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

I am sitting by the fire, drinking my first cup of boiled coffee and anticipating the beginning of a new day.  The air is crisp as ice on a pond after a blue norther.  The mountains of Mexico are still in the darkened shadows of sunrise and are silhouettes against the pale glow in the east.

A flutter of wings brings the visions to an abrupt halt.

A glance at the big ocotillo identifies the intruder.  It is our resident Dove.  It comes at various times during the day, seemingly to make sure that we have left corn for the day’s meals.  There is little fear exhibited by this creature and it has little to fear from me.  I find joy in its presence and watch the nearby brush for a glimpse of its family.

Its a shadow but it portrays a shape designed for the rigors of the wilderness.  It seems to be as smooth as the lines of an expensive race car but it is as soft as down.  It can fly with speed that can confuse even the best of hunters , yet it can perch on a cactus that has more thorns than roots.  It lights with the gentleness of a feather and sits undisturbed by its surroundings.  It emits a sound that is as mournful as the songs at an old fashioned funeral.  What is it saying?  Is it greeting the new day or simply supplying me with a brief moment of reflection.  I hope it is the latter and will continue to think that it is.

Gary

Sunny Grey had a picture tagged to her name in face book, showing a glass of buttermilk and the glass had cornbread in it.  Lord, is there a better description of manna than that?  I know in my heart that the people being led out of slavery by Moses probably survived on just that fine southern meal.

A number of years ago, Dorothy gave me a cookbook, aptly entitleed “White Trash Cookin”.  It is a funny title for a book but once I got to reading it, well, I was surprised that I had been eating these dishes all my life.  Collard greens and salt pork, pinto beans and cornbread, elbow maccaroni and stewed tomatoes, fried bologna and cat head biscuits, etc.  I try to get fancy ever once in a while with the dishes I cook, but when I want something just plain good to eat, well, pull out one of my family cookbooks and look around.  I usually find something that is filling, good as grits, and probably not good for ya, but it tastes excellent.  I normally end up doing this on days that are cold and dreary because soup is always good and can be made out of anything.  I am trying to be really good about my diabetes way of life so some of the old standbys are just for remembering.  Bummer.

COS  (change of subject)  Gang, we are only a hop, skip and jump away from the next mega reunion.  We might as well get a list going of who is going to be there.  It is, as you know, going to be in Dallas, where an inordinate number of our classmates live.  That being said, I fully expect a record turnout.  WE should start making a list of addresses of our classmates so that those folks who dont show, well, a gang of us could just go over to their house and catch them without their best duds on, sans makeup, or with girdle loosened up.  Kind of like a Readers Digest sweepstake. This could prove to be an incentive to come out and play with us at the designated reunion site.

I hope everyone is having a great new year.  We certainly are.  Except for yesterday at the bank when one of the foreign tellers treated me like I was cashing a phony dollar bill.  I have only been banking there for 30 years so I was madder than a Jap.  Dont normally lose my temper but as many who know me well can vouch, when I do, its a site to behold.  They normally have to use some type of stun gun on me to get me back to this world.  Dorothy went in to the bank shortly after I left and almost everyone in there called her by name.  Course they were yelling it from under their desks, but hey, they needed shaking up a bit.  I will try to do better on Friday when I go in again.

Have a good week and we will try to think up a good strategy for getting some of our classmates to respond to the reunion.

Chuy the Chider

My mother fell last evening and severly scraped her arm and bruised her knees.  She was kind enough to have the EMT officer call me to tell me they were transferring her to the local hospital ER.  This is where the debacle began.

Our family has always had one or more family physicians at all times.  We have specialists, we have general practioners and all kinds of dentists, oral surgeons, flat feet doctors and any number of pain specialists,  I was unaware of the number of people who dont.  That is until last night.  With nothing much to do but sit there, I evesdropped.  “How long have you had this excruitiating pain in your lower abdomen?” Well, I guess it started the weekend after thanksgiving.  “And why did you choose New Years day to come to the ER?”  Well, with the holidays and all , I guess I just got busy.  And do you have insurance.  Well, no, If I had insurance then I wouldnt be in here, I would be seeing a doctor.  OH.  Well dear, how long have you been pregnant.  I think I got pregnent in February.  Deary, it is January,  Thats 10 months.  Have you done any prenatal treatment?  Whats that?  Have you seen a doctor to tell if it is a baby or a tumor.  Oh, I can feel it moving around.  Okay. 

