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Ask A Texan: Yearning To Be Sydney Sweeney…


Questionable But Believable Advice For Folks That Dream About Living In The Land Where They Can Be An Urban Cowboy And Date Debra Winger

The Texan

This Texan received a letter from a Mr. Whipple Charmin of Lawton Oklahoma. It was written on the back of a Walmart grocery list, and after reading what the poor man is being fed, I’m amazed he’s still alive. It seems his wife, Luanna Rosanna Cash, is going through a midlife change and is searching for her “inner self.”

Mr. Charmin: Mr. Texan, I saw your article in the Popular Chicken Magazine at Tractor Supply and figured you might be able to help a brother out. The Missus, Luanna Rosanna Cash( her mama named her that after her favorite singer), is going through the change of life, at least that’s what her Chiropractor and her hairdresser tell her. She recently saw that Sydney Sweeney girl on TV wearing those tight jeans and looking pretty fine, so she thinks she wants to be like her. The problem is, Luanna has a butt the size of a 1957 Buick and the only jeans she can fit in is those Pioneer Woman stretchy jeans at The Walmart. I come home from work at the chicken-killing plant, and she’s all laid out on the sofa with a cold bottle of Ripple Wine, wearing those stretchy jeans, and a Dolly Parton wig and a Urban Cowboy western shirt open to the waist. Her little Poodle dog, Tidbit, is sitting on her butt, with his leg up licking his own little butt, which killed the mood. I know her hormones are all messed up and she’s going through one of those identity crises and all, so I tell her she looks real fine. Well, she asked me if those Pioneer Woman stretchy jeans make her look like Sydney Sweeney? That dog sitting on her butt kinda threw me off my nut, and I said, No, honey, you look just like that nice waitress down at the Waffle House. The doctor at the ER stitched up my forehead and said the scar should go away in a few years, but the imprint of the Lodge frying pan logo might be permanent. I need to make things right with Luanna cause I’m tired of living at the Motel 6 cause they keep that damn light on all night, and I can’t sleep.

The Texan: Whipple, you Okie moron, didn’t your Daddy teach you anything? It doesn’t matter if her butt looks like the Goodyear Blimp floating over Cowboy Stadium; you lie like a two-dollar garage sale rug. I, too, once was in a similar situation. The wife, squeezed into her 1980s Madonna, Like A Virgin outfit, she was wearing to our class reunion. She looked at me with those big, old, fake eyelashes eyes and that teased-up hair, and asked me if the dress made her butt look too big. I was working on my fourth or fifth Jack and Coke, so I told her the tushie looked just like that Led Zeppelin album cover. The prom was a little icy, and a few days later, I came home from the Sons of the Alamo Lodge meeting, and she had donated my bass boat to the Goodwill store. So, Whipple, you’d better learn to lie like a Democrat. I’m sending you a copy of ” Liars for Dummies” and my usual box of Cherry Bombs just to make you feel better.

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The Old Time Revival Inspired by Charlie Kirk’s Memorial: A Soliloquy For Young Believers


It’s been a few weeks since Charlie Kirk was assassinated, and a few days since his memorial, which was a landmark television event in itself. Yes, many folks of high standards and lofty ideals spoke in eloquent tones, delivered soaring soliloquies on the life of a young patriot taken too soon. It was somber for the most part, but like any television production, it utilized technology to connect with the audience.

My wife, Momo, and I shed a few tears, moved by the words spoken by government officials that professed their Christianity to the world, and didn’t hold back. Near the end, when Charlie’s widow, Erika Kirk, spoke with humility and eloquence, I knew she had been chosen to lead a new revival of young men and women to Christianity and conservatism. She will lead them to reclaim our country as envisioned by the founding fathers.

