I am forwarding a poem that greeted me this morning, at 5AM in the form of an 8 foot tall poster in the lobby of my office. Many of you may have seen it, particularly if you work in a plant. I had not. Today is one of those days when it might well be taken to heart and put to good use. Our children will be costumed and wearing masks this evening, and maybe just a bit caught up in the moment to notice some of the small details, like the flames on the jack-o-lanterns or the car driving with it's lights off. What say we all put in just a little extra effort tonight to see that they all have fun and come home safely, with a bigger but likely exhausted, smile on their faces than when the evening started.
Happy halloween!

I Chose to Look The Other Way

I could have saved a life that day,
But I chose to look the other way.
It wasn't that I didn't care,
I had the time, and I was there.

But I didn't want to seem a fool,
Or argue over a safety rule.
I knew he'd done the job before,
If I spoke up, he might get sore.

The chances didn't seem that bad,
I'd done the same, He knew I had.
So I shook my head and walked on by,
He knew the risks as well as I.

He took the chance, I closed an eye,
And with that act, I let him die.
I could have saved a life that day,
But I chose to look the other way.

Now every time I see his wife,
I'll know, I should have saved his life.
That guilt is something I must bear,
But it isn't something you need share.

If you see a risk that others take,
That puts their health or life at stake.
The question asked, or thing you say,
Could help them live another day.

If you see a risk and walk away,
Then hope you never have to say,
I could have saved a life that day,
But I chose, to look the other way.



Don Merrell

J.R. Simplot Company

Alright young lady, enough with these not so subliminal curveballs you are throwing at my diet! Just kidding, CJ. You have done a very good job of highlighting one of the things that make South Texas so special. I saw some chicken and fresh peppers on the counter a few days ago, and asked my wife if tortilla soup was on the menu. If you had a bowl of her tortilla soup, you would swear she was from Harlingen or Carrizo Springs. You would never guess she comes from the land of lefse, ludefisk(lutefisk to you Norwegians), and lakes and creeks that become parking lots for ice fishing encampments for four months each winter.

As it turned out, the night's fare was not tortilla soup, but the idea stuck, and last evening, the aroma of cilantro, pollo, and fresh avocado filled our kitchen, uh, yeah - and the rest of the house as well.

Now, I find myself fighting with my inner chow hound, trying not to drop the hint for King Ranch Chicken.

Next time you start a thread relating to our irrestible local fare, I hope you have the foresight to do it before daylight savings time is on the verge of depriving me of my evening bike ride. Have you ever tried to swerve around a water mocassin looking for a place to hibernate, while dodging a deer frozen in the glare of bicycle lights?

Great blog CJ. Next time you are in Port O'Connor, there is a little store a block or so east of the turn off to Clark's, that has some of the best homemade tamales you'll ever taste!

Don't look now, but it appears there's a couple of floaters in the shallow end of the gene pool, and I don't think they are Baby Ruths or fake turds (there goes the PG rating).

Is anyone watching the events unfolding in the nation's capitol over the last couple of days? Witness if you will, a house of cards falling down. How long did W. think he and the Dickster could have us "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain". Don't look now boys, but Harriet was shot down by your own troops, and Mr. Cheney's right hand man is cooking on the spit for not being completely forthcoming, regarding some national security issues. I know he has said that the courts will bear out his claims of innocence in not being completely truthful. I believe that is capitol hill lawyerese for plea bargain. I think when the smoke clears, we'll be looking at something more resembling a cooked goose than a lame duck as far as this administration goes.

I know a lot of folks delighted in calling Clinton "Slick Willie", but when he exited, we were in much better fiscal shape, and not having to watch a body count daily on the evening news, along with seeing our image in the eyes of the world change to one of scorn, ridicule and that of a bully, rogue planetary cop.

I'm thinking history will show that as a result of having dumb and dumber as a choice in our last election, we chose a preppie cheerleader boy to do a lineman's job and that after a few slippery moves, he got squashed like a bug.

So far, he has thrown 2000 of our troops into a cauldron that has been cooking since the beginning of civilization, and pawned our economy in the process, for years to come.

On his watch, oil giants saw a last quarter profit increase of over 65%, as compared to an obscene average of 25% by the rest of our major corporations, while using every natural disaster and their own tightwad decision to milk every drop of gasoline they could from dilapidated, dangerous refineries, as a smokescreen, while they have us all bent over our car hoods.

