Stormy Oklahoma

January weather in Oklahoma began with snow and ended with snow. Here are a few pics from the most recent storm.

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Indian Tacos - a weekend recipe

My good friend and fellow University of Arkansas student Mike Howard and I visited Oklahoma City during the fall of 1973, looking for a job. The State Fair was in full swing and it was the first time I ate an Indian Taco. It wasn’t my last.

There are three things you must always eat when visiting the Oklahoma State Fair at Oklahoma City – tamales from the Little Axe Church, State Fair cinnamon rolls, and an Indian Taco. All three qualify as Oklahoma comfort food. Here is my version of Oklahoma’s famous Indian Taco.

Fry Bread

· 2 cups flour
· 4 teaspoons baking powder
· 1 tablespoon sugar
· ½ teaspoon salt
· 1 cup milk, warm

Directions

Combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Add warm milk slowly and mix into soft dough. Roll out dough with a rolling pin, about ½ inch thick, and then cut into pieces slightly smaller than a large cast iron skillet. Fry in hot oil, flipping once, until golden brown. Drain on a paper towel.

Indian Taco Filling

· 1 lb. ground beef
· Salt and pepper to taste
· ½ tablespoon cayenne pepper
· ½ tablespoon cumin, ground
· ½ tablespoon paprika
· 1 medium tomato, diced
· 1 cup lettuce, shredded
· ¼ cup ripe olives, sliced
· 4 ounces, shredded Monterey and cheddar cheese, divided
· ¼ cup sour cream
· Salsa, your favorite

Directions

In a heavy pot with a tight cover, crumble and brown ground beef with salt and pepper. Drain and add mixture of cayenne, cumin and paprika. Heat and set aside. Layer fry bread with beef, tomato, lettuce, olives, cheese, sour cream and salsa. Enjoy.

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Ice Storm

It’s not quite February yet, but Oklahoma finds itself in its first winter storm of the New Year, the second in little more than a month. While I stayed off the road most of the day, this storm reminds me of another that happened many years ago - when I was much younger, much braver and a whole lot dumber.

I was doing well-site geology work for Cities Service Oil Company in central Kansas. I had been on a well for two weeks. When it came time to leave and return to Oklahoma City, the weather was too bad to do so.

Management didn’t care about the weather. In the days before cell phones, email and fax machines the only way to get an electric log from one location to another was to take it in your car.

“Have it in my office by eight tomorrow morning,” my boss had told me. “We need to know what to do with the well.”

I already knew what to do with the well. It was dry as the proverbial bone, not a single show of oil or gas from the surface to total depth. Being a young geologist, nobody believed me and insisted on seeing the electric logs for themselves.

It mattered little that the highway patrol had shut down I-35, closing all the ramps. I left the location at midnight, heading south to Oklahoma City. When I reached a blocked ramp, I got out of the car, moved the obstruction and drove up on the frozen interstate highway.

A thick sheet of ice covered the surface of Interstate 35. It was a good thing that I had a full tank of gas because no stations were open. The trip took more than four hours and I never saw another vehicle the entire time. If I had gone into the ditch, I would likely have remained there until the spring thaw.

Four members of management met me at the door the next morning when I reached my bosses office. They took the electric logs and my geologic report, never asking me a single question. They finally told me that I could go home, never telling me what they intended to do with the wildcat well we had drilled.

When I read Dilbert each morning in the cartoons, I’m reminded of Cities Service Oil Company. The mismanaged company soon sold to another large oil company. I didn’t care because I had already moved on to work for Texas Oil & Gas.

Instead of driving on an off-limits sheet of ice tonight, I am sitting in front of my computer, pecking out this little remembrance while preparing to watch Arkansas play Mississippi State in basketball. Did I learn anything from that little escapade? You bet! I’ve worked for myself now for thirty-two years. Now, when management orders me to do something completely stupid, I have no one to blame but myself.

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Buying Beer on Sunday

While researching a story about Kansas, I came across some interesting statistics about that state’s liquor-by-the-drink laws. It caused me to reflect on the liquor laws in the other states where I have spent time.

Kansas prohibited the sale of liquor-by-the-drink until 1987. You could not buy a mixed drink, but there were many taverns where you could shoot pool and drink red beer (beer with tomato juice – try it, it is good) by the pitcher. Kansas would not even let you have a mixed drink if you were flying over the state in a plane. Airlines curtailed the sale of alcohol when in Kansas airspace.

Oklahoma was not much better when I moved here. You had to bring your own bottle to a club, and then pay them to mix a drink for you. If the people in the club knew you, you could get anything you wanted, a practice known as liquor-by-the-wink. You could even get a roadie – the mixed drink of your choice in a large Styrofoam cup to tide you over on your drive home. When Oklahomans voted to make liquor-by-the-drink legal, prices skyrocketed. Go figure!

Nebraska has no adverse liquor laws that I know off and is one of the wildest states in which I have ever spent time. The people there work hard, but party harder.

You would think that Texas would have the most liberal drinking laws in the country. This is not so. There are still dry counties, some adjacent to heavily populated areas. Thankfully, most of the state has liquor-by-the-drink.

I grew up in northwest Louisiana. I always enjoy visiting because you can literally “drive through” a liquor store and have a mixed drink passed out the window to you. Driving with an open container is illegal; buying a mixed drink from the driver’s seat of your car is not. Go figure! The only other state where I have seen this practice is Georgia, but I do not know if this is still true.

As liberal as it may seem, Louisiana still has remnants of old laws. In Oklahoma, you can buy 3.2 beer from a grocery store on Sunday - not so in Louisiana, at least north Louisiana, where there are still “blue laws” on the books.

I married my second wife Anne in Park City, Utah. The State owned all the liquor outlets at the time. Maybe they still do. My memory is dim on this matter, but it seems like you could only buy mini bottles. Alcohol was strictly regulated but a recollection that remains vivid in my mind is going to the little cowboy’s room at a bar in Park City and seeing two young men snorting a line of cocaine on the cabinet.

Many other states still have archaic drinking laws and I am sure there are many interesting stories out there. Please let me know if you have one, as I would like to retell it. In the meantime, I think I will fix myself a Wild Turkey and water, and then go to bed.

