Amistad, My Grand Parents and How I Miss Them

It's a pitiful habit when a writer digs into their stash of completed works and republishes something. The generally accepted rule on this is, Don't! Well, i think you would all agree that when it comes to rules i would be forthright in saying i take what i like and disregard the rest. Then again, i believe that most of us do in some form or fashion.

I have been working quite a bit on a piece of length lately and after the summer I've had haven't really felt too much like writing anything that wasn't germain to the project. Here again, with the crappy summer I've been having most of what i have written in the last five weeks is way too angry and way too off voice for this project and will get thrown into the prompt bin for when i can't seem to find anything to write about. I think one of his kids finally just set fire to the last couple hundred boxes of notes and sentences that Hemingway had scratched out and thrown into his slush bucket. Personally, i hope I'm coherent enough to burn all that crap before i die so that no one has to wonder what i was thinking. Some days it's hard enough for me to figure out if it was something reality based or total fiction. I guess that's why Raymond Carver said that everything he wrote was fiction and nothing he wrote was fiction. I am certainly on board with the concept.

While I've been working on this project it has brought back memories that i have had stashed away for years. Many of these memories revolve around my life with my Grandparents. It occurred to me that in days passed i would go to them for advice, or just to talk, or any of a number of other reasons; they would have been considered my support system. At least a great part of that system. This Friday, July 17 is and always shall be my Grandfather's birthday and while he isn't here to celebrate it with, maybe i can share some of my Grandparents with all of you and in turn maybe one of you will learn something about the special nature of the relationship between a grandparent and a grand child. I thank you for taking the time to read this and truly hope you get something from it.

Oh how i miss them, Be Well, Dave

Amistad in august, first appeared in the "Northwoods Journal", Fall, 1998. Reprinted here as is my right being the original author of same.

