Momo and I are getting on in age these days. I am 75 and she is 70ish, so we’ve done and seen a few things along the way. So, being as socially aware and self-educated as we are, it was a shock to our overly medicated systems to see the entire Democratic coterie of POD people stuck to their chairs during the Presidents address to Congress last night. Marjorie Taylor Green must have applied super glue to their leather chairs before their entrance, she did look a bit guilty.
The mother of the 12 year-old girl killed by illegals, the young brain cancer survivor being made an officer of the Secret Service, the young man being accepted to West Point and a few others. We were sobbing like a baby that lost it’s bippy. You have got to be a purely evil glob of flesh to not react to human kindness and respect. It’s not a political thing, it’s a human thing, a Christian thing. The camera kept showing closeups of Nancy Pelosi as if she might react to something. Momo is an RN and she thought the old hag had an IV going just to keep her breathing and alive. And then the idiot from Texas, Representative Green, shaking his walking stick and shouting the President down, like he was back in Austin attending an HOA meeting. Speaker Johnson had him hauled off the floor by the Sargent At Arms. That hasn’t happened in modern politics, a first for the news media to cover. I bet old Lester Holt will be jumping all over this one tonight. Get the popcorn and Dr Pepper’s ready folks, it’s going to be a fun four years.
A few weeks ago, my buddy Mooch and I were driving to Glenrose on a little road trip. We often take an adventure when we hear of something worth investigating. The stranger the better to occupy our precious time.
Mooch heard from someone at the feed store that a lady owns a pig that recently received the “Purple Paw,” the most prestigious civilian award an animal can receive for bravery. We have to see this pig for ourselves since Glenrose is right in our back yard.
Two hours of searching, we find the lady and her pig living in the RV Park by the river. This one is a wild goose chase. It seems her little boy didn’t win a prize in the stock show, so she took a purple TCU lanyard and tied a large gold-painted Mardi-Gras coin on the lanyard, making the pig a medal. This satisfied the whining child and turned the pig into a big shot. Now the kid and the pig think they are hot stuff and are raising hell in the RV Park. The expedition wasn’t a complete waste of time, we ate barbecue at the “Squealing Piglet” and topped it off with some pecan pie and Blue Bell ice cream.
Driving back to Granbury, the oil message light came on warning me I had ten percent oil life left on the old Honda. I bragged to Mooch about how smart my car is, and it seems to know everything. I mentioned, jokingly so, that it would be great if some pharmaceutical company could invent a device to tell us, humans, how much life we have left. Mooch, ever the tinkerer, has a small invention lab in his shed and is always coming up with strange things. He said he would look into that. I knew he would.
A week goes by, and Mooch shows up at my door with a white box under his arm. We sit at my kitchen table, and he pushes the box over my way, urging me to open it. Before I could get the lid off, he yells, ” I did it, its the invention we talked about, its a Mooch-O- Matic Life Meter, we are going to be wealthy.”
I open the box and pull out what appears to be a digital children’s thermometer. On the back are a crudely installed USB port and a sticker reading Mooch Matic. I’m impressed that he could invent something like this so quickly. In my book, his rating just increased by twenty points.
Knowing Mooch was about to explode with pride, I ask him,”What’s in this thing and how does it work?”
Mooch proudly exclaims, ” I took a “Tommy Bear In The Summer Sun” children’s digital rectal thermometer, added two chips from a Nokia flip phone, the activation strips from a “Ellen’s Own”digital pregnancy test, a chip from a Martha Stewart Meat Thermometer, a few innards from my old Amazon Firestick and a USB port so you can save the information. Now all that’s left is to test it on a human. I tried it out on my dog Rex, and damn if he doesn’t have 35% life left. The cat saw me testing Rex and is hiding, so now it’s down to you and me. How about you be the next participant?”
I reluctantly agreed to be the first human to test the Mooch-O-Matic. I entered the bathroom, inserted the device into the proper orifice, and waited until I heard the three beeps that signaled the reading was complete. After straightening myself up a bit I exited the bathroom and gave the device to Mooch. He scrolled through a menu and then blurted out, “holy crap, you have 25% life left, you lucky S.O.B.”
