On The Road Again

• It is 6 AM and I'm in Amarillo.
• Within the next couple of days after scouting Palo Duro and some other nearby sites I intend to invade New Mexico.
• Writing this on a tablet is really hateable.
• My friend wants me to say a prayer for her in one of the nice old Catholic chapels in NM. She said I would know the right one when I saw it.
• In the montage I just saw the people the douche nozzle in South Carolina murdered looked really nice.
• I tried to pick up a hitchhiker who was resting under a bridge. Yes, I know I shouldn't do that but I always want to do what I would want others to do for me and if I'm under a bridge in billion degree West Texas heat I would want a ride. Anyway, it didn't matter. He was nuts. I drove off with him raving.
• Ate at Stars drive in last night. It is like a less Sonic-ie Sonic. My burger was decent but if it didn't take them 15 minutes to get it out to me it was 20. Things seem to move at a slower pace here. They wouldn't last 5 minutes closer to home.
• A preteen/early teen kid was vaping while waiting for food with his dad. There is no way that is acceptable- right?!
• The kids arm was in a cast. Get used to it kid. Your life is going to be harder than it had to be in many ways.
• His dad had an epic mullet.
• There is a really good radio station here. I think it might be 89.9. 
• For long stretches of road there was no reception of any kind.
• There are tons of recently-ish abandoned homes and businesses out this way.
• Personally, I blame Grover Cleveland.

Deep Thought

“The next time I have meat and mashed potatoes, I think I'll put a very large blob of potatoes on my plate with just a little piece of meat. And if someone asks me why I didn't get more meat, I'll just say, "Oh, you mean this?" and pull out a big piece of meat from inside the blob of potatoes, where I've hidden it. Good magic trick, huh?”

Jack Handy of San Antonio TX

Too late for fruit, too soon for flowers.

Walter De La Mare, writer, d. 195

Ancestral Missives

Dad

• Some very interesting stories coming out about the First Ladies ancestry back to her slave roots.
• One of my ancestor's owned a slave woman named Chynna. She was listed with items he owned which were dispersed at auction after his death.
• A weird thing about that? I think of her often, wish I knew more about her and have a certain, odd affection for her.
• She was listed among other properties such as well ropes and buckets.
• My great great grandmother was an Indian. My GGF met her on his way down from Iowa in Oklahoma and they had a whole batch of kids- something like 9. We don't know a lot about her due to the really pioneering nature of their existence in South Central Texas and the fact he was ostracized by family for the union.
• I have a picture of her and their children- she looks strong and kind.
• The kids look like dirt eaters.
• I don't say kids very often.
• My other great grandfather was a blacksmith, we know exactly where his last shop was although there's not even a hint of it left. I did find a drill bit and some other oddments lying around. It was quite a thought to be touching something that the last human to touch it was the man who before was only vague stories, since he died when my mother was a small child.
• During prohibition he was also a bootlegger but, in beer not liquor. Because of this and the isolated nature of where they lived even county officials and sheriff's deputies would come to dances at the barn and partake of his wares. He also raised pigs and fed the left over grains to them.
• It was all fun and games until the repeal and the pigs started dying of cirrhosis.
• He was found one day after being missing for 2 or 3 in the back pasture with his head on a downed tree lying on his back, dead of an apparent heart attack. My mother told the grown ups when they started worrying about him, I had a dream he was lying on a log with his hat over his face sleeping. There was a plow close by and it was near some trees and the river. No one had gone to the back pasture to search for him as he had left home to go to town in street clothes and had been seen in town later.
• They said, Go on now child- you're crazy.

Monday's Missives

Zac with a Triumph the Insult Dog he jacked at the WC Reunion. Omigosh- seems like 100 years ago as I post this on 04/11/2014.

• Cindy Sheehan strikes me as a person who was probably a mess before her sons death and that just pushed her over the edge. In my opinion all her nutty histrionics might be a plea for help and political people right and left just use her for their own agendas.


• Sheen, Sheena, Sherman Shoehorn and Shena are all offered as alternatives to Sheehan by my spellchecker.


• Although I love going, I haven't been to the Dr Pepper museum in Dublin TX for years. I don't know why a person would even need to go more than once in a lifetime but, I enjoy going every couple of years. Maybe it's the delicious ice cold DP you pull out of the old timey machine yourself and drink out of the glass bottle in the plant it was produced. The last time I toured it there was a young girl in the group who as a lifetime aficionado from Albuquerque NM was destroyed to learn the guide never drank DP and in fact claimed Sprite as her beverage of choice. That plant was given to the long time owner Bill Kloster for his service and dedication to the company. He started as a bottle sorter there at age 14.


• The DP fan from NM was named Beccah- don't ask why I remember that- a name tag, printed on her shirt, or? Don't know but, for some goofy reason I remember her name.


• My den is full of teenage boys who stayed up way too late after talking to girls, playing video games and watching movies all night.


• I have never in my life used the snooze button on an alarm clock.


• No, not even once.