Started raining last night in the middle of the night...

So I was glad I'd done the yard work and gotten it all mostly done. Went out there after getting up at about 10am, and it was a swamp. There'll be no mowing today. Just went out to get a look, and most of the standing water is soaked into the soil, but there's still a few soggy bits.



Now the sun is out and it's muggy as hell out there. I tell ya, after years and years of drought, we need all this rain, but enough is friggin' enough!



Both of our local lakes are way above normal levels, due to this several month long deluge. After being 20 to 25 feet below normal for years, they've filled now to over 25 feet above normal, with only the tops of trees visible where boat ramps used to be.



Glad I got a chance to plant a few things last night before quitting work.



Still have a few things to put in, and plans to buy more, but need to pull a few more weeds in the step garden before I can do that. Elected not to go there last night. Enough was enough.

Well, It's Fathers Day, and dad and the others will be coming over here at about 3:30 so we can hit the Outback. He loves the hell out of their coconut shrimp, and I love the Bloomin' Onion. If you get a chance, and why the hell wouldn't you, ask for the onion with honey mustard sauce to dip it in. It's a hell of a lot better tasting than the mustard they normally give you.



I've been hangin' with this dude since the folks were stationed in Bermuda in 1960, and we're still in business. We've had our ups and downs, as folks will, but we love each other to death, and everything is working out the way it should.



I grew up thinking his choices in life, to leave home and spend 32 years and 9 months in the Air Force, had made my life harder (this is us, just before we left England in about 1970) Who'd a thought this little kid was gonna grow up to be such a Sasquatch?

Sis and I both grew up longing for the stability that we saw in our cousins lives. Their dads never left Bell county, making a life here. Their kids didn't have a lot of the stuff we had, or travel and live in the exotic places we did, but they didn't have to go to a half dozen elementary schools, and two or three high schools, like my sister and I did. She had it worse than me, being older and around when he was lower in rank and moving almost every year. Our cousins lives seemed so much more well adjusted and happy whenever we'd visit.

Well, I moved down here in about 1994, and had a chance to learn a few things about those cousins. Turns out that never leaving central Texas can put a huge set of blinders on your head, and turn you into a ridiculous friggin' redneck. After banging my head up against that set of folks for a few years, trying to build a relationship like the one I had always longed for, I came to the realization that our different lives had made us very different people, and that I liked who I was a lot more than the fools many of them are comfortable being.

I grew up a huge amount from that realization, and it changed the way I saw my life in a big way. In retrospect, I wouldn't change a thing about how I grew up. It made me who I am now, and I like who I am a lot. I just wish I'd somehow had this epiphany 40 years ago. It would have saved me a lot of grief.

I still regret not being born about ten years sooner, so that I could have gotten to know my paternal grandfather, or spend more time with my maternal grandparents when they were younger, but there is nothing to be done about all that, and no good reason to linger on the feelings. Fate is fate, and there is no fixing it. You are dealt a hand in life, and I've waisted a huge amount of my time regretting my cards when I should have been learning how to play them, but that's getting behind me too. Onward and upward from now on, full speed ahead.



Dad and the ladies should be here in a while, so I'd better get busy makin' the place right for inspection. You guys have a great Sunday, and all you dads out there enjoy your day. Take care, cheers.

I finally figured out how to get the pictures off my phone and on to my hard drive,

so I can show you more pictures of mom's chicken and ice cream. I know, here we go again. Hey, it's an institution OK. Ya can't argue with an institution. Actually, I went over there tonight to have Memorial Day dinner with the folks, and forgot my camera, so I had to take these shots with the razor. I touched them up a bit, but I can't believe this phone can actually take nice shots. So, if you're not familiar with the ritual, Mom cooks the chicken...



And makes sure the ice cream mix is ready when I get there. My job is to arrive on time with a big bag of ice, set the ice cream container with the mix inside into bucket, fill it with Ice and get the thing going.



You pour the ice into the thing on each side and add salt periodically. All very complicated and technical. Here's a shot of mom adding a bit of salt after I got the thing going.



You've got to watch the thing to make sure it stays full of ice, and see to it that the water doesn't overflow into the ice cream mix. Eventually the ice cream thickens and the motor winds down till it automatically shuts off. Then, take the motor off the top, pull the ice cream container out of the ice, and pop the tip.



The end result is well worth the effort. I know, you've seen it all before. That's OK, You don't need to eat any of this. VERY fattening. Really bad for ya. That's OK, I'll take your share.



Ha! You know, as much as I go on and on about this stuff, you'd think we have it all the time, but we really don't. Only about five or six times a year. There's always a lot left over. Too bad you guys couldn't be there. OK, I'll stop.

As far as the other shots off the phone are concerned...



Here's a great shot of dad and their new little yippy dog. Total lap schnauzer. The pooch ran away from the neighbors across the street and my folks took her in. The neighbors are cool with it. Not a Pug, but she's a sweetie.



Here's a shot of dad at the Chinese food place we go to every Friday. Now that I know how to use this thing, I'll be able to post all sorts of things off the cuff. Should be fun. You'll get to see actually how boring and predictable my life has become.

New classes begin tomorrow, and I'll be busy again, but no early mornings for a while. Can't wait. Love the job. A whole new batch of young minds to corrupt. It's a living. Well, I hope everyone had a great weekend. Cheers.

Jesus, I've been tagged again.

Usually I find these things a bit silly, girlish, like something silly teenage girls do in class when they're supposed to be sitting quietly while I fucking lecture! Ok, I needed that release. It's been a long day.

Anyway, old Mushy has tagged me to lay it all out and tell everyone how I keep this girlish figure. What are my favorite places to eat? I'm thinking... sitting in front of the computer, sitting on the couch, laying on the bed? Ok, not what he means.

What are my five favorite restaurants? And there are rules? Shit, there's always rules.

First, link to the dude that tagged you, and show a goofy assed picture of him again, just to fuck with his head. Covered. Ain't he purdy?



SUCH a whore!

Anyway, list the five best places you like to eat, then tag five more chumps. Hehehehehe! I'm feeling naughty.

Here we go...

1. Ok, OBVIOUSLY, my favorite place to eat is, and has been for 46 years, my mom's house. Best restaurant in town, whatever town we were livin' in at the time. You've all seen the fried chicken and peach ice cream posts, so I don't think I even need to go there. But here's a few pictures, just to set the mood...



Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Yummy.



That's right, its GOOOOOOD. How the hell do you think I got this way? I'm not a fat hairy bastard for nothing.

Fried chicken and Ice cream are her most famous creations, but other famous dishes from moms place include; Spaghetti, chili with beans, chicken enchiladas, steak and french fries, and when she's takin' it easy, she whips up a tamale casserole, or chili dogs. Mmmm, Mmmm. Oh shit, and did I tell ya that she makes the best scrambled eggs, mixing cream cheese in the eggs as she's whipping them. Damn! Ok, I'm getting dizzy.

She also surprises me some times with a dozen or so little pigs in a blanket. She takes a roll of Pillsbury croissants, cuts each croissant triangle in half, and rolls them over Jimmy Dean, hot, precooked sausages, also cut in half. Just out of the oven (15 minutes at 375), there isn't anything better.

2. Hmmm, my next choice is probably Dynasty Chinese Restaurant, in Temple. This is where my dad and I will be eating again tonight, as we do every Friday night. The folks there are great to dad. When he hobbles in they sit him down and rush off to get his regular plate of fried shrimp and red sauce, even while I'm still parkin' my car. I tip them well, and have grown to love their food. It's a buffet, and as I've found, the food is much better if you show up in a busy time when the food is fresh and hot. We've been going to this place for decades, and it's always been the place we went with my cousins and aunts. Thing is, I really didn't start loving their food till dad and I started going. They do amazing things with General Tso's chicken, which is my favorite thing to eat, outside mom's house. They also make a wonderful shrimp fried rice, with big fat shrimp and eggs and veggies. I hate it when a Chinese food place scrimps on the shrimp, giving you pissy little salad shrimp in the rice. What the fuck is the point of that? You can't even taste the bastards.