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A Day in the Sun

Sometimes hindsight is twenty-twenty. I remember thinking as much when recalling a double-date I had years ago with friend Clay. Clarice and Ronnie, high school sweethearts and fellow seniors at North Caddo High School with Clay and I, asked us to join them on an outing. Clarice’s two California cousins were coming to town and she wanted us to help show them around.

I’m drawing this story from my heart because I don’t remember much in the way of facts. What I can remember was my teenaged emotions at the time. I’ll call the names of the two girls Pam and Jenny because I simply cannot remember.

Pam was sixteen, Jenny fourteen. Pam was not ugly but Jenny was much prettier. “Jenny is my date,” Clay said. We spent the day on the banks of Lake O’ the Pines, Jenny in a two-piece bathing suit, Pam in a one-piece.

I’m not a ding-dong. It was apparent from the get-go that Pam was the intelligent sister. I’m not saying Jenny wasn’t intelligent; she just didn’t have to worry about her brains at the time. I remember thinking when I talked with Pam, “You are so witty and knowledgeable, but I wish you had your sister’s body.”

Nothing really happened that day. People met, we socialized and then parted. I still keep in touch with Clarice and Clay, but haven’t seen Ronnie in years. I haven’t seen Pam and Jenny since that day many years ago.

In my wild author’s mind, I can concoct a story concerning Pam and Jenny. Pam is the gorgeous one now; probably the person that excelled in everything - has a PhD, law degree, or Academy Award nomination. I wish I could have realized as much back then. Jenny has ten kids and thirty grandkids, fifty pound overweight and has probably never looked back.

Me, I just grin when I think about the grand scheme of things. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it almost never makes up for living in the present. Am I doing it now? Hey, maybe it still depends on the bathing suit you wear.

Eric'sWeb

Winning the Lottery

In 1969, I won the lottery but it wasn’t a prize anyone would want to win. In the first draft lottery conducted in this country since World War II, 366 numbers were drawn, one for each day of the year. The number coinciding with your birthday became your lottery number. While I wasn’t first my number thirty-eight was good enough to get me drafted in the first round.

I was in my first semester of graduate school and had lost my student deferment after earning my bachelor’s degree the previous term. My first wife Gail and I were in our fifth month of marriage when I got my orders to report for a physical examination in Shreveport, Louisiana. It was the one and only physical I’ve ever taken that I was hoping to fail. I didn’t and less than two months later I was standing with a group of several hundred young men being sworn into the U.S. Army as a draftee.

Shortly after lowering our arms we were informed that we were now the property of the U.S. Army and expected to follow orders, like them or not. Within the hour I was on a bus loaded with draftees on our way to Fort Polk, Louisiana.

Louisiana has a large black population and I was the only white person on the bus, except for the driver. Because I had a college degree and not because I was white, I was told by an unfriendly sergeant that I was the squad leader for the busload of men.

“Wilder, you’re responsible for getting these men to Fort Polk. If you stop for a potty break and one of those boys wants to take a crap, you go with him into the shitter. Every last person that gets on the bus better damn well get off of it at Fort Polk or I guarantee it’ll be your ass and not theirs.”

Yes, we all made it to Fort Polk but not because of my exemplary leadership abilities. I was the oldest and most out of shape person on the bus and realized there was little I could do if someone decided to go AWOL. It was well after dark when we unloaded and we got little sleep that night, spending most of it being poked, prodded, injected and questioned. It was my first day in the Army and I felt more like an unwilling participant in a waking nightmare than a lottery winner.

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Mavis' Fried Okra - a recipe

A year or so ago, I had a heart scan to detect for plaque in the arteries. Amazingly, my heart was clearer than 99% of the people in my age group. This is amazing because I had fried food literally ever meal until I left home at seventeen to go to college.

My mother had a good heart, as does my ninety-year-old father and sixty-five-year-old brother. I guess it all comes down to genetics. If you are predisposed to building plaque in the arteries of the heart, then you can eat steamed broccoli every meal and will probably still develop plaque. My advice? It probably won’t matter much if you binge occasionally. If you decide to take my very unhealthy advice, you might try fried okra, one of my personal favorites, and one that qualifies as southern comfort food.

My mom fried okra at least once a week because it was cheap, tasty and filling. Here is a simple recipe for the totally awesome southern fare.

Mavis’ Fried Okra

Ingredients

10 pods okra, sliced in ¼ inch pieces
1 egg, beaten
1 cup cornmeal
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
½ cup vegetable oil

Directions

Soak okra in egg for 5 to 10 minutes in a small bowl. Combine cornmeal, salt, and pepper In a medium bowl. In a large skillet, heat oil over a medium flame. Dredge okra in the cornmeal mixture, coating evenly. Carefully place okra in hot oil; stir continuously. Reduce heat when okra first starts to brown. Cook until golden. Drain on paper towels. Enjoy.

Eric'sWeb

Excerpt From Diamonds in the Night

Cafe Du Monde is a French Quarter destination for visitors to New Orleans. They serve basically two things: coffee, the strong, chicory flavored variety liberally laced with milk, and beignets. Beignets are doughnut-like confections, dusted with powered sugar, without the hole.

There is limited seating inside but most patrons prefer to sit outside on the covered patio where they enjoy a wonderful view of the St. Louis Cathedral, the Pontalba Apartments. It is perhaps the best place in the Quarter for people watching. Detective Tony Nicosia, one of the characters in my murder mystery Big Easy, loves Cafe Du Monde. The location exudes character and provides a pivotal scene in my short story Diamonds in the Night. Here is an excerpt from the story:

From Diamonds in the Night, a short story in the book Name of the Game

Salty air, drifting up from the Gulf, mingled with piquant chicory-laced coffee and slowly rotting vegetation as he walked along the levee. Cold rain had ceased falling, leaving only outsized puddles on the streets. When he reached the heart of the Quarter, he found a late-night, early-morning crowd milling around outdoor patio tables at the Cafe Du Monde. Because of incessant rain, the crowd was thinner than usual and Johnny T quickly found an empty table. He ordered coffee from a white-smocked waiter, and then rested his head on the table, allowing spilled sugar to dust his forehead like carelessly applied makeup.

As Johnny T. Sampson listened, music from a mellow clarinet floated through the Quarter, and shouts and laughter billowed up from beyond Pirate's Alley. He could hear the traffic clamor over on Canal Street as it punctuated muffled darkness, creating illusions of reality and allusions of transmutation. It didn’t matter much.

