"Whole 'Nother Country"
by Ted L Glines
There's a feelin here in Texas,
a feelin tall and wide,
a "whole 'nother country"
aflame with Texas pride!
When I came out here from SoCal,
this mental pic was seen
of Texas being dry and flat
with cowboys - like on screen.
Tumbleweeds were blowin,
longhorn cattle everywhere,
with guitars playin country songs
and dancin in the square.
Ridin wild-eyed broncos,
wearin ten-gallon hats,
I saw wind-blown caballeros
workin cattle on the flats.
And Missions like the Alamo,
where history ran red,
served to colorize my vision,
paintin Texas in my head.
But, preconceived notions
may not lead you true,
I had to come here for myself
to get a truer view.
I've not seen a single longhorn,
nor a caballero yet,
and no tumbleweeds are blowin
'cause it's rainy and it's wet.
Ghosts of the Alamo
may never have died,
waiting for the Army's help
which never came; they lied.
Not far from here is Dallas,
a city like L.A.,
with traffic worse than SoCal
on it's worst traffic day.
There's tons of country music,
mainly 'bout young hopeful love,
and the people here are gentle
as the Lone Star flies above.
Forests, lakes, and skiing,
Mother Nature's motherlode,
just watch the bluebells nodding
next to every country road.
And little towns are intimate,
you're known by trust and deed,
and friends all help their neighbors,
quickly coming at their need.
There's a feelin here in Texas,
a feelin tall and wide,
a "whole 'nother country"
aflame with Texas pride!
Hunters
by Ted L Glines
I must thank Felix Perry (Fee) for inspiring this and thereby giving me an entertaining addition to the “Texas” page on my Website. Fee is one of the good hunters, the ones who only kill animals because of a real need to feed their family, and Fee is/was woods-crafty and safe with his hunting. Now let us look at the “hunters” out here in east Texas.
In a word, the “hunters” of east Texas (and a few other backwards places) are the ones who gave the NRA a bad name. The “hunters” of east Texas are idiots with guns, rednecks with over-extended egos; they are kids whose childhood cap-guns became practice to kill and maim in real life ... for pleasure. Is that too hard?
Our area's Chambers of Commerce love and cater to the hunters. The hunters stay at our hotels. The hunters buy fuel, eat at our resteraunts, and spend money in our stores. Our Chambers of Commerce do everything in their power to lure the hunters into our area each season. My hotel's owner loves the full-house revenue during deer- and duck-season each year. But none of us likes what the hunters do here.
These hunters will hear a noise on the other side of a thicket, and they will shoot at the noise. Every hunting season, we have our casualties where innocent hikers and hunters are injured and sometimes killed. If these casualties go unnoticed by the courts, we must realize that these good-ole-boys do stick together. Boys will be boys.
These hunters use high performance weapons. They are sometimes more powerfully armed than the U.S. Marines in combat. In duck hunting, shotgun shot sizes are sometimes so large that, when shot, ducks will explode in the air. Very entertaining! At my hotel, I have seen rifles offloaded from hunter's pickup trucks which might be appropriate for hunting rhinos or elephants. Night-vision military technology. Maybe next year, we will have rocket-propelled grenades used against deer! Or ducks?
These hunters do not know about hunting safety, and they do not care about it. They do not wear the reflective orange safety vests. Camos, that's what they wear, so they will blend in with the foliage of the forests and marshes. Green and brown and grey and black, with red showing only when they've been shot by some other camo-wearing “hunter.” Out there in our forests and marshes is a Reality Show of idiocy in motion!
These hunters are not out there to feed their families. They will shoot down a buck to take his rack, and then leave the body of the buck to rot in the brush. After each short hunting season, our forests and marshes reek of decomposing wasted flesh.
As long as good-ole-boys control the works of government as we know it, we will see and smell the killing and the stink of it, and we will abhor the waste. Maybe, if the good-ole-boys were made to run through the killing fields with a bright target on their front and back, with lots of noise on the other sides of thickets ...
I wish ... !
