Monday Meanderings - 3,27.2017

Gotta be honest with you. It was  far too nice out on the patio this past week to spend much time indoors, cogitating on the blog. This is going to be short.

I  overheard a fragment of a conversation the other day as I was leaving the studio. One of the staff said to one of the volunteers, "I saw a beautiful Golden Retriever yesterday and I thought about you. Our church has comfort dogs..."

Comfort dogs? I understand the concept - many nursing homes and care facilities utilize comfort dogs - but I had never thought about them at a church. I attended a service at a church once that had rocking chairs strategically placed throughout the auditorium; what a great idea for moms with babes. But comfort dogs? Why not comfort bunnies? Or comfort kitties? Well, maybe not cats; too fickle.

Definitely going to have to follow up with the staff member about this.

So excited to hear that the Austin Metro area is now officially at 2 million people and counting. That's especially good news when one is out and about on the streets and roadways.

I gave up on my music playlist labeled "100 Best Rock Songs." It's now labeled "200 Best..." I never could get it below about 130 titles, and with Chuck Berry's passing it was only fitting and proper that I add his hits to the list - at least for a while. However, this way, I have some room to grow.

Okay, coffee is ready. I'm headed back out. Have a good week!

The Case of the Missing Millionaire - Stories for my Grandchildren

I was looking through some old high school pictures and came across this group shot of the Yearbook staff.

The guy standing at the back on the left is Burke Musgrove, a close friend and popular student, but we gave him a lot of grief because he was small. Really, really small (he shopped in the Boy's Department well into High School). Notice that he is standing while the guy next to him is sitting. Me? I'm just sprawling, obviously.

Small as he was, after graduation Burke enrolled here at the University of Texas and became a BMOC. No, really! He was named "Outstanding Student of the Year" at UT, received the Pershing Award as top Army ROTC student and served as assistant director of Boy's State (Burke and I attended Boy's State together our Jr. year). A few years later, Burke was elected to two terms as Texas State Representative for the 22nd District. So he was the real deal.

Burke tragically died in an auto accident in 1992, and after finding the picture, I was searching online for his obit and for information about his death, when I came across several references to Burke in, interestingly enough, a lengthy Saturday Evening Post article published in December, 1966, entitled "The Case of the Missing Millionaire." What's more, much of the story takes place in Breckenridge, my home town, and references a number of people I knew and places I have been.

It's an 8-page article, and really quite bizarre; if you are interested, here's a link to a PDF of the whole thing. Meanwhile, I'm going to try to make a long story short.

It seems that a really bad woman named Pearl Choate, ostensibly a nurse and caretaker, took advantage of a very wealthy elderly couple in Los Angeles while working as their care provider, and began to systematically transfer all of their wealth to herself.

When friends and acquaintances of the pair became concerned about what was going on, Pearl bundled up the couple, Estelle and Otis Birch, and spirited them away - first to Mexico, then to Midland Texas, then to Breckenridge, where she had family. [It dawned on me at that point that I knew some of the Choate family in Breckenridge.]

Shortly after Pearl and the Birches got to my hometown, Estelle, who had advanced cancer, passed away. There was a brief funeral at Melton Funeral Home, conducted by the "minister of the Walker Street Church of Christ" [uh, that would be Jim Cox] and her body was promptly shipped back to LA by Melton's.

An investigative reporter, James Phelan, got wind of all this, and tracked Pearl and the now-single Otis Birch to Breckenridge and notified various interested parties along the way. When he got there, after checking in to the Ridge Motel [about his only choice] he met with Virgil Moore, editor of the Breckenridge American [remember all those "carrier of the year awards I got?] trying to get some information about the death of Estelle, and what might be going on.

He then met with Ben Dean, Jr., an attorney [and husband of the director of the Boy's Choir, of which I was a member until my voice changed] who had been hired by a group in California after Phelan told them where Choate and Birch were. Choate had tried to hire Ben earlier, but he wisely passed.

Ben got Chase Booth, the Sheriff, involved [note that I had no acquaintance with this sheriff, but I can tell you about the one in Albany], and someone finally got around to investigating Pearl Choate's background, and found that she was indeed, a very bad person, having served time in Huntsville for murdering a man! When Phelan and Choate's current lawyer tried to meet with her and talk to Mr. Birch, she threatened them with a butcher knife and chased them off!

Somehow, Burke Musgrove, at the time State Representative of the 22nd Congressional District, ended up involved in all this, and he promptly called in two units of the Texas Rangers and sent Chase Booth out to bring Pearl in. When she arrived in custody, there was a kerfuffle and Pearl somehow managed to kick Burke in the leg. Twice!

