Awww

They were mean and ornery all evening. Finally wore themselves out.

Coco still thinks he was an unnecessary addition, but he makes a pretty good chew toy.

Mojo thinks this house was seriously in need of someone to be in charge.

I think I'm seriously in love.

LSW

Blast It!

Dangnation, the fireworks stands opened yesterday. Highway 71 is littered with the things. I just don't get it.

For a week prior to every July 4th, my worry mode kicks into high gear. I live in a pine forest. And I live in Texas, which is usually dry as a bone this time of year. My yard has years' worth of mounded up pine needles around it. The grass in my yard is brittle and brown. One spark and it's poof. Surrounding counties have already issued burn bans. Grass fire burns are visible on the side of the road every few miles between Bastrop and Austin. And yet I know, come July 4th, that there will be idiots all around setting off fireworks. There oughta be a law.

Yes, the cities of Bastrop and Austin do have laws against fireworks. Not that it does any good. God forbid that our independent Texas spirit be forbidden to fire a bottle rocket whenever we damn well feel like it. So what if we lose several hundred acres of forest or a few homes. It's our God given right to buy and use fireworks.

How I wish that fireworks would be outlawed to the average American. I enjoy a municipal display, presented by professionals, as much as anybody. I can ooh and aah with the best of them. But to strike pure terror in my heart, all it takes is the moron down the street to light up a bottle rocket and aim it for the top of a pine tree. The first year I lived in the woods, I watched a guy down the road do exactly that insane thing for about an hour.

Yes, I live within the city limits. Yes, I could have called the cops. No, I didn't. I figured by the time they got out there, the ignoramus would have gotten his fill of it and I would have gotten that "yes, ma'am" followed by an eye-roll from the cop. And as soon as the cop left, someone else would start up on the next street. Believe you me, they don't like getting a second call in the same night from the same little old lady.

So I stay up late and keep an eye on the trees. My insides clench every time I hear a *bang*. I cannot believe that people are so stupid as to keep buying the things, let alone set them off. It's sheer stupidity and I'll say it to your face. Fireworks are dangerous. You can blow off a finger, blow out an eye, set a whole subdivision on fire. All for a snap, crackle, and pop. Big damn deal.

As many things that our government worries about protecting us from (can we say cheap Canadian prescriptions?), they don't seem to give a rat's patootie about really dangerous stuff like guns and fireworks. I'll take my chance with a Canadian pharmacist anyday if they'll run the fireworks manufacturers out of the country.

Now ask me what I really think.
LSW

Unforeseen Complication

Mojo Wilcoxen
born April 27, 2005

He's here! I picked up Mojo this afternoon. As you can see from the following, Xana's reaction was "Oh, my God!" I've promised her there will be no more. At least for awhile.

This little guy is teeny. He is so teeny that his breeder was having problems mixing him with the other puppies, so we decided to bring him home a little early. Thinking that Coco would welcome him with open arms and he would have more company than he's had. Coco welcomed him with open teeth, is more like it. She's jealous.

In response to Coco's jealous little nips, Mr. Mojo displayed a majestic temper. It had not really sunk in until now that Coco has not growled or barked since she arrived. Mr. Mojo has done both very well. Repeatedly. It's pretty funny to see this little bitty guy whale into his big sister until she backs down. I know they will be best friends before the week is out, but for now I'm having to watch them closely to make sure nobody gets hurt.

Sorta reminds me of 1959 when I lost my only child status to a little brother. Couldn't do without him now, but there for a little while....

LSW

Puppy Update

She thinks she's cute. She may be right.

Her gran thinks so. So does her mom.

If you know Xana, this will give you an idea of Coco's size.

Little bro Mojo arrives later this week.

We may overdose on cute.

What a way to go.

LSW

Groans and Moans to Spare

Ow.

How does that song go?

"How do I know my youth is all spent?

My get up and go has got up and went.

In spite of it all, I'm able to grin

When I think of the places my get up has been."

I'm sitting here today suffering aches and pains from yesterday's mission to beat back the red-tipped photinia menace. I'm either older than I thought or I'm way, way more out of shape than I thought.

This house came with a healthy hedge of red-tipped photinia surrounding the decks. I don't really dislike photinia, so long as I don't have to do the maintenance. The stuff grows at a frightening pace after a rain. I bought an electric hedge trimmer to help me keep ahead of it, but I finally had to admit that the photinia was edging ahead in the battle. So two weeks ago I came to the decision that it was time to resort to evil, drastic measures.

Sneaking out in the warm, humid morning of last Sunday, I made my attack on the southern photinia ranks. Armed with my trusty brush cutters, I ruthlessly cut the bushes down to a 3-foot height. (We started at about 7 feet.) Virtually no green remained. It took about 3 hours altogether to win the battle on about 20 linear feet of photinia. After the cutting, I had to drag the mutilated carcasses off to the ditch. By that time I was drenched in sweat and breathing heavily. But I could see my back yard again and it was good.

Monday I could barely move.

Yesterday, the pain and misery a dim memory, I sprang without warning on the northern ranks and reduced them to 3-foot stubs. Chortling all the while. "Take that. And that!" Laughing maniacally, and again drenched, I decided that the bodies could lie there until the next day.

The trouble started last night. I could barely walk, my feet hurt so bad. Which is probably the reason I took another tumble in the yard while playing with the dog. (Plus, I had those dratted flip-flops on again.) My shoulder ached and my hands throbbed. I had the beginnings of a heat headache. And the back yard is littered with photinia bodies that have to be dragged off today. I have no choice but to get my aching body out there and finish the job.

