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oxsan
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There is currently pending before the Texas Legislature a number (at least three) bills which will
influence what our schools teach our children about religion. I have some strong feelings about some of these things and wish to pass those feelings on to you. In the first place so that you can better judge what I have to say about it you should know a few facts about my background and some of my previously expressed beliefs. These are:
1. I am a Christian.
2. I am the product of a school system (here in the state of Texas) which until the early fifties was not in any way responsible to or beholden to the federal government and only minimally controlled by the state government. Schools were, in the days of my childhood controlled, financed, directed and supervised by a local board of the community in which they existed. The determination of curriculum, teaching personnel, graduation requirements and student discipline were entirely in the hands of a local board consisting of five to seven members of responsible citizens of your community–your neighbors. The prevailing sentiment was that the community of one’s friends and neighbors was better equipped to determine what and how your children were taught and if you didn’t like what they did or how they ruled you could stop by their house or office and discuss the matter over a cup of coffee. There was no Department of Education in Washington DC. No federal funds were appropriated to education and the schools were run by the local community of your friends and neighbors. State government acted primarily to just establish common textbooks throughout the state, to administer teacher retirement funds. And blessedly there were NO federal regulations concerning WHAT the schools should teach or HOW they should teach it.
3. In every community of any size a student had the option of going to state school or to "church school" and the option of what church school they wanted to attend—at least that was a matter which the law and the government left to be worked out between the parent and the church which sponsored the school (and paid its expenses). A student I shall refer to as "TS" who went to school with me in Austin High school got kicked out of AHS for some rather droll things he did and so went to St Edwards High School out in South Austin—which I presume was an Episcopalian or Catholic school—he graduated in 1943 just as I did and attended the University of Texas just as I did. A St. Edwards diploma was just as valid as a state high school diploma—and in some cases probably represented an education superior to the average state school. Not one cent of Travis County or the State of Texas tax money or federal tax money went to the support of St. Edwards.
4. I strongly feel that government by the state or the federal government should NEVER have the option of controlling what is taught to our kids as religion. If the government can tell my child whether or not to believe one paragraph of the Holy Bible it can tell that child that the Koran is all truth to the letter, that the Arthava-Veda is the only path to Varuna as god of the Cosmos, or that this world is populated by Wiccan creatures which demand animal sacrifice on the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Far fetched in Texas? Don’t you believe it.
5. I strongly believe that this country (The USA) was designed, constructed and has endured for more than two centuries because it is based on the moral and social philosophy of the Christian
religion and because of the lack of diversity in our population—Whoops! That got your attention didn’t it. It is not permitted to criticize the concept that "Diversity is Good—chaos is better". Well so be it. Diversity is not always good–that is a personal belief. As a matter of fact I am working onm a thesis that even disputes Darwin’s contention that diversity is good. Despite the fact that we are a "nation of immigrants" we are just as surely a "nation of Christian immigrants". Sure there were a few thousand Chinese Buddhists who came into the west practically as slaves to build the railroads and operate the mines in the 19th century, and the forcible importation of African peoples during slave time brought some new ideas in religion which can be seen n in New Orleans and some southern areas but all in all the vast waves of immigrants have been of people who were fervently Christians.
6. I am the product of a school system that offered "Bible Study" at the high school level as an elective course for which credit toward graduation was allowed. These Bible study courses were not "the Bible as history" type courses. They were actually religious courses which exhorted their students to be Christians. I did not take any of these courses but they were available at the time I was in High School and were quite popular among the student body. It is important to note that the courses were not taught by school teachers but rather by personnel of the church where they were held.. One could window shop these courses and take them from a Catholic, Baptist , or Episcopalian church in Austin Texas. If a town was very small the courses were most likely available from Protestant or Catholic Churches only. No none were available from Mormon churches, not from Wiccan covens and few if any sought the guidance of the Santeria
Church and no courses at all were offered in Voodoo—despite this alarming lack of diversity most all of my class made it through school and some of us even went to college and a few have lived normal productive lives. Out of my graduating class of 640 there was one who became a Scientologist and I think that one was a Zen Buddhist.
Now with all of that as a preamble to show where I am coming from let me tell you that the Legislature of the State Of Texas is considering a bill which will require every high school in the state of Texas to offer an ELECTIVE course titled "The Bible As History" and give credit for it toward graduation. The course is to be taught by regular faculty of the high school. I strongly oppose this law for at least the following reasons.
1. Very few high schools in the state of Texas have faculty capable of teaching what the Bible says and answering all those hundreds of thousands of questions that adolescents have about God, life and other matters of religion.
2. Religion is a matter NOT to be taught by the state but rather by the family of the student by the church of their choice and by the tenor and support of the community in which they live. It seems that the community and even some of the churches have almost abdicated their role in this
process but that is no reqason to give it to the schools who will in my opinion just make it worse.
3. The Bible is not just history. It is an organ of religion. Without doubt it is one of the world’s greatest literary masterpieces and I believe that it is true that it tells a remarkable amount about the history of the world in that day and time and I regret the loss of Bible literacy in population in general but the fact that the Bible is concerned with matters of one’s existence and eternal life can not be relegated to the reading circle role. I think that it would be impossible to teach to adolescents strictly as history or literature and I don’t trust the NEA the TSTA, the Department of education or the Government of the United States to interpret those matters for children. Leave it to the families and the churches chosen by those families.
