Following Threads

You never know where things will lead you when you started checking out your family background.  I have had a great time finding out which rumors were true and which ones were probably apocryphal.  Some things hit a dead-end and I’ve had to drop the hunt for now. 

Harald got the "bluetooth" name because he ate so many blueberries.

Who knew that my ancestors had Bluetooth before it became popular?  The Coleman family made it to England/Wales by way of the North Sea.  Our 28 times great-grandfather was Harald the Bluetooth of Norway who was responsible for the Norse conversion to Christianity after the Pope’s army wrestled him to a submission hold and asked him “who’s your daddy?”  Actually, Harald’s daddy was really Gorm the Old; Harald deposed him.  Karma stunk for Harald since his son Uncle Sweyn the Forkbeard deposed him 30 years later. 

Harald's press photo

Interesting note is that Ericsson named the current, popular Bluetooth for old Harald.

Another thing I’ve learned as I mull around genealogy is that there are some really intense people who take their heritage seriously. Really, really seriously.  I didn’t realize how much research it takes to become a bona fide Daughter of the American Revolution until I saw how many begets folks search down in order to become one.

The research has uncovered that my sisters and I are DAR qualifiers and could belong to Colonial Families of America, Daughters of the Texas Revolution and Daughters of the Confederacy.  I’m assuming that the DC’s were a women’s group that met while washing the white sheets their husbands wore to their Sons of the Confederacy meetings. 

What's left of our great times 11 grandpa Anselm's castle

I have piggybacked on other relatives’ research and tracked family members back to the Wales, England, Ireland, and France.  A funny thing that I noticed about genealogists:  they go nuts when they find castles in their heritage.  Even rock rubble castles that used to exist excite them.  I thought that was funny until I found that some of our relatives lived in a castle or what was a castle before they fell out of favor with the local monarchy.   I totally understand the ‘could have beens.’

Church of the Ascension, Montell, TX

When I was texting my niece Alizon, who shares my genealogy mania, we agreed that it’s fun to see how far back our ancestry goes, but it is rewarding to follow a thread and make a discovery.  Most of my grandparents’ relatives track back for generations; the exception are the parents of my granny, Georgie Elizabeth.  I never knew her since she died while our dad was a young man.  Since Daddy started the parenthood job in his mid-40’s, I never knew him as a young man.  Georgie Elizabeth’s (the grandmother’s) parents are a mystery.  They just showed up in Uvalde County on the 1880 census; prior to that, they lived in New York. 

I got an email Tuesday night from a British woman who was given the hand-written journal of an Englishman, William Shirley Day.  William stayed with my great grandparents in 1881 while he was making a trek across Texas.  She contacted me in hopes of confirming some of the information in the journal.

Here’s to the hope that we’ll be able to pick up a thread and follow it through to more information!  Making the genealogy hunting trip is way more fun than the destination.

Mackerel snapping

I am a cradle Catholic and never heard of mackerel snappers while I was growing up.  It wasn’t til I started working construction and came back late from lunch because I’d gone to an Ash Wednesday service that I heard that term for the first time.  It isn’t new.  I thought it was because I hadn’t heard it before and in my 20-year-old arrogance assumed that it couldn’t exist without my knowledge.  The term dates back at least to the 1940’s when Robert Mitchum referred to some of his fellow Marines as mackerel snappers while talking to a Catholic nun in  Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison. 

I also wasn’t aware that the kingfish we caught off-shore when John was fishing with Roy were also known as king mackerel.  I knew that it wasn’t my preferred catch of the day. 

King mackerel spawn in the Gulf of Mexico during the summer months and anglers like catching them because they are fighting fish.  I don’t know much about the fishing part, but they are pretty when they come out of the water. 

Since Bob’s son, Bobby, has been doing some fishing in the Gulf, we’ve gotten to share in the bounty and that means we’ve got quite a few packs of king mackerel steaks in the freezer and I’m on the hunt for a way to cook them.

There are two types of kingfish.  Ours, that come from the Gulf of Mexico, and another type that lives in the Atlantic Ocean near North Carolina.  When I googled “kingfish recipes,” I got more websites from the east coast than from the Gulf.  What was offered wasn’t spectacular and didn’t give us any new ideas on how to cook the darn fish.

The problem with the king mackerel meat, just so you don’t think I’m an ungrateful twit, is that it is dense and red and has a strong, bloody flavor.  This is in my humble opinion.  I’ve learned from this past year that strong flavored game generally isn’t cleaned, prepared or cooked well so I know that if there’s a way to cook it right, it will taste great.  Or at least not that bad.

We ended up getting a hint that seems to work great at hauling the gamey taste out of the kingfish.  Bob steaked the fish into 1-1/2″ slabs, leaving the skin on.  I rubbed the fish with a lime juice, olive oil, and garlic pepper mix and let it sit in its marinade bath while the coals got hot. 

The helpful hint was to cut sweet yellow onions into thick slices and put them under and on top of the kingfish steaks.  Bob carefully placed them on the grill to cook for 20-25 minutes.  Our steaks were thick enough that Bob turned them after about 15 minutes and took them off when the meat was flaky. 

