Category: Texas

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WordPress Is Now Facebook, Twitter And Instagram


Oh My! Say it ain’t so, Sheriff!

Yes, Dear Hearts, the best blogging site out there, has been discovered by the cancel crowd. They now think WordPress is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and all the other platforms where they can hide behind a keyboard and burn down the mission with hateful, moronic verbiage. In the past 14 years I have been blogging, there have been only a handful of inappropriate comments thrown my way; some I responded to, others got the trash can symbol. My most recent post, ” High Noon At The Border,” must have caused folks to lose some brain cells and hide in their safe rooms.

Sure, it’s comedy; anyone with half a brain can see that, although I now know there are folks out there who take it seriously. I received one comment from a former Texan who was dragged to California at a young age. She wrote an alternate scenario about the border, which was snarky, well-written, but full of venom. I can picture her at her Apple laptop, tapping away, sipping on a latte’ in between sobs. You can bet she is a Garrison Keillor fan and listens to NPR. I hope the crazed woman doesn’t have access to an assault rifle, most folks know I live in Granbury, Texas, and I wouldn’t be too hard to find. Out of respect for my readers, I ditched her cute little reply, as well as a few others that started with an F and ended with a k..you get the message. I must be on the right path if it offends the ones that cause all the trouble in this country. I’m rather enjoying this.

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High Noon At The Border


Flash update 2-29-24. One way a blogger can tell if they are on the right track is from the comments received. I must be on the electrified center rail because some of the comments regarding this post are not approved for viewing and will never be. It seems some folks out there think WordPress and its blogs are like Facebook, Instagram, and X, where they can freely and anonymously throw their little fit full of venomous, snarky, and juvenile remarks and then trot down to Starbucks for a well-deserved woke-a- latte’. Keep them coming, kiddies, and please leave an address so I can mail you some Christmas cookies with pretty sprinkles and a participation trophy.

I hear Tex Ritter warbling, ” Do not forsake me oh my darling,” as the sheriff walks down the dusty street, about to slap leather and melt the barrel of his 44. High Noon is one of the best westerns of all time.

Texas, the border, February 29, 2024. The motorcade arrives at Eagle Pass. Governor Abbott is there, the Texas National Guard is present, and the Texas Border Patrol surrounds the throng of greeters. The black SUVs roll in. Out steps former president Donald Trump, dressed in black; a 44 hog rests in a black leather holster on each hip, and a stetson sits atop his head. The theme from High Noon plays through the PA speakers. The sheriff is in town and ready to do some business.

Brownsville, Texas, is not quite the border, but it is close. February 29, 2024. The mayor of Brownsville is present, as well as a few city council and Democrat Senators from Texas and Washington. The motorcade of black SUVs rolls up, and out steps President Biden in a blue suit, wearing Rockport sneakers; his wife Jill (not a doctor) leads him to the podium and slips a notecard in his shaky hand. In bold black letters, it reads, “ITS ALL TRUMPS FAULT, get the Republicans, kill all Christians and conservatives, burn down the mission if we want to stay alive ( Elton John, Tumbleweed Connection), and we love Mexico and Ukraine. We need money for Ukraine so our beloved criminal immigrants can vote for me. I’m honored to be here at the Alamo, I love Davey Crockett.” The blonde grifter leads him from the stage to the presidential SUV. The media day is over.

Well, it could happen this way.


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Dispatches From The Cactus Patch Feb. 28th, 2024


One of the by-products of becoming a senior citizen is the onset of boredom. I can only watch so much Wheel of Fortune, although Momo would sit for days watching a pre-recorded loop of the same episodes and keep guessing all the puzzles, waiting for old Pat to send her a check or a vacation voucher to Ukraine. I want to slit a vein.

The Beatnik thing didn’t work out; I was too old, forgot all the best verbiage, and couldn’t stand to wear turtleneck sweaters anymore. Revisiting “On The Road” stirred an interest, but then I took a nap and forgot about it. When I have a good idea, it’s best to avoid daytime naps; they tend to act as a mental reset button for us folks.

