The new Leslie refrigerator magnets are out.

If you are an Austin resident, present or past, you know who Leslie is. Otherwise you may not know about this individual and how he has become the "Keep Austin Weird" Poster Boy. Or perhaps Poster Girl. Leslie is a person of the streets, a panhandler who hangs out at Congress and 6th Street, wearing outrageous apparel, such as thongs and tu-tus, usually with a padded bra top, a tiara and high heels. When we first encountered Leslie, he had staked out the Albertson's near us and was not quite as colorful, but Austin tends to have an effect on you.

Leslie is often referred to as the Mayor of Austin - in fact, he did actually run for Mayor a few years ago and got a respectable number of votes. Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights) said on Letterman one night that she had heard that Leslie was Mayor so often she scoffed when she met the real Mayor (primarily because the real Mayor was wearing jeans and a tee shirt that said "Keep Austin Weird" at the time).

Actually, this is the second year that decorative fridge stickers featuring Leslie will be on the market.

“This year is a holiday version, so he comes complete with his Mrs. Claus outfit and his elf outfit, and egg nog,” said Jimmy Haddox, who owns the Wet Salon on South Congress, and is the man who created the magnets. “It is Leslie, so I’m sure the egg nog would be spiked.”

Leslie gets 20 percent of the wholesale price this year (retail $17.95), Haddox said. Last year, while Leslie only got 15 percent, he still made about $10,000; he did so well he bought himself the largest storage shed that Home Depot had, cut a deal with a woman in South Austin to put the shed in her yard, has furnished the shed and has moved into it.

“He’s got a big wide screen TV in there,” Haddox said. “He’s got a little refrigerator, microwave, stereo system, reclining sofa. He’s living the life.”

Who says the American Dream is no longer obtainable?

And if you really have to know, here's a link to a site that shows last year's magnets. This is a family-oriented blog, so I'm not going to put the picture here. I have some dignity.

A New Hymnal?

Keith Brenton posted an article last week in which he suggested that some of our great old hymns just don't connect with the children of this century, especially those with insistent themes of dedication, self-sacrifice, and so forth. He suggested that some of those grand classic hymns should be updated - if not with more contemporary language - at least with a more realistic outlook. And he went on to list a few:

• Living By Fate
  
• Take My Life and Let it Alone
  
• I Need Thee Every Week
• Joyful, Joyful We Ignore Thee
• O Master, Let Me Balk With Thee
• We'll Wait 'Til Jesus Comes

and

• Come Let Us Worship and Sit Down

It's an incomplete list, however, and I and others added these new old favorites:

• I Sit, I Sit, in Awe of You
• Two-and-a-half Percent to Jesus, I Surrender
• Have My Own Way
• I Am Mine, Oh Lord
• Master the Market is Raging

Maybe you have a favorite new old hymn.

Sand and Sea

Just made another trip to Port Aransas. I don't know how many that makes - a dozen perhaps? I'm pretty sure I've been there that many times and Barbara has made the trip several times without me. It used to be an end-of-school ritual for her. School was out for the summer and she headed to the coast to decompress.

And that's still our routine - decompression - though honestly it's getting harder to achieve decompression when there's no pressure to begin with. Still, we love the weekends at the coast.

Not that we do much. It's mostly about walking on the beach, sitting on the balcony overlooking the Gulf - watching the big ships come and go and the waves come and go and the other beach walkers come and go. It's about staying up late reading and getting up late and drinking coffee on the balcony, walking on the beach some more, and then doing it all over again.

Oh, and did I mention seafood? Castaways the first night we are there, and then Virginia's on the Bay once or twice and Trout Street Grill. We ran into Bonna and Ken at Trout Street one trip! Go figure! Great seafood.

For the last several years we have been staying at a high-rise condo right on the beach. Take the elevator down (hard life) and walk across the street to the beach. Usually we stay in the efficiency apartments, but this trip we went for a 1-bed room apartment, since Barbara and I tend to have different going to bed times (and getting up times). It worked out probably too well; I can't see us wanting to go back to the 1-room efficiency. But if we really wanted to economize, we could just camp on the beach. Hmmm. No, I don't think so. No place to plug in the coffee pot.

Make a Sailor Blush

From time to time I read a blog in which the author will sometimes write, "Okay, Mom and Dad. Here's where you need to stop reading" and then will go on to say something that is usually pretty hair-curling.

Yesterday I was reading for the Blind, and the particular book was a Social Studies text which included a chapter on a therapy program being conducted in a prison. The participants were inmates incarcerated for violent crimes and the program's intent was to get these bad actors to start "thinking right" about themselves and their actions. All was going well, reading wise, until we got to a lengthy section of the actual dialogs between the prisoners and the facilitators of the therapy sessions. Talk about curling your hair! The sessions were usually very heated, with a lot of confrontation and the language used would, in the vernacular, make a sailor blush!

I found myself very uncomfortable when confronted with these words. Not only was I expected to record them for posterity (uttered with the proper emphasis), I had two directors - both young women - diligently listening to every word I said at that moment. I am not prone to blushing, but it certainly felt a lot warmer in that recording booth. If I did blush, no one saw it. My directors kept their eyes glued to the text.

It's not that I haven't seen or heard these words before (and here's where I say, "Okay, kids, you need to stop reading now.") and I even admit that I have even uttered some of these words at times that I'm not proud of. But my, oh my! This was something else altogether!

I got through it. My directors and I avoided eye contact after the session was over, but I couldn't help but wonder what they were thinking. I hope they were as uncomfortable as I was.

I think I'm going to start asking for Math books, or Geography texts from now on. Nursery Rhymes, anyone?

Serve Out

Yes, it has been a while hasn't it? Some weeks are like that. So here are some odds and ends that have accumulated and I have no other place for them.

The wastewater project is complete! No longer are we wakened by the BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! of backwards moving construction equipment. No more dump trucks are rumbling up and down the street. No more creative ways needed to get in and out of the subdivision because they have the streets blocked off. They even replaced my grass and came and watered it daily for weeks! Now all we have to do is wait for that letter from the City that says it's time to dig up your yard and your flower beds, and oh by the way - you get to pay for this part.

Made a trip to Lubbock. It didn't get any closer since the last time we made the trip, but it has its redeeming features. Things of note on the way - great cotton crop this year and there are hundreds of new wind turbines between Roscoe and Snyder. Things of note while there - Barbara was reading a book to Grace and there was a picture of Santa Claus. Grace looked at the book, then looked at me; looked back at the book and then pointed at me. Ho, Ho, Ho!

Note to self: when one's wife calls the day before she is to teach a Bible class that she has been working on for days and says that her computer won't boot, show a lot of concern. Especially, do not use phrases like, "How do I know what's wrong?" or "What do you want me to do about it?"

Another note to self: Be sure there is a back-up plan in place for your wife's new computer.

And finally, is it supposed to be 90 degrees in mid November?

Was it a slip?

During a recent recording session for RFTB&D, while reading a Government text...

ME: "... a characteristic most noted since President George W. Bush has occupied the Evil Office. In the later part..."

DIRECTOR: "Uh, Bob. That should be Oval office."

ME: "What did I say?"

DIRECTOR: "You said 'Evil Office." It should be Oval office. We are not allowed to editorialize. I'll back up."

ME. "Please."