Keeping with the spirit of Christmas, I am posting a few tales of personal Holiday experiences growing up in the 1950s in Fort Worth, Texas.
The hundreds of hours I wasted thinking about Santa Claus, where he lived, and whether he was happy. Did Mrs. Claus make him hot cocoa and cookies? Does his reindeer live in a lovely barn? How do they fly? Is Rudolph the leader of the pack? Did he get my letters? Was I on the nice or naughty list? Is his spying Elves watching me? These were questions that required an answer. My parents were no help, they would smile and pat my little flat top haircut head.
Santa consumed my life from 4 years old until I turned 9. I was a true believer, a young pilgrim to the point of becoming a child Santa Evangelist. Anyone said something terrible about Santa; it was put up your dukes time or a come to Santa prayer meeting. My younger sister was also a firm believer, but then, she was brainwashed by me, and I was programmed by my parents, grandparents, and the rest of the family.
On Thanksgiving Day, the trickery commenced around our household. First, my mother, the master of deceit, would warn us about the naughty list and what would happen if we were on it. Then it was, ” The Elves are watching you through the windows to see if you’re good.” That’s the one that got to me the most. I had a plan to catch them.
After lights out, I slinked out of bed under the cover of my darkened room. Crawling on my belly like a soldier, I made my way to the nearest window. Back against the wall, I slid up and moved the blinds in a flash, hoping to catch the little guys. Failing to catch one spying on me didn’t deter my mission: I knew they were there and faster on the draw. Santa and his gang were tricky ones.
The annual Christmas visit to Leonard Brothers Department Store in downtown Fort Worth was the ultimate Santa experience. Toyland was akin to holiday Nirvana for us kids. A rocket ship monorail glided around the basement ceiling, kids packed in like sardines on a rocket train to nowhere. Parents rush to purchase presents while the kids are busy, hiding them under their coats or in bags and lying to their innocent children with straight faces.
Santa held his court in the middle of Toyland. His throne was 10 ft. off the ground, with stairs leading up and down. A majestic sight if there ever was one. Sitting in a velvet chair fit for a king while his Elfin helpers lifted the crumb crunchers on and off his lap, it was pure excellence. A line of snot-nosed kids snaked around the room, waiting for their chance to place their order, up the stairs, on the lap for 15 seconds, then off the lap, and down the stairs. The visit was over before you knew what had happened. It was the same routine for years, and I loved it. I could spit out my order in under 10 seconds. Santa and his helpers were impressed.
I asked Santa for a bicycle when I was 9 years old. A red and white machine with side mirrors, streamers, a headlight, and white-side-wall balloon tires. I also asked for a new BB Gun, a larger Cub Scout knife, and a Fanner 50 cap pistol with green stick-um caps. My sister asked him for a doll that was larger than she was and a dollhouse.
Christmas Eve arrived, bedtime rolled around, and we hit the sack. Hot Ovaltine and cookies put me out like a light. Then, sometime after midnight or later, I had to pee. I didn’t want to get up, but the Ovaltine was causing me some discomfort. Half asleep, shuffling down the hallway, I looked into the living room as I passed the doorway. With a Schlitz beer in his hand, my father sat by the tree, assembling a red bike like the one I expected from Santa. My mother was working on a cardboard dollhouse, and the giant doll my sister wanted was standing under the tree, looking creepy.
I convinced myself that Santa must have run out of time and had recruited my parents to complete his work. The reality of the sight escaped me.
My father looked up and saw me standing there; our eyes met, and he smiled like a raccoon caught in a trash can. The jig was up. The big lie was exposed, and my childhood imploded right there in the hallway. Daddy was Santa, and Mom was Mrs. Claus. I peed and made my way back to bed, not comprehending what I had witnessed.
I awakened at daybreak, our usual Christmas morning routine. I was thankful to be awake and away from the nightmare that had gripped me most of the night. I was relieved that it was all caused by the Ovaltine. The gifts were under the tree, and life was good. I loved the bike and the BB Gun, but my sister feared the enormous lifelike doll.
After breakfast, I was lying under the Christmas tree, building an army fort with my plastic soldiers. That’s when I found a Schlitz beer bottle, assembly instructions for a bike, and a few tools.
Tex Styles grilling in the backyard of his Fort Worth, Texas home
After sixteen-year-old Tex Styles is inducted into “The Sons Of The Alamo Lodge,” and gets his big write-up in the Fort Worth Press and a shout-out on the Bobbi Wygant Television show. His status as a “wonder kid” champion griller is increased by ten-fold. So, naturally, everybody wants a piece of Tex, or at least a plate full of his Brisket and sausage.
His face is on the cover of Bonn Appetite magazine and Sports Illustrated, thanks to Dan Jenkins. The Michelin Travel Guide lists him as the top meat griller in America and gives him a five-star rating. Julia Childs is fuming mad.