Momo suggests I try my hand as a social influencer on TikTok or YouTube. She might be onto something. I have an abundance of white hair, much like those TV preachers from the 1980s when a person could lay their hands on top of their Motorola console color unit and be healed, but only after you gave the call-in number person your credit card number: no donation, no cure. I have the schtick and the suaveness to pull it off. I imagine it would be more like a Brother Dave Gardner comedy album. Speaking of, Brother Dave was my idol back in the late 50s and early 60s. But then, the portable record player broke. My comedy stint was over before it started. But I have the hair: you be the judge and let me know; my phone number is BR-549. A coinsedense how much I resemble Brother Dave.

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Oddities In The Cactus Patch


Things That Can Only Happen In Texas

Pictured at the Larado Railway Station, circa 1958, is my father’s uncles, brothers 15th cousin seven times removed, Little Tex Twitter, with his good buddy from across the border, Teenie Lopez, not to be confused with his older brother, Trini ( If I Had A Hammer) Lopez, a famous pop musician out of Dallas, Texas. Before Tex took him under his armpit, Teenie had been a tire scrubber at the “La Bamba Car Wash And Strip Club” in Nuevo Laredo. Cheech Chong, owner of the business, said that Teenie never missed a day of work but was a “little” late occasionally. Tex, seeing a possible Hollywood connection and possibly a movie or two, convinced Teenie to hit the road with him and his pet Coyote, Wiley. Tex had been on the rodeo circuit for a decade doing rope tricks and wrestling doggies; he had a new act planned for Teenie.

A small saddle was made to fit Wiley, and Teenie would ride the Coyote around the arena wearing a mariachi suit, singing and playing a small guitar. The act lasted only a few weeks when Wiley, doing what Coyotes do best, spotted a Roadrunner darting across the rodeo arena and gave pursuit, which ended in tragedy when Wiley and Teenie, in the heat of the chase, ran into the bullpen and were “hammered flat as a tortilla. “

Tex sent Teenie’s older brother, Trini, the small mariachi hat and what was left of the suit for remembrance’s sake. Trini, in his few moments of grief, penned his first hit tune, ” If I Had A Hammer,” as a tribute to the passing of his little brother. Bet you didn’t know any of this, did you?

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Strange Things Happening At The Whataburger..A Texas Tale


Whataburger draws old folks like a moth to a porch light. Besides having the best burgers in God’s universe, the breakfast are scrumptious and affordable, which is the big draw for us Texans. I stopped by the old orange and white building a few days back for lunch and ran into old pal Mooch and, of course, his constant companion, Giblet the Chihuahua.

I believe Giblet to be the most spoiled and entitled dog on record. He spends most of his time in the converted baby chest carrier strapped to Mooch; the only time the dog sets foot on the globe is to potty, and the rest of the time, Mooch fusses over him like he’s little king Tutukamen.

I qued in line behind Mooch. He tells me Gib has been to doggo school and learned a new language that allows him to communicate with humans. Today is the first dry run of Giblet’s communication skills.

Mooch walks up to the counter and makes his order: a number 1, all the way, extra pickles, jalapenos, no onions, fries, and a Dr Pepper, the old Texas standby. The counter lady, past middle-aged, has that “don’t give me any crap” aura about her.

“Will the pup be having lunch today?” she asked, with a slight touch of sarcasm in her three-pack-a-day croak.

” Mooch asks Giblet what he’ll be ordering. The tiny mensa dog barks eight times. The counter lady seems to understand. ” That’ll be a number eight, right?” Giblet barks once for yes.

She asks, ” will that be the meal with fries and a drink?” Gib barks once. ” Do you want it all the way?” Giblet growls. Mooch asks him, ” you want onions and pickles there Gib?” The dog snarles and bares his teeth. The lady says, ” No onions or pickles. You want a drink with that little doggy?” Giblet barks once for a yes. ” He likes Dr Pepper, mam, in a styrofoam bowl if you please.” says Mooch. The nice lady repeats the order and asks about payment. Giblet sticks his snout into the carrier and extracts a tiny ATM card, holding it in what’s left of his teeth; the lady takes the card, swipes it, adds a tip, and sticks it back in Giblet’s mouth.

“Never seen a dog with its own ATM card before; now I know the world has gone street-rat crazy.” An adoring crowd surrounds Mooch and Giblet, taking selfies with Giblet on their iPhones.

I’m standing in line, forgotten, so I exit and head next door to Wendy’s for a number 3, no onions, extra mustard, with a chocolate shake.