Amistad in August

I was taken back to a special place and time when the wind was hot, the water glistened and the doubted words of an old man became truth.
All of my life, people have given me the same advice, “work hard, so you can play hard.” As a child, I didn’t understand what this meant, all I knew was I never got to play as hard as I worked. There was always some chore that needed my immediate attention. Being the oldest of three, it seemed to be my responsibility to make sure the chores got done. I had chores at my grandparents’ house. However, their chores were more educational than physical. So in an effort to keep from having to pull up the goathead stickers in my parent’s yard, I found reasons to visit my grandparents. Actually, I made an art form out of finding ways to get out of pulling weeds.
As with most kids, I enjoyed visiting my grandparents. They were not in the habit of giving me gifts but the one thing I did receive was plenty of understanding. My grandparents had a photography business for many years. From an early age, I was instructed in the theories and practices of good photography. I learned what it takes to make a good picture bad and to make a good picture great. My grandfather had a great sense of humor. He found humor in some of the strangest places, usually at someone else’s expense. He really enjoyed being a clown and putting on an act. It never seemed to matter who was around, he would break into some act like putting his lit cigarette into his ear and walking around with his tongue stuck out.
His humor was a great source of comfort for me. Using humor as a tool he taught me about nature and weather. My grandfather was one of the first meteorologists, as we understand the science today, and an avid reader.
One day while fishing off of spur 406 just west of Del Rio, Texas, I made a discovery. My grandfather and I were discussing weather patterns and what is called the dry line when something on the bank caught my eye. I sat up in my seat on the boat and said, “Hey Papa, look!! That has got to be the biggest rat in the world.”
Under a swig from his scotch and soda and an overdone gravely belch my grandfather said, “That is a nutria.” In the past he had given some really far out and unbelievable answers to questions, but this answer was too much. For years I took him at his word whether or not, I believed him. In response to nutria, I just sat there drowning my worm while sweat beads ran together and rolled down my back.
The sun shone off of the glass surface of the lake as if we were only a mile from the sun. The blistering heat and stillness of the day was periodically interrupted by the occasional chill of a slight breeze. Again I thought nutria, it must be Latin for good food and just giggled to myself. The longer I thought about it the funnier, “nutria” got and I wanted to ask him if he was pulling my leg but still I said nothing. I just sat there respectfully listening to him tell me about the uses people around the world had for nutria pelts. He explained to me in great detail how people in South America made their living from the trapping and sales of these hides. He was willing to bet half of all the cowboy hats in Texas were made of nutria felt rather than beaver, despite what the labels were printed with. He felt most of the buyers were ignorant to the differences between the qualities of nutria and beaver fur. In his opinion the nutria’s pelt was far superior to the beaver’s. The hairs were thicker and softer than the beaver’s and they had a far superior sheen to them.
After listening rather flippantly to my grandfather’s version of the plight of the nutria for what seemed to be all afternoon, he told me to pull in the anchor and we’d head for shore. Shore was really where I wanted to be. It was just too hot out on the water.
Back on shore, under the shade of the live oak and black locust trees that surrounded our campsite I was still bothered by the nutria. More so, I was ready for a coke, with ice, and a cigarette. I would usually steal one of my grandfather’s and a match and make up some excuse to get away from my grandparents to smoke, like going down by the water for a look around.
Down by the water I found some clams and watched the minnows swim in and out rhythmically with my shadow being cast upon the water. The clams were always fairly abundant. There were some live ones but mostly just the half shells left in the wake of an armadillo’s or, according to my grandfather, a nutria’s supper. After all of the stories my grandfather told me, including the life cycles of thunder storms, satellites with one hundred minute orbits, and learning to measure the height of a tree while standing on my grandparents’ porch, something had started eating at me about how one guy could know so much about everything.
After finishing my cigarette, I walked back to our campsite. Along the way, I heard a mocking bird chattering away at a wood pecker. I stopped for a minute to watch. I got so caught up in this wild conversation of screech and rata-tat-tat that an armadillo had walked up and brushed my leg. Instantly I looked down. I was fearful that it was a snake. Western diamondbacks and cottonmouths were found regularly in the park. When I looked down, I saw an armadillo and it startled me so badly that I took off running. An armadillo was not what I expected. I expected to see a snake, but no, just a damn little armadillo. Frantically, I ran back to our camp and forgot about challenging my grandfather’s nutria story.
Later that evening while watching the whippoorwills come in to feast on the early evening bugs as the first stars came over the horizon, my grandmother came out to the pier where I was fishing. To keep from being too disrespectful, I asked her what those forty pound rats were I had seen earlier in the day. She looked me dead in the eye and said, “So you don’t believe your grandfather?”
I said, “Well uh, yeah. Uh no, uh.” She always had a way of cutting through the fog and bringing out the light of day.
My grandmother said, “Why don’t you ask him if he’s pulling your leg or if he’s telling you the truth?”
For a time, my grandmother and I fished from the pier. When my grandfather came down to the pier, he was putting on this act of rattling ice cubes in his customary glass of Scotch and making goofy faces and other antics while playing with his lit cigarette. It was quite vaudevillian. He asked me if I had caught a Guinness fish yet. I was really reluctant to answer because I didn’t know what a Guinness fish was and was afraid that the whole out of doors would laugh at me for being ignorant. My grandfather bent down making this exaggerated groaning noise and lifted the fish basket out of the water and said, “Nope, no Guinness fish here.”
I thought to myself, I know there are no Guinness fish in there. All I had were two blue cats about a pound each. So he dropped the basket back into the water and took a seat on the ice chest between my grandmother and me. For a time there was peace. The only thing that could be heard were the crickets, the breeze, and an occasional fish jumping from the water to catch a celestial fire fly.
That was the last fishing trip my grandparents and I ever took together. My grandfather and I made two or three trips after that by ourselves, but it just wasn’t the same without my grandmother. The three of us were getting older. As for the Nutria, I never did challenge my grandfather’s answer or the natural history lesson that came along with the finer points of nutria felt.
Some years later while watching television, constantly flipping from one scene to the next, something in the back of my mind stopped the activity in my hand on one of those public broadcast stations. My own son said, “Look, Dada, a beaver.”
I said, “No, Son, it is a nutria.” My grandfather’s words from years past came floating in to my television set and repeated the lesson, nearly word for word, on more time.
An amazing thing happened that night, I was taken back to a special place and time when the wind was hot, the water glistened, and the doubted words of an old man became truth. The clouds in my eyes began to build like the giant thunderstorms in the high desert of my youth and the height of that tree we measured, seemed justified. I looked at my son and said, “Hey boy, work hard, so you can play hard.”

