Random Scattershooting

joepa and cain, the truth shall set you free

2011-11-08T23:01:00.003-06:00

Might free them up from their present gigs, but oh well.

My maternal grandfather who had about 3 political chromosomes dedicated to democratic principles called it right when he said Nixon should have just followed the advice given to him and 'fessed up to what he did. It would do Joe Paterno and Herman Cain good to follow the same advice.

Neither one has to completely divulge every sordid detail, merely admit some sort of culpability and fall on their symbolic sword. Joe has to leave, Herman might get to stay and make more fun happy for the D side of the aisle. I kinda hopes he does. He is siphoning off lots and lots of cash away from other candidates by his mere presence. The longer he is in the race the better it is for my man. He is an anchor now. One big massive freaking pile of iron that drags down everybody else. I personally don't give a big rat's ass if he manages to salvage his campaign or not. I kind of hope he continues on his present path.

Joe Pa on the other hand... well as much as I might despise PSU I don't really want to see his legacy so tarnished that this is the major bullet point in his bio. "Joe Paterno was asleep at the switch when his Defiendsive coordinator was butt-fucking boys in the shower"

He has to quit and like tomorrow. Tearful replies to students from his back porch notwithstanding. He has to go. Him and everybody that might even remotely have had a clue that this was happening. If PSU wants to ever and I mean fucking ever wants to get on the good side of the football gods they had better clean house and I mean now. El Presidente must fire at will and then fall on his own sword and resign. That alone will salvage their reputation and repudiate this mess. Joe can avoid the damned media a while but eventually his ego will get the better of him and his age will allow him to forget that they are still gunning for him. The PR dept will remember but he will overrule them and then he will march out there to be eaten alive. If he stays that WILL happen. He cannot avoid them forever. Sorry Joe, you gotta go. You had the power to fix this earlier and you didn't. You were the bishop in charge of this wayward priest and you just tried to hide it. That won't fly. It didn't in church and it won't on the gridiron. Your ass is grass.

Herman is toast. Joepa might be able to salvage something out of this, but it is all about ego now. Humble yourselves and admit some fault and it might go better for you. Stick to your story and it all falls down.

I personally don't give a damn if you lie your ass off.

2011-09-14T20:57:00.000-05:00

Hans Arp, by Man Ray

We are political beings by our natures
even if you say you are apolitical
it still affects you and touches your life
this concern of the polis

2011-09-14T20:52:00.000-05:00

bootcactus
flowerinclay

how

doIsurvive?

eachday

oneday

isfollowed,bythenight

andthenthesun

comesagain

whenIremember

tinycactus

growinginflint

seedscast

generations,ago

ifigure

ought

tohangon

too

battlefiends

whenwill

end

pleasestop

findsome

peace

your

self

tiredoflooking

for

kindness

and

finding

grim

passthatlamp

overhere

Diogenes

The dreaded and feared Sandbur, aka The Sticker

2011-01-21T10:24:00.003-06:00

If you don't have to deal with stickers/sandburs/Cenchrus then goody for you. The rest of us sorry individuals have this rather nasty weed to contend with every summer.
Let the battle begin.

From: Cummings, Dr. Hennen
Subject: Controlling field sand bur in your home lawn
To:
Date: Wednesday, January 19, 2011, 3:19 PM

If you are interested in controlling sandbur (stickers) or crabgrass in your lawn this summer, now is the time. Please go to Home Depot in Granbury or Weatherford. The brand name is Lesco which is why you have to go to Home Depot. You are looking for a 50-pound yellow bag kept with the fertilizers. The product is Lesco 0-0-7 PRE-M. The active ingredient is pendimethalin. Apply it like a fertilizer according to the directions using a rotary spreader. Uniform coverage is very important to prevent weed escapes. The product will stain concrete, so make sure you blow if off your driveway when you are finished. It may also stain on your pants' leg and spreader. The product needs to be watered in with a 1/2 inch of water (run the irrigation until several tuna cans laid out across the lawn are half-full). The product will control summer annual weeds like field sandbur when applied in Feb. before the weed seeds germinate. It will not control perennial weeds like dandelion that come back from vegetative structures. The bag will cost about $21.00 per 12,000 ft². Be careful putting herbicides on St. Augustinegrass. The fewer herbicides placed on St. Augustinegrass the better. Even if St. Augustinegrass is on the label, it may still be stunted for a month or more. Fall preemergence herbicide applications for winter annual weed control (henbit, chickweed, annual bluegrass) are safer on St. Augustinegrass than spring applications, but they control different weed spectrums. The active ingredient can stunt root growth. Do not apply the product anywhere you plan to plant seeds like vegetables or flowers or have wild flowers. Apply 4 pounds/1000ft² of Lesco 0-0-7 Pre-M. You may need to apply again in July, but hopefully, a dense, aggressive turf will prevent sunlight from reaching the soil and stimulating summer annual weed seeds to germinate and a second application will not be necessary. It is too soon for nitrogen fertilizers, so do not apply a preemergence herbicide on a nitrogen fertilizer carrier. Apply the nitrogen once a month starting in April; May would be better if you can be patient. The more nitrogen fertilizer one adds, the more often one should mow. If one cannot mow more often than once a week, then use nitrogen fertilizer more sparingly. Always maximize the amount of slow release nitrogen and iron in the fertilizers for lawns.

Fire ant control measures are available in stores now, but you have plenty of time to get those applied. Products containing fipronil work well for a long period of time.

Rock on,

Hennen Cummings, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor and Director of Turfgrass Management
Tarleton State University

As the timestamp shows, this was THIS WEEK. In the middle of the winter, frost on the ground and colder than a well-digger's butt outside this college boy wants us to start on the yard NOW?
Why yes indeed he does and he is right.
Here is why.
Long before you want to have that cookout in the backyard and long before the seedheads form on the varying species of Cenchrus later this summer the seeds lie in wait for the warming sun of early spring to germinate. Once they have sprouted out of their infernal seedcoat and begun the process of producing more of these awful impediments to bare feet it is too late for this product mentioned to have any effect. The term pre-emergent is what we use to describe a product that prevents or kills a seed at or very close after germination. Now, for those that don't even know the term germination that is when the root and leaf or leaves emerge from the seed. Remember the bean in the cup? Root goes down, leaves go up and what a miracle it appears to be. In the case of the widely despised sandbur this is something we should try to prevent or inhibit as much as possible but not to the detriment of desirable plants.
Pendimethalin is mostly benign to critters that you might have including chickens or other fowl. Since we want to water it into the soil the risk of exposure to you or your animals or any other individual animal is minimal. I can hear that moaning too. Yes, you have to water it in. Yes, it has to be at least a half an inch. Don't tell me you can't come up with some cans resembling a tuna fish can. I can go in your kitchen right now and find some good candidates for water sampling. Don't trust your gut in knowing how much water your irrigation system puts out, whether it is an old school impact sprinkler, high tech rotor or your thumb over the end of a hose.
Do you think for one minute that Colonial or any other golf course would just fling water around willy-nilly with no accurate assessment of how much is actually going on the course? It isn't hard to accomplish the task. Get a dozen or so conveniently open and somewhat flat cans or other containers, spread them randomly but evenly over your given space and turn on the water.
Go away. Leave. Go have a beer, glass of wine or other beverage of your choice.
I'll take a double shot of whiskey, thanks.
Sip on it. Take your time. Check out your spreader. Does it need new tires or just some air?
Spray some WD-40 on the parts that move around and sometimes get stuck. Use duct tape on the parts that should not move but do.
Brace yourself it is time to calibrate this thing.
Got tired head already? Ok go hire somebody. Ask them the last time they calibrated their equipment. Don't remember? Thanks, buh bye. Click. I don't care about how much or how little they charge to apply pre-emergent. If they don't calibrate their spreader it is close akin to a nurse shooting you up with drugs from a syringe without a means of measuring. Gotcha some Demerol, half a tube ought to be about right. There ya go! Brilliant. Your yard is no different.
You need to know exactly how much of whatever you are putting out is going on your yard or pasture. If you are putting out a product over a large area it obviously is going to be more dollars that we are putting at risk, but in any case the effectiveness of the product and its level of impact are determined by the dosage. Duh. Just cranking open the chute on your spreader and stomping around the yard with no concept of how much is being flung around is quite possibly dangerous and certainly less than effective. In the case of pendimethalin it is not so much the risk of toxicity as it is the lack of effectiveness. Note that he says 4# per 1000ftsq. That means you need a way to measure exactly how much stuff your spreader is spreading at a given setting and adjusting that setting to get the correct amount over the desired area. This is called calibration of a spreader. Look it up. Follow the directions. Get on it.
If you know you have a yard that is prone to sandburs I would highly recommend using this product. If you have a yard that is prone to crabgrass, the same stuff works on them too.
I would recommend some old nasty boots or other footwear that you don't care what they look like being used for this operation. DO NOT USE WATER TO GET IT OFF THE SIDEWALK OR DRIVEWAY! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. It will dye it a nice bright yellow. Canary yellow, lemony lemon yellow. A broom will work and so will a blower. Save the water for the irrigation.
Speaking of which, you can go check the water now. Not up to a half inch yet? Repeat process until you do.

Believe it or not. Spring is right around the corner.

Root hog

2010-08-11T23:48:00.003-05:00

Brodt!

I suppose I just have to keep on digging. Somewhere somehow some way.
The other side of the river and the valley. I do not know what is there.
I hear the platitudes. I hear the well wishes. I sense the compassion and care.
I have to do it myself. And I get a lot of help.

Bad recordings of things we tell ourselves and others have to show us

the silliness of what we believed. perception of us as we saw ourselves in another
it is like the man said to me about all manner of therapy
when we have been wounded
the ultimate answer and final resolution after we have cried our tears
and been consoled in our misery
is to pick yourself up and get going again
Get up and go out the door out on the street all alone. Busted if need be

Crushing Depression

2010-08-07T15:35:00.002-05:00

I have heard the term before. I have probably seen it in other people. Now, I get to experience it for myself.

I suppose I can go copy and paste some clinical checkmarks to describe how I feel right now, but even that seems like a waste of time. I know them by heart anyhow.
1) nothing seems to matter. what I do seems to have no positive impact on my life. No matter how many resumes I send out or how much I polish my resume, there is no response. The things that I do seem to have no importance.
2)It is hard to be around other people. If I could lock myself away or walk off into the wilderness and abandon it all, I would be sorely tempted to do so. I can't because I am a dad and a member of a family that would break down the door or send bloodhounds to find me.
3)I have no desire to do anything. When I can muster up the energy to do things they have lost flavor and any impetus for me to continue doing them.

Ok, I am rapidly losing the desire to even write this down. Nobody will read this besides me and it sounds too much like whining. It is so hard to go out and look for a job that I know is not there. It is hard to see people that do nothing and have more money than they know what to do with. It makes me jealous and angry. I can understand why people would eat a bullet or down a bottle of pills or drive off a cliff. It feels like God has set me adrift. I can understand why someone would become agnostic or actively dismiss God entirely. Yeah, I might be saved into the Bosom of Abraham, but I might also be the starving leper outside the gate of the rich man destined to poverty my entire natural life and only after dying experience my basic needs of existence met. That prospect does not engender hope in me. The fact is that even Jesus himself said that the poor would always be with us. Perhaps the "us" is me. I do not think he was referring to the poverty of the soul. I think he meant what we generally understand as poor; broke, unemployed and without visible means of support. Elijah got sent to the poorest widow in town and her one son and then asked them to bake the last bit of meal they had and feed it to him. She has more faith than I do. Abraham was told to sacrifice his son and got held back at the last second. Job sat there and pondered his fate, argued with his friends and even was so bold to ask God "why". The answer he got was simply, sit there and take it, you're man and I am God. Not telling you why I do what I do or when I am going to do it. Gee, that makes me feel SO MUCH BETTER. Random chance is even more impersonal. At least the despondent believer can still cling to the idea that he might be saved from himself. The atheist believer in random chance has resigned themselves to the idea that very little in this life time is at our control or that things happen for any reason whatsoever.

Gone by the point of caring. some old bed i'll soon be sharing
Gloom, despair and agony on me. If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.

