Halloween Birthdays....

 Happy birthday to Rose and Juan. Both born today. Here's Juan with Coraline who says "Daddy is this many old." 








Also Rose's birthday. Here she is pictured with Cathy and sister Mary. 

Other birthdays to be noted in the family is brother in law John, Cathy's cousin Tommy, and my dad's mom Granny Wallace. 

This is also the anniversary of mine and Cathy's engagement.  

So you can see Halloween is a high holy day for us. If you want to see what it was like in the good old days here's a picture.  

Cousin Fest...

 Had a visit from my cousins Wanda, who lives in Hatisburg, Miss. and Mary Ann who lives in Sikeston, Mo. Mary Ann has been a blog character before and is an avid blog reader. They came to my Mom's house and we took pictures with some of the local cousins.

In this photo left to right, Cousin Betty, from Lufin, Cousin Wanda, everyone's favorite Aunt who happens to be my mom, Cousin Mary Ann and cousin Dixie from Lufkin.

Also present were my brother Glenn, cousin Wes and wife Connie and Betty's husband Buddy.

May be we can have an all cousin fish fry in the future!

Chasing Ghosts...

Chasing ghosts this weekend in Austin and I don't mean the Halloween kind. I am talking the political kind. The kind we need to look back and reflect on. First photo is Cathy outside the LBJ Presidential Library. She has been reading the Caro books on LBJ. If the initials and the author's name mean nothing you can probably stop reading here.  

It was our second visit to the library. Not a good time to go as the exhibits are under some construction and are a little limited. That's ok as we had seen it before. The next day we decided to head on out for a tour of his ranch. I'll have some photos of that later. I do wish I had made it to town a little earlier as Newt Gingrich had spoke at the library. Not a big Newt fan but it was free and he is a famous guy and it was a program as opposed to some kind of ugly election thing.  Nice things to do are offered in connection with our public government buildings. 

Here's me and a life size statue of LBJ. He was a big guy. He was also a lot of other things. He was cagey, manipulative, caring, a physical coward, crude, a champion for the poor, course, vulgar and a believer in equal rights for all. He would violate your personal space kind of like I am doing to him right now. He grew up dirt ass poor in the Texas hill country. He did not go to a college that is known for producing presidents. It took him several attempts to get through what was then Texas State Teachers College. The reason for the attempts is because they were interspersed with activities like school teaching at border towns to make enough money to carry on. He went on to pass great legislation on civil rights, workers rights, consumer safety, and environmental protections to name a few. He was undone and hated because of the Vietnam War. It was a war with it's course set for him by preceding Presidents which he continued at the advice of the "wise men" of the day. 

I guess LBJ is interesting because other than vague memories of the events surrounding Kennedy's assassination I became old enough to be more aware of political events, things in newspapers and on TV with him. 

Here's a picture I took of an exhibit. I believe in these things and think they are possible in the way LBJ imagined them to be if things had not run off the rails for him. You should be able to click on the photo and read the text.   

Visiting Presidential Libraries is fun for me.  I have seem Clinton's, Bush I and LBJ's twice. I'll check out Bush II if enough time passes so they can put a spin on his mess to build one for him. With our visits to the PK in Chicago I bet I get a chance to see Obama's.   

More on LBJ later.    

Right Down in Austin...

 Been in Austin this weekend. We are back now. Here's what it looked like form the hotel room. That's a great 24 hour diner right handy and across the highway is the Longhorn's practice field. Looks like that practice paid off as they won. 

Saw some great music this weekend. Here's a grainy cell phone photo from a Friday night concert at the Austin City Limits Venue with Todd Snider (one of our heros), Jason Isbell formerly of the Drive By Truckers (more heroes) and Amanda Shires. Last night we saw the Austin Lounge Lizards at the Cactus Cafe. Great funny show with sarcastic political and religious humor and some wicked picking that really pokes common sense fun at many of the things folks get so stirred up about these days.  Good small show to a room of about 75 people. 

Sorry for the grainy cell phone photos. Guess I am getting into the better shows these days. They got rules like no cameras and stuff. I guess I can live without the camera for the music. I sure don't miss the stuff. 

Poi Dog Pondering...

Saw them at the Continental Club in Austin last night. Never a band on my radar, but I like the bass player Bruce Hughes.

Great show pleasant surprise for our Austin visit. Very funky jams. 

Some of My Dad's Old Photos...

 Oct. 26th 1991 was the day my dad passed away. He was 66 years old. Seemed real old at the time. From my perspective now he was gone way to soon with many things left to be done. I'll be posting some old photos of his from World War Two. One of the things he never did was say much about the war.

This is a small section of a panoramic photo of his boot camp unit at Camp Fannin in Tyler Texas. They still give you a photo like this after boot camp. My dad is the third one from the top on the end of the row by the unit colors. I think late summer or fall 1943. 200,000 men trained at camp Fannin in just those few short years 1943-1946 that it was operational. A little internet research indicates that a conservative estimate of causalities for these men based on overall WW2 percentage would be 5000 killed 10,000 wounded.  That estimate is considered conservative because these were all infantry men.  A section of the land this camp was on is now the University of Texas Health Science Center.  

Like I say my Dad never said much about the war. I think this was common because I recently met a man in his 90s who was a WW2 vet. I asked what branch, what his job was, where he was stationed. He answered these questions and said that was more than he had ever told anyone about the war. One thing my Dad did tell me was don't ever join the army. I may not have always followed his advice but I think he knew what he was talking about on this point. 