Pearl Choate was a big woman. She was 6 feet tall and weighed 200 pounds (she carried frail Otis Birch around like a doll). Did I mention that Burke was, uh, small for his size? My guess is that Pearl drop-kicked Burke across the street.

There's more. Much more. At the conclusion of the article, it appeared Pearl won - she hauled Otis to Oklahoma, got a marriage license using 2 newly-acquired fishing licenses as proof of age(!!) and got a minister named Joe Laird [yes, of the CofC] to come out to her car and marry them. Never mind Pearl had 6 previous husbands and some appeared to still be wed to her at that time. She had a license, and she and Otis rode off into the sunset (or sneaked out in the dead of night to Wichita Falls, I learned later.)

And that's how my good friend Burke Musgrove ended up in the Saturday Evening Post.

Monday Meanderings - 3.20.2017

Finally, an update on the missing cat that I mentioned last week. If you recall, the homeowner could hear the cat, but couldn't find it and after a week or so, turned to social media for help. A hundred or so people posted advise and questions, and as time passed, they began to plead for news of the missing cat - but there was no news until Saturday, 17 days later, when the owner sheepishly admitted that the cat was outside all the time, meowing at the window, and all is well.

This does bring to mind a comment that Luke, our minister, made on Sunday. "I have a lot of questions for God. Like, "What's up with cats?"

While on the subject of Sunday, in Bible Class yesterday the teacher introduced a study of the book of Exodus and asked "Can anyone tell me when the Exodus occurred? and some one said, "Right after Trump was elected."

I saw an article this week about a 70-year-old Missouri runner named Chau Smith who has competed in approximately 70 races and decided she wanted to run a marathon on every continent - in the same week! So she did. Smith ran in Perth, Australia, Cairo, Amsterdam, Singapore, New York, Chile and King George Island, Antarctica in January. She’d wake up, run the marathon, then board a plane to the next location.

This inspired me, so I set out to nap in 20 different recliners in one 24-hour period. I was right on schedule until I snoozed through closing time at the Lazy-Boy store. I do think Mall Security way over-reacted when they came to let me out of the locked store.

It's not unusual to hear music while holding on the phone, but one doesn't usually hear "Amazing Grace." It made sense, however when I found myself singing "When we've been here ten-thousand years."

And here's a picture that can only be captioned, "Life will find a way."

This is on Mopac, and 127,000 cars a day pass this little palm tree. Since this is Austin, there is already a petition stating "Hands off the Palm!"

Scraps of paper II - Stories from the Family Tree

Monday Meanderings - 3.13.2017

We get daily email updates from "Nextdoor" a neighborhood news feed. Mostly the messages are about lost and found pets, but occasionally the email concerns suspicious people in the neighborhood (which means I probably need to stop walking out and about in the 'hood) or vandalism. And sometimes, there's a real gem, like this one that showed up Saturday afternoon:

 Lost cat inside home -- advice please
- from Gracywoods · 16h ago

A friend has lost her cat inside her home. It has been a week. She can hear the cat crying and then silence. She has turned her house upside down with no luck. Any advice would be appreciated.

A number of the responses were suggestions to call the fire department, or an exterminator, or even 911. And there were many predictable looking-places suggested:

If you hear the cat in multiple places / directions it might have got into your AC vent.
 - in the attic or on the roof. 
- small spaces behind fire places or under floor boards
...behind the stove and wall!
 - could be in the walls
- any kind of construction or repairs done?
 - check drawers in the kitchen and bathroom, especially those that contain towels. 
- Check the linen closet and pantry, as well.

And quite a few suggested places to look based on experience:

- had a wall repaired; cat went to sleep inside the wall, [had to] brake open the wall again. 
- found my cat in a file cabinet after a week!
-  cat carried outside in the box spring by movers
-  attic through a drop ceiling panel that had been temporarily removed. 
- check recliner if you have one. Got under while open and went to sleep.

And some not-so-common experiences and suggestions:

-  finally found the cat inside the waterbed we had just put together and filled with water. We drained it, took it apart, and got her out.   (Alive, I hope)
- found mine in my refrigerator! Good thing I hadn't left the house!
- One of our small dogs could come in to hunt down the cat.

And the possible solution -
- friend says her ex is over there now with a thermal camera. Fingers crossed!

Banner week here! Used up the Thanksgiving paper napkins and put away the basket of Christmas cards sitting on the hearth. Up-to-date here in River City.