A carriage pulled by a mule with clattering hooves dropped off a romantic couple at the corner. The smiling duo, holding hands and ignoring light rain that had again begun to fall, took a table next to Johnny T. He didn't notice. He just sat in silence as rain dripped down his head - rain that reflected neon’s gold and purple rainbows, and sparkled like diamonds in the night.

Eric'sWeb

Rum Punch

My second wife Anne and I liked giving parties. Before we finally married, I had a bachelor’s pad just north of Oklahoma City’s Taft Stadium. The little house had two fireplaces, a redwood hot tub and a wet bar. I spent thousands landscaping the hilly front yard with sandstone walkways and retainer walls, courtesy of Jakob, a master stoneworker and Israeli expatriate (another story).

As a bachelor, I always wanted my guests to enjoy themselves and I always helped them along by preparing my famous rum punch. The last time I made rum punch was at a party at my last bachelor pad.

What I had found about my rum punch is that almost no one was too discernible when it came to taste. The ingredients consisted of crushed ice, three or four cans of Hawaiian Punch and copious amounts of one-fifty-one proof rum. Hell, after the first cup you had no taste left anyway.

The last time I served my famous rum punch was cold and dreary. The guests quickly finished a bowl of punch. By the time I had concocted a second bowl, all the guests had already lost total control of their inhibitions - and their bodily movements.

My good friend Mickey left the party, tumbling headfirst down the hill to his car. Several of my friends left with other guest’s wives and girlfriends. Anne confronted me the next day.

“No more. You are never making your famous punch again. You could have gotten someone killed.”

I always listened to Anne. That day, many years ago, was the last time I ever concocted my famous punch. Will I ever make it again? Maybe, but you will have to stay the night.

Eric'sWeb

Machine Gun

I watched a program on the cable channel Encore about Jimi Hendrix and the Band of Gypsys. On the show he played a song called Machine Gun and it evoked a memory of Vietnam that I hadn’t thought about in years.

I went to Vietnam in 1970 as an infantry mortar man. For awhile, in addition to my M16, I humped the base plate of an 81 MM mortar in the mortar platoon of an infantry line company. I was in Charlie Company, 1st of the 8th Cavalry, First Cavalry Air Mobile. We were operating off a hill bulldozed bald amid a jungle of green that could literally swallow you whole. The Cav had just made their first sanctioned incursion into Cambodia, formerly off limits, and we had dealt a near-mortal blow to Charlie. For the following months, Charlie played a game of duck-and-run while we tried desperately, and with little luck, to finish him off.

After several months of fifteen days in the jungle, five days on the firebase, and almost no success in encountering the enemy, Brass devised a new tactic of having us fly around in helicopters until we started taking ground-to-air fire. Once we did, the choppers would swoop down and drop us off in hopes of making contact – something that rarely happened because of Charlie’s weakened state.

During this time, Brass also decided the 81 MM mortar was too unwieldy for rapid deployment and all of us in the mortar company suddenly became infantry foot soldiers, grunts, 11-bravos, also known as 11-bullet-stoppers. I was given a twenty-six pound M-60 machine gun to carry since I already had experience toting a twenty-three pound base plate. I had never shot an M-60, even during basic training at Fort Polk in Louisiana. This is because mortar men weren’t ever supposed to use the gun.

Around this time artillery began shooting sophisticated listening devices into the jungle using specially designed 105 MM rounds. Intelligence mapped the locations of these devices and we soon had a good idea of where there was movement - of a military nature - in the jungle. The devices weren’t always correct and we once found a large family of monkeys instead of Viet Cong or North Vietnamese regulars. This wasn’t always the case.

Reports of intense enemy troop movement in a nearby swamp had the Brass salivating. My company was soon loaded into choppers, flown to the area and dropped out of the birds – and I mean this literally. With no LZ cut into the jungle for us, the choppers hovered 10 feet or so above a large swampy pond while we jumped out. This was no easy feat while carrying 100 pounds of gear.

We soon found ourselves in a maze of trails and something very anomalous – there was movement all around us. Charlie wasn’t even trying to cover it up. This could only mean one of two things – either we had caught the enemy very much by surprise, or else they had us outnumbered and knew it. We were all pretty nervous because one thing we had never really done was surprise Charlie.

Our company had about 100 men divided equally into four platoons. We set up a camp and then our platoon started out on patrol. Soon as we were out of sight from the rest of the company we began hearing movement. After months in the boonies we were all attuned to sounds of the jungle and there was no doubt in my mind that there was a large number of enemy soldiers very close to us, and that they were paralleling our movement through the jungle. This bothered me and everyone else because we were on Charlie’s home turf – likely smack-dab in the middle of a large enemy camp and staging area. We could hear movement in every direction and if I told you that I was anything but piss-in-my-pants scared, I’d be lying through my teeth.

Jungle warfare is like no other. You can be 10 feet from the enemy and never see him. You have to rely on your nose, your ears and your wits because otherwise you may as well be blind. My nose, ears and wits told me we were about to have the living shit kicked out of us and I expected, any minute, to be shredded by AK 47 bullets. The platoon leader decided on a quick ploy.

I was the machine gunner, the “gun.” When Super Sarge tapped my shoulder and pointed to a slight concave just to the side of the trail, I knew my time had come. It was an instant ambush. Charlie was following close behind. My assistant gunner and I set the M-60’s bi-pod and started stringing every round of ammo we had into the gun’s chamber, locked and loaded, ready to kill – and likely be killed. It didn’t matter that I had never pulled the trigger on an M-60. What mattered was that I was getting ready to. Just as quickly as the sergeant tapped my shoulder and motioned me what to do, the two of us were left alone on the trail to mow down anyone coming up from behind. From the sounds we heard, we wouldn’t have long to wait.

I could tell you that we ambushed Charlie, wiped most of them out and set them dropping their weapons and running for cover. That didn’t happen. What did happen is almost as strange, but true. It was monsoon season. Every day the skies would part and rain would fall in torrents – almost like being under a waterfall. My finger was on the trigger of the M-60, my heart in my throat, when it began to rain. My assistant gunner and I lay there on our bellies for an interminable time, rapidly flowing water soaking our fatigues. When the rain stopped there was no sound. I mean none. Charlie had taken the opportunity to clear out and we never heard him again.