3. About once a month, the folks and sis and I pile into the folks big boat, the Grand Marquis, and roll down to Austin to enjoy a gluttonous feed at the local Pappasito's Cantina. Excellent Mexican food, specializing in chicken or beef fajitas, and more succulent shrimp (you're beginning to notice a pattern?). They make great queso dip, with ground beef mixed in it, and their own fresh chips and picante sauce. We usually go through about two bowls of chips before the main meal gets there. The best thing they make, In our opinion, is their Brochette shrimp. These little baby's are split down the middle, stuffed with cheese and a wedge of jalapeno pepper, wrapped in bacon, slathered in a mixture of white wine and butter, covered in a mixture of various spices, and then grilled. When they arrive on a hot plate, still sizzling, they give you a little bowl of melted and whipped butter, mixed with white wine, and a few other things, to dip the shrimp in. I tell ya, they are about the best thing in the world, for those moments when your mouth is making sweet love to them. Try them some time. Remember to get the butter dip. They're not the same without it. I usually order the fajita enchiladas as my main meal, and then end up taking about half of it home. Total gluttony.

4. Ok, this one is complicated, because it's actually two places. Back a few years ago one of the secretaries at work came in and told me there was a new Chinese place in Copperas Cove, west of the base. That's usually all I need to hear. I go there and order my usual, and I can tell by the way they make the Gen. Tso's and rice whether they're any good or not. This place threw me for a loop. Totally unexpected. The flavor of the rice reminded me of the rice I'd eaten in Hong Kong and Kowloon ten or twelve years ago, when I was teaching on the ships. I'd made a point to take a train into the interior to check out the places where the local folks eat. This new restaurant was called the Beijing Cafe.

It turns out that unlike every other Chinese food place around here, including Dynasty in Temple, the cooks at Beijing are actually Chinese! They use the authentic spices and the food has the same flavor that I'd grown to love overseas. Well, I went back regularly until about six months ago, when I noticed a few personnel changes. It turns out that the original Chinese cook/owner had sold out to a new set of Chinese cooks/owners. The food was basically the same, so I went back to grazing without much interruption, though I wondered what had happened to the old folks.

Then, about a month ago, I noticed that the old wing place by my local Killeen McDos lube joint had turned into a new Chinese food place. I'm thinkin' "Jesus, not another Chinese place!?!" There's got to be ten or twelve of these places in town, and most of them are half assed. I resisted for a few weeks, but finally decided to swing by for lunch and check it out. Imagine my glee when I walked in and found the old waitress and cook from Beijing had started a new restaurant. This time it's closer to the house, and the food is even cheaper. before the waitress had run the cash register and handled the call-in orders (speaks good English), but this time she's a full partner. I've been back one more time, and it looks like I won't have to drive the extra fifteen minutes to Cove anymore for good vittles. Business is business.

5. This one is a real favorite. Outside Little Rock Arkansas, heading southwest, just off exit 118 from I-30, there's a 100 foot long wonderland of deep fried and baked southern delight called Brown's Country Store. That's right, they have a 100 foot long buffet, filled with everything you could imagine in southern cuisine. My routine involves three trips, and three plates; salad plate, dinner plate, and dessert plate. It's a sight to behold, I wanna tell ya. This little stop on the road back from Arkansas has a special place in my heart.

Back when I was a kid, just starting college, I took an intramural PE class called Camping and Canoeing at the local community college. I found a world that I'd never known before, and friends that I still hang with to this day. We'd go on a big canoe trip to the Buffalo National River in the Ozarks, and spend three days living like kings and queens on the river. I keeps going on the trips till my school work and other things got in the way. I failed to go back for a few years while I finished my BA and spent two years getting my Masters in History. After finishing, I decided to go back and see if they were still teaching that canoeing class. Sure enough they were, and they were happy to have me tag along and help teach the new kids a thing or two.

Thing is, the trips had changed in those four years that I was away. The tents and canoes were a bit nicer, and the canoe trailers were a bit sturdier. We had a hell of a time, and I met another bunch of folks that I'm still friends with today. Then, on the return trip from the Ozarks, the coach made a left turn on I-40. I was thinkin' "what the hell?" Turns out we rolled a little ways back to the outskirts of Little Rock, slid down to I-30 west, and then 15 or 20 minutes later we were exiting into paradise. If you ever get the chance, give it a whirl. It's not health food, so don't get yer panties in a twist when your cholesterol level jumps a bit after the trip. Hell, you've gotta die of somethin'. Might as well have a smile on your face.

So, who to tag? I'm thinkin' Phlemmy, Becky, Kevin, Myron, and the Editor.

Well, there it is. I'm off. It's late and the sack beckons. All this talk of food and travel has exhausted me. Hope you enjoyed the trip. Drink up and eat well. See ya later. Cheers.

Yet another misical interlude.

My sister was born in the 50s, and grew to her teen years in Britain during the height of the era of the Beatles and Stones. She was consumed by the desire to experience the hype of the 1960s that we all saw on TV, but her fate was to arrive back in the states too late in the day. The hippie thing was mostly over by then, killed by commercialization, and Charlie Manson, and the realization that the problems of the world were probably too complicated to be solved by free love and LSD. She tried to act out the part though, and it didn't go over well with our dad, who'd grown up during the depression, seemingly on another planet from his children. They eventually had a huge shouting match, the biggest of many, over something stupid.

At the age of 20 or so, going to college and still living at home with the folks, she went and spent the weekend with her boyfriend in San Antonio. Dad hit the roof, and called her a whore for doing it, and she got back at him by leaving, hitting the road with that very same boyfriend, who turned out (of course) to be a complete asshole. Over the next five or six years, she lived through as much of the ugly, drug addled hard scrabble of that hippie life as a well raised princess could manage. She came home eventually, after acquiring a bit more wisdom, with a few cats and a lot of emotional scars, and tried to be a big shot and turn her little brother on to a lot of stupid things. About the only success she had was in introducing me to having a cat, and the music of people like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. What a gift that was.

Do yourself a favor some time and check out Mitchell's live album Miles Of Isles. In the mean time, enjoy this little slide show, showing someones family, and enjoy Mitchell's tune Circle Game.



It's Friday again, and the Seniors down in Florence are going on a trip to 6 Flags, so I get to sleep in an extra hour. It's Friday, so you know where dad and I are headed for dinner. There's also an Air Show this weekend in Temple, so I'll be takin' the pop to see some of the old planes he once got to fly. We both get a big kick out of that. Maybe I'll post pictures of it later. Mom's decided we all need to go to Austin Saturday and eat Mexican Food, so we'll be headin' to Papasoto's. Enjoy your weekend. Mines lookin' goo so far.

One of the perks of being a service brat was getting to live in some cool places, and visit some other cool places from time to time.

My family was stationed in England in the summer of 1967, and lived there till the late summer of 1970. It was a return trip for everyone in the family but me. My folks had been stationed there in the early 1950s, and my older sister had been born there in '54. Things were pretty good for Americans in Europe back in those days if you were living on the economy. The exchange rate was VERY favorable (opposite of what it is now), so we could afford to go on trips every summer to the continent and see the sights. Pretty amazing situation for a sharecroppers kid and his family from Bell county Texas to find themselves in. Tall cotton.

Our first vacation, summer of '68, was about a week spent driving around Spain in a tour bus. The second, the summer of '69, was a trip to Germany and Austria. The last one, in the summer of 70, just before we packed up and headed back to the states, was a long, 10 day bus trip that took us from Munich, down through Austria to Naples, and then back up through Switzerland to Germany again. That one was a doozie, and I was lovin' it.

As a kid (ages 6 to 9 through those years), I soaked up all the history and culture of Europe, and it was easy to do. living in England would have been enough. Christ, the place oozed history. But it just got ratcheted up when we went to the continent. Hell, it seemed that everywhere we stopped in Spain there were castles and armor and big racks of swords to tempt my adolescent imagination. I used to run up to those racks and fondle the swords, thinking they were all real, imagining all the carnage they'd been involved in. it was bliss. I used to drive my folks CRAZY wanting one. I ended up with two new ones, crossed with a wooden plack. Basic tourist setup. Loved the hell out of it, and hung it over my bed for years. It's probably in my parents attic now.

