a piece of Perfect...

At the street end of the dirt drive, you could only turn right or left. The funny thing, both directions ended up in the same place; Fox Hollow. Fox Hollow was the only bar in town and doubled as the Post Office. Coincidentally, it was the ice cream parlor in the summer and where you take your kids to get their picture with Santa during the holidays. Oh! Let’s not forget the Rotarians and Tuesday night bingo. The other handy thing about the place, it’s also the bus stop. Naturally, that’s where I met Loyd, nine years ago, when I hit town. You might say it was two steps down from the Army and a stumble back in time.
Back at the house I’d make my left or my right and head for the Fox Hollow. Me, Loyd, and Bit had been meeting up there for coffee at O’dark thirty for a number of years now and it just doesn’t seem right to start the day differently. Sure, I guess we could have met at the diner, but as long as Paula Ann was willing to bring our plates to us, why change?
By the time I get there Loyd will be on his second beer and his third cup of coffee. Bit will ask him why he drinks beer so early in the morning and Loyd will tell him it’s cause he never met a beer he didn’t like. Shortly after that, Bit will ask him why he doesn’t eat something and Loyd will remind him yet again that there is a sandwich in every bottle and a pork chop in every can. Then there will be silence till I get there. God, I love small town life. Nothing ever changes and there’s security in that.

Missing the Font

I sit here tonight with about a thousand things racing about my head. I have rats tearing flesh from bone and worms devouring the scraps. The echos of this carnage bounce around my skull with cavernous abandon, while i attempt to make sense of it all. The raging thoughts inside are leaving me out.

I find myself sitting in the parking lot of Our Lady of Perpetual Recreation and yet, can find no courage to enter. No candle will be lit and my bemedaled ladder Rosary will see no daylight today. I simply admire the facade. I can't afford myself enough grace to enter the house. If my peace lie in thee, I'm on the outside and shall not know.

The sins of the father are nothing more than a road map. The repetition of history cast along another generation. Will the son walk this same highway and if so will they all or just one? I ache for them. I hope for them. I pray for them. Will they find grace in all things or will they be chained by the sins of the father in all aspects of their life? I burn for them. I give myself freely that they might never bear the yoke or feel the lash. All i am is for them and still I'm merely looking in.

Nearly all of my life i have been blessed with a tremendous font. Dipping my tired fingers every chance i got. I have now returned to that font to find only promises and dust. There is no font. What i had grown so accustomed to is gone and shall never return. One day i am sure i will catch up with my font and by then the rats in my skull will all be dead. It is my earnest wish that the sons have a font that doesn't disappear, but when it does they have the courage to be on the inside.

Looking in is not life, but it isn't death either. It is an earthly purgatory, one to be endured until you can rise up and open the door.

This is the last blog i am going to share on FB. I hope you got something from it, even if it is only that bemedaled isn't a real word. Besides, it's mine, so it is a real word. Bemedaled, having medals, usu. several.

Y'all take care of Y'all, Dave

I think i just earned myself the "Dad of the Day" Award today. I have been promising the guys MusicMan style guitar straps. Naturally, they had to be made of leather, oh and they wanted their initials to be revealed. Revealed in sewing terms means that there are two layers and when you cut out the pattern from the top layer, the bottom layer is revealed. How cool, No?? Garage Band, the next generation...........

Of course, my Alien child wanted his done in a font style like the movie Ice Age and he wanted "eye brows" on the letters. Undoubtedly, he got that crap from Chip Foose. I'm not thrilled with it, but he is and that's all that counts. He's a short little cuss and i'm probably going to have to take a couple more inches off of the end of the strap. I just hope i don't take off too much and that he'll grow into it. Though i doubt he'll ever be any taller than 5' 9" or there abouts.

My Beastly child, the one that doesn't stop eating, made a great font choice and i really liked the way it turned out. Since he'll probably top out around 6' 3", his strap was made a little longer and should see him through many years of playing. Really and truly, leather is the only choice for this job. Oh, and he totally digs the way the reveal came out. As they say, if he likes it, i love it. Pssst!, they practice with headphones on. That was money well spent!

And finally, i included this picture because it makes me laugh!!!! I just love the hair......lol I won't rain on his Heavy Metal parade, i'm sure the Football Coach will do that next week.

At any rate, i thought i would share this with the world. The straps are functional and durable and the guys love them. Who could ask for anything more. Y'all be good, DDDave

Birthday shorts and back to school

Okay, it's like four in the morning and i'm listening to Shania Twain. Don't blame me, it's what came on that stupid Slacker radio thing on my phone. Actually, I really like it most of the time. It's not that i don't like Shania, i was hoping for some Van Morrison. Anyway, moving right along.
A couple weeks ago my trackball on my blackberry stopped working properly and i ordered a replacement from Fonlogix (www.fonlogix.us) and in keeping with my fetish for all things Green!!!! I got my replacement trackball in green and the bezel to match. So, i guess you could say that i pimped out my Blackberry. Sort of anyway, when you add that to the three day battery i put in it, it just works for me.
Oh i guess first i'll tell you about my birthday shorts. In 2002 when i decided to go back to school and finish my degree to hedge against the downturn in the economy, the University of North Texas had some funny ideas about what courses would and would not transfer from Sul Ross. Somewhere in this, the Marching Band and my Military Record no longer satisfied my Physical Education requirement. Go ahead, laugh it up i know i sure did. You should have seen the face of the dean when i said fine, i'll just go out for football at 37. She didn't find the humor in that at all and suggested i take a class called Stress Management Through Movement. (This is a huge euphemism for "Yoga Class") More on the class some other day, but during the class a troupe of drummers and dancers from Ghana came by for a week. They were just too damn cool! They had all these chotchkies for sale to subsidise their trip. I bought a pair of purple and gold drawstring shorts that looked like someone had cut up a couch to make them. You know what?? They are ugly and i love them and i still have them. I hadn't worn them since last summer until this past weekend. When i went to put them on, i never untie the damn things i just shimmy them over my hips up or down, they were about ten sizes too big. I was standing there holding up those shorts and thinking who in the hell wore my shorts. So, i retied them and went to the bathroom and pulled out the scale. Dude, i am down 45 pounds from my physical last year at the VA. I don't know what i'm doing differently, but i'll take it. Now don't get me wrong, i'm happy with the skin i'm in, but a little less of me to go around would be nice as long as i don't have to participate. That's only due to having enough to do already without adding something else on top of what i already have.
Well, that's about all of the therapy i can handle for one night. Tomorrow, i have a meeting with UT Dallas about going back to school for another degree. Y'all remember that substitute teacher Mr. Zubia and how we joked about him having all of the degrees Sul Ross offered, well some days i feel like i'm on the same track through life. I guess i wouldn't feel this way if i'd only give in and either be a journalist or a school teacher, but yuk! That's just not for me, i'll leave that to those with the calling. Till i find mine, i'll just keep soldiering on. Y'all take care, DDD

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