We also made a pesto sauce to accompany the grilled steaks.  (2 packed cups of basil leaves, 3 cloves of garlic, 5-6 tbs of pine nuts, 1/2 c. olive oil, 1/2 c. of grated romano cheese; swirl the leaves, garlic and nuts for a minute or so in a food processor before adding oil and cheese.  Pepper to taste.)

The steaks were good that night and not so strong flavored that you needed the pesto sauce.  I made it just in case.  The fish was also as good as kingfish salad on a sandwich the next day.

What I learned from the game of football

Photoshop in the 1940's--our dad with his Mustang team

Football taught me about life. 

That’s usually something said by an aging athlete or a high school senior at the end of year sports banquet.  Rarely is it implied by a fluffy greying grandmother whose football playing time was limited to a couple of games of touch football in the park. 

I was raised going to every football game on every Friday night from the time I was in diapers.  And since my mother was of the opinion that babes should be potty trained by 1-year-old, I wasn’t running the stands at my first f’ball game.  After I left home, I tried hard not to compress my rump against the splintery boards in the stands and vowed to find something, anything else to do rather go to a football game.

Our dad was a football coach who met our mom when she worked as the secretary for San Antonio ISD athletic director in the late 30’s.  I don’t think Mother was much of a football fan, but she had been exposed to the sport in her 6 years of working for the school district.  When they moved to the Valley of Texas after the war and started a family, football continued to be part of our lives. 

Five seats in a row, 12 rows up, on the 50 yard line.  Rain or shine, blue norther or Texas fall heat wave, out-of-town or in town:  Dorothy Marie and her three little girls sat there.  Daddy joined us to watch the half time show.  Otherwise, he was policing the sidelines, breaking up fights, and encouraging our players and coaches.

I grew to hate football.  We girls wore dresses to the games because Mother thought that was proper; that’s territory where Daddy wouldn’t have trod even lightly.  It was boring.  Conversation around us dealt with adult topics. 

Our friends ran loose at the games, chasing one another under the stands and darting around the sidelines.  Mother refused to let us join.  “And act like a bunch of wild Indians?  You can sit here like young ladies.” 

My older sister Georgie did her aloof thing and joined pep squad as soon as she was eligible.  Mary Ann and I giggled, squirmed, and poked at one another until Mother turned the cold green eyes of doom on us and we got shushed. 

I didn’t become a football attendee as an adult.  I’ve gone to maybe 5 football games in all the years since I graduated high school.  My kids are football illiterates.  When GE started teaching, I went to one of her school’s games.  She was surprised that I knew hand signals and plays.  “How come I don’t know these things?” she asked.  (“Because I went to enough games as a kid for my whole lifetime before I was 18,” I thought.)

Because of the blog writing and the genealogy research, I got a trial subscription to newspaperarchive.com.  I was surprised to find many articles about Coach Dave and Dorothy Marie, separately and together.  I’ve spent the past few days re-acquainting myself with their history and getting to know two dear, amazing people. 

I have discovered that many of the gifts of ethics and good behavior I have today, I learned as a result of football.

1.  You don’t have to tell people how good you are.  Show them.   I don’t think that was a trait that our dad had naturally.  I’m not sure how he learned it.  There was an article from The Kerrville Tivy Tattler in the early 30’s when he was playing minor league baseball.  He hit a double in the 11th inning to win the game and commented, “I was getting hungry and it was way past my supper time.  I had to get us home to eat.” 

In later years, when he became a head coach at Tivy H.S., he was more modest.  As an untested “boss of the gridiron,” he had a team of novices to the game.  Most of the players had run track for him in junior high and he knew they had speed but were inexperienced ball players.  In pre-season interviews, he was careful to just say the “boys are working hard.”  When they won district, beating bigger San Antonio teams, he said, “I knew what they could do.  Saying it didn’t make it so.  They had to prove it to themselves.”

2.  Be a gracious winner.  The Jefferson Mustangs won a game against Harlandale Indians 31-0. A reporter kept trying to get our dad to say that Harlandale wasn’t a good team, but his only response was, “Those boys have a lot of heart.  They played hard.  We just had a good night.”  

In a feature article a few months later, it turned out that Daddy had put in his 4th string and had given everybody some playing time.  His advice to his team:  “Don’t run up the score on those Indians.  They’ll go on the warpath against you and you’ll get massacred next year!” 

Not PC but funny anyway.  He’d have been chagrined to see the C.C. Carroll score this week; they lost 71-0 to a Rio Grande valley team.

3.  Have a sense of humor.  In an interview with our dad just before he left for duty in WWII,  he told about funny things that had happened in his coaching career.  At one point, his Mustangs were 2 points behind, 2 minutes to go, and 30 yards out on the 4th down.  Punting time. 