The trip to Spain was the first major exposure I had to a different people and a different culture. I don't even think of the British as being different, even though they really are. Living there for three years made them folks, and I still feel a huge kinship with them. But the Spanish were different, speaking a different language and having a much more pronounced public religious life. We saw castles and ruins and LOTs of institutions of the Catholic church there, all dripping with history and drama. I remember seeing paintings by El Greco and Ribera, including this picture, which we saw at a museum in Toledo.



It's called The Bearded Woman, and purports to show a bearded woman breast-feeding a baby. I remember looking up at the full length painting, a lot larger than I was at the age of 6, with the tour guide grinning at me, and thinking "Eeew, that's not a woman. That's a old man with tits!" You know that had to fuck up the mind of an impressionable child. Probably screwed me up for life (nice rack, by the way).

Between this and all the other religious images, with the fully painted statues of Jesus bleeding on the cross, and crumpled down and bleeding from wounds off the cross, with blood dripping from his eyes and mouth and everywhere else, I stayed pretty freaked out much of the time we were there. I remember, both in Germany and Spain, being puzzled by the constant representations of Christ on the cross that we saw everywhere we went. Those blood soaked statues scared the hell out of me, effecting me the same way as a scary statue of Dracula in the wax museum in London. It occurred to me later that they were probably intended to do just that - literally scare the HELL out of the viewer. Provide important lessons and messages to a largely illiterate public (back in the old days).

The coolest thing I remember about Spain was the city of Segovia, with the Alcazar castle, the Romanesque cathedrals, and the huge Roman aqueduct.



I'll never forget our tour bus driving under the arches of that aqueduct, and parking outside a cafe where we ate lunch. The pictures we took turned out to be the classic tourist shot, repeated in most of the postcards from the time. The Romans fascinated me then, as now, so anything that was associated with them got my attention in a big way.

Spain was an allied country at that time, and a NATO ally of the United States, but Generalissimo Franco was still alive then, and there was a lot of violent crap going on in the world. I remember seeing the Spanish cops with the interesting, old fashioned hats, and I think I knew that something was up with them, but I was too young to pay close attention to any of that. I was too young, and too wrapped up in ancient violence to pay close attention to what was going on in my own time.

It was the peak of the war years, but I had no real clue that Vietnam was happening, although I knew something was up. I think my uncle Bob was there at the time (Colonel in the Army, Military Police), but my dads job in communications and his work with SAC largely shielded him from threat of being sent there. I found out much later that there had been a chance he could have been sent there when we moved back to the States in '70. He told me later that he'd had the choice of going to Hawaii or Missouri. I said "Hawaii? What the hell were you thinking?" He said that Hawaii was WAY too close to the war, and that it was not uncommon for men to be sent to 'Nam when their families were sent back to the states. I guess he was a bit concerned about it, understandably.

Most the stuff that was going on in my own world had to do with the IRA, blowing up pubs and fighting the British for control of Northern Ireland. I absorbed a lot of that stuff from the British media, and developed some pretty funny attitudes towards the Irish. I could tell you who the prime minister was, and who Bernadette Devlin was, and Ian Paisley, but the stuff in my own country was a mystery. I think maybe I had a vague awareness that a recent President had been from Texas, and that I was from Texas, but I didn't know what the hell that was. Not a clue. Too much movin' around, I guess.

The trip to Germany and Austria in '69 was also full of old castles and opulent palaces. We went to the Linderhof palace, where "Mad" King Ludwig of Bavaria had his famous Grotto, with the swan boat. Now THAT place was cool! We went to Ludwigs Neuschwanstein Castle, that Walt Disney had copied for Disneyland.



The visit to the castle was not without recrimination. There was a winding road going up to the castle from the town (you can kind of see the end of it here), and people were renting carriages and riding up, getting the full tourist experience. Dad would have none of it, so my mom, sister and I were forced to hoof it. God, did we bitch, particularly after every carriage passed us and we got to see people enjoying themselves in comfort. Our family vacations are famous for those sorts of moments. Cheap bastard. Spend a shit load of money on something in one moment and then pinch pennies in another.

Later on in the tour we went up to the peak of Zugspitze in the Bavarian alps (this time by cable car). It's the tallest Mountain in the Bavarian alps, with a beautiful big cross on the top. I was starting to get used to those crosses. Later I went swimming in the lake at the base of the mountain. Snow and sunny swimming on the same day? Good times. Germany was fun, but the best vacation was the last one.

Just before we left for home, mom, sis and I went on a 10 day bus tour from Munich to Naples and back. Dad had to work so it was just the three of us. Summer of 1970, and sis was about 15 then, and old enough to want to be involved in all the adult activities. One night in Germany, at the very start of the tour, some of the adults took the teenagers to a beer hall and got them all loaded. Mom and I stayed at the hotel that night, and I still remember when sis came back sick as a dog. Spent the rest of the night worshiping the porcelain alter. Mom was pissed, but not as much at sis as at the adults who let her daughter get loaded. Needless to say the bus was quiet the next day. The trip through the Alps was amazing. I'd never seen mountains like that before, and they really blew me away. The trip really took off for me though when we got down to Italy.

For about a week, for lunch and dinner every day, I had a huge plate of spaghetti. This was my favorite meal at the time. The standard thing is (to this day) that the meals on the tours offer you ether pasta or Veal for lunch or dinner. I ALWAYS chose pasta. The most beautiful places we saw were Florence, Pisa, and Venice. I'll never forget going to the Piazza della Signiora for the first time. I was reading lots of classic comics back then, and ironically was reading one during the tour about the Italian sculptor Cellini. The comic ended with his creation of the famous statue of Perseus with the head of Medusa. Next thing you know I'm standing in front of the real thing, thinking it's about the coolest thing I'd ever seen in my life.

I remember going to Venice, before the place was flooding, and seeing the gondolas. Beautiful. My favorite thing there was going and watching the glass blowing. Cool as hell. mom loaded up on LOTS of stuff there. That good exchange rate came in REALLY handy. When we got down to Rome, and I got to walk around the Forum, and the Colosseum, and the Catacombs, and the Vatican, and the Sistine Chapel, my socks were officially knocked off. The absolute coolest place though was Naples.

The bay of Naples was a choice vacation stop 2000 years ago, and it's still wonderful. What made it cool for me was a visit to Pompeii, a Roman city that had been buried by ash from a volcano in 79AD. The idea of walking the streets of a real Roman city, and looking at the remains of actual victims of the disaster, floored me. I was amazed by the Colosseum there, and imagined gladiatorial games going on as I stood there watching. A decade or so later, I learned that about a year after I'd been standing on that very spot, the band Pink Floyd had performed a concert there for a British TV special there. The recording of that concert was a hotly desired bootleg for years, and then in the late 1990s the band actually released an audio recording as a bonus to a re release of the album Ummagumma. Years later I found they'd released the DVD! More bliss, I wanna tell ya.

One of the best tunes from that live show was a version of the tune Echoes, from the album Meddle. Here's a video of that performance, in two parts (YouTube doesn't have a good version in one sitting, so you'll need to click on the second video as the first one ends), with a slow intro showing the Colosseum I'm talking about. It's worth a listen.



And it continues here, with an awesome base line.



Love the mix of everything here; the guitar screaming, the base hitting you, the keyboards in the background, and the drums, all combining for an amazing musical experience.

About a week after we got home from that last tour, delivery trucks arrived. Crates of goodies were disgorged onto the floor, and we got to relive the trip all over again. For years after that I'd tell people that I'd been to Rome, and the Idea didn't even seem to ring true in my own head. We moved from England to Missouri a while after the tour, and life moved on. I lived with the relics of these tours decorating my various rooms (in various places) for many years after. The green mountaineering hat from Germany with the pins, the banners, and the postcards tacked to the wall, and the full color tour books on my shelf, all leafed through and well worn. All that stuff is still around here somewhere, but it's mostly been replaced with more recent relics. Funny how the objects of youth fade in importance as time goes by, and yet stay in your heart.