All of a sudden, an ex-prez trying to make a few extra bucks on a land deal, getting a hose job under the desk, and having a wife with her claws on his cajones, keeping him in line, but otherwise keeping the ship upright, doesn't sound like such a bad deal, huh?

The bad news is that we're stuck with the current situation for a while. The good news is that unless he changes the rules, we still get to give him the hook in a couple of years and to see that we have something better to choose from.

I so enjoy writing light stories and telling tales and making observations on everyday events. Sometimes - I vent.

Vote every chance you get - while you still can!

As in - Pavlov's dog. Crowd mentality amazes me sometimes. I got an e-flash this am about an United Way ice cream social to be at 1:30 along with the flavors available, and promptly forgot about it.

I left my desk a couple of minutes ago to ask someone a work related question - yeah I do that too - but alas, the floor was so empty, it looked like there was a fire drill in progress. I went back to my desk to get back to work, and soon heard voices outside my cell. " you should see the line around the lobby" he said. Just dawned on me where everyone is! Now, I can take or leave ice cream, but standing in a long line is just not my style.

I think there are people who would wait in line for an hour for a good butt kickin' - if you took the time to convince them it was absolutely gratis, zip, nada, nuthin' - a freebie.

Now maybe if it was chardonnay and fresh fruit..............Nah.

This could have been titled What's in your pocket, purse, backpack, etc. It's really about men and women, Venus and Mars, and our little idiosyncracies, when it comes to what we carry around with us daily, and what we choose to carry it in. I'll try not to stray too far, so I'll save the "What's in your kitchen catch-all/junk drawer" for another blog.

I'll start with wallets. I don't carry one - for a couple of reasons. I still have the last wallet I had as a young man, one I bought in Mexico while walking back to Laredo after a bullfight, before I knew better than to attend such events. Nowadays, the bulls in the ring are safer there than the folks on the streets of Nuevo Laredo, I hear.

The reasons I don't carry a wallet are:
1. I carry my money and credit cards in a front pocket in a money clip. An old friend convinced me that while traveling from city to city, I might encounter a pickpocket, and that it was easy for them to brush against you in a crowd, and lift a wallet out of a back pocket without you're knowing. Besides, if a guy puts his hand in my front pocket, he's close to territory that will earn him a punch on the beak.
2. I'm not a particularly tall person,(okay, I'm short) and a wallet bulging in my back pocket adds dimension in a direction that needs no enhancement - my width (hey, the low center of gravity comes in handy on my bike and skis).

And now to the contents issue. I have been guilty, as have most men, of making a cutesy remark at some point, as to the nature of the items that ladies carry in their purses. So as an atonement, I am going to divulge the contents of my backpack. Yes, backpack, one I inherited from my son when he got a new one for school. When I got off the boat, laid down my hammer and saw, put away my pole climbing gear and actually took a desk job, I started out as most men do, carrying a smart leather briefcase. That lasted about as long as the tie and business shirt and pocket protector did. Lately I lean towards a backpack, hiking boots, and Hawaiian shirts - just feels better.
Anyway, here is the laundry list of things I found upon emptying my pack on my desk:
1 ballpoint pen (erasable ink)
1 red lead pencil
1 spiral notebook (my personal journal)
1 hairbrush
1 Trek bicycle light
4 Band Aids
1 Fuji digital camera
1 3" pocket color TV
2 AAA batteries
1 AA battery
2 D batteries
2 books (The Prophet & On The Road)
1 512 meg flash memory stick
1 2 week old Best Buy advertisement
1 Texas Highways magazine
1 Skiing magazine
1 cell phone manual
1 paisely print bandana
my original Social Security card
my 1976 Drivers License
1 net knife in it's sheath (the little razor sharp thing for repairing shrimp nets)
1 Leatherman multi-tool
1 tin of Altoids gum
2 hands free mic's for my phone
2 pairs of foam ear plugs
my address/phone numbers book

That's it!
Yes, I need/use it all......
Sorry for those remarks, ladies :-)

Oops, found another paperback in a side pocket - by Lewis Grizzard: Shoot Low Boys, They're Ridin' Shetland Ponies.

R.I.P. Lewis........



C'mon guys 'fess up - or do you all really just carry a wallet with your TDL, cash and pix of your wife and kids? My pix are taped and hung everywhere there's a clean surface for them around me.