It is so tempting to curl up on the couch and shut out this day, but I have to come to grips with the failure of my life and continue packing up my stuff as evidence of it. I hate moving, even under the best of circumstances and these are decidedly not that.

Country Music and what passes for it.

2009-10-30T11:40:00.003-06:00

At the risk of being called an old geezer, sexist and backwards I submit to you that country music does not deserve that name any more. It ceased to be country some years ago and is now masquerading around in that costume, but underneath the rhinestones and satin it is pop music and soft jazz. It is one or two notches up the valium scale of sleep-inducing music above Muzak.
Let me be perfectly clear about this. I do not fault anyone at anytime for making the most of their opportunities. If I could figure out how to make millions of dollars off of the millions women that buy what Nashville is cranking out by the truckload, I would do it and stuff whatever conscience remained in me in my back pocket. I do not blame Shania for taking the money and doing the videos. I do not blame Jack Ingram for dying his hair and playing Happy Happy Country Country songs for the masses that listen to the radio. Jack went from a seldom-played -on -most- airwaves to being all over the world in a few short years. This is where I found Jack. This is where he is now. There is no shame in it Jack, take the money and run. Jack isn't radically different in presentation of music from those days back when he played little bars and rode in a van, what changed was that Nashville figured out they could make a buck off him. I hope he keeps the same fire he had back in the day, but hell even U2 had a Blackberry Tent in Dallas and big sponsor presence. But, if he starts to sound like smooth jazz I am done with him. Nothing against jazz either, love me some Sade, but she isn't trying to convince me she could sing rockabilly.

This really isn't a rant about being a sell-out. I don't give a damn about that. It is about honesty. It really isn't even dishonesty on the part of the artist. They are just being themselves. It is Nashville. They are the ones that made Dwight Yoakum change hillbilly music to et cetera. It is they that told us that some songs are just too twangy and we should really not be too much like Bill Monroe or Hank Sr. Better to be like his son, better to polish up that production value and get a good set of backing singers. I think it was Ann Murray that pushed them over the edge. "You needed me" went to numero uno. All that outlaw stuff that had been happening was just a blip on the radar. People don't want long-haired dope-smoking cowboys singing honky-tonk music. They want soft ballads and soothing vocals with strings and horns.
That was the foothold. Ann Murray is and was a great singer, but she isn't country. Never has been, not going to be. Shania isn't country either. Again, not their fault, I just wish that Nashville would quit telling me they are.

George Jones got interviewed the other day about this phenomena of one music genre pretending it is another. He isn't fond of it either. When the reporter asked him about Johnny Cash singing "Hurt" and was that a violation in his opinion he didn't answer it directly but responded to her follow-up about rap. In his geezerly downplay of rap as a viable music he missed the opportunity to smackdown her insinuation that somehow the pop/jazz renditions of what is called country are somehow equal with Johnny's minimalist approach to Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode. I challenge you to find me the similarities between the lone piano and guitar in those two songs with the lush production of Shania.

Look, I know there are a lot of females out there like the one named 'ohiocarebear' that posted a tribute video of Carrie Underwood with a bedding track of Kenny Chesney's "Big Star". If fat bottomed girls make the rocking world go round as Freddie Mercury so clearly reminded us, then they also are major contributors to the continuing success of sappy lyrics and slushy strings that pervade modern country songs. It isn't as though there aren't musicians still playing what would commonly be recognized as country, but because they are so atavistic they are lumped into the catch-all term of Americana. This is merely Nashville's attempt to distance themselves from their embarrassing past. They really don't like to acknowledge that they are indeed sons and daughter's of coal miners and cowboys. A nice mythos, but in reality let's not remind people about that so very much. It is as if our ancestors of George Jones and Lefty Frizzel are drunken uncles to be kept out on the fringes where polite people won't get offended. Notwithstanding George's well-documented encounters with the bottle and the law, his music is no less appreciated today than it was forty years ago. I will agree with the man on his disdain for modern country, but not his dismissal of other genres. I don't really mind if they keep on cranking out music for carebear2398 and txsweetie1123, just stop calling it what it ain't.
On that note, I will leave you with a song that will never ever ever be heard on KPLX or any other Nashville outpost, but is more country in the first bar than ninety-five percent of what will be played there today or any other day,

Native Grasses vs. St. Augustine, et al.

2009-10-26T08:42:00.002-06:00

Ok, I will admit that there is a primal need and desire in mankind to feel grass upon bare feet. Landscape companies play on this market demand by having nifty names with an implied statement that they can render your pock-marked lunar landscape that is known as a yard to resemble one that would be acceptable at your local high dollar golf course.

Yeah, right.

I know you want to feel a carpet of green between your toes, well then get ready to shell out the money. It really doesn't matter if you want to plant native grasses or ones that have been brought in from somewhere else, you are going to spend some money to get them into that state. The Houston Chronicle ran an article today about some research being done over at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Research Center. The upshot of it was that people spend a lot of water and fertilizer to grow the typical species of turfgrass in Texas. It is a well established fact that half of our water consumption is poured out on the ground to irrigate turf. That is an inescapable, undeniable fact of life in Texas. Tom Hicks and George Strait represent the higher end of homeowner consumers of water. Both men spend thousands of dollars a year in water alone to keep their vast lawns a vivid green. I suspect both men have either a bermudagrass hybrid or St. Augustine. It is entirely possible that they have bentgrass in some areas or another high maintenance species of grass. Now, bermudagrass will survive our brutal summers with very little to zero supplementary water. Note that I said it will survive. It is going to go mostly dormant and appear brown and dead. This is not an acceptable alternative. It is fine out there in the pasture, not exactly desirable, but it is the nature of how the grass behaves under pressure from the hammer of July and August. St. Augustine will not survive. It needs more water than our summers provide. This is the major driving force behind a recommendation for native grasses. The three species used in the research by the wildlfower boys are ones that stay fairly short and require far less water to remain green in summer than do the other two. If I could go all summer and water maybe once or twice a month, instead of once or twice a week, that would effectively cut my water consumption. Then there is the pollution factor, that deserves a whole blog in itself, but we will wade into that area too.

Look here, check your dirt. About twice a year. Middle of the summer and the end of the season. It costs all of ten dollars to get the results from the Aggies down in College Station. EVERY state in the union has some Local Agent that is more than willing to give you a bag so you can put dirt in it and send it off to the Land Grant University to determine its requirements of N,P and K.

Why would you want to do this? So you don't put any more than is required on your soil.

Farmers do this all the time. When you buy fertilizer by the ton, it is in your best interest not to put out more than is required. How do we determine this? When you send in your sample form and sack of dirt, you will put on the form what sort of grass you grow and for what purpose. In Texas there is an urban form and a rural form. One for pastures and one for yards. The grasses may be exactly the same, but what we are asking them to do is different. However, the nature of the results will be identical. They, the labcoat boys from Aggieland, will tell you in no uncertain terms exactly how many pounds of nitrogen, phosporus and potassium that your yard requires per a given area. If you are doing a pasture it is in acres, if it is a yard it is 1000ft sq. You can obviously convert from one to the other, but they did at least some of the math and will give it to you in one equation or the other. Well now Mr. Plant dude how do I get from 1lb of N per 1000 to where I know how much to put on the lawn of my 15-5-10?

Break out your calculator. Quit your bitching! I promise it won't hurt your head that much!

It is a really simple equation. Simple enough for the most doltish of agricultural students to understand. Want over got. I want one pound of N I have got 15% per pound of fertilizer soo

1/.15 = 6.66666666666666and a bunch moresixes and then a 7 or 6 and 2/3rds of a pound of 15-5-10 per 1000 feet square. Well how do I know how much to put on with my spreader?

Uhh, that is called calibration.

First you mark off a nice area on the driveway, some parking lot or any other large area or you can put some sort of catch device on your spreader. Then you measure off how big your spreader throws. Four feet, five feet Take that length and then divide 1000 by it and that gives you the distance. Dump some fertilizer in the hopper and take off at normal speed. Start off on a lower setting. After you have covered the entire area measure/weigh the amount of fertilizer dispensed. This means you get to sweep up what you flung out on the driveway or dump your catch device into another bucket and weigh it. Adjust until you are putting out the correct amount of product for 1000ft sq. Yeah, it is a beating, that is why somebody pays me to do it. If you ARE hiring this job done, inquire as to how often they calibrate their machines. Ask to see the soil report, do they not do one? Fire them immediately or at least demand that they do two a year from now on. Why does all this make a damn bit of difference? Two main reasons, if you do not know how much of these three elements are required, then you will either under apply or over apply. This wastes money and is the reason why homeowners are often bigger offenders of run off pollution than many farms. If you do not know that your yard has reached a toxic level of phosphorus then in all likelihood you are going to continue to apply it as has been done for the last decade. Even if we decide to do native grass blends instead of bermudagrass or St. Augustine knowing their requirements and our soil's nutrient availability is still crucial. But, Mr. Plant dude they keep telling me that the buffalograss requires less water and fertilizer, is that so?

Yes, but it doesn't preclude you from knowing the content of your soil or calibrating your spreader. Even if buffalograss only requires one pound of nitrogen per year instead of per month in the growing season, it is still necessary to know how much nitrogen you are applying per 1000 ft square. There are the long term benefits of native grasses over those that are typically grown in landscapes. They require less water to be comparably desirable and less fertilizer to maintain that desirability. There will be initial outlays of money for seed and the high labor input of removing the existing landscape if you are converting a bermudagrass yard to one comprised of buffalograss, curly mesquitegrass and blue grama, but in the long run they will be more fiscally responsible as well as ecologically less impactful.

Think I left me ove here, somewher

2009-09-23T23:40:00.002-05:00

I used to sort of pay attention
then I stopped caring
and it took more than i figured to shake me out of myself
used to was
i had timeandmoney
andi gave me
where could and would
the person i was and will be
are there and gone
all i have is dollars now
where is he!?
apply now at most urgenty dispatch
was i there yesterday?
did you see me
and my wallet?
did i have it with me?
so far away

i had pieces of me
sure i left them here
i remember it
honest now
swear to you
i am and was or will be here
yesterday
and tomorow

time and words i leave behind

2009-05-29T01:17:00.004-05:00

an excellent idea.

i don't remember words or when they came to me
I know the smell of a library and the touch of paper

i remember a blob on my algebra folder
this was before the Cistercians in a folded corner
it was just a spill that looked like a soldier in his great coat
words found me

now words are what i punch on a screen
instead of trying to prove to someone else that i know what the hell i am talking about
check that
yeah i got that paper to do on that too, meetings
still going before the committee of judges
instead of money or was it grades or was it time

i was a junkman selling your cars
washing your windows
and shining your stars Neil Young

when i said to the man from Saltillo
whose grandmother ate chicken feet that scared him
that the history of his country was like a big, loud fiesta
he knew i was right and he nodded
i remembered that it was all a tapestry
just a thread, a tiny braid in time
that tree is far older than I will ever be

if all i have left is the words that i leave behind
if all i have is the children that grow and know
then some part of me is still being ornery and hard headed
somewhere I am laughing

What I know wouldn't fill a teaspoon.

2009-05-23T11:30:00.004-05:00

Took one of those half-assed tests on facebook
cooked up by someone with far too much time on their hands
"What do you know about women?" Men only!
I got 100% and laughed at their conclusion.
What I know about women would not fill a teaspoon.

There is no bigger mystery in the world. Unlocking the mechanisms of life
when i parted the womb and grasped at the air around me
what did i know?
can you tell me?
i still know the woman that bore me out of herself
the father that mated with the egg
and wove DNA in a hidden world

we are what we are and there is no is that is not me
those we have touched and what we shared in the moment of now
is was and will be after we are gone
there is more of me than can go around
and i do not know how much i am
where i am and all that i shall be
is merely smoke and mirrors
shadows dancing upon cave walls

i was and there i will be again
i am and so shall i be

if i say i understand the other sex
if i say i know the woman
then i will surely lie
no matter how many of my kin
no matter how many dinners
they are there
and i am here

i do not know if we can ever know the other
it is enough to know for me that they are there
and that is good
or it is for me

i miss them when they are gone

30 years ago there was a Tornado

2009-04-13T20:03:00.005-05:00

Repost from over at the Great Orange Satan

Wichita Falls is not a pretty town. Texas Monthly once many years ago determined that being a full-time resident of WF was one of the worst jobs in Texas. I would have to concur. It is hotter than hell in summer, colder than a well-digger's butt in winter and occasionally Oklahoma decides to fly by in the wind, then it rains and the whole world looks like you decided to dump a bucket of mud on it. Thirty years ago this day one of the worst storms in the history of our country plowed through town.

