SOTU Country Interlude

Not so long ago, a man went down the road to bring peaches to a woman friend while another man crouched, hiding behind a bush. He had been warned that morning against taking matters further, but to no avail, the warning meant little to him.

His pistol exploded in the night and the rounds struck home.

"Don't shoot me no more! I'm done to die."

He did, but not before another man emerged on the porch.

"You shoot him one more time, I'll blow your head off."

And there it is, a short episode in the ongoing story of country life in Texas. Speaking of which, how'd you like the long delayed SOTU? I enjoyed America will never be a socialist country, but that's just me.

Sunny Hello,

LSP

Four Season's Greetings

Yes, the Four Seasons and I liked it a lot, perhaps because it's less expensive than its sisters in other parts of the world. At this local branch of the franchise, chicken Quesadillas only cost $8.00 as opposed to $18.00 and guess what, they're just as tasty.

Conversation was good too, ranging from dog training, night vision systems, hay bale house construction and off-grid living, to pistol shooting and theology. Everyone agreed that liberal clergypersons had no business spreading their vapid wizardry and that "city priests" had no business in the country.

A Typical City Priest

"But I'm a city priest," I announced proudly, and the former head of Dallas SWAT took a bite of his steak, "You're different." Well he had a point and ten years of living, riding, shooting, hunting and fishing in country Texas counts. I wouldn't swap it out for the metrosprawl, that's for sure. 

Saying that, I miss London, pubs, butchers, book shops, the French House in Soho and all kinds of things about England. That said, Texas has frontier spirit. Don't ever scorn it.

The Lights Are Going on all Over Texas

By the time I got back to the heart of this thriving rural metropolis, the lights were on in the square.

Season's Greetings,

LSP

Moving Day

"Can I ask you a favor?" said the man, standing on the porch in the brilliance of freshly restored metal chairs, gleaming like a Guards barracks ready for inspection. "Sure," I replied, quickly calculating cash flow, "What's the deal?"

The deal was this, to help my friend move from his bucolic rural retreat into the county seat grandeur of this thriving farming community. 

So, unlike the wicked priest in the parable of the Good Samaritan, I stepped up to the plate and off we went. "Just a bed, a refrigerator and a microwave, yessir," that's all it'd be. It wasn't, of course, but that was alright, we made the haul in two trips.

Move

During a lull in the firefight, I stepped off to inspect the treeline and stood still, listening. You know what it's like, first a kind of null then hearing sharpens, senses begin to live again and the countryside comes alive. Right at that point I heard a slight rustle through the brush and out padded a grey fox.

He didn't see me at first, just picked his way with a doggish grin along the game trail. The occasional shot echoed out in the distance and I wondered at the fox; gunfire didn't faze him. He stopped, as if on cue, while someone's rifle sounded off in search of deer.

A Typical Gray Fox

I looked at the fox and the fox looked at me with his comical face, his amazingly full tail gently brushing away. Then he trotted off in search of the next adventure and I finished off the move. 

Part of that meant bagging a weirdly large amount of lights that'd been strung around the small compound. I told the story of the fox and got a spirited reply, explaining the light show.

Cat!

"Yes! Seen grey fox and red fox, bobcat, coyote, all kinds. There's a black cougar, yes there is. These lights here see him off. Don't want that puppy, nossir! Bag that extension cord. Cost me 68 dollars. Not leavin' that behind for no black cougar."

We left, truck loaded down with half of a man's worldly possessions. Not much when you think of it, two short-bed, tailgate-down loads to account for a life. By worldly standards a failure but listen up.

Ford

"No luggage racks on the top of a hearse" and, in the Gospel, "It's harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle."

Comfort one another with these words.

LSP

Black Cavalry

There I was in the front office, some call it a porch, when a troop of cavalry trotted by. Black cavalry, a stirring sight.

There were a few outliers, some ambled along at a walk.

Others at something like an extended trot.

And others again at a bareback hand gallop.

I like everything about this and file it under "country life in Texas."

Ride on,

LSP

Roving

"It's like Ibiza but, you know, country," I said, dialing up Magic Train of Remove Kebab to maximum volume. It was an Albanian bar in rural Texas and Remove Kebab just seemed right. Everyone agreed. 

"Like this song a lot, 'bout a train with guns. So where you from?"
"From England. I'm a pastor."
"Good to meetcha!"

It turns out we pretty much knew each other thanks to mutual friends and acquaintances, it's a small town; I like that, so much better than living in the plastic-sided splendor of the Metrosprawl. Then, after a quick blast of the perennial classic, Don't Fear The Reaper, I headed for home.

The streets were empty, apart from the occasional cat, slinking across the road and one or two wild dogs. They're a menace and you have to wonder at the genius of the people who abandoned them.