His punter saw an opening, grabbed the ball and ran in for a touchdown.  Game won.  Daddy took the young ball-toter aside and asked him what he would have done if the play hadn’t worked.  The young man answered, “Coach, I’d have grabbed my helmet and run fast so you couldn’t run me out of the stadium!”  The interviewer describes our dad as laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes. 

Our dad's the one in a tie on the left

4.  Sometimes you have to give up something you love for someone you love.  The last football game I went to with Daddy was Uvalde Coyotes vs. Kerrville Tivy Antlers in the fall of 1983.  It was close to the end for him; the signs of Alzheimer’s were becoming pronounced enough for us to doubt Mother’s ability to care for him 30 miles out in the country.

He was excited about the game.  Tivy was his first teaching post. No longer did the Antlers have Scrappy the buck who was mascot during my dad’s years, but we looked for him anyway.  We sat on the Coyotes side and watched Kerrville demolish Uvalde.  “Our boys still have that Tivy spirit, Mawgie,” he said with a brightness in his blue eyes.

I had no idea how much our dad loved coaching until I read his press clippings.  Different reporters describe him as having a twinkle in his eyes when he described a game, chuckling hard when he told about his own or one of his boys’ foibles, enthusiastically talking about next year’s team or last year’s team. 

The time came when age and family caused him to stop coaching and start working in the administration office.  He did it.  Did he regret it?  I can’t believe he didn’t. 

When Daddy got the job at S.A. Jefferson, a feature reporter called him an “outstanding mentor in a profession that requires you to be first-class teachers, exceptional psychologists, strategists, humanitarians, leaders, physical training wizards and just about everything else that suggests when a fellow comes in contact with a spirited batch of healthy boys.”

I’d have to add he did a pretty fair job of mentoring a spirited batch of three healthy girls, too.

Filling the cracks

When I attended volunteer training at the Women’s Shelter in Corpus Christi, I intended to help out answering phones so the caseworkers would be free to work with clients in the evenings.  I envisioned playing with or reading to the dozen or so kids in the living quarters so their moms could attend parenting class.  Those are things that I do well.

There were two jobs that I didn’t think I’d like to do or be good at doing.  One was accompanying clients to court and the other was accompanying clients through the emergency room after a sexual assault.  The first required day time volunteer hours which I can’t do; the second required a level of detachment which I don’t have. 

I don’t understand or appreciate the level of aloof compassion that’s required if you are a nurse or social worker.  It seems to translate into a cool and uncaring attitude; in reality, it’s probably what enables them to function in traumatic, emotionally charged situations.  Whatever it is, I don’t have that ability.

When the call for volunteers came out for sexual assault ER volunteers, I answered it.  What I do have is an inability to say no.  It’s gotten me into more trouble than I can say.  But not always.

Sexual violence is considered the most under- reported violent crime (American Medical Association, 1995). The initiation and process of a sexual assault investigation depends much on the victim's willingness to report. (TAASA website)

In Corpus Christi, all adult sexual assaults go to Doctor’s Regional Hospital; assaults on victims under 18 go to Driscoll.  Both hospitals share a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE), a registered nurse who has advanced education and clinical preparation in forensic examination of sexual assault victims.  A sexual assault advocate is on call for a 6 to 12 hour shift and goes to Doctor’s Regional when told that a survivor has come in to the hospital.  Our job is to help the victim and do whatever we can to ease the trauma of the situation.

In our 20 hours of training, we learned the legal process that assaults follow and saw movies about what exactly the SANE does.  We role-played being the assault survivor and the volunteer.  There were 10 of us in my training 4 years ago; 7 were interns working on their masters in counselling or criminal justice, one was an ad exec who like me probably couldn’t say no, and one was an elderly Franciscan nun.  The one piece of advice the trainer gave us was that each assault is different and to “expect the unexpected.”

Over the past few years, I’ve come to value that last piece of advice.   Survivors of sexual assault come in all types. Sexual violence occurs across the life span.  Young children are victims of sexual assault as are the elderly. According to the TAASA (Texas Association Against Sexual Assault) website,  the average age of victims over the age of 60 was 78.8 years.   Although women are most often the victims (93%), assaults on men are more common than these statistics show since they are less likely to be reported.

Walking in to the ER after a call out, I never know what I will find.  My shift used to be 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays, but I’ve changed the day to Saturdays since Bob’s nearly always working on Saturday and usually off on Sundays.  Both days are usually busy, but this is something else I can’t anticipate.  I keep my phone with me all the time but there are Saturdays when the hospital doesn’t call.

I like doing this volunteer job.  I do it because they need me and because I’m good at it.  That’s a surprise to me; it isn’t because I am a kind individual or because I’ve learned the gift of detachment.  It’s because, in my job as a construction project manager, I’ve learned that you sometimes just have to fill in the cracks.  That ability helps me when I go to the hospital after a sexual assault call out.  Is it your job?  Nope, but somebody has to do it. 

In the past four years, I’ve learned how to be helpful.