Just like the Chicks, i'm not ready to make nice

Well, here i am. I'm back from Alpine for nearly a week and i still haven't cleaned the trash out of the Trooper yet. It occurs to me that I'm a self centered, petty, miserable little turd that spends every waking moment in the pursuit of that which i am entitled. In other words, I'm a jerk that spends all day dreaming up ways to get the stuff he wants without having to earn it, or to that effect. Be that as it may, i gave up everything i had going on for six weeks this summer to go to Alpine and fix several maintenance issues with my mother's house. That six weeks turned out to be akin to that all you can eat stew in the Huey Lewis song, "I Wanna New Drug". It was 1.99 and one dollars worth was all that he could stand. Conversely, three weeks was all i could hack. In the hopes that this won't turn out to be a Stump, I'll just cover a few things that i feel i want to share and then I'll be on my merry way.

Many of you have known me for all practical purposes all of my life or the vast majority of it thus far. I have a tremendous memory and remember little bits of "nostalgia" on all of you. I'm betting that all of you that have known me since childhood remember that I went to school with one name for years and then suddenly in High School it changed to what it is today. I also bet that no two of you would have the same reason for the change. Well, I'm about to dish it and at 44 i really don't think it means a whole hell of a lot, it's just something i want out there. I've been the red headed step child long enough. It's really quite simple. I was born in April and mom got married in August. See, now wasn't that easy?? The only thing is and it's horribly obvious to everyone, I'm not his. However, there was a thirty year benefit to that. When i was a boy they got my SS Card with his last name. I carried that card through three enlistments and four weddings and didn't have a problem until the Department of Homeland Security was created. Let me tell you how it worked to get the name changed on the card for me. See, suddenly i had to change the name on the card because i was no longer eligible to work in the ole US of A. Fact!!! It took from some time in 2003 until April of 2008 to get someone who understood rural West Texas and how something like this could have happened. As fate would have it, our taxes came up for SS verification and i had to go down to the local SS office and get this standard form that said yes, he has to pay taxes and yes he's a citizen. I was almost hoping to get deported. Well, i noticed the subtle nuances we used in the desert coming from the beer bellied clerk behind the glass.

To make a long story short, he was from Wink and he knew exactly how it happened and he gave me a new SS Card. It all happened just that fast.

Later, when i was sharing the story with my mother all she could find to say was, "that's good he should have helped you."

This is like the eighth blog i have written since i returned from Alpine and i doubt I'll publish any of those, they are just too mean spirited. A famous man once said, say what you want to me, but don't mess with my kids! oh wait! That was me.

Anyway, I hope you are all doing well and for those of you still wondering if everything we have plugs in, nope, we found something. Our eye glasses seem to be cordless...

Dave

Complaining on facts already entered

Well i've been here in Alpine for nearly two weeks now and i have used up a months worth of Valium just trying to stay sane. Geez, if you don't want to see me write something where all i do is complain, change the channel cause honey it don't get no better than this!!!!

To begin, i drink an inordinate amount of caffeine free regular Dr Pepper. I brought a couple of 12 packs with me so that i'd have some till i got to the store. The store, let's call it "Porkers" didn't have any but they would have some the next day. Okay no sweat, i'll drink something else. The next day, went to Porkers and they had 2. 2?? Yep, 2. That was the entire shipment for the week but he said he would tell the Dr Pepper guy, he did and the next week i got six. Okay, tragedy overted for the nonce! And if you don't get the Dr Pepper thing, you just don't know me well enough.

Then there is the whole getting online thing. There is a place here called the la tratorilla or something of that nature, but putting fifty chairs where twenty people can sit, just didn't work for me. Oh yeah the other place is on murphy and fifth but they aren't open till noon. C'est la Guerre.

All of the projects for my mother should have taken about a week to do and that would have left me with a couple of weeks to make my trebuchet and my giant white board and anything else i wanted to do with my tools that seem to have a permanent home with her. Needless to say that everything has taken five times longer and has cost three times as much and i am at the point where all i really want to do is just go home.

