Monday Meanderings - 10.17.2016

So much for Fall. Back in the 90's at present. Sort of confusing. Just a few short mornings ago, I needed the snuggly to be comfortable. Now the A/C is running by the time I get out of bed.

The little Vietnamese lady is back, combing the yard for pecans. Slim pickings this year, so she is welcome to gather what she can find. Her English has not improved much, but she has mastered "Thank You." That goes a long way in today's society.

I had a brief hospital stay a couple of weeks ago and ended up in a room that can only be described as a suite. In addition to the normal hospital-type room, there was an adjoining room with a sleeper sofa, table, TV and chairs. Here, I'll show you.

When I inquired about the room, a nurse told me this was "The Lady Bird Johnson Suite." Turns out she didn't mean that specific room, but several years ago Lady Bird was hospitalized there and they literally had to make a door between two rooms to accommodate the Secret Service, family and visiting dignitaries, so the hospital built a suite to handle such situations in the future. That was certainly needed for my visit.

My current book at the Learning Ally studio is a historical narrative concerning Lizzie Borden and the axe murders of her father and step-mother, and the subsequent investigation and her trial back in the late 1890's. I knew little about this event beyond the children's rhyme, "Lizzie Bordon took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one."

Lizzie was indicted and tried for those murders, but found "Not Guilty" because the prosecution could not provide one iota of evidence that linked her to the crime. According to this book, at least, scholars who have studied the case feel that in all likelihood Lizzie did it, and the lack of evidence could be ascribed to mistakes and faulty investigation by the authorities rather than "the perfect crime" on Lizzie's part. And, by the way, it took far fewer than 81 whacks.

I get to read such interesting books.

Stories from the Tree - A small, curious item

This little item was among some recently-acquired family keepsakes. It's a name tag. Polished brass holder, measuring about 1" x 2" in size. On the back side there is a pin to attach the badge to your clothing. We are familiar with the concept; usually we see them as adhesive "HELLO" stickers, or plastic-encased credentials with our name and affiliation printed for the occasion.

The name that is typed on the paper insert (though woefully misspelled) is that of my grandfather, Lee Bramblett. And Lee Bramblett was a ginner. During his working life he owned several cotton gins and worked at others.  Here's a photo of Lee (2nd from left) and his crew at a gin he owned in Stubblefield, Texas, about 1910.

 The three boys on the right are sons Homer, Tommy and Carl. The dog was named Fritz. One look at the photo and you know that Lee didn't wear a name tag at work, nor did any of his crew. No photo-id on the end of a lanyard here.

So what called for the wearing of a name tag as a representative of the Taylor Gin Company? I'm guessing that most folks knew everybody else in town (except for whoever typed Lee's name) and I don't think there was a big annual convention and trade show of Cotton Ginners in Johnson County. And I doubt that Lee was driving around the county, repping Taylor Gin Company and admonishing cotton growers to "come gin with us."

I searched diligently for some record of the Taylor Gin Company in Cleburne, Texas, and while there were several prominent Taylor families in the region at that time, they all tended to be merchants and store keepers. Based on my grandfather's history, gins came and went with some degree of regularity, so this small, curious item will just remain a mystery.

Monday Meanderings - 10.10.2016

Happy Columbus Day. Sort of a low-profile holiday - no shelves of Columbus-related merchandise to buy. No decorations or traditions to uphold. Not even any greeting cards to purchase. Some marketer somewhere is missing the boat. Hehehe.

Well, StuckhouseATX finally made it's way to its new home in Lockhart. It didn't get there until Friday night, and I understand that another house from the same lot in Austin is scheduled to make the trip to Lockhart. Hopefully, the movers can benefit from their experience - but this is Austin.

