1950s

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The End Is Near: Sort Of….

/ Phil Strawn / 10 Comments

We all remember the cartoons, or perhaps the real person dressed in a robe, carrying the sign that read “Repent: The End Is Near.” I’m not that guy, but for the last 70 years or so, he and others like him have been saying it, and they might be right. It’s closer now than ever.

Crazy old man,” that’s what my grandfather called him, walking in front of Leonard Brothers Department Store in downtown Fort Worth around Christmas time, wearing out the concrete sidewalk. He was dressed as a person in Biblical times: robe, sandals, long hair, beard, and the sign was painted on a distressed piece of plywood that had seen many years of weather. He carried it with conviction, not caring what other shoppers thought of his look or his presence of lunacy. I was a kid, maybe six or seven at best, and I sensed that this crazy old guy knew something I didn’t. Grandfather didn’t pay him much mind; we continued on into the store to buy whatever he was purchasing that day. I was along for the bus ride and the walk.

Our preacher at Poly Baptist Church used that term often: usually during or right before the ushers passed the plate around for donations; we call it tithing today. I would reluctantly put my treasured nickel in the plate, wanting to keep it because it would help me buy something I assumed I needed. Kids didn’t have actual money in the 1950s, only what they could scrounge up, find on the sidewalk, or get from their parents. I was a hard-broke kid, selling pop bottles to support my habit of Dr Pepper soft drinks and Zero Candy Bars. Our Preacher knew all the phrases and when to use them to gain the most cash from our congregation. The all-old-lady choir would sing some hymn; a few would faint, and that always brought in more change. ” Oh my, she might have to go to the hospital, where the whispers of the other big-haired old gals.” That was the drill.

Now here we are, seventy years later, and nothing has changed. We are still saying “Repent: The End Is Near,” and it is closer than we think. What moron on this planet would think that Iran, once called Persia for centuries, was a vibrant country with good values and a modern society, would be the one to take out the entire Western civilization? What person with a functioning mind would think that these zealots don’t have a few or more dirty bombs stashed away for a rainy day? Although it never rains in Iran, that’s why they don’t farm; it’s a damn desert with 12th-century idiots running around in robes and rags on their heads, killing anyone who doesn’t bow to their ideology. Try and pull that crap off in Texas and hide and watch what happens.

The point I am trying to make is: yes, the end is near, and Iran is desperate, and they all want to go to hang out with Allah and do whatever they do to 72 virgins, so they don’t think about the other side of the coin. Satan is awaiting their arrival and planning some new stuff just for them.

Those virgins will be long-deceased nuns, on loan from Heaven just for chuckles, with shotguns and rifles, and a never-ending supply of ammo, and they know how to use those weapons. So forget the fornication and cooking me dinner part. Abdul will be eating a Satanic form of Weight Watchers microwave dinners that are all pork: stuff that even Oprah wouldn’t touch.

Don’t mess with Israel, and also, don’t mess with Texas; we are kinda the same temperament. If the Mullah does send a dirty little bomb he purchased from some Chinese guy out of the trunk of a Toyota, Israel will likely shoot it down, then return it to them in another form.

The crazy old guy on the street carrying the sign ain’t so crazy anymore. Right?

God Bless Texas, the Alamo, and Whataburger, too.

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The Postman Always Rings Twice

/ Phil Strawn / 18 Comments

A long-lost cousin, not particularly lost; we just haven’t spoken in a while, called me out of nowhere the other day. We gabbed a bit about family, and then she said, ” I received mail-in ballots for my parents and our grandparents who have been dead for decades and half a century; what should I do with them?” I answered, ” Nothing, burn them. Then, a few days later, this nice lady with green hair and a vote-for-El-Sayed T-shirt showed up at her door, saying that the USPS had accidentally sent her ballots for deceased relatives and asking if she could return them to the post office. This is how it starts, this is how it’s done, this is what we face. My cousin, a country girl with a slightly prickly temper, punched the lady out and off her front porch and burned the ballots in their firepit on the hot September evening as the fireflies and crickets serenaded her family in the backyard, as they streamed Ella Langley’s new album. I wonder how many times my long-dead grandparents have voted. Should we all wonder?

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Is It 1765 Again? Yes.

/ Phil Strawn / 10 Comments

Some months back, I said, under duress, that I would write less about politics and world events, only to calm my family from disowning me, which a few did anyway, but I could care less. I do, and welcome the grief, the foul language, and the loss of followers from this post, but I am at the point where some things have to be said by an average older American who can’t smile and hold it in anymore. Yep, all of my filters left this body years ago. That’s why my picture is in every Home Depot, Lowe’s, and other stores in town. Don’t help this old man; it’s an honor.