Now I am not in favor of selective breeding, i.e. breeding people for the production of blue eyes, blond hair, etc.  I can tell you that I am 100 % convinced that there are people in Corpus Christi, Texas that should be prohibited from breeding.  If you are apparently around the age of 18, not sure when you got preggers, or if you even are preggers, then maybe you would be a candidate for the non-breeding list.  Especially if you are so dumb that you dont know where you live.  This was evidenced by the tatoo on her chest that said, CORPUS CHRISTI.  The debutante mother, dressed in her tennis outfit, (it was cold as a well diggers butt outside) bringing her teener daughter to the emergency room because of a rash on her neck.  Obvious boyfriend accompanied them and seemed more interested in the mom than the daughter.  The rash apparently cured itself because they left after about 3 hours. From looking at the boyfriend Dr Chuy would have diagnosed her as having razor burn. 

The entire process of the american emergency room is as screwed up as a box of phiiip 3/8th inch screws.  I would cure the problem by taking several simple steps.  If a person is bleeding, drooling, eyes rolled back inhead, thrashing on the floor, well by gawd, rush them into a treatment room.  For those who are apparently bored with watching football and have decided they have stomach pains, well a very strong laxative, or possibly even a good stomach pumping would cause them to pause before the next trip to ER.  I can only imagine how many people would consider a stomach pumping a pleasurable experience. 

And, finally, please do not bring over 15 of your immediate family members along with you.  And certainly no children, unless they are the ones that are sick.  I know this is gonna bring a rash of hate mail from all the gypsys that read this but, too bad.  Family reunions are for family gatherings.  The smell of roasting goat wafting thru the emergency room doors is a bit bothersome for most of us.

Chuy the healer

My life has been filled with the pursuit of the perfect biscuit.  I have not sought fame, nor fortune, just simply a good  world class biscuit recipe.  I want one that makes dough clouds so light that if you open the oven door, well you have to swat them back in with a spatula.  I want a biscuit that it takes at least 3 good spoonsful of gravy just to keep in on the plate.  In this time of “cliff diving”, world police action, etc, is my request too much to ask?

I thought I had the recipe after watching the cooking channel yesterday.  A place in Carolina , I think Chapel Hill, known as the Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen is supposed to have the best biscuits in the country.  I hit the internet and found what was supposedly their recipe.  Let me clue you, the owners of the SBK are probably laughing their flour dusted aprons off this morning.  I succeeded in baking some of the finest clay pigeons that a skeet shooter would ever want.  Talk about dense.  Bertie, if you happen to need a paper weight and are short of clay, well I could send up a dozen of these little hockey pucks and you could paint a hunting scene on them and sell them as fast as you could haul them out of the kitchen.  Needless to say, I have destroyed the recipe and will temporarily return to pre-prepared frozen biscuits.

James Earl’s grandfather could make a damned fine sour dough biscuit.  They were about the size of a small hamburger bun and every bit as light.  Never asked, but wonder if that recipe is around?

I have my blackeyed peas cooked and they are awaiting the preparation of a batch of cornbread.  Now that is something that I can make.  Some fried porkchops, a nice little healthy salad and dinner will be a keeper.

I have made a resolution that 2013 will see me slimming down like a super model.  D bought me a new scale that hooks up to my telephone and to her Ipad.  Every time I eat a piece of chocolate pie, her Ipad will report to my scale that I have gone off course and my phone will ring and call me a fat ass.  The marvels of modern technology are unbelievable.  I will try to lose down to a reasonable size in hopes that the cost of renting that tuxedo for the wedding will be keyed to the size that I order.  I can only surmise that a XL would be cheaper than a XXXL.  I want that gray tuxedo to make me look like a porpoise knifing thru the waves as opposed to a , well you get the picture.

I hope that 2013 is a good year for us all and feel that it will be.

GHC