4. If the schools teach my child the Bible they can as well declare that the Bhagavad-gita or the Koran be taught in schools. It follows as the night the day. And they can say that the Koran is great literature and should be taught. I have read through the Koran twice and yes it is good literature. I don’t personally think that as literature it approaches the Bible but I will allow for some prejudice on that point and I would not object to my children reading the Koran but I don’t want to be told by government that they have to read it. Remember also that today’s elective may be tomorrow’s requirement.
So that is what I think about the requirement for compulsory Bible As History courses in Texas High Schools taught by teachers. There is ample room for disagreement in the above. Don’t be timid, let me know if you think I am wrong. There are two more laws going through the legislature concerning the Texas school system—I m,ay oppose them too. If I do I will let you know.
Love
dad, granpa, ami
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Back in 1978 I bought a small (980 sq ft) two bedroom one bath frame house in Irving Texas. I was living in an apartment at the time and I thought that the house was a good investment and would gain in value. I paid $19,000 for the house and rented it out until my lease on the apartment expired and then moved into the house where I lived until 1987 when I moved out to the Banks of the Brazos River and it returned to being rent property. In 2004 I had some renters who damaged the house to some extent and it needed quite a bit of repair and I was having trouble administering and watching the property from 75 miles away so I sold it for $38,000 and carried the note on the house myself because it had a balloon payment provision which came due in 2006 and the buyer paid off the property at that time. Now I was well aware of the provision of the IRS Income tax code which provides for payment of tax on increase in capital gain and figured that I would have to pay income tax on the $19,000 "profit" or capital gain that I had made on that transaction. What I didn’t realize was that the government recovered all of the depreciation for the property that I had taken on my tax returns for the 26 years that I had owned it and charged me capital gains tax on that amount also. In other words I had to pay a capital gain tax on $34,800 rather than the gain of $19,000 that I actually received for the house.
Now my CPA is an expert at this sort of thing and I don’t doubt that he has properly interpreted the law and properly computed my tax but it leaves me moaning and groaning that there just ain’t no way to win. And there is about two and a half billion dollars of pork in the appropriation bill which Congress has passed and which Bush may veto for other reasons and I don’t like to think that the taxes I am being charged this year will go to build bridges to uninhabited islands in the Alaskan seas and to extend the commuter trains from Washington DC to West Virginia . Just as an aside the amount of county, school and city taxes on that little property increased by a factor of five during the twenty six years that I owned it and the insurance payments doubled.
There ain’t no way to win. I am going to lobby for anarchy.
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I have just read the first few chapters of a little book called "Caught In The Act" by Toinette Lippe that got me to thinking along the lines below. Anyone who can get me to thinking about anything these days is due a bit of recognition so I want to cite Ms Lippe as the one who did it and admit that some of the thoughts but not the actual words below are attributable to Ms. Lippe. I doubt that I would care for Ms Lippe if I should meet her.
She was born and raised to adulthood in England and has been in the US since 1964. She was an editor for a publishing company and founded a "spiritual publishing house" of her own dedicated to some particular strain of Buddhism or maybe it was Taoism I sort of skipped over that part of the text. So Ms Lippe and I do not see eye to eye on all things or maybe even most things but I can still appreciate her very clear thinking about what she calls "reflections on being, knowing and doing". She is also an accomplished oriental brush artist who paints primarily flowers.
In our brash American society we frequently have people ask us "What do you do?" and I think I would be correct in saying that we nearly always take that question to mean "What is your occupation". If someone asked me that question when I was in the working corps I would usually answer "I am an industrial manager." And note right off that my answer has assumed a fact not in evidence. Use of the first person indicative form of the verb "to be" assumes that what I do is what I am. With that assumption I crossed a linguistic chasm. I gave every person who asked that question the right to believe that I "was" what I "did". But I was not the only one who twisted the linguistic arm with the assumption that our occupation was our existence . The interrogator placed that implication in the question itself. Since I now live an almost solitary life no one has asked me lately "What Do You Do?" but I have resolved to reply "I eat Otis Spunkmeyer Double Chocolate Muffins and gain weight".
In England and in France I don’t ever remember being asked that question. I think that those people consider it just a bit rude to inquire after your occupation. We Americans are not so conversationally inhibited. In Italy strangely enough I have been asked "What did your ancestors do?" and was able to reply that they were silk merchants. When I was a child in West Texas I was instructed by my parents and grandparents that it was rude to ask a person's occupation or from whence the person came. Those were things that you let the person volunteer if you got to know them that well--- besides children were inhibited from asking any personal questions at all about adults.
Twenty seven years ago I ceased to either "do" or "be" an industrial manager and except for five years at another company as an industrial manager at the behest of a former boss I have been rusticating here on the banks of El Rio de los Brazos de Dios with no honorable occupation at all yet I "do" things. Now when people ask me "What Do You Do?" I could reply that I am a reader, a writer, a book collector, a Christian, a Texan, an American, a traveler, or a father----those are all things that I do hence by the formula they are what I "am" but I usually perpetuate the incongruity outlined above and say "Nothing". I haven’t had an opportunity as yet to use the Otis Spunkmeyer answer.
