Tag: Texas

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More Worthless News and Folklore From The Texas Cactus Patch 5-26-2023


I don’t have a current picture of myself, but this resembles my classic Wild Bill Cody look these days, only my hair is much longer and whiter, my teeth sparkle like a jewel, and I walk with a cane thanks to botched back surgery. At times, I carry a sidearm Colt 44, just in case things go south, as they often do here in Texas. It’s too hot to wear buckskin, so shorts and Tee Shirts make up my Western clothes.

So much for boycotts generated by the LGBQRSTUVWXYZ clothing. We Drove by Walmart this morning at 8:30 AM; the parking lot was full. Same driving by a Target in Fort Worth a few days ago, and full lot. I guess we Texans ain’t as tough as we put on to be. I did read that a father went berserk in a local Target and tore down the display and its sign, scattering those cute little grooming duds all over the aisle. He’ll likely get six or more years in the same prison the J-6th killers are housed in. The local Walmart is having its tax-free weekend and they are running a special; any gang of looters with 8 or more in the group gets to steal an additional 30 percent of goods; while supplies last. Just for giggles, the greeter may or may not be armed with a hidden 44 magnum. Could be a Dirty Harry moment.

This weekend is Tax-free shopping and free looting for gangs of 8 or more

I’ve found that grocery shopping at 8 AM is the way I prefer. There are no old ladies to bump you with their carts, very few shoppers and everyone is nice at that time of the day. I do miss not being able to whack people with my walking cane when they bump me, but hey, I can adjust. If you have never shopped at H.E.B. you are missing out on a great store. You might want to consider relocating to Texas so you can save money on your food and gasoline.

Ensure goes well with wine

Two weeks ago, our 4-year-old Whirlpool microwave bit the dust. Then a few days later, the 4-year-old Whirlpool oven did the same, then the 4-year-old Hot Tub took a dump. We replaced the microwave with a nice hood and purchased a small microwave that rest on the counter. The hood is a beast that has enough CFM to suck a Tomcat to the grill. Now we are buying a new oven and the hot tub repair is scheduled for June 6th. I’m praying the television or the fridge doesn’t go to La-La land. Oh yeah, all the appliances were made in America, so that has me worried that we are going backward with our manufacturing and China is leaving us in the dust. Wait a minute! Isn’t that what our past president said? Condolences and best wishes from Texas, and God Bless The Alamo.

Was it something I cooked?

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Breaking News From The Texas Cactus Patch 5/24/2023


Arnold Ziffle Jr.

The Canadians are sending us new immigrants. It’s a “super pig,” and it’s crossing the border unchallenged and in the dark of night. The experts in these creatures say it eats everything in their path; ducks, deer, dogs, foxes, tiny humans, and so on. They travel in packs and are smart enough to avoid hunters with rifles and bows. One older experienced hunter said, “It’s like I am back in the Nam, these critters hide in holes and wrap foilage around themselves to blend in with the forest, it’s PigNam.” One report had one super pig using a laptop left on a picnic table, so these things are bright. The Biden administration is researching our laws to see if these critters can obtain voting rights. Look at those cute eyes, that mischievous twinkle and adorable smile. How could we not love the thousand-pound porker?

The border is still closed per our government, but yet 14,500 illegals per day somehow crawl through razor wire and make it past armed National Guard troops. They must be using a “Harry Potter invisible cloak” handed out by our Red Cross. Send a Cub Scout troop with Daisy air rifles to the border and let them pepper the invaders with copper BBs. I know from experience those BBs hurt. The phrase; “Remember The Alamo” comes to mind.

Miller Lite and Ford are the two latest companies to go woke. It appears that Miller has an all-female activist marketing group and intends to exterminate the Miller Lite good-ole-boys from its ranks, replacing them with trans women dressed like frat boys and construction workers. Ford, well, they are just a bunch of Detroit pansy asses. Rainbow-painted F-150 trucks. Who in the hell is going to drive one of those? Not in Texas or Oklahoma.

Target, that fun-loving department store with the big red circle and cute commercials, now carries a line of women’s swimwear for transgenders. It has extra material in the crotch for the sweet things little package. They also have a line of children’s playwear featuring trans slogans, fairies and Unicorns, and Winnie The Pooh, for Pete’s sake. Look to see Target biting the dust at a city near you. UPDATE..from the Dead South News Service: Target now has moved the Pride and LBJQRST clothing to the rear of their stores so shoppers without mental problems will not be exposed to the clothing.

