Category: music

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Back In The Saddle Again


My good friend John Payne was raised in West Texas, and I have, with his permission, used his antics as a teenager to inspire my favorite character, Ferris Ferrier. This story was inspired by John.

Ferris Ferrier lives in Happy Texas. It’s 1958, and he is as happy as a resident can be. He reads an article in the Amarillo newspaper about a movie soon to be filming in Fort Worth, and the company is auditioning for cowboys who can sing and play guitar while riding a horse.

Ferris plays guitar a bit and has some fancy cowboy duds, and his father has Ole’ Rip, the family ranch cutting horse, so he’s convinced he could give this a shot. His parents give him their blessing, and it’s arranged that his cousins Jimmy Jam and Mary Meredith will take him and Ole Rip to the casting call.


Ferris isn’t nervous about the singing and playing but more about Ole’ Rip getting spooked and bucking him off. Ole’ Rip is a working horse used to cattle and his pen, and he’s pretty unpredictable, but he’s the only horse on the farm, so Ole Rip it is.
Jimmy Jam suggests that Ferris and Ole Rip give a practice performance in the upcoming Christmas Parade next week. “Give the folks in Happy a preview of their soon-to-be movie star,” says Jimmy. Ferris agrees, and plans are made for his debut.


On the day of the parade, Mimi Jo Musson, the coordinator, moves Ferris and Ole’ Rip to the front of the show, right behind the baton twirlers.

“Might as well give our new movie star a plug, right?” she said. Ferris is nervous as hell.

Why right in front of the high school band? Ole’ Rip is bound to have a meltdown once that loud music starts. He explains to Mimi Jo the scenario that will likely happen.

Mimi Jo says, “It will be fine; all horses love music.”


At noon, the parade is lined up in the alley between the Prairie Bank and the Big Biscuit Café. Baton twirlers, Ferris and Rip, the drum major and high school band, and six floats, followed by a stagecoach driven by Gabby Roy Parnell, where Santa Claus rides and throws candy to the children.


Ferris is freaking out. His throat is dry as sand, he has to pee, and Ole’ Rip cuts one fart after the other, a sure sign he is unhappy. As the parade turns the corner from the alley onto the main street, Ferris starts to play and sing, and Ole’ Rip is doing fine. Then, the drums start, the band kicks into Jingle Bells, and Ole Rip loses it. It is the first time Ferris has seen him rear up on his back legs like Trigger, and is, for a moment, impressed…until the horse makes a hard right turn and runs into Miss Honey’s Beauty Parlor.

As Ferris and Rip enter the business, Ferris hits his forehead on the top door jamb and spews blood like a fountain. Ole Rip manages to demolish half the parlor before turning around and heading out the front door. They travel a few stores down, running parade watchers off the sidewalk.

The next stop, Western Auto and Rip, is doing a similar demo job on the best store in town. Ferris is bleeding, his guitar is smashed, and the saddle is beginning to slide sideways. As they exit Western Auto, there are three vacant lots until you reach Bramwell’s Feed Store. Ole’ Rip, smelling horse feed, picks up speed and heads for the feed store lot.

As they enter the lot, Rip is smelling oats and makes a beeline for the warehouse, where he abruptly stops in front of an open bin and proceeds to chow down.

The saddle slips sideways, and Ferris is on the ground.

He is a sorry sight, with a bloody face, torn clothes, and his precious Harmony acoustic guitar smashed to kindling, and then Margie Lou, his secret crush, shows up. She is so excited she can barely speak.

” Good God, Ferris, I have never seen a demonstration of horsemanship like that in my whole life, and I’m a rodeo queen. That was fabulous and sensational,” she screams. Ferris picks himself up and thanks Margie Lou.


She adds, ” and next week you are going to audition for that movie, you should be so excited.”

Ferris says, “You know Margie Lou, I think I’ll do my guitar playing on the ground from now on. Who knows, in a few years, I might start a band. By the way, that’s a good idea for a name, The Fabulous Sensations, and I’ll keep that in mind.”

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Baby Woodstock


Since the original festival date recently slipped by, I thought this story deserved a curtain call.