And speaking of River City. It's SXSW time again, and there's a video of a TXDOT traffic sign making the rounds. I can't get the video to work, but the sign says, in succession:

WELCOME TO AUSTIN

LOOP 1 DOESN'T LOOP

LOOP 360 DOESN'T LOOP

FM 2222 HAS 4 NAMES

YOU'RE WELCOME

Scraps of paper I - Stories from the Family Tree

I have a file drawer full of scraps of paper, an accumulation of pages, notes, cards, and letters; bits and pieces that have been collected over the years. Most came from my mother during her decades of patient genealogical research; Barb added many more items as she began the quest of documenting her family tree, and I contributed many more items before research became primarily on-line and computer captured.

These scraps of paper have birth dates, and children's names, letters from Aunt Maude about Uncle Henry's bursitis and other family lore written on them, and as I have often pointed out, this is what makes the difference between "just the facts" and the stories from the Tree.

One of these scraps of paper states that "One of the members of the Black family (Barb's line) named his children Jet, Coal, Right and Very." Seriously? Jet Black? Coal Black? Right Black? Very Black? Lacking evidence, I was pretty sure that this was an urban (family) legend. Oh, sure, there was Samuel Cole Black, a great uncle, but he went by Sam, so one really shouldn't count him.

And then, following a lead from yet another scrap of paper, last week I found them. Well, sort of.

Barb's second great grandfather, William Homer Black had 2 wives and 14 children - 7 boys and 7 girls. One of those boys - John Russell Black - was the one with the sense of humor (or maybe it was his wife, Mary Jane Perkins) and they ended up naming 4 of their 8 children Jettie, Coal, Right and Very.

OK, Jettie Nora is not quite the same as "Jet," but you know, just know that "Jet" was her nickname.  She married a man named William Pink Lawson, and is there any doubt what his nickname was? From all indications, "Jet" and "Pinky" had no oddly named children, living quiet lives in Lamb County Texas for more than 50 years.

And I'm totally speculating that Charlie C. Black's middle initial stands for Coal. He has a brother named Erastus C. Black, but I found a death certificate that states in his case the "C" stands for Columbus (actually. the certificate says "Cloumbus, but we will go with the more common spelling). And I'm not going to comment further about "Rastus" Black.

So the C. might stand for Cole - as mentioned, Russell had a brother with the middle name of Cole - or the C. in this instance might have been written "Coal" what with the inventive spelling and all of that era. And Charlie "Coal" begins the string of somewhat unusual names. His little brother is named Joe Wright. "Right," get it?

Okay, I'm reaching here, I admit, but I think Russell and Mary Jane were just getting warmed up, because their last child was really and truly named "Very" Black. No middle initials, no variant spelling. Just VERY. And here's the proof.

Very is buried, along with his wife Ollie (!) in the Littlefield Cemetery in Lamb County Texas, and the family legend has in fact, an element of truth.

I love this stuff!

Monday Meanderings - 3.6.2017

It's going to be a great wildflower season in the Hill Country and thereabout. Thinking at this point that another day trip is on the agenda. Here's "The Perfect Texas Hill Country Wildflower Day Trip" suggestion.

There's a lot of furor over "false news" these days. Turns out that I'm guilty of spreading it. A few posts back I expressed my horror over an impending bacon shortage. Turns out there was no basis in fact for this story. It seems that hogs are just dying to provide all the bacon we want, and that's a lot. So, no more fake news for me. Say, did you hear that biscuits and gravy are good for you?

And while we are on the subject of death and dying (it is Monday, after all), another item making the rounds on the Inter Webby thingy is the obituary of the man from Galveston, whose family prepared a rather brutal obit, beginning:

"Leslie Ray 'Popeye' Charping was born in Galveston on November 20, 1942 and passed away January 30, 2017, which was 29 years longer than expected and much longer than he deserved."

It goes on at length to describe a life poorly lived, as described by an alienated family. So I just wanted to point out to my family that there's no need for them to go to the trouble of writing my obit, as I have already written a glowing laudatory complimentary somewhat honest tribute and filed it with the local newspaper. Just saying.

As a side note, I was astounded to discover, early in my broadcasting career, that most news services, do, in fact, prepare and constantly update obituaries and backgrounds of important people and hold them in readiness. So I knew they would be happy to have good, reliable information from me. 

On a brighter note, check out this obit about Collin County pioneer Gus Wilson from Traces of Texas, if you haven't already seen it.

By the way, for you lexophiles, "...a will is a dead giveaway."