"THE BOOK SHELF"

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IMPORTANT WRITERS
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ROBERT ALLAN CARO (B. October 30, 1935)

This writer has won two Pulitzer Prizes for Biography and so many other important awards that they would fill half a typed page. He began with the highly acclaimed "The Power Broker," in 1974, about Robert Moses, New York urban planner. This book was chosen by Modern Library as one of the 500 greatest non-fiction books of the 20th Century.

Caro then set out to write a biography of President Lyndon B. Johnson, and found out he needed more than one volume; consequently it turned into a lifetime  of incredibly interesting, informative, and compelling research and writing, not only just about LBJ, but also the American history that was a by-product of his study. So rest assured, even if you have a different political persuasion, not to worry, you will be totally caught up in Caro's  books! Listed, they are:

"The Path to Power"--1982
"Means of Ascent"--1990
"Master of the Senate"--2002
"The Passage of Power"--2012

 The final LBJ book in this set is being written.

*                *                 *                *               *              *                *

DAVID GAUB MC CULLOUGH (B. July 7, 1933)

A man I have always admired so much for his openness, honesty, and his narrative skills, as well as being  twice a Pulitzer Prize winner, a recipient of the National Book Award, many other awards...including the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom. How can I describe his importance to Ken Burn's first big television documentary, "The Civil War," (narrated by McCullough) ? There was, in his voice, a certain pride, sincerity, and resignation to that great historic conflict. An unforgettable narration.

In bios he is described as an American author, narrator, historian, and lecturer. He graduated from Yale with honors, in English; then attended Shady Side Academy. A teacher and mentor was the famed Thornton Wilder. McCullough has been called "master of the Art of Narrative History," and "incapable of writing a page of bad prose." All this will be evident to you when you read your first McCullough book; he writes serious scholarly history but makes it very readable and interesting. The first one I read was "Mornings On Horseback"---about Theodore Roosevelt's younger life. I wanted to lend it to everyone, it was so interesting.

I really liked "The Path Between the Seas," the story of the Panama Canal---a must read. "John Adams" was so engrossing that I noted every highlight  by page number and quote in the back of the book. Here are most of McCullough's books.

"The Johnstown Flood"--1968

 "The Path Between the Seas"--1977

"Mornings On Horseback"--1981
"Truman"--1992

 "Brave Companions"--1992

  "John Adams"--2001

"1776"--2005
"The Greater Journey"--2011

*                           *                        *                    *                  *               *

ANNIE PROULX (B. August 22, 1935)
("That Old Ace in the Hole")(2002)

I would have to say, that as far as unusual, creative, and extremely talented writing goes, this book has to rank high on my list of favorites. This Pulitzer Prize winning author can write! If we think it's easy to do what she does, we should try it! She has won the Dos Passos Prize, and the O. Henry Prize twice for "best short story," as well as numerous other awards.

The book, a loaner from a friend, interested me so much I had to run down my own "used" copy @ $6.50.  I just couldn't read this author and not have her excellent writing to re-read from time to time.

Like: "The ranches were so far back from the main road, and now and then he passed an abandoned house, weather-bound, surrounded by broken cottonwoods. In the fallen windmills and collapsed outbuildings he saw the country's fractured past scattered about like the pencils on the desk of a draughtsman who has gone to lunch. The ancestors of the place hovered over the bits and pieces of their finished lives."

The plot briefly is:  about mid-century, our hero, a young man, Mr. Dollar, is hired by "Global Pork Rind Co. in Denver, to go into the Texas/Oklahoma panhandles, a very rural area, to seek out prospective sellers-of-property for the hated (stinking)  Pig Farms. He goes, posing under a  false occupation and meets these people: Rella Mooncaster, Freda Beautyrooms, Parmentia Boyce, Vera Twombley, Mrs. Stenchcomb, Brother Mesquite, Francis Scott Keister, Robert Bodfish, Coolbroth, Brother Hashychast, and Ribeye Clute. The town is Woolybucket.

I think you will love this book. (Publisher is Scribner, N.Y., N.Y.)

*                *                *                 *               *                *               * 
   
"THE CREATIVE WRITING COURSEBOOK," edited by Julia Bell and Paul Magrs

For persons who like to write, a really good book is noted above. "Forty authors share advice and exercises for fiction and poetry." That previous line should tell you something. This book contains a lot of advice and secrets from writers and teachers of writing. I am only a fourth of the way through it and can see already its interesting and  refreshing ideas, not only for a person interested in writing, but maybe for a fresh approach to "looking at life."

Credit Esther Morgan: "By using objects, I am trying to help students (and myself) recapture a sense of wonder, which in turn helps us rediscover or strengthens an excitement in the possibilities of language....and to become like children again, exploring the world with a child's curiosity and immediacy."

Someone in the book noted that, as we pass through life, and get older, we just "edit out" a good percent of the many natural beautiful things all around us; these things are the writer's "fodder."

It is said that a couple of good helpful new ideas  are worth the price of a book. There are dozens of thought-provoking ideas in this book!


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BY MIL
6/23/12
Sent from my iPad

"MR. ELMS"

CLOVIS JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL REMEMBERED! (1947)

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We knew him simply as: "Mr. Elms." That was enough. If we'd known his first name, we wouldn't have used it anyway. He wasn't a "mean" guy by any means---it's just that you instinctively knew not to fool around with Mr. Elms! You see, he had "gravitas," fifty years before we'd ever heard the word.

He was our junior high school wood-shop teacher. It was kind of a "rite of passage" for most junior high boys, to reach the eighth grade and take "shop." Didn't have to sit there anymore in an old boring seventh grade class and hear those distant (right behind the school), cool, and fascinating electric tools ---crying out with electronic joy for their existence! We eighth graders just joined up when it was time! Mr. Elms was some kind of an icon for us, I think.

He was around six feet tall, maybe six-one, with a slightly receding hairline.  Thin and wiry, most certainly a rugged sort of guy.  He had a serious mien about him. (We never had punch and cookies in class!)    He was inscrutable---a perfect face for Mount Rushmore! (And most of us would like to see him there!)