Velveteen and Zig-Zag, photo courtesy of Ken Kesey

Before Covid hit, my cousin Velveteen and her husband Zig-Zag were planning a small reincarnation of the famous Woodstock festival but delayed the event for safety reasons. They met there in 1969 and have been together since that night they spent clutching each other in the “Freak-Out tent,” both suffering from a bad reaction to the brown acid that the announcer warned everyone about.

Now in their late 70s, the couple resides in Red River, New Mexico, in a commune called the “Wavy Gravy Senior Retreat.” Zig-Zag is the entertainment director, and Velveteen is the main spiritual advisor and palm reader.

I received a letter from them a few days ago, and by golly, the “Baby Woodstock” is on for this coming July and will be held in the scenic mountains of New Mexico. They finished the school bus conversion a few weeks ago, and it’s a beautiful reproduction of Ken Kesey’s Merry Prankster school bus.

Photo by Wavy Gravy

The entertainment for the festival is going to be a bit dicey since many of the original performers are dead, in a nursing home, not playing anymore, or too out of it. Zig-Zag, bless his old pot-smoking heart, did the best he could on such short notice.

The list is: Sha-Na, the other Na has passed on; Joe Cockers’ red, white, and blue cowboy boots; Carlos Santana’s guitar and stand, David Crosby, since no one likes his grumpy ass anymore; Arlo Guthrie’s ex-wife Alice, A full-size cardboard cut-out of John Sebastian accompanied by a recording of him saying “Wow man” for twenty minutes, Melanie riding her personal scooter made from roller skates, Jimi Hendrix’s rapping cousin, little Purple Haze, Country Joe McDonald’s grandson, City Boy Dave, Joni Mitchell says she might make this one, Grace Slicks pet dog Roach, and of course, Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm will furnish all the food and drinks. Wavy says this time, they will be serving breakfast in bed, delivered to your tent by a drone.

We plan on attending. Tickets are available through AARP, Walmart, and Medicare Part B. See you there.

Peace Out Brother

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It’s 2009, And We Are In The Studio, Again!


The American Classics Band, 2009

Left to Right; Danny Goode-lead vocals and bass; John Payne-vocals, lead guitar, fiddle, mandolin, and keyboards; and probably some more instruments I’m leaving out. Phil Strawn-vocals and rhythm guitar, banjo- Jordan Welch- drums and bongos, cowbell, and sings like Roger Miller.

The American Classics Band
https://on.soundcloud.com/i9ryA

Track 4 covers Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Navajo Rug.” I’m new to SoundCloud, so I cut off our heads in the pictures. Why do these apps make it so darn hard to move anything over? WordPress won’t allow WMV files, so I had to upload the tunes to SoundCloud, which converted it to an MP3.

Track 1, “For What It’s Worth,” is our cover of Buffalo Springfield’s song about the riots on the Sunset Strip in 1967. The CD was cut at Wavelight Studios in Haltom City, north of Fort Worth. Larry Dylan was the sound engineer and owner of the studio.

Danny and I, back in 67-69, played together in “The Orphans” and “The A.T.N.T.,” which I posted our record a few weeks ago. John Payne played with the “Fabulous Sensations” out of Lubbock, Texas. He also got to sit down and visit with Buddy Holley’s parents in Buddy’s childhood home, so he has been close to musical royalty. Jordan Welch played with The Coachmen, another great popular band in the DFW area, back in the 1960s.

If you haven’t noticed, I discovered background colors today, so bear with the experimentation. It doesn’t take much to entertain me these days.

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Erratic, But Informative Ramblings From The Cactus Patch 7/28/23


Pictured above is my first realistic gun, The Fanner 50. It had authentic steel bullets that took green stickum caps, the cylinder turned as you fired it, and cap smoke belched from the realistic barrel. All my buddies in the neighborhood had them, and we thought we were bad assed cowboys. Billy Roy, one of our buddies who turned into a hoodlum child after hanging out with the “hard guys” across the tracks, attempted to rob our neighborhood grocery store with his Fanner 50. He was arrested and sent to the Dope Farm for a few months. After that, he went on to a stellar life in crime, all because of a cap gun.

Port Aransas, Texas, 1967, My Chevy Impala with a mighty V8, 283 engine, and no air conditioning, loaded with my longboards, ready for the waves. Note all the smashed bugs on the grill and front of the hood. Texas, in the summer, is a buggy place. The board over the driver’s side is my 9 ft 6-inch “Surfboard Hawaii,” and the other is a 9ft. “Hansen”; is perfect for the surf in Texas. Leashes weren’t around yet, so if you lost your board, it was a long swim.