Our mainstream media, or what’s left of it, won’t say it; our woke children and grandchildren have no interest in real American history, how this country evolved, and why it is now threatened. They live in a teachers’ union-manufactured, protected fairy land where everyone rides Unicorns around campus and sprinkles themselves with fairy dust every morning to avoid reality.

Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Italy, and now parts of the UK are done with illegal immigration and the hordes of invaders, and are fighting back. They want to preserve their heritage, lineage, history, their country, and their wives’ and daughters’ lives and futures. I somehow get the feeling that here, we don’t see it the same way: or do we, and are so inept we refuse to fight back?

We have a president whom everyone who is a non-Christian or a liberal hates with a vengeance, that is so deep it has destroyed families, friends, and marriages, and is willing to sacrifice anything, even their pitiful lives, to prevent him from handing over our country to a vast army of invaders.

The young, university-educated, hip, liberal women are psychotic; the young men are without balls, but their man bun looks good and their skinny jeans fit well. And everyone is so hopped up on doctor-prescribed drugs that they think the books, the Koran, Animal Farm, 1984, and the computer HAL 5000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey are reality.

The men, males, with the correct hormones God gave them, are fighting back. And now, the women, real women, the ones like our mothers and grandmothers, that know what God made, are joining in. The Irish and Scottish and some Britons are arming themselves in militias and kicking these worthless moochers and criminals out of their countries. The problem I have with the entire scenario is: where in the United States of America are our militias, our Minute Men with muskets, pitchforks, hoes, or any tree limb they could use as a weapon to drive out the invader? They are not British as they were in the 1700s; they are Islamic, and their ideology doesn’t meld with Western values or civilization. It’s not a religion; it’s a coup to make the world Islamic and impose sharia law on every person on this planet, and that is an entire book of hundreds of chapters on why they want to take our country from us. Where are we, and why are we not stopping this? There are pages of questions and accusations I could write, but this small blurb will infuriate enough people as it is.

We have one man and a few others who are in public office who can see what is coming. A respected historian, Victor Davis Hanson, Pastor Greg Laurie, Doctor David Jeremiah, and others see it, call it as it is, and warn us, yet our young people, or should I call them “sheeple,” have been indoctrinated to the point of impotence and paralysis, cowering in a corner, shaking like a trapped Rat with a Terrier snarling a few inches away.

Let me say it another way: we do have men and women joining our military in droves, and they are Christians, or, if not true believers, patriots that see the clear and present danger that has already taken hold of our land. They know the dangers; they are willing to put their lives at risk and step over that line drawn by a sword in the hallowed dirt floor of the Alamo by William Travis. They will board that ship that may get hit by a missile, be the soft target for that bullet, or lose a limb to a roadside bomb, come home disfigured, or in a casket, or take a knife in the chest while having supper with their family at their neighborhood Pizza Hut. This country is not safe; our citizens, our heritage, our way of life that my family members fought for are in jeopardy of dissolving before our eyes. Look around today as you go about your chores and errands; you will see it if you look close enough.

This entire “shit show” started with the Woodstock flock and the idealistic generation that supported it. I was one of them, until I grew up, worked, paid taxes, suffered through life, and am now about done with all of it. That decade gave us some historical music, unbelievable science, but not much else. Gloria Steinham, Betty Friedan, Pauli Murray, Susan Brownmiller, Bella Abzug, and the organizations they formed that turned all-American teenage girls into crazed feminists. Thank God, not all of them bought into it, but enough did to turn the tide and divide this country. Oh, wait, I forgot Angela Davis, the radical Black Panther, and her minions: kill whitey, kill everyone, then bring Fidel Castro over to run the country for us. Burn the typewriters and copy machines. Kids? We don’t need children to hold us down; they are a chain around our neck, screw them.

You may think I dislike women, but I don’t in any way. I only dislike women like the ones mentioned above, and the millions like them that move among us now, and will get in your face about anything. They know us men, us older men, raised correctly, won’t punch them out, but that is also changing. Without women, we wouldn’t have great doctors, scientists, nurses, mothers, teachers, warriors, and a long list of other contributions. Women bring empathy to a world where men are far less empathetic about most things. Knuckle-dragging Neanderthals chewing on a raw leg bone of a saber-toothed tiger. Yeah, I can be that way sometimes, but then Momo, my dear sweet wife, who was a nurse and understands far more than most, keeps me in check as best she can.