That night we camped in the middle of the swamp, mosquitoes and leeches sucking our blood. It rained so hard that Charlie could have gotten close enough to cut our throats and we wouldn’t have seen him. The next morning the Captain let me shoot the M-60, for practice, while we waited for the choppers to extract us. We stood single file, knee-deep in a wide pool of stagnate water. With five-hundred rounds locked and loaded, I stood like Rambo, the big gun at my waist, and began mowing down vegetation across the pond. I didn’t take my finger off the trigger until the sound of imminent death finally ceased and the pungent odor of spent rounds wafted up into my nostrils.

It was the first and last time that I ever shot the big gun, but I’ll never forget the sound it made or the power of life and death I felt for as long as I live. Tonight, while watching the piece on Jimi Hendrix, I remembered that sound and that feeling vividly.

Eric'sWeb

Hot Dogs and Cold Beer

I graduated from college years ago and have been successful and become wealthy in the oil industry. I often meet other wealthy oil people and rarely a week goes by that someone does not look me square in the eye and palm my hand in some secret fraternal handshake.

My parents demanded that my brother and I attend college. Neither of us really wanted to go, but they would have it no other way. It cost very little to attend a Louisiana state college at that time - seventy-four dollars per month, as I recall, for room and board, tuition, and books another three-hundred dollars, or so. It did not matter because my Dad was a construction worker. He had barely enough to send us to college; little remained for much else.

Brother Jack and I had no money to join social fraternities. Neither, consequently, did most of our friends. The frat rats, as we called them, wore the most expensive clothes, drove the finest cars, and had the best pedigrees and prettiest girlfriends. We couldn’t even afford ugly girlfriends. The rest of us were just the street curs, and it did not matter much who possessed the largest brain.

We are all social animals so Jack and I joined a ROTC precision drill team called the Fusileers. Other nerds, misfits and social throwbacks populated the Fusileers’ ranks, but every one of us, down the line, was a smarter-than-average individual.

The campus of NLSC was several miles from downtown Monroe and none of us had a car. The downtown movie theatre was a converted opera house and I remember watching many a movie there. Often, after studying well into the night, we would catch a bus and go downtown to a little hole-in-the-wall café called Coney Island Hotdogs. The owner was Greek and sold us a hotdog and cold beer for about thirty cents. We each usually had enough money for a couple of both.

People grow up and they change. My business partner is a former frat rat and he is a good and caring person. Still, every time someone grasps my hand in a secret fraternity handshake, I wonder if that person is sincere, maybe a bigot, or worse.

Me, I have never been anything but a common street cur, and I still love hot dogs and cold beer.

Eric'sWeb

Hanging With the Old Man

Growing up in the fifties, I had a normal fifties-style relationship with my dad. Simply put, he provided the money to pay the bills but spent little personal time with Brother Jack and me. Times have changed. As he approaches ninety-one, I try to take him somewhere with me at least once a week.

Yesterday, we had chips and dip at Louie’s on Lake Hefner in Oklahoma City. The weather was nice, in the fifties. Joggers, skaters and bicyclists maintained a steady stream of traffic outside the restaurant on the jogging trail that encircles the lake.

The crowd was raucous as they watched the Vikings slaughter the Cowboys in one of the NFL playoff games. Most Oklahomans root for the Cowboys but they have a soft spot for the Vikings because Adrian Peterson, their wonderful running back, played for the Oklahoma Sooners. Here are a few pics from the excursion.

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Excerpt From City of Spirits

I’m working on a new book with the working title City of Spirits. Wyatt Thomas, protagonist of my novel Big Easy returns, along with homicide detective Tony Nicosia, bar owner Bertram Picou and voodoo mambo Mama Mulate.

Wyatt’s ex-wife Mimsy has died from breast cancer. At her wake, he meets her widower Rafael, a defrocked Catholic priest. Father Alphonso, the parish priest warns Wyatt not to associate with Rafael because he has dealings with the devil and his mother is a witch.

Father Alphonso senses that Wyatt is in spiritual conflict and needs to return to the church. Rafael recognizes the same conflict and advises Wyatt to consult his mother. Here is an excerpt from City of Spirits where Wyatt visits Rafael’s mother at her shop, Madeline’s Magic Potions.

Excerpt from City of Spirits

I stood outside on the banquette, staring at the lettering on the antique door proclaiming Madeline’s Magic Potions, wondering if I should go in or just keep walking. Before I could do either, a woman opened the door.

“I’m Madeline. Please come inside,” she said, her insistent tone indicating that no wasn’t an acceptable response.

I followed her into the shop, waiting as she locked the door behind us and put a closed sign in the window. The lighting was dim, the air a combination of antiquity and incense. An old rotating fan whirred on the cabinet, setting up a tinkling crescendo when its breeze encountered an eerie old wind chime decorated with gargoyles. A big black cat lay on the front cabinet, pawing a toy mouse.

Madeline had long brown hair tinged with ample amounts of gray that touched the orange and black crocheted Afghan draping her shoulders. Her dark dress covered even her feet and dragged across the tiles of the old shop’s well-worn floor.

The droning chorus of a Gregorian chant emanated from hidden speakers, adding to the metaphysical feelings saturating my psyche since entering the little shop. Old wooden display cabinets, filled with candles, incense, and colorful crystals divided the room. Eclectic art for sale on the walls varied from fire-breathing dragons and gargoyles to art deco prints of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe. A suit of armor stood alone in a corner.

Madeline led me though the maze to a dark room in back lined with jars filled with various potions. The black cat followed us, winding between my legs as I walked. Madeline sat at a little table and began shuffling a deck of Tarot cards.

“Please,” she said, nodding at the high-backed chair facing her on the opposite side of the table. Seeing my confusion, she stopped shuffling the cards. “You are here for a reading, aren’t you?”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure why I’m here.”

Madeline took my answer as a yes and continued shuffling the cards. Tires screeched outside the little shop and we both flinched at the ensuing crash. Madeline shook her head and placed the cards on the table.

When she smiled, I could see the resemblance to her son. Both had dark eyes, long hooked noses and olive complexions. They both had mysterious faces often possessed by successful runway models. Her cat rubbed against my legs and I rubbed its head.