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are Texas BBQ fans from way back. So, they send Tex an invite to prepare a meat feast at Buckingham Palace; the boy lives in high cotton and cold beer and has not yet graduated high school.
Upon his graduation from Pascal High School in 1968, the Army drafts Tex and sends him to Viet Nam for a visit. His captain happens to be a Fort Worth boy who knows Tex’s hometown celebrity status, which, in turn, gets Tex a gig as the top generals’ chef. He won’t hold a rifle or fire a shot for his two-years tour. Instead, a smoker grill large enough for thirty steaks and ten briskets is his weapon. A color photograph of his boyhood grill instead of the usual Playboy fold-out hangs next to his cot. The general tells his men that he “loves the smell of smoking brisket in the morning.” Tex is an immediate rock star.
Tex used his time in Vietnam wisely by learning exotic cooking techniques from the locals.
For example, a shriveled up old Mama-San educated him on using “Vietnamese Death Peppers,” the hottest pepper in the world. If a man ate one whole, death would occur within twenty minutes, or so the Mama-San said. Tex nibbled a small end piece and was on fire for two days, unable to leave the barracks bathroom, so he figured she wasn’t bullshitting him.
A month of experimentation’s with the “Death Pepper” resulted in an edible and survivable pepper sauce. Tex called it “Davy Crockett’s Ass Canon,” since he is a “Son Of The Alamo” and all that.
He found a local business in Saigon to bottle the product, and a local artist produced an excellent illustrated label for the bottle. It pictures Davy Crockett with his buckskin pants around his ankles, torching Mexican soldiers with a massive fiery flame shooting from his buttocks. In addition, the label said it’s a marinade, a pepper sauce, a medicinal elixir, and a hemorrhoid eradicator. All of this is true, so it’s bound to be a huge hit.
In June 1972, Miss Piddle Sonjair was a nineteen-year-old winner of the “Miss Chigger Bayou Louisiana” contest. Although she is not the prettiest girl entered, she is the only one with a full set of straight white teeth, no baby bump, and doesn’t have a snot-nose kid hanging off her hip, making her the popular winner via unanimous decision.
Piddle holding her Chigger Bayou trophy and a plate of Tex’s brisket
As the newly crowned “Miss Chigger Bayou,” Piddle Sonjair makes her appearance at the “Shreveport Annual Crayfish, Sausage and Meat Smoking Festival,” where she meets handsome Tex Styles as she awards him the winner’s trophy.
She is bug-eyed- shaky-legged enamored with his triple-crusty-peppered Angus brisket and his ten-alarm jalapeno wild boar sausage smothered in his secret chipmunk sauce.
Marriage follows a few months later, then two sons and two daughters round out the Styles family. So naturally, all the kids take to grilling and smoking, just like dear old Dad.
Tex, Piddle, and the children travel the country in their two custom tour bus’s, pulling a 30-foot smoker and grill for the next twenty years. They smoke, grill, and serve the best meats in the south, winning competitions and elevating Tex to legendary status in the grilling world.
His Fort Worth boyhood home, listed in the state historic register, is a traffic-jamming tourist attraction. His first Weber grill is cast in bronze and displayed at Will Rogers Auditorium during the “Fat Stock Show.” Men worldwide come and pay homage to “the masters,” sacred covenant. It’s a moving sight to see grown-assed men weep while kneeling and touching the small grill. It’s one of the top tourist attractions in the south.
Tex is now seventy-two and retired from competitive cooking. The only folks that get a Styles brisket and fixin’s are his select clientele of fifty-plus years and Father Frank, the priest at Our Lady of Perpetual Repentance church of which Tex and Piddle are members in good standing. He has more money than King Faruk, a large home on Lake Granbury, and a cabin in Ruidoso, New Mexico, so he’s in the cooking game for fun.
Ten days before Christmas, Tex gets a call from his old pal Willie “the Red Headed Stranger,” Nelson.
Willie, his family, his band, their families, and numerous relatives and hangers-on have planned a “Santa Claus Pick’in and Grinn’in Christmas” shin-dig at Willies Dripping Springs ranch. Willie has a hankering for a Tex Styles holiday meat feast with all of Miss Piddle’s fancy fixins’.
Tex and Willie exchange the usual howd’ys, and then Willie drops his order.
Expecting around two-hundred-seventy-five people and assorted animals at the shin-dig, Willie needs enough food to satisfy a herd with possible pot munchies and other self-induced disorders.
Willie’s list is a booger bear, and Tex isn’t sure if he and Piddle can fulfill it in time, so he calls in his two sons and a couple of grandkids for backup.
Willie needs 38 each of Tex’s 30-pound “Goodnight Irene Ranch Briskets,” 45 each of West Texas spoon-fed bacon wrapped-beer can pork butts, 35 pounds of San Saba wild pig sausage, and 59 educated and certified free-range smoked chickens, with documentation attached.