The old grey mare just ain't what she used to be. I've even started contemplating buying some tacky cotton housedresses to wear in the evenings, thinking comfort options. I refuse to go there. Must. fight. back.

So the question here is how does someone with no free time figure out a way to tone up a little? I refuse to give in and become a little old lady wearing a housedress, wandering the yard with a hose in hand. Maybe a Pilates class? There's a class starting not far from the house. Should I get the bicycle out of storage and cleaned up? That hurts to even think about.

Maybe I should just haul myself out of bed every weekend and continue to fight the yard wars. Five years of neglect have created lots of opportunities. A summer of brush cutting and weed pulling could rid me of those extra twenty pounds. Or kill me.

Beginning today: yard 0, Cindy 1. Let the war begin.

LSW

Lucious Lemon

Since I have not had a chance this week to go to the grocery store for supplies, I found myself short on breakfast options this morning. Fortunately, I always keep several boxes of muffin mix on hand and I quickly whipped up a batch of lemon poppy seed muffins. Suddenly I found myself thinking back to a time when I was about 5-years-old and first discovered how much I love things flavored with lemon.

There was a lady in our church (I think during the San Gabriel years) who baked me a birthday cake. It was my first experience eating lemon cake with lemon frosting. I fell in love and the love affair with lemon has lasted all my life. It became traditional for my birthday cake to be a lemon one. Over the years I've shifted my preference for gobs of gooey lemon icing to a lemon glaze over a lemon pound cake. It's wonderful (the recipe is on my website), and was a particular favorite of Bebop's, too. I usually make it once a year, between my birthday and his. That never happened this year because of his last illness, so I haven't had my yearly lemon fix for 2005.

It's not just lemon flavor that I love; I also love the scent of lemon. I bought a tiny highlighter yesterday at a teacher supply store and was surprised to discover that the ink is scented with lemon. I buy citrus air freshener (usually orange, but that's close enough). I love lemon scented dishwashing liquid and furniture polish. I've recently become addicted to Diet Coke with lime, which grew out of my initial hankering for Coke with lemon. Lemonade, lemon sherbet, lemon ice, lemon meringue pie, etc. Given the choice between chocolate and lemon for the rest of my life, I think I would choose lemon.

Don't you ever wonder why some things have such appeal for one person and no appeal at all for another? I know some people who despise lemon and all of the things I just listed above. To me it smells clean and fresh and tastes like a bite of spring.

Maybe it all started with that birthday cake long ago. I wish I could remember the lady's name. It's slipped out of Mother's memory, too. It was a highlight of my early years and little did she know that she would be remembered 40+ years later for a wonderful cake she baked for a little girl once upon a time.

LSW

Word Play

If you ever watch In the Actor's Studio, you know that every interview ends with the same series of questions. The answers can give you a glimpse into who the real person vs. the celebrity is. While surfing around last week, I happened across a blog that played a similar game. She admits to having stolen the idea from another blog, so I figure I can steal the idea from her. Interesting how difficult some of the categories were to complete.

1. List 10 words you like in your own language.
mellifluous
loquacious
luminescent
serendipity
meretricious
sonata
melodious
alabaster
perspicuity

2. List 9 words you like in other languages.
querida
siesta
ciao
verde
liebchen
comida
smorgasbord
arroyo
beaucoup

3. List 8 city names that are fun to say.
Walla Walla (WA)
Ashtabula (OH)
Saskatoon (Canada)
Booger Hollow (AR)
Kalamazoo (MI)
Thermopolis (WY)
Missoula (MT)
Timbuktu (West Africa)

4. List 7 words that make you uncomfortable.
dishonesty
bias
deceit
cancer
parasitic
terminal
hopeless

5. List 6 words that relate to your job.
pressure
keyboard
taxes
attorney
paper
postage

6. List 5 words that describe someone that you love greatly.
tolerant
genuine
generous
caring
patient

7. List 4 words you would use to describe yourself.
reliable
capable
trustworthy
solitary

8. List 3 words that describe your pet.
tiny
love
bouncy

9. List 2 words that describe your higher power.
friend
solace

10. List 1 word to end with.
serenity

LSW

Veni, Vidi, Vici

Answer: One week. Question: How long does it take a rat terrier to take over her environment? She came, she saw and she's conquered. She has firmly wrapped herself around our hearts.

I had forgotten what it's like to have a baby around. Everything goes into her mouth to be tasted and evaluated. I spend a good part of my evenings chasing her down and prying various contraband out of her jaws. She has found innumerable candy wrappers that have been hiding under furniture. I've had to drape electric cords above her reach. When she goes outside, she immediately grabs a leaf or a piece of pine bark to carry around with her. I, who hate touching dead things, had to twice wrestle pieces of bird away from her. Leftovers from an afternoon cat snack. Surprising what you can manage to grab and dispose of when it's your baby that's in danger of eating something bad for her.

It's taken the better part of a week, but big sister Xana has finally started playing with her. Coco follows Xana around like a groupie, soaking up the knowledge to be a "cool" dog. Xana is being extraordinarily patient with her, allowing Coco to lay claim to the toys that I throw for them. She will occasionally growl and Coco will immediately roll over on her back in submission. I can almost see Xana's satisfaction that another lesson has been learned.

It's not easy to find a collar that will fit a 2 pound dog, but I finally located one at Tomlinson's. We started leash lessons this morning. We have a l-o-n-g way to go. She surprised me by immediately taking the leash into her mouth to lead me. That was a Bebop trick. Sometimes I think she's channeling the old boy. When I get home from work, she runs to me, wiggling her little bottom just like he did. She's claimed his spot in bed, tucked into my side, and she snores just as loud as he did.

