Category: Texas

Posted on

Baseball, Balloon Tires and Cap Pistols


I first met Billy Roy on a Monday morning in September of 1957 when Mrs. Edwards, our third-grade teacher, introduced him to our class. He stood next to her, arms crossed with a sour-ball look on his face.

I knew this kid was trouble. He hadn’t done a thing to anyone yet, but he had that weaselly look about him; beady eyes, no chin, partially bucked front teeth, and a bad haircut giving him the appearance of a hillbilly.

Our teacher says he is from Hamburg, Germany, and his father is an officer out at Carswell Air Force Base. Billy Roy, she says, is a German and an American citizen but doesn’t speak good English quite yet. So then, what is he, an all-American boy or a Nazi transplant? We, kids, knew all about those guys, watching World War II movies on channel 11 and playing war with our BB guns. We always whopped the Nazis and the Jap’s. We also took care of the Mexican army when we defended the Alamo.

As luck would have it, Billy Roy now lives in my neighborhood, three houses down from my best buddy, Skipper, so after school, the gang calls an emergency meeting to figure out how to deal with this infiltrator.

It’s decided to give the “new kid” a chance to prove his salt; he would be allowed to hang with us until deemed worthy or fell flat on his face.

Our parents got word of our secret plan and told us, “We had better be nice to Billy Roy, or we would wind up at the “Dope Farm.” Someone ratted us out; most likely, it was Georgie; he’s afraid of everything and can’t keep a secret. He is also a known titty-baby.

“The Dope Farm” is a juvenile detention institution that our parents use as a threat when we act up. It keeps us in line. The stories about the place give us nightmares; it’s Sing-Sing for children. One of my older cousins spent some time there, and later when he was supposedly rehabilitated, he robbed a Piggly Wiggly dressed as a woman.

Saturday came our day to ride our bikes to Forest Park diamonds for pick-up baseball games. Our group of eight departed from Skipper’s house at 8:30 am. Billy Roy is standing on the sidewalk as we approach his house.

Skipper stops and asks Billy Roy if he has a bike and a glove; in broken English, he states he has neither of those items.

Georgie, the titty-baby, then says in a snarky tone, “if you don’t have a bike and don’t play baseball, you can’t be part of our gang.” The word’s spoken, the gauntlet laid. It looks as if Billy Roy might be out. Everyone gives him “the look” as they ride by. I feel a little bad for the kid.

Billy Roy keeps to himself during the next school week, eating his sack lunch alone and staying inside during recess. We can care less. He can’t tote his salt.

Saturday morning, 8:30 am, the same scenario. We leave Skippers’ house on bikes, heading for the ball diamonds. As we approach Billy Roys’s house, he comes flying out of his garage on a brand-spanking-new Schwinn Hornet bike. A chrome headlight and taillight adorn the bright red and white bike—the sun’s reflection off the chrome fenders that cover the white sidewall balloon tires is blinding. Hanging on the handlebars is a new double-stitched  “Plug Redman” Rawlings baseball glove, and sitting on his little head is a genuine New York Yankees ball cap.

Skipper skids to a stop, and the rest of our bunch almost wrecks our bikes, trying to miss him. What is going on here?

The gang is in awe and more than a tad envious. This kid’s been here two weeks, doesn’t play baseball, can’t speak English, is likely a German spy, and here he is riding the Cadillac of bikes and now sports new ball equipment. Some snot-nose in our neighborhood is as rich as King Faruk, and it isn’t us.

Skipper, the wise leader of our bunch, surveys the scene, then tells Billy Roy that he can come along with us to the baseball diamonds since he now has the required items. So he rides at the end of our pack and struggles to control his expensive bike. He crashes a few times but catches up. Unfortunately for our intern, things don’t go well at the ballpark.

After educating Billy Roy on holding and swinging a bat, he’s bonked square in the forehead with a 40-mile-per-hour hardball. He’s out like a corpse.

The umpire, some kid’s father, drags him over to the bleachers and pours a cup of cold water on his head. Billy Roy wakes up, staggers for a minute, and acts like nothing happened. We are impressed; he’s tougher than we thought.