He had a strong firm jaw and chin. Sometimes when he was lecturing, maybe explaining a dangerous tool, his jaw would seem to get very tight, and I believe he may have drawn a breath through his teeth a few times, as if to emphasize the danger. (Particularly when using electric equipment.)

One of my fellow classmates of sixty-five years ago remembers: "His no-nonsense firmness is probably the reason there were few, if any, accidents by the young carpenters. He kept a sharp eye on what was going on, monitored the "tool shed" closely, and just did his job! As I recall, we usually had thirty-five to forty in our shop class...unheard of today."

The shop was large and filled with square work tables. There was a tool room on one side, enclosed with wire mesh and locked in off hours. It had a window for checking out tools for class. At the beginning of a semester, we'd sit all around on those square carpentry tables and Mr.Elms would lecture and describe every tool in the shop.

He'd get to the more serious and dangerous electric machines: the rip saw, the band saw, the jig saw; then the drill press, the sander, and the lathes! The lathes were the most popular machines in the shop. They were less dangerous, fun to operate, and I daresay few boys ever took shop without doing a lathe project. Had that shop been producing "Billy Clubs" for law enforcement in the state of New Mexico, there would have likely been a glut! As I recall, there were five or six lathes in the shop.

Finally Mr. Elms would get to the electric planer. It was obvious that he considered it the most dangerous machine. Only he was allowed to use it, and he always had a pusher made of blocks to keep the fingers as far from that circular cylinder-like blade. Most of the kids didn't use the electric equipment that much. (Someone helped me use the router on my table project---to edge the table top, and round off the legs.)

Other favorite projects included lamps (lots of lamps), bookshelves, tables, tackle boxes, shoe shine kits, and necktie racks. To this day, I still have my table and a shoe shine box my dad used for years.

Yes, our teacher ran a taut ship. Maybe on the principle that strong, but benevolent discipline, means safety and better learning. I never heard a boy who took shop who didn't love it, make useful projects, and admire Mr. Elms.

The years went by and I didn't see Mr. Elms again until in the 90's. One day I was visiting a friend in a nursing home there in Clovis, and he apparently was leaving at the same time. He saw me and hailed me across that big lawn and came kind of running over to see me. (Wow, he recognized me!!) We found a bench and sat down and had a nice long talk, laughing and remembering those great old days, right after WWII when he taught shop to all those boys.

He told me he'd never specialized in shop or planned to teach it. One day he saw a notice somewhere saying: "SHOP TEACHER NEEDED: JUNIOR HIGH." He just applied, got the job, did some boning-up on the subject and was off and running. I saw him one other time, but that day on the bench was special.

I don't know how many years or how many classes he taught in junior high shop, but he must have taught hundreds of students.  Guys my age still talk about those days.

So, this is A TRIBUTE TO VIRGIL ELMS, a Christian gentleman and scholar; a dedicated, diligent, competent, and responsible teacher---one that all the boys loved. You were a gift to the world; you influenced a lot of lives for good.

WE REMEMBER YOU WITH FONDNESS.

Mil's 8th-grade shop project

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BY MIL

6/29/12

Sent from my iPad

"I'VE SEEN THE ELEPHANT!"

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"PICAYUNE PACHYDERM PANICS POPULACE!"
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How would you feel if you were hanging out clothes on your backyard clothesline, reached down to pick up a clothespin, and were handed ("trunked") one by a five-inch tall miniature bull elephant?

How would you feel if you were a bird, arriving for your morning bath at your birdbath,  and found a five-inch tall elephant already bathing there and "trunk-gargling?"  In YOUR birdbath!

Or, if you were a mother, reading in your easy chair and having a smoke (1953), and Baby Daughter toddles by with a plate of food for "the little elephant in my doll house?"

Well, all this happened in a  seven-minute 1953 Looney Tunes cartoon, which we entertainment and humor-starved college boys watched in Abilene, Texas,  and talked about for days.  Okay, so it may seem a little silly now, but then we weren't that many decades removed from vaudeville days, or even the beginning of talkies. Movie films were not so dark then, and you certainly wouldn't call this one--"cartoon noir!" Humor was not so sophisticated in those days, I guess.

Many was the time, particularly early in our marriage, that I told my wife about that "funny cartoon," in which the five-inch tall elephant walks across the psychiatrist's desk during a patient's interview, lets loose that big roar, and....well, you can watch it...in a minute! Today, I had a bright idea: I'd just Google that old cartoon and see what came up! I found it! And there seems to be a "following," like "Trekkies"---guess you could call us "Trunkies!" LOL.

The whole cartoon is on You Tube, plus the newspaper headline: "Picayune Pachyderm Panics Populace!" And the psychiatrist's scene! Let's lighten up, take seven, watch "PUNCH TRUNK," allow ourselves to soak up a little Americana from 59 years ago, and chuckle a little bit. Gather the kids and grandkids, and maybe practice that little elephant roar, yourself!(The kids will!)

Cartoon video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ8HtQW_siI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

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BY MIL
6/25/12

"A TOAD OR A SMALL DWARF!"

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"HEY, WHERE'S MY SUCKER?"
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One night, many years ago, Steve Martin was on Saturday Night Live and doing his usual excellent job of playing Theodoric of York, a medieval physician. He said: "You know, medicine is not an exact science, but we are learning all the time. Why, just fifty years ago, they thought a disease like your daughter's was caused by demonic possession or witchcraft. But nowadays we know that Isabella is suffering from an imbalance of bodily humors, perhaps caused by a toad or small dwarf living in the stomach."

As I watched Steve's clever skit, with him in his medieval costume and his dark, foreboding "office," I was carried back in my memories to my very first doctor visit. Yes, Theodoric's surroundings and decor had reminded me of that fateful day in 1939.....

It all came about like this. Five was my  unlucky number that September of 1939, 73 years ago. With special permission from Clovis Supt. of Schools, Mr. Bickley, my mother had arranged for me to start to school early in years---at age five, five days after school had already started, and I had just five days to get a smallpox "in-noc-cu-la-shun," whatever that meant. Well, whatever it meant, I didn't like the sound of it. See what I mean about "five."