I know i can get a 1 X 4 at lowes for a couple bucks and Dr Pepper is between two fifty and three, not the four sixty nine they have it at here. Yes, i knew this coming down here, but when it takes you three days to replace a lavatory faucet because the people at the lumber yard are that stupid, maybe chemical castration is a viable alternative to little Clevon getting to breed.

On a bright note i did find some of that purple lotion my wife loves at the hardware all-in-two store. So i did accomplish something this week. I Love Vacations!!!!! D

Potpourri for One Hundred, Alex!

I should probably start this one off with some sort of caveat that absolves me of the need to make sense. To that end, if this seems like a pile of random stream of consciousness, you might want to remember the old adage, "You get what you pay for".

In just over a week the guys and i are going to Alpine for a fair chunk of the summer. I dug out the kites and have repaired most of them. We love flying kites out in the desert. Here in the Metroplex, especially during the summer the air is so still you can fly paper airplanes outside so flying kites here only happens a couple times a year. In alpine you can do it nearly everyday of the year. I know, i know, flying kites big whoop! The kites we fly are generally five or six feet across and have dual controls, it's good cheap fun.

The other thing i know we are going to do is go swimming in Balmorhea. I can't wait to see my big brave football beast swim with the catfish. I'm betting he'll be nervous. Naturally the other one will probably spend all of his time trying to catch something, he's a nut! I'm thinking about taking them to the observatory to a star party too. I know i love those, maybe they will too. Who knows, maybe I'll take them to OJ or something else. Who knows. I wonder if they still allow rock collecting down at Woodard's? I'm sure we'll figure something out to keep them busy.

It's going to be weird staying in a house with no Internet. I have to admit, that is bugging me. That and wondering what on my blackberry will work down there. I know two summers ago i could use my phone, but i had no voice mail and no text messaging. I called T-mobile yesterday and gave them my mothers address and they assured me that I'll have full use of all the features on my phone, it will just be slower since she doesn't live in a 3G area. LOL!!! I loved it when the rep said that. Alpine in a 3G network, if that's the case I'll just beam there and leave my truck here!!!

Ok, so i guess that's about all that's rattling around today. Really and truly there is a truckload more, but i don't have the strength and you don't want to read it anyway. In closing i will say this, if you find yourself in Alpine this summer and you want to get together and split a beer, tell lies and just in general hang out for a while, gimme a call. If you need the number, send me an email or just call my mothers house, she'll know where i am. I look forward to seeing those of you I've already talked to and look forward to seeing any old friends that turn up.

For those of you that live here in the Metroplex, I'll be gone, 4-6-8 weeks?? I don't know. I will miss seeing y'all, but just think of all we'll have to talk about when i get back.

I hope everyone has a great summer!!! D

Not very Keroac-ian

This semester i taught a basic sewing class in Houston at one of the community colleges. To this point i had either taught in a private setting or substituted for someone else, so this was the first time i got to see everything from start to finish. I believe the class went well and the students were satisfied with what they received. The last class could have been better, but funny things happen when i'm in Houston. Last fall i was supposed to teach this class, alas there was a hurricane and the dates were changed enough to prevent me from doing the gig and having my surgery and being there for Donna's. This time, Houston had torrential rains and tons of flooding. Many of the school districts were closed that day and the little boy that died of the Swine Flu died that morning also. Attendance was poor, but i received great feedback from the ones that did turn out. I've been invited back to teach three sections of sewing in the fall and i tenatively plan to do just that. However, all this is just precursor for a moment i had the next day. A Wednesday. Typically when i'm returning home from down there i follow the same steps every time. I am very much a creature of habit. This day was no different. I was traveling on the lighter side, for me. I had taken my machine and all of my supplies home the week before because i had oral surgery and didn't want to have to lug all of my crap with a face full of stitches. At any rate, i got up and showered and packed and my lovely sister-in-law drove me over to Katy to where the bus station is, well to a mexican restaurant a few doors down. Before you ask, yes, generally i ride the bus. First reason, it's a good tax receipt and secondly, with an Ipod, Blackberry, and a laptop, not to mention a good old fashioned legal pad, it's a good place for me to scratch out a line or two or just power down for a while. Anyway, back to this restaurant. It's called, Los Altos de Jalisco and the food is super modest and super good. Not to mention, with a face full of stitches it wasn't like i was going to be eating toast anywhere. I opted for a Chorizo omelette and some refried beans. I was teasing the waitress a little asking her for corn bread. She didn't know what the hell i wanted corn bread for, but she took it all in stride. As i said, i'm a creature of habit and this was in no way the first time she'd seen me. The food was really good that morning, i don't know if it was cause i was hungry or if it was truly better than normal, but i thoroughly enjoyed it, paid and left.

