Testing one, two, three.....

A big day Thursday as we fire up the communications system we've created for the West Texas Troop Salute with our first live test. Signal uplinked from Major "B" at Camp Taji, Iraq up, up, up 220 miles to the communications satellite then down to the NewWest 9 studios in Odessa where the signal will be microwaved to their portable antenna at Rockhounds Stadium, piped up to the pressbox and hooked into the JumboTron where, God willing, you will see, live, troops from the 1st Cav. Division adding their spirit to the event.

On the outgo, the signal will be sent from the ballpark diamond by CBS7 up to the pressbox and then to the Midland Reporter-Telegram servers utilizing unlimited bandwidth provided by SuddenLink where it will be viewed by the world at our online viewing site. And viewed hopefully by many of our troops worldwide. With the assistance of the Army Soldiers Media Center and the Digital Imagery and Distribution System I have arranged for the event to be publicized throughout the Army, and hopefully, DOD networks. Pray for connectivity!

Counting down...

An interesting day as we count down to six remaining days till the West Texas Troop Salute. I spent a good part of the morning chatting by email with an army Major at Camp Taji, Iraq solidifying our satellite feed from his unit to the Jumbotron at the Rockhounds Ballbark. I asked for, and got, a significant unit in Iraq to participate in our broadcast.....the 1/7th Cavalry of the 1st Cav. Division. Significant because this is the unit portrayed in We Were Soldiers, a tribute to our featured speaker Joe Galloway.

And, though I didn't catch it, my interview with Jay Hendrix taped last week apparently ran in the last day or so. I know because I asked parents/wives etc. of service members to send me their pictures for our video presentation and I was overwhelmed with calls and emails in the last several days. So many pictures that I thought my email server was having problems; so, while I emailed back and forth to Iraq, I was also doing the same to Australia where my server is located. Turns out it was my router malfunctioning. But ain't communications technology something!

Tomorrow I tape an interview with Stephanie Sparkman and her show "In the pipeline". I know each and everyone of you will arise at 5:30 A.M. to watch it. Yeah right.

Progressing nicely....

Our West Texas Troop Salute, with much work from many, is progressing nicely. Today I heard from LTG. Ricardo Sanchez, ground commander of all coalition forces in Iraq in 2003-2004. He called to say he's reworked his schedule and will be pleased to be here, camping out at the estate with Joe Galloway.

Also today, the "run" of our "T" shirts began; here I am in serial #0002 of 5000. All will be given away free along with tickets to the Rockhounds game. Tomorrow morning it's back out to the stadium pressbox for the first "dry run" of our in production DVD to run on the JumboTron. It will be fun to see our work in large scale at the park.

I've never helped produce an extravaganza before...it's really pretty interesting. And by the way..that's $18,000 worth of "T" Shirts. Contributions have been generous!

Easter.....

I was given this homily recently by a caring person. It has a special significance for me on this first Easter without my Dad......

"Father into your hands I commend my spirit. Having said this, he breathed his last", Luke23:46

If you have been with someone when he or she breathed the last breath, you know the power of that breath. For some it is peaceful, while others struggle to the very last exhale. The creed tells us that our only hope in life and death is that we belong to God! In Luke, the acquaintances of Jesus stood and watched. We are invited into an intimate moment with God---to draw close, to watch and to listen for the last word and breath.

I continue to give thanks that I was with my Dad when he breathed his last breath, and that it was peaceful......

Coming together....

Wow, there is really a whole lot of work involved in putting together a public extravaganza like the West Texas Troop Salute but it's starting to come together. Speakers mostly set, bands arranged for, entertainment booked, 5,000 T-Shirts ordered and boy scouts lined up to put one in each seat. 2,500 flags ordered, media arrangements made, booths lined up and ready to be manned. Video in the works by "A Shot in the Dark Productions" for the JumboTron presentation, Pamela Hamm, Mike Barker, Jay Hendrix all on board to lend a hand in addition to blog pal Jimmy Patterson lined up to MC the event, and Darryl Ward welcome to come along too!

And today, one of my main concerns, video feeds in from Iraq and streaming video out to the world....looks like it may just all work! I spent a good part of the morning at the Rockhounds pressbox with news directors and tech people from CBS7, NewsWest 9 and the good folks from the MRT's My West Texas online reviewing the plans and coordinating with the Rockhounds media director. Feeds by satellite in, broadband stream out and numberous DVD's to run on the JumboTron.....can do they say. Good news to me. And this afternoon Jim Slusher of My West Texas and I got the webpage with the video site ready to go...all we need now is a feed and with the help of the US Army Media center it will be ready to be seen by the military [as well as the public] throughout the world. We hope......and pray!

Thank you is not enough for the news media mentioned above as well as numerous people at the Pentagon and in the Army Media Center in Georgia, and for the sponsors and volunteers who have given so freely of their time and assets. The support is amazing....!

Hey dude, that's me........!

It's not too unusual these days, but very thoughtful, when someone sends you a YouTube video on a subject he knows you're interested in. What is cool is that while watching you find yourself not only interested.....but actually in the video.

George at Sleepless in Midland sent me a video filmed at Chaparral Racing a couple of years ago. This was the day that owner Jim Hall drove the last remaining car from his garages to it's new home at the museum which house these wonderful machines. I was invited out to photograph some of the events. I'm the guy in the tan shorts, white shirt and tan vest appearing about half way thru this short video. Cool, thanks George.

I'm now an investor in a clothing business in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. And here I thought I'd never have that opportunity!

After reading an editorial in todays paper about an organization that gives microloans to deserving businesses in third world countries, I thought I would check them out. What an amazingly simple, cheap and efficient way to directly help someone who is willing to help him/herself out but needs a little financial assistance. $100 here in the U.S. is, nowadays, small folding money.....in Tanzania, it's a huge amount. The power of the internet at it's best.....

I'm thinking that perhaps I'll get a "deal" on some clothes, help someone in need and probably get my money back. Amazingly, at this point, almost 100% of the loans have been paid back. Check them out.....

Hopeful.....

I spoke on the phone today with an army Lt. General, one of the former commanders of all ground forces in Iraq. He told me he loved our idea for The West Texas Troop Salute and said that if he can clear one item from his schedule he will be here as one of our featured speakers. I won't divulge his name in case he can't come, but he'll be a great addition to our lineup. See you there on April 21st.

Busy....

I been bery, bery busy lately as have several others on this project. Things are shaping up nicely, we've had tremendous support. It should be an exciting event. Hope you'll put April 21st on your calendar...
West Texas Troop Salute

Go directly to jail.....

On April 26th I'll be going to jail. I know several people will say, "it's about time". Perhaps, but I'm going for a worthy cause, to help support the Muscular Dystrophy Association and their annual fund raising. A sheriff's deputy will make the "arrest" at the Bedford estate around 10 a.m.; I'm sure many of the neighbors will say to themselves, "what's he done now?" Good question but the scorn of my neighbors will be worth the effort. I'll be escorted to the jail inside the Texas Roadhouse where I think visitors are welcome and can throw rancid vegetables at the "prisoners"...for a price.

My goal is to raise $1300 dollars and bust myself out of the hoosegow. I hope you'll help and to that end there is a personal website set up to help you make your donations online if you choose. Please visit the Free Bubba website and help out.

Good dog.....!

I've been busy in my spare time with the April extravagnza [it's gotten to that stage] that we are now calling, "West Texas Troop Salute" and in doing a couple of websites for paying customers. No Eric not as good as yours...but they get by and maybe for a tad cheaper. Nothing much going on except the usual like; my Mom had an MRI today, my sister had an MRI today and my brother is going in to M.D. Anderson to have some things checked out...just the usual. Usual for me it seems over the last months and years.

But heck, life goes on, and in this brief moment I just wanted to compliment D. Daphne Dog. Besides being a special pal when I needed one, after my trip to Washington away from her, she's acting like she was in obedience school in my absence. She's learing to walk quite nicely without pulling me down the street and she even has caught on to the command "hold" when we cross the street....stops dead in her tracks and waits for me to say, "OK" before she moves again. This is quite amazing if you'd seen her just last year.

But my pride of dog was at an all time high today. The boy scout whom I bought my super-duper W. Texas fertilizer from came by to deliver the goods today. He came in while I wrote the check and while patting D. Daphne he asked if she could do any tricks. Don't ask Daphne and me that question twice. D. Daphne was in rare form running through her whole repretoire. First I said, "where's your toy?". Like she was shot out of a gun she ran to where she'd left it, nearly knocking the poor scout down when she ran back into the living room. Then it was, "where's your bone?" Bingo, drop the toy and she's off to fetch the rawhide we call a bone. She's a smart cookie, she knows the difference between bone, toy and ball and usually right where she left each one, even a day ago!

Next came the difficult numbers in her program. "Daphne, lie down....now roll over". She didn't miss a beat, even throwing in the rare double roll. Then a new one we're working on..."sit up". She's just catching on to this but I'll be darned if she didn't sit right up on her haunches at the first command. This one makes even me laugh because she gets this dumb looking grin on her face, ears back and looks very much like a prairie dog sitting outside it's hole. Good dog. The scout was so impressed that he went and got his Mom from the car so we could run through it all again. Really good dog.