Without an oral history to go on I have gathered what I could and submitted a request for any records the Army might still have. Many old service records were lost in a fire in 1972. The National Personal Records Center has been very helpful. I will be receiving medals earned by my Dad. One of them is a Bronze Star. This is a nice discovery because even though his memorabilia includes some insignia there is nothing that was actually his. The best reason I can gather is that he wanted to leave these things behind. 

Glad I had my Dad for the short time I did. Hope there were not too many of the guys in the photo left behind with their families having less than I do now. That's my daily prayer. Dear Lord because I have so much, let those with less have more than they do now. 

More on the East Texas Political News....

 Looks like around here the farmers have come out in support of Obama. Thanks guys. 








Here's a photo Cathy made driving across East Texas yesterday. First off I guess this guy is elected and some one tries to take your gun, call him.  Constable is a powerful office in Texas. Only person that can boss a constable around is the Governor. 

It does seem to be that the NRA works to make sure you can have a gun and be able to buy a gun. It's a big business. I'm a little guy. I do have an old shotgun. I think I'll throw my support behind a federal government that creates regulations that ensures I'll have the nice wilderness areas and lakes of Texas to carry that old shotgun around on when I hunt. 

I also appreciate the nice floating boat docks the government has installed on the local lake. Makes it easy for the farmers I take fishing to step into the boat.

Guess I just want my elected officials to do different stuff.   

Signs...

 Nope, didn't see one. All ok here, move along.

Sign offends me. Hurts my feelings. I don't have an animal.





"Why would I climb on the car?"
Is this some kind of discrimanation? Signs for the can't read crowd.

I Can't Help It...

...if Coraline looks just like me.

You know at the risk of being accused of checking my own self out I think that's a pretty good looking butt.

"Remastered..."

Given the primitive methods available to me I have "remastered" the sound cloud track "Swing Me on the Swing" to be a bit louder. Here's a link:
http://soundcloud.com/carl-wallace-1/swing-me-on-the-swing-
1

Photo is courtesy of Katie. It's me, Mo and Coraline Jamming.  

Here's a description of the track and list of players:
"Remaster" version of a previously posted original song written by Cathy and Katie on a playground when Kate was 3 years old. Katie wrote the words, Cathy the music. Personal on the take are Cathy vocals and guitar, Katie vocals, Morgan Bass, mudbelly slide guitar and harp, Mary hand claps, Peter and Coraline crowd noise. All rights reserved Portraiture Publishing.

Put a Political Sign in My Yard...

You know how some people are stocking up prior to the coming election on guns, ammo and canned goods to be well prepared for the end of rational times and the beginning of renewed night screaming? Well I been doing that too. Only thing I had not counted on was using up my supplies before the first ballot was cast. I was glad that the kids were here this past weekend as they helped me stave off an assault on the political yard sign I put up. 

First photo has Katie nailing the first one that tried to take my yard sign. 

Second photo is Peter getting him some. Peter reportedly had never shot a gun. He caught on quick. He only needed Rose's help to finish off a few cripples. 

Remember how I mentioned stocking up on canned goods? They are gone in a good old East Tex blaze of gunfire and popped tops. 

Last Photo Peter lowers his draw to check if there is anything still moving in the bush. Mary says "did you see that last one jump!"  

Life is a Carnival...

We made a trip to the fair in Doches this weekend. As you see Coraline loved it and had almost as good a time as Pop-Pop and Gamma. Also along for the fun were Peter, Katie, Mary and a couple of her room mates, 

Katie and Peter in the fun house. I don't think the reflection has the same expression. 







Horse! 









I did not ride this ride. Neither did Coraline. I was glad. I think the only people that did not get sick were the SFA Nursing Students. They have a strong program in this field of study.

Dawn Patrol...

 After a drop off of Katie and Peter at the airport and a drop of Cathy at Coraline's house I continued on down for some beach front fishing. Here the sun rises over surf rods.

Conditions were not to great managed 6 crokers and whitings  Water sandy and surf a little rough. Wind was cool when you got wet.

Got it all by myself. 

Here's what camp croaker looked like. 

In the Studio...

Katie and Peter are here for a visit from Chicago, Rose, Juan and Coraline, from Lake Jackson, Morgan from Herne and Mary from Nacogdoches. As you see I have the studio set up. 

In this photo Peter noodles areound on the Baritone Guitar.

Here's a sound cloud link to a recording we made. This is an original song written by Katie and Cathy on the playground when Katie was three years old. Cathy wrote the music, Katie the words. Personal on the take are Cathy guitar and vocals, Katie vocals, Morgan, bass, Mary handclaps, mudbelly slide and harp, Peter and Coraline crowd noise. All rights reserved Portraiture Publishing. 

Might have to turn your speakers up a bit:

http://soundcloud.com/carl-wallace-1/swing-me-on-the-swing

Visitors This Weekend...

You know how I get bored some times. A good cure for that is to climb to local water tower and spray paint a welcome for visitors we are expecting. Katie and Peter will be in from Chicago. 

 Also there is a visitor who comes a little more regularly. She located is a little closer so visits are more frequent but Pop Pop and Gamma think she needs a sign. . Also we expect Rose, Juan, Morgan and Mary. I would have painted their names but my arm was getting tired. 

Nice Fat Blue Cats Say...

...It was cold last week. I better eat something while it's still warm.

Me, Cathy and GW hauled in 27 cats today from various deep spots along the old river channel.  No action from the shallows slip corking yet.