It’s been a few weeks since anything worth writing about came to mind. Usually, things pop in around 2 AM, and I get up to write, but lately I’ve been sleeping all night. I got a new Eastman mandolin and have been putting in four to six hours a day, reteaching myself to play the little beast: I played it as a child, then discovered the guitar, which in a way was a mistake; I should have stuck with the Mandolin and fiddle. The trip to South Dakota, the fender bender, lost keys—all of it did me in for a while, so my mind is a blend of oatmeal and Malt-O-Meal coated with Valium sprinkles.
Something will be forthcoming, but I’m trying to stay non-political, though I tend to scream at our poor Television and the Squirrel that raids my bird feeders. I’ll try to be nice and pleasant, but that’s hard for a guy who is nearly 78. Not only am I playing the Mandolin in our church band, but I’m also reteaching myself the fiddle, so gluttony for punishment is my sentence. I’ll write something nice and cozy soon. God Bless the Alamo and Davy Crockett.
In my last post about “The Texan Heads to South Dakota,” I mentioned riding an ATV with the cowboys and cowgirls and the ill-tempered Bison; well, that didn’t happen: I blame that grandiose idea on my meds or age; both came into play, and Momo brought me back to reality. She’s a retired nurse, so she knows things we common folk don’t.
Momo and I don’t travel much outside of Texas, but this year we decided to take the trip to South Dakota to see the famous Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Monument, and the annual Bison Roundup at Custer State Park. We don’t have much time left in our hourglass, so we figured this would be our longest adventure.
We are senior citizens, old people, to be exact, and didn’t realize we couldn’t have hours in one day and about the same the next. In our foggyds, we are still in our 50s and as robust as Jack LaLanne, who lived to be 97, and went through half a dozen Happy, the white German Shepherd co-host on his workout show. My late 1950s-oriented mother used to stand in front of the black-and-white television, working out with him while smoking a Winston cigarette and sipping black coffee. She worked out well between coughing fits. I neither smoke nor work out, so I might live a bit longer.
We stayed the night in Wichita, Kansas, at a great hotel on the university campus. As we drove through the Kansas farmlands, the famous song “Wichita Lineman” stuck in my head for a few hours. Jimmy Webb and Glen Campbell made a musical dream team. If only Glen had married Bobbi Gentry, his life would have been different. I swear that woman had the longest legs and the best head of hair in country music, and that’s before she ever sang a note. Glen had her as a guest on his Goodtime Hour show back in the late sixties and asked her how long it took to shave those legs, right before they sang a duet. She said it took a couple of hours and two stiff cocktails. Look it up; it’s on YouTube, just like everything else that ever happened.
From Wichita, we drove to North Platte, Nebraska: not much of a city, populated by people who don’t know how to coordinate their clothing or wash their vehicles, with all the men, and a few women, wearing their gimme caps backward, and Walmart is the main retailer in town. We stayed one night at a hotel there, then moved on to Keystone, South Dakota, home to Mount Rushmore, deep in the Black Hills of the Dakotas. A three-day trip that should have taken two, but our old bodies and weary traveling souls couldn’t keep up. I will give a shout-out to how much I despise using Google and Apple Maps on my iPhone. I would have done better with a folded paper map. Please, Elon, start a map service that actually works and doesn’t give you a mental breakdown.
When we got to our hotel, I realized that somewhere along the journey, my car key fob had fallen out of my pocket, probably while I was filling up our pickup with $4.99-a-gallon gas. We searched the pickup, the room, the suitcases, other people’s rooms, the parking lot, and the woods, but found nothing. Honda said we should take the car to a locksmith to change the vehicle code so the lost key fob wouldn’t work. We drove to Rapid City in the rain and fog, barely able to see the mountain roads. We got it done, got back to the hotel, and drove to our room in Keystone, $175.00 poorer. Then the day we leave for home, Momo finds my keys in the pocket of one of her thirty jackets and sweaters she keeps in the backseat of our truck. She is permanently freezing to death, even in 100-degree weather. Now we are down to one set of keys for the pickup, and we are both slipping into phase one of the derangement category. If nothing else, this trip gave us a grand showtime presentation of what old folks shouldn’t be doing.
But it ain’t over yet, dear hearts. While backing out of the handicap parking space at the 1880 steam locomotive train ride through the Black Hills from Keystone to Hill City, I backed into an illegally parked car behind us, which gave us no room to back out. So we left a note on the car’s windshield, as we do in Texas with the number and such, and finally, through the Keystone police deputy, tracked the owner down in Rapid City. She has a detached retina and shouldn’t be driving anything but a walker; her car had numerous damages from previous collisions, or had been purchased at a demolition derby, and she was parked in a narrow drive that was marked “No Parking.” A concerned elderly person called the cops on us: Bless their little heart. The deputy was very understanding, noting it wasn’t in a parking-lot-marked space, and said Barny Fife—was his hero. Now Flo and her gang have to fix her car and our pickup. What the hell can go wrong next? Car damage, lost keys, nothing left but a medical emergency. This was part of the preview I mentioned earlier.