The scammers are ramping up their attacks on us senior Texans. Somewhere, a list with my cell phone number was sold to a group of guys in India. All the callers have an East Indian accent and want to sign me up for additional Medicare benefits and pain meds; all they need is my personal information and credit card number. I keep telling them I died, but they keep calling back. I plan a trip to India soon to track down every one of the little shits and beat them with my Walmart walking cane. They don’t know that we all carry firearms in Texas and are pissed off most of the time, so that’s not a good combination for a scammer. Below is a picture of my latest scammer that he sent me. I asked for his cell number to call him in the middle of the night. He hung up.

” I am here to help you with your pain, all needed is your personal information, social security number, and a credit card with at least a $5K limit. Medicare is your friendly friend.”

I’m gifting my 2008 Honda CR-V to my 16-year-old granddaughter on Memorial Day. She needs a car to obtain a part-time job and get to school and home. I can’t drive a car due to the drop-foot caused by my back surgery, so I’m content to let MoMo drive me around in our 2018 Honda. The car is old and wise but doesn’t have streaming capabilities to the radio, so I’m not sure how she will listen to her Spotify music. Life is tough for the youngsters.

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Making The Best Of A “Bud Situation”


Mrs MoMo was driving me to Fort Worth a few days ago for some reason I can’t remember now. When passing through Whiskey Flats, a small strip of Liquor stores along Highway 377, I saw my old buddy Mooch loading his pickup with cases of beer. He and a young man were rolling out cases of hooch from the liquor store called “The Beer Church.”

I implored MoMo to turn around and take me back to the “Beer Church.” She spun her mighty white Honda around, and we did a Dukes of Hazzard side-slide into the gravel parking lot. As I approached Mooch, I could see that his pickup bed was full of cases of Bud Light with that transgender mutt on the can.

I asked Mooch why he was buying that beer and did he understand that he was about to lose all his buddies in his “Plowboys” militia, and me, to boot.

He hung his head, shuffled his feet a few times, and said, ” I couldn’t help it, lil buddy, they are selling me this Fairy Piss for two bucks a case just to get it out of their store, but I have a plan. First, I will put on real dark sun-glasses so I can’t see the can too good, then I will spray all the cans with black paint, then put them in some cardboard Home Depot moving boxes and stack them in my garage. No one will know it’s a Busch beer. Then, I will take my Lone Star long necks and a funnel, mix the two beers together, put a new cap on the bottle, and store them in my ice-box in the garage. Since Lone Star is a real mans Texas beer, it won’t be Bud Light Fairy Piss anymore; it’ll be one of those new Texas crafty beers. Then it’s safe to drink it without the risk becoming a transgender mutt or getting my ass kicked, and I’m saving a butt-load of money.”

I must admit, there was nothing wrong with his plan. Sound reasoning and economics and it will probably be a drinkable craft beer.

As MoMo pulled our car out of the lot, I told her, ” Mooch is bringing me a few cases of Lone Star Craft Beer on Saturday.”

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I’m Bored. I Think I’ll become a Beatnik !


My Journey to Become a Hep Cat.

Sluggo-nik

I am bored and uninspired. Writers’ block has crippled my creativity, and painting a picture on canvas no longer holds my interest. My guitar rest in a closet, untouched for over two years. It calls me, but I refuse to hear. My tubes of paint have dried and died. My hair hasn’t been cut in four months, and my facial hair speaks of radicalism, so the time is right for a change. My wife says I look like Kenny Rogers; I see myself as Buffalo Bill, but minus the buckskin and rifle.

Consistently pissed off about everything is my nature at this time in life. Restlessness on the pillow takes its toll. Two major surgeries have left me with a gait like Frankenstein; the waltz of the monster mash. Children recoil in fear when I stumble in their direction. Old ladies in the grocery store give me the evil eye and cross themselves. I view my titanium cane as a weapon instead of an aid and have used it as such. Either I change, or the world changes to meet my demands, and that will not happen, so I will accommodate myself.

I will splatter my canvas with vibrant colors, the ones you see in dreams. Your art is the Holy Ghost blowing through your soul. I will marry my novels and have little short stories for adults who see themselves as children. A raconteur of genial ditties that will keep them amused or disturbed.

No, my dear, this will be different and life-changing. “This coming Monday,” I say, “around 9 AM CST, I will no longer be a grumpy old dude, but instead, will become a finger-snapping, beret wearing, caffein guzzling, poetry writing, deep thinking Hep Cat, a Beatnik or a Bohemien Pontificator, and a Deranged Poet”

She touched my whiskery cheek and said, ” now won’t that be fun.” She thinks I am not serious this time, but she can hide and watch.