So after that performance I gave her, what has become a preferred treat, an oatmeal cookie. We go through a lot of oatmeal cookies Daphne and I.

Some family time...

I spent the day Sunday with the only family I have left in Midland, my Mom. I was glad that she had decided that she wished to go visit the Scotch/Irish Festival and grateful that she was able to have such a good time revisiting our heritage. My Dad's family is what is known as Ulster-Scots, Scotsmen who transplanted to Northern Ireland. By the luck o'the Irish, there was an Ulster-Scots Assn. booth at the fair where Mom was able to recount the family history...something she knows well after having done extensive geneologic investigation with two trips to County Antrim N. Ireland, the Craig family homeland after they came from Scotland. My first two names, Wallace and Howard, are derived from ancestoral family ties in Scotland. The director of the Assn. was interested in talking with my mom, we have some interesting relatives, including my Great Uncle, the first Prime Minister of N. Ireland when it was known as The Irish Free State.

While at the fair and talking family history, my mom told me she had opened a box that had belonged to my dad's sister. She apparently had been in possession of this box of memories since my aunt died over a decade ago, but had only recently opened it after my dad's death. In it was a big album entitled, "His Service Record" which I had never seen before. The album had been supplied by the Department of the Army to families of service members so that they might save service records, pictures and memories of their loved ones while away. What a treasure drove of memories of my dad. Many pictures of my Dad as a teenager and a soldier, notes on his whereabouts and biographical data of his family.

What stirred my sentiments the most were pictures of my dad and his buddies on the liberty ship Rensselaer Victory on their way to landing in Italy in 1943. My dad never wanted to talk much about his experiences fighting in Italy, saying that his best buddy was killed in action they day they landed. I wonder which one of the guys in these pictures it was...? I wish I'd had these images while he was alive to ask him. Aboard the Rensselaer Victory

Spring clean up.....

Today was the day I dread, to some degree, every year. The first mowing and real yard cleanup since Fall. Apparently, if by signal, many others in the neighborhood had the same urge.

It was the day for mowing up the dead grass, blowing the dead leaves from the flower beds and picking up the multitude of sticks dropped from the trees due to winter ice storms, wind storms, dust storms and rain storms. Not too bad this year and I was gratified to see that by watering the back lawn almost every day over the winter, that it is in better shape than it has been in years. Everything is ready to apply my Boy Scout high nitrogen fertilizer.

The work is not done however thanks to the variety of trees on the estate. They're always dropping something; the pecan trees are preparing to drop "lint" and the insidious live oak trees shed their leaves this time of year. Good trees, green all year, but a real pain in the keester now. Now for a shower. I'm always amazed in West Texas that after having soaked the lawn yesterday in preperation for the mowing, still a cloud of coughing sneezing dust is raised from the lawn. Why I'm amazed, I don't know, I've been mowing lawns out here off and on for 47 years.

Connected...

As mentioned a week or more ago, I'm involved in organizing a salute to the troops in conjunction with a Rockhouds game on the 21st of April. Now officially known as "West Texas Troop Salute", much has happen since my last mention with a whole lot more to be completed.

Since I knew that I was going to be in Washington around some interesting people, I borrowed a Video Cam and did interviews with several Medal of Honor winners, Army Generals and actors with the idea of incorporating these shorts into our longer DVD program to be shown on the stadium JumboTron. Mission accomplished. One of my other missions was to find some influential "boots on the ground" at the Pentagon who would support our efforts. Among those I met was a deputy secretary of the Army whom I've talked to since; he was supportive and helpful. But sometimes the "doers" with the connections are lower down the totem pole and I found one of those in LTC. Lisiane M.Y. Valentine. Yes those are her real middle intials.

LTC Valentine, as luck would have it, is a graduate of Trinity University ROTC, as I'm I so it was a great stroke of fortune to have run into her at one of our receptions. I talked with Lisiane today and though promised support from higher up the chain of command, I got action with her. She assured me that our plans to transmit our program to all interested military units worldwide could be accomplished, and also that my other "dream" to have live feeds to the stadium from Iraq is something that can be arranged. I asked her if she would mind giving me the phone numbers of people I should contact. Her answer was, "don't worry, I'll set it up for you....I have friends". This among many other things she's going to help us with indeed do make her M.Y. Valentine!

I feel ill........

Things are going swimmingly.....especially in the photo business. We're selling our We Were Soldiers photos by the droves. People are buying multiple sets, including a dealer in Dallas who orders photos summing up to four figures in each order. Therefore I email and talk to my partner, Joe Galloway, in that part of my photo business several times a day. Life was seeming to go so well lately that I knew something was up.

In an email tonight Joe had to add this tidbit......

ps: you heard that 2 days after we all left washington they shut down the crystal gateway marriott for total decontamination. damn place was infected with the 3 NORA virus--the pukin and shixxxx disease that affects all them cruise ships. glad we didn't get it. think ol chip did.

Someone needs to be taught a lesson over this...I think I'll sue. But whom, ah yes, the reservations were made in the name of the Secretary of the Army. I'll sue the Secretary, oh yeah, he was fired two days after we left. Some days you just can't win!

Trip Tidbits....

Some final thoughts and obeservations......

Though it's never occured to me, probably the last thing I ever thought I would do in my life is to ride all over Washington D.C. in an actual by-gawd "motorcade" with motorcycle cops front and back, sirens wailing. "Motorcades" for two days delivering us to the front doors of the White House, Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery. I tried to remember my humility during these rides; I once actually waved at a peasant when we slowed at an intersection! I have to say that "motorcading" gets in your blood and will, I'm sure, rank right up there in my most memorable experiences in life.

It is a crushing blow to ones ego to get home, have to drive your own car back to your modest home and discover that in actuality you are nothing more than a peasant yourself.

I'm continually proud of the quality of men and women we have in our armed forces today; enlisted, sergeants and officers. All of the officers and most of the sergeants have college degrees, are bright, intelligent, dedicated and capable. These young people could be advancing rapidly in the corporate world but instead chose to serve their country. For this we all should be deeply indebted.

Being from the "old army" I'm continually surprised at the large number of women serving in the army; and at the jobs they do. In talking to the diminuitive, very young appearing, warrant officer who was the bagpiper who played at our Arlington reception, I asked her how she got a "cush" job like being a bagpiper in the army, she replied, "oh no sir, bagpiping is part time, I'm a Ch-47 helicopter pilot in my real army job". A Ch-47 is a big two rotor cargo chopper. I wanted to ask her if she was old enough to drive a car.

There is a cost for so many women in the army. I had a long chat with another attractive and intelligent young woman who is a captain in the army. She lost her right arm to a roadside bomb in Iraq last year. She's in the photo spread, but I won't tell you which officer she is...if you can't tell it doesn't matter

When I was a lieutenant in the army the very sight of a full colonel was enough to start me quaking. As I grew older I ended up with two close friends were four star generals. At our event their were several four stars, many three stars and down the list. A full colonel was like a private. Funny how perceptions change.

I met many interesting people with some surprising results. One of our close group receieved the Medal of Honor in 1968 for actions in the same battle as Bruce Crandall. His daughter-in-law is a Major in the US Army and was born in Vietnam. I met another women, a Lt. Colonel who I also learned was born in Saigon. I introduced the two at the Pentagon reception and watched as they almost wept as they conversed in Vietamese. How strange, two American field grade officers, one the daughter in law of a Vietnam Medal of Honor awardee speaking Vietnamese in the Pentagon. Both were born in 1965, the year in which Bruce earned his award.

One of my four star general friends, Dick Cody, is now second in command of the army. When I introduced myself to the Commanding General, he said, "oh your Dick's friend he said to tell you he was sorry that he was out of town, can I give him a message for you." How good that made me feel. Later when a "mere" two star general told me he worked directly for Gen. Cody I asked if he would deliver a written message for me, "of course sir". I quickly wrote the message on a cocktail napkin and gave it to him. He opened it with a very surprised look on his face as I walked away. The message said, "Cody I'm gonna' kick you ass, Wallace". No telling what that two star thought. Cody emailed me later and said he'd had quite a laugh.

In the White House and Pentagon, no video equipment of any kind is allowed, however the general who briefed us on our Pentagon visit said that we were welcome to take our cell phones into the building. He also added that as soon as we stepped into the building they "mysteriously" would not work. Mysteriously was his exact word.

The Pentagon is one humongous building and if I got lost I would wish my cell phone would work so someone could find me. It is also actually quite nice inside with a floor of one leg of the building being a shopping mall with the same stores you'd see in any city. They have a good captive market, 25,000 people work in this one structure.

Houston Intercontinental aiport is one humongous building[s] and it sucks! Washington Reagan Airport is not humongous and is really one of the best airports I have experience with.

There were people I knew on the plane from Midland to Houston/Houston to Washington and from Washington to Houston/Houston to Midland. A nice feeling.

Military people, as a rule, are the finest group of people on earth.

Trip Photos

Picture this.....