Mount Rushmore is a wonder to behold. One of the most amazing things we had witnessed. Old George, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Honest Abe, their faces carved into a granite mountain.
We met folks from all over our country and Europe. The folks in Europe like to come here for some odd reason, and Americans like to go there. Doesn’t make sense to me. My sister, a world traveler, hasn’t visited much of the US, except Seattle, San Francisco, the Gulf, and Oklahoma, and thinks you have to go overseas for a proper vacation. I told her she should move to Europe, but instead, she sold her home in Plano to a Muslim family with numerous wives and a passel of kids, and now lives in Broken Bow, Oklahoma, near her daughter and grandson. She says her old home is now a temporary neighborhood Mosque and “Learing Centre.”
I guess I’m just a Texas bumpkin with no taste in my mouth. I don’t give one silver dime about visiting Europe: they all drive on the wrong side of the road, the language is a hindrance, and the food is questionable at best. Give me a Whataburger Junior meal No. 1, with fries and a drink; now that’s fine dining. We did stumble upon a wonderful restaurant in Keystone, The Powderhouse Lodge. Best darn food I’ve had anywhere, except for Momo’s steaks. The hostess, an older lady named Sherrye, was a wonderful old soul, and it was obvious she ran the place like a drill sergeant with a velvet-covered baton.
The Chief Crazy Horse mountain carving monument blew us away. It was better than Mount Rushmore and twice its size. The Lakota Indian Nation is financing it through donations and philanthropy; Jean Kroc, the widow of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc, is their main source of funding. Our tour guide was Lakota, and I, being part Cherokee, we hit it off. We made secret Indian brotherhood handshakes and whispered promises to take back the country one day. He told me he has a well-supplied secret band of Lakota warriors with Jeeps and big-assed pickups ready to go when the time is right. I gave him my email and phone number.
The high point of the trip, which is the proper name for traveling retired folks. Vacations are for those still working and getting a week or two off each year; the world-famous Bison Roundup in Custer National Park was the high point.
Custer National Park, named after the famous idiot Cavalry General, sits in the middle of the Dakota Black Hills and has about 1,500 to 2,000 Bison roaming around, doing as they please. At around 2,500 pounds, they own the place. It’s a beautiful part of America that everyone should see before we pass on. George Armstrong Custer might have had prestige, a nice mustache, goatee, and long, flowing hair, but the American Indians kicked his butt. Looks and stupidity buy you only so much time; ask any of those fools in Hollywood.
Texas also has herds of Bison. We can thank the famous cattle rancher Charles Goodnight and his hardy frontier Texas wife, Molly, for saving a handful of orphaned Bison calves, raising them, and establishing a large herd of the last of the Plains Bison in Texas. The large, surviving historical herd now lives in Caprock Canyon, near Goodnight Ranch, a Texas state memorial site.
Waking at 4 AM and heading to the park in the dark, we missed our GPS-guided turn and ended up on a dirt road that led us to a paved park road with the other 20,000-plus folks. We waited in a car line for over two hours and eventually reached one of the viewing areas along the steep hills surrounding the corrals where the bison are kept for vet checkups, branding, and a few auctions for ranchers and other state parks hoping to start their own herds.
Armed with our folding chairs and dressed in our best Bison-viewing attire — Stetson hat, western boots, and Wrangler jeans — pure Texan. We made our way across the hill and found a spot that wasn’t flat but was sturdy enough to keep us from rolling down the hill’s steep, rocky slope. We were at the south viewing area where the corrals are located, and I understand there were just as many folks at the North area of the park where the Bison had been gathered a few days before.
Cowboys and Cowgirls from all over the country are picked from thousands of applications to wrangle and drive the Bison. They are not paid a dime and do it for the love of country and our western heritage, and of course they get to herd the largest and meanest beast alive. No wonder the Indians had such a hard time with them. Bison aren’t cattle, not even as docile as a Longhorn, and they have a permanent mean streak, likely because Indians with arrows chased them around the prairies, and then white moronic hunters shot them for sport and their hides: it’s an inherited generational thing. You get too close to one, and you are done for: flipped in the air, stomped into the prairie grass, and sent home in a body bag. They ain’t pets in corrals at the Fort Worth Fat Stock Show. That’s the reason I decided not to take part in the roundup. A 2,500-pound bison is no match for a puny ATV driven by an old idiot.