Some of the younger readers are likely not going to remember the CB craze of the mid-seventies so this passage may well be lost on them. When I was young, CBs were pretty much used by truck drivers and shrimpers and farmers as any other tool of their job. Along about '75 0r '76 though, they just became the cool thing to have, and about every other car and pickup truck had one. The drivers had a "handle" to hide behind, and this culture had a language all it's own (front door, back door, rockin' chair and smokey bear). I even managed to latch on to the udder of that little cash cow for a couple of years, first as a radio installer/tech., then as a manager of a CB and car stereo shop. After that, the fad just kinda died off and CBs really just faded back to being a tool again. The difference being, instead of hearing Joe Beaver, Poodle Wittenbert, or Billy Coward lying about not catching any shrimp while their deckhands were breakin' their back shoveling them into the box, the fibs are now told mostly in the Vietnamese tongue......

Also, let me tell ya, the truckers and their lingo are alive and well. I have one, a three dollar (including magnetic mount antenna) garage sale special, that I pop in and out of my vehicle as necessary. A while back, I had a job that required weekly trips to and from Tyler, and the way I drive, my CB is necessary!

I was cruising south on I-45, headed for home when I heard this voice of god type truck CB booming: Yall lookout, they's a gatuh layin' right on the zippuh at the hunnert-n-forty yard line. I learned a three things, right then and there. One - if a cb is that loud, it probably belongs to the trucker you are tailwinding to save gas. Two - the Hunnert&whatever, refers to the mile marker whizzing by your window. Three - gatuh on the zippuh, means that eight foot long truck tire tread that resembles an alligator that was laying on the dashed white line that looks like a zipper, in the middle of the road before if came alive under that truck and found my hood! Oh, and four - if you tailgate, you better have good reflexes.

That's it, except for those driving up the beltway. They's a county mountie on the nawthbound side,and he's a takin' pictures. Yall can keep the pedal to the metal though - he's outside talkin' with a customer.........

Some may have noticed, I love baseball. My home team is down two games, and I say, we got 'em right where we want 'em. I'm speaking of our team, not theirs. We are in the World Series, and a lot of Texas baseball fans are on cloud nine at this point - even being down two games. This has been so long in coming, we are collectively pegging the needle on the big grin meter around here.

Part of the trimmings of a hometown Series is a special "World Series" section in the Chronicle with stories, stats, and trivia related to the Series.
Today, one columnist did a story on how the umpires have sucked. They have, but they are applying their ineptness equally and with no malice towards any particular team, so that's a wash, and they are the only ones looking like rookies and scabs who crossed a union picket line when the pro umps walked and got themselves fired a few years back. Another story was on how the Sunday game stacked up against Desperate Housewives in the Nielsens. Uh, I think I'll keep it clean and not even qualify that one with a comment.

The story that caught my eye is here: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA... target='_blank'>....everyone has big league dreams It is a story on the Astros Venezuelan Baseball Academy and the kids that go there and the ones who have been there and those who run it. It's a nice story. Check it out or pick up a paper on your way home and read it the old fashioned way - wearing steel cleats and holding a wooden bat.

Just caught a lead in to an upcoming story on the news this AM. You know, one of those little snippets dropped to captivate you and keep your hands off the dial until you can hear the rest of the story, and oh yeah, about fourteen more commercials.

This story is about Cindy Sheehan. Lead in blurb was about the fact that she is headed to D.C. with a chain and padlock. I'd like to think that she is headed up to the hill to bind W's writing hand and to chain his cocky little lie hole shut. Truth is, this smacks of the tactics employed by my feisty old friend Diane. Uh, Cindy, you might want to check with Diane on this ploy, before proceeding - if you can find her. Word on the streets down here, is that she's got some folks waiting for her. Guys with papers that say she is to be incarcerated for a spell, and for guess what? Yep, you guessed it - the old chain yourself to something to get attention for your cause trick. In Diane's case, I believe it was a distillate tower in a refinery. (after passing by the recently scorched tower at Formosa, the object of Diane's wrath, I think I'd pick something a little farther away from ground zero to chain myself to). By the way, those guys with the refinery, the ones from Formosa - they are sleepin' with the chief, so when you snap that lock shut on the White House fence, get used to the sound of it, because that's what W's boys do to people who irritate him and his cronies.
Hell, they even go around the world and do it to people in their own back yards.

Cindy, since you are likely going to have some time on your hands, you may want to return some of those calls from the publishers who have no doubt, been hounding you. That's what my friend, Diane did, and though I've yet to read her book, it comes recommended by a friend who has, and I hear it's doing well in the bookstores.

Oh yeah, one other thing - Go girl! Thank you for taking a stand and biting this administration on the butt. We need not look very far to see the proof that one person can make a difference.

God Bless Rosa Parks.