According to the National Weather Service it was The Red River Valley Tornado Outbreak of April 10, 1979.

"When the giant tornado struck Wichita Falls just before 6:00 p.m., most people were not surprised. Severe weather warnings had been in effect for Wichita County and Wichita Falls for almost an hour. The warnings were being broadcast repeatedly by two local TV stations and three local radio stations which were receiving continuously updated information over the emergency hotline connecting them with the Wichita Falls WSO. The siren system for the city was sounded three times, the last around 5:50 p.m., just as the storm spotters reported the tornado approaching Memorial Stadium in the southwestern suburbs of Wichita Falls. The giant tornado was a massive black column extending from the low striated base of the inky clouds to the ground. Huge pieces of debris thrown high in the air were clearly visible from miles away as the storm cut a swath of destruction through the city. Eyewitnesses described details of the storm differently, but they were unanimous on one point -- it was an awesome, terrifying experience beyond anything they had encountered before."

"Despite excellent warning lead-time and multiple soundings of the sirens, some people of Wichita Falls either did not hear the warnings or failed to take prescribed lifesaving actions. More than 40 died, and about 1,700 were injured. As the storm bore down, those who sought the safest refuge in their immediate surroundings generally fared well. Those who were caught in automobiles and trucks made up a high percentage of the fatalities. People from the shopping center took shelter in refrigerator vaults, in restrooms, and under closets. Several got extra protection by covering themselves with mattresses and pillows. They survived!"

Emphasis mine.

Back in 79, the average lead time was around five minutes. Now we can get about 10-15 minute leads. But, even with the extra five minutes the risk of becoming a piece of flying debris is too great to try to outrun one of these. Find somewhere to hide. In the tub with a mattress over you is still one of the better locations in your house. If you have an interior bathroom that isn't adjacent to exterior walls, that is even better. Of course a storm shelter is your best bet. That is where my grandfather, family and neighbors had all sought refuge. Their property did not sustain much damage. Others were not so fortunate. There were parts of town that were blown clean away. To this day I remember seeing a truck bumper stuck in top of a sycamore tree that was still standing. The scariest part of the entire thing was the not knowing. Nobody knew anything, there was no phone service and no such thing as cell phones back then. My mom got in her car and went out there. My sister and I stayed with my dad while she went to find out if my grandfather and her brother were alive. She said when she got to the edge of town the Highway Patrol had the road blockaded. She explained herself and the officer was not going to let her in, but she managed to convince him that she was going to find a way in come hell or high water. He finally let her go. I lost track of her for four or five days. I didn't know anything. There was no internet database to go search for victims. There was nothing to do but wait. When she finally called in and relieved my fears I found out that everybody we knew was ok, but the town was devastated.

How do you describe a tornado like this one? A mile wide and miles tall. I have heard some say it was three tornadoes that fused into one. At least one picture in the NWS link distinctly shows three funnels that later were one. I have studied weather as an amateur observer, but I know better than to think I will ever understand completely how these things form. Over-riding cold front on top of warm, humid air mass, anticyclones, wall clouds, Fujita scale, whatever other jargon I might gather along the way is no match for the terrible knowledge that any given spring or autumn day might turn out like this one 30 years ago.

If you get nothing else out of this diary and in spite of the fact that I just the other day did one on 'preppers' I implore all of dKos to be prepared for events like this. Have a plan. Have food on hand that will get you through a few days, same with water. Have a good first aid kit. Have a radio. Be prepared. If you are at home, find the safest place you can. If you are in your car, pull over and find shelter. Get in the damn beer cooler at the Quickie Mart if that is all you have. You, Apu and Bubba get in there and stay put.

I hope nobody ever needs this info. I hope you never see a day like this one thirty years ago.

Some selected comments from dear readers:

I grew up near Ada (Ardmore). One of my

earliest memories is of a terrifying night spent sitting in my mother's lap in a crowded cellar as a tornado hit.

My mother was one of nine children; the day the youngest child was born (my uncle) their house was wiped out by a tornado (West Texas). The baby was born at home, so the entire family crowded into the bedroom with my grandmother (in bed with the baby). My grandfather held a quilt over the window to block the softball sized hail that was pounding the house. The only thing left standing after the storm was the bedroom.

by praenomen on Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 07:47:50 PM PDT

How weird, I was just talking about that tornado!

I was telling my family about it, having no idea it was 30 years ago TODAY.

I was in Lawton Oklahoma at the time, and we had one that day, too, that killed two people, one of whom was a baby ripped out of its parent's arms.

Crazy day. I was 17 years old and was out fishing with a buddy (in a boat! Stupid!), and then as we were driving back into town we heard there was a tornado on the ground near the downtown. We headed right down, to try to see, it and were on the scene immediately after it hit.

We only found out later about the Wichita Falls disaster. That was nasty. I was down there a month or two later and it was just a wasteland. There were still pieces of cars up in the stripped branches of the trees that remained standing. As far as you could see. That thing was a mile wide, as you mentioned.

Scary stuff.

William Casey "We will know that we have succeeded when everything the public believes is false"

by Inky99 on Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 06:40:20 PM PDT

I was there for this one, and MAN...

Talk about having the bejabbers scared out of you. We were on Gossett Drive, right behind the edge of the ridge above Sikes Center where so many people died.

The sirens were the most eerie, terrifying thing this East Coast baby had ever heard. When I looked out the back door toward where it was supposed to be, I couldn't see a classic funnel cloud -- because the storm was about a mile and a half wide at that point -- but I could HEAR that classic rushing roar. I saw debris flying up against the black backdrop of the "sky" (actually the funnel!), but I still wasn't sure where the storm was. It was almost on top of me!

The kids and I huddled in the hall, and luckily we were just on the edge of the worst of it. We had some damage, but three doors down the houses were flat all the way to the kids' elementary school.

Think of the worst photos of war zones you've ever seen, and you'll come close to knowing what it looked like.

Not something you ever forget.

by Julia Grey on Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 10:31:02 PM PDT

I was born in Wichita Falls, 3/22/61,

more pix

2009-04-06T11:27:00.006-05:00

Broad-headed Skink

2009-04-01T08:16:00.006-06:00

These little critters loved to sun themselves in the pots that leaned against my shed down in Aggieland when I worked for the Peach Guru. I had to shake them out of the pots daily during this time of year. If I didn't,te larger males with their testosterone swollen heads could not get out through the drain holes and couldn't make the climb out of the slick plastic tombs. The smaller black one is a juvenile. http://www.uga.edu/srelherp/SPARC/trip23.htm Has some interesting info about them. If you happen to find one of these on your place, let it be. Anything that relishes yellow jacket larvae is a good friend to have.

Echinocereus reichenbachii/Lace Cactus

2009-03-22T19:19:00.006-06:00

This is why I like cactus.

Chenille Plant

2009-03-15T17:47:00.009-06:00

Red Cat-tail? perhaps. It will grow outside in tropical climates, zone 10 or better. In most of the world this thing never gets as tall as this one. I found it in Fort Worth at the Botanical Garden Conservatory. I like that big glass barn. They have done a good job of updating it over the last decade or so. Several of the overgrown palm trees have been removed and they have done a masterful job of creating microclimates within the canopy and on the floor of the greenhouse. This one is tall enough for me to walk under and take this picture with the sun shining through the flowers. Been on more than one date to this place. A quiet, conversational sort of place in the town of the Cow.
This plant is usually found in the trade as a hanging basket and works well in that regard. It loves humidity. A sunny window in the kitchen, bathroom or other indoor place that sees a lot of ambient moisture is a good location. U of Florida maintains that it blooms best in full sun. I will take that under advisement until I see that it can handle Texas after noon. Nonetheless an interesting investment in your continued efforts to replicate the tropics on your patio. Worth the 20 bucks to park it out by the wicker and see what it does. Might try one on the porch this year.

floating rose

2009-02-20T20:25:00.001-06:00

Prickly Pear

2009-02-18T10:08:00.004-06:00

Prickly Pear Cactus is one of the archetypal images conjured up by publicists to attempt to sell the American Southwest. Hereafter known as SW. Where I live this thing is everywhere. I consulted the OED for some illumination on the etymology of the word cactus. Straight out of Latin. Kaktos in the Greek. Prickly. Lovely. Find another word to define the first one. Wankers.
Prick=Sharp Pointed Stick. Well duh. Did you really expect something else? #17 is the one that refers to the male appendage citing an early reference of 1592. Figured you might be wondering about that.
Most of my family is convinced that my fascination with cactus is a recurrent symptom of mental instability. Australian ranchers in Queensland would probably concur with this. It seems that this plant was brought to that island on purpose. The apocryphal tale that it was brought by an immigrant Texan's homesick wife may have been true of one of the 59 species of these spiny plants, but in 1788 at least one cladode was brought to that continent where it and others of its kind flourished to the tune of 29 million acres.

At that time, Spain and Portugal had a world-wide monopoly on the important cochineal dye industry and the British Government was keen to set up its own source of supply within its dominion. The red dye derived from cochineal insects was important to the western world's clothing and garment industries. It was, for example, the dye used to colour the British soldiers' red coats.

It was at the instigation of Sir Joseph Banks that a cochineal dye industry was established at Botany Bay. Little is known of the fate of those first plants introduced by Captain Phillip, but it has been established that the particular variety of prickly pear brought to Australia in the First Fleet to set up a dye industry was "smooth tree pear" (Opuntia vulgaris). This type of cactus is still found along coastal areas of New South Wales, and is classified as a noxious weed. However, Opuntia vulgaris never developed into a major problem as did some of its relatives - especially Opuntia stricta spp. and O. aurantiaca

Prickly Pear History

It didn't work out so well for the settlers of Australia. It is well-documented that it became a noxious pest plant. As any camper, hiker, cowboy, city slicker who has ever had the misfortune to fall into a clump can attest cactus can be painful, decidedly so. The Pear Facts is a nifty little fact sheet concerning its history in that part of the world. In 1925 they decided to give this little bitty moth a try, Cactoblastis cactorum It is called "biological control" when we send one organism to attack another. Ladybird beetles (ladybugs) will eat aphids, but if you become an active participant in the hunt, you too have become organic. So, the Aussies gave it a try. Why not? Fire didn't kill it. Arsenicals not so much. But the very hungry caterpillars? OMG! They never quit! That critter was so successful they built a memorial hall complete with historical stone marker, Boonarga Cactoblastis Memorial Hall. HOWEVER, it is not a welcome immigrant here. At least not to me and a few others. Ranchers might want to take off to Puerto Rico and smuggle back some egg casings if they knew how. Be patient men, it will make it over the Mississippi eventually. The only thing that will slow it down is the cold or other biological characters we bring against it. It is difficult to consider Texas and Mexico without the ubiquitous Opuntia species. Yeah, sure there is a market for nopalitos and tunas, but it is the cultural implications rather than the economic impact that bothers me. There will be no vacuum formed in the panoply of plants that inhabit the SW. Again, the ranchers are scratching their heads wondering why on earth I would want to trade cactus and yucca for grass and forbs. Down in the core of my being I am not too terribly concerned. Prickly Pear will survive this moth attack.
I do not know an easier plant to grow. Take one pad, throw it on the ground and wait. That's it. You don't even have to actually put it in the soil. Merely having one or two aeroles (where the spines are) in contact with the soil is enough for the pad to grow roots.
There are two basic types; dry, green fruited ones and the fleshy purple ones. There are many variations in pad size, spine length, height and distribution. Flower color ranges from a clear yellow to a pinkish red. It is unusual but not rare to see more than one color on a plant due to sporting/mutation. Color is not a species determinant.
Other tales of Prickly Pear? The story goes that when the Aztecs found an eagle perched on a cactus growing from a rock eating a snake that they would build a great city. Tada! Tenochitlan. It was on a Prickly Pear cactus that the caracara ate a rattlesnake in the middle of the swamp. Some say the coyote uses his tail to brush off the spines before he eats the tuna. Yeah, sure sounds great.
It is certainly edible. I like nopalito and potato tacos. The test for palatability of the pads is to snap one in two. If it breaks cleanly without the interior cords being present it is still tender enough to eat. The green fruit probably has some medicinal properties but I do not know them. The purple fruit is sweet, but seedy. Good ones are plum colored, 2-3 inches long and swollen with juice. Since mankind has managed to make booze out of every sugary or carbo-laden plant this one also has been fermented and distilled. Tell me how it tastes, never tried it. Watch out for the tiny hairlike spines called glochids. Duct tape works well to remove these tiny tormenters. Flower petals can be scrambled with eggs. Gotta try that this year. I see nopalito offered in my circle of taquerias around Easter, but I can find it at some year round. The pads are collected, spines removed if present, sliced, parboiled and canned for later use. Bust open a Mason jar of the tart, crisp slices, throw'em in a skillet with some taters and onions and slap that all in a tortilla. Good eatin' my friend.
Cactus isn't for everybody. Prickly Pear does not belong in a bed near the house or any walkway. Out in the median or in some hot, unforgiving corner that bakes in the summer sun is where it belongs. Prickly Pear does not care if you grow it on purpose or not. If you drag chains across it or burn it with fire it will regrow. We have developed chemical controls and it does have a formidable antagonist in the Cactoblastis, but despite all our efforts and under the harshest of circumstances it has and will continue to survive.
Opuntia, from the town in Greece, Opus. 250 species worldwide and 59 in North America. I wonder where I can find some good nopalito tacos today. Perhaps over at Vera Cruz, they have damn good salsa verde too.