I'm still recuperating from 4 days of fairly continuous activity....and sorting through 500 photos culled down to 100 representative shots. Here they are in the link below. They follow the main events over two days starting with the actual Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House followed by lunch in the East Room with a marvelous and huge portrait of Lincoln over the fireplace. The next set of photos are in the "Hall of Heroes" at the Pentagon where every person who has been awarded the Medal has his name inscribed. Finally there was a fabulous reception given by the Secretary of the Army at Arlington National Cemetery. The reception was held in the visitors center which is currently displaying a series of art work, portraits of every single service member killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan up until 2004. A number of women among them. There were over 1300 faces now gone....haunting. I viewed one from Odessa and one from Stanton. Here are my Medal of Honor photos.

Home again.....!

Well if you like dining at the White House, riding around Washington in limos with police escorts, sirens wailing, being delivered to the door of the White House and the Pentagon, having two army sergeants at your beck and call, dining with the Secretary of the army it's commanding general and Hollywood actors and staying on the "presidential" floor of the Marriott Crystal City then this trip was for you! Personally, I enjoyed the hell out of it! It's a tough adjustment coming home and having to drive your own car. Bummer!

Honestly I have never been so humbled and honored in all my life to be around such men as my friends of the 1st Cav who fought in the Ia Drang and especially honored to be considered such a friend to the Medal of Honor recipient Bruce Crandall and his wife Arlene that I was invited to be one of their honored guests. So honored that I had an adjoining room to their family suite. A once in a life time experience puts it only mildly.

I took over 500 pictures of the events from the ceremony to the pentagon "Hall of Heroes" induction, to our private reception at Arlington National Cemetary. I'm putting together a CD for the Crandall's, Ia Drang Vets and other guests. Also I'll have a slideshow of the highlights on the web soon.

Coming home was made a little easier seeing D. Daphne Dog wagging her tail furiously when she saw I was home......!

Pullin' Pitch......

Pullin' pitch is a helicopter pilots term for flyin' out. That's what I'll have done by the time you read this. Zero early thirty flight through Houston and thence on to Reagan International in Washington. All ready to go tonight.

-Boarding passes printed: Check
-Clothes Packed: Check
-$28 in spending money on hand: Check
-Daphne in capable and glamorous hands: Check
-Johnny's Bar-B-Que sandwich for the President: Check
-Camera, lenses and video cam powered and loaded: Check
-Books, mats and photos for autographs packed: Check

Guess I'm ready to go. I'll be away for awhile unless the President wants me to help with the Mid-East situation or empty his trash in which case I'll stay longer. Should be fun with many friends and even two folks from Midland who live around the corner being in attendance. I have 3 Gb. of photo memory, which in medium format on my camera should be about 1500 photos. I'll post a few upon my return, or perhaps Dubya will let us use the computer in the Oval Office to add a few to Eclectic Photography. See ya....

Salute the Troops....

Mark Saturday, April 21st down on your calendar for what we anticipate will be an extraordinary event. I am involved with a small group of local citizens who wish to show that we do more than "support" the troops, we appreciate them!

On April 21st, in conjunction with the Rockhounds baseball team we will salute our troops and veterans. We have lined up a stellar group of speakers including Joe Galloway, author of the piece noted in the last post. Also, saying he is planning on it, is the Commanding General of one of the service branches [Sepmer Fi] and I am in contact with two other major military commanders who have personally led operations in Iraq, as in the whole show.

Through one of our members who is in the music business we are talking to two major recording artists, both showing great interest if they can arrange their schedules. Three high school bands, so far, have signed on, Jimmy Patterson will "live stream" the event to the world and I'm working on getting video interviews with area troops stationed in the Mid-East to say hell-o to the home folks via the "JumboTron" at the ballpark. Since Joe Galloway and I will spend three days next week with many of the notables featured in "We Were Soldiers", we have a good chance of snagging their participation including two Medal of Honor awardees.

Of course, the main focus of our salute will be on veterans and active duty troops involved in defending America and probably most importantly to recognize the area families whose sons and daughters have paid the ultimate price for our freedom. We are working on contacting them.

We met today with the general manager of the Rockhounds and not only did he give us the green light to proceed, he was more than enthusiastic in offering their support. Our event should start around or 5 p.m. with the baseball game starting at 6:30, although our events and tributes will also be running between innings. All this for maybe a buck or two more than the price of a regular baseball ticket. Oh yeah, did I mention Vietnam era helicopters landing in the outfield. I snagged permission to do that today too!

Shameful....

By Joseph L. Galloway
McClatchy Newspapers

There’s a great deal more to supporting our troops than sticking a $2 yellow ribbon magnet made in China on your SUV. There’s a great deal more to it than making "Support Our Troops" a phrase that every politician feels obliged to utter in every speech, no matter how banal the topic or craven the purpose.This week, we were treated to a new expose of just how fraudulent and shallow and meaningless "Support Our Troops" is on the lips of those in charge of spending the half a trillion dollars of taxpayer's money that the Pentagon eats every year.

The Washington Post published an expose, complete with photographs, revealing that for every in-patient who's getting the best medical treatment that money can buy at the main hospital at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, there are 17 out-patients warehoused in quarters unfit for human habitation.Some of the military outpatients are stuck on the Walter Reed campus, a couple of miles from the White House and the Capitol, for as long as 12 months. They've been living in rat and roach-infested rooms, some of which are coated in black mold.There was outrage and disgust and raw anger at this callous, cruel treatment of those who have the greatest claim not only on our sympathies, but also on the public purse. Who among the smiling politicians who regularly troop over to the main hospital at Walter Reed for photo-op visits with those who've come home grievously wounded from the wars the politicians started have bothered to go the extra quarter-mile to see the unseen majority with their rats and roaches? Not one, it would seem, since none among them have admitted to knowing that there was a problem, much less doing something about it before the reporters blew the whistle.

Within 24 hours, construction crews were working overtime, slapping paint over the moldy drywall, patching the sagging ceilings and putting out traps and poison for the critters that infest the place. Within 48 hours, the Department of Defense announced that it was appointing an independent commission to investigate. Doubtless the commission will provide a detailed report finding that no one was guilty-certainly none of the politicians of the ruling party whose hands were on the levers of power for five long years of war. They will find that it all came about because the Army medical establishment was overwhelmed by the case load flowing out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, brave soldiers who were wheelchair-bound with missing legs or paralysis, have been left to make their own way a quarter-mile to appointments with the shrinks and a half-mile to pick up the drugs that dim their minds and eyes and pain, and make the rats and roaches recede into a fuzzy distance.

All this came on the heels of my McClatchy Newspapers colleague Chris Adams's Feb. 9 report that even by its own measures, the Veterans Administration isn't prepared to give returning veterans the care they need to help them overcome destructive, and sometimes fatal, mental health ailments. Nearly 100 VA clinics provided virtually no mental health care in 2005, Adams found, and the average veteran with psychiatric troubles gets about a third fewer visits with specialists today than he would have received a decade ago.The same politicians, from a macho president to the bureaucrats to the people who chair the congressional committees that are supposed to oversee such matters, have utterly failed to protect our wounded warriors. They’ve talked the talk but few, if any, have ever walked the walk. No. This happened while all of them were busy as bees, taking billions out of the VA budget and planning to shut down Walter Reed by 2011 in the name of cost-efficiency. Among those politicians are the people who sent too few troops to Afghanistan or Iraq, who failed to provide enough body armor and weapons and armored vehicles and who, to protect their own political hides, refused to admit that the mission was not accomplished and change course.

But it's they who are charged with the highest duty of all, in the words of President Abraham Lincoln in his Second Inaugural in 1865: "to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan." How can they look at themselves in the mirror every morning? How dare they ever utter the words: Support Our Troops? How dare they pretend to give a damn about those they order to war? They've hidden the flag-draped coffins of the fallen from the public and the press. They've averted their eyes from the suffering that their orders have visited upon an Army that they've ground down by misuse and over-use and just plain incompetence.This shabby, sorry episode of political and institutional cruelty to those who deserve the best their nation can provide is the last straw. How can they spin this one to blame the generals or the media or the Democrats? How can you do that, Karl? If the American people are not sickened and disgusted by this then, by God, we don’t deserve to be defended from the wolves of this world.

I'm deeply honored to be invited to such a once in a lifetime event. For someone who has served in the armed forces it doesn't get much better than this. It's a humbling experience. I also had to chuckle; the last time the Secretary of the Army requested the pleasure of my company, I spent five and a half years in uniform.

Treasures from the past...

Sometimes amazing things just simply arrive. My Dad was raised in St. Louis. His mom was divorced when he was young and much of his childhood was spent with his mom's sister and her husband who lived in the same neighborhood. His Uncle Louis Roth was as much a dad to him as an uncle. His first cousin Patsy was like another sister and

in fact my mom was Patsy's best friend, which is how they met. He spent as much time with the Roths as he did at home.

A remembrance from all those years ago arrived in the mail Saturday. A DVD of all the Roth family movies from the years 1934 to 1962! The Roths, being good Germans, had been technically minded and apparently owned a very good movie camera. I must have inherited my love of photography from those German genes, for these are not what you think of when you think of "home movies". Especially from the 1930's! Most are similar to documentary film quality I've seen from the era. There are even color films which must have been state of the art at the time.