I managed to get back to Pompeii as an adult, when I went out on my first teaching trip with the Navy in 1990. I'd just about given up on having a teaching career, and then I got a call from the folks here at Central Texas College. I took a job teaching History and Government on deployed Navy ships, and the college flew me to Naples, where the USS Thorn was at anchor. I taught a semester in four-and-a-half weeks, having class 6 days a week, and on Sunday I took my two roommates on a tour.

We walked the ruins of the city, and I looked specifically for one statue that I remembered vividly from the earlier trip. Finding it, reconnecting with that earlier time, and that little kid that I'd been all those years ago, proved to be an emotional experience. A lot of feelings washed over me, and I kept thinking back to the trip in 1970, and my folks, my sister, and what my life had been like back then. I'd grown up a lot in the intervening years, and I think standing there again symbolized that fact to me. I'd begun a new journey, towards a fun career, and a full life.

This time I was callin' the shots, and I also looked up another Roman city, Herculaneum. Herculaneum is a much smaller ruin, due to the fact that it's situated under the present city of Herculano. Thing is, the area that has been revealed is very plush, and while Pompeii is huge and hard to really see in one trip, Herculaneum is easy to see in one afternoon. I was a tour guidin' mutha that day. When we got back to the ship and I laid out in my rack, I couldn't help but think back to 1970 again. What a cool life I was having. I'd been able to travel all over Europe and America as a kid, and now the college was paying me to travel all over the world, doing a job that I loved.

We're all a lot older now, but those memories are still there. Dad is still a pain in the ass, but I've learned to get along with him, and we enjoy one another. We'll be hitting the Chinese food place again today, and probably hitting golf balls after. Mom's doing fine, and their house is still decorated with all the nick knacks she picked up along the journey. We all still have lots of crap that we've accumulated over the years. Sis still has issues, but she's working on them. Our life on the road turned us into a tight little unit, and we've found that we don't really like to stay anywhere too long. We all start getting nervous after about three years, thinking it's time to go.

Anyway, it's early, and I've got to go, so take care of yourself this weekend and I'll see ya on the other side. FHB.

Here's some real wisdom.

Not contrived. Born of a life fully lived. Like some of the films and books we all grew up loving, written by people who had lived through real shit. Born of experience, from the generation that knew the Depression close up, that fought "The Good War" for freedom and justice, and then lived to see it all pissed away in the name of safety and propriety. Here's Bono reading Charles Bukowski's poem "roll the dice".



I wish I'd known some of these things back when it could have counted for something. "Youth is wasted on the young", some other wise ass said. I wish a lot of things a lot of the time. Dads got a saying about that though... Wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which hand fills up first. More old time wisdom. Says it all. I can't stop wishin' though. Too many regrets. Too many dreams about do-overs that I'll never get. I guess, if you ketch on, those thoughts are like lessons learned, so we don't pass things up if they come by again. Then again, sometimes you need a slap to the face to wake you up and get yer attention.

Dad and I had another good outing last Friday night, but ended up not hittin' golf balls after all. He was hungry and didn't want to go before we ate (or maybe he was sore from the last time), and we were both too bloated to do it after we ate, so we blew it off. I was wired and would have enjoyed the catharsis of hitting a bucket. I'd witnessed a bad car accident right in front of me in the minutes before getting to mom and dads place, and I was still pumped from the adrenaline hours later.

I was driving down a four lane, strait thoroughfare, from I-35 to 31st street on the south side of Temple. I'm chuggin' along in traffic, goin' about 50ish (in the flow and not really watchin' the speedometer) when I see an SUV in the oncoming lane hitting the brakes and making a violent lurch to the right, overcompensating to the left, hurling himself into our lane right in front of the SUV that's driving about three car lengths in front of me. Brakes are burnin' all over the place, including mine.

The people in front of me jerked over to the right to try to avoid hitting the car that had now turned back to the right, and was sliding sideways into us, just about to start a roll-over. If the folks in front of me had been a bit quicker they'd have missed the oncoming mess completely and the bastard would have rolled sideways over me, but it wasn't meant to be. They smashed bumpers, with the rear left hand bumper of the one hitting the right front bumper of the folks in front of me. I end up driving through a cloud of tiny plastic shards, like one of those films you see of a WW2 fighter plane flying through the exploding remains of an ammo train or a "Buzz Bomb".

They both limped off away to the left of the road, out of my way, and I slowly rolled by, thinking how lucky I'd been to avoid it all, and not to have been slammed into from behind as we all broke in a panic. Meanwhile, my life is flashing in front of my eyes, which is enough to bore most people to death, and I'm seeing images of this bastard rolling over me and fucking my nice little car all to hell. The one SUV is behind me somewhere, and the folks that had been in front of me are stopped on the other side of the road, their left front smashed and leaking fluids, and smoke filling the cab. I see immediately that they are moving, getting out of the car and that about a half dozen other cars are stopping to give assistance, so I waited a moment, thought about stopping, and then rolled on and counted my blessings. In a minute, as my head was clearing, I thought to call 911 and report it all. I probably should have stopped, but I hate to be in a situation like that when I feel like I'm one of a bunch of people trying to help, and feeling like I'm just in the way.

So, I was pumped with adrenaline there for a while and flinching behind the wheel the rest of the night. Nothing like seeing something like that right in front of you to wake you up and get your attention. After eating and visiting with the folks, I headed home, and as I'm driving west on that same road towards I-35, I note that the sky is darkening as I go. Turns out I'm driving into a friggin' wall cloud with lightning flashing all over. I'm thinkin', "what the hell else is gonna happen to me tonight?" As I head west on 190 I look up at the edge of the cloud and see these tendrils dipping down, and I think to myself "if these things start spinning I'm fucked". Lightning is flashing a few times about a quarter of a mile down the road, and it looks like it's actually hitting the road. Jesus!

I got home ok, and then it rained like crazy, and the folks from here up to Ft. Worth got rain, bad wind and hail, and we got about an inch and a half or rain. We were lucky and missed the bad stuff. I slept in Saturday, and blew the day piddling around the house and napping (NOT pulling weeds). Sunday I headed up to Gatesville and shot guns with a buddy. I tried to sight in that new Romanian .22 rifle. It turned out to be a huge pain in the ass, misfeeding about every other time for a while and not ejecting correctly, and then working fine for a while. Frustrating as hell. My buddy shot his old Russian SKS and an old AR-15 that looks like the rifle the guys in 'Nam used. We had a good time, and then I drove down 36 to eat dinner at mom and dads. Mom made beef stew and cornbread, to die for, and I worked on their garage door, which had been giving them trouble since someone fucked with it the day before. It was off the rail. Quick fix and it was running like new.

I floated the idea to dad about going to hit golf balls, but he declined again. Don't know what the deal is. He used to always go on and on when I didn't want to do it, but now he's reluctant. Well, he was probably just tired or something, or maybe the one time we did it was so depressing for him that he's changed his mind. So, on the way home I stopped at a driving range off 190 and hit a bucket by myself. I guess I've talked myself into wanting to do it, but now he doesn't. This is our relationship in a microcosm. Frustrating.

So now I'm watching American Choppers and relaxing before the week starts again. I hope all your weekends were a lot less dramatic, and that you all avoided the ridiculous weather, and that you enjoyed old Charlie's poem. Marquisdejolie turned me on to Bukowski in a few of his poetic rants. You should check him out some time. Anyway, I'm outta here. Later.

I think this has something for the whole family.

Ok, It's a friggin' CRIME to wreck an old TA like that. Criminal!

Gonna have dinner with dad again tonight, and now that the snow has melted we've added a new wrinkle to our normal Friday routine. Before we go to the Chinese food place, we go to the local driving range. He watches me as I hit a bucket of balls, and he hits a few and gives me little lessons and hints to help my swing. After that, having worked up and appetite (like that's necessary) we go hit the buffet line.