I didn’t realize a change was afoot six months ago. This transformation has been deadly silent and gradual. It’s as if Tinker Bell, or the Beat Fairy, has visited every night and sprinkled pixie dust on my pillow.

Last night, after a few cocktails and after watching Wheel Of Fortune, during our supper, I announced to my wife, MoMo, that I have decided to become a Beatnik. Without looking up from her plate of manna, she asked, “So it will be like time when you decided to become a Hare Krishna and move to India to become that Beatle guy and play the sitar and hang out with Yogis.” Ouch, that stung. She knows me too well.

A month back, out of boredom, I re-visited “On The Road” by the great beat author Jack Kerouac. It’s a challenging read, but I made it through for a second time. The free and rebellious nature of the characters piqued my imagination. If I can capture their “cool factor,” it might add a few more years to my punch card. Dreams of change have no age limit or shelf life.

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Scammer Jammer’s And Spamer’s


Don’t Pick Up That Cell Phone…Fool!

I got five spam calls this morning with my local 817 area code. Thank you, iPhone, for identifying the little pest. I did, just for shits and giggles, answer one. The girl on the line talked fast and had such a heavy accent I couldn’t understand a word she said, except for medical, and she gave me my correct address, which worried me. How did she obtain that?

I gave her some reign and let her sputter on for a few minutes, letting her think she had a perch on the line; then I asked her this; ” where are you calling from?” she said the company name, “No, what country are you calling from because it’s not from Fort Worth Texas.” Click, end of the call. These calls are called “spoof” or “spook” calls. The scammers use a local area code and number without the owner of that number knowing it. Then, from a call center, likely in India or another Asian country, they attempt to get your information. Thank you, Artificial Intelligence, the company that sold your number and Medicare, that makes your information public.

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Living The Mongrel Life


I am in the process of writing my families history in the form of a story, that may turn into a Hemingway or Steinbeck inspired novel. I must be careful not to plagiarize either of my literary icons, but since they wrote much of what my family endured in the early part of the century and the 1930s, it may be impossible to slip here and there. Then, I remind myself that they have passed on, so if I do slip up a bit, I doubt they will be knocking at my door.

“Family Search” which is operated by the Mormon Church seems to be the most accurate for genealogy research. I tried “Ancestry,” the site that is considered the go-to library for family history, but the site gave me a headache.

My sister gave me a membership to the 22 something DNA site for my birthday. I had a few drinks of Irish Whiskey, spat into a vile and mailed it. It came back European, mostly Scottish and English with a trace of Asian Hun and a bit of Viking. The Irish Whiskey may have altered the DNA evidence.

I checked my lineage on “Ancestry” and it came back European, mostly England and Scotland. I know this is false because my grandmother was a Cherokee and was born and grew up on the Indian Nation in Oklahoma. How she met and married my blue eyed Irish grandfather is a mystery. A horse trade, or a debt may figure in there somewhere. My Granny knew and spent time with the famous Cherokee Chief, Quanah Parker, and from what I heard from my mother, she may have known him a bit too well; holding hands on the banks of lake under the moonlight and all that lore.

My mother looked like “Sacagawea” the famous Shoshone Indian girl that aided Lewis and Clark in their 1804 exploration of the America’s west of the Mississippi; all she needed was a buckskin dress and moccasins. She figured herself to be a little less than half Cherokee, which would make me chock-full of Indian DNA. My sister swears that DNA doesn’t lie. But doe’s it? Look at OJ, his DNA lied like the floor mats in his Ford Bronco.

Around the third week of research, I found in Family Search that the Cherokee Indian Nation does not release information to the “white eye,” meaning the white folks; Custer and all his hooligans. Who could blame them, distrust last a lifetime. So, I am convinced that I am Cherokee. My hair is almost long enough for a pony tail, I like sharp knives and if I drink too much “fire water” I am apt to do strange things. I also can ride bareback on a horse and shoot a bow and arrow, as long as my wife keeps adding the quarters to the slot attached to the child sized mechanized pony ride in front of the grocery store.

I contacted Ancestry via email and the nice lady replied with one; “I could go on acting like an Indian if it made me feel good about myself.” Well, bless her little wokie heart, it does make me feel better. Now Family Search says I am related to President George Washington and Elvis Presley. I am officially living the life of a mongrel humanoid.

