I have told the story of how I gave my dog Slick to a caring family that apparently loved him more than me. Slick and his adopted family still live nearby. On a walk through the neighborhood a few days ago, they stopped by for a visit.
Slick, a beautiful black Gordon setter, will be thirteen in March. His black hair has turned gray and he walks now instead of runs. When he was my dog, he never stopped running. I was at work when Slick and his adopted parents dropped by, but their visit jogged a memory in my rapidly decaying mind.
I have a tiny little oil and gas company and operate a few shallow gas wells in Noble County, Oklahoma. One summer, many years ago, I took Slick and Lucky with me to check out the wells. Both dogs loved riding in my 1992 Acura Vigor. It was hot, the temperature over 100 degrees when we reached the first well. It was then I made a mistake that I will never again repeat.
I got out of the car to check the gas meter, leaving the car running and the key in the ignition. Slick immediately jumped up to see where I was going and depressed the door lock. When I returned from the meter, I found myself locked out of the car, the two dogs, and their tails wagging, unable to open door.
I quickly learned that it is almost impossible to break out a window of tempered glass. Frustrated, I searched the ditches for a clothes hanger (yeah, sure!) to open the door. Twenty minutes later, a very nice young man drove up in a truck. Amazingly, he had a clothes hanger and we soon managed to open the car. I waved in appreciation as he drove away down the road. I wasn’t even upset when Slick and Lucky bailed out of the car and took off running.
Happy to be back in the air-conditioned Vigor, I simply followed the galloping dogs down the unpaved, section-line road. They ran for almost two miles before I finally corralled them at an abandoned oil lease. Slick and Lucky were pooped but happy when they finally jumped back into the Acura.
Lucky passed away this month after a long and wonderful life. Slick is old, but he has also had a wonderful life. He doesn’t run thirteen miles a day anymore, but then who among us still does?
Gondwana
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Old Man Meets the Killer Pugs - pics
Here are some pictures taken Thanksgiving Day of my dad, Scooter and Princess and Marilyn.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Death Becomes Us
Here is an article and video about my friend G. Terry Felts. Terry is a death investigator and contributed greatly to my book Bones of Skeleton Creek. He is also a contributing author in the soon-to-be-released Lost on Route 66 - tales of the mother road - Gondwana Press/2009.
"The career of G. Terry Felts has been one of shining light onto the dark areas of life." - The Oklahoman
Friday, November 27, 2009
Jalapeno Cornbread - a weekend recipe
Cornbread is a Southern staple and there are as many different recipes as there are cooks. Here is just one, with a few twists that truly makes it Southern comfort food.
Ingredients:
1 cup white corn meal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon garlic salt
1 ½ cups whole milk
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup (4 oz.) shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1 can (11 oz.) cream style corn
3 tablespoons chopped pickled jalapeños \
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375º F. Lightly grease 8-inch-square baking pan. Combine corn meal, flour, baking powder and garlic salt in large bowl. Combine milk, eggs and oil in medium bowl.
Add to corn meal mixture; stir just until combined. Stir in cheese, corn and jalapeños. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean when inserted in center. Cool in pan on wire rack. Serve warm.
Fiction South
Ingredients:
1 cup white corn meal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon garlic salt
1 ½ cups whole milk
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup (4 oz.) shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1 can (11 oz.) cream style corn
3 tablespoons chopped pickled jalapeños \
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375º F. Lightly grease 8-inch-square baking pan. Combine corn meal, flour, baking powder and garlic salt in large bowl. Combine milk, eggs and oil in medium bowl.
Add to corn meal mixture; stir just until combined. Stir in cheese, corn and jalapeños. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean when inserted in center. Cool in pan on wire rack. Serve warm.
Fiction South
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Wide Eyes and Gloomy Skies
Thanksgiving was one of my favorite holidays while growing up in northwest Louisiana. My Mother had three sisters and a brother. My Grandparents lived but a few blocks from our house and most of my Aunts, Uncles and Cousins would usually come in for the holiday.
My Grandparents, the Pittman’s, usually had Thanksgiving at their house. I loved all of my cousins, but was closest to Cousins Ken and Angela, about the same age as I am. I have lots of younger cousins, and at least one that is older, but I mostly remember Ken, Angela and my brother. I remember one Thanksgiving holiday in particular.
While there weren’t many inclement winters that I remember while growing up in north Louisiana, a certain November was particularly dark and gloomy. For some reason we celebrated that particular Thanksgiving at my parent’s house.
The Pitt’s all loved politics. Whenever they congregated, you could bet there would be a spirited discussion on the subject. It did not matter what half of the group believed, the other half would dispute it, Grandpa Pitt always leading the charge. While the parents argued inside the house, we kids were having fun in the back yard.
None of us kids cared much for politics, and this included my cerebral, and very pretty cousin Angela. We were busy outside, amid a blue Louisiana gloom, thinking only of ways to have fun.
Jack and I were the country cousins, Ken and Angela from Shreveport and Houston, respectively. Jack and I had both had BB guns, bow and arrows and knifes since we were old enough to know better. Ken and Angela had never even popped a cap.
Fireworks weren’t illegal in Vivian during the fifties and sixties. Two-inchers and M-80’s were as legal as they were potentially deadly. Jack and I had made pipe guns, plugged on one end, with a stock for holding and aiming. You would drop a lighted two-incher down the barrel, followed quickly by a marble, aim and wait for the explosion.
Ken and Angela were slathering at their mouths to shoot the guns. Finally, Jack and I acquiesced. The two City Cousins held the barrels in the air as Jack and I dropped two-inchers, followed quickly by marbles down the barrels. They pointed and the resulting explosion was deafening. Jack and I watched with open eyes as the projectiles blew out the windows of my Dad’s garage.
Angela and Ken were oblivious to what they had just done but Jack said, “Oh, shit!”
My own rear end began to pucker.
Jack and I knocked out the remaining glass from the windowpane and discarded the broken shards in the trash. With Thanksgiving festivities in full swing, we got a bye for a few days before my Dad realized what had happened.
When he finally discovered the transgression, he failed to give us the whipping that we anticipated. Instead, he took away our marble guns, and our fireworks. Angela and Ken never received any punishment, and I do not suppose they should have, neither having a clue as to what they were doing when they blew out my Dad’s garage windows.
Yes, Thanksgiving is still one of my favorite holidays. I miss hearing my parents and relatives discussing politics, but mostly I miss those blue Louisiana days when skies were gloomy, and our young eyes wide.
Gondwana
My Grandparents, the Pittman’s, usually had Thanksgiving at their house. I loved all of my cousins, but was closest to Cousins Ken and Angela, about the same age as I am. I have lots of younger cousins, and at least one that is older, but I mostly remember Ken, Angela and my brother. I remember one Thanksgiving holiday in particular.
While there weren’t many inclement winters that I remember while growing up in north Louisiana, a certain November was particularly dark and gloomy. For some reason we celebrated that particular Thanksgiving at my parent’s house.
The Pitt’s all loved politics. Whenever they congregated, you could bet there would be a spirited discussion on the subject. It did not matter what half of the group believed, the other half would dispute it, Grandpa Pitt always leading the charge. While the parents argued inside the house, we kids were having fun in the back yard.
None of us kids cared much for politics, and this included my cerebral, and very pretty cousin Angela. We were busy outside, amid a blue Louisiana gloom, thinking only of ways to have fun.
Jack and I were the country cousins, Ken and Angela from Shreveport and Houston, respectively. Jack and I had both had BB guns, bow and arrows and knifes since we were old enough to know better. Ken and Angela had never even popped a cap.
Fireworks weren’t illegal in Vivian during the fifties and sixties. Two-inchers and M-80’s were as legal as they were potentially deadly. Jack and I had made pipe guns, plugged on one end, with a stock for holding and aiming. You would drop a lighted two-incher down the barrel, followed quickly by a marble, aim and wait for the explosion.
Ken and Angela were slathering at their mouths to shoot the guns. Finally, Jack and I acquiesced. The two City Cousins held the barrels in the air as Jack and I dropped two-inchers, followed quickly by marbles down the barrels. They pointed and the resulting explosion was deafening. Jack and I watched with open eyes as the projectiles blew out the windows of my Dad’s garage.
Angela and Ken were oblivious to what they had just done but Jack said, “Oh, shit!”
My own rear end began to pucker.
Jack and I knocked out the remaining glass from the windowpane and discarded the broken shards in the trash. With Thanksgiving festivities in full swing, we got a bye for a few days before my Dad realized what had happened.
When he finally discovered the transgression, he failed to give us the whipping that we anticipated. Instead, he took away our marble guns, and our fireworks. Angela and Ken never received any punishment, and I do not suppose they should have, neither having a clue as to what they were doing when they blew out my Dad’s garage windows.
Yes, Thanksgiving is still one of my favorite holidays. I miss hearing my parents and relatives discussing politics, but mostly I miss those blue Louisiana days when skies were gloomy, and our young eyes wide.
Gondwana
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Mom's Fruitcake
I recently read a quote from someone whose name I cannot remember. They said that if the world keeps trending in the same direction, there would soon be nothing left except rats, cockroaches and fruitcakes. That is not the exact quote, but it is the gist of it.
The thought brought a smile to my face this holiday season. My Father and Brother are big fruitcake fans but neither could hold a candle to my Mother. She made one about this time every year and she never gave up trying to get me to eat a slice.
Well, more than that. I always relented and ate a sliver but I never liked it, and she wanted me, with all her heart, to like it as much as she did. No matter how many slices I ate, or how hard I tried, I have never acquired a taste for fruitcake.
I don’t know when my aversion for fruitcake began, but my stint in Vietnam only served to solidify my dislike. That is because during my six months in the boonies, I ate more than my fair share of C-Rations, and one of the condiments in almost every box was a little tin can packed with fruitcake. About the only thing worse were the barely edible pork slices and, of course, the Tropical Bar.
A Tropical Bar is a piece of chocolate candy manufactured so that it would not melt beneath the high temperatures of the tropics. You could not get the darn thing to dissolve, and stomach acids had little more effect. It was so bad, you could throw it on the ground and even the Vietnamese field rats wouldn’t eat it.
I digress. The Army’s fruitcake was bad, but not as bad as the pork slices and certainly not as horrible as a Tropical Bar. Still, despite my Mother’s best cajoling, I never willingly touched the candied confection to my lips.
My Dad and Brother are still alive but my Mother has passed on. I know that she’s not far away because every year around this time I can feel her presence, and yes, she’s still nagging me to try just one little slice of fruitcake. I love you dearly Mom, but sorry - not this year.
Fiction South
The thought brought a smile to my face this holiday season. My Father and Brother are big fruitcake fans but neither could hold a candle to my Mother. She made one about this time every year and she never gave up trying to get me to eat a slice.
Well, more than that. I always relented and ate a sliver but I never liked it, and she wanted me, with all her heart, to like it as much as she did. No matter how many slices I ate, or how hard I tried, I have never acquired a taste for fruitcake.
I don’t know when my aversion for fruitcake began, but my stint in Vietnam only served to solidify my dislike. That is because during my six months in the boonies, I ate more than my fair share of C-Rations, and one of the condiments in almost every box was a little tin can packed with fruitcake. About the only thing worse were the barely edible pork slices and, of course, the Tropical Bar.
A Tropical Bar is a piece of chocolate candy manufactured so that it would not melt beneath the high temperatures of the tropics. You could not get the darn thing to dissolve, and stomach acids had little more effect. It was so bad, you could throw it on the ground and even the Vietnamese field rats wouldn’t eat it.
I digress. The Army’s fruitcake was bad, but not as bad as the pork slices and certainly not as horrible as a Tropical Bar. Still, despite my Mother’s best cajoling, I never willingly touched the candied confection to my lips.
My Dad and Brother are still alive but my Mother has passed on. I know that she’s not far away because every year around this time I can feel her presence, and yes, she’s still nagging me to try just one little slice of fruitcake. I love you dearly Mom, but sorry - not this year.
Fiction South
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Holiday Angst
Marilyn called me today, distraught about a young skunk in our front yard.
“It wobbles, eats grass and then lies on the ground like it’s going to die. I don’t think a car hit it because there is no blood. Maybe someone poisoned it. It was suffering so I called animal control.”
“Be careful,” I told her. “It may have rabies.”
“It’s not foaming at the mouth. I think it is just hurt.”
The conversation put a pall on my anticipation of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday and caused me to remember some of the sadder holiday seasons I have spent. Many years ago, creditors put my little oil company into bankruptcy the day before Thanksgiving. My second wife Anne and I spend our last Thanksgiving and Christmas together in 1997 and she died three months later. My Mom died a few weeks from Thanksgiving in 2006.