My first rock band, 1965 “The Dolphins.” I can’t remember who came up with that name, but I wanted to use ” Don’t Hit Your Sister,” but it was vetoed by the other members. Jarry and I stayed with the band, but had different members the following year and a new name, “The Orphans.” We were playing a gig at the Harrington Park Swimming Pool in Plano, Texas. Left to right; Jarry Boy Davis, Warren Whitworth, Ron Miller on drums, Jerry Nelson and me with my cheap Japanese electric guitar.

One of my favorite books in grade school. Most of the kids were into “Fun With Dick and Jane” and that dog of theirs, the one that bit everyone in the neighborhood. I liked a more realistic read, like Mickey Spillane’s crime novels and The Grapes of Wrath. My second-grade teacher, Mrs. Badger, confiscated this book and escorted me to the principal’s office, which resulted in me getting a butt-whooping when I got home.

1968, my late cousin, Wandering Star. Pictured here with his wife, Saphron, and their nice little hippie family. They lived in a tepe in a commune in the Colorado Rockies. True to the Indian traditions required in the commune, they named their children after the first thing Wandering Star saw when he stuck his head out of the tent after the children’s natural holistic birth. Left to right are; Morning Rain, Chattering Squirrel, Sunny Morning, and Two Dogs Screwing. I heard that later in life, the kids renamed themselves.

Texas International Pop Festival, August 1969, in Lewisville, Texas. Me and my pal, Jarry Boy Davis, are in there somewhere, as well as my wife, MoMo. A crowd of around 200 thousand kids and some adults attended. It was three days of great music, fatal sunburns, LSD freakouts, giant joints passing through the crowd, no food, no water, no sleep, 100-degree temperatures, and no shade. It was worth it; I met Janis Joplin while standing in line to buy a hot dog. This was at night, and this gal asked to cut in line, so being the gentleman that I was, I let her cut in. She turned, introduced herself as Janis with a hearty handshake, and it was then that I knew who she was. She was a fellow Texan, so we briefly talked about the heat. It was the 60s, so you had to be cool and act like it was no big deal, but I about pissed myself. She was a nice gal who had good music later that night and died too soon. This was also the night that Led Zepplin got on stage, and Jimmy Paige declared they would never return to this Hell Hole of a state because of the heat. A few months later, they played a concert in Dallas and had to eat some humble pie. It wasn’t Woodstock, but damn close.

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Jacksboro Highway and Memories of the Sunset Ballroom


By Phil Strawn

My father, Johnny Strawn, on the left, playing twin fiddles with Bob Wills

In the early fifties, my Father, Johnny Strawn, owned the Sunset Ballroom, just a stone’s throw off Jacksboro Highway in West Fort Worth, Texas. A country fiddle player by profession, he soon realized that trying to play nightly gigs at other clubs and managing his own business didn’t work,  so he hired, as his club manager, his childhood running buddy, best friend, and my God Father, Dick Hickman.

Dick and my Father had grown up together in depression era Fort Worth and remained best friends to their last day. Decades later, they often reminisced, over a good glass of scotch, that “they didn’t know they were poor because everyone had the same amount of nothing that they did.”

Dick, besides being the new manager, was also pulling double duty as the club’s bouncer. A job he deplored but accepted and performed well when required. Being a family man and a peaceful sort, he soon became weary of kicking unruly customer’s rears every night, so my father, in a lapse of good judgment,  hired one of the local tough guys to take Dicks place as the official bouncer and security, A mean little cat, that went by the name of “Toes Malone.” If he had another first name, he kept it a secret.

Toe’s was a likable two-bit-north side thug that had experienced one too many run-ins with the Fort Worth mob. The boys in the mob liked him and thought he was a funny guy to be around, so when Toe’s tried to horn in on their action or crossed them in any way, instead of just killing him outright like anyone else, they would shoot, or remove a body part to teach him a lesson.

After a few major discussions in a back ally with his admirers and the loss of an ear, three fingers, and an arm, “Toe’s” got his new name.

He didn’t give up being a tough guy.  Being the mean little son-of-a-gun that he was, he had the local boot shop install two small pen knife blades into the toes of his Justin cowboy boots.