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Back When Beer Was For Real Men And Real Women


“I may not always drink beer, but when I do, it won’t be an Annhiser Busch product.” You can bet your sweet Bippy on that one. The country musician boys are banning Busch products from their shows, and Kid Rock will be touring the country, shooting up 12 packs of Busch beer to cheering crowds of rednecks all through the southland. Let’s hear old Neal sing about this one. This shit is about to get serious, stat, and pronto.

Bring back the bull terrier dog with the spot on his eye, the dude with the beard and the European accent, and the happy young folks on the beach around a roaring campfire. Hell, even Hank Hill and his buddies standing in their alley sipping on a cold Alamo can of beer, anything but this transgendered mutt, Dylan Mulvaney, or whatever its name is. If you have a pecker, you ain’t a girl because you don’t have a babushka and never will. Beer is not a social statement vehicle; it’s a brew to be enjoyed with Mexican food, hamburgers, and hotdogs at the ballpark, not at a drag queen children’s indoctrination show. It’s a sacred piece of Americana, Texana, and Rosanna-Rosanna-Dana; she was a beer drinker too, as is my wife MoMo.

If he were still with us, my grandfather would be having a conniption fit over this latest bow to wokeness. He drank his beer with a few shakes of salt to give it effervescence and increase the foamy head. He drank his brew like a real man, the one that killed German soldiers with his bare hands in the muddy battlefields of France in 1917. There was no room for pansy-assed young folks printed on his beer bottle or in his life. The Busch family might want to reconsider their blunder before their American beer drinkers switch to Irish Whiskey like this old guy has done.

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An Odd Duck In A Crowded Pond


Don’t Believe What You Hear…It’s All Bull, And Then Some…

From the time I was a child, I was a bit skeptical of life in general. Blissfully ignorant with a tendency to play with the dust particles in the light of the window. My mother, bless her soul, thought me to be a bit touched, maybe from the Scarlet Fever I contracted at six years old to the concussion I suffered from falling on an iced sidewalk that same year. No matter the affliction, I was a feral child; the neighborhood was my jungle.

My little sister, five years younger, was spared the affliction, leading to a childhood of normalcy. I suspected I was the doomed child, the voodoo Chile, way before Jimi Hendrix wrote the tune. Not quite the walking brain-feasting zombie, but somewhere in between, I lived an existence in the Twilight Zone, not knowing what the next day would bring. Rod Serling could have been my Godfather. Captain Kangaroo scared me shitless, as well as his pal Mister Greenjeans. I thought Howdy Doody was a real kid with strings attached to his limp limbs. Icky Twerp was my hero. I was a good kid with streaks of inconsolable incorrigible rebellion that possessed me like a demon from hell. My paternal grandmother refused to be in the same room with me for many years, and then it was only to prepare me Campbell’s Bean Soup, which she was convinced was the favorite of young demonic possessed children. I was baptized so many times my skin was permanently shriveled. I had no idea of my afflictions. Having spent every Sunday in the hard wooden pews of the Poly Baptist Church, I was guaranteed a seat in Heaven, or so I believed.

Age and height rectified most of the imagined curse, but still, I suffered from a contrived family affliction. My Aunt Norma, a kindly bookish woman who loved Wejie Boards, Tarot Cards, and howling at the full moon at two in the morning, thought that she gave me a kindred spirit, of which I was not. I was a kid that liked to write stupid stories in a Big Chief Tablet and mail them to the Fort Worth Press Newspaper. Years went by with no response. It was as if I never existed as a writer, but then, those were the years that I believed myself to be the next Mark Twain, and that belief was unshakeable. If I couldn’t become Mark Twain, at least I was destined to be the next John Steinbeck, even though he was still alive and kicking and was working on his Homeric tribute to his dog and America, “Travels With Charley.” I could have written that book; it was there in my oatmeal mush brain, but the puzzle pieces were missing.

To most of us, childhood was a mystery that disappoints us, then we grow up and realize it was the best time of our lives.

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“The Show Must Go On” In The Cactus Patch


Things are a bit shaky in the Cactus Patch this week. Spring is here, but holding off a bit, giving us cool and cruel weather. I have a worrisome cough. I am never ill, except for the Cancer that I beat off with a stick a few years back. I should be a petri dish of diseases at my age, but my bride, an RN, keeps me going. I keep checking my arm for a bar code and an expiration date. My iPhone is able to read codes, so when one does appear, I will scan myself.