Holidays should be happy occasions. They are too often times when relationships get out of hand, often exasperated by finances. The holidays are a season to give, a catching point for many young couples – and many older couples amid these terrible economic conditions – who find themselves having a hard time coping, much less giving, during the prolonged holiday season.
Tomorrow I am attending a memorial service for a fellow writer and member of the first writer’s group I ever joined – the Writers of the Purple Pages. Bill was an editor for the State of Oklahoma with aspirations of becoming a published novelist. He had worked on a novel for years about the Oklahoma runestones, hoping to entertain while trying to explain the significance of the ancient mysterious symbols carved in stone in eastern Oklahoma. Bill died of brain cancer, never finishing his magnum opus. When I awake tomorrow, I am sure I will find the body of the young skunk somewhere in my front yard.
Welcome to the world of holiday angst. When life is supposed to be the best, it is often the opposite. Here is my advice. People love and lose, and people live and die, but the sun always rises every morning. Bill and that young skunk have already found a better place. Somewhere in the world, a child is born destined to finish Bill’s book, and somewhere a baby skunk lies curled up against its mother’s warm breast, waiting for spring and a chance to experience its own life.
Louisiana Mystery Writer
“It wobbles, eats grass and then lies on the ground like it’s going to die. I don’t think a car hit it because there is no blood. Maybe someone poisoned it. It was suffering so I called animal control.”
“Be careful,” I told her. “It may have rabies.”
“It’s not foaming at the mouth. I think it is just hurt.”
The conversation put a pall on my anticipation of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday and caused me to remember some of the sadder holiday seasons I have spent. Many years ago, creditors put my little oil company into bankruptcy the day before Thanksgiving. My second wife Anne and I spend our last Thanksgiving and Christmas together in 1997 and she died three months later. My Mom died a few weeks from Thanksgiving in 2006.
Holidays should be happy occasions. They are too often times when relationships get out of hand, often exasperated by finances. The holidays are a season to give, a catching point for many young couples – and many older couples amid these terrible economic conditions – who find themselves having a hard time coping, much less giving, during the prolonged holiday season.
Tomorrow I am attending a memorial service for a fellow writer and member of the first writer’s group I ever joined – the Writers of the Purple Pages. Bill was an editor for the State of Oklahoma with aspirations of becoming a published novelist. He had worked on a novel for years about the Oklahoma runestones, hoping to entertain while trying to explain the significance of the ancient mysterious symbols carved in stone in eastern Oklahoma. Bill died of brain cancer, never finishing his magnum opus. When I awake tomorrow, I am sure I will find the body of the young skunk somewhere in my front yard.
Welcome to the world of holiday angst. When life is supposed to be the best, it is often the opposite. Here is my advice. People love and lose, and people live and die, but the sun always rises every morning. Bill and that young skunk have already found a better place. Somewhere in the world, a child is born destined to finish Bill’s book, and somewhere a baby skunk lies curled up against its mother’s warm breast, waiting for spring and a chance to experience its own life.
Louisiana Mystery Writer
Monday, November 23, 2009
Zombies, Images and Geomancers
Naomi (Shuchen), my accountant, is from Taiwan and is thinking about returning soon for a visit to see her mother. She has a few trepidations and one of them is visiting her Father’s grave. It was broad daylight when she explained the reasons for her reluctance, and her story chilled me.
The graveyards in Taiwan are far from the populated parts of the country. Located high in the mountains, they are remote. Many of the sarcophaguses are quite elaborate, almost like houses for the dead.
“Taiwan is very humid,” she explained. “There is a smell of death lingering in our cemeteries and no one ever visits after sundown.”
Naomi did visit her Grandfather’s grave after sundown once. When one of her teachers tried to discipline her by smacking her palm with a ruler, she hit back with a pencil holder and then ran away, hiding at her Grandfather’s grave until long after dark.
The grave was on her parent’s farm and not part of a cemetery. Still, she felt the presence of spirits around her as soon as it grew dark, and she ran back home to be punished by her Father for striking the teacher.
This is not the only experience Naomi had with cemeteries. She and her family lived in a small village; a place where everyone knows everyone else. One of the families was having problems and consulted a geomancer, a person practiced in the art of feng shui, and he told them they needed to move the grave of their mother that had passed some ten years prior.
No one visits a Taiwanese graveyard after dark, but the geomancer advised that the family should exhume the grave at nine at night. Everyone in the small village went to the cemetery for support of the family, although none of them allowed to dig, or to view the disinterred remains. What the family found when they opened the casket was a shock to the entire village.
The woman’s body had not decayed. She lay there before them - as if she had just died - her eyes open wide. Her hair and her fingernails had continued to grow and she appeared like a wraith, or a zombie, before the horrified relatives that stared down at her body.
The family moved the woman’s body to the spot the geomancer had prescribed, and a hunk of flesh removed from her arm to accelerate decay. The image remained locked in Naomi’s brain as she contemplated visiting Taiwan, her mother, and her father’s grave. The image is indelible and now remains locked in my own brain.
The graveyards in Taiwan are far from the populated parts of the country. Located high in the mountains, they are remote. Many of the sarcophaguses are quite elaborate, almost like houses for the dead.
“Taiwan is very humid,” she explained. “There is a smell of death lingering in our cemeteries and no one ever visits after sundown.”
Naomi did visit her Grandfather’s grave after sundown once. When one of her teachers tried to discipline her by smacking her palm with a ruler, she hit back with a pencil holder and then ran away, hiding at her Grandfather’s grave until long after dark.
The grave was on her parent’s farm and not part of a cemetery. Still, she felt the presence of spirits around her as soon as it grew dark, and she ran back home to be punished by her Father for striking the teacher.
This is not the only experience Naomi had with cemeteries. She and her family lived in a small village; a place where everyone knows everyone else. One of the families was having problems and consulted a geomancer, a person practiced in the art of feng shui, and he told them they needed to move the grave of their mother that had passed some ten years prior.
No one visits a Taiwanese graveyard after dark, but the geomancer advised that the family should exhume the grave at nine at night. Everyone in the small village went to the cemetery for support of the family, although none of them allowed to dig, or to view the disinterred remains. What the family found when they opened the casket was a shock to the entire village.
The woman’s body had not decayed. She lay there before them - as if she had just died - her eyes open wide. Her hair and her fingernails had continued to grow and she appeared like a wraith, or a zombie, before the horrified relatives that stared down at her body.
The family moved the woman’s body to the spot the geomancer had prescribed, and a hunk of flesh removed from her arm to accelerate decay. The image remained locked in Naomi’s brain as she contemplated visiting Taiwan, her mother, and her father’s grave. The image is indelible and now remains locked in my own brain.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Ski Island Meltdown
It’s a fact that even pros can occasionally make huge mistakes in their fields of expertise. When it happens, the result is often hilarious. Such was the case with my brother-in-law Lee, some thirty years ago.
Lee is from Texas and scheduled to wed Betsy, Anne’s only sibling. It was Betsy’s second marriage but Lee’s first. Relatives from Texas began pouring into town to begin a week of festivities. The wedding reception was at our house on Ski Island.
Many creeks dissect central Oklahoma, some dammed in Oklahoma City to form small lakes. This lakeside property most often becomes sites for housing developments. Anne and I lived in one such subdivision called Ski Island and our house backed up to Ski Island Lake. It was a natural party house and Betsy and Lee’s wedding reception was just one of many we hosted there.
The subdivision allows no fences between houses so everyone knows their neighbors well. We had a large backyard, a boat dock where we kept a small ski boat and a small sailboat. Lee is a Texas Aggie and an executive at the time. I had never seen him out of control before the week of his marriage and I haven’t seen him drunk since, but during the week prior to marrying Betsy, he never sobered up.
Lee was a Navy officer during Vietnam and knows a thing or two about ships. He also had a large sailboat that he kept on Lake Hefner and sailed regularly. To say that he is a sailing expert is no exaggeration. You couldn’t have proven it by anyone at the wedding reception.
At least a hundred guests from several states crowded our house on Ski Island, most drinking beer, mixed drinks or my famous 151 proof rum punch. Everyone was enjoying the party, alcohol flowing freely. I was reveling in the celebration, but Lee was leading the parade.
“One of these days, you need to teach me how to sail that little boat,” I said.
“What’s wrong with right now? You have an extra bathing suit lying around, don’t you?”
I was drunk, but not drunk enough to launch a sailboat out into the lake, even with an expert sailor. My two nephews, Mike and Scott were sober, but apparently not as wizened as I was. Soon, a cheering party watched the three of them push away from the dock in the two-man sailboat. They managed to make it to the middle of the lake before Lee toppled into the water, taking Mike and Scott along with him.
Ski Island isn’t deep but Lee was very drunk. He might have drowned on his wedding day but Mike and Scott kept him from sinking until we took the ski boat out and rescued them, towing the sailboat behind us.
Watching the many sailboats at Lake Hefner with my Dad today reminded me that even pros sometimes make embarrassing mistakes. Such was the case some thirty years ago at a tiny lake in central Oklahoma. It also reminds me that one of these days I need to ask Betsy how her wedding night turned out.
Lee is from Texas and scheduled to wed Betsy, Anne’s only sibling. It was Betsy’s second marriage but Lee’s first. Relatives from Texas began pouring into town to begin a week of festivities. The wedding reception was at our house on Ski Island.
Many creeks dissect central Oklahoma, some dammed in Oklahoma City to form small lakes. This lakeside property most often becomes sites for housing developments. Anne and I lived in one such subdivision called Ski Island and our house backed up to Ski Island Lake. It was a natural party house and Betsy and Lee’s wedding reception was just one of many we hosted there.
The subdivision allows no fences between houses so everyone knows their neighbors well. We had a large backyard, a boat dock where we kept a small ski boat and a small sailboat. Lee is a Texas Aggie and an executive at the time. I had never seen him out of control before the week of his marriage and I haven’t seen him drunk since, but during the week prior to marrying Betsy, he never sobered up.
Lee was a Navy officer during Vietnam and knows a thing or two about ships. He also had a large sailboat that he kept on Lake Hefner and sailed regularly. To say that he is a sailing expert is no exaggeration. You couldn’t have proven it by anyone at the wedding reception.
At least a hundred guests from several states crowded our house on Ski Island, most drinking beer, mixed drinks or my famous 151 proof rum punch. Everyone was enjoying the party, alcohol flowing freely. I was reveling in the celebration, but Lee was leading the parade.
“One of these days, you need to teach me how to sail that little boat,” I said.
“What’s wrong with right now? You have an extra bathing suit lying around, don’t you?”
I was drunk, but not drunk enough to launch a sailboat out into the lake, even with an expert sailor. My two nephews, Mike and Scott were sober, but apparently not as wizened as I was. Soon, a cheering party watched the three of them push away from the dock in the two-man sailboat. They managed to make it to the middle of the lake before Lee toppled into the water, taking Mike and Scott along with him.
Ski Island isn’t deep but Lee was very drunk. He might have drowned on his wedding day but Mike and Scott kept him from sinking until we took the ski boat out and rescued them, towing the sailboat behind us.
Watching the many sailboats at Lake Hefner with my Dad today reminded me that even pros sometimes make embarrassing mistakes. Such was the case some thirty years ago at a tiny lake in central Oklahoma. It also reminds me that one of these days I need to ask Betsy how her wedding night turned out.
Misty River - a pic
Here is a picture of early morning mist rising up from the water, amid the cypress trees.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Shrimp Ravioli - a weekend recipe
The restaurants of New Orleans are truly the gems of the City. Here is a recipe I found on the web from the Rib Room of New Orleans. Enjoy.
Shrimp Ravioli "Bay Eloi" in Shrimp Herb Essence
Ingredients:
6 Pieces Shrimp Ravioli
4 oz Shrimp Stock
4 oz Whole Softened Butter
½ tsp Shallots Chopped
½ tsp Garlic Chopped
2 oz White Wine
3 oz Diced Tomatoes
½ tsp Parsley Chopped
½ tsp Tarragon Chopped
½ tsp Chives Chopped
3 Pieces 10-15 Count Shrimp Grilled
4 oz French Spinach Sautéed in Butter
Method:
Sweat shallots and garlic in olive oil. Add white wine and reduce by half. Add shrimp stock and reduce by half. Incorporate the butter by whipping in with a wire whip. Finish with diced tomatoes and herbs. Blanch ravioli in boiling water for 3 minutes. Drain and set aside.