This morning, I woke up in the city at 4:30AM, put in my time at the office, drove back to the 'burbs and had lunch with my sons at their school, went home, picked some fresh fruit from my grapefruit trees, made beds, put the dishes in the dishwasher, and let the dogs in. Sound like a full day? That was all behind me by noon thirty.

Since then, I have visited some treasured friends in Victoria, cruised Red River, past the old Victoria Junior College(like waaay pre-UHVC)campus, where I was once ushered to the Dean's office to discuss my hair length and public display of affection towards my future wife - ON CAMPUS I might add. God, I miss the early '70s (yeah right, like a wart on my eyeball).

Upon negotiating a full blown Houston style, traffic shutdown on 59, trying to get out of town, I got creative on the back roads, and headed to the bay where I was raised. Upon arriving here on the coast, I connected with a person whom, to this point has been literally, an e-pen-pal. What followed was an all too brief visit with him, and his radiant and gentle spouse, who was just as I had imagined her from his written descriptions. Oh yeah, I met Chevy too...a peach and a pal to be sure. Meeting new friends can be very sweet, like a first kiss - sometimes, you just feel that there is more, and the anticipation is like being a kid again........... Afterwards, I had a nice visit with my sweet sister, which I need to make a point of doing much more frequently.

I think we should all make an effort to stay close to family and old friends, and to welcome new friends with open arms. When all is said and done, those relationships and memories are what matter most. The stuff we bring home in a bag or proudly drive past the crowds, will surely wither, rust and fade. Friends are forever.


I now sit on the edge of my bed in the village by the bay where I was raised, hours away from the city where this day began, reflecting on the whirlwind, second half of the day, grinning ear to ear, and ready for a nap before cranking up Saturday morning. I hope it will end in a World Series Game 1 victory celebration for the home team. Whether it does or does not, I will be with my family, and I will be thinking of my old friends and my new friends. It's really hard to ask for anything more. Anything beyond that is a bonus, eh?

What a full day!

I did an entry last night, with the plan being to lay low for a day or two and chill and watch baseball. As usual, I get up, wake up the roosters, drive in to town, check the obits back home, then move on to the blogs and what do I find? A new kid on the block has moved in and one of his first few words has flipped my switch and forces me to take a stand, and make a trip back in time.

"Stagnant", he said. He gets the benefit of the doubt on that assessment, given the nature of his visit. I might have even used the word "regressed", based on strong memories of a once vibrant, but long dead Main Street and the relocation of shops to the "big highway", hoping to snag the business of folks passing through to the next little village.

Now that place is anything but stagnant these days, though I recall a time when the tap water down there fit that description. Joke around home was, flush hard, it's a long way to their water fountains........ Seriously though, that little place has blossomed, and now on weekends, it reminds me of a little Houston, just with bad oyster shell roads instead of miles of concrete. I do have some fond memories of the place though, along with one painful one.

Those good memories include the old Jamison Theater and a pretty girl named Ruby. They also include the school year after POC's own 9/11 (1961), when when the man upstairs pulled the big chain and flushed the village into Matagorda Bay. New friends came to our school that year - Paul and Becky, Mark and Gay, Allen B., to name a few. One memory hard to forget, would be a baseball game when I was a runt catcher, ball in hand, waiting at the plate for a behemoth of a twelve year old, Dennis Raby, bearing down on me from third base. That boy hit me like I was the one pin left standing after he had just missed bowling a perfect game. To this day, I can't remember if I hung on to that ball or not. Ask my old man - he had a ringside seat in the dugout.

Yep, lots of memories back down there - friends and friendly rivalries.......

Stagnant? I don't think so, slow and a tad dull? Maybe. More likely just a late bloomer though. K-man, maybe I'll see you out at the cemetery someday. I ride my bicycle out there on Sunday mornings occasionally, to visit old friends who left me way too soon.

BTW - POC was never the county seat. That would be Indainola, until 1887, when, after tired of their own bay flushings, they relocated the Courthouse to Lavaca, later renamed Port Lavaca.
For more on Calhoun County, check out this site: http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/...

Guess at least one or two of you have noticed that my last two posts have been, like up, then down, based on the fortunes of a local professional sports franchise. Well, nail my nvts (how Roman) to a stump and push me over! I think my neophyte status in a public forum is starting to rise to the surface and show it's ugly head. I apologize, and I promise to strive put things into proper perspective in my future diatribes and musings (all bets are off in the tales I may tell or the yarns I spin).