All of the sides and fixin’s, are Piddles forte’, and will consist of 175 pounds of “Jacksboro Highway Red Skinned Tater Salad”, 175 pounds of “O.B. Jauns Canobi-Oil Mexican Macaroni Salad”, 120 pounds of high octane Shiner Bock Ranch Style beans, 235 pounds of Piddles special “Nanner Pudding,” 50 gallons of Tex’s secret sweet n’ spicy Chipmunk sauce, and one bottle of ” Davy Crocketts Ass Cannon” hot sauce.
Finally, to wash’er down, 135 gallons of Tex’s unique Dr. Pepper CBD oil-infused sweet tea and 5 commercial coffee urns of Dunkin Donuts Breakfast Blend coffee. The order is too big to ship, so Tex’s fifth grandson and granddaughter will deliver it to the ranch in the Styles family food truck. Money is not a worry for Willie, so he doesn’t discuss cost, which rounds out to be about $18,000 without taxes and tips.
Tex fires up his 30-foot trailer-mounted smoker and three custom-made “Styles Grills.” The next morning. Grandson number 3 unloads a pickup bed full of Mesquite, Peach, and Oak firewood purchased from the “Little Bobs” wood co-op in Eastwood, Texas. Tex won’t use wood or charcoal that doesn’t come from West of Fort Worth; if he suspects it may have come from Dallas or anywhere East of there, he throws it out. He is a Fort Worth boy to a fault.
At midnight, Tex pulls a tester brisket and carts it into the kitchen for a “slice and chew,” checking for tenderness, aroma, and flavor.
When he pulls back the foil wrap, he gasps and stumbles a few steps backward. Piddle hears this and bolts to the kitchen, where she finds a “white as a ghost” Tex sitting in a chair. Thinking he is having “the big one,” she dials 911, but Tex stops the call, assuring her he is alright.
He asks Piddle to join him next to the Brisket, telling her to describe what she sees. After a few seconds, she lets out a hound-dog yelp and crosses herself.
There, on the kitchen counter, resting in a tin-foil boat of succulent juices, sits a 20-pound brisket perfectly shaped like the Virgin Mary holding her baby Jesus. The contour of the torso, the flowing robe, her angelic face, and the little baby in her arms look as if a great master had carved that hunk of beef. Piddle gets all weepy-eyed and announces that this is a “Christmas Miracle Brisket.” Tex takes a picture with his phone and sends it to Father Frank, telling him to get over here now; we may have a miracle on our hands.
An hour later, Father Frank and two Nuns from the rectory view the miracle meat in the kitchen.
Father Frank is skeptical; these things usually happen in Latin America and tend to be the face of Jesus on a tortilla or a piece of burnt toast, not a 20-pound hunk of beef brisket.
The two Nuns intensely study the Brisket for a good thirty minutes. Then, finally, sister Mary and Sister Madgealyn, renowned experts in miracles of all things holy, inform Father Frank that this is the real deal and he should contact the Vatican, stat. So Father Frank dials the Popes’ secure red phone hotline. The Holy Father answers.
The conversation is in Latin and lasts for a few minutes. Then, finally, a bit shook, the good Father hangs up and tells Tex that the Vatican’s special investigation team will arrive tomorrow afternoon and to please hire armed guards to protect the miracle meat. Tex agrees.
Father Frank asks Tex if he might take a tiny slice of the useless burned fat home for religious reasons. Tex cuts a sliver from the back of the meat and wraps it in foil. The nuns, Father Frank, and the miracle sliver depart.
The following day is Sunday, and Tex and Piddle are too busy cooking to attend services. Then, around 1 PM, Father Frank calls Tex and tells him that “we have got a problem.”
Seems that the good Father couldn’t resist a tiny taste of the burned miracle fat before bedtime; he said it was the most Heavenly thing he had ever put into his mouth.
When Father Frank stared into the bathroom mirror this morning, he thought he had died and gone to Heaven. But he was still here, and, instead of a 70-year-old white-haired man in the mirror, a younger version of himself with thick jet black hair and perfect white teeth stared back. His hemorrhoids are gone, his gout is healed, his vision is excellent, his knee’s and hips don’t hurt, he took a dump like a big dog, his skin is as smooth as a baby’s bald head, and he has a woody so hard a cat couldn’t scratch it. This miracle brisket is the real deal for sure. But, Tex senses there is more to the Father’s explanation. So, he presses him for the rest.
Father Frank comes clean and begins to weep like a teenage girl having her period, telling Tex that the experience is a flat-out-miracle, and he was compelled by the all-mighty to share it with his congregation during mass this morning. So, he told them the whole beautiful story. Tex murmured, sum-bitch, and hung up the phone.
Before Tex can get really good and pissed at the good Father, his buddy down the street, Mooch, calls and tells Tex to check his front lawn. “It ain’t good little buddy,” was all Mooch said. News travels like wildfire in a small town, especially if it involves religion.
A hundred or more people sit, lay, stand or take up space in wheelchairs, hospital gurneys, and walkers on the front lawn. The overflow takes up his neighbors front yard.