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Observations From The Cactus Patch On A Sunny Afternoon


Is That A Pruner In Your Pocket, Or Are You Happy To See Me?

The winter cutback in the Cactus Patch has begun. I sharpened my loppers, oiled my pruners, drank some prune juice, purchased a pair of garden gloves that have built-in copper magnets to relieve arthritis pains, found my knee pads, washed my garden apron, found my straw hat, which had small bites around the brim: likely hungry mice in my shed/art studio, which explains the holes in my tubes of paint, dusted off my old pair of Sketchers from the rack on the patio and discovered that during the winter that a cat peed in them, went to Walmart to buy a wheelbarrow I saw on Sunday for $53.99 to discover the price had jumped to $59.99: the sales associate said the increase was due to trucking cost even though the wheelbarrows didn’t move, so I am now forced to ferret out the best price from Home Depot, Lowes or Tractor Supply, need more Sunflower seed and Peanuts for my Avian friends because the Crows have figured a way to get three nuts in their beak instead of the usual one, and the Bluejays have joined forces with them to clean out the feeder in thirty seconds, saw a snake, was almost stung by a Wasp, fought off a Wasp that disguises itself as a Honey Bee, ate some Honey Graham Crackers and Peanut Butter, cracked my shin bone on a large rock, listened to some rock music on my Bluetooth speaker, spoke to my neighbor next door, oiled the hinges on my back door, bumped my head on my pickup truck door, put gas in my pickup which cost $2.89 per gallon: and no kiss before pumping, filled my pump sprayer with weed destroyer from Walmart then the pump thing froze up and the sprayer wand malfunctioned blowing hazardous weed killer on my clothes and skin, found my safety glasses and both screws fell out, got screwed at Walmart the third time this week, felt weak and sat down for a while which sedgwayed into a two hour nap in which I dreamed I had passed away without turning the hose bib off, sprayed some OFF bugjuice on my arms resulting in a nasty rash with large fluid filled pimples, watched a video on my phone of Dr. Pimple Popper removing a humongous cyst from the back of Quasi-Moto looking man, drank some Power Aid, powered off my iPhone because the telemarketers from India are burning up my battery telling me I am in pain and they can help me, no one can help me, finally the day ended and Ima worn out. Tomorrow will be a better day.

Reflections In A Cold Margarita…

Sitting on my patio as the afternoon turns to dusk, sipping my Metamucil Margarita with a prune on the glass rim, a thought finds its way into my jumbled head, ” I am in the twilight of my life,” and that might explain why I keep humming Simon and Garfunkle songs all the time. Sounds of silence, bridges over troubled waters, look around leaves are brown, there’s a patch of snow on the ground, and all that. Did Paul Simon know that 60 years later, his tunes would be embraced by old folks? Songs that were socially hip and loved by youngsters in the sixties are now the soundtrack for old folks. I’m bummed.

My Close-Knit Family

Writing the family history and have been for a while now. I use Family Search, a Morman outfit, and Ancestry, as well as some tidbits from my cousin, Sissy, and my sister because the rest of the family is kaput, checked out. I discovered that I am related to George Washington; isn’t everyone? Also to Bob Dylan, Joan Beaz, Donovan, The Kingston Trio, Sponge Bob, Scooby Do, Scooby Don’t, Carl Perkins, Elvis, Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchet, Bob Barker, Vanna White, Pat Sejack, Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Clark Kent, Captain Kangaroo, Howdy Doody, Buckwheat, Spanky, Alfalfa and Darla, Commanche Chief Quanah Parker and the outlaw Belle Star, as well as Bass Reeves, Steve Reeves, and Brother Dave Gardner, which I am excited about because I dug his comedy back when we listened to him on Vinyle records.

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Tall Tales And Ripping Yarns From The Great State of Texas


In the past few weeks, I have received comments from folks who are not frequent followers of my blog. I enjoy hearing from new bloggers, no matter the platform they find me on. It’s good to know how the pulse of the country beats. I welcome all comments and have only trashed a few inappropriate ones over the last fourteen years. Lately, some folks write, “That can’t be true; you made this up.” Well, yes, I did make it up, but there might be a smidgen of truth that sparked the fire. Mark Twain wrote many fictitious tales based on real folks he knew. A kid’s dream found me wanting to be the next Mark Twain, but then, he had already claimed the prize and the glory, and I had to settle for John Steinbeck as my hero and mentor. A good choice.

