Lost in East Texas

My paternal grandparents lived on a forty-acre east Texas farm. Cass County is the most northeastern county in Texas and its border is only a few miles from where I lived in northwest Louisiana.

My real paternal grandfather abandoned Grandmother Dale before my dad was born. Dad never met his father and I feel that he was extra protective of his mother because of this. Living only about thirty miles from the Cass County farm, we visited almost every weekend. Sitting around the farmhouse and chatting was usually too boring for me so I would often hike in the woods. Grandma Rood always had a big friendly dog that would accompany me on my treks.

The east Texas countryside of Cass County rolls and is heavily wooded. I would crawl through the barbwire fence surrounding the farmhouse, Grandma’s dog not far behind, and take off down the hill, into the woods. One particular trip turned out more eventful than the others did.

It was summer, east Texas weather hot, humid and uncomfortable. I crossed the little creek near the end of Grandma Dale’s forty and decided to explore the terrain over the back fence. Even the big yellow dog was a little reluctant but he followed when he saw me disappear up the hill, into a thick stand of pines.

I learned later that it’s difficult maintaining your sense of direction when you are walking amid closely spaced trees. At the time I didn’t know any better. I was climbing a particularly high hill and anxious to discover what was on top.

Big Dog and I soon reached a clearing near the hilltop, many sandstone boulders protruding from the earth. Seeing a particularly large boulder, I climbed up on it for a better look.

Pine trees in east Texas are thick and they hampered my view beyond fifty feet, or so. I did see something else: an inscription carved in the boulder. The initials E.W. and the year 1872 were still visible beneath the greenish lichen covering much of the boulder.

Big Dog and I spent the next hour exploring the hill and looking for more inscriptions on the other boulders. We didn’t find any and finally took off down the hill, not realizing that we had gone in the wrong direction. When we reached the base of the hill, I began following an indistinct trail that I found. Big Dog wouldn’t follow and I soon learned why.

I found myself locked in the grasp of a large briar patch that jutted from the ground almost to my face. Soon, I didn’t know which way I had come or where I should go, sweat beading down my arms and mingling with blood from briar scratches that were becoming increasingly more numerous.

Movement through the briar patch was slow and painful. When I finally clawed my way to the edge of the patch, I emerged with a wild yelp of accomplishment. My momentary elation ended quickly when I realized that I was alone, Big Dog no where around.

I was late in the afternoon when I reached a dirt road with no idea which direction to take. Deciding it didn’t really matter, I walked to the right. Fifteen minutes later I heard the rumble of a car’s engine in the distance and I still remember how relieved I was when the hood of my parent’s blue and white Chevy finally appeared in front of me. It was my Mother and Brother. My Dad had taken my grandparent’s car and was looking for me in another direction.

My Brother Jack was a Boy Scout and used some obscure scouting rule to figure out where I was. We weren’t far from the house as the crow flies, but more than five miles away by country road. My Grandmother just shook her head when I told her about the carved inscription on the boulder.

“Maybe it was one of your long-lost relatives,” she said.

Big Dog had already made it home but sometime later he disappeared and never returned. Grandma said that probably either a bobcat got him or else he fell in a hole. I don’t think so and I always felt a little guilty about it. Maybe I had instilled the wanderlust in him. Maybe, but in the back of my mind I like to believe there was another place he needed to be and I just gave him the okay to go there.

Louisiana Mystery Writer

Altered Perceptions

I’ve been working on some shallow gas wells in Noble County, Oklahoma lately. The area is wide open, with few farm houses and trees, and an absolutely huge sky that lends itself to numerous pictures. The sky is beautiful but even more interesting when you add some effects with your favorite photo editing software.

Being the software junkie that I am, I have a half-dozen or so photo editing programs. Tonight I was fiddling with an Oklahoma sky picture using Roxio Photo Suite because I like its filter set. What I created is a psychedelic version of an oil well tank battery back dropped by an anomalously red sky. The result is, well, psychedelic.