The block is a traffic jam, and two news trucks from Fort Worth are parked in his driveway, antenna raised and going live. Last night, the two Nuns accompanying Father Frank are now standing on Tex’s front porch, signing autographs and giving fake communion using Goldfish crackers and Sunny Delite grape drink instead of sacraments. The healing circus just hit town.
Two police officers show up. They demand to see Tex’s permit for a gathering of over fifty people and organizing an outside church service. Tex explains there is no church service, but the two nuns giving fake communion show otherwise. The cops write Tex a few tickets and leave.
As soon as the cops depart, the Vatican Special Forces arrive.
Five burly boys in black Georgio Armani suits wearing mirrored aviator sunglasses and sporty Italian Fedoras force themselves into the house. So, naturally, they want the miracle meat. Two black limos with fender flags are parked in front of Tex’s house. The news folks go apocalyptic. Father Frank is curbside giving a live interview to Vatican Television News. It has officially hit the fan.
The main burly boy produces a document printed on expensive Vatican parchment saying that “All Miracles involving God, Jesus, The Virgin Mary, or any relative or likeness thereof on an article of food is the sole property of the Pope and the Catholic Church LLC.” It’s signed by the Pope and has a small picture of him glued next to his signature.
Tex claims bullshit and tells the Pope’s boys to hit the road. Piddle stands in the kitchen doorway, 9mm in hand. Her look says, “don’t mess with a Coon-Ass gal this Brisket ain’t leaving Granbury, Texas.”
The Vatican boys, muttering select Italian curse words, leave in a huff. Tex knows what he is meant to do with the Miracle Brisket.
Willie Nelson sees the news coverage down in Austin and calls Tex on his cell phone. ” I sure could use some of that Miracle Brisket when you deliver my order. The old lumbago and prostate cancer has been acting up and it hurts so bad I can hardly roll a joint or pack my pipe. I’ll be glad to donate a couple of hundred grand to any charity you choose.” Tex says he will send a piece if there is any left. Willie’s word is as good as gold.
Father Frank rushes into the house, arms waving, screaming like a fainting goat. ” What in God’s name have you done you backwoods cow cooking toothless hillbilly? I’m ruined!”
It seems the good Father made a sleazy back door deal with the His Popeness for a secret trip to the Vatican and a fancy appointment to some committee if he delivered the Miracle Brisket to Rome. So, Tex tells the good Father, in a non to gentle way, that the meat is staying in Granbury and will do whatever good it can here at home.
Father Frank yells, ” you double dog crossing sum-bitch,” grabs the two nuns, and they are history. Tex tells them, “don’t let the door hit you in the butt.” He had a feeling that Father Frank was never as holy as he pretended to be, and the nuns were a little flakey.
Tex goes to the kitchen, lays the meat on a cutting board, and slices the Miracle Brisket into tiny slivers, wrapping each morsel in a square of tin foil. He and Piddle then distribute the bites to every person in their front yard that is ill or has an apparent medical condition. He also gives a nibble to his fifteen-year-old dog, McMurtry.
Tex then sends his two sons, his two daughters, grandsons, and granddaughters along with himself and Piddle to every nursing home, mission, physician’s office, memory care facility, hospice, veterinary clinic, and hospital in town with pieces of the Miracle Brisket.
Most years, when I remember, I invite my old buddies to a Christmas lunch at Whataburger. Imagine my surprise when I stopped off for a Number 1 meal, with extra pickles and a Dr Pepper, and ran into my old pal Mooch. I had planned on calling him, but the sticky note fell off the fridge, and Momo sucked it up with her third appendage, also known as a cordless vacuum. I can’t survive a day without sticky note reminders. Plug in the coffee percolator, take meds, wash your face, turn off the burglar alarm system, feed the birds, etc. Life is easier when you have a yellow note lighting the way.
I joined Mooch in our usual booth, third from the entry door, chipped formica on the front edge, and “Jose loves YaYa” carved into the tabletop. Mooch looked all hangdog down in the mouth, which is his usual mood, but his personal pity party didn’t hinder him from stuffing his face with a double order of french fries and a Dr Pepper shake. I knew better than to inquire about his misfortune, but my mouth over-rode my sensible brain, and I asked what was wrong.
Mooch’s troubles stem from his wife, Mrs. Mooch, his son, Mooch Junior, or his foul little demon Chihuahua dog, Giblet. Today, Giblet had the man in a hand-wringing fit of despair. He brushed back a tear with his ketchup-covered napkin and let loose,
” That damn little dog has gone MAGA on me. Now, I kinda like Trump, but I always write in my vote for Ross Perot. The dog watches Fox News on his little TV all day, and some way, he got hold of my credit card number and ordered an official Trump hair piece from the RNC website. My wife sent a picture of him in his little wig to President Trump, and now he’s coming to Granbury to meet the mutt and take him to Chick Fil-A for a lunch visit. The guy from the Presidents office called and said that Trump may have a slot for Giblet in his administration, so now me and Mrs. Mooch will have to move to Washington and put up with all that crap.” I just had to ask him… didn’t I.