The heading for my blog clearly, in bold letters, states that it’s ” Tall Tales and Ripping Yarns From The Great State of Texas.” Most of my stories, and some rants, are true and are real recounts from my childhood into adulthood. I trust my longtime readers can tell the difference. My wife, Momo, my perfect muse, to this day, will still ask me if this is a true story or one of my weird ones.

In Texas, we are called Storytellers, Dichos, and raconteurs. My grandfather was a raconteur of the whittle and campfire variety, often playing salty licks on his fiddle while he entertained the family with his yarns. Two uncles on my mother’s side were world-class storytellers and the best liars I have known. They missed their calling by not becoming writers or folklorists like our American legends, Will Rogers and J. Frank Dobie. Genetic tagging from my mouthy relatives to me may have something to do with this malady that keeps me awake with a burning brain. Momo says I am touched in the head; she may be right. I do remember a fall from my mother’s arms to a kitchen floor when I was a wee-one. The result is quite clear.

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In Remembrance : Better Health Through PEZ


Warning to readers! This is a Tall Texas tale. Some of the folks are real, but most are not. Fort Worth, Texas, Pez Candy, and the polio epidemic of the 1950s are. i was there.

Pictured above is my late cousin, Beverly Hills, of Fort Worth, Texas. Let me tell you a legendary tall tale about her father, a renowned infectious disease doctor at JPS Hospital. He came up with a rather unconventional idea for administering the new Polio Vaccine. Instead of using a giant needle, he thought, “Why not load up a Pez pellet with the vaccine and shoot it into the kid’s mouth? No needle, no trauma, no chasing down running kids, just a minty Pez Candy shot down the throat with a cute little Flash Gordon Ray-Gun dispenser.” What could possibly go wrong?

The hospital installed a fancy display at Leonard Brothers Department Store, and Beverly, with no license to administer anything stronger than her cats kibbles, was designated to give the trusting kiddos their Polio Vaccine with the Ray-Gun Pez Gun. The word spread like wildfire, and soon, the line snaked around the block as moms and kids showed up to beat the dreaded Iron Lung by ingesting a tiny mint. Things got a little wild – police had to step in to control the crowd, and they even started serving hot dogs and cokes to calm down the hungry mob. It was quite the scene – July heat, a frenzied crowd, and the perfect conditions for the spread of Polio. The things people will do for a medical minty treat!

Beverly was overwhelmed, having shot Polio Pez mints down the throats of a thousand or more kids by noon, and supplies were exhausted. Her father’s duffus assistant, overwhelmed by the mob scene, retrieved what he thought were more vaccine pellets from a store room but instead picked refills of “Mother Little Helper Hormone and Hot Flash Lozenges.” They were packed in a similar non-descript box as the Pez Pellets and exactly the same size, a simple mistake made in the heat of battle. Beverly and a nurse vaccinated another thousand kids by afternoon and were done. When loading the car to head home, her father, Doctor Hill, discovered the real Pez vaccine in the trunk of his car. An inspection revealed the terrible mistake, but it was too late, and he had no way to contact the families of the children who had received the hormone therapy lozenges. Fearing fatal retribution, he decided to keep mum and let nature take its course. Better living through pharma did just that.

Two weeks went by, and freaked-out mothers were bringing their kids to hospitals all over town. Eight-year-old girls were growing boobies, wearing makeup, smoking cigarettes, and asking for a martini in the afternoon. Young boys were reading Hollywood Movie Star Magazines, dressing their dogs in doll clothing, painting their fingernails, shaving their still hairless legs, and began wearing their mother’s peddle pusher pants and mid-drift blouses. The town had gone street-rat crazy-town. Dr. Hill fessed up, suffered the consequences, and treated the affected kids with the appropriate drugs to reverse the changes. It seems that 1957 Fort Worth, Texas, was the forerunner for what is going on now. Who would have thought it was all because of a Pez Candy.

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Warnings From The Cactus Patch


Don’t Do It..Don’t Press That Cute Little Button With Your Mouse!”