He was pretty agile for a one-armed cat and could carve you up like a Winn Dixie rib-roast before you knew what happened to you.

No one messed with Toes. He was the original Bad Leroy Brown of the South.

The patrons loved Toes so much that they would ask him to show his little “toe knives” to their wives just for laughs. He would gladly hoist his boot up on their table, proudly display his shiny little blades to anyone who asked, and tip a buck or two. The wives, giggling like school girls, would open their pack of Lucky Strikes on his boot tip blades.

He was part of the entertainment, sort of a hoodlum head waiter that would kill you if you complained about anything.

My father said his presence increased business, so he kept Toe’s own despite his reputation. In later years, he admitted that firing Toe’s would have likely led to his own early demise.

Toe’s, being a hoodlum to the core, couldn’t help himself and finally crossed the mob boys one too many times. On a cold December night in 1953, out by Crystal Springs Ballroom, they blew him in half with a shotgun blast.

My Father, saddened by the grisly demise of his entertaining employee, was relieved that he didn’t have to fire him.

Toes had no true friends to speak of, so it was that the memorial drew only a sparse gathering of musicians, the very mobsters whose hands bore the stain of his demise, and a handful of patrons from the Sunset.

On top of his casket sat his little knife boots and a nice framed picture of a 10-year-old Toe’s. A very fitting end. And once again, Dick had his old job back.

The Sunset, as the legend goes, was where the famous Roger Miller goosing incident occurred.

It’s been said it happened at Rosas or any number of clubs in Fort Worth, but I have it from two witnesses, my father, and Dick, that it happened at the Sunset.

Roger Miller, one of future “King of the Road” fame, grew up around Fort Worth and Oklahoma and, like many stars, struggled many years in the joints before making it big in Nashville. He was worse than a half-assed fiddle player but a promising songwriter, scraping out a living by frequenting the Sunset Ballroom, Rosas, Stella’s, The Crystal Springs Ballroom, or any other club that would let him sing and play for a few bucks.

One August night at the Sunset, he sang a few tunes onstage and tortured his fiddle for the less-than-appreciative crowd. The dance floor was full of sweaty “tummy rubbing” dancers doing their best to “not pass out” from the oppressive Texas heat that saturated every corner of the un-air-conditioned joint.

An attractive couple took to the floor, the lady in her fitted peddle pushers moving her backside with a careless grace that drew the attention of the young musicians on stage.

She got that jiggling backside near the edge of the stage, and Roger Miller, being the pre-Icky Twerp idiot that he was, couldn’t resist reaching out with his fiddle bow and goosing her tush.

She jumped.. pushed her dance partner away, and slugged him in the nose. Under the influence of numerous whiskey and cokes, the injured fellow stumbled and fell into a table full of visiting mob boys who turned out to see Roger torture his fiddle and sing a few tunes.

The ensuing brawl lasted a good ten minutes, clearing out the club. Dick carried the fighters out by the collar, two at a time. The mob boys “whooped up” on most everyone within a three-table area, and the rest of the people just whooped each other. The Fort Worth police came in, assessed the situation, sat at the bar, had a free Coke, took their pay-off money, and left.

Roger was banned from playing his fiddle at the Sunset, and soon after that incident, he went on to Nashville and started writing better tunes and working in better joints.

My Mother, fed up with my father’s teetering on the fringe of certain death,  finally told him to sell the place or he would be living there by himself.

Dad sold it to Dick, who, after a few months, realized the nightclub business was not for him. He sold it to a steady patron with a questionable reputation, and the club, after becoming an illegal gambling joint in the late fifties, finally ceased to exist and was demolished in the mid-seventies.

Despite its well-deserved reputation, most of the great entertainers did manage to play there; Lefty Frizzle, Marty Robbins, Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys, Bill Boyd and the Cowboy Ramblers, Willie Nelson, The Lightcrust Doughboys, and a long cast of other impressive country music acts.