From the first, Coco has liberally doled out lavish affection to Mother. She doesn't seem at all fazed by Mother's physical limitations. She will eagerly run up the bed and cover her gran's face with puppy kisses. A fall out of bed this evening resulted in Mother crying out for help. Little Coco was right on the spot, trying desperately to figure out what was wrong and trying to kiss away the problem.

I've always felt that somehow the right pet will find its way to our house. Coco came into the house and acted like she had known all of us before. She's already made her spot in the family, helping our hearts heal and bringing laughter back to the house. She's truly a special gift from heaven. May she rule the household for many years to come.

LSW

Fashion Maven--Not

I keep protesting that I don't watch reality shows. But, in reality, I've been watching quite a few lately. Just not the Survivor, Fear Factor, Big Brother variety. I'm often camped over on TLC watching Clean Sweep or What Not to Wear. (And lately I've been compulsively watching Dancing With the Stars on ABC. My defense on that one is that they put it in Lost's time slot and there's nothing else on.)

What Not to Wear leaves me with very ambivalent feelings. The premise is that two so-called fashionistas rework some poor shlump of a woman into the fashion plate that she could be if she had taste and an unending source of money. They drill the poor thing with "the rules" for her shopping, essentially throw everything away that resides in her present wardrobe, and give her a loaded credit card ($5,000) to restock her closets. The first day they hide and watch while the pathetic lady attempts to do their bidding and then the second day they force their clothing choices on her.

There's no getting around the fact that the before pictures are pretty awful. These ladies do need help. And there's no getting around the fact that in most cases they do look much, much better when it's all over. But my basic problem is that with $5,000 I could do just as well as they do and have 4 times the clothes in my closets. You can be stylish without buying $300 slacks.

The episodes I really love are when they get hold of someone like me who doesn't particularly care for the current style trends and the outrageous prices at Stacy's & Clinton's choice of shops and boutiques. Then it's really fun to see Stacy and Clinton pout about how their "expertise" is being questioned. They see no problem with building a wardrobe of dry-cleaning required outfits. First of all they don't live in Texas. Second of all, I don't see them handing out an additional check to cover the dry-cleaning charges for the next year. They are really big on jackets and cashmere and silk. Nice idea, but try living in those outfits when you live in a state with 2 days of winter per year and you're plagued with menopausal hot-flashes throughout each and every day. I don't think so. What I need is a built-in cooling system in every outfit.

Then the shoes. High, high heels and pointy toes. Good night, nurse. I would love to be around in about 15 years or so when Stacy has to deal with arthritic pains in her feet and see if she's still torturing herself with 3-inch heels. Quite frankly, I've been there and done that. Now I look for low heels and arch support. Every time I put a pair of heels on, I spend the next day massaging cramps out of my feet.

One episode dealt with a lady who works with UNICEF and sees poverty up close and personal. No way was she going to lay out gobs of money on a single blouse. In that case, Stacy and Clinton were behind the 8-ball and had to give in to a more conservative approach. They would have looked really, really bad insisting that it was more important to dress in high fashion than feeding starving children. In another case, the lady hated cashmere and refused to buy dry-clean items. I do love when the fashion-challenged victim digs in her heels. Stacy and Clinton puff up in high-dudgeon and don't look too stylish themselves with their pout faces on.

The one part where I would love to personally participate is in the hair and makeup redos. If anything makes a real difference in your looks, it's those two areas. I am so distrustful of strange beauticians, but Nick can have a go at my hair anytime and I wouldn't say a word.

The one saving grace for these poor fashion victims is that they are getting the American treatment. If you really want to see some fashion barbarism, catch the original version of the show on BBC. Those fashionistas are brutal. They ought to be followed by the reality show "Saving the Suicidally Depressed".

Poor ole Stacy and Clinton ought to experience this girl. I live in tapered leg pants (horrors!) and men's cotton shirts from Eddie Bauer (quelle nightmare), worn untucked to cover my old lady rear. My shoes come from SAS (old lady shoe suppliers) and my hair and makeup take a maximum of 10 minutes in the morning. I carry one neutral colored bag because I don't have time to switch out purses to suit my outfits. I may not be a fashion maven, but I'm comfortable and that's what's important to me. Stacy and Clinton can go sit on a tack.

LSW

Klutz 101

I've always longed to be a dancer. And/or an ice skater. I love when a dance or routine is perfectly choreographed to the music and the partners are in sync with each other. It's a beautiful thing to watch.

Instead, I can't dance a lick. And I shudder to think what would happen if I attempted ice skating. I really don't have time to sit around and wait for broken bones to heal. I blame genetics for my basic ineptitude. Nobody in my family (that I'm aware of) can dance, skate or do anything that requires physical agility. When klutz was doled out, we all went through the line twice. Probably thought it was the dessert line.

Waiting for David at Threadgill's the other day, I sat at the bar and sipped a diet Coke. When he arrived, I got off the stool without incident (no easy feat in itself), but when I reached back for my Coke, I knocked it over spilling ice and coke from one end of the bar to the other. They were really nice about it. Nobody even rolled their eyes.

Yesterday I was taking the dogs for a stroll around the yard when Xana asserted herself and headed off for her accustomed afternoon walk. She has not appreciated having her activities reeled in because Mom is busy watching the baby. So I scooped Coco up and headed off after Xana. Or intended to. What I really did was get my flip flop tangled up and I hit the ground. Thankfully I fell backward, with Coco tucked safely against my chest. Xana did roll her eyes. Coco was all bouncy and ready to take that ride again. The neighbors watching from down the street must have decided I was ok and acted like they hadn't seen anything. I took the cat approach of acting like I had meant to do that all along. I limped after Xana, blowing on the first skint elbow I've had in quite some time.