Thus, a day or two later, after school, I wound up in that scary doctor's scary office, across from the Clovis post office on W. 4th Street. When I say---first doctor visit, that's the truth! (In fact, I was not even born in a hospital but delivered by a mid-person.) I can still see that office in my mind's eye. Gloomy. We sat in those chairs and waited. Had I have been a little older, I  might have had a smoke. It was "nervous city" with me.

But nothing like when the nurse stuck her head out and called my name...and we went through.......THAT DOOR. There we were in that dark wood-paneled torture room with several little square glass cabinets with glass shelves, each filled with clinky, chromey, shiny, vicious, hateful-looking instruments---all probably designed for the sole purpose of hurting little boys! As my blood pressure (almost surely) hit 200/200, I thought I heard the doctor and nurse in the next room, as they pondered my future, rubbing their hands and laughing: "AHH-HA-HA-HA-HA," (like in the movies.)

The nurse must have loved those shiny, clinky, sharp "stick 'em" things, because she came back into the room with a tray with all that kind of stuff on it,  plus an EE-VILL VIAL! Now instead of POW, one terrible shot through my little arm, and I got my free sucker, and was gone---NO! She had to torture me. Stick-stick-stick, ouch; scratch, scratch, scratch, ouch; stick-scratch, stick-scratch. Ouch-ouch! Terrible! The doctor was in that other room probably still going "AHH-HA-HA-HA-HA," (like in the movies.)

Finally, it was all over. My blood pressure probably dropped to measurable proportions. She put a big white bandage on my arm, and a big sore came later. (She probably got me infected  somehow.) I didn't need that inoculation anyhow---the other kids all already had one, so how could I have caught anything from them?

There was no sucker for me that day. But I guess I had learned a life's lesson, and didn't know it yet: Lots of things are going to happen to you in the next 73 years...and a lot of them you're not going to like.

P.S. I never got to liking doctors any better...but am glad that medicine HAS advanced
since Theodoric of York's day!

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BY MIL
6/19/12



Sent from my iPad

YES, I REMEMBER MERTZON!

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TEXAS TOWNS....FRIENDS.....STORIES!
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I had a dear friend, from high school days, and we corresponded about twice a week by email or sometimes regular mail since he traveled a lot. His home was in the Texas Hill Country (and I made the bad mistake once of not capitalizing "Hill Country.") Traveler that he was, there was no telling where he would turn up next--Nuevo Laredo...or even Terlingua! (Find that one on the map!)

We had a running joke: he'd be leaving on a trip and off email for awhile and I'd say, before he left, "There'll be a letter waiting for you in a large empty mayonnaise jar on the front porch of the John Deere dealership in Merkel, Texas."

Well, anyway, this is not about Merkel, but close...My son told me a couple of years ago, when leaving on a trip: "I'm going to drop by, on the way, and visit a co-worker friend of mine who recently retired and is living  on a ranch outside of Mertzon. Do you know where that is?"

Then, just this week, I got an email from a long-time high school friend who told me: "We lived in Mertzon, Texas when I was a small boy; I started to school there. Do you know where it is ? " Isn't it strange that everyone who mentions Mertzon, Texas, follows with the question: "Do you know where it is?"

Yes. Yes, matter of fact I DO know where it is. I ought to---in the spring of '55, it was Mertzon where I  bought gasoline most Sunday mornings for my trusty '48 Chevrolet.  I was half asleep! You want to hear the story? Okay, it is a worthy piece of history.

In my junior year of studying music at Hardin-Simmons University, Abilene, Texas, I had a weekend music-directing job at Colorado City for a semester, and a two week revival at Aspermont. I was asked during my senior year to take the Sunday job at First Baptist Church, Ozona, 150 miles from Abilene, and I took it. It entailed my leading the music for two services, having an adult choir practice, and leading a youth fellowship after church on Sunday night. For a college kid who was broke most of the time, it was a great thing---the pay was $50.00 a week, at a time when family men were earning only $100.00 a week. Gas, you will remember, was about 25 cents a gallon then, in 1955.

So each Sunday morning my dreaded alarm would go off at five a.m. Have you ever had an early-get-up-time like that when you slept fitfully with one eye open, as if you didn't even deserve what little sleep you were getting? My dear readers; Let me ask you a riddle--- Where is the stillest, quietest, most peaceful place on earth on a Sunday morning at 5 a.m.? It is a boys' college dorm!

I was up and out, dressed nicely in my suit and tie, my coat hanging behind me in the car, so as not to wrinkle it on the two-and-a-half hour trip. (I was not a speeder.) I headed southwest out of Abilene for San Angelo. Fifty miles down that highway, there was a highway crossroads with a blinking yellow light. It was called Bronte. (Check your map.) Now, Greater Bronte was not much---two or three buildings, but it had a small truck stop cafe where each Sunday morning I stopped to get a cup of coffee and a sweet roll!

I reached San Angelo and turned a little bit southwest I think, went about 35 miles, and there was Mertzon! Yes, Mertzon, with that filling station on the right, I told you about, where I filled up with that twenty -five cent gas...many  Sunday mornings!

On down to Barnhart from there, turned and went about 28 miles south to Ozona, arrived about nine o'clock and prepared for the Sunday service. After church different church members took me home with them each Sunday for some fried chicken and a place to catch a nap.

You know the rest. After the hard day was over, I was on my way back to Hardin-Simmons.and on reaching San Angelo, stopped at my favorite drive-in and bought as big a coke as I could get, with ice, for I was always a sleepy-head when driving and it was 90 more miles home. Eating ice kept me busy. (I had a friend once, who traveled all time and he had this system for staying awake...He, before a long trip would buy a sack of grapes, and eat one every eight-tenths of a mile, or whatever.)

