A PLUG FOR PERCY

Percy B. Hand is a redneck scribbler, but he's bright and entertaining.  He's a fixture these days at Hiram's Cove, a small town in the brush country of south Texas created by developer Hiram Butts as a retirement village.  Percy took of writing after many years of working as a mechanic and for the purpose of talking about his adventures with working at various causes.  He's big into animal rescue, and he's an advocate for the homeless, among other things . . . and he's gone to jail several times due to his enthusiasm for his causes.  A few years back, Percy went to jail for a while for assaulting some men involved in a dog fighting ring.  He used an aluminum baseball bat in the attack and must've like that pinging sound 'cause he's used it several times since.  A jury up in the hill country turned him loose, much to the local jailer's delight.  It seems that Percy had been organizing prisoners in an effort to improve food and bedding at the jail.

Percy realized his shortcomings as a writer and took some courses at a local juco.  He's been creating a site for blogging called Hiram's Cove over at Weebly.  Check him out 'cause he's a hoot.  He's just getting started at this blogging thing, so it might be a while before he gets much done there.  He'll tell you all about one of his buddies, a Vietnamese cowboy named Chuckie Phat Nguyen, the owner of the town's most celebrated hang-out - Chuckie Phat's Rodehouse.  And, oh yeah, he's not real, at least not in a literal sense.  He's one of the voices that tells the story of Hiram's Cove, a book that will be out before long.  This book will reveal something about older people most young people tend to overlook.  There's lots of life left in people old enough to be retired from a job.  Like Percy points out, "You cain't retire from life unless you die."

THE BULLDOGS BEAT WHO?

Mississippi State University beat Ole Miss last night in a tight game what ended with some drama.  The Ole Miss quarterback was about to score and suddenly dropped the football near the goal line.  It was recovered by a State player, ending the game.  Miss State 17, Ole Miss 10.

I have two degrees from Mississippi State, but I also did graduate work at Ole Miss.  I've been an Ole Miss football fan since I was a kid, but then there are the ties to State.  When they play, I don't really care who wins.  Ole Miss usually wins, and I can live with that . . . especially since they changed the name of the mascot.  Colonel Reb is gone, replaced by a Black Bear.  That pisses me off . . . and big time.  UNLV out in Nevada can be the rebels, but Ole Miss can't? 

Yesterday's loss to State, a game Ole Miss should've won, was caused when the ghost of Colonel Reb knocked the ball loose.  He caused the fumble, and he did it for people like me.  Ole Miss could've had a great year, but they didn't due to that one loss.  At 7-5 they'll get some insignificant bowl invite, and lowly State at 6-6 might even get a bowl.  They call that game, by the way, the Egg Bowl.  And today, the egg is on the Black Bear's face . . . and ole Colonel Reb is grinning.

PUBLISHING THE OLD MAN'S POETRY

He started writing poetry as a kid, stayed with it the rest of his life.  Since he was a minister, he wrote mostly spiritual poetry.  He had a number of churches during his years as a pastor, but most of the poems he wrote (the ones I still have) came out in a newsletter called "The Chimes." A few of his poems ended up in magazines, but I don't know much about that.  Too many years have gone by, too much water under the bridge, and too much of a chore to go through all the papers he left behind.  I might not have enough time left to get that done, but I'm going to publish some of his poems here before long.  I think he deserves that.

Basil Philip Martin was born in Burns, Oregon and died in Winona, Mississippi at the age of 75.  That was in 1983, thirty years ago, and I'm just not getting around to doing something with his poetry.  He was fussy about his papers, gave me instructions about what I should do when he passed on.  He didn't want them destroyed, and I can't blame him for that.  So when he died, I boxed up his papers and made sure they were safely stored.  The old man was a prolific writer, so he left lots of stuff behind . . . and now it's time to turn some of it into a book. 

I followed the family tradition and wrote poetry over the years.  A lot of what I've written is cowboy poetry, far different from what he wrote.  Our styles aren't alike.  I have devoted some time to the study of poetry, and I think what he wrote is pretty good.  Some of it is excellent, some is good, and some is fairly mediocre.  That leaves me with a bit of a problem.  What should go into the book and what should be left out?  After some consideration, I don't feel worthy of making that call.  I don't know what poems he penned were his favorites, but I know he would've been fussy about what should go into a book. 

I recently published several books knowing full well they weren't my best work.  I wrote them many years ago, toyed with the idea of rewriting them, and finally decided to publish them in their original form (but with some corrections).  Writers shouldn't destroy their earlier works, and I don't have many of the poems he wrote early in life.  But I''ve decided to go with my first thoughts about putting this book together, and that's to just wing it and not be an editor.  Some poems will be better than others, but that's just the way it is.  And I do this fully aware that my opinion is just my own, and that other people may like certain poems I don't expecially favor.

I don't even have a title yet, but I'm leaning toward calling the book The Gathering Ground.  If there was anything the old man loved, it was a gathering of people.  That title fits him. 

TINY TIM UPDATE

Little Timmy is hanging on, eating well, pooping a lot and in all the wrong places, being stinky . . . and being more fun every day.  We knew to start with that this was going to be an uphill fight, that he might never get over his inability to control himself.  But he's learning about the potty box now, and he's only had five days of taking the antibiotics.  He's quiet, doesn't complain about being messed with, and several of the other cats are teaching him how to play. 

If you didn't see the first blog about Tiny Tim, he's a tailless cat that came up at my guitar shop . . . and he was a mess.  He's got birth defects, a bad back leg, and he is tiny, just over 3 lbs.  And he's not a kitten.  The vet said he was at least 6 months old, probably older.  The vet was hopeful about being able to control his problems with BMs, and that's going to take some patience with him.  I'm amazed that he survived outside, and he wasn't doing well when I found him.  He's a project for sure, but I've got other salvaged cats around here.  And despite it all, he's adorable. 

BLACK FRIDAY IS FOR SERIOUS SHOPPERS?

To answer the question right up front, no.  And that's a big no because the serious shoppers know when the best time to shop really is and will take advantage of it.  By serious, I mean the shopper who is out to save some money.  The less than serious shopper has something particular in mind, or is just browsing, or is out to have a good time.  That's fine with me.  It's good recreation and good exercise.  But I'm not about to do it.  First off, I'm not strong enough to do the mall thing, which means you've got to walk miles in a crowded building.  And I don't want to carry all that stuff around.
Most of all, I don't want to have to follow my wife around.  That's somewhat akin to following a lizard. 

I don't get it when it comes to Black Friday.  I don't want anything bad enough to get up at midnight and wait outside a store somewhere, especially on a day after I've tried to commit suicide by food.  This is a day I need to stay close to a bathroom . . . just in case.  It's a day I need to take big naps, watch football, visit with guests still hanging around, and catch up on things I should've done the day before.  But it's not a day I'd ever set aside for shopping.  I don't care how good the sale is.  I got over that 50% off foolishness a long time ago. 

I'll admit, however, that I have gone shopping on Black Friday.  I didn't get up in the dark to do it, but I went and was amazed at how civil it was.  Yeah, I ran into some grumpy people, but for the most part people were friendly and even congenial.  That's amazing, considering the crowds and way merchants set things up.  Big sale on wide screen televisions, right?  And they only had a few of them, and all the rest are full price.  Great sale on men's slacks . . . if you wear a waist size of 44 or larger 'cause all the others are gone.  Nope, just never had any luck with Black Friday, and won't ever do it again.  If I go anywhere, it might be to the grocery store.  It's not likely to be crowded.

IS COLLEGE THE RIGHT WAY OR A RIPOFF?

I taught college for 33 years, don't regret my career choice, and I'm not about to knock the profession that served me well.  If I had it to do all over again, I'd chose another occupation, especially in this day and age.  A college education is too expensive these days, and I don't like the direction higher education has taken in recent years.  It's still a smart move to get a college education, but in some ways it's a ripoff.  I blame that mostly on poor administration, planning, and competition.

Ask a high school senior what college they want to attend, and they'll usually name a big university.  Here in Texas, we've got some big ones, and by big I mean colleges with fifty thousand students.  The University of Texas in Austin is at least that big, and Texas A&M and Texas Tech are probably close to being that large.  We've got other large universities, some of them private, but in my opinion chosing any of them is a poor option for most high school graduates.  Personally, I think large universities are to education what McDonalds is to food.  The only choice you can make that's worse than the large university is going the distance education route - education without ever seeing a college campus.

The quality of education has been in a downward spiral for years now.  During my 33 years of teaching, I watched it decline year by year.  Kids coming to college just weren't prepared to do real college work, and that left the colleges with choices to make - either turn them away, or lower standards.  They opted for lowering standards, and I'm not talking about just entrance requirements.  Those standards have actually gone up some, but the on campus quality of education is now much less demanding than it was during my days in college.  We've got too many colleges and universities competing for students.  It's a money game, plain and simple.

We've over sold the idea that everyone should go to college.  Some occupations require it, but both of my kids have college degrees, and neither of them worked at occupations associated with them.  My daughter got a biology degree but ended up managing restaurants.  My son has a graduate degree in art, but he's a bartender.  I could offer a decent agrument that going to college to get trained for some occupation is somewhat self-defeating.  What about going for the purpose of enrichment of life?  I can promise you that living life as an educated person beats hell out of living one as a dumbass.  But all college graduates aren't smart, and all people with just a high school degree aren't stupid.  To assume that would be to ignore individuality.