Long before we could see the herd crest the hills, we could feel the vibration of their hooves pounding the South Dakota prairie through the ground and into our boots. We could see dust rising a few miles away. Thousands of people from every state in our union and Europe stood up, readied their cameras or phones, and prepared for one of the most majestic spectacles in our country.
The sun shone brightly, the sky was deep blue with thin, wispy clouds, and in the distance, over a few large hills on the prairie, we saw the herd emerge, not stampeding, but walking leisurely, with 60 wranglers on horseback keeping them together. A few tried to escape, but the wranglers chased them down and back to the herd. It was a breathtaking sight. Pure American western heritage. People cheered, clapped, wept, and celebrated as the historical herd of American beasts moved on the prairie to their temporary corrals. The spirit of America was alive and on full display that morning. People from every state in our country and Europe came together to witness the 8th wonder of the world. Momo and I will never forget that day.
Three straw-hatted robots pose with landscaping tools outside a Home Depot store.
With all this talk about AI taking away the techie jobs, I saw three (illegal impostors) day-laborer robots in front of Home Depot this morning, waiting to be picked up for work. Since ICE is in Granbury, I’m not sure how they’ll handle these guys. George Jetson and Will Robinson had it pretty darn good.
Three singers perform as The Supremes before an enthusiastic audience at a formal concert.
Now the ballless, gutless, spineless, poisonous, un-Christian, treasonous, Birkenstock, sock-cap-wearing, Ozempic-shooting, non-singing Supreme Court has lost its tune, and even Diana Ross or Auto-Tune can’t save it. They blocked, after it was passed and signed, the mail-in vote for the midterms, guaranteeing widespread fraud and cheating by the demonic Democratic Party. Obama and Biden have a radical, paid-for judge in every court in the land thanks to Soros, Meta boy, and a host of other tech maggots. Jumanji Jackson, or whatever her real Biden autopen-appointed judge name is, and Bret Kavanaugh, yes, the one the conservatives saved his sorry ass from fake rape allegations, voted to halt it. What a bunch of pussies we have in our government. Now, the women in the pink kitty kitty hats want to erect a statue in Times Square to honor the child murderer Lindsey Clancy, and by God, it will likely be done. And Charlie Kirk’s statue has been vandalized many times by liberal young white women driving Subaru SUVs and wearing flannel shirts. Ericka Kirk has the film that will never see the TV screen; bet your happy ass on that.
I was at the Home Depot today searching for a weird screw for Momo’s leather punch. The guy who helped me, around 60 years old, is a native New Yorker who recently moved here to Texas because his daughter married a Texan. He said it was the best decision of his life: to hell with New York, Mamdami, and his commie minions. I gave him a traditional Texas welcome: I showed him my horse in the trailer behind my pickup truck, bought him a BBQ sandwich, and taught him how to shoot a 45 caliber Colt pistol at the grouchy shoppers in the hardware aisle. He said that’s why he liked Texas; we are all street-rat crazy.
A long-lost cousin, not particularly lost; we just haven’t spoken in a while, called me out of nowhere the other day. We gabbed a bit about family, and then she said, ” I received mail-in ballots for my parents and our grandparents who have been dead for decades and half a century; what should I do with them?” I answered, ” Nothing, burn them. Then, a few days later, this nice lady with green hair and a vote-for-El-Sayed T-shirt showed up at her door, saying that the USPS had accidentally sent her ballots for deceased relatives and asking if she could return them to the post office. This is how it starts, this is how it’s done, this is what we face. My cousin, a country girl with a slightly prickly temper, punched the lady out and off her front porch and burned the ballots in their firepit on the hot September evening as the fireflies and crickets serenaded her family in the backyard, as they streamed Ella Langley’s new album. I wonder how many times my long-dead grandparents have voted. Should we all wonder?
Momo and I met with my neurologist yesterday to find out the results of my PET scan from a few weeks ago. My regular doc thought that, since I failed my cognitive test so badly, I may have Alzheimer’s disease. Well, Dear Hearts, my neurologist was so pleased that he gave me a high-five. I was in the negative range, -195. My scan was better than his, and he admitted he has never seen anyone my age (almost 77) without any markers indicating future oldtimers. so he says, I will never get oldtimers, but, and that’s the key word. I could still be developing Dementia, and I do have excessive fluid buildup on the left side of my brain and will have that removed in about six months. That explains the falls, the goofy walk, forgetfulness, and a number of other things. He says he uses all Craftsman tools, and the surgery is guaranteed for life; that’s a relief. He said I could keep the fluid, and it looks really cool mixed in with the oil in those 1960s bubble lamps: we still have a few around here somewhere, just not sure where. He said to keep playing music every day; it stimulates the brain and helps you learn new things that old dogs shouldn’t be able to. My wife was so excited; she now wants her on a PET scan, but can it come with a little French Bulldog?