Well, there ya go buddy, I’m going to be watching many more Super Bowl’s. Mooch then took the device into the bathroom to test himself. After ten minutes, I’m getting worried so I knock on the door.
In my best-concerned tone, I said, ” Mooch, you okay, little buddy, you didn’t fall and break a hip, did you?” Mooch opened the door, and his face is the color of snow-whites butt. With a shaking hand, he handed me the device. I looked at the reading and was shocked. Mooch has 1.5% life left, which translates to, he could assume room temperature any minute or by morning at the latest. We are both speechless, and Mooch has tears in his old watery eyes.
Without saying a word, he leaves the house, and me holding the prototype of our disappearing wealth. Just for testing sake, I pulled a previously frozen whole chicken from the fridge and inserted the Mooch-O-Matic into the deceased bird’s butt. Three beeps later, the soon to be chicken dinner that has been dead for who knows how long, reads 35% life left.
I thought for a moment about calling poor Mooch to tell him his device is faulty, but he owes me $200.00, so I’ll let him sleep on this until he pays up.
My first taste of religion came when I was six. A boy from Fort Worth, I was taken to the Polytechnic Baptist Church to witness the near-drowning of my young father. He was baptized by a man named Reverend Agustin Z Bergeron. The preacher was a legend, standing alongside only two others: Reverend J. Frank Norris and Billy Graham.
Someone in my family, an aunt or a cousin or all members thereof, thought that father’s soul needed saving to ensure his path to Heaven would be an honest one. I suspect it was his mother. She was a championship sinner with no way to redemption, so convincing her only son to Baptism might also gain her entry to God’s domain as a parental guest. I also suspect that the bottles of hooch and the 38 special in her traveling suitcase would also be overlooked as she accompanied him through the pearly gates. Looking back on my family history, I now realize that the entire bunch of my father’s family was street-Rat-crazy.
The Sunday of the Baptism was as hot as I can remember. The small church was surrounded by large shade trees, but there was not a whiff of a breeze inside the building. Religion and suffering are one and the same. July in Texas is considered a preview of the weather in Hell, and the good reverend used it well.
I sat beside my mother. My little sister was in her lap, not yet a year old. My clothes were soaked with sweat. I might have wet myself and not known it. The summer heat rose from the wooden floor beneath us. Hell lay just below, waiting for us to waver, to lose our faith. Satan would pull us down if we let go. It seemed so simple. I didn’t understand sin or what it meant to fall into Hell. Kids don’t think about such things.
Pacing the floor, Preacher Augustin moved from wall to wall. Behind him, the big-haired women added their Amen and Halleluiahs, their voices sharp and clear. The pulpit held the preacher’s Bible, unused, but not forgotten. He did not need its leather-bound wisdom. He knew all he needed to instill fear in the hearts of those gathered in that church. The stifling air was drenched in repentance.
The sermon concluded, and the Baptismal commenced. Father was the last on the list.
Mother had dressed him in a new white shirt and a black tie. With his new black horn-rim glasses, he looked like the television comedy star, Steve Allen. The shirt was stiff as cardboard, making it hard to move. One might expect that if someone were to be dunked in water, a swimsuit or at least a robe would be fitting. But no, Baptists preferred it genuine, fully dressed in their best clothes, shoes, watch, and wallet.
Father’s name was called. Entering the pulpit from behind a velvet curtain, he climbed into the Baptizing tank. I found it odd that a church would have a small swimming pool at the altar. A waist-deep concrete tub full of unpurified water. How would one know that the occupants hadn’t released a stream of urine into the sacred water in their moment of personal repentance and acceptance? It’s a natural response akin to peeing in a lake. Father stood in the holy waters awaiting his deliverance. He carried the look of a trapped man; no escape route was available, so his fate was sealed.
Preacher Augustin wasted no time. He asked Father if he was ready to accept Jesus and be bathed in the Holy waters. Father mumbled a few words, and the preacher pushed him back into the Holy water. Time passed, it seemed like minuets, and along with lovely words and passages, and still, Father was immersed under the Holy waters. A hand, then an arm reached up, flailing about. Finally, a leg broke the surface, and a shoe flew off. Still, Preacher Agustin continued the cleansing.