“Jinx likes you. That means you are a good person. The cards will tell me even more about you.”

It was my turn to smile. “Then maybe you should read them for me.”

Madeline nodded. Taking a long match from the cabinet behind her, she lit the two candles bordering the little table. Their flickering light seemed to meld with must and muffled chants. Tapping the deck once with her gnarly index finger, she handed it to me.

“Shuffle the cards and then cut them into seven stacks.”

After following her directions, I watched as she arranged the stacks into a unique shape, flipping over the top cards in each. She studied them and then stared at me, as if trying to penetrate my eyes to see what answers my brain possessed. A new chant began and I recognized it as Dies Irae.

“You are a sensitive person and have a problem. You are in conflict. Something or someone from your past worries you and you seek enlightenment. You are torn between whom to trust and what to believe. I also see something else.”

I hung on her words, almost afraid that she had something ominous to tell me.

“Please continue,” I finally said.

“Paths have crossed. Destinies have intersected. You have met someone recently – a powerful person. Danger stalks him and you are now inextricably involved in that danger. It is a good thing you called when you did.”

Madeline stopped talking when I shook my head. “I didn’t call you.”

“But, I thought –“

“I came by because of your son.”

“Rafael? How do you know my son?”

“We were married to the same woman. I met him at Mimsy’s wake.”

Madeline reached across the table and grasped my hand. “He told me he saw you there. I’m so sorry for your loss. Rafael was devastated. I wish I could have attended the wake with him, but –“

“I understand. Father Alphonso. He said you are a witch.”

“He is quite correct. I am a witch.”

I waited for her to smile. She did not. “This town is rife with voodoo shops, soothsayers and every manner of religious charlatan. Surely Father Alphonso can’t fault you for making a living.”
Madeline released my hand and drew back in her chair. “I don’t do this to make a living. I have a gift and I use it to help people. I resent being called a religious charlatan.”

“I’m so sorry if you thought that I meant you. I just can’t see that what you do is the work of the –“

“The Devil?”

I nodded again. “That’s how Father Alphonso made it seem.”

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New Writer's and Reader's Website

As all of you aspiring authors know, few publishers accept direct submissions from authors anymore. Such direct submissions used to go to a place that editors called the “slush pile.” Readers “mined” these slush piles, hoping to find the next great author. A talent-spotting reader discovered author Philip Roth this way when part of his slush pile submission grew into Goodbye, Columbus.

Because of copyright infringement fears, slush piles are largely gone. Publishers now rely on agents to act as go-betweens. As every author that has ever tried to secure an agent knows, it is all but impossible to do so and the lack of an agent prevents many wonderful writers from ever being published. A new website founded by editors from the publisher Harper Collins seeks to remedy this industry shortcoming.

The new site is Authonomy and it brings together talented, undiscovered writers and avid readers. Authors upload entire books that are free to read and comment on. Harper Collins has even published some of the books discovered in the site’s “slush pile.

I uploaded my novel Prairie Sunset to the site. If you are either writer, reader or - like me - both, I urge you to check out the site. While you are there, please take a look at Prairie Sunset.

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Lily's Chalmette Meatloaf - a recipe

My ex-mother-in-law Lily was a wonderful cook. Not only could she cook Cajun and Creole dishes, she also knew how to prepare traditional southern dishes, famous from Florida to Texas. Meatloaf, without question, is a southern comfort food, and here is Lily’s Creole version of the recipe.

Chalmette Meatloaf

Ingredients

· 2 bay leaves, whole
· 1 tablespoon salt
· 1 teaspoon ground red pepper ( cayenne)
· 1 teaspoon black pepper
· ½ teaspoon cumin, ground
· ½ teaspoon nutmeg, ground
· 4 tablespoons butter, unsalted
· ½ cup of celery, finely chopped
· ½ cup bell pepper, finely chopped
· ¼ cup greens onions, chopped
· 12 teaspoons of garlic, minced
· 1 tablespoon Tabasco sauce
· 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
· ½ cup milk
· ½ cup catsup
· 2 pounds beef, ground
· ½ pound of pork, ground
· 2 eggs lightly beaten
· 1 cup bread crumbs

Instructions

Combine the seasoning mix ingredients in a small bowl and set aside. Melt the butter in 1 quart saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions, celery, and bell pepper, green onions, garlic, Tabasco, Worcestershire and seasoning mix.

Sauté about 6 minutes, stirring occasionally and scraping the pan bottom well. Stir in the milk and ½ cup catsup. Continue cooking for about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and allow mixture to cool to room temperature. Place the ground beef and pork in an ungreased 13 x 9 inch baking pan.

Remove the bay leaves, add the eggs, the cooked vegetable mixture and the bread crumbs. Mix by hand until thoroughly combined in the center of the pan. Shape the mixture into a loaf that is about 1 ½ inches high x 6 inches wide and 12 inches long. Bake uncovered at 350 for 25 minutes, then raise heat to 400 and continue cooking until done, about 35 minutes longer.

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Circle of Life

The ancients were avid students of astrology. Many early civilizations followed the cycles of the sun, moon and earth with mathematical accuracy. Druids, Mayans and American Indians - as well as inhabitants of ancient Ireland - constructed elaborate stone cairns to assist in pinpointing both the autumnal and vernal equinox, and the summer and winter solstices.

The spring equinox, quite literally means there are twelve hours of darkness and twelve hours of light, an event that occurs only twice every year. Pagans and neo-pagans celebrated this day as holy.

Holy or not, the cycles of the universe, life and death, are of interest, like the ancients, to all of us. It is a pity that there is little or no written record of the secrets the ancients possibly knew. And isn't it interesting the seemingly worldwide knowledge of the nether-science of astrology that not one person in a thousand knows today?

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A Trip to the Depot

If you needed to locate someone in the oil business during the last oil boom, the first place to look was the Depot in the Concourse of downtown Oklahoma City. Everyone in the oil patch knew about the Depot, by far the most notorious restaurant in town. Far more than just a restaurant, the Depot was every bit the old west saloon featured in every western ever filmed.

The Depot was a sprawling restaurant at the base of the escalator in the 101 Park Avenue Building. Even deeper than the Concourse, the Depot resided at the bottom of a flight of stairs. The Depot was, in fact, the sunken living room of the Concourse. No matter what time of the day or night, the club was always packed.