• I’ve learned that when a daughter comes in to the ER after an assault, her mom is usually in the waiting room, often with the daughter’s small children and a husband who looks like he wants to explode.  As the SA volunteer, I can choose to stay with the survivor and leave the family in the waiting room to wait.  I’ve found that Mom needs to be with her daughter.   If I can earn the trust of her little ones, which I usually can, I can watch them and Mom can do what moms do best and stay in the ER cubicle with her child.
• I know where to find the hot blankets.  ER’s are freezing cold and a heated blanket is welcome to a survivor who is lying on a cold ER bed.
• I know how to listen quietly without giving advice.  That’s hard for me because I’m always sure I know what you are supposed to do even if I haven’t made exactly stellar success in my life.  AA has taught me that if you don’t know it from your own experience to keep your mouth shut.  That’s good advice as an SA advocate.
• I’ve learned a Happy Meal makes the wait shorter for small children waiting for mom and g’mom. 
• I know how to change the channel in the waiting room with ninja stealth so the reception lady doesn’t see me.
• I can adjust ER beds without causing spine damage. 
• I know where they put the tissues, trash bags, and throw up bowls in the ER cubicles.
• I know where the ER hides sandwich meals, juice, jello, and eating utensils for patients waiting in emergency.  Survivors can’t eat until the SANE is finished with her exam, but there’s often a wait afterwards for antibiotics and paperwork.  By noon, a victim who’s been bounced from police to hospital for the past 8 to 10 hours is hungry and thirsty.  The staff very kindly turns a blind eye while I’m rummaging.
• I know the secret combination for the ambulance entrance.
• I know it’s difficult to find a safe and quiet place for a homeless victim to spend the night after they’ve been assaulted.  I’ve bullied the Women’s Shelter into taking homeless women survivors for the night so they didn’t have to sleep on a cot with 30 other people.  For men who are victims-homeless or not, it’s more difficult.  Good Sam Rescue Mission will work with you but at a price.  I’ve been blessed that I’ve been able to pay that price since no agency has spare cash lying around.
• The hospital locker assigned to SA survivors doesn’t usually have clothes for women who are over size 18 and virtually nothing for men.  After an assault, survivors have to give up their clothing.  All their clothing.   I’ve found that Family Dollar has size 13 panties, cheap slippers, and XXL scrubs.
• I can bully the City Impound yard into giving a SA survivor their car back without having to pay towing or impound.  It happens sometimes that a victim’s car was left in a tow-away zone.  Having to pay $100+ to get your vehicle  back is a breaking point for most people but after the night that a victim’s endured?  It’s just too much. 

Welcoming Prayer (by Thomas Keating) Welcome, welcome, welcome. I welcome everything that comes to me today because I know it's for my healing. I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations, and conditions. I let go of my desire for power and control. I let go of my desire for affection, esteem, approval and pleasure. I let go of my desire for survival and security. I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition, person or myself. I open to the love and presence of God and God's action within. Amen.

I can’t always help.  In fact, usually I’m just the nice lady who makes sure they have the Women’s Shelter’s phone number and the SA counsellor’s name.  I’ve had times when it was obvious I wasn’t wanted or needed.  It’s a horrible time in anyone’s life and the presence of a total stranger isn’t appreciated.

My childish self will huff and mentally threaten to quit.  The bottom line?  I’m there for the victim.  Not for my ego.  Not for the hospital.  Not for the Women’s Shelter.  If I can help, great.  If not, I’m there anyway.  Maybe I’ll see a crack to fill.

Newfangled things

State of the art computing in 1978

I took a computer class at Del Mar Community College which was its official name back in the 70’s.  Bear in mind that keypunch cards were still used to input programs and data.  If you have no idea what that is, consider yourself lucky.  The evolution of computers has been a source of amazement to me. 

At some point in the class, the prof said that the day would come when checks would be obsolete and people would use plastic cards to pay for things.  Not credit cards.  The cards would instantly transfer cash directly out of your bank and into the store’s.

He also predicted that one day there would be an “Answer Machine,” a tool for answering homework problems. By using a typewriter keyboard, you could ask the machine a question and the answer would appear on the wall.  This machine could also play movies and music.

Does any of that sound familiar?

I heard his forecasts with trepidation and thought that if this could happen, could Asimov’s and Heinlein’s fiction become a reality? Things that seemed foreign and much too futuristic in the 70’s have become daily and indispensable tools in 2011. 

I wonder if cave dwellers were as awed by the wheel as I was the first time I sent a fax or scanned a document and then saw it on my computer screen.  Our grandmother was raised in the late 1800’s and often rode the wagon with her dad from Loire (Texas) into the San Antonio market to replenish the shelves of their little grocery store.  It was in San Antonio that she sat on a flush toilet for the first time.  Having no idea that it might be different from the outhouse toilet, she was “startled to near death” when her dad pulled the chain that caused the roar that made the wastewater go down the drain.

Over her nearly 90 years, our grandmother got to see lots of innovations, accepted many, and rejected a few.  She was a big fan of color television and gas-powered lawn mowers.  She was quite willing to pass on the air conditioner.  That was one that baffled us and caused plenty of sweaty nights at Grandma’s house.