Looking back, it was common knowledge that father was a country musician and made his living playing in the beer joints along Jacksboro Highway. Preacher Augustin figured since my father was a fully certified sinner, an extra dose of saving was needed.
Father made it to the surface with seconds to spare. Sputtering and coughing, on the verge of death, he rolled over the side of the cement pond and lurched toward the side door of the church. Holding my baby sister, my mother grabbed me by my bony arm, and we made a hasty beeline to the car. Father was there waiting, dripping wet, looking like a bad meal on a china plate, but he was a saved man.
I wrote this story in 2020 after an encounter at a hipster restaurant in the trendy section of Fort Worth. I wish my stash looked as good as his.
A sweet little dog with a strange name is pictured for your educational pleasure. “Graphon Chardonnay” is what’s known in 2020 as a “Hipster Companion Service Dog.” I’m sure little Graphon would rather be out pissing on trees and digging holes in flower beds than wearing a beard and leather jacket. Dogs look odd in human clothing and look alien when they sport the same beard as their owner.
A nice-looking couple sat down next to us with their small dog. They were dressed in expensive “Fort Worth Hip” to the tee. The young man had a formidable beard, a ” Stallone” pork pie hat, Ray-Ban sunglasses, and skinny jeans. The woman was dressed similarly but without facial hair. These aren’t your poor retro-hippies; these Kats have dough, good jobs in IT, and live in an expensive high-rise overlooking the Trinity River. They most likely drive a Tesla or a hybrid Beemer.
The two diners immediately immersed themselves in their Apple I iPhones. Hipsters must only use Apple products: Sorry, Samsung, and HTC.
I felt sorry for the little pooch; he didn’t have a phone of his own or even a bowl of water, so I asked a kind waitstaff to bring the wee fellow a dog bowl of H2O. When his water bowl arrived, the man gasped and removed the water dish before the parched dog could catch a drink.
” Graphon does not drink regular water,” he shrieked. ” He’s chlorine intolerant.”
Of course, I apologized for not knowing the dog was allergic to water, so I asked his father, what does Graphon drink?
The young woman looked up from her iPhone and smugly replied, “Graphon Chardonnay drinks only Starbucks decaffeinated coffee, “Chateau La Pew” white wine and natural spring water from Tibet. He is also vegan and has an IQ of 165.” Well, holy hot shit, I am impressed that this furball with two names is smarter than most of us humans; myself included.
I had already figured out these two were vegans, so when our juicy hamburgers arrived, we made a big deal of our meal, loudly commenting on every greasy bite we took. The two gave us the ” hope you die” look.
I accidentally knocked a French fry off my plate in my meat-eating frenzy. The little genius, Graphon, caught it before it hit the ground and gobbled it down. His father screamed, grabbed the dog, and began the “Heimlich maneuver ” until the dog coughed up the slimy fry.
” That fry is cooked in animal fats, are you trying to murder my dog! Graphon could die if he ingests anything other than his special veggies,” he shouted. The woman was crying and having a small breakdown after witnessing her vegan dog eating the evil French fry.
The young couple was so traumatized they took little Graphon Chardonnay and departed the patio. I got the last laugh. I slipped the pooch a nice bite of my burger while they weren’t looking. I’m pretty sure he is going to have some righteous gas.
Photo courtesy of Mrs. Folgers, “Coffee Shop Hipsters”
My wife and I visited the new and improved Fort Worth landmark, Sundance Square, a while back. Beautiful place, well planned and functional architecture; good job, Bass boys. After a few loops, we hankered for a cup of coffee and maybe a pastry. We found a coffee house cafe with little sidewalk tables. Not our style to sit on a busy sidewalk, so we went inside.
Passing through the door, I caught the name on the storefront window, “The Door to Perception.” The famous beat author Aldous Huxley wrote that book. He and Jack Kerouac birthed the beat generation with their unconventional literature; this might be a cool place.
