Tag: Texas

Posted on

Born On A Mountain Top In Tennessee…


Christmas, 1955, and I found this under the tree: my first stringed instrument, made by my Coonskin cap-wearing hero, Davey Crockett. My father, a musician, tuned it up and put it in my tiny hands. I must have been a musical savant because I played and sang, with no mistakes, the theme song to the Disney show Davey Crockett. My parents, flaber and gasted, grabbed the Brownie Box camera and took my picture while I was wailing on my miniature ax, mailing it the next day to The Arther Godfrey Talent Hour in New York City. I continued to give impromptu recitals around the neighborhood for my buddies until Georgie accidentally sat on my Davey guitar and crushed it to splinters. After that, I couldn’t remember the words to the song and forgot how to play, and wouldn’t you know it, a week later, Arther Godfrey called my folks for an audition. I could’a been a contender!

Posted on

Roughing It Like It’s 1974!


Not Momo

Momo and I have been tossing around the idea of a camping trailer to pull behind our Honda Ridgeline Pickup Truck to see the sights of the United States. To hell with Europe, who needs that crap? There is plenty here to see without getting on a plane and risk getting blown up by terrorists. I told Momo I wanted a retro trailer with an interior like the one shown in this picture. She said,” Well, I think I have the dress, but I’m not sure I can get my hair to poof up like that.” She’s gonna give it a shot. Yeah..baby.

Posted on

Is New Year’s Just Another Day Like the One Before? Yes


Some of my late relatives celebrated New Year’s in 1955

For me and my wife, Momo, New Year’s Eve wasn’t much different than the day before it. We had a nice supper, watched a bit of TV, and then we were in the sack by 9:30 CT. Texts from my son, grandchildren, and friends went off at about 11:45 PM, prompting me to get up and answer back. I’m getting better at texting once I found out how to use the voice-to-text part on my iPhone. That’s what us old folks do for special occasions: nothing, and we do it quite well.

The fireworks started about dark and continued until around 1 AM. Our neighborhood is a “no fireworks” area, so many of the residents got around the law by firing their automatic handguns and rifles into the air. The Sheriff will give them a ticket for a bottle rocket, but firing weapons at random is ok by them: It’s a Texas thing. Momo and I were tempted to take our automatic handguns into the backyard and fire off a magazine or two, but it was too cold, and we were already in our jammies and had slurped down hot Ovaltine and old folks meds. Maybe next year.

New Year’s Day will be the same as the day before. Nothing, with a bit more of nothing, except adding some of Momo’s Blackeyed Pea Soup with Jalapeno and Texas-style cornbread, will keep it gastronomically interesting for the rest of the day. She made a batch of homemade salsa and put a smidgen of my Vietnamese Death Pepper in the mix. It was pretty darn good once I got past the tearing eyes, the shortness of breath, and the muscle spasms that occurred when I leaned over the pot and dipped my Frito into the sauce. She also whipped up some homemade “Nanner-pudding” with Vanilla Waffers embedded in the luscious mix. I plan to eat myself into a mild desert-induced coma this evening.

I hope everyone who follows my blog and the ones I follow has a great 2024 year. Let’s be honest about it: things can’t get much worse than they were in 2023. Well, maybe they could, but I’ll address that in a few days. From the cactus patch, have a Happy New Year, folks.

Posted on

Welcome To Crazy Town City Limits


Are we not living in “Crazy Town?” Fifteen Thousand clean, well-fed, cell phone-carrying invaders are on their merry way to our Texas/Mexico border, most of them adult military fighting-age males, ready for action. ” Come on down, free everything for life,” and our government does nothing, which they do well, to stop this invasion of our once sovereign land. Since our National Guard, hands tied to their waist, can do nothing, I suggested sending thousands of Boy and Cub Scouts to the border equipped with Daisy BB guns, ” the BBs won’t kill anyone, but damn, they hurt.” This may or may not stop the hordes of brain-eating Zombies, but maybe our folks in DC will get the message. Really, I’m kidding; this is a dream I had while under the influence of my pain meds. Sounds good though.

The NFL is experiencing a boost in game attendance when Taylor Swift is holding court in the owner’s luxury suite. Thousands of her young “Lemming Swifites” are in the bleachers, holding up ” We Are Here For Taylor” signs, clutching her CDs to their breasts, and praying for a glimpse of the anointed one. There is talk on the street that she may run for President. The country will need the “Auto-tune” app on their phones to understand what she is saying. Isn’t social media a grand thing?