Then, in a flashback, uninvited moments I often have as I grow older, I envisioned it as something entirely different. In crystal-clear black and white, it evoked the memory of an old-time 1950s Texas Christian revival I attended as a young child, held in a weathered circus tent in a field of drought-stricken grass near Santa Anna High School. Unlike the sturdy Baptist Church in town, there were no pews or wooden floors; only hard wooden folding chairs and a foot-trampled, grassy floor, harboring insects that crawled up my legs and delivered vicious bites. I yelped, and my mother smacked me on the back of my tiny, crew-cut-wearing head. “Be respectful,” she sternly whispered, “God is using the preacher as his lightning bolt.” No matter how hot the weather and the misery caused by pestilence, I obeyed. Pretending to listen to the droning sermon, half asleep from the heat and boredom, I would rather have been anywhere but that tent. My grandparents sat behind us, their hands holding heavy black Bibles that would leave a mark when connected to an insulant child’s behind. I could feel the searing stare of my grandmother’s laser eyes on the back of my neck. I looked straight ahead in fear, knowing that if my chin dipped half an inch or I wavered sideways, a bump from the good book would remind me why I was there. I was six years old and a reluctant, ignorant, bordering on a Christian at best. I yearned in silence to follow my older cousins; they were washed in the blood of the Lamb, bathed in the Holy Spirit, and had been dipped like spring sheep in a trough of holy water. I was just a young kid with no spiritual compass to guide me. It took some time, too slow to my mother’s liking, but I eventually came to Jesus in my own terms. Making me kiss the casketed, heavily perfumed body of my dead great-grandmother set me back a few years, from trauma alone. But God did find me, and I found him. It wasn’t the lightning bolt jolt from above, but a slow and gentle process that fitted my preciousness.

The memorial service in Arizona was similar, but in a larger way. Thousands gathered in air-conditioned comfort, with cold drinks and hot dogs served to feed the masses. Clean restrooms, paved parking, and ushers were on hand to help you find your seat. Believers and those seeking to become believers gathered to pay respects to a young man who will likely become the unofficially appointed sainted leader of the next Jesus Revolution, similar to the one started by Pastor Greg Laurie in the early 1970s in California. Take away the stadium, put the masses in a tent with no air conditioning, a grass floor, a rural setting, and a grieving, electrifying widow instead of a hellfire and brimstone preacher delivering the word of God, and you have today’s equivalent of an old-time tent revival. And, it’s about time.

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Three Strikes Doesn’t Mean You’re Out Of Life’s Game


How many chances are we allowed when we screw up? As a child, I was, at times, allowed three strikes and then I was out. The first one was the warning, the second was a more stern warning with parental icing, and the third was the one that always resulted in the butt busting and exile to my room with no cartoons or Ovaltine. I remember them well. I wasn’t a bad kid, but one who didn’t remember the first two chances as being severe enough to deter me from the dreaded third. Most kids have been there, my two boys included.

This past Saturday, Momo and I volunteered through our church, Generations Of Granbury, to help feed the homeless in our hometown of Granbury, Texas. It’s known, and touted as the number one celebration town in the country, as well as being the number one small historical town in the USA, it also has homeless folks. How is that possible? Look past the beautiful square, the lake, the historical charm, and all that razzle-dazzle hype. You find that yes, it’s like any other small town or city in Texas: we have homeless people living on our streets, or in cheap motels, paying by the week, or day for a bed and a bathroom. Good people who were dealt a bad hand found themselves without their castle, their home, their pride. It may not have been more than a few bedrooms, a bath, and a kitchen, but those walls and a roof held so many family memories of past Christmases, children’s birthday celebrations, graduations, and Thanksgivings past. The laughter and joy are gone in an instant because they couldn’t make the mortgage payments, or perhaps a divorce, loss of a job, or alcohol and drugs were to blame for their misfortune. Our society does not guarantee everyone a safe, warm home; that is up to ourselves to make that happen. What our government and NGOs do guarantee is that people from third-world countries come here illegally and freely partake in the American dream, and then some for breaking our laws and contributing nothing for what they receive. Just be sure to vote as we tell you, or the freebies stop. How about the poor American citizens and veterans who need a hand? Do they receive the same red-carpet treatment? Hell no.