I can't dance, skate, swim, bat, throw, dribble, or bowl. I am really good at holding dogs. I think I'll just decide to concentrate on where my real talents lie.

LSW

Love and Blue Skies

Yesterday I drove through much of Bastrop and Milam Counties on my way to visit the puppy farm. It's country drives like that that remind me of how much I love Texas as only a native Texan can. It is already hot and humid. God help us when August rolls around. But there is something about driving down a straight highway with rolling green fields on either side, fluffy white clouds in the brilliant blue skies above and the heat visibly rising off the highway. My gut suddenly relaxes and I feel an internal satisfaction that I'm home.

When I go back and visit Smiley in the summertime, I hit that feeling when I head south from Gonzales on that two-lane blacktop road that takes you to beautiful downtown Smiley. Mesquite trees and chicken houses mean home to me. Heat, thorns and stink. How totally weird is that?

I saw some truly Texas sights yesterday. Between San Gabriel and Cameron I saw a buzzard convention meeting over the carcass of a dead deer. I very nearly stopped and took a picture. Later on I wished I had. Now who but a Texan would find a gathering of buzzards over a pile of rotting carrion to be photogenic? There was something about them that reminded me of board meetings or maybe deacon meetings. A group of elder statesmen, dealing with the day's business.

When I reached my destination, I turned onto a narrow dirt road, bumped over a cattle guard, stopped to open a gate, drove through, stepped out of my car to close the gate and had to pick my way around massive piles of steaming, uh, cow leavings. And I loved it. It's been a very long time since I drove down to an honest-to-goodness farmhouse and the smell of the stuff was a not unpleasant flash from the past. As I approached the house, a big white cow was lying across the road. She gave me a put-upon look, but lumbered to her feet and ambled off just far enough for me to pass. I can't remember the last time I was that close to a cow. The lady of the house apologized to me for my having to deal with the gate. I laughed and told her it was no problem - that I came from a long line of farmers and felt right at home.

Yesterday was so radically different from my usual activities that it felt like a real vacation day. I love rural Texas. I sometimes forget that there are parts of Texas that aren't yet covered by concrete. I temporarily stepped back in time to a simpler period of my life when I regularly visited rural families who kept gardens in their back yard and cows in the field just across the fence from their front yards.

The only thing that would have made the day any better would have been if it was cotton harvest time. I can remember driving through Thorndale as a child and smelling the cotton gins. It may sound odd, but the smell always reminded me of hot, buttered popcorn.

The day was a total success in any case, because I brought home a little package of brown fur that is about two pounds of solid love. Little Coco is lying at my side, in Bebop's old place, sleeping the sleep of the innocent. More about her at another time. Let me just say that she has already lifted the spirits of the house and reminded us that the circle of life continues.

Blue skies, buzzards, country roads and puppies. Take joy in the simple things. They are still out there if you look.

LSW

Another Stroll Down Memory Lane

June finally got here. I really wondered there for awhile if I would live to see it. But, as usual, the May work finally got done somehow and we are in recover mode. Which, for me, consists of trying to avoid any kind of mental strain for at least a week. I'm reading, going to bed early, and watching TV, when I can find something other than reality drivel to watch.

I have an appointment on Monday to see some puppies. Xana and I have decided we must bring aboard one or two new members to join our den and replenish the ranks. So I will be driving northward about an hour and a half, with the hopes of finding another rat terrier soulmate.

The breeder's location is not far from a small community where I lived for a couple of years back in my pre-school days. San Gabriel is but a small spot in the road, just a short distance from Rockdale, Thorndale and Cameron. When we lived there, the community still had its own school. Now it has a small quick-stop grocery, a couple of churches and a lot of farm land. The Baptist church and parsonage look virtually unchanged from the pictures in my memory.

I stopped by San Gabriel a couple of years back when a genealogical research trip took me within a few miles. I had not been there for many years, yet I drove straight to the Church as if I had been there daily. I was only 5 years old when we moved from there to Oak Hill, so my ability to find my early home was a surprise to me. You never know what your subconscious is holding onto.

A few things stand out in my memories of those early days. We lived in the parsonage, directly behind the church. It was (and still is) a white frame bungalow and at that time had hard wood floors throughout. Naturally we had a cat. I'm not sure whether that was Miss Tabby Gray or Buttons, but she earned the nickname "Thunderfoot" because of her penchant for running down the long hall, pounding that hard wood floor with her back feet.

One of our parishioners happened across a nest of baby skunks while we lived there. We ended up adopting one of them as a pet. Life in the country. How many people do you know who have had a pet skunk? Pansy was a cute little thing, who trailed after my mother constantly. To get a bed made, Mother had to shut her outside in the hall or risk stepping on her. Pansy would stand outside the door of the bedroom, stamping her little feet in irritation. As she grew older, my parents became concerned that her little anger fits might result in some spraying. So they arranged for her to be de-stinked. Sadly, she did not make it through the procedure. I'm not sure if it was a lack of skunk expertise on the vet's part or a reaction to the anesthesia. Now that I think about it, Pansy was probably the first in a series of black and white pets we've adopted. I seem to have a real weakness for that color combination.

The first Halloween carnival I remember attending was at the San Gabriel school. I was enchanted by the "fishing pond". I loved throwing the little fishing line over the counter and reeling in a toy. We had some friends in the country who we regularly visited and the older boys of the family would entertain their younger sister and me with a "fishing pond" at their house on a couple of occasions after that. I also remember a Christmas party at the church where my gift was a set of plastic dollhouse furniture. I can still see the yellow pieces of furniture clearly in my mind's eye. Perhaps that was my initial inspiration for my future hobby of dollhouse construction. My smell memory reacts when I come across the combination of oranges, apples and peppermint. The church passed out bags of fruit and candy to the kids that Christmas and the smell always takes me back to that party.