Arriving back at school late, we guys who had Sunday jobs around the area, would congregate in someone's room and unwind 'til the wee hours. Next day, Monday, we would go downtown to Mack Eplen's Cafeteria for lunch and all splurge big-time on chicken fried steaks, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, fried okra, corn bread and butter, and I don't remember "what-all," plus a piece of their great coconut pie! All for about 1.90! Maybe we deserved it---the Sunday thing was hard for all of us.

Yes, I remember Mertzon...and alarm clocks...and sleepy driving...and 25 cent a gallon gasoline! Now my readers also know where Mertzon is!

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BY MIL
6/18/12






Sent from my iPad

"AMAZING GRACE! HOW SWEET THE SOUND!"

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,

    That saved a wretch like me;

     I once was lost but now am found.

     Was blind but now I see!"
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"Humans have this basic limitation of being ' human.' Our finite minds can only assimilate so much. If we mortals had the mental and emotional capacity to fully comprehend the fact, to the bottoms of our minds and souls, that the debt has been paid---that God forgives us, and as a free gift of love, gives us an eternal home in heaven with Him, we would be totally overwhelmed by the hymn...Amazing grace, how sweet the sound....."     ---------R.M.

  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound" first appeared titled as "Faith's Review and Expectations," in the "Olney Hymns," a collection of English hymns authored by John Henry Newton (1725-1807) and William Cowper, (pronounced "Cooper"), poet and friend of Newton. Amazing Grace is one of the most popular hymns of Christianity. It is almost certainly the "most universally accepted" one by all denominations. The original title was soon forgotten and probably not even known by most people.

John Henry Newton, its author had quite a life---the first half being practically a reprobate, and the second---a respected Anglican minister and hymn-writer.

Starting a career as a sailor---John was introduced to the sea at age eleven,  by his father, himself a seaman.  His mother had died of TB when he was seven and when he went to live with his father four years later, he took him on six sea voyages, before he retired. Then he arranged  a job for young John, in Jamaica, working for a sugar plantation. But John liked the sea and signed on instead, with a merchant ship sailing to the Mediterranean. Somehow, while John was ashore at a port-of-call, he was impressed into the Royal Navy, that being a common method of "enlisting" new crew members at that period of history.

This began what we today would call an "awful" sequence of events. He tried to desert but was caught and flogged; humiliated, he considered suicide. The Royal Navy decided to get rid of him and he was transferred to Pegasus, a slave ship, carrying goods to Africa to trade for slaves. Because John, was not a "happy sailor" by any means, the Pegasus left him in West Africa, with a slave trader who gave him to his wife, Princess Peye. She treated him like one of her slaves. (It was this period that Newton later remembered as the time he was "once an infidel and a libertine, a servant of slaves in West Africa.")

He was later rescued by a sea captain and taken back to England aboard the merchant ship Greyhound. During this voyage, the ship, caught in a terrible storm, almost sank and Newton, calling out to God, experienced a spiritual conversion. The date was March 10, 1748, one he remembered and thought of throughout his life. He gave up profanity, gambling, and drinking, but he continued to work on slave ships, though with a greater measure of pity for the slaves than before.

He obtained a responsible job aboard the  slave ship Brownlow, bound for Africa, and on this voyage he came down with a serious fever and barely survived. Again he called on God, and said later that his complete conversion and true devotion to God came about at this time. It was the first time he had felt total peace with God.

He became a tax collector at the port of Liverpool and began studying theology, Hebrew, and Greek. He finally became a crusader against slavery, encouraging English parliament members to fight it in the government. He was eventually ordained and certified as a priest of the Church of England. He became well-known as a strong supporter of evangelicalism in this church. His fight against slavery paid off when the State Trade Act of 1807 abolished the slave trade.

In 1767, the poet William Cowper moved to Olney, where John Newton was vicar, and the two collaborated on the "Olney Hymns," published in 1779. This work had a great impact and influence on English hymnody. The "Olney Hymns" contained many of Newton's well-known hymns:

"Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken"
"How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds"
"Let Us Love, and Sing, and Wonder"
"Come My Soul, Thy Suit Prepare"
"Approach My Soul, the Mercy-seat"
and
"Faith's Review and Expectation" (which we now know as "Amazing Grace.")

John Newton said later in his life: "I hope it will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me that I was once an active instrument in the business in which my heart now shudders."

There were six stanzas of "Amazing Grace" appearing the first edition of
Olney Hymns, 1779:

"Amazing grace! (How sweet the sound!)
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believed.

Thro' many danger, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.

The lord has promised good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and buckler be,
As long as life endures.

Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.

Hymnals list the tune "Amazing Grace" composer (the tune name in this case being the same as the poem name)---as "Early American Melody." Being a "common meter" (8.6.8.6.) hymn, there are nineteen tunes in one hymnal which could conceivably be used to sing Amazing Grace. Really, no one wants to sing the hymn to any other tune, generally speaking, but in my work as a church music director, once or twice, I used Azmon, Avon, and Arlington.

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"But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us
alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions---it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the
heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, it is the gift of God---not by works, so that no man can boast." Ephesians 2: 4-9
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John Henry Newton

Amazing Grace:  Judy Collins and Harlem Boy Choir

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6vR-TQ7n68&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Amazing Grace:  Scottish Bagpipes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO5y2O_hv3I&feature=youtube_gdata_player

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BY MIL
6/18/12


Sent from my iPad

MY "AS PER SE" GUY

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SURPRISE! THE WEEK WAS FUN!
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Little did I suspect, that Sunday morning, when I left home for a dreaded week of "Account Executive" (insurance) training in Springfield, Illinois, that it would prove to be the most unusual and interesting such trip in my whole 25 year career!

My plane landed in St. Louis and six of us found ourselves at the airline gate, bound for Springfield on our final leg, having arrived there from all over the U.S. The good news was, that I, being an airplane aficionado since WWII, was going to get to fly in an unusual and most interesting plane---a two-engine turbo prop Fairchild Hiller FH-227B, with the wings on top! Yes! On top! Okay, I'll admit, it kind of seemed to lumber along when taxiing on the runway, as if it were a railroad boxcar, endowed with wings, but oh my, it could fly!

