Monday Meanderings - 1.29.2018

The big news this week is that I am back behind the microphone - hard at work on my 2nd audio book. As I suspected might happen, the author of the book I recorded in December contacted me about doing another of her books. I must say, that this book is slightly better than the first. Or maybe I'm becoming enured to the genre. This book takes place in post-civil-war Nebraska - a prairie romance with a southern belle and the handsome sheriff. I just read 'em, folks. I don't write them.

The first book is selling semi-briskly. I actually received my first royalty-share check the other day. So far, I have earned about 2 cents for each hour I spent recording the book. However, as I have pointed out, it was a learning experience, and by comparison, I'm breezing through the 2nd book. Think how I'll do with the 3rd. Yes, she does have more books that need narration.

There was no pecan harvest from our tree this fall, but the Vietnamese lady must think she needs to stay in our good graces for the coming year, because she stopped by the other day and left a bag of tangerines. Satsumas, from the looks of them.

Now, if you'll excuse me I have another chapter to record.

Monday Meanderings - 1.22.2018

Recently, news concerning my Alma Mater showed up, interestingly enough, in the local Austin Statesman newspaper. The attention-grabbing headline was “Abilene Christian University vs. Hooters: Who is surprised by this?"

The article, citing a story in the Abilene Reporter News, describes the tension that currently exists between the University and its just-opened neighbor, a Hooters restaurant.

Hooters, a Florida-based chain of casual dining restaurants, proclaims that it is known for "wings and waitresses." If you have just arrived on this planet, Hooters is the preeminent example of that type of business establishment best described as a "breastaurant." Or so they tell me. I'm pretty sure that I have never patronized a Hooters restaurant. I'm old and I forget things, but I think I would remember dining there if the photo that accompanied the article is accurate. But they it may be fake.

ACU's connection to this stems from a statement issued by the University regarding employment opportunities at their new neighbors. While not actually forbidding ACU students from working at Hooters, they do strongly urge its students not to apply for a job there. The Abilene Reporter-News has reported that the university released this statement: “We have asked students to consider both what Hooters represents, and whether that is something they really want to support in terms of both their faith and the value this business model places on women."

The Reporter-News article then goes on to mention that  that students at McMurray University are free to apply to the restaurant without fear of ramifications. Those Methodists! No word yet from the Baptists at Hardin-Simmons. They are all probably still lined up at the Hooters Employment Office.

That about sums up the Reporter-News story, but the Statesman writer, Dave Thomas, seems fascinated by all the "Thou Shalt Nots" he found while poking around on the ACU web-site. Particularly the Code of Conduct in the Student Handbook. I left a link for you, if you are interested; I pretty much know it by heart. I had lots of conversations about various topics in the Code with the Dean and others during my tenure there. Purely hypothetical, of course.

About the only thing that was new to me was the section on the Internet, which wasn't around back in ought-sixteen, when I was there. That and the fact that there are now monetary fines for violations. If they had fined me, I might still be paying my college debt. I might have had to get a job at.... Oh, wait. Never mind.

Monday Meanderings - 1.15.2018

Ran into a couple of “good ol’ boys” in the Salt Lake City airport. Sometimes a seat-mate on the plane will engage you in conversation, but it’s rare for folks in the waiting area to speak up.

However, Bubba was not shy. He “hidy-ed” me the moment we sat down and began asking questions about where we were headed and where we had been and then commented that we would be home upon arrival in ATX, but he and his buddy Billy Bob, seated next to him, would have to drive on to Burton, some 70-odd miles down the road. He likes to take 290 instead of going through Bastrop.

Turns out that he and Billy Bob had been skiing at Park City, but there hadn’t been much base and Billy Bob only lasted a day, but Bubba had shredded everything in sight.

Now the interesting thing about this pair was that they were the least likely duo you could envision hitting the slopes for a week of skiing. Bubba was a classic overweight farm boy who should be much more comfortable in a beat up pickup truck than riding on a ski lift. Billy Bob was a wiry, skinny kid with a chaw in his cheek who looked like he could toss hay bales all day (but evidently couldn’t handle a pair of skis a half day).

Now by nature, I'm cordial, but not outgoing in public places, but we were bored, waiting on a change of equipment that was still an hour out, and Bubba was a puppy-dog friendly type of guy, so I went with my best "Sean of the South" impersonation and started chewing the fat with these guys.

Pretty soon I had been introduced to Bubba Sr. and looked at pictures on Sr's phone of a vintage Buick that he had rebuilt, and learned that Sr's bull-riding days and resulting metal body parts made going through security quite the hassle. There was also a Mrs Bubba Sr. and a couple of Bubbettes in the group as well, but they were not very gregarious, and didn’t join the conversation.