I had a conversation recently with a young Mormon missionary out doing his two year duty to the church, and he talked about being confused as to what he should do about education.  He went to college a year, then dropped out to do his missionary duty.  Now he doesn't know if he wants to go back to college or do something else.  My advice to him was that college isn't for everyone, not even some smart kids who could easily graduate.  I also offered him a little more advice, something I've always believed in.  Even if you do go back to college and get a degree, you're still wise to develop some skills.  It's sad to see someone with a Ph.D. who can't even drive a nail into a board, has no idea how his car engine works, and can't even mow the lawn.  You should never get to the point where you think you're above something, especially a little hard labor.

I once knew a college professor who tinkered with old cars, and he turned into a wizzard mechanic.  Another professor friend got into restoring old houses and ended up making more money doing that than he did teaching college.  Don't be one dimensional, and don't be a snob.  That's never smart.  So going to college is still a good idea, but keep other things in mind.  You can't change the system as it now exists.  College might not be as good as it once was, and it might be too expensive, but that's what you've got to deal with . . . if you want that.  The degree you get won't be cheap, but it won't be cheap when it comes to looking for jobs either.  And if you don't want that, think about high skill level training.  Regardless of what you do, you're going to have to study something.  Nobody is born automatically knowing how to do something.

If I hadn't gone to college and graduate school, what would I have done?  I don't know for sure, but I think I would've been a mechanic.  My buddy Richard dropped out of school without graduating, ended up being a hotrod builder . . . and he did well at it.  He even became an inventer of mechanical things, and he did that on his own.  But like everyone else, somebody had to show him how.  It sure helps if you're a really bright kid like he was.  Regardless of what you do, don't waste your best asset.

THE HOUSE YOU LIVE IN

If you've ever sold a house, you know what a pain in the ass house shoppers can be . . . and for good reason.  Buying a house is a big thing in our lives because they cost lots of money, and deciding what to buy is important.  Some people find that out after they've bought one, not before, and that's an expensive lesson.  The buyer tends to spend more than they should and therefore ends up with big house payments.  That's acceptable to most folks for a while, but then then new starts to wear off the new house, and the payments get to be more and more of a burden.  In other words, our wants exceed our comfort zone when it comes to finances.  We do that because we've been suckered.  We bought into all the bullshit about what a good house needs.

I'm not about to go through all the things that make houses expensive, but I'll touch on a few.  My daughter wants a house, and she's married to a man who can afford a nice one.  He's works the oil patches, makes good money doing it but is not at home much.  With a salary of over a hundred grand a year, and with not much encumbered income, he's a good potential buyer.  Like lots of younger people, they've always wanted to be where the action is - in or near a city.  Neither of them knows much about houses, and that's where I come in.  She wants to buy an older home and fix it up, and I've got experience with that.  And she's finally started to recognize a simple fact of life - buying with location in mind, wanting the urban life, is expensive.  Real expensive.  The best buys in housing are out in the smaller towns where most people don't want to live.

So, I point out things that are obvious to me.  Your husband is in a risky business, one with lots of ups and downs.  Yeah, he's doing well now making big money, but in the oil business that can be an on and off thing.  Don't buy over your head.  Forget about what you can afford right now and look down the road.  Ask yourself questions like, "If he's off work for six months, will we be able to hang onto the house? What's my comfort zone when it comes to house payments?  Where is the best place for me to locate?" 

I bought a house back in 2000 here in Brady, Texas, and I did that because I could afford a lot more house here than I could in Austin or some small town near there.  In fact, I got twice as much house here than I could there . . . and I'm still close to several large towns.  The house I bought was only 6 years old, had 2,400 sq. feet of living space with a big two car garage and nice yard.  It is also on a corner lot just across the street for a park in a quiet neighborhood.  My house payments are under $700 a month, and the place is more than half paid for.  In other words, I've got lots of equity.  That's good because property tax in Texas is borderline outrageous and utilities are high.  Including upkeep and insurance added to high tax and utilities, my costs of living here are well over twice what the payments are.  Lots of homebuyers don't see that coming.  No sweat, though.  We can afford it because we bought wisely.

A smart move in buying a home starts with knowing what not to spend unnecessary money on, like granite counter tops.  I'm lucky because my wife doesn't like them, thinks they're a bother.  We've stayed busy the past ten years making this house into a home that fits us - new bathroom fixtures, lots of ceiling fans, a garage addition as a big hobby room for her, a patio room out back.  The house is now over 3,000 square feet, but with no garage.  That comes next, and a kitchen redo.  We'll always be working on the house, but we started with a good one, and that counts for a lot.  That's what I'm encouraging my daughter to do, and she's beginning to see the light. 

Be a smart buyer and get into something that shows promise.  Don't over buy and look ahead.  Don't get suckered by all the propaganda about what cool houses should have, like granite counter tops.  There are lots of alternatives that look just as good, cost much less.  You might even learn what we have, that hardwood floors are a real pain in the ass - expensive to buy and hard to maintain.  Put some time into gathering information about all this, and ahead of time, not after you've already made the mistake of buying poorly.  I can't stress enough the point that you should never strap yourself with big house payments.  New wears off anything you buy before long, but payments are always new.

WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT TURKEY ON THANKSGIVING?

I've only eaten away from home a few times on Thanksgiving so I don't really know what most people eat . . . but I'm sure most families have some special dish that has become traditional with them in particular.  I grew up in a home that always had the traditional fare - the turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, etc.  And then there's always some sort of jello thing, that green goop with nuts in it.  Back in Mississippi when I was growing up and even a grown man just back for visits, we always had shrimp creole, and that's because Harry, my Cajun uncle my marriage, brought it.  It was my farorite Thanksgiving thing.

I don't know how to make shrimp creole, and neither does anyone else in my family.  That's a damn shame.  Not long ago in talking with my sister (who still lives in Mississippi), she said that one of her kids had said, "You know, Thanksgiving just doesn't seem right without uncle Harry's shrimp creole."  I agree.  I don't mind eating turkey at all, but I've never been able to see all the fuss over having it on Thanksgiving.  I usually eat more of the baked ham than the turkey.  I am a sure enough big fan of dressing, or stuffing, as we called it down south.  I guess that's because it was always stuffed into the turkey, which I think was an obvious ploy to get people to eat the turkey.  I love cranberry sauce, so that's a must with me, but the one thing that can't be left off the menu is pecan pie.  I'm lucky because my wife is the best pecan pie maker I've ever been around.  I'll eat some pumpkin pie, but it's not my favorite.

I'd like to give the turkeys a break and stop eating them on Thanksgiving.  Maybe we should save that for another day, like Independence Day.  I know, we could start a new holiday just for turkey consumption.  We supposedly eat the turkey because that's what our first settlers had.  Just makes you wonder what we'd be eating if they'd killed something else.  I won't speculate on that, but on behalf of the turkey I resent the lingering symbolism attached to it.  It's like that old sacrificial lamb thing.  If somebody gets the best of you, or marks you as easy prey, you get called a turkey.  I think we owe the turkey more than that, so let's elevate its standing and give it proper recognition.  Let's get rid of that stupid eagle symbol we love putting on anything patriotic, give that to the turkey.  The turkey should be on a bill of some kind.  We should create the fifteen dollar bill, or maybe a three dollar bill, and put the turkey on it.  Anyway, my mind's made up - no turkey for me this year.

TINY TIM

Tiny Tim is a mystery cat.  He showed up at my shop looking starved, crippled, and with no tail.  Just a plain dark grey tabby, but he had some obvious problems.  His little butt was all crusted over with dried poop, and his back legs were messed up.  I cleaned him up some, saw that he was having trouble controling his bowel movements.  But I kept feeding him and he seemed to be getting a little stronger.  Then yesterday, I found him cold and wet, looking awful.  I cleaned him up again, then took him to a vet.  The little guy weighs just over 3 lbs., can sit in the palm of your hand . . . but he's not a kitten.  The vet said he was at least 6 months old, probably older.  He's taking antibiotics now for an ulcerated rectum, but he tested negative for feline aids and leukemia.  The vet was as baffled as I am as to how this tiny cat survived.  He thinks his deformities are birth defects, still doesn't know why he didn't grow.  Perhaps malnutrition could've caused it.  He thinks not having a tail is responsible for the control problem in his rear end, that nerves didn't develop properly.  What we're doing now for him is just a start, he said.  He goes back for more tests in a few weeks.

Watching him move around is almost like watching a rabbit move.  His back legs are long, with one being longer than the other.  And his front feet are almost like hands.  Maybe he developed the front paw thing to compensate for the bad back legs.  So far, he's doing well, hasn't made any messes and eats and sleeps well.  I've dealt with some strange cats in the past, but this little guy takes the cake.  He's a charmer, that's for sure.  Most of the cats I take care of showed up with needs, and most of them have survived and are now a fixture either here at my home or across town at the guitar shop.  Working on guitars is a challenge even under normal conditions, but it's something else with a half dozen cats trying to help you out.  But if I decide to relax and play guitar a while, I've always got an audience.

THE REAL VOICE

My wife is a fan of the television show "The Voice," but I'm not.  Sometimes I watch it with her for a while, but I usually get bored and wander off.  I like the judges; it's the contestants that bug me.  I try to keep in mind that they're usually young and just getting started, but I don't see much talent there.  What really bugs me about the show is the premise, the set-up.  It seems to me that the voice of the contestant isn't their real selling point.  But that's my problem because I'm out of step with the music world these days.  I'm too much old school.