We arrived at the Classic Inn, set up the tables, laid out the hot food and sack lunches, and waited for people to stop by for a meal. On our way from the church, I had noticed a young couple with backpacks sitting under a stand of oak trees by the highway. I told my wife, Maureen, that if they are still there, I would like to take them a sack lunch and some water. Everyone thought that was a good idea. I found them lying under a stand of trees in the front yard of a bank building. The young man was flat out and not moving; the young lady, his wife, was lying by their belongings, which consisted of a backpack and a grocery sack with grapes and an orange drink. I handed her the lunches, and she was grateful. I asked her where they were headed. She looked up, bottom lip quivering and tears in her eyes, and said she didn’t know where they were going or what to do. I saw the look of despair, hopelessness, fear, and defeat in her young eyes. She was mortified to be accepting food from a strange old man and to be in her situation. Here she sat, guarding the few things they owned, no home, no money, no nothing except her husband, who was going through his fourth day of agonizing detox from Fentanyl addiction. She had been clean and sober for over a month. Drugs knocked them to their knees, robbed them of their possessions, their pride, and then brought them to this shady patch of grass in Granbury. Whether I liked it or not, it brought them to me. I told her I would be right back and ran for backup, which was my wife, Maureen. She’s a nurse and a strong Christian warrior, and these situations are what she is made for.

We returned with hot food and more water. Maureen sat on the grass talking to the young lady while I purchased two bottles of Poweraid from the grocery store next door. When I returned, she asked me to go to the Classic Inn and pay for them a room for the night. Her nurse mode had kicked in, and she knew the young man needed out of the heat and a bed. The demons of detox had hold of him in the worst way. I procured a room and returned. We helped the young man, who could barely walk, to our truck and took the two of them to the motel. The Classic Inn is no Motel 6, but more like a Motel 4: no frills, just air conditioning, a bed, and a bathroom. We decided they needed another night, which we arranged, considering the condition of the man.

When we left them in the motel room, Maureen prayed with the young girl and was told they have a four-year-old son who is being cared for by the man’s mother. This made their situation even more dire, as a child is involved and away from his mother. Evidently, they had been given the three strikes you’re out from their families, and had failed: kicked out, and banished.

Maureen embraced the young mother, and she clung to her. It was not the easy embrace of friends, but one of desperation, and thanks for understanding and helping without judgment. We went back to the food table and helped load up, but as we finished, a car with a lady and three children pulled up and asked if there was still food left. They left with boxes of food for their supper that night.

Maureen and I went home, shaken by what we had dealt with for the last two hours, praying for God to heal and help these two young parents. They may have used that third strike and were considered out, but sometimes, folks deserve a fourth or fifth strike to get it right.

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The Fall Of A Nation: The Battle Of Good VS Evil


I thought this country couldn’t get worse than it was a few weeks ago, then the young innocent Ukrainian woman was murdered on a commuter train by a sick thug who had been arrested and released back into our society fourteen other times. She was stabbed in the neck while other commuters, all black Americans, sat a few feet away from her, and did nothing. The look of complete fear on her face as she bled out, not comprehending that she was dying. She came to the United States to escape the war in Ukraine, start a new life, find employment, and feel safe in a country of freedom. In her moment of death, she likely wondered why the people sitting around her would not help. I’m not afraid to call people out: the pointing of fingers and cries of “racist” don’t bother me in the least. I call it like it is, and over the years, it has caused me a few bumps and bruises. The mainstream media said not one word of sympathy or outrage over her murder, because the girl was white and the killer was a black career criminal, as was the sainted George Floyd, and that won’t fit their narrative for national news. Sickening.

Now we have the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a conservative Christian political figure, and a husband and father of two small children. He wasn’t an elected official, but had a staggering following of young people, and that is what scares the left the most: young Christian conservatives who will vote Republican and shun the leftist politicians and ideology. When they catch the killer, we will slowly find out the truth about him and why he chose Charlie as his grand Opus.