Texas
by Ted L Glines
Geez, I sure hope that Karla does not read this. She will laugh me to death!
I spent my first 55 years out in California, living all over the state, with my final six years being down in Orange County. Now, people in California are really fast-lane, really smart, and really opinionated. Out there in California, I had this image of Texas -- all scrubby flatlands full of cactuses, long-horned herds of cattle, and cowboys all over the place doing the “Whoopie-ti-ti-yo” bit. That's what I was expecting when a U.S. Marshals' job routed me out here in 1995 to a rain-forest area called the Piney Woods in east Texas. In all the time I have been here, I have yet to see a cactus growing wild, and the only long-horned steer was an exhibit at our county fair in Texarkana, and all these levi-wearing dudes with big silver belt-buckles sure as hell ain't cowboys (we'll get to “hamsters” in a bit). Anyway, so much for those Californian's preconceived notions about Texas.
It was Christmas. Here I was, no family, nothing to do, and I figured it would be nice to settle back with a six-pack of beer and my muse. Hey, my muse likes to pop a top every now and again. Ha! This is the Bible Belt, and we don't sell beer on Christmas out here. Extremely depressing. Someone forgot to tell these people about Jesus turning the water into wine (bet you anything He sipped some, too). Basic rule in Texas -- stock up on beer ahead of time ...
Speaking about demon alcohol -- my Texas county (Bowie) is dry. No booze. Total bummer. It is about a 50-mile round trip from where I live to the Arkansas border in Texarkana -- to buy my beer. Yup. It is a fact (from the Bowie County Sheriff's Office) that we have more DUIs in Bowie County than they have in the wet county next door (comes from going all that way to buy the booze, and drinking it all the way back). But -- and here is the wierd part -- spotted around Bowie County are these things called “Private Clubs” (bars - plain and simple - where you buy a membership card and then belly up to the bar and drink until they pour you out the door - into your car). Go figure. Must be some graft and corruption involved with that.
I met this lady up on the 4th floor of the Bi-State Justice Building in Texarkana. I was waiting to visit an adopted daughter who had run afoul of the Law (in about seven states), and the lady was visiting some raggly convict of her own. We got to talking and she was friendly, and she invited me to go out that evening to the VFW Hall where she said they had a good band. And they did, too - good foot-tappin country stuff. There were folks out there doin something called the Texas Two-Step, and one couple was circling the other dancers so fast -- they were a grinning blur. The lady conned me into getting out there with her on the dance floor and pretty soon I was Two-Steppin as fast as Tonto's pony on a downhill dash. And all the while we were doing this, this lady was huggin all over me and I knew I was in deep doo-doo. Most of my new-found Two-Steppin speed was just trying to get away from the lady. I always thought that Sadie Hawkins was just a cartoon character. You can feel free to have an image of Ted hightailing it off into the sunset (champeen Two-Stepper)! Yup. Giggle - I was the one that got away!
Texas has more overweight people than I have ever seen outside of a carnival. I mean, the average physical-profile look could be called “hamster” -- great big round fat bodies on spindly legs. These people look like a Weight Watcher's “Before” picture. Next to my hotel is Nana's Family Diner where the portions are normally supersized (you only order ONE hotcake). Here comes a hamster-couple and you watch as they put away enough food to feed five Somalians for a week. And schoolyards are chock full of hamster-kids. Texas has got to be a prime feeding ground for doctors specializing in diabetes and heart problems. Reports state that Texas leads the nation in obesity. It is always wonderful to be "tops" at something.
One morning, while checking out a guest at a hotel in Texarkana, a man paused and looked at me, and said “I appreciate you.” It blew me away. People in California don't say things like that. These people in east Texas are laid back and friendly. Even the KKK members are laid back and friendly. When they see you, they look you in the eye and say, “How're ya doin?” And “Doin great!” is your response. You learn to avoid Sadie Hawkins, and you stock up your beer supply (strictly for the Muse, ya know), and life is good - living among the hamsters. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Whoopie-ti-ti-yo, git along little dogies (if only someone would tell me -- what is a dogie?).