It was at San Gabriel that my parents made an attempt at becoming foster parents. We took in two girls, a few years older than me, from the Texas Baptist Childrens' Home. It was an experiment that didn't work out, but for a short while I had the experience of sisterhood. I can remember that they once surprised me by redressing one of my favorite dolls. The only time I ever had the opportunity to be the kid sister and I enjoyed being spoiled.

Some folks of my acquaintance have probably long suspected that I was dropped on my head as a baby. Well, I wasn't quite a baby but I did get a big bump on my head while we were in San Gabriel. The church was surrounded by long sidewalks and one day I was walking backwards on the sidewalk, talking to my foster sisters. My dog Sissy was dancing along with us and somehow got behind me and I tripped over her, cracking my head on the sidewalk. I had a real goose egg raise up on the back of my head. Nowadays you would rush a kid to the doctor for xrays, but that was in the 1950s and you didn't run to the doctor for a mere bump on the head. Thankfully, no lasting damage was done. I think.

I was quite full of myself back then. After all, foster sisters notwithstanding, I was an only child with lots of attention and convinced I was the center of my universe. It was the custom of my Sunday School teacher to have her class say a series of prayers, with each student saying a small prayer. I was generally the one chosen to begin the prayer chain. One day my teacher decided that wasn't really fair and started with another student and ended with me. I was incensed. When the prayers finally rolled around to me, I puffed up and announced "Mama don't pray, Daddy don't pray, and I don't pray neither!" I'm sure the teacher was non-plussed to hear such a pronouncement from the preacher's daughter. I have no memory of whether she tried putting me at the end again. I never did like taking the backseat.

I have many pieces of memories of the folks in the church. Mostly fragments that flutter just outside my grasp. It's the first place we lived that really exists in my conscious mind. The folks there were good people. I recall no bad incidents involved with our life there. I hope the community is still the quiet, friendly place I remember. Perhaps I will have to wander over that way on Monday and make a quick visit. I had some good times there.

LSW

In Memory

On this Memorial Day, I remember those in my family who served in the military:

Veterans of the Revolutionary War
James B. Rylee
John Henry Lentz

Veteran of the War for Texas Independence
Jacob G. Lentz

Veteran of the Mexican War
Henry Clay Lentz

Veterans of the Civil War, Confederate
Joseph Sheppard Mobley
Hezekiah Madison Mobley
Stephen Mobley
Andrew Jackson Mobley
William Peter Mobley
James Monroe Morgan
Richard Morgan
George Washington Sewell
George Washington Huddleston
Thomas Young Huddleston
Joseph W. Huddleston
Gabriel Moore Lentz
Ashley Rozelle Lentz
Thomas Hansen Lentz
William W. Frankum
William T. Frankum
Samuel V. Frankum
Albert McAfee

Veterans of the Civil War, Union
Jacob McAfee
Charles E. McAfee
George Washington Huddleston

Veteran of the Indian Wars
Albert McAfee

Non-wartime Naval service, 1909
Elmo Elisha Hodge (enlisted as Frank Stanford)

Veteran of World War I
Jesse J. McAfee

Veterans of World War II
Charles Benner
Clarence Benner
Arvid Benner
Archie Benner
George Benner
Herbert Hodge Burch

Veterans of the Korean War
Donald Wilcoxen
Chester Dwight Lamb
Jesse S. Bell
Allen Earl McVay

I'm sure there are others whose service records I have not yet discovered. To those who gave their service to and especially to those who gave their lives for their country, thank you.

LSW

T-Minus 6 days

Every year I say this may be the last time I get through May with my sanity. And every year I plunge into the flood of work and paddle like crazy until May 31st. Thanks to certain statutory requirements, I end up doing as much work during the month of May as I do for any quarter of the rest of the year. I don't have a personal life during May, work many nights and weekends to keep up, and look like Phyllis Diller when it's all over. And this year is no different.

Yesterday was one of those days that make me want to pull every hair out of my head. I had a very difficult program to write and I had dedicated Tuesday to get it done. When I walked in the door, one of our biggest clients was on the phone with the bad news that quite a few accounts had been mishandled during their mailing. One of my team dropped by while the phone was still warm to let me know that two other clients were upset because of an entry mixup that had ended up with about 100 accounts for one client being entered into the data file of the other client. Another client discovered that some new taxes they had begun collecting had been left out of the letters that had already gone. And then the software developers for another large client wanted me to call and discuss in detail how I was processing their data. One of our attorneys then dropped by, wanting help in formatting a "genealogy" tree chart for a case he's working involving multiple heirs of a deceased property owner. I spent Tuesday writing several programs to fix all the problems and to isolate accounts that needed correction letters, and quickly entering the property heirs into my Family Treemaker program to generate a family tree to assist in tracking the inherited split of the property. When I left the office, I had not written one line in the program that I had designated for that day's project.

So I worked at home last night, spending 4 hours writing the neglected program, while Xana sat on the chair across from me issuing loud sighs on a regular basis to remind me that it was past her bedtime. There's no nagging like the nagging of a rat terrier who wants you to go to bed so she can.

I've still got three new programs to write for clients who have upgraded to new software, 4 files to finalize, and 3 more clients who have yet to get their data to me. It very much looks like I will be working right up to the bitter end on May 31st. Believe me, this month is tough on an old lady. The further we get into May, the grouchier I get and the more I look like I've been dragged to work behind a dump truck. The newer employees are skirting waaaay around me at this point. The older, wiser employees just wave from a distance and head the other direction when they see me coming.

