Monday Meanderings - 12.31.2012

The Mayans notwithstanding, we have reached the conclusion of 2012. All told, it wasn't too bad a year - some setbacks, some new aches and pains, but any year-end reached is a good year-end. As is our custom, we plan to ring in the new year with some outrageous, over-the-top partying. lasting till New Years, or bedtime, whichever comes first.

Last day of the year also brings a birthday for Barb; her dad was super excited for a last-second tax deduction. This also means that Barb is officially older than me, for six months. I get a lot of mileage out of joking that I married an older woman. She is not amused, if you were wondering.

I ordered an Apple product as a birthday gift for Barb. The shipping notification said it would arrive about 10:30am on Wednesday. I tracked it from Shanghai China to Anchorage Alaska to Newark New Jersey to Memphis Tennessee to Austin Texas and it arrived...

Christmas week was a fun time with a couple of Santa believers at our house this year. Well, one believer for sure; the older of the two may only have been going along for the fun of it.

With a bowl win, the Longhorns ended up with a semi-adequate season. The Cowboys, as always, ended up like.... well, like the Cowboys. Really need to find another team to root for.

I pray the new year brings you many blessings.

Two house moving stories

Once upon a time houses in this part of the world were not built on concrete slabs. They were built with the floor up off the ground and there was usually a crawl space beneath them - a wonderful place to meet up with skunks and snakes and other undesirables when for some reason it was necessary to work on plumbing or something.

Building houses this way allowed them some degree of mobility; you ran a couple of long steel beams under the crawl space, jacked them up until you could attach wheels and haul 'em down the road to the new homestead. If the house had to come through town, it added to the excitement. Some agile person had to sit up on the roof and guide phone cables and electrical lines over the roof as the house eased under them. Sometimes they were successful and sometimes they were not. The only time I can remember my father angry - really, really angry - was one night when he was called out to deal with a house mover that had snagged a phone cable and pulled it loose.

My first story dates back to the days when it was more common to move houses, and I found the story in the book Twelve Mighty Orphans, by Jim Dent. I'll post about the book another time, but in short it is about high school football in Texas. and it contains this mention of football in Breckenridge, my home town, in a section that deals with the fact that promising ball players were often "recruited" with financial incentives to the family. I previously wrote about this here.

"A famous story that still makes the rounds in West Texas involves the father of two football-playing sons in the 1920s that refused at any dollar amount to move his family into Breckenridge. The man worked as a math teacher at a country school and enjoyed the lifestyle there. When the Breckenridge money people knocked on his door, he sent them away.

But Breckenridge fans were not the kind to take “no” for an answer. Furthermore, they had had a plan. They would wait for the math teacher to take his family on their annual summer driving vacation. While the family was out of town, the boosters uprooted the house and moved it into their school district. They also left this note on the door: “We moved your house. You can move it back. But you will have to pay for it.”

The family stayed in Breckenridge and, as the story goes, the two boys became All State players for the Buckaroos."

The second story is more contemporary.  An Austin man wanted to demolish an old house built in the early 1930s, situated in the Ridgetop area, but neighbors and the Historic Landmark commission were opposed, wanting instead to preserve it. To thwart them, the owner had the house moved to Lockhart, literally under the cover of darkness. Only problem is, it appears that the owner never paid the house mover, and last week the neighbors awoke to find the house moved back to its original location, again under cover of darkness,  but now spray-painted with messages that said "PAY UR BILLS, DEADBEAT" and "UR HISTORIC HOUSE IS NOT MY PROBLEM."

Mary, did you know?

Over the years we have collected a variety of creches - nativity scenes, if you will. There's a set rendered as corn husk dolls that we found in the Czech Republic, others are more traditional. One of our favorites is a group of clay figures from Peru. All the characters are dressed as indigenous people of that country; instead of the traditional donkey there is a llama. That's the set we have on display now.