Dad was a huge golfer when I was growing up and he's wanted to get me to like the game ever since I can remember. He was taught to play in Germany right after WW2. He says this German POW showed him how to hit correctly in a large derelict opera hall. It was a rich mans game back then, and I think my dad, the son of a tenant framer, saw golf, and being an Army officer (eventually in the Air Force) as a path out of his old life. He became a shark on the golf course, and played all the time, as long as I can remember. He made me a cut down driver when I was very little, and still tells me and everyone else that I had a natural swing when I was a kid. I don't know. I never have felt comfortable in that swing. Can't feel it well enough to be able to feel like I know what I'm doing, if you know what I mean.

I was always more into archery as a kid. Used to watch all those old movies about medieval times, and always wanted to be Robin Hood, or the guy shooting arrows out of the arrow loops in the castle, or the guy in the formation at Agincourt, shooting arrows up into the air into the French army formations. When we moved to Missouri in 1970 I found other kids there who loved it too, and we'd shoot arrows into anything. That place was paradisaical. We'd stand at one end of the field that stretched out through and connected averyone's back yard and shoot arrows into the air, just to watch them fly and see how far they'd go. There was an old tree in the woods there that we'd shoot arrows into, rotted and missing half it's bark.

We got a huge amount of enjoyment out of walking down the trail, pretending to be surprised by a bear or something, and then shooting arrows into that old tree. They would always make a cool thud as they hit it. We'd cross over the creek and pull them out, and then go through the ritual again. We called it the elephant tree. I think I'd seen an illustration in National Geographic showing Alexander the Great defeating the Indian Army elephants by filling them with arrows. That Image is still in my head.

Never forget looking at my first issue of Bowhunter magazine, picked up at the local T.G.& Y., and seeing that there was a world out there where adults shot arrows, and it wasn't silly kids stuff, as my folks always seemed to think. We moved away from that house and into base housing before we moved back to Texas, and mom and dad told me that I couldn't have the bows and arrows on the base. It all had to be put away. Seems like they were always tryin' to get me to do that. They didn't value it, and saw it as kids stuff. Wanted me to give it up and grow up and play football or somethin'. I don't think the gear made it into the moving van. It was like closing a book on a huge part of my childhood.

Next time I picked up a bow was about five years later in San Antonio. I tried to shoot someone else's arrow into a neighbors tree only about 10 yards away, a shot that I would have easily been able to make earlier, and I missed it. Shocked the hell out of me. I guess I accepted that it was over then. There weren't any woods to play in there, and I'd lost whatever talent I'd had, but dad was still there wanting me to play golf with him. Maybe refusing was my way of getting back at him, or my way of differentiating myself from him. Same thing went with other sports too. He never could get me interested in anything, and I could never get them to take anything I loved seriously. You'd think I was switched at birth or something.

I finally relented and started playing golf back in the late 1980s while I was in graduate school and worked at the Colonial Country Club in Ft. Worth. Most of the other employees played, and they got to play the course once a year. I guess I picked up the interest vicariously, listening to them talk around the club, wanting to be included and play the club myself. Dad was beside himself. He made me a set of clubs and I started practicing and playing. Loved it, but never got too good at it. Then, when I got the job teaching on the ships, and was gone all the time, I never had a chance to practice. When I did play, I was always loosing balls and feeling like an idiot when I hit a lousy shot. Never seemed to take to it the way I did archery as a kid. Never became easy and effortless the way archery had. It sucks too, because it's no longer a rich mans game. Hell, everyone plays golf now.

Anyway, Dads old as hell now and can't hit the ball very far anymore. Depresses the hell out of him, but he's always asking me when we're gonna go hit some balls. For a long time I'd think to myself "How many times did you take me to shoot arrows, you old jackass? When did you ever show interest in anything I wanted to do?" But he's old as hell now, and it seems wrong to be petty about it, to hold the crap from the past against him. so I finally decided a few weeks ago to start taking him to the range, incorporating it into our Friday routine. Weather permitting, we'll go out there and I'll let him give me hints. I doubt that I'll learn anything, but he'll enjoy it, and that's what matters now.

I'm also supposed to go shooting (guns) this weekend in Gatesville, so I'll be able to sight in the new .22 rifle and maybe shoot Civil War muskets. I've evolved from arrows to bullets (another thing my dad's not into), but I still have archery in my blood. One of these days I'll post pictures of the sets I've built. It's a fun hobby now and then, when I'm not busy with other things. So, enjoy your Friday and take care of yourselves. Ya know I will.

Update to the update: Well, It's Good Friday, but isn't every Friday good?

I never met a bad one. Don't have to go in to school this morning, or Monday morning ether. So much for separation of church and state down at the old high school. They have a few free days they can take off, so they use them to take religious holidays. But then, I can remember back when Spring Break was Easter Break, so it doesn't bother me. Hell, I'll use any excuse to take a day off, or in this case, sleep in and relax. I still have to go in to the base and teach at lunch time, but what can you do?

Between the morning classes, the lunch time classes, the afternoon feed and post-feed naps, and the evening classes (not to mention the two online classes), I've really turned into a lazy lump of weak shit lately. You've probably noticed that, what with all the easy YouTube posts. The house is a mess. I've got clothes and sheets in a pile on the dryer, clean but wadded up. The clean dishes are still in the dish washer, dirty ones in the sink. My fish are swimmin' in their own filth, but then again that's sort of what they always do.

Aside from a few Bluebonnets poppin' up here and there, the yard is a veritable weed farm. Thistles all over the back yard. I swear, I spray poison every year, and the fuckers just come back stronger. The last few weekends were wet as hell, so I could avoid going out there and spending the time crawling around with a screw driver, but it looks like this weekend is gonna be the time. God, I dread the shit out of it. No gun shows this weekend, so I guess I'll get it done.

I had to buy new tires this week, and it's amazing how much better the Solara rides when it's not on bald, mismatched crap. I had to have my home air conditioner serviced today too. I have to do it at about this time every year. As soon as the temps get warmer I start hearing the ice building up and then falling off the unit in the wall. Have a few slow leaks in the coils, but as it is, all I have to do is get the coolant refilled once a year. Hard to justify the expense of getting the whole thing replaced at this point. So, between this and that, I've been hemorrhaging money lately. Funny how it always feels easier and more fun to do that at a gun show.

Still haven't got the scabbard for my neighbors old knife. Ordered it almost 10 days ago and they were supposed to send it express. Emailed 'em yesterday sayin' "What the fuck?" Haven't heard back yet. Had a project of my own over the last week. Picked up a new toy in Ft. Worth last Saturday. Got a WASR-22, a Romanian semi-auto training rifle. It's basically a Romanian version of an East German training rifle. An AKM that shoots .22LR from a 10 rnd clip. It came out of the box lookin' like this...



And after a few days tinkering in the geeeraj...



New AK-74 front sight post and muzzle break (bayonet lugs ground over), new laminated wood and plum colored plastic furniture, and a cool modification on the original Romanian (Romak) butt stock. All replacement parts are US made, so it's kosher. Picked up a box of .22LR at Wally World, so I'll probably take it out to the property this weekend and do some plinkin'. I've read in reports that the action doesn't eject the spent cartridges so reliably, but I'll see about that. Should be a fun toy to tinker with anyway.

Wait a second, wasn't I supposed to pull weeds this weekend? Hahahahahahaha. Fools. There's ALWAYS time for plinkin'. Anyway, Jesus, it's a holiday. I'll be takin' dad to eat Chinese food tonight, and then we'll see what happens. Have a great weekend yerself, and have a great Easter. Should be lots of cool old bible epics on TV to watch, and great food to eat. Lots of layin' around time. DAMN THOSE WEEDS!