A person entering the Depot would first encounter a well lit hallway, on an even elevation with the Concourse that led to several restaurant offices and bathrooms. Beyond the hallway lay a darkened nether world replete with loud voices, laughter and music. The first person a visitor was likely to encounter was a scantily clad waitress sporting a big welcoming smile.

It's a fact that there are many gorgeous women in Oklahoma City and the depot waitresses were no exception. They were always happy, or seemed so, because the service company salesmen that frequented the club all had endless expense accounts. The Depot was always filled with oil company personnel being plied with food, drink and other things (cocaine, pot, women, under the table bribes) to induce them to use their particular service instead of the person holding court at the next table.

A big, circular bar fronted the rectangular shaped room. The entire place was dimly lit, and some of the back booths barely visible. The term bat cave comes to mind and the trysts that went on in these darkened recesses are legend.

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Who Put the D in the DDT?

As a child of the south, I grew up in a much simpler time. I am not saying better, only simpler, and not necessarily safer. As a point in fact, cars had no seatbelts and little or no crash protection. There was not much, if any regulation on the food we ate, or the dangerous chemicals we could readily buy over the counter.

I only recall seeing, or hearing of one person that had cancer. An old man in town had a blackened and deteriorating cheek, probably the result of chewing tobacco. I don’t even remember hearing about anyone having a heart attack.

The little rural town of Vivian had almost no crime, and my parents let Brother Jack and me roam the neighborhood and nearby woods unsupervised. Once we ate dinner and did our homework, what little we had, we headed outside to ride our bikes, play Army with our friends, or just hang out – always until way after dark.

The weather in northwest Louisiana can grow hot in the summer but is rarely very cold. Plant life abounds, as does every manner of insect, including mosquitoes. During the fifties, Vivian acquired a fogging machine – a noisy contraption that passed slowly through our neighborhood every evening. The machine belched out a noxious chemical cloud that billowed past the sidewalks, through the yards, and into the open doors and windows of every house in town.

We kids used to chase the fogging machine, running through the gray cloud, playing war and pretending we were in a gas attack. Little did we know!

A half-century has passed and DDT banned in much of the world. The world, for the most part, currently regulates dangerous chemicals, and cars now have seatbelts. Something else has also changed. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes and all manner of other dread diseases are not only commonplace, they are rampant.

Life was simpler in the fifties but things have changed. Maybe we have more cancer and heart disease now because of the thoughtless things we did, but hey, at least we managed to eradicate malaria!

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Big Jack Picture

Here is a picture of my nearly ninety-one year old dad. I should be so healthy when I'm as old as he is.

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My First Mardi Gras Parade

I had marched in two Mardi Gras parades before I finally watched one from the sidelines. My first wife Gail and I were dating at the time. She had seen many parades and I was preparing to see my first.

We parked my ’67 Mustang on a side street, safely away from the police patrol that towed away car after car parked in places where they did not belong. Gail directed us to a special spot where she assured me the car would be safe from both police and marauding thieves.

We arrived on the parade route more than an hour before the first float appeared. We were still late and had to make our way carefully through the crowd of parade watchers that packed the route in a shoulder-to-shoulder mass of humanity. The crowd grew even thicker as the first float appeared.

I can only say that my heart rate increased dramatically as float after colorful float passed our vantage spot. Masked men and women dressed in tights and colorful costumes responded to the shouts from the crowd.

“Throw me something, mister!”

The parade took more than an hour to pass by our location. It was my indoctrination into the chaotic situation that ensued when the masked Krewe members showered the crowd with colorful beads and Mardi Gras doubloons.

It was not long before someone smashed my hand with their foot as I reached for a rolling doubloon. No fights broke out, but the melee could only be compared to someone in a boat, tossing live bait to a circling group of bloodthirsty sharks.

I was a shark that day, reaching and diving for doubloons and beads. I had a few strands of hard-earned beads encircling my neck and a pocketful of colorful doubloons in my pocket after the parade ended and Gail and I made our way back to the Mustang. My skinned hands throbbed and I was exhausted, but hooked for life. I knew that I would be back again.

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Sazerac Cocktail - the story

The Sazerac Cocktail was invented in New Orleans and is still the cocktail of choice for that fair city. The Hurricane, also a local cocktail, is for tourists but a Sazerac is for citizens. Read this story and then give the cocktail a taste test.

http://www.gumbopages.com/food/beverages/sazerac.html

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Fried Spaghetti -a story and a recipe

My close friend War T. Storm knows a thing or two about cooking. I asked him for a recipe. Even though he was born in the Queens (really some place that starts with an L) and grew up in the Bronx (maybe Coney Island) he is still a very good cook. He doesn’t have many hard copy recipes because he, like Marilyn, prepares his dishes by “feel” and not from a recipe written on a three by five card.

This is an actual recipe that War T. got from his Grandpa Clarence, a man that did immortalize his recipes. I have never heard of, much less tried fried spaghetti but Marilyn tells me that they used to make it at the restaurant where she worked on the pier in California. War T. and Marilyn both tell me it’s wonderful so give it a try.

Fried Spaghetti

My Grandpa Clarence not only taught me his values of hard work and accountability but also a few secrets about southern cooking. He also taught me respect for the grill. As far as he was concerned “if you were not grilling with charcoal you might as well be cooking on the stove.”

There was no such thing as sauce from a can. Bread was always prepared at home and not bought at a store. The kitchen was Grandpa’s kingdom and no one dared to cross the moat when King was in court. Knowing his expertise, the crowds of family and friends never seemed to decrease from his table.

My granddad would quickly kill off potential competition with just a taste of his homemade marinating sauce. In my lifetime I have seen many men hang up their tongs (would-be Iron Chefs) after a night at the Kings court.

Others would leave dazed and confused with dreams of recreating the masterpieces they had observed - masterpieces that for Grandpa was as simple as, dare I say “apple pie.“

Grandpa Clarence was an extraordinary cook, whose famous line when things didn’t go right for you was “you didn’t hold your face right.” Keep that in mind if this turns into a casserole the first time or two that you make it, as the key is to keep it together when you flip it.