Mary and Joseph, or perhaps I should say Maria and José, are simple figures. She is wearing the traditional felt "bowler" hat, the sign of a married woman. He wears the alpaca ear flap cap, typical for the men of that country. They look like the peasant folk that we saw in the rural areas of Peru - more Inca than Spanish - people that live close to the earth.

The original Mary and Joseph were probably "peasant" folk in the region of Galilee. We know Joseph was a carpenter, but there's some debate as to whether that set him apart from others or established him as one of the working poor. We know that they offered up the bare minimum at the temple - turtle doves - the offering of the poor. Christmas cards and decorations often show soon-to-deliver Mary riding a donkey led by Joseph as they travel to Bethlehem. Truth be told, they probably both walked on that week-long trip.

It is almost certain that Mary was a teenager when she gave birth, but apart from a cousin, we know nothing about her family, her upbringing, her education, her social status. There are legends and apocryphal stories, but the Biblical record gives us little.

Maria and José, kneeling in our creche, have the look of children. Tradition says she was fourteen. What must she have thought when Gabriel stalked into her house? What anguish she must have felt before the angel visited Joseph. What a terrifying experience to give birth, far from home, without any family helping her. What thoughts went through her mind in that simple setting?

Mary, did you know that your baby boy would some day walk on water?
Mary, did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you've delivered, will soon deliver you.

Mary, did you know that your baby boy would give sight to a blind man?
Mary, did you know that your baby boy would calm a storm with his hand?
Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
And when your kiss your little baby, you have kissed the face of God.

Mary, did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary, did you know that your baby boy would one day rule the nations?
Did you know that your baby boy is heaven's perfect Lamb?
This sleeping child you're holding is the great I am?

Oh Mary, did you know?

 - Clay Aiken

What do you call that...

Ever play the "What do you call that thing that..." game? Obscure names of things interest me - I think I inherited the curiosity. I have a long-standing memory from my childhood  of such a question being asked by my father of others of his generation (and older). The question was, "What did they call that heavy object that was attached by rope to the buggy horse and dropped on the ground when one temporarily got out of the buggy?" Horse-carriage weight was too prosaic an answer; one name often mentioned, as I recall, was "a frog." Just in case you didn't know.

You don't have to be an academic logophile to be interested in words and the names of obscure and arcane things. For instance, what is the name of the small plastic table-like device that comes in the pizza box? In the 1983 patent application it was called a box tent. Most people in the business today call it a pizza saver.

Most are familiar with the phrase déjà vu, which is French for already seen. But if you stare at a word so long it starts to become unfamiliar to you, did you know that that is called jamais vu - never seen? Or that paresthesia is that tingling sensation when your foot falls asleep?

How about the string of typographical symbols comic strips use to indicate profanity, such as  (“$%@!”)? Did you know that is called a grawlix? American cartoonist Mort Walker (think Beetle Bailey) named it so about 1964.

 

The small, triangular pink bump on the inside corner of each eye is called the caruncula. It contains sweat and oil glands that produce rheum, also known as “eye crispies,” “sleep,” and “tear rocks.” Rheum, of course is the source of the term rheumy-eyed, long a description of drunken or inebriated individuals.

Another word for playful banter is badinage.

A gathering of rattlesnakes is called a rhumba.

To waste time by being lazy is to dringle.

 

The the wire cage that keeps the cork in a bottle of champagne is called an agraffe. Now you can impress all your classy friends on New Year's Eve.

A single slice of bacon is a rasher.

The web between your thumb and forefinger is called the purlicue (pronounced just like “curlicue”). Acupuncturists say pinching it will make headaches go away.

And what do you call the @ symbol? Amazingly, there is no official name, though it is universally called the at sign. It dates from the days of Monk copyists and in the Netherlands it is called the "monkey's tail;" the Danes call it the "elephant's trunk" and the Norwegians call it the "pig's tail."

Got any obscure items that need a name? Let's do some research.

Distant relatives - Stories for my grandchildren

 I inherited from my mother a rather substantial genealogical record of our family - five 3" binders full of family record sheets, detailing  thousands of  relatives. Over the years, I have migrated all that information to a computerized database, adding names here and there. The current count is 6,881 people, representing 2,408 families, who lived in 1,331 different places - quite the family tree. It is all the more remarkable that the bulk of the collection was done with pen and paper, prior to the Internet and the advent of Ancestor.com.