Around the fourth inning, Billy Roy tells us that he is going home. He’s a bit dizzy and wobbly after his bonk and can’t participate in the rest of the game. We get it. He departs, driving his fancy bike from curb to curb like a blind drunk.

After the game, which we won, we gathered our stuff left in the dugout.

Stevie says he can’t find his Cub Scout knife. Freckled Face Bean can’t find his Roy Rogers watch, and Skippers’ decoder ring is missing. My almost new pack of Juicy Fruit is also gone. Good Lord! There’s a thief amongst us. Georgie, the titty-baby, is the likely culprit; but he says he can’t find his dental retainer, so he’s cleared. That makes Billy “the Nazi” Roy, the perpetrator. There is an ass-whoopin’ brewing. With retribution in our hearts, we haul ass to Billy’s house.

Mrs. Roy answers their door. We demand to see Billy, so she brings him to face us. He stands behind the screen door for protection. But, of course, he denies it all until Skipper tells him to step onto the porch so he can whoop him. Billy steps onto the porch, but before Skipper can get a lick in, Billy pulls a switchblade knife from his pocket. He pops the blade and waves it at Skipper. Yikes! Not only is the little Nazi a thief, but he’s also a West Side Story hoodlum. We leave the porch and the guilty Billy Roy to his young life of crime.

After the incident, Billy Roy, to us kids, is a fart in the wind.

Having ruined his reputation in our neighborhood, he starts hanging with some older hoodlum boys from across the railroad tracks; we call them “The Hard Guys.” We are sure they will wind up at “The Dope Farm” sooner or later, and now young Billy will join them.

Billy Roy has been missing from school for almost a week, a few days before Christmas vacation. We figure he has the bird flu or polio.

The next day, a rumor around the neighborhood, and now our school, is that Billy Roy and two of the “Hard Guys” were pinched for holding up our small neighborhood grocery store with a Mattel Fanner 50 cap pistol.

We all agreed that the bonk from the baseball injured his kid’s brain and turned him into a criminal. Last we heard, Billy and the two “hard guys” were off to the “Dope Farm.”

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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

.

Posted on

The Summer I Became A Feral Child


It was the summer of my seventh year, 1957.

It was too hot to play pick-up baseball games unless my buddies and I got to the Forest Park Ball Diamonds before 8 am, and the city pool was closed because of the Polio scare; my mother kept a picture of an iron lung taped to the icebox to remind me what would happen if I disobeyed her orders. Boredom set upon us, we had too much free time on our grimy little hands, so the six of us that comprised our neighborhood coterie did what any gang of young boys would do; we went feral. It was two full months of constant butt-whoopings, loss of cartoon time, and other parental vs child warfare. My buddies and I agreed it was our best summer so far.

Mr. and Mrs. Mister, our next-door neighbors and mentors, attempted to reel us in, which worked for a short while. Mrs. Mister, a wonderful mom substitute who resembled the movie starlet Jane Mansfield, would let us sit under their backyard Mimosa tree. At the same time, she served chocolate chip cookies and Grape Kool-Aid to control our restless young spirits. Fred and Ginger, her twin white Poodles, would join us and beg for cookies. Mr. Mister, when his wife wasn’t looking, would let us have a sip or two of his ice-cold Pearl beer. We were bad assed and nation-wide.

This was the summer we declared war on our school tormenters, the older boys across the tracks known as “the hard guys.” And thanks to Mr. Mister and his military and engineering experience, we successfully implemented a detailed plan and defeated our nemesis. Sidewalk biscuits with implanted cherry bombs and a small Roman Catapult designed by Mr. Mister played a role in the defeat. Instead of feeling remorse for injuring our schoolmates, the battle made us insufferable and meaner, fueling our summer of feral behavior.

Our parents and Mrs. Mister were shocked and bewildered. Fifty or so butt-whoopings with everything from a belt, switch, and a Tupperware pan, didn’t phase me or my gang. The three girls in our neighborhood, our classmates, were all tomboys, and they said we were now “too mean” for them to associate with. Cheryl, our center fielder, the only girl we would allow to play on our team, called us “mean little shits.” Those are pretty sophisticated words from a seven-year-old gal, although we knew some of the good ones we heard from our fathers.