Arriving late Sunday afternoon at the Greater Springfield Airport (or whatever), we were met by a fine-looking young man whom we will call "Brad." His job, with the company, was to serve as our mentor, chauffeur, gofer, and general helper for the week---he would "squire us around" everywhere we went, making sure we were on time for classes and activities.

We hadn't been with Brad ten minutes until he had used his (evidently) favorite expression or phrase, "as per se," THREE TIMES! I thought to myself:  We have either got a PhD. in grammar on our hands or a "Pistol!"

En route to town, we passed an impressive steakhouse and Brad said something like: "If you guys behave and pass all your work in good form, and study hard, as per se, then we'll have a steak dinner celebration here on Friday night."

So Brad "as per se-d" us all the way into town and dropped us off at our hotel--an interesting old hotel named "HOT-- AVALON." (Not to worry, the "EL" on the neon sign was burned out.) It was, to say the least, not your upscale-looking neighborhood. You wouldn't write home about the area, for across the street from our hotel were---umm---I hate to say....adult bookstores and stuff like that, and a tattoo parlor. To a bunch of straight-laced guys, it was ...kinda scary. The main plus, I guess, was that it was a handy five block walk to our brand new home office building, which covered practically a whole block.

The hotel rooms, however, were clean..The whole airy feeling of the old hotel was that of a cozy country inn, somewhere out in the hinterland, with old fashioned bed spreads, sheer curtains swaying in the breeze coming in through the window. Sort of made you want to forget the meeting, prop your feet up, and just sit and watch old Andy Griffith re-runs, on tape. (But there were no tapes then---not for ten more years.)  

There was good news and bad news regarding a restaurant. There WAS a cafe of sorts downstairs in the hotel---that was the good news. The bad news was that there was only ONE courageous girl who was waitress, cook, cashier, and (I assume) dishwasher. It's true. We ate breakfast there, and a few burgers along, and tipped her well, whether out of admiration...or pity, I'm not sure.

Brad would often come by to be sure we were up-and-at 'em and maybe haul us the five blocks to our classes, "as per se-ing" life in general on the way.

I knew "per se" was a Latin expression meaning "in itself," but I didn't quite understand the "as" part. I tried to figure out what Brad's penchant ("pon-shon") for using it so much was,  and finally concluded this: He obviously really liked it and convinced himself that it had some sort of "universal" application; thus while speaking, if he felt a little uneasy about his sentence, felt a slight pause or sag coming on in his phrasing, or a place where his rhetoric needed a boost, he'd just add it right then and there---as per se---no questions asked! In fact, I'll have to say, he did sound splendidly articulate quite often.

As those sit-and-listen meetings usually were, this one was getting brutal by midweek! Luckily, someone had the foresight to give us one afternoon and part of another, off.

Here's where Brad, who must have been a tour guide in a previous life, went into action big time. For history lovers this trip got interesting in a hurry! This was Abraham Lincoln's home state and home town. Brad took us to Lincoln's home, about six or eight blocks east of the city square; then over to the railroad depot where he departed for the presidency that fateful day in 1861, never to return alive. Brad showed us Lincoln's law office, upstairs in a building just off the square. We walked across the street to the Legislature building in the middle of the square, where Lincoln helped make laws, and allegedly once crawled out a window.

Toward the end of the week, Brad drove us out to Lincoln's Tomb, a massive concrete edifice about five miles out of town. A bonus I should mention is that we saw the corner of the Springfield square where the "doomed Donner" wagon train, bound for California, formed up. We even became accustomed to Brad's expression and almost didn't even notice it.

Can you believe: We went into Lincoln's house, and we walked where The Great Emancipator walked. We went upstairs---the rooms were small and the hallway seemed narrow. The kitchen you wouldn't recognize as a kitchen. There were no white and no stainless appliances. Women today would not be happy with such a kitchen. There was a water pump for water. I guess it was the rather "drab" look that surprised me, not only in the kitchen but all over.

Being a history lover, this whole thing was amazing to me! The only other historical thing I would value that much would be to visit Monticello!

Brad hauled us guys out to that steakhouse, on the highway, on Friday night for our promised steak dinner...and wrap-up session. We were slated to leave the next morning early! It had been a better week for us than weeks of that kind typically were, as per se. Uh-oh, now I'm doing it!

Brad was no dummy. He was a sharp guy. I hope he rose in the company hierarchy until he became head of the "Department of Vans, Gofers & Mentors," and is living a well-earned happy retirement. But that was 42 years ago, and, if by chance, he has passed on, then I can almost see him now, driving a van-chariot up to the Pearly Gates to pick up a load of newly-arrived saints, for a familiarization and orientation swing around Heaven, all the while saying to them: "This is really a nice place; I know you're going to enjoy your stay here a lot."    ......"As per se."

                                                     Lincoln's Home

                                                  Fairchild Hiller, FH-227B

--------30-------
BY MIL
6/14/12

Sent from my iPad

"THERE IS NOTHIN' LIKE A DAME"

CLOVIS REMEMBERED!

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BOYS' QUARTET AND "MOP DAME" TAKE FIRST PLACE!
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We loved our dame! She was, to us, though she may have seemed skinny to others, a beauty! With her hair all fluffed up and that big nice red ribbon tied around her neck, she was the stuff of poetry and song! Songs like....

"She was fair like a rose,
Like a lamb she was meek;
And she never, no never
Put paint on her cheek!"

Or,
"Born like a zephyr on the summer air..."

Or,
"Light she was, and like a fairy..."

If we'd had the time to name her, I'm sure it would have been "Clementine."

You see, my story is this: Word had gone out that April of 1951, that an under-entertained Clovis population was to be favored (and blessed) with a Youth Talent Show, in the old over-used and much-beloved Junior High Gym. A platform had been set up at the west end under the basketball goal, and a piano rolled out.