Every May is difficult, but I think this year has been harder than usual since I still have a bruised heart from the loss of Bebop. I've begun looking around for rat terrier puppies and plan to get really serious about the hunt come June 1st. The house is just too quiet. We need some kids around to liven things up.

June 1st. Ah, bliss. Back to genealogy, dollhouses, puppy belly rubbing. So nice to have something to look forward to when you're stuck in a black hole of work.

LSW

Color Me Disgusted

New favorite bumper sticker, spotted this morning on 6th Street:

"Where are we going?

Why am I in this handbasket?"

Not bad. So glad there are creative people still out there. Now on to our scheduled rant.

I was raised in a Christian home. I consider myself a Christian. My fervent prayer is that my heaven is nowhere close to that heaven where the fanatical right-wing, so-called Christians are planning to spend their eternity. A more narrow-minded, bigoted, group I can't imagine. What happened to that ideology that we should love our fellow man, warts and all? I love the old Kris Kristofferson song "Jesus Was a Capricorn". Sums it up pretty well.

"Jesus was a Capricorn, he ate organic foods.

He believed in love and peace and never wore no shoes.

Long hair, beard and sandals and a funky bunch of friends.

Reckon they'd just nail him up if He come down again."

I get a strong feeling that Jesus wouldn't be too popular with the right-wing folks if he showed up today.

These fanatics can twist the scripture to mean anything they want you to believe, but I sometimes wonder how they reconcile their gay-bashing, liberal-hating, "my way or the highway" attitudes with some basic verses that I remember well from my church-going days:

Matthew 7:1 (KJV)
Judge not, that ye be not judged.

Matthew 22:39 (KJV)

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

John 8:7 (KJV)
So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

Romans 12:19 (KJV)
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

I mean, really, what do you think of first when you hear these idiots braying their opinions? Love of their neighbor? I think not. These loud-mouthed jerks, piously proclaiming their Christianity while every action speaks the opposite, do more to drive people away from the Church than bring them to it. I really don't think that when the Lord directed his followers to go out and be missionaries that he had in mind for them to sit on your chest and push their beliefs down your throat until you gagged.

You know, it strikes me how similar the fanatics of the right-wing Christian movement are to their fanatical counterparts in the Holy Land who are blowing each other up right and left. God forbid we should try to see the other person's point of view if it differs from ours. We're right, by God! So you're wrong!

Unfortunately many of these clowns are Baptists, as am I. There are days when I seriously consider hitching my religious wagon to the Quakers. There is something seriously wrong with a group that makes me feel, by association, that I have to hang my head in shame. That's one reason I no longer attend worship services.

I stopped going to church the day I found myself so incensed by an ill-educated substitute pastor, who felt the need to personally take on the subject of evolution vs. creationism, that I came very close to standing up before God and everybody and calling him a moron. I decided that if that was the type of feeling I got from attending worship services, I was in the wrong place. Now to feel God's presence, I go out in the woods and drink in the sounds, sights and smells of nature. One of the times I've felt closest to God was when I stood on the brink of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado. Church isn't a building full of people, but the feeling you get in your heart when you stand in the presence of the wonders of nature.

People come to God in their own way and come to terms with God one on one. Some never find him and it's a true tragedy. Others never really know him because of the constant drone of the narrow-minded who drown out the inner voice that connects directly to God. I can only pray that they will someday stop listening to the pious hypocrites and start listening to God.

LSW

What's the Statute of Limitations on a Move?

Is it just me or does everybody go through 5+ years of wondering where things have gotten to following a move? Just today I was reminded of a tool I used frequently in a hobby that has been neglected in recent years and I realized that I have absolutely no idea where the thing is. I haven't seen it since THE MOVE.

I've spent a few spring weekends this year purging junk from the garage. There were many things that surfaced as I worked that had been in the category of "where the heck is that?" since THE MOVE. I swear, I even found a white plastic sack filled with what was essentially garbage that got moved across town rather than into the dumpster 5 years ago. But there are a lot of things that still elude me, probably packed away in a box in the back of the closet or, God forbid, resting in the storage unit a few streets over. (I'm seriously thinking of slinking off in the middle of the night and leaving that particular hellhole for someone else to clean up.)

It's been five years since my mother and I combined households. I have multiple sets of dishes, 4-5 sets of flatware, bowls out the wazoo, complete sets of pans that are tucked back in the far recesses of the cabinets, and God knows what else. Some of it I'm hoping to get cleared away in the next year. What I can't sell on EBAY, I'll donate to Goodwill, and what Goodwill doesn't want, I'll drop surreptitiously on the porches of neighbors and relatives who make the mistake of leaving town for a weekend.

But a lot of this stuff is good junk. Or things that I have a sentimental attachment to at the moment. I'm a sucker for bargains and will buy something on sale that I can forsee a future need for. I have several hobbies, some active and some on hiatus, that I have amassed materials for "one day when I have some time to do what I want". I have become something of a family archivist, storing various relics that belonged to previous generations. Someday someone else will be designated custodian, but for now I have no intention of letting these pieces of history slip away.