For Plate:
In large bowl, add sautéed spinach. Arrange ravioli on top of spinach. Spoon sauce around ravioli. Garnish with grilled shrimp and herb sprigs.
Fiction South
Shrimp Ravioli "Bay Eloi" in Shrimp Herb Essence
Ingredients:
6 Pieces Shrimp Ravioli
4 oz Shrimp Stock
4 oz Whole Softened Butter
½ tsp Shallots Chopped
½ tsp Garlic Chopped
2 oz White Wine
3 oz Diced Tomatoes
½ tsp Parsley Chopped
½ tsp Tarragon Chopped
½ tsp Chives Chopped
3 Pieces 10-15 Count Shrimp Grilled
4 oz French Spinach Sautéed in Butter
Method:
Sweat shallots and garlic in olive oil. Add white wine and reduce by half. Add shrimp stock and reduce by half. Incorporate the butter by whipping in with a wire whip. Finish with diced tomatoes and herbs. Blanch ravioli in boiling water for 3 minutes. Drain and set aside.
For Plate:
In large bowl, add sautéed spinach. Arrange ravioli on top of spinach. Spoon sauce around ravioli. Garnish with grilled shrimp and herb sprigs.
Fiction South
Friday, November 20, 2009
Late Autumn Spirits
It was almost dark when I finished feeding my dogs and returned to the house tonight. The television was off in the front room, only the red pulsating light of a Lava Lamp and our herb grow light illuminating the room.
As I walked toward the kitchen, I saw the shadow of a woman moving around. I assumed it was Marilyn but it wasn’t. She was in the back bedroom, watching television. I’m a sane person, not prone to wild speculation. Still, I had to wonder if the shadow I saw was of Anne, my deceased wife, or my Mother Mavis, futzing around in the kitchen. Things such as this are easy to explain away – an errant shadow, an unexpected flash of light. Maybe!
My faithful readers will probably remember pictures of my magic moonflowers, their blooms usually beginning to wane this time of year. Marilyn and I haven’t had a single moonflower since my Mother died. Tell me what is the problem, Mom? You know I’ve always been a little dense.
The Autumnal Equinox, the first day of autumn, has passed. It heralds the first day of a season filled with spirits. With winter fast approaching, I wonder how many more spirits I will envision before then.
Gondwana
As I walked toward the kitchen, I saw the shadow of a woman moving around. I assumed it was Marilyn but it wasn’t. She was in the back bedroom, watching television. I’m a sane person, not prone to wild speculation. Still, I had to wonder if the shadow I saw was of Anne, my deceased wife, or my Mother Mavis, futzing around in the kitchen. Things such as this are easy to explain away – an errant shadow, an unexpected flash of light. Maybe!
My faithful readers will probably remember pictures of my magic moonflowers, their blooms usually beginning to wane this time of year. Marilyn and I haven’t had a single moonflower since my Mother died. Tell me what is the problem, Mom? You know I’ve always been a little dense.
The Autumnal Equinox, the first day of autumn, has passed. It heralds the first day of a season filled with spirits. With winter fast approaching, I wonder how many more spirits I will envision before then.
Gondwana
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Remembering Will and Wiley
It is hard to open the newspaper, watch television, or surf the internet these days without reading about one economic crisis after the other. While not as grave as the Great Depression, there are already some similarities. The market’s point loss this past year was its worst ever.
The Great Depression began in the United States on October 29, 1929, the day the stock market crashed. Known as Black Tuesday, the incident began a series of chaotic events that spread throughout the world, lasting until the beginning of World War II.
Our present economic crisis did not happen overnight and nothing we do to cure it will work quickly. Until our economy rights itself, the best we can do is view this event in the right frame of mind and keep a positive outlook. One way to accomplish this is with humor and these serious times reminded me that one of the greatest humorists during the Great Depression was Oklahoma’s own Will Rogers
Rogers was born in Indian Territory in 1879. He was a cowpoke, writer, actor, part Cherokee Indian and all American. He wrote over two million words during his lifetime and became famous for his simple philosophy that transcended party lines and “BS.” Here are just a few of his quotes.
“Democrats never agree on anything, that's why they're Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they would be Republicans.”
“A fool and his money are soon elected.”
“A remark generally hurts in proportion to its truth.”
“About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.”
“Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need.”
“Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.”
“All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that's an alibi for my ignorance.”
“An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's.”
“Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.”
“Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it.”
“Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.”
“Everything is funny as long as it is happening to someone else.”
“I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.”
“Liberty doesn't work as well in practice as it does in speeches.”
“When the Okies left Oklahoma and moved to California, it raised the I.Q. of both states.”
“Worrying is like paying on a debt that may never come due.”
“This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.”
“The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.”
“I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!”
"The minute you read something that you can't understand, you can almost be sure it was drawn up by a lawyer."
"The best doctor in the world is the veterinarian. He can't ask his patients what is the matter-he's got to just know.”
"If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?"
“The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don't let it get the best of you.”
"Things will get better-despite our efforts to improve them."
“Do the best you can, and don't take life too serious.”
“Don't let yesterday use up too much of today.”
“You've got to go out on a limb sometimes because that's where the fruit is.”
Will Rogers loved flying and died at the age of fifty-five when the plane of he and Oklahoma aviation legend Wiley Post crashed near Barrow, Alaska. Rogers was only fifty-five but he left a legacy of humor and truths that resound to this day. Next time you feel like crying, get on the internet and Google some of Roger’s quotes; then smile, pick yourself up and get after it again.
Louisiana Mystery Writer
The Great Depression began in the United States on October 29, 1929, the day the stock market crashed. Known as Black Tuesday, the incident began a series of chaotic events that spread throughout the world, lasting until the beginning of World War II.
Our present economic crisis did not happen overnight and nothing we do to cure it will work quickly. Until our economy rights itself, the best we can do is view this event in the right frame of mind and keep a positive outlook. One way to accomplish this is with humor and these serious times reminded me that one of the greatest humorists during the Great Depression was Oklahoma’s own Will Rogers
Rogers was born in Indian Territory in 1879. He was a cowpoke, writer, actor, part Cherokee Indian and all American. He wrote over two million words during his lifetime and became famous for his simple philosophy that transcended party lines and “BS.” Here are just a few of his quotes.
“Democrats never agree on anything, that's why they're Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they would be Republicans.”
“A fool and his money are soon elected.”
“A remark generally hurts in proportion to its truth.”
“About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.”
“Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need.”
“Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.”
“All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that's an alibi for my ignorance.”
“An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's.”
“Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.”
“Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it.”
“Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.”
“Everything is funny as long as it is happening to someone else.”
“I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.”
“Liberty doesn't work as well in practice as it does in speeches.”
“When the Okies left Oklahoma and moved to California, it raised the I.Q. of both states.”
“Worrying is like paying on a debt that may never come due.”
“This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.”
“The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.”
“I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!”
"The minute you read something that you can't understand, you can almost be sure it was drawn up by a lawyer."
"The best doctor in the world is the veterinarian. He can't ask his patients what is the matter-he's got to just know.”
"If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?"
“The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don't let it get the best of you.”
"Things will get better-despite our efforts to improve them."
“Do the best you can, and don't take life too serious.”
“Don't let yesterday use up too much of today.”
“You've got to go out on a limb sometimes because that's where the fruit is.”
Will Rogers loved flying and died at the age of fifty-five when the plane of he and Oklahoma aviation legend Wiley Post crashed near Barrow, Alaska. Rogers was only fifty-five but he left a legacy of humor and truths that resound to this day. Next time you feel like crying, get on the internet and Google some of Roger’s quotes; then smile, pick yourself up and get after it again.
Louisiana Mystery Writer
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Lady Gaga Does Enid
I made my exit from the corporate world in 1978, becoming an independent geologist at the age of thirty-two. My first wife Gail had left me with an old Triumph Tr4 and little else. Having saved almost nothing during the two years following the divorce, I began life as an independent with little money.
I left Texas Oil & Gas with only the money in my wallet and a thousand dollars borrowed from my new girlfriend Carol. Carol was a lease broker and as excited about the oil business as I was. When I finally sold a prospect, she drove me in her Ford Pinto to Garfield County to see the well.
Carol was a gorgeous woman with blonde hair, smoky blue eyes and a brain that rivaled her body. During the late seventies, women had abandoned their bras, and often their inhibitions. The day we went to Garfield County to see the well, she wore only a pair of cutoff blue jeans, flip-flops and a little nothing of a white blouse, sans bra.
We bought Coors tall boys when we stopped to fill the Pinto with gas and continued drinking throughout the day. After finally leaving the location, we ended up at a country and Western bar in Enid. This is when the trouble began.
Carol had come hither eyes and knew how to use them. Not long after bellying up to the dark and smoky bar, the cowboys started hitting on her. She loved it as I was eating my heart out.
“What’s your hurry?” she asked when I mentioned we should be getting back to town.
“Who are you, anyway?” a big cowboy asked after poking me in the shoulder.
“I’m not her brother,” I said, hoping he would get the message.
He didn’t, and neither did Carol. We ended up staying at the bar until it closed. She had a penchant for wrapping men around her finger and we somehow made it out of the bar without getting into a fight.
Our relationship lasted about a year. I was gaga over her and I think she liked me (I’m still not real sure) but our personalities were as volatile as fire and gasoline. We finally parted ways, but not until after many similar incidents to the one in the Enid bar.
Fiction South
I left Texas Oil & Gas with only the money in my wallet and a thousand dollars borrowed from my new girlfriend Carol. Carol was a lease broker and as excited about the oil business as I was. When I finally sold a prospect, she drove me in her Ford Pinto to Garfield County to see the well.
Carol was a gorgeous woman with blonde hair, smoky blue eyes and a brain that rivaled her body. During the late seventies, women had abandoned their bras, and often their inhibitions. The day we went to Garfield County to see the well, she wore only a pair of cutoff blue jeans, flip-flops and a little nothing of a white blouse, sans bra.
We bought Coors tall boys when we stopped to fill the Pinto with gas and continued drinking throughout the day. After finally leaving the location, we ended up at a country and Western bar in Enid. This is when the trouble began.
Carol had come hither eyes and knew how to use them. Not long after bellying up to the dark and smoky bar, the cowboys started hitting on her. She loved it as I was eating my heart out.
“What’s your hurry?” she asked when I mentioned we should be getting back to town.
“Who are you, anyway?” a big cowboy asked after poking me in the shoulder.
“I’m not her brother,” I said, hoping he would get the message.
He didn’t, and neither did Carol. We ended up staying at the bar until it closed. She had a penchant for wrapping men around her finger and we somehow made it out of the bar without getting into a fight.
Our relationship lasted about a year. I was gaga over her and I think she liked me (I’m still not real sure) but our personalities were as volatile as fire and gasoline. We finally parted ways, but not until after many similar incidents to the one in the Enid bar.
Fiction South
Monday, November 16, 2009
Disbelieving Parents and Backseat Sex
My parents bought a new two-toned blue and white Chevrolet station wagon in 1959. It had a V8 engine but it wasn’t particularly fast, nor did it get very good gas mileage. Still, it was the car in which I learned to drive, had my first wreck in, and the place where I engaged in backseat sex for the first time.
The old Chevy was horribly unreliable. It had the habit of dying and then not starting again for thirty minutes to an hour. Funny thing, it never happened to anyone else but me. When I came home late, my parents would reprimand me for using car trouble as an excuse. It seemed I was in a no win situation.
This went on for about a year, the car dying on me unexpectedly at least a dozen times. It never happed to anyone else and it was apparent my parents considered me a bald-face liar. Whenever I told them about the car dying and then failing to start, they would just frown and shake their heads.
This all changed one day as my mom and dad were on their way to Shreveport. Dad always had a lead foot and couldn’t bear to follow behind a slower moving car. The road from Vivian to Shreveport is narrow, hilly and has many curves.
On a short straightaway, Dad yanked the Chevy into the passing lane and stomped the gas pedal. A car was approaching from the opposite direction but Dad’s passes were always close. This time, halfway around the car he was trying to pass, the engine died. With heart in throat, he braked hard, let the car he was trying to pass pull ahead, and then got off the road, narrowly averting a head-on collision.
My mom and dad sat on the side of the road for thirty minutes until the car finally started again. They stopped at the Chevy place on the way home and left it with the mechanics, the problem diagnosed and cured a few hours later.
Carbon instead of wire filled the spark plug wires. One of the carbon conduits had a crack in it. When it got hot, the spark would fail and the car would die. When the wire cooled, the car would start again.
“I’m happy to find out you haven’t been lying to us all this time,” my mother told me.