As I gazed at the picture I could almost imagine that the created picture was real and not contrived. The lens of a camera, after all, is similar to the human eye, the digital image it creates like a well-formed thought. It made me wonder if what I see is always the same as what the person beside me sees.

Just like the picture of the sky that I just modified with Photo Suite, my mind is capable of modifying everything I taste, see and hear. How do we know when it is telling the truth, and does it really matter anyway?

A Man Named Glome - prehistory in Oklahoma

In my book Blink of an Eye, fictional detective Buck McDivit obtains a piece of ancient pottery from a dying American Indian man. It prompts him to travel to eastern Oklahoma to find out about the origin of the mysterious black cup. At the Spiro Archeological Center, Buck meets the area supervisor, a young Native American woman named Thorn Little Deer for whom he has an instant attraction. Later in the book, they visit an Indian witch named Yellow Paint Woman at her cabin located in a remote part of the Kiamichi Mountains. Though Thorn and the old woman are pure-blood Caddo Indians, they both have pale blue eyes. Check out A Man Named Glome and find out why.

A Man Named Glome

Before the written word, there was only the word of mouth. Unfortunately, oral history is often lost forever, or else progresses beyond the bounds of reality to enter the realm of lore and legend. It is absolutely true that many important circumstances occurred that were never recorded.

Often, only mysterious artifacts remain that possibly foretell significant historical events. Oklahoma has such a mysterious artifact. It is located in eastern Oklahoma, close to the Arkansas border, near the tiny mountain town of Heavener and it is now known as the Heavener Runestone.

Discovered in 1874, the Heavener Runestone is a large slab of rock that bears eight letters identified as Norse Runes. There is little controversy as to the origin of the runes. According to popular conjecture, Vikings visited Oklahoma around 700 A.D. to 1000 A.D. A Danish scholar has translated the Heavener Runestone as a land claim by a man named Glome. Four other runestones have since been located in Oklahoma.

What does all this mean? The facts are so sparse, that perhaps they lend themselves only to the dangerous imagination of a dedicated (or possibly demented) fiction writer. Since I fall into at least one of those categories, I’m presenting my picture (albeit fictional) of the Runestone’s origin:

By 874 A.D., people of Norse origin had begun colonizing Iceland. Continuing their westward quest, they reached Greenland in 984 A.D. Still hungry for colonization, these people wanted more. Sometime after 984 A.D., a lone Viking longboat powered by oar and sail headed south.

These fifteen, or so, explorers soon encountered the east coast of what would eventually be known as the United States. They continued sailing south, stopping only periodically to gather food and water. They didn’t stop for long because they were looking for something.

They were looking for a large estuary of fiord because the shallow draught of a longboat almost perfectly lent itself to the exploration of shallow and narrow waterways. It needed no harbor, and was light enough to pull ashore and be carried overland, should the need occur. The Norse explorers finally found this estuary at the mouth of the Mississippi River, some 5,000 miles from where they had embarked. Their trip to that point had taken three months.

The explorers continued up the Mississippi River until they reached the confluence with the Red River. They continued their journey up the smaller waterway instead of continuing north on the Mississippi because the narrowing river signaled to these ancient mariners that, like their faraway homes in Norway and Denmark, they were possibly nearing a settlement.

The Norsemen continued up the Red, a journey taking another month until they reached what is now southeast Oklahoma. There they stopped because the gnarly, highly dissected Ouachita Mountains reminded them of their own Nordic homeland. Also, it was probably as far as their longboat could take them. By now it was fall. Exhausted from their arduous journey, the explorers established a base camp, intent on weathering the coming winter.

These early Norse explorers were a hardy lot, used to long sea journeys. This trip, though, had taken its toll, possibly because of periodic contact with inhospitable Native Americans. This is likely because many hostile tribes settled along the waterways traversed by the explorers. When they finally reached southeast Oklahoma, only ten Norsemen remained.