Anyway, I still go on regular forays into the storage shed, the storage unit and the corners of the garage, looking for that elusive "I know I had it before THE MOVE" item. But, as bad as it is, it could be worse. Have you ever watched Clean Sweep on TLC? The people at the center of this show are pitiful. I may have trouble navigating the garage, but my house doesn't look all that bad. These people can't even find their bed to sleep in, the rooms are so stacked and piled. I find it hard to understand how anyone can abide the kind of clutter that these folks have been living with before the saviors from Clean Sweep come and show them the error of their ways. But I'm really appalled at how easily they give up their personal history because the CS people say they have to. I've seen folks put their mother's paintings in the garage sale. I'll bet they wouldn't understand why I keep a pile of old Bibles (without any family history in them) tucked into a dresser drawer. Because my grandmother gave them to me, that's why. Maybe there's no good practical reason to hang on to them, but I'll do it for as long as I feel like doing it.

I'm hoping that someday I can say I've finished unpacking. I have not the faintest idea how people manage to find anything at all when they move every 3-5 years. Or maybe that's the way to keep the stuff from accumulating. Five years may not be that bad, considering we had lived in our houses a respective 12 and 28 years when we initiated THE MOVE.

On other topics, life is hectic these days. April showers may bring May flowers, but I never have the time to stop and smell anything in May. May brings statutory tax notices and a work load that just won't quit. I have a tale to tell of dollhouses and a tale to tell of family reunions, but they will have to wait for awhile. Provided I survive another May.

LSW

Keeping Austin Weird

One of the things I love about Austin is that it is one place where you can march to the beat of your own drummer and nobody thinks twice about it. You get used to seeing the out of ordinary. But this week I did a doubletake when I saw something too weird for even Austin.

I was on my way to work, crusing down Highway 71, when a Ford F150 pickup passed me. The tailgate was down, which caught my attention. In the back of the truck was a long white box that ran the entire length of the truck bed and onto the tailgate. Roughly 6 feet by 3 feet, looking much like an ordinary packing box, except that across the end of the box were stamped the words "Human Remains". My reaction was an immediate "gross!".

Okay, you have to wonder here. Who drives around town with a pickup load of human remains? Was the hearse in the shop? And would it have been asking too much to cover the box with a tarp? I'm a fairly level-headed person and it bugged me. Sure hope no fragile little old lady was behind him when he pulled up to a stoplight.

Granted it's spring time in Texas, but we're already having days that are topping 80 degrees. Is it a good idea to be transporting cargo like that under a hot Texas sun? And where the heck was he headed anyway?

He took the left fork in the road and I took the right, so I didn't have long to observe anyone else's reaction. But I found myself wondering...if a cop pulls up behind something like that, what does he do? Accept that there's a good reason for someone to be hauling down the highway with a box stamped "Human Remains" and go on by? Stop him and ask to see his manifest? What if he was some psycho murderer that was headed to the dump and had the gall to slap a semi-official looking label on his victim? Eeewww.

Don't guess I'll ever know. Probably never see anything like it again. Quite frankly, I would much rather see Leslie in his thong and bikini top standing on 6th and Congress instead.

Yep, Austin's weird. No doubt about it.

LSW

Collecting History

Back in High School, I was not much interested in history. My required history courses in College did nothing to change that fact. In both cases, I blame uninspired teachers who were either not that interested in history themselves (football coaches who had to teach something in addition to the time spent out on the playing field) or so focused on a particular period or aspect of history that they couldn't be bothered to teach anything else. Case in point is a professor I was told about that taught the U.S. history course just fine up to the point of the Civil War and then never made it to Reconstruction and beyond.

I almost understand that last one, since I get bogged down in the period of 1861-1865 myself sometimes as I go about collecting dead relatives. So far I have four direct ancestors who fought for the South and two who fought for the yankees.

The more information I dig up in my genealogical research, the more I find myself fascinated with studying the times when these ancestors lived. Finding an ancestor who died in 1918 led me to study the flu outbreak that took so many lives that year. Learning that my ggg-grandparents lived in Texas in the direct path taken by Santa Anna when chasing the Texians toward the Texas coast, after the massacre at the Alamo, led me to research the period known as the Runaway Scrape. There's nothing like knowing that your ancestor was in a particular place during an important historical event to suddenly make history come alive for you.

This historical interest has a bleed-over effect. I've begun to look closely at those bins of unclaimed photos in antique stores. I'm surprised how often the folks in the pictures are identified on the back. I've begun to buy some of these and post them on my website, in hopes that some family historian out there will find them and claim them as long-lost family members.

Another side-effect to my research has been to inspire me to collect early memorabilia of my college alma mater. Mary Hardin-Baylor started out as Baylor Female College and Academy and it is surprising how many pieces of Baylor College history turn up for sale on EBAY. For about a year or so I've been buying yearbooks from the 1920s, postcards, and miscellaneous programs and other ephemera from the early, pre "Mary-Hardin" years. You might think that my interest was formed strictly from the fact that I am an alumnus of that institution. Actually, it came about from, you guessed it, genealogical research. My initial purchases of 1920 material was spurred from an attempt to locate my great-aunt in a yearbook. I never found her, but I found myself fascinated at the fashions and the snapshots of flappers in locations I knew well from personal experience.

Yesterday I received my most recent EBAY find and it is a real treasure. Someone decided to sell a scrapbook kept by a 1920s student. I figured it would be a few pages of photos and maybe a few programs. What I received was a crumbling leatherette album of about 100 pages, each page filled with not only photos and the odd program, but numerous newspaper clippings about events at the College and letters from the girl's family. On the one hand, I'm tickled to get so much historical data, but on the other hand I grieve that this woman either had no family to pass it to or no one in her family cared to take custody of this wonderful album of memories. I fully intend to use much of this material in a historical website for the College and share with others this window into the past.

It makes you stop and wonder what will happen to your own collections. I have 17 notebooks of family history on my bookshelves, one whole shelf of Baylor-College history, numerous rare county histories and assorted ephemera that speaks to me for one reason or another. And here I sit with no descendants to inherit this material. In my case, I intend for the bulk of this collection to go to a historical society or library. I don't want my precious history collection to end up on EBAY when I'm gone. There may not be someone like me out there at the right time to volunteer to take custody of my artifacts.