I hope you like this recipe. If you do, I’ll share another recipe with you next time along with some great stories about a great man

Equipment
Deep cast iron frying pan
9/13 cake pan or larger
Flat no lip cookie sheet
Large boiling pot

Ingredients
2 pounds of regular spaghetti or vermicelli
2 cups of mozzarella, 2 ½ cups of Monterey jack, 2 cups of Swiss cheese
Salt, ground pepper, Italian seasoning, rosemary, ground red pepper, olive oil, crushed tomatoes, tomato puree, thyme, oregano, fresh garlic, olive oil

Ok, let’s get to it.
Boil spaghetti in water with cut fresh garlic. You want the spaghetti to be slightly undercooked
Rinse and drain under cool water allowing the spaghetti to firm.
Mix in bowl with cheese and seasonings
Heat olive oil in the deep frying pan (aprox ¼ inch)
Once hot place your mixture into the pan and spread evenly
Let stand for about 15-18 minutes undisturbed.
Here is the moment of truth, you have to flip it with out it falling apart to brown the bottom, if not you will have a very good casserole
Flip the half done Fried spaghetti onto the cookie sheet.
Add some more olive oil and slide the Fried spaghetti back into the hot pan
let cook for another 10-12 minutes, until brown and crunchy

Your sauce will be your crushed tomatoes, thyme, oregano and fresh garlic marinating in your tomato puree while you are cooking the fried spaghetti.

Cut a slice, add your sauce and enjoy.

Eric'sWeb

Another Log on the Fire

December proved to be the coldest yearend Oklahoma has experienced in many years. Now, with 2009 barely gone, a new blue norther is bearing down on Oklahoma. It is beginning to precipitate as I take my two pugs for a walk in the backyard. Tomorrow morning’s low is predicted with a wind chill of minus fifteen. It reminds me of a winter I experienced some thirty years ago. As a young geologist for Cities Service Oil Company, I spent almost two years watching wildcat wells as they drilled. The state was Kansas but sometimes seemed like total chaos.

I was sitting a well near Anthony, Kansas when a giant snowstorm blew in. The storm lasted two days. When the snow finally quit falling, it had left fourteen foot drifts on the sides of the road. In the days before cell phones I had to drive to the nearest payphone and give my morning report to the powers-that-be in Oklahoma City before eight in the morning.

I left the rig before seven, heading for a service station about fifteen miles away. Growing up in Louisiana, I had never seen much snowfall. I did get a little taste of it when I attended graduate school at the University of Arkansas, but nothing like I experienced that day in Kansas.

It was snowing so hard, that I experienced a total whiteout. How I stayed on the road I will never know. I never made it to the payphone and will also never know how I made it back to the rig without going in the ditch. I remained on location until it finally stopped snowing before driving to town to file a report. What I saw on the way there was as surreal as a scene from a Kafka novel.

Snowplows had cleared the highway, moving the massive amounts of snow to the side of the road. The drilling well was in the country, cattle ranching comprising the primary source of revenue for the locals. In flat central Kansas there are few trees to break the wind and rows of cattle lay dead, frozen to death, all along the fence line.

When the weather finally went back over the freezing mark, the snow began to melt, turning the location into a mud hole. Long before the days when the EPA began requiring portable toilets on all the drilling rigs, your only option if you had to relieve yourself was to seek whatever cover you could find (hard to do on the barren plains of central Kansas) and just go. I remember stepping out the backdoor of the logging trailer and sinking up to my thighs in mud.

The wildcat well was a dry hole and I got very sick, my throat so sore I could barely swallow. When I returned to Oklahoma City, I hung up my Louisiana jacket for good and ordered a goose down coat from the North Face – a coat I still own.

A blue norther approaches as I keyboard this story but I’m not worrying about it. I don’t have to drive twenty miles tomorrow morning to call in a morning report so I think I’ll just finish this story, mix a little whiskey and water, and then put another log on the fire.

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Silkwood Story

In 1974, Marilyn and her two kids, Shane and Shannon, lived in a small apartment near the Edmond college that is now the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO). Living in an apartment directly across from Marilyn was Karen Silkwood and her roommate Sherri Ellis.

Karen Silkwood was the subject of the 1983 movie Silkwood that starred Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell and Cher. Silkwood worked in the Cimarron plant that processed plutonium for Kerr-McGee. Mysteriously contaminated with plutonium, she died shortly after in a single car accident while on her way to give an interview to a New York Times investigative reporter.

Karen, according to Marilyn, had discovered that a large number of the workers at the plant had developed cancer, as had she. She, along with many others, believed it was because the plant had lax procedures for handling the deadly plutonium. The plant had de-unionized and she was one of the few remaining members. As such, she felt it was her responsibility to expose the plant’s dangers.

As a union spark plug, Silkwood became a target, either by workers fearful of losing their high paying jobs, or by Kerr-McGee itself. More than once, Marilyn observed Silkwood in intense arguments with some man driving a blue pickup, the last argument occurring the day before her death.

Before her death, Kerr-McGee personnel conducted a search of her apartment, finding high degrees of contamination. They even found an object, clearly marked as radioactive, in Shane’s toys. The Company maintained that Silkwood had contrived to contaminate herself, and thus implicate Kerr-McGee.

Karen Silkwood swerved off the road on her way to meet the investigative reporter. The car, when searched after the accident, contained no contaminated evidence, but had blue paint on a rear fender from an accident with another vehicle.

Did Kerr-McGee plant radioactive material in her apartment? Did Kerr-McGee have Silkwood killed? Did she have illegal drugs in her body at the time of the crash? I do not know, but I do know that the resultant lawsuit filed by her family settled out of court for more than a million dollars.

As a geologist, I also know that Kerr-McGee had another plant in Gore, Oklahoma - a place that insiders now consider one of the most contaminated places in the United States. Carroll, a friend and fellow geologist, once worked for Kerr-McGee Minerals and told me that they would calibrate their helicopter-borne Geiger counters by flying over Gore.

The plant near Crescent still exists, manned daily by a dry watch staff, but hasn’t processed plutonium in decades.

Eric'sWeb

Party Naked

During the last oil boom, Christmas parties became monster occasions in downtown Oklahoma City. Schlumberger, Halliburton, Dresser Atlas and all the large service companies rented massive ballrooms and sated every guest there with food, drink and entertainment. The oil companies were not far behind, especially those in constant search of investor money.