Now here is where the moment occurred. Like i said, i was traveling light. I realize light is relative and i am a nightmare for my camping friends cause i overpack like Lucy from the old show "I Love Lucy". All i was carting around this trip was my lucky backpack and a 36" duffle. Each one of them weighed close to fifty pounds. I know this for a certainty as Greyhound charges freight on any bag over fifty pounds and they love to weigh mine, especially my trolly with my machine. In the duffle, i had a couple changes of clothes, my happy quilt, my stinky pillow and a jacket. More or less, that was what i had in there but it still managed to be quite heavy. Now the magical backpack i have, truly is a marvel. I take it everywhere for a singular purpose and that is so when i get the urge to write i have the tools i want to write with. Pretty simple really.

Okay, so i'm walking the two blocks to the bus station to wait for the bus and suddenly i'm having a conversation with Jack Kerouac. I was telling him i was on my way home at the end of my current journey. When he asked me what i did, i told him i was a writer masquerading as a sewing teacher and he just laughed. He laughed at my kleenexes and my hand lotion. He was further amused with my collapsable cup and my tea glass: my thermal compartment with my three bottles of frozen mango tea, the laptop with two movies (master and commander and kung fu hustle), the ipod, the blackberry, the portfolio, the gradebook, a change of clothes...and a couple of peanut butter protien bars. He said as he pointed off to the east, "You've lost your way. It's out there, on the road and all you need is this." When i looked back, he was holding a little pocket notebook and a stub of a pencil. I took a breath and he was gone just as he had appeared. I stood there a good long time, just me, the birds, and a mildly stale cigarette, wondering if i even had a pencil in my backpack.

Just some stuff and other stuff

First of all i have the best of news for anyone with a family. You know how from time to time the family gets unhappy and the general peace is disrupted?? Well, earlier this week i was looking at the take out menu for May China Restaurant here in Garland and i discovered something very very special. I discovered that about half way down their entrees they sell the "Happy Family" for 8.95. Boy i have to tell you that is good news. Gone are the days of making everyone kiss and make up, now I'll just simply go to May China and for about ten bucks I'll have the Happy Family and all will be restored in the world. If you need their address, just let me know. They do deliver, so if it's an emergency, just google them.
Now for something far more trivial. A good number of years ago i was diagnosed with a hormonal abnormality. Basically, i had gone through, for lack of a better term, male menopause. So my hormone levels were ridiculously low. Now is where you should be giggling, cause hormones and sex go hand in hand. However, for me it really was more frustrating than anything else. Sure, the pharmaceutical companies gave us men pills to counter act the inability to perform in the bedroom, but while everyone was making jokes about whether or not a person took Viagra, cialis, or levitra because they wanted to or due to a need, more important details were left out.
I used to take my little blue pill and marvel at just how effective, sorry for using the pronoun but it makes me laugh, it was. However, the blue pill notwithstanding, there were other things that weren't so mundane. My mood, get up and go, and overall feeling of well being were all but gone and my teeth seemed to be dissolving in front of my eyes no matter what i did. Enter one dentist that was focused on the whole patient and not just the bill. I remember wanting to make sure the dentist knew that i wasn't a drug user and that it was important to me that he believe me. He said, i know, you have a hormone problem. Huh?? How does a dentist know this?? He told me before treatment i needed to go see my regular doctor and get a hormone test and a bone density test. And he was right. All the time i had been taking Viagra for poor sexual performance, my body had been trying to tell me that it was out of hormones. I was tested and my results were so low that we tested them again with the same outcome. It was at that time that i was placed on Hormone Replacement Therapy. Basically, i smear this gel on my shoulders everyday and make sure my wife doesn't come in contact with the gel as it would make her grow a mustache. Like she needs help in that department ;-D The thing about the gel is the cost. Typical HRT for a woman is about thirty or so dollars a month. For men, it's about Three Hundred. Why you ask?? I'll tell you! It's all because some lawmakers in Washington are mad that some professional athletes use steroids and so the stuff that goes in the gel is legislated by that and that drives the price up. Totally not right, but that is the state of things. So, now I'm on the hormones and I've had the bone scan and life goes on.
Here's the point to all this. This week, i had oral surgery to remove my teeth and repair my jaw from the effects of having low hormones for so long. I have bone loss in my hands, neck and other parts of my body and the lack of hormones drove my cholesterol number for years. Here in a couple of years I'll probably start getting calcium treatments like one of those little old ladies and all of this was largely preventable. If you are a man or have one that is over forty, have him get his hormone level checked. The test is cheap by medical testing standards and the benefits so completely outweigh any embarrassment he might feel. Insist on it, hormones aren't only for the bedroom. Just wanted to share, Dave
p.s. next time I'll tell you why i never tell her to cut or not to cut her hair.