Being a family of photographers, my dad included, we do have many old photos from the years in the films, some of which I have, but there is nothing like seeing your dad moving about when he was 12, 13 or 14 years old. And seeing all the relatives you've always known as "old people" magically in their prime again is an amazing if not emotional experience. I had never seen even still photos of my grandmother when she was in her 30's, so seeing her as a young woman was transfixing. She was quite a babe! Many of the movies were taken in my dad's old neighborhood so I got to experience what his life must have been like, even seeing him with his friend's pet monkey; something I had heard about many times.

Here are a few shots of my dad that I pulled from the hours of movies. I watched for 2 hours last night and am only half the way through. A truly amazing gift.

The Intrepid Ones....

I finished making my plans today for my trip to Washington to witness my friend Bruce Crandall receive the Medal of Honor. It should be a great trip seeing many friends I've met through Bruce and Joe Galloway, including Gen. Hal Moore. Some people from the movie too, and some old army friends of mine.

But I'm reminded in the following slide show who the real heroes are....please take a look and remember too.

The Intrepid Center

Yeah right....!

If ever I did believe in Valentines Day and true love......well that idea has been knocked right out of my head.

Medal of Honor.....

Though friends have known for some months, our good pal and frequent visitor to the estate, Bruce Crandall will receive the Medal of Honor this month for heroic actions in Vietnam over 40 years ago. The official announcement has just been made by the President's office. As regular readers know Bruce's story was portrayed in the Mel Gibson film, We Were Soldiers. Bruce was played by Greg Kinnear in the film. The award and recognition is long overdue, but appreciated by Bruce and his wife Arlene. It's been in process a long time, too long.

It's been an honor in the last week to help get ready for the ceremony; working with the PI office of the Secretary of the Army I've provided photos of mine and of Joe Galloway for use on the website and at the event. After some years in the Army as a lowly peon officer it's been a little disconcerting getting telephone calls from the office of the Secretary of the Army.....from Colonels addressing me as Sir. Here's the initial copy of the "official website".

It's a great honor to be able to call Bruce a good friend, the next time he's in town we'll have a big shindig and as you can imagine, I'll have pictures galore when I get back from the ceremony!

Sad, Part II.......

As I retrieved the newspaper this morning I saw the headline, that a man had been killed yesterday on the railroad tracks downtown. Not a totally unusual occurence in Midland; but as always I wondered, "who cannot see or hear a train coming while crossing the tracks".

Then I read the name of the victim, Martin Chapman, resident of the Salvation Army. I knew Martin. Not well, but I had talked with him enough to know his story along with some of the demons that bedeviled him.

How strange I thought, when coupled with yesterdays post; here is a woman who came from nothing to be a media darling and is now dead and in Midland we have a man who was once somebody, who died on the tracks while a resident of the Salvation Army. Both gone for, most likely, the same reason.

Sad...

I've been out of touch, I've been busy; I'm the real father of Anna Nicole Smith's child and I had to go testify.

That having been said, what a sad affair. A zoo, circus and clusterfark all rolled into one. To have the media fauning over the story like this is aggregious....but what did we expect, the only reason Anna Nicole is media worthy is that the media told us she was.

That having been said too, I feel sorry for Ms. Smith; really. To have ended up being nothing more than a media event is sad. But as I've learned, the way we live our lives does matter; I don't know what caused her demise, but I can guess and it proves that how we live can actually end up killing us. A life of self centerdness and self absorption is a dangerous thing. Or as they say, "what goes around comes around". We usually reap what we sow.

Down memory lane, slowly...

I try and go by to see my Mom every day now that my Dad has left us, I'm not perfect about it, but I try. I usually stay for a half hour or so to make sure she's doing ok and to see if anything needs to be done around the house. She's doing ok and since she has lots of help, things are usually running smoothly now. Many times we just talk and let Daphne run wild in the backyard, but recently we've been looking

around my Dad's room for things that need to be tended to; perhaps some paperwork on his bureau that was overlooked or for some keepsake we've missed seeing. I must have learned it from him, keeping lot's of valuble "junk" in the top draw of my bureau, for there was a treasure trove of memories in his.

There were things he had carried, like old credit cards, old wallets, old coins and pocket knives; lots of pocket knives, many almost antiques. I took several to remind me of him. There were things he had saved from long ago; a Shell Company ceramic ashtray from the 1950's, a box of $2 bills and old coins with the appraised values written down, from what year I haven't a clue. There were things he had worn; old boy scout patches from his days as a leader in the 1960's, old skinny bowties, the kind I remember men wearing with short sleeved shirts in the early '60s and tuxedo accessories. I don't think I ever saw him in a tux, but I know he had one. There were written notes, letters and memories; the date that his sister died written on a scrap of paper, old letters from our attorney in St. Louis concerning our farm, a letter from his favorite cousin, a fairly recent birthday card from me addressed to "The World's Greatest Dad"....and a NY Time Sports section front page from October of 1939. I showed this to my Mom. She had no idea of the significance of this, nor do I. I'll wonder about this for a long time.

There were tributes to him I had never seen; a bronzed medallion given in honor of his boy scout service, a letter from Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez of San Antonio personally thanking him for his diligence while working for the FDIC later in his life....and there was the certificate shown above.

My Dad, like many of his generation, talked little of his WWII service for most of his life. Only in the last 7 or 8 years did he let us know in some detail of his experiences. He had been a sergeant, but as an almost college graduate he had been offered the chance to be an officer, but turned it down. He hated the army, he hated the war, and he hated the three years that he'd been gone. His best buddy in the army had been killed the very first day that they landed in Italy, but late in life as he talked I knew that he was very, very proud to have been a part of it all. He even went to one reunion of his old division, the famed 45th, from which he came back with a new sense of his contribution...and had an excellent time. The certificate is from the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans, signifying that he had made a contribution to it's construction and that a brick with his name lies there. If you're ever there, look for Sgt. Wally Craig. He earned his brick.

My Mom and I have also been looking through my Dad's wardrobe closet. I have to laugh everytime we do; Carol keeps saying, "try this on, maybe it will fit you". My Dad ended up being a size "Small", I'm a Large or X-Large. I have, however, taken some things including the last pair of shoes my Dad ever bought. Strangely, very modern style loafers in size 10½. He wore size 10, I wear 10½. They fit me perfectly and are the most comfortable shoes I now own. I wear them all the time and it is not lost on me that now I can truly say that I'm able to walk in my Dad's shoes. I think of him every time I put them on.....they're big shoes to fill.

The Stupor Bowl...

I've come to realize that the Super Bowl© is not the highest of national celebrations, it's just a big game to see who wins the NFL Championship....and to make a hell of a lot of money for people rich enough already. If you aren't wild over the two teams playing it becomes less of a big deal. I have a lot of friends in Chicago and I'm still pissed that the Colts left Baltimore so I hoped that the Bears would win. They didn't, no big thing to me.

If they hoped to hook me into watching the halftime "spectacle" they did a poor job. I went to use the bathroom. Having the guy formerly known as "Prince" and apparently now known again as "Prince" as the star is a mystery to me. By most accounts he never was much of a star in the first place and now he's a mostly forgotten has been second rate star. After I returned from the privy I did see that his makeup was running though. I guess it was the weather. I'm sure the Florida tourism board loves having these big sporting events in their state as an advertisement to showcase perfect weather and lure me down there. It seems like every big sporting event I've seen in Florida lately involves a lot of rain. In between rain there are hurricanes and tornados. I don't want to go to Florida even more now.

I caught enough of the game to get the drift, including the fumble by local "sensation" Cedric Benson. His big moment was a fumble which as far as I could tell was his first, last and only play in the Super Bowl©. I could be wrong, I just didn't hear his name mentioned again. So much for a week of hype for Cedric in the local papers.

Anyway, I would have watched every second dutifully like a real man, but We'd rented the "Heidi" DVD and it was due back at Blockbuster tonight, so not wanting to miss that, We preempted the game.

Reference for younger or ignorant readers: The Heidi Game

Expectations.......

Sometimes when our expectations are in line with God's plan for us we are pleasantly surprised; and with the bonus of getting to take some of the best photographs I've done in awhile.

Here's your new dog......

People know I love dogs. Therefore I frequently get messages passed on like the one below. If you would like to adopt this German Shepard please call the number included or pass it on to someone who could give this dog a good home.

I got a call from the Odessa Animal Shelter yesterday. They have a sable German Shepard female (12 mos) who is now up for adoption. Her time is up on Monday morning - Feb. 5. Jackie says she is beautiful and has lovely manners. Loves people and is good with other dogs. She was adopted and returned once already - she didn't get along with the cat in that home. Please pass this information on if you can. The last dog I e-mailed you about was saved because the message traveled - lets hope this one can be saved as well.

Contact the Odessa Animal Shelter - Jackie. 432.368.3528. As always, here's hoping for a happy ending. If I find out that she has been adopted, I'll let you know asap. If you find out before I do, let me know!

