25. May 2011 · Comments Off on College Edumacation · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, Fun and Games, General, Veteran's Affairs

Well, following upon da Blogfadda’s tireless coverage of the various implications of the currently about-to-implode higher education bubble, I suppose that I might weigh in on the various merits/demerits of the so-called bubble, and the efficacy of even bothering to attend an institution of so-called higher education, with respect to my current career as a producer of readable genre fiction – which is not as highly-paid as the casual reader is likely to expect, but still . . . that career is underwritten by a pension earned for military service. It’s not the generous pension that I might have earned as a public servant in California as a prison guard or lifeguard, or municipal employee in certain urban sinks . . . but it suffices to pay the mortgage and a little over, since I had the good sense to retire and buy a residence in Texas, fifteen years ago. So, anyway – college education, value of, personal development . . . et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Personally, I felt that I got a great value out of my college education, and my parents – being the first in their families to achieve degrees – were all about the four of us being college attendees also. Dad went all the way to a Masters and almost a PhD, courtesy to his own industry and the GI Bill. He was pretty pissed about missing being awarded the PhD, I tell ya – he took out his frustrations building an ironwork chandelier, exactingly designed to hold the thick beeswax candles that my great-aunt Nan scored though being a stalwart member of the altar guild at some Episcopal establishment that rewarded her with those. Well, anyway, the ‘rents were pretty well hipped on the values of getting higher education, and three of the four of us kids eventually do so – but in the meantime, at what expense? And for what payback? It was pretty well drilled into us; our college education would be self-paid, although Mom was an uber-mom, in comparison to the mothers of our peers, growing up where we did, and at the time that we did. Which was a working-class, blue-collar striving suburb; I don’t think Mom and Dad ever entertained fantasies of red-brick Ivies for us, or even their own alma mater, Occidental College. Which was just as well – saved wear and tear on the emotions, ambitions and pocketbook. Community college for lower division, state Uni for upper, and if you can figure out how to do that and not live at home – good for you, kid!

This meant for me that I lived at home for all four years. I attended a local community college for two of those years (Glendale Community College, for those who give a rodent’s patoot about these things) – all the while carefully selecting every course taken for it’s transferability to a state university – and then went to California State University Northridge for upper division. I graduated from that august establishment with a bachelor in English, discovering only upon graduation day that all the good-looking and personable guys were in the Engineering division. Well, as I had gone to college to procure a B. of A. and not my Mrs.; this discovery was only a matter of academic and aesthetic interest to myself and the girl in line next to me, standing in our cheap polyester robes rented from whatever concession that held the rights for that graduation year. I went on and enlisted in the Air Force – which had been my intention for much of the time that I had spent marooned in academia. I did not do ROTC, by the way – that was not offered at Cal State Northridge. All they had was a program at another Cal State school that I couldn’t get to easily as a commuter student.

So – four years at various community and state institutions of higher learning, paying for my textbooks, tuition and the gas to get to classes: how did I pay for all of this? I made dolls. I made twelfth-scale dolls, and sometimes client-commissioned dolls and doll-clothes, and sold them on consignment or direct sales through a miniature shop in a nearby town. I made $25 a week, week in and week out – that’s about five dolls, with hand-sewn clothes, and composition heads, hands and feet of soda-cornstarch clay, and bodies made of cloth-wrapped wire, so that they were easily pose-able. I didn’t then, or ever, claim to be the best 12th-scale doll artist in the world, but I was the only one in that particular field at that particular time, working through that particular commercial outlet. And it did add up, not having any big expenses, other than tuition, textbooks and gas. Or at least it didn’t in the early 1970s. So I paid for all of my college education, and I came out with about $1,500 left over. I went to England on it, and spent the whole summer staying in Youth Hostels and traveling on Brit-Rail and various public transportations.

Educated, with a relatively useless degree in English Lit? Such were the circumstances that I felt then and ever since – that I was perfectly well educated, from this experience and from a mad impulse to read everything I could get my hands on, with regard to subjects which attracted my butterfly-impulsive interest. In the early 1970s in California, community colleges and state schools still offered an adequate and intellectually challenging education, even in the softer degree programs like – umm, English. A degree in it was a good starting point for quite a lot of interesting careers, even though Cal State Northridge didn’t and doesn’t have any cachet at all in the grand educational scheme of things. But I didn’t bankrupt myself retroactively – or my family in procuring a degree from it. And as a family, we also spared ourselves that desperate pursuit of red-brick-ivy-covered status-education competition. Really, Mom and Dad were totally realistic about all that, and the prospects that we would all have. For myself, I didn’t want to go on and get a higher degree; I wanted to be a writer, and I sensed, even then – that the best and most efficient way to do that was to go ahead and have a life, an interesting life, full of interesting and varied people. I’ve been knocking around the world ever since, among all sorts of people. Some of them don’t have anything beyond high school, and some of them do – and from places that are much higher thought of than Cal State Northridge. Weird thing? I’ve never felt the least bit at a disadvantage, intellectually. I’ve never been able to decide if it was the degree itself – which guaranteed to the observer that I was basically literate-and-a-bit for the standards of the time – or just the experience of life in the military which would account for that confidence. Just one of those things, I expect – being realistic about the education I got from one or the other – and not being in debt from the experience. I’m in debt for certain things – but not for my higher education.

22. May 2011 · Comments Off on May Monday Morning Miscellany · Categories: Ain't That America?, Devil Dogs, General, Good God, History, Israel & Palestine, Politics, Rant, World

Paid work is piling up, and neither myself, my creditors or my employers were raptured on Saturday, so . . . hey, buckle down to it and provide that good bloggy ice cream. Top o’ Sgt. Mom’s list of stuff to blog about – the discovery that the Pima County Sheriffs department is about as good at doing no-knock SWAT raids on ordinary citizens as they are when it comes to protecting local politicians doing a meet’n’greet with constituents from an obvious and frequently offending nutcase like Jared Loughner. Which is to say – not very good at all, which accounts for the stonewalling from Sheriff Dupnik’s department. SWAT . . . I’ve always been told it was an acronym for Special Weapons And Tactics. It this case “Special” is more like “Special Ed.” The fact that all this went down early in May and two weeks later, there is nothing much about what the SWAT team was after, or found in the Guerena house only reinforces my suspicion that they had the wrong damn address. It’s not the crime, Sheriff Dupnik – it’s the cover-up.

On a cheerier note, the gourmet foodie suppliers Harry and David are encouraging customers to donate quantities of their Moose Munch chocolate bars to the troops – more here. Note that if you go to the linked Facebook page, they will provide another Moose Munch bar for every ‘favoriting’ of that page. I like Harry and David, by the way. Their fruit basket assortments are to die for.

In a satirical response to President Obama’s speech demanding that Israel return to its’ 1967 borders – Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that the United States return to it’s 1847 borders. The sarcasm, it burns. Finally, courtesy of Weasel Zippers – pictorial comparison of the commando and the hipster – comment is superfluous.

20. May 2011 · Comments Off on From the Next Book – Deep in the Heart · Categories: General, History, Literary Good Stuff, Old West

(Deep in the Heart will continue the story begun in Daughter of Texas. During the tumultuous years of the Repiblic of Texas, the widowed Margaret Becker Vining is trying to raise her four sons by keeping a boarding house in frontier Austin, the now-and-again capitol of the Republic. Deep in the Heart will be available by December 2011, from Watercress Press. )

Chapter 9 – Forted Up

The events of which Dr. Williamson had written were confirmed within days by accounts in the newspapers which arrived from across Texas. Morag wept a little when Margaret told them of what Dr. Wiliamson’s letter conveyed. So did Hetty, but then she dried her eyes and said, “Our old Mam would have said he was born to trouble as sparks fly upwards. But he made a brave end of it, did he? And in a state of grace, as well. A blessing, I’d say – there’s many dies worse that deserves better, and many deserving worse who die well.” She dabbed at her eyes again and blew her nose. “An’ he did well by his kinfolk an’ those he called friends. Ever so grateful I am that he brought us here.”
“I wish he had drawn life from that dreadful jar,” Margaret replied, and she felt a little teary in the face of Hetty’s stoicism. “I had hoped to expand the house again, someday – and I had trusted in him to be the one to build it! Now, I am sure I can find another carpenter . . . but where do you find another cousin?”
“Oh, aye – we had cousins a’plenty in Wexford!” Hetty answered robustly, and then her eyes moistened again. “No’ many like Seamus though! We shall miss him too, Marm, miss him something awful. Now – Morag, darlin’ – if the baby is a boy, you should name him after Seamus, no matter what your man says. Aye, that’s what you should do!”
“But what if the baby is a girl?” Morag asked, laughing a little through her tears, “What then, Marm?”
“Jemima,” Margaret suggested. “Close enough to James, I think.” They talked a little over a name for Morag’s babe if it should be a girl, Margaret all the time thinking how much she would have loved to have a daughter. Not that she loved her sons any the less, or would have wished them to be anything more or less than they were – bumptious and growing boys in all their glory . . . but a daughter, to be able to share those womanly mysteries with, to talk and laugh with, as she had done with her mother, and with Oma Katerina! Boys became men – just as her dear little baby Brother Carl had grown first into a boy . . . and then departed into the world of men. Doubtless her sons would do the same and very soon, too – depart on their own errands – and if not into the Llano like Carl and his Ranger comrades, then into a world of which she would ever only know a portion.

In the end, Morag and Daniel’s baby arrived quite swiftly, several weeks after Margaret had received Dr. Williamson’s letter. Morag had shuffled into the kitchen at mid-morning, heavy and off-balance with the weight of the child, taking up a dish-towel to dry the breakfast dishes that her sister was washing. Morag had been sleeping badly at night in these last few weeks, and resting frequently with her feet up – such were the discomforts of imminent child-bearing. Standing close to the warmth of the stove, Margaret was carefully stirring a kettle of milk-curds, watching the heavy masses of curds separate from the clear whey. Her sons were out with Papa, working in the garden-plot under Papa’s eyes, and although they were close enough to the house, Papa still had a loaded rifle leaning against the nearest tree.
“Och, Morag dear, you should be stayin’ off your feet!” Hetty exclaimed, and Margaret turned around, echoing the sentiments as soon as she saw Morag’s face, pale with strain and particularly bruised-looking around her eyes.
“No – there’s an ache in my legs and in my back – truly it feels better to be walking around – oh!” she gasped, half-doubling over. “Mother Mary an’ Joseph!”
“What is the matter!” Both Mary and Hetty exclaimed. Margaret dropped the long spoon into the curds and Hetty abandoned the dish-pan, to come to her side.
“It . . . hurts . . .” Morag answered, between clenched teeth. “A sudden pain . . . as if . . . oh!” She held on to Hetty with both hands, her own face crimson with embarrassment. “Hetty . . . I’ve gone an’ pissed meself . . . Marm, I’m terrible sorry…”
“Not to mind,” Margaret answered calmly, as the floor at Morag’s feet became suddenly dark with liquid, which soaked into the planks or swiftly drained between. “The pain was that of the waters breaking. The baby is coming.”
“Is that what ‘tis?” Morag gasped again, and her face screwed up as another pain took hold. “Och, another one – not so bad…”
“How close together?” Margaret demanded, “And how long have you been feeling them?”
“Since last night – and a no more than a minute or two between,” Morag answered, while Hetty replied comfortably, “Just like our Mam, then.” She looked across Morag’s bowed head to Margaret. “Mam always had hers fast. Two shakes of a lamb’s tail, Mam always said. Wi’ our youngest brother, she was brought to bed after the morning milking, birthed him by the time the church clock struck ten of the hour, and was bringing supper to the reapers in the field at noon.”
“How . . . energetic of her,” Margaret said, thinking that Hetty was most likely saying so to cheer and encourage Morag, who was clinging onto Margaret’s hand with such a grip that Margaret’s fingers were practically numb.
“Well, Mam was married when she was only a bit of a girl,” Hetty answered, “And she bore twenty-three babes, an’ all but four born alive and well – with th’ youngest of us, all the midwife need do was sit at the bottom of the bed an’ hold out her hands to catch – if there was time to go an’ find her. Morag, me darlin’ it may take a little longer for your first, but I swear to you, for Mam it always went easy.”
“I want to lie down now,” Morag demanded, her face suddenly sheened with perspiration. They had arranged a bed in the old parlor for a lying in and Margaret shook her head,
“In a little while, Morag dear – if you walk now, it will bring it on easily.” She looked across at Hetty, who seemed quite calm. “Do you want me to send one of the boys for a doctor?” she asked, and Hetty shook her head.
“No need, no need, Marm.” She answered. None the less, she slipped out to the garden while Hetty helped Morag remove her dress and petticoats, and quietly asked Papa to keep the boys in the garden, or set them to work in the stable for as long as possible. Papa looked grimly pleased at that, while the boys looked disappointed at having to work all the day, instead of lessons in the afternoon.
Miraculously to Margaret, there was no need to send for the doctor or any of the women in town known to be skilled as a mid-wife – at least more skilled than Hetty –for Morag’s baby came as easily as a kitten to a mother cat, a crumpled pink shape – a comical crown of dark hair on it’s elongated little head – slipping easily from between Morag’s pale thighs. Morag cried out, almost involuntarily, a cry that was half a moan of relief and triumph mixed together. Hetty, behind Morag’s shoulders and bracing her into a sitting position on the bed, commanded,
“Now, push one more time . . . och, you’ve a grand wee daughter for Danny. He’ll want a son the next time, I’ll be bound. Is the little one all there, Marm – all of her lovely little fingers and toes?”
“She is,” Margaret answered, around a lump in her throat. Morag groaned again, as the red spongy mass of the afterbirth came away. While Hetty dealt capably with it, Margaret swathed the little form in a towel that had been warming by the hearth, gently rubbing the birth-matter from it’s tiny limbs and from the fluff of dark hair – how small was a new-born, how compact from being sheltered in the safe refuge of a mother’s womb. The baby’s flesh was pale pink with health, it drew in an astonished breath, and Margaret hastily wrapped it in the towel and put Morag’s daughter into her arms, while Hetty beamed with happiness and satisfaction upon them all.
“Father Odin, he is away, but he left me wi’ a vial of holy water so that I could baptize the wee mite myself. What name d’ye wish to call her by? Jemima for Seamus, o’course, and perhaps Marm can gi’ her another name, for luck.”
“Mary,” Margaret answered, so moved that she could barely speak. “Mary for my own mother: I’d wished to name a daughter of mine for her.”
“And for the Blessed Mother,” Hetty cooed, “That will do very well, Marm – Jemima Mary Fritchie it is, then. Look you – she smiled – I think she likes her names.”
“She has a little pain in her middle,” Margaret answered. “It only looks like she is smiling.”
“No, she is truly smiling, Marm.” Morag insisted, and her own face was split by a yawn. “Oh – begging your pardon – I did no’ think to be so tired…”
“Try and nurse the little one at little, before you go to sleep,” Margaret suggested, “So that she may become accustomed to suck, and your milk will come the sooner.” Impulsively, she bent down and kissed Morag’s forehead, and kissed the baby’s downy little head. “Rest now – this will be the last good rest you will see for years.”