I wrote this story in 2012 after a visit to Threadgill’s on Barton Springs Road. During the Armadillo Headquarters days, I often went in and out of Austin and knew many of the musicians responsible for its progressive music scene. No one can remember who, what, or how it started, so why not make it an Armadillo?
A. Dillo influenced a generation of Texas musicians and tunesmiths. On a scorching Saturday in September 1970, a group of dazed and confused hippies found this precocious little Armadillo digging for grubs on the lawn of the state capitol. They were lounging on the grass, sunning themselves, drinking Lone Star beer, and smoking pot, recuperating from a busy week of doing absolutely nothing, which was what they did best.
He was a sad Armadillo, lost and searching for his family unit after being separated from them in Zilker Park a few days earlier during a vicious thunderstorm and a frog-floating flood. A happy reunion was not to be. His mother and father were tits-up on Congress, and his siblings had been lunch for a pack of wild dogs. He was an orphan.
The dazed but kindly hippies were drawn to the friendly little tank. They took him back to their pad just off Congress and raised him as one of their own. He was christened A. Dillo.
One of the more studious hippie chicks in the house was majoring in animal behavior and journalism at the University of Texas and saw a spark of something in the wee critter. Wading into uncharted territory, the twinkle in his tiny red eyes caused the two of them to connect magically. After a few weeks of sputtering starts and misses, she was soon tutoring the ardent little critter in reading and writing.
Within six months, A. Dillo had mastered penmanship and was writing prose. Within a year, he wrote short stories and speeches for the university’s professors and a host of prolific student protesters who hung around the house.
He experimented with strange illicit substances and began hanging out with artist types and deep thinkers, writing about current events, political science, theology, and music with the best of them. He was, in a sense, humanized.
A. Dillo’s popularity grew, and he was invited to give readings of his work at weekend hootenannies, parties, and student gatherings. He was the critter version of Alan Ginsburg.
Being an Armadillo, he had no clothing, only his armored shell, so he employed an artist friend to decorate his tough covering to resemble a fashionable tie-dye t-shirt. He then wore round rose-colored sunglasses and various pins and peace symbols. He was beyond incredibly cool and a perfect fit for Austin. A problem arose within the house. A few of his adopted Bohemian family members harbored a bone of jealousy. Though quietly envious of the little fellow, they accused him of selling out to “the man.” Perplexed and hurt, he asked his tutor who this “man” he sold out to was. She shushed him, explaining it was anyone who did anything better than themselves.
The bad vibes from his former adoring family were a downer, so unable to create and win back their adoration, he packed his few belongings in a Piggly Wiggly grocery bag and returned to Barton Springs and Zilker Park for peace and tranquility among the Oak trees and dancing waters.
While shuffling down Barton Springs Road, he happened upon a recently opened venue called The Armadillo World Headquarters. Delighted to find a place that openly celebrated his kind, he scurried through a hole in the fence and took up residence beneath the beer garden stage, enjoying the clamorous musical atmosphere and the continual supply of spilled Lone Star beer that flowed through the cracks of the wood floor.
A group of guitar-picking musicians who frequented the club’s beer garden befriended A.Dillo, and soon, he was anointed as the “official mascot” of the headquarters. He was cool again but didn’t understand this new scene where long-haired Hippie types wore cowboy hats and listened to country music. He kept copious notes, sensing that a reversal of attitudes was happening. Cowboys and Hippies learning to fraternize in a peaceful manner.
The little poet was inspired by his energizing surroundings and began putting his thoughts and prose to paper. In a moment of trusting innocence, he exposed his talent and shared his library of work with a few of the beer garden musicians, hoping for a morsel of recognition.
The coterie of musicians was so impressed with his talent that, without asking permission, they confiscated his poems and lyrics and made them their own. That this library of written work came from an Armadillo seemed utterly reasonable. After all, it was Austin in the early 70s, and it’s a well-documented fact that if you remember that time, you weren’t really there.
Within a few months, the musicians and wailers at the headquarters were singing songs about Austin and everything Texas. A handful of local artists were drawing A. Dillo’s likeness on their concert posters to promote the rapidly changing musical landscape. The times were a-changing.
Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings took up residence at the headquarters and became the shaggy royal ambassadors of Austin music. It was a heady time for Texas music.
A. Dillo was heartbroken. He had been bamboozled by the “love your brother and sister” preaching musicians, who were scoundrels, thieves, and false profits. His trust had been violated. The soaring soliloquies, his enlightening prose, his ramblings about Texas, all stolen and plagiarized with no hope of recovery. One cruel musician blatantly took his favorite poem and made a song about “Going Home With The Armadillo.” That was the deepest cut of all. He was a broken critter. ” Oh, the pain of it all,” he wailed.