Skipper, or resident math wiz and duly elected gang leader, had the “Hubba-hubba’s” for Cheryl and gave her his tiny Mattel Derringer cap pistol as a sign of affection. He found it on his front porch one morning with a note from her mother that read, ” stay away from my daughter, you mean little shit.” Now we know where her scoffing comments came from. He was crushed, of course, but he was young and felt much better after he blew up Mr. Rogers’s mailbox with a cherry bomb. Firecrackers and high-powered fireworks secretly supplied by Mr. Mister played a big role in our feralivious behavior. The two neighborhood garages that caught fire were blamed on us, and Georgie, with his love of matches and lighter fluid, may have had something to do with those fires, but he wouldn’t admit to it.

My parents started taking Miltowns, an early pill similar to Xanex, and most other parents began drinking more than normal. Mr. Mister was called in to negotiate a truce, but secretly, he was on our side. He felt boys should have the right to cut loose and show their young oats, even though we didn’t have raging hormones, underarms, or pubic hair, which we anxiously awaited.

Our parents had enough of our feral behavior, and one Saturday evening, there was a hot dog party in our backyard. All my gang was there, as were their parents. Ice cream and a cake were served along with burnt wieners, and the Misters were there with Fred and Ginger. It was a downright ambush, the predecessor to the popular “intervention.” Our parents let us know that the next stop for us was “The Dope Farm,” an institution where malcontents and little hoodlums were sent to do time. We knew the stories about the place. It was out of a horror movie, and Father Flannigan wouldn’t be there to save us. It was time to clean up or be locked up doing hard labor and eating maggot-infested gruel. No more baseball, cartoons, or Mrs. Mister’s cookies and Kool-Aid. We huddled, agreed amongst ourselves, and promised our parents we would walk the righteous path of the good child. We did for the most part, but we hid our stash of cherry bombs for the next summer.

Posted on

The 4th of July and Beer In Clear Plastic Cups


Granbury, Texas, Town Square

The Devil’s oven has descended on our renowned small town of Granbury. It’s hot, so there is no reason to piss and moan. It’s July, so we get over it, mostly.

Every year, the 4th of July weekend brings thousands of folks to the square looking for something they don’t have in Fort Worth, Dallas, Waco, or somewhere in rural Texas. The lake itself is a big draw. It borders downtown, and at least two thousand overloaded pontoon boats and jerk kids on jet-powered crotch rockets, ripping up the water.

Throngs of folks in SUVs and expensive pickup trucks show up and wander around the square, drinking beer in clear plastic cups. A few of the restaurants sell it in pop-up minibars along the streets. Men with a cup of beer in each fist, and women with their cups of white wine, walking, stumbling into shops, buying up everything they can find; great for the merchants, tough on the locals who want to enjoy some of the festivities.

We have a square that is the epitome of the old west. White rock buildings were constructed in the 1800s, with narrow streets and quaint shops. The Paramount television series 1883 was filmed in our town square and the countryside around us. Being voted the best small historic town in the country for four years has much to do with the invasion. I am noticing more young folks now than in years past, and that’s a good thing. The old folks are too tired to walk around in the heat, and they don’t spend much money and tend to only drink one beer if that.

MoMo and I sat at our usual picnic table at the Brew Drinkery on Pearl Street, enjoying a craft beer, some chips, and people-watching. Young folks, and old folks dressed in red-white-and-blue attire, some with hardly any attire, some with too much attire, dogs with clothes, dogs with shoes, big dogs pulling small people around, folks with too many kids to corral, and everyone has a clear plastic cup of beer. Cheers and a happy Fourth of July from Granbury, Texas, and the Cactus Patch.

Posted on

How Hot Is It You Say?


It will be around 106 to 109 degrees today in Granbury, Texas. MoMo and I are hunkered down in the house, shades closed, and fans running. I will go outside after dark to water my poor plants that are perishing from the heat, and a twenty-mile-per-hour wind, so it feels like a commercial hair dryer. The weather folks on the tube say it will be over one hundred all week. We are doomed.