Mrs. MoMo and I are going to the legendary and beautiful Granbury Opera House on Friday evening to see “The Liverpool Legends,” a group of hand-picked ( by George Harrison’s sister) musicians that believe themselves to be The Beatles. They put on a great show, so I am stoked and a bit jiggy about the evening. We are meeting two more couples of our old friends for supper, adult beverages, and sharing the event. Danny, Jordan, and I played in a rock band for 19 years, The American Classics, to be exact. We played many Beatles tunes, so revisiting live music should give us a proper fix for a while. It would be the perfect event if our lead guitar player, John, was still with us, but he is playing with better musicians in Heaven and can’t make it. We can reform the band at a later date.

My wife, MoMo, has gone full Hippie Chic on me. She turned a pair of jeans into bell bottoms by adding a 60s-style fabric to create the bell effect. She didn’t stop there. Next, she made a genuine cow leather vest complete with fringe and other adornments dangling. The gal was a bit of a hippie wild-ass back in the day, so she knows that clothing makes the person and produces the proper vibe. She is so excited the concert has taken a back seat to the wardrobe. I look for her to grind her own wheat for homemade bread and stop shaving her legs and armpits; she may change her name to Sunshine or Saffron before Friday. I will remain the same grumpy codger but will sport my leather jacket with cow-fur trimmings and Larry Mahan Ostrich boots. My hair is not long enough for a pony-tail, but if I drink enough Chi-Tea, it may grow enough by then.

Our bird feeders have turned into a Shakespearean performance stage. It seems the small Avians have formed their own theater company and take great pleasure in giving us a good show every morning. Two Crows have joined the cast, and a pesky Squirrel hogs the Sunflower seed but does a formidable tap dance, so he is welcome. The Doves have joined forces and now number in the dozens, making a solid ensemble. They tend to deplete the seed in a manner of minutes, but we are well-trained and keep the critters well-fed. We have a wild Turkey that walks with a nice strut and an educated Road Runner that visits, but so far, no Coyote.

God Bless Davy Crockett, and remember the Alamo. Adios for now.

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The Truth won’t Set You Free, But It Will Offend Almost Everyone And Send Your Friends And Family Running For Your Door


I made a pledge to myself a while back that I would step away from expressing my political and religious beliefs, and for the most part, I have upheld my own self-imposed exile. However, the last two days have blown that apart, and I have to speak my mind; as juvenile and impetuous as it may seem, it is full of unpleasant truths that will likely offend many. I don’t apologize for the facts as I read or see them.

If the shooting at the Nashville church school isn’t horrific enough, our president, in a news conference to speak of this tragedy, tells jokes about chocolate ice cream and calls out the cute little girls in the back of the room, chuckling and yukking it up, then says a few mumbling words about the shooting; ban guns, ban Christians, put everyone in prison that isn’t a liberal Democrat, you know, the usual vomitous. Where is the national outrage over this behavior? There will be none…nada…zip. One of the clear signs of advanced dementia is the use of unpleasant, inappropriate speech. Notice anything inappropriate about that speech, “Dear Hearts?”

This weekend, one of the days will be declared a “National Day of Transgender Violence, or Vengence” it could change to something else by then. A group of sick individuals pushing this agenda have created another movement to captivate the masses. Just when the nation was getting over BLM, Antifa, and Hollywood. How will this be handled by the FBI and the DOJ without hurting their delicate feelings? Will they turn to the Kardashian women or The Oprah to soften the blow? How about us folks answering with a national day of American Christians against transgendered violence. I know…..I know, we are supposed to “turn the other cheek,” would that be the face one or the ass-one? I will turn neither and will give no quarter to these fanatical, confused, and now dangerous humans. The Ulvade police should watch the video of the Nashville policemen who ran to the shooter and took her, yes, a real woman, down within minutes of arriving on the scene. I once thought Texas had the best cops and Rangers in the country, but now I’m sure we don’t, just a bunch of wokie, pansy-assed-gun-toting-donut-eating good ole boys. I know a few cops who aren’t that, but I can’t vouch for the boys in Ulvade.

Where are the conservative voices in Washington? You know, the ones that were supposed to right all the wrongs in record time? Spiky Haired McCarthy, Turtle McConnel, WWF Jordan, and the others. The absence of Christian leaders speaking out? Franklin Graham, where in the world are you? Where is the swamp? Pelosi? AOC? all the other rats living in the tidal basin? They do not wish to offend the small percentage of freaks in the sideshow that might, through social media, influence their demise at the polls; that’s why no one is speaking out. We are in bondage to the gods of social media; Facebook, Instagram, Chinese Tik Tok, Rat Bastard platforms on iPhones, Google Chrome Notebooks, and every device that we carry.

In the words of the lunatic newsman from the classic movie Network, ” I’m mad as hell and am not going to take it anymore.” Did I say too much? Probably.