Jemima-Mary was a good baby, placid and not particularly colicky. The boys – especially Peter and Jamie were entranced – and deeply disappointed that she would not be a ready playmate for a good few years. The baby took no interest at all in the boy-treasures that they brought for her from the woods and creek-banks – flowers and water-tumbled stones, and flint arrowheads, although Morag smilingly promised to keep them safe for her, until she was a little older. A week after her birth, Morag and her sister and Margaret were invited by Mary Bullock to bring Jemima-Mary to a gathering of the town’s women for afternoon tea.
“To welcome our newest little settler,” explained Mrs. Eberly, who bore the message, stumping fearlessly up the hill. “And she is quite the picture of an angel, isn’t she?” Mrs. Eberly cooed at baby, who was awake and examining the world immediately over her head and shaking her tiny boneless fists at it, laying in the cradle that Papa had made. “A love, she is – and will her eyes stay so blue? Just the color of buffalo clover – and the very image of her mama, I am sure.”
“I hope so, Marm Eberly.” Morag was pink with embarrassment and pride, at being with her baby the center of so much attention. “I hope so indade.”
“And Mr. Fritchie,” Mrs. Eberly continued, “locked up in that wretched Perote place, never laying eyes on the little mite. Well, never you fear, Mrs. Fritchie – we’ll see that you’ll be looked after, just as one of our own.”
“Thank you, Marm,” and Morag blushed even deeper, as Mrs. Eberly straightened her bonnet and prepared to take her leave.
“We will see you the day after tomorrow, then – in the china parlor at Bullocks.”
“A party,” Hetty exclaimed. “Och, and isna that what we need for a cheering-up? To see the other ladies for a bit, and to show off Jemima-Mary . . . what shall we bring, then – some ginger-cakes? Although,” and she looked as if she was having a second thought. “No, the good white flour is all but gone.”
“Apple-butter,” Margaret said. “We have plenty to share.”

There were about thirty women and older girls still living in Austin; Margaret tallied them up thoughtfully – most of them married – and on good terms with each other as much as they had to be. Mrs. Eberly was about the oldest, the grand dame of such little society as they had. Margaret reckoned herself as the only young widow who had maintained that state for more than a year, for there were ever more men in Austin – young and daring men – than there were women to court them. It took a strong-minded and resolute woman to maintain a single state for very long. Of families, there were enough with children that Race Vining might have opened a school; it distressed Margaret to know that one of the reasons – besides having no schoolmaster – for not having such was that the older boys and girls were taken up with the work that needed to be done, and the danger of Indians kept the smaller ones close to their mothers. But for the sake of the community of women, it was a rare week when there was not a gathering of women at one house or another, for a round of quilting, or to talk together as they sewed or knitted, while their children played outside in the afternoon. Today, Margaret resolved to take the older boys, Horace and Johnny with her. Otherwise, Papa would have put them to work, and today would be a bit of a holiday.
“This is Jemima-Mary’s debut into society,” She told her sons, as they walked down the rise from Papa’s house, towards the scatterings of shanties and log-houses clustered around Constitution and Pecan. Morag and Hetty laughed, as Jamie asked,
“What’s a day-boo, Mama?”
“Back in the East,” she answered, “It’s when a young lady puts up her hair and her Mama and Papa have a party for all of their friends and her friends, to let everyone know she is of an age to be courted in marriage.”
“It sounds silly,” Horace said gravely, “Can’t they all just tell by looking?”
The three women laughed together, their voices mingling pleasantly in the glade of oak trees that the path towards town meandered through, while Jamie and Peter squabbled pleasantly over which one of them would court Jemima-Mary when she was a young lady. Morag drew Jemima-Mary closer to her with one arm, and picked up the trailing hem of her skirt with the other. Hetty answered, still laughing,
“I’ll tell ye how ye can tell when you’re of an age to begin courting, laddie – it’s when you finally get your growth and ye are taller than the one ye like!” Horace blushed – he had just turned twelve, and to his horror, the two girls nearest his age in Austin both towered over him by at least half a head. Margaret saw this discomfiture and put her arm around his shoulders, whispering,
“It’s only a matter of time, dear one.” She nearly slipped and called him ‘little one.’ “Girls always get their growth first, and then the boys catch up. You’ll not be as tall as Uncle Carl, but you will be as tall as your Papa, and I liked him very much as he was.”