I will admit that all of my life it seemed that my job was what I was. I think that most men and a rapidly growing number of women do still to this day define themselves to themselves and others by what they do for a living and consider that what they do for a living is "what they are". Even in my retirement befuddled senility I am inclined to think that identification of self with job is not altogether bad. It provides the worker with an intensity necessary to do a good job and when I was in Industrial Management if an employee came to identify himself with his occupation we could rest assured that person was on the way up the corporate ladder and had or would develop the intensity to go on up the corporate ladder and become a successful executive. There was a movement when I was in the work force to advise persons to not let their job dominate their lives and to relegate their occupation to a secondary role in order to avoid "burn out". Balderdash! I never believed it then or now. I really believe that was a mere masque for a lack of dedication.
It is also difficult for us to grasp that this inventory of things that we "are" and "do" is a fluid and ever changing thing. Sometimes it is difficult to quit "being" something when we quit "doing" it. I had a pilots license forty years ago and could say "I fly airplanes" but it would be rather stupid for me to say that now—I have four exclusions on my license to drive an automobile and even though I have amassed an amazing record of safe driving all over the world it doesn’t mean that I am a good driver now—and I am sure that I ncouild never get my pilot’s license renewed and don’t want to do so. I have a scuba certificate that has allowed me to fill my tanks in many foreign countries as well as the USA but I with 40% heart capacity I don’t intend to use it and can’t say anymore that "I am a scuba diver". The inventory of what we are and what we do changes with time, with location, with circumstances and we make a big mistake if we try to make it static.
So Ms Lippe got me to thinking about what we "do" and what we "are" and they have led to the rambling above. I may have some more comments after I read more.
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Did You Know?
Rice is the staple food of a large part of the world and is attended with many superstitions and has many powers attributed to it. Did you know that:
In Bali rice grains are believed to have a soul and it is customary to address them as "Mother rice", " grandmother rice" or whatever soul you believe inhabits the rice grains you are addressing. You do talk to your rice don't you?
I must tell my own personal Bali story. The first time I was in Bali I was attending a pre bid conference at the famous Bali Hai Hotel and on the first morning I was there I arose very early and went outside for a walk just after sunrise. I noticed that a little Balinese girl about six years old was putting small bits of rice from a bowl in her hand into a small niche Hindu shrine in a rock garden wall. Almost as fast as she was putting it in there the birds would swoop down and eat the rice and the little girl who had backed off from the wall would return and put another hand full of rice in the niche. About the time she did this the second time I saw our driver that we had hired coming down the walk and I knew that he spoke excellent English. I asked him if he would ask the little Balinese girl what she was doing. He talked to her then turned to me and said, "She says that she is feeding the Gods and does this every morning with half of her breakfast rice." I made a remark that she ought to shoot the birds then because they were stealing all of the rice and the driver told the little girl what I said. The little girl replied through him "Oh no, the birds carry the rice to the gods". I like that. I have a slide picture of that little girl and her niche shrine somewhere.
Later the same day about four of us were riding around in the car and our driver took us to a beach on the extreme eastern end of the island. There was a crew of about twenty old men down there building two shacks or cabanas on the beach made of bamboo and resembling a US Indian teepee except maybe a bit bigger. Our driver said "We are in luck. This is the day for the washing of the gods. It is done once a year and will happen here in a few minutes. It is quite colorful ,would you like to stay and see it.?" We opined that we would.. In a moment a gang of about twenty Balinese teenagers came down to the beach dressed in normal Indonesian garb and carrying a mound of clothes in their arms. The bamboo houses were complete and all of the boys gathered around one and the girls around the other and one at a time went into these houses and changed into very colorful long robes or maybe sarongs and just filled their hair with flowers. Our driver explained that the Hindu gods would arrive soon and that some would be female gods and some male gods and that the two sexes of idols would be on separate platforms and that the female idols should be bathed only by female virgins and the male idols should be bathed only by male virgins. About this time the idols did arrive on two huge platforms laden with flowers and carried on the shoulders of four men for each ---big burly mean looking men. There were about four idols on each platform and they were all basically representations of men or women from about the waist up and were carved very beautifully from grey limestone, or at least it looked like that. The men carrying the idols walked into the sea until they were about waist deep in the water and then lowered the platforms off their shoulders until it just reached the surface of the ocean. The girls all ran out into the sea in their fine clothes and gathered around one platform and began scrubbing the idols with what appeared to be large sponges. The boys did likewise around the other platform. One very old frail man went out in front of the two platforms and was busy waving his arms and talking while the laundry activity was in process. Then the burly characters carrying the platforms raised them back up on their shoulders and started marching off into the little village nearby. Our driver had told us that once the idols were on the beach we should remain silent and that we should not drink or smoke until they had left.