When we guys in the Clovis High School Boys' Quartet heard about this contest, we said:"Hey, that's our cup of tea; let's enter and win that sucker!" Every one of us: Levi, bass; Mil, baritone; Jack, Second Tenor; and Dale, First Tenor, were ready to go! We knew immediately that our selection would be "There Is Nothin' Like A Dame," a number from "Tales of the South Pacific," which we had used in one of Mr. Barton's excellent music productions. (My reader, keep in mind that, in 1951, WWII and South Pacific memories were pretty recent to everyone.)

Accordingly, we enlisted a pianist, practiced our song, and selected our costumes: identical ones----blue denim Levis, white sweat shirts, and white sailor caps. I cannot today remember who our pianist was.

We had decided that we would "get us" a dame to give ourselves a "competitive edge." Not knowing any live ones that would want to be "manhandled" on the stage ( most of the girls we knew were "shy"), we decided to go, we might call it---the "mail order bride" sort of route. Thus it came to be that our marvelous "MOP DAME" came to us from Barry Hardware. (How many great things came to Clovis through that store!!!) Okay, she was a little skinny and likely was a borderline anorexic, but let me tell you, she had a "Great Mop of Hair," so to speak! We didn't even get her a perm before the event (everyone knows that women have to fool around with their hair before events!) and luckily for us, expensive streaking was unknown, and still in the mind of some beauty operator, somewhere.

I'll have to say, though, that no dame has ever been sung to with more sincerity, more devotion, and more admiration than our "Mop Dame" that evening. Let me tell you, our second tenor, Jack (an actor at heart), just put it on the top shelf, as he held her out front of us and sang:

"Lots of things in life are beautiful, but brother,
There is nothing that is any way, shape or form,
Like...any other..."

Then we all came in--full blast:
"There is nothin' like a dame,
Nothin' in the world,
There is nothin'  you can name
That is anything like a dame;

There are no books like a dame,
And nothin' looks like a dame,
And nothin' acts like a dame
Or attracts like a dame.

There ain't a thing that's wrong with
Any man here
That can't be cured by putting
him near..."

  And here I must interrupt to help you visualize that great ending: Jack was holding "Our Dame" up and out in front of us, she was the main focus...probably of the whole crowd. We, the rest of the quartet guys held our right arms fully extended out to our "Dame," palms up---and WE ENDED IT MAGNIFICENTLY:

"A GIRL-Y, WOMAN-LY FE-MALE
FEM-I-NINE...
DAME!!!"

It was our finest hour! The people in the gym went wild! We won FIRST PLACE!
And you know, I thought our "MOP DAME" LOOKED.....PROUD!

(We gave our First Place Trophy to Mr. Harry Barton, Music Teacher, Clovis High School.)

(Quartet Guys: Though it has been sixty-one years since this event, and we have raised many tunes into the air since, I still think of you all...and love you.)

"There's Nothing Like a Dame":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgzvTHsOxSQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

--------30--------      
BY MIL
6/12/12

TUMBLEWEED

Oh, my big, bushy, round overweight-looking friend,
You who were once green and young,
Now you have the look of maturity...
Even old-age, and are brown and dead-looking.
Why, look at you---rolling...rolling...rolling,
More active than you've ever been.

Where do you think you are going?
Your life-work: producing seeds...
Is over.
Now you think you must finally, break loose...
and travel.

Your life is behind you.
Look at you: pieces are
Breaking off your Brittle Body!

You are like a ship at sea
Driven across the prairie
By the wind!

On a dark, gloomy, windy day
You look like a Speeding Monster!
Rolling along...like that,
You scare Little Kids.

Alas, when you were young and green
You ached to Roam...but couldn't;
You were tied down.

Now, don't you know: you Are Headed
Straight toward some Obstacle!
Trust me: Life Is Like That.
It may be a barbed-wire fence---
You'll end up getting burned.

Or run over and crushed by
A One-Way Plow!
Or on the highway, speeding in the wind.
Pulverized by a big Eighteen Wheeler.

At least your Worries and Travel
Will All Be Over....

That is Your Destiny.

------poem by Mil
6/5/12

Sent from my iPad

"DRIFTING ALONG WITH THE TUMBLING SALSULA TRAGUS"

---------------------------------------------------------
CLOVIS REMEMBERED: TUMBLEWEEDS
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"See them rolling along,
Deep in my heart is a song;
Here on the range I belong...
Drifting along with the tumblin' tumbleweeds."

Oh, hello there! I was just sitting here, singing an old cowboy song and musing about old Clovis times  and all the tumbleweeds there were blowing around town in those days...in the 30's and 40's. We had a lot of them, didn't we, in the fall when frost came and the cold winds of autumn began!

Tumbleweeds are actually dried-up Russian Thistles (SALSULA TRAGUS). There seem to be many cousins in this family including the SALSULA KAL. By definition---"A tumbleweed is the above-ground part of a plant, that once mature and dry, disengages from the root and tumbles away in the wind. They are thought to be native to Eurasia, and were brought to the U.S. accidentally in a shipment of flaxseed, shipped to N. Dakota in the nineteenth century."

Having about 500 hours on a Case Wheatland Tractor, pulling a 22 1/2 foot One-Way Disc Plow in fields around Clovis, I can say that I have seen perhaps thousands of weeds, mostly dead and stacked up against fences, barns, and any obstacle. When green, they thrive anywhere that plows cannot reach: fence rows, borrow ditches, around windmills, old lake beds, edges of fields, and vacant lots. When you plowed them under out in the field, they were usually small and growing.

                                             THE OLD LAKE BED

In Clovis, there was an old sunken lake bed full of thistles growing at the end of W. Fourteenth Street, and
a few blocks northwest of the new (at that time) Clovis Memorial Hospital. West Clovis and old Fourteenth were deluged with those tumbleweeds when they dried and blew  into town. W. Grand always had it's fair share of TWs during the sandstorm days. Clovis alleys produced tumbleweeds and vacant lots were big contributors. People willing to hoe were hard to find.