Somewhere in the wilds of southeast Oklahoma, the remnants of a Norse settlement remain, still waiting to be found. When spring finally arrived, there weren’t enough men left to crew the longboat on its trip back to Greenland. Six men decided to try anyway and abandoned their settlement. After saying their final farewells, they started their trip downstream, toward the mouth of the mighty Mississippi River.

Three men remained, one of them named Glome. They headed due north, looking for that elusive Viking settlement they hoped in their hearts might exist. Although they never found the settlement, they soon found the peaceful valley where the tiny town of Heavener is now located. On a flat spot on the way to the top of Heavener Mountain, they rested. From this vantage, they could see the entire valley below. There was game in the mountains and fish in the streams. They felt safe and established a base camp.

Two of the men finally departed, continuing their quest, while Glome waited behind on his mountain-top vantage point. During his time alone, he marked his stay with what is now the Heavener Runestone. His two companions never returned but marked other rocks along the way to mark their journey.

All six Norse explorers that left in the longboat made it to the mouth of the Mississippi River, into the Gulf of Mexico where a seasonal hurricane forever ended their journey. Glome and the other two Vikings lived out their lives in eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas. Did they prosper, or were their lives fraught with danger? No one can say, but next time you see a person with bronzed skin, high cheekbones, and blue eyes, I hope that it gives you cause to ponder the question.

###

Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series set in Oklahoma. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

Shrimp Arnaud - a recipe

I have found New Orleans Recipes, a great old cookbook by Mary Moore Bremer. The book I have is the Tenth Edition published in 1944. Unlike most modern cookbooks, this one presents its recipes in a simple way that encourages intuitive cooking. Here is Bremer’s recipe for Shrimp Arnaud.

Six tablespoons of olive oil, two tablespoons of vinegar and one tablespoon of paprika, one half teaspoon of white pepper, one half teaspoon of salt, four tablespoons of Creole mustard, on half heart of celery, chopped fine, one half white onion, chopped fine, and a little chopped parsley.

Mix well. Chill; Serve on cold boiled shrimp, about twelve to a serving.

Enthrone on crisp, chopped lettuce.

Eric's Website

Dave's Sausage Balls - a recipe

My wife Anne, like myself, was a boxing fan. When she was alive we often hosted fight parties for many championship boxing events. There was always lots of beer and our friend Ray, immortalized in my story Chicken Fries would always bring brownies.

Dave, my buddy who sold me my first motorcycle would bring his famous sausage balls. Later, when times were tight, just Anne, Dave and I would get together for a fight. One fighter we never missed was Mike Tyson.

Tyson, at the time, was still young and going through opponents like an Oklahoma tornado. When he was scheduled to fight a no-name boxer, Buster Douglas, no one wanted to watch the likely one-round event except the three of us.

I don’t remember much about the evening, or the fight, except that Buster Douglas connected with Tyson’s jaw and knocked him clean out. I also remember Dave’s sausage balls. This week, Dave was kind enough to send me his sausage ball recipe. Here it is and I hope that you enjoy them as much as I did.

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Damp Morning Glory

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Pink Hibiscus

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A Story Told With Help From Literature's Giants

http://features.csmonitor.com/books/2008/05/30/a-story-told-with-help-from-literatures-giants/

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Discarded Gold - a slightly surreal short story

DISCARDED GOLD

By Eric Wilder

Three old men on a park bench watched as she passed by them. Blonde, bouffant hair, the red ribbon tying it matching her dress, tight and short. Replacing the magazine on the rack, I hurried from the corner drugstore, chasing after her down the street.

"Wait," I called as she was about to get away from me.

Executing a perfect one-eight pirouette, she faced me, curtsying, smiling. When she blew me a kiss I saw she was no more than eighteen, and maybe younger.

"You dropped this."

"Not mine," she said.

Withdrawing the bogus blue silk scarf, I basked in her green ephemeral eyes, desperate to bite her puffed lower lip.