And by the way, If you want a good read this weekend, check this out. He says it like it is.
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Update: Well, I took the rifle out to my land south of town after school and shot one clips worth of shells, just to see how the thing works, and it works fine. Only problem I had was one round that bent and got hung up in the action. I took it out, straitened it with my fingers, shoved it forcefully in the action, and it shot and ejected just like the others. I'd heard that the rounds didn't eject all the time, but got caught up in the action, but I didn't experience this. Again, only one clips worth, but it worked fine and I can't wait to take it to a range and sight it in. Love the whip crack sound of those .22LRs.

I took dad to the driving range, and then we did the usual Friday night feed. When I got home, I looked in the mail box and there was a package. Mission accomplished! (look here for details on the mission).



The sheath finally arrived. I checked it out, put the knife in it's new home, and took it over to my neighbor. He was pleased. We talked about hanging it on his wall next to his medals, and his wife said that was a good idea. She said something about having a shiv on the wall, but we both outvoted her, I think. We'll see what happens. I wouldn't take any money from them. Told them it was my pleasure. I got a huge kick out of having it and learning about it. Now I'm gonna see about getting myself one. Saw one in Ft. Worth last weekend, but the dude wanted $250 for it. Not worth that much to me. Think I can make a much better deal elsewhere.

Anyway, the weather has turned cold and windy, and there's talk of colder temps and snow in Oklahoma tonight, so we may in fact be experiencing Global Warming after all. Sheeeeeitttt!
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Oh, and here's what the new baby looks like with the East German scope attached. Yep, it's got a scope rail on the left side, like all the other Romanian AKs on the market.



Notice I changed out the wooden foregrip with plum plastic, to match the undergrip. Love it!

Alright dammit, this is top secret family shit, so take notes. This tape will self distruct in 5 minutes.

First Mr Phelps, lets talk chicken. Buy whatever pieces you like to eat. I'm partial to dark meat (don't go there). Whatever you get should be skinless. Bones are Ok, but they sell boneless, skinless pieces now (breasts and thighs) and those are a lot more convenient to eat.

Yer gonna marinade these pieces over night in the fridge. Mom's traditional recipe calls for washing the pieces and then salting them down generously. She can't say how much. It's one of those trial and error things where she learned from her mom, who learned from her mom. Salt it down good and leave it in the fridge over night. Personally, I think you could exchange the salt for any sort of strong seasoning that you like. I've marinated the stuff in Italian dressing or BBQ sauce, and I think it was pretty good. Just not the same as moms. Another thing, use kosher salt rather than the stuff we all grew up with. It has a much better flavor, and you won't have to use as much.

When the time comes to cook it, you'll need a can of condensed milk, a few eggs, more seasoning, and a pan of flour. You mix a few egg yokes into the milk in a dish (not the white, but the yoke only), and season the flour with pepper and whatever else you like (Mom puts more salt). Heat up your oil to a pretty high level. If the oil isn't hot enough the chicken will take forever to cook and impart an oily taste to the food.



When I was growing up, mom used to cook everything in a skillet. When they started coming out with these little Fry Daddies, she fell in love with them. She's tried big industrial looking fryers with baskets that you dip down into the oil, but she says these little things work the best. They prevent you from putting too many pieces in the oil at once, which apparently leads to an oily taste in the food. Takes too much heat out of the oil when you put them in and forces you to leave the pieces in the oil longer, or somethin'.

Now here's the serious shit: Take a piece of chicken out of the marinade (DO NOT wash off the marinade), dip it in the flour and give it a decent covering. Shake off the excess, and then dip it into the whipped milk/egg mixture. Now, dip it back in the flour and press it in, giving it a good covering. You can see in the shot above that she leaves the pieces in the flour till they are ready to fry. Fry them till they are golden brown, and then take them out, lay them on a paper towel and let them cool a bit. When you bite into this stuff, I swear to God, if you've done it right, you'll experience something akin to nirvana. The Buddha himself would have got his ass up and taken on a carnivorous nature if his momma had known how to cook this stuff. He'd a put on some real pounds then. If you do it right, you'll end up with somethin' like this.



Ok, now for the ice cream. Here's the ingredients: 9 - 10 eggs, whipped in a blender, 2 quarts of half and half, 1 or 2 cans of Eagle Brand sweetened milk, 1 large box of instant vanilla Jello pudding, 1 large box of peach or strawberry Jello (depending on what sort of ice cream you're making), fruit pieces (peaches or strawberries, or whatever other ingredients you want), cut up and whipped in the blender. This part is up to you. If you want to have big pieces of fruit in the ice cream, then don't whip it as thoroughly. Finally, add 1 cup of sugar. Sweeten it to taste. Up to you.

Ok, mix most of this stuff in the blender, adding the fruit a little at a time until it's liquefied. Add the sweetened milk with regular milk to fill the blender (half at a time). Once it's liquefied, empty it into a mixing bowl and begin again. Make enough to fill your ice cream maker to about two inches from the top. It'll expand a bit in the freezing process.



Pour the mixture into the ice cream container, place it in the bucket, making sure it sits properly on the little spindle at the bottom of the bucket. Attach the lid and the motor, and start filling the bucket with ice and rock salt. You want to make sure you don't let the salty runoff from this process get into the ice cream. THAT shit will ruin your day. Most if not all the buckets have a hole to allow only a certain water level to prevent this, but you can still accidentally get some salt on the top of the ice cream if you open the can prematurely. So be careful. Run the ice cream maker till it stops turning on its own.

If you have a cheap machine, you might experience a problem with the ice cream next to the side of the can freezing and stopping the paddles, stripping the gears of the machine. In this case, the machine never stops. While the ice cream next to the ice freezes, the mixture on the inside never does. If that happens, you're not totally screwed. You can take the paddles out and scrape the frozen ice cream into the mixture and start again. Been through that a few times. That shit will also ruin your day, so don't scrimp on the machine. You get what you pay for.



When the machine stops, unplug the motor and take it off , being careful not to let the lid of the ice cream can come off in the process. Reach unto the ice on both sides of the can and pull the can up a bit to allow ice to fall in under it. Then wipe off the lid before you open it to prevent salt from getting into the ice cream. The can will sit there on its own, and you can pop the top and enjoy the "fruits" of your labour.



Mom and I hope you all do well and enjoy the goods. I hope we've given you the info you need to join my family in the long standing traditions of obesity, high cholesterol, and heart disease. Seriously though, what the fuck. Life is to be lived! Ya gotta die of something. I plan to go with a thigh in one hand a maybe a leg in the other, If ya know what I mean. Enjoy.

Started a new semester yesterday, after a good week off and a very pleasant weekend.

I started four new classes on base this week, as well as a new online class. I've got about 45 people in each of my lunchtime history classes (11:30-12:30 and 12:30-1:30 every day), with more wanting in them every day, and I've got about 30 to 35 people in each of the two government classes in the evening (7:30 to 10pm M/W and T/Th). A lot of the folks in my lunchtime classes took the other half of the history last time and are back again. It was like old home week when I walked in the first day. Lots of laughs. Most of my students are soldiers or retired soldiers or family/dependants. The online class has only 17 people in it, but it might grow. I'll be working on that one this week, trying to come up with new exams. I may eventually use those new exams in the conventional classes too. Spring them on the folks in the evening classes on base. I LOVE test day!

Anyway, this last Spring Break was a great time off. It started with two nights and good times at Sweetwater.



That was a great trip, with great friends and lots of great food.

Then on Wednesday, I took a trip to Ft. Worth to spend the day and have dinner with some other, older friends. I've known this guy for about 20 years, and his wife since they got together about 15 years ago.



We've been on a dozen or so hiking and/or canoe trips, and these are the folks I rafted the Colorado with in 03 and 05. Click on the link over at FlickR to check out more of those shots.

The week was rounded off with a fabulous Sunday, beginning with a trip in the morning to Austin to walk through a gun show (resulting in the acquisition of a new toy), and then a trip up to Temple to eat southern fried chicken and home made peach ice cream at moms, and ended with two awesome episodes of Rome back to back on HBO at my sisters place in Belton. That was a full day.