My mother's ancestors came from England and Ireland; there are a million Boyds and McClurkins, and just as many Halls and Brambletts. My father's line is descended from Germans and Scots, and perhaps a few Scandinavians; there is not as much research of that branch.

And buried in the records are fascinating stories of life and death - like Thomas Starnes, my father's great-grandfather, who was scheduled to testify in a trial but was found hanged in his barn the night before, or the Bramblett ancestor who was shot over an escaped hog that marauded his neighbors garden.

And there are even some celebrities hidden in the branches. Like Charles Arthur Floyd. If you don't recognize that name, Google "Pretty Boy Floyd" to learn about my 5th cousin, once removed. But the relative that has come to my attention recently is Al Stricklin, a 3rd cousin on my mother's side, once removed. If you are a grandchild, these men are your cousins too, but 3 times removed (and no, I don't understand the seconds and thirds and the removals, but my genealogy program does).

Alton Stricklin was born January 29, 1908 in Grandview, Johnson County, Texas, son of Zebedee Meeks Stricklin and Annie Lee Benton. He died October 15, 1986 in Cleburne, Johnson County Texas, just a few miles away from his birthplace. There is a note in my mother's handwriting attached to the record: it says, "Al Stricklin played piano with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, and was a professional musician for more than 50 years." There's a whole lot more to the story. In fact, I found that Al and I had a similar experience while in college. Here's a story from the Texas State Historical Association web site:

The "first commercial group" Stricklin played with was called the Rio Grande Serenaders. It was a standard Dixieland band with trumpet, trombone, clarinet, drums, banjo, and Al playing piano. After he graduated from Grandview High School in 1927, Stricklin spent two years at Weatherford Junior College near Fort Worth. In Weatherford he played with both the Rio Grande Serenaders and another jazz band called the Texans. After two years at the junior college he entered Baylor University, not to study music, but to major in history. [Needing] money to pay expenses at Baylor he began playing in a jazz band called the Unholy Three. When Samuel P. Brooks learned the Unholy Three had played for dancing at the Knights of Columbus Hall, "he suspended the band from the university." Dean W. Sims Allen interceded for them, and "Dr. Brooks let us back in," Stricklin remarked.

In 1930 Al Stricklin was the assistant program director at radio station KFJZ in Fort Worth. A frightened secretary cried out one morning: "Mr. Stricklin, will you please come in here a moment." He rushed into the reception room and saw "three guys standing there, and they were hungry looking, and they needed a shave. One of them had something in a flour sack; the other one had a guitar strapped across his back, hanging over his back like he was carrying a rifle or something." Stricklin was almost as startled as the secretary. "It was Mr. Bob Wills," he said, "with his fiddle in a flour sack." Wills asked Stricklin for an audition. Wills and his band then performed on KFJZ. "They called two days later from the post office and said there was so much mail for the station one man couldn't carry it, better bring a pickup or something." Stricklin had given Wills a break, and when the management of the Aladdin Lamp Company learned of the success of the Wills Fiddle Band on KFJZ, the firm sponsored the band under the name Aladdin Laddies over WBAP, a much more powerful station.* 

Stricklin went on to play piano with Bob Wills from 1935 until 1941 when the band broke up because of the WWII. After Wills died in the early '70's, Stricklin and other band members reunited as "The Bob Wills Original Texas Playboys" named the band of the year by the Country Music Association. Other honors received were Instrumental Group of the Year in 1977 by the Country Music Association and Touring Band of the Year, 1978, by the Academy of Country Music. Stricklin is in the Country Music Hall of Fame. After his death,  he was inducted into the Texas Western Swing Hall of Fame in 1990 and in 1999 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, honored as an early influence of the genre.

Interestingly, my sister says that my mother was somewhat embarrassed about her cousin, the piano player in a Western swing band. I wonder what she thought about Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd?