I am an old man and will be 77 in a few weeks, but I would join that militia, pick up that rifle, put on that fifty-pound backpack, and drive the evil invaders from our country. God knows our ballless politicians will never do it. They are there for the gravy train, the yellow brick road, and a never-ending land of Oz. Not Dr. Oz; I dig him.

Christians, men and women, had better put your Bible to your forehead, pray, and ask the good Lord forgiveness for what you are about to do, and give us the strength and fortitude to pull it off. Sally-Forth, pick your weapon, whether it be fierce religion or a gun, but for Christ’s sake, do something.

Our Pastors, Priests, Preachers, Men of the cloth, and Elders in churches need to get on board and stop with this “love everybody” BS they preach on YouTube and from the pulpit every Sunday. You read the Bible, and it is full of evil people and the evil deeds they committed, and how Christians stopped what they could, and thousands of years later, are still waging that war. We have been invaded, and the enemy is entrenched in political offices around our country, pushing for their Sharia law and to hell with Christianity, and let’s not forget Gods chosen people, the Jews; they want every one of them dead, and if a Christian is in the way, well then, we are dead also. Hitler and his cronies would be a perfect fit today. Dress them in a nice Brooks Brothers suit, give them a microphone or a podcast, and we have the 1930s repeated. Tribalism is alive and thriving in this country. I wince at using the term “us against them,” but it’s too much of a perfect fit to not say it.

To all my 1,000-plus followers, if you don’t care for my opinion or my options, tell me. I have skin as hard as Teflon-coated steel, and shit rolls off of me like it does the Clintons. That’s what blogging and writing is about, Dear Hearts; it’s not all poetry, pretty stories with happy endings; it’s sometimes the harshest of truths. But let me tell you, I am one pissed-off Texan and am a good shot. God Bless Texas and The Alamo.

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Throwing Shade, Texas-Style: ‘Bless Their Hearts’ and Beyond

/ Phil Strawn / 12 Comments

Texans Have Been Doing It For A Century Or More, And I Was One Of Them

I will admit to being ignorant about some things, and the term ” throwing shade” at someone or something meant nothing to me. Us’n Texans have been doing it for years. I recently discovered what it meant by accident, using AI.

All of my relatives were professionals at this so-called newest trend. My grandmother’s ” Well, bless her little heart,” was the favorite one. The side-eye glance, the eye rolls, the fart, and shaking your leg — all of them —were used around me since childhood. I had no idea it was a form of insult or mockery, just an old farm saying. I’ve done it myself, and to this day, I still say ” Bless their little heart,” which means they are plumb stupid as a dead rock.

Momo, my wife, is not a Texan: she was hauled down here from Pennsylvania for her father’s job at Texas Instruments. She has a few of her own. When you’re uptight about something, you’re ” wound up like a nickel rat.” That’s those cheap 1950s Japanese mice you wound up and let them scurry around the floor; the spring usually broke after a few times, so they became something of a novelty.

My good friend, Jarry Boy Davis, in our teenage rock band years, heard plenty of them from his mother, an in-your-face Southern lady from Memphis. ” He’s as crazy as a peach orchard squirrel; that guy is a stupid tool. Can’t pour piss out of his own boots.” If a girl was downright ugly, she would be called ” an unfortunate-looking little thing.” Same for the boys.

Now that I am old and have nothing to lose, I will participate in more “shading” events, especially when it comes to those “panty waist” men in Washington. Why do we senior citizens dislike our government so intensely? I’ll write about that another time.

The Ozempic crowd in Hollywood seem to be the worst, and the best at it. All of those poor folks, skin and bones, bulging eyes, failing organs, having to be helped to walk onto the movie set, they shade everyone, even themselves, without knowing it. ” Bless their little hearts.”

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Take Away The Roll, All You Have Left Is Sour Jelly

/ Phil Strawn / 9 Comments

How the social network makes stars and then destroys them: it’s not new. Old-school Hollywood, the payolas, the folks that tracked the gossip and used a typewriter, had Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, and Walter Winchell, devious slayers of careers long before the internet.

Jelly Roll, the once-marginal, talented criminal with the facial tattoos and the sordid background, became the “let’s accept the weirdo into country music” darling of the year because he claims to have accepted Jesus and become a Christian, also losing over 300 pounds in the process. The influencers and social media slobbered all over him and his reality-show-looking wife, Bunny Foo-Foo; despite her looks, she is a very nice woman and deserved non of what the scumbag did to her. They were the new royalty of Nashville, in a weird new-age, screwed-up Nashville sort of way. Hank didn’t do it this way: Chet Atkins and Roy Acuff are begging Jesus to send them back down to Nashville for one more day to fix this mess.