I walked into the gun show thinking it was about time for somethin' to happen. I was officially designated as legal and dangerous by the great state of Texas a while back, but I had yet to pop the cherry on the old CHP card. I needed to get it over with. The main reason why I wanted one of these things is because it allows the holder to buy new toys without having to go through a potentially tedious background check every time. You're considered preapproved due to the check they do on you before they give you the card. It makes for a very convenient purchasing experience, so I was lookin' forward to my first time.

I walked into the place and found an old guy I'd bought several things from in the past. He's always situated with his table right there at the door. He builds very nice rifles from a mixture of foreign and American made parts. His manufacturing standards are high, and his stuff usually includes things that you don't necessarily find elsewhere. He also has a cute little pug dog that he brings up to the shows from Houston. It snoozes there on a pillow under the table. I grew up with pugs, so it's sometimes hard to tell whether I'm more excited to see the pooch or the firepower.

Anyway, it's cool when you find what you want right off the bat and then get to walk through the place for an hour and see if you can come up with anything better. The excitement builds to a crescendo. I walked by, got his attention and pointed to one rifle, saying "don't sell that one till I get back". He smiled and nodded in recognition, then turned back to his other customer as I walked on.

I walked out of there about 30 minutes later with a bright, shiny new M 70 (Yugoslavian version of the AKM, built on an American receiver).



It has a thicker receiver giving it a more sturdy shooting platform. Early AK-47s had milled receivers (like an SKS), and were steadier and more accurate shooters. A normal late model AK has a stamped receiver, and many have a problem with the receiver warping during sustained firing. This one doesn't do that quite as much because the receiver wall is thicker, and so it has a reputation for being a more accurate shooter. I just think they're cool as hell, and I've wanted one for a while. Many of the ones I've seen on the market have been thrown together imports or ridiculously expensive pre-ban guns. This one was the best of both worlds; well built and affordable. Couldn't believe my good fortune. I threw it in the trunk and zipped back up north towards home, giddy like a little girl.

I stopped briefly at Rudy's BBQ in Roundrock to pick up some Jalapeno sausage and creamed corn. Mmmmmm! I'll eat off that stuff all week long. I needed to be at Mom's by 3:30 so I could put the Ice cream maker together and get it started. Mom makes the cream and then gets me to taste it to see if it is sweet enough.



She pours it into the cylinder, which I then place in the wooden bucket. I attach the motor, pour in the ice and rock salt, and set the thing to turning, refilling the ice and salt as needed.

The routine for doing this is probably in my DNA. I remember when I was a kid and my job was to sit on the thing while my dad cranked it. It was a sign of growing up when I shifted to cranking and took over that job. It was SO COOL when they put a motor on that bastard. The ice cream tastes just as good without the sore arm. Mom's chicken is famous with everyone I know. Has been for as long as I can remember (you may need to put some sort of plastic sheeting over your keyboard to ketch the drool from looking at these pictures... fair warning).



She's got it down to a science. It's actually amazingly easy to make, but it never tastes like moms when I do it myself. What can you say. After about 20 minutes, the ice cream maker shuts down, indicating that the ice cream is frozen, and I bust it open, lift the cylinder up out of the ice, and parcel out the portions.



I've inherited all these duties from dad, who sits back now and waits for his plate. Mom gets the first plate, of course, and dad is second.



He sits in his TV chair and usually feeds a bit of chicken to one of the cats. Their new dog now gets her share along with the others. He's a pushover. Don't know where this guy came from, 'cause the guy that raised me was a cold hearted son-of-a-bitch. I guess we all mellow with time. Sis gets the third plate, and I get the last. There's a method to this madness. Just in case yer thinkin' "Aw, what a nice guy", it turns out the sweetest ice cream is always in the bottom of the bowl. It just so happens. Total coincidence.

After everyone's had their fill, I start the dishes soaking in the sink...



And then its relax, maybe nap, loosen the belt and let the belly expand. The queen retires to her easy chair, and I eventually drive home with my share of the spoils.



A good time was had by all. At one point in the process I was talking with sis about the two upcoming episodes of Rome. She said that we'd probably get to see Mark Antony in the buff, suckin' on a huka (she has the hots for James Purefoy).



I said, innocently, that we'll probably also get to see him fall on his sword. She erupted in outrage. How dare I spoil it for her. I'm like, "didn't you see that movie a dozen times?" I don't think you can really be accused of divulging things that should be common fuckin' knowledge. Jebus, you silly cow. Read a book sometime.

We watched the two episodes back to back, and it was as good as I was expecting it would be. Can't wait for the end, but hate to see it come. I think about how they could continue the series and show us their HBO version of the whole Julian drama. But that's already been done so well in the old BBC series I, Claudius, so I doubt they'll go there.



Too bad. It would be fun to watch our two boys get old and live through some cool history.

Well, that was my week. Now the grind has begun again. It looks like rain all week, and I'm desperately needing to pull weeds and do laundry. And yet here I sit. Well It's late, and it all starts again early in the morning, so enjoy the read, and don't slobber too much on yerself lookin' at the food. Later.

It's coming up on family reunion time again, and all sorts of feelings are swimmin' throught my head.

The annual reunion of my fathers family is rollin' up on me quick. First Sunday in March. No tellin' who will show up this year, though I hear my one living uncle is busily callin' everyone, hitting them with a guilt trip to make sure they come. The young ones have shown up less and less in the last decade as the older generations have dwindled and the reunions have steadily become peopled with more unfamiliar faces. My cousins kids don't seem to have the same interest or connection to the family that our generation had, or our parents. Attendance seems to slide a bit with each successive year. They move away and get involved with their own lives, and don't feel the need to reconnect with folks they have increasingly little in common with. Probably something profound could be said about the loss of community in the modern age, but I won't go there.

I used to really look forward to these get-togethers when I was a teenager, having had all the old-time stories instilled in me as I grew up. As we moved from base to base in the course of dads military career, and later as we lived several hours away in Ft. Worth after dads retirement, the annual reunion was about the only time we got to see our aunts and uncles, our grandparents (on my mom's side), and other relatives. Feeling a bit cheated, I always longed for the security of a familiar place and extended family that my parents families and childhood homes represented. Even now, having moved home to the area of my parents childhood, living here in the same community as many of these people, the reunion is still the only time I get to see most of them. Our different lives and experiences have left us with little more than blood to connect us. That used to bother me a lot, but I've made peace with it.

Back when we were growing up, my sister and I both had fantasies about living here, near my grandparents and cousins, thinking we would have had a much happier childhood surrounded by family, and what we imagined to have been a greater sense of stability. We never talked about it as kids, but having discussed it as adults we discovered that we both had the same longing. Once, in about the 5th or 6th grade, my art teacher gave the class an assignment to come up with a drawing of our dream house. People came up with all sorts of interesting things, but mine turned out to look like a huge warehouse. When she asked me what was up with that, I told the teacher that what she saw was just the outside. All the cool stuff was on the inside, like a Roman Villa. There were all sorts of apartments, and even a lake to fish in, and all my relatives lived there with me. Sounds pathetic now that I think back on it. Pretty needy.

My sister, being six years older than me, got to spend more time here as a kid with our grandparents and cousins. She remembers sitting in the lap of our paternal grandfather, a legendary figure in the family, and running around and having great times with everyone. But I guess I came along too late, and so I missed out on all that. By the time I was born, everyone was a bit older, dad was a bit higher up in rank, and we were spending more and more time deployed elsewhere for three or four years at a time. Both my fathers parents died when I was very little, before I could get old enough to remember them. They passed away while we were on the other side of the planet, and I guess that must have heightened the desire in me for some sort of connection, listening to sis reminisce, and watching dad grieve for his own mom and dad.

