Both Sides of the River

My friend Ray grew up in Shreveport. I’m a Vivian boy from down the road. He sent me this story tonight and I don’t know where it came from. It is so funny that I couldn’t help but post it on my blog.

* * *
A guy meets a beautiful girl and decided he wanted to marry her right away, she said, "But we don't know anything about each other.”

He said, "That's all right, we'll learn about each other as we go along."

So she consented and they were married and went on a honeymoon to a very nice resort. One morning they were lying by the pool when he got off his towel, climbed up to the 10 Meter board and did a two and a half tuck gainer, followed by three rotations in a jackknife position, where he straightened out and cut the water like a knife. After a few more demonstrations, he came back and lay down on the towel. She said, "That was incredible!"

He said, “I used to be an Olympic diving champion. You see, I told you we'd learn about each other as we went along."

So she got up, jumped in the pool, and started doing laps. After about thirty laps, she climbed back out and lay down on her towel hardly out of breath.

He said, "That was incredible! Were you an Olympic endurance swimmer?"

"No." she said, "I was a hooker in Shreveport/Bossier, Louisiana, and I worked both sides of the river!"

Eric'sWeb

Stories Abound in New Book about Route 66

Edmond, OK, May 10, 2010 — Gondwana Press LLC announces the publication of Lost on Route 66—Tales from the Mother Road.

Lost on Route 66 is a compendium of short stories, essays and poetry about the Mother Road Route 66. Eighteen authors from three countries and many states contributed to the book, and there is a foreword by

 r. r. bryan, author of All the Angels and Saints. Katelyn Bohl and Eric Wilder edited the manuscript.

The book, according to Editor Eric Wilder, contains works mostly by previously published authors, many of whom teach writing at the elementary to collegiate level. “The quality of the submissions blew me away,” Wilder said. “Some of the stories and poetry are so powerful that they brought me to tears.”

About Gondwana Press LLC

Founded in 2006, Gondwana Press is an Oklahoma publisher seeking to expand the bounds of both knowledge and entertainment.

Lost on Route 66—Tales from the Mother Road, ISBN 978-0-9791165-1-3, is available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and most web-based bookstores and at Gondwana Press. For more information, contact publisher Gary Pittenger at 405-341-0076, or email him at gapitt@sbcglobal.net.

Eric’sWeb

Albino Coyote

Oklahoma weather is quite bizarre. This year, it is nothing less than weird. Killer tornadoes struck earlier this week destroying more than a hundred homes. Two nights ago, thunder almost rolled me out of bed. Last night, the storms returned, bringing with them unseasonably chilly temperatures and lots of rain. They also brought out a new beast to my front yard.

My beautiful Shepherd dog Velvet is sick. I think she is just getting old. She has arthritis, allergies and is picky, picky, picky. She was lying amid her cedar chips tonight when I heard Patch, my Australian cow dog, begin barking. I went to the front door, expecting to see the young red fox that likes to eat my cat’s left-over food. What I saw when I gazed out the door wasn’t a fox.

I gazed out at an albino coyote. Yes, this is what I think it was. It wasn’t a dog. Its front legs appeared longer than its rear legs. It was almost ghost-like, a creature almost devoid of color. I watched it for a minute and then went to the kitchen for my trusty digital camera. When I pointed it at the beast, it ran away, into the shadows.

I know, no one is ever going to believe me without a picture. I put some more food in the cat’s plate, left the front door open and I am waiting for Patch to start barking again.

Eric'sWeb

South Padre Pics

Scenes from South Padre Island featuring Oklahoma oil and gas legend Carl Swan.

Eric'sWeb

Why I Never Excelled in Sports

There is no reason that I should like men’s college basketball as much as I do, I just do. A few years back, I watched Oklahoma State and Texas battle through three overtimes until Mario Boggan of OSU finely outdid Texas’s freshman phenom Kevin Durant, icing the game when he sank a long, desperation shot with less than four seconds remaining on the clock. It was an exciting basketball game, and I have seen quite a few.

What makes my love for basketball so unlikely? As a kid, I was always the last person selected when Captains chose sides for baseball, football, etc. Well, unless my friend Rod was around.
I have an excuse, though. Near-sighted does not come close to explaining my vision. When I first got glasses in the fifth grade, I remember seeing the blackboard clearly for the first time in my life. Corrective lenses cured my vision problems but did nothing to enhance my depth perception, or should I say my lack of it.