I’ve nothing against overweight folks; some just can’t help it. Genetic, symbolic, antagonistic, impulsive — who knows: some of the best Christian folks I know are overweight and have hearts to match their faith. The Roll ain’t one of them, no more.

I think face tats are over the top unless you’re a gang member in Mexico and want to be a badd-ass. A very talented country singer from Texas, Post Malone has face tats, can sing his butt off, is a good musician, and is a follower of Jesus. Jelly is all pompous-assed blubbering and bought into the Hollywood woke scene to further his career, something our angel Dolly Parton refused to do, and she did better than any of them as far as fortunes and philanthropic goals go. Maybe Ella Langley will come close to her. Hide and watch.

There is a song out there on Spotify and Amazon Music titled ” We Need A Little Mercy Now,” by another Texan from Houston, Mary Gaither, an avowed lesbian and a Christian, a recovering addict, and you name it, that says, ” Some people will do anything to keep their crown.” Well, dear hearts, Jelly Roll just made her song another hit. God help this world we live in. God Bless Texas and the Alamo.

Childhood Memories of Texas Drought and Farm Life

/ Phil Strawn / 30 Comments

I’m old enough to remember the drought in Texas during the 1950s; it cost my grandfather and every farmer in his township their crops until a small shower dumped almost 8 inches of rain one night. The town of Santa Anna, Texas, had prayed for a miracle, and it came. Just enough to save some of the crops, but many had already lost their farms to the banks, sold their cattle, and given up, moving to Fort Worth to work menial jobs.

My Grandfather was too much of an old hard-ass to do that. He figured Johnson grass was good for something, so he cut it and sold it for hay, at a discount to his friends. Cotton, grain, corn, maize, nothing would grow. No rain, no plants. It wasn’t the 1930s, but it was too close, and they survived those years as well.

Days of playing on the farm, 100-degree-plus temperatures, it was so hot the Rattlesnakes wouldn’t come out, or for us to shoot them with our BB Guns. The chickens weren’t laying, Granny wasn’t making money on eggs, and my grandfather, Papa, had crops that shriveled away like a neglected plant on a hot windowsill. The cows were constantly thirsty, which kept the windmill pumping the well full-time whenever there was a breeze. The stock tanks were dry and cracked; there wasn’t even enough mud for a crawdad to survive.

The farmhouse had no air conditioning; no one had that in those times. It was windows open, pray for a breeze to dampen the sheets at night, and hope to wake up the next morning without the Mountain Boomers stealing you from your sweat-soaked bed. It was a slice of hell on earth, but my cousins and I were young kids, and it didn’t affect us the same as it did our families. I didn’t notice the worry and desperation in my grandparents’ eyes as they went about their chores. I happily shot chickens and snakes with my BB Gun. Children are often clueless about adult misery.

To me, my grandparents were old. They were in their early sixties at that time, so that was ancient. They both looked twenty years older than their actual age: wrinkled, sun-baked, and worked to the bone. A hard life produces a hard exterior

I was six, on the forefront of my life’s journey. A city boy raised by a country mother and city father, playing country kid in the summer. It wasn’t Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, but it came close. They both worked from daylight to dark hoeing weeds, trying to keep what they could alive, suffered monetary problems that would drive a man to drink, and would count change to buy food at the small local grocery store that was less than any convenience store we have today. Whatever food they could grow was immediately canned for the winter or eaten that day. Those good old days, the 1950s, weren’t all that good, looking back now. At the edge of Seventy-Seven years old, I’ve outlived my grandfather by more than a decade. But he thought he was healthy until he wasn’t. Years of cooking everything in lard and saved Bacon grease took its toll on his system, and he died young from a long list of medical issues. Clogged this, hardened that, bad heart, diabetes, you name it, he had it. I personally thought it was all the chicken. All of their children were on their own with families, so no one wanted the farm. Granny sold it for a pittance, moved into a small public housing unit in town, and finished out her life there. The days of the farm and the misery of the drought years of the 1950s are all behind us now.

This relentless heat and drought in Texas give me pause to remember my childhood summers. I’m old now and remember the good times, but this heat and drought bring it all home. The good old days.

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Working In Heaven

/ Phil Strawn / 11 Comments

Knocking On Heaven’s Door, Who Will Answer?

When I was ten, the world of writing came to me. I had been reading for years, thanks to my persistent Aunt Norma, my father’s older sister, who got her hands on some Fun With Dick And Jane books. Dick and Jane soon took the back seat to Mickey Spillane, Mark Twain, and John Steinbeck. I was more than smug, quite the little dandy, reading at five years old, while my neighborhood gang of idiots couldn’t spell their name.