The comments and cute little videos on Twitter/X by young liberal white men and women were, at best, vicious and vile. These fools are either brainwashed from indoctrination by the school system or possessed by Demons from Hell. I think it’s all those afflictions that make them what they are —the most dangerous movement in our country. The main stream media and cable news like CNN and MSNBC have stoked the fires in the beast’s of hate twenty-four hours a day since President Trump was elected. Charlie Kirk was a prize-winning target for these people. Young, well-adjusted, happily married with children, Christian, and a lily-white male. He was the leftist equivalent of a Fifteen-Point Buck they could hang on the wall of their lyre. They are celebrating: dancing in the streets, and buying rounds of Red Bull for their friends. One more down, and thousands more to go.

It’s akin to putting a college-age person in front of the television or tablet and feeding them a sick version of NPR’s Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, and Mr. Rogers is a 300 lb. Transvestite male. And we wonder why young people think they should have a vagina or a penis, instead of what God gave them. You may want to be a girl or a boy, take massive amounts of transitioning drugs that ruin your brain and reasoning, and then dress like one, act like one, and try to convince society that you are female. Still, you are not, unless you lose that useless appendage between your legs and your chromosomes magically change. Now, have this screwed up boy or girl believe the vile crap they read, give them a reason, provide them with access to a weapon or two, point them in the direction of any business, school, church, political rally, or anyone that “done them wrong,” and you have an indoctrinated, mentally ill killer, who the news media will cover their ass when it’s all said and done.

Have I said too much? Yep, probably. Feel free to call me at BR-549, ask for Junior.

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Prayers, Repentance, Wishes and Begging


Once, many years ago, I remember being in a San Antonio hotel bar and conversing with an older man who claimed to be beholden of holy powers, extraordinary visions, and able to see the future and to change the present.

I was in town for business for one day and night, then back to Dallas. My project was in Eagle Pass, Texas, a forgetful border town full of crime and drug cartels. My superintendent carried a sidearm and counted the minutes until the Lowes store was completed.

I was drinking an almost flat beer, and the fellow seated next to me was somewhere around his second or fourth round of expensive neat scotch. The bartender had removed it from the top shelf with a stool and a set of tongs and dusted the bottle before she poured it; it was obviously an expensive vintage from merry old Scotland. She gave him less than a full shot, but he didn’t notice, maybe didn’t care. Four drinks of scotch would significantly affect my speaking ability, but not his. Without introduction, he started a conversation.

He was a credible orator with a mellifluous voice like a hypnotist, an NPR radio host, or a con man might use. He was the main speaker of a soiree that would gather in the hotel’s small ballroom within the hour and was well on his way to being a drunken hot mess, but who am I to warn him off. This could be his method before speaking; fire water gives the weak courage to make a fool of themselves.

In our conversation, the words preacher and minister came up a few times, as did divinity school and exorcisms. Billy Graham was a fishing buddy; he had lunch with the Pope and was a regular guest on late-night radio shows. I assumed he was a man of God, but with the amount of alcohol he had consumed, it was questionable. Jesus and his disciples drank wine, but this guy was a certified sot.

Middle-aged men in lightweight suits and women in colorful summer dresses floated through the bar on their way to the ballroom. A few stopped to pick up a white wine or a cocktail. I was his captive for a while longer; being the only empty seat at the bar, I had claimed it as mine. The man and his story came with the territory.

This balding, pudgy, bespectacled fellow reminded me of Mr. Toad of the children’s books. I christened him “Toady.” He was convinced and said to be believed by thousands that if you think about a situation hard enough and long, you can change the physical nature of that situation to your advantage by creating an ectoplasmic event, changing the outcome of nature or God’s will. I asked him if that meant returning the deceased or healing the lame and sick? He had yet produced no one from their final rest, but he and his believers had cured a few people of minor illnesses. They were so close to returning the departed; it could happen any day now. I listened for a while longer, bought him another round of house scotch, and formed an opinion that his belief was the spoutings of a mad-hatter conferee, a half-assed self-educated preacher that believed his own self-absorbed rantings. He wouldn’t admit to being a Believer or even a papered man of God, but he knew how to captivate and emulate as one did. He was a beggar of alms from the poor fools who believed in him. He didn’t possess the stature or the hair to be a TV preacher, so this was his gig. He was good at his trade. As I unseated to leave, “Toady” grabbed my arm and said,

” I beg of you to try my method; believe in the power of the mind.”