I like Blake Shelton's presence on the show because he seems like a caring guy.  I've never been a fan of his music, but that's no slight against him because I don't like contemporary country music.  I used to be a big fan of country music, but that was back when it was still actually country.  I'm a Merle Haggard guy, or maybe George Jones or Don Gibson, or Don Williams.  Country music lost me a long time ago.  When it gets right down to it, Christina is the real musical talent among the judges.  She can flat out sing.  The others are mostly showmen, and that's what they try to make out of the kids on their teams.  It's smart business, but I'm still left wondering where the real voice is.

My expectations are high when it comes to singers, and it's not often I hear a voice that really grabs me.  I sometimes remember those occasions.  Once while driving late at night and listening to the radio, I heard a voice that got to me in a big way.  This was like the early eighties, and I was listening to the radio, half paying attention, when I'm suddenly aware that I'm listening to something special - a woman with a resonate alto voice that could really soar and capture high notes.  The song was called something like "You Bring Me Joy," and the singer was Anita Baker.  And I was an instant fan.

I figured right off that Anita Baker must look like the voice I'd heard, but not long after that I saw her on television and was amazed at what a beautiful young woman she was.  She seemed too small to have such a big voice, but I've seen few singers who got into their singing like she did.  She took the level of soul singing to a new level.  Not long ago, she crossed my mind and I looked her up on youtube to see what was going on with her.  She's changed, like all of us change as we get older, but she can still sing.  Want to hear a voice, one that you can hold others to a standard with?  She's got the real voice.

SOMETIMES IT'S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY

The only time I ever worry about money is when I don't have enough of it, and I've always go enough . . . if I don't lose my head.  Like everyone else on this planet, I sometimes see things I can't live without and buy it.  What I hate most is having to spend money on things I can't enjoy, but the good thing is that doesn't happen very often.  Even paying utility bills, which is never pleasant, affords me some happiness because it means I can play with this computer, watch television, and do other things that make life more fun.  Today, I'm heading off to the veterinarian with a kitten that's got big problems. 

This kitten is a show-up at my shop across town, maybe two months old, dark tabby with no tail.  I've been feeding it, along with six other kittens that show up from time to time with their mothers.  This one, though, is apparently an orphan . . . and it's in bad shape.  Its back legs are slightly deformed, enough to cripple it to some extent, and it can't control its bowel movements.  This morning I went to the shop, found it wet and cold and hungry and with poop all over it's little butt . . . and so I cleaned it up and fed it.  I just love starting the day having a kitten poop in my hand, but I know there was a time when somebody had to clean my little butt.

I know a little about tailless kittens, that they sometimes have problems deficating due to nerve damage.  After taking care of feeding chores at the shop, I came home and called my vet friend and made an appointment to take the kitten in this afternoon.  It's cold and raining today, just right to catch up on some inside work . . . but I'm doing kitty duties instead.  I write this blog with a half grown cat in my lap, one born at my shop, got sick and had to come live here for a while . . . and it stayed.  Most of my cats got here that way.  I've got one with three legs, another is deformed some from being attacked by dogs, and others are here because they had to be fixed up by a vet.  You get to be good friends with a vet if you have as many cats as I do.

Sometimes it isn't about the money.  Life is a lot more tolerable when you're content, at peace with yourself, and I can't be that way if I turn my back on a needy animal.  I don't help them so much out of obligation to them; it's more an obligation to myself.  This kitten came asking for my help.  It can't talk, but I know the language of cats fairly well.  Maybe I can't help it, but I've got to try.  Maybe all I can do for it is give it a way out of a life that would be intolerable for it.  An old Don Williams' song comes to mind, and it applies to this rainy Friday. Lord, I hope this day is good.

WHO IS PERCY B. HAND?

Hiram Butts, a big time developer and construction man back in the fifties, had a dream of building the perfect retirement village.  He had the time, the money, and the staff to do it . . . and Hiram's Cove became a reality.  Lots of folks just call it Crab Apple Cove because Butts loved those trees and planted lots of them.  He planted apple trees of all kinds, in fact, but the Crab Apple Trees are a signature thing at Hiram's Cover.  It's very near a nice lake in the brush country of Texas, and it's imaginary.  Author Philip Martin Cawlfield created it for a book he's been working on for years.  It's been around a while, used to have a site of its one some years back. 

Phil created the place as a home for some highly unusal characters, like Chuckie Phat Nguyen.  He's a cowboy, a rancher, and the owner of Chuckie Phat's Rodehouse, a hangout for lots of older folks looking for some fun and entertainment.  But the most dynamic resident of Hiram's Cove is Percy B. Hand - a self made writer.  You'll find his blog there at Hiram's Cove (on Weebly), but don't expect anything in the way of mainstream writing from Percy.  He's a retired mechanic, a big time animal lover, and a social critic.  He dropped out of school after the sixth grade and went to work to help suport a poor and struggling family, but hard work and some luck allowed him to live a comfortable lower middle class lifestyle.  He quit working on cars when Detroit started putting computers in them, and he flunked retraining at the local Ford garage where he worked.  He divorced is wife after thirty years of marriage, due mostly to her habit of liking to point her feet toward the ceiling, if you get my drift.  He caught her in the act with some old boy he couldn't stand, so he pinged the guy on the noggin with a small aluminum baseball bat.  He must've liked the sound because that wasn't the last time he used the bat.  In fact, he almost got famous for pinking people who needed it.  He singled handedly broke up a local dog fighting group with that bat . . . and went to jail for it. 

Percy got sympathetic with a cause that also got him thrown in jail several times.  He had a daughter living in Austin, and he fell in with some homeless people there.  He even tried teaching them a better way of getting people to give them change.  Instead of begging for money, he found a good spot along the highway and built a small mound of broken bricks.  Then he put up a sign that read, "A buck keeps me from throwing a brick through your windshield."  That's when the cops came and hauled him off to jail for a week.  Anyway, Percy wore out his welcome in Austin, and in the small town he'd lived in all his life, and moved down to Hiram's Cove.  And he hasn't used his bat once since he moved there, although he's threatened to a time or two.

Percy got tired of being undereducated and went to a local juco and signed up for some adult eduction classes.  He did well, and they even allowed him to take some regular classes.  He learned some English, how to use a computer, and that's when he decided to be a writer.  His first writing attempts weren't likely to draw much interest.  He wrote some how to essays - like how to make a slingshot out of rubbers, or how to cook roadkill, or how to fix a loose muffler with bailing wire. Then he got interested in writing about things like animal care.  He even wrote a piece on how not to castrate a tomcat, and it got lots of reads (and complaints) on the internet.  Anyway, Percy is different.  Look him up at Weebly under Hiram's Cove.  He's just started writing a few blogs again, and he's a hoot!

GEORGE, YOU WERE RIGHT!

First off, let's clarify the George thing.  I'm not talking about George Bush because the only thing he was right about was . . . was . . . ah, duh . . . well, maybe I'll think of something.  I'm talking about George Carlin, the funny man who made a lot of sense.  I miss him.  I thought he was funny, but I liked his take on politics, government, and the society we live in.  I particularly appreciated his view on fat people, and that comes from a guy who's been overweight most of his adult life.  I'm not fat, but I'd definitely pudgy at 5' 11" and about 210 lbs.  I've weighed as much as 267 lbs., but most of the time I've stayed around 240.  I blamed that on genetics because I come from a long line of pudgy people (and a few lardasses, and a very few skinny ones).  But I'm down to 210 now, and I no longer look fat . . . or even pudgy.

My overweightness had nothing to do with genetics, so I can give up on that excuse.  I ate too much, plain and simple, and I often ate the wrong thing.  I mention this because the holidays are coming up, and that means I need to go into the control mode.  Oh, I'm definitely going to eat some pie, and turkey and dressing and mashed potatoes, and everything that goes with holiday food . . . but I'm going to do that in moderation . . .and then I'll go into several months of very light eating.  I just came off a period of meatless eating that lasted about 3 months.  I had no intentions of being a permanent vegetarian, but I do that from time to time, and it works.  Still, I get down on myself from time to time for not being thinner and lighter . . . and that's when I go to Walmart.

Walmart is a good place to get some decent exercise because you have to do lots of walking up and down isles looking for things.   But that's not the most beneficial thing about a trip there.  Be an observer of other shoppers (a critical observer), and you'll leave with less damaging foods in your cart.  George Carlin was critical of obese people by asking the question:  Who has sex with these people?  I cleaned up that remark some, but it's a good question.  A better question could be: How did these people get their fat asses in such a gross and disgusting condition?  The answer is easy.  They did it the same way I did, except they did a better job of it.  What I'm talking about here are the folks that weigh close to a quarter of a ton, or at least 300 lbs.  And you'll usually find a fatass like that cruising the store in one of those electric carts.

I knew a couple earlier in life that weighed half a ton. No kidding, each of them weighed close to five hundred pounds.  They had several kids, good jobs, lived a comfortable life, and then they both started having back problems.  The doctor treating them for the problem was a good friend, and old drinking buddy, in fact.  He once turned to me and said, "Can you imagine those two having sex?  They recently told me they slept in a waterbed.  You know, I'd damn near give up a year's salary to watch those two have sex in a waterbed."  And they did lose some weight.  Last time I saw them, which was many years ago, they'd trimmed down to maybe 300 lbs. each.  They still had bad backs, but my guess is that came from the waterbed thing.  Maybe it finally exploded.