Everyone's welcome but....

Most people are welcome here at the estate but due to the volume of traffic in and out at all hours I've had to lay down a few ground rules. I could see the neighbors getting anxious. Read the sign, if it applies this means You, No Expections!

The enigma.....

Over the weekend I went to an AA celebration for a member who just attained 45 years of sobriety....that's a long time between cold beers. One of the speakers was remarking on how hard it is for "outsiders" to understand exactly what AA is all about, why it means so much to us and how it works. As an example he said, "you know outsiders just don't get it when we laugh so hard at stories of now sober members and their trials. We laugh when someone describes being thrown out of his home, losing his wife or going to jail, but we cry so easily when the same person talks about being sober and getting back the wife, children, home, job and how happy he is now." We laugh and we cry because, in one form or another, most of us have been there too. It's the laughter and tears of drowning men and women resuced from the shipwreck all having survived together.

I had one of those moments this weekend, I was the subject of one of those moments of laughter. A woman who has been in and out of AA for many years was speaking; she now has 3 years of sobriety and is a model citizen. She wasn't always that way. "T" was almost crying when she spoke of her downward spiral and how, many times over the years she had tried AA, but it wasn't her time, she wasn't ready. She ended up saying that when she first came into the program in 1992 she wasn't sure she really was an alcoholic and used any excuse to justify her continued drinking.

Looking at the large audience she said, "in fact I see Wallace sitting there. I remember Wallace from my first days in 1992 at the old 710 AA Club, and I remember thinking that surely I'm not as bad as he is, I can't be an alcoholic....I'm not that bad". "T" had said this quite honestly and from the heart, not directed as a hurt for me, just what she remembered of herself.

The audience howled and none more so than me, for I was "that bad" before I got sober in March of 1994. I went to AA often in those pre 1994 days......most usually under the influence, which is not recommended. And after years of that, not too much appreciated by the sober and recovering members; many of those that were laughing so much Saturday night had been there in the 1990's and remember that I was "that bad". In fact my good friend Brooks, told me after I was sober for some years, that the members of the 710 Club had actually talked about not letting me come back....the first person in memory to be thrown out of AA.

Everyone laughed and smiled, including me, and I felt a little proud in the way that outsiders might not understand. I felt good because I had been "that bad" and had almost been thrown out of AA, but in a little over a month I'll have 13 years clean and sober. Where else but AA can you be "that bad" and end up a role model. I guess if I can make it, anyone can.

Encounter......

Encountered last night while on the town, Lisa and Ronn of The Piglet Papers.

Remembrances and Melancholy....

It was two months ago today that my Dad passed away. Strangely it seems like an eternity ago; and then at other times it seems that he's not gone at all.

When I go to my Mom's house I still have the feeling that I'll be seeing them both. I've noticed too that as we walk down the hall both my Mom and I still turn and look into the room where he lay resting for most of his last two weeks as if he should still be there. In the den his chair still remains vacant when we sit in that room, it was his chair, where he sat.

At my house I sometimes expect to see the Big Gold Dog, Tres, laying in his spot in the hall and at night when I hear the branches rustling I believe, or want to believe, that it's his paws hitting the wall like they used to when he was lying there dreaming, running in his sleep. Tres has been gone only four months, but his memory is still very much alive.

And it was not long before the deaths of my Dad and Tres that there were other lively voices here in the house. I miss them all and at times the quiet and sadness is almost overwhelming. But we are responsible for our own wellfare and happiness is not an end destination; it is the result of how we live our lives. So, I drift out of the melancholy and concentrate on those who remain that need my assistance.

What excitement.....

It has been an exciting day!

Daphne got a new rope toy and I bought a new bedspread. Daphne chewed a hole in the last spread. It wasn't her fault, she was emotionally distraught. And... I sent a big check to the IRS to repay a "disagreement" incurred around 1987

And no, I didn't just blow off the IRS for the last 20 years, just 3 or 4. They are my friends now, I talk to them alot. Actually in '87 I had made a fair sum in the real estate business in Dallas and my CPA put me in some tax shelters that were later disallowed. Unfortunately the disallowances coincided with my unfortunate "non sober" period. Being "non sober" renders one much more likely to blow off the IRS than otherwise, also "non sobriety" tends to make one earn less money to pay back the IRS even if he wanted to. Therefore the disallowances with penalties and interest were befitting a rich person, which at the time I was not.

So one of my first acts when I was rendered "sober" was to march myself into the Midland IRS office to make amends and throw myself on their mercy. Luckily I found a very nice IRS women who understood "non sobriety" due to an ex husband and she helped me out, arranging a settlement of my mid five figure debt. And she put me on a payment plan which I have been dutifully fulfilling for years since.

But since the debt is now down to higher four figures I thought I'd just pay the remainder off. The IRS charges about 300% a year compounded at every mealtime, my mineral holdings have been growing at 12-20%, so it was a no-brainer to make the payoff. I even settled for a little less than I owed due to the lump-sum payoff.

I've learned how to get along well with the IRS through all of these years. We are now always in total agreement. They say, "you owe $xxxx, and if you don't pay, we'll take everything you own." I always say, "OK, I'll pay". A great arrangement. I do have to say though that through all these years I have noticed a postive change when I call the IRS. In the early years, waiting a full hour to talk to a human being was not uncommon, it's usually minutes now. These days the people are also a little nicer and willing to listen, I think they finally realized that they can do anything to you they want, so why be nasty about it....and when you have to wait they have really good Musak on the phone. Tschaichovsky I think.

One's self.....

People who are driven by extreme pride of self unconsciously blind themselves to their own liabilities...

Bill Wilson
Alcoholics Anonymous

Hiatus....

Faithful readers of Streams, all four of you, may have noticed an absence of late. A forced hiatus.

The event started with the best of intentions, to move the domain registration of BigGoldDog.com, the parent domain, to another registrar at the same time that the domain came up for renewal. Normally an easy switch, unless of course you are dealing with "Nerdwork Solutions"* I won't go into details, but trying to deal with them by email results in such responses as "Our Customer Support Representatives will investigate your inquiry and send you a response within 3 business days"

Three days? This is the Internet where things keep getting faster all the time...unless of course you are Nerdwork Solutions. Seeing such messages forced me to use the telephone number provided, where I talked to an international variety of "help" sounding like they were in India, Sweden or Timbuktu. Finally I found a helpful helper who actually was in the U.S. of A. She grasped the problem where the others had not and helped me get the site back up. But only temporarily until they figure out who I am and verify my true identity. I hope they figure it out...I've only been with them for ten years.

As soon as I'm officially re-registered you can be sure the domain is going to Australia and my good friends at Server101 who certainly know who I am and usually get back to me in less than three hours...not three days. To add insult to injury, what did I get from Nerdwork Solutions this morning. An email saying that I was randomly selected to participate in a survey rating their service. I really don't think they want to hear from me.

*Nerdwork Solutions is a ficticious name designed to protect the innocent....namely Me.

We're dining now..!

I'm far from an interior decorator, but like most people I do think I have a modicum of taste. And my modicum tells me that a dining room looks much better with actual dining room furniture. Mine came today. We're planning plenty of fine dining....as soon as I can teach Daphne how to sit in a chair without squirming. When we add the leaf, we can invite everyone we know!

On growing up...

Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for complete approval, utter security, and perfect romance--urges quite appropriate to age seventeen--prove to be an impossible way of life at forty-seven or fifty-seven. Since AA began I've taken huge wallops in all these areas because of my failure to grow up, emotionally and spiritually.

Letter from Bill Wilson
Founder of AA

As we grow spiritually, we find that our old attitudes toward our instinctual drives need to undergo drastic revisions. Our demands for emotional security and wealth, for personal prestige and power all have to be tempered and redirected. We learn that the full satisfaction of these demands cannot be the sole end and aim of our lives. We cannot place the cart before the horse, or we shall be pulled backward into disilllusionment. But when we are willing to place spiritual growth first--then and only then do we hava a real chance to grow in healthy awareness and mature love.

As Bill Sees It

In Partnership

"As we made spititual progress, it became clear that, if we ever were to feel emotionally secure, we would have to put our lives on a give-and-take basis; we would have to develop the sense of being in partnership or brotherhood with all those around us. We saw that we would need to give constantly of ourselves without demand for repayment. When we persistently did this, we gradually found that people were attracted to us as never before. And even if they failed us, we could be understanding and not too seriously affected."

"As Bill Sees It"
Alcoholics Anonymous

Whatever.....

I'm hopeful that scientists will determine the true cause of Global Warming before I freeze to death here in West Texas.

Welcome back.....

After a short hiatus, I'm glad to see that my friend, Midland native and artiste supreme, Artist Polly has made her return to the world of prose. Besides being a great visual artist, her written stories are well worth the read. I've known of Polly since high school, but we only became well acquainted not more than 10 years ago while she was still living in Santa Fe. A rich, varied and interesting life gives her more than ample subject matter for her stories.

And as if this isn't enough....she was also a Princess on the Midland High Catoico Court!!

Cold......