On the way home from the mill this afternoon, I found myself stewing over my matinee sports nightmare from the previous evening, and stuck in traffic going nowhere. After changing channels (yes, channels, I have a 5 inch black and white in my truck - I'm an infojunkie), trying to find something on the telly, other than co-miserating sports fans, a news story came on that made me stop and take notice. It was about a family of five, a dad and four kids, aged 5 to 12 who perished in a crash on their way to a Christian school called Abundant Life School, I believe. Now if that doesn't bring things into focus for you, me, or for anyone else licking their "wounds" over a baseball game, then I am afraid that we are so shallow, that there is really no place for us in this spiritual plane anyway.

I, along with a multitude of Astros fans, am on the edge of my seat, praying for a miracle, and a shot at the "Field of Dreams game" as tomorrow's game approaches. There is nothing wrong with that. It's apple pie, the great American tradition, and the human desire to compete, and to prevail, all rolled into one. But in the grand scheme of things, may we all hope - or pray, to whichever God we were brought up to believe in, that there is more to life than games won or lost, and that we will put our best foot forward every day in our quest to live an honest and bountiful life, and be sucessfull in instilling that same value in our children.

Oh yeah, Go Astros! Best of luck up in the Gateway to the West. If you pull it out, we'll follow you to the Windy City for the big dance. If you stumble, we'll welcome you home, and we'll hurt and cry with you. You're our home team!

Dammit! Hold the presses - Zorro has been downgraded to a depression, and I just got a call from my brother David in Port Lavaca. He says that foot deep white stuff down there is fallout from the Formosa plant.

Geez Bradley, did you see Big Al lickin' his chops when you lobbed that prize winning Russett in his direction? I think even I could have parked that one on the railroad tracks. You might want to save those batting practice taters for Thanksgiving dinner.

Welcome to the Wide, Wide World of Houston Sports - or - Meet me in St. Louis!

And to think, I was saying last fall after the home team squatted in the playoffs, "yeah right, the Astros will be in the World Series when it snows a foot in Port Lavaca on Christmas Day, and Hurricane Zorro is in the Gulf"....................... Just shows to go ya Wilma - never say never!

Got this little readit'ngrin from my cousin Lisa, in Shreveport last night. At first glance, I thought,"surely she's not voting for her....". After reading more carefully, well here it is:

FINALLY, someone has come out with a 100% bipartisan political bumper sticker.

The hottest selling bumper sticker comes from New York State:

"2008 - RUN HILLARY RUN"

Democrats put it on the rear bumper.

Republicans put it on the front bumper.

hehe

While this would be best told fresh after arriving at the office or at home, I'll take a stab at it without the freeway induced adrenalin coursing through my system.

I started driving in this twice daily event(The Houston 500)in 1980. The only perceivable change since then, other than the never-ending road construction, is in the traffic density. That, and the fact that a lot of the vehicles on the road now, were appearing on the pages of Popular Mechanics and Motor Week as concept cars back then, with me thinking "no way that goofy looking thing will ever see a production line". Likely the same thing my folks' generation said when they saw the first early 50s Studebakers and Plymouths. Remember those, the ones that you couldn't tell which direction they were going, unless the lights were on to give you a color reference?. Well, they cranked out most all of them, and in large numbers too, nowadays from modified military Humvee's and go karts with a skin, to Honda's cute new "Box on Wheels" and everything in between. I'm drifting again though, this one is about the drivers, not their hardware.

I'll start by saying what a lot of you already know - driving in Houston traffic is not for the faint of heart, particularly if you make the daily trek from the burbs (I know, it was in the country when you moved out here, right?) into the bowels of the beast during rush hour. I suppose I should add, that I am a seasoned veteran of this daily Mad Max rally. I have logged a lot of miles on these freeways, without a single accident. My ex would dispute that, as I had the nose of her sports car clipped off in West U. once - but that wasn't on the "fleeway", so it doesn't count. The point is, I drive it daily. I drive fast, always have, probably always will too, as long as radar detectors are legal and my eyesight and reflexes can keep pace with my impatient streak. My driving is sort of a cross between "let the force be with you" and an arm out the window, wave at the buds style. Works for me, though I doubt my mom could handle it, and my ten year old is constantly taking me to task on it. When I try to defend my driving with him, he always hits me with the conversation ending line:"dad, YOU HIT A TRAIN". Hard to argue with that one...., though speed wasn't really a factor. I think it was a case of inertia, and those two brief lines on the accident report: Cause - Driver inattention, and Vehicle 1 - Ford Thunderbird, Vehicle 2 - Budd Diesel Electric Locomotive.