I embrace most new technology.  I don’t understand it.  I’m still trying to understand how Bluetooth, Blu-Ray, and WI-FI work.  Maybe I don’t need to understand.  Just enjoy them. I was adverse to the Keurig which isn’t new technology but it is a newfangled thing.  I love it now.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C Clarke

I made noise about loving the smell of paper and not really understanding why anyone would want an electronic book.  Nina and Claire get so excited about books they’ve downloaded onto their electronic readers that I’m getting interested.  I’m a little jealous of the people in my AA meeting who bring their Nooks and I-Pads to Big Book study.  I’m pricing a Nook out now.

I have nights when I avoid anything that requires an electric cord (except lamps).  But for the most part, electronics are so twined into my life that we are Siamese cousins.  It’s less scary to imagine what the future might be like when I’m living the future I feared.  And loving it-mostly!

Black and White

There are times when I want to be a black and white kind of person.  I live in the land of grey about most things.  I was probably 7 or 8 when I first heard and understood the Doubting Thomas story.  I had a sense of aggravation with Jesus for picking on poor Thomas.  (“Put your hand in the wound on my side, Thomas.”  Yewww!) 

Of course he had doubts.  Who wouldn’t?  Evidently not Jesus.  At least that’s what I thought then and sometimes now.   

I don’t go to traditional Bible study classes anymore.  In my search for God, I’ve been to quite a few in various shades of fundamentalism.  I ended up sitting quietly, nodding when other women shared, and wondering what it would feel like to really believe that every word in the Bible is true starting with Genesis.   I have no doubt that God created this world, but did it really start with Adam and Eve?   

I don’t really care if someone else believes it does.  I am uncomfortable if they insist that I agree with them.  Then, the sliver of black and white comes out of me. 

“So, when Jesus says, ‘Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me?’  Who do you think are the least of Jesus’ brothers?”  The poor, children, widows.  “How about Muslims?  What about pedophiles?  A child molester is the least of MY brothers, in my opinion.  Does that mean that if I do something terrible to them, I’m doing it to Jesus?  That’s what it says, doesn’t it?” 

And that’s what it means, too.  Charity towards all.  The Big Book of AA says “Love and tolerance is our code.”  There’s no “if” or “but” included in that statement.

Even to Right Wing Republican Fox Network watching conservatives.  (And for the sober Republican Fox Network watching conservatives, it means Bleeding Heart Democratic Rachel Maddow watching liberals.)

I’m not proud of my black and white side.  It might be small sliver of the whole me but it can be just as bigoted as any right-wing conservative who uses the Bible to justify segregation.  Although I’ve gotten better at the always/never thinking the longer I stay sober, I can still insist on my way without any grey area.

Here are some of the areas where I don’t have any middle ground.

1.  That I love of my children and grandchildren without reserve.  That probably puts me with 98% of the rest of the mothers of this world, but it is the most important black/white area for me. Does that mean I think they are always right?  I usually do until proven unequivocally wrong, but I try to keep a little light in the door of open-mindedness.  And the definition of children and grandchildren doesn’t mean just those who share my blood.  The first time I heard Nina introduce me as her grandmother (not step), I got tears in my eyes.  I still get a little shiver of joy when Savanna calls me “Gaga.”  It’s a treasured name since she gave it to me.

2.  That God loves me even at my worst.  When I was an active drunk, I was sure that God would love me better if I were sober.  Now that I’m sober and God and I are an item, I think I might love me better since I’m sober, but God loves me drunk or sober.  God just loves me.  I hear people say that they don’t want to meet God drunk.  I don’t either but not because I think God will be mad.  People get mad; I’m pretty sure that God just loves.  Do I understand that?  Nope.  My humanity wants revenge and retribution.  My higher power wants me to act like I’m a child of God since acting like I’m a child of God generally brings good results and leaves me happy.

(God) maketh his sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust. (from the other Big Book, aka Matthew 5:45)

3.  That Karma doesn’t always work the way I want it to work.  As mentioned in Item 2, I do want revenge and retribution.  I want Karma in my time so I can see it.  I want to believe that God’s meting out justice, raining hot coals on the heads of my enemies.  That’s something I have to take on faith.  I don’t usually get to see it.  Is that fair?  I’m probably lucky that I don’t always get to see fair in my life.  I’m a big one for justice unless it comes to me; then, I’m praying for the bullet proof vest.  Much rather have mercy than justice.  If that means everyone gets to share in God’s mercy and sometimes slide on the justice end, then so be it.

Boll Weevil

Boll Weevil-up close. They are only 1/4" long at most but they look evil (weevil)

That really does have something to do with this blog. but beyond all else, I just like that name.  Not so much I’d name a son Boll Weevil although that wouldn’t be the weirdest name I’ve ever heard. 

Boll weevils aren’t native to Texas; it’s believed that they came up from Central America through Mexico in the late 19th century.  Since then, they’ve played havoc with the cotton crops of the south. 