Around that time, my mentor, Mr. Cohen, a master gardener, the man who passed on his love of horticulture to a young boy, lost his wife to cancer, then my grandfather, the tough old World War 1 vet, caught a case of it and was wasting away before my eyes. I didn’t know what devastation meant, but it had grabbed me by the collar and shook me good.

Before my grandfather left for the hospital for the last time, he spent a few hours alone with me in his sickroom. Still able to speak and make sense. He told me of his experiences in the war, the trenches in France, the gas attacks, the men he killed in hand-to-hand combat, and the ones he killed from afar with a bullet that had no consciousness. I listened intently, absorbing every detail. War was not like it was presented on television or in the movies; it was raw, cruel, unforgiving, and mentally destroyed many men, including him. He knew it was his last roundup and accepted it with dignity. I didn’t.

The mind of a ten-year-old is wired backward from that of an adult. So, without thinking of what I asked, I said,

“Grandad, when you get to Heaven, what will you do. Are there jobs there? Will you have friends?”

He thought for a while, then answered,

” There might be work, something to keep us busy, but the main thing I want to do is apologize and ask forgiveness for the young Germans I killed in the war. I didn’t want to kill them, but it was my job, and it was theirs to do the same to me. That’s if I get to Heaven, which is a mystery to me, cause I have done some bad things in life, asked for forgiveness, but who knows how much the good Lord is willing to forgive.”

I partially understood: I was a Baptist, but a fearful one, not one of faith, but feared the outcome if I didn’t toe the line. He passed a week later, lying in a bed, reliving the hell of war that he carried till the end.

Not long after that, I was at my other grandparents’ farm in Santa Anna, Texas. My grandfather, a nice man but not particularly fond of the other cousins or me, was working on his tractor and stopped for a rest. I was nearby and sat beside him. He was aloof from us children, seeing us as farmhands, not children to be nurtured or molded, but only as labor, expected to keep our mouths shut and our eyes downcast. He made me nervous; I feared him in a way I shouldn’t have. I did mention that the brain of a ten-year-old is wired backward, so that being said, this is what I asked.

” Grandpa, when you get to Heaven, will you still have to work on the farm?” I said.

He looked at me like there was a third eye in my forehead.

” He sat for a moment and then said,

” The good book says many times that everyone has to work. If you don’t have a trade or labor for your fruits, you don’t eat, you don’t survive, and your family suffers and perishes. God is forgiving, but I think he has a limit to that forgiveness. I expect to be a farmer in Heaven, just as I am here on this God-awful piece of land, and I will do what is required of me. The Angels can’t do everything. I’ve repented for my wagon load of sin, and I think the good Lord has forgiven me, but I won’t know until I get there.” This was a few years after the small miracle that had saved his crops and brought him back to church. He was a different man religiously, but still didn’t have much use for children. He passed away a year later from Diabetes and other illnesses related to my grandmother cooking everything in bacon grease for fifty years.

Two different men, ones that I admired, two individuals that molded me, had given me advice that is with me to this day. We all must repent our sins, ask forgiveness, live with our shortcomings, and we all must work for a living, eke out what we can: dig a ditch, plant a seed, pick cotton, do what we must to survive and give our family and ourselves sustenance and a roof over our head. All these years later, those two bits of advice still make me what I am.

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Ohhh, The Hot Mess We’re In

/ Phil Strawn / 14 Comments

Here in Texas, we have a pickup truck full of local sayings and down-home descriptions, and one of our favorites that covers most of our female-induced situations is called ” A Hot Mess.” Sounds sort of like a hormonal-induced biography of Marilyn Monroe’s or Elizabeth Taylor’s life. What it really means is everything is “FUBAR,” another good one that came out of WWII. My father wouldn’t tell me the real meaning until I was a teenager. F…. Up Beyond Any Repair, you get the drift. All of us kids used it, because all of our fathers served in WWII. We heard it daily.

I can clearly hear those angelic acidic voices of my mother and grandmother talking about an unruly cousin (usually Cookie) or an aunt or uncle, or a neighbor being a “hot mess,” or a situation that is out of their control, which was usually me.