Momo and I joke around about our daily moments of forgetfulness, sometimes funny, often not. She forgets things; I forget more. I haven’t found my car key FOB in the fridge yet, but I did find it in the freezer. I told her the freezing temps preserve the battery life and help keep my leg cool.
I dropped by Whataburger a few mornings back for a Taquito and O.J. I’m still not comfortable calling frozen orange juice OJ, considering what Simpson did, but sometimes I still do.
Sitting in his usual booth was Mooch, with Gravy, the clone Chiuauia of Giblet, strapped to his chest in the child carrier. There was an order of biscuits and gravy sitting in front of him with one bite missing. Gravy the dog had a bit of gravy on his little chin, and Mooch looked like he had lost his prized hog. He also appeared to have lost weight. I sat down with my aromatic Taquito and asked why he wasn’t eating. The smell of fresh eggs, sausage and a lucious tortilla wafting around us as if we were in a five star resturant. Gravy stared intently at the tatar tots.
” He says, Mrs. Mooch put me on those GPL-1 drugs, and I don’t have an appetite anymore, for nuthin. They’re gummies and taste real good, so Gravy likes them too, and now he’s not eating, and we’re both looking like Oprah, all skinny and bony.” I will admit, the dog looked worse, bulging eyes, that Ozempic face, and Mooch looked like he had been vacationing at Dachau.
” That clone cat, Here Kitty Kitty, is so skinny she crawled into a Dr Pepper bottle, and I had to call the fire department to get her out. I’ll tell you, we are wasting away here. My wife says she is going to audition for Taylor Sheridan’s new show, and has to have that Hollywood Ozempic look to get a part: the only part she could get now would be a corpse.”
He’s right, everyone in Hollywood looks about to die at any moment, and they are shooting themselves up and gobbling those pills as fast as they can get them from CVS or their favorite pharmady in Tijuana.
I wanted to be sympathetic with him, but my Taquito tasted too darn good, so I gobbled away as he drooled and tears ran down his cheeks. The dog passed out.
Bad relationships were always the same: they started starry-eyed, then grew wary, then became shaky, and ended in a flurry of fleeing. This had been the young man’s life for years. His siblings were as trapped as he was. Bondage has many forms. There was no way out except through the back door, and on to somewhere, anywhere. But once that door closed behind him, he was homeless, and the dark of the night enveloped him like an evil blanket.
A new town, a new state, a new boyfriend. How many had there been in his mother’s life? His father had been purposefully absent for a long while now. He and the boy still spoke a few times a year, but he had moved on, and his mother was still fighting her inner demons, hoping to find the right man to be a provider, or perhaps a father for her children, but the same wrong choices produced the same results. Now, another move from a failed relationship was in process, back to their home state. He couldn’t stomach leaving his high school, his friends, or his church.
His Church Youth Pastor, a man of Christian principle and a solid father to his children, all high school age themselves, offered the young man a place to stay in their home until he graduated: a temporary solution to a frantic problem. The offer was genuine, and the Christianity and camaraderie in the home were what the boy needed, craved, and sought. His journey to God began in desperation, as he needed to distance himself from peers who were leading him into dark places. He needed to be loved and helped in his lowest times. He accepted the offer from the pastor; his mother, once again, moved, leaving him with nothing but a few clothes and deep feelings of abandonment. It was a multi-act play that kept repeating itself. He could have collapsed and withdrawn into himself, but the other teens in the family, the pastor, and his wife refused to let that happen. They were not wealthy in money, but the wealth they held and offered was spiritual guidance, and that mattered more than dollars.
The boy’s parents were not citizens; neither of them was legal to live in this country. They made poor decisions that adversely affected him and his siblings. He had no driver’s license, no car, no money, no job- just existence, the loving family that gave him refuge, and his church, which strengthened his soul. Dreams of someday were always there. He was an artist, blessed with a talent. One day, he might discover a way to put this blessing to use.
Many of the older congregants worried about the young man. Some knew only snippets of his story; a few knew more, but the worry and the need to help him were always there. Odd jobs were offered that put cash in his pocket. It was while he worked with plants and the earth that he discovered his love for living things. His time with the Pastor and his family was nearing its end. School was over, a new year was beginning, and it was time to move on and make a life for himself. He had often thought of the military as a way to kick-start his life; now it was a real option sitting flat on the table: pen in hand, papers to sign, many tests to take, and then on to serve his country. He made his decision and will soon be a United States Marine. His life will change forever, for the better, and he will never forget the people who gave him that encouragement and chance.