I mentioned windmills---a prime location for tumbleweeds, as there always seemed to be some seeping water around somewhere. Mills themselves were usually fenced off to protect the working parts from cattle or horses. No plows ever went near a mill. Historians say that on big ranches of many sections, dozens of windmills were needed to water the stock. One ranch in Texas had forty windmills. These required greasing of the gears, sucker rod/pipe replacement, and routine maintenance. Self-respecting cowboys, we are told, wanted no part of windmill work---climbing to the top platform and particularly moving about in those ever-present big  growths and piles of tumbleweeds around the base of the mill. This was a well-known HAVEN FOR RATTLESNAKES!

After an especially wet year, in the fall on the fences around farms in the Clovis area, I have seen tumbleweeds piled along the full length of a fence. Never did I see a fence collapsed from the weight, but farmers cleared their fences, piled the weeds and on the first still day burned them.

                                     WHY TUMBLEWEEDS AT ALL?

Why are there tumbleweeds at all on the Earth? It is difficult to make a case in their favor. Agricultural experts say that a Russian Thistle sitting at the edge of a crop field, will draw 45 gallons of water out of that field, during the life of the thistle. Then when it dies and blows across the field, it will break the crust of the soil and cause wind erosion.

Also the weeds are eyesores, hard to dispose of, give off prickly stickers, are fire hazards, are havens for rattlers as noted, and may pile up shoulder high around farm buildings and railroad tracks. (Google for interesting photos.)

                              ANY GOOD PURPOSE FOR TUMBLEWEEDS?

Surprisingly, while the weeds are generally nuisances to some people, on the other hand, despite their seeming worthlessness, they kind of capture the imagination and admiration of many people. They have been much-celebrated in poetry and song. When has anything so worthless been tolerated and celebrated so much? Maybe it's their carefree, irresponsible drifting, without a care and without a cause...not worrying about anything...a metaphor for some people. Maybe a good title for them would be "Benevolent Nuisances."

There IS one main use of tumbleweeds, without which the world would be poorer. That is: SYMBOLISM. Tumbleweeds are priceless in setting the stage in movies--- westerns, rural scenes, dust bowl days, deserts, isolated settings, and so on. Remember "Grapes of Wrath," and the dust bowl days?  What about a deserted ghost town; how would you decorate it?

A good purpose for tumbleweeds would be in saving lives, wouldn't we agree? Here is a true story.  At the beginning of WWII, my uncle, down in West Texas, decided to get married. Being a farmer, he was able to obtain an empty old farmhouse, used for storing seed, as his residence. He and my new "aunt" cleaned it up, laid new linoleum and moved in. Their windmill, however, needed quite a bit of repair on the gears which required a climb up a wooden ladder to the platform and working there. My aunt, assisting in the work, climbed up there on some errand, and accidentally fell back-first off that windmill, twenty- five feet.

The farm, having been unused, had a great growth of tumbleweeds around the mill. I had seen it, myself. She landed right in the middle of five or six feet of dry tumbleweeds. It saved her. She lived, but all her life had back trouble.

                                                 THE MONSTER

I had a dear friend. He was a preacher, and I being a singer, we were in five or six revival meetings together. We also dove hunted, goose hunted, and trout fished in the Rio Grande Box. He had a sermon which I always enjoyed when he preached it. He called it: "FEARS: REAL AND IMAGINARY." In his sermon he noted a number of real fears which all men face; noting the spiritual implications.

He had a riveting story: When he was a boy about eleven, in the  early thirties, down on a West Texas cotton farm, he was old enough to take the old family .22 rifle and go out and bag a rabbit for the family dinner. This was a common practice in those days when rabbits were abundant and food was not.

One day, finding that the family was completely out of.22 ammunition, he asked his mother for money to go buy a box of ammo over at the crossroads store, two miles away. His mother got 35 cents out of the egg-money jar, gave it to him, and said: "Get yourself a five cent big orange and your .22 shells, but it is getting to be late afternoon and I don't like the looks of the light or those big clouds boiling up. Speed along, and hurry back."

So my friend hurried to the store at a brisk walk, arrived, got the ammo and his big orange drink, but got to looking at stuff in the store, and watching some old timers playing checkers. He was startled by a sudden big clap of thunder. He ran out of the store, saw clouds all around---it was raining and getting dark. He took off at a trot toward home, down that sunken country road that had been blown out by years of wind.

He had gone perhaps a mile when the rain increased and the wind started blowing a gale, pushing him along; it was fierce! And he looked back for some reason...and nearly died from  fright. A BIG MONSTER WAS FOLLOWING HIM...AND GAINING RAPIDLY. Now, can you imagine how fast a truly scared eleven year old can run?!! He took that box of ammo in his right hand,and blew down that road like an anchor man in a 440 Relay. He looked back once again, and the monster was still gaining...seemingly filling the whole road!

On reaching his house and the drive-way---a red hard clay area---he wheeled into it and ran for the house, sitting back there 40 yards away. As he neared the house, he began yelling: "Mom, help! Mom, help!" Reaching the front door, he turned around to face the Monster! When he looked, there WAS no monster, but just then he saw THE BIGGEST, BLACKEST TUMBLEWEED HE HAD EVER SEEN go rolling by his driveway  and right on down that road, "doing sixty!"

That was an IMAGINARY MONSTER but NO IMAGINARY FEAR!

Tumbleweeds...they ARE interesting!

Well, I've enjoyed talking with you today. Think I'll just rest a bit, and maybe sing a little.

"Cares of the past are behind,
Nowhere to go but I'll find
Just where the trail will wind,
Drifting along with the tumble-ing
Tumble Weeds!"

Sons of the Pioneers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6shVq0ngxNU&feature=youtube_gdata_player

-------30-------
By MIl
6/6/12

CLOVIS: "THE MAGIC STEAM LAUNDRY" ---1938

 .............................................
CLOVIS REMEMBERED!

------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I knew that laundry like the back of my hand, the bottom of my feet,
 and the smell in my nose..."
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My dad, back in the hard depression years of the 1930's, was running a big nice modern laundry for a woman-owner down in Dawson County, Texas. Dad was  making who-knows how much money? Maybe two or three dollars a day.