I had mixed feelings about Mom admitting that they may have been wrong about my honesty. I never thought of myself as the dishonest sort, but when your own mother doesn’t trust you – well, it makes you consider all your other possible faults.
As I think about the old Chevy, I miss it. It wasn’t a perfect car but it always got me where I wanted to go, eventually, and managed to teach me a few lessons about life and human nature along the way. Hey, it was the car I learned to drive in, had my first wreck in, and the place where I engaged in backseat sex for the first time.
The old Chevy was horribly unreliable. It had the habit of dying and then not starting again for thirty minutes to an hour. Funny thing, it never happened to anyone else but me. When I came home late, my parents would reprimand me for using car trouble as an excuse. It seemed I was in a no win situation.
This went on for about a year, the car dying on me unexpectedly at least a dozen times. It never happed to anyone else and it was apparent my parents considered me a bald-face liar. Whenever I told them about the car dying and then failing to start, they would just frown and shake their heads.
This all changed one day as my mom and dad were on their way to Shreveport. Dad always had a lead foot and couldn’t bear to follow behind a slower moving car. The road from Vivian to Shreveport is narrow, hilly and has many curves.
On a short straightaway, Dad yanked the Chevy into the passing lane and stomped the gas pedal. A car was approaching from the opposite direction but Dad’s passes were always close. This time, halfway around the car he was trying to pass, the engine died. With heart in throat, he braked hard, let the car he was trying to pass pull ahead, and then got off the road, narrowly averting a head-on collision.
My mom and dad sat on the side of the road for thirty minutes until the car finally started again. They stopped at the Chevy place on the way home and left it with the mechanics, the problem diagnosed and cured a few hours later.
Carbon instead of wire filled the spark plug wires. One of the carbon conduits had a crack in it. When it got hot, the spark would fail and the car would die. When the wire cooled, the car would start again.
“I’m happy to find out you haven’t been lying to us all this time,” my mother told me.
I had mixed feelings about Mom admitting that they may have been wrong about my honesty. I never thought of myself as the dishonest sort, but when your own mother doesn’t trust you – well, it makes you consider all your other possible faults.
As I think about the old Chevy, I miss it. It wasn’t a perfect car but it always got me where I wanted to go, eventually, and managed to teach me a few lessons about life and human nature along the way. Hey, it was the car I learned to drive in, had my first wreck in, and the place where I engaged in backseat sex for the first time.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Standing Last in Line
During basic training at Fort Polk, the saying was “Your mind is your own but your butt belongs to the U.S. Army.”
That was true as our drill sergeants told us when to eat, smoke, sleep and take a toilet break for six weeks. We were also poked and prodded by doctors and dentists, and had so many injections during that time that my arms felt like pincushions.
With large numbers of soldiers passing through the facility, it was easy to contract various diseases from the troops. Mostly it was just colds and sore throats but often enough it was killer meningitis.
The injections usually occurred early in the morning, right after breakfast, leaving lots of daylight to deal with bad reactions to the various serums. Once, after a Plague injection, ninety percent of my Company had severe reactions that included vomiting and passing out. We were standing in formation when the troops began dropping in their tracks
Marilyn asked me today if I’d ever had an injection to protect against meningitis.
“I don’t have a clue,” I answered. “We often had multiple shots at the same time and they usually didn’t bother telling us what they were for.”
The doctors and nurses giving the injections would often form a gauntlet, three or four on each side, all carrying pneumatic needles that looked like air pistols. We would line up and roll up both sleeves and then parade through the gauntlet. The result was often bloody and painful.
You never wanted to be last in line. Those going first would trot past us, moaning in mostly faked pain as blood streamed down both their arms. It didn’t matter much because there were many more injections in our future. Next time, they might be standing last in line and it would be our turn to cause them mental grief as they awaited their fate.
Gondwana
That was true as our drill sergeants told us when to eat, smoke, sleep and take a toilet break for six weeks. We were also poked and prodded by doctors and dentists, and had so many injections during that time that my arms felt like pincushions.
With large numbers of soldiers passing through the facility, it was easy to contract various diseases from the troops. Mostly it was just colds and sore throats but often enough it was killer meningitis.
The injections usually occurred early in the morning, right after breakfast, leaving lots of daylight to deal with bad reactions to the various serums. Once, after a Plague injection, ninety percent of my Company had severe reactions that included vomiting and passing out. We were standing in formation when the troops began dropping in their tracks
Marilyn asked me today if I’d ever had an injection to protect against meningitis.
“I don’t have a clue,” I answered. “We often had multiple shots at the same time and they usually didn’t bother telling us what they were for.”
The doctors and nurses giving the injections would often form a gauntlet, three or four on each side, all carrying pneumatic needles that looked like air pistols. We would line up and roll up both sleeves and then parade through the gauntlet. The result was often bloody and painful.
You never wanted to be last in line. Those going first would trot past us, moaning in mostly faked pain as blood streamed down both their arms. It didn’t matter much because there were many more injections in our future. Next time, they might be standing last in line and it would be our turn to cause them mental grief as they awaited their fate.
Gondwana
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Cheese Grits Casserole - a weekend recipe
When corn is ground, the resultant fine powder is corn meal; the coarse remaining product is grits. I grew up eating either grits or fried potatoes for breakfast and I don’t recall my Mom cooking hash browns.
I recently ordered a birth certificate for my Dad and learned that his real father, a person that neither of us ever met, was from Maryland. Dad always liked sugar in his grits, a preference normally observed by people from north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Having a father from Maryland may explain this anomaly.
My second wife Anne, even though from Oklahoma, loved grits as much as I do. On a trip to Massachusetts to visit Cousin Angela, we stopped at a restaurant for breakfast and were happy to learn they served grits. When we ordered our side dishes, the young woman waiting on us got a big grin on her face.
“I’ll be right back,” she said. She returned with six other restaurant employees. “Say grits again, “she said. They all cracked up when we complied.
Yes, it’s a fact that the word grits has at least two syllables - if you are from the south, that is.
Here is a recipe for an Oklahoma version of the tasty North American polenta:
Cheese Grits Casserole
1 ½ c. grits
3 eggs, beaten
1 ½ sticks butter, softened
1 lb. cheddar cheese, shredded
3 tsp savory salt
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. paprika
Tabasco sauce to taste
Cook grits in 6 cups boiling water, in a saucepan, for 30 minutes, stirring frequently. Combine remaining ingredients in bowl, mixing well. Stir into grits. Pour into casserole. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour.
Makes 8 – 10 servings
I recently ordered a birth certificate for my Dad and learned that his real father, a person that neither of us ever met, was from Maryland. Dad always liked sugar in his grits, a preference normally observed by people from north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Having a father from Maryland may explain this anomaly.
My second wife Anne, even though from Oklahoma, loved grits as much as I do. On a trip to Massachusetts to visit Cousin Angela, we stopped at a restaurant for breakfast and were happy to learn they served grits. When we ordered our side dishes, the young woman waiting on us got a big grin on her face.
“I’ll be right back,” she said. She returned with six other restaurant employees. “Say grits again, “she said. They all cracked up when we complied.
Yes, it’s a fact that the word grits has at least two syllables - if you are from the south, that is.
Here is a recipe for an Oklahoma version of the tasty North American polenta:
Cheese Grits Casserole
1 ½ c. grits
3 eggs, beaten
1 ½ sticks butter, softened
1 lb. cheddar cheese, shredded
3 tsp savory salt
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. paprika
Tabasco sauce to taste
Cook grits in 6 cups boiling water, in a saucepan, for 30 minutes, stirring frequently. Combine remaining ingredients in bowl, mixing well. Stir into grits. Pour into casserole. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour.
Makes 8 – 10 servings
Friday, November 13, 2009
Family Spirits
The dictionary defines triskaidekaphobia as the fear of the number 13. Today is Friday the thirteenth, supposedly an unlucky day. My day started in frustration with me thinking things are going badly for me. It made me think, which spirit have I angered. My first thought was my Mother.
My Mom died of lymphoma about two years ago. She was eighty-five when she died and mentally as sharp as a twenty-year-old. She fought her cancer until the end because she didn’t want to leave my Dad, who has advanced Alzheimer’s, alone. I assured her, just before she died, that Brother Jack and I would look after him.
I have wondered lately if she is keeping an eye on things and somehow unhappy with the way Jack and I are managing things. I have thought this for sometime now because my “Magic Moonflowers” haven’t bloomed since she died.
I don’t know if any of this is true, but last night I called on the spirits of my Grandpa and Grandma Pitt, my Mom’s parents, to intercede if this is truly the situation. Jack and I are far from perfect and neither of us can be with Dad as many hours each week as he would like us to. I also know that no one could ever take care of him as good as my Mom Mavis.
Now I know lots of you out there don’t believe in spirits, but today my luck took a turn for the best. Two very positive things that I had almost given up on happened and I have had a mile-wide grin on my face since noon.
I know the world is an imperfect place. I have thought many times that no one can do anything as well as I. I also know that when things don’t go right you often tend to blame the ones you love the most. I’ve known this since I was a child.
My Mom and my Grandma Pitt were very close and never a day passed that they weren’t together. Brother Jack and I were no angels and got into trouble on a daily basis but we always knew that Grandma Pitt would intercede on our behalf, no matter what mischief we had caused. Grandpa Pitt would back her up and tell my Mom to cut us some slack.
“They are just being boys,” he would say.
Today is Friday the 13 and a chill wind is blowing outside the house. I am happy as I keyboard this story because I realize that “family” is the single strongest entity that exists and that I can still grab my Grandma’s spirit leg and ask her to protect me, and know that she will.
My Mom died of lymphoma about two years ago. She was eighty-five when she died and mentally as sharp as a twenty-year-old. She fought her cancer until the end because she didn’t want to leave my Dad, who has advanced Alzheimer’s, alone. I assured her, just before she died, that Brother Jack and I would look after him.
I have wondered lately if she is keeping an eye on things and somehow unhappy with the way Jack and I are managing things. I have thought this for sometime now because my “Magic Moonflowers” haven’t bloomed since she died.
I don’t know if any of this is true, but last night I called on the spirits of my Grandpa and Grandma Pitt, my Mom’s parents, to intercede if this is truly the situation. Jack and I are far from perfect and neither of us can be with Dad as many hours each week as he would like us to. I also know that no one could ever take care of him as good as my Mom Mavis.
Now I know lots of you out there don’t believe in spirits, but today my luck took a turn for the best. Two very positive things that I had almost given up on happened and I have had a mile-wide grin on my face since noon.
I know the world is an imperfect place. I have thought many times that no one can do anything as well as I. I also know that when things don’t go right you often tend to blame the ones you love the most. I’ve known this since I was a child.
My Mom and my Grandma Pitt were very close and never a day passed that they weren’t together. Brother Jack and I were no angels and got into trouble on a daily basis but we always knew that Grandma Pitt would intercede on our behalf, no matter what mischief we had caused. Grandpa Pitt would back her up and tell my Mom to cut us some slack.
“They are just being boys,” he would say.
Today is Friday the 13 and a chill wind is blowing outside the house. I am happy as I keyboard this story because I realize that “family” is the single strongest entity that exists and that I can still grab my Grandma’s spirit leg and ask her to protect me, and know that she will.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Throwing the Bull
A year ago, Marilyn watched the Country Music Awards on television. While passing the set, I stopped to hear an interview with Reba McIntyre. “This,” the interviewer said, “is your tenth year to host the Awards. How does it make you feel?”
Reba’s answer went something like this: “I can’t believe it’s been ten years and I can’t believe they keep inviting me back.”
Ten years is a long time but not the first time that I saw Reba in person. It was at Gilley’s – the honky-tonk immortalized by the movie Urban Cowboy - in Pasadena, Texas near Houston, the year 1981.
I was on a road trip with friends Andy and John to attend off-road motorcycle races at the Houston Astrodome. All the racers were riding road bikes, except for one racer. He had a small-block dirt bike, I can’t remember the make, and he did a number on all the other racers.
Dirt bikes weren’t a novelty at the time and I wonder now why someone hadn’t thought of the idea before 1981. As it stands, I now think that I witnessed the changing of the guard when it comes to off-road racing.
John, Andy and I – especially Andy – were motorcycle enthusiasts, Andy a racer himself. Andy had an Italian Laverda Motoplast and we once rented Hallett Motor Speedway, just outside Tulsa, for the weekend, but that’s another story. We saw plenty of motorcycle racing during the weekend and did lots of drinking. One of the bars we visited was Gilley’s.