When Armadillos start drinking iced cold beer, you know it’s hot. We have a house, Finch, nesting her eggs under our metal carport. MoMo is worried that she may get too hot or the eggs might cook, so she wants to buy the little bird a small air-conditioner or a misting machine. I’ll check with the bird tonight to see if she is interested.

In the 1950s, we had a heat wave that lasted all summer. Some folks say 1980 was the worst, but we had AC back in 1980, and in 1955, very few folks had AC; our family had an attic fan and a backyard water hose to spray ourselves with. One of our neighborhood girls put some biscuit dough on the sidewalk, and “boom,” she invented sidewalk biscuits. You couldn’t eat them without breaking a tooth, but they were great for chunking at kids you didn’t care for. Skipper, our resident wiz-kid, devised a weapon using sidewalk biscuits and cherry bombs, a kid’s hand grenade that we used in a battle against “the hard guys,” a group of punks from across the tracks tormented our gang of well-behaved heathen children. We couldn’t go to the Forest Park public pool because our mothers said it was a sure bet that all of us would contract the dreaded Polio virus and our neighborhood would be wiped out, so we were stuck with lawn sprinklers to beat the heat.

My neighbor, and mad scientist, Mr. Mister, purchased an enormous blow-up kiddie pool, filled it with ice he stole home from his employer, Carswell Air Force Base, filled it with his water hose, and ran a tube from an air pump in his garage to the pool, and invented the first “Spa.” Us kids sometimes got to use it, but it was mainly for himself and Mrs. Mister, who lay in the contraption until midnight drinking frosty adult beverages and smoking ciggies. We had to do what we could to stay cool in those “good old days.”

Posted on

Habits Of The Iconic Texas Woman


Big Hair And Greetings

My mom had big hair “back in the day,” meaning the 1950s. Her brother, J.A. Manley, my jovial uncle, was a beautician; for all we knew, he was the inventor of big hair in Texas. It came to the point that she had to duck to go through a door, and she was all of five feet two inches tall. Back then, the bigger the hair, the more prominent the gal. She wasn’t rich, but my uncle ensured she had a main that required three cans of hair SprayNet to hold it upright. Going to the grocery store with her was a life lesson experience. If a lady she knew saw her, they would approach, pushing a cart full of TV dinners, and say, “lookit yeeew, your looking so good, gal. Is that a new dress? I jus luv yer hair-dew, how’s the fammmmily and them?” I usually got a pinch on my cheek or a smooch if I was too close. One lady always tried to clean my ears with a hanky and spit. They all had big hair and an even bigger greeting. It never changed. It was a secret society code known only by Texas mothers.

Saying Goodbye’s

Trips to a friend’s or family were part of our weekends. Grandmothers, cousins, neighbors, friends of cousins, complete strangers, it didn’t matter. When it came time to leave, my father and I would go to the car and prepare to sit and wait, sometimes fifteen minutes, but most often half an hour or more. Texas women say goodbye in stages. They all did it, learned from their mothers and grandmothers, and so on. The first goodbye is, “we got to go home now, but will see ya’ll next week; we sure enjoyed the supper.” That was the beginning stage. The second stage was standing at the door gossiping about family and who drank too much beer or hooch and cussed too much. The third stage was standing on the front porch, talking more, and discussing family issues. The fourth stage was about halfway to the car, and the gossip and family issues got more serious. The fifth stage was my mother opening the car door and adding more condolences, Thank yous….., and a few hugs. Then, we left. I was usually asleep by then, and my father had smoked most of his Lucky Strikes.