I feel sorry for grossly fat people, but just to a point.  I've always dreamed of having control of the Walmart speaker system for just one day.  I'd like to make announcements like, "Listen up, all you fatasses.  Get out of that electric scooter and see if you can walk off some fat."  Or, "For all you tubbos riding in the electric carts, there's a sale of diet foods on isle 8."  Yeah, I know, that's mean.  But some of the fatasses need the reminder because overweightness is a blight on our society.  It's damaging to our health care system because I can guarantee you that every one of those blubberbutts will sooner or later get sick.  I developed type two diabetes some time ago, and I've got no one but myself to blame.  I caused it, and I pay for that too.  But in lots of cases of overindulgence, we all pay for it in insurance costs, hospital costs, doctor bills, etc.  Somebody has to take care of the folks who almost eat themselves into oblivion.

One last thing, and it has to do with Carlin's question.  Who has sex with these people?  The only good answer is desperate people, the ones who can't find it anywhere else . . . or the ones who're in love with the fat folks.  Yeah, lots of these people are loved by somebody.  One of my fat friends once told me, "You know, looks don't have a thing to do with how sex feels.  Everybody looks alike in the dark."  My smartass reply was, "You're probably right.  Pretty is as pretty does, but when pretty does it, you can leave the lights on."

Oh, I just thought of something Dubya did right.  He wasn't fat.

MALAYSIA

My dad spent quite a bit of time in the Pilippines when he was a young man, and he never stopped talking about it.  He was a soldier then attached to the old air wing of the Army, and lots of black and white pictures came home with him.  After his tour of duty there, he went to China and rambled around for a year.  I never heard him speak a critical word of either Philippinos or Chinese people.  Back then, Malaysia belong to the British, and I never thought to ask if he traveled there.  I know he went to other countries in that area of the world, but you know how it is with young people listening to elders talk about their adventures.  You don't hear a lot, and that's a shame.

My site here at Blogger tells me where views come from, and Malaysia is second to the U.S. in the number of hits I get.  That makes me curious as to why anyone in Malaysia would be interested in what I have to say.  I write about Texas some because that's where I live.  Maybe that's it, the Texas thing.  Several years back I had a presence on Moli, did a lot of blogging there.  I don't know what good is when it comes to views, but I'd get several hundred sometimes within just a few hours of posting a blog.  And I was amazed to find that most of my hits came from Europe.  I communicated with people from England and Ireland off and on, but Moli didn't last long, and that ended my great experience with blogging.  Only recently have I started again.  This site on Blogger is an old one, but I never used it until about 6 weeks ago.  I don't get lots of views, but it takes time to build a good site for blogging.  And I'm pleased that some of them are from foreign countries.

So, talk to me Malaysia!  We share some things in common, like oil.  Yeah, we know all about oil here in Texas.  We've even got a small area of the state that's almost tropical - the valley, down on the Mexican border along the Gulf of Mexico.  Mostly, we've got desert, but we've got trees too over in east Texas.  We've even got them here where I live, but a real tree person giggles when I call what we have here trees.  My sister lives in Mississippi, and to her what we have here amounts to little more than brush.  Oh, no, I tell her.  The brush country is down south of San Antonio. 

I've got over 80 trees in my yard here in Brady, Texas, and almost all of them are live oaks.  They're small trees except for a few, most of them standing no more than 20 feet tall . . . but they're growing.  Look me up on Googe Earth at 101 Parkview in Brady.  You might even see me standing in the yard. Or look up my guitar shop at 1106 N. Bridge.  It won't be marked as such, but that's what it is, just a little house with lots of stuff in it. 

As for the trees, I've read where Malaysia is finally seeing a need to preserve their forests.  Let's hope it's not too late because it takes centuries for a natural forest to grow back.  Forests are needed to preserve the wildlife, and I grieve a little when I see where another species has disappeared . . . and they won't grow back.  You've got tigers, I see.  I'm a cat lover, even the large ones.  We once had large cats in Texas, the jaguar for one.  We've still got a few mountion lions (cougars), and lots of bobcats.  And recently I've read of reports of ranchers occasionally spotting a jaguar down in south Texas.  But we've also got close to 25 million people living here, and wild critters don't like living around people. 

I'm old, and I'll never get to see Malaysia in person.  Too far in distance, and I'm too far gone to make the trip now.  My adventures are mostly in my head now, but if I was younger . . . . Yeah, the big IF, right?

WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?

The most fun thing about writing fiction is the creation of characters, and if they aren't interesting, the book doesn't work for readers.  Character design sometimes comes from prototypes, real life people, but it is most often just pure fiction.  Some of my characters come from people I've known, but they always get a healthy dose of fantasy added to them.  I like the characters who come from nothing but my imagination, but there's a freaky side to that.  What if I create this character and then end up actually meeting him . . . in person?  That has almost happened to me - not quite, but almost.  And what about those places you describe in fictional works?  Wouldn't it be really weird if you wrote about a place that was purely fictitious, and then in your travels you stumble upon it?  That did happen to me.

I started writing stories about contemporary cowboys over 30 years ago.  Most of those stories are found in a series called The Altos Cuentos Trail: The Adventures of Two Old Cowboys.  I've written about 15 novella length stories in that series, and eight of them can be found in The Altos Cuentos Trail, Volumes I and II - four stories in each book.  And I've published two other books that belong in that series.  I do that under the pen name Cletus Duhon, a voice I invented back in the early 1980s.  Here's where it gets strange.  I wrote my first Duhon story, and in doing so had to create a background for Cletus.  I gave him a history and then situated him in the hill country of Texas at a place I'd never seen before.  This was back before Google Earth or even much of an internet, so I did some reading, got out a map, and placed my character near Telegraph, Texas.  I gave him a buddy to share adventures with, created a small ranch (even went into detail about it), and wrote more adventures.

That was the early 80s, and I didn't get a first hand look at my fictitious setting until the year 2000, and that was when I moved to central Texas.  Since it's not far from where I live, I drove down to investigate Telegraph.  It's between Junction and Rocksprings.  My wife went along for the ride. The country along the South Llano River near Telegraph was almost exactly as I had described it.  I had even given directions to the ranch house where my characters lived, and just where I'd described where you turned off the main highway, there was indeed a county road.  I followed it, seeing more country like I'd described in the stories, and found another road, this one unpaved and apparently the entrance to a ranch.  "Well, aren't you going to go and see what's there?" My wife asked.  "No," I said.   "I don't want to know.  This is just too damn weird for me right now."

The towns of Rocksprings and Junction weren't even close to the way I had imagined them, but Telegraph, which is nothing more than an old store and post office, was right on.  How could I have seen that in my mind's eye?  I'm positive I'd never been there, but I had seen it.  Discovery is a strange thing sometimes, like when you stumble upon a place you've written about and find it to be nothing like your fictional account of it.  Doing that screws up mental images and makes it hard to write about the place again.  It's even worse than going back to a place you knew well from 40 years ago, and then you go back and can hardly recognize the place.  I've done that and don't like the feeling I get from it.

Anyway, finding the real place I'd written about messed me up for a while, and it actually scared me a little.  How did I know what it looked like?  That experience left me shaking my head and asking myself, "Where did that come from?"  But it also left me wondering where Cletus Duhon, always a character in the stories, came from.  I had an uncle by marriage who was a Cajun, and I loved him a lot and knew his family.  Being around a bunch of Cajuns can be a fun experience, and so maybe that's where he came from.  But I made a cowboy out of him, and then got him involved in a long time friendship with a Mexican/American (Tex-Mex) named Bubba Espinoza.  I don't know where he came from either. 

Back to Cletus and my partnership with him . . . and yeah, we are partners.  I like being Cletus, and not as an escape device.  I don't need that, don't even want to fool around with that because I'm too much of a reality junkie.  But you can get too involved with your pen name sometimes, especially if you really enjoy being that character for a while.  I wrote a book through Cletus called First Frosts of Fall, and it's my one and only real love story.  Cletus was married as a young man, it didn't work out, and he never married again.  And then in his sixties, he runs across a woman and falls in love with her.  It's a tough story in some ways, tender in others, and that's because it involves the death of the woman he's fallen for.  The story, in part, is about grief and how he dealt with it.  So, I wrote the book, and got depressed for a couple of weeks - not just a little depressed either.  I felt so damn bad for Cletus that it just shut me down for a while.  I didn't expect that, but I learned something, and I didn't have to ask where it came from.

Here's the long and short of it.  I might've made him up to pen stories, but I am Cletus Duhon.  We're one and the same with me being the real deal and him being part of my imagination. I've had a wonderful time hanging out with him because we've been on some great adventures together.  Sometimes I put him in a bind, but I'd never written anything that actually hurt him.  Losing the love of his life almost brought him down.  Ok, so it wasn't real, but think about it for a minute.  Real is what we think it is, and it's a temporary thing because time moves on.  A dream is real to us when we're having it, and so is a story that's just made up . . . when we're living it.  I lived the story with Cletus, and it hurt for a while, and then I came back to what's real.  And we all know where that comes from . . . right?

NO CREDIT CARDS, NO DEBT, NO SWEAT

I saw a statistic a while back that said the average American family had a credit card debt of about $15,000.00.  You never know about stats.  Who did the study and for what purpose are important factors in statistics, and they're often used in spurious ways.  Eveyone else has one, so  you need one too - right?  And damn near everybody has a credit card, and that means they likewise have some debt.  Fifteen grand sounds light to me.  I figured more, but that's because I had credit card debt of more than twice that much not long ago.  Then I got smart and shreaded the cards, and I still don't have one . . . and I'm out of debt to card companies.