We talked about cotton gins (Burton is home to the Texas Cotton Gin Museum, which houses the oldest operating cotton gin in America; I told about my father firing up a cotton gin by riding the pulley belt down from the 2nd story) and trips to Hawaii (Bubba had been; I have not) and and ranches in far south Texas (Billy Bob was headed there the following morning, no doubt to toss hay bales).

By that time our new plane had arrived and we parted company like life-long friends, and I was feeling pretty stoked about holding my own in conversation with my new BFF Bubba, but Barb whispered to me as we walked down the Jet Way, “If he ends up in my row, I’m trading seats with you."

Monday Meanderings - 1.8.2018

Spent a couple of days in a million dollar house last week. Oh, the house itself was not so hot. In fact, it was pretty run down. Among other things, it could have used a good cleaning, you couldn't use the fireplace, the TV was flaky, the WiFi was even more so, the heat in the bathroom wouldn't come on, the ice maker didn't, and it sure could have benefited from more wattage, light-wise.

But you know what they say about real estate. Location. Location. Location! This house is nestled in the dunes overlooking the Pacific Ocean near Monterey Bay, California, so that's why Steve, the owner, got to pay a cool million for one-third of a smallish run down triplex. Maybe it wasn't run down when Steve bought it, but we do know he paid a mill for his share; Jason looked it up on the tax records. We, of course, paid somewhat less than a million dollars for our brief usage of the house. Somewhat.

This year we had a hybrid Christmas, with some of the kids and grands coming to see us, and then we ended up going to be with the other set of kids and grands. Some years are like that. And Barb said, "If we are going to California, I want to go to the beach!" The No-Port-A dilemma has been hard on her. I keep reminding her that it's a lot worse for the people who live (or used to live) there, but this does not seem to appease her.

So I said "You and Julie work out the details and we'll go to the coast while we're there." and that's how we ended up staying in a million dollar house on a prime California beach.

See if I ever say that again!

To be honest, the house rental was not that bad, but then there's the Cleaning fee, and the Usage fee and the Non-usage fee, and a bunch of other fees, not to mention the taxes and such. But it was worth it when she got to say, "Now this is a beach."

Monday Meanderings - 1.1.2018

Let me be among the very first to wish each of you a Happy New Year. That assumes that you were not - like I was not - among the revelers who stayed up to welcome in 2018 a few hours ago. My wish for you is that the new year far surpasses the old year in grace, peace and prosperity.

A bit of nostalgia and looking back - way back - as we get ready to face the new year, if I may.

I am a member of a Facebook group labeled "Remember In Breckenridge" and the posts are most often pictures of long-gone business establishments and now much-older people in my hometown in North central Texas. These postings invoke comments like "I remember that (cafe/service station/grocery store), but wasn't it across from (some other location)?"

A recent post was a link to a very well-done YouTube video made up of photos and recordings from a visit by the Breckenridge Boys' Choir to the White House in 1962.

I was a member of the Breckenridge Boys' Choir at its formation some 10 years earlier (long before they gained the reputation that would get them invited to the White House). Gwen Dean, an accomplished organist and choir director in Breckenridge, was familiar with the popular European concept of a chorus featuring the pure soprano of young boys whose voices had not yet changed with puberty.

Her model was the Vienna Boys' Choir that dated to the middle ages. I'm guessing that that Gwen was a woman of great vision if she held to that model while working with the likes of me and my choir mates in less-than culturally developed Breckenridge, Texas.

The "Remember In Breckenridge" YouTube clip features a montage of photos of the choir during the visit to Washington and of the performance for President and Mrs. Kennedy, as well as the welcome by the President and the entirety of the program they presented. It's a nice video, but I mostly skimmed it - this took place some 8 years after I was a member and apart from Mrs. Dean, I didn't know... Wait! Was that Richard Wood in that photo? Yes, and there's Marjorie!

I quickly checked the roster of performers, and there was Steve Wood, listed as a Tenor (by that time, the group had expanded to a more traditional choir; there was not an endless supply of pre-pubescent boys in Breckenridge, Texas).

Richard and Marjorie, and their children, Steve and Connie, were close family friends; the initial relationship was through the little church we attended and later included vacationing together in camping trips across the western portion of the United States. Connie and Steve were just a few years younger and we had a ball on those trips.

At one camp in Yellowstone, after we had wandered down to the village one evening, Steve ran ahead of us, playfully shouting, "There's a bear in our camp!" Moments later he came zooming back, screaming, "There IS A BEAR in our camp!" Mr. Bear made off with only some lunch meat when Pops and Richard shooed him away. I think Steve and I were up a tree at that point.

Great memories of good friends.