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Thoughts From the Cactus Patch on Christmas Eve


So now the Cowgirls have lost 2 in a row but somehow remain in the playoff mix. I’m not sure who is making the rules, but these wimpy-assed, jive-dancing morons shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a playoff game. Wonder if Jerry Jones, their Arkansas Hillbilly owner will be talking shit after the holidays. ” I feel like this is the year we go all the way.” Same crap he says every year. No, Jerry, not until you sell the team to a real owner, like maybe Mark Cuban or that rich gal in Vegas, or hopefully, Elon Musk. Then Elon could put old rummy Jones in one of his capsules and put his rickety ass into orbit and turn his carcass into a Starlink internet satellite. The Cowboys have made me hate football.

Now, the Deer in Yellowstone have a Zombie disease. I guess that explains standing in the road as a timber tuck smacks them while they stare at the headlights. The disease is spreading. I saw some people in Walmart that had it. They shuffled through the store in their pajamas and fuzzy house slippers filling their basket with crap they would never use. There were four young guys that breezed by me with two carts full of HD Flatscreen tele’s. When I got to the checkout, they were arguing with a checker, demanding a receipt for the TVs they were stealing so that they could return them for a refund if anything went wrong. Yes, there is an entire gene pool of these people out there.

I hope to get through the Christmas holiday without any news about Taylor Swift. Let us hope she marries that knuckle-dragging football guy and gets knocked up in record time so we don’t hear from her again for at least nine months or so. The poor baby will likely need auto-tune to cry in tune. An overheard interview with her boyfriend, the football jock;” football…been…very…good…to…me. Who dat blond is with them long legs and that screechy voice?

When I was a pre-teen, back in the 1950s, I discovered comedy records via my older cousins. Red Fox, Rusty Warren, and my favorite, Brother Dave Gardner. Brother Dave was on his way to becoming a certified, glorified, and justified Baptist Minister when he found booze, cigarettes, sex, and comedy. Lucky for him, most ministers act like comedians when standing at the pulpit, so he carried that onto the stage and was a hit. His records were legendary and would make anyone pee their pants from laughter. Brother Dave wouldn’t be welcome in today’s world; he was too politically incorrect. He would also be deemed a racist for imitating black dialect. But Dave was from the south, so this was how things were back then. I miss Brother Dave. My cousins also introduced me to Cherry Bombs, burning ants with a magnifying glass, starting fires with lighter fluid, shooting people with a bow and arrow, Steve Allen on late-night TV, cussing, homemade Tacos, beer, cigarettes, cigars, grass, beatniks, church ladies, water balloons full of urine, eating Doodle Bugs, stuffing crickets up my nose, shooting spitballs with a sling-shot, BB gun wars, sharp knives, riding Honda motorcycles late at night in Poly, Jack Kerouac, Sal Paradise, and other unsavory characters. My wife, Momo, says I would have become a juvenile delinquent if I had stayed in Fort Worth. She is right.

I caught Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday celebration on the tube last week. First of all, why was it held in LA at the Hollywood Bowl? I bet the folks in Austin went crazy because it’s Willie’s homeland. Willie isn’t in good shape, but it’s good to see he can still sing and pick on Trigger. When I was a wee-one, sometime in the early to mid-1950s, my father was a country musician in Fort Worth, Texas. He played all the joints in town and then some, always coming home late at night, worn to a frazzle. He and Willie were friends in music. Willie and his friend Paul English, his drummer, made the rounds, setting in with the house bands or friends that were playing. He was also a DJ and sold vacuum cleaners during the daylight hours. Either Willie was down on his luck, or his wife may have kicked him out for a while, but he wound up sleeping on our couch for an extended period of time. He seemed happy and was the perfect, polite guest. My mother couldn’t help but like him. After the third or fourth week, she was itching to reclaim her couch and her privacy. She gave my father the ultimatum: either Willie moves on, or you move on together. My Dad broke the news to Willie, who was understanding and moved on to another sofa somewhere in Fort Worth. He and Dad remained friends for life. I was under five years old, so I don’t remember much of it, but I do recall him and my Dad playing music in our living room, Willie on an acoustic guitar, and my Dad on his fiddle. A friend of mine who lives in Austin summed Willie up perfectly; he’s morphed into an elder statesman, somewhere between Will Rogers and Walt Whitman. It’s going to be a sad time in Texas when Saint Willie takes the last trail ride.

