Thanksgiving Weekend...

 Many Thanksgivings have been non traditional for us. There was often a great catfish round up and then a fry in the place of turkey. This year was a little more Pilgrimy with Rose and Tim and kids celebrating at our house along with the Zamora's, Cathy's brother Matt and my brother Glenn on the day after Thanksgiving. The Morgan's and the Katherine's celebrated in Chicago together. 

Food was a collaborative effort with dressing, smoked turkey, Dad's famous roadside roasted chicken, Dad's famous New Orleans sweet potato casserole, Rose's famous seafood dressing, crock pot beans, salad, with drinks, rolls, dessert and tea by Matt and Glenn. We granted Cathy knife privileges for the day and she served as vegetable chopper.   

Let the young ones handle the selfie duty. 

Grandma supervises the fire pit.   

How some people were not so full to be able to roast smores and eat them is a mystery to me. Must be some hollow legs around here.  

I think Ezra was especially excited for turkey but was still able to choke down them smores.  Luca studies the best was to get a smore all over himself. 

Milo brought his own special brand of lemonade. 

  I can only pray that those people in the world that find themselves in need, at war, or trying to better their circumstances with faith, education, immigration, or hard work enjoy the blessings that I have. My life is so good I want all to experience something similar.   

We Will See About That...

 I dream almost every night. Usually I can relate these dreams to something that's on my mind, anxiety caused by some job I had one time decades ago, or if a water dream I awake with a powerful urination urge. In the case of the water dream it's a good thing to wake up but I get tired of the other ones waking me and setting my mind on busy. I told Cathy I would ask the doctor for something to make me not dream. She said don't do that. It's a red flag. Don't need those. My doctor does not have to doctor on me very much but sometimes when they do start doctoring on you things can get sideways. 

Last night I dreamed me and Cathy were going to a music festival. It's something we often do. We had on our festival clothes. If you don't know what festival clothes are the woman wears something which in the words of my dad, "you can see up it, down it or through it" and the men wear a crazy hat, a colorful shirt or no shirt and shorts shorter than what you might wear to a ball game or some place like that. We parked the car and walking in we spotted a hippie taco place and as in ever conscious senior citizens on a fixed income in search of a bargain mode we decided to eat there to avoid the premium priced festival food. 

Going to certain festivals can be a culture. You plan for it ever year, get on the internet message boards, buy the early bird tickets and in this taco place we sat with people we knew and had met at the festival before. Everybody ordered tacos, refried beans, chips and queso cheese. 

Everybody except me. I've noticed sometimes places like this have an item on the menu that is so out of whack with everything else that either no-one ever orders it or it is the most exquisite especial that you will ever taste. You don't have much time to make this decision. If the server says "do you need a minute" we all know this means I'll be back in an hour because this guy has done messed up the preparation sequence of ultra processed food service which in a hippie place like this we know means that yesterday's charro beans are today's refireds. So I made the split second decision to order the chicken fried steak with spicy sauce. 

Everyone else got their food. I had chips and salsa, bites of Cathy's tacos and munched on appetizers. The chicken fried with spicy sauce never came but I got full on that other stuff. When the waitress, a blond hippie girl with wide set blue eyes came I said "we need the check but cancel that chicken fried steak with spicy sauce. I never got it." She said, we will see about that."  

I woke up. It still needs to be seen about and maybe that's what I am trying to do here. 

    

      

Resonator Guitars, Tubas, Weddings, Christmas Concerts and More...

 Here's a photo of the stage set up from the recent Brazos River Rats show. That's my metal bodied resonator guitar. People always ask me about that guitar, complement it, say they have never seen such and that it sounds great. Actually it's an Asian import, Chris Edward's big Gibson sitting on stage next to it probably cost three times as much, the first resonator guitars like this were made in 1928 and I've been playing this one for about 25 years. Those that never seen such I'm sorry you are just now making it to one of my gigs and I guess that's also a sign that I am always finding new audiences to hogwash.    

Someone at this show asked me if it was a National, which is the top of the line for this kind of thing. It does sound pretty good and for an import it's top of the line. I can't imagine myself sounding any different if I had a better guitar. All my instruments are mid level journey man type gear. They look nice, get me through the gigs and if a drunk wanders by and sits down where I laid it it probably won't even break like something more expensive might.    

Speaking of gigs even though we have pretty much retired from playing weekly Masses in favor of weddings, funerals, and Quinceaneras we have been asked to substitute for two Masses on Sunday. In between we provide music for the RCIA class. On Saturday we play a wedding of one of our group who began playing with us since she was a teen. Today we will be in a get some music together mode.  

On Dec. 3rd at 2:30 in Temple Theater you can also catch me playing tuba with the Angelina Civic Band for our Christmas Concert. Also in December I'll try to squeeze in a couple of tuba Christmas in the park days. 

    Here's clip of resonator great Bukka White showing how it's done. 

Opening Day Duck Hunt at the Big Slough...

It was a good day for a duck hunt. Morgan and I went to the Big Slough Wilderness Area. It's a place where I hunted ducks with my dad going back to the late 70s. We split up for the first part of the hunt and I had this limpkin out in from of me feeding on the creek clams for a confidence decoy. If the ducks see he's ok they will say it's ok for us too! 