One more Bali story. It also happened on the same day. We were driving through a Balinese park when a huge crowd appeared with two guys in the lead each carrying a kris. A kris is a long wavy dagger about the size of a bayonet. These two men were obviously very angry with each other. We asked our driver what was up. He said that one of the men —the older one–was married to a very pretty girl and that the younger man had been caught in a compromising position with the older man’s wife and that they were going to have a duel and one was going to kill the other. I asked if we could watch and he said "Of course" so we left the car and we tagged along with the crowd.. They came to a little clearing in the forest and each contestant wrapped a towel around their left arm from the elbow to the wrist and used this wrapped arm as a shield and began thrusting at each other with obvious murderous intent. This went on for maybe five minutes which is a long time when someone is trying to stab you with a wavy dagger. Then the younger man made a slash and caught the older man off guard and cut a slash across his left biceps—not deep enough to require stitches but deep enough to cause an adequate flow of blood.. The two men threw down their daggers and the younger man brought out a clean handkerchief and was binding up his opponents wound. I asked the driver "Is he going to kill him now." The driver replied "He just did. Didn’t you see the blood?" "But he is still alive", I remonstrated. "Of course he is", the driver said "We don’t kill people in Bali in duels, we just make them bleed. Actually they are good friends" I asked if the younger man was going to stay away from the older man’s wife now". The driver shrugged and said "Who knows?"
I also had some adventures at the cock fight in Bali but I’ll save that for another time. Also my entrance into the deserted Hindu temple in the jungle.
Bali is an absolutely gorgeous place and the people are gentle and friendly and attractive. It has been thirty three years since I was there last. I hope that it hasn’t changed too much. I wish all of you could spend a week there.
Love
Dad, Granmjpa, ami
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It is very easy for we oldsters get put down and convinced that we ain't seen it all. There is a country song that has a refrain "I've been everywhere, Babe" and I frequently hum that to myself (to my self because I can't carry a tune) because I thoroughly enjoyed all of the travelling that I have done in my life. This morning on TV however I definitely got my come-uppance. I was washing dishes and had the TV on the Travel Channel (which has become a favorite of mine) and heard the TV say that a program featuring "the ten greatest spots on the earth to visit" was about to begin and I told Sara that I had to listen to that because I had without doubt visited all but one or two of them and it would be pleasant to see them again. So I watched it. I was interupted twice and missed three of the "great" places but but I doubt that I have seen them either. Here are the seven that I remember seeing:
Mount Everest---tallest mountain on the planet. Maybe I saw it once in the far distance from an airplane but have never had the opportunity to see it up close--and that may not have been it that I saw from the airplane. I have seen a lot of mountains but not this one. My favorite mountains are the Grand Tetons in Wyoming.
The Ngorongoro Crater--an extinct volcano crater straddling the Great Rift in Transzania---the worlds largest volcanic crater. It literally teems with all sorts of African wildlife and is a fascinating view on TV but I have never been there or even very close to there. Miss number two!
Victoria Falls--In Africa where the Zambezi River falls and falls and falls. Victoria is not only the widest falls and carries the greatest volume of water over the cliff but is also five times higher than Niagra. I have wanted to see Victoria for years but never got the opportunity to toddle around that part of Africa. It must be a beautiful sight.
Lake Baykal (sometimes spelled Baikal)--The world's deepest freshwater lake. It is about 397 miles long and is over 1700 feet deep. It is situated in Russian Siberia. Russian destinations were not on my agenda when I was travelling a bunch.
So I missed this "greatest" also.
Niagra Falls--Been there done that. Three times as a matter of fact. Niagra is an awesome sight. I did not go on the Maid Of The Mist which is the boat that goes behind the falls--or at least disappears from view in the spray when it is heading in that direction
Grand Canyon--Been there done that. Three times to this spot also. I never took the mule train down to the bottom and have never visited the North Rim in Utah. All of my Grand Canyoning was from the Arizona Rim. Awesome place.
Namib Desert---Never done this one either. I have seen the Sahara, Death Valley, Saudi Arabia's Rub al Khali, and the Sonoran Desert of Northern Mexico but never even flown over the Namib in South Africa. It was Jimmy Carter's fault that I did not get a chance to go to South Africa and I shall not frorgive him for it.
So there are seven places that were featured on this program as top spots to visit around the world and I have only seen two of them---I'll remember that every time I start to hum "I've been everywhere" in the future. Humility is not a major component of my personality however. I'll not quarrel with their selection of places to see---I think that I would like to see them all.
You have any favorite Natural wonders?
love
dad, granpa, ami
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There is an ancient bit of German folklore that says that one's Bee's----you do have Bees don't you?---should always be well and quickly advised of all news which affects the family. Otherwise they might swarm off to some other location where they are more wanted (in their view) or they might neglect the honey they have already made and make it spoil.
quote:
Marriage, birth or buryin'
News across the seas
All your sad or merryin'
You must tell the bees.
anon
In this same Germanic folklore lexicon it is also held to be most fortunate if one dreams of bees:
quote:
Happy the man who dreaming sees
The little humble busy bees
Fly humming around the hive.
anon
Welsh folklore holds that the Robin's breast was burned red because it brought cooling water to the souls in hell:
quote:
Nay, said the grandmother, have you not heard?
My poor bad boy, of the fiery pit
And how drop by drop, this merciful bird
Carries water that quenches it?
He carries water in his little bill
And lets it fall on the souls of sin.