Paying off a huge card debt means you've got to deprive yourself of some things.  I sat down a tried to figure out what I could do without, then set a goal of paying credit cards at least $1,200 a month.  It took three years for me to pay off the debt, and I'm used to the little inconveniences caused by not having a card.  And the inconveniences are indeed small.  Yeah, I have to walk inside the convenience store now to pay for gas . . . but I need the exercise.  And yeah, not having a card means I've got to have some cash in my pocket.  I don't carry a checkbook around with me either.

What was I spending all that money on?  Well, ebay for one thing, and I don't do that anymore.  I limit my trips to the stores around town to those that are absolutely necessary.  Am I depriving myself?  No, just doing without some things that don't really matter.  And I'm getting along much better now financially, and I think I'm better off mentally.  I get offers for more credit cards all the time, but that's not going to happen.  Me not haveing a card is good for me, but I've noticed that it does cause irritation with people wanting to sell things.  "But you can put that on your card."  I hear that a lot.  I'm also getting used to those dull-eyed stares that say, "But everyone does it?  Are you weird of something?"  I've been denied room reservations at some motel because I don't have a card number to give them, but who's the loser there?  I still found a room that night, but some motel didn't get my business because they needed a number from a card.

Just recently I got an invitation from the White House to join the President in a phone "chat."  All you had to do to get involved was sign up, and you did that by giving up credit card information so they could charge your account for a donation.  Shit!  Even our left leaning chief executive is a credit card hawker.  Needless to say, we didn't chat, but I did giggle some.  No card, no political contributions.  I like that.  That's something else I'll never do again - give money to some politician.  Government takes enough of my money as it is, so they can call that a contribution if they want to.

Credit cards are a symbol of sickness in our society.  When the economy is in a slump, our government's response is generally to get people to spend more money.  Lots of cash flow, that is what they want . . . and that's not good for us as individual, especially when money is short.  Spending money is too easy as long as that card is in your pocket.  My advice to anyone is get rid of the damn thing.  Quit playing the game of being the spender . . . and mostly at more expense to you than you realize.  Call me weird, if you like.  I kind of like the tag, especially when I don't owe a bank or credit card company a single penny.  And that's a freedom I really enjoy.

WHAT AM I DOING HERE WITH ALL THESE KIDS?

If you want a reminder of how old you are, look around you.  You're surrounded by kids, and I'm not talking about little kids.  Anyone under forty looks like a kid to me.  It's not like I get a lot of exposure to kids these days, but I know one when I see one.  I'm a retired college professor who got too much exposure to young folks, and I'll be a while getting over it.  Don't take that remark as meaning I don't like young people.  I wouldn't have stayed in the business so long had I not loved them . . . and I still do.  I used to know how to talk to them, but that just goes with the territory of being a college professor.  And it takes more than just liking young people to deal with them.  You've got to respect them. 

I miss some things about being around kids all the time.  They keep you energetic, and that's good.  But they also wear you down, and the time comes when you need to pull away from all that.  You can retreat some, I've learned, but you can't get away from the kids.  They're everywhere, like swarms of ants, and they are in a dominant position in our society.  They're too young and inexperienced to be leaders in a literal sense, but the lead the pack in other areas . . . including the internet.  I try to write blogs every day, and most of them are intended for a younger audience.  Doing that, however, makes me feel a lilttle  uncomfortable.  What am I doing here with all these kids?  Old farts should blog for other old folks, and I see a lot of blogs out there intended for that crowd.  My problem is that I don't know what to say to old people, and I'm old as dirt.  I stayed around young people too long, and now I'm wading in a shallow pool these days.

We all need to spend time where we're comfortable, and I work hard at creating a place where I'm at home.  My daughter came to my house once, walked around a bit, then said, "Your house smells like old people houses."  My response was that real evidence points to the fact that most old people smell a lot better than young people, but I knew where she was coming from.  I remember how my grandparent's home smelled, and it smelled old.  I don't know that smell now, and maybe that's because it's all around me these days.  I'm married to a woman who's got a nose like a bloodhound, so she keeps this house smelling good.  If a mouse farts in China, she can smell it.  The only thing I can figure is that she's got used to how I smell, and that must not be too bad, or I'd hear about it.

If you've raised teenagers, you know what bad smell is.  I still can't figure out how they can get a pair of sneakers so foul smelling that nothing can save them.  Going into a teenager's room is a real challenge sometimes, even if you stay after them to keep it clean.  Ever spend any time in a college dorm?  How about a gym?  Ever take a long bus trip with a bunch of jocks?  And they think we smell bad?  Well, she didn't say bad; she just said old . . .and to a young person, old is bad.  The younger folks have better smellers than we do, so maybe that counts for something. 

My point here is simple: I don't really feel comfortable around people of any age these days.  I've lost my touch with kids, don't especially enjoy the company of people my age, and I sure don't want to hang around those middle years folks.  They know too much, if you get my drift.  Several years ago we were fortunate enough to have all the kids home for Christmas, and they're all in their forties.  The grandkids were here, but they were no bother.  After the house cleared out, I said to my wife, "The only reason the kids come home is to straighten our dumb asses out.  We don't know a thing about how to raise kids, we can't cook or dress ourselves properly, and we're just not aware of what's going on around us."  She just smiled and said, "Yep."

So, I'll ask the question again.  What am I doing here with all these kids?  I dunno.

WHAT TO DO WITH A SATURDAY

If I worked 12 hours a day for a solid month, I wouldn't catch up with chores that need doing.  And today is Saturday, a good day for chores, and I'm still undecided about what I'll do with my day.  I'm sick of working on books.  I've been at it day and night now for over 4 months, and the work has paid off.  I've now got 7 books in print, and 4 more are waiting on me to proof read and approved them for publication.  I feel good about all that, but I've neglected other things to get it done.  It's almost like that old saying, "The faster I go, the behinder I get." 

I could make a list, but I'm lousy at doing that.  I'm also lousy at getting priorities in the right order, unless an emergency comes up that leaves me no choice.  If I end up with a tombstone (something I don't want), it should be inscribed, "I'M NOT DONE YET."  I plan of being reduced to ashes.  No funeral.  A year after I'm dead, I want somebody to host a big cowboy gathering for me so all my buddies can come and eat ribs and potato salad and drink a big bowl of punch.  I want my ashes mixed into the punch, so that way I can go home with everybody.  And they won't even know it.

But I'm not dead yet, and I've still got chores to get done.  I don't often set goals, but I plan on having twenty books in print before 2014 is out.  I can do that without writing new stuff.  My stash of old manuscripts is that big, but I'd like to work on some new stories.  I'd like to do a few non-fiction books before I croak.  But there are obstacles.  Chores.  Lots of things to do, and here it is a nice Saturday, and I'm sitting at this stupid computer writing a blog.  But that only takes a few minutes, and then I can shampoo the carpets and clean house.  The wife is away today and tomorrow, gone to Dallas to spend some time with her daughter.  She's driving down from Oklahoma City, and since they only get to see each other a few times a year, that's a good deal for both of them.  That leaves me here with time to get something done. 

I have a problem with getting things done on Saturdays.  My mind says go, but my body says no.  Mind over matter, you know, and matter usually kicks my mind's ass.  Saturday is football day, for instance.  The mind says, "Get your lazy butt up and do something productive," but my body says, "Sit down in that recliner and watch football."  The mind says, "You're behind on everything, your material world is crumbling, and you need to fix it.  Now get out there and clean out the storage shed, and shampoo those carpets, and fix something."  The body says, "Aw, what the hell, it'll wait.  There's always tomorrow."  And with the wife not here to remind me of all the things that need doing, I'm more likely to listen to the body and do nothing.

I'm not sure what that means, and if you know, don't point it out to me.  I already know that I'm irresponsible, and don't call me henpecked.  Like all men, I'm female dominated.  That's why we get married, you know - so we'll know what to do with Saturday.  But in this day and age of informatin access, there's no escape.  She's got a cell phone.  Guess I'll just watch football until she calls.

WRITING: I LEARNED IT IN GRADUATE SCHOOL

I wrote some research papers in undergraduate school, but they didn't amount to much.  Graduate school taught me how to write, and I owe that to seminars.  I loved seminars because most of your grade there was based on papers, and I always made A's on papers.  I did well enough on tests, especially essay exams, but writing research papers was my thing.

Graduate school professors can be demanding when it comes to papers, or a least they were back in the years when I was there.  I did most of my graduate work in Mississippi (that was home for me) at Miss. State, Univ. of Southern Miss., and Ole Miss.  Dr. Tip Allen at Mississippi State, along with Dr. Gordon Bryan, did the most there at making a writer out of me.  And that's because they stayed after me to do better at it.  I got my M.A. there, then went directly to Southern Miss to work on a doctorate.  They had the biggest and best Political Science Dept. in the state at the time, and that's where I met Dr. William Tuchak, Dr. Bill Hatcher, and others who demanded good work in seminars.  Ten years later I went to Ole Miss and had some good professors there, but I already knew how to write research papers by then . . . and nobody complained about them.