Within the far-scattering of houses on the outskirts of town, but still short of the Bullocks’, they were startled by the swift urgent rattle of the alarm-drum sounding. Margaret’s heart chilled like a lump of ice within her breast – what was this? A man shouted, then another – Comanche! She turned and looked over her shoulder towards the steep ridge thrust up into the blue summer sky to the north of town, a height which offered a superb view of all of Austin and the outlaying houses, all the way down to the riverbank. Horror rooted her feet to the ground; the green and oak-wooded height was not green any more, but patched with seething color, of men on horseback, brilliantly painted horses and men accoutered in bright red blankets that the Comanche favored, carrying long bows and javelins adorned with ribbons and feather. Queerly, her first impulse was to turn and run back the refuge of Papa’s house, but just as sense prevailed, a man on horseback pounded past them, and reined in his horse in an uprush of dust and dancing hooves.
“To the Bullock’s fort – now!” He shouted, and she recognized Captain Coleman, of the local Ranger Company. He lived a little farther away, up the valley and farmed near Shoal Creek. Now, he held his horses’ reins in one fist, a long repeating revolver in the other, the barrel pointed upwards. Margaret gathered up the four-year old Peter in her arms, and commanded, breathlessly,
“Morag, Hetty – run! Don’t stop to look behind. Horace, take Jamie’s hand! Do it – Jamie, run now!” for Jamie clamored to be allowed to go back to the house and load for Opa so he could fight the Indians.” Hetty already had Johnny by one hand, and her other on Morag’s shoulder. Margaret looked back again, and at once wished that she hadn’t and was glad that she had, for the Indians on their gaily caparisoned horses were already spilling down through the trees – but Captain Coleman was between them and the Indians, his horse dancing impatiently to and fro – as he kept the reins tightly gathered. He turned his horse every few moments – himself always between the Indians pouring through the trees, and Margaret and Hetty, the children and Morag with the baby as they ran. Margaret’s heart pounded painfully under the bodice of her best black dress, and the corsets that she had laced so tightly. Morag ran strongly, but she was already gasping, easily tired after the work of recent childbed and the weight of that precious child in her arms. Hetty ran as like a man; her skirts pulled with indecent efficiency past her knobby knees and tucked into the waistband of her apron, her face set and her grip on Johnny and her sister like that of iron and rawhide. She was pulling them after her, an undaunted force. Margaret redoubled her efforts, spurred by the memory of every horror she had ever heard of the fate of women, of babies and children – save those of a particular age – in the brutal hands of the Comanche. There were other women with their children, running from their own houses, in town and in the outlaying ones, from the Harrell’s old compound, near the river and the confluence with Shoal Creek. They were close, close and closer still to the Bullock’s – the tall house on pilings, where the lower part had been walled in to make the dining room at ground-level for their inn, the stout log building ramble which had become a block-house and refuge. Now that so many had left Austin, Bullock’s place could shelter all that remained in an emergency, at least for hours, possibly even days.
Gasping for breath, Margaret and her sons, and Hetty with her sister and the baby gained the front door of Bullock’s, almost blinded in the sudden dimness after the bright sunlight outside. The shutters had all been hastily drawn and bolted shut; those interconnecting rooms now as dark as a cave and filled with the murmurs of frightened men and women, save when the door opened to admit another person seeking shelter at Bullock’s. Before her eyes adjusted, Margaret blundered into something hard, something solid and more oddly-shaped than a table. Already, much of the heavier furniture in the taproom and public parlor were being moved and propped up against the walls to strengthen the shutters. She put out her hand to steady herself, squinting in the dimness; it seemed that someone had now thought to bring a single cannon from the armory. How the men had ever managed to roll it inside – and when they had done this – she couldn’t think. Morag and the boys had already gone ahead, through the dark hallways to the Mary Bullock’s china parlor, which sat in the very heart of Bullocks’ establishment, the safest and most secure, and where the women and children were accustomed to take refuge upon hearing any alarm.
“Mrs. Vining?” in the confusion, someone caught at her arm – Captain Coleman, his expression urgent, as much as she could see in the darkness. “Is everyone from your household here?”
“All but my father,” she answered, and Captain Coleman’s lips made a thin line across his face. “Damn stubborn Dutchman,” he muttered, “I guess he has decided to hole up at his place. Just when we need every man-jack who can handle a weapon here!”
“What is the matter?” Margaret demanded, and stayed him by the arm as he would have turned away. She could see better now or perhaps someone had lit a few more lanterns. “Are we so few that we are in danger, even all gathered at Bullock’s?”
Captain Coleman looked as if he would rather not have answered; he was a wiry, weathered man, somewhere in his thirties; one of the many unmarried men in Austin. He still limped from a wound taken a month or two ago, which had made him unfit to ride out with his company. Margaret knew of him only that her brother spoke of him as a good Ranger and reputed to be the best poker player between Austin and Hornsby’s Bend – maybe even as far as Mina.
“Yes, damn the luck – sorry, Miz Vining. There are twenty good men out on a long scout with the Ranging Company, five more that I know – including Ed Waller – went to Houston on the stage last week for business, and another three or four are away with a wagon-load of timber yesterday to the saw-mill at Beeson’s Landing. There must be at least another dozen like your father caught by surprise and holed up in their places. I’m only here, ‘cause I’m still healing.”
“How many are here?” Margaret drew in her breath, and Captain Coleman didn’t bother to lower his voice.
“I count mebbe a few more than twenty men and some boys who are fitten’ to carry weapons.” Margaret was appalled – this few men of fit age in Austin and the district around? She had seen many times that number of Indians, in that fleeting glance over her shoulder. Was it the Penateka Comanche, who came down like a wolf on the fold, out of the Llano with a thousand warriors? Two years ago, they had terrorized the valley of the Guadalupe, pillaging their way down to Linnville, while all the folk who lived there took refuge on boats in the harbor. The Comanche were defeated in open battle only when all the Ranger companies had time to gather and ambush them at Plum Creek, upon their return journey to their customary hunting grounds in the untamed and un-peopled Llano country. But that victory was weeks in coming. It had taken no little time to assemble the volunteers, the mounted militia of all the settlements in Texas – and in the meantime, Linnville had burned, and the Penateka had taken, tortured and murdered many white captives. There were no boats, no sea refuge here, only the stout walls of Bullock’s Inn . . . and only if there were enough men to defend it.
“But don’t ye go discounting the women, if it would serve,” Hetty spoke up, at Margaret’s side. Mrs. Eberly – barely seen as a blur of pale face, in her widow-black – echoed, “I’ll take up a musket, if you’ll need . . . and some of the boys, too. If they are not old enough to aim a weapon, they are old enough to re-load.”
“So will I.” Margaret averred. She thought of her sons, of Morag and the baby, huddled in the parlor, and those other mothers and children – no, the brutal Comanche must not be allowed exercise their cruel whims upon them. Margaret would do whatever was needed, to keep them safe and alive. “Give us each a musket, Captain Coleman – or a pistol – a knife even, if that is all there is at hand.”
“Do you know how to use a musket?” he asked, skeptically. “Aim and cock – and are you sure you can kill a man with it? It’ud be no use if you, having a weapon if they can just take it away from you. ”
“A Comanche threatening my child – I’d kill with my bare hands.” Margaret answered, firmly. “I can load, and aim – I’ve watched my father, my husband – even my brothers do so, since the day we came to Texas.”
“What about you, ladies?” Captain Coleman turned to Mrs. Eberly and Hetty. “Can you load and aim, shoot to kill?”
“It’s not like there is a choice in the matter,” Mrs. Eberly answered with frank honesty, and Hetty said, “Aye well – its’ the narrow end pointed at them as you want to do the damage upon, isn’t it?” Captain Coleman chuckled, in sour amusement, but his face sobered at once. “A good thing we’re not in need of sharp-shooters, Miss Moran – but that’s the general notion. When we parcel out the town arsenal, I’ll see that you’re supplied – I reckon that now that I’m in charge, with Bullock my second. Now – go on into the parlor, so’s I’ll know where you are.”
He turned away, as the main door opened and shut. Margaret saw in the brief light which came in with the person admitted, that two men had already taken up a sentry-position on either side of it – and that Mr. Ware the Land Commissioner, who walked on a peg-leg and had his right coat-sleeve pinned up – was directing some of the older boys in adjusting the barrel of the cannon so that it pointed directly at the front door.
“Aye, there’s always a warm welcome for guests at Bullocks Inn,” Hetty observed, and Mrs. Eberly laughed in genuine amusement. Margaret thought; Angelina Eberly must have seen nearly everything in her time – I truly think there must be nothing on earth capable of shocking her. The china parlor was down a short corridor, past the door to the Bullock’s own private quarters, and a stairway which gave access to the upper floors. The parlor, as dark now as the rest of the Inn, was crammed with women and children. With no fresh air from the opened windows and the crush within, it was stiflingly warm inside; the odor of human bodies and dirty diapers was overlaid with the stink of fear. Margaret didn’t think she could endure very much time within. She was certain the war-band of Comanche she had glimpsed over her shoulder was by far the largest body of them that she had ever seen in her life. She could think of no good reason why so many would come to the valley of the Colorado all at once, unless it was to attack and overwhelm the folk of Austin, or Hornsby’s Bend, or even Mina. Most Comanche raids, they were on outlaying houses, an ambush of a few travelers, or a sudden attack upon men working in the fields. Sometimes the raiders were after horses: Papa had always kept his stable padlocked at night for that reason. In the early days, he and her brothers had ploughed the cornfield with a rifle over their shoulders; of late he had taken to doing so again. And what about Papa, now? He must have heard the alarm, and taken refuge in his own house, as he always stubbornly insisted that he would, rather than risk being caught out in the open and making a run for Bullock’s . . . surely he must be safe, if he had time to bar the doors . . . Margaret could hardly bear thinking about this.
Perhaps the Indians had been watching them all this time, observing how few men were around, noting with calculating eyes how many families were left living like ghosts among the decaying frame buildings, their horses, food stores and valuables – their scalps and their human flesh too – all ready for the taking by any raiding party able to reach out and just pluck them, like a ripe apple from one of Papa’s trees.
Morag sat in a corner of the parlor, with Jemima-Mary in her arms, and Margaret’s sons clustered with her, like chicks under a hen’s wings. She had been telling them a story of old Erin; of Cuchulain and his magical shield and sword. As always when she told them one of these tales, the Irish in her voice came out – musical and lilting, much more so than in every-day speech. Even some of the other women and children setting near her were quiet, hanging on every word as if she wove a gold-brocade spell – a spell which could magically take them away to another world.
“For it was at the place that was called Emain-Macha, Macha-of-the-Spears they called it – so they did – that Conchubar the High King held the Assembly House of the lords of Ulster, and it was there was the chief of his palaces. Oh, and a fine place it was, having the three parts to it – the House of the Royals, the Speckled House . . . and finally, the House of the Red Branch. Och, and it was truly a marvel; in the House of the Royals which had three-times-fifty rooms, the walls were of red cedar-wood with copper nails. The High King Conchubar’s own chamber was on the first level, the walls paneled with bronze below and silver above, adorned with golden birds, their eyes were set with shining jewels – there were nine divisions of it from the fireplace to the wall at the end, and each one of them being thirty feet tall! There was a silver scepter always before Conchubar, a silver scepter with three golden apples mounted upon it, as of bells – and when he took up that rod and made the golden apples ring, all the folk in the house would be silent, wherever they were upon hearing it . . . ”
“Well, we were intending to have a party,” Mrs. Eberly remarked, “Here, laddie-buck, let me have that chair. I’m too old to go charging around like this in the heat . . . when young Morag there is finished with her story we’ll have a sing-along, won’t we? And Mary can play the pianner.” She sounded so normal – as if the party which had been planned was going on exactly as expected – that Margaret thought at least some of the younger women and the children were reassured. “We’ll be out from underfoot, while Captain Coleman decides what’s best. Go on with the story, girl – silver on the walls and golden birds with jewels for their eyes . . . seems quite a place, I must say.”
Morag shifted Jemima-Mary in her arms, and resumed the tale, “Now, in the House of the Red Branch, they kept the weapons of the enemies which they had defeated – and their heads, as well – and the Speckled House was for the swords and shields and spears of the heroes of Ulster. It was called so for the colors of the hilts of their swords, and the brightness of the spears, for they were trimmed and bound around with rings and bands of gold and silver; so were the bosses of the shields and the rims of them. The drinking cups and were likewise trimmed with silver and gold. And it was the custom of the Men of the Red Branch, upon one of them being insulted; he would demand satisfaction at that very moment, even in the middle of the feasting hall . . .”
“Sounds a familiar sort,” Margaret whispered to Mrs. Eberly, who chuckled and answered, “Oh, the times I’ve had to speak up and tell them to settle it – afore they commenced to break up the furniture!”
“And Cuchulain’s sword hung with his shield – and the name of it was called Cruaidin Cailidcheann. The sword had a hilt of gold, ornamented with silver, and if the point of it was bent back, even as far as the hilt, it would spring back straight at once. Indeed, it was so sharp that it could cut a hair floating in the water, a hair from the head of a man without touching the skin – and if it cut a man in two, each half would not miss the other for some considerable time . . .”
Margaret leaned her back against the doorway – there were no more chairs, and she did not want to sit on the floor with the children, as the minutes and hours trickled away. It would be sundown, soon – very likely they would be spending the night here. She turned at a step in the corridor, to note Richard Bullock coming down the stairs, with his arms full of muskets and rifles. He also had a grey jacket, trimmed with martial braid over one arm and a peaked cap askew upon his head, a hat that looked as if it belonged to a smaller man. His son Frank followed him, similarly burdened with powder-flasks and several small haversacks over his shoulder.
“Marm Eberly, Miz Vining?” He said in a low voice, “Capn’ Coleman said you wished to be armed, since there were too few men. Are there any other ladies who can handle a rifle, or load one? Boys, too – we have enough weapons that everyone may have two at hand. Here . . .” he dealt out two each to Margaret, Hetty and Mrs. Eberly, as well as to several other ladies who stepped quietly out of the press in the china parlor. Horace and Johnny came forward as well, Horace saying gravely,
“Me an’ Johnny can load for you and Miss Hetty, Mama.”
“Good boys,” Margaret answered, her heart swelling with pride and fear for her sons as Horace and Johnny took two powder-flasks and a single haversack from Bullock’s son. “Where should we take our place, Mr. Bullock?”
“I reckon you should stay downstairs,” Mr. Bullock answered, “For I don’t believe the upstairs will stop a bullet. There’s some shooting holes in the outside walls here, Frank here will show you where. If’n you stand on benches, you should ought to be able to cover the back. An’ ma’am – don’t fire wild. We got plenty of lead, but not if you go wasting it.”
His arms empty of weapons, he was shrugging into the grey coat. It also did not seem to be his, for it did not fit him well. Someone called his name from the front of the Inn – a man’s voice, urgent but not alarmed. Margaret wondered briefly why he was bothering with such an ill-fitting coat, but then Frank Bullock hopped down from a bench, halfway along the corridor from the door that led into the china parlor. He had a small block of wood in his hand; a square of light pierced the roughly plastered log wall, light which had the golden tint of late afternoon. Outside, the tree-shadows lay long, stretching across.
“See, ma’am – each one of the shooting holes is blocked with one o’these, three or four at the same height; all the way along . . . I guess Pa thinks you each take one.”
“I think that a good idea,” Margaret answered sedately, and Mrs. Eberly snorted.
“May as well teach your grandmother to knit, laddie-buck. Load for me then, and help me up onto the bench, I’m not as nimble as I used to be.”
Silently, Frank and the other boys began loading rifles and muskets. Margaret gingerly accepted one, and stepped up onto the bench. She set her face to the shooting hole – about four inches wide, and half as tall – a space between logs deliberately left un-chinked. Papa had done the same with his house. This one looked out at the back of Bullock’s – she could see a little of Congress Avenue, but mostly the sides of other buildings, and various trees all robed in green leaves. The little wedge of sky that she could see was blue and cloudless, tinged with the golden-red of a sunset – but she could hear no bird-song. That very silence seemed heavy with menace.
“What’s happening, Mama?” Horace asked; he was loading a musket, with careful attention, as if it were a penmanship exercise. “What do you see?”
“Nothing,” she answered, and then her eye caught a movement: three men, one in advance flanked by two others – they were dark shapes and at a distance, against the dazzle of sunshine. They moved along Congress Avenue, pacing slowly. “Oh, my.”
“What did you see?” Horace asked again, echoed by Hetty and Mrs. Eberly.
“I saw Captain Coleman,” Margaret answered, “And he was carrying a white flag.”

18. May 2011 · Comments Off on Lone Star Glory · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Old West

It was always hoped, among the rebellious Anglo settlers in the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas that a successful bid for independence from the increasingly authoritarian and centralist government of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna would be followed promptly by annexation by the United States. Certainly it was the hope of Sam Houston, almost from the beginning and possibly even earlier – just as much as it was the worst fear of Santa Anna’s on-again off-again administration. Flushed with a victory snatched from between the teeth of defeat at San Jacinto, and crowned with the capture of Santa Anna himself, the Texians anticipated joining the United States. But it did not work out – at least not right away. First, the then-president Andrew Jackson did not dare extend immediate recognition or offer annexation to Texas, for to do so before Mexico – or anyone else – recognized Texas as an independent state would almost certainly be construed as an act of war by Mexico. The United States gladly recognized Texas as an independent nation after a decent interval, but held off annexation for eight long years. It was political, of course – the politics of abolition and slavery, the bug-bear of mid 19th century American politics.

Texas had been largely settled by southerners, who had been permitted to bring their slaves. Texas, independent or not, was essentially a slave state, although there were never so many slaves in Texas as there were in other and more long-established states. Large scale agriculture in Texas – rice, sugar and cotton – was not so dependent upon the labor of large work gangs. Most households who owned slaves owned only a relative handful, and curiously, many slaves hired out and worked for wages in skilled or semi-skilled trades. But even so; they were still slaves, owned, traded and purchased as surely as any livestock.

By the 1830s the matter of chattel slavery, ‘the peculiar institution’ as it was termed – was a matter beginning to roil public thinking, as the adolescent United States spilled over the Appalachians and began filling in those rich lands east of the Mississippi, and in the upper Midwest. Slowly and gradually what had been a private, ethical choice about the use of slave labor began to have political and social ramifications. Would slavery be allowed in newly acquired territories and states? And if so – where? The rift between those who held slavery to morally insupportable, a crime against humanity, and those who held to be economically necessary and even a social benefit was just beginning to divide what had been fractiously united since the end of the Revolution – a Revolution that still green in living memory. But in 1838, the practice of slavery in Texas put a stop to Texas’ inital essay in annexation: Northern Abolitionists, led by John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts filibustered the first resolution of annexation to death, in a speech that allegedly lasted 22 days. In the bitterly-fought elections of 1844, Henry Clay of the Whigs opposed annexation mightily, Democrat James Polk came out in favor . . . but in the meantime – from that first rejection, until 1846, the Republic of Texas treaded water.

Sam Houston, who favored annexation, was formally elected to the Presidency of the Republic. He and his scratch army had won the war of independence, extracted concessions and a peace treaty from General Santa Anna, and briskly settled down to conduct the business of the state in the manner which they had wished to do all along. Unfortunately, Texas was poor in everything but land, energy and hopeful ambition . . . and plagued with enemies on two fronts. Sam Houston would have to manage on a shoe-string, to fight off resentful Mexico, ever-ready to create trouble for the colony which had escaped it’s control, find allies and recognition among the Europeans . . . and either defeat or make a peace with the relentless and aggressive Comanche. His government was funded by customs duties on imported goods, license fees and land taxes. A bond issue was initiated, which would have redeemed Texas finances and paid existing debts, – unfortunately, the bonds went on the market just as the United States was enduring a depression and Houston’s term as president came to an end. He could not serve a consecutive term.