You can see the mark on his red breast still
Of fires that scorch as he drops it in
by John Greenleaf Whittier
I just thought that you ought to know that.
love
dad, granpa, et al
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Back in the days when steamboating was the principal form of commerce in the middle of the US and thus on the Mississippi River the bells and whistles on the big river steamboats were an important attribute of the boat. They varied in tone, pitch and volume from boat to boat and the other steamboats and people who lived along the river were soon able to distinguish which boat was "just around the bend" by the sound of its bell or whistle. As a matter of fact, a Kentucky farmer near Scuffletown named Barnett claimed that his mule would stop in its tracks in the furrow and refuse to move further until fed when the Two States boat sounded for the landing at Scuffletown but was not so compelled when other boats whistled for a landing. The whistle of The Natchez was said to sound like a bumblebee. Many claimed that the crew of The Revenue had stolen its whistle from the top of the smokestack of a factory in Pittsburgh after a round of drinking at Pittsburgh bars and did not dare whistle for a landing in the vicinity of that factory. The deep-throated whistle of The Kate Adams steamboat was said to be heard for thirty miles on the river on a still cold night.
One of the most famous whistles of that era involved the side wheeler Eugene. The Eugene had no whistle and her crew was sad about that and sought surcease from their misery in the bars of New Orleans famous French Quarter. While drinking there they heard a magnificent whistle and instantly knew that they had to have it for the Eugene. So they had a few more drinks and went down to the waterfront and found that this lovely whistle was on an Italian freighter. All of the hands of the Eugene agreed that this whistle deserved a better home and they waited until the wee hours of the morning and climbed up the stack of the Italian ship and stole the whistle and carried it home to the Eugene where they installed it. Early the next morning the Eugene made a silent departure from New Orleans. This was in the 1840s and the Eugene became famous for its full-throated, melodious whistle. But alas the Eugene was not destined to enjoy this whistle for long. In 1850 it made a trip up river and stumbled over the wreck of the Eliza boat and was sunk. The whistle however was salvaged and installed on The Hattie Gilmore and was there for many years until 1863 it was transferred to the Tarascon which had New Orleans as its home port. It was during the Civil War and the blockade of the Mississippi River was lifted and in celebration of this the Tarascon plied up and down New Orleans Port sounding her new whistle.
Yup! You guessed it! The Italian Captain of the freighter was in port and instantly recognized the sound of his purloined whistle and complained thereof to the Port Authority asking their aid in getting the whistle from the Tarascon.. A sort of unofficial Admiralty Court was convened by the Port Authority with a French captain as Chairman of the court. After hearing testimony and deliberating the court ruled that the whistle was lawfully salvaged from a sunken vessel and that the Italian Captain was just out of luck and that Tarascon could keep it. The Captain of the Tarascon was Louisiana French I understand and this decision was necessary to prevent bloodshed.
As the years went by the famous Tarascon whistle was transferred to other boats. It was on The James Guthrie for some years and then on Tell City and finally put on the Nashville which was renamed the Southland in 1922. In 1932 on a December day the Southland was wrecked on a Kentucky shore and burned and the peripatetic whistle was lost forever.
I think that you can tell from the above that I am into another book. YUP! It is "Voices On The River" by Walter Havighurst and I am really enjoying it. It has all sorts of Mississippi River folklore in it including most of what I wrote above. It is a good read if you dig that sort of stuff.
I have always longed to go to New Orleans and take a steamboat ride to Pittsburg. They still have big side wheelers that make that round trip in about a week. I may do that some day when I retire.
love
dad, granpa et al
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I was asked recently if I could remember the terrible sandstorm that occurred in the Texas Panhandle on 14 April, 1935 and earned the title of "Black Sunday" for that date and I am afraid that I could not give a cogent answer. It is not that I didn’t remember the events of 1935. I was seven years old on that date and remember events of that year quite clearly. It was the year of my many childhood diseases of that day. I had mumps, chicken pox, measles, whooping cough and a tonsillectomy that year which made it very memorable from a medical standpoint. I consulted my perpetual calendar and sure enough the 14th of April in 1935 did fall on a Sunday. As usual we didn’t live in just one town in 1935. We lived in Haskell, Clarendon, Lubbock, and Brownfield Texas and ended the year in Carlsbad New Mexico. I spent the three months of summer vacation at my grandfather’s farm which was located between Plainview and Lockney, Texas. The problem is that I don’t remember one horrible sandstorm to earn that name for the day, I remember maybe ten or fifteen. All of those locations I mentioned above were subject to blinding sandstorms in 1935. It was the time of the "Dust Bowl".
It is certainly understandable that 14 April got named Black Sunday. When the sandstorms came
It seems to me that they usually came out of the northwest and the first indication was a wall of dark purple rolling in that got darkened to almost black as it approached. For those with any kind of a breathing disorder the advent of a sandstorm was a dangerous affair and the weak and disabled frequently died as a result of the breathing difficulty. The air was literally filled with a choking, gritty dust that there was no way to keep out of your lungs. The best plan was to get to an inner room of the house and cover your mouth and nose with a damp handkerchief or napkin.
Nearly every farm had a root cellar and I have sat out many a storm of both sand and rain in the root cellar because someone in the family predicted the simultaneous occurrence of a "cyclone" with the sand or rain.
My grandmother was an immaculate housekeeper but I have seen her attack the accumulated sand and dust on her kitchen floor with a scoop shovel after the sandstorm and then repeatedly mop and sweep to get rid of the dust.