The National Cotton Council estimates that the boll weevil has cost U.S. cotton producers more than $13 billion since entering from Mexico a century ago (National Cotton Council, 1994).  There’s a Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation which studies the insects and devises schemes to eliminate them. 

The boll weevil trap has three parts: a body, a molded screen cone and a collection chamber. The yellow-green trap body mimics the plants the boll weevil lives in and feeds on.

Lime green weevil traps are used in conjunction with spraying.  I have a friend who places these traps during weevil season.  They caught about half a million weevils in my part of the state using these traps.

An artificial pheromone similar to the pheromone that male weevils release is contained in the collection chamber of the trap to attract girl weevils along with an insecticide strip that kills them.  My friend checks the traps every couple of weeks and counts the dead bodies.  That way the Foundation can determine the effectiveness of the program.

Since I started doing genealogy research, I discovered that my family has counted on cotton crops as much as old boll weevil and for a much longer time period.  That’s mostly my mom’s side of the family since my dad’s side were goat ranchers and sheep herders.  In fact, my grandparent’s generation is the first one that took flight from the farms. 

Entire families worked the fields in the backbreaking task of picking cotton before mechanized equipment simplified the task. In this early photo at the Pavliska farm near Granger, children pick and fill bags along with adults. Photo courtesy Nancie Pavliska Roddy and the Institute of Texan Cultures, University of Texas at San Antonio.

Cotton used to be picked by hand.  Considering  how miserably hot it has been this summer, I can’t imagine what it would have been like to pick the cotton.  Mother and her siblings did not do much picking except as a way to be out of their parents’ hair when they were in the country.  My grandparents weren’t that lucky.  After all, Grandma was one of 17 kids so I’m pretty sure picking cotton was in her adolescent job description. 

Fred Roberts, the president of the South Texas Cotton Growers Association, said in 1920:  We pick cotton like we did a hundred years ago and we chop cotton like we did a hundred years ago, with the exception that we put it into a sack now where we used to put it in a basket.

What a hard life!  I imagine she jumped at the chance to go to teacher college and spend 11 months a year as a travelling school marm.

I have a friend who calls the cotton in these fields "south Texas snow"

I spent the drive to Skidmore thinking about that life as I looked at the acres and acres of fields post-harvest.  Skidmore is a tiny town between Sinton and Beeville which means nothing to you if you don’t live in South Texas.  There was a waterline job bidding there today so I drove the bid over. 

A cotton bale weighs 500 lbs and can make 215 pairs of jeans, 249 bed sheets, 690 bath towels, 1,217 men’s t-shirts, or 313,600 dollar bills.  That’s from a blurb we saw in Luling last week. 

Burlap wrapped bale from the early 1920's with a 40+ year old cotton plant next to it. Notice the plant size.

In a good year, the yield is about 2 bales of cotton per acre.  Texas is the leading cotton-producing state with a 3 year average of 6.2 billion bales of cotton.  Since a bale of cotton can make 2,419 men’s undershorts, that’s a whole bunch of Fruit of the Loom.

The cotton plant itself has changed over the years.  50 years ago it was considerably taller than the smaller, compact, higher yielding plants of today.  I know that because I stopped by the Blackland Museum in Taft to see what information they might have about cotton farming in south Texas. 

The little museum warehouses a considerable amount of San Pat County history.  I even discovered genealogy information since the museum building once was the office for the Coleman-Fulton Cattle Company.  As the great great grand-daughter of the Coleman part, I’ve always wondered about our connection to that land venture.  A future trip to the museum is in my plans since the curator has volumes of paperwork and information about my Coleman ancestry.

Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain. -- Billie Holiday

The trip back to Portland was exciting because we finally got the rain that skies had been promising all day.  It seems like forever since I used my windshield wipers to swipe off rainfall!  It hasn’t been that long, but it has been more than 60 days.  Trees are losing their leaves because of heat exhaustion, not cold.  The week-end promises triple digits which hasn’t been happening on the coast.  Most of the state has been enduring 105+ temperatures for months. 

I see a lot of glass cutting and crafting in my week-end plans.  Way too hot for much else!

Hair me out

The blonde on the left is me. Darn curly hair!

It’s been about a month since I auditioned a hair stylist.   I had a good stylist; the price was right.  She is funny and quick at cutting my hair.  I looked like a $m,ill,ion when I walked out of her shop.  Thanks to her, I know how to use a flat-iron since she cut and styled my hair in a straight style.  Did I want a straight hair style? 

No, but I do look good in the style she gave me.  When I went to her the first time several years ago, I took 4-5 pics of hairstyles I thought might work.  After a brief glimpse at what I brought, she set the photos aside and cut my hair to my current style which does not look a thing like any of the pics I brought her.

No care hair (and a cute daughter and g-daughter)

I am ready for a hair style change and I didn’t see that happening with this nice lady.  I decided to change stylists.  It wasn’t a decision I made lightly.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am not a loyal client.  I will drop a hairdresser faster than you can say L’Oreal.  But this lady had cut my hair long enough that I felt like she was a friend.  Reluctantly, I cheated on her, booked a hair cut with someone else, and tried out a new hair stylist.  She passed the test which was to restore the existing hair cut to a condition resembling its appearance 2 months previous.  I have a pet peeve against hair dressers who ask how much to take off and who cut well past the “about an inch” that I request.  She didn’t go nuts and chop like a ninja.  Sorry.  Too many infomercials. 