Dr. Tuchak was a Russian, or more precisely a Ukranian who'd come to America to get his doctorate.  And he was tough, and I loved him for it.  I can remember him saying, "You write much better than you speak, and you must work on that.  He even coached me some on how to speak because he didn't worry about my writing.  I spent some quality time with him, planned on spending more but he died not long after I left there and went into teaching.  I did learn to speak well enough to become a good lecturer, but for the most part, I stopped writing after graduate school.  My teaching time was spent at a small college that didn't have that publish or perish attitude, and even though I produced a few journal articles over the years, I didn't try writing a book until my forties . . .and it was fiction.

That first book is still unpublished and for good reason.  It isn't worth publication; it's that bad.  There's a world of difference between putting together a dissertation or thesis or term paper than in writing fiction, and I soon learned that.  I had ideas, just didn't know how to write them down.  That's when I had to learn to be a storyteller first, a writer second.  I still struggle with the writing part, but sometimes the struggle pays off.  I've got books in print, finally.  Writing is still hard work, but when you enjoy the challenge, you don't mind the effort.  I'm not a composer.  My first drafts are ragged, and the book doesn't start to emerge until after a third or fourth rewrite . . . and sometimes that takes years.  I just published serveral books that took ten years in the writing.  Sometimes it's good to sit on it for a while and see what hatches.  And sometimes you just end up with a rotten egg.  I've got a drawer full of them.

But here's the deal, as I see it.  You need to get comfortable with your book before publishing it, and by comfortble, I don't mean absolutely sure about it.  You just finally reach a point to where you feel like, "Well, Ok, it's hatched out now, and it's not the best looking bird I've ever seen, but maybe it'll fly."  Let someone else be the critic.  There's something to be said for perfection, producing something you're really proud of, but there's also something to be said of finishing.  Get done with it, decide if it's good enough for publication without being perfect, and then get on with something else. As long as you're learning and growing as a writer, your work isn't wasted effort.

HOW TO WRITE A HOW NOT TO BOOK

I'm new at the publishing game, just started getting some long overdue books in print . . . and I did that through self-publishing.  My attempts at writing fiction started back in the early 1980s, and over the years I've written lots of stuff.  Yeah, stuff that just stayed in a drawer or on a computer hard drive, or on a backup thingie.  Most of what I'd written had been for my own amusement, but people who'd seen it over the years thought it worthy of publication.  The new age of independent publishing opened a door for me, and I finally got around to using it.  I've got 7 books in print now, and 4 more are almost finished -  all fiction.  But now I'm thinking of doing a how to book.

Actually, I'm planning on doing a how not to book, and I don't really know how to go about that.  I'm no stranger to non-fiction, have written numerous articles and poems and songs in the past that ended up in print or recorded, but I'm definitely a novice at how to stuff.  I need a book on how to write a how to book . . . or better yet, a how not to book.  That's what it really comes down to when you're writing about how to do something, the telling of what you shouldn't do.  So, I'm tossing around the idea of doing a book on how not to build an acoustic guitar.  I've been building them for 25 years, and my guitar shop is full of mistakes - those guitars that didn't turn out right because I did the wrong thing.

Several things work in my favor here, and being an experienced mistake maker is part of the mix.  I'm a decent photographer, and I draw fairly well, and I am a former teacher.  I can teach someone how to make a decent guitar . . . in person.  But can I do that in print?  I'm confident that I can because I now know a lot of things a guitar maker will be tempted to do that shouldn't be done.  Building a guitar properly requires slow, painstaking work, and you need the right tools to do it right.  I can explain all that to a reader.  The problem is, that's already been done.  There's all kinds of guitar making books out there, and some of them are very good.  And some of those books point out what you shouldn't do.  None of those books, however, told me everything I should expect from my experience as a builder.

My guitar making started with an attempt to build a kit guitar bought from Martin's Dream Shop.  By the time I finished that first guitar, I had invested several thousand dollars in new tools and equipment.  Nobody told me I'd do that.  And then there were the injuries, like the cuts and scrapes you'll get making guitars.  Take a look at an old luthier's hands, and you'll see what I mean.  Shop accidents happen, and some of them can be serious flub-ups.  And hand's aren't like lizard tails 'cause fingers don't grow back.  I cut the tip of my left index finger off with a table saw.  That's painful and irritating, especially when it's your chording hand, the one you depend on playing the guitar.  I was
months getting back to playing again.  Even after 25 years of experience as a builder, I'm still dinging up my hands from time to time.

This blog is a request as much as anything else.  Got any experience with how to writing?  Or how not to writing?  I'm open to suggestions.

COFFEE

I love coffee, and that goes back to early adult years with me.  My parents were big coffee drinkers, but I didn't develop a taste for it until I got to graduate school.  I drank it occasionally as a child and through my teen years but always loaded it down with a lot of sugar and milk.  Then I went through the black coffee only years, and that fits because they were indeed black years for me.  I almost got away from drinking coffee by the time I was forty years of age, but a stay at a treatment center and AA brought me back to sanity.  I've been a dedicated coffee drinker ever since . . . and I've been sober.  You might be tempted to think the coffee has nothing to do with the sobriety thing, but it does in a roundabout way.  It has to do with lifestyle, a way of living . . . and for everyone, not just former drunks.

Even if I'd never been a booze drinker, I would've loved coffee.  My dad used to say, "Never trust a man who doesn't drink coffee."  He said it jokingly, but he probably meant it.  Maybe he became a coffee drinker the same way I did, from his association with people.  He grew up in Burns, Oregon - cowboy country, and most cowboys I know are coffee drinkers.  And he ended up being a minister, and most preachers turn out to be coffee drinkers.  He was in the military where coffee is a big thing.  What I'm saying is that coffee is somewhat like booze in that it's a social thing.  When people show up at my home, I usually ask if they want coffee.  Coffee and conversation just go together.

My day starts with coffee and ends with it.  I end up making 3 pots of coffee a day, partly because I turned my wife into a coffee drinker.  I've had other influences on her much worse than that.  She didn't curse when I met her, and now she can put a drunk sailor to shame . . . if you piss her off.  I do that a lot too.  As far as the coffee itself is concerned, I'm not a fancy coffee drinker.  I'm not a coffee shop drinker, and that's good because finding a good cup of coffee in this town is almost impossible . . . unless  you make it yourself.  Like almost everyone else, I make mine the easy way - with a drip coffee maker.  If I get a craving for some old time cowboy coffee (and I've had my share of that), I'll get out the old pot and make some.  And I'm almost always overstocked on coffee.  Running out is not an acceptable excuse for starting the day without it.

Doesn't drinking all that coffee make me nervous, or keep me awake?  Nope.  Does it make me irritable or jumpy?  Nope, but I get that way if I don't drink it.  Does that make me a coffee addict?  Probably, but who cares?  I've sure been addicted to worse things.  Doesn't it stain your teeth?  Yep, but I'm 72 years old and my teeth, what's left of them, match the way the rest of me looks.  Besides, being an avid coffee drinker gives me something to look forward to, and that's something all old farts need.  I'm having coffee as I write this.  In a little while the rigors of life in general will set in, and I won't enjoy that nearly as much as I do these early hour moments.  The two times of day I enjoy the most are sunrises and sunsets, and that's when you'll find me with a cup of coffee in hand.  And if you're missing those two times of day, you're missing the sugar and cream of life.  You might need some coffee to go with that.

TINKERING WITH OLD FILM CAMERAS

Digital photography has spoiled us rotten because it's so easy, but it's a fraud in some ways.  Digital is better in terms of getting the really good pictures, those snapshots that count, and you don't need to spend a lot of money to get there.  No film to buy, no processing time lag, and in the end a really good visual image of the shot you snapped.  What's been lost is the photographer's touch.  These days, it's all about the camera itself and the computer you use to enhance the pictures.  Shop carefully and buy decent stuff, and you're almost there when it comes to getting good pictures.  Oh, there are still some things a photographer needs to know, but the learning curve is almost a straight line compared to what it used to be.

I own around 300 cameras and only two of them are digital.  Almost 100 percent of the pictures I take these days come from those two cameras.  So, why the old cameras?  I love the old stuff, and I can list off dozens of reason why.  I'm against the lightweight plastic revolution, for one thing.  I love holding in my hands a piece of equipment that's got some heft to it.  I feel the same way about the pistols I own.  Don't want no wussy space age material gun.  Gimme something made of steel, and with nice carved handles on it.  Maybe that's the good old boy who can't adapt coming out in me, but that's how I feel.  And feel is important.

I started off collecting cheap vintage cameras, and most of them were plastic too.  Then I got into the Kodak Retinas, those nice German made American cameras.  They're small but heavy, and they're not the easiest of cameras to use.  I've got about forty Retinas, and I've used some of them.  And I've got some SLR cameras from the 70s and 80s that are nice pieces of equipment - Canon, Minolta, Miranda, and the like.  I've been interested in photography and cameras for a long time, and many of the cameras I now have in my collection were too expensive for me to buy when the first came out. I had a nice Nikon back in those days that served me well, and it costs plenty back then.  Now I can buy a really nice older SLR for less than fifty bucks on ebay, and that put me into the collecting game.

But tinkering with older cameras is irritating to someone who got comfortable with the digital cameras.  For one thing, I've lost my touch with using them.  I forgot too much about them, and if I decide to use one of them, it takes me a few days to get up to speed.  And then you have to trust some developing company to do a good job, and they're getting scarce these days.  So is the film you need to shoot in them.  I own a lot of cameras you can't even buy film for.  I don't need to use them to appreciate them because I'm a collector, not a professional photographer.  My collection, by the way, also includes lots of old home movie stuff - cameras, projectors, all that.  And I never use it.  I just admire it.