A sandstorm or dust storm usually caused a great increase in the static electricity in the air. My dad at this time was a lineman for the Southwest Associated Bell Telephone Company and I remember one incident about halfway between Brownfield and Levelland when he was on a pole splicing a telephone line that had broken. I was on the ground watching him work and acting as his "grunt" tying tools he needed to his rope handline when I saw a ball of fire coming down the wire. His back was to the approaching static charge and he had the wire under his arm when the ball of fire hit him and jolted him off the pole He was hurt more by the fall from the pole than he was by the burn of the electricity. Being static electricity the burn was very minimal. He nevertheless had some difficulty in driving back to Brownfield.
By 1935 a definite effort was being made by the farmers to plant multiple rows of trees and bushes like Russian olive, juniper, and elm called "shelter belts" around each field to break the wind force and changes in plowing techniques were developed by that time to reduce the damage from high winds and prevent sandstorms from forming.
So I cannot swear that I remember the awful sandstorm of 14 April 1935 but I am certain that if I didn’t remember it I at least remembered several other sandstorms that occurred that year and in previous years which could easily have earned the title .
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I took a trip to town today. By "town" I mean Weatherford, Texas. Doesn’t sound very exciting? Well to me in a way it was and is exciting. The Department of Public Safety of my state have decreed that I can drive a car upon the highways of the state if I abide by four restrictions in the manner in which I do so. These four restrictions are:
1. Thou shalt not drive without the use of prescription spectacles.
2. Thou shalt not drive upon the freeways.
3. Thou shalt not exceed a speed of 45 mph.
4. Thou shalt not drive at night.
I am sure that you would think those restrictions to be cruel and unusual punishment to visit upon this poor old man who has driven in this state for 64 years and also in several foreign countries and never had a collision or a wreck. Really though with a little windage applied I don’t find them to be a hindrance to my enjoyment of life at all. I don’t mind wearing glasses when I drive. I see a little better with them on but not much and Heaven knows the way my neighbor’s wife drives that red Porsche I need all the seein’ I can get. And I don’t like to drive on their freeways anyway. Most of the things I describe below that I saw on this trip I would not have seen had I been on I-20 which is our local "freeway". So I stay off the freeways by my own accord except when it is necessary once a quarter to go to Fort Worth to get my Pacemaker checked and when that occurs I just drive on the freeway because that is the only way to get there. The 45 mph speed is a little silly actually. I would impede traffic at that speed and lose all the friends that live between here and Weatherford if I did not exceed 45mph. That speed is a danger because it is too slow so I drive what speed I think is required to keep up with the flow of traffic and within the legal speed limits imposed on "non-restricted" drivers. No problem. Driving at night? I observe that. My night vision is not good and I would not drive at night except in case of emergency.
So in order to comply with the wishes of the Texas Department of Public Safety (may Homer Garrison rest in Peace) I have devised a route to get to Weatherford with my route confined totally to county roads except for about one and one half miles of state highway. I go from Benpensa Farm east to Dennis (all county road) thence on State Highway 1460 one and a half miles to Dennis Cemetery where I turn on The Old Dennis Road which I stay on until I get to Weatherford and cross over to Bethel Road which leads me right to my bank and Walmart–my two most frequent destinations. The beauty of this route is that the speed limit on all of the county roads is 40 mph. That doesn’t mean that they are safe or that everyone drives within that limit but it does mean that we who honor the laws of our state and drive sanely do not attract the notice of the constabulary.
It is a beautiful drive into Weatherford and back along this route It is intermittent hills and valleys with the hills running 200 to 300 feet high and being heavily wooded as are the valleys with clearings that have been made for a century of farmers and ranchers to make a living. Coming back when I am driving southwest is the most scenic. From the hill tops it seems that one can see forever. I am convinced that I can make out the distinctive shape of Comanche Peak to the southwest. That is about 45 miles as the crow flies and I may be mistaken but I can see how the Comanche, the Lipan Apache, and the Kiowa navigated this land by knowledge of the gross shape of the hills. My farm is only a few miles from a branch of the Comanche Trail so called because it served for yearly raids by the Indians upon the Mexican towns for slaves, weapons and food and above all horses. My neighbor has picked up a bushel basket full of flint arrowheads off the hill directly in front of my house. There is a nuclear power plant in the lee of Comanche Peak but that doesn’t really take away its romance. To the west I can also see what I believe to be Ranger Hill as we used to call it which was so steep that pre-1930 cars used to have to ascend it in reverse. The modern I-20 is not nearly that steep now but the old road went straight up the hill.
On this route to and from Weatherford the trip as far as Dennis crosses the old M.A. Majors ranch and perhaps you will remember that back in the 1890s nineteen year old Bob Rosenfeld was on his way to the Major’s Ranch house to court his daughter Elizabeth when he was stopped by old man Majors on the hill right in front of the house here. The two men sat facing each other on their horses and Mr. Majors demanded to know what Bob was doing on his ranch. Bob looked him in the eye and told him he was coming to ask Elizabeth to marry him. M. A. swore that no Rosenfeld would marry his daughter and for him to get himself and his horse off his range. Bob kicked Major’s horse in the nose, caused him to shy away and Bob drew a revolver and shot Majors dead on the spot. He took Majors’ body on into the Major’s ranch house, talked to Elizabeth and they left immediately for Oklahoma which then was Indian Territory. Must be strange to ask a woman to marry you and say"Oh, by the way, I just shot and killed your father."
