Category: Fort Worth Texas

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Larry McMurtry Made Me Crazy


This coming Wednesday, July 27th, my wife and I are driving to Colorado Springs to visit her daughter and family. New transplants from Fort Worth, Texas to the liberal and hip state of legal pot and “mile-high-hipsters.” We are making a bucket list stop along the way to the small Texas town of Archer City.

My wife Mo, is accomodating, but she thinks the head injury I suffered two years ago has effected my mental priorities. “What the hell is an Archer City?” she asked. I can’t explain without choking up. How can a writer explain the reverance of visiting the holy grail of litature. I get so excited, I piss my pants a bit, but that’s because I am 73 years old and cancer did a whammy on me.

For the illiterate non-book readers who are followers of my blog, Archer City is the hometown, and for 70 years, the home to one of the greatest authors in American literature; Larry McMurtry.

Born, raised, and recently died there, he is the fair-haired favorite son that put this one red-light town on the map. A true son of Texas that accepted his many awards in jeans and Justin boots. He may have lived in New York City for a spell, but he got back to Texas as soon as he could. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his book “Lonesome Dove” in 1986. A good ole boy from hicksville Texas writing about the famous cattle drive inspired by Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving, both legendary and larger than life figures in the old west; bet it pissed those Swedes off but good.

Like many great novelist, he was an educater at North Texas State and Rice University; but I don’t hold that against him. He wrote on a portable typewriter and didn’t own a computer or a cell phone. He could play the rube with the toothpick in his teeth then write an essay that would bring tears to a grown mans eye. He also kept a rebelious streak in his back pocket as he was one of the Merry Pranksters along with Ken Kesey and his Acid Test for a few days when the circus stopped at his home in Houston. He said the LSD made him a tad anxious and preferred whiskey. For reasons unknown, in his last years, he married Ken Keseys widow and moved her to Archer City.

One of his novels, “The Last Picture Show” was a Peter Bogdonovich movie that raised a public ruckus in 1971 for the nudity and taboo liason between a high school football player an the coaches wife. A young Cybil Shepard even showed her little titties in a swimming pool scene. Good Lord.

The cast of characters in his books was drawn from the townspeople he grew up with and even with the slightest of name changes, they were easily recognized and plenty pissed until the movie and books put their one horse town on the tourist map. The movie was shot in black and white and filmed in a ramshackle Archer City which took on the 1950 look and name of “Thalia, Texas.”

As in many of his books, the places folks spent their time was at the Pool Hall, The Kwik Shack, The Movie Theater and the Dairy Queen. I plan to visit his book store, “Booked Up,” and of course have a burger and a shake at the famous Dairy Queen. One more thing striked off my bucket list. Who knows; I might see Jacy and Duane eating a chicken fried.

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In Search Of My Family History; Didn’t My Mother Own A Pen and A Sheet Of Paper?


Left foreground: Terry The Terrier, Uncle Jack, My Grandmother, My Grandfather, and my Aunt Norma

I am dismayed that the numerous members of my father’s and mother’s families didn’t have the foresight to record their family history for future generations. So there we were, a passel of kids that would grow up to have our own passel of children, but not a paragraph or a sentence was penned for historical value. For all we knew, the entire gang of us were adopted from the Masonic Home.

A note in an old bible or a scribble on the back of an old picture. Who is the old farmwife holding a baby goat in front of a ramshackle barn in 1935? She may as well have been Ma Joad.

Ancestry has been no help, I know where my father’s family came from; England, Ireland, and Scotland; via ships with vast yards of sails, they made landfall in New York, kissed the Statue of Liberty, and then on to Pennsylvania, and points west these were men and women of Celtic origin, who could handle a sword and drank Jameson Irish Whiskey instead of water. They were the refugees of the potato famine and the Catholic-Protestant conflict that still rages today.

My mother’s family is vague, shrouded in indigenous Indian mythical mystery. Relatives who grew up on the Cherokee Indian Reservations, also known as The Indian Nation in Oklahoma and Arkansas.