His vice-president, successor in office and eventual adversary, Mirabeau Lamar had more grandiose ambitions, apparently believing with a whole heart that Texas could and ought to be a genuinely independent nation. His goals were only exceeded by his actual lack of administrative experience. Lamar wanted to pursue foreign loans, foreign recognition, a strong defense, never mind begging for annexation, expelling the Cherokee from east Texas and settling the hash of the Comanche by any means necessary. He also set out the foundations of public education in Texas by setting aside a quantity of public land in each county to support public schools, and another quantity for the establishment of two universities. Lamar rebuilt the Army, and he established a new and hopefully permanent capitol city for Texas, at Austin on the upper Colorado River – at the center of the claimed territories, but in actuality on the edge of the frontier; excellent ambitions, all – but without any kind of solid funding, doomed to failure. Finally, an ill-planned expedition to route the profitable Santa Fe trade through Texas succeeded only in reigniting a running cold war with Mexico. All of these disasters put an end to Lamar’s plans, and left Texas with more than $600 million in public debt. Sam Houston, elected again as president of the republic, kept his cards as close to his vest as he ever had done in the long brutal retreat of the Runaway Scrape. This was the time of Mexican incursions into the lowlands around Goliad, Victoria and San Antonio under Vazquez and Woll, the ill-fated Mier Expedition . . . and while sometimes it seemed that Houston was being damned on one side for not making effective peace with Mexico, and on the other for not making vigorous war. But Houston was playing a deeper game, during the final years of his second term; he was having another go at annexation, only this time going at it indirectly.

The British had recognized Texas as an independent nation in mid-1842. British diplomats were attempting to mediate between Mexico and Texas (this was following upon military incursions into Texas by the Mexican Army) and British mercantile interests were most ready, willing and able to support trade relations with the Texas market: manufactured goods for cotton. Houston instructed his minister in Washington to reject any approaches regarding annexation, as it might upset those new relationships with the British; to talk up those relationships extensively, and in fact, to raise the possibly that Texas might become a British protectorate. What he was doing, as he explained in a letter to a close confidant, was like a young woman exciting the interest and possessive jealousy of the man she really wanted, by flirting openly with another. This put a whole new complexion on the annexation matter, as far as the United States was concerned – no doubt aided by the fact that the clear winner of the 1844 presidential elections was Democrat James Polk. Polk’s campaign platform had included annexation of Texas, and sitting President John Tyler – who had been a quiet supporter of that cause as well, decided to recommend that Congress annex Texas by joint resolution. The resolution offered everything that Houston had wanted – and was accepted by special convention of the Texas Congress. The formal ceremony took place on February 19th, 1846, in the muddy little city of Austin on the Colorado: Houston had already been replaced as President by Dr. Anson Jones. In front of a large crowd gathered, Jones turned over political authority to the newly-elected governor, and shook out the ropes on the flagstaff to lower the flag of the Republic for the last time – and to raise the Stars and Stripes of the United States. “The final act in this great drama is now performed – the Republic of Texas is no more.”
When the Lone Star flag came down, Sam Houston was the one who stepped forward to gather it up in his arms. It was an unexpectedly moving moment for the audience; it had been a long decade since San Jacinto, interesting in the sense of the old Chinese curse; no doubt many of them were as nostalgic as they were relieved to have those exciting times at an end. But history does not end. Sam Houston would have his heart broken fifteen years later, when Texas seceeded from the Union on the eve of the Civil War.

18. May 2011 · Comments Off on Coming Home · Categories: General

Note: I don’t normally blog here about internal things, preferring instead to share thoughts on my “yardening” or memories of other phases of my life. But since I was 13, part of my self-identification has been “writer.” But I had lately begun to wonder if I could still use that description — is one a writer if one isn’t really writing? Apparently so. Apparently thoughts and ideas have been wintering in plowed ground, waiting for spring’s warmth to sprout into new growth. I posted the following on my personal blog this morning, but I wanted to share with my friends here, as well.
***********************

I’m writing again, for the first time in a decade or so, and it feels like coming home to my true self. Really writing — the kind of writing that I used to do, that left me marveling in awe as the words flowed from my pen to paper, almost as if the pen had a mind of its own.

That’s how it used to feel, when God would give me ideas for stories. It was almost like watching the story on a movie screen in my brain, and simply transcribing what I saw on the screen. I had thought the dearth of words related to my very desultory Christian walk. I claim Jesus as my savior, and believe the truths set forth in the Apostles’ Creed, but I do no daily Bible reading, attend no weekly church services.

That said, I constantly dialogue with Jehovah God, and recognize that all good gifts in my life are from His hand. Like this gift of writing, that has recently returned with so much power. The more ideas flow into my brain, the more I return to Bible reading, specifically the Gospels. I’m seeing things I don’t remember seeing there before. And I see stories.

In “Steel Magnolias,” Truvey says “Every person has a story.” The same is true of the Bible characters – no, not characters. These were real, live people, like you and me. They worried about keeping their jobs, their homes, their sanity. They loved and laughed, wept and prayed, cooked and sewed and cleaned, got married, had children, lost children…

Their lives were more immediate than ours, less removed from reality. No air conditioning there – when it was hot, their own sweat cooled them. If they caught no fish, or grew no crops, they went hungry.

Life was struggle and joy all in one. Sometimes, life was sorrow. Through it all, they persevered, holding to the hope of their faith that Yahweh was not as other gods – that Yahweh was a God who listened, a God who cared. He had delivered them from Egyptians and Philistines – he would deliver them again.

If he didn’t? He was still Yahweh, still in charge. The prophet Habakuk perhaps said it best:

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. Hab. 3:17-18

Those are tough words, from a tough person – a faithful person. I’ve wanted those words to be true in my own life for years, and never really noticed that they already were.

The fig tree of my writing has not blossomed in close to ten years. Oh, there were little buds here and there – snippets of stories, or thoughts or poems that reassured me I could still write when it mattered, but not the effortless flow of words that I remembered.

Until this spring, when all outside was green with new life, and it was time again to remember our Lord’s sacrifice on our behalf. This Easter season, the words began to flow again, and I pray they never stop. But even if they do, like Habakkuk, I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

Meantime, I’ll revel in the feeling of being home again.

15. May 2011 · Comments Off on Bye Bye, Bin Laden · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun With Islam, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, War

So, not tacky or energetic enough to do anything to note Bin Laden’s sudden shuffling off this mortal coil save for my daughter and I polishing off a bottle of champagne on the Monday afterwards, and me noting that while I had never killed anyone myself, I had read certain obituaries with a great deal of pleasure. Anything more demonstrative would earn us a severe poo-pooing from the likes of German newspaper opinion columnists and the Arch-Bish of Canterbury, among others . . . which disapproval at this late date has all the effect upon me of a flogging with a wet noodle, or of having my ankles attacked by a toothless Chihuahua. This means a lot of slobber, some momentarily but earsplitting noise, but no lasting damage whatsoever. So, consider the poo-poo noted, and thank you very much for your support, such as it has been. The champagne was very pleasant, by the way, especially considering that I had waited nearly nine and a half years to drink to cold justice being served for Bin Laden.

What a pathetic man, he was by the end – and living in such a dump, to judge by the videos and the pictures. Seriously, his place looked like a cheap residential motel, of the sort where the sheets are as thin as Kleenex and the bedside lamp is chained to the wall. And the raiding SEALS took away stuff by the garbage-bag full – although from the secret squirrel point of view, perhaps it would have been better to be completely quiet about what, exactly was taken away. But even so, I’ll bet there have been a lot of hasty exits from various places in the last two weeks, a lot of stuff being burned/trashed/shredded, and a fair number of hitherto upright types hastily making a last deposit into a secret bank account and checking out the rental rates for upscale walled villas in Marbella. And that’s just Pakistan, or as the fine folks at Rantburg call it, ‘Paki-waki-land’. Oh, and among those items removed from the “luxurious villa” are reputed to be his very own porn collection. Seriously, people are having fun coming up with proposed names for Bin Laden’s stash – say, Fatima Does Dallas, Deep Goat, Brokeback Goat, etc.

Oh, dear, what do we have to do to the Paks – more than slap them over the pee-pee with a lead pipe, I would hope. What an ignorant, bigoted, treacherous dunghill of a country, and I only say this because I used to read the Guardian, on a regular basis. Lots of stories about women with acid thrown on their faces, about Christian persecutions, hysteria about vaccinations and other temptations of modernity. I know we were their best buds and Uncle Sugar Money-bags way back when, because India was flirting with China (or China and Russia by turns, depending on the wind direction) and that left us gingerly holding hands with the dregs of the sub-continent . . . but I think the time has come to sever that relationship and the income-stream. The most wanted international fugitive for the last decade, turns up having hidden for the past how-many-years in a town full of retired Pak military, not a stones through from a military academy? Someone’s got some explaining to do. Personally, I think one faction in Paki-Waki-Land was sheltering him and another faction dimed him out. So, cut off the income stream, and watch it all devolve. I know they say that we need them for support of our efforts in Afghanistan, but if this is what their support means . . . umm, maybe we should explore what their non-support would work out to?
And wonderful – our very own press creatures are trying to play ‘spot the SEAL’ in Virginia Beach. I am amused, though, at how our hapless and militarily clueless reporter is foiled at every turn; a word to the wise, to anyone else playing this kind of game in a military town? Don’t go in without a guide or at least a little bit of internalizing military thought about op-sec. Double-don’t think it, if you have to have op-sec explained to you. And a couple of words of reminder about making note of the names of various places reputed to be military hang-outs? Bobby’s in Glyphada. La Belle Disco in Berlin, the Rib House near Torrejon; places that military of a certain vintage recall . . . because they were eateries that American military personnel favored – in Greece, West Germany and Spain. People with a point to make via high-explosives, sussed those three places out as a place likely to kill American service personnel. And they did, with varying degrees of success. So – it should be any different here in these United States? And do you understand, that in making it known to the public at large – that these places in a relatively small town are reputed to be military hangouts, that you are handing some basic research conclusions to people who might not have the long-term health of American service personnel in mind? Yeah, thanks for your support. Duly noted; And again – thanks.

11. May 2011 · Comments Off on The Writer’s Life Waltz:A Short Rest Between · Categories: Ain't That America?, Eat, Drink and be Merry, General, Local

Right, then – I was dragged away temporarily from the computer and the mad gallop of the writer’s life waltz by my daughter . . . because it was Mothers’ Day. No, not for a brunch or something on Sunday; our Mothers’ Day was actually in support of Mothers’ Day, or specifically, the company that my daughter works on occasion for as a delivery driver. It’s called Edible Arrangements; they make cunningly contrived and rather high-end arrangements of cut fruit, made to look like flower arrangements. On certain high-demand holidays, such as Valentine’s Day, Mothers’ Day, and the Christmas/New Years holidays, the local outlet in San Antonio is absolutely swamped with orders, more than their regular delivery driver can cope with. One of our friends has part-timed like this for years and she referred Blondie; being reliable and efficient, with a good bump of location (or a reliable GPS unit), and owning a vehicle with functional air-conditioning and capable of transporting at least six or eight arrangements are qualities highly valued by the business owner.

Anyway, Blondie inveigled upon me to part-time also. Originally, I think the plan was for me to work as a sort of driver wrangler – but as it turned out, for three days she was driving the shop’s refrigerated delivery van and I was driving the Montero. Look, bills to pay and all that. Only two hundred living producers of popular fiction in America today make a living entirely off their royalties. I am not one of them. Everyone else has a day job, or a patchwork collection of income streams and delivering fruit-bouquet arrangements has now been added to my own personal collection. As for Blondie, she delivered for six days, and can now afford the new front tires for the Montero. The economy in other places may be flat-lining, but when it comes to exotic arrangements of fruit, San Antonio is doing OK. Doing deliveries – it’s not brain surgery, but it helps a bit to know the local area, and to be able to read a map – and a day of it is pretty exhausting. We were falling into bed, and fast asleep every evening almost before it was entirely dark outside.

Some of my deliveries were widely-spaced, and since I knew the areas involved, I could think about things – to do with books, mostly, especially the one under construction. I always thought I did some of my best thinking during a commute. Walking the dog or jogging is pretty good think-time, too – but nothing beats a long drive. I mentally worked out a couple of key scenes, and jotted down the notes for them during the short intervals between sleep and delivering. That was how I spent my weekend – you?
*later – comments frelled, due to hyphen in title. WordPress does not like odd punctuation in titles

10. May 2011 · Comments Off on Buy Sgt Mom’s Book! · Categories: General

No, really… I mean it! I don’t really care if you go whole hog for the bound copy, or go with the very affordably priced Kindle copy (which can be read via the free kindle app on any PC)… BUY IT! READ IT!

You won’t regret it.

Well… that’s not entirely true, but the only regret will be that you have to wait six more months for the next installment.

My autographed copy arrived in my mailbox far earlier than I expected, especially as I hadn’t gotten around to purchasing it yet. Sgt Mom sent me a copy just to celebrate our friendship. I read the first few pages and set it aside, not wanting to ruin the binding by reading it in the bathtub, which is where I do most of my book reading these days (someday I’ll own a couch again, and read in places other than the tub).