Just past Dennis there is an area down by the River that is sort of a natural park with grass and old, very old, native pecan trees. There is a bit of mystery attached to that area. Back in the 1890's one of the last Indians raids in Texas occurred there—or did it. Two neighboring ladies had arranged a picnic for their children and were there with them when a group of Indians swooped down upon them with masked faces and killed one of the women. The other woman and the children were not molested. There was some thinking among the people in the area that they were not Indians at all but rather local Weatherford residents.
Once on the Old Dennis Road you come to a house where I used to have a big collie bark at me and chase the car every time I came by and I often wonder what happened to her. She was a big beautiful long haired collie dog. Then you drive down the side of the River Bluff Ranch which amounted to about 2500 acres and was uncrossed by even a trail. That is now being supplied with water lines , gas mains and paved roads and will someday be incorporated into Weatherford. I hate to see it.
On the way back from town I was little more perceptive and was rewarded by a riot of fall color in the trees. We have not had a hard freeze as yet but have had a couple of nippy frosts and it has done its work on the trees. The western soapwoods, the Mexican plums, the few cottonwoods on the creeks and the ash trees are bright yellow, almost canary yellow. The sumacs, the shumard red oaks, the Texas red oaks are all brilliant red and the persimmon trees are a brilliant orange. We had 45 mile an hour winds day before yesterday and blew the dying leaves off the pecan trees and they are essentially bare-limbed now. The post oaks, black jack oaks, and burr oaks are a little slower to turn and are mostly still green and they along with the cedars and live oaks make a nice dark green background for the great supply of colors mentioned above.
And as usual I saw a bit of wild life this morning even though it was broad daylight when I left for town. Yesterday I decided to take some catfish fillets that had been around a bit too long and dump them in the middle of the pasture up front for the benefit of the vultures (or buzzards as we always call them). But this morning as I left I saw that my friend (and possibly my chicken thief) the red fox (Vulpes fulva) running across the pasture with a mouthful of catfish. I have read that the red fox was not native to this area but had been introduced for foxhunting and done well in the wild. I see our red fox quite often if I am out in the early morning and I find fox scat around the place. I don’t resent his depredations on the chicken yard if he is the one who did it. Everyone has to eat. I really think that it was bobcats who got my chickens though. Once I saw a gray fox here. The grey fox is a native American fox (Urocycon cinereoargenteous). I only saw him once however.
Coming home I saw four killdeer (charadrius vociferus) just as I turned in the driveway. I was used to these birds when I was growing up on the plains. They nested around every buffalo wallow pond and pasture in the high plains. They nest on the ground and if you walk up too close to their nest they put on a lively distraction display to lead you away. They spread their wings and tail and flop on the ground as though crippled but each flop takes them further away from the nest where their eggs or young are. They are a pretty bird. They don’t come around here until after August heat is over then they are pretty plentiful until spring when they head back for the high plains to nest. We are glad to see them come for the winter. Sara likes to chase them.
Between here and Dennis this morning I saw 4 yearling whitetail deer along the roadside. They ran into the woods but didn’t seem too scared of the car.
But I also saw coming home my favorite wildlife creature around here. I like him because he is saucy, rude and brash and thinks he owns the country. He is the common Roadrunner, the Chaparral Cock, or as the Mexicans call him El Paisano (the countryman). There is a particular spot on the road where he crosses dangerously close to the front of the car nearly every time that I come back from town and scolds me as he runs along for driving my car on HIS road. In the summer he lives on snakes, lizards and large insects and spiders. In the winter he hunts rats, mice, shrews, young quail and carrion. He is a very independent bird.
So that was my trip to town this morning and there are not many who would think it was exciting but I enjoyed every minute of it.
Love
Dad, granpa et al
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That great American philosopher John Wayne once said (I think), "Never apologize. It is a sign of weakness." Regardless of that excellent advice I have listed some areas below in which I believe that I personally have inherent weakness and inability. In just six months and three days I will be eighty years old. It has been my practice for a long time to sit quietly two or three times a year and count my blessings, to list the talents, abilities and gifts that have allowed me to reach the place where I am. I suppose that nearly everyone does that once or twice a year. This year I did it again and was sitting looking at my list of strong points and saying what a fine fellow I was when it dawned on me that this was sort of a mental masturbatory self-aggrandizement. Sure it is pleasant to list all your good fortunes, and you might even convince yourself that it was your effort that got you there. But the more important question to be answered is, "What are my weak points, and wherein have I failed to develop a talent or ability?" So this time I have looked back and tried to determine what my missing talents and abilities were, and I have come up with the list below:
PEOPLE – This will be difficult to explain, but since explanations are one of my strengths I’ll get right down to it. I am not a people person. I live in a world of things and processes and sometimes (more often than not actually) fail to see, know, and understand people about me. This is not a major dislike or distrust of people or a lack of friendliness on my part. It is a product of my thought processes, and it may be an expression of a grand conceit on my part. It may be that I believe I just don’t need anyone. I think it is perhaps best that I am no longer an industrial manufacturing manager. I am not one that works well with committee-driven policy determination or upward flow of direction, and those are directions in which industry is heading these days. I was admittedly a "bull of the woods" manager, a dictator. There are some advantages and some disadvantages to such an approach to management. I profited and suffered from both. So I think that if it were all to do over again I would hope to be a bit more of a people person and perhaps a little less of a "things" person, if that sacrifice was necessary. I was very fortunate in industry to have two people about me on my staff that were almost wholly people persons and who thus blunted at least the sharp tang of my materialism.