Shopping And Trickery

If you lived in Fort Worth, there were limited options for a woman’s clothing shopping. Leonards’s Department Store was the go-to place. It had everything the big boys in New York carried and then some. You could buy an Italian cut-crystal vile of Liz Taylor’s spit, a genuine copy of Rock Hudson’s wedding album, a live cow, and an Evinrude boat motor. My mother stuck to clothes; she was always on a budget and searching for the best bargain. If she found something she liked, she would hide that article in another rack so no one else would find it. This went on for hours, then she would revisit the pieces of clothing and decide the one she wanted. It wasn’t just her, all the women in the store did the same thing, and they would watch each other hide things and then grab them for themselves. All of my aunts and cousins did the same thing. I only got a pair of PF Flyer sneakers, maybe a tube of BBs, and a pair of button-fly Levi’s. It’s a Texas thing.

Posted on

Time To Hand A Few Things Off


It’s an oldie but a goody.

As I approach age 74, realizations come to me at the oddest moments. Most are in dreams, but sometimes during meals, showering, plant pruning, or enjoying a sip of Irish Whiskey on my patio. My bum right foot won’t cooperate, thanks to botched back surgery, and sometimes it trips me up, which instantly reminds me that I need to use my walking stick and that at my age, any fall could be fatal or at least require a hospital visit, and that would bring relatives with grocery store flowers in hand to pay their condolences, and need my wife to sit by my bedside for days, or until I expire with tubes and machines hooked up to my bodily unit. It’s an unpleasant thought. Age tells you there are things you used to do that are not doable now.

I used to drive a trusty 2008 Honda CRV that has been a dependable ride since we purchased it new. But, back to the foot thing, I can’t drive a car now, even though I tell my wife MoMo that I can work the accelerator with my cane and break with my left foot. Nope, she won’t buy it, and I did try to drive a few weeks ago, and it was a disaster, so I have embraced her nurse-trained logic. It ain’t happening, dearhearts. So what to do with my small white buddy that’s been sitting in our driveway since last August of 2022?

My granddaughter, Maddie, lives in Tulsa and got her driver’s license this morning. So yesterday, MoMo drove our other Honda car, and my neighbor John and me ( John drove, of course) piloted the 2008 Honda to DFW airport to meet up with Maddy and her older sister Lillian and her wee-one at American Airlines Terminal D, so I could hand Maddy the keys and title to my Honda, which is now her Honda.

Sometimes it’s hard to accept, but old folks must do the right thing and hand the keys to the car and the future to the young ones.

Posted on

As The Crow Flies


Photo by Alfred Hitchcock

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“‘Tis some visiter,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
            Only this and nothing more.”
Edger Allan Poe

The bird population around the Cactus Patch has been growing by leaps and bounds. Our bird seed expenditure has doubled in the last month. Doves, Cardinals, Woodpeckers, Titmouse, Chickadees, House Finches, Bluejays, Blackbirds, Buntings, a squirrel, and now we have a family of Crows. They live in a large Cottonwood tree a few hundred yards towards Comanche Peak, our local mountain. I counted fifteen or so in their flock, which is also their family. Crows tend to stay close to cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and children. Our friends warn us when a Crow shows up it means a pending death in the family or at least bad ju-ju for our household. So far, everyone is intact, and as far as the bad luck, well we have had a few instances. I can’t make myself blame the Crows for bad manufacturing.

Two weeks ago, our over-the-range microwave bid us adieu, the oven signed out a few days later, then our hot tub died. Our neighbor said it was the Crows that caused our appliance meltdown. I refuse to believe it. Edger Allan Poe was a writer of weird stories and a few runs of bad luck. He also drank Abstinith and used opium, so, of course, he had conversations with a Raven, who wouldn’t. Poe gave the Crow, or the Raven a bad rap; it became a part of our American vernacular.

Crows are large bluish-black birds that eat bugs, my birdseed, and peanuts. The Squirrel and a Crow had a stare-down yesterday, and the Crow won the game. The nut breath exited without his usual peanuts. They are birds and don’t cook a witches’ brew back at their nest or make voodoo dolls out of garbage. They are quite a beautiful avian, and smarter than many people I know. I left a quarter on the fence by one of the bird feeders, the crow took it and returned a dime to the same spot. Who knows what he spent the fifteen cents on. I put a few more shiny trinkets near the feeder and the Crows took those; I’m waiting to see what they return. I could use a new pair of garden pruners.

Posted on

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.