A couple of new additions to the ATX "Best Of" awards:

Austin has been named the the most caffeinated city in Texas on a list compiled by WalletHub identifying the “Best Cities for Coffee Lovers.” However, the same list ranks Texas as a whole as a coffee lover’s nightmare. Only 3 Texas cities made the list - Austin was ranked as No. 28, Plano, was No. 27. and Laredo (?) squeaked in at the No. 100 spot, the last on the list. No surprise to hear that Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington nabbed the first and second spots on the list.

And, Austin has ranked second on a list of best cities for “urban hermits,” behind top-ranked Chicago. The calculation was based on Internet availability, stay-at-home workers, and the total number of restaurants offering food delivery and the total number of alcohol delivery companies operating in the city. Do you suppose any coffee shops deliver?

I am a fan of the phone support desks that offer to place you on the waiting list and call you when a representative is available. So much nicer than staying in a state of suspended animation while listening to insipid music. But this approach may have reached a new high (low?) the other day. My Dr. ordered an MRI and said the radiology place would call to set it up. They did. They called and an automated service asked if I wanted to be placed on a call-back list. Uhh, okay. But why not just wait until a representative was ready and call?

Any way, I opted for the call-back and a few minutes later the phone rang, the automated voice said, "Please hold" (!) and after about a 3 minute delay, connected the representative. who asked why I was calling!! Maybe they need to work on that technology a bit.

The Little House on the Street - You gotta live this town

I have blogged before about moving houses. You know, where you jack the entire structure up on rails and use big trucks to haul it down the road. Sometimes it becomes eventful, like when the structure snags telephone lines and one's father gets up in the middle of the night to deal with the situation. Or the building being moved is a story in and of itself. Those stories are here.

The latest house-moving adventure hereabouts started last Friday night when a company attempting to move an old house from Austin to Lockhart neatly lodged the building between a tree and a utility pole, sticking it well and true.

At that point, one of three things had to give: the tree, the utility pole, or the house. But this is Austin, and one does not simply cut down trees (though the mover tried, before the homeowner called the cops). The utility pole presented other jurisdictional issues, so that left the house.

But, did I mention this was Austin? It seems you need a permit to work on a house parked in the middle of the street. And a permit to block a street. You can't make this stuff up, folks. So the mover set out to get properly permitted, but, as I may have mentioned, this is Austin. Children have been born, raised, married and become parents themselves while the permit process grinds on.

So, here it is, late Tuesday, and the house is still stuck in the middle of the street.

And now, of course, the house has its own Twitter account: @StuckHouseATX.

 

On the bright side, if the house is still there on Halloween, they can claim it's haunted and charge admission to help pay the fees and fines.

Monday Meanderings - 10.3.2016

Fall finally showed up at our house, and it is certainly welcome. Love the cooler temperatures and the respite from a closed-up, blinds drawn, A/C churning house. However Fall is the time for pecan trees to drop pecans on the roof - and limbs on the driveway. As I write this I am hearing my neighbor dealing with a large, large fallen pecan limb in his front yard (and keeping my fingers crossed in regard to our own tree).

I have handled sound for weddings, funerals, church services, concerts and a lot of other events, but last week was a first - sound for a Symphony Orchestra. There is an organization in Austin named Central Texas Medical Orchestra, made up primarily of - you guessed it - people in the medical profession. They do four or so benefit concerts a season and they like our church building as a venue. 

To be honest, it is not hard to handle house sound for an orchestra. Apart from the remarks from the Director and Conductor, all that was in this case was a hand-held mic for the soloist. When they come back in April and feature guests Lloyd Maines (father of Dixie Chicks Natalie Maines) and Terri Hendrix (co-wrote Dixie Chicks "Lil' Jack Slade," among others) with their multitude of instruments, it may be a different story.

My father was known for saying, in his latter years, that he "no longer bought green bananas." Since we know that bananas ripen in hours, if not days, we were amused. But I have a different perspective after buying some really green bananas back on September 16th. This is what they looked like on September 30 - some 14 days later. Still hard as a rock.

I'm thinking these bananas are going straight to petrified - forever green. They're now part of the Estate. Look for them to be noted in the will.