Back at the compound, I reflected on the town and the wisdom of the Baptists and Methodists who helped pioneer it. They cared for people and now their churches are large.

There's a lesson in that.

God bless,

LSP

Fixed The Rig

After dropping the Cadet (potential) at school, I dropped off the rig at the Brazen Pineapple, known colloquially as Gene's Auto Body. Then I walked home, because I didn't have a vehicle and didn't care to ask for a "loaner."

It still seems odd after growing up in England to see dirt roads within city limits but I like that, it's Centex Country, right along with the grain bins, sorry, bins not in the frame.

So are shacks, which are somehow less bucolic than the dirt roads and grain silos of this small slice of rural Texan paradise. Imagine, there you are in your shack, it's triple digits and the food stamps have just run out because you've swapped them out for meth. Not so pastoral idyll.

Still, the town's getting fixed up, with new shops on the Square and attractive older houses being renovated and sold. Who to? People from Dallas, I'd imagine, who can't afford the 500k+ price tag of living in the appalling and soul-destroying metrosprawl.

I thought all this and more as I strolled down the leafy boulevards of my quaint farming community and pondered the transnational, satanic, globalist elites that destroyed this town to make themselves even richer. Where will it end? 

Pitchforks and Nooses down the Mall? Maybe. More likely a gradual breakdown of central government which, ironically, runs out of cash.

Of course we've seen it all before. Cast your minds back to Rome which, at its peak, was a city of over a million people. Then picture that same city in the 7th century AD, perhaps viewed from the Palatine Hill and the just at that point intact palace of the Caesars. What do you see?

A sea of ruins stretching out to the horizon, broken by still-standing monumental architecture, such as the Pantheon and Coliseum. Below you lies the broken Hippodrome with its ghosts of long dead crowds. Rome at this point maybe musters 20,000 souls.

This Texan town was 20,000 strong 50 years ago, now it's 7,000 if it's lucky. 

Draw the moral as you will.

Quo Vadis,

LSP

Paint Your House

I like older houses. They tend to have better proportions, higher ceilings, more space and sturdier construction. To me at least, they look better and are better than their modern equivalents but in Texas, an older house often means a wooden house. 

That means a painted house which has to repainted when the old paint's had its day. If you don't, the place is going to fall apart. To avoid this fate, we contracted a painting crew.

This needs painting

They started off boldly, painting the interior of one of the mission churches and even got so far as the main door to the templo. It looked good, well done, Lupe and the Gang. Then they stopped. "What's happened to the painters?" I asked. No one knew, they weren't on the job and fortunately hadn't been paid. They mysteriously returned, after a month or so, and did a bit more work. And then disappeared, no one knew where.

Look! A Can of Paint!

This went on for months, with vague promises of a return to work while I gazed at the peeling paint of the house. Perhaps they'd come back and finish the job when the house had fallen down. "Sorry, Lupe, the house is no mas."

Then, as if by magic, they came back and they're working on the church now. In fact, they've been on the job for two whole days. Remarkable, call me a dreamer but the house may get its of coat paint yet; I look forward to the day.

A typical Front Office in need of paint

This fascinating tale is filed under Country Life in Texas, or would that be Tejas?

Remember the Alamo,

LSP

That's Pretty Country

This sure is country, I thought as I looked at the machinery in the back of someone's rig in Walmart's famous country car park. Perhaps I should set up a chapel at this particular super-center and doubtless do a roaring trade. 

But seriously, what's happened to all the country pursuits that LSPland is famous for; shooting, fishing, riding, armed walkabouts in the bucolic mesquite groves of Olde Texas. What's happened to all of that? 

Getting a 17 year old into the hallowed halls of rural academe is what's happened, and I tell you this. It's not necessarily easy transferring a kid from the Canadian system into the Texan one, at least academically. By contrast, the football part wasn't hard at all; come on in and join the team was their motto.

Still, the High School enrollment evolution is almost over, which means the horizons of sporting life are starting to open up again, thank God. Must get back in the saddle, catch some fish and see if I still know how to shoot.

Look At All The Great Guns I've Bought!

Speaking of shooting, I'm tempted to do two things. One, buy an over and under shotgun and two, a .357 Magnum revolver. But all that's hypothetical. After Hurricane Harvey, Texas may have ceased to exist, sinking, like Atlantis, under the waves of a tumultuous sea.

Thunder is heaving across the sky as I write this fascinating entry, and that's country life.

In Texas,

LSP

Tales of Country Life in Texas

It was a day much like any other day, triple digit heat bouncing off Walmart's car park and you could feel the nuttiness as soon as you got inside the store. 

There it was, no sooner through the automatic doors and people were acting weird, off-hand and unbalanced, as though things could spin out of control. Maybe it was the heat.