My wife once looked at a camera I was holding and asked, "So what's that worth?"  I said, "Oh, probably three to four hundred bucks."  She looked gutshot.  "You pay that much for those things?"
I said no, much less, but I get lucky sometimes and come up with something actually worth real money.  Then I smiled and said, "And when I'm dead and gone, whoever gets my cameras should be very careful about how they dispose of them.  There's probably a new car in what they're worth."
We won't talk about that, though.  That's another blog.  I can say this much, though, about collecting vintage cameras.  Sometimes I buy one that never got used, or if it did, it wasn't used much.  But I often buy one that was used a lot, and I see that it was used carefully.  Somebody loved and looked after it, and in my way of thinking, I owe it the same consideration.

I bought a violin on ebay many years ago.  It wasn't in good shape, needed some refurbishing, and I took it on as a project.  Once I got it apart, I found a hand written note inside it.  The note said the violin had been built in a small shop in California back in the 1930s, had the man's name, address, and phone number.  But numbers like that haven't been used in half a century at least, and the buider had likewise been dead many years.  What got me was the message he left.  He wanted the violin to go to his granddaughter, and he listed her address too, also outdated. Perhaps she too had passed away by the time I found it, or maybe she didn't appreciate the gift, or at least someone didn't . . . or maybe nobody ever found the note inside the violin.  That bothered me enough to make me want to treat that old violin with love and care.  I restored it and still have it displayed on a shelf here at the house.  And even though I don't know the story on my cameras, I figure they deserve to be showed too . . . and they are.

FIRST FROST

Fall is my favorite season.  The only bad thing about it is that it comes just before my least favorite season, but maybe that's why I like it.  When we know bad weather is ahead, it's always good to have a few nice days before it comes.  And we've been having a nice fall season here in central Texas.  Trees are just now turning colors, but that means the leaves will be gone before long.  It's one of those enjoy it while you can things because we get our first freeze tonight.  That first frost always sneaks up on me, but this year I knew it was coming.  That means I had to spend most of the morning getting potted plants moved inside to the patio room.  That also means I'll be sore as a pack mule from doing it.

I'm definitely a plant person, like all kinds of them including cactus.  Texas is home to lots of them, but I've only got a few dozen in pots that have to come inside.  But I've got quite a few plants, just moved close to a hundred of them, and some of them are blooming.  But next comes winter, and I need to get my mind adjusted to that.  Winters are always mild here in the hill country.  Some folks around here don't think so, but I moved down here from the Oklahoma panhande.  Winters there can be miserable affairs - wind, snow, ice, blizzards, that sort of thing.  But here in the hills, it hardly ever snows.  We get some wind, but it's nothing like the panhandle winds, and we don't even have much ice here.  Like I said, winters are mild.  I get amused on days like today when folks around town are wearing coats, and it's like 45 degrees today.  To me, that's barely sweater weather.  I'm like the flowers.  Until it freezes, I'll keep acting like it's summer.

LET'S EXPORT SOME BS, YONTU?

Texas is known primarily for oil production, but it's too bad there's no market for bullshit.  Or, is there?  I'm not saying that Texas is just a bullshit state because it's way behind some other states I'm familiar with.  We're a long way behind California and maybe even states like New York, Florida, or even Mississippi.  This blog is about BS, for better or worse - meaning it's about the good uses of BS, and the bad uses.  First off, let's tear down the common belief that bullshit is nothing more than a lie.  If someone doesn't believe what you're saying, they'll say, "That's just bullshit!"  That means they're calling you a liar.  The truth about bullshit is that it's often the truth disguised as . . . well, as bullshit.

The truth is sometimes a hard sell, tough to get across in a way people can understand it.  In this sense, Obamacare needs some good old fashioned bullshit.  Most people don't like it because they don't understand it, but lots of laws are that way.  Politicians write laws, therefore the problem.  Lawmakers have a language of their own, and the average person struggles with that.  Apply some bullshit to it, and it can take on a language of its own.  That's a good fit because most Americans think Congress itself is bullshit - bogus, untrustworthy, devious, and even crooked.  They don't understand that politicians themselves don't actually produce laws in an inventive sense; they bend to the pressure of interest groups and occasionally to public opinion . . . and the easiest way to bend a politician is through offering them something.  Ever heard the old expression that money talks and bullshit walks?  That expression is misleading, which makes it bullshit.  Money talks in America, but if you offer it to someone packaged in a thick layer of bullshit, they're more likely to take it.  Bribes are illegal, but donations to elections campaigns aren't, and that's bullshit.

The goal of a good bullshitter is not to lie but rather to mislead, to confuse an issue, or to reflect attention away from something.  A Republican, for instance, when ask a sticky question about social security will talk instead about family values, God, crime in the streets, and the like.  He won't respond directly to the question most of the time, especially when he doesn't have an answer that will win votes.  Ask a liberal about military intervention, and they talk about humanitarianism, the value of peace around the world, that sort of thing . . . and then turn around and vote to send troops to Iraq,
or wherever.  That's bullshit.

I write about this topic fairly often because I'm a proficient bullshitter.  I'm a storyteller, a writer of fiction, and I often tell my stories in a way that makes them sound like just more good old fashioned Texas bullshit.  I even invented a particular voice for writing these stories, and people who read them say they like them.  They're common sense, down to earth, folksy stories, and since they're adventure stories that sometimes border on the fantastic, they're seen as bullshit.  That's fine with me because I like bullshit.  I don't intend to mislead anyone, and I don't want to detract from a specific point . . . but I sure don't mind when someone thinks I'm just pulling their leg.  Bullshit can be invaluable when it comes to humor.  My bullshit voice, by the way, is Cletus Duhon.  Look him up . . . if you want an adventure in bullshit.  He's in the export business.

BLOW UP YOUR T.V.

I've always adminred John Prine's work, both as a songwriter and performer.  Many years ago he wrote a song called Blow Up Your T.V., with these words: Blow up you t.v., go to the counry, build you a home.  Eat a lot of peaches, have a lot of children, they'll find Jesus, all on their own.  Well, it was something like that, and it was good advice, John, very good indeed.  But you could add to that these days 'cause the television isn't close to being as bad for us as all the other electronic gizmos we now have.  And it probably is just a Spanish pipedream to think we can do without them.  We've been victimized by the comforts of easy access.

My wife wanted a Kindle, so I bought one for her a few years ago.  She's had her nose stuck in it ever since, and not long after that, she bought me one.  That was a waste of time 'cause I hate it.  About all I've ever used my Kindle Fire for is to play Angry Birds and look up a few things on the internet.  I think it's a slick little device, but it's not a book.  It's not even close to being a book, and when I read, I like to hold a real book.  I like owning a real book, and I've got lots of 'em.  I've loved books since childhood when I was made to read them, and if I wouldn't do that, my mother read them to me.  Being introduced to literature is a good thing, and it doesn't hurt a kid to make them read something that's not on an electronic gizmo. 

There's never been a generation of kids who've had access to information like the current one, but I don't think we're getting much out of that as far as real learning is concerned.  I like some things of convenience, but too much of it is not good.  I used to complain and say, "Why do I have to read that?"  And my father would say, "To keep you from being a dumbass."  And as it turns out, I'm not a dumbass, and I owe that to reading.  You can't learn much without reading, especially if you are introduced to worthwhile literature.  Not everything in print is enlightening, and most people don't read to be educated.  They want to be entertained most of the time, but there's still the few out there who read to gain information.  Most of the really smart people I know are good readers, and although it's not a perfect system for gathering information, is way ahead of the next best thing.

We are not a nation of readers, and therefore we're nowhere close to being the world's most literate society.  Forget all the bullshit you've heard about American literacy and face facts.  My home state of Texas, a long way from being America's dumbest state, has a population approaching 25 million, and close to 40 percent of them can't read well.  A full 20 percent of this state's population is functionally illiterate, and you can add to that another 20 percent who can just read well enough to get by.  They can fill out job applications, write checks, and do other fundamental things, but they're not capable of reading anything that requires a thought process.  That's frightening because it means some states are worse off than we are.  But that same dumbass who can't read a decent book can sure watch television, of use a cell phone, or fart around with a computer. 

It gets worse.  Add into that forty percent of non-readers another hefty pecent that can read but refuse to do so because there's too many other easier ways to obtain information.  I'm not talking about people who can't read well because if you can't read, you can't use most of the easy access digital gizmos to much of an advantage.  But using those things turns us away from the book, the real deal, that thing with a cover and pages with printed words on it.  Yeah, words and not picutures or symbols or anything else that makes it easy on you to to learn.  If you don't get anything else I've written here, please get this: Learning shouldn't be easy and it doesn't have to be fun. 

So, are we having fun yet?  Learning anything?  Probably not 'cause this is the internet, you know.  It's easy, too damn easy.  If you want to do something good for the human race, buy a book - a good book.  But don't blow up your T.V., and you don't have to throw away your cell phone or Kindle or any other gizmo you rely on.  Just don't let the damn things rule your life.  Don't let them make you so brain lazy you can't read real literature . . . if that hasn't already happened to you.

IF YOU BUILD IT . . .

If you build it, they'll come . . . and tax the crap out of it.
If you build it, they'll come . . . and stick zoning rules on it.
If you build it, they'll come . . . and require a license for it.
If you build it, they'll come . . . and inspect it.
If you build it, they'll come . . . and charge big utility rates on it.
If you build it, they'll come . . . and . . .
Well, you know the story, right? 