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A Christmas Lesson Remembered


In 1955 I was six years old and received a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. Looking back, I was probably too young for such a weapon, even though it struggled to break through a cardboard target. Attitudes then were different about what a boy should have and be exposed to. There was no “toxic masculinity,” or confusion about what was between our spindly legs; boys were boys and girls were the way God made them to be, something my neighborhood buddies and I would appreciate in later years.

I asked Santa for the rifle, and behold, the old gent delivered, just like the one Ralphie got in “A Christmas Story.” A few of my friends also received the same air rifle. We were now armed and ready for war against the Germans or even the Alamo revisited. My parents, typical of the times, saw nothing wrong in me having a gun. My father, a veteran of WW2 knew them well and wasn’t about to raise no pansy-assed kid. Try that these days, CPS would be knocking at your door within the hour.

My grandfather, a veteran of WW1 volunteered to instruct me in the finer points of gun safety and marksmanship. He fought in the trenches in Europe and knew his way around a weapon or two. I didn’t know more than that about his war days, it was all a bit secretive.

Before Christmas supper, we drove to Sycamore Park for the first lesson. Forest Park was but a few blocks away, but he felt we needed more land around us in case a BB took a wrong turn. He retrieved a few empty soup cans from the trunk and placed them on a log about thirty feet away. I loaded the rifle and waited. Grandfather showed me how to hold the gun, site my target, and squeeze the trigger. I missed all the cans and wasted most of the BBs in the tube. I was down to maybe a dozen or so and still hadn’t hit my target. He wasn’t impatient with my lack of marksmanship but felt it was time for some hands-on instruction. He took the rifle, shouldered the stock, aimed, and knocked every can off the log without missing one shot. I was beside myself with envy. Here’s my old grandfather shooting like Buffalo Bill. After he handed the gun to me, I proceeded to miss every can until the BBs were gone. Time to go home.

Walking back to the car I told him that maybe someday I would be able to shoot as well as him. I was a kid and blurted things out without thinking, so I said “Grandad, did you learn to shoot like that in the war?” We were almost to the car when he said, ” Yes I did, but shooting soup cans off of a log is different than shooting a man.” I didn’t understand what his answer meant; too young and blissfully ignorant.

That lesson was more than an old man showing his grandson how to hit a soup can perched on a log. It was the best life lesson I ever received.

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Dispatches From the Cactus Patch


Vincent

Christmas is upon us; it will come and then be gone in a flash. A full year of hype and anticipation will be kaput in twenty-four hours. There will be the usual big letdown after the presents are unwrapped, the eggnog is gone, and Zuzu tells her Dad, “Teacher says every time a bell rings, an angel gets their wings.” That darn movie makes me a blubbering idiot. With age, some of us lose our filters. I fear all of mine are long gone. I’m apt to say anything at any time and am completely politically incorrect. Just ask the folks at Home Depot; my picture is posted at all the service counters. Same thing at Lowes.

I was in H.E.B. with Momo a few days back, me pushing the cart and her shuffling along on her fancy walker with a seat, 4 wheels, and 2 handbrakes. Her new and improved bionic knee is almost healed and ready for butt-kicking action. We ambled down the pet food aisle to purchase bird seed, and I found myself tearing up, thinking about my little dog Winnie, who’s been gone for two years. I will likely sniffle and snuffle at anything these days, especially around Christmas. I blame it on a lack of old-guy testosterone or the lesser grade of Kentucky bourbon; I recently changed to a cheaper brand; times are tough in the cactus patch. Maybe Santa will bring me some George Dickell. Standing in the checkout line, this nice lady behind me taps my shoulder. ” I know you two,” she says. She is a fellow Plano Wildcat from the 1960s. Her father and my father were good friends back in the day. Good to see an old high school classmate since there aren’t that many of us left. The shopping trip was a shocker. Half a basket of foodstuff, a few household items, and some allergy pills, all for $230.00. It might be cheaper to eat all of our meals at McDonald’s; those dollar burgers aren’t that bad once you get past the first bite, and with an adult Happy Meal, I get a toy that might be a plastic Unicorn that farts glitter or one of those goofy big-eyed girls from Frozen. I would rather have a drink coupon for the brewery on the square.