MUSIC – I possess not one shred or iota of musical talent. I love music (some of it) and wish that it was a language in which I was fluent, or I was at least able to discuss the subject . I am not capable of playing any instrument. I cannot read music. I cannot sing well. I am not well versed in the history or characteristics of any branch of music. As I have grown older this situation is exacerbated by the fact that the frequency range that I can hear is sharply truncated on the upper end and some of the instruments in a symphony I do not even hear, I am sure. I look upon music as a form of language, and I cannot conceive of any mental or physical characteristic that would keep me from learning in this field. When I was in the fifth grade I took a year of lessons on the violin. I never got a decent squeak out of that fiddle. I can’t even pick out a piece on a piano or xylophone simply because my mind refuses to compute whether the next note is above or below in the scale. I remember a party once where this delightful lady played on the piano without a trace of sheet music, and I asked her about a particular song. She said, "Hum it for me." I did, and she proceeded to play it as well as I’ve ever heard the song played. “Black Magic” – that is what I think it was.
AUTHORSHIP — I always wanted to write the great American novel – to become the Tolstoy of Texas. In my work life I did a lot of writing. I even had a couple of articles appear in nationally distributed trade and technical journals. But write the great American novel I did not. I started a few "great American novels" but never finished them. I can’t blame that on lack of time or opportunity. I have been retired now for 12 years, so I have had plenty of time. Or for that matter if I had just written my novels while in flight on commercial or company planes I could have won several Pulitzer Prizes by now. No, this one just goes to lack of will or purpose. Mea culpa!
LANGUAGES – There used to be a TV program named "I, Spy" that had a character who could speak any language. One of the two "good guy" spies was played by Bill Cosby, and if the team encountered some "bad guy" spy that spoke Inuit or Hausa Cosby could question him until he broke in his own language. I always wanted to speak a foreign language well, not just to understand but to pass for a native. I never got to be fluent in any foreign language. I got pretty close at one time in German. In University I performed in plays that were given in German, and we took the plays on the road to various towns in Texas that at that time rarely heard a word of English – places like Fredricksburg, New Braunfels, and Giddings. Even after graduating from UT I used my German pretty regularly in Europe. I also took a year of French from Berlitz and a year of Arabic from Berlitz, but in no one of the three languages did I become fluent. Even in German as the Germans were applauding the "perfection" of my language it was not difficult to see the slight twitching of their mouths that told me they were lying through their teeth just to be polite. The French didn’t even bother to be polite about it, nor did the Arabs. Charles Berlitz is said to be fluent in twenty five languages, and I have a grandson who is fluent in seven (although I think he pulls our leg a bit). So fluency in one or more foreign languages is another desire that I will have to forego.
CRAFTSMANSHIP — Most of you may not even know that I cherished the ambition to be a physician. How lucky is the local populace that this dream did not come true. I am no craftsman. I think I could learn the science of any trade, but the art is another story. I was at one time the Tool Engineer in charge of all welded and machined assemblies at TEMCO Aircraft. It was the assignment that meant more to my advancement in the company than any other task I ever had. I was spectacularly successful in this job as a welding and machining engineer. The CEO of the company introduced me for years as "the man who built the welded bulkhead". Children, the sum total of all the weld bead I have ever laid in my life is approximately one and one-half inches. But I can still quote nearly sixty years later most of the provisions of BAC5932 welding specification and only recently have lost the ability tell you the composition of 4140 alloy steel.
But all my life I have longed for the facility and ability to DO what I know about. I could tell by looking at a bead that the welder had carried too large or too small a puddle or had the wrong angle on the electrode or a dozen other faults in his technique, but I couldn’t lay that bead myself. I have a maternal uncle who could make anything with his hands and a paternal uncle who was a precision machinist. I think this experience was one reason that I wanted to build my own house out here on the Brazos, and with the exception of the fireplace and the tile work I did just that. Anyway, craftsmanship is not my long suit. Good thing I didn’t go into brain surgery. I can just hear myself making excuses to the grieving relatives.
OPTIMISM VERSUS PESSIMISM – I am an incurable optimist. By the time I have studied a project in detail and determined just how something should be done it is very difficult for me to allow that it might be impossible to do it. This is a management fault. A little pessimism is a good thing. It makes a poor mix with leadership, but it sometimes means that while you might not win on this project if you quit it now, you may live to fight again. There is a time not to swim upstream to the island but to float downstream to the log but I never liked to give up trying to get to the island.
So those are the most major faults to my composition that have plagued me these four score years. List all ye who read, and be wise. Now if it is in your mind to feel sorry for me because of the frequency and stringency of these faults, well just forget it. My list of attributes and good things is several times this long.
MODESTY – I will frankly admit that I am too modest in judgment of my capabilities and talents.
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