Is it Easter yet......??

We Americans are a forward looking people.....and an impatient lot about our holidays. I sometimes miss the good ol' days, like way back 30 years or so ago and beyond. Holiday decorations were special then. Mostly people just did Christmas starting about 2 weeks before hand. Halloween decorations were few and far between.

I'm probably not telling you anything you don't know, but we apparently live for our parade of holidays. I was already seeing Halloween decorations in stores by September, and on November 1st the Thanksgiving decor goes up in the neighborhood. Some peopele even have Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations mixed up together.

And so now we come to Christmas. Some people in my neighborhood had their Santa's and lights up before Turkey Day, but Thanksgiving afternoon about 3 pm is when the Christmas season begins around here. You can see the flurry of activities as people bedeck trees, roofs and eaves with a dazzling display of lights.

But, alas, I'm now caught up in this cycle too. My neighbor across the street had her porch decorated by dark on Thanksgiving and I really don't want to be left behind in the decor race. Luckily all I have to do is flip a switch. For the last 5 years I'm prepared, leaving my small little twinkle lights in the trees around the front porch. I add a few wreaths and whatnots, but basically, it's just flipping the switch that controls the front porch circuits. Voila! It's Christmas.

However, every year I'm disappointed. You know they just don't make those Chinese twinkle lights like they used to. I pay top dollar, like $1.98 for 100' strings of those things which get left outside all year, you'd think $1.98 lights would last longer!

Nov 22, 1963 | Where were you.....?

In the last 40+ years it's become rather a part of the folk culture for those old enough to remember, to be asked, "where were you when Kennedy was shot". It's a fair question and one for which almost everyone has an answer. The Kennedy assasination was one of the most important pinpoint events of the 20th century in the US. Not like the depression or WWII that happened over a span of time, the JFK murder happened in an instant and changed so much.

Where was I? I know exactly where I was and remember it like it was yesterday. I was a Freshman at Midland High School in Coach Ed Nixon's albebra I class which was also my "home room" assigned class. The room is in what is now, the "old building" and one which I pass by several times a year when at the school.

Seated in front of me were Bonnie Craddick and Jimmy Cowden, behind was Margaret Crews. In those days we were model children who obeyed our elders even if they wanted us to sit in alphabetical order. Cowden, Craddick, Craig, Crews....you get it. I still email and talk with Bonnie, married in San Antonio, and trade occasional emails with Jimmy Cowden, an attorney in Austin. Margaret is in Dallas, I believe. Bonnie has always been a good friend and she was a brilliant student and "Miss Everything" at MHS. Over the years I've forgiven her for not letting me cheat from her in Algebra.....thus causing my life to go into a downward spiral. Bonnie is pictured here when she was running for Queen of England...as I recall the only thing she ever lost. :>]

So it was sitting with all these friends that, not long after the fact, we heard the news over the school's loud speaker system the news that JFK had been murdered in Dallas. That's all I remember of that day. I suppose they let us out of school early, though I'm not really sure. The next thing I remember was the following day.....because it was my birthday and the birthday of one of my best friends Ron Hunt. Ronnie and I got together the next day but there was little joy in birthdayville, the rest of the world being glued to their black and white television sets. I look into Coach Nixon's old room when I pass by now and I can almost see Cowden, Craddick, Craig and Crews sitting in the far right row from front to back. And I remember the day and think.....if only Bonnie had let me cheat, I might have made a "B"

Leaf Blower III....

I've been in my house almost 10 years and for the first year I used to rake and sweep tree debris almost daily for many months. The house is surrounded by large pecan and live oak trees. I will warn homeowners here; Don't ever buy a house with live oaks or pecans anywhere near driveways or patios. They have developed a delicate symphony of nature whereby one or the other of the species is dropping somes sort of crap on your property at carefully orchestrated and different times. Except for the 3 months in the dead of winter, there is always something falling.

But I digressed. Having raked and swept for a year, a good friend mentioned that in West Texas a leaf blower is not a luxury, but a necessity. I took this to heart and in the last 9 years rarely do several days go by that I'm not blowing something noxious off my property. I have been through two Toro Super Vac Electric Leaf Blowers in that time. Big brutes with about 500 h.p. creating winds in excess of 2,000 mph. But they were expensive, as they came with all that power and the leaf sucker upper vacuum attachment. I'll add that it looks like the life of a Toro Super Sucker is about 4.5 years.

Today I purchased leaf blower number three. Number two had been sounding "raspy" and losing power for a month or so but still working although sometimes I had to use a very sophisticated system to get it going after being turned on. I hit it really hard. It worked okay, until Tuesday evening when I was blowing debris after dark and noticed a glow coming from the air vent holes in the motor cover. I was rather surprised to find the glow coming from a lot of swirling flames. Not sparks, real genuine fire. But it was working so what the heck.....it lit the way and the fire eventually stopped. The next day I took ol' number two over to the other family home to clean up 20 year old dust left by the roofers after they installed a new roof. Number two worked fine and I was just finishing up when the smell of burning electricity and plastic filled the garage and number two ground to a smokey end. I suppose it's gone for good. I don't think they were designed to have fire in them.

So today, to Ace Hardware I went and found the Number 3 blower of my dreams. A smaller compact Toro with no sucker apparatus that was twice as cheap as numbers 1 and 2. The downside is that it only puts out about 1,200 mph winds, but it sure is a lot easier to use, quieter and in 4.5 years the flames shouldn't be as large when it blows up.

Veteran's Day.....We Remember

On Veteran's Day, I remember and pay tribute to all those I served with and who came before us. Most particularly my family members.....my Dad and my Grandfather.

The Marine Corps globe and anchor were my grandfather's, Charles Wallace Craig who was a Marine Corps L/Cpl who fought at the Battle of Belleau Woods, WWI, 1918.

The Army Combat Infantry Badge rests on the Sgts. stripes of my father, Charles Wallace Craig II, who landed at Anzio, in 1944, fought his way up Italy and then participated in the second "D" Day in Southern France in August of 1944. He later became a cold weather casuality in the Vosges Mountains of France.