But then I realized it was available in Kindle format, and having succumbed to the Kindle siren this past January, I was good to go. Daughter of Texas flew wirelessly to my Kindle, and I flew into the past, riding the wings of her vivid imagination and prodigious talent/skill at writing.

Texas is my heart state — of all the places I’ve lived in my life, San Antonio is home, even though I no longer live there. I still remember the first time I learned about the Goliad Massacre, the first time I toured the Alamo (like so many Air Force people, it was on a day pass while in basic training there), the first time I learned about the massacre of the German settlers who were Union sympathizers during the Civil War years.

Sgt Mom’s books bring all these things to life. First with the Adelsveiren Trilogy, which had me wanting to Google the characters when the book ended, to see what happened next in their lives, and now with Daughter of Texas.

You’ve read her sample chapters here over the past few months. They pale beside the completed whole. I told her today I was hesitant to finish the book (Kindle told me I was 85% complete), because I’d read her samples here and knew somewhat of what was ahead, and didn’t want to face it. I knew a character was going to die, and I hated to see it happen — couldn’t bear to read it. What I didn’t tell her was that I couldn’t bear having the book end and still have 6 months to wait for the next one.

You can read the reviews on Amazon, and other places. I’m not a reviewer – I’m just a reader who knows what she likes, and I like Sgt Mom’s style of writing, and her choice of topics. In my opinion, you can never go wrong grabbing one of her books — and there’s a link to them conveniently posted just over there, on the upper left side of this blog.

So what are you waiting for? Buy her books! Read them! You won’t be disappointed, other than having to wait for the next one.

09. May 2011 · Comments Off on Too Big For Stroller? · Categories: Ain't That America?, General

So here I am innocently clicking over from a link at the Blog-faddahs . . . and here I see a series of pictures . . . of big kids in small strollers. Which I hadn’t really noticed at all around here, of kids who look like kindergarten or grade-school age being stuffed into a stroller with their knees up around their ears, or dragging their feet on the ground, which reinforces my belief that in this part of flyover country, parents are generally rather sensible. Plus, it’s a bear hauling that folding stroller around, everywhere . . . not when the kid can just walk. Been there, done that, felt the relief. Taking a baby or toddler anywhere outside the house meant the stroller, the diaper bag, the toys, the odd bottle or two, the diapers . . . why then, would a sensible parent still continue hauling the child-impedimenta around, when it’s no longer required?

Me, I ditched the stroller at earliest opportunity, when Blondie was two-almost-three and we were on our way to Greece and it was just one more marginally-useful barely-used item, even though it was one of those light-weight, folding things with the umbrella handles. Seriously, I had enough stuff to haul along on the flight from Los Angeles to New York to Athens. The kidlet was old enough to walk, and walk she would.

Although, when I did get to Greece, I thought that perhaps I should have reconsidered it: there were children up to a year or so older than her, of nursery-school age and still in strollers – and we did do a lot of walking. I did wind up carrying her often, at that point, but eventually when she weighed about forty pounds, I was saying firmly, “Darling, I don’t care how tired you are, you are old enough to walk.” And so she did. I can’t imagine what these parents pictured are thinking. Are they afraid to let the kid out? Are they just too much in the habit of wheeling the little darling around? And how much longer are they going to wheel them around in a stroller – until their legs atrophy altogether?

05. May 2011 · Comments Off on Shoot, Shove Overboard, and Shut Up · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun With Islam, General, Media Matters Not, Rant, sarcasm, War, Wild Blue Yonder

Ya know, at least Obama actually did a very good speech, announcing that Osama Bin Laden had been taken down, and he did have the stones in the first place to step up to the plate and give the order for the SEALS to take out the trash. No shilly-shallying around and voting ‘present’ on that one, even if there are reports that he chewed over the decision for 16 hours. Well, it was momentous decision; a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize authorizing a targeted assassination, within the sovereign territory of a nation frequently described as being an ally. The irony abounds – one can only imagine the political and media response to GWB giving the go-ahead. So, our boy-king has the advantage of being one of those with a D after his name, which – when it comes to this sort of thing pretty much affords all-over protection against blowback.

So, approving noises all the way around, all the day long on Monday and into Tuesday this week: OBL sleeps wid da fishes, and the most sycophantic media tools are crowing that he will be a shoo-in for reelection in 2012 on that account . . . never mind that gas will probably close on $5.00 a gallon by mid-summer, and joblessness is endemic and the prices for basic groceries are sneaking up. And then . . .

And then . . . oh, oh. Different stories: firefight with the SEALS . . . or not. Use of a woman – perhaps wife, perhaps not – as a human shield. Plain old down and dirty execution, or did the plan call originally for everyone in the house in Abbottabad to be taken away for leisurely interrogation? Video or still documentation of the whole thing – as well as that rushed burial at sea, proving that OBL did indeed go over the side of the Carl Vinson? And now, not releasing any of the pictures of OBL, pining for the fijords because of inflaming the Muslim street, or something? People, get a grip – the Muslim street is always inflamed over something or other. Besides, they are always telling us that OBL was a bad Moslem, that he hijacked the Religion of Peace . . . so, wouldn’t they also want to see visual proof of his demise. There have been enough bloody pictures circulating in the last ten years, and anyone who has ever watched an episode of CSI has probably already seen many scenes at least as bloody and stomach-churning.

And no one at the higher levels of the administration had any idea as to how to deal with this, as an important news event and public affairs challenge – other than the boy-king making a speech. It was as if that was as far as they could see it going; the Administration appears to have felt no need to work out an in-depth response. Just take their word for it, no need to work out a coherent narrative, backed up by pictures, video, carefully shielded witness testimony, et cetera. Just shoot, shove overboard, and shut up.

Not gonna fly, in this wired world, not with so many people wanting to see just a little bit more, within the boundaries of operations security. I’d guess that the pictures and video outlining just a few more answers to questions will leak or be released within days. Just too many people, who are just too damn curious and haven’t had that curiosity satisfied in the least. I’m a long-retired military media professional – and I am offering this feedback gratis. The Administration better start working out a better response to this, and any future-type events.

Later: Froggy and Blackfive thinking along the same lines

02. May 2011 · Comments Off on On the Demise of Osama Bin Laden · Categories: General, GWOT, World

I’m channelling Mark Twain this morning – or maybe it was Clarence Darrow:
“I’ve never killed a man, but I’ve read many an obituary with a great deal of satisfaction.”

This morning, I am reading the obituary with a great deal of satisfaction. I would have liked to have seen his head on a pike in front of the White House, but I’ll settle for what we can get. And our “friends” in Pakistan do have a lot of explaining to do, don’t they?

Just for fun – another Downfalledit – Hitler Learns about Bin Laden

02. May 2011 · Comments Off on Stand-off at Salado – Part 2 · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Military, Old West, War

Most people accept as conventional wisdom about the Texas frontier, that Anglo settlers were always the consummate horsemen, cowboys and cavalrymen that they were at the height of the cattle boom years. But that was not so: there was a learning curve involved. The wealthier Texas settlers who came from the Southern states of course valued fine horseflesh. Horse-races were always a popular amusement, and the more down-to-earth farmers and tradesmen who came to Texas used horses as draft animals. But the Anglo element was not accustomed to working cattle – the long-horned and wilderness adapted descendents of Spanish cattle – from horseback. Their eastern cattle were slow, tame and lumbering. Nor were many of them as accustomed to making war from the saddle as the Comanche were. Most of Sam Houston’s army who won victory at San Jacinto, were foot-soldiers: his scouts and cavalry was a comparatively small component of his force. It was a deliberate part of Sam Houston’s strategy to fall back into East Texas, where the lay of the land worked in the favor of his army. The Anglos’ preferred weapon in those early days in Texas the long Kentucky rifle, a muzzle-loading weapon, impossible to use effectively in the saddle, more suited to their preferred cover of woods – not the rolling grasslands interspersed with occasional clumps of trees which afforded Mexican lancers such grand maneuvering room.

When did this begin to change for the Anglo-Texans? Always hard to say about such things, but I suspect that the Anglo-Texas began morphing into a people who more nearly resembled what they fought almost as soon as Texas declared independence in 1836. The war with the Comanche was unrelenting for fifty years, and conflict with Mexico was open for all of the decade that the Republic of Texas existed, as well as simmering away in fits and starts for even longer. And one of the agents taking an active part in that metamorphosis from settler to centaur was John Coffee “Jack” Hays, during a handful of years that he led a company of Rangers stationed in San Antonio. The Rangers were not lawmen, then – they were local companies organized to protect their own communities from depredations by raiding Indians, and as close to cavalry as the perennially broke Republic of Texas possessed. Jack Hays, who with fifteen of his Rangers had narrowly escaped being caught in San Antonio when Woll’s troops took the town – was one of the most innovative and aggressive Ranger company captains. He had already begun schooling his contingent in horsemanship and hard riding, and in use of five-shot repeating pistols developed by Samuel Colt. It was Hay’s contingent who spread the alarm, and militia volunteers began to assemble from across the westernmost inhabited part of Texas. Colonel Matthew “Old Paint” Caldwell, from Gonzales began gathering a scratch force at Seguin, east and south of San Antonio. He collected up about a hundred and forty, and set out for a camp on Cibolo Creek, twenty miles from San Antonio, before settling on another camp, on the Salado, seven miles north of San Antonio. He gathered another seventy or eighty volunteers – and more were on the way. But “Old Paint” was in any case, outnumbered several times over, and being a sensible man knew there was absolutely no chance of re-taking San Antonio in a head-on assault. But what if a sufficient number of Woll’s force could be lured out of the town – which may not have been a fortified town in the European sense of things, but certainly was set up to enable a stout defense against lightly-armed infantry. Caldwell arranged his few men efficiently, among the trees, deep thickets and rocky banks of the creek, with the water at their backs, and rolling prairie, dotted with trees all the way to San Antonio spread out before them. Could any part of Woll’s invaders be lured into a kill-zone? The Texians grimly proposed to find out.

There were only thirty-eight horses counted fit enough for what would be an easy ride to San Antonio, but undoubtedly a hard ride back. Jack Hays and his Rangers, and another dozen men were dispatched very early on the morning of September 17th. At a certain point, still short of San Antonio, Hays ordered twenty-nine of the men with him to dismount and set up an ambush. He and the remaining eight then rode on – to within half a mile of the Alamo, where the main part of Woll’s force had camped. They would have been clearly seen from the walls of the old presidio; it would have been about sunrise. What else did they do besides show themselves? Perhaps they fired a few shots into the air, shouted taunts, made obscene gestures clearly visible to anyone with a spyglass. It was their assignment to provoke at least fifty of Woll’s cavalrymen into chasing after them, hell for leather . . . instead, two hundred Mexican cavalrymen boiled out of the Alamo, along with forty Cherokee Indians (who at that time had allied themselves with Mexico) and another three hundred and more, led personally by General Woll. Hay’s provocation had worked a little too well – it was a running fight, all the seven miles back to the camp and the carefully arranged line of Texians with the Salado and the green forest of the trees and thickets at their back. Caldwell and the others were just eating breakfast when Hays and his party arrived breathlessly and at a full gallop. Over two hundred shots had been fired at them, none with any effect – not particularly surprising, given that it would have been extremely difficult to hit a moving target from a position on a galloping horse, and that reloading would have been near to impossible.

Having succeeded beyond their wildest dreams in drawing the Mexican force to follow them, Jack Hays and the others took up their position in “Old Paint” Caldwell’s line – carefully screened and sheltered among the trees. Caldwell sent out messages saying that he was surrounded, but in a good spot for defense, if any at all could come to his aid – and so it turned out to be. The canny old Indian-fighter had a good eye for the ground, and for an enemy. The pursuing Mexican cavalry drew up short, upon seeing his positions, or whatever evidence they could see from their position on the open prairie, looking into the trees along the Salado – but they did not withdraw entirely. Instead, Woll, and most of his command lined up and prepared to sling a great deal of musket-fire and a barrage of artillery shot in the direction of Caldwell’s force, none of which had any noticeable effect at all – on the Texians. Instead, Anglo-Texian skirmishers went forward with their chosen and familiar weapon and from their favorite cover sniped at leisure all through the next five hours, inflicting considerable casualties, before scampering back to safety on the creek-bank. Some sources claim at least sixty dead and twice that number wounded, against one Texian killed, nine or ten injured and another half-dozen having had hairsbreadth escapes. At one point, General Woll ordered a direct attack – a few of his soldiers got within twenty feet of the dug-in Texians. Being a fairly rational man, and a professional soldier, the General knew when it was time to cut his losses. Leaving his campfires burning, he and his forces silently fell back to San Antonio under the cover of night, and then withdrew even farther – all the way back towards the Rio Grande.