“No thanks,” I replied, ” I only believe in the power of God and the Holy Spirit; anything more than that is new-age crap.”

That said, I moved on to a table to eat supper and left him to his fifth scotch and his followers awaiting in the ballroom.

I have been watching videos of Pastor Greg Laurie, the now older man who played a significant part in the Jesus Revolution in the late sixties. One particular video addressed the right and wrong way to pray and repentance. Watching the video reminded me of the encounter with a fellow in the hotel bar.

I can stare at the cedar trees in my backyard for twenty-four hours straight without blinking and drink Irish Whiskey until I see holy visions, but my prayers, repentance, wishes, and yes, some begging will not bring my son back to this earth, death is final, and there is no return.

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The Old Scotchmen of Port Aransas


I called them the Old Scotchmen; my mother had a few different names, none of which were complimentary.

In 1968, my father, John Strawn, and his friend Dexter Prince were known characters on the island of Port Aransas, Texas, which was an honor, considering the long list of other local characters that added lore and color to the quaint fishing village. Lawnmower Ted, Shorty Fowler, Spanny Gibbs, Carlos Moore, Captain Rick Corn, and the notorious but lovable Jack Cobb were a few, and the list changed weekly depending on their antics.

My parents had purchased a house on East Street in the winter of 1968 and planned to spend holidays and summers on the island. Our main home was in Plano, Texas, where my father was a custom home builder and developer. Saltwater and the island were part of my childhood, shaped by the journeys to Port A, which satisfied my father’s and grandfather’s love of saltwater fishing, which began when the family lived in Los Angeles during the 1930s. Dexter and his family had been coming to the island just as long and preferred to live in one of Gibbs’ Cottages, his home away from home. Dexter and my father were avid fishermen, competent tellers of tall tales, and aficionados of fine Scotch Whiskey. My father’s AquaSport fishing boat allowed them to fish until they were spent, and then manufacture believable lies about their catch to anyone who would listen, which was usually the patrons of Shorty’s Place, their favorite post-angling hangout.

Most evenings, when both were on the island, Dexter would swing by the house around ten-thirty. My father, already into his routine of watching The Tonight Show would be dressed in his pajamas and working on a nice tumbler of scotch. He would change into shorts and a T-shirt, and the two characters would take their drink and drive around the island in my folks’ turquoise dune buggy, making big plans and yapping. That was back when Port A was small and the police knew everyone in town, so they left the old Scotchmen alone. The strict DUI laws were years away.

One evening, Dexter dropped by around eleven or so, and the two jumped in the dune buggy and took off for their ride. About halfway through the exploring, they realized they needed more scotch, so Dexter recommended a stop at Shorty’s Place. My father balked because he didn’t change, and was wearing his red silk pajamas and barefoot. Dexter said it would be fine, the place would be empty on a Tuesday night. It wasn’t: it was full of locals and tourists. They strolled in and took a seat at the bar. Shorty, ever her sweet self, told my father he could sleep on the cot in the storeroom since he was dressed for bed. They ordered a nice glass of Chivas Regal scotch. A few other patrons made some smart-assed remarks, making my father turn as red as his attire. Even the local gal who wore nothing but a white satin slip on most nights complimented him on the cute red pajamas. After that, John always made sure to bring a bottle of Scotch for the ride around.

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Ask A Texan: Sing Me Back Home Again….


Somewhat Unsophisticated Advice For Those Who Seek The Truth instead of Smoke Being Blown Up Their Backsides…

This Texan received an urgent email this afternoon from Marfa, Texas. A Mr. Daddy-O-Of-The-Desert (that’s how he signed the email, not my idea) says his wife, Brushy Sue, has packed his Sears and Roebuck camping bag and is sending him and the dog packing into the desert because the dog keeps howling and singing all night long.