I sound like I’m picky about my hair and that isn’t true.  I’m not good with hair. I do know how to use a blow-dryer; it’s just boring.  Five minutes into the operation, I turn the heat up to high, put the blower on top speed, set aside my hairbrush, and dry my hair.  In about 3 minutes, I look like Margaret the Blonde Zulu. 

My hair is straight because I was travelling with my stylist, GE

I want the hair cut that doesn’t exist.  I want one that takes 20 years and 20 pounds off.  I want a hair cut that doesn’t require any effort on my part or just a minimal effort.  I’d like one that looks just like I stepped out of the salon even if I’m the one doing the styling.  Did I mention that I don’t want to pay more than $25 for it, including the tip?

There’s a quote by Orlando Pita on the moneycentral.msn.com website. Pita is a celebrity hair stylist in NYC who can get away with charging $800 for a haircut and a blow dry:  “For me a good haircut is a cut that doesn’t look like you’ve had your hair cut.”  For 800 bucks, I better look like I got a hair cut!

Curly hair is a genetic trait. It must be a strong one since just about everybody in my family has it.

Of course, if the stylist cuts my hair and then blows my hair dry, the whole world knows I got a hair cut.  It looks unbelievably great and won’t look that good again until I either get another hair cut or ask my daughter to flat-iron my hair.

I am surprised that hair cuts can cost so much money.  The average cost for a non-Super Cut hair cut in my part of south Texas is $30.  The Cosmo blog says that haircuts in NYC can be 14-18 times that.  Really.  Really?

Back in 2004, Kelly Bensimon from The Real Housewives of New York City told the New York Times, “I know women who spend $400 on a pair of shoes they wear once,” Ms. Bensimon said. “Why not spend $600 on a haircut that lasts for six months and turns a nobody into a somebody?” 

Sometimes my boss, for whom English is not his starter language, will say, “I don’t know what you mean when you say that, Margaret.”  I thought the same thing about Ms. Bensimon’s comment.

The Spitway

Luling Watermelon Thump Festival includes a melon seed spit-off

I have always wanted to stop in Luling to look at the old mill on the San Marcos River but I’m usually in too much of a hurry to get home.  It’s right off SH 80 and I pass it whenever I come back from Manor on my way to take Savanna home in Corpus Christi. 

Travelling back with Bob, there was no rush to get back to the reality of work; stopping at the old Zedlar Mill extended our week-end away from home.   The mill was active for 80 years before it fell into disrepair in the 1970’s. 

Even the watertower looks like a watermelon

Luling is one of my favorite pass through towns anyway.  The first time we passed through it on the way to New Braunfels, I think, GE pointed out the water tower and the oil pump jacks.  The town prides itself on the local watermelon crop and has a yearly festival in late June. 

I always intend to go but intentions and actions never match.  I have a hard time making it to the Aransas Pass Shrimporee or the Fulton Oysterfest and they are within 20 miles of my front door.  The Guiness World Record for spitting was set at the 1989 Thump:  68′ 9 and 1/8″.  I tried spitting a watermelon seed and made it 7′ so I’m impressed.

My favorite pump jack in Luling.

The town is also known for its oilfield history.  Luling was established in 1874 and hit the big time when oil was discovered in 1922.  Driving through the town, you’ll notice an odor that the Luling Chamber of Commerce calls “the smell of money.”  I call it just smelly. The smell of gas hangs in the atmosphere on some days; on others, it’s barely noticeable.

 There are 200 working oil pump jacks in town.  That was one of the other things GE pointed out to us.  The City commissioned an artist to decorate some of the jacks.

One row cotton picker in front of Zedlar Mill Museum

We made it to the Zedlar Mill before we backtracked so I could show Bob the finer points of Luling.  The mill served as a wheat and corn mill, a lumber mill, a cotton gin, and provided the power to generate electricity for the City of Luling until 1924.  The city started a restoration at the site in 2007. 

Zedlar house just across from the mill and museum

I’d never appreciated how a mill works.  I have this tendency to just accept things at face value and not question HOW or WHY they work.  Bob, on the other hand, constantly asks what things are for and when they were built, why they work a certain way.  I didn’t realize how uninformed I am about landscape and architectural features between Portland and Manor until we drove up to GE’s house together.  I think I said “I don’t know” at least 10 times and was having to invent different ways to say it.  “That’s a good question, Bob” or “Oh!  I’ve always wondered about that, too” which is a lie. 

That curiosity is one more thing I like about Bob.

Water was diverted to provide power for the mill.

Bob showed me how the river was dammed (I spelled that damned before I realized the river really wasn’t DAMN-ed) and a diversion channel dug which used a portion of the river power to power the mill.  It’s a beautiful scene.