*Charles R. Townsend, "STRICKLIN, ALTON MEEKS," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fstbx),  Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

Monday Meanderings - 12.17.2012

Here's an update on how Uncle Bob's Sweet Potato and Pecan Pie fared at the Cousin's Christmas. I guess it was okay.

 Status report on IH35: the good news is that for the first time in many, many years there is no highway construction in the Hillsboro area. The bad news is that everything between Belton and Waco is under construction. TxDot is weird. The speed limit between the split and Burleson is 65mph on a smooth, straight divided highway. The speed limit on the construction area, squeezed between concrete dividers on a twisty, bumpy road is 70mph! And it is not encouraging to see lighted sign boards every 20 miles or so telling how long it will take to get to the next town or crossroad.

And on the subject of driving, it's a great relief to be paying less than $3.00 for gas these days, even if I am in the oil bidness and lower prices at the pump means less royalty income.

We are remodeling the pulpit area at our church, and as a result the baptistry is unavailable. So, to accommodate those wanting to be baptized, we added this temporary fount.

You may notice that only skinny people get to be saved, according to this accommodation. It's less apparent, but the folks that set this up put it right next to a floor box full of electrical circuits. This way, those wanting to go to heaven can be assured of a very fast trip, with no chance of backsliding. All it takes is one little slosh.

I've been wearing the Santa hat some this past week. Someone asked me if Barb acted the role of Mrs. Santa when I adopt that persona. I told them that they didn't know my wife well, did they? She supports me in many ways, but I'm on my own with the Santa thing.

It's good to have all the Christmas decorations up. Barb got everything set up on Friday. What do you think?

 

Festive, don't you think?

Never underestimate the power of a sweet potato pie

That's an oft-repeated mantra on Duck Dynasty. Miss Kay's sweet potato pie will make a grown man skip a good day of hunting to stay home and help his mamma. But alas, while you can find Miss Kay's recipe for banana pudding, jambalaya and quick biscuits on the Internet, you cannot find her sweet potato pie recipe.

Actually, I have been on a recipe quest ever since we sampled a slice of Pappadeoux's sweet potato and pecan pie with brandy sauce topping. The fact that Jase raves about his Mamma's pie just confirms that it is a worthwhile quest. And you can find many variations of the Pappadeoux recipe on the Internet. Too many. Most are too complicated, or too exotic. I'm looking for a basic, easy-to-make pie.

My first effort involved a pie that featured heavy cream and real maple syrup. It produced a good filling, but I was disappointed in the pecan topping. So I tried the simplest "Pappadeaux" pie I could find. Great pecan topping, but a so-so filling. You know where I'm going with this don't you? The only problem is that testing recipes produces pies. And pies must be eaten to properly assess the qualities and attributes of each of them. I really better find the perfect recipe soon while I can still fit in my Santa suit!

Let me just say that I'm serving Uncle Bob's best sweet potato and pecan pie at the Cousin's Christmas tomorrow. Show up if you want a slice.

The Sport That God Loves The Most

Stephen Pepper via Jon Acuff:
 
When you’re a sports fan, you’ll often find yourself praying that your team does well–even if you’re not a person of faith. Sometimes God doesn’t answer. Hockey fans, it’s not because He doesn’t like your team. It’s because He doesn’t like your sport and ignores all your prayers, no matter which team you support.

As for other sports, which one does God love the most? I think it’s quite clear that the answer is soccer. Here are the 7 reasons why:

1) The left and right side of the pitch are called wings. Two wings in every game? It’s positively angelic.

2) Historically, the best footballing nation has been Brazil. You know what else Brazil has? A giant statue of Jesus. If you want your sport (and your team) to be blessed, statues speak louder than words.

3) When you’re attacking the opponent’s goal, a pass into the box is called a cross. And I think we all know how important a cross is.

4) Soccer is often known as the global game, as the popularity of the sport has reached Judea, Samaria and the ends of the Earth. There’s even a tournament every 4 years called the World Cup. Baseball, on the other hand, only has a World Series by virtue of one Canadian team playing in the Major Leagues.