Somehow he heard of a laundry for sale in Clovis, N.M., one where he could make a decent living; goodness knows he was already "working his fingers to the bone," as the saying of the day went. I remember nothing much about how he acquired the Clovis laundry, but the good news was that included in the deal was a little house, right behind the laundry, and connected to it by a walkway. Thus we lived right at the job!

May  I digress slightly here, my readers, to remind you younger ones of something: washers and dryers were almost unheard of in the average home, until after WWII. A good many of the common folks used what were called "Helpy-Selfies," do-it-yourself laundries where you washed your own clothes in a Maytag, which had a rotating wringer system and three tubs. You then took your clothes  home and told the kids to hang them on the clothesline.

There  were commercial steam laundries in those days, for those people who worked, and had no time for washing clothes, and also for hotels, motels, hospitals, barber shops, cafes, et. al.

So now, back to the Magic Steam! I knew that laundry "like the back of my hand, the bottom of my feet, and the smell in my nose!" You see, at my tender age, it was the only world I had or knew---it and the eight blocks to La Casita School and back, which was a year or two in the future.

Saying "the bottom of my feet" is no idle talk because when we arrived in Clovis to take over the laundry in the late spring of 1938, my dad took me around and warned me: "Those pipes running along the floor, by the double doors to the alley, they are steam pipes and very hot. DON'T STEP ON THEM BAREFOOTED!"

Dear reader, you will need to sit down for this one!  A few days later, it being early "barefoot season," and barefooted being the custom of the day--- as my mother would say, I "PARADED" out into the laundry, without shoes.... for exploration and familiarization purposes. There were those two steam pipes, lying there as if eye-balling me. I don't know what came over me--maybe I was a Reaganite before it was cool---but something in me said: "Trust but verify." That's what I did--- I verified---with my two bare feet. I stepped right squarely on those pipes!  (Dad  was right!) OOOOH!!! My feet were ruined.

I was disabled for several days in our little house right behind the laundry. I needed a right smart of attention. My mother, the shirt-finisher over in the laundry, had to come over to my bed every hour or so, and check on me. Early on, she brought a pan of warm water for me to soak my blistered feet. Warm water?! My feet were already warm--"Mom, get some ICE WATER!", I said. "No," she said, "Warm water is what they say you should use." (I never did find out who "they" were in those days, but "they" were wrong about half the time, it seemed.) "They" were wrong then, because in later years, ICE became the prescribed remedy! I was right! I knew I needed ice!

Going back in my story a little bit: On arrival in Clovis that warm late spring night in 1938, pulling an overloaded cotton trailer containing all our worldly goods, a storm was brewing. Afraid of all our stuff getting wet, Dad was able to find a big building down there around Second and Mitchell, and they allowed us to back our trailer in there. We kept enough bedding and supplies to spend the night down  at the laundry. No utilities were hooked up at the house behind the laundry yet.

The laundry building was at 313 West Grand. It sat in the middle of the block, on the west side of the alley, facing north. It was a big square flat-top building, stuccoed white, and the stucco was so slick that it was some early-type stucco, smooth and all, or it had been painted white over and over. It looked a little bit like divinity candy and many's the time I ran my hand over it---yes, you guessed it, the back of my hand. Those little stucco bumps were fascinating. A faded Coca-Cola sign was painted on the alley side of the building, easily visible from the street. The size of the laundry was, I suppose, about 50 X120 feet. It is important for the reader, in order to picture the big white building correctly, to realize that though it contained only one floor, it was two stories tall. The extra height was needed to disburse the heat.

My first bath  in Clovis came that first rainy night. It was in the back of the laundry in the  biggest washing machine. Dad filled it half full of water, opened one big door--the left one---and tossed us boys in there, leaving the brass hinges and latch open.

Then Mom hooked up an old hot plate to a  gas jet between the extractor and the first washing machine, and cooked us a "mess" of bacon, fried potatoes, and onions, our first meal in Clovis. There was a Heap O' Livin' comin' up in those days, for us. I grew to LOVE the sounds of the railroad---we were only three blocks or so north of it, in our old house behind the laundry. To this day I can still hear the clang, bang, steam-releasing spew,  puff-puff sounds of the railroad tracks---great sounds!!  Good sleepin' noises!

 Dad got the laundry running smoothly that summer of 1938. The heat could be tough, however. In those days there was little air conditioning in any residences or buildings.

All we had at the laundry was a big fan over the door. On a hot day outside, combined with a hot day inside, it could get WARM! In the wintertime of course, it was very cozy.

The memory of "sand storms" comes back to me. We'd sit there on an afternoon, when all the help had gone home, and watch the sky literally.turn red with sand as the wind began blowing a gale from the west. We'd  watch it out the laundry windows...blowing down Grand Avenue toward town. There'd be sand everywhere, in the air, in everything, and no customers---nobody would brave the weather!

One thing I must mention: when we think or talk of great, memorable smells, we are usually referring to food. One wonderful, unforgettable smell is that of a laundry at about 4 p.m. All the machines are shut down, the steam is turned off, and things get still and quiet. But the SMELL is awesome! It is the smell of starched, ironed and pressed clean clothes, clean sheets...hundreds of pieces of laundry---the  smell still lingering...at the end of the day. I'll never forget it!

The old building may not have been the most impressive laundry building around, but I dare say in all seriousness and sincerity that nowhere in the history of the world has there ever been any cleaner, better laundered clothes than Dad produced. The mens' dress shirts (at 15 cents) were absolutely superb. Finished and folded to perfection, with a nice blue band around them, they were fabulous. They were folded around a cardboard--try it sometime-- on a couple of hundred shirts! Shirts on hangers? Who ever heard of that in 1938? 

Yes, I knew the Magic Steam Laundry  "like the  back of my hand, the bottom of my feet, and the smell in my nose." The old phone number was "397." You had to speak it to the operator. It is  fitting that old Clovis be remembered, and after all, this is a piece of Americana too.

WWII was ahead, and more about the laundry. Mil worked there, Stay tuned for more!

---------30---------
BY MIL
5/23/12