We made a trip to Walmart to pick up meds. The parking lot was packed. Inside, there were people everywhere, snarling, pushing, grabbing, and yelling. A young girl speeds down the aisle on a stolen Barbie Bike and almost takes out an old guy riding a personal scooter. He dodged her at the last second but rammed an old lady and her cart from behind. The old gal takes a baguette of fresh, warm French bread from her cart and beats him about the head, cussing a blue streak between whacks. The poor man’s wife pulls out her iPhone and starts filming the assault. It will likely be on TikTok or YouTube by this evening and get ten thousand views, and they will make a load of cash, just in time for Christmas. Good to know the spirit of the season is alive and well. The Salvation Army red kettle was at the front door, and a teenage boy and girl, instead of an older adult, were ringing the bell. I’m a sucker, so I push some legal tender into the kettle. I hope they use it wisely. I saw half a dozen women in their pajamas and slippers. Last year, I saw only two. What’s up with that? Then I remembered I was wearing my $5.00 pair of Goodwill white painting pants covered with acrylic paint spots. Momo kept her distance. I should have put a bandage on my right ear to complete my outfit.

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Christmas Is Time to Recognize Family. Right?


I received two emails a few days ago; one from Family Search and the other from Ancestry, both genealogy websites. I’m more well-connected than I thought.

It appears that on my mother’s side of the family tree, I am related to Belle Starr, the infamous female outlaw, Cheif Quannah Parker, the famous chief of the Comanche Nation, and son of Cynthia Ann Parker and Peta Nocona. My great-grandmother was on friendly terms with Quannah when she lived on the Indian reservation and before she met my great-grandfather, Love Simpson, who was a Cherokee and a Deputy U.S. Marshall for the Indian territory in Oklahoma. My grandmother would often hint that maybe they took a few long walks in the misty moonlight and things may have gotten out of hand. She also possessed an old ratty-assed wig and would pull the thing out ever so often and show it to us kids. She said it was Chief Parker’s long ponytail after it was cut off when the soldiers arrested him. We believed every word of it. It gets better. I am also related to the infamous Texas outlaw killer, John Wesley Hardin. For some unknown reason, Bob Dylan was intrigued with outlaws and killing for a while, so he wrote a song about Hardin. This was before his Nashville days. I’m waiting on that royalty check, Bob.

I had no idea that Davy Crockett was in my family tree, yep, also on my mother’s side. That explains my over-the-top childhood obsession with the Alamo, flintlock firearms, long sharp knives, and coonskin hats. I would have been picked for membership in the “Sons of the Alamo” lodge if I had known this forty years ago. Captain Kangaroo, Buffalo Bob, and Shari Lewis are also cousins; so that makes Shari’s puppet Lambchop a family member too. Howdy Doody is not mentioned, nor is Mr. Greenjeans, although he was my favorite.

Family Search, the site run by the Morman Tabernacle Church, and choir, says that on my father’s side, I am related to our first president, General George Washington, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Waylon Jennings, Will Rogers, Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill Cody, Billy the Kid, Doris Day, Mary Martin, Tiny Tim, Roy Rogers, Ray Charles and a fifty-fifty chance, to Rin-Tin-Tin and Sasquatch. Damn, son, now that’s a list. I’m getting a big head just writing this.

My mother always told me that our family goes way back and has lots of closets and skeletons. My father, always said that his family has a whole scrapyard of bones and is bat-shit crazy on top of that. Now I have to figure out how to tell my friends about my relations without sounding like a deranged liar.

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The West Texas Wooly Booger


My grandparent’s farmhouse front porch was made for storytelling. It wrapped around half the old home and was covered with a sturdy roof so we could sit out during any weather. Summer or winter, after dark, under the moonlight or stars, it was fertile ground for swapping yarns.

My two long-deceased uncles, Bill and Jay, were the best liars and yarn spinners I have known. I am proud to have inherited, to some degree, their ability to recount and or mold loads of total chicken crap into something believable.

Christmas Eve of 1957 found our family visiting the Santa Anna, Texas farm. The weather that day was mild with thunderstorms expected in the evening. In Texas, Indian Summer often shows up at Christmas time leaving us kids sad because Santa won’t have any snow for his sleigh. We assumed he could still land on rocks and hard dirt, or we wouldn’t get any presents while at the farm. My grandfather cut down a small Cedar tree in his pasture, and my parents brought some of our home ornaments, or we would have been treeless and nowhere for Santa to put our gifts.