I have never bought a gun in my life. My old Winchester Model 1200 12 gauge was a Christmas gift when I was about 16. That makes it 50 years old. That's a lot of duck hunts. Actually I have a single shot Winchester 20 gauge model 370 That I think about carrying sometimes for it's lighter weight as I get older. It was my first hunting gun before the old man trusted me with something that had more than one shot and my kids used it also. I remember that shotgun costing $30. Used in good condition they fetch around $200 these days.     

I have thought about a new shotgun occasionally but this one does the job.  

This was Morgan's first duck of the day. My dad told me the wood duck was sacred to the Indians. He was in all three planes of existence, flying in the air, nesting on the ground and swimming in the water. The old man might have made that up but he felt hunting them was special.  

Morgan is on the stalk to jump up a big bunch from the creek. He spooked them but they circled and he took two with one shot. I first saw him do that at about age 10. 

You can keep 6 ducks but they have to be a mixed bag. Only three woodies allowed. Morgan bags a limit. 

For the weird things in the woods file. Two pairs of waders. These were in an area where I have found a small kayak stashed for use I would imagine of crossing the slough as it's too deep to wade here. Not real good waders, not really stashed or stowed and with about three days of good rain the bottom would flood and claim them for it's own. We left them as you never can tell of a game camera might be present to keep honest men honest.    

The roads are not bad to get there. Muddy but a hard bottom. It's the dirtiest I have gotten a truck in a while. I washed pounds of dirt from underneath. 

 Hopefully we do not get too much rain for the next couple of months and the creek stays just like it is now, flowing and wadable in some spots. 

The Fishing Report or Take a Saxophone Player Fishing on National Saxophone Day or How I Forgot to Put the Memory Card in the Camera...

They say it was National Saxophone Day so we took an old friend and sax player Jongy fishing today. He did not know it was his day and said he had spent the morning practicing flute. That's ok because I forgot to put the memory card in the camera so no photos. They say that kind of thing just gets worse from here on out.

Luckily I have this stock photo of Jongy playing sax at a Stonewall Rockers gig a couple of years ago so no one thinks I'm making all of this up like I usually do on blog posts. Actually if I had not forgot the memory card I still would not have had a picture of Jongy with a catfish because he claimed complete inexperience with fishing and did not catch any. That's ok. It will come.   

The rest of us, Cathy and I with some experience catfish and managed 23 catfish and certainly another picture of Cathy with a catfish is not something we need, at least right now. 

 We caught them 32 feet deep on punch bait. I would imagine this will be a pattern that keeps up until January or so. 

We've been a little lax on the fishing. Maybe we will make it to the lake more. It's a beautiful time of the year. 

 

Tribute to Guy Clark at the Live Oak Listening Room...

There were many nice musical things to see this weekend in the East Texas area. There were professional acts, plays, marching bands, a old time music festival, downtown celebrations and more. I was only able to make it to one show and it was at the Live Oak Listening Room. It was local musicians putting on a show in remembrance of the great Texas singer songwriter Guy Clark. 

If you don't know the Live Oak it is an old church where some fun minded folks live but turned the sanctuary into a listening room. With the help of others sharing the same "Nac Tribe" vision they host a season of local and pro touring bands. There's no admission but donations are expected and before the music there is a meal so bring your best pot luck. There is no reserved seating so grab an old church pew or settle into a comfortable couch and be ready to dance when the groove gets good.      

I'd try to name all the folks involved but I'd probably leave out a name so enjoy the photos. 

If you don't know Guy Clark and call yourself a Red Dirt/country music fan you need to school up a bit. All the groups each performed two songs and it was a deep dive into his catalogue. Still left room for many favorites like two of mine, Rita Ballou and Cinco de Mayo in Memphis.   

There was a final "all star" jam with all musicians onstage. 

I think I bought Guy Clark's "Old Number 1" album in 1975, the year it came out. 

Check out the Live Oak. Nov. 11 you can see the Evelyn Rubio Band

 There is a lot that goes into making a viable music community for playing and listening. There is no other venue like this in town. Thanks again to all who make these shows possible. 

We are Rainbow People...

We are Rainbow People. No, not like those Rainbow People I squatted in the driveway without at Anne's old house that time at a party as they spread crystals picked up from an Arkansas creek bed on a red bandana and explained all the energy captured within but the people selling Rainbow Vacuum Cleaners. One of them came to my house. She asked who did the house cleaning, they like the husband and wife to both be present for the sales pitch and we said, "Nobody."  

So after an effective demo showing how dirty we were we bought one. Not cheap but lives up to all the hype. Once you buy one you work a system where you get other people to sign up for a demo. We did that. If you get enough people you get a free set of cookware. We got the cookware and if enough people actually buy you get your Rainbow free, kind of like the crystal I got from those other Rainbow People that's laying around here seeping energy somewhere but just a lot cleaner. We got our Rainbow Vacuum free.   

 

Of course I could not resist having some fun so I sent a few people a photo of my Rainbow in the bathroom and extolled it's virtues unstopping a crapper.  Cathy made me tell them I was just kidding but it does do a lot of things. Cathy blew off the hot tub deck with it today. I've vacuumed the vehicles. We are cleaner than we have ever been. 

The camper is cleaner than it's ever been. 

Hopefully we won't suck up that crystal because no telling where that thing lays. There actually might be some disruption in the cosmic force just as there was that time we finally came clean.