The damned dammed river...not really damned. I'm not that powerful.

I got caught up looking at the Texas Paddling Trail literature at the mill museum.  The Texas Parks and Wildlife is promoting canoe trips all over the state.  (The website, in case you are interested, is http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/boat/paddlingtrails.  Seriously, go to it.  There are a whole bunch of paddling trails in Texas.)

Zedlar Mill Paddling Trail

You can rent a canoe, get in the river off US 90, and paddle down the river until you get to the dam.  It’s a 6 mile paddle and the kids who had just finished it when we got there said it’s fun but the river’s low enough that they had to carry the canoe several places.  When the river’s running full, it’s a 2 hours trip; right now, it’s closer to 4 hours. 

The folks who rent canoes do a drop off and pick up deal for you.  I want to go but I’m pretty sure I’ll have to lift weights and do airplanes with my flab wings in order to be able to paddle that far.  I rely on Bob’s strength a whole bunch but I think a 6 mile paddle (for him) and a free ride (for me) might be asking too much.

Napoleon’s Hat in Corpus Christi

The Harbor Bridge runs between Nueces Bay and Corpus Christi Bay

I spent nearly 45 minutes this morning looking at Napoleon’s Hat which is also known as The Harbor Bridge.  Its funny shape earned it the nickname back in the 50’s. 

There was an accident on the bridge that shut down traffic so I ended up travelling the 5-6 miles from Portland to the bridge at 7′ per second.  That sounds faster than the 5 miles per hour that I averaged as the car and I crawled across Nueces Bay. 

Those of us living on my side of the bridge have been enduring construction on the bridge which started about this time last year and will be finished about this time next year.  It’s all an effort to finish repairs, sandblasting and repainting the structure at a cost of $23 million and change.  Part of the contractor’s work is to complete a contract that ended abruptly in 2004 when the previous contractor ran out of paint.  That sounds like a dog ate my homework excuse. 

Our bridge has been around since 1959; it took 4 years to build and cost $19.5 million.  The new bridge that’s being considered will cost between $850 million and $1 billion depending on which design is used and when construction starts.  Just the feasibility study costs $8 million.  They started it in 2007, ran out of money, applied for a stimulus grant in 2009, and are back at feasibling.  I think the reasoning for building a new bridge is that ships keep getting bigger and we (Corpus Christi) are losing out commerce to ports that can hand mega-ships.

Harbor Bridge, 1966

The various plans for a new bridge will swing out way over the bay or back over the ship channel.  I so seriously hope that our bridge stays in use; I don’t even want to imagine 8-10 years of lane closures. 

Oh!  I hope I get to see it built.  The sand in my hour-glass is bottom heavy so I might not have to worry about lane closings!  That puts things in perspective.

Wooden bridge from Corpus Christi to Portland, 1912

Life got easier when the bridge was built which made life easier for folks who drove over the previous bridge structures.  A wooden causeway connecting Portland and Corpus Christi was first constructed in the early 1900’s, but was repeatedly rebuilt and destroyed by several storms.  I can still see the ghost of the wooden causeway when we have a low tide. 

The wooden causeway after the 1919 hurricane.

The 1919 hurricane took out the wooden bridge which was rebuilt later.  Up to the 1930’s, steam boats were used to make the trip.  That sounds like a quieter and calmer way to travel at least once.  I’d have a miserable time if I had to do that every day. 

Nueces Bay has a long history.  It was formed after ice from the last ice age melted (about 9,000 years ago).   Sea level stabilized about 6,000 years ago so the depth of 6′ to 10′ at high tide has been consistent.  There was one deep pass which horses had to swim across called Hall’s Bayou; that’s the area that was dredged to make the ship channel.

"A Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas" by John Russell Bartlett, 1854. Bartlett's account states, "When these winds blow so violently, they drive the water from the Nueces Bay into the Gulf...Many of the bars are then nearly dry. At these times the people go to the bar with their wagons, and with a spear or fork pick up the finest fish, weighing from ten to a hundred pounds

A shell reef permitted foot traffic early native Americans to cross the bay during low tide when the water depth was only 18.”  Reef Road cut 50 miles off the trek from Nueces to San Patricio County when travellers had to go around the bay rather than directly across it.  The big drawback in crossing on the reef lay in the fact that the trail was crooked.  In the mid-1860’s, the Nueces County Commissioners Court ordered that posts be placed along the reef to mark the road and to warn ships of its existence. Pranksters were known to remove the posts from time to time, leaving travelers stranded in the bay when the tide came in. Horses that spooked and got off the reef easily became mired in the soft bottom and drowned.

I was just thinking that if I had to travel by horse or wagon or steam boat, I’d probably not work in Corpus Christi.  I hate waiting in traffic, but I’ll take our 82 feet wide, 5,817 feet long and 243 feet tall Harbor Bridge any way.  Even with the 45 minute wait this morning, it’s a heck of a lot better than a 2 hour horseback ride.  I like old Paint the Car a whole lot more than old Paint the Horse!