I am not sure of my ethnicity but think it is part English, some Scot, maybe some Irish.  I am fairly certain that Gypsy is not coursing thru my veins.  I wish it was.  From movies I have seen and things I have read, those folks have a passion for life that few of us can muster.  They get excited by life. Their music makes them dance, their dancing makes them hungry for food cooked over an open fire and their food makes them want to drink some wine that may or may not be of the proper aging.  There seems to me a natural rhythm to their lives.

Lately I have been listening to some old music that seems to have grown on me.  A rendition of “Petite Fleur” by Chris Barber seems to start my old feet to moving.  I want to follow that music with some dance steps that have been gone from my repertoire for some time.  It is almost like playing “air guitar”.  You just want to move.  Tonite I listened to “Stranger on the Shore” as done by Acker Bilk.  It does the same thing.  Both of these songs put gypsy in my soul and in my feet.  Alas, you cant always be what you arent.  You cant be a cowboy as you wanted when you were 5 yrs old.  Or an ace fighter pilot.  There has already been one John Wayne.  I settled in comfortably as a father, a husband and a CPA. All of those are kind of like being a gypsy. 

Here I stand, watching the tide go out.  So alone and blue, dreaming dreams of you.  I watched your ship as it sailed out to the sea, taking all my dreams and taking all of me.   Those certainly sound like the words to a gypsy song. Put the the sounds of a clarinet to those words and they will make you want to dance, eat at the camp fire and generally think gypsy thoughts.  They will make you have a passion for life.

g

I have spent most of my life in a race.  I have never known or really cared what I was in a race with, a race against, or a race from.  I just felt like I had to run.  Not a physical run like many of my loved ones who run in marathons, etc, but still a race.  A race for perfection?  A race to provide?  The need to race has caused me to ignore time to reflect.  I have been trying thru these blogs to catch up on some of that reflection that I missed.

I feel privileged to have lived thru what I feel is the time of the greatest music that has ever been written.  This music was sung by artists of unsurpassed talent.  I am talking of Roy, Elvis, Conway, Brenda and, well you know who I mean.  These folks could sing.  You could listen to their lyrics and recognize every single emotion that was coursing thru your mind on any given day.  They sang their songs as if they were being sung directly to you.  And you could dance to their songs as well.  Nothing like a slow dance to a song sung by Brook Benton.  Enough to make you ask a girl to go steady.

I am also privileged to have been raised in a time of budding prosperity.  The era after WWII produced a time of employment, a time of growth of family and  a time of exploration of not only our world but the space our world spins in.  Great things were accomplished by great men.  We somehow lost those kind of men.  I wish we had them back.  We need an Ike, we need a Harry.  We need men of vision.  We don’t need men who are after what they can get for themselves or their cronies.  We need men like Woodrow Call.  He was called a man of vision and his answer was ” man of vision?,  a hell of a vision”.

Maybe I have answered what my race was all about.  Maybe I was running to become a man of vision?  Maybe I was just trying to become a man.  Maybe I accomplished both of those things and just didn’t recognize when I had accomplished either.  Maybe I crossed the finish line of a race I really never understood.

As I gracefully age maybe I will have more time to reflect and to enjoy what has been a life worth living and one worth being proud of.

G

I sit in an easy chair, in the shade of my patio.  My eyelids are drooping as well as my chin.  I am at the edge of the abyss of a full-blown morning nap.  This is the most nefarious of all naps when considered by a workaholic.  No one naps in the morning.  My eyes are also clouded by the haze from my smoker as I patiently wait for my next two nights meals to properly smoke.  My mind is wandering as it often does, more so lately, and I am thinking of the past and dreaming about the future.  My mind is telling me that I have grown too old to see many of nature’s wonders that I have often felt that I deserved to see.  I have missed the chance to see the flora and fauna of the highlands of New Guinea and Borneo.  I have missed seeing the birds of paradise that inhabit these lands of mist and mystery.  I can see their beauty through the help on NatGeo TV but it just isn’t the same. 