A hat for summer

2009-02-02T17:35:00.003-06:00

I was asked to post a picture of a hat that cost me $50.

Right over here>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

It has served me well. It keeps the rain off my head, soaks up the sweat fairly well and does not generally fly off when the wind blows in 30mph gusts. I do have to screw it on a little tighter on those days, but so far I haven't had to chase it very often. Hats are not a fashion statement for me, they are an integral part of my work clothes. I will spend extra on a good hat that I know will last me a solid season and not fall apart under duress. Since it is winter it has sat patiently awaiting the return of the sweaty seasons. It will soon be back in service.

New Gardens

2008-09-20T11:01:00.004-05:00

There are gardens we plant in places that have seen flowers before
places that have known the fragrance of roses and the seeds of zinnias

Then there are places that have not seen anything but the grass or trees that have been
an unbroken chain for millenia. Ours is the task to change it or preserve it.
I cannot change the fact that there will be new houses in old places.
I can help them find the plants that are best suited to that place
and how to maintain the integrity of the environment.
Follow the directions on the label. La Label es La Ley. Why is it so much easier for the female of the species to grasp this idea? Because they actually learned how to follow the directions of a recipe? Application of chemicals whether they are considered organic or not. Some chemists despise the terms "organic" and "chemical" when it comes to agriculture, gardening or landscaping. The others just giggle and wag their heads in disdain. They have entered the vernacular and I am stuck with them for lack of better options.
Not following the directions on the label of the bag, bottle or container of stuff whether it came from the petro-chemical industry, squeezed out of an orange peel or was scraped off the barn floor means that it can be ineffective, dangerous to non-target species or a waste of money. If you spray orange oil as a herbicide willy-nilly anywhere you have a mind to and without regard for established procedures then you will cause harm where it was not intended. Applying any product without regard for the directions is going to cause problems.

There are so many products on the market that fail to live up to expectations. I thoroughly detest "weed blocker" because it does not work as promoted. In fact it actually makes the situation worse. I have pulled up far more of this weed laden fabric and impermeable plastic than I have ever laid down. One of my previous bosses was crazy about the stuff. It wasn't as though we did not have an unlimited supply of mulch and compost. He was convinced that this cloth would prevent weeds from growing. It does not. It cannot. A perennial plant will grow through it and embed itself in the fabric. Nutsedge will embed its tubers in the fabric meaning that extraction of them is impossible other than cutting out the fabric and splicing a fresh piece.
It sucks. It doesn't make my job easier, it makes it harder. The only time I find fabric like this useful is as a backing for a dry stacked wall to prevent or retard the soil from seeping through the gaps in the blocks or stone. That is it. As a weed preventer or barrier it is worthless.
Another product which seems to be heavily promoted is Atrazine. Supposedly a wonder bullet capable of rendering any lawn on par with a USGA green. The problem is that they don't bother to inform you outside of the very small paragraph buried in the boilerplate that it is mobile in the soil and can damage trees, shrubs and flowers. Gee, that sort of info might be handy.
I am downright anal about putting out chems of any kind. I want to know as much as is available about what it does and what to expect. I want to know about any risks or shortcomings of the product. The retailer just wants to sell me something. I don't begrudge him that fact.

Flowers

2008-07-29T12:38:00.004-05:00

I like flowers. Growing turf for football, soccer, golf or cows requires all the brain power of a gnat. Dirt+water+sun+some sundry elements/ leafy green material= Turf. Yeah, sure the golf course goes to great lengths to present a table top in the form of a green to confound lowly humans into breaking their putter into pieces so that they will buy another one, but they have a whole barn full of toys/equipment to fool you into believing that it requires a degree to run the place. The lady who owns one of the most exclusive private clubs in Texas, daughter to the man who established Colonial has exactly three fellows of Hispanic/Latino ethnicity who combined might have fifteen minutes of formal instruction in the art of turfgrass cultivation.
I asked the man when we went on tour if he had problems with migratory birds bothering the greens or fairways looking for grubs or other insects. His reply was yes it happens occasionally, but it really was not much of an issue. I inquired as to his method of excluding these federally protected species of avian attackers of good golf.
"Oh, I just tie the dog between two trees for a few days and then they leave."
Yeah, it requires some serious brain power to grow grass.
Flowers on the other hand will confound the most dedicated of gardeners. As if they were bent on a suicidal deathwish they receive our loving attention with all the regard of a catatonic patient. Coddling, coercion, cajoling in any measure will garner me nothing with some of the more recalcitrant ones. Some survive and even thrive as a means to spite me. "Oh you ignore me now! I will show you, you sorry sonofabitch! I am gonna bloom my ass off! Take that!"
They perturb and intrigue me. They never cease to surprise me.
Grass is easy, corn is easy, flowers are hard.

2008-06-16T18:27:00.002-05:00

Texas 2

crunchy sound of frozen turf wind whistling in the trees

icy fingers touching your neck

taste of dust and rust, as the plow parts the soil

clang and clamor of metal

touch of glass windows, shining in the sun

bustling city

hurrying to and fro, from anywhere and everywhere

farmer alone on the tractor

hub of the wheel touching the rim of the earth

buzzing bugs in the trees of summer

the crackle of grasshoppers in a field

relentless sun beats down upon the earth, hammering the inhabitants

the ants go down in the heat of the day

pity the individual who must go out to burn their skin

tar on the road is sticky hot, boiling in the sun

we survive, knowing that someday soon summer will give up and go away

usher in the cool air of autumn

with a rushing wind the trees shed their leaves

frost burns the leaves and drives them back to earth

so it goes on

rain and snow, sunshine, wind, earth and sky

Texas #5

Shall i say we are more like an amalgam or the conglomerated collection of souls?

Mashed together like so many taters

we sit at the crossroads of earth and sky

the flowers of our nativity persist

People from all over the globe come here, passing by or persisting

maintaining their specific tastes and passions and sharing them around

Dare I say that the influx of East and West has not had an impact?

if it weren't for Yankees, would we have A/C in Texas?

I might have never discovered horseradish on beef or sushi and wasabi

I wrestle with this 'harmless perversion' of loving Texas

a state that bore forth W, LBJ, and Barbara Jordan

Billie Sol Estes and Walter Cronkite

There is much good and evil simultaneously

Peculiar place this Texas yet just right for me

I miss it when I’m gone

John Hiatt

2008-06-07T00:43:00.003-05:00

Slow Turning

Perfectly Good Guitar

Something Wild

more from the file

2008-06-06T13:44:00.002-05:00

On a paper towel

When the shock wears off

the bouts of sad are fewer and farther between

you begin to realize you are alone

it is likely to be that way for the foreseeable future

when you split the blanket it is

so much more than the partitioning of stuff and belongings

or even who is the primary conservator of the children's welfare

it is that you must recollect yourself

pick-up from the murky mire move on

find some worthwhile tasks you can simply occupy your time with

Somewhere down the road I’ll feel like myself again

despite the fact that they tell me I sound more like me than anytime

in the last decade

something is missing and amiss

I am not he who was before and I am not sure I want to be

I would feel a little better if the me I am now is ok with everybody else

even if I am not sure who that is

Music#1

The strings do not know words

They know not the limitations of

Language culture or time

Notes are universal, rhythm is inherent

Music is born into us

As much as our color of hair or skin

Even if we have no talent, no skill

Music touches us and the ear that hears

A soul that is stirred

By the sounds of string and wind

The skin of a drum

Is not enslaved by words

Even if a mind cannot grasp a song in a language not my own

My heart, mind and soul

Can nonetheless be touched by the presence of music

Things to bear in mind about Austin

2008-06-04T15:22:00.002-05:00

Only those who are familiar to Austin will understand and find the humor...

1. First, it's pronounced AWS-TUN. It doesn't matter how they say it in other places.

2. Forget the traffic rules you learned elsewhere. Austin has its own set of traffic rules. There's no book about them. All you can do is get in your car and hope you survive to learn them.

3. All directions start with "Go down Mopac...'cause you don't want to get on I-35." No one knows for sure what 'Mopac' means.

4. Burnet Road, Braker Lane, and Lamar Blvd. have no beginning and no end.

5. It is impossible to go around a block and wind up on the same street that you started on.

The Chamber of Commerce calls this a scenic drive.

6. The 8:00am rush hour is from 6:30am to 9:30am.

The 5:00pm rush hour is from 3:30p to 7:15pm.

Friday's rush hour starts on Thursday morning.

7. If you actually stop at a yellow light, then you cannot be from Austin.

You may only apply your brakes when the end of a yellow light and the beginning of the red light creating a burnt-orange hue. This is Longhorn Country, after all.

8. If you like being an individual, don't even think of working for Dell. You'll be branded like cattle and made to walk all over town with your Dell Tag around your neck or clipped on to your belt loop. Ninety-eight percent of the people within a 200 mile radius work for Dell.

When someone says "Michael Dell", Dell employees are trained to face Round

Rock, hit their knees, put their face to the ground, weep, and rock back and forth.

9. Just remember that Mopac IS Loop 1; Capital of Texas Hwy IS 360; and U.S. 183 IS Research Blvd., Anderson Land, Ed Bluestein Blvd. and Old Bastrop Hwy; 2222 IS Northland Dr. or Allendale Rd. or Koenig Lane. Don't try to figure it out. Just accept it. If you question the intelligence behind this naming convention, people will simply tilt their heads to the right and stare at you.

10. If moisture is determined to be rain, and not sweat, all traffic must immediately come to a screeching halt; ditto for daylight savings time, a female UT student applying eye-shadow across the street, or a flat tire three lanes over.

11. DO NOT attempt to access any road after an apocalyptic event like snow or SXSW (South by Southwest Music Convention).

Construction on I-35 AND U.S. 183 is a way of life and a permanent form of entertainment. Get used to it!

12. Attn: All telephone solicitors...DO NOT correct my pronunciation when I say I live in Manchaca, TX. It's pronounced MAN-shack (just like a man living in shack). Also realize that the city of Manchaca (MANshack) is in Hays and Travis Counties, and there is also a very long street in Austin named Manchaca (MANshack)! The city of Manor and Manor Rd. are pronounced

'MAY-ner'. We don't like corrections on that either. And, for God's sake, DON'T pronounce the 'E' at the end of Guadalupe. It's Gwada-LOOP and we like it that way!