Its hell standing in the outfield, tracking a baseball as it plummets from the sky toward you, hoping beyond hope that you will somehow snag it deftly with your trusty glove before it hits ten feet away. It’s even worse hell seeing the looks of derision on your teammate’s faces when you drop the ball and the winning scorer reaches home base, ending every chance of their pulling that elusive upset of the best team on the block. Hey, if you look up klutz in the dictionary, you will see my picture beside the definition.

I tried every sport: football, softball, basketball (when I tried out for the team in the fifth grade, the coach simply shook his head and frowned), track and field. Being a skinny kid, I was a good runner, but nothing special.

Why do I like basketball so much? My first three years at Northeast Louisiana the football team lost every game. My senior year, they tied a game. Basketball was different. When I was a freshman, the team went sixteen and three.

Every home game, sixteen-hundred or so fans and students would crowd into our painfully tiny gymnasium, and go crazy when five-foot-nine basketball legend Tommy Enloe started dunking balls. We never lost a home game and for about two hours, we basked in the team’s success and felt (pardon the cliché) like kings of the world.

After watching first-year head Coach Sean Sutton almost faint after a particularly stressful play (I’m not kidding) I remembered that feeling. As Boggin’s winning basket swished through the net, it intensified even further. Hey, I am old, I am fat and blind as a bat, but at that moment, I was once again King of the World.

Eric'sWeb

Big Billy's Crawfish Fritters with Texas Dipping Sauce - a weekend recipe

My close friend Big Billy was both an oil entrepreneur and a Dallas restauranteur. He was such an interesting character, I could write a book about him. Come to think of it, maybe I will some day.

I once sold him an oil deal in Noble County, Oklahoma. It was a reentry—going into a previously drilled well in hopes of completing in a productive zone the original operator missed. We were unsuccessful in the predicted pay zone but came up roses in a shallow limestone. The well tested nine hundred MCFD (pretty damn good for a six hundred foot well) and Big Billy ultimately drilled ten offsets.

Big Billy, like his name, was a big man—six foot four and three hundred seventy five pounds. He had the mentality of a wildcatter along with the wildly crazy luck that made him successful. He had absolutely no pretense, but could cook some of the tastiest meals imaginable. He also liked Texas music and he, Kathy—his significant other— and I once made a special trip to see Willis Alan Ramsey at the Blue Door in Oklahoma City. But that’s another story.

Yes, Louisiana is the land of Acadia, but there are probably just as many Cajuns living in Texas. Big Billy borrowed a few secrets from his Louisiana neighbors in creating this dish that I guarantee is to die for. Although no longer with us, his legend and recipes will live forever.

Big Billy’s Crawfish Fritters with Texas Dipping Sauce

Ingredients
• 1 cup flour, sifted
• 1 pound crawfish tails, cooked and chopped
• 4 green onions, chopped
• ½ tsp. salt
• ½ tsp. cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup milk
• 1 ½ tbsp. melted butter

Texas Dipping Sauce
• ¾ cup mayonnaise
• ¼ lemon, sliced
• ½ cup ketchup
• ¼ tsp. horseradish, prepared
• ¼ tsp. Texas hot sauce

Directions
Combine eggs, crawfish meat, onions, butter, salt and Cayenne in a large mixing bowl. Stir in flour until blended.

Heat cooking oil in a large cast iron skillet until very hot. Drop tablespoonfuls of batter— a few at a time—into hot oil. Fry until golden brown on both sides. Drain on paper towels.

In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, ketchup, horseradish, squeezed lemon juice and Texas hot sauce. Serve fritters with Texas dipping sauce.

Eric'sWeb

Chicken Sauce Piquante - a weekend recipe

A certain spicy stew is a cooking staple in south Louisiana. Sauce piquante was introduced to Louisiana by the Spanish. It has been embraced by Cajun chefs and has evolved into nearly as many differing recipes as there are cooks.

The dish begins with a roux, combined with the sauce and almost any meat you can think of. In Louisiana, there is chicken, pork, wild duck, turtle and even alligator sauce piquante.

Chicken Sauce Piquante

Ingredients

1 chicken, cut up
¼ cup chopped shallots
½ cup cooking oil
2 8oz. cans tomato sauce
½ cup flour
1 cup water
2 large onions, chopped
1 cup Burgundy
4 garlic cloves, chopped
¼ cup chopped parsley
1 medium bell pepper
Salt, pepper and hot sauce to taste

Preparation

Make roux with cooking oil and flour, stirring constantly until medium brown. Add onions, garlic, bell pepper and shallots. Sauté until onions are clear. Add chicken, tomato sauce, water, Burgundy, parsley and seasoning. Cover and cook over medium heat for 30 minutes (stirring occasionally) or until sauce begins to thicken. Serve over rice. Serves six.

Eric'sWeb