nothing old or predictable

Well it's been nearly a month since i last penned something here. For my absence, you have my deepest apologies, for some, and it must have been a refreshing break, for others. truth be told, since i signed up on Blogger i haven't blogged like i usually do. I'm not sure if it's because it seems more formal here or if i've just grown lazier. The smart money is on the latter.
While it is true that i live in Garland, i started teaching a sewing class at Lone Star College in Houston in March. It's just one day a week, but that takes three to four days to do. I tell you now, it's not a commute for the faint of heart. I have 12 women in my basic sewing class. These women have skill levels that range from "so this is a sewing machine" all the way to, "are all the projects going to be this easy." A couple of them have Kenmore's. A brand of machine marketed by Sears for years and they generally work pretty well. I don't know who actually makes the machine, but they have pretty much always been a pretty reliable machine. The balance of the class ALL have Singers from Wal-Mart. The first thing i guess i should say is that i think that Wal-mart is the Devil!!! I detest it!!! The vary mention of it makes me cringe!!! At any rate, the class has progressed nicely and all of the ladies have taken to a man instructing the class just fine. I guess the class is going fine, i've been asked back to teach three different sections this fall. I have to say, i had my reservations when i took the gig, but it has turned out alright. I'm sure that as time goes by it will only get better. But, as of tomorrow, i only have one class left. I have to tell you that i'm ready for it to be over with. I need a break from this traveling. Leave garland on sunday, go home on wednesday, repeat?? Yeah, i've had enough of that for a while.
Tomorrow, after class, i'll go home and have oral surgery on wednesday morning. I'm terribly apprehensive about it, but what can ya do. If you need it, you need it. Hopefully, i'll be drugged out of my skull for the whole procedure and remember nothing. At least, he claims that i'll remember almost nothing of the hour and a half. Here's hoping he's right. I bet i talked to thirty surgeons before i found one i felt comfortable with and so now it's on and paid for. I guess at this point all i need do is show up.
Next week, i'll be back down here in Houston for my last class and then home again. I'll be home for about two and a half to three weeks and then i'll be headed off to Alpine for a while. When life closes in on you there is no place to get your head wrapped around things like in the high desert back home. I've been needing a break for a number of years now but i've never taken the time and you know what?? I'm taking it. I know my mother has a grocery list of stuff she wants me to fix around her house and i'll do my best to get all that done. Though sometimes her lists never end. As you get one thing cleared off, two more get added. Then again it's for Mother Nature, what's a guy to do. After all of that, i have to get back in time to get my "bruiser" son to "weight camp", no he's not fat, it's a football thing. So somewhere along in here i'm just hoping to have a day or two where i can throw my feet up and just enjoy the day and i hope you do as well. Till next time, y'all be good, Dave
p.s. Most of the people i know that blog any at all feel obliged to include random recipes and with all of the phone calls i get for how to cook something, i'm going to give you my stupid peanut butter cookie recipe. i hope you enjoy.
1-2-3 cookies
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
beat that all together and make peanut butter cookies. bake at 350 for about 10 minutes or golden and enjoy. yes i know there is no flour in the recipe. Trust me, they're great. Have i ever lied to you before?? peace!!!