The disco era was all but done but country and western line dancing was almost like disco. John Travolta is a great actor but probably thought of more as a dancer after his hit movie Saturday Night Fever. I’m sure his dancing ability got him the part but his acting was flawless – as was everyone else’s in the movie.
We were already half-tanked when we made it to Gilley’s. The place was large, loud and dark. It seems like it had about four distinct areas, the bar, a game room, dance floor and the mechanized bull area. I could be wrong about this because, like I said, we were all half-tanked.
I’m sure we paid a cover charge at the door because there were two bands that night, a warm-up band whose name I can’t remember, and the one that backed up young C & W singer Reba McIntyre. It didn’t take anyone in the place very long before realizing she would soon be a certified country super star.
After many more Buds, I tried a little line dancing. The steps, as I mentioned, were a lot like disco line dancing and I had no trouble melding in, though I wore no jeans, boots or Stetson. Finally, sufficiently liquored up, we made it to the room with the motorized bull. John and Andy were too intelligent to try the mechanized beast but, well, I wasn’t that smart. Before long I was waving to the cheering crowd and climbing on the bull.
There are no mechanized bulls anymore, at least as far as I know. The reason is simple: they are far too dangerous. I found this out about ten seconds into the ride. The operator started out slow as I held on with one hand, whooping it up like some deranged banshee. Finally, he cranked it up a notch, sending my heart, and my rear end, up around my throat. I landed on the hardwood floor like a sack of ripe potatoes, bouncing a time or two before coming to an ignominious stop.
All the pretty cowgirls and the less-than-impressed cowboys booed me as I limped off the stage. A real cowboy took the bull shortly after my unending, thankfully stealing away the attention from me as I slunk away into the darkness. John and Andy were rolling in laughter but at least they had a cold beer for me.
As I watched Reba, I realized the years have been good to her. And me? I’m a little smarter now because I still remember that saucer-sized bruise on my butt from bouncing around on Gilley’s hardwood floor. Hey, not much smarter because with the right amount of Budweiser, I might give the old bull one more try.
Fiction South
Reba’s answer went something like this: “I can’t believe it’s been ten years and I can’t believe they keep inviting me back.”
Ten years is a long time but not the first time that I saw Reba in person. It was at Gilley’s – the honky-tonk immortalized by the movie Urban Cowboy - in Pasadena, Texas near Houston, the year 1981.
I was on a road trip with friends Andy and John to attend off-road motorcycle races at the Houston Astrodome. All the racers were riding road bikes, except for one racer. He had a small-block dirt bike, I can’t remember the make, and he did a number on all the other racers.
Dirt bikes weren’t a novelty at the time and I wonder now why someone hadn’t thought of the idea before 1981. As it stands, I now think that I witnessed the changing of the guard when it comes to off-road racing.
John, Andy and I – especially Andy – were motorcycle enthusiasts, Andy a racer himself. Andy had an Italian Laverda Motoplast and we once rented Hallett Motor Speedway, just outside Tulsa, for the weekend, but that’s another story. We saw plenty of motorcycle racing during the weekend and did lots of drinking. One of the bars we visited was Gilley’s.
The disco era was all but done but country and western line dancing was almost like disco. John Travolta is a great actor but probably thought of more as a dancer after his hit movie Saturday Night Fever. I’m sure his dancing ability got him the part but his acting was flawless – as was everyone else’s in the movie.
We were already half-tanked when we made it to Gilley’s. The place was large, loud and dark. It seems like it had about four distinct areas, the bar, a game room, dance floor and the mechanized bull area. I could be wrong about this because, like I said, we were all half-tanked.
I’m sure we paid a cover charge at the door because there were two bands that night, a warm-up band whose name I can’t remember, and the one that backed up young C & W singer Reba McIntyre. It didn’t take anyone in the place very long before realizing she would soon be a certified country super star.
After many more Buds, I tried a little line dancing. The steps, as I mentioned, were a lot like disco line dancing and I had no trouble melding in, though I wore no jeans, boots or Stetson. Finally, sufficiently liquored up, we made it to the room with the motorized bull. John and Andy were too intelligent to try the mechanized beast but, well, I wasn’t that smart. Before long I was waving to the cheering crowd and climbing on the bull.
There are no mechanized bulls anymore, at least as far as I know. The reason is simple: they are far too dangerous. I found this out about ten seconds into the ride. The operator started out slow as I held on with one hand, whooping it up like some deranged banshee. Finally, he cranked it up a notch, sending my heart, and my rear end, up around my throat. I landed on the hardwood floor like a sack of ripe potatoes, bouncing a time or two before coming to an ignominious stop.
All the pretty cowgirls and the less-than-impressed cowboys booed me as I limped off the stage. A real cowboy took the bull shortly after my unending, thankfully stealing away the attention from me as I slunk away into the darkness. John and Andy were rolling in laughter but at least they had a cold beer for me.
As I watched Reba, I realized the years have been good to her. And me? I’m a little smarter now because I still remember that saucer-sized bruise on my butt from bouncing around on Gilley’s hardwood floor. Hey, not much smarter because with the right amount of Budweiser, I might give the old bull one more try.
Fiction South
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Happy Veteran's Day
My Dad was a soldier in WWII and has six battle stars. My brother Jack served in the Army in Germany while I was in Vietnam. We all understand service and we all understand the sacrifice service men and women undergo.
Marilyn and I sat on the patio of Kang’s Asian Restaurant tonight, drinking sake and Sapporo Beer. The night was warm, maybe a bit too warm for a date this late in November. It didn’t matter as we enjoyed Kang’s wonderful patio.
Kang asked if we liked venison. Even being from Louisiana, I had never tried it. Marilyn has. He treated us to bowls of venison soup that was nothing short of wonderful.
As I keyboard this story, I think how lucky I am to live in the greatest country this world has ever known. I also reflect on how lucky I am to live in a country where brave men and women risk their lives and limbs on a daily basis to protect our freedoms.
Happy Veteran’s Day and thanks for your service. We wouldn’t be here without you.
Fiction South
Marilyn and I sat on the patio of Kang’s Asian Restaurant tonight, drinking sake and Sapporo Beer. The night was warm, maybe a bit too warm for a date this late in November. It didn’t matter as we enjoyed Kang’s wonderful patio.
Kang asked if we liked venison. Even being from Louisiana, I had never tried it. Marilyn has. He treated us to bowls of venison soup that was nothing short of wonderful.
As I keyboard this story, I think how lucky I am to live in the greatest country this world has ever known. I also reflect on how lucky I am to live in a country where brave men and women risk their lives and limbs on a daily basis to protect our freedoms.
Happy Veteran’s Day and thanks for your service. We wouldn’t be here without you.
Fiction South
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Between Truth and Fantasy
My Dad once told me, “Believe only half of what you see and nothing you hear.” I didn’t know what he meant at the time, but now I do.
Before I went to Vietnam, I read a book in the Northeast Louisiana State College library about hypnotism. It wasn’t a systematic instructional manual, but it did explain why hypnotism works and “suggested” how to use it.
I won’t try to explain how it works, but I gleaned enough from the book to test the theory. During my tour of Vietnam, I encountered many willing subjects and I soon became proficient at hypnosis. Delving with the brain can have serious consequences, something I quickly learned.
I was on a forward firebase in the middle of the jungle. My company had just completed a fifteen-day stint in the triple canopy never-land of the Vietnam War and we were luxuriating in a five-day stand-down on Firebase Betty. Fellow Sky Troopers had gathered around a fire as I prepared to hypnotize a soldier.
My shtick was to make a trooper think he was a chicken. Usually, the person hypnotized would crouch like a fowl and begin clucking and slowly looking for worms. This soldier’s reaction was quiet different.
Charles, a close friend of mine, became very frenzied. He jumped over the berm and began running down the hill, into the darkness. Trip wire and deadly claymore mines awaited him.
“One, two three,” I yelled, following him over the berm. “You are awake. Stop where you are.”
Charles straightened up and came to a halt, looking frightened as he stared into the darkness. I grabbed his arm and led him back over the berm, into the light of the blazing fire, surrounded by laughing GI’s.
Hypnosis is a reality, and not a joke. It is a powerful form of mind control and weeks passed before I used it again.
Louisiana Mystery Writer
Before I went to Vietnam, I read a book in the Northeast Louisiana State College library about hypnotism. It wasn’t a systematic instructional manual, but it did explain why hypnotism works and “suggested” how to use it.
I won’t try to explain how it works, but I gleaned enough from the book to test the theory. During my tour of Vietnam, I encountered many willing subjects and I soon became proficient at hypnosis. Delving with the brain can have serious consequences, something I quickly learned.
I was on a forward firebase in the middle of the jungle. My company had just completed a fifteen-day stint in the triple canopy never-land of the Vietnam War and we were luxuriating in a five-day stand-down on Firebase Betty. Fellow Sky Troopers had gathered around a fire as I prepared to hypnotize a soldier.
My shtick was to make a trooper think he was a chicken. Usually, the person hypnotized would crouch like a fowl and begin clucking and slowly looking for worms. This soldier’s reaction was quiet different.
Charles, a close friend of mine, became very frenzied. He jumped over the berm and began running down the hill, into the darkness. Trip wire and deadly claymore mines awaited him.
“One, two three,” I yelled, following him over the berm. “You are awake. Stop where you are.”
Charles straightened up and came to a halt, looking frightened as he stared into the darkness. I grabbed his arm and led him back over the berm, into the light of the blazing fire, surrounded by laughing GI’s.
Hypnosis is a reality, and not a joke. It is a powerful form of mind control and weeks passed before I used it again.
Louisiana Mystery Writer
Red River Babylon
While growing up in north Louisiana, I wasted many hours at a place known locally as the Bossier Strip. Billed as the largest bit of neon between Las Vegas and Miami Beach, this three-mile row of nightclubs, restaurants, liquor stores, and striptease joints had it all.
Probably the biggest and most popular nightclub was Sak’s Boom Boom Room, later known as Sak’s Whisk-a-go-go. Clad in flashing neon of reds and yellows, the building looked like a rocket under full launch from Cape Canaveral. There was always live music of all varieties along the strip, but Sak’s provided the biggest venue to the biggest soon-to-be-famous artists.
The thing I remember most about Sak’s was the bikini-clad go-go dancer suspended in a cage above the dance floor. There was no nudity but a distinct aura of sex abounded along with the loud live music, strong drinks and uninhibited dancing. I saw many acts and a friend recently reminded me of the comedian and singer Rusty Warren performing her bawdy ballad Knockers Up.
The Bossier Strip prospered because it had a captive audience – the men and women of Barksdale Air Force Base, the largest SAC base in the world. Even the smallest of clubs had live music, along with the mystique of illegal gambling and prostitution, courtesy of the Southern Mafia.
Today, the “Strip” is mostly history, replaced by legal gambling in gaudy riverboats moored along the Red River between Shreveport and Bossier City. Many music venues still exist, along with the palpable undercurrent of sex and danger that provided the place with an excitement like no other, and will likely never disappear.
Gondwana
Probably the biggest and most popular nightclub was Sak’s Boom Boom Room, later known as Sak’s Whisk-a-go-go. Clad in flashing neon of reds and yellows, the building looked like a rocket under full launch from Cape Canaveral. There was always live music of all varieties along the strip, but Sak’s provided the biggest venue to the biggest soon-to-be-famous artists.
The thing I remember most about Sak’s was the bikini-clad go-go dancer suspended in a cage above the dance floor. There was no nudity but a distinct aura of sex abounded along with the loud live music, strong drinks and uninhibited dancing. I saw many acts and a friend recently reminded me of the comedian and singer Rusty Warren performing her bawdy ballad Knockers Up.
The Bossier Strip prospered because it had a captive audience – the men and women of Barksdale Air Force Base, the largest SAC base in the world. Even the smallest of clubs had live music, along with the mystique of illegal gambling and prostitution, courtesy of the Southern Mafia.
Today, the “Strip” is mostly history, replaced by legal gambling in gaudy riverboats moored along the Red River between Shreveport and Bossier City. Many music venues still exist, along with the palpable undercurrent of sex and danger that provided the place with an excitement like no other, and will likely never disappear.
Gondwana
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Dog-Faced Man
Anne and I lived in an Oklahoma subdivision called Summerfield for a while. The house was tiny, but it had a small swimming pool and hot tub. It backed up to a creek alive with wildlife and we loved the place.
Summerfield was originally part of the Gaylord dairy farm, a pristine area just north of what was then Oklahoma City. Gaylord, founder of the Oklahoman, was one of the first Oklahoma millionaires and his family now owns The Grand Ole Opry.