It is cold in Midland. As I write this just after noon it is 26°, hasn't been above freezing since Saturday and not expected to until possibly tomorrow. Below average temps for sure, but not unusual for West Texas. Last years low was 2° above zero.

The sun did shine for awhile today and actually if dressed for it, which I was, it was rather invigorating, especially since the wind was not blowing. The sun felt good and the sky gets that extra azure blue color it has when it's cold and clear. When it's cold though I think back on two experiences in my life involving cold, one fairly pleasant, the other almost deadly.

My first beautiful blonde wife, Anne, was from Brainerd Minnesota; her family was in the resort business in North Central Minnesota. In the summer it was stunning with crystal clear lakes surrounded by pine forests, perfect for fishing, boating and sailing. That's why the resort business was good at their hotels. The winter, as you can imagine, was a different story.

For six years we went up to Brainerd for a week either at Christmas or Thanksgiving and in all those weeks spent there I can't ever recall the temperature being above freezing. Usually the high for the day was somewhere around 8 or 10 degrees with lows at night hovering near 10-15 degrees below zero. The lakes were frozen so hard that ice fishermen drove their Winnebago's out onto the ice or built sheds that were left on the lake all winter. One Christmas the nights dropped down to -30°. So cold that your face had to be covered and the "stuff" in your nose froze every time you inhaled. The sun set at around 4 p.m. so that any warmth accumulated during the short day, quickly left. [as an update at 10 p.m, I checked the weather in Brainerd...it's a balmy -3°]

It was usually a great treat for a Texan though. For southwesterner's, activities like ice sailing, ice fishing, hockey, cross country skiing, snowshoeing and snowmobiling were a blast. A blast for a week anyway, I'm not sure I could handle four months of below freezing temperatures, getting very bundled up every time you venture outside and the "stuff" freezing in my nose every time I took a breath.

The other cold weather experience I recall is one of the four times, that I know of, that I almost bought the farm. One of my best friends in Dallas had a really nice, big airboat. A flat bottomed boat powered by a Chevy 350 c.i. engine with a airplane propeller attached. For years we took the boat to Lake Texhoma to go duck hunting; the boat was a superb way to get into the mudflats where the ducks congregated. When we decided to go hunting, not much could stop us not even frigid weather. We had great gear and years of experience. We never had a problem, until the last time we went.

On a Wednesday in weather much like we have in Midland today, about 25° degrees, we set out before dawn from a secluded boat launch ramp, the airboat loaded with four pals, our gear and a big black lab dog. Only one other boat was at the ramp with us, no one else appeared to be on our part of the lake in such weather. As we left shore we started to see ice, and then more ice on the lake. As heavy as the boat was, we ended up driving on top of large stretches of unbroken ice in the more shallow water. An airboat will do that.

As we arrived at more open waters the ice subsided except near the shore, but it was so cold that the exposed carburator on the engine started to ice up. We decided that if we headed to a nearby island far from shore, and let the engine idle the icing problem might clear up. Even with all the clothes we could wear under hunting waders we were pretty chilled from the ride in an open boat. As we approached the shore the boat hit a rock steady hunk of thick ice and started to tip; with the high center of gravity it became apparent that the boat would not right itself.

The stories you hear about time slowing down in traumatic situations are very real. For what seemed like an eternity I could feel the boat going over and then we were in the water, our gear floating around us and the boat heading to the bottom of the lake. Being suddenly immersed in freezing water is a feeling beyond description. All the breath seems to be sucked right out of your body and to make your limbs function takes supreme effort. Any type of warm clothing is of no protection and in fact tends to make you sink. The only thing that immediately saved me were pockets of air in my waders, but having waders on made it almost impossible to swim the 40 yards to the shore of the island. I was not helped by the big black lab who kept jumping on my head and shoulders pushing me under the water. I can see how, in situations like this, that people just give up and drown.

Luckily, I was in fairly good physical shape and was able to struggle near enough to the island to feel bottom and make it ashore where my exhausted friends awaited me. They had been able to grab onto the floating bags of duck decoys and made it to the island ahead of me.

Saved from the water but our ordeal was not over. We were soaking wet, in subfreezing temperatures on an island a good half of a mile from the main shore. God and experience were on our side though. We all carried a waterproof container of matches with us and God had supplied a large pile of flotsam and wood on the island, which we quickly set onfire and found some relief.

God was more involved that we imagined though, for the only other hunters on this part of the lake, the one's we had seen at the boat ramp an hour ealier had been looking in the right direction from a mile away, had seen the spray thrown up by the propeller hitting the water and came breaking through the ice to get to us. In their small boat it took several hours to get us all back to the boatramp and warmth. I'm one who has no doubt that God does have a plan for me and it wasn't to drown or freeze to death that day.

Amazingly we hired a salvage company in Oklahoma to try and recover the boat, which they did the next day, bringing it up unharmed along with all our guns which had been lashed to the side of the boat. That, however, was our last trip in the airboat for when wives found out about the close call there was no reasoning with them and they ordered the boat sold.

I get cold just thinking and writing about that episode, I think I need to go warm up.

Murphys Law, revisited.....

It was just several months ago that I wrote about Murhphy's Law and it's important adjunct Finagles Corollary... "Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment"

Well last night the law [with corollary] came to pass once again. Because of the weather I had decided to stay at home with Daphne watching football in front of a cozy fire. The perfect quiet evening at home for dog and man. It started out that way, until as I was cleaning up in the kitchen I noticed that the water pressure was none existant. Thinking that a city main had burst somewhere I let it pass...for a moment. Then, living in an older home, I decided that the best policy would be to check out in the yard just to make sure. As I stepped into the back yard I heard the roar of liquid being expelled under high pressure into the night, sounding something like a runaway gas well.

My hope was that the water main in the alley had broken, therefore a city problem. But luck was not with me, the sound was emanating from within the confines of my yard. As I shined my flashlight on the spot of most suspicion, the lawn sprinkler main valve, I saw a geyser of great proportions shooting up into the trees. A complete blowout sending all the water destined for the house into the sky. To see how I might somehow fix the problem I had to venture into the spray, not a pleasant task in 26° weather. Once soaked I saw that the problem was not fixable by me so I had to acquire tools and venture into the alley to shut off the main water supply to the house.

This accomplished I thought, "well nothing can be done until morning" so at least I have 5 gallons of water available in the R.O. water tank and hey there is still football on. And it was a very exciting game for five minutes. That's when the TV screen suddenly went blue; loss of signal. Same for the phone and internet connection. Prognosis: Grande Communications has gone down. Just when I was working up a good case of "pissed off" at Grande I noticed that the block of houses across the street, usually well lit, were gone. New prognosis: power failure in that grid, which must have included the Grande switch controlling my communications.

I have to once again thank AA for some degree of serenity, because I surely wanted to kick something really hard. I didn't so I went to bed and built up a new case of premeditated "pissed off" knowing that my expensive lawn sprinkler people [the ones who installed the valve only last May] would find some excuse as to why they couldn't send a repairman out until Monday, leaving me waterless until then.

But as I've also learned in AA, my expectations are usually not met and in this case for the better because with one call early today the landscape company had a very nice young guy out in my yard fixing the problem. I have water, I have TV, life is good. We'll try the cozy fire and football again tonight.

Dang it's cold...

Whee doggies Jethro it's cold and with a nice wind and freezing drizzle also just kinda' miserable. So what better thing to do than take D. Daphne Dog for a photo ride and then over to my Mom's to fetch her up for a ride for her too. Her ride was out to Manor Park Retirement Center to visit with our retired church leader Dr. Ray Riddle and his wife. Sounds rather ho-hum and so it is, but after my Dad's death I have much gratitude that I'm here and able to do some small things like this for my Mom. Besides, Dr. Riddle is an inspiring guy.

Though in his 80's Ray is always full of life, homespun wisdom and never a touch of pessimism in his voice. In short, the kind of person I enjoy being around. On a cold and dreary winters day, a nice afternoon out for Dog, Granny and Me.

The Dog as art....

Some years ago I discovered, quite by accident, that I had a certain knack for sculpting dog heads out of clay. I suppose that spending so much time around dogs just gives me an insight into their shapes and moods.

Anyway yesterday, while cleaning out a closet, I ran across several cans of PlayDough© left by former occupants. So what's a guy to do other than open them up and mess around with the stuff. Instinctively I started on a dog's head and I thought what the heck, I'll do D. Daphne Dog and so I did.

Playdough© is a hard medium to work in. Gravity has more an effect on it than ordinary clay, so I had to work fast before the work of art slowly oozed away. The differing colors resulted from some red stains in otherwise mostly yellow Dough.

Probate 101....

Our family doctors generally don't make house calls anymore but I'm sure glad our family attorney does. It was much more comfortable listening for an hour and a half to the in's and out's of probate law while sitting on my Mom's couch.

My Mom is the executrix of my Dad's estate, while I have power of attorney for the same, so I always try to be in attendance while the details of my Dad's passing are worked out. My Mom is still very sharp, but it is good to have two sets of ears listening to the sometimes intricate information being given.