We queued in line at the counter. The young man in front of me smelled of Petiole oil, an odd scent for a man; it didn’t mix well with my Old Spice. Hippie chick perfume is what we called it back in the day.
My wife nudges me and whispers, “What kind of place is this? These kids all look alike.”
Her observation was spot on. Every male in the room had a similar symmetrical haircut, facial hair, garage-sale chic mismatched clothing, and skin-tight jeans. Birkenstock sandals and Doc Martens seemed to be the shoe of choice. The girls were ditto but without facial hair. Stepford children they were. I knew immediately that we had stumbled into a Hipster coffee house. I told my wife to please be calm. This is no more dangerous than wading into a gob of old hippies at a Steppenwolf reunion concert. She wasn’t amused.
The Petiole boy in front of me was ordering his coffee. I caught the conversation between him and the barista. “I’ll have a Trenta in a recycled rain forest cup, free-range, green label, fair trade grown, Andean, but not from the higher region but the lower valley, harvested by virgins no older than 16, aged in a cave on the coast to a bold bean, roasted on a log fire made from non-endangered rain forest trees, lightly pressed, and kissed with a serious pour of steamed spotted Syrian goats milk, then ever so slowly, pour two Cuban sugars at the same time on opposite sides of the cup. Oh yeah, and Kale sprinklers. Don’t stir it, I need to experience the aura.”
“Ahhhh… that’s my favorite. An educated choice, sir,” cooed the barista.
We are stunned. What in the hell did that kid just say?
I stepped up to the counter. “Two coffees with two creams and sugars each, please,” I say.
“And what region will your coffee be from, sir,” says the young barista.
“How about from Columbia, you know Juan Valdez and his little burro,” asked I.
“Don’t know that one, sir, don’t know a Mr. Juan Valdez,” she replied.
“Got something from Mrs. Olsen or Mrs. Folgers ?” I asked.
“No, sir, don’t know them either,” she replied.
“Got anything that comes in a vacuum-packed can?” I say.
“No, sir, our beans come in hand-sewn organic burlap bags from India,” she smugly replies.
“Do you have any coffee grown in the United States?” asked I.
She perks up and replies, “Yes sir, grown in California, Big Sur area by the Wavy Gravy Mystical Coffee Co-op. I hear it’s harvested every third quarter when Jupiter aligns with Mars, and the moon is in the seventh house. You know, sir, this is the age of Aquarius.”
“Yes, I know the song,” I say.
“Is there a song, sir?” she replies.
At this point, my head was about to explode, and I needed to wrap it in duct tape to contain the splatter. My wife saved me by stepping up to the counter and addressing the barista.
“Look, Moonbeam, just give us two cups of that Gravy Wavey coffee, and you pick out the sugar and cream, deal?”
“Names, not Moonbeam’ mam, it’s Hillary,” says the barista.
“Of course it is, sweetheart; I should have guessed that. I suppose you have a brother named Bill too? “No, mam, just a little sister, Chelsea.”
My wife shot me her “get me out of here before someone dies” look. The barista sensed where this was heading and promptly pushed the coffee across the counter. I paid, and we left. We stood on the sidewalk, took a sip of the gruel, and poured it into the gutter.
On the way home, we went through the Mcdonald’s drive-through for a red, white, and blue cup of coffee. Can’t go wrong with good old Mickey D’s. None of that Hipster crap.
“I’ll have two coffees with cream and sugar, please,” I said to the voice.
“Sir, will that be a Latte, a breakfast blend, a dinner blend, a dessert blend, an anniversary blend, an I love you blend, a save the children blend in a reusable cup, or an expresso, chilled or topped with sprinkles,” the speaker’s voice asked?
I pulled out of line, and we headed home to our old and tragically un-hip, Mr. Coffee.
After a trip to Frisco Texas for a doctors visit today, Momo and me stopped off at a local Fort Worth Mexican restaurant for an early supper before taking the cattle trail back to Granbury.
Seated, beers in hand, decompressing from two hours of hell on earth Dallas traffic, our Senorita waitress stopped by to drop a bowl of chips and salsa at our table; the usual fare for Tex-Mex food.