Who wouldn’t want to see what an AI generated Barbie Doll for each state would look like..right? Well, I was on MSN, the evil 1984 computer software owned by “Steve Jobs rip-off-boy and Mail Order Doctor, Bill Gates, and the article was there with a cute picture of a Barbie doll. She was wearing a woodchopper shirt, staring all dead-eyed with that perky little nose and luxurious plastic hair, so I clicked the read. First Barbie for the state of Alabama popped up, a chirpy little southern belle, very racist in her frilly debutant outfit, holding a mint julep; I kept looking for “the help” doll that came with her. Cute, I wouldn’t buy it for my granddaughter, who never liked Barbie anyway; she was into the American Girl high-dollar dolls. Then I hit the continue button, “Bammo…. call 800 Microsoft, and all these scanning windows come up on my screen, ” your PC is infected with a Virus of lethal origin, your information will be lost in space and your laptop will melt into a puddle of plastic unless you call this number.” Lucky for me, I have a great anti-virus called Webroot, and that caught the little basement-dwelling culprits, likely some Chinese dudes living in Shang-Hi or Bali Hi, with their mothers serving them Fung Chow tea and eating fried bats with Raman noodles all day. This is the tech-savvy security checks that MSN gives its users. I’d be safer using Alta-Vista on a dial-up modem.

Her New Album Is Coming…

The Swift One, The Anoited Ambushiness Blond, The Long-Legged Succubus, so many names, so many men to write songs about. Now, poor Neanderthal raw meat-eating Kelce is her focus. His attack on his coach told Tay-Tay that she probably shouldn’t marry this Transformer, who has no control over his testosterone-fueled madness. So, in a secret recording studio, somewhere in deep Europe, the album has begun in secret. This signals the end of her partnership with the NFL unless she can steal Patrick Mahomes from Elle May. I know my post a few days ago said no more Taylor stuff, but this is just too good to pass up. Gimme a hall pass on this one.

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New York Gives All The Key’s To The City To Thankful Zombies


Jaques Coustou holds Mayor Adams’s Voodoo Doll

Not that Momo and I plan to visit New York in our lifetime, which has shortened considerably in the last three years due to calculated circumstances. Today, I read in the New York Press that Mayor Adams is begging fellow New Yorkers to house migrants/invaders in their private residences. What..are all the four and five-star hotels full? It’s reported by untrusted and misinformed sources that the hordes of illegal river rafters have trashed most of the hotels in New York to the point that they will need total reconstruction if the verminatosious are ever evicted.

One well-meaning moronic family in Long Island, feeling all warm and fuzzy after a Saturday morning trip to Starbucks and Barnes and Noble Bookstore, offered two rooms of their luxurious home as a safe haven for a poor migrant family. They called the appropriate agency, and within an hour, a family of four from Haiti was knocking at their door, ready to move into their new “forever home.” The Haitian family needed a few extra rooms for their goats and chickens, which would be used in voodoo ceremonies, and one of their children, a certified living dead Zombie, ate the family’s pet cat, Doonsbury Jr. After a week of torment, finding voodoo dolls in their likeness all over the house, and fearing for their lives, B.D. and Joanie Caucus and their two children, Zonker and Lacy fled in the dead of night from their 2.5 Million Dollar abode and are now staying at the Fredrick Mercury homeless shelter in Queens. The Haitian family has had the locks and the alarm code changed and has run up a $2,000.00 DoorDash bill using Mrs. Caucus’s credit cards found in a desk drawer. Bet they’re feeling all warm and fuzzy about now.

Tay-Tay Kicks Kanye’s Ta-Ta…Elly Mae Jets In From Beverley Hills

This will be my last paragraph about Tay-Tay Swifter. The Super Bowl did me in. Momo and I went down in flames. Eleven times, the cameras cut to the “anoited one” and her entourage of hangers-on instead of showing the game. Now, I learn that she had poor, old, downtrodden Kanye West barred from attending the event after he had purchased seats in front of her private suite. “Like…you know….like…ain’t nobody gonna…like…. steal my camera time,” she was overheard saying to her new bestie, Elly Mae Mahomes. Poor old Travis, her knuckle-dragging fiance, has been forced to move out of his home because manic packs of young “Swifties” invaded his residence and are refusing to leave until Tay-Tay comes to the house and gives them a blessed Swiftie communion. There’s a song in there somewhere.