After supper, some of the family would gather on the front porch to listen to our two Uncles spin their eloquent yarns of life growing up on a farm in rural Texas. Uncle Jay carried the metal Coleman cooler full of ice and Pearl Beer to the porch, and Bill rolled some cigarettes and brought out a pack of Red Man Chewing Tobacco. The stories wouldn’t start until the third or fourth beer was consumed. Uncle Bill said beer is a required fuel for any storyteller to practice his craft.

The lightning to the Northwest was flashing behind the Santa Anna mountain. Uncle Jay remarked that it reminded him of shells exploding miles away at night while he was onboard a battleship in the Pacific. That was the first time he mentioned his time in the war to us kids. We wanted to know more, but he changed the subject. We were years away from him sharing those times with us. The conditions on the porch were perfect. My cousins and I sat around our uncles in a circle, waiting for the first word.

Sitting at the opposite end of the porch, my granny piped in, ” Jay, did you ever tell the kids about the Wooly Booger’s?”

“The what boogers, “my cousin Margurite squealed. No, they had failed to mention them.

Uncle Jay took a swig of Pearl, looked at the lightning, and in a hoarse whisper said, “We got West Texas One-Eyed Wooly Booger’s right here in Santa Anna, and they are partial to eating kids.”

There, it was out. First, it was Pole Cats, then Coyotes, Bobcats, Feral Hogs, Rattle Snakes, Copperheads, and the giant Mountain Boomer, and now One Eyed Wooly Boogers. Sum bitch, everything around this farm wanted to kill us kids; no wonder we were a nervous wreck and lost weight every time we visited. At that moment, I was ready to go back to Fort Worth. At least there, I only had to worry about getting smacked by a car while riding my bike to school.

Uncle Bill chimed in: ” I saw one about forty years ago. I was sleeping on the screened-in porch with my dog, Giblet when one of them got through a hole in the screen and jumped on my chest. It was the size of a house cat with one big red eye in the middle of it’s skull. I was paralyzed with fear and couldn’t move; I guess the big red eye hypnotized me. Old Giblet killed the critter, and Granny took a picture of it with her Brownie camera. Then, we buried the little demon in the back pasture. I hear tell that they are attracted to the smell of nose boogers, which kids usually have a lot of. They go for the nose and chew it right off of your face, then the ears and eyeballs if you don’t die from the nose wound. I happened to have a cold that night, so that’s why the creature tried to get me.”

My cousin Jerry, even in the dark, was pale as a baby’s butt; he had a winter cold and a big-time snotty nose. He was a goner, and I had to sleep beside him on a pallet on the screened-in porch. I would be the second to get it.

I slept with my Daisy BB Gun and Cub Scout camping knife for the next few nights. I wasn’t going down without a fight.

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A Swift Kick for Christmas


Basement Bar Dancers (Photo by Dennis Rowe/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)

For a few years past, my wife, MoMo, has jokingly informed me that she would “kick my butt” if my mood or actions didn’t improve. She is right-handed, so her good kicking leg would be her right. She made a few attempts and misses, but her form was good, and she had more power in her kick than I imagined. When she was a younger gal, she was an indoor soccer player and a darn good hippy-hippy-shake dancer before she became a senior citizen, so the know-how is still there.

I used to be quick, an artful dodger of everything that might hurt. Dodgeball in the gym, with that hard red rubber ball, errant baseballs, soccer balls, water balloons, shotgun pellets, etc. Now that my right leg has gone south, and I’m older than I should be, I’m a sitting duck waiting for the kill shot.

MoMo received a new Kryptonite, stainless steel, industrial-grade knee two weeks ago. Her surgeon, a young whippersnapper, says that in a few months, she will have the knee of a twenty-year-old and be able to dance the “bugaloo, The Pony, The Shag and the Twist,” leap low fences in a single bound, push a grocery cart at breakneck speed through H.E.B. and kick a soccer ball like a pro. She will now have the right knee of a superhero. I fear I’m a sitting duck.

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One More Semester, Please! I Promise I’ll Do Better!


To all of you, parents and grandparents, who are totally paying for or supplementing your children’s and grandchildren’s college education, In case you haven’t heard, many universities in the Northeast and Washington State are offering accredited classes on “Taylor Swift.” yes, that one. There is no planned curriculum or testing, just hysterical discussions and listening to her screeching music. Students must bring their own auto-tune devices so the rest of the class can understand the coded “swift-ease” language. As for the folks paying for the little darlings’ education? Well, your daughter is a moron and will likely be living at home in her childhood bedroom until you pass on and leave her the house and your 1996 Buick. At least the Dixie Chicks and Alanis Morrisette could actually sing.