This would have been a complete and total victory for Caldwell . . . except for one unfortunate circumstance: a company of fifty or so volunteers from Bastrop, on their way to join him, had the misfortune to almost make it – to even hear the sounds of the fight, from two miles distant. The company of Captain Nicholas Mosby Dawson, from Bastrop and the upper Colorado was caught by Woll’s rear-guard, as they retreated. Only fifteen of Dawson’s men would survive that battle and surrender to superior military force. Caldwell’s men would find the bodies of the dead on the following day, as the pursued Woll towards the somewhat amorphous border. The fifteen Dawson men would join those Anglo-Texians taken prisoner in San Antonio in chains in Perote prison – some of those would be held in durance vile until early 1844.

So, today I had the signing – supposed to be more or less the launch signing for Daughter of Texas, at the Twig – and it was actually a bit of a bust, scheduled as it was to start in the afternoon at exactly the time the Farmers’ Market around in back had already closed down. Alas . . . it seems that the Pearl Brewery pretty much resembles a tomb, once whatever big event scheduled folds up and goes away. Part of this was my fault, for scheduling release to coincide with Fiesta, and not realizing that Easter this year coincided also with my range of dates, and that the Fiesta celebrations would actually put the Twig out of commission on a couple of relevant days, because of traffic and parking, and their immediate vicinity being the staging area for a parade . . . And it seems to Blondie (no mean detective when it comes to trends and atmosphere) that they are preferring to emphasize their place of business as sort of the FAO Schwartz of kid’s books, in San Antonio, and downplay the local, adult, independent, small-market author sort of thing . . . without entirely nuking their bridges to that community. But still – one does sense a certain chill in that respect. And it’s not just me, BTW – another indy author of a gripping book about the Texas war for independence had a signing event on a Saturday in April – and if it weren’t for me and three of his friends showing up, I don’t think he had much more in the way of interest and sales, even though his event was on a Saturday morning. Just about everyone who came through the door was a parent with a kidlet in tow.

Anyway, a two-hour stint of sitting behind a table in an almost-deserted bookstore, before Blondie and I packed it up at the hour-and-a-half mark. A bore, and a demoralizing one, at that, although I managed to get through one-third of a book about the Irish on the 19th century frontier; which I might have bought, if the author had written more about the Irish in Texas. We left then, as we had passed a parking-lot rummage sale that Blondie wanted to check out, before everyone packed up the goods or the good stuff was taken. Honestly, only two people even came up and talked to me during the whole hour and a half . . . and there were things that I could have been doing in that hour and a half, like working on chapter 12 of the sequel, posting and commenting to various websites, working the social media angle. The excellent thing is that Daughter of Texas has sold big, during April, especially in the Kindle format. Working through Watercress and by extension, Lightning Source has let me price it at a competitive level and at an acceptable discount for distribution to the chain stores – and it is selling, a nice little trickle of sales, through thick and thin. In the last month there was also a massive up-tick in interest for the Trilogy and for Truckee, through the halo effect. All of my books have very high level of presence in search engines on various relevant terms . . . so, honestly, I believe now I would better be served by working more on internet marketing, on doing book-talks, library talks, and book-club meetings – and the internet stuff. Doing a single author-table at a store just does not work without massive local media interest. I have managed to score a little of that, but not enough to make an appearance at a local bookstore a standing-room-only event. I have one more such on the schedule, at the Borders in Huebner Oaks, but after that I will probably pull the plug on any more single-author book-store appearances. They just do not seem to have any useful result; they are an energy and time sink – and I only have so much of either to allot to them. Joint appearances with other local authors; yes, indeedy, I’ll be there. Book-talks, book-club meetings, special events, special events like Christmas on the Square in Goliad, and Evening with the Authors in Lockhart, the West Texas Book and Music Festival in Abilene – and any other events that I am invited to . . . I’ll be there with bells on, and with my full table display and boxes of books. But the individual store events – It’s just not paying off, relative to the time and effort spent on them.

27. April 2011 · Comments Off on Stand-off at Salado Creek · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Old West

Like a great many locations of note to the tumultuous years of the Republic of Texas, the site of the battle of Salado Creek does today look much like it did in 1842 . . . however, it is not so much changed that it is hard to picture in the minds’ eye what it would have looked like then. The creek is dryer and seasonal, more dependant upon rainfall than the massive amount of water drawn into the aquifer by the limestone sponge of the Hill Country, to the north. Then – before the aquifer was tapped and drilled and drained in a thousand places – the water came up in spectacular natural fountains in many places below the Balcones Escarpment. The Salado was a substantial landmark in the countryside north of San Antonio, a deep and regular torrent, running between steep banks liked with oak and pecan trees, thickly quilted with deep brush and the banks scored by shallow ravines that ran down to water-level. Otherwise, the countryside around was gently rolling grasslands, dotted with more stands of oak trees. There was a low hill a little east of the creek, with a house built on the heights. Perhaps it might have had a view of San Antonio de Bexar, seven miles away, to the south and west.

In that year, San Antonio was pretty much what it had been for two centuries: a huddle of jacales, huts made from plastered logs set upright in the ground and crowned with a roof of thatch, or thick-walled houses of unbaked clay adobe bricks, roofed with rusty-red tile, all gathered around the stumpy tower of the Church of San Fernando. A few narrow streets converged on the plaza where San Fernando stood – streets with names like the Alameda, Soledad and Flores, and the whole was threaded together by another river, lined with rushes and more trees. The river rambled like a drunken snake – but it generously watered the town and the orchards and farms nearby – and was the main reason for the town having been established in the first place. That street called Alameda, or sometimes the Powderhouse Hill Road, led out to the east, across a bend of the river, and past another ramble of stone and adobe buildings clustered around a roofless church – the Alamo, once a mission, then a presidio garrison, and finally a legend. But in 1842 – the siege of it’s Texian garrison only six years in the past – it was still a barracks and military establishment. In the fall of 1842, the Mexican Army returned to take temporary possession.

General and President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna had never ceased to resent how one-half of the province of Coahuila-y-Tejas had been wrenched from the grasp of Mexico by the efforts of a scratch army of volunteer and barely trained rebel upstarts who had the nerve to think they could govern themselves, thank you. For the decade-long life of the Republic, war on the border with Mexico continued at a slow simmer, now and again flaring up into open conflict: a punitive expedition here, a retaliatory strike there, fears of subversion, and of encouraging raids by bandits and Indians, finally resulting in an all-out war between the United States and Mexico when Texas chose to be annexed by the United States. So when General Adrian Woll, a French soldier of fortune who was one of Lopez de Santa Anna’s most trusted commanders brought an expeditionary force all the from the Rio Grande and swooped down on the relatively unprotected town . . . this was an action not entirely unexpected. However, the speed, the secrecy of his maneuvers, and the overwhelming force that Woll brought with him and the depth that he penetrated into Texas – all that did manage to catch the town by surprise. Woll and his well-equipped, well-armored and well supplied cavalry occupied the town after token resistance by those Anglo citizens who were in town for a meeting of the district court. So, score one for General Woll as an able soldier and leader.

Texas did not have much of a regular professional army, as most western nations understood the concept, then and later. Texas did have sort of an army, and sort of a navy, too – but mere tokens – the window-dressing required of a legitimate, established nation, which is what Texas was trying it’s best to become, given restricted resources. But what Texas did have was nearly limitless numbers of rough and ready volunteers, who were accustomed to respond to a threat, gathering in a local militia body and volunteering for a specific aim or mission, bringing their own weapons, supplies and horses, and usually electing their own officers. They also had the men of various ranging companies, which can be thought of as a mounted and heavily-armed and aggressive Neighborhood Watch. Most small towns on the Texas frontier fielded their own Ranger Companies. By the time of Woll’s raid on San Antonio, those volunteers and Rangers were veterans of every fight going since before Texas had declared independence, a large portion of them being of that tough Scotch-Irish ilk of whom it was said that they were born fighting. That part of the frontier which ran through Texas gave them practice at small-scale war and irregular tactics on a regular and continuing basis.

One bit of good fortune for the Anglos of San Antonio and the various militias and of Texas generally, was that the captain of the local Ranger Company was not one of those caught by Woll’s lighting-raid. Captain John Coffee Hays and fifteen of his rangers had actually been out patrolling the various roads and trails, in response to rumors of a Mexican force in the vicinity. It was they who – upon their return in the wee hours of a September morning – found every road into San Antonio blocked by Mexican soldiers.

Naturally, they did not let this event pass without comment or response . . .
(to be continued)

22. April 2011 · Comments Off on Coming Home in Dress Blues · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Military, War

Found, through Bookworm Room

The Westboro “Baptist Church” Freaks (note the viciously skeptical quote marks) had made plans to turn out for this. The citizens of SSgt. Jones’ home town took action that ensured they did not. What a wonderful place to be from. Even if it is one of those no-count (insert satirical quote marks here) tea-b***er-infested, ignorant, flyover-country places that no decent respectable person of the mainstream media, or our political elite would ever claim to come from, or know, at all.

22. April 2011 · Comments Off on Call Me Weird · Categories: Geekery

I’m gonna say it:  I’d rather see another Batman, Iron Man, or even Superman movie that go see Thor or The Avengers.  I just don’t care.

22. April 2011 · Comments Off on Call Me Weird · Categories: Geekery

I’m gonna say it:  I’d rather see another Batman, Iron Man, or even Superman movie that go see Thor or The Avengers.  I just don’t care.

22. April 2011 · Comments Off on Guest Post – Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act · Categories: General, Veteran's Affairs

(The following was forwarded to me by reader Taylor Dardan for posting on the Brief, as something that might be of interest to older veterans.)
As the US continues air strikes on Libya and putting more soldiers in the line of fire, a number of older veterans are fighting for their own support back home in the United States. Since January there’s been a great amount of campaigning from veteran committees to get a support program for post-2001 veterans and their caregivers started through the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act. The law just passed the January 31st deadline in which it was supposed to get off the ground, therefore Barack Obama, who signed it last year, is coming under some pressure from these committees. Even with the fight to get this act through, it should be noted that veterans who served before 2001 with caregivers are given a very low amount of support, if any at all. So hopefully the continued push for support will further expand to include older veterans, many of whom are still dealing with illnesses brought on by their time in the military.
Although this act has been facing a number of hurdles and obstacles, representatives in Congress are hopeful to have it off the ground in the coming months of spring and summer. Congress has been mostly apologetic in the inability to get started and pointed towards their inexperience working with stipend pay as a major reason for the setbacks. The act itself, as mentioned earlier, would look to support post 2001 veterans through health services, training/education on care giving for vets, as well as payment for lodging expenses. Getting this act started would be a great move in providing veterans with more support, yet continued work to include older (pre 2001) veterans should continually be examined and pressed.
Care givers of veterans serving before 2001 are given little to no support at all currently, which includes a minor amount of respite care. A number of groups and committees, such as the American Legion are continuing the battle to seek an increased amount of support for the caregivers of older veterans.
There are certainly a number of ways that these older veterans have felt the repercussions of their military service in the form of illness and diseases. This includes a number of different health problems including mesothelioma developing from asbestos, mental problems stemming from Agent Orange in Vietnam, as well as a number of heightened health problems stemming from bad water at Camp LeJeune.
A number of veterans of the Vietnam War were exposed to a number of herbicides, also known as Agent Orange. What come from this exposure was a number of health and illness problems mostly in the mental health sector. Asbestos’ material has been used for a number of years in a number of different buildings, shipyards and factories on many military bases all over the country. The problem with its use throughout the 20th century involves its exposure leading to deadly diseases such as mesothelioma and asbestosis. For example, mesothelioma life expectancy is only an average of 10 months following diagnosis; therefore care givers are often highly necessary for these patients. Contaminated water at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina was a problem for over 30 years. Once the level of contamination was discovered, bacteria such as perchloreothylene and trichloroethylene were shown in high levels in the water. These have been concluded to exposure and increased risks of neurological effects, as well as Hodgkin’s disease and a number of different cancer types. Given some of the severe effects older veterans could still be feeling today, care givers are often necessary to them, therefore further support would be greatly invested.
The charge to get this act through to help post 2001 veterans should certainly be the first step in the progress towards increased support. Furthermore, extending this support level beyond younger veterans would do a number in helping some of the older veterans of military service, as well as their caregivers.

20. April 2011 · Comments Off on Easter Eggs – A Repost from the MT Archive · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Memoir

Grannie Jessie, who had grown up on a farm in Pennsylvania, and imbibed all those do-it-yourself virtues when it came to vegetable gardens, home canning, and making ones’ own clothes, drew the short straw when JP and I were small. Lucky Grannie Jessie got to supervise the dying of the Easter eggs. We would usually be spending part of Easter Week in Pasadena, since Mom would be fitting us all out with new shoes, and the proper accessories: in the early years, Pippy and I would have new hats, wee white gloves, and ornamental ankle socks to wear to Easter services with the new dresses that Mom had sewn herself. JP would have a new suit, a miniature of Dads’, with a smart pint-size fedora.