Random SMLE

I took a cart and pushed on to stock up, milk, bread, wine, cheese and for some reason, root beer. It seemed good to me, I don't know why and it wasn't easy to get, there was too much random motion.

As I pulled the 4 pack of IBC into the cart, a weather-beaten woman slid across the aisle in front of me in dirty socks. No shoes, just socks; I guess it's easier to skate over Walmart's vinyl floor in socks, shoes have too much traction. I dodged out of the way but didn't get far.

Furries

A grinning, white haired giant loomed out of the freezer aisle into my path. "Say," he growled, "What's the only room in the hospital where they'll notice you?" I wasn't feeling quick and told him I didn't know. That satisfied him, after all, this was his joke. "I'll tell you, Emergency. They have a sign, says I... C... U..." 

We locked eyes and a grin creased his already lined, tan face. I told him that was pretty funny and he nodded. A moment of understanding. In the meanwhile, sock-skater had disappeared into the depths of the store and I checked out, passing the old men sitting on the bench outside the hair salon, looking brown as nuts under their veterans hats and not doing much at all except regarding the spectacle of the place unfold. This was their afternoon; I noticed one had been in Korea, but don't stare, it's rude.

Note The 12

I loaded my groceries into the rig and there, across the melting asphalt, were two young guys playing show-and-tell with a pump action twelve gauge outside their truck. Hey, why not, it's Walmart in August, there's no rule. 

Back home, Eduardo and Maria were slaughtering chickens in the back yard and getting it on to some Mexican music. They're good people and I like them; sometimes they bring me fresh eggs, which taste better than the things you buy in stores.

And that's country life.

In Texas,

LSP

Good Morning Texas Even Though It's Now Evening

I stood to somewhere around first light. No, not to scan the perimeter in the predawn mist, senses sharpened to razor-like intensity, but to get the kid up for his daily football workout. Lights on, hands on socks hands off... you get the drift.

It was a beautiful, cool, overcast morning with the promise of sun breaking through the clouds and it was neat to drive out to the school as the town was coming awake. It reminded me of England in May, except hotter, without the rain and, well, the resemblance fades when you get down to detail.

The kids were already getting athletic by the time we pulled up to Football HQ; there must have been a hundred or so youngsters running around, not including the "ballers" who were starting to get busy lifting weights. And all this activity several weeks before school even starts. Well done kids, healthy body, healthy mind.

Back at the Compound, strong coffee in hand, I reflected on the morning's evolution. They say that life lived for others  results in life itself. 

Easy to say, isn't it.

God bless,

LSP

Country Life In Texas

Country life in Texas is usually, for me, all about shooting, riding, fishing and a bit of hunting but this summer's been different.

It's been about getting a young 'un enrolled in High School, into the football team and its preseason workouts, getting his vaccinations up to date, finding employment for the fellow, you can't be hanging around here all day in bed and if you do you've got another think coming type of thing.

And generally readjusting to being a full-time parent again after many years. To say nothing of recovering from a rib injury, which puts a damper on the sporting life. 

So there's not been much getting out in the field, apart from walking Blue Aggressor through packs of stray dogs to the local pick 'n steal, but that's not to say the operation has ground to a halt, far from it. Also, one of the Missions was dealt a bad blow in the sudden loss of its Senior Warden, a fine Christian lady. May she rest in peace. 

And there you have it, a fascinating snapshot into the vagaries of LSPland and I tell you this. I'd rather be wrangling with all of it in the country than in one of our dismally failed, social experiment urban hellholes.

I file this exciting report under Country Life In Texas. 

God bless you and God bless Texas,

LSP

Inspection

There was a time and not that long ago, when it was all done by horse but now it's all about the car. That's why I drove to Gene's to get my rig tested. I like Gene's auto, they're friendly, their work's good, they're not too expensive and they have an abstract pine cone sculpture in the waiting room.

You can gaze at the bronze colored pine cone installation as you wait for your vehicle to get tested. But not for long because Gene's completes the inspection in about 3 minutes. Quick work, leaving little time for art philosophy; does the pine cone's form follow its function? Who knows, time to split.

Inspection ticket in hand, head to the courthouse and behold the majestic edifice of The Law. There it is, standing tall and we have to thank Willie Nelson for his part in restoring the place after it burned down in the '90s.

After giving our beneficent rulers $76, leave the courthouse with new registration and pay your respects at the war memorials. One for the Confederate dead and another for all the rest. In God we trust, may they rest in peace. Then have a gaze at the Chisholm Trail plaque; I'd never noticed it before and for sure, this town played its part in that history.

With images of the great cattle drives playing in my mind I drove back to the Compound, and I'll tell you this.

It's a whole lot easier to get your vehicle inspected and registered in the country than it is in the city. I file this exciting story under Country Life in Texas.

God bless,

LSP