These folks lived in Buffalo skin teepees and log cabins and hunted for their food, and there are rumors they killed more than a few white settlers. My grandmother had a large mass of human hair she claimed was a scalp her father took during a raiding party; she would bring it out at Christmas to add drama to the children’s holiday.

From what I’ve been told, my great-grandmother had a serious “thang” with the violent but educated Cherokee Chief Quannah Parker, and that “thang” is still a family mystery. Still, my grandmother looked like him, so the family story calls us relations. There may have been more than holding hands in the moonlight on the banks of the Canadian River.

Belle Starr, the infamous outlaw gal, is another relation on my mother’s side. My grandmother said she never intentionally shot anyone but did shoot her husband’s pinky toe off when he wouldn’t help dry the supper dishes Dime Novels made a fortune off of her antics.

Belle was a larger-than-life fixture residing in the old Fort Worth district known as “Hell’s Half Acre.” Butch, Sundance, and Etta Place were her drinking partners, and it’s rumored that she could out-shoot Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill, who also had a “thang” for Belle. The famous quick draw Sherriff Jim Coulter was puppy-love sick for her, but he knew she could likely out-draw him, so he loved her from afar.

A famous uncle also worked as a US Marshall out of Fort Smith, Arkansas, and rode with the legendary black marshall, Bass Reeves. Bass handled a Colt 44 as gracefully as a forkful of steak and taters. Unfortunately, he had to replace the handles on his pistols twice after he ran out of room for the notches related to the count of bandits he had plugged. The uncle in question was likely the model for the character July Johnson in Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “Lonesome Dove.” I’m waiting for confirmation that I may be related to Will Rogers, Sasquatch, Blue Duck, and Amelia Earhart.

I was a teenager when I heard one of the better stories from within the family. My mother’s brother’s wife shot and “more than killed” their only daughter’s mean-spirited husband during an “Old Crow” inspired confrontation of which there were many. The old gal shot her son-in-law three times in the chest with a 38 Police Special and then once more in the head, just to ensure he wouldn’t get up. She got off in self-defense. However, the thoroughly dead fellow was unarmed and stupid drunk.

The famous weapon hung on the wall in a framed case, still loaded with the two remaining bullets. Family badges of honor come in all forms.

For me, time is of the essence because it’s running out. I hope to complete some family history for my grandchildren by Christmas. It may not be pretty, but it will be a good read.

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A Reader Shall Never Be Illiterate


Back in those magical 1950s, Texas had a law that a child couldn’t start first grade unless they were six years old on or before September 1st, the standard start of the school year. So my birthday came on September 17th, rendering me ineligible for formal education.

As my neighborhood friends marched down the sidewalk in their new school clothes, off to George C. Clark Elementry, I stood on the front porch feeling like life was passing me by. In a way, it was, and for a kid, the slightest things seem dramatic.

My Mother and my aunt Norma hatched a plan. They got their hands on two years of Dick and Jane books. First and second-grade editions that taught kids to read. Within a few months, I was a reading machine, having breezed through the books learning to read and then write in the lined notebooks used in school. My Mother and Aunt Norma were determined that I would enter the first grade on a third-grade level. I suffered through the year of drills and teaching techniques, but I emerged a better student for it.

My aunt Norma, a crazed reader, introduced me, by reading me, Micky Spillane, Zane Gray, and a long line of pulp fiction paperbacks that in a decent world should have been off limits to a kid my age. Murder, mayhem, sex, and salacious behaviors seemed normal to me before the age of seven. ” Mike Hammer stood in the doorway as the cool redhead dropped her robe to the floor exposing her watoness to the hardened detective.” What kid reads that crap? It seemed normal to me.