I wasn’t a bad kid; like Sinatra, I did things my way and paid for it in the usual way: a Tupperware, 9″ x 12″ hard plastic cake storage container to the butt. I still have a faint Tupperware emblem scar embedded in my left buttock, a free lifelong birthmark compliments of my sainted mother with the arm strength of an NBL pitcher. Then, to make matters worse, she put my birthday cake in the same container, and I had to suffer the humility of blowing out those candles of that lovely cake sitting atop that cruel instrument of punishment. Dr. Johnson, my pediatric MD, would always ask me about that scar when giving me my monthly penicillin shot in the butt for whatever ailed me. It was a fairly new drug back then, so you got a shot for everything. He would say, “Well, at least she made you a cake.” He was an old Army doctor and smoked unfiltered Camels while he examined me. I think he died young while mowing his lawn.

If I’m seeing things right, this country is in a “hot mess.” We got ragheads with missles and exploding drones blowing up large oil filled ships sitting in bean bag chairs working their Gameboy controllers, I-ugh-atolla’s killing all the young folks that want a normal life, crazy ass socialist trying to take over our governement, and are succeeding, a smiling sleezy-assed commie mayor of New York trying to turn one of our greatest cities into a third-world shithole, a million Somali’s ripping off us taxpayers and driving around in Lamborginis and Porsches, Lake Wobegon has gone to hell, and all the strong women and good looking men and above average children have left and moved to Texas and Florida, even old Garrison split for New York and is now trying to escape from Madison Ave to somewhrere where he can go for a walk without hearing a call to prayer five times a day on a sound system bigger than Lynard Skynner’s. I’m telling you folks, we are in a “Hot Mess.” One thing about Texas is, we all have guns, ammo, lots of coldbeer and pork rinds, HEB frozen pizzas, and we are pissed off most of the time because it’s so hot, so the “Hot Mess” the rest of the world is in doesn’t faze us that much. Governor Abbott already issued hunting tags for all the terrorists we want to shoot; limits don’t apply, and the taxidermy mounting fee is fifty percent off.

Don’t get me wrong, we still have a “hot mess” down here, but ours isn’t as bad as it is where you are. So, if it gets unbearable in your hometown, come on down to Texas; we’ll watch out for ya.

“

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New York, New York: Old Blue Eyes Would Have A Stroke.

/ Phil Strawn / 8 Comments

If Frank were still around, he would be giving his mafia buddies a call to do something about this grinning commie Rat-bastard who got himself elected mayor by the young nepo-elitist children of the rich democrats. Frank was a Dem, but from a different era, when it meant love of country and, of course, JFK, Jackie, Marilyn, and Ava. I read today that the old handsy storyteller from Minnesota, Garrison Keillor, is pissed that his taxes on his multi-million dollar townhouse are going to be doubled, so he is going back to his cozy little Lake Wobegon, that mythical magical place where all the women are strong, the men good-looking, and the children above average. Sounds like a tidy place to reside.

Give New York City a year, and all the party girls will be covered in Burkas, the single Beta-sexual men will be dating goats, and the Build A Bear stores will be converted to “Build A Bomb” stores for all the newly indoctrinated child terrorists. Sounds like we need Supergirl, Superman, Super Dog, Cat Woman, Soupy Sales, the Fantastic Four, and maybe Batman to fly into Laguardia. My son and his family briefly visited there on their way to Niagara Falls, and he thinks his DNA may have been damaged.

So this is what our nation has come down to: Socialists, communists, foreigners, and non-citizens calling the shots, and we sit back and do nothing while they steal our country and tax money from us. If you are a Democrat and read my blog, I’m calling you out. It’s nothing personal, only the way 88 million more Americans and I feel.

Let me rub some more Gulf of America sea salt into our gaping national wound: guess what! Hollywood is as dead as a Rat that just ate a piece of yummy bait inside the guts of my hot tub. Fort Worth, Cowtown, home of the shit-kicking, rodeo-riding, pickup-driving, cowboy-boot-wearing country music playing and listening boys and girls, is now the new Hollywood, thanks to a real cowboy-turned-producer, Taylor Sheridan. The girls here in Fort Worth don’t need Ozempic; they look quite nice in their Wrangler jeans and Justin boots, and they live off of Mexican food, Whataburgers, and Shiner Bock.

It would be nice if old Blue Eyes could come back for one more concert at Madison Square Garden, now that Taylor Swift is a has-been and Ella Langley, a true country artist, has outsold Mariah Cary and the long-gone Whitney Houston for fourteen straight weeks with “Choosing Texas.” Yeah, take that LA music machine.

None of this is political; it’s just how I feel most of the time. Hold my beer and watch this, hide and watch, and get off of my lawn.