He soon left the headquarters, again packing his Piggly Wiggly bag and stealing away into the night.
A. Dillo returned to his home burrow in Zilker Park. He reconnected with the inhabitants, giving nightly readings of his new poetry to an enthusiastic and adoring crowd. He was elevated to Homeric status among the park’s animal population, and his name was known to all creatures. He was at peace with himself and his life.
A. Dillo was the unappreciated spark of inspiration for Austin’s progressive music scene of the 1970s. Without his influence and the spread of his stolen words, tunesmiths, musicians, and vocalist all over Austin would still be writing and singing those dreary Three-chord hillbilly songs or tripping out to psychedelic brain fuzz. Jerry Jeff, Willie, Waylon, and the boys would have needed to seek inspiration elsewhere, and the city would not have evolved into Austin as we know it today.
Tall tales have it that some years later, on a stormy night similar to the one that started his journey, A. Dillo was hit by a vehicle while attempting to cross Barton Springs Road.
An elderly lady living in the Shady Grove trailer park scooped up his remains and fed them to her two Chihuahuas. She used the decorated shell as a planter, adorning the steps of her Air-Stream trailer.
The small shell’s bright colors faded over time and sat on the steps of that old trailer for decades. Couples with gray hair walking to one of the many restaurants on the street, grandchildren and dogs in tow, would sometimes notice the shell full of colorful flowers and pause to take a photo. Austinites who had known the little poet or knew the legend would approach the unassuming shrine and pay homage, explaining to their grandchildren the true story of the “real father” of Austin music.
I am not pretending to be a sports writer. No, sir, my knowledge of football and the NFL is as sparse as a Teralingua lawn. I possess the cutting humor—or maybe it’s cutting-edge angst—that allows me to see the man behind the green curtain and pay attention to what he does and doesn’t do.
It’s been almost thirty years since America’s team has been to a Super Bowl game. Still, I would bet the owner, Jerry “Smiley” Jones, has attended more than a few super bowl parties in his ostentatious Dallas neighborhood of Highland Park. The day that smirking hillbilly with a gold card bought my team, the Dallas Cowboys, and fired the legendary Tom Landry was a low point for that shining turd on the hill, known as Dallas, Texas. Landry was almost a saint, a winged Arch Angel in a grey fedora that stalked the sidelines like a lion, pushing his team to victory with a blend of tough love and radar-melting glares. If Landry didn’t like you, no one would. The man should have been allowed to resign instead of a quick meeting and a handful of traveling papers. Smiley Jones, the new owner of the team and the son of Jed Clampett and Ma Kettle drove into Dallas with furniture tied to his Mercedes and grandma strapped to the roof. It’s been a shavit show since.
Jimmy Johnson clashed with Jones from day one. Johnson was a football man, a brilliant coach, and had the best hairstyle in the NFL. Jones was a wannabe coach who knew nothing about football, so the mating was bound to go sour, and it did, but only after a few Super Bowls. Barry Switzer took over and coasted across the finish line for another shiny trophy. Then Jones took over, and the team has been complete crap since. The Cowgirls are on track to deliver their worst season after paying a mediocre, nice guy quarterback 60 million a year for life. Prescott is a has-been; the money has taken over his brain, and he doesn’t care; he’s got the money, and Smiley doesn’t have shavit to show for it. The days of wine and roses are over for the Jones family. What is sad is that after Jerry is laid to rest, there are two more sons, a daughter, and a surgically enhanced wife to take the helm, which should put the city out of its misery.
I wrote this post some years back, but I want to share it again with my faithful blogging friends. Halloween is not just for kids.
I did something last night that surprised me, and that’s always good. I watched ” Its The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown,” the proverbial 1960s Halloween show.
Seeing the old Peanuts gang looking so healthy and young was comforting. Pig Pen and Linus are still my favorites. Charlie Brown has a defeatist attitude, so I never got into him. While watching that program, I told my wife, Maureen, that it rejuvenated my interest in Halloween and trick-or-treating. Things are going to be different this year, I declared.
As a child, I fondly remember the anticipation of Halloween. When October 1st arrived, the kids in my neighborhood counted the days until Halloween. Back in the day (the 1950s), we celebrated Halloween on the actual date and did our begging on that evening, in the dark, even if it was a school night. We were tough kids back then, staying up late and going to school the next day. We didn’t need a weekend to recover and didn’t know what a safe room was. Trick-or-treating was damn serious stuff for us, and we were good at it.
In a fit of nostalgia, I announced to my wife that I would go trick-or-treating this year. She is going along with the idea as if I am joking. I tell her I am not, and she can hide and watch. As for a costume, I will wear a black t-shirt, a black jacket, jeans and sneakers, and possibly a Texas Rangers ball cap if the weather is inclement. I will not carry a glow stick or a flashlight; that’s for babies. If I can’t find a group of kids to walk with, I will trudge on by myself. I am determined to experience one last Halloween before that tall, robe-wearing dude with a sickle knock on my door. This has evolved into a bucket list thing, and I must see it through.