Not sure what my point is here. I guess I want to encourage others to catalog family treasures and put them into the hands of a caring custodian. The gentleman who sold this album to me was a friend of the lady who created it in her youth. He could have decided it was junk and pitched it in the dumpster. After all, most of the photos are unidentified and if you are not connected to Baylor College in some way, what use is it? But something led him to put it up for sale and I happened to find it. I will treasure it for as long as it's in my possession. I hope that Alvan Carpenter knows that her memories have found a friendly caretaker.

Preserve history. Someday, maybe several generations away, your history will be someone's treasure to find.

LSW

So Why Ain't I Rich?

I'm in shopping mode right now. It's how I deal with bad times. It does me good to get out of my usual environment and see what the rest of the world is up to. Today I met with an old friend for lunch in Round Rock (about 30 minutes away from the office); indulged in an overlong lunch; then stopped at the Barnes & Noble on my way back to the office. (Hey, I work my butt off most of the time. I deserve to screw around some once in awhile.)

I've never met a bookstore I didn't like and I know when I walk in the door that I will be spending money. It's not a question of if, but on what. About 25 minutes later I walked out $100 poorer, but I've got some good books to put on the waiting list to read. Which is neither here nor there as pertains to the title of this piece, but I'm setting the scene.

As is my habit, I wandered over to the crafts and hobbies section to take a gander at what new books there might be for knitters. I don't have time to knit much anymore, but I still like to keep my education up for someday in the future when I do have time (ha, ha). Today there were four shelves worth of books on knitting and crocheting and most of them were books I didn't own. It suddenly hit me that I've missed the boat once again.

I have a unique knack for getting interested in a subject years before it becomes really popular and people start making a passle of money catering to that audience. It was quite a few years prior to the Barnes & Noble/Starbucks alliance when I played with the idea of opening a book store where there would be comfy chairs around where someone could sit and pass the time among the wonderful world of books and that would have a coffee center in the corner where you could get a good cup of coffee to drink while you were sitting. And who's making a bundle now with my idea?

I fell in love with Colorado about 18 years ago, before the movie stars found it and started running up the real estate prices to a point where a real person can't afford to buy a vacation spot there. If I had had the foresight to buy a few acres around Ouray, Gunnison, Salida or Durango back in 1987, I might be able to resell it now for quite a tidy profit.

I've been involved in genealogy since 1968, back when you had to dig, dig, and dig some more to get even a tiny babystep further back in your research. I read everything I could get my hands on to teach me techniques to find missing dead people, and there wasn't much to read. A pitiful magazine that I subscribed to for several years and a few antiquated "how to" books. Now I subscribe to four wonderfully helpful genealogical magazines, have access to census record images via the Internet through Ancestry, and have the bountiful data online that has been assembled by a network of volunteers through the US Genweb. It seems like at least 2-3 new books on various aspects of genealogy are on the shelf everytime I hit a bookstore. And most of them don't teach me anything that I didn't learn the hard way 20 years ago. But did I have the gumption to write a how-to book myself?

Another hobby that is on slow simmer at the present is dollhouse miniatures. I backed into the hobby in the early 1970s and spent several years constructing and decorating dollhouses and vignettes. Back in those prehistoric days, manufactured miniatures were virtually nonexistent. You learned to look at every scrap of metal in a hardware store with an eye toward what it could be made to look like in a 1/12th scale world. Nowadays you can find just about everything in miniature version, thanks to an explosion of interest about a decade ago in dioramas and the need for things to put in antique printer trays to produce an interesting decorative piece for your wall. It is still a very focused market, but with the Internet you can make a decent living selling miniatures to nut cases like me. And there's a lot like me out there - some even nuttier. Folks like Brooke Tucker have turned themselves into professional miniaturists and charge around $500 per student for workshops where they learn to build quality vignettes and roomboxes. Another missed opportunity.

And now knitting. I have long dreamed of owning a good yarn store, where there would be natural fiber yarns, classes, local fiber artist showings and the like. I squashed the idea many years back because it was a dying art. Yes there were the faithful, like me, who still loved to work with quality yarn (not that acrylic crap you find at Walmart). But times were bad when I got the idea (mid 1980s), and small businesses were dying at a frightening pace. People weren't interested in costly, luxury items. But now, with Julia Roberts and Darryl Hannah and tons of other stars carrying around their scarves in progress, novelty and speciality yarns are hitting the shelves and going home with people in large quantities. Book after book is being published not only with how-tos and patterns, but on the philosophy of knitting. For the record, I haven't totally given up my dream, but once again, I was on the cutting edge and didn't even know it.

I can cite other examples. I loved the basics of homemaking skills long before Martha Stewart came on the scene. I was baking bread and creating sourdough starter and learning to spin when she was still a stockbroker. I quite often get interested or tired of a product or service several months before the rest of the world follows. I guess I missed my true calling as a trend-spotter.

Which gives me hope about the state of our government. I've been calling George W. Bush a preppie jerk from the time he strode into the Texas governor's office. Surely, it will be any minute when the rest of the world catches on. But I digress.

I guess it takes vision to act on your impulses and guts to trust your instincts. Too bad I never realize that I'm on to something until it's too late for me to grab hold of the train and get on board. But I'm here to tell you, Barnes & Noble and Starbucks should cough up some money. That was my idea.

LSW

The King is Gone

Bebop

May 19, 1990 - April 27, 2005
Truly one of a kind.

LSW