When I lived in Summerfield, I was an avid jogger. I had a three-mile course laid out which I ran practically every day. Part of it was on the west side of Lake Hefner, one of Oklahoma City’s water supplies, and it was then in an unpopulated area of the City.
I know this is strange, but this is true. When I jogged along the river path, I often saw a very strange person. Hair covered his entire face and he looked like Lon Chaney in the Werewolf. I kid you not! I described him to Anne and called him the dog-faced man.
This person was smaller than I was but he still frightened me. Once I encountered him urinating in the bushes. I am not making any of this up!
I do not really know where I am going with this except to say there are strange things around us every day that we often overlook, or never tell anyone else because we will feel like fools and think no one will believe us.
Yes, Virginia, there is a dog-faced man, and he lives in Oklahoma City.
Fiction South
Summerfield was originally part of the Gaylord dairy farm, a pristine area just north of what was then Oklahoma City. Gaylord, founder of the Oklahoman, was one of the first Oklahoma millionaires and his family now owns The Grand Ole Opry.
When I lived in Summerfield, I was an avid jogger. I had a three-mile course laid out which I ran practically every day. Part of it was on the west side of Lake Hefner, one of Oklahoma City’s water supplies, and it was then in an unpopulated area of the City.
I know this is strange, but this is true. When I jogged along the river path, I often saw a very strange person. Hair covered his entire face and he looked like Lon Chaney in the Werewolf. I kid you not! I described him to Anne and called him the dog-faced man.
This person was smaller than I was but he still frightened me. Once I encountered him urinating in the bushes. I am not making any of this up!
I do not really know where I am going with this except to say there are strange things around us every day that we often overlook, or never tell anyone else because we will feel like fools and think no one will believe us.
Yes, Virginia, there is a dog-faced man, and he lives in Oklahoma City.
Fiction South
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Meeting the Southern Death Cult
Just East of Eden is my book of stories published in 2007 by Gondwana Press. Chicken Fries is one of the stories in the book and recounts an episodic ten days sitting a drilling oil well in Grant County, Oklahoma while staying in Wanda Jackson’s former RV.
Part of the story deals with the drilling of the well while another part expounds on many of the strange happenings going on in the area at the time – happenings that included cattle mutilations, crop circles and a County sheriff that seems to know all about it.
The story includes a midnight meeting with Ralph and Goldie, two people Anne and Eric suspect of Satanism. The reality is something quite different but still quite unusual. Here is an excerpt from the story Chicken Fries:
Hearing the throaty exhausts of a Harley pull to a stop outside the RV, we waited, listening to someone scrape their boots on the stair ramp leading up the door. Then footsteps –
Anne made a face as I opened the RV’s door. “Come in,” I said.
Ralph was not alone. A woman he introduced as Goldie his soul mate accompanied him.
Goldie had long blonde hair decorated with pink, azure and purple beads, and had big expressive blue eyes. She wore a leather-fringed jacket beaded with the same colors, along with American Indian totem signs. She seemed like a sixties flower child that had put on twenty pounds in the seventies to become the quintessential earth mother.
Ralph also wore a matching leather-fringed coat. For the second time since meeting him, I saw him without a hat or helmet. His dark hair was also long, draping almost to his shoulders and I could see that he was much younger than I had previously thought. Pointing to the built-in seating around the stationary table, I invited the Sonny and Cher look-alikes to join us.
“Would anyone like a beer?” I asked.
Ralph and Goldie both nodded so I brought a round of Coors from the RV’s little refrigerator before sliding in beside Anne. The lighting was dim. When Goldie began rolling a joint on the tabletop, the atmosphere became suddenly surreal.
The hallucinatory odor of burning pot permeated the RV as Goldie lit the joint, took a deep drag and then handed it to Ralph. After taking his own pull from the joint, he passed it to Anne. She took a hesitant puff and quickly passed it back to Ralph. Ralph shook his head and nodded in my direction.
I’m a non-smoker and no fan of the effects of marijuana, but I could already see the big picture. If Ralph and Goldie were going to impart their knowledge of Satanism and cattle mutilations to us, they first wanted us to join them in a simple illegal act.
Anne’s eyes grew large as I took the pencil-thin joint, drew a deep lungful of the smoke and held it for a long moment before blowing aromatic smoke rings toward the RV’s ceiling.
“Like it?” Goldie asked. “Home-grown from our own private patch.”
Goldie was grinning, as was Ralph and Anne. I soon realized that so was I. When I arose to get us more beer from the refrigerator I almost fell on my face.
“Creeper weed,” Ralph said. “It takes a while to catch up with you, but when it does –“
Anne lit a candle, put it in the center of the table and turned out the lights. Along with the pungent odor of marijuana, rising smoke and flickering candle light, all we needed was a little heavy-metal music. We made do with the chorus of crickets and tree frogs outside the RV. Finally, Ralph spoke.
“Word is going around that you’re meddling in things that aren’t your business.”
“Is that why someone tried to kill me the other day?”
“No one tried to kill you. That was an accident.”
It unnerved me that Ralph knew what I was talking about, even if it were an accident. The pentagram and dead chicken weren’t accidents,” I said.
“The boys was just trying to warn you to mind your own business.”
“Or?”
“Or nothing. They didn’t mean nothing by it,” Ralph said.
“We wouldn’t turn you in, even if you are Satanists,” Anne said.
Goldie laughed and rolled her eyes. “We’re not Satanists,” she said.
“Sheriff Arch called you Satanists. If he’s wrong about that, then what are you?” I asked.
“We worship the moon, the stars and the cycles of the earth and planets,” Goldie said. “Some people call us pagans.”
“Pagans?” asked Anne.
Warming to the conversation, Goldie spoke up and said, “It’s the oldest religion in Oklahoma, and maybe the world.”
It was my turn to ask, “How could you possibly know that?”
“Because of the excavations at the Spiro Mound sites in southeastern Oklahoma. The site was the hub of religion and government for prehistoric Indians for thousands of miles. The religion is connected to the Druids and Stonehenge and is likely the world’s oldest religion.”
Ralph droned in. “Like the people at Stonehenge and Spiro, we still celebrate the cycles of the earth and stars.”
“You worship cycles?” Anne asked.
“We worship the universal pulse that controls everything,” Goldie said. “We call ourselves the Southern Death Cult, after one of Spiro’s branches. Some of the followers are part of the Buzzard Cult.”
“How many followers are there?” asked Anne.
“Thousands likely,” Ralph answered. “No one exactly knows but there are branches all over the world.”
“And what about cattle mutilations?” I asked.
“We naturally get blamed for lots of things we don’t do. Sometimes coyotes kill cows in these parts.”
“What about the removal of udders and sexual parts with almost razor-like precision? How could a coyote, or any other wild animal, do that?” I asked.
“Bacteria,” Ralph answered. “It’s a proven fact that if you leave a carcass outside in these parts, bacteria will remove those parts in a matter of hours.”
Anne caused my heart to skip a beat when she asked, “Yeah, if you aren’t Satanists, then how do you explain your use of human sacrifice?”
The looks on both Ralph and Goldie’s faces told me that Anne had offended them. Like experienced diplomats, they both took deep breaths before speaking. Before answering, Goldie rolled another joint.
After making a production of lighting it, she took a deep drag before passing it to Ralph. Ralph took his own deep drag and I could see by the expression in his dark eyes that Anne’s comment had not made him happy. This time, when he passed the joint to Anne, she also took a long toke, as did I when she handed it to me.
As a Vietnam vet, I am far from a virgin when it comes to drugs. I like beer, but that doesn’t mean that I have never sampled the weed. This weed was different. By my second puff I was stoned. I stifled a giggle when I observed the hurt expressions on Ralph and Goldie’s faces.
“The Southern Death Cult doesn’t practice human sacrifice,” Ralph finally said. He giggled himself when he added, “maybe a chicken or two, but nothing more.”
At this point, Anne began laughing uncontrollably and Goldie, Ralph and I soon joined her. I staggered up to the refrigerator and got us more Coors.
When I returned with the beer I asked, “If you don’t practice human sacrifices then why have a name as ominous as the Southern Death Cult?”
“We couldn’t have made that one up if we’d tried. Southern Death Cult is the original name the Indians used. No one really knows why.”
“So why all the secrecy if you’re not really Satanists?” Anne asked.
“Oklahoma is the hub of the Bible Belt. The only Southern most of our neighbors understand is Baptist. What we came to tell you is you got a problem with the well.”
“What kind of problem?”
“The spot you are drilling on is hallowed, an old Indian burial ground.”
“Are you sure? I never found anything in the literature. How do you know?”
“It’s been passed down and there’s a curse against anyone ever making use of that spot of land. You’re drilling almost the exact location.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and neither could Anne. “What should we do? We’ve spent too much money to quit now.”
“This ain’t about money. It’s about sacred land. You got to make amends.”
“Or what?”
At this point, Goldie’s facial expression went from a pretty smile to an angry frown. Standing from the table, she said, “Seems like we’ve done all we can, Ralph. Let’s get the hell outa here.”
“Now wait a minute,” Anne said. “My father was a Baptist minister. You can’t just come in here and tell us that you’re members of a cult called Southern Death and that you are descended from Indians that believe in cycles of the universe and expect to convert us in one fell swoop! Tell us what it is you want us to do. At least respect us enough to give us a chance.”
Anne’s tirade caught them both by surprise, as well as me. Goldie and Ralph exchanged glances and Goldie resumed her place at the table. I went to the refrigerator and got us more beer. Then I said, “Now, please tell us what to do.”
Ralph drank some beer and leaned forward in his seat. “All right,” he said. “If you’re really serious, this is what you need to know.”
I know now that Ralph and Goldie are not Satanists - they’re Pagans. Pagans exist everywhere, even here in Edmond. It’s been many years but, since it is autumn again, a mystical time of the year, maybe I’ll just take a drive to Blackwell and see if they’re still around.
Louisiana Mystery Writer
Part of the story deals with the drilling of the well while another part expounds on many of the strange happenings going on in the area at the time – happenings that included cattle mutilations, crop circles and a County sheriff that seems to know all about it.
The story includes a midnight meeting with Ralph and Goldie, two people Anne and Eric suspect of Satanism. The reality is something quite different but still quite unusual. Here is an excerpt from the story Chicken Fries:
Hearing the throaty exhausts of a Harley pull to a stop outside the RV, we waited, listening to someone scrape their boots on the stair ramp leading up the door. Then footsteps –
Anne made a face as I opened the RV’s door. “Come in,” I said.
Ralph was not alone. A woman he introduced as Goldie his soul mate accompanied him.
Goldie had long blonde hair decorated with pink, azure and purple beads, and had big expressive blue eyes. She wore a leather-fringed jacket beaded with the same colors, along with American Indian totem signs. She seemed like a sixties flower child that had put on twenty pounds in the seventies to become the quintessential earth mother.
Ralph also wore a matching leather-fringed coat. For the second time since meeting him, I saw him without a hat or helmet. His dark hair was also long, draping almost to his shoulders and I could see that he was much younger than I had previously thought. Pointing to the built-in seating around the stationary table, I invited the Sonny and Cher look-alikes to join us.
“Would anyone like a beer?” I asked.
Ralph and Goldie both nodded so I brought a round of Coors from the RV’s little refrigerator before sliding in beside Anne. The lighting was dim. When Goldie began rolling a joint on the tabletop, the atmosphere became suddenly surreal.
The hallucinatory odor of burning pot permeated the RV as Goldie lit the joint, took a deep drag and then handed it to Ralph. After taking his own pull from the joint, he passed it to Anne. She took a hesitant puff and quickly passed it back to Ralph. Ralph shook his head and nodded in my direction.
I’m a non-smoker and no fan of the effects of marijuana, but I could already see the big picture. If Ralph and Goldie were going to impart their knowledge of Satanism and cattle mutilations to us, they first wanted us to join them in a simple illegal act.
Anne’s eyes grew large as I took the pencil-thin joint, drew a deep lungful of the smoke and held it for a long moment before blowing aromatic smoke rings toward the RV’s ceiling.
“Like it?” Goldie asked. “Home-grown from our own private patch.”
Goldie was grinning, as was Ralph and Anne. I soon realized that so was I. When I arose to get us more beer from the refrigerator I almost fell on my face.
“Creeper weed,” Ralph said. “It takes a while to catch up with you, but when it does –“
Anne lit a candle, put it in the center of the table and turned out the lights. Along with the pungent odor of marijuana, rising smoke and flickering candle light, all we needed was a little heavy-metal music. We made do with the chorus of crickets and tree frogs outside the RV. Finally, Ralph spoke.
