio Grande.  I refrain from that part of the festivities because of my age.  Along about age 65 I got cold.  An old fat man standing naked on the banks of the Rio Grande, shivering, is something somebody would take a picture of and it would go viral in seconds. I couldnt stand the ridicule.  There are many other people who have very little self respect and relish the swim.  I tend the camp fire.  A camp fire is essential when standing out in the open, in February, is west Texas.

Sanderson is a town with only sporatic dining facilities.  Small cafes open and stay only until the person has spent their life savings and then they close.  The same building in town has been about 10 restaurants over the years and it is hit or miss if it will be open on any day that one is in town.  I will spend the next few days carefully planning a menu for my friend and I so that we will not have to depend on the local cafe or the local gas station for sustinence.  I will take my small gourmet tabletop burner, a skillet, maybe a pot for warming some porknbeans and set up a small kitchen in the parking lot of the tourist court that we are staying at.. Named “Desert Air” motel.  One of the rooms has pink tile in the bathroom.  And I do mean pink.  The shower is even pink.  A clean place but certainly dated.  One year the smoke alarm started cheeping around 3 am and beeped every thirty seconds until I got up and knocked it off the ceiling with the butt of my rifle.

I will report on my adventure week after next.  Possibly with some pictures.  I will take my camera this year as want to get a picture of the fellow who wears different colored tennis shoes.  His shoe wardrobe runs from pink to lime green to shoes with dollar bill signs printed all over the shoe.  Drunks are always fun to take a picture of.  Especially the ones who have passed out in the river bed amongst the cacti.

Chuy, the river rat

The Pecos blog led me to a really interesting movie clip of cave divers exploring Phantom Springs Cave.  The short movie was very informative and furnished me with much information about a place I loved as a young man.  My cousins, Bobby and Lessie, and I spent many saturdays exploring around the cave.  We were never able to explore very far into the cave but we did go far enough to understand that the system was vast.  Little did we know that the cave would prove to be the deepest water cave in the USA.  Wow.  It is now a government owned area because of the PUP fish that lives in the outter water area of the cave.  We called them minnows.  Not sure we ever used any as bait while fishing at Balmorhea lake but we sure could have.  I am sorry if I contributed to their being on the endangered species list.  As I said, we thought they were minnows. 

As a  young man, I explored much of the Pecos area, including the Davis mountains and the lakes, Red Bluff and Balmorhea.  We rarely thought about who owned the land that we were traipsing over and cant remember anyone ever stopping and telling us to get off their land.  We hunted relentlessly, killing rabbits like they carried a disease or plague.  I dont think I ever remember seeing a “NO Trespassing” sign but if there were any, I guess we ignored them.  I think the consensus was “no harm, no foul”.  We werent harming anything so they let us be.

The Davis mountains were a particular haunt of mine.  I have walked many of the passes thru the mountains and have found a number of interesting areas in those mountains,  At one time I knew of an area where you could pick up as many civil war shell casings as you wanted. Not aware of any battle that happened there but is was a few miles north of the fort.  Maybe a battle with indians or perhaps target practice.  You can probably guess what my imagination told me at the time.  In my teen years, these hidden areas became a nice place for a picnic, usually with a female who I was currently interested in. 

The best fried chicken I ever ate was on one of these Sunday afternoon jaunts.  Her mother made fried chicken and buttered bread, wrapped in foil.  It was in the back window of the car and remained warm until it was picnic time.  Not many things nicer than a shade tree alongside a gurgling stream, warm fried chicken and a pretty girl.

I am glad that I had the opportunity to grow up in that area of Texas.  We had much that would interest a young man with an appetite for adventure.  I currently live along the coast of Texas and we have a good stretch of beach front.  However, as nice as the beach is, they need to plant some grass from the dune line right down to the water’s edge.  That sand can get in places where the sun has never shown.

GHC