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The Boy Who Became Sweet Baby Jesus

/ Phil Strawn / 19 Comments


The year was 1955, and at six years old, by my grandmother’s observation, I was a heathen child, almost feral. Being raised in the big city of Fort Worth on a steady diet of television featuring Popeye, Bugs Bunny, and the Three Stooges, I was living in a religious void. I saw the “good book” as a large decoration on the dining room table and read it at Christmas, Easter, and family funerals. Recently, I had been attending a few services at the Poly First Baptist Church with my parents. Still, the preacher, with his over-animated, stage-stomping Hell-and-Damnation rants, scared me more than The Mummy and Frankenstein combined. I was wishing for a fatal disease to strike so I would be bedridden and couldn’t attend.


I had been visiting the farm for six weeks, from June into July, and it was my first time away from my parents. The farmhouse had no television, only a radio. By the third day of no cartoons, I had the shakes and a low-grade fever. I did bring my Red Ryder BB gun and enough ammo for a summer’s worth of popping some of my grandmother’s five hundred chickens: the BBs bounced off their thick feathers, so none were harmed. Other than throwing dirt clods at Rattle Snakes, it was all the entertainment I could muster. Granny was a wise Cherokee, medical Shaman, and self-proclaimed Texas Biblical scholar, and she felt a week at the Baptist Church Vacation Bible School would fix me up and assure my acceptance into Heaven. I had no idea where Heaven was or when I would be required to visit, so I trusted my Granny would make my reservations.


Miss Ida Belle Mae and her younger sister, Rita Rose Mae, are the self-appointed teachers of our Bible school class of 25 children, ages 6 to 10.
Homely as a sack of poultry feed, the two are old maids and prolific spinsters rumored to survive on a tidy income from a single pumping oil well on their farm. It has been a long-standing gambling bet at the Domino Parlor that that gasping little well will give it up. To date, no one has won the wager.
When the holidays come around, the two sisters are rumored to donate a substantial sum to the church. To appease the ladies and keep the money flowing, the kind but timid preacher is forced to let them do what they please. Their pleasure this summer will be teaching Bible school. The preacher will regret this decision.


On the first day of Bible School, our class cut, pasted, and signed 270 prayer cards for the sick and unfortunate children in Africa; quite a feat for 25 kids. Most of us were injured and bleeding from paper cuts and glue poisoning from licking the envelopes. My tongue swelled up the size of a buttery biscuit. The kid beside me glued his lips shut, and Miss Ida had to pry them open with a spoon and a douse of grape Kool-Aid.


Miss Ida sent us outside to lounge under the trees and recover from our stint on her assembly line. There is no recovery; it’s 96 degrees and not a rustle of a breeze, but it’s better than forced child labor.


A black Cadillac sedan stops in front of the church, and an older lady escorts a boy of maybe nine or ten into the main building. The kid wears a black suit, white shirt, and red bow tie. We assume he is here for a funeral or a baptism, but don’t care because it’s too hot to move or think. Miss Ida rings the lunch bell. Yummy peanut butter, grape jelly sandwiches, and lukewarm Kool-Aid await—the usual menu for Bible school attendees.
After we are seated, Miss Ida brings the suited boy to the front of the class. She is beaming like a schoolgirl attending her first prom In a giddy voice, she addresses us,


” Children, I would like to introduce Master Stewart Sweet. His daddy is the famous tent-preaching evangelist and faith healer from San Angelo, the Right and Honorable Doctor I.M. Sweet. Master Stewart will attend our Bible school and lead the children’s Bible study on Sundays for a few weeks. I can assure you that he is quite capable since he has read the Bible three times, all before he was six years of age, and preaches at his father’s tent revivals.” Miss Ida doesn’t know this kid’s back story, nor do we, but it will soon come to light.


As a class, in childish camaraderie, we are unimpressed and instantly dislike this brat. Will this kid, dressed as a department store dummy, preach to us about sin and saving our little souls? At our young age, the worst thing we could have done is tell a few small lies, steal a cookie, or shoot a chicken with a BB Gun. Hell and Damnation are years away for most of us.


Young Master Stewart steps from behind Miss Ida’s table and slams his ten-pound Bible down on the floor so hard it sounds like a firecracker. A few girls in front are shaken and begin to whimper.
The young preacher Stewart raises his hands to the Heavens and launches into a tirade that can only be considered appropriate for adults designated to luncheon with Beelzebub within the hour.


After ten minutes of our first fiery sermon, we are ready to wrap this kid in scotch tape and send him to Africa with the prayer card. Suddenly, he stops and begins to bless our food. He bows his head and, in a reverent whisper, says,


” Dear Lord, these children, wretched little hayseeds that they are, cannot survive on the butter of the Peter Pan and the mush of Welches. They need a substantial amount sustenance so they may be healthy to accept your holy spirit. Starting tomorrow, a glorious feast of grilled sausages wrapped in soft buns, the salad of the potato and the ruby-red fruit of the melon will be their manna from Heaven. Amen.”