THE MAN GOD FORGOT

DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND GO TO FRANCE

I've never been to France.  I've never been anywhere outside the U.S. except to Mexico, and that was just over the border.  Like lots of other people, various obligations keep me tied down to where I can't travel much.  But I dream about it, and I do the next best thing.  I study about other countries.  That all started when I started taking graduate courses in foreign governments - Latin America, Europe, Russia, and even China.  And I got fascinated with geography somewhere along the way.  These days, I do a lot of traveling through Google Earth, and my number one destination is France.  I've been interested in France for a long time, and if I were a younger, less encumbered man . . . I'd be there in short order.

I wouldn't go to France for reasons most people go.  I don't want to be part of a tour group, don't want to sample wines, eat French cooking, or anything like that.  Id be more interested in seeing the countryside, meeting the people, and checking out the historical things.  But I'd be that way about any country.  I've always been interested in New Zealand, Norway, Austria, Morocco, Italy, and Spain.  I'd go there for the same reasons - to take a close look at they way they live.  We've got the mistaken idea in this country that we're the best at everything.  The French, for instance, are better than we are at health care.  They're better at taking care of their environment, and they're better at education.  I could go on and on about stuff like that, and you could make some comparisons where we do things better than they do. 

What I like most about the French is that they aren't American ass-kissers.  We like people who kiss our asses, suck up to us, act like we hung the moon . . . and they don't do that.  Lots of Americans don't like the French for that reason.  They don't always support our military interventions abroad, and that pisses us off.  We had an organized effort going on a while back, supported mostly by right wingers, to boycott French products.  But when it started becoming apparent to American consumers as to what they'd have to give up, that boycott failed.  Like any other American, I don't like to be looked down on, but I do admire the foreigners who don't kiss our asses.  I liked Hugo Chavez for that reason.  If my American pride was so fragile that criticism from someone like Chavez got me all in a twit, I'd be less a man . . . and less an American. 

Some of my best friends don't agree with me most of the time, and that's fine with me.  They've got their thing going, and so do I.  I like the French, and if they don't, that's their problem and not mine.  Maybe if I experienced living in France for a while, I'd change my mind . . . but I don't think so.  I seldom wish I was a young man again, but on occasions I think of what I could've done and didn't.  I should've gone to France a long time ago, but I didn't, and that's my bad.  What I did do, however, was stop thinking that we here in America are tops at everything, and I didn't have to go to France to learn that.

THE BEST ANIMAL ON THE PLANET

The best animal on the planet is a live one that is not endangered in any way.  And there's lots of endangered animals, and we're at the top of the list.  Yeah, humans, the most predatory of all animals, the top of the food chain, the smartest - and we're endangered because we treat the other animals mostly with contempt.  We eat them, enslave them, and pretty much use them any way we please . . . and it's killing us.

I love animals, just about all of them.  My favorite animal is probably the cat, and not just house cats.  I think they're the most beautiful animals on earth, with horses being a close second.  People?  We're ugly compared to most animals.  Plain as white paper at best, butt ugly at worst.  It's a good thing we're the smartest of animals because we sure won't win any prizes for looks.  And sometimes, I wonder if we're all that smart.  Would a smart animal eat itself to death?  Would it procreate itself into oblivion?  Would it screw up its enviroment to the point it can't live there anymore? 

Don't get me wrong because I'm not trying to say all animals are good animals.  They can go wrong just like people occasionally do; they just don't do it on a monumental scale like we do.  If you judge us based on Forest Gump's saying that stupid is as stupid does, we're the absolute dumbest of all animals.  And we're the most dangerous.  I trust most animals to do what they're supposed to because they've still got instincts.  We have the ability to reason, but we usually do a damn poor job of using it.  Don't believe that?  Be an observer of human nature and you'll discover how badly flawed we are.  Observe animal behavior and you might learn something.  The world of animals is a brutal world, a predatory one where the fit survives and the weak perishes most of the time.  We can domesticate animals and take some of that out of them, but they remain what they are - an animal. 

I've learned something from my association with animals.  Like all human beings, I have some big time flaws.  I don't really like people all that much.  I have some friends and family, and I love these people.  When it comes to people I don't know, I usually avoid them.  I love animals better than most people because I can accept them as what they are, and I've had difficulties doing that with people.  People piss me off, disappoint me, and I've been hurt more by people than animals.  Maybe that's because I understand that some animals are dangerous and stay clear of them, admire them at a distance.  I have a hard time recognizing that in people.  They don't look dangerous most of the time.  I can't look at a person and see them as a tiger, and they just might be more dangerous than any tiger ever had time to be.  But I'm getting better about recognizing good people as I get older.  And there are lots of good people in this world.

My doorbell rang the other night just about the time I was cutting myself a big slice of pumpkin pie.  So, I go to the door, and find a couple of young men standing there.  Mormon missionaries, same garb - black and white, dressed nice, and bearing backpacks with their religious progaganda.  And they're standing there smiling, like a couple of big dogs wagging their tails, and I said, "Do you guys like pumpkin pie?"  They said they did, so I invited them in for a slice of pie.  And they stayed for two hours, and we never talked about religion.  We talked about Utah and guitars and things like that, and it was a pleasant visit.  And before they left, I asked if they had anywhere to go for Thanksgiving.  They said no, so I invited them back to eat with us.  They accepted, and looked surprised in doing so.

I don't know much about Mormons, but I know that these young men aren't up to anything dangerous.  They're just doing a duty, fulfilling a requirement of their Church, and showing them a little kindness sure won't hurt me any.  These kids are a long way from home, and they run across enough hostility as it is without getting more of it from me.  If a dog wags his tail at me, I'm more than likely going to pet him.  I might be cautious about it at first, but if he shows me good intent, I take it as such.  Why should I be any different about people?  I'm not sure, but it's just possible that the best animal on the planet might be one with a tail.

THE LINE CAMP

It started as a guitar shop, but it has evolved into a home for refugee cats and lots of stuff.  It's an old house that was built sometime in the 1920s - just a little place of about a thousand square feet.  Someone added a room to the back later on, and that became home to my building tools.  I turned the rest of the place into a showroom for musical instruments, more space for working on guitars, an office, and a small den for just hanging out.  And, it's got a kitchen and bathroom.  I keep things there like vintage guitars, mandolins, fiddles, accordions, old cameras and movie equipment, and some old audio equipment.  It is also home to most of my cowboy collectibles - hats, chaps, boots, even a saddle and old rope.  Not many people get inside the Line Camp, but those who do say it's more like a museum than anything else.

And that's where Lionell, Urkle, Muffin, Lulu, Pekabo, and Yoda live - cats.  Good cats that don't destroy my stuff and get well taken care of.  I go there twice a day to feed them, and I spend some time each day playing with them.  Outside the Line Camp is more stuff - a flat bed trailer with lots of trash piled up on it, an old boat and motor, and a little SUV I bought back in 1984 . . . and some benches for working outside . . . and more cats.  Yeah, there's Big Mama, Ruty, Tinker, Toby, two full time kittens (Gidget and Gizmo), and four other kittens that show up most days.  Oh, yeah, and one chihuahua dog that mooches treats most days.  The Line Camp is therefore a cat rescue area.  Not that I need more cats.  I've got a dozen of them here at home, but they're big time spoiled cats and not like my cats across town.

It's hard to work on a guitar with a half dozen cats all over you.  Maybe you've noticed, but cats are curious critters, and these cats are only 7 months old.  I've got an older computer over there (still one of my favorites), but it's hard to write there for the same reason.  Once it gets colder outside, I'll take my laptop over there and work some (when I'm not in the shop working on guitars).  That's my domain, a place where everything is done the way I want it.  No woman to deal with there, no demands and no restraints.  Here at home, I'm under zoning restrictions when it comes to rooms.  I've got an office and a music room, and she's got the rest of the house.  I'm not complaining.  She puts up with me and my animal friends, and that's a biggie 'cause I'm a pain in the ass most of the time.  Actually, some of the cats here started life at the Line Camp.  And my son in Austin has four cats that came from the Line Camp.

I can build almost anything out of wood, not just guitars.  I've loved wood since I was just a small boy, and I can't remember a time when I didn't have a hammer, saw, and other tools to work with wood.  I've built furniture, cabinets, and even a few houses.  And I've been in love with guitars for a very long time.  I learned guitar making by reading and asking lots of questions, and my guitars are usually good instruments.  I once had ambitions of making money building guitars but gave up on that in a hurry.  Dealing with the demands of a buying public is irritating, even depressing, so I gave that up in favor of building guitars to keep.  I've given away quite a few, but most of them are right where they belong - either here at my house or at the Line Camp.

I build guitars for the same reason I write books.  I enjoy it.  In fact, without those two things, I'd have no interest in staying alive.  I'm old and time is short for me now, but I've still got work to do.  I want to have twenty books in print before I die (just got 7 now), and I want to leave behind at least 100 guitars.  My son is a guitar enthusiast, so he'll probably reap the harvest of guitars when I'm gone.  I tell people that I make guitars to last for a long time, maybe centuries if they're cared for.  The books I put in print might last longer than that.  My grandfather left me an old shotgun and a gold pocket watch, and I treasure both of them.  But what I treasure most about people is the memory of them, and having something they gave me jogs the memory.  I'll post some pictures of the Line Camp later on.