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The Knee Of Christmas Cheer


After many years of anguish and hand-wringing pain, the day came last Thursday; MoMo got her new carbon, Kryptonite, and stainless knee. Not just a few parts, but the entire show, socket and all. The surgeon sawed the leg bone in two places, glued in the replacement part stapled up the meat and muscle, and there ya go, she’ll be up and running in a few weeks. She is a miserable mess and whacked out on pain meds, but improving.

The old knee and tendon bones will be placed in a beautiful crystal jar and shipped to us before Christmas. A bottom-lit display with color-changing LED lights will make it the focal point of our Holiday decor and will delight our party guests for what few years we have left. Her surgeon said it’s the newest thing in replacement surgery, “it’s sick”, or so he says. I have the perfect place on our kitchen prep counter. Imagine when the grandchildren get to watch their grandmother’s old knee light up in 20 rotating colors. Wow. I haven’t told MoMo about this little gift, but will get around to it soon.

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Travels Without Charley


A few weeks back, MoMo and I traded our Honda CRV for a Honda Ridgeline pickup truck. I know, the looks I get from the boys in the Cummins Diesel and the giant GMCs. We would have bought a larger truck but neither of us can climb a ladder to get into the darn thing. They can laugh all they want, we are comfortable. The reason for the truck is to pull an RV trailer and visit our American National Parks. There are so many in Texas, that it will take at least a few years. Terlingua in the Big Bend, Marfa, and Fort Stockton are just a few calling our name. John Steinbeck wrote “Travels With Charley” back in the sixties. He and his poodle crisscrossed America in a pickup with a camper over the bed. He wanted to see his country as it was before it changed into something he feared was coming. The book is a masterpiece, and MoMo and I will be taking a cue from Mr. Stienbeck, but without Charley.

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Show A Little Kindness And Respect


I wrote this story a year ago but thought it would be appropriate to re-publish it today.

Last Saturday, before Memorial Day, my wife MoMo and I stopped at one of our local McDonalds for a sausage McMuffin and a Coke. Breakfast for two for under six bucks. We were on our way to Fort Worth for some items I can’t recall at this moment, but we often make the trip because our hometown, Granbury, Texas, is small, and the only place to buy things is Walmart and H.E.B. for food. I would as soon take a licking from a Cocaine Bear than shop at Walmart, but I give in, and we do; everyone in town eventually has to.

Sitting and eating our meager breakfast sandwich and sharing a Coke, I noticed an old man sitting alone at a corner table. I’m now officially an old man, but this fellow looked to be in his nineties. He wore a black ball cap that read; “Korean War Veteran” and a tee shirt with the American flag on the front; a walking Kane rested on the seat next to him. He wasn’t eating, although a sandwich and a cup of coffee were on his tray. The old fellow was unkempt and needed a shave, and his clothes showed signs that he likely lived alone and felt no need to spiff himself up for a trip to McDonald’s.

My wife says I say things that will one day get me maimed, shot, or worse, and yes, she is right. Outspokenness is a trait I tote in my back pocket, and it gets me in hot water with friends and relatives.

I got up, walking stick in hand, hobbled over to the old fellow, and asked if the folks in the kitchen got his order wrong? He replied that they had given him a more expensive sandwich and charged him more than he could afford, and he couldn’t eat eggs anymore, but it was okay; he would just drink his coffee and leave. Disrespect for our veterans, especially our older ones, who will soon be nothing but an old photograph on someone’s mantel runs deep in our society. The younger people have no idea the sacrifices these men and women made so they could drive their Teslas and keep their faces in an iPhone all day. This was one of the moments my wife MoMo frequently warns me of.

I asked to speak to the manager, a young Hispanic woman, maybe mid-twenties. I wasn’t looking for a fight or to berate anyone, but only to remind this business to treat our veterans with the respect they have earned and deserve. I wasn’t rude but direct, and I shamed her for overcharging him, and they should refund his money and apologize. She was shocked that one of her employees had committed this sin. She said she would make it right by him, but by then, he had emptied his tray into the trash can and walked out. If I ever cross paths with him again, I will buy him a big breakfast and maybe visit for a while; I bet he has some great stories to tell.