Entering the first grade, my teacher was perplexed by my abilities. I had already advanced to the third-grade level of reading and cursive writing. She assumed I was an idiot savant and recommended I be sent to a special school for mal-adjusted children. Fortunately, my Mother and aunt intervened and explained the situation and their tutorial extensions. I was saved and allowed to attend classes with my peers, even though I was bored and apt to nap most of the day. My teacher asked the class about their favorite Dick and Jane book, and I explained that Mickey Spillane was my most endured famous writer, along with Mark Twain, of who I wanted to become. An hour in the principal’s office did nothing to deter me from my goals or abilities. Once again, I was on the savant list; and another conference was convened on my behalf. With no kindergarten in those days, kids were expected to trod along at a slow pace and learn as a group at that level. My additional year at home had allowed me to surpass in the form of hyper-speed, eclipsing my peers that were by no means ignorant but only learning at the average speed expected.

By fourth grade, I had read Mark Twain’s collection of works and started on “The Grapes of Wrath.” I didn’t grasp many of Steinbeck’s words and his sentence structure, but in all, I got the jest of the story because my grandparents had been the Okies that traveled to California and did the fruit and vegetable picking Steinbeck wrote of. Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, Gertrude Stien, and F. Scott Fitzgerald found me. I was ruined for life. Dick and Jane were nothing but fodder for a good winter fire in our hearth.

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A Special Rant From The Cactus Patch


Good Lord in Heaven, the news flashed a moment ago that Biden is sending the oil from our national reserves to China instead of using it to lower the cost at the pump.

“Just Go Buy That Electric Car,” I ask you, what kind of man, much less a president does something like this? Perhaps because he is secure in China’s back pocket because of his sons’ dirty dealings, from which he undoubtedly benefited? Maybe dementia has altered his state of reality and he is of the mind of a child? Doe’s the Democratic Party not have a clear-thinking member that opposes the ruination of this country? All valid questions, and I am but one of the millions with like thoughts.

” Silence Is Not Golden,” although the Tremeloes had a great hit with that term. Why has the Republican Party not offered answers to their constituents? Where are the press conferences and full-page newspaper ads? The gonads of McConnell, Medows and a dozen other so-called leaders are safe in a drawer in their bedroom credenza. Most likely next to their useless pricks, which renders them, useless Eunuchs. Our saving grace may be some of the firebrand female senators that pack a pistol on each hip and mean business.

How does the majority of America receive its news? Good old NBC Lester Holt, the metrosexual young man on ABC, and that green-eyed red-headed pronoun devil on CBS, an avowed conservative Christian hater, although her family all served in the military. She is a contradiction.

There is Fox and Newsmax for conservatives, then the rest of us peons watch the three-letter networks or Google, or Yahoo, or the hundreds of leftist sites that populate the net. It’s an orchestrated effort to feed the population a constant flow of misinformation. Biden’s almost cute little Nazi misinformation Frau didn’t last a full week. She was yet another of his appointments with no experience in anything except producing sing-song Tik Tok videos. To date, AOC is the only one to successfully pull it off, only because her voting base in her hood is as moronic as she is.

Who is the wizard behind the green curtain? Soros, Biden, Pelosi? The Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Man? More than likely it is a combination of Obama, Hillary, Eric Holder, and Susan Rice, all with direct lines to the Biden residence. Scoff if you may, but I might be right, based on what I have read in and between the lines. Of all the experts in written media, Victor Davis Hansen may be the most accurate. His assessments and predictions are spot on and should keep us awake at night.

” Come And Take It,” is the flag waved by the outnumbered Texans during the battle of Gonzolaz against the Mexican army. Our illustrious pontificating governor should learn a thing or two from our history, starting with that flag. So the DOJ is filing suit against Texas declaring our border an invasion from a foreign power. It is exactly that and more. Let Merrick Garland and his lackeys try and stop us. They are chickenshit at best. Mexico’s government shrugs their shoulders, “no english” they say. The hordes keep marching to the castle walls with no end in sight. Abbott had a good idea when he held up the trucks at the border, he should reinstate that law. A large chunk of Mexico’s economy is ” Western Union” money from illegals in our country. Halt that and see how fast President Pedro does the sideways shuffle and puts on the brakes. How about our National Guard with a shoot-to-kill order on anyone that resembles a Cartel or drug mule? Maybe some well-placed Texas militia in the scrub brush? That sounds drastic and cruel, but we are eons past the point of civility. This is a war against our country. As in Washington, under the current administration of our once proud state of Texas, the sons of the Alamo have been silenced. It’s heartbreaking.

“Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl?” The sixties group “The Barbarians” had it right over 50 years ago. A tongue-in-cheek jab at our parent’s generation of intolerance. It was a catchy tune that if revived today, would likely become a breakthrough hit. If a boy wants to dress up and play Girlie-Girl and a girl wants to dress up and play Manley-Man, then do it. Don’t expect special treatment or rights from the rest of us, except maybe a butt whooping once in a while. We all played cowboys and Indians back in the 50s, and none of us grew up to be Roy Rogers or Tonto; well maybe a few of my friends did. My childhood friend Billy Roy grew up to be the Texas version of Pretty Boy Floyd and spent his entire life on the dope farm in West Fort Worth. I also had a cousin that dressed like a woman and robbed a Piggley Wiggley, but he got off after pleading insanity. The judge sent him to live in Dallas…nuff said.

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“The Supremes Have A Number One Hit!” Musings From The Cactus Patch


Photo courtesy of Jill Biden

The Supreme Court, also affectionately known as “The Supremes,” has a “number one hit” with their upholding of the second amendment, which is part of our constitution. Six judges voted to uphold and three voted against, which means they are against upholding the constitution, the main document they are supposed to protect and follow. It will be illuminating to see how the court acts on other issues coming next week. I’m anticipating Diana Ross throwing a hissy-fit.

The liberal and radical left will naturally set social media on fire and organize protests peppered with violence. What a glorious sight it will be to see hundreds of little college-educated snowflakes running down the street with their hair ablaze. I can’t wait.

“The Biden White House is telling the peasants to purchase a $60,000+ electric vehicle and stop complaining about $5+ a gallon gas.” This comes from Karine Jean-Pierre, the young, highly educated, and perfect black-lesbian-immigrant-press secretary. For a change, she had to answer some tough questions from the reporters and folded like a cheap Walmart lawn chair. Her usual response to anything of substance is; “gaze upon my black lesbian perfection, I am an African goddess.” Yes, she might be all of those, but she is also a total moron. Infrastructure to support electric vehicles is still two to three decades away.

Did anyone notice good ole’ Lester Holt on NBC news last night? He was interviewing someone and he used the term “circle back” with the guest. Come on Lester, you are better than that.

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“Weather Days and Weather Nights”


A few nights back, I was awakened by bright static flashes against my eyelids. Lightening from afar brings a storm.

I lay in my bed, eyes now open for most of an hour, cataloging the most intense flashes through the window curtains, waiting for the following thunder to announce the wind and rain. The anticipation of a storm is pure dope for a weather nerd. I’ve been addicted for most of my life.

The television weather folk had been hawking this storm for days prior. Warnings, interviews with people on the street, getting every drop of drama out of their forecast. The cute weatherwomen and stern weathermen called for Apocalyptic conditions favorable for tornadoes and various end times hi-jinx. This would be no more than a typical spring supercell thunderstorm. Texans take their weather as seriously as the Alamo, Willie Nelson, and BBQ.

It’s a well-known semi-historical fact that Colonel William Barrett Travis predicted the cold and rainy weather during the siege of the Alamo. General Santa Anna, relying on his hungover weathermen, expected spring break conditions in San Antonio, and didn’t dress accordingly.

My first solid memory of bad weather happened when my grandmother carried me into her storm cellar as a vicious thunderstorm attacked the family farm; I was four years old. Every summer after that, there were numerous trips to the safety of that dank dirt storm cellar. Two cots, a pile of quilts, and a kerosene lamp were enough to see us through a siege. Shelves of canned fruit and vegetables lined the walls. Winters food pantry for when the land is at rest and for us to dine if the storm lasted more than a day.