When Grannie Jessie did the shopping that week, walking around the corner to Don’s Market on Rosemead Boulevard with the wheeled wire basket, she would buy extra eggs— three dozen white eggs—and let us pick from the modest selection of packets of Easter egg dyes. You could buy just the basic packet, just a strip of cellophane sealing in six or seven concentrated little pills of dye, but we always yearned after the fancy boxes with the circular perforations on the back which could be punched out to make a holder for the dyed eggs to sit while the dye dried, which also contained a couple of wire holders, a set of transfers on thin tissue paper, and a plain wax crayon, with which JP and I could demonstrate our artistic prowess. Grannie Jessie always relented, and bought the fancy box of egg dye with the transfers and implements.

On the appointed day, she boiled up all the eggs in her biggest kitchen pot, and brought out an assortment of egg-cups, old teacups, small bowls and measuring cups, and the battered old spoons. The kitchen table was already covered with an oilcloth, but she brought out a couple of Grandpa Jim’s old shirts, and aproned us in them, back to front and rolling up the sleeves. Then she boiled up a kettle of water, while we opened the dye packet, and placed the little colored pill of dye at the bottom of each cup or bowl. Grannie Jessie’s kitchen was never fashionable, in the way of the women’s magazines: functional in the way of a farmhouse kitchen, a gas range with a metal match safe on the doorjamb next to it, and bead-board cabinets with varnish which had gone slightly gummy with age and wear. The sink was enormous, the size of a baby’s bathtub, and the plain vinyl countertops were edged with a band of metal. Her original Kelvinator fridge, with the round metal coils on top was replaced about the time I was born with something slightly more up to date. Her kitchen things were an assortment from the dime store, sturdy but worn — Depression era jelly glasses, tin metal measuring cups given away by the flour mill companies. (Many of them, disposed of at garage sales when she moved into the Gold Star Mother’s home in the mid-1970ies are now the sort of thing I see for sale in the antique malls for quite astounding sums.)

The kitchen table at Grannie Jessie’s was wedged into a narrow ell, against the wall where three windows, their sills a little above the level of the table, overlooked the driveway, the next door neighbors’ back yard, and Mt Wilson in the far distance. In the morning, the sun came into her kitchen through these windows. Grannie Jessie’s chair was wedged into the space between the head of the table and the hutch, where her crossword dictionaries were shelved next to the old-fashioned coffee grinder. Grandpa Jim’s chair was at the foot of the table, an elbow-length from the door to the utility porch, with its concrete sink and the old-fashioned washing machine with the rollers on top to squeeze the water out of the clothes and sheets. The long side of the table, facing the windows, could accommodate two chairs, three at a pinch, and was where JP and I sat for meals, where Mom and Uncle Jimmy had doubtless sat in their turn.

When the kettle boiled, Grannie Jessie brought out the bottle of vinegar and the tin tablespoon measure.
“It sets the dye properly,” she explained. A tablespoon of vinegar in each cup, and a splash of boiling water, and we watched, breathlessly as the dye pill dissolved instantly, transforming the water into opaque, vividly colored liquid. She put on another kettle of water to boil, and brought over the pot of eggs, now cooled to luke-warm, and only a few of them cracked or broken, while the steam and the scent of vinegar rose up around us. (Grandpa Jim would have egg-salad sandwiches for a couple of days.) Carefully, loading each egg into the wire holder, we slid them each— carefully, carefully— into the cups of dye, where they sank to the bottom. If the cup was one of the shallower ones, we would have to turn the egg over and over— otherwise there would be a paler oval on one site of the egg. As we gained in experience and expertise, JP and I experimented with different colors— holding an egg half in the dye of one color, then turning it over in the wire holder, and dying the other half in another. The wax crayon came into play, first resulting in pastel eggs squiggled over with a white pattern, and then JP upped the ante by dying an egg yellow or pink, then patterning it with the crayon, and then putting it into a darker color. He spent twenty minutes one year, cutting finicking tiny squares and triangles of scotch tape, to color an egg in checkers of yellow and maroon.

Even when we had dragged out the process long enough and all the cups of dye had cooled, and only one or two eggs were left, the fun wasn’t entirely over. Grannie let us pour a bit of each dye into the largest cup, and the last egg ceremoniously dipped in the murky mixture— it usually came out a rather subdued greenish or bronze color, contrasting with the pastel blues and pinks and yellows. She cleared away the cups and poured the dye remnants down the sink, but we weren’t done yet. She poured boiling water into a washbasin with a couple of clean white dishtowels in it, and while they cooled, we cut apart the delicate paper transfers— flower and bunny motifs, and crosses and mottoes. Placed bright sides down against the dyed egg, and closely wrapped in a hot towel; the transfer inked itself blurrily onto the eggshell within a few minutes. There were always more transfers than eggs— sometimes we tried two of them to one egg, but there was always the difficulty of getting the transfer to be pressed against the eggshell without wrinkling.

Eventually, that job would be done too, and the finished eggs replaced in the paper cartons they had come from Don’s Market in, and put away in the refrigerator, until Saturday when Mom would drive over in the green Plymouth station wagon, and take us— and the eggs— home. She and Dad would hide them after Easter dinner, for JP and Pippy, and I, and the children of any families who had been our guests, and we would have the fun of finding them, which was somehow never quite as much fun as that of decorating them.

Lately, I have noticed that at Easter-time, the grocery store stocks ready-dyed eggs; what possibly can be the fun of that, I ask you?

17. April 2011 · Comments Off on Annals of 1836 · Categories: General, History, Literary Good Stuff, Old West

The 175 anniversary of the war for Texas independence is being observed this year, I’ve been to commemorative events at the Alamo, and at Presidio La Bahia. With the price of a gallon of gas already reaching towards $3.50, I had to give a miss to driving to Houston for the reenactment event there. The war was fast, furious and relatively brief; barely six months from the start of open hostilities at the ‘Come-and-Take-it Fight” in a watermelon field outside of Gonzales, to the shattering of the Mexican forces under the command of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, in a grassy meadow by Buffalo Bayou, in 18 minutes of pitched battle. Kind of fitting, actually – as went the war, so went the final decisive battle.

So, most of the major events have their commemoration – but not so much the event that hit the Texian settlers the hardest – the terrifying Runaway Scrape. The San Jacinto reenactment touched on it a little, which is only suitable, but it would be difficult for a day-long event to do the experience justice. It was a pell-mell evacuation of all the Anglo settler families, first from all settlements and farms west of the Colorado – and then, as Santa Anna’s three columns kept advancing east, it seemed as if there would be no safety anywhere on the Texas side of the Sabine.

Fear drove the settler families, fear of the implacable Santa Anna, who had put down similar federalist-inspired rebellions in other Mexican states with considerable brutality. Upon defeating the federalist militia of Zacatecas, Santa Anna had allowed his victorious army to pillage, loot and otherwise abuse the citizens of the defeated town for two days. What happened in Zacatecas would have been well-known, among the Texian rebels; the executions of the Alamo and La Bahia garrisons were just proof that Santa Anna was running true to established form.

The direct orders of Sam Houston also provided a motivation, as if any more were needed. He had barely arrived in Gonzales on March 11, with the intent of rallying an army to him to relieve the Alamo, when word arrived that it was too late. Within hours, Houston gave orders for his army to retreat east, back to hold a strong line along the Colorado River. He also ordered that civilians evacuate as well . . . and that the town be burnt. It was a cruel plan, but one with a purpose. Santa Anna’s supply lines were stretched to the breaking point as it was. Failing necessary supplies arriving from Mexico, they could manage in the short term by forage and local requisition, but Houston’s plan was to leave a scorched earth as he retreated back and back again. Gonzales burned, so did the fledgling settlement of Bastrop, and San Felipe de Austin, although there is controversy as to who actually fired San Felipe. Refugio, Richmond, Washington-on-the Brazos – all emptied of the Anglo-American settlers and their families. Santa Anna burned Harrisburg, possibly out of frustration at not being able to catch members of the Texian government. All the way through March and into April, settler families straggled east. Some had only a bare few minutes to gather their belongings and leave. Many families buried those things they valued, intending to return when they could. It was the rainiest spring in years, which put many of the rivers at flood-stage and bogged down the Mexican army . . . but added to the sufferings of the refugees. Disease broke out, especially those intensified by cold, hunger and bad sanitation. The dead were hastily buried where they died, and their kin moved on, seeking any safety they could.

And then, on April 21st, it was all over, although it took some few weeks for word to get out, and for the refugees to believe . . . and even longer to rebuild.
(Daughter of Texas touches on this, in several key chapters – of the sufferings of women and their children, who had to leave their homes and make their way east alone – either their men were with Houston’s Army … or already dead in the fighting.)

14. April 2011 · Comments Off on First Reviews – Daughter of Texas · Categories: General, History, Literary Good Stuff, Old West

Well, the first reviews are out and posted – a lovely one from David at ChicagoBoyz and Photon Courier, and on Amazon, one from John Willingham, whose book about James Fannin and Goliad that I reviewed. The first of many (fingers crosssed) I hope!

12. April 2011 · Comments Off on A Miscellany of the Writer Life · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Literary Good Stuff, Old West, Rant

Just spent most of my working day editing a MS which features lots of chapters which are transcripts of various late-night radio shows, of which the less said the better, since this client have actually paid me money in advance.

Paid a large part of the SAWS bill, and also on Saturday – thanks to that same client – paid the tax bill due on my California real estate. This land, which is about three acres of howling unimproved wilderness in the neighborhood of Julian, California, is currently on the market. At this point, I do not think I can, want to, or ever will go back to California to live and to build a nice little writer’s wilderness retreat on the property, which is what I hoped when I bought that land, ever-so-many-years ago. But I am damned if I will let it go for lack of payment of taxes, which is why a good few parcels of eventually-valuable real estate that my G-Grandfather George owned were lost to the family treasury during the Depression. G-G George was a wiz at this sort of thing; unfortunately his wife had neither the skills nor the pocketbook to hold on to them all. If she had, Dad and I might have been real estate/trust fund babies. We might have taken different paths in life – I am sure I would have been a writer, no matter what.

Daughter of Texas is launched, with lots of review and pre-paid copies going out this week. Just have to see which ones will hit the interest and resulting sales jackpot. Da Blogfaddah – Instapundit – probably won’t be one of them. I didn’t bother sending a copy or a query to him . . . it seems that we have been dropped from his blog-roll. Anyone notice at all? Meah – I didn’t, for weeks. It has never seemed in the past couple of years that being on his blog-roll got me any notice as a writer or as a Tea Partier – thank you very much and I otherwise would be rude about this – but this is Instapundit that we are talking about, and the occasional lordly-dispensed link was very good. I guess this is just an ordinary unobserved milblog once again. There is a review for Daughter of Texas posted on Amazon. The first of many, I should hope.

I am kicking about the notion of doing a hard-cover version of the Adelsverein Trilogy, through the Tiny Publishing Business that I am now a working partner in: I would like to offer a hard-bound version of all the separate volumes of the Trilogy, at slightly under the rate of buying all three in paperback. So, what would please all the fans – a cloth-bound and paper jacket edition, or a hard-cover version with just a bright-color laminated cover. Let me know – the laminated cover is slightly less expensive to publish than the cloth-bound and paper dust-jacket version – but the cloth and dust-jacket version just looks so classy! This wouldn’t be something I would look to put in the big-box stores, since to do so would involve a discount more than would make this doable, economically.

So – are there any readers out there?

07. April 2011 · Comments Off on Oh, This is So Not Good · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Military, sarcasm, Working In A Salt Mine...

Just so we get this perfectly clear, the active, serving military will go on earning their pay over the period of the shut down of the federal government . . . they just won’t be getting any actual paychecks, or automatic deposit of it into their bank accounts. In a time where there are kinetic military events going on – what we used to call hostilities – in three different countries. No matter what you call ‘em, it means that the families of troops serving in an active war zone are not going to be happy. Especially the families of those junior troops who are already living close to the bone anyway; there were years when I finished out the last day or so before a payday with $1 in my bank account and a handful of change in my handbag. And I’ve lost track of how many times I floated a check for groceries at the Commissary, a day or two before payday.

Just to throw some gasoline on the fire, it seems that just that very week that the paychecks won’t be arriving, the First Lady and Mrs. Biden are launching a big push to support military families. Nice timing, ladies – because they certainly will be needing support by then. Seriously, though, I would reconsider rescheduling any events involving actual military members’ families during this period, as you’re liable to get an earful of how they really feel and I don’t think the protocol officers are gonna be able to cope.

Heck of a job, Barry. Heck of a job.

31. March 2011 · Comments Off on Dreamweaver · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Veteran's Affairs

My daughter and I just lamented this week – that for two people who are not employed full-time, we are indeed awfully busy. We must maintain a calendar, to keep track of it all, and when one of us is due someplace, to do something or other. The patchwork of part-time jobs that we hold between us is sufficient to our needs. I am retired military; she draws a small disability pension from the Veterans’ Administration and is intermittently going to school in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree. I write books – which brings in a trickle of royalties and direct sales – blog for pay at a local realtor’s website, partner in a small publishing firm, free-lance edit and write, also part-time at a tiny ranch real estate firm, occasionally constrict a website . . . all of this does not produce a predictable income-stream, but it does produce one. Free lance; that is, I am a soldier of writing fortune, and to put it in modern terms, an independent contractor. I work for straight pay, when I want to, and take my pay from those who I agree to work for on specific projects for writing services rendered.