Today was a day for some rapt attention as we work towards filing the probate papers and then begin to work on the economics of the estate. My head is still swimming from listening to attorney Ted filling us in on Trust "A" and Trust "B" and how we need to fund both. Trust "A" is non-taxable, estate wise, Trust "B" is taxable and the one my Mom should take her income from. And to fund Trust "A" we need to value the entire estate. Trust "A" is non taxable only up to a certain sum, so we need to have appraisals done on non liquid assets, add the liquid assets to these fixed assets and then subtract my Mom's seperate property from this total and then divide everything up to fund Trust "A" up to the maximum. The remainder goes into Trust "B" to be subject to the onerous and communistic estate tax imposed by Uncle Sugar.

I told my mom this would be a snap, just call CPA Ron and have him do it all.

Jewish Wisdom.....

What you don't see with your eyes, don't invent with your mouth

A hero is someone who can keep his mouth shut when he is right

One old friend is better than two new ones

Old friends, like old wines, don't lose their flavor

You can't control the wind, but you can adjust your sails

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe
Albert Einstein

Furnished....!

Decision made, dining room furniture ordered. It'll be good to have this room look like a dining room once again, instead of a photography holding area. Beautiful furniture [table and sideboard pictured] and a good deal. It pays to stay in touch with old high school cheerleader friends turned furniture consultants.

Aliens among us......?

Like many people, I suspect, in smaller news markets such as Midland I read the Obits and the Police Reports daily in the local paper. In a town this size it's a sure bet that on a regular basis you will know someone who has died and trying to help some of the people I do, I'll also occasionally know someone visiting the hoosegaw. In fact I did know someone currently in the Obits and went to his funeral Friday afternoon.

But I sure as hell didn't recognize the name that popped out at me in the police arrest report. If you live in Midland did you know that one, Gemini Uranus, was arrested for tampering with government documents. I'm not making this up, check for yourself in Fridays Midland Reporter-Telegram. If you know this person email me at once and we'll clear up this case.

My first thought was that Gemini gave the cops an alias, but on reflection, I concluded surely that if the authorities knew this person was tampering with official documents they would know his/her real name. This is not like a DWI where they nab the suspect on the streets and he can give them any name he chooses; to arrest someone for tampering with government documents they must have had evidence and been on Mr. Uranus' tail for awhile.

This leads to other postulations, like is there really a Gemini Uranus running around. Is he/she from this earth. Who would from earth would name a child Gemini Uranus? Does he/she have a twin? What would you want to do if you were from a faraway galactic civilization visiting earth? You'd want to look into government records wouldn't you? You might even want to tamper with them.

I suspect a coverup and so I emailed ace reporter Jimmy Patterson early this morning asking him to investigate. But at this late hour I've still received no reply from Mr. Patterson. I hope the Uranus family has not tampered with Jimmy!

As Bill Sees It....

Over time I have quoted some philosophy from AA. Hopefully, I've tried to stress that AA is a spititual program and that more than not, discussions in meetings focus on a better and more "right" way to live more than any mention of alcohol or quiting drinking. Quiting is a natural prerequisite for attaining the benefits of the spiritual program but many of the things that caused us to drink or stay with drinking to excess were spiritual maladies. Therefore we work on not returning to our old ways of thinking and doing things.

About ten years ago I helped found a noon AA meeting that read from a book of AA co-founder Bill Wilson's thoughts, called "As Bill Sees It". After attending for a few years I stopped going, but have recently returned and am pleased that there are more people attending than ever. Bill Wilson, besides being the co-founder of AA, was also a great intellect, philosopher and gifted writer. His writings were collected for the book and are a great source of wisdom whether liquor has crossed one's lips or not. This philosophy and manner of living is why, I think, that my very mainsteam, large church minister stated to me, "if it were up to me, everyone who wanted to be members would have to spend a year in AA before they joined our church".

I'll try to throw a bit of this wisdom out from time to time. So, as we say in AA, take what you need and leave the rest.....

Daily Acceptance

"Too much of my life has been spent in dwelling upon the faults of others. This is a most subtle and perverse form of self-satisfaction, which permits us to remain comfortably unaware of our own defects. Too often we are heard to say, "If it weren't for her [him], how happy I'd be.

Our very first problem is to accept our present circumstances as they are, ourselves as we are, and the people about us as they are. This is to adopt a realistic humility without which no genuine progress can even begin."

Letter from Bill Wilson, 1966

Ellis.....

I was looking again Wednesday afternoon at one of my choices for a new dining table. I was being helped by furniture salesperson Rosemary who is an old friend of mine from high school. As we were talking a nice looking gentleman walked by, turned around and gave me another look. "You look familiar", he said, "did you used to belong to Midland Country Club"? "Yes", I answered "my parents did but they quit the club in 1996, I moved away for many years and I really haven't been out there much since the mid 1960's when I was a young teenager".

"That's what I thought," he said, "That's the time period I remember you from". "My name's Ellis and I used to work there as a waiter with Price and Double "O", I remember you from then". He also remembered Rosemary and her family from that time. Amazing, we are talking about remembering faces from 41-42 years ago. I did remember Ellis and most all the waiters from that far different time, they were rather legendary; very personable, funny and interesting to us teenagers. In fact their names have come up occasionally when my two old high school pals and I have gotten together over the decades.

Ellis, Rosemary and I had a nice chat of remembrance. Ellis has moved on and up and is now a manager with an oil field service company. What a treat to see a face from so long ago and what a memory for faces Ellis has, a trait of a good waiter I suppose!

Furniture....

There is nothing like shopping for new furniture, well perhaps new car shopping tops furniture, but I need furniture not a car. The prospect of new furniture and a change in look at the estate suits me for now. I'm looking for a new dining room table and some easy chairs, whatever those turn out to be.

In a market the size of Midland this is not accomplished as easily as in say, Dallas. I've found a perfect sized and styled [Mission] table, but it is a shade darker than I'd like. I have several more places to go, but a shade darker is OK, I suppose, I like the style.

Easy chairs are not that these days, not easy to find that is; the kinds I like anyway. The "in" style seems to be the darker patterned types. I like the not "in" style colorful and/or colorful stripped.

But I'll keep looking and frankly with the mini boom on in oil country, we do have more choices in where to look than even five years ago.

Welcome back....

Well, as most of you know....stuff happens. Our big adventure has been delayed. Daphne and I were to be off early this morning to see old college friends, Gen. Tom Hill and wife Toni in the hill country. I've known Tom and Toni since 1967, lived with them for awhile at Ft. Benning Ga. in a prior life; they are like brother and sister to me. Tom and Toni also have a profoundly challenged, both physically and mentally, daughter, Meagen. Meggie is a young woman now and over the years many health care professionals have advised the Hills to put Meagen in a group home. They won't hear of it. Toni is a saint.

Last night Toni called and said that Meagen is in the hospital once again with pneumonia like symptoms and we had better plan on getting together in March. I understand completely...First Things First.

I was looking forward to the trip, so was Daphne, her bag was packed. Tom and I were going to recreate a pilgrimage he and I took in 1980, stopping at every small barbeque joint in the hill country we could find. After the last six months I was looking forward to a change in venue and talking to some different folks. And besides being a bubba, Tom is also one interesting guy. Tom recently retired as a Four Star General in the Army and was the SOUTHCOM Commander, which meant he was in command of all U.S. military forces in Central and South America, including the Islamic Boys Camp at Guantamamo. I was looking forward to getting the inside scope of what's happening. But, stuff happens. Looks like a football day for the Daph and Me. That's OK too.

Come back again soon....

D. Daphne Dog and I will be on the highway pursuing a big adventure, we'll be back soon. In the meantime we leave you with a symbolic photo for the year 2006, Daphne at the gravesite of her old pal, Tres the Big Gold Dog.

New Years thoughts....

I believe-
That we don't have to change friends if we understand that friends change.

I believe-
That no matter how good a friend is, they're going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.

I believe-
That true friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance. Same goes for true love.

I believe-
That you can do something in an instant that will give you heartache for life.

I believe-
That you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.

I believe-
That you can keep going long after you think you can't.

I believe-
That we are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.

I believe-
That either you control your attitude or it controls you.

I believe-
That money is a lousy way of keeping score.

I believe-
That my best friend and I can do anything or nothing and have the best time.

I believe-
That it is pointless to try and discuss some things with someone who always has to be right.

I believe-
That sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you're down, will be the ones to help you get back up.

I believe-
That sometimes when I'm angry I have the right to be angry, but that doesn't give me the right to be cruel.

I believe-
That maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had and what you've learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.

I believe-
That it isn't always enough to be forgiven by others. Sometimes you have to learn to forgive yourself.

I believe-
That no matter how bad your heart is broken the world doesn't stop for your grief.

I believe-
That our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.

I believe-
That just because two people argue, it doesn't mean they don't love each other. And just because they don't argue, it doesn't mean they do.

I believe-
That you shouldn't be so eager to find out a secret. It could change your life forever.

I believe-
That two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.

I believe-
That your life can be changed in a matter of hours by people who don't even know you.

I believe-
That even when you think you have no more to give, when a friend cries out to you, you will find the strength to help.

I believe-
That the people you care about most in life are taken from you too soon.

