Thinking

Sgt. Carter made Gomer Pyle sit with a bucket over his head and think one one of the episodes of the old "Gomer Pyle Show." Gomer said it was really good 'cause he could just "sit and think and think and think." I'm looking for a bucket. The thinking is going slow. I think I'll just take a furlough and research a little and get back to the war tomorrow.

I'm researching and trying to write about WWI and in my off time I read about WWII for relaxation. Two of my recent readings have been about the Japanese in the extreme Southwest Pacific and Chichi Jima. The Japanese committed atrocities that the majority of us could never imagine. Both books were well written and very well documented. Many of the criminalswere punished, some executed but many were allowed to go unpunished. The emperor was much more involved than I had ever realized and was allowed to go unpunished because of his "divine" position. Something does not sound/feel right about the whole postwar Japanese situation. I confess I did buy a used Toyota years ago, but never again.

America needs to figure out a way to lose a war with itself. If America allowed America to win a war against America then America could rebuild America and give America all the advantages that Germany and Japan received after WWII. We could also welcome our former enemy (US) with open arms as we have done with Vietnam and China. Maybe I should run for president, everyone else is.

It's Muddy in the Argonne

The major holiday is over and I'm ready to get back to the war in earnest. I've been lollygagging around for about a week and have not done too much meaningful work on "The Great American War Novel". I am as stalled as the troops were in the mud of trench warfare. I have a working title, From Orange to the Argonne, an outline, and about fifteen hundred words that could become part of a chapter. At first I thought that those words would be a starting point but now I am thinking I have chosen the wrong starting point. Maybe I should back up about two points to the arrival at Camp Bowie, the initial training camp. I saw movie once with Sharon Stone where she played a muse, I think it was, she gave this guy inspiration and guidance for his projects. She was sort of a detached brain. That would be the thing to have, a brain in a box. Just take it out and use it and put it back and save it for the good stuff, use the installed brain for everyday. Like when I was a kid I had church clothes and everyday clothes.

I have also had an idea for a different approach to the story but I am not too sure that the story I want to tell would work. I need to think that one out for a while, think?

Really quiet on the home front with the grand kids in Georgia. Even Clutch the Cocker Spaniel and Yogi Bear have been quiet today. they have slept, peed, played, peed, and slept, Good Boys!

Tiger the Office Cat has been a pest today. She really has a thing for this keyboard. Dang cat hits keys and changes things that I don't know how to unchange until I hunt around a little.

Went to the grocery store today and took a little music along. I grabbed for Roy Acuff but got Ray Price, didn't notice until I started the disc in the player. Boy oh boy!

Just another day in paradise! I started the day in my world, alone and quiet, just doing my stuff for a few hours before the day started.

The Day After the Day - OMG!

The Day After the Day started at 3:00 am. the grand kids were flying to Georgia to spend a week with Brooke's dad. My part in this Christmas present was to drive to Hobby Airport and get them on the plane. No big deal right? WRONG!

I had never driven to Hobby. I had ridden to Hobby way back in 1979, the only time I had even seen William P. Hobby Airport. With no coffee and my wife and two grand kids in the Jeep we hooked it for the airport. It was dark and misting rain. After the two hour drive it was still dark, still raining and I had no idea where I was going. I had directions the daughter had printed off of the computer, but it was dark, misting rain, and I didn't know where I was going. I managed to find all except one of the turns I needed to find and only went a few hundred yards off track before I turned around and got on the right track and made the turn into the airport.

We got the kids on the plane and made the drive back by going through Pasadena, past the bones of Gilley's, LaPorte, and Baytown. I had had enough of Houston and did not want to fight the morning traffic by heading back into town. I took the long way home and made the same time.

At home I walked both dogs, said "Hi" to Tiger the Office Cat, made coffee and hit my chair. Clutch the Cocker Spaniel perched on the footrest, Yogi Bear retired to his bed behind the chair, Momma on the sofa, and we all settled down for a long winter's nap.

I'm not getting up early in the morning, thank you very much!

The Day

There is a Christmas Armistice today. The boys in the Argonne are on their own. Before long the kids will be up and the show will start. In a little while the cooking will take place and in a few hours it will all be over, just memories and then the countdown to next year begins. That's life. It is all a game that we play for as long as the game lasts. Tiger the Office cat could care less.

Merry Christmas!

The Day Before the Day

Christmas Eve has always been my special day. That is the day that my mother's family got together. We lived in Orange and we would load up our car and go to my great grandmother's house in the woods at Nibblett's Bluff for our family Christmas. By the time we all got there there would be ten of us packed in an old five room farmhouse. My great grandmother, Ma lived there with her bachelor son, my great uncle Dan. Uncle Dan would go out to the woods and cut a small pine tree for the Christmas tree and would use some ancient decorations on it. The house was heated by butane heaters and a fireplace and the heat would bring out the pine smell from the fresh-cut tree. When a small fire was in the fireplace next to the tree it really looked like Christmas.

The house was "L" shaped with the living room and two bedrooms across the front and the dining room and the kitchen going to the back. Across the front of the house was a porch, part was open and part was the screened in "sleeping porch". The end of the porch was enclosed and the indoor bathroom was installed in the middle 1950's. Prior to that was the outhouse. The indoor bathroom had plumbing, but was unheated, somewhat an improvement over the outhouse.