5) One of the most famous songs in sport is “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” sung by fans of Liverpool before every game. You know who’ll never let you walk alone?  Jesus. The song’s the sporting equivalent of “Footprints In The Sand.”

6) Something you may not know is that God made the Earth in a soccer ball’s image. After all, it’s not like our planet is shaped like a football (although it would have made North Pole to South Pole expeditions much faster).

7) There are 11 players on a soccer team. Jesus had 11 people on his team. Judas doesn’t count as he got himself a red card.

So these are the 7 reasons God loves soccer the best, with 7 clearly being the number of completion. I’m sure some of you will disagree, but I'm sorry, you simply cannot make a case that Frisbee is a sport.

Monday Meanderings - 12.10.2012

Had a service technician come and check out our noisy refrigerator. He was a friendly sort of guy and I learned... That he grew up in Brownsville and lived 4 houses from the back fence of the Gladys Porter Zoo... He and his friends howled back at the howler monkeys... Where he worked before starting his own company... That he had been doing appliance repair for 38 years... That he was 50 years old and last year weighed 340 pounds... That he has had 2 heart attacks and his last medical checkup was last Thursday... That he was working in a house when an airplane crashed into the back yard... That he attended classes in San Antonio to get his A/C certification... And that my compressor was going out and he doesn't replace compressors anymore.

A touch of bursitis in the hip sent me back to physical therapy; it was somewhat beneficial but I had to give it up. I was never able to convince the therapists that getting down on the floor to do all these stretching exercises was creating more muscle aches than they were curing!

Went to the new DMV superstore with Barb to get her driver's license renewed. The days of waiting several hours to get served by surly clerks seems to be over; this place is set up to handle a really big crowd efficiently. We walked in the door and got rushed by several folks wanting to offer help and lead us through the process. Cool!

Watched the Army/Navy game on Saturday. Couldn't help but wonder why the Army didn't wear camouflage uniforms; might have helped them.

With the cooler weather we added a blanket to the bed coverings - a nice wintery motif, as you can see:

But if you look closely you might notice that one of the little snowmen has antennae; feathery little things:

But the really odd thing is this little dude, a penguin, I suppose, with his hat pulled over his head. Plotting a stick-up, perhaps. And what's with the dirty snow?

I mentioned last week that Fran, the owner, was busing tables at our favorite breakfast place. This week, there were several additional employees at work when we stopped in. Our waitress confirmed that Fran decided that they were understaffed at this location.

Happiness is a new shopping cart - at Walmart! Yes, I am doing the dance of shopping joy.

Advice for the elderly

Q:  Where can men over the age of 60 find younger women who are interested  in them?
A:  Try a bookstore under fiction.

Q:  What can a man do while his wife is going through menopause?
A:  Keep busy. If you 're handy with  tools, you can finish the basement.  When you 're done you 'll have a  place to live.
   
Q:  How can you increase the heart rate of your 60-plus year-old husband?
 A:  Tell him you 're pregnant.

Q:  How can you avoid that  terrible curse of the elderly wrinkles?
A:  Take off your glasses.
 
Q:  Why should 60-plus year-old people use valet parking?
A:  Valets don 't forget where they  park your car.

Q:  Is it common for folks over 60 to have problems with  short term memory storage?
 A:  Storing memory is not a problem, Retrieving it is the problem.

Q:  As people age, do they sleep more soundly?
A:  Yes, but usually in the afternoon.

Q:  Where should 60-plus year-olds look for eye glasses? 
A:  On their foreheads.

Q:  Leading cause of diminished sex drive among senior citizens ?
A:  Nudity

Q:  What is the most common remark made by those over 60 when they enter antique stores?
A:  "Gosh, I remember these!"

Q: Why are retirees so slow to clean out the basement, attic or garage?
A: They know that as soon as they do, one of their adult kids will want to store stuff there.

Q: What do retirees call a long lunch?  

A: Normal.