My consciousness is suddenly disturbed by the drone like sound of one of God’s really beautiful creatures.  My mind is pulled back from the brink of napland and my eyes spring open in time to catch a glimpse of the “Sky Opal”.  An opal is a stone that shows both fire and ice and is considered by many as a more beautiful stone than the more precious diamond.  It shows reds, greens, golds, and changes at even the smallest turn of your hand.  The Sky Opal shows all of these features plus it moves with the speed of a blue darter.  With every turn of its tiny body and the rotation of its wings, you can see a dash of red, a slash of blue, a splotch of green and sometimes a spot of yellow.  What a gorgeous creature.  I can only think that God made the Sky Opal (the hummingbird) for all of us who have not directed our lives to allow us to make the exotic trips to lands of dreams.  You can keep your birds of paradise as I have my Sky Opal.
GC

I saw a TV show last week where an elderly man simply reached out and grabbed the telephone of a young lady and slammed it to the ground and where he subsequently stomped the hell out of the thing.  A group of bystanders, apparently from an asian country, were absolutely flabbergasted and quickly tucked their own cell phones away.  It was a put up deal but it sure painted the picture of my feelings towards a cell phone.

At the grocery store this morning a woman was texting while the checker was running a large stack of coupons thru the machine.  After he had finished she stopped texting and wanted to know if he could show her what had been accepted and etc.  I informed her that he couldn’t.  I also informed her that her attention should have been on the project at hand instead of a damned text that probably could have waited until she got to her car.  She was a tad indignant but, then, so was I. 

I guess my life is just not complicated enough to require me to keep in constant contact with every single person I know.  I check my phone on a regular basis to see if anyone has died but that is pretty much it.  I rarely use it for telling anyone what happened over the last 3 minutes since i talked with them last.

At our ages we should be slowing down.  Life should flow like a gentle stream in a pleasant little valley, hign in the Rockies.  Life should not be like the mighty Colorado roaring thru Grand Canyon like a runaway freight.  We should savor our quiet times and hope that those quiet times come more often and stay for a longer period of time.  One should take time to enjoy a stand of agapanthas that are in full bloom and not worry that they are eventually going to droop.  One should certainly not call or text 10 people and tell them the details of how the damned flowers are going to die back.  And for sure dont do it when you are standing in front of me at the grocery store.  You might get your phone stepped on.

Chuy

If you have read much of what I rant about you will probably know that I dont care much for Tiger Woods as a man or human.  However, I do like the way he plays a game that I have loved and played, sometimes on a daily basis.  It can be argued that he is the best that has ever played the game.  I happen to think he is.  He devotes himself to practice like few others who play now or in the past.  He can make shots that few can make.  But, despite his physical skills connected with the game, he has something that even fewer players have.  He has the mind for the game.  He is an automatron when it comes to the mental part of the game.  Bad shots bother him less than they do most players.  He doesnt often get rattled.  This takes skill.

Our local newspaper had an opinion to the editor this morning stating that Tiger was not a good role model.  The opinion listed a number of reasons, mostly having to do with being a good sport.  Well, just maybe he doesnt want to be a good role model.  Maybe he just wants to play his game and be left to hell alone?  I know of few people who would like to have a son or daughter who was just like Tiger.  Many people would like to be able to play golf like Tiger.  Maybe we should just be happy with that.  We place too much value on what professional atheletes give our society.  We are exposed daily to their feet of clay.  Many professional atheletes are people who left school to go “pro” at a time when they are unable to handle such fame and fortune.  They usually turn out to be just people like we are.  They have problems just like we have.  Many people get too bent out of shape when one of their “heros” falls from grace. 

I cut people a little more slack in how their fame and fortune affects me.  Little that Tiger Woods does on a daily basis has much to do with how I live, think or act.  I enjoy watching him play in a golf tournament.  I would like to have dinner with him some night.  After dinner I would take him out behind the barn and give him some advice that his father Earl apparently failed to give him.  He wouldn’t care for the advice but if he thought about it for a few minutes he would know I was right.  My advice would simply be that the sun doesn’t rise from his shadow or the shadow of people like him and he should realize that he is what he is simply at our pleasure.