Miss Ida is speechless. The little preacher kid has called her food “garbage,” and she has to sit there and take it. The class is now a bit impressed. This kid is good.
The sisters, rattled by Young Sweets’ blessing, need time to recover and devise a plan to send this kid back to San Angelo as soon as possible. So they send the class outside to suffer in the heat again.


Miss Rita delivers the ice cream freezer and instructs two larger boys to start churning for the afternoon dessert. Allowing us to have ice cream may be the only kindness these two witches grant us.


Twenty-five minutes into the churning, the ice cream remains a pitiful mush. Now impatient for their treat, the class gathers around the freezer, demanding an explanation. We are kids and know nothing about how these machines work. You add ice, salt, liquid, and chur. That’s all we know.


Young Stewart parts the crowd and approaches the ice cream freezer. He kneels and places both hands on the contraption. In a soft, almost inaudible voice, he says a small prayer and violently shakes the machine a few times. He rises and declares, “There shall be delectable ice cream in five minutes.” He is right. This ice cream might be the best we have tasted in our young lives. Little Master Stewart fixed the ice cream machine. A girl calls it a miracle.


After ice cream, Miss Ida calls the class for Bible study and a story. Her stories are known to last too long, and kids tend to lose interest and fall asleep. Her voice is that of an older man who smokes two packs of Camels daily — raspy and accentuated by the occasional hack.


Bitsy, the smallest and youngest girl in class, is seated at the front table and is in distress. The new kids in the class are unaware that she has an immobilizing speech defect. She stutters, and her vocabulary is limited to a simple yes or no. The little girl is wide-eyed and squirming in her chair.
Miss Ida knows her problem, and when Bitsy politely raises her hand to request a bathroom visit, Miss Ida insists that she must stand and ask aloud in front of the class. Of course, Bitsy, immobilized with fear and embarrassment, wets her pants. Miss Ida snickers and calls her a little baby child. We all knew these two sisters were mean, but now we know they are darn right evil.


Master Stewart comes from the rear of the class and stops in front of Bits. He turns and gives the two sisters a “stink-eye” that makes them fall back into their chairs, white with fear.
He bends down, takes Bitsy’s head in his tiny hands, and declares,

” Take this affliction from this small child. Purvey upon her the diction of William Shakespeare and the wisdom of Mark Twain. Let her words flow forth like the singing of Doves on the south wind. She will never again stammer or grasp for words and will someday speak to massive gatherings of people who will clamor to hear her message. Amen.”


The class sits in stunned silence. Healing the ice cream machine was a warm-up compared to this. A girl from the back of the room yells, “Thank you, Sweet Baby Jesus.” And there it is: Young Stewart will now be known as Sweet Baby Jesus, or just Sweet Baby for short.


Miss Ida and Miss Rita sit rigidly in their chairs, eyes glazed and staring into nothing. The amount of “stink eye” Stewart, now known as Sweet Baby Jesus, put on them must be compelling.
He approaches the two women, lays his small, soft hands on their wrinkled, sweating foreheads, and mumbles a few words. His back is to the class, so we have no idea what is said. The two evil sisters shiver a few times and awaken from their “stink eye” trance. They stand, gather themselves, and tell the class they are going home. Master Stewart will teach for the duration of the Bible school. They depart the church as if in a zombie trance.


Sweet Baby Jesus takes his Bible, sits on the edge of Miss Idas’ desk, smiles, and says, “Now, let’s hear some real Bible stories straight from the source.” It was a beautiful afternoon full of unexpected laughter and acceptance. For once, we kids found that listening to the word of God from another kid made us feel good, sort of like hot oatmeal on Christmas morning.


The following day, the preacher greets us with the news that young Stewart is back in San Angelo and will teach the class for the remainder of Bible school. Of course, we were sad to see our new Sweet Baby Jesus depart our Bible school. Bitsy, in between constant talking, sniffles, and wishes him the best.
The class wrote a letter to Sweet Baby, thanking him for his kindness to Bitsy and for putting the evil sisters in their place.


I attended the vacation Bible school for a few more summers, but it wasn’t the same without Sweet Baby, and I attended my last one at eight years old.
A few decades later, I read that the Right and Honorable Reverend Stewart Sweet, with assistance from his wife, Bitsy, had established an enormous ministry in Africa and healed everything from Beri-Beri to auto engines.
It looks like Sweet Baby Jesus is still doing a great job.