Over the years I have told my readers that my social filters have left on the last train to Clarksville, so I’m apt to blurt out any number of insults to no one in particular. The damn music was so loud I couldn’t understand a word the young miss was saying.
“Miss, can you turn down the music, or maybe give me a tablet and a pen so I can write out my order?” I say.
She was well indoctrinated. “Sir, the music is here to add to the ambiance and to make the food more tasty. We want our customers to think they are in old Mexico enjoying a meal while gazing at the Pacific ocean or the Gulf of America.”
Momo is giving me that ” you had better not say it” look, but I did anyway.
In my best old man I mean business voice I say, ” lookey here, Senorita, your food ain’t that good, and the music sucks, I can’t speak Spanish so why do you think I can understand a word that girl is singing? As far as ambiance, I’m looking out the window at the traffic whizzing by on Hulen Street and there is not a palm tree or a beach, or a dude leading a burro with a margarita machine strapped to its back. It’s Fort Worth Texas, not Cancun.”
Thoroughly insulted, she turns and stomps away. A few minuets later, Dire Straits is playing Money For Nothing. I notice all the folks our age are tapping their feet and digging the music. A few words of wisdom: music doesn’t make the food taste better.
Back in 2020, I penned this true account of one of my favorite childhood tragedies: there were more than a few.
The asphalt parking lot is so hot it’s melting the rubber soles of my PF Flyer “tinny” shoes to the pavement. It’s July of 1957, and there are at least one hundred kids, including our neighborhood coterie of twenty-five, standing on that lot, waiting to see our television idols, Mickey Mud Turtle and Amanda Opossum.
Piggly Wiggly Food hired the puppet duo from Channel 11 for the grand opening of their newest grocery store on Berry Street. With the show’s growing following, the folks at Piggly are betting on a full house because every kid in Fort Worth, Texas, wanted to meet Mickey and Amanda up close and in person.
Without an introduction, the puppets popped up onto the stage of their television theater and launched into their shtick. The jokes are age-appropriate and corny. Birthdays are shouted out, and then more jokes, but with no cartoons to kill time, the felt and cardboard critters are out of material and are bombing like the Hiroshima fat boy.
The Mud Turtle launched into a commercial for Piggly Wiggly, and the Opossum began her’s for Buster Brown Shoes, over-riding Mickey, which in turn made him mad, and he grabbed a small bat with his mouth and popped Amanda Opossum a good one. The kids loved it. Watching the two puppets fight is better than cartoons, any day, hands down.
I feel a tug on my shirt and realize my mother is dragging me into the grocery store. As we pass the back of the puppet theater, the side curtain is halfway open, and there, in living color, are two adults sitting on low stools with their hands stuffed up the butts of our beloved stars. Kids are good at fooling themselves into believing things that aren’t real. I know they are cheesy cardboard and fabric puppets, but destroying my imagination is serious stuff.
Mortified and traumatized from the scene I witnessed, my mother drags me through the air-conditioned store as she completes her shopping. There is no sympathy or coddling from this tough-as-nails woman. She mumbles something about puppets being stupid, and I feel tears forming on my cheeks. I may never recover from this destruction of my childhood.
Leaving the store, we pass the stage, and a man and woman are putting the puppets into their wooden boxes and autographing glossy postcards of the critters. I still have mine.
After fighting sleepless nights for years, I thought I had moved on from the condition. Nope. The wide-eyed wonder hours are back. I consume enough pain meds to take out the Hulk. So many, it’s a marvel that I’m still alive. I have these problems because of back surgery. It left me with an Elvis leg that twitches and gyrates without music. My right foot refuses to walk normally. My gait resembles Frankenstein after a few stiff cocktails. Now, I read an intriguing article about waking up at 3:00 AM, something I know about.
A biblical professional, not a Pastor or a Priest but a cleric psycho-babbler, has discovered something interesting. Folks waking at that hour are more susceptible to communing with God, and are at the height of creativity. Their brains are clicking on all cylinders instead of one or two. I agree with this discovery, even if it might be new-wave chatter or, in my case, a holy intervention.