The dining room contained a table big enough to feed the ten of us, later eleven when my cousin Charlie joined the pack. There was enough food to feed at least twenty. Ma cooked, my mother cooked, my grandmother cooked and my aunt cooked. We had food out the wazoo and it was not uncommon to have a roll tossed at you when you asked for on to be passed to you. It was a loose, good time at the table. After we ate we would go back to the living room for the opening of the presents.

We sat where we could find a place to sit and passed the presents around. I got the usual stuff, toys and clothes. Usually a pretty good haul since my sister and I were the only kids. We would sit around a while and get all the wrapping paper cleaned up and the remains of the family feed cleared away and it would be time to head home.

When my sister and I got home we would find that Santa Clause had paid us an early visit. It was not too often that we had to wait until Christmas morning. After a few years I figured out the Santa System, but I kept my mouth shut about it and milked the system as long as Icould. My favorite thing to receive was toy guns, pistols and rifles. Back in those days they fired the paper caps on a roll. After I tried out my new guns the yard looked like a ticker tape parade had been held there. If I had yesterday's toys to sell today on Ebay I could move to a condo in Colorado.

In 1964 my dad died and a few years later my grandmother, grandfather and great grandmother, & great uncle followed in 2006 by Uncle Tom. The old folks have "gone home." My sister and I have grown children and I have grandchildren. Those good old Christmas get-to-gethers have gone away too. Life got in the way and we don't visit like we should. The thing that remains is the memory of those old days. The old place and the land was sold off years ago and the man that bought it improved it all, but when I see it I see it as it was, life moves on. I still wear Old Spice and Brute and like honky-tonk music. I'm pretty much a reclusive old geezer. Time goes by and by and by and then I wonder where it went. I guess that is how life is now days.

Christmas Eve still has a special feel even after so many years and so many changes. My wish is for everyone to have good memories and a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Oh by the way, one year I got a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun and I didn't shoot my eye out!

Today Is Just Another Day!

The Morning started early. I just got up when the bladder told me to and stayed up. I took Clutch the Cocker Spaniel out for his morning constitutional and it was rather cool with a light frost. Made me wonder how things were in the Hill Country. I'll bet it's nice there now. We have a lot of coastal fog and humidity that makes the nights sort of yucky. We've even had mosquitoes the last few days. I read an article yesterday and in it the lady said that the Bolivar Peninsula reminded her of what Hemmingway must have seen when he saw the Florida Keys for the first time. I would like to have some of what she is snorting/smoking/inhaling or drinking. Papa would no doubt be surprised that the eroding sand spit would be compared to the coral Keys. The only common ground I see is salt water and our salt water is silty, not clear. Oh, well to each his (or her) own. I think that the Southeast Texas area is unique with the swamps and marshes and pine trees, and I don't see much to compare it with other parts of Texas, much less the Keys. Diversity makes the world go around. My world is fine, thank you very much. It is not crowded today, just me and?

I obtained a treasure, and at a very low cost. Remember my drummer beats a little different and I stumble instead of marching? I found a video of Brother Dave Gardner!! Who is Brother Dave you may ask? He is one of my heros from the happy days gone by, the early 60's. Brother Dave was a comedian, singer, drummer who did humor with a VERY Southern accent. He made a few LP record albums. The one I have is "Rejoice Dear Hearts", recorded in 1959. He relates pearls of wisdom that as only he can. He mentions a can of "after flippin' and dippin' snuff". Who knows what that means? Also he goes into detail about a sandwich that is very sloppy and says, "you have to lift and eat fast, lest it fall through the crust." I had the privilage of seeing him in person in the Spring of 1964. I was in college in Nacogdoches, Texas and one of my friends and I found two ladies of like mind and we borrowed a car from a friend and went to Henderson, Texas about forty miles away and saw Brother Dave in person. It was a great time and I always counted that among the high points of my college career. My college career had a few high points,but none were scholastic. But I digress. After we saw Brother Dave the four of us went to resturant in Henderson that served really good fried catfish and who should come n but Brother Dave himself with his female lady companion and a couple of flunkies. We applauded and he acknowledeged us and the other rednecks looked at us and smiled and grinned the grin of a cheshire cat. We were late getting the girls back and had to stop and call the dorm supervisor so we would not all get whatever and the girls reputation would be safe. A few years ago I Googled Brother Dave and found a website dedicated to him. He died in 1983 of a heart attack. I still think he is as funny now as I did way back when. The video was made shortly before he died but he looked as good as he did when I saw him live. Yes, Rejoice Dear Hearts!

Funny how the mind works. 1963 and 1964 were the two best years of my life. I had two very special relationships, one ended when her daddy got transfered out of state to a land far, far away, Kansas, and the other just ended, don't really know why to this day. In December, 1964 my world turned wrong side out and bottomside up and hasn't gotten right to this day. It's like the late Gordon Baxter said, "there's been marryin's buryin's and trips to Jerusalem." Good times and bad, but something has always been lacking. Maybe as long as I don't read my obiturary there is still time.

My world's not crowded, there's always room for one more, maybe.......