One Saturday night, a few weeks before Dad sold it to Dick,  Bob Wills, and his band had a show in Weatherford, Texas, that was canceled due to bad weather. Not wanting to make the night a complete loss, he stopped at the Sunset on his way back into town. Being good friends with my Dad and his mentor, Bob took the whole band on stage and did a knocked-out impromptu show.  Word on the Jacksboro Highway spread fast; within an hour, the place was packed to capacity.  I have an old 8×10 black and white picture of Bob and  Dad playing twin fiddles on San Antonio Rose. It was a night he was profoundly proud of and, over the years, spoke of it often.

The old place may have carried a less than stellar reputation, but that long demolished building hosted some of the greatest musicians in country music.

The Sunset Ballroom, Forth Worth, Texas

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Memorial Weekend News From The Cactus Patch And Other Worthless Information 5/27/2023


Hey Folks, It Was More Fun Being A Kid Back In The Day….

Back in the 1950s, also referred to as ” Back In the Day,” we played with toys that should have either maimed or killed us. Cherry Bombs, a firecracker equal to a 1/4 stick of dynamite, yet our parents let us blow up things with these lethal fireworks. My ingenious cousin, Jok, decided to put a Cherry Bomb on top of the front tire of his older brother’s new imported MG. It was a swell blast, and after the smoke cleared, the metal fender had a huge pooch-out dent. He got his little ass paddled by every adult at the July 4th gathering. I got it too, just for being present at the scene of the crime. We also played with things like the picture below. We weren’t satisfied with letting them hit the sidewalk and pop the cap, we threw them at each other hoping that the pin would connect with one of our buddy’s heads. It was a great time to be a kid.

Give a kid a lethal weapon to play with and you can bet they will find a way to hurt someone. I know from experience these things hurt when they connect with your noggin.

Reading Keeps The Young Mind From Wandering Into Reality

“Fun with Dick and Jane” was the best book for us kids. Two parents, two kids, a boy, and a girl, and a Cocker Spaniel that bit everyone in the neighborhood. The all-American family long before the Cleavers came to television. This particular book was one of my favorites until I started reading Micky Spillane’s noir paperbacks.

This was our waiter at the lakeside restaurant here in Granbury. I intended to order a fat juicy burger, but after looking at this walking tackle box, I ordered the catfish. I asked him if the fish was frozen or fresh. He said, ” I jump in the lake every morning and walk out with enough fish for the day.” Wow, I was impressed.

This is a picture I drew of my bluegrass band back in the late 70s. We called ourselves the “Trinity River Band,” after the infamous stinky river that runs through Dallas. It seems the Trinity also runs through Fort Worth and is a clean and swimmable body of water until it reaches Dallas. I can’t remember who in the band wanted that name, and how in the hell did the rest of us agree to it? That would be me on the banjo.

MoMo and I wish you a safe and pleasant Memorial Day. Remember what the day is about. It’s not about sales at Lowes and Home Depot, or Amazon. It’s a day to honor the men and women who gave their lives and or served in our military to protect our country, and most of the world from evil. Today, in this time, we need them more than ever. Evil is on the move and we are the only nation willing to face it.

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The Night The Music Died in Frisco, Texas


It’s official as of last night, country music, as we know it, is dead on the spot. So happens that the spot of demise was the home of the half-baked football team, The Dallas Cowboys, and how appropriate is that? Jerry Jones curses things at the oddest moments. I believe the genre known as country music self-imploded in his practice facility as thousands of big-haired, boot-wearing cowgirls in the audience jumped and jiggled so much their cleavage had to take a day off work today.

Old Garth was up there doing his usual fake tear-jerk schtick about loving America, apple pie, and his wife’s high-calorie southern cooking while dear old Dolly, the most talented person in the building and more country than all of them put together, cracked jokes about herself and put on a great show. She may have saved the entire broadcast just by being Dolly.

Is Keith Urban trying to remain a twenty-year-old Telecaster playing dude with a bad haircut for the rest of his life? Why was he wearing those weird Vans sneakers instead of a pair of Justin boots? And who is this Jelly-Roll dude with all the prison tats on his face? The four gals with enough tattoos to fill up Deep Ellum, calling themselves “Bonfire At Tina’s,” what the hell does that mean? They were definitely a bonfire, and no stagehands could find an extinguisher to put them out. Who and what is this Lainy Wilson gal that screams into the microphone, jiggles her big butt around in second-skin pants, and earns four awards? How did Amazon broadcast this show instead of the usual three networks? I expected a salute to Jimi Hendrix at any moment; it seems most of the guitar players have stolen his classic rock licks; I saw more Marshall Amps than Fenders. Just because you add a fiddle doesn’t make your country. They need some picking lessons from Vince Gill and Ricky Scaggs.