In realistic terms though, I'll try to tell you what to expect if you are unfortunate enough to find yourself in the midst of our traffic animals at rush hour (basically from 5:00AM - 7:30PM, unless there is a hurricane evac in progress):
1. Creative drivers like myself, looking for the fastest route home to the wife and kids, while trying not to **** anyone off to the point of having them stalk us for miles as the California transplants do in Denver.
2. By the book, drivers manual types,(one thousand one, one thousand two.....) when pulling away from a traffic signal, while ducking bullets from:
3. The road is mine, get the f outta my way, I rule this road, testoserone or PMS (P=permanent) fueled types.

I've saved the best (literally) for last. These folks keep me from going over the edge and allow me to put it all into perspective. They are people for whom you have to take a deep, relaxing breath or two, then pull alongside of to appreciate:
4. Folks from Cuero, Bloomington, Mission Valley, etc. Decent people, accustomed to a slower pace, and to whom this rat race is a nightmare. People like my uncle Don or my dear friend Kevin and his in-laws, the most gentle and generous folks you will ever meet. They and many others like them are forced to come to this place for a single purpose. The ones closest to their hearts are, or were battling the ravages of cancer, and they, without a second thought, over and over, will make that sojourn to and from the best hospitals in the world to try and find a cure, or a way to extend their time in this life together.

So for the few city folks who read this, before you let fly with those acid tongued remarks in the safe confines of your car that only you will hear anyway, when you see someone stopped on the Beltway 8 ramp with their turn signal on, pull ahead and make sure it isn't a little petrified, white knuckled, white haired lady named Ruth or Evelyn or Mary Ellen or Ida Ann, trying to find M.D. Anderson.

For you folks from back home and the ones of you from the small towns and the countryside, I got your back. Just don't try to beat me to my exit or bump me like Nascar. That confuses me.

Ain't baseball a hoot? I am so looking forward to seeing the Astros go where my home-in-law team, the Twins seem to be every five years or so, and on a shoestring budget - The World Series. We got 'em where we want 'em now. In our building facing the Rocket on Saturday - and home field advantage for the rest of this series...........

No, really, I'm okay......the pavement broke my fall.

It has been hashed and rehashed in this forum - folks who in the course of everyday speaking, find unique ways to show how, somewhere along the way, they managed to hear a cool word or phrase, and decide to make it part of their vocabulary too, only to get it completely wrong in the process. Worse yet, they go through life never having been corrected, at least not by me.

I have a few examples: The first two are attributable to the same person. He was an old teacher and coach of mine in Jr. High (middle school to most of you). He kind of reminded me of Audie Murphy, except with a nasty little attitude at the time. Later, I got to know him better as I worked with him at a crop dusting outfit. Turned out he was a nice guy, and he could make a Piper PA-18 Super Cub look like a Scissortail in flight. In retrospect, I can see where going from military combat and bush pilot, to dealing with a gym full of hormone ravaged, smart - assed boys, might tend to give a guy a bit of a 'tude. But I'm already getting off the subject.....
The first irritant was the use of "irregardless" sorry Mr. V, - IT AIN'T A WORD.

The second, was an insulting phrase that the first time I heard it used, it was spoken correctly, by my mother. Don't remember who it was directed at or why, just that it sounded sincere and that she got it right - "I couldn't care less". Now, spoken as such, it has a bite to it, don't you agree? Humor me - say yes. The alternate version which I hear all too often is "I could care less". HELLO - that sort of defeats the purpose of the point you're trying to make, doesn't it? Does anyone think, before, during, or after saying that, what it means????? Something like "Well, I hear what you're saying, and while caring somewhat about your opinion, I actually could care not quite as much. Sheeesh!

One last one, that always irritated the you know what out of my dad, was a little thing my Aunt Mary would insert at the end of almost every sentence she uttered: 'neverthang". I think it was a misguided attempt to make a contraction of "and everything", sort of an all encompassing word tacked on after the fact, to make sure that in case she hadn't gotten her point across, feel free to fill in the blanks with any or all of the rest of your own words - I guess.

IRREGARDLESS:

SYLLABICATION: ir·re·gard·less
ADVERB: Nonstandard Regardless.
ETYMOLOGY: Probably a blend of irrespective and regardless.
USAGE NOTE: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir– prefix and –less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.



Your move.............

Just got my e-headlines from the Austin American Statesman. It reads: Winter heating costs due to skyrocket. Consumers who use natural gas could pay 50% more, U.S. warns.