Single and still young, I once had three women that I was dating show up at the same party. The ballroom was so large and the crowds so thick, I almost made it without discovery. Well, almost!

A year or so later, I made the break from Texas Oil & Gas, forming a partnership with a geophysicist friend of mine. We had an office on the eighth floor of the Park Harvey Center. The venerable office building had a bank of elevators in the center of the floor. A hallway wrapped around this center square with the offices on the outside, facing the windows.

In addition to John and me, there was a small oil company, a land (oil leases) company, two lawyers and a couple of independent geologists. We all knew each other and decided to go together and have a Christmas party on our floor. We chipped in for the booze and food, and one of the lawyers mentioned that he had a few waitresses as clients that owed him money. He was sure that they would act as waitresses free in exchange for working off some of their indebtedness to him.

About this time, I had just begun dating Anne and wanted desperately to impress her. When the night of the party arrived, John and I had a big shock. The lawyer’s servers were actually strippers and they were dressed only in baby dolls. Since we were not paying them, they were not afraid of us firing them, and they quickly began sampling the hooch as fast as they dispensed it.

Word soon spread. Before long, leering geologists packed the hallways along with landmen and engineers. The girls did not mind, soon doffing their tops, and then their bottoms.

Anne showed up with a friend, a matronly secretary. After practically fainting, the older woman hurried back to the elevators, leaving the increasingly rowdy crowd for safer climes. I do not remember a lot after that, having already consumed too much whiskey.

The party continued until all the whiskey was gone, and the girls dressed and departed. Anne was a good sport about the situation, as was Debbie, John’s future wife that also showed up. Anne remained sober, had a clear head and drove me home safely. I awoke to a massive hangover and a ringing phone. The news of the party had spread and those that had missed it were calling to see if the stories were true.

The following year John and I were drilling oil wells and had several employees. Instead of the previous year’s drunken debacle, we hosted a sedate wine and cheese party that lasted only until seven. It did not matter as hundreds of oil industry voyeurs showed up anyway, just in case.
Those were the go go years of the last oil boom. Even amid the blurred memories, many things that occurred read almost like fiction. The events that occurred during that era were true. Even I couldn’t make this stuff up.

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The Last Cakewalk

Growing up in the Deep South, I have memories of many things that cross my mind from time to time. During the fifties in Vivian, Louisiana, there was no air-conditioning and only primitive television. By today’s standards, Vivian itself was primitive.

On Friday nights, my parents would take Brother Jack and me for hamburgers at the Rock Café (as in sandstone, not music). From there we would go to Vivian’s main street, park the car and watch the foot traffic passing on the sidewalk.

All the country folk would come into town Friday afternoon, buy their salt and flour for the week and then stay around to rub elbows and socialize with their neighbors. One electrical store had an early television in the window. Friday nights they would leave it running and practically the entire town would crowd around and watch the Friday Night Fights. That old television was not the only thing black and white in Vivian.

In the fifties, I grew up in a racially segregated town. The whites lived in their part of town, the blacks theirs, and never the twain shall meet. Even living in a region where the black population nearly equaled the white’s, I never met a black person until I was eighteen. This revelation is almost unbelievable, even to me, but it is true.

Unlike many of the small municipalities in east Texas and southwest Arkansas, most rural north Louisiana towns had no square. We did have a small park, complete with pigeons and benches, and the locals would congregate there on Friday nights, and during special events. I remember seeing Earl K. Long on a campaign stump give a steamy speech on a hot Louisiana day. It was really more of a performance than a speech. Sometime later, I remember that his wife Blanche had him committed to the mental institution in Mandeville.

A charity cakewalk was one of the events sometimes held in the square. Church members would donate cakes for the event and fifteen or so participants, each having donated a dollar, would walk around in a numbered circle until the music ended. The person stopping on the correct number would win a cake. This charity event was the white southern version of a dance created by black southern slaves, the dancers strutting in their best clothes in a parody of their owners.

Like the cakewalk, African slaves greatly influenced white southern society. Southern mannerisms, mores, speech patterns and culture all benefited and changed because of interaction between the races. Even southern cooking is black southern cooking. This interaction between the races ended, for the most part, after the Civil War and this extended isolationist period lasted through much of the nineteen-seventies.

I was probably no more than ten when I saw my last cakewalk. Segregation no longer exists in the little town of Vivian and there are no longer any white-only events in the local park. Moreover, like the end of other woefully dark periods in American history, this is a good thing.

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Oklahoma Round Barn Pictures

Here are a few pictures of the famous Round Barn located in Arcadia, Oklahoma on a stretch of Route 66.

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Tomatoes Bonaparte - a recipe

Many years ago, Anne and I flew to New Orleans with friends Gary and Carroll. It was off-season, somewhere between Mardi Gras and the Jazz Festival, so we got a good rate on a French Quarter hotel. Not much was happening except for the Festival of the Tomato.

Cajuns and Creoles love their tomatoes and use them as ingredients in almost everything. While enjoying the Quarter during the festival, we tasted many wonderful variations of tomato dishes. We quickly learned, when topped with oils and spices, the tomato needs no other ingredients. Here is a standalone tomato recipe I think you will enjoy as much as I do.

Tomatoes Bonaparte

Ingredients
· 2 large Creole tomatoes
· ¼ pound fresh mozzarella cheese
· Several stems fresh basil
· 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
· ¼ cup high-quality salad vinegar
· 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
· ¾ cup extra-virgin olive oil
· ½ teaspoon salt
· Freshly ground pepper

Directions
Slice tomatoes about 1/3 inches thick. Place a slice on each of 2 salad plates, then a slice of mozzarella, then several basil leaves. Make 2 more layers and drizzle with as much dressing as desired. To make dressing, whisk the vinegar and mustard together in a small bowl.
Gradually pour in the olive oil, continuously whisking. Add salt and continue whisking until smooth. After adding dressing to Bonaparte’s, place a few basil leaves around the plate and grind pepper lightly over all.

Serves two

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End of the Naughties

After ringing in the New Year last night, I awoke this morning to a new decade. At least I think it’s a new decade as there was much fuss in 2000 about when a century ends and begins. Well, I’m not a mathematician so don’t hold it against me if today feels like the beginning of a new decade.

One thing is certain - the Naughties are over! I don’t know what we’ll call this decade but we have plenty of time to think about it. Happy New Year!

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