Three AM arrives. My eyes pop open, no more sleep for me. I turn off the CPAP and make my way into the den. I heat up A2 milk for my hot Ovaltine. I grab my laptop and begin to write. Sometimes, I’m unsure of my story, so I tap away, paying no attention to where the words go. My brain is on fire, swirling with emotion. I can’t write fast enough. It must be..it will be divine intervention. God issues a stern smack up the side of my old head, showing me what to write. Sometimes it’s good, often it’s gibberish, not fit to read. His hand is guiding mine, so I soldier on, spewing out my brain, bleeding on the keyboard. We all have our bloody moments.
“A young man is so strong, so mad, so certain, and so lost. He has everything and he is able to use nothing.” Thomas Wolfe
There is no winter like one in Texas. The cold comes with a Blue Norther. It roars down from Canada into the panhandle, gathering tumbleweeds and dust as it goes. It marches south across the flat plains to the Gulf of Mexico. The wet cold cuts deep, biting like the sharp edges of a frozen North Pole. Eskimos would take the first train back home. It is a harsh welcome for a man with tropical-thinned blood.
Johnny’s train pulled into Fort Worth as an ice storm blanketed the city. He had intended to walk two miles from the station. But then he saw a man slip and fall on the ice, and he called for a cab. The ride was rough. It had been over a decade since he faced winter, and now he recalled why he had chosen warmer places to call home.
The house appeared forlorn in winter’s cold, pale light, smaller than he remembered. It was worn out, resembling a sharecropper’s shanty more than his childhood home. He scanned the front porch; no marble angel welcomed him home. Thomas Wolfe was right.
Johnny and his parents left Fort Worth twelve years ago. They set out for California in search of work, to rebuild their lives and forge a future for their children. He was a boy cast into the vast unknown, adrift on the winds of a long journey. This adventure would shape the man he would become. His parents were like ship’s captains, guiding their small crew. He and his dog were the sailors. Their Ford was a proud schooner, and California was the mythical land where treasures lay hidden. They never discovered the chest, yet the treasures came to them in ways they had not anticipated.
Standing on the ice-covered sidewalk, Johnny saw a light in the kitchen window. His father, John Henry, sat at the table. A mug of coffee in his hand. A cigarette slowly burned in an ashtray. His bowl of oatmeal was there too. His mother was absent. She never woke early. Johnny stepped onto the porch and knocked. His father opened the door, and warmth rushed out. After briefly embracing, Johnny settled at the worn table with a steaming mug. The table had seen much—his parents’ fights, their choices, celebrations of childhood, and now his reluctant return. His mother was not sleeping; she had gone to an aunt’s house months ago.
John Henry, sipping his coffee, gave Johnny a brief rundown. Norma, his elder sister, married a schoolmate and now lives in Albuquerque. A second baby was coming soon, or maybe it had already come. John Henry couldn’t remember. His words were hard, filled with the bitterness of a man worn down. Bertha fought with the drinks. The magical elixirs had returned. She wrote letters to their friends in California, a compulsion. Sister Aimee was the one she favored. Norma had taken as much as she could shoulder and left with her husband. Johnny did not expect a joyful reunion, but this was a sorry state of affairs.
China got us again. First, it was the China Virus. Now, it’s a spiffy little AI program. This tech wonderment was developed in a few hours with barely enough chips to run a flip-top phone. The nervous boys at the stock market panic, that’s what they do best. They start selling tech stocks and ruining millions of folks. Has anyone in our government checked to see if this CCP program works? I doubt it. We can be assured that the technology was handed over to China for a few million. Maybe it was passed in a brown envelope delivered by a devious first son. Or perhaps someone hacked it from a secure computer while the tech was napping in their safe room. It doesn’t much matter now: they got us good this time. We need Denzel Washington or Sylvester Stallone to take names and kick ass.
Is this the newest Sputnik moment?
“Surprise…you greedy capitalist dogs. We couldn’t finish you with our little viral bug, but this should do the trick. Check your fortune cookie for lottery numbers.”
Notes From The Cactus Patch 