Perhaps the likes of Chris Stapelton and a handful of other purists can save the country music industry from their own wokisms. But it’s going to be a tough battle.

I was expecting, at any moment, the ghost of Loretta Lynn, Waylon Jennings, and George Jones to drop down from the jumbotron and start kicking asses; now, that would have been an entertaining evening.

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“The Show Must Go On” In The Cactus Patch


Things are a bit shaky in the Cactus Patch this week. Spring is here, but holding off a bit, giving us cool and cruel weather. I have a worrisome cough. I am never ill, except for the Cancer that I beat off with a stick a few years back. I should be a petri dish of diseases at my age, but my bride, an RN, keeps me going. I keep checking my arm for a bar code and an expiration date. My iPhone is able to read codes, so when one does appear, I will scan myself.

Mrs. MoMo and I are going to the legendary and beautiful Granbury Opera House on Friday evening to see “The Liverpool Legends,” a group of hand-picked ( by George Harrison’s sister) musicians that believe themselves to be The Beatles. They put on a great show, so I am stoked and a bit jiggy about the evening. We are meeting two more couples of our old friends for supper, adult beverages, and sharing the event. Danny, Jordan, and I played in a rock band for 19 years, The American Classics, to be exact. We played many Beatles tunes, so revisiting live music should give us a proper fix for a while. It would be the perfect event if our lead guitar player, John, was still with us, but he is playing with better musicians in Heaven and can’t make it. We can reform the band at a later date.

My wife, MoMo, has gone full Hippie Chic on me. She turned a pair of jeans into bell bottoms by adding a 60s-style fabric to create the bell effect. She didn’t stop there. Next, she made a genuine cow leather vest complete with fringe and other adornments dangling. The gal was a bit of a hippie wild-ass back in the day, so she knows that clothing makes the person and produces the proper vibe. She is so excited the concert has taken a back seat to the wardrobe. I look for her to grind her own wheat for homemade bread and stop shaving her legs and armpits; she may change her name to Sunshine or Saffron before Friday. I will remain the same grumpy codger but will sport my leather jacket with cow-fur trimmings and Larry Mahan Ostrich boots. My hair is not long enough for a pony-tail, but if I drink enough Chi-Tea, it may grow enough by then.

Our bird feeders have turned into a Shakespearean performance stage. It seems the small Avians have formed their own theater company and take great pleasure in giving us a good show every morning. Two Crows have joined the cast, and a pesky Squirrel hogs the Sunflower seed but does a formidable tap dance, so he is welcome. The Doves have joined forces and now number in the dozens, making a solid ensemble. They tend to deplete the seed in a manner of minutes, but we are well-trained and keep the critters well-fed. We have a wild Turkey that walks with a nice strut and an educated Road Runner that visits, but so far, no Coyote.

God Bless Davy Crockett, and remember the Alamo. Adios for now.

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Rantings and Observations From The Cactus Patch


Our illustrious president, ‘ol’e shuffling Joe,’ made a surprise secret squirrel visit to Ukraine by plane, first in the dead of night, then taking the Orient Express to Kyiv. It’s unknown why he chose to visit the war- engulfed country. Political speculators on both sides of the aisle of crooks suspect he will ship another C130 cargo plane full of taxpayer dollar bills to rebuild every demolished structure in the country. Zelensky is so excited he is dancing the Ukranian “spring maiden shuffle” as he saunters alongside our demented leader. Back in Moscow, Puti-Putte is getting ready to ramp things up; maybe send in a missile or two to scare ol’e Joe and Ukrains favorite funny man, Zelensky.