“Word is going around that you’re meddling in things that aren’t your business.”
“Is that why someone tried to kill me the other day?”
“No one tried to kill you. That was an accident.”
It unnerved me that Ralph knew what I was talking about, even if it were an accident. The pentagram and dead chicken weren’t accidents,” I said.
“The boys was just trying to warn you to mind your own business.”
“Or?”
“Or nothing. They didn’t mean nothing by it,” Ralph said.
“We wouldn’t turn you in, even if you are Satanists,” Anne said.
Goldie laughed and rolled her eyes. “We’re not Satanists,” she said.
“Sheriff Arch called you Satanists. If he’s wrong about that, then what are you?” I asked.
“We worship the moon, the stars and the cycles of the earth and planets,” Goldie said. “Some people call us pagans.”
“Pagans?” asked Anne.
Warming to the conversation, Goldie spoke up and said, “It’s the oldest religion in Oklahoma, and maybe the world.”
It was my turn to ask, “How could you possibly know that?”
“Because of the excavations at the Spiro Mound sites in southeastern Oklahoma. The site was the hub of religion and government for prehistoric Indians for thousands of miles. The religion is connected to the Druids and Stonehenge and is likely the world’s oldest religion.”
Ralph droned in. “Like the people at Stonehenge and Spiro, we still celebrate the cycles of the earth and stars.”
“You worship cycles?” Anne asked.
“We worship the universal pulse that controls everything,” Goldie said. “We call ourselves the Southern Death Cult, after one of Spiro’s branches. Some of the followers are part of the Buzzard Cult.”
“How many followers are there?” asked Anne.
“Thousands likely,” Ralph answered. “No one exactly knows but there are branches all over the world.”
“And what about cattle mutilations?” I asked.
“We naturally get blamed for lots of things we don’t do. Sometimes coyotes kill cows in these parts.”
“What about the removal of udders and sexual parts with almost razor-like precision? How could a coyote, or any other wild animal, do that?” I asked.
“Bacteria,” Ralph answered. “It’s a proven fact that if you leave a carcass outside in these parts, bacteria will remove those parts in a matter of hours.”
Anne caused my heart to skip a beat when she asked, “Yeah, if you aren’t Satanists, then how do you explain your use of human sacrifice?”
The looks on both Ralph and Goldie’s faces told me that Anne had offended them. Like experienced diplomats, they both took deep breaths before speaking. Before answering, Goldie rolled another joint.
After making a production of lighting it, she took a deep drag before passing it to Ralph. Ralph took his own deep drag and I could see by the expression in his dark eyes that Anne’s comment had not made him happy. This time, when he passed the joint to Anne, she also took a long toke, as did I when she handed it to me.
As a Vietnam vet, I am far from a virgin when it comes to drugs. I like beer, but that doesn’t mean that I have never sampled the weed. This weed was different. By my second puff I was stoned. I stifled a giggle when I observed the hurt expressions on Ralph and Goldie’s faces.
“The Southern Death Cult doesn’t practice human sacrifice,” Ralph finally said. He giggled himself when he added, “maybe a chicken or two, but nothing more.”
At this point, Anne began laughing uncontrollably and Goldie, Ralph and I soon joined her. I staggered up to the refrigerator and got us more Coors.
When I returned with the beer I asked, “If you don’t practice human sacrifices then why have a name as ominous as the Southern Death Cult?”
“We couldn’t have made that one up if we’d tried. Southern Death Cult is the original name the Indians used. No one really knows why.”
“So why all the secrecy if you’re not really Satanists?” Anne asked.
“Oklahoma is the hub of the Bible Belt. The only Southern most of our neighbors understand is Baptist. What we came to tell you is you got a problem with the well.”
“What kind of problem?”
“The spot you are drilling on is hallowed, an old Indian burial ground.”
“Are you sure? I never found anything in the literature. How do you know?”
“It’s been passed down and there’s a curse against anyone ever making use of that spot of land. You’re drilling almost the exact location.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and neither could Anne. “What should we do? We’ve spent too much money to quit now.”
“This ain’t about money. It’s about sacred land. You got to make amends.”
“Or what?”
At this point, Goldie’s facial expression went from a pretty smile to an angry frown. Standing from the table, she said, “Seems like we’ve done all we can, Ralph. Let’s get the hell outa here.”
“Now wait a minute,” Anne said. “My father was a Baptist minister. You can’t just come in here and tell us that you’re members of a cult called Southern Death and that you are descended from Indians that believe in cycles of the universe and expect to convert us in one fell swoop! Tell us what it is you want us to do. At least respect us enough to give us a chance.”
Anne’s tirade caught them both by surprise, as well as me. Goldie and Ralph exchanged glances and Goldie resumed her place at the table. I went to the refrigerator and got us more beer. Then I said, “Now, please tell us what to do.”
Ralph drank some beer and leaned forward in his seat. “All right,” he said. “If you’re really serious, this is what you need to know.”
I know now that Ralph and Goldie are not Satanists - they’re Pagans. Pagans exist everywhere, even here in Edmond. It’s been many years but, since it is autumn again, a mystical time of the year, maybe I’ll just take a drive to Blackwell and see if they’re still around.
Louisiana Mystery Writer
Friday, November 6, 2009
Crab Meat Broussard - a weekend recipe
New Orleans is the home of many fine restaurants. Broussard’s, a French Quarter destination since 1920, is one of the best. Here is a recipe from Broussard’s website as interpreted by Chef Gunter Preuss. Try it and enjoy.
CRAB MEAT BROUSSARD
Ingredients:
- 1 tbsp. butter
- 6 jumbo shrimp, peeled, tail left on, deveined; butterfly
- 1 oz. (2 tbsp.) olive oil
- 1 small yellow onion, diced
- 2 fresh artichoke hearts, chopped
- 1 large clove garlic, minced
- ¼ cup flour
- ¼ cup white wine
- 2 cups chicken stock
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 3 oz. brie cheese
- ½ cup bread crumbs
- 3 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 tbsp. whole fresh thyme leaves
- ¾ lb. jumbo lump crab meat
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a large skillet, melt the butter and sauté the shrimp until they are just cooked. Set aside to cool. In a heavy saucepan, heat the olive oil and sauté the yellow onion, artichoke hearts, and garlic over medium heat until the onions become limp. Sprinkle in the flour and mix well while cooking for a minute more.
Deglaze the pan with the white wine, and then add stock. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for three minutes.
Add the heavy cream and simmer for another five minutes. Take the brie and scrape off and discard the white skin; cut cheese into small pieces. Add brie to the ream sauce and stir until all of the cheese is melted and mixed well. Remove from heat and allow to cool. In a small bowl, combine the breadcrumbs, olive oil, and thyme. Set aside.
After the cheese mixture is cool, gently fold in the crabmeat, being careful not break up the lumps. To assemble, place one shrimp in the center of an oven proof serving dish so that it stands. Spoon the crabmeat mixture around the shrimp and sprinkle with the bread crumb mixture. Repeat with the remaining shrimp. Arrange the dishes on a large baking pan and bake in the preheated oven for fifteen minutes, or until the crab mixture is hot and bubbly.
Serve immediately.
Serves 6
Fiction South
CRAB MEAT BROUSSARD
Ingredients:
- 1 tbsp. butter
- 6 jumbo shrimp, peeled, tail left on, deveined; butterfly
- 1 oz. (2 tbsp.) olive oil
- 1 small yellow onion, diced
- 2 fresh artichoke hearts, chopped
- 1 large clove garlic, minced
- ¼ cup flour
- ¼ cup white wine
- 2 cups chicken stock
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 3 oz. brie cheese
- ½ cup bread crumbs
- 3 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 tbsp. whole fresh thyme leaves
- ¾ lb. jumbo lump crab meat
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a large skillet, melt the butter and sauté the shrimp until they are just cooked. Set aside to cool. In a heavy saucepan, heat the olive oil and sauté the yellow onion, artichoke hearts, and garlic over medium heat until the onions become limp. Sprinkle in the flour and mix well while cooking for a minute more.
Deglaze the pan with the white wine, and then add stock. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for three minutes.
Add the heavy cream and simmer for another five minutes. Take the brie and scrape off and discard the white skin; cut cheese into small pieces. Add brie to the ream sauce and stir until all of the cheese is melted and mixed well. Remove from heat and allow to cool. In a small bowl, combine the breadcrumbs, olive oil, and thyme. Set aside.
After the cheese mixture is cool, gently fold in the crabmeat, being careful not break up the lumps. To assemble, place one shrimp in the center of an oven proof serving dish so that it stands. Spoon the crabmeat mixture around the shrimp and sprinkle with the bread crumb mixture. Repeat with the remaining shrimp. Arrange the dishes on a large baking pan and bake in the preheated oven for fifteen minutes, or until the crab mixture is hot and bubbly.
Serve immediately.
Serves 6
Fiction South
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Garden Spirits
Saturday is my friend Terry’s birthday. Tonight, Terry, Jerry, Ed and I had drinks at Louie’s and then all of us except Ed went to my house where Marilyn had baked a birthday cake for Terry. The discussion turned to the topic of ghosts and spirits.
Terry deals with dead people all the time because he runs a private autopsy service. He has never seen a ghost or spirit. My contention is that spirits abound among us, but you must be receptive. Marilyn offered this story while we were talking.
“I was working in the backyard when I turned to see a smiling man.”
“You are doing a great job,” he said.
“I wondered how the man got into the backyard and when I started to ask him, he flashed away, into so many vapors.”
The person she thinks she saw was Randy, the man that had sold the house to me and then had committed suicide three days later.
Terry and Jerry departed after helpings of dinner and chocolate birthday cake, neither convinced of the existence of spirits. Do they exist? Oh, yes.
Fiction South
Terry deals with dead people all the time because he runs a private autopsy service. He has never seen a ghost or spirit. My contention is that spirits abound among us, but you must be receptive. Marilyn offered this story while we were talking.
“I was working in the backyard when I turned to see a smiling man.”
“You are doing a great job,” he said.
“I wondered how the man got into the backyard and when I started to ask him, he flashed away, into so many vapors.”
The person she thinks she saw was Randy, the man that had sold the house to me and then had committed suicide three days later.
Terry and Jerry departed after helpings of dinner and chocolate birthday cake, neither convinced of the existence of spirits. Do they exist? Oh, yes.
Fiction South
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
The Place You Are Meant To Be
I plan to winterize the dog’s shed early this year because I think we’re in for a cold winter. I also cranked up my hot tub because it’s always great to sit in it when the wind is blowing and the mosquitoes have disappeared for the season. It all reminds me of an exceptionally cold winter, some years ago.
I’m not sure of the year but I think it loosely coincided with the first Gulf War. Anne and I were at low ebb financially, but we were somehow managing to eke out a living. We were renting a house in an Oklahoma City neighborhood called Summerfield. The house was small but had a small pool and a hot tub.
Our house backed up to a creek with water and many trees. Because of the creek, we had critters visit us every night – skunks, possums, foxes and armadillos. They became so tame that I could open the sliding glass door and actually feed them out of my hand. My vet had a fit when I told him this.
“They could get rabies. You want them to bite your cats?”
I didn’t but I apparently had a better opinion of my cats’ intelligence than did my vet. They would never back up from a fight but, likewise, they weren’t much for starting one either.
A large unfixed stray tom lived in a drainage pipe near our house. He was wilder than the wildest skunk or fox, and he wouldn’t tolerate a human coming near him. Well, at least at first. Soon he was lying on the couch on the back porch and would even let me pet him – once or twice maybe.
The winter grew so cold that I draped plastic sheeting around the back porch to keep out the wind. Big Cat liked it and would lie out on the porch all day, but at night, he would disappear to chase field mouse, squirrels, or whatever. He didn’t bother my other cats and they seemed to feel safer because of his presence.
Leon and Dan, two trivia friends had dropped by one Friday night. A cold front had moved through the previous day and there was ice on the pool. I had the hot tub cranked so that it wouldn’t freeze, and Dan, Leon and I decided to take a dip.
When I say it was cold, I mean gray cold, a wind blowing so hard that it would freeze the moisture in your eyebrows.
“I’ll jump in the pool if you two will,” Leon said.
“You’re crazy,” I said.
“I’ll do it,” Dan said. “A quick cold dip will be good for us.”
Dan was smart; a PhD candidate in economics from OU, but it didn’t stop me from raising my frozen eyebrows.
“You’re both crazy as hell,” I said. “You won’t last thirty seconds.”
“We’ll be fine,” Leon said. “Our body temps are elevated because of being in the hot tub. I can’t believe you’re such a pussy about this.”