Q: Among retirees, what is considered formal attire?
A: Tied shoes.  

Pacific Coast Highway

I mentioned last week that Barb and I drove down the Pacific Coast Highway, also known as California State Route 1, or simply "The One" Thanksgiving week. The highway hugs the California coastline from near the northern border of the state all the way south to Interstate 5 in Orange County, a distance of some 655 miles. We picked it up at Santa Cruz and enjoyed about 150 miles of coastal vistas through Monterey, Carmel, the Big Sur and San Simeon before turning east toward the Central Valley just beyond the little community of Cambria. It was a return visit - we had been on a portion of the highway last year at Christmas and felt the need to make that drive again.

The vistas are simply stunning, and the highway deserves to be labeled by National Geographic as a "Drive of a Lifetime." You may recognize the Bixby Creek Bridge as one of the most photographed vistas in America.

At the mid-point of the Central Coast, San Simeon is the nearest community to the Hearst Castle. We had reservations at a nice beach-front lodging facility there; our plan was to spend the night, do some Castle touring the next morning and then head toward Fresno. However, when we got to San Simeon, there were about three buildings and a State Park. No sign of beach-side lodging. I called the reservations number and said. "Okay, I'm in San Simeon sitting in a parking lot and I don't see your facility." The clerk asked, "What do you see?" I said, "An old country store." "Oh, you are at OLD San Simeon. You need to drive about 3 miles south to NEW San Simeon." Who knew?

We did storm the Castle the next morning, and the picture above is proof that in this digital age one should never trust a photograph as evidence of anything. They took the picture of Barb and me in front of a green screen down in the visitor's center. You then have your choice of photos with you superimposed in front of the Castle, the Neptune pool, in the dining room or any number of other locales. It sort of fits in with my overall impression of the Hearst Castle, "Nothing exceeds like excess!" Wandering through the Castle and the grounds, Barb kept saying, "Think how many kids at the orphanage in Peru this would feed!"

Driving eastward after leaving the Castle, Heading east, I experienced an epiphany of sorts. Some 55 years ago, James Dean was a big name movie star - the teenage idol of the day. My classmates and I saw every movie he made; a short list, because Dean died at age 24 in an automobile crash. His death simply embellished the legend.

A few miles past Paso Robles, we went through a junction where State 46 and State 41 merge - the junction where James Dean's speeding Porsche 550 Spyder collided with Donald Turnupseed's Ford coupe as Turnupseed took the left-hand fork onto highway 41 in front of Dean, the same turn that we made. From my teen years I knew that Dean died at a remote intersection in California. It wasn't until I saw the sign that I realized it was this very intersection.

Monday Meanderings - 12.03.2012

During the week I make notes of various events or ideas that I intend to comment about in the next Monday Meanderings. If you have any idea what I was going to say about "race car gift" or "sharp things" please let me know.

I have mentioned often that the official motto for my home town is "Keep Austin Weird" - an anthem that we demonstrate often and in any number of ways. It has come to my attention that other cities have mottoes as well. For example, according to the sign in Monk's Coffee, "Keep Abilene Boring" is the slogan for that city.

Went to Fran's the other morning and an older woman approached our table with a menu in hand. I wondered if we had usurped her table after she went to get a menu, but then I realized it was Fran herself. I looked up later and she was busing tables. Ah, the joys of ownership.

While on the subject of dining, I saw that back in August Newsweek magazine named the City Market in Luling as one of the 101 best places to eat in the world! Really? I'm guessing that there are several million places to eat in the world - and even with 53 tasters sent out by the magazine, they must have been very, very busy. And full. Mind you, I'm a fan of City Market; I rank it best of all the BBQ joints in Lockhart/Luling, but I'm open to the idea that there might be a better place somewhere in the world. Never stop searching. That's my mantra.

When it's 80 plus degrees outside, Roasting Chestnuts on an Open Fire is somehow not appealing, seasonally speaking. For sure, I'm not getting out the Santa hat.

And I think the heat is getting to Frosty. Or maybe it was the night on the town.