Meanwhile, back home in “our country,” Mayor Butterboy and his crew have yet to make it to East Palestine, Ohio, to witness the eco-tragedy caused by the derailing of multiple freight cars full of toxic chemicals. FEMA and the “suddenly uninterested” EPA, the guys that think every puddle of rainwater and stock tank belongs to them, says the town is “on your own; We must in all haste now go to Africa for a 7-day conference on why the constantly poor Africans have no food, water, or money.” A good rock to look under for spiders and snakes would be those countries’ leaders who take the money the US gives them and live like king Faruk or a Saudi Prince. We can assume that as soon as Mayor Butterboy pumps enough breast milk for his kids to survive for a few days, he will do a “drive-by” on his new mountain bike and then release his standard word salad statement full of wilted contents and no meat. Wildlife and domestic animals are dying, creeks and soil are ruined, groundwater will be affected, and humans are getting sick. “Nothing to see here, folks; move along, please.” Why isn’t good old NBC Lester Holt reporting from the scene with his sleeves rolled up and a shovel in his hand; wrong kind of tragedy, the wrong state, a conservative town, and low-income country folk; not his bag. He’s also sure that no soul in that town watches his newscast. Former President Trump will visit the town on Wednesday. Not certain what he can or will do, but at least the man is doing what a president should in a crisis.

Those pesky young liberal college and high school students in Austin are at it again. Street racing, rioting in a mass gathering of youngsters throwing things that explode at Police cars, and breaking into and destroying a private home for a ‘mansion party. Fellow Texans, these are young high school, mostly white kids doing this, not Black Lives Matter hoodlums running through the streets of Portland. We should ask ourselves, “what in the hell has happened to the young people of our country?” Social Media, bad parenting, and liberal schooling take a large piece of this society’s poison pie. The “everybody gets a trophy” generation grew up and became these little devils. I never cared much for Austin, not even in my long-haired fake hippie days. Since my once favorite magazine, Texas Monthly, has gone to hell in a wokie handbasket,’ I don’t see myself ever visiting that crime-ridden forsaken city again. I know folks that live there and wonder why they stay? It’s not the Austin I knew in the 70s. Maybe because they can swim topless in Barton Springs during the summer or attend the SXSW music festival and smoke a lot of righteous weed.

Did I say too much? Probably so.

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My Big Day At The Fort Worth Fat Stock Show


The legendary Fort Worth Fat Stock Show and Rodeo ended today. Once again, we didn’t make it to the grand celebration of Texas. Dallas, that eastern wannabe city, has the State Fair, but we have the stock show and the best damn rodeo in the nation. I’ve been going there since I was a small child, and my sister did the same. Since it’s always been in February, we never knew what the weather would be; sunny and warm or an ice storm like last week here in Texas.

Back in the 1950s, the western swing band, my father played fiddle with opened the Stock Show every year with a breakfast concert in one of the exposition barns. The famous Light Crust Doughboys were about to be on the air. They were and are a legend in Texas and country music. I was just a kid along for the ride and didn’t realize how good that ride was.

My father had bought me a fringed leather jacket, a pearl Roy Rogers cowboy hat, and a new pair of Justin boots from the outlet store next door to the Dickies factory. These new duds were just for the show that year. I think it was 1955 or 56, and I was as puffed up as a poisoned pup, and everything on me shined like a new dime. I wore my grandfather’s Bollo string tie with the silver state of Texas clasp and saw my smiling reflection in my polished boots. I was a kid to be reckoned with.

The band was set up on a low stage with a small split rail fence separating them from the onlookers. The local television station, WBAP, was there for a live broadcast that morning. They always put on a big deal for the first day. The news lady thought I looked like a little buckaroo and asked my father if I could sit on the fence next to her while she did her opening broadcast, which would be shown all over Fort Worth, Dallas, and points west and east. In those days, it was a big deal to be on television, and here I was, a kid getting ready to be famous. I knew some of my classmates would recognize me. My head growing too fat for my hat by the minute.

The nice TV lady helped me climb onto the fence, scootched me over a bit closer to her, and the broadcast started. It was my first brush with fame and live television, and I stared at the camera like a deer in headlights. She asked me a few questions, which I don’t remember, and I answered with a croak and a whimper, then fell backward from the fence onto the dirt floor. I got up, all covered in a mixture of fifty-year-old dirt and manure. The new cowboy hat was all bent in, and my fringed jacket was all whacky and filthy, so I dejectedly walked over behind the bandstand and started to cry. I had ruined my one chance at being a television personality. Mortified would be a good description, then maybe add humiliation to that, and you would have the gest of it.

After the Doughboys started playing, the nice TV lady came over with a coke and a hot dog, gave me a mother-type hug, and said I did just fine. That made it all better.