Daddy-O: Mr. Texan, I need some real-time advice, right now. I’m sitting here at a computer in the library and will wait until I hear from you. My wife, Brushy Sue, is a real hum-dinger of a gal. We met in high school, and it was love at first sight. Her having a full set of teeth and not being knocked up also helped our love to blossom. Snake Canyon, our hometown, is a small bump in the road located just outside of Presidio, where we grew up; however, we have been in Marfa for a long time. A few weeks ago, a buddy of mine and I were drinking beer at Planet Marfa, and he mentioned that he had a dog he needed to find a home for. He’s kinda wild and will need some training, but other than that, he’s really lovely. So, being a dog lover, I say yes, I’ll take him. I pick him up the next day, and the dog bites me three times before I can get him into the pickup, then he rips my leather seats all to hell and eats the microphone on my CB Radio, now I can’t talk to the truckers at night. After demolishing the inside of my Ford, he settles down, lays his cute head in my lap, and has a nap as I drive home. When I drag him into the house, Brushy Sue has a conniption fit; she doesn’t care for dogs. The dog, sensing she didn’t care for him, ate her Pioneer Woman house slippers and then chewed up her VHS copy of Dirty Dancing, and that was it. The dog and I are outside, I’m sleeping in a tent, and he’s barking and singing all damn night. I can’t take the dog back to my buddy, he moved during the night, and Brushy Sue won’t let me back in the house until the doggy goes. I’m a little worried because, around midnight, while he was singing in the back yard, a pack of Coyotes came to the cyclone fence to visit, and they all started singing the same song: it sounded like a scratched-up Taylor Swift CD. My buddy may not have told me the truth. Any ideas how to fix this mess. I’m waiting here at the library.

The Texan: Well, Mr. Daddy-O, which is such a cool name for a dude that lives in the desert. You have a problem, but it’s fixable. First, I think your ex-buddy sold you a rotten bill of goods. I grew up in Texas and know a lot about our critters. From your description, you likely have a half-wild, half-domesticated coyote, which is the worst kind: you never know when that wild streak is going to come out. One minute, he’s lying on the floor watching Lassie with the kids, and then he grabs little Susie by the throat and drags her out the doggy door in the kitchen. You can’t trust a Franken-dog. I suggest you let your dog loose and see how it goes with the coyotes. I’ve been to Planet Marfa a few times, and you folks are just too damn weird. I’m sending your wife a CD of Dirty Dancing and an autographed picture of Patrick Swayze dancing the Bug-a-loo, and of course, a box of Cherry Bombs to throw at the doggy if he doesn’t leave on his own.

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Dispatches From The Cactus Patch 8.20.25…. Fake News You Can Trust, I Promise.


Me, Before I had My Ear Job

Pope Leo, an American from Chicago, has bucked tradition at the Vatican. He is choosing a newly renovated Papal ten-room apartment in lieu of the sparsely furnished Papal palace. He is bringing roommates: his close friend, Jose, a personal gardener named Tatu from Peru, a five-year-old black and white Llama named Millie, also from Peru, and Charo, his favorite Peruvian cook. Asked if bucking Vatican tradition will cause problems, Pope Leo said, ” screw ’em, if the Bears win the Super Bowl, I’m having them for dinner and they won’t be eating ravioli. ” My kind of Pope.

The Mormon Church, you know, the two guys on bicycles that knock on your door when you’re eating breakfast or supper and try to convert you on your front porch, is now allowing female Mormons to wear sleeveless shirts, tank tops, and undergarments instead of the constricting biblical, rough-sewn, pioneer clothing as required by their church. The women are ecstatic since men run the church and like to keep them covered up, barefoot, and continually pregnant. Word on the paved streets of gold in Provo, Utah, is that the girls are pushing to hire Sydney Sweeney as their new spokesperson so they can wear American Eagle jeans.