In retrospect, I guess my mom and dad did a lot to instill in me the feelings of longing that they had, but couldn't do anything about because of the demands of their career. They planted all these ideas in me about the family and home that they were missing terribly. So, when I moved down here in the mid 1990s I tried to make up for all the lost time. I tried to connect with the guys who seemed closest to me, but who I also held in a sort of awe, from all the years of hype that I had absorbed. We went hunting and fishing a few times, but I finally got tired of their particular ideas of fun, and their friends, and the chase. It turns out, of course, that we really don't have much in common. How could we, having had such different lives? It also seems clear now that their perceptions of me were formed through our long years of absence from the family scene, and the stories they heard growing up of their fathers relationship with my dad, which was rocky from time to time. I guess this left them wondering why the hell I'd want to have anything to do with them, and weirded out by my insistence on trying to tag along and buddy up.

In retrospect, it went something like this. Whenever we would show up for the reunions back in the '70s or '80s, having driven a few hours down the highway, and planning to drive home after the big feed (in other words, when we weren't going to be around for more than a few hours), they'd take me aside and say stuff like "It's too bad you're not gonna be here longer. We ought to go fishing". Being naive and hopeful, I assumed they meant it. Hell, maybe they did. But when I moved down here and the opportunity came along for me to actually join them, the phone didn't ring. I got sick very quickly of feeling like a groupie, calling and chasin' after them all the time, only to then feel like I was butting in when I finally did catch up to them. So when I stopped callin' and chasin', like magic, we stopped having anything to do with one another.

When their dad (my dad's oldest brother) got sick and died in the late '90s, I met up with these guys and their families again at the hospital, and eventually at the funeral. It was a very sad time, but in the midst of it they'd say stuff like "Man, we haven't seen you in a while", and I'd think to myself, "Yea, and you go to such great lengths to keep in touch", but I didn't say anything. I was mostly over the feelings of rejection and disappointment by that time. I do love those guys after all, to one degree or another, even though they've turned out not to be the close buddies that I hoped they'd be. Then a funny thing started to happen.

In the light of these experiences, I started thinking about all those feelings I'd had growing up, reevaluating them, and I learned to appreciate the life I'd had, rather than to continue to long for the life I didn't have. In other words, I guess I did a hell of a lot of growing up. I started reevaluating all the feelings I'd had as a kid about how much fun it would have been to live here, and I gained a greater appreciation for the upbringing I did have, and the places we lived, and the fun I'd had growing up where we were. In the process I think I developed a much greater sense of confidence in who I am. It turns out now that I wouldn't change a thing about those old days, other than maybe to have been born a bit earlier. I would like to have known my paternal grandfather.

He was a sharecropper, one of many farmers driven into sharecropping, or tenant farming, by the post-World War One depression in agriculture that ruined the farming economy in the early 1920s. He and my grandmother raised four sons (and eventually several of my cousins), and a lot of cotton in central Texas in the era before the New Deal and the Second World War gave people around here more options in life. The stories and pictures we have portray a great, immensely strong, happy, friendly, bull of a man. I really missed out on not getting to spend time with him as my sister did, or to get to go fishing with him as my cousins did in their childhood. I still really regret that. I guess I always will. As I think back on all this, I think that maybe by going out with my cousins I was trying to capture a little bit of that early time, but it didn't work out. That's life, I guess.

Now, when I see my cousins once a year at the reunions, we all act like it's great to see one another, and it mostly is. We catch up on one another, and it's about the same as it was when my family lived in Ft. Worth, Missouri, or England, and only got to come "home" once every few years. What the hell can you do? You can't pick your relatives, or control how other people feel about things. The only consolation I guess is that the folks on my mom's side are even more screwed up. They don't even have reunions. I've got one cousin on my dad's side and another on my mom's that I'm close to, and that's enough. My cousin in Pennsylvania has become like an older brother to me in the last decade, and that's as good as it gets.



I love this guy to death, and I think he feels the same way about me. His family up there in Pennsylvania are all super folks, and they treat me great, as if they've always known me. The first time I went up there in the mid '90s they had a huge get together, a Memorial Day picnic, and it was a great time. I swam in one of those above-ground pools, where the water only comes up to my waist, and his wife's nephews tried to dunk me. Fools. We made vanilla ice cream, ate cheeseburgers and played ping pong for hours (I beat his ass). They made me feel right at home. It was like night and day, compared to the way I feel around many of the folks down here.

We both grew up in the service, his dad in the Army and mine in the Air force, so we have a lot of things in common. We're also the only two guys in our generation, on our mom's side of the family. He was the first born, then three pain-in-the-ass girls between us, and then, after most of the fun was over, me at the very last minute. He tells me stories about times when our families got together at my grandparents house. He says he pushed me around in my stroller, and that he was very happy to see me when I was born. He was about 14 or 15 when I arrived on the scene, and he had concluded after many years that he was destined to be the only swinging dick in the family.

I have one fleeting memory of him from about 1966, when my family went up to Washington D.C., where his dad was working at the Pentagon. We spent a few days with them on our way to a new posting in England. He was about a senior in High school then, and was probably annoyed to have this little kid sleeping in his bed. Even though he was born in Texas, here at the local hospital, and started school here, is family ended up spending a lot of time stationed up north, so he went to high school and college up there, playing football for Joe Paterno at Penn State in the late 60s. He turned into a full fledged Yankee, learning to love hunting and fishing in the woods of Pennsylvania, building his life up there.

Next time I saw him was about 1977, when we all converged on the grandparents for some reason, and we all got to meet his first wife. Then it was his fathers funeral in about 1982. Then, after splitting with his first wife, he brought his young daughter down to Ft. Worth one summer and I took them both to The big water park in Arlington. We had a fun day. That daughter is all grown up now, and has told me that she really enjoyed that day. I only wish we all could have spent more time together all those decades ago, but fate didn't have it laid out that way.

We really didn't get together till the mid '90s. I think our mom's pushed us together. He found out that I liked to go canoeing, fishing and camping, and he floated the idea of me joining him on one of his annual trips to Canada, canoeing and hiking into the woods around Algonquin Provincial Park to fish for Pike on Hogan Lake. I went up there, and while we hiked in, carrying 40 or 50 pound packs on our backs, balancing 45 or 50 pound kevlar canoes on our shoulders, we found that we had a lot in common. We got along pretty well, and the relationship has grown since then.

So now we try to make up for lost time. He comes down here whenever his job and family commitments allow, and I try to get up there about once every year. In the last three years we've switched to the more comfortable, old geezer style of holiday adventure, towing his boat up to a nice little lodge on a lake in Canada for a week or so after Memorial Day (you can check out more of the pictures from Gananoque by clicking on that Flickr link over there on the left). We have a great time, usually joined by an old friend of his, or his new son-in-law. But the bastards at work have screwed up my holiday plans for this year.

The ever present, ever tinkering college administrative geeks moved this years regular three week summer break from early June to late July, so I'm not going to be able to make the annual fishing trip in the days that we reserved last year with the lodge. I swear to God, those bastards tinker with stuff just to justify their existence. Useless! Like tits on a boer hog, as my father would say.

I told my cousin it's probably just as well. With me not being there, the other guys will finally be able to catch some fish. He tossed out a good barrel laugh at that one. Thing is, after not making much of a good showing for myself in the first few trips up there, last year was my year.



I hooked one nice sized Pike after another, and a few nice Perch and Bass while the other guys sat there, getting more and more pissed. It was glorious. It was my year. When I got the bad news a few months ago we tried to figure out something we could do to find a way to fix the mess, but in the end it was decided that the rest of the guys would go ahead and use the days we reserved in June. I'll teach an extra mini-semester this year, and then we'll try to get back together next time around.

I'll make a few grand more this year, but I'll miss the hell out of that trip, and the fun of being with my cousin and his family. Who'd a thought I would have to go to Pennsylvania and Canada to find the fun times with family that I've always dreamed of having here in Texas? Go figure. Life is weird like that I guess. Of course, over the years, I've whittled together a family of sorts, finding great, close friends who share many of my same interests, and that's good enough. I guess that's what most people do.

So anyway, the reunion is coming up in a few weeks. The food will be great, and we'll listen to my dad and the other old-timers tell the same old stories, and we'll talk about how much older we all feel, and we'll see a few new kids runnin' around, and life will go on as it always has. What else should we expect?