I have given this some thought and have worked out the perfect plan accepted in today’s society. When I ring the first doorbell, and a smiling man or woman answers, I will say trick-or-treat, holding their candy bowl. Their first reaction will be to say, “where’s your grandkid, or what the hell is this.” Either one, I’m ready. I will look them straight in their parental eye and say, ” I identify as a 6-year-old.” I will come home with a full bag of goodies or bond out of jail. It’s going to be a good Halloween this year.
With my grandmother, Bertha, now sober from her curious but legal elixirs, the Strawns greeted each day with the sun smiling through their kitchen window and robins launching into song like miniaturized opera stars: even Lady, the family Terrier, found a pal in the backyard squirrel named Little Nutbreath, a name that rolled off the tongue as easily as whiskey.
Now, the one pesky habit Sister Aimee couldn’t shake was her ceaseless missives to the sisters and friends she’d left behind in Texas. Each innocent hello morphed into a screenplay or a short novella, bursting at the seams with bravado but lacking even a whisper of truth from her ink-stained fingers. That woman could ruin a nice Parker fountain pen faster than a sailor could down a rum, and her right arm took on the brawn of Popeye the Sailor Man, ready to box anyone who dared challenge her. Norma and Johnny intercepted as many as possible, but the lion’s share slipped out of California like a secret lover in the night.
John Henry gifted Bertha a well-used typewriter, cheaper than the dozens of fountain pens. One novella, typed out on that clunky machine, landed on the executive’s desk at RKO Studios like a drunken sailor falling off a barstool. Bertha, bless her heart, sent the same tale to every big studio and received naught but indifferent glances in return. But this executive, searching for a breath of fresh air amidst the stale smoke of Hollywood hype, passed her little novella around like it was a shot of low-quality whiskey, but it might be drinkable. They extended her a contract—five hundred dollars, cold and hard, American cash. The family thought it was a cruel prank, perhaps RKO was tipsy, or just mean to a poor soul like Bertha. John Henry, ever the practical one, sought his boss’s advice, and the wise man assured him the offer was the real deal. They signed their names, returned it, and waited like a fisherman with a line cast out on a lazy afternoon. Days shuffled by, and then a courier showed up at the door, handing Bertha a certified check—a blessing or a curse, it was hard to tell. Could lightning strike twice in the same spot? Her tale, a wild ride of a detective couple and their scrappy little terrier turned into a screenplay and a film, but my grandmother, wise yet weary, never pocketed a nickel more, caught in the trap of a contract filled with weasel words.
Rantings Of an Elderly Man That Has lost all filters and doesn’t give a damn if I ever get them back….
Let me set this writ straight from the start: I am not a union supporter and never have been. When I was building multiple projects at the Mall Of America in the early 90s, the local labor unions threatened me and my family with death numerous times. Tires slashed late-night phone threats and everything you could imagine if my employer, a Texas company, and I did not comply with their Nazi commands. This was in Minneapolis, Minnesota, supposedly America’s friendliest state; if you believe that whispering downhome wolf in a sheepskin suit, Garrison Keillor, the hometown boy, made good, then exposed as the unvirtuous butt-pinching bad boy of small-town America.
The longshoremen are shutting down the country because a forklift driver’s six-figure income is insufficient. The average income for a hardworking American is 58K. And a man driving a forklift on a dock is worth over three times that? Since when did our country go full “batshit crazy?”I would guess it was around when the sainted Franklin D. Roosevelt was crowned president for what he envisioned as a lifetime. An elitist northerner sporting a lilted half-European accent that smoked his ciggies in a pearl holder and humped more willing women than JFK could dream of. He was a cad, but considering the almost canine looks of his genius wife, I could throw him a bone: Sorry for the apparent cheap joke.
Momo and I are trekking to the HEB tomorrow to stock up on whatever is left. The panic buying is upon us like a flock of city park Ducks on a single Junebug.: my condolences to the dearly departed ducks in Springfield Ohio. Ordinary women in far-too-skin-tight leggings fight in the aisles over toilet paper, face moisturizers, wine, Mountain Dew, and Rice A Roni, the San Francisco treat. Down here in Texas, we won’t put up with that crap in the Northeast. We have plenty of farms with fresh produce, hordes of cows, pigs, and fish, feral pigs, feral cats and dogs, and feral people, and if we don’t have it, we will invade Mexico and take it. Why not? They have already invaded us.
Did I say too much? Probably. If you have any significant complaints, call me at BR-549 and ask for Junior.