I believe she just wet herself. Poor Travis

28 miserable years since my once wonderful football team, The Dallas Cowboys have made a Superbowl appearance, and now the owner, a Rummy-Eyed, jabbering, scotch-pickled Beverley Hillbilly from Arkansas is about to give his quarterback a 60 million per year contract to keep the team in their mediocre bubble. To Jones, it makes perfect sense; if the boys win a Superbowl, then they will be expected to produce a winning team every year, so just give the fans a smidgin of hope, enough to keep his Deathstar stadium full of hungry pilgrims, there to witness mediocracy at it’s best. I can’t bear to watch this trainwreck; at least our Texas Rangers delivered a World Series after receiving their new stadium. Please send Tom back down to Earth for one season.

Saint Tom

Momo is roaring back from her bionic knee replacement, sort of. We went shopping in Fort Worth yesterday, hitched up the wagon, and trekked to the big city. She’s happiest when spending money, so Old Navy, Acadamy, and Half Price Books got a token of her appreciation. I did notice that HPB’s is now carrying re-issues of the old classic rock albums. Back in the 60s, we paid around six bucks for one; now, they cost around twenty to forty bucks, and the vinyl is paper thin. I purchased a reissue of Bob Dylan’s “Nashville Skyline” to replace my long ago stolen original. Who thought that digital engineering of music would sound better than old-school analog. Wasn’t me, and it doesn’t.

Dylans Maximus Opus

Posted on

Willie Saves the Church And A Whataburger Communion


Painting by Pablo Piccaso’s Great Great Grandson

Two days after Christmas, half past midnight, I just had my second cup of hot Ovaltine and am ready to pontificate.

It appears Taylor Swiftless is now the new “Yoko Ono,” having ruined the KC Chiefs chance at returning to the Superthang and cursing her Charlie Football for life. I always thought that poor Yoko got a bad rap when it was Paulie who pulled the plug on the Fabs. Not so with Person of the Year, Swifter Girl; she is toxic to human men. A football-inspired ex-boyfriend album and an NFL tour of all the stadiums will be coming soon. The games will be played at halftime.

Momo and I watched the Christmas movie, “Elf” on the 25th. I guess age has dulled my sense of humor since I find Will Farrel irritating. I enjoyed him in “Eurovision ( the elves went to far)” but Buddy the oversized Elf needs to go to LaLa Land. I thought James Caan got knocked off in The Godfather?

Momo made her infamous Greek Ribs today. Her daughter Tammera and the fam stopped by for an early supper and gift exchange; what a nice afternoon. I finished my first in the series of old-time circus sideshow posters yesterday; there are only seven more to go. I remember going into one of those freak or sideshows at the state fair. Lizard Woman, Alive! Cost me twenty-five cents. Turned out it was an ugly gal with a bad case of Dermatitis. The Lady With Five Legs was worth the change. Bonnie and Clydes Death Car was an old Ford that some moron drilled holes into the body and poured some red paint on the seats. PT Barnum was right, ” there’s a sucker born every minute.”

My Boy Scout grandson, Jett, his troop, and his Pop are doing another winter campout starting tomorrow. For Christmas, I gave him a family heirloom six-inch razor-sharp skinning knife in a leather scabbard, much like the one O.J. and Jim Bowie used. My grandfather said he carried it in WW1 and used it to open canned Pork N Beans and stab Germans when he ran out of ammo. I believed every word of it.

So Kwanza is here. A fictional, absurd holiday invented by a felonious black American male who needed a steady income after prison. So what about “Festivus?” George and Kramer deserve a day to celebrate, too. I always felt bad for the Seinfeld folks; what did they do on Christmas since the Soup Nazi was closed? I am working on inventing a holiday for senior citizens called ” Respect Your Elders Day.” Catchy slogans like “Get the hell off of my lawn” and “Do you think money grows on trees?” will go over well with our age group. All adult children, grandchildren, and neighbors will relate.

New Year is approaching. We live in a rural community outside the city limits, so the joyous and festive sounds of fireworks, 9mm pistols, and assault rifles fired into the air will be keeping us up all night. The problem is, those bullets have to come down, and they can kill you. Last year, it sounded like Santa was plodding around on our roof; turned out it was only bullets ruining our shingles. Insurance doesn’t cover that.

Now that Christmas is done and gone, I’m ready for the traditional Texas after-holiday meal of a Whataburger, large fires, and a Dr Pepper. Father Frank, our groovy-hip young priest at Our Lady Of Perpetual Repentance, is having a blessed by Willie service this coming Sunday. Governer Abbott has petitioned the Pope to make Willie Nelson a Patron Saint, at least here in Texas, so our good priest, getting the early ball a-rolling, will have a Willie Nelson approved impersonator give communion to any who wish to partake. A tiny bite of a Whataburger( no onions and extra pickles), a small toke of Willie’s popular Dripping Springs righteous weed, and a sip of rum-infused ice tea to wash urn down, and you can be ” on the road again” and feeling real good. Pretty sure the church will be at full capacity.

More later from the cactus patch.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.