Gary

I am sitting at a battered, water-ring stained table in the kitchen of my Casita de Adobe.  I stare alternately at my coffee cup and out through the fly specked screen door towards the yard.  I watch an old red hen, scratching in the gravel for seeds possibly blown in by the west wind.  The yard dog lays in the shade of a mesquite bush, one eye open just enough to watch the cat, walking across the yard with airs of a much more regal creature from across an ocean.

The air shimmers with the heat of an early summer.  There is a dustiness and a haziness about the landscape.  Things seen are not crisp.  Summer will be a long time leaving. We will have to plan carefully to avoid the sun and to remember the spots of shade that develop during the passage of the day.  Shade will become a thing of premiums during the coming months.

I am dreaming today of many things.  Dreams are easier on an old brain than remembrances.  Remembering requires an attention to detail. Dreaming allows you a fuzzyiness about details and allows you to slant things a bit more.  Simple dreams can be the thoughts of the first north wind that will eventually come to a land of heat.  Dreams can be thoughts of putting on a sweater in the mornings to avoid the chill of the previous night.  Coffee tastes much better if you are wearing a sweater.  Ice tea tastes better if you are sitting bare-chested under an elm tree in the shade.  Ice cold spring water tastes best anytime you are thirsty.  I dream of these things, maybe to keep from having to remember, maybe just for the pleasure of writing my own thoughts.  Who knows?

Select a spot and do some dreaming.  Let your mind float, to an earlier time, to a time in the future or for things in the present.  It requires no equipment other than an imagination and a pleasant place to sit.  Could be at an old table, a rocking chair on a porch, or a stool under a tree. 

Gary C

There are few things in this world that are as pleasing as a good biscuit.  I have been looking for a recipe for years that would produce a biscuit that is as light as a feather yet has a bottom crust with some chew to it.  I wanted a biscuit that would require sausage gravy be poured atop it in order to keep it from floating off the plate.  Well, praise be to Jesus, that recipe has been found, thanks to Ms Carol Ann and the internet.

THE 7UP BISCUIT

2 CUPS OF BISQUIK BAKING MIX , 1/2 CUP OF SOUR CREAM, 1/2 CUP OF 7 UP. MIX WELL AND POUR OUT ON FLOURED SURFACE.

MELT 1/4 CUP OF BUTTER IN AN 8X8 SQUARE PAN

PAT BISCUIT DOUGH OUT TO MATCH THE SIZE OF THE PAN AND CUT THEM IN SQUARES.  PUT IN PAN AND BAKE AT 425 DEGREES FOR 15 MINUTES.

THEY SHOULD BE BROWN AS BRONZE AND LIGHT AS A FEATHER.

 I know that since I am diabetic I should not be eating biscuits but a couple on Saturday morning shouldnt hurt too much.

Thanks for the pleasure, whoever made up this recipe.

Chuy the biscuit eater.                                             

I am sorry but I just dont buy the global warming concept.  I woke up this morning and the temperature, on May, 3, 2013, in Corpus Christi, Tx was 47 degrees.  It rarely gets colder than that even in winter. Yoohoo, Mother Nature, it is spring.  They have just said on TV that 5 states set snowfall records this week.  Ole man Winter, its not your turn at bat.  Let someone else control things for a while.

Yesterday coming home from a trip down south towards Laredo, well, there was a sand storm.  Shades of Pecos, Tx during the late 50’s.  The sky was full of dust, the roads were covered in drifting dirt and then it started sprinkling.  Wonder what is going on?

Of course, this weather has got the clothing store owners as happy as clams.  We are having to load up on several types and styles of clothing because we never know what to wear.  I put on a sweater this morning and by 10:46am I am in bermuda shorts.  It has me perplexed to say the least.

However, as confused as I am, I am not buying the Greenland ice cap is gonna melt concept.  If it is getting 47 degrees here, then it has to be below freezing up there.  Right?  I am going to withhold judgement on the warming scare until I am about knee deep in water that has ice cubes floating in it/

COS.  I just made reservations with CHINATI HOT SPRINGS SPA,  This is a hot springs resort just up river from Presidio, Tx and a favored haunt of some other notable Pecos folks.  I am going there for a couple of days, the weekend before the big mega reunion in June.  I want to get all tanned, new skin ( I understand the hot mineral water causes sloughing) and generally take a few days rest.  I am going to try for a personal best in how long I can stay in bed.  I will try to loll in bed until 7:30am.  I will take my new Kendle paper white and do some heavy duty reading.  YOu have to cook you own meals so I will have a few fusion meals.  Maybe mexican-oriental or Serbian-arab.  I have been doing that lately and Dorothy just sits down to dinner and shakes her head. 