13. Burnet Road is pronounced BURN-it, not Bur-NET. Koenig Lane is pronounced KAE-nig not KOE-nig. The old airport (Robert Mueller) is pronounced Robert Miller and is on Airport Boulevard. The new airport (Austin-Bergstrom) is no where near Airport Boulevard. It's in the city of Del Valle pronounced Dell Valley!

14. Keep in mind that the sloppily dressed 'hippie' in worn-out sandals and earrings is probably the latest IPO millionaire.

15. Stay away from the Congress Ave. Bridge at sundown if you do not like the thought of being in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. (Largest Mexican Freetail Bat population in the US.)

16. And, yes, we all know that there's a man in a teddy and a tiara on Congress Ave. It's Leslie, and he probably makes more money than you do. (Surely you have a homeless, celebrity drag queen that likes to run for mayor where you live, too, right?)

And you wonder why there are so many bumper stickers that say 'Keep Austin Weird'?

----

Don't forget to smile

2008-05-24T13:30:00.002-05:00

I really have to remember to be happy sometimes

It isn’t hard.

Life is too hilarious to be sad all the time
The words of a child

Stories from old people
Some little blurb in the paper about a glow in the dark fish in pink and green

Things like that make me laugh
There are many reasons to cry

sometimes I have to look for a reason to laugh
I can read the funniest funnies in the world

See a movie that should make me piss my pants
But if I am determined to be sad

Then that is what I am

I think it is better to be happy

blues and the substance of music

2008-05-19T11:30:00.002-05:00

John Lee Hooker

Hey, yeah I know him

saw him down there at Antone's

premier gig in Austin, TX

I swear he had five fingers of whiskey in a highball glass

Big fat Gibson guitar sitting there tickling the strings with part of the house band and the remainder of his crew, long haired whiteboy working lead beside him and a tall black man blowing sax

I was on a chair at the back, girlfriend standing before me, wondering at the spectacle of a man

I will not soon forget "Tupelo", even if I did not hear it that night

I read one time the efforts of a man to write into musical notation what the man rendered into sound

It was complicated and was the best effort he could muster, to transcribe into notes what the man played in the honky-tonk

all he had was a piece of plywood, his guitar and himself

I heard the first thing BB King played was the wire from a broom, between two nails on the front porch, his slide was the spool remaining from the thread

find a way to translate that into four lines of notations

every good boy does fine...is insufficient

pavarotti cannot read music

john lee can't either

and those who write music

have a hard time figuring out what EXACTLY

either one was doing on the stage or recording

and I am in the audience

somehow I am amused by all this

physics

you can either measure the speed of the electron

or find its place

you cannot do both

Ha!

measure me this

find me the substance of a man

weigh the words and find their mass

i challenge those who would measure out this life

who would know exactly what is the facts of the matter

you cannot

you can only get so close

then you have to feel it

and that has no ruler, no scale

no rule book

you have to find it for yourself

more art, if you can stand it

2008-05-10T18:51:00.001-05:00

i still think hippies were germinated back during WWI when the rest of the world was
still thinking war was an honorable task and not something found at the
wrong end of a gun walking at a trench
some men went mad
and others just made like it was so, who would know?
throw another thousand men into the breach of fortifications
and let them billow upon the waters of lead

yes, let us walk into the gunfire of the implacements of machines
brilliant! let us salute the brass with our ass
so well informed, so shall we fight our fight
let us walk into the teeth of the guns
and perhaps we shall survive going over the top

when the brass asks, no tells us
you, go here and do this
and it is patently idiotic
we tend to buck at the idea
why are we expected to do any less now?

if the marlboro soldier of this latest war
has found himself divorced
and unemployed
what is that to the VA?
such is the lot of the veteran

we treat our disabled lobbyists better than we do our veterans
and that aint right

art: George Grosz, "The Convict"

100 years war

2008-05-07T17:17:00.000-05:00

100 years of war

Finally saw the DNC's hard-hitting commercial
that which has raised and will continue to raise the ire
of the RNC and anybody on the other side of the aisle who voted for this damn thing
they ought to run it in every damn market that exists, until we all know it by heart

I did a diary on protest songs, like that was a first
got some comments and lots of links
it was reassuring to see the young and old remind me
of what I did not remember and was not aware of
good stuff maynard, eat it up

i cannot get through seeing the "War Pigs" edit on Youtube I found
without tears and anger, even now I choke up
I applaud them who gave it to all of us, lest we ever forget the images
that they do not want us to see

if we, the nation, decided to park the dead of the Civil War
in Mrs. Lee's rose garden
let us park our memories in Crawford and Kennebunkport
lest they ever forget. Let it be as the albatross that follows their every tack
haunt them into the grave of their own making

I cannot forget. Whiskey will not kill it
weed only magnifies the sharp images in my brain
my heart bleeds liberally upon page and there is no recourse
but to protest and be active, keep blogging, keep sending emails and money
fight the power. make them die like we have died
I will not relent. I cannot relent.
I owe them too much.

War Pigs

Save our souls.

Hockey Poem #1

2008-05-06T23:31:00.004-05:00

Being a man where I knew
the smell of churned turf and sweaty pigskin
it really wasn't too far a leap of logic
that the flying fight of hockey
would appeal to my better parts of sportsmanship
and my inner demons of bloodlust and battle
I am awaiting the outcome of what shall be
to see the same and say I was there
I cannot skate any better than a milk cow
But I know a good game when I see one
sport does not know nationality, religion or color
of skin or flag. It is but a game we play
if it is a good game we play and watch
I found stick and puck or it found me
at any rate the 2OT is coming up
and I am out of beer

Verse 2
it was the 5th longest in the modern era, so they say
at 1:23A Central Time on Cinco de Mayo the captain scored
it was over on a Monday morning
sudden death football and extra innings do not compare
the rules do not change, they carry on as before
they survive on sheer guts it seems
I remember games like these

"Golf is a good walk spoiled." Mark Twain

2008-04-25T15:23:00.002-05:00

It is the Byron Nelson this weekend. The wind will blow, Tiger will not be there and most of the other big names won't either. When Lord Byron died they stopped coming. They do not like to play in Texas. It makes them look bad. They don't like the wind. They don't like the heat. The Byron does not like to admit it, The Colonial coming up soon, they don't like to admit it either, but it was only a sense of duty that kept the big names coming to Texas. Yeah, Tiger can say whatever he wants, but even if his leg wasn't on the recovery side of surgery, there is no way on earth he would play either tournament. They don't like playing in Texas. Texas is brutal and unforgiving to golfers. The shifting winds are unpredictable. The heat is relentless and the humidity is suffocating.
Golfers whine and complain about EVERYTHING. I know from personal experience that they will bitch about anything they can find when they aren't having a good round. The pin placement is poor. The fairways need to be mowed. The beer isn't cold enough and the ball washers need more soapy water. This is why I love it when they have to work hard to make par. I detest tournaments where the winning score is double digit negative. That is golf for slackers. It is part of why I love seeing them have to deal with the fast greens and vicious wind when it gets unseasonably hot in Augusta or down at the Player's in FLA. I want the course to fight back. Rolling over and showing its belly in submission should not be an option. I wish they made EVERY tournament have the same characteristics as the US Open.Work your ass off and quit your bitching.
I get really tired of complaining sports figures, whatever their endeavor. It is a freaking game that you get to play for money. No matter how you spin it, no matter what you say, you get to play a game I have to pay for to do something I love and get paid for it. The least complainers I know are hockey players and even they are prone to it at times. Bad ice, bad fans, bad refs, whatever, shut up and play. Nascar drivers hollered about the track in Texas for the first few years. Eddie Gossage got so irritated with them he finally said the same thing, "Shut up and race."
Sure, they have every right to complain, bitch and moan. I also have the right to call them on it. If there are valid reasons for their complaints like water leaking under the track, poor ice conditions, anything that might present a real safety threat, those should be and are addressed. But, complaining because of something that is inherent in the sport or is equal to all players is pathetic and shameful.

The third may become first.

2008-04-25T14:55:00.003-05:00

I am going to start giving more love to this blog. It is a solid blog area and I will either begin reposting some old ones or post some fresh stuff. As I have said earlier I do have other blogs that have gotten more of my time, but this one has features that I have missed. Will be seeing you more often.

Cactus musing

2007-12-08T17:05:00.001-06:00

It is not often that I get a call to post about cactus. It really is a niche market of horticulture. A person either REALLY likes cactus or they do not. There is no ambivalence concerning this plant. It is either an evil plant foisted upon unsuspecting ranchers and farmers or it is a gleaming jewel shining in the sun. I tend to think it is a gift of God. Cabeza de Vaca certainly was glad for the tunas he had to eat on his long journey across Texas. I have concerns with the cactus other than its beautiful flowers and other remarkable features, but they seldom enter the conversation. This is a sample of the cactus I have gathered over the years. I really do need a better close-up lens. I detest the lack of focus at close range.

I wonder what to write when I put fingers to keyboard when it comes to cactus. They have become such an integral part of me that things I do not even consider anymore are still questions that are being pursued by others. How to fix a characteristic in a species, how to manipulate the genes and the limitations of the plant concerning the harshness of winter are what I am preoccupied with at the moment. It is immaterial to me if I ever pursue a Masters of Science with the cactus as a focal point. I will continue to study it as a part of my interests.

There are so many kinds of cactus. It would be very easy for me to gather as many species as I could grasp. I have avoided this as much as possible. I have tried to limit myself to ones that will withstand the rigors of the weather outside without any assistance from me. If I ever move to a more tropical climate, one even more so than the southern clime I know inhabit, I will be hard pressed to continue this limitation. I will most likely continue to grow roses, herbs and other plants, but the cactus will have a place in my gardens.

Some people maintain that they should not be watered at all during the winter months. I say that is silliness. If I have a cactus in a sunny window that keeps it active then why would I not water it? If the greenhouse is hotter than blue blazes in January I am likely to water the plants, cactus included. The bottom line? If it is still heavy or damp with water, then do not water it. Wow! that is so hard to grasp! This is probably heresy to some cactophiles, but I do not like seeing a plant dry up and wither.

I doubt this will be of any benefit to other gardeners. Damn near everything I have said is the basic logic of plants in general. Make it use its water, but if it is dry water it. It sounds so simple, but it never ceases to amaze me how many plants die from too much water or not enough. No wonder that the cactus sites I have visited almost to a man recommend that they not be watered in the winter. I can't help but think that there are scores of cactus that have withered away in their tiny containers cut off from the rain and denied the sprinkle from a water can. It should not be that way. I have rescued a few of these poor victims of misinformation. A new container, a little H20 and food do wonders for a starving and thirsty plant.

Even down here hard by the coast I still water the cactus. Even this month I will water them. Even a week after a rain of 4.5 inches or ~12cm. All the roots they have are in a pot no bigger than a coffee cup. Where is it supposed to retain the moisture? Where will the roots grow other than to continue their encircling of the container and become even more rootbound?

Art Ramble

2007-11-06T16:21:00.000-06:00

It just doesn’t do it justice. It is called “Ashchenblume”. A fella named Anselm Keifer assembled/painted, smeared it together. It is a little hard to tell but there is a massive sunflower turned upside down directly in the middle of it. It was finished in 1997. Flower out of ashes. The work is pretty damn massive. I don’t think I could even get it in the loading dock of most buildings much less the front door of my place. It takes up nearly an entire wall. The bottom part of it is pieces of concrete and busted, rusted wire. It is a picture of the Reichstag, think Congress. Out of the ashes of life this flower grew and was uprooted and yet it grew and flourished. I see some hope and perseverance in it. Fifty years after the ashes of WWII were buried and swept away this artist of Germany was still thinking about the resurrection from the fire.

I wonder why I post a lot more about this stuff we call modern art than I do what is called western art. I know Charlie Russell and Frederick Remington quite well. I grew up with their pictures of the American West and I know them by heart. They are approachable and graspable, far easier to digest and understand. Perhaps it is a change in taste, but I have not lost my eye for a good western either. Maybe it is that I think modern art gets sort of slammed by people on occasion. What the hell is it? We paid money for this? It is worth how much?

