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.

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.

Christmas Tuneage, Demanding Birds, and Deer Zombies


I ran into old buddy Mooch at H.E.B. on Christmas Eve. I stopped by to pick up a few things Momo forgot: Eggnog, Milk, Cedar Fever Elixer, and more birdseed. Our Avian friends have been a demanding lot as of late since the flock of Crows moved in. They sit on the fence and Caww-Caaww until I load the flat feeder with peanuts, their favorite. The poor Cardinals and the Dove have to wait until the big boys leave. The Crows like shiny trinkets, so I left a quarter in one flat feeder and a Crow took it. The next day, there was a dime in the feeder. I have no idea what the Crow spent the other fifteen cents on.

After fighting off the food sample ladies, I spotted Mooch staggering around in the frozen food aisle with a hand-carry basket full of Red Baron pizzas, his favorite. I eased up beside him and wished him a Merry Christmas, but no response. I tapped his shoulder, but no acknowledgment. I stepped in front of him and gave him a friendly stare, glazed eyes, and a stream of slobber on his chin. In desperation, I shook his shoulders, and he snapped back into the moment.

” Sorry old buddy, I’ve been drifting in and out of it for a few days,” he says.

I am worried, so I ask, ” Don’t you think a visit to Doc Bones is in order, I thought you might have stroked out on me pal?”

” He was apologetic and explained, ” Nawww…I went Deer hunting last week and shot me a big ole Buckster. We ate some Deer chicken fry steak yesterday, and now I think I’ve got the Deer Zombie disease. Mrs. Mooch is convinced I’m a Deer Zombie but without the ten-point rack of horns.”

Momo requested some Christmas music this morning so I dug around in my vinyl stash looking for my Elvis Christmas album; I couldn’t find it… must have given it away. I did run across a Perry Como and a Sing Along With Mitch Christmas, but I couldn’t bring myself to spin them, and I have no idea why they are in my collection. I streamed some Vince Guaraldi Charlie Brown Christmas tunes, which did the trick.

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.

Travels Without Charley


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