Did Fauci Put This Crap On Our Lettuce For Revenge?
A Mister Tom T. Soreass, from Wormdance, Michigan, wrote to me on a Walmart receipt that he and his whole family have come down with explosive diarrhea and the Cyclospoia bug from eating sprouts and iceberg lettuce from the local Walmart. We have it here in Texas too, but we drink whiskey and beer, and it helps kill the buggers.
Tom T. Mr. Texan, you have got to help me here. The family ate our salads the other night from Walmart, the kind they put in cute little clear plastic cartons that cut you to pieces when you try to open them, with a pouch of surprise dressing, and now we are crapping all over our once-nice-smelling home. Lucy, my wife, has about three hundred candles and incense burning, and the plumber has been called twice to unclog the toilets, but I never knew kids had so much crap in them. My kids could fertilize a farm in Somalia with the amount of human waste exiting from their sore little behinds. Lucy and I are suffering as well, as are the hounds, the chickens, the hamsters, and both cats. Our doctor gave us some pills but they don’t do a darn thing, were dying here, third house in the cul-de-sac, with what was once a nice yard. Our neighbors are no help; they don’t want to catch it from us. I think that little rich-assed turnd, Doctor Fauci, or the Rag Head Terrorist in Iran put all this stuff in our food chain. Help!
The Texan: Mr. Tom, I feel your pain. I had a touch of it a few weeks back from a Taco at Taco Bell. I lost ten pounds in two days, but at least my clothes fit better. Mexico uses human waste as fertilizer, and it’s possible that Fauci could have organized a clandestine attack via the hundreds of little secret squirrel labs he has all over the place, and yes, a Rag Head Terrorist could have also put it there, but it’s likely the unhygienic growing practices of the farms in Mexico that are the root problem. I’m sending you a case of that pink stuff and some cherry bombs to keep you occupied while you’re in the bathroom. Did you know a cherry bomb can blow up a bathtub? Fill it with water, light the bomb, and toss it in. It cleans the whole bathroom in a few milliseconds. Add Listerine to the bath water for smell and disinfectant. Dig some holes in the backyard for the kids and show them how we used to do it. They have their phones, so they’ll be ok. Keep in touch, The Texan.
A Few Things I Did This Week That Make Sense To Me
The Texan before I gave up smoking
I deleted my Substack account. I found out that being contacted by people I don’t know with idiotic, maniacal rants from people on a keyboard that I would ever care to know outside of social media is not for me. It was supposed to be a site for serious writers to submit their short stories or articles, but it is really X, Bluesky, and Facebook hidden in a different format. Political hate, pure hate, impure hate, giddy hate, ignorant hate, and liberal white woman hate against us white guys who write are the worst kinds that I have found in my research. Socialism, communism, LGBTQ+ism, Muslimism, you name it, they are all there. So adios MF. Get a damn job and stop posting filtered or fake selfies of yourselves in fake places made with AI. No one under thirty years old has any real friends anymore; everyone they know is an AI-generated figure on their phone.
For now, I will keep my Notes From The Cactus Patch on Facebook because it publishes there automatically, and many of my old high school friends and the few family members who still speak to me follow it. I may or may not keep X; it does the same, but damn, people are flat-out Street Rat-crazy and evil on that platform. WordPress is where I will stay, even with all of its faults and liberal happiness engineers, who are a bunch of folks in India sitting at a keyboard figuring out a way to steal your identity and sell it to the Dark Web. I know, it happened to both Momo and me. We now have a service that watches and catches everything, and it is not Lifelock, but much better: meaner, with actual humans named Guido and Luiggi who will go to their home basement and break bones, or worse. The owner of the service is related to the lateTony Saprano.
Did anyone pay attention to the defeat of most of the Democratic Socialist Party candidates? Most of them got their pansy ignorant commie butts handed to them in a Red Mao grocery bag. And now, that smiling-Commie Rat Bastard Mayor in New York City wants his favorite goat, excuse me, I mean his wife, to have a security team the size of President Trumps when she visits her homeland of whatever the hell it is over there in Muslim land. They had better pack extra hay and oats for her meals. Within a few months, that demon has turned one of our great cities into a third-world shit-hole equal to Mexico or Somalia, and the entire state of Michigan is lost: might as well nuke the state and be done with it. There, now I feel better. Have a good day, and God Bless Texas and the Alamo. I wish Paul Harvey were still around.