If you are a farmer in Texas, the weather “is your life.” It will make or break your crop season with no warnings or apologies.

My Grandfather was a typical old-school pioneer farmer that possessed an active and painful weather bone in his left leg and a working man’s knowledge of the stratosphere. My grandmother was equally blessed with a pinky toe that swelled when a storm was brewing. Together, not much got past the two.

Grandmother would stare at a tiny cloud in a pure blue sky and remark, ” it’s gonna come up a cloud tonight.” She was rarely wrong.

During my summer visits to the farm, against my young will, I was dragged by my Grandfather to the domino parlor daily and subjected to hours of bullshit and weather talk from the old farmers in Santa Anna, Texas.

Old men in straw hats, bib overalls, and a cheek full of Redman tobacco ruled the world in those times. It was all about the weather and when will it come, how bad will it be, and how much rain could be expected? I usually fell asleep with drool running down my cheek after an hour. Then, it was back to the farm while my grandmother limped around the house because her weather toe was swollen. Good Lord. The family was a meteorological wreck.

Thank God, the family gene skipped my sister and me, so we depend on our local televisions weather personalities.

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“Be Careful, What You Eat May Cause Something Else To Kill You”


Two nights ago, my wife ate spicy food for supper. I noticed she tossed more than usual during our 8-hour sleep and yelped a few times. Likely a nightmare.

Over our morning cup of coffee, she says that in her dreams, she was attacked by thousands of small snakes that had found their way into our home.

I told her it was likely the spicy food nightmare syndrome. I had heard this explanation on Dr. Phil, or maybe it was Dr. Oz, or perhaps in the checkout line at the grocery, but it was from specialists that tend to know these things. She thanked me for my observation and threw away the Salsa and the leftover packed in Tupperware.

Her dream jogged my memory, which at this age, is welcomed. I am fortunate to have a street-rat-crazy family on my father’s side, so many stories are waiting to be recounted.

Back in the mid-fifties, my late father’s late cousin, Woody, and his late wife, Zennia, lived at the end of a gravel road named “Jungle Lane.” The street was a perfect fit for Zennia, a prolific collector of tropical plants, resulting in her house looking more of a Tarzan movie set than a home. She was also a Tarot card madam, an amateur Botanist, and an aromatherapist. Woody worked as a plumber and mowed the yard.

Zennia orders a rare and deadly plant from her favorite magazine, “Plants Have Feelings Too.” It’s shipped from Burma by boat and will arrive in Fort Worth in June.

The plant arrives via delivery truck on June 15th. Lush and green with large leaves drooping to the floor, the plant is a monster standing at 7 ft and weighing in at 100 pounds. Two men and a dolly struggled to place the beast in Zennia’s living room.

Zennia, being quite the chef, prepares a Burmese dish of Pork Chunks on a bamboo Stick with wafting brown rice and grilled organic vegetables to celebrate the new arrival. She made good use of the sacred Burmese Eden’s Wort, a rare jungle spice made from the powdered bark of the even more rare Eden tree. Woody hates spicy foods and eats a Bologna sandwich and a beer.

Full of Pearl beer, Bologna and Pork Chunks, the two retired early.

Woody, always the early riser, makes his way to the kitchen around 5:30 am, brews a pot of coffee, and returns to the bedroom with a cup for Zennia. Then, switching on the bedside lamp, he screams and drops both cups of coffee, breaking Zennia’s favorite Howdy Doody cup and scalding both feet.

Zennia lay peacefully on her back, hair rolled in Spoolies, wearing her favorite flannel jammies. The once lovely face is swollen and blueish. A large green snake is coiled around her neck, flicking its forked tongue and hissing at Woody.