Geez, is this ever great news for the 2% of the population who still burn coal in a pot bellied stove or what? This is where I have to stop. I have read the blog rules carefully. I am one who writes what I think, on the fly as in conversation. If what I am thinking at the moment, as a gut reaction to that news blurb, were to leak out onto the page, I would find myself among the ranks of defrocked bloggers. The floor is open on this one!

Please, before the Aggie jokes start pouring in, and the chorus breaks into a rousing round of "God Bless UnmarriedCows" (lambs that I've loved), allow me to define "barn queen". In this case, it refers to an old motorcycle, mothballed, and having sat corroding in a dark shed for the last fifteen years, waiting for the right person to find and rescue it. This one is an old BMW, close in age to my recent ex-BMW, which I might add, attained it's ex prefix by, after being painstakingly restored to pristine condition over the course of many years, rewarding me by throwing me to the pavement, jumping on me and cracking my upper torso like a Choctaw Pecan. Believe me, nothing will drain your passion for riding motorbikes quicker than an across the board, 9.9 score in the freestyle street diving event.

That said, I have been stalking this old bike since long before my accident, hoping for a chance to try my hand at restoring another one, albeit in a far worse state of repair than my last one was when I bought it. The difference this time though, is that I have two sons old enough to help me with this project and I really look forward to sharing in this teaching and learning experience with them.
Besides, if I get this thing and we do a good restoration job on it, it will probably fetch a price sufficient to buy a nice boat and motor(see definition of boat below).
I think the wife may actually be on board with the idea of a boat now. Funny how, in light of seeing your husband or father sprawled in the street surrounded by EMT's and emergency vehicles with lights flashing, a boat doesn't sound like such a bad idea, eh? I wouldn't recommend this tactic for anyone else hoping to get the thumbs up an a boat purchase..........

Boat: a hole in the water into which you pour money.

With a title like that, what could this one possibly be about? Maybe a Rush song, nah. A hip guy named Alley Oop? Possibly. In truth, it is about a kid of ten or so, and a real sound butt whippin' and a lesson learned.

You see, this kid I knew was into music at an early age. He used to borrow his dad's car keys and turn the switch of their old Ford to "Accessories", flip on the radio and wait for it to warm up. Warm up you ask? Whattup with that? Never mind, that would be like trying to explain about the adapter you had to insert in the center of a 45 rpm record to play it on the album spindle. Maybe later……. Now, where was I children? Oh yeah, a story about this kid listening to the KILT and KTSA jocks on the AM dial.

This youngster loved the stuff on AM radio. Buddy Holly, Del Shannon, The Coasters, and so on. His dad fancied himself a music lover as well, and not a bad guitar player at that, but his music was of the big band stuff - Glen Miller, Artie Shaw. Occasionally, he felt compelled to sit the son down and make him listen to some of it for a change, instead his usual diet of bebop "noise". Truth is, I don't know if he ever told his dad, but to this day, the boy has "In The Mood" and "Across the Alley from the Alamo" burned on some of the same CD's as his Lynyrd Skynyrd, Credence and Led Zepplen songs.

Back to the story. One day the dad decided to entrust the son with a couple of greenbacks to take down to the local Western Auto/Dry Goods and shrimpers supply store for the purpose of picking him out a record, likely something like "Chattanooga Choo Choo" or "Sink the Bismarck". Well, the boy, fresh off the bayou, showed up with the money and was informed that while there were no Glen Miller or Johnny Horton records in the bin, they had just gotten in a copy of a cool song riding high on the charts at the time - "Alley Oop" and that there was only one record left, and that it wouldn't be there for long. Thus began a sequence of events that culminated in one of the worst thrashings the kid probably ever had. (you gotta remember, this was the old "spare the rod and spoil the child" '50's and '60's era.) The kid turned out to be more of a spare the kid and use the rod for shooting pool or fishing kinda dad himself, by the way.

Lesson learned? You bet! When you go to town with your dad's pesos, you had better come back with what you went for, or the money. Also, he remembered being schmoozed into that fateful purchase and how easy it seemed for the old storekeeper to move in for the kill. Later in life, he tried sales work himself for a while. Did pretty good at it too, peddling car phones in the early days for enough money to buy a good pair of K2 skis and boots these days. That lasted only for a brief spell, while his oilfield work was in a downturn. His friends said he should stay with it - said he could sell the devil a book of matches. I think he just couldn't handle the emotional highs and lows of commission sales, a prince one month and a pauper the next. The lure of a steady Texaco check was just too good to pass up on. Probably learned that from his dad too………..
Look at that caveman go!