Damn....a mullet!

I had a very nice day today, visiting again with the woman who used to be the little girl across street when I was a kid. I took her son and my two nieces to the Chaparral Racing Exhibit at our Petroleum Museum. I could go on about this nice experience and intended to, but something more important happened tonight.

I really hate to go into any 7-11 Store. First I always figure that my luck will run out and the store I'm in will be robbed while I'm there; secondly, the prices are ridiculous, but you knew that. Thirdly, I'm really not a snob, but everytime I'm in a 7-11 most of the people in the place look like they'll be the ones to rob the joint.

But sometimes when picking up only one item a 7-11 comes in handy, rather than driving much further to one of the grocery stores. And tonight I was lucky; I hit the jackpot, I actually saw a guy with an honest to God Mullet haircut. It was one of those curly hair mullets, an A-One super mullet. So surprised was I that I almost uttered, "Damn a mullet" out loud. I thought that even among 7-11 patrons, the mullet was a thing of the past. Not so. The only good thing about guys wearing mullets is that they make me feel so much better about myself.

Christmas: After action report....

With no great expectations and an attitude set at "0" on the positive/negative scale I'd say my Christmas was not all that bad. A whole lot lonlier with my Dad gone and with one less dog, but not all that bad.

My Christmas Eve rounds at the hospital helped me "get out of self" somewhat, so much so that I believe that I'll make that an annual event. Christmas morning gift opening was paltry, but having Daphne is like having a kid around, at least as far as watching excited glee with new toys. Her's is a new knotted rope which she loves to pick apart and even more so she enjoys having me pull on it with her. Enjoys is an understatement. She could do this for hours. She's been carrying it around with her everywhere, even to bed.

I was glad and somewhat surprised that my Mom agreed to go with me to the Serenity AA Club Christmas dinner. These are always well attended, the food is great and plentiful and as my Mom commented, "they sure are a happy bunch". Indeed; and interesting too. Our membership runs the gamut of society including a former managing partner of a national accounting firm, three doctors and the associate minister of a large local church. We have members from some of the wealthiest families in Midland and guys from the Salvation Army trying to get started again. Some members have been prostitutes and some are from the Junior League. Black, white, hispanic and asian, gay and straight. We all have one thing in common, we are all glad to be there and we recognize none of the boundries that might be seen or felt on the "outside".

After my Mom's pleasant experience at Serenity, she commented that she needs to look on the positive side of things more often and to get out and more involved in life again. That was the best Christmas present I could have asked for.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

Ho, Ho, Ho! In honor of the occasion I've put together a little dance number for your entertainment. Filmed entirely on location! Hope you enjoy and we wish you the happiest of holidays.

On the Eve of Christmas....

Frankly Christmas for me, and my Mom, will be sparse this year; for obvious reasons. But we'll try and make the best of what we can. Christmas is a holy day, a family day and a secular holiday, but is also an attitude. Going into Christmas one needs to have a good and proper attitude and a reasonably sane mind concerning ones expectations. I think we're both OK in both areas. Not that it won't be sad, but we plan on having a good, albeit different, Christmas. Church, doing a few things for others and visiting with old friends.

And if I need any help in the "attitude of gratitude" department, I only have to remember back two years. Two years ago, at just about the time I am writing this, I was in surgery, my chest cut open like a chicken, heart and lungs stopped while a team of surgeons repaired the ticker. Not only gratitude, but thanks to all those who were there to repair my body and to see me through the ordeal. Including one whom I won't mention, but that person knows who he/she/it is. Here's a shot of me on Christmas Eve, or perhaps, Christmas I'm not sure which because I wasn't much with it. This Christmas will be more pleasant than that, I can guarantee you!

Holiday wish.....

All the lovely ladies in their finery tonight
I wish that I could know them one by one
All the handsome gentlemen with loving on their minds
Strolling in to take the ladies home
Bless you all and keep you on the road to tenderness
Heaven can be yours just for now.

All the gentle strangers who by nature do not smile
To everyone who cannot hold a pen
To all you heavy rounders with a headache for your pains
Who dread the thought of going round the bend
Bless you all and keep you on the road to better things
Heaven can be yours just for now.

To all the lovely ladies in their finery tonight
I wish that I could kiss you while you knit
To all the ones who learn to live with being second-guessed
Whose job it is to give more then to get
Bless you all and keep you with the strength to understand
Heaven can be yours just for now.

To all the little dreamers with a dream that cannot last
To all the sleeping giants who must wake
To every man who answers to the letter of the law
And all the rest imprisoned by mistake
Bless you all and keep you with the faith to let it pass
Heaven can be yours just for now

To all the lonely sailors who have trouble being seen
To all of you with heartache that remains
Maybe sometime later you might swim back into shore
If someone could relieve you of your chains
Bless you all and keep you all on the land or on the sea
Heaven can be yours, just for now

Gordon Lightfoot

Dog Alert....!!

Who could turn down a face like this? My friend Bryan, herself a dog lover and gold dog owner, found this sweet dog running loose in the 2500 block of Sinclair in Midland. This pooch is housebroken and from my contact with her, very well behaved. And lovable....oh so lovable. Due to all dog lovers we know leaving town for the holidays, we have Pooch safely conveyed to the Animal Shelter with instructions to call us before anything is done with her. We will return to

pick her up if no one claims her. If you know whose dog this might be, or would consider adopting her, please contact me. Did I mention cute....and adorable? She'd be the perfect dog to sleep on your couch!

Dog Tales...

That D. Daphne Dog is a piece of work! A work in progress probably better describes her. I'm steadily more amazed at her intelligence, inventiveness and willingness to try new things. Which come to think of it, actually involves seeing what she can get away with.

Over a month ago, the first time it got really cold at night, I let her sleep in the den on a bed made from an old blanket. This worked well for two nights. On the third night I went to sleep alone and woke up with a dog sleeping so close to me she was almost on top of me. She's been there ever since. I was worried at first that being such an active dog during the day she'd be too active at night also. But she's amazingly inactive, the only time she awakens me is when a "potty" event is necessary at which time she sits up in bed and whines until I get up. I'm used to that, I think I had a wife in Dallas who did that.

Daphne also naps on "our" bed during the day, a perfect spot for any dog. Two walls of the bedroom are almost entirely glass so she can recline while guarding against squirrel attacks and the bed is flooded in sunlight in the afternoon, providing a great spot for catching warm rays. I keep a fleece blanket folded at the end of the bed and I noticed it always seemed to get unfolded as the day wore on. One day I was in the walk-in closet out of D. Daphnes sight, when I heard some commotion on the bed. I peeked around the corner and saw her with the blanket in her mouth, running in circles to spread the blanket out, then stop and paw it into a sort of dog nest. When she had it done to her satisfaction she plopped down and went to sleep.

Pretty good, but now it gets better. I have a two seated couch in the bedroom and lately Daphne has been resting there too. D. Daphne being more a feral dog than the genteel Big Gold Dog, likes to sleep in confined spaces and the pillows on the couch give her that feel. She had additional ideas about how to improve the space though. Last night I heard familiar commotion and spied D. Daph dragging her fleece blanket from "our" bed to her new home. Here's a snapshot of the end result. What a dog.

Daphne has also learned much more in our new closer relationship. Sometimes with dogs it's just a matter of finding the right words to convey our wishes. On walks, for some years, I've fought a losing battle with her runaway pulling behavior. I tried "heal" "halt" "no"....all the usual suspects. But the word "hold" was the missing command. When uttered she's now very good about freezing where she is until I catch up. Same situation with the car. She loves to ride and I have no trouble getting her in, but when we arrive back home I've had problems getting her out when I open her door [yeah she prefers to ride in the back, she likes being chaffeured]. I've tried "come", "here", "let's go" the whole gamut. She would just sit there with that dog look that says, "Stop speaking Lithuanian, I don't understand a word you're saying". That is until I arrived a "jump down". The first time I said that it was like magic. The same with "jump up". Magic.

Daphne has a propensity to whine, which has disturbed me. Whining that there's a squirrel outback, whining that there's a dog out front, whining for me to get up from the computer and do something with her. But as we say, when something is disturbing us we need look no further than ourselves for the problem, so I've decided to use her whining to my advantage; I'm going to teach her to speak English. Now when she starts to whine I whine and howl with her, which does get her going. So far we've made it to the point where she tries to bite my face. We've got a ways to go on this one.

And speaking of magic, magic moments. I visit my Mom each day and have been taking Daphne along. At first my Mom was a little put off by Daphnes wilder side, running through the house smelling each and every thing. But now, Mom is disappointed when Daph is not along. Her attitude has changed so much that I am astounded. Those who know Carol realize that to call her neat and germ free is an understatement; she cleans house before the maid comes. So yesterday while sitting in the living room talking, I was flabbergasted when Daphne jumped up on the good white couch and sat down right next to Mom [actually nothing surprises me with Daphne, but I feigned flabbergastedness]. I told Daphne to jump down, but instead my Mom said, "oh let her stay". What a picture, my little 83 year old Mom sitting on the couch right next to Dahpne, looking quite the little lady herself.