Let us drift back a few years to Jesse Helms, Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano and whether or not we were going to fund art that offended people. There were plenty of works that through the years had offended the sensibilities of the public at large. Michelangelo’s “David” had to wear a breech clout for a few years like he was Tonto. But, “Piss Christ” just shook’em all up. It wasn’t like Marcel duChamp painting a mustache on the “Mona Lisa” and putting some graffiti on the bottom saying she was hot in the pants, no this was offending religion and not other artists or artistic conventions. The only problem was nobody stopped to ask the artist, Andres, what exactly he was trying to say to the rest of us. Nobody took the time to even ask, the Archbishop of Melbourne condemned it as blasphemous and Jesse Helms and Al D’Amato got all fired up too. Damned hippie artists, well we will see how they like it when we jerk the purse strings back. We’ll just gut the National Endowment of Arts and see how they like that. It wasn’t too much longer after that and Mapplethorpe and his collection of photographs came out. Literally. I don’t think anybody in the art world was unaware that Robert was a four-alarm flamer, but it was shocking, shocking, that anyone could call that art. I still have yet to look at any of the photos in question, but I have seen enough of his other works to realize that the man was an artist. Personally, I don’t care what the artist has to say, I think they should be allowed to say it. I still haven’t said why Serrano, A put a plastic Jesus in urine and sealed it up in more plastic, but I think we, the collective should either go look and find the artist’s words for himself or at the very least read some discussion of it.

http://www.artsandopinion.com/2004_v3_n3/pisschrist.htm

some really heavy plowing, only for the brave

I think some of us are here to defend artists and musicians. Every once in a while someone REALLY pisses off somebody else about their art or music. Hell, even Ozzy had to go to court about some messed up kid who ended his own life. We get to step in as a lawyer, an opinionator or blogistinian and say leave them alone, quit picking on art or the guitar picker.

video games

2007-11-01T18:11:00.000-06:00

At the risk of sounding too much like an old geezer, but I do remember a day when there were no video games. There was no room dedicated to the Xbox, Wii or Playstation. There were only pinball machines and skee ball. There were a few arcade games at the fair, like the one in "Jaws", I think it was called "Shark Attack". It was sort of a video game, but pale by comparison to games today. I remember when one of my buddies got an Atari. I remember "pong".
Those days are gone. I can't get through the salad at the pizza joint before my daughter is running to the game room. Even if I have laid down the law and said there is not going to be a single quarter spent on a game. I said earlier this week that we would go to the pizza place and she could play the games. She managed to wolf down two pieces of pizza before she went to the games. By the time I said that it was time to go I was ready to pull out a shotgun and start blasting away at these overgrown noisemakers.
I heard about an old boy who grew up before there were juke boxes. It was his habit to put out enough money on the machine to buy silence until he was ready to leave the cafe. I thought it was a little ornery of him when I first read it, but I can identify with him now.
I think I should not go into an arcade with fewer than two beers under my belt. I might do better with a set of earplugs too.

Fox guarding hen house

2007-10-30T06:08:00.000-06:00

What? protect consumers? No, I am here to protect business from consumers and Congress.: Members of the Chamber of Commerce do not belong on commissions designed to protect consumers. The business of America is not business. I do not begrudge anyone the ability to make a buck, but when you break the rules you are going to be punished. We can accept this on the road, we recognize the fact that there are rules to keep us all safe, but when we expect corporations to do the same they cry that it is unduly harsh and squelches their ability to work.
Yeah and I want to drive 90 mph and give the finger to the anybody who gets in my way too.
Nord Says No to more toy inspectors, even if she only has one.

This is clearly a case of the fox guarding the hen house. The same sort of mentality that gave us a man in charge of mines who had to get his job while Congress was on recess because even the Republicans on the committee recognized that he was unfit for the job. W gave it to him anyway, I expect at the recommendations of Cheney. I am so tired of business' interests being the only concern of this administration. The number of inspectors is half what it was in the 80's. 1.8 million dollars is paltry for a fine. The proposed 100 million is nearing the ballpark of what they might actually feel. This administration reminds me of a spoiled child who screams that it is unfair that they have to follow the same rules as everyone else. That somehow they are not subject to the same rules as everyone else. If they do it, it is ok, but no one else can because they, the spoiled child, are special. What a crock.

science and spiders

2007-10-28T19:12:00.000-06:00

Spiny Crab-like Orb Weaver

common name: spinybacked orbweaver scientific name: Gasteracantha cancriformis (Linnaeus) (Arachnida: Araneae: Araneidae)
Introduction - Systematics - Identification - Biology - Survey and Detection - Selected References
Introduction One of the more colorful spiders in Florida is the spinybacked orbweaver, Gasteracantha cancriformis (Linnaeus) 1767. Although not as large as some of the other common orb weavers (e.g.; Argiope, Levi 1968; Neoscona, Edwards 1984), the combination of color, shape, and web characteristics make G. cancriformis one of the most conspicuous of spiders. The colloquial name for this spider in parts of Florida is "crab spider," although it is not related to any of the families of spiders commonly called crab spiders, e.g., Thomisidoe. This species belongs to a pantropical genus which contains many species in the Old World. With the possible exception of the West Indian G. tetracantha (L.) (which may be only a geographic race), G. cancriformis is the only species of its genus to occur in the New World, ranging from the southern United States to northern Argentina (Levi 1978). The bite of this common species is not known to cause serious effects to humans.
SystematicsBecause of the variations in color and shape of the abdominal "spines" throughout its range, G. cancriformis has been described by numerous early scientists under a plethora of names (Levi 1978). Although Kaston (1978) continued the use of the name G. elipsoides (Walckenaer) 1841, resurrected by Chamberlin and Ivie (1944), Levi (1978) examined this species and found it to be a synonym of G. cancriformis.
IdentificationThis species can be easily distinguished from all other spiders in Florida. Females may be 5 to nearly 9 mm in length, but 10 to 13 mm wide. They have six pointed abdominal projections frequently referred to as "spines." The carapace, legs, and venter are black, with some white spots on the underside of the abdomen. The dorsum of the abdomen is, typically for Florida specimens, white with black spots and red spines. Specimens from other areas may have the abdominal dorsum yellow instead of white, may have black spines instead of red, or may be almost entirely black dorsally and ventrally. Males are much smaller than females, 2 to 3 mm long, and slightly longer than wide. Color is similar to the female, except the abdomen is gray with white spots. The large abdominal spines are lacking, although there are four or five posterior small humps (Levi 1978, Muma 1971).
female
BiologyMuma (1971) discussed the life cycle and web construction of G. cancriformis in Florida. Although males have been found in every month except December and January (Levi 1978), they are most common in October and November. Females, which are found as adults throughout the year, are most common from October through January. Mixed-mesophytic woodlands and citrus groves are where they are most frequently found. Males hang by single threads from the females' webs prior to mating, described by Muma (1971).
Ovate egg sacs, 20 to 25 mm long by 10 to 15 mm wide, are deposited on the undersides of leaves adjacent to the female's web from October through January. The egg mass consists of 101 to 256 eggs, with a mean of 169 (based on 15 egg masses). After the eggs are laid on a white silken sheet, they are first covered with a loose, tangled mass of fine white or yellowish silk, then several strands of dark green silk are laid along the longitudinal axis of the egg mass, followed by a net-like canopy of coarse green and yellow threads. Eggs are frequently attacked by specialized predators, primarily Phalacrotophora epeirae (Brues) (Diptera: Phoridae), and occasionally Arachnophago ferruginea Gahan (Hymenoptera: Eupelmidae) (Muma and Stone 1971). Eggs take 11 to 13 days to hatch, then spend two to three days in a pink and white deutova stage before molting to the first instar.
egg sac
After another five to seven days, the spiderlings acquire dark coloration. Spiderlings dispersed within a week later in disturbed laboratory colonies, but remained in the eggsacs an additional two to five weeks in the field. Spiderlings make tiny, inconspicious orb webs or hang from single strands. In the late summer and early fall, significant increases occur in both body and web size. The larger webs have 10 to 30 radii. The central disk where the spider rests is separated from the sticky (viscid) spirals by an open area 4 to 8 cm wide. There may be as many as 30 loops of the viscid spiral, spaced at 2 to 4 mm intervals. The catching area of the web may be 30 to 60 cm in diameter. Conspicuous tufts of silk occur on the web, primarily on the foundation lines. The function of these tufts is unknown, but one hypothesis suggests that the tufts make the webs more conspicuous to birds (Eisner and Nowicki 1983), preventing the birds from flying into and destroying the webs. The webs may be less than 1 m to more than 6 m above ground. The spiders prey on whiteflies, flies, moths, and beetles that are caught in the webs.
Survey and DetectionCitrus workers frequently encounter this species, and it may occur on trees and shrubs around houses and nurseries. Specimens may be easily collected in small vials, and are best preserved, as are all spiders, in 70 to 80% ethyl or isopropyl alcohol.
Selected References
Chamberlin RV, Ivie W. 1944. Spiders of the Georgia region of North America. Bulletin of the University of Utah 35: 1-267.
Edwards GB. 1984. Large Florida orb weavers of the genus Neoscona (Araneae: Araneidae). Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Plant Industry Entomology Circular 266: 1-2.
Eisner T, Nowicki S. 1983. Spider web protection through visual advertisement: Role of the stabilimentum. Science 219: 185-187.
Kaston BJ. 1978. How to Know the Spiders. 3rd ed. Wm. C. Brown Co., Dubuque, Iowa. 272 pp.
Levi HW. 1968. The spider genera Gea and Argiope in America (Araneae: Araneidae). Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 136: 319-352.
Levi HW. 1978. The American orb-weaver genera Colphepeira, Microtheno and Gasteracantha North of Mexico. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 148: 417-442.
Muma MH. 1971. Biological and behavioral notes on Gasteracantha cancriformis (Arachnida: Araneidae). Florida Entomologist 54: 345-351.
Muma MH, Stone KJ. 1971. Predation of Gasteracantha cancriformis (Arachnida: Araneidae) eggs in Florida citrus groves by Phalacrotophora epeirae (Insecta: Phoridae) and Arachnophaga ferruginea (Insecta: Eupelmidae). Florida Entomologist 54: 305-310.
Author: G.B. Edwards, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Plant Industry. Originally published as DPI Entomology Circular 308. Photographs: Lyle J. Buss and others, University of Florida Project Coordinator: Thomas R. Fasulo, University of Florida Publication Number: EENY-167 Publication Date: October 2000. Latest revision: December 2005. Copyright 2000-2005, University of Florida
end of source
This is one of my buddies at the farm. I have mentioned them in some earlier blogs, but this one is strictly about this rather small creature. The orb weavers generally make a rather beautiful web. They still argue about why they put the extra tufts of silk in certain locations on their webs. Let no one tell you that scientists agree about much of anything. There will always be a few contrarians even on the most settled of subjects and the ones which have no clear answers are full of rancor and disdain for the opposition. If there was ever a clear case of hypocrisy it is when scientists point fingers at religion and laugh at their disagreements. They are no better at agreeing on something as simple as the extra adornments of a web, much less the origin of life or its meaning. The author of the source admits that the early authors had a "plethora" of names for this arachnid, but only alludes to the idea that the West Indies version of this critter may only be a geographic species. Meaning, it is only a distinct species because of geography. Sorry, but the very concept of a geographic species flies in the face of the definition of a species. It is splitting hairs. The hard and fast definition that has been clung to is that species cannot interbreed. If my girlfriend is in NYC and I am in Texas that means that we cannot have sex. Duh. It does not mean we are not capable of reproduction, it means that there is no opportunity to do so. I have grown weary of scientists basing the idea of species on a few minute and insignificant traits that may be more pronounced in a particular location. The fact that this species has become isolated, for whatever reason, does not mean that it is a separate species. Perhaps I am willing to venture them as a variety, botanical or horticultural, but their ability to be interfertile with other species means that they are not by the lowest common denominator of the definition that they are a unique, separate species. Genus has a lot more to do with the inability to be fertile than species. Species has become specious and suspect. Oaks. I can give you oaks immediately. In any mixed hardwood forest there is a range of oak hybridization, a mingling of species. So much so that even consultants on judicial cases must testify that there may be in this individual or collection of trees the parentage of a few to several species of trees represented. If you ever write a contract for millions of dollars of trees, reserve the right of refusal for shipments and hire someone who knows what they are doing when they pick out adaptable trees.
Olive trees do not belong in North Texas. Whoever signed off on the contract to plant them should have had his ass kicked. What a waste of money.
Have I finished ranting yet? not sure. I meant to talk about the glob of eggs that one of these peculiar looking spiders had deposited on my farm truck windshield. It is a shade greener than the picture, but it has the same network of strands to hold it fast and the same general layout, size and form as the picture. I am determined not to cut it off if I can avoid it. I may have to if I am going to save it from the elements, particularly wind. I have been surprised that going down the highway at 60mph seems to have no deleterious effect. I can't say what a pounding rain is going to do. I might have to scrape it off and put it somewhere safe. I thought about sending an egg casing to someone as a prank. Hide it in a plant or some other form of Trojan horse and when the moment was ripe they would hatch out and be a parade of tiny spiders. But the thought of some idiot friend of mine stomping on them or potentially killing their dog/cat/bird/child/spouse in a fog of insecticide was not appealing. I think I will just stash them on the shelf with the other egg casing I had to rescue. I will find a home for them somewhere. Maybe I can turn them loose in a greenhouse somewhere or a good barn. They are hellacious fly and gnat catchers.