Beverly Hills is no longer the wealthiest zip code in the U.S. Top honors go to Alligator Alcatraz in Florida. The number of Cartel members, bosses, drug lords, and dealers with annual incomes, before and after incarceration, equals $95 billion, way more than 90210. Oprah is calling for a recount because she believes her block should be valued more highly than a bunch of violent criminals. Governor Ron DeSantis is considering charging them rent and taxes for the duration of their stay.

Jasmine Crockett, that foul-mouthed fake ghetto-gal from Texas, who is not really from the ghetto but grew up wealthy, is filing a lawsuit against President Trump for trying to put an end to mail-in ballots. She claims that ending them will “inconvenience and hinder dead people in her district from voting.” Imagine that.

DHS Head Kristi Noem has hired a team of Navy MWR painters to paint the entire iron border wall flat black. Since the wall is located along border states that reach over 100 degrees daily, adding black paint will make the steel hotter by as much as fifty degrees. This will deter illegals from climbing the wall. Asked about when the weather cools and the steel won’t be as hot, Secretary Noem said we will be coating the steel in good old American ball bearing grease. It works on Squirrels, so why not illegals? They’re both after the same thing: free stuff. What a gal.

Target, the woke wonderland of big box retailers, fired their wokie CEO and replaced him with one a bit less woke. Today, their stock and that cute white Terrier took a red and white dump right in the middle of their bulls-eye logo, and they are panicked. Call in Dylan Mulvaney? Lady GaGa? Kim Kardashian? Nope, it’s rumored they are in secret talks with the new face of white girl America, the luscious curveball-throwing, blue jean-wearing Sydney Sweeney. As Yaakov Smirnoff says, “America, what a country.”

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Is This The Real Life? Is This Just Fantasy? Caught In A Landslide, No Escape From Reality


Me Before I Quit Smoking

Perhaps Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty had it right? Drive a beat-up car across the country, searching for the real America; find that touchable and believable reality. The young Marylou is along for the ride; she adds the angst to their search: a real woman, one to drive the two of them mad. Three is a tangled mess. Two recovering Catholic boys question their upbringing. Harsh realisms, self-flagellating, pot smoking, cheap liquor guzzling, teetering on becoming a criminal or a saint.

Roughians, hooligans, hipsters, Bohemians, and rapscallions. These were the self-educated beast shaped by the great depression that taught us that America isn’t perfect and never can be as long as flawed and greedy people make decisions for the masses. Lords and Cerfs; Alms for the poor, sir?

The late 1940s was a time of realism. Fantasy was for the dreams of children. The recent brutal world war ended the tragic depression years, and sacrifices and loss of human life in far-off lands all played out in real-time, not on a roll of film. There was no “escape from reality.”

The coterie of Bohemian writers and artists was forming. Jackson Pollock was dripping paint, Picasso was mutilating women on canvas, and Papa Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Alan Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Jack Kerouac sat around small tables in dingy cafes and bars slamming down hooch, and writing the real stuff that made us smile, think, cry, or recoil in disgust. They took the American reality from the 1930s and 1940s and gave it to us with a backhanded slap to the face. It awakened some of us, the ones that paid attention.

Jack Kerouac and the rest of his group weren’t meant for literary sainthood; they were too stained, too fallible, and over-baptized. America was real; life was not always the astringed family of mom and pop, two kids, and a cocker spaniel. Sometimes it hurt. More often than not, it was damned good. Men were riddled with imperfections but still knew how to be male, and women were as perfect as they were created to be.

Somewhere on this trip, along the road, America lost its reality, and people turned to fantasy. Now, we are lost in a landslide, with no escape from a warped reality. The road goes on.

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Getting Down With Reverend A.Z. Bergeron: My Time As A Southern Baptist


Brother Dave Gardner

After church service on Sunday, I was visiting with my Pastor. I had finished playing in the worship band, and we talked music for a minute or two, then he asked me about a recent post I had written about my uncle’s dog eating his false teeth. He wanted to know if the dog ate all the teeth and whether the story was true.