I received a telemarketing call earlier this evening from a canned lass, purporting to be from Carnival Cruise Lines (can I say that name?). She was touting their upcoming cruises to Cozumel, and other nearby, convenient ports of call. Coincidentally, today there was an AP story in the papers, on the expense that our illustrious disaster relief czars in Washing-toon (misspelling intentional), are strapping us for, as tax day approaches, the tab to accomodate FEMA workers(I use that term very loosely) and Katrina evacuees.
I will not include a link here - pick up the local paper if you would like to see the figures. They are staggering, to put it mildly. I will however, dwell on the other side of the story. The fact that they are still attempting to book a couple of cruises..... I must assume that the new head of FEMA is requesting only the cream of the crop, the flagships of the fleet for the feds, fair enough guess? What that leaves for the hardy few who are down to the wire on vacation time, is the rest of the fleet.
Has anyone besides myself noticed the number of instances of exotic mystery illnesses that seem to arise regularly, on the everyday cruises on ALL of the cruise lines? Twixt you and be-me, I prefer the Cozumel of the past - the one with old lugger wooden boats that required a two hour trip to the reefs, loaded with Mike Nelson tanks and bag lunches, or catching and cooking lunch on the trip. Given that those are no longer available, and that 40 ft fiberglass jet skis are the transport mode of choice nowadays, does anyone want to roll the dice on a trip on one of these floating culture dishes remaining after the feds got the picks of the litter? I don't know about anyone else, but if I find some extra vacation time, and hit a Lotto jackpot,(yes, I am aware that the lottery is essentially a tax on the math impaired), I for one am going to take my chances on a 90 minute Aeromex or Pina Colada Express flight down there and back. The chances of getting a tap water ice cube, is about as much of a gamble as I am willing to take (except for the quick pick).

Okay, here we go - first boat on the water this morning! This has all the promise of being a great day. I can honestly say that despite the fact that it's just past five in the morning, and I have already been brought to my knees in a darkened Lego minefield and negotiated twenty miles of Houston freeways. I accomplished both with my first cup of coffee in hand, and did not spill a drop! I can also say that, safe in the knowledge that Monday and a throwdown holiday are behind me at this point.

Yesterday lived up it's billing as a Monday, for me at least. Still recovering from the highs and lows of an eighteen inning baseball game, I was the only one in the house who had to bail out of bed at the sound of the bugle this morning. When I got to work, and looked at my pile of stuff called a desk, it appeared to me, that everything was written in a foreign language, and by a total stranger. Beyond that, I had to reset two passwords just to get started on the pile of gibberish on my desk. By midday though, I'll have to admit, some of the items on my desk had started to look familiar again, and after lunch, the clouds parted and it things got progressively better. By day's end, I had managed to purchase a beautiful ring to present to my lovely wife in a week, to celebrate fifteen years of her putting up with the likes of me. I got to ride ten miles on my mountain bike in the woods and saw two deer, two copperheads, and a load of lightning bugs. All in all, a pretty good day by the time the sun had set.

I finished off the evening doing something that is near and dear to the heart of a lot of baseball fans - watching the Yankees with their gazillionaire tails tucked, watching Angels in the outfield in celebration, and knowing that the worst was yet to come. Starting today, they have to endure the wrath and for a few, the hatchet of King George. Please don't misunderstand, I love New York. One of the coolest cities on the planet in my book. Once upon a time, I was a Yankees fan as well. That was when Mickey and Roger roamed the outfield, and Yogi was behind the plate, taking pitches from Whitey Ford, and crochety old Casey Stengle patrolled the dugout. That was when baseball was still a pasttimee for most of us, before it became a business of obscene salaries and contract lawyers. That was before one man with more money than God bought the Bronx Bombers and began to use them as a human puzzle, mixing and matching pieces as he sees fit to try and build the perfect team every year from parts he has bought or stolen from the other teams and foreign countries. There is something that needs fixin' when a sports franchise/empire, operates on more money than the annual budget of a lot of starving nations. It's a game for Pete's sake.

Oh well, time to put away the soap box for the moment. As I said, this is going to be a great day! Tomorrow, probably even better, as it's off to St. Louis to dispense with the Cardinals. We owe them one, huh? In just over a week, the wrecking ball will begin tearing into beautiful Busch Stadium, and it will go the way of countless fields of dreams before it. But that's another story...............