I’ve recently sprouted a beard, and much to my surprise, not a single dark hair dares to intrude upon my snowy facial wilderness: the scruffy testament to my frothy mirth matches the proud hue atop my head, a delicate white crown. As a son of Cherokee lineage, I stood astonished, finding myself transforming into an old man with pearly locks in my forties. This change, I suspect, is the handiwork of my father’s Scotch-Irish heritage—a rowdy clan of kilted revelers who seemed to navigate life with laughter and a touch of mischief. They must have commandeered a ship, setting sail for New York, then onto Pennsylvania, where the merry-making reached promising heights. My grandfather would neither confirm nor deny the wild tales of our kin. This speaks volumes about my love for Irish Whiskey, while the Cherokee blood in my veins draws me to large, sharp knives. Hand a drink to an Indian, and trouble isn’t far behind. History whispers of how Little Bighorn ended for Custer. Loose chatter suggests that Sitting Bull and Howling Wolf snagged a wagon load of drink the night before the fray, bestowing upon the braves a reckless spirit. Had they chosen an early night with a hearty breakfast of Buffalo tacos, perhaps the bloody disaster would have been averted.
As a boy of nine, I dreamt of writing like Twain. In my innocence, I thought I was his spirit reborn, dropped into a different time: September of 1949, the last year of the baby boomer generation. With a Big Chief Tablet and a number 2 pencil, I set out to capture the simple chaos of childhood mischief. There were four of us, bold and reckless, stealing cigarettes, hurling water balloons at police cars, and fighting with the tough kids across the tracks. The local papers laughed at my tales as if a child’s imagination could not hold weight. My aunt, wise and educated, introduced me to Spillane and Steinbeck. Spillane turned me into a wise-ass, insufferable child, resulting in numerous mouth cleansings with Lifeboy soap. Steinbeck felt right—my family had lived a life like Tom Joad’s, migrating to California during hard times of the Dust Bowl and the 1930s. I had stories in me, maybe even a book. A therapist dismissed it as a childish fantasy, saying it would fade. Yet here I am, much older, still tethered to that innocence. Now, I’m in my Hemingway phase, my looks echoing the rugged man who lived wild in Cuba, writing furiously while embracing the chaos of life.
There is more sand in the bottom of my hourglass than in the top. I feel the end approaching. I do not wish to know the day or hour. I can only pray it is a good one, resulting in a trip to Heaven, which is better than the alternative. I am not the writer Twain, Steinbeck, or Hemingway was. They had talent, and they had time from youth to hone their craft and find their voices. Yet, I will still give it a try.
I realize my thoughts might carry as much weight as a thimble in a swimming pool, but at 75, I’ve witnessed more ups and downs than a cheap roller coaster. Lately, though, it feels like our dear old blue planet has taken a wrong turn and is spinning like a top on a greased floor, sending everything straight into a comical disaster!
Momo whisked me away to a swanky birthday supper at a place called 1890—how fancy! We had previously visited there, of course, but on that occasion, our wallets had us seated in the bar, indulging in a drink and a wedge salad that could barely fill a mouse’s stomach. This time, however, we plopped ourselves into the big boy chairs adorned with linen tablecloths and sparkling silverware that made us feel like we were pretending to be someone important. Our waiter—his name was a puzzler, something foreign that I couldn’t grasp, yet I distinctly recall his well-groomed beard and a whiff of patchouli oil wafting about him. It took me back to our youthful days as hippies in the 70s when that scent was all the rage with the hairy-legged hippie chicks. Momo went for a steak that could challenge a cow in size while I, with an empty wallet echoing my woes, settled for saltines slathered in butter and Tabasco—gourmet, I assure you! As we departed, stomachs full and wallet depleted, we spotted a black Greyhound-style bus parked at the courthouse. We mused that perhaps a country band was visiting our quaint township for a hearty meal. But lo and behold, when the door flung open, cats erupted like confetti, scattering everywhere—hundreds, I’d wager, taking over the square as if they owned the place. Nuns, dressed in their required uniform, handed out squeaky toys, kitty litter, and catnip to placate the new arrivals. Curious, I asked the driver what on earth was happening. With a grin, he informed me that the SPCA was orchestrating a rescue mission, whisking away all the cats and some distressed dogs from Springfield, Ohio, to Texas. It was, he said, a noble endeavor backed by a contingent of single cat ladies and a handful of purified nuns forever wed to their feline friends.
Football players are often regarded as the dimmest bulbs in the grand carnival of manly athletics, a parade of brawn where a surplus of testosterone is the secret sauce for getting through the heavy lifting of life. Picture, if you will, poor Travis Kelce, relegated to the bench like a discarded plaything, wearing the kind of woeful hang-dog expression that could bring tears to a Confederate statue. Ah, but even Neanderthals have their emotions, and it seems the Swift One is tucked away in her plush hotel suite, likely crafting a breakup ballad that might just capture the essence of their fleeting romance, a tale as old as time and yet as fresh as a morning breeze. Young love is a fleeting aura that departs on the fickle winds of gastronomical flatulence. He should have taken the strenuous advice of friends and whisked her off to a tar paper shack in deep Appalachia and kept her barefoot and pregnant with annoying little swifties playing small plastic Ukelales.
Notes From The Cactus Patch 