The Bronk

2007-10-25T17:02:00.000-05:00

Football in America: Game of the Century

Excerpts from Chapter 5:
CHAMPIONS: All Pros of All Kinds

By Bob Oates

2. Bronko Nagurski, Football’s First Big Winner

In the days when football was played largely on the ground, everyone was in awe of another Chicago ballcarrier.

Of the All-Pro football players who stirred America in the twentieth century, Bronko Nagurski joined Red Grange and Sammy Baugh in the first wave. And to sports fans, each symbolized something different.

Baugh was a precision passer, Grange a matchless open-field runner, Nagurski the ultimate power symbol.

As a physical specimen, Nagurski, of the three, was the most masterful. In a time when the game wasn’t as intellectually demanding as it was to become, Nagurski took charge as a famously feared power runner who seemed to be the essence of what football was all about. Even so, ironically, in his two biggest games, this embodiment of football’s brute force helped demonstrate the tactical superiority of the forward pass. In championships won as a passer, Nagurski equaled Baugh: two each.

A 225-pound fullback standing six-two, Nagurski, who in 1933 led the Chicago Bears to victory in the National Football League’s first championship game, is identified in his hometown as the greatest football player of all time. The town is International Falls, which is in the far north of Minnesota.

There the leading hotel, a new Holiday Inn, opened a Bronko Nagurski Room one July in the big fullback’s final years. A tinted, life-size Nagurski photo was unveiled when the room, a banquet hall, was dedicated, and everybody was there – almost everybody in Kouchiching County, that is – except Nagurski, who refused to come. "That’s Bronko," a friend said that summer. "He’s a shy one. Always has been."

In his seventies, Nagurski was then residing on the U.S.-Canada border at Rainy Lake, just four miles up the Rainy River from International Falls (population 6,940). With his wife, the former Eileen Kane, with whom Nagurski raised six children, he had moved into the lakeside cottage during the years when he was playing three positions – tackle and linebacker as well as fullback – for the 1930s Bears.

Numerous Kanes and Nagurskis lived in the neighborhood in those years and still do. It’s a neighborhood that is alternately a winter wonderland and a domain of brief, joyous summers. And the summer Bronko was seventy-five, his relatives and in-laws held a family reunion, with Bronko and Eileen as guests of honor.

Eileen enjoyed herself as usual, but Bronko, of course, wouldn’t come. "He’s reclusive," Dave Siegel, a reporter for the International Falls Daily Journal, said. "We’ve been trying to get an updated file picture of Nagurski for ten years, and we hung around the reunion all day, but no luck."

He was easier to shoot in the 1930s, when, at one time or another, almost every Chicago cameraman caught Nagurski ferrying an opponent or two across the goal line on his back. For decades, his name summoned the raw energy of football. And to this day, they point out the brick wall in Chicago that Nagurski cracked when he ran into it carrying a football one fall afternoon in Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs and, then, the Bears. Scoring the winning touchdown in that game – at the south end of a cramped field where the end zone was only nine yards deep – Nagurski stomped on two opponents, leaving one unconscious and the other with a broken shoulder. Next he collided with a goal post and spun into the wall, which stopped him at last. Picking himself up, he told a teammate, "That last guy hit pretty hard."

At an NFL game years later, when former quarterback Fran Tarkenton asked him about that day, Nagurski remembered everything but fracturing the wall.

"But I’ve seen the crack myself," Tarkenton said.

"Oh, c’mon now," Nagurski said. "No human could crack a brick wall."

No human, maybe. But Nagurski had super-human strength. Everybody who played in that era said so. He was the NFL’s first big winner, and he was the one they talked about the most whenever old-timers got together, as they did one summer in Canton, Ohio, home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. "I saw Nagurski for the first time when I was an NFL rookie," remembered Don Hutson, who has ranked as one of football’s top two or three receivers, all-time, since his All-Pro days at Green Bay. "At Alabama, I’d been known as a good defensive end, so I played Nagurski the way I’d play a Georgia fullback. On first down they gave him the ball, and he ran straight over me. I mean he ran me down and kept going without breaking stride."

Arch-rival Green Bay fullback-linebacker Clark Hinkle recalled: "He was the most bruising runner ever. The first time I tackled Nagurski, I had to have five stitches in my face. My biggest thrill in football was the day he announced his retirement."

At their Canton reunion that summer, Hutson and Hinkle were joined eventually by no fewer than four other all-timers: center Mel Hein, halfback Johnny Blood (McNally), guard Danny Fortmann, and, of all people, Bronko Nagurski himself. Hutson and Blood lured Bronko out of International Falls, Hein said, by putting pressure on Eileen Nagurski, somehow persuading her to fly in with the Recluse of Rainy Lake.

It isn’t true that he hadn’t left his lakeside cottage for twenty years, but he hadn’t left it often, and his appearance at Canton made the show for old-time fans.

Hein, the old New York Giants’ Hall of Fame center, was asked how the Hutson-Blood connection could get Nagurski all the way to Canton when the International Falls people couldn’t get him downtown. "In the last few years, Hutson and the rest of us have called on Bronko at the lake," Hein said. "He knows what we look like, and we know what he looks like now. So he doesn’t mind being around us. But I think he’s embarrassed to show himself in public at International Falls. He’d rather they remember him as he used to be, as he used to look, when he had his strength – when he was tough and trim, and awesomely vigorous." ...

Bronko Nagurski, human battering ram

Chicago Sun-Times, Nov 30, 2003 by Allen Barra

Monster of the Midway

The Life and Legend of Bronko Nagurski

by Jim Dent

Thomas Dunne. $24.95.

There's a memorable scene in the film "Hearts of Atlantis" in which Anthony Hopkins enthralls a young boy by recalling a memorable run by Bronko Nagurski. Hearing Hopkins stirred memories of my grandmother's awed recollections of Nagurski's near mythical power. That's how much he impressed her -- and my grandmother knew less about football than Anthony Hopkins.

For decades, football fans intrigued by Nagurski's story have had little to go on but oral tradition. Now comes Monster of the Midway: The Life and Legend of Bronko Nagurski, by Jim Dent, an instant classic that plugs an enormous gap in our knowledge of the early days of pro football. Dent, author of the best-selling The Junction Boys, about Bear Bryant's brutal first season at Texas A&M, is a master at seeking out great but as yet untold stories. There was no untold story larger than Nagurski's, and none that better deserved telling.

To the reader's delight, much of the folklore that has built up around Nagurski over the years proves to be true. A farm boy of Ukrainian and Polish stock, Bronislaw Nagurski was born in Ontario and raised near International Falls, Minn. He developed his body by pulling a plow. Like many immigrant boys born before World War I, Nagurski saw football as a means to a better life, but unlike today's pampered college stars, early college football players received no scholarships. Young Bronko worked two jobs at the University of Minnesota. The first provided room, board and tuition; the second was the reason he was given the first: he played on both offense and defense, often with padding and helmets that required stitching together before games.

And college football was the glamour game. Pro football in 1930, writes Dent, "was a redheaded stepchild compared to baseball. Players were regarded as hoodlums, owners and coaches as mere hustlers. Most pro teams struggled day to day just to survive." Few people considered pro football as a way to make a living. George Halas, Chicago Bears coach, National Football League founder and notorious tightwad, paid Nagurski the then ridiculous sum of $5,000 a year, the highest salary in the game. Amos Alonzo Stagg, the famed college football coach, thought any salary was too much: "Football is not a game you should get paid for ... He [Nagurski] shouldn't be taking money to play football."

Considering the legitimacy that Nagurski brought to the game as the rock of pro football's first legendary team, it's doubtful any amount would have been fair. With the era of Spandex and steroids still nearly half a century away, there were no specialists in the NFL in those days; you weren't a quarterback or tight end or outside linebacker, you were a football player. The rules and the soft, egg- shaped ball made passing difficult, and coaching from the sidelines was illegal.

It was a player's game, and the greatest player of all, by consensus, was Nagurski. Grantland Rice, the most famous sportswriter of his time, picked only 10 players for his 1929 All-America team; it was understood that Nagurski was the best player on both offense and defense and was thus All-America at both fullback and defensive tackle. The names of the positions in Nagurski's case were irrelevant; when asked what position he played, the Bronk replied, "Well, when the other team had the ball, I played where I thought I had the best chance to stop them. When our side had it, they generally gave me the ball."

"Who would you pick," Rice wrote, "to win a football game -- eleven Jim Thorpes -- eleven Glen Davises -- eleven Red Granges -- or eleven Bronko Nagurskis? The eleven Nagurskis would be a mop-up. It would be something close to murder and massacre." Nagurski's two- way talent extended beyond college and into the NFL. For eight straight seasons he played 60 minutes of every game.

The Bronk "played football like a man boiling over with rage," says Dent, and he played against men as reckless and desperate as himself, men with nicknames like Hunk, Blood, Shipwreck, Buckets, Wildcat, Moose, and Stinky. "Block or get out of my way," he growled at one of his linemen who failed to open a hole for him, "or I will break your spine." "The Bronk waits for nobody," said another teammate, "you block and get the hell out of the way. Or he'll break your back."

He was rough on teammates, hell on opponents, and an absolute terror to cops. On one game at Wrigley Field, he ran into a policeman's horse and knocked the officer sprawling; the horse got off easy. On another occasion, he rammed into a police car parked on the sideline and tore off a fender. Once he was heard to apologize. To three bystanders he plowed into during a game against the Philadelphia Eagles; he said "I am sorry; you fellas really should get out of my way while I'm running."

In the end, he did more damage to himself than any opponent. He played with two cracked vertebrae, was nearly crippled by a degenerative hip condition, and carried the load on both offense and defense with knee damage that would have sent a player in today's game to surgery. His injuries were so severe that during World War II an Army doctor told him, "Mr. Nagurski, I have already found six reasons to flunk you for military duty. I think it's time to stop counting."

Late in life, he was forced to travel to the Mayo Clinic to have the degenerating bones in his ankles fused. When a doctor asked him for an autograph for his son, Nagurski wrote, "To Jeremy -- Do not play football. Bronko Nagurski."

Happy is the man, though, whose biggest dream was to open a gas station in his hometown. Bronko spent the last 30 years of his life, dying in 1990, pumping gas and rebutting wild tales such as the one about the brick wall he cracked at Wrigley Field: "Oh, they say I cracked it. I don't know, I never went back and looked." He did, however, admit, "I hit that wall pretty doggone hard."

Allen Barra is a veteran sportswriter and author. His most recent book is Clearing the Bases: The Greatest Baseball Debates of the Last Century, written with Bob Costas.

Football's Unbroken, Unequaled Bronko

By Shirley Povich
Washington Post Columnist
Wednesday, January 10, 1990; Page F02

There is a memory, undimmed by the passage of 52 years, of the worst mismatch these eyes ever beheld. This was in Chicago's Wrigley Field, Dec. 12, 1937. Bears vs. the Redskins in the NFL title game. First quarter, the Bears behind by 7-0 and lusting for the tying touchdown.