G

A few days ago I stopped for lunch in a small town cafe and saw that the daily special was goulash.  I sat there thinking about a meat concoction heavily pepper with paprika and served with some type of noodle or maybe a mashed potato pile.  I took the plunge. 

I was surprised when the waitress came out toting a bread bowl full of a mixture of hamburger meat, onions, elbow macaroni covered with some type of tomato sauce.  The bread bowl was made in house and looked good.  However, the mixture enclosed in the bowl was what we called slumgullion.  Different names for the same thing, I guess.  I mentioned to the waitress that I thought the cook either spent some time in the army or in prison.  She looked at me oddly and said she didnt know which.  It was good but I had mixed feelings about eating the macaroni and the bread bowl.  A perfect combination if you dont care how many carbs you are putting in your body. (the temple). 

We were all raised in a time when carbs werent considered when dinner, supper or whatever your family called a meal was put on the table.  You could easily end up with 2 starches and a loaf of bread in the same meal.  You could see mashed potatoes, pinto beans and gravy over biscuits.  You ate these combinations because they tasted good.  Carbs, no prob.  Now, the good Lord designed us and I hate to second guess him, but, he could have made some minor adjustments that would have helped us all.  He put taste buds in our mouths to help us taste sweet, bitter, salty, etc.  He enabled us to taste, lemon, cherry, sweet and  bitter all in the same piece of cheesecake.  He could have simply added 2 more rows of taste buds that would have made everything that was bad for us taste like doo doo.  How simple could that have been?  Nope, he decided to put us to the test every day for the length of our life.  He knew that mac and cheese was gonna taste like heaven.  He suspected that the icing on birthday cake was going to taste so good that people would be tempted to drag their finger thru the stuff and then try to smooth it out so no one would notice.  People notice because you can never erase your fingerprints in the icing.  He was absolutely certain that a brownie was gonna taste better than a piece of celery.  For sure.

Well, so far I have failed the test.  I have not been strong.  I have let my taste buds rule.  I like celery and radishes but would eradicate them with agent orange in favor of a piece of custard pie.  When I get to the pearly gates and St Peter starts reading off my many missteps, I guess I am just going to have to set there and listen.  I will have no excuse other than the good Lord made me do it.

GC

I write some about family values and have been asked to explain my definition of such a term.  Not sure I am intellegent or good enough writer to explain but I will take a stab at it.

Family values are not numbered like the 10 commandments.  Family values dont necessarily refer to a typical family made up of father, mother, kids and family pet. Family values are a feeling.  A feeling of belonging.  A feeling of caring and being cared for. Asians seem to have family values in that they care for their elderly.  They respect their elders.  Their elders are a part of the family.  I always loved and respected my grandparents in the same manner as my parents.  My wife and I attempted to teach our children that their grandparents were and are very important to them.  The maternal side of my family has held an annual reunion in Ft. Davis, Tx each year since 1962. I hope it never stops but know at some time it will.  I hate to think that but do believe my generation of cousins, etc will be the last to hold it together.

I also feel that I have a family of “forever friends”.  These are the people I was raised and went to school with.  We have been apart for many years and during our reunions over the last few years you could feel that we never really grew apart.  Oh, we moved to places all over the country but in minutes you could tell that hearts did not move.  We loved each other, cared for each other and wished each other the best.  We were exhibiting my definition of family values. During my pleading and begging  in trying to get one of our class members to come to one of the reunions she told me that since she had not ever come back to Pecos during her life she felt that many had forgotten her or werent interested in seeing her.  She came and before she left to go back home she told me how much she appreciated me showing her that I and all her classmates did care.   I guess this is what you call the family of man.

Not sure that this is a very good answer to “what is meant by family values”, especially since many of our modern families are less than traditional, but I think deep down, we all have “family values”.  We care.

Gary H Cowan