By this time, it had begun to sleet, the wind whipping like a proverbial banshee, the wooden deck around the spa rapidly growing slick.
“Who is the pussy?” I said, pulling myself out of the hot tub and racing the short distance across the slippery deck, to the pool.
“Geronimo!” I yelled as I hit the icy water.
Dan and Leon followed me into the pool. Dan was correct. Our body temperatures were elevated to the point that contact with the icy pool didn’t cause us to have instant heart attacks. That didn’t mean we could stay in the frigid water for very long. We hurriedly climbed out and immersed our bodies in the hot water of the hot tub.
We repeated the plunge into the pool at least two more times before rushing into the house, toweling off and then sitting in front of a roaring fire for at least half an hour.
I loved the little house but it had a structural defect – its foundation had split in the middle, something we geologists call a down-to-the-basin fault. The prognosis was dire and Anne and I began looking for a new place to live. Like the first Gulf War, winter ended and I somehow managed to sell a prospect, allowing us to move into improved digs.
I couldn’t find Big Cat when it came time to move because I don’t think he wanted me to find him. I did see him one last time. He stood a hundred feet away, looking at me, not coming when I called. He finally turned and walked away - stopping before disappearing into the drainage pipe that he called home. He seemed to dip his big head toward me, as if saying, “We had a good run, but this is where I’m meant to be.”
There’s a warm breeze blowing tonight, a big golden moon in the sky. My dog Lucky died two days ago and I’m missing him, and thinking about that last cold winter and that old big cat. It saddens me, and makes me think that the only real thing we actually have on this old earth is the here and now, and maybe the only place you’ll ever be happy is that drainage pipe in your heart that you call home.
Louisiana Mystery Writer
I’m not sure of the year but I think it loosely coincided with the first Gulf War. Anne and I were at low ebb financially, but we were somehow managing to eke out a living. We were renting a house in an Oklahoma City neighborhood called Summerfield. The house was small but had a small pool and a hot tub.
Our house backed up to a creek with water and many trees. Because of the creek, we had critters visit us every night – skunks, possums, foxes and armadillos. They became so tame that I could open the sliding glass door and actually feed them out of my hand. My vet had a fit when I told him this.
“They could get rabies. You want them to bite your cats?”
I didn’t but I apparently had a better opinion of my cats’ intelligence than did my vet. They would never back up from a fight but, likewise, they weren’t much for starting one either.
A large unfixed stray tom lived in a drainage pipe near our house. He was wilder than the wildest skunk or fox, and he wouldn’t tolerate a human coming near him. Well, at least at first. Soon he was lying on the couch on the back porch and would even let me pet him – once or twice maybe.
The winter grew so cold that I draped plastic sheeting around the back porch to keep out the wind. Big Cat liked it and would lie out on the porch all day, but at night, he would disappear to chase field mouse, squirrels, or whatever. He didn’t bother my other cats and they seemed to feel safer because of his presence.
Leon and Dan, two trivia friends had dropped by one Friday night. A cold front had moved through the previous day and there was ice on the pool. I had the hot tub cranked so that it wouldn’t freeze, and Dan, Leon and I decided to take a dip.
When I say it was cold, I mean gray cold, a wind blowing so hard that it would freeze the moisture in your eyebrows.
“I’ll jump in the pool if you two will,” Leon said.
“You’re crazy,” I said.
“I’ll do it,” Dan said. “A quick cold dip will be good for us.”
Dan was smart; a PhD candidate in economics from OU, but it didn’t stop me from raising my frozen eyebrows.
“You’re both crazy as hell,” I said. “You won’t last thirty seconds.”
“We’ll be fine,” Leon said. “Our body temps are elevated because of being in the hot tub. I can’t believe you’re such a pussy about this.”
By this time, it had begun to sleet, the wind whipping like a proverbial banshee, the wooden deck around the spa rapidly growing slick.
“Who is the pussy?” I said, pulling myself out of the hot tub and racing the short distance across the slippery deck, to the pool.
“Geronimo!” I yelled as I hit the icy water.
Dan and Leon followed me into the pool. Dan was correct. Our body temperatures were elevated to the point that contact with the icy pool didn’t cause us to have instant heart attacks. That didn’t mean we could stay in the frigid water for very long. We hurriedly climbed out and immersed our bodies in the hot water of the hot tub.
We repeated the plunge into the pool at least two more times before rushing into the house, toweling off and then sitting in front of a roaring fire for at least half an hour.
I loved the little house but it had a structural defect – its foundation had split in the middle, something we geologists call a down-to-the-basin fault. The prognosis was dire and Anne and I began looking for a new place to live. Like the first Gulf War, winter ended and I somehow managed to sell a prospect, allowing us to move into improved digs.
I couldn’t find Big Cat when it came time to move because I don’t think he wanted me to find him. I did see him one last time. He stood a hundred feet away, looking at me, not coming when I called. He finally turned and walked away - stopping before disappearing into the drainage pipe that he called home. He seemed to dip his big head toward me, as if saying, “We had a good run, but this is where I’m meant to be.”
There’s a warm breeze blowing tonight, a big golden moon in the sky. My dog Lucky died two days ago and I’m missing him, and thinking about that last cold winter and that old big cat. It saddens me, and makes me think that the only real thing we actually have on this old earth is the here and now, and maybe the only place you’ll ever be happy is that drainage pipe in your heart that you call home.
Louisiana Mystery Writer
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The Human Elixir
I am listening to the radio, feeling melancholy tonight because of the death of my Labrador retriever Lucky. Celine Dion’s song My Heart Will Go On began playing, evoking a memory that will remain forever poignant in my heart.
My wife Anne was within a few months of death in her battle with cancer when old friends, Sammy and Stephanie, dropped by unexpectedly. They asked us to go to the movies with them. Barrett, one of Anne’s fellow law students at OCU, was visiting for the weekend, also helping to lift her spirits. Anne pulled herself out of the bed and that night, we saw the movie Titanic.
Titanic is an awesome movie, but it is long, Anne very weak, on oxygen and in a wheelchair at the time. I didn’t know how close to death she was, but perhaps she did. She cried during the last scene, not for herself but because of the powerful emotion that the movie evoked.
The movie and the visit from Stephanie, Sammy and Barrett lifted Anne’s spirits and added quality months to her life. Of this, I am convinced. After receiving a wonderfully supportive email from my Aunt Dot tonight concerning my big pup Lucky, I am now positive that interaction with caring human beings is an elixir stronger than any medicine your doctor can ever prescribe.
Gondwana
My wife Anne was within a few months of death in her battle with cancer when old friends, Sammy and Stephanie, dropped by unexpectedly. They asked us to go to the movies with them. Barrett, one of Anne’s fellow law students at OCU, was visiting for the weekend, also helping to lift her spirits. Anne pulled herself out of the bed and that night, we saw the movie Titanic.
Titanic is an awesome movie, but it is long, Anne very weak, on oxygen and in a wheelchair at the time. I didn’t know how close to death she was, but perhaps she did. She cried during the last scene, not for herself but because of the powerful emotion that the movie evoked.
The movie and the visit from Stephanie, Sammy and Barrett lifted Anne’s spirits and added quality months to her life. Of this, I am convinced. After receiving a wonderfully supportive email from my Aunt Dot tonight concerning my big pup Lucky, I am now positive that interaction with caring human beings is an elixir stronger than any medicine your doctor can ever prescribe.
Gondwana
Monday, November 2, 2009
Goodbye, Lucky
My dog Lucky died today. He was twelve-plus, an advanced age for a Labrador retriever. My deceased wife Anne bought Lucky six months before she died and the big pup soon became my constant companion and best friend.
Lucky helped ease me through a hard time in my life. I am sad tonight, but I am happy that he lived such a long and happy life, and died on such a gorgeous day with no apparent trauma.
Goodbye Lucky and rest in peace. 11-02-2009.
Lucky helped ease me through a hard time in my life. I am sad tonight, but I am happy that he lived such a long and happy life, and died on such a gorgeous day with no apparent trauma.
Goodbye Lucky and rest in peace. 11-02-2009.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Free Candy, Beautiful Weather and a Free Hour of Sleep
What a wonderful weekend. Friday was my birthday, Saturday was Halloween and last night we got an extra hour of sleep, thanks to Daylight Savings.
It’s a full moon tonight in central Oklahoma, temperatures reaching the mid-seventies. What an eventful weekend! Friday, I turned thirty-nine for the twenty-fourth time. Marilyn took me to Pepe’s for a chile relleno Friday night. Yesterday, we had gumbo at Pearl’s Graveside with good friend Debbie. Today, I watched NASCAR at Talladega with my Dad (on TV that is).
The radio disk jockey I listen to had it right: Free candy, beautiful weather and an extra hour of sleep – how can you beat it?
It’s a full moon tonight in central Oklahoma, temperatures reaching the mid-seventies. What an eventful weekend! Friday, I turned thirty-nine for the twenty-fourth time. Marilyn took me to Pepe’s for a chile relleno Friday night. Yesterday, we had gumbo at Pearl’s Graveside with good friend Debbie. Today, I watched NASCAR at Talladega with my Dad (on TV that is).
The radio disk jockey I listen to had it right: Free candy, beautiful weather and an extra hour of sleep – how can you beat it?
Yashica Dreams
I bought my first camera, a 35 mm Yashica rangefinder during the summer of 1968. I ached for that camera for weeks before purchasing it from one of the many electronics stores that line both sides of Canal Street in New Orleans.
The Yashica was great and let you do the focusing, set the f-stop and the shutter speed. Of course if the printed picture was over or under exposed, or out of focus you had no one to blame but yourself.
The sturdy Yashica took awesome photos but I soon decided that I couldn’t live another day without a single lens reflex. Since I couldn’t afford a more expensive brand with interchangeable lenses, I settled for a fixed-lens, Kowa SLR. It wasn’t as sturdy as the Yashica nor did it take pictures even half as good, but I kept it until it finally locked up on me.
Gail and I had little money for cameras after we married but I did manage to purchase a Minolta SRT-101 while passing through Japan on the way back to Vietnam from R & R. The Minolta was another awesome camera that finally, like all SLRs, finally broke because of all its moving parts. Since the Minolta, I’ve owned many more cameras. My latest purchase arrived this very day, an old Pentax K1000 with a 50 mm lens.
No one buys 35 mm SLRs anymore. Well, except me. A few years ago, on a surfing trip through eBay, I purchased ten or so SLRs of various makes and models. I have so many cameras and lenses that I can never use them all, and, well, I’ve now discovered digital photography.
I have a tiny little Nikon S210 that takes wonderful pictures and movies if I feel like it. I can download them instantly to my computer and crop, touch-up and doctor any photo to my heart’s content, or delete it completely if I don’t like it.
Unlike my old Yashica, the Nikon performs all the tasks for me. I barely have to think about it. I love it, but sometimes, usually late at night and after quaffing a few strong brews I regret the loss of choice and decision I had back in 1968, but not enough to give up my little Nikon.
Fiction South
The Yashica was great and let you do the focusing, set the f-stop and the shutter speed. Of course if the printed picture was over or under exposed, or out of focus you had no one to blame but yourself.
The sturdy Yashica took awesome photos but I soon decided that I couldn’t live another day without a single lens reflex. Since I couldn’t afford a more expensive brand with interchangeable lenses, I settled for a fixed-lens, Kowa SLR. It wasn’t as sturdy as the Yashica nor did it take pictures even half as good, but I kept it until it finally locked up on me.
Gail and I had little money for cameras after we married but I did manage to purchase a Minolta SRT-101 while passing through Japan on the way back to Vietnam from R & R. The Minolta was another awesome camera that finally, like all SLRs, finally broke because of all its moving parts. Since the Minolta, I’ve owned many more cameras. My latest purchase arrived this very day, an old Pentax K1000 with a 50 mm lens.
No one buys 35 mm SLRs anymore. Well, except me. A few years ago, on a surfing trip through eBay, I purchased ten or so SLRs of various makes and models. I have so many cameras and lenses that I can never use them all, and, well, I’ve now discovered digital photography.
I have a tiny little Nikon S210 that takes wonderful pictures and movies if I feel like it. I can download them instantly to my computer and crop, touch-up and doctor any photo to my heart’s content, or delete it completely if I don’t like it.
Unlike my old Yashica, the Nikon performs all the tasks for me. I barely have to think about it. I love it, but sometimes, usually late at night and after quaffing a few strong brews I regret the loss of choice and decision I had back in 1968, but not enough to give up my little Nikon.
Fiction South
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