Zennia is a goner. Woody can do nothing for her, so he contacts the police and asked them to please bring an ambulance and someone from the Zoo; his wife was murdered by a large snake. He thought about shooting the snake with his 12 gauge, but then it would have made a mess of poor Zennia’s face, and then the relatives would have a shit-fit at her funeral because she was messed up. So he decided to let the police and the zoo folks take care of the reptile. He thought Zennia might be pulling a stunt so he poked her leg. The reptile tried to bite him. No stunt. She’s dead. He notices the snake has blue eyes.

Four police officers, two ambulance attendants, a Herpitoligist from the Fort Worth Zoo, and the coroner with a ride-along priest show up thirty minutes later. The few neighbors on the block stand watching the show.

The policemen and the coroner confirms that Zennia died from acute strangulation caused by the constricting movements of the murderous snake. The Herpitoligist said it’s a Burmese Python, but not just any regular one. This is the rare ten-banded, articulating, shape-shifting, smooth-skinned, blue-eyed deadly poisonous “Garden of Eden Python,” a direct descendent of the evil viper that tempted Adam and Eve. Only three are believed to be left alive, and the reptiles can live up to 800 years, and of course, they are endangered and carry a high fine of 10 grand if the serpent is harmed or upset. The priest says that since Adam and Eve are involved and the Bible, the Holy Father in Rome should know of this discovery. It is now gone Biblical.

The Herpatoligist says the snake was likely hiding in the plant when it shipped from Burma and was appraising its new habitat when he found poor sleeping Zennia. Most likely, it was attracted to the odor of the Burmese spices used during supper. The Burmese Eden Tree is the preferred habitat of the deadly reptile, so the spice made it feel right at home. Having not eaten in a while, Zennia was the perfect meal, already seasoned to perfection.

Woody doesn’t give one shit about all this, his wife is dead, and the snake won’t budge. The snake boy says he can’t remove the reptile here but will need to transport the body and the snake to the Zoo.

Desperate, Woody agrees. The convoy loads Zennia and the accompanying snake in the ambulance, and they depart.

Three days later, the snake won’t budge an inch, Zennia is getting ripe and Woody needs to have her funeral and internment. The best he can do is have the service in the snake house at the zoo. Friends and family observe the service from behind a glass window. The zoo choir sings the theme song from the movie “Doctari.” Zennia is buried between the Gorilla enclosure and the Zebra exhibit. The snake is still alive and has its own special exhibit.

My wife stares at me like there is a third eye on my forehead. She thinks the story is bullshit, but I tell her it’s all quite true, and then I explain the moral of the story. “Be careful what you eat because it might cause something else to kill you.”

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More WTH News From The Cactus Patch


I have since given up smoking in my last portrait and had an ear reduction.

I can’t bring myself to watch our faux president give a speech. So, I didn’t. Instead, I watched the 4th episode of 1883. But I did catch bits of it on Youtube after the fact, and even then, I cringed and felt a tad oily. I realized that I, at 72 years old, am a domestic terrorist, right up there with the Antifa, BLM, and those crazy boys, the Taliban.

According to that pod person in the white house and Pelosi, I meet all the criteria; a Christian..yep, a gun owner..yep, a white man..yep ( although I am mostly Cherokee American Indian), an American patriot..yep, so I am a terrorist, and also a white supremacist, and a racist. I had no idea I was so damn evil. So it’s better to know now before I pass on.

I vowed after January 1st, I would limit my exposure to such political theater and nonsense in an attempt to lower my blood pressure and perhaps live a bit longer on this planet, which is doomed because most of Europe and about one half of the United States thinks a 16-year-old Swedish screaming savant is an expert on all things weather, climate change and the second coming of Baby Jesus. Sweden gave us ABBA, most of the folks in Minnesota, and Swedish Meatballs, and that’s about it. I’m really sorry that the cow flatulence from Texas ruined the ozone layer above Sweden and robbed her of her childhood.

If Jesus is coming down to kick our sinful butt’s, the ass whooping will likely start in Washington DC and then move on to the west coast, leaving most of America’s heartland alone, except for maybe Austin.