It’s fun – perilous but fun. I just can’t look at the beginning of the month and predict with any degree of absolute confidence exactly how much will be in the bank account by the end of it. That there will be enough to meet needs – is usually the case. It’s just that I never know when or where they will be coming from. Something always turns up, usually without any warning at all. It’s a bohemian way to live without the je ne sais quoi of actually being a bohemian, but it does have rewards, such as being able to set one’s own work schedule. I know what I have to do, to finish the current job; I can do it early in the morning, on the weekend, on a holiday, there is no one hanging over me, logging every key-stroke, I can kick back on a mid-week afternoon and we can go to a movie, if we feel like it.

I worked for all kinds of businesses after retiring from the military, none of which I built a second career out of, although I had kind of counted on doing exactly that. But it just didn’t work out. My business partner in the Tiny Publishing Bidness says that it didn’t work out for her for very long, either – she got bored, and couldn’t work days. For myself, I could never work for a monolithic big company again – reliable and enduring – but also boring as hell. I also worked for small local firms, which turned out to be just as unsatisfactory but in a different way. The best of them went broke or relocated out of state, and the worst of them were advertised to me as places which regarded their employees as just like family. What I came to realize is that they treat them as part of a viciously dysfunctional and abusive family. OK, then – getting out from under that kind of burden is another reward of being a free lance.

My daughter also has an eccentric work schedule, aside from her occasional classes: she cleans house once a month for a neighbor who has health issues and is confined to a scooter-chair. Lovely person – lives just around the corner from us. She also had a gig doing computer training for another neighbor who was just dipping her toes into this new-fangled computer/internet thingy, and needed about an hour of coaching once a week, in order to cope with her email and her Netflix account. Twice a week, she collects the children of another neighbor from school, and baby-sits them until their older brother gets home from school. She also works as my personal assistant when I do a book-talk, which is no-end useful to me, although currently this is for no pay. She’ll inherit the rights to my books, though – so that’ll work out. And when it comes to doing what we call “being a real Arthur” – having an assistant helps no end. She has an occasional job, delivering for a local company which does fruit-flower arrangements, thanks to a friend who recommended her. It’s only on major holidays, but she is trusted as a reliable and professional part-timer; every month that there is a gift-giving occasion in it, she’s there and on the job for anything from two to five days. She’s also been helping with the work of the Tiny Publishing Bidness, and is thinking of taking classes in graphic arts – and courses which would be of use to a tiny independent publishing firm. And she also earns a paycheck with the Tiny Publishing Bidness; doing housekeeping for my business partner twice a month, and weekly performing errands and fix-it stuff. This makes her income a little more predictable. She was let go from her own full-time/flex time job two years ago; another one of those local Tiny Bidnesses which could no longer afford an office manager. So – there it is. I think we got our hard times a couple of years ago, and now we’re ahead of the game, at least by a couple of lengths.

Two weekends, I went to uphold the morale of another indy- and Texas-history-obsessed author at a local signing, at a bookstore which shall remain nameless because I am quite annoyed with them and don’t want to give them the traffic and it’s over a relatively piddling amount and I really ought to be big and forget about it but it’s the bloody principle of the thing and why the heck should I who subsist on freelance editing jobs and a military pension and an irregular stream of royalty checks be expected to subsidize a bookstore located in a very trendy and very likely expensive location and if they are on the financial rocks through miscalculation and their own business practices . . . well, again – why the heck should I be expected to bear some of the brunt of their various miscalculations? Oh, yeah – because I’m an indy writer, working for a teensy local subsidy press, and this enterprise is just about the only indy bookstore in town.

Getting back to my main point; frankly, doing an event at an indy bookstore or big-box outlet is usually ego-death-onna-stick anyway, unless by some miracle of persuasion, you have managed to BS local media outlets into going along with the pretense that you are a big-name-arthur. Which is what I told my new indy-author friend – who has actually had some luck with this . . . Anyway, one may as well have some friends come along, to while away the desperate hours with sitting behind the dreaded author-table and watching customers come in through the door, studiously avoiding your eye as they slither through the immediate area, heading for the Stephen Kings and the Philippa Gregorys and the latest Oprah pick.

Really – as I told my fellow obsessive – you might almost have better luck at a Christmas craft show, if it weren’t for the iron-clad tradition of authors appearing at bookstores. I know another local author who has a cute little cookbook, very well designed and edited, and she takes a table at regular gun shows. She cleans up, BTW. Guys, guns, hunting apparel and accessories. Wives and girlfriends, feeling obliged to come along, are not really much interested in the guns, apparel and accessories. Drawn to her cute little table display like insects to a bright porch light on a Texas summer evening, they are. Marketing, baby – sometimes it’s all about sorting out an unconventional venue where there are customers with money and where your product stands out.

Anyway, there were enough of my fellow Texas-history-obsessive friends showing up that we had a good time of it – alas that he didn’t have the good time that I had at the fund-raising luncheon the week before, where I nearly got writer’s-cramp scribbling messages and a stylized initial in the front of what seemed like an endless stream of my own books . . . hey, that’s a problem that is nice to have. I can get used to it. I promise onna-stacka-Bibles that I will never be a witch about this, I will be pleasant and obliging and always have time to talk at least briefly to a fan, even if it’s not a convenient time or a welcome interruption – I will make it seem like it is. I have skills that way. After the requisite time-behind-the-table was done, my author friend, three of his friends, and Blondie and I repaired to a table at Sams’ Burgers, to replenish the inner person and to talk about Texas history, a mad passion for which is shared by all of us at the table save perhaps Blondie, and then only because she is dragged into it by my interest. At the age of five, she got dragged into every significant museum and location of historical interest between the then-Iron Curtain and Gibraltar, so she ought to be used to it by now.

A matter of wry amusement to me is that I don’t have any sort of advanced degree for this. S’help me god, all I have is your basic state university English degree and only a BA at that. I did all the classes towards a Masters in public administration, way back before Blondie was born – but I swear it was only because I was bored silly and that was about the only higher ed program offered at Misawa AB . . . and the education counselor must have talked a good game or I had no sales resistance at all, because I wound up taking all the classes . . . even though I had no interest what-so-freaking-ever in public administration. Still, a lot of the classes were interesting, in and of themselves, so I suppose I took something away from that educational experience. Not that any of it applied in a way that I can see to my eventual career of scribbling respectably well-researched genre historical fiction . . . but it’s just as well there is no entry-qualification for that. Nope – no licensing procedure for those who wish to trot out our creative works of fiction before a (hopefully) appreciative audience . . . yet, anyway. There is no end to the writing of theses and papers and that sort of thing by those possessing PHDs, but very few of them have the ability to make them gripping reads, appealing to the general public.

But I was thinking, as I was scribbling this – I’ve been able to hold my own, when it comes to those matters that hold my interest – with all sorts of people, and some of them are . . . ummm, academically credentialed well above and far above my own level. I’ve always liked the thought of being an autodidact, a person who basically educated themselves, a person who read voraciously and thought about . . . things, outside the mainstream of currently acceptable intellectual thought-processes. And I’ve been thinking – that when it comes to writing agreeable, interesting and accessible genre fiction – it may be more doable to start with someone who can write vividly and with some degree of competence and discipline, and who might have learned or be taught mad historical research skills . . . than it would be to teach someone with all the skills to be a good story-teller and writer.

You know, I am also thinking – for dramatic story-telling potential, this could be a great rom-com; a serious and academically credentialed historian, married/involved with a historical novelist. Hilarity definitely guaranteed to ensue. Plot – oh, I could come up with something. I’m a novelist, after all.

24. March 2011 · Comments Off on An Essay in Frustration · Categories: General, Literary Good Stuff, Rant

I am trying not to loose my temper over this, and lash out indiscriminately – because I have done that before and probably cut off a potential source of income from freelancing for a local magazine through having given way to anger-driven impatience a couple of years ago . . . but honestly, my fans and fellow scribblers – is it a bad thing to want to get paid/reimbursed for services rendered and goods performed in a timely manner, and without having to hector, and send emails and make telephone calls and even show up in person for weeks and months on end, in the expectation of a payment? Don’t keep stringing me along – that’s actually a sign of instability in your enterprise, to keep it going for more than a couple of weeks. Either that or truly epic incompetence in the financial administration of your enterprise, and I really can’t decide which is worse. And I speak as one who actually worked for a slowly-failing business in the early oughties. Over the last six months of its life, I was the one who had to stall vendors and suppliers, to make excuses for the owner/management. Oh, and hector the owner into triaging the various bills due, and apportion out the payments that would actually keep the doors open for another day, week and month. Look, I know the peculiar smell of that situation – so don’t you dare piss on me and insist that it is raining, or spin me the tales of personal woe. I’m frankly not all that interested – besides, my own family loss was of the same magnitude but I’m not using that as an all-purpose excuse.

Yes, I know that life is rough for various indy commercial enterprises, and my heart pumps pure piss for your sad situation, but honestly – I’ve also worked for enough others in the same condition and degree, both corporate and individual, in the last couple of years who were totally straight and paid up on the dot of when payments were due – to have all that much sympathy for those who can’t. Lately, I am less in sympathy with those who seem to be of the notion that because of being a local/indy, I have no choice but to suck up this kind of treatment – just because. This is serious stuff to me, as well as being quite frustrating. I have bills, too, as well as a strong desire to plow some of my royalties into additional inventory of my books for resale or consignment. They do sell, BTW – and very nicely, too. The places which do have them in stock usually have them flying out the door, double-quick.

The trouble is that one of my author-expectations is – that when I put books on consignment in a particular place, I’d like to be reimbursed for sales. Either that, or have my inventory returned to me. It’s just business, thanks. I don’t write for free, I write in the expectation of eventually making back my expenses and then a little more. I bought that stock of consignment books out of my own resources – and now this particular enterprise later turns out to be too strapped or disorganized to actually write me a check to reimburse me for those sales? Gee, that really puts a hiccup in my whole cycle of get paid for sale of books- purchase inventory-place on consignment- sale of books (yay!)- get paid for sale of books, und so weiter.

OK, I feel better now. Not paid by this particular creditor, but better.

21. March 2011 · Comments Off on The Duck of Death Quacking Up at Last? · Categories: Ain't That America?, Air Force, Fun and Games, Fun With Islam, General, sarcasm, World

Yeah, I know – juvenile humor at best, but somehow that’s about the only reasonable response you can make to a walking, talking comic-opera cartoon villain like Moammar Khadaffy. Or Quadaffi, or what the hell – Khadaffy-Duck. I mean, the clothes, the sprocket-hung uniforms, the transparent megalomania, the fembot body-guards, the rip-off of Mao’s Little Red Book . . . and was he the inspiration for the villain in Jewel of the Nile? And then you remember the serious stuff: the airplanes and discos bombed, the terrorists like the IRA generously funded – the politicians and intellectuals paid to be his respectable front, the plight of those foreign doctors and nurses who were accused of deliberately infecting patients with AIDS, the death of a British policewoman in front of the Libyan embassy in London (who was shot from within the embassy), and the brutalization of his own people . . . no, Quadaffy-Duck was every bit as malevolent as Saddam Hussein; his pretensions and dress-sense was just a little more risible. Otherwise, just a matter of degree, and frankly, I can’t think of a nicer person to have a J-DAM coming down the chimney with his name on it, no matter how the heck you spell it. I did so hope that he would wind up like Mussolini (his corpse hanging from a gas-station – which would be ironic in the extreme) or stood up in front of a wall like Ceausescu; the thing being that it would be Libyans themselves performing the necessary chore of taking out the flamboyantly-clad trash. Ah, well; however the job gets done.

Anyway – as you can guess, I’ll be breaking out the popcorn and celebrating the immanent demise of the Duck of Death; it’s been long overdue, no matter who or what is responsible for seeing that he achieves room temperature. However . . . the infamous however, well-freighted with irony . . . I do have a few small concerns, chief among them being – who and what are the anti-Khadaffy Libyans, exactly? When all the dust settles, and someone who is not the Duck of Death or of his ilk and kin is in charge . . . who will that person be, and will they be an improvement?

Secondly; what next? Are we just clearing out the Duck’s flyable assets so that a no-fly zone may be installed? How long will the no-fly zone be in effect – as long as the no-fly zone over Iraq, which protected the Kurds? Months, weeks, days? Of the allied nations assisting in this, who will have the resources to continue that long? Should it be necessary to put boots on the ground . . . whose boots will they be, and what exactly will be the assigned duties of those boots?

And the irony of Obama doing just about what Bush was damned up one side and down the other for doing, with regard to another middle-eastern oil-rich nation ruled by a brutally iron-fisted autocrat with a penchant for seeing his own face everywhere? Rich, I tell you – as in two scoops of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey. Watching half of Obama’s backers turn themselves into pretzels trying to explain how one of these things is so not like the other, and the other half going into gibbering hysterics realizing that it is . . . it’s turning out to be quite a giggle for me. Enough reason for anther round of popcorn, anyway.

And finally – you know, they told me if I voted for McCain/Palin, that there would never-ending war in the Middle East – and damn if it doesn’t look like it.