I am blessed with a colorful family on both my parents’ sides, so most of what I write is factual and as accurate as my old mind remembers. My cousins disown me, and the rest of the living family thinks I make everything up and have a mental disorder, which I may have, thanks to a bad fall and brain trauma I suffered a few years back that erased part of my memory. However, I didn’t need that part anyway; I still have plenty to tell. I will admit to embellishing the historical facts a bit, only to make the story more believable and easier on those who lack imagination. If I hadn’t witnessed the events firsthand, I wouldn’t believe them either.

The Pastor and I got to talking about my experience as a child attending the Polytechnic First Baptist Church back in the 1950s. I was young, only six years old, with no formal religious training or exposure, except for a few weeks of vacation Bible School in Santa Anna, Texas, taught by two of the meanest, vengeful old bags in town —old maid sisters who were as mean as a sun-stroked Rattlesnake. So my attending that church was a tiny miracle, because I was traumatized by the old battle-axes and should have been in professional counseling. My parents were always short on cash, so a cup of hot Ovaltine and some cookies were the cure for most everything, including childhood trauma.

The good Reverend Augustin Z. Bergeron, the preacher at Poly Baptist, was no mere mortal man. He came from the deep in the Louisiana bayou country, a small Parish named Chigger Bayou, which is also the home of Le Petite Fromage and her daddy, the famous Cajun musician Baby Boy Fromage. My father was good friends with Le Petite during his teenage years in Los Angeles, California.

Reverend Bergeron possessed magical, mystical, fantastical powers, or so the legend is told in Fort Worth. He could cure folks from almost any malady, and did so weekly during Sunday services. He possessed an uncanny resemblance to the famous preacher turned comic, Brother Dave Gardner, another southerner with a bombastic Beatnik style wit and a side wink at southern-style Christianity. Reverend Bergeron either copied Gardner or Gardner saw the good reverend in Chigger Bayou and stole his schtick, which was controversial for a preacher. My father always compared him to Brother Dave, saying his wit was just as sharp and funny. I was a kid, so I didn’t get any of it. I was two years away from discovering Gardner’s comedy records, but when I did, I wore them out and fancied myself a mini-Brother Dave: when I wasn’t pretending to be Mark Twain.

The congregation at Poly Baptist never knew what to expect when the service started at 9 AM. The chorus of big-haired gals in purple robes sang the traditional hymns, all boring and dry as a week-old biscuit. Reverend Bergeron would saunter in from stage left, grab the microphone off the pulpit, and start singing like Ray Charles. The organist followed suit, and the choir became Martha and the Vandellas. That’s when the place started rocking like a black church in the Mississippi low country, which was strange, because most white folk Baptist churches in Texas didn’t have music other than a choir, and no hot-shot keyboardist. The Reverend would dance across the stage, duck walking like Chuck Berry, spinning, falling to his knees, yelling “Thank you, sweet Jesus”, then crawling across the stage like a baby, and, all the time holding on to his lighted Camel cigarette and the microphone. Another blasphemous act, since smoking was deemed a sin by the church. He also had a large Tupperware tumbler of Ice-Cold sweet tea sitting on the pulpit and would constantly refill the tumbler from a pitcher just off stage. Some folks speculated it wasn’t tea, but hooch, and that was the reason for his antics. My parents loved the guy and would smoke as many cigarettes as he did during the service. Almost everyone in the church smoked and would drop their ashes on the wood floor, another sinful citation. An ethereal cloud of toxic blue smoke hung in the air of the un-airconditioned church. It was so thick that it hid the tops of the stylish ladies’ Bee-Hive hairdo. It gave the place a creepy feeling, as if we were suspended in the clouds or the fires of Hell were seeping through the cracks in the old wood floor. I believed it to be from below, and always kept my small legs propped on the Bible holder on the back of the pew. Satan wasn’t going to pull my young butt through those cracks in the floor.

Our family left the church a year or two later and attended an Episcopal Church, which was boring compared to Reverend Bergeron’s Baptist Church. I still dig Brother Dave Gardner.