My late father’s late uncle, Harvey, was Biden’s doppelganger of a sort; although he more resembled Ernie Kovaks than Biden, He had the same temperament. I remember him as a demented screaming hot-mess in his twenties, and he lived to be eighty-five or so, perfecting his behavior into an act that the family immensely enjoyed during get-togethers on holidays. Hours of yelling and ranting about nothing, in particular, gave us children an excellent performance, which we much preferred to afternoon cartoons. He did take a piss in the gas floor heater one Christmas during our holiday luncheon, which cleared the house for a few hours, and he tried to roast his cat on a charcoal grill. Still, other than those few incidents, he was everyone’s favorite crazy uncle living in the basement. Today, with the proper handlers, he could have been president.

Uncle Harvey, during one of his classic dementia, inspired performances

Poor Ronnie Spector, she passed away “being no one’s baby.” Maybe she’ll send a selfie taken with Clarence, the angel, to Phil Spector, who is most likely roasting in Hell.

Betty White won the contest. She lived to 99 and was a few days short of 100. She outlived everyone she ever worked with or knew. Bad assed gal. Maybe she and Paul Lynde can get an act going and headline at “Sonny’s” Bar and Grill, located right off the main paved in gold highway next door to “Angels Wing Cleaning Service.”

After further and exhausting genealogy research, I found that I may indeed be related to Will Rogers, Chief Quanah Parker, Belle Star, and Butch Cassidy, but not the Sundance Kid. A decade ago, a fellow with the Sons Of The Alamo lodge, a dedicated member of whom did a run on our family tree, and these folks showed up. Queen Elizabeth is in there somewhere on down the tree and Odin the Viking king. I mentioned my family tree to my buddy Mooch, and he said, ” I got ya beat Lil’ buddy. I’m related to Golda Mier, Goldy Hawn, Old Yeller, Golden Earing, Wyatt Erp, King Faruk, Annie Oakley, The Hulk and Batman.” So yeah, I guess he does have one up on me.

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Committing Myself To New Years Resolutions


As a child growing up in 1950s Texas, I never understood the need to put myself behind an eight-ball with proclamation’s I had no way of keeping. New Year resolutions were the worst of them all.

My parents made them by the dozens and broke them without batting an eye.

My mother was the worst of the family bunch. Every year, on the eve of midnight, she would make a grandiose announcement to the family, usually after a few glasses of sparkling Cold Duck wine or too many Old Crow eggnogs. She made many resolutions in her day, but her yearly favorite was “kicking the ciggies.” She smoked like Bogart, one in each hand with a third, lit and waiting in the ashtray. My father, a lesser smoker, was a rank beginner compared to his bride. As a result, our household had more ashtrays than dishes. My sister and I also enjoyed the mild smoke from the ever-present Chesterfield cloud that hung in every room. Mother finally kept her favorite resolution at the age of 74, with some help from emphysema.

So, here I am at 72, and for the first time, I am considering making a New Year resolution or two.

I’ve been kicking around the less painful ones, easy things like giving up red meat or sugar. But then, Ovaltine contains sugar, and there is no way I can sleep without my hot Ovaltine, usually taken between 1 and 2 am, which is also my writing hours so that one is out. But, on the other hand, red meat can give me gastronomical grief, and I like fish more so that one is still doable.

Abstaining from distilled spirits? Now that’s tough, but it seems to be the national favorite.

It’s immensely satisfying to hold a crystal snifter of Jamesons or Tullamore Dew while sitting on my patio admiring the beauty of our local mountain, Comanche Peak. Good Irish whiskey settles my nerves and fuels my literary creativity. Jack Kerouac and Truman Capote will attest to that. Reaching old age without dying is hard work, and suitable rewards are in order. So unless I plan to stop writing and live out my final days as a nervous wreck, that one is kaput.

Attending a non-denominational house of worship with my bride. I can do this one with a few exceptions. Firstly, how does the word “none” go with denominational? There are hundreds of organized religions out there, just pick one and go with it.