"Sorry. Would you have a sundae with me?"

"Will you take me home afterward?"

"No car," I said.

"How old are you?"

"Old enough to drive."

"Can you dance?"

We both could. Swirling bodies collided as intersecting cosmic rays beamed from a ceiling strobe. Sweat beaded my brow. Our bodies, moving in time, colliding, touching, caressing, becoming enamored, interacting, made love to the beat. The girl and I kissed.

Later, along the beach, hypnotic moonbeams splayed crystal sand. Midnight breakers crashed against the shore, rounding tiny quartz crystals surviving from seamless streams that had never twice touched the same drop of water.

A distant fire.

"I don’t even know your name."

"Emil," I said. "And yours?"

"Collette."

"I love your eyes, Collette."

"What else do you love?"

"Water," I said, gazing across the moonlit bay.

Far out across the bay, dolphins broke the rolling waves.

"I’m fifteen," she said, licking lips so red and swollen that they defied gravity.

"You’re lying."

She didn’t bother denying my accusation.

Behind us, two gulls groused over a dead fish bobbing upside down in the surf.

"Who are we, Emil?"

"Two people," I said.

"Are we fated?"

"Let’s have our cards read and find out."

Greasy strands of black hair protruded from the dark woman’s red bandanna. Bulbous nose, puffy face and her high cheeks frowned. Malignant eyes stared at us across scarred and stained oak. Liver-spotted hands nervously fingered frayed tarot cards.

"I can contact the spirits but it will cost you fifty."

Collette punched me when I asked, "Don’t you know any cut-rate spirits?"

My pointed sarcasm failed to faze Mother Midnight. She took my proffered offering, albeit far short of her request.

"The moon is full," she said.

I gazed at the ceiling but only broken tiles stared back at me.

"Are we in love, Mother?"

"We are all in love," she answered.

Mother’s black cat wound through my legs as we exited into the back alley. Overturned cans of trash reeked of spoiled fish. I stole a kiss and grasped Collette’s hand.

"Spirits are weak tonight," I said.

"And life is fragile," she said, exciting me further with her own unexpected kiss.

Multicolored rockets exploded in the distance, momentarily startling a starless sky.
Collette and I held hands. High above reality, like multicolored balloons we floated, unpunctured by sharp earthen prods.

"The streets below are dark," I said.

"But the sky above is light," she answered, her smile colliding with red and green reflections bounding away from flickering streetlights. "And my heart is full." Before I could answer, she said, "I left my skates on the street."

"Leave them," I said. "Thieves be damned."

An approaching streetcar with an ancient electrical heart struggled as it climbed the steep hill on its way toward us. Raising a finger, I flagged it, grasped Collette’s hand and pulled her through the door. Above us, the lazy sun split the hazy dawn as Collette’s creamy thighs peeked from beneath her short red skirt.

"I love the dawn," she said.

"Let’s make love at my place," I said.

"We’re making love now," she answered.

"But there’s no music here.

"Then you’re not listening to the breeze."

Rush hour. Carbon monoxide wafting up from endless vehicles pointing in straight lines toward oblivion. The noise began filling my cavities of desire with mental glue.

"It’s still morning," she said

"Every twenty-four hours," I said.

"Must this end?"

"Well, I should go to work."

"Does your work usurp beauty?" she asked

Encroaching noise drowned my words, but I had no answer anyway.

Revolving doors belched tired humanity from rotating mouths and explosions of energy surged in the streets. Cancerous mutants died slowly as they hailed streetcars, inhaling life, exhaling death. An old gray dog brushed my leg. When I reached to pat his head, he turned and disappeared behind trash cans lining the nearby alley - probably in search of discarded gold among forgotten scraps of life.

END

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Welcome to Never Land

A welcoming sign located south of Billings, Oklahoma.

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Lost in Oklahoma

Here is a Saturday pic taken on I-35, heading north.

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