The Bears were deep in Redskin territory and in these circumstances, with the Redskins' defense running out of yardage, Sammy Baugh moved up from his usual safety position to middle linebacker. The Bears of course would give the ball to Bronko Nagurski. The rail-thin, 6-foot-2, 175-pound Baugh in the Redskins' last line of defense against a Nagurski charge? What a joke.

Nagurski, 230 pounds of shoulders and high knee-action, did not trample Baugh. He lowered his head and gored him. Flung him high in the air and out of the vicinity, getting the Bears the big first down they needed, unimpeded by the Redskins' middle linebacker.

On Sunday, Bronko Nagurski died at 81, his place in both college and professional football firmly fixed. Probably no football player ever commanded so many superlatives, and in this appreciation of the Bronk, may I ask to be indulged to digress for a moment to relive that Redskins glory day in 1937 when the rookie Sammy Baugh beat the Bears for the title, 28-21, flicking touchdown passes of 55, 78 and 35 yards. For all his fame as a quarterback, Baugh wasn't a quarterback then. He was throwing the passes and doing the punting as the team's tailback in the double wing system. Riley Smith, on the flank, called the signals. But Baugh often operated on his own. So with the Redskins huddled in their end zone early in the game, they heard him say, "We're a-goin' in punt formation but we're really gonna pass." He took the snap and threw 55 yards to Cliff Battles to launch the first touchdown.

But this week belongs to Bronko Nagurski. There are many remembered examples of his fame, as once were listed in the book "Sports Immortals." "When you tackle the Bronk, it's like an electric shock. If you hit him above the ankles, you could get killed," Red Grange said.

It was put another way by fellow Hall-of-Famer Ernie Nevers: "Tackling Bronko is like tackling a freight train going downhill." In the pros, Steve Owen, whose New York Giants were often wrecked by Nagurski's charges, suggested his formula for dealing with the Bronk. "The only way to stop Nagurski is shoot him before he leaves the dressing room."

The version of Nagurski's power that I liked best was the comment of his college coach, Bernie Bierman of Minnesota, whose team was en route to a road game by railroad. When that train suddenly braked hard and came to a jolting stop, Bierman exclaimed, "My God, Nagurski has tackled the train."

Nagurski's fame led to fantasy. It was a college football scout who first told how he was recruited: "Driving by, I saw this powerful young man plowing a field. Then I noticed he had a plow, but no horse. I asked him directions to a certain town, and he pointed in the opposite direction — with the plow in his left hand."

Nagurski came out of Rainy River, Ontario, moving to International Falls, Minn., with his Polish-Ukrainian family at an early age. He lost his given name of Bronislaus when a teacher, perplexed by his mother's broken accent, simplified his name by entering it as Bronko.

For the Bears, Nagurski was the symbol of the Monsters of the Midway, the team that dominated the NFL for nearly a decade, with one winning streak of 18 games. He alternated at fullback and tackle, often playing both positions in the same game, as he had in college.

In his last two years in college, he was a near-unanimous all-American, and in 1929 received the ultimate reward from the New York Sun, which allotted him two places on its all-American team that year as fullback and tackle. Eventually he was named to the college and the professional Halls of Fame.

For all his size and power, Nagurski was a gentle, sensitive soul off the field, and in 1937 he quit the Bears, offended by George Halas's failure to raise his $5,000 salary, the same figure he was paid in 1930. He was persuaded to try pro wrestling, for which he was unsuited, but was quickly made a world champion by the wrestling folks in the manner that they do such things. Fact is, some of the old pro wrestlers worked hard to keep from pinning down this novice. He returned to the Bears for one more season, in 1943.

In his later years, Nagurski returned to Minnesota, serving as a fishing guide and later owning a service station. It was long after 872 carries of the football in the toughest company in the world, and after leading the blocking for Beattie Feathers when that chap set the NFL rushing record of 1,004 yards, that Bronko, at 70, announced he was retiring. "My legs started bothering me," he said.

Bronko and Me: John Carl Theilman

(The 1980s hadn't dawned, and I was already sick of the National Football League's end zone celebrations. And that was a 67-yard punt before these antics became the performance art they are today. Back in '82, Bronko Nagurski was alive, and probably equally unimpressed. I figured he was even in the phone book. I looked, and there he was...)

After his final retirement from football, Bronko Nagurski opened a gas station in International Falls, Minn. The local joke was if you bought gas from Bronko, you never bought it anywhere else. Once Bronko screwed on the gas cap, he was the only person in town who could get it off again.

Sure, it's disillusioning to know the favored form of off-field recreation for NFL players might involve drugs. But, to some, it's the smack on the field that's troubling.

What's shattering the moral fiber of professional football is all this high-fiving. Once little Bobby sees this perversion, he's out in the back yard smacking fingers with the neighbor kids.

We made it through Kool and the Gang's 'Celebrate' -- that overture which rang down upon the culmination of virtually every 1980 athletic event. We endured the posterior-whacking '60s and '70s. Can we survive the high-five?

It will be difficult to eradicate. This particular celebration occurs overhead everyone on the field, attracting both the television camera and the binoculars of the guy in the cheap seats.

This ceaseless digit-smacking leads a guy to wonder how a real football player reacts to this theatre. Bronko Nagurski was a real football player -- a guy with grass stains on his pants and coagulated blood on the bridge of his nose.

And the 73-year-old lives only a push-button call away, in International Falls.

Ring.

"I think that's comedy to me," the Bronk says into his telephone. "I don't care for it. I don't care for it whether it's in football or basketball or any sport.

"I imagine some of that started years back in hockey," he continues. "when they'd jump all over each other when a goal was scored. I don't know whether fans enjoy it or not, but I wouldn't go for it myself. If someone started slapping me, I would resent it."

A member of the Pro Football Hall of fame, the 6-foot-3, 238-pound Nagurski was a tackle and fullback for the University of Minnesota from 1927-29. The Gophers lost only four times -- by a total of five points -- in his 24-game career. The Chicago Bears won National Football League titles in 1932, '33 and '43 with Nagurski.

Those were the less glamorous days under a pair of shoulder pads. "One thing we didn't have in my day," Nagurski once said, "was all this knee surgery. When you got hurt, you went ahead and played."

When they went ahead and played, Nagurski says, celebrations to the Scoreboard God were more subdued.

"Well, we'd give the guy who scored a nice pat on the back and congratulate him and we'd go on without a lot of fanfare or hysterics."

When Nagurski performed there weren't 60,000 pairs of screaming lungs in the stands and a few million beer-filled tummies in front of the television. The fact we can no longer, virtually, escape pro football, might have fomented the high-five. These guys understand TV.

"They want to know the camera's on them," Nagurski reasons, "and naturally each one wants to bring on a lot of attention to let everyone know what his number is and that he's in the ballgame."

But be warned, high-fivers: Bronko Nagurski's experience speaks.

"You know, sometimes a fella goes in there and you beat him all over the back and the next thing you know he looks like a bum on a play. You find out the glory doesn't last long."

Maybe the cure for these celebrations is to let today's boys high-five it with Bronko. The guy's ring size is 19 1/2.

2007-10-24T09:12:00.001-05:00

There is one thing about having college kids working for me, I get to hear some really wild ass stories that remind me of my own sordid past. One of my workers ,who will from this moment on be called Tarzan, has the same birthday as my daughter. His birthday wish was not at all like my daughter's. Thank God. He turned 21 and so in celebration of this, it was his goal to see 21 pairs of titties. He nearly succeeded. He related that performance was not possible due to copious amounts of newly legal substances being imbibed, but that notwithstanding he still managed to view 14.
I can only imagine. These were the regular, sweater wearing, bouncy ones that I see walking around campus and not the pay for show kind that have resigned themselves to being some sort of commodity. It did not instill in me a sense of confidence in our academic system that my daughter would be shielded from such activity ten or fifteen years from now. Tarzan had a good weekend. One of the members of the house did not. He had a tragically bad weekend and it could grow exponentially worse. Despite every precaution laid down by the institute and their own mandates he managed to slip out a side door and get behind the wheel where he subsequently got into a very bad wreck. The other, far more injured driver is now in critical condition. While I do not sympathize with the young man whose life is now a pile of poop, I do feel bad that the entire group is painted with the same brush of guilt by association. Again, this was done despite every known or mandated stricture of behavior being followed closely.
This woman in critical condition and her family don't care if they did the right thing. All they know is that momma is damn near dead in the hospital and they are pissed. I would be too.
Life is too tragic and too funny simultaneously. It is too fleeting to waste on being wasted all the time. It is far, far too risky to roll the bones and roll your vehicle. Get a cab, sleep it off, call a ride, only do not get behind the wheel of your large automobile after giving Johnny Walker and Jack Black a ride. The possible consequences, the eventual dismal outcome exceeds any possible gain.

I barely remember my 21st b-day. I had a good time, but I never left the co-op. I remember a lot of fuzz in my head. I certainly didn't see 14 pairs of titties. But, I didn't plow into anyone either that weekend. I had meant to go to the pay for show place, but I never made it. I told you it was pretty fuzzy and I am sticking to that story.

Art is cool

2007-10-23T18:44:00.001-05:00

Modern Museum of Art: Fort Worth, Texas

I still marvel that the architect made the workers jackhammer down a wall that didn't suit his specifications of texture and feel. I am allowed to touch the building while I am there if not the other works of art. I think some art should be tactile. I think we should be able to reach out and feel art sometimes. They have this great big installation made out of one inch plate steel out front. Some one I went with one time said it was rather phallic.
maybe she was just horny
it looks like a massive drill bit to me. rising up from the pavement.
here is art. it was a lot of work. i sweated my ass off welding this huge spiral chamber of steel
you can stand inside and holler and it echoes. so cool!
you can whack a side of the steel and it rings.
public art is cool, there ought to be more of it
there used to be a Calder in downtown FTW, we, the collective citizens of Texas and DFW
were not aware that it was not officially a part of the Bank One building or its grounds
when the tornado blasted every damn window in the place
it disappeared. it either ended up in Chicago or Philly. I can't remember. it was not damaged.
we could have come up with the money. it is sort of like they snuck it out.
it is good to have art for all of us. even if it is sort of controversial at first
we spent a million or more on that?
yes. you needed some art, you plebian. you need art and probably a lot of it.
hell, if I had my way, I would hire somebody to paint big murals on brick walls
make my city colorful, make it happy and tell the people their history
murals are a good. sculpture is a good. I like to see it in cities.
or really random crazy art like the Cadillac ranch or the all-frog band on Carl's Corner
Dallas was idiotic to have ever let the frog band leave the city
art is cool

2007-10-23T17:47:00.001-05:00

2007-06-30T10:20:00.001-05:00

Only the second bloggy blog.

2007-02-20T12:20:00.000-06:00

If you have happened to wander in here looking for me. Well, you found me. This makes post number two. I have entirely too many accounts to keep track of all of them. I am over in Yahooland. If you want to see me there, same name, always the same name until someone steals it from me or I am given the deletion. I do blog, just not here. I might come here and rant into the air periodically, but if I am going to spend the time writing out something, I am not likely to do it here.

first blogger blog blog

2006-07-26T20:00:00.000-05:00

Tan pants, Yellow hat, and Red Shirt

There was a time I was a landscape commando
Wherewith I and mi amigos did install
The turf, trees and shrubs in the burgeoning suburbs

We chosen few who stood in the north wind
We the forgotten and dismissed
Slam the holly into cold clay
Rake the soil, move quickly, hurry
Every morn we chose those who would have cash that day
Leaving the gathering of foremen with the boss
We went into the yard and chose from those there
It was cold when I went there, it was sunny when I left
Every day they would show up, unless instructed not to
Every day those who would work for cash
Rain or shine, somebody is going to be there
To see if there is any work
You, you and you, come with me, we go
Days there were when they were not enough
Hands for the work to be done
So off we rode to the tracks
Where men stand and wait for work to come to them
Some work would find them, and some it would not

Colors did not matter, speech was negotiable
If you were willing to work
And we could get along with you
And you were willing
Then come along, we will put you to work