Secondly, I’m old school church. I need to hear “the word of God,” not some big-haired pastor with an expensive haircut using the bible as a Cliff Notes report. I don’t dance hip hop in the isles, or clap, or sing songs projected on a screen, or enjoy hearing a choir of off-key screeching women whining about their personal tradgadys to the accompaniment of a Led Zepplin tribute band. I need that old-time religion to soothe my soul. The bubble-haired lady playing that Hammond B3 organ; that old rugged cross hanging on the wall next to the velvet Last Supper painting. A yelling red-faced slobbering preacher that points to me and says I’m going to Hell in a used Honda if I don’t change my sinful ways, and then expects money for admonishing me in front of strangers. Uncomfortable seating is a must. I can’t be a Baptist again, that would require me to give up my Irish whiskey, so it’s best to move on to another resolution or consider becoming a Catholic.

Improving my health. Maybe the easiest one of all, except for the sugar Ovaltine thing and the Irish whiskey thing. I possibly can do this one and make it stick. I beat the snot out of Cancer, so what’s left that could get me?

My doctor is young and hip. He wears one of those Apple watches that keep you alive and listens to TED talks in his wireless earbuds and drives a Tesla. He recommends, walking, hiking, biking, going to the gym, meditating, using fewer medications, and eating less of everything that tastes like food.

I reminded him that I need a knee replacement and major back surgery, so the walking, biking, hiking, and gym are out. Using fewer meds? He’s the idiot that put me on them. Sorry doc, I am not eating bagged weeds, Kale, plant-based meats, or gluten-free anything. Lactose-free milk is as woke as I get. I could only achieve a meditated state after a pipe full of Maui Wowie and Cat Stevens on the stereo.

By writing my resolutions down, I realize that nothing has changed since I was a kid. I’m not standing behind that eight-ball at this age.

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Is Christmas Over Yet?


My great great great something, Belle Starr.

Christmas Eve 2021 is upon us, and there is no escaping it.

I’m aware that my advanced age drives many of my phobias and fits of melancholia. Still, with our country going to complete crap in a Crate and Barrel wooden box, it’s impossible to fool me into becoming a smiling Father Christmas sitting around the fire drinking hot chocolate while reading “The Night Before Christmas” to our wokie grandkids. But, of course, they wouldn’t understand why someone would write such a fairytale. They are much too smart for their young age, thanks to Google and iPhones.

Yeah, I’m an old school guy with old school thoughts, when I can remember them. My wife says she is worried about me; I don’t remember things she says she told me ten minutes earlier. I tell her, “well maybe you didn’t tell me but thought you did.” It goes both ways. Then I find my car keys in the refrigerator, next to my reading glasses and wallet.

I used to laugh when my father asked me what day is it? Now, I am my father and my son laughs at me. Aging is not for pussy’s. It takes a real man to survive it.

That’s why I write short stories and blog, it keeps my mind sharp, and my wit acrid. The brain is a muscle that craves stimulation. I would think the number of medications I take would do that job, but creating fictional characters and predicaments based on my street rat crazy family makes me a whole person.

Who needs genealogy? I don’t. My grandmother, mother, aunts, uncles, and other relatives tell my sister and me that we are related to the famous female outlaw; Belle Starr. Also to Chief Quanah Parker and Will Rogers. Of course, they have no written proof, only hearsay delivered around a campfire or a supper table. I sent some spit to a genealogy outfit and they sent me a report. It wasn’t what I expected.

Northern European, Russian, English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, and Neanderthal; not one molecule of American Indian, even though my Granny was born and raised on a reservation in Oklahoma and lived in a teepee. I called them up. The nice lady said the American Indigenous tribes are secretive and don’t give out information. She assured me I was probably a Cherokee and could go on acting like one if it made me feel better. Stupid ass lady. I do feel better.

Chief Quannah Parker; I inherited his hair

Have a Merry Christmas and may you live in the land of good water, bountiful game, and cold beer.