On Monday Dec. 2nd 2024 Cathy had a left shoulder replacement. Arthritis had been dogging her for about two years and ignoring it, exercising it and taking an injection from the doc had not helped making surgery the best option. Dr. McCall did the surgery and she was discharged from the hospital a little less than 24 hours after the procedure ended. ,
The rotator cuff was in pretty good shape but the supraspinatus muscle of the group which lifts the arm away from the body was torn. There's two kinds of shoulder replacement, anatomical, which is a prothesis just like the original joint or a reversal where the ball of the joint is placed on the socket side. The doc thought this was the best choice for Cathy.
Surgery took about 2 hours and she came through fine. Pain control at Woodland Heights Medical Center was world class. The nerve block lasted well into Wednesday. In fact Cathy was so good I was a bit reminded why we don't let her drink. Prescriptions for home use have been adequate along with the use of the circulating ice pack.
How much do you have to tip the surgeon so he avoids your ink? She won't say.
Today, Wednesday Home Health Nursing came out and changed the surgical dressing and the Physical Therapist performed an evaluation. We had been performing a home exercise program as directed by the doc and the hospital therapist but though things will be pretty mild for up to 6 weeks he did add in a couple more exercises to be done 5x a day for 5 minutes or so and adjusted the immobilizer for more comfortable wear since it will be a friend and companion for the next 6 weeks.
So far so good this experience has been smooth and it's been fun encountering old friends we used to work with and they have taken good care of us. We may be off the fishing and camping trail for now but the therapist said casting and reeling will be an excellent rehab. There will be some limits to what she can lift but as long as Cathy keeps catfish under 25 pounds she should be good.
Men wearing dresses has been in the news lately. So has the fact that temps have been over 100 degrees around here for 23 days this summer. I say that a dress is cooler than trousers and for some years now a sarong, a one piece wrap popular in tropical areas of Asia and Africa has been a favored type of dress to wear while lounging about my house. Even though it seems that men with real short hair wearing suits may pass laws against men wearing dresses I may go against the mainstream and wear my sarong to town. It's hot enough, I don't think anyone will bat an eye and anyway that's kind of how I go, different from everyone else.
Of course men with real short hair and suits have passed laws against heroin use. That does not make me want to go against the law and mass public opinion to sample narcotics because after all like climate change, COVID viruses and more there is science behind the reasons you should not take heroin. As far as I know there are no studies about men wearing sarongs.
The other day I was driving along a main thoroughfare and I saw a poor woman walking in the 100 degree heat in a black bikini. She was probably in her 30s, the swim suit was on the modest side of this type of wear and she had a nice tan. By all appearances she was very hot and on a directional heading to the corner convenience store where what I imagined to be the only air conditioning she would experience that day lay in cool wait behind heavy glass doors. I say this woman would have been better served by a sarong and if you think I'm picking on women I saw a few men that would have also been well served by wearing a sarong.
Once while working in the nursing home I had two physical therapy patients. One gentleman got up each day and dressed in button up western shirts, jeans, and leather shoes. The other gentleman preferred a patient gown with a pair of shorts underneath. Despite the differences in dress both men liked a good domino game and when they ended up in the gym together as a build up to more strenuous activities I placed a bedside rolling table with the dominos on them between the two and they happily spent quite a while playing. At the conclusion of the game I rolled the table from between them and Mr. Jeans sighted the other mans patient gown. "That feller's got on a dress!" he exclaimed. When you wear an unconventional garment in public it will take getting used to for some.
Just so there is no confusion when you see me so you can start getting familiar with the terminology a sarong or sarung is worn wrapped about the waist. A West African word from the Akan language srong or sorong means fastened at the highest point. Memorize this and you will not be ignorant about which one I'm wearing.
Cathy also has a sarong. She likes it when we are all matchy matchy. Whatever men in suits with real short hair think I like it also.
One time I had a 1987 Suburban. It was the first car me and Cathy bought together and we bought it so we had something to transport four kids in. It was about as plain as a car could be, did not have rear air because we believed the children had to suffer to survive and it cost $17,000 which was a princely sum in those days.
After driving it nearly 200,000 miles and lots of kid hauling, fishing and camping trips we began entertaining thoughts of getting the dents taken out and maybe a funky paint job of some kind and just continuing on down the road even further when a guy pulled out in front of us in a great crash that made us the recipients of the miracle that we were not killed. We weren't jinxed but those plans to refurbish the car sure were.
Just a few weeks ago a friend was telling me of his 22 year old truck. I don't recall the make, probably one of the big three but he had spent thousands on truck repair and maintenance and he thought that was better than thousands on a new truck. My truck was 11 years old. It seemed to be fine and I thought, "Yeah, I'll do that." Jinxed again.
So a couple of days ago Cathy has a wreck and she tells the story of how relieved the young policeman was when he arrived and she claimed fault. Apparently no one admits this on the wreck scenes. Luckily other than a couple of scrapes and bruises on Cathy, the other person was not injured and their car was not too bad. Ours however was very bad.
So as they say if money can cure your problems you do not have problems. We shopped around a bit locally and settled on this 2020 Ford from the used lot at the Chevy place. It was not the first deal we tried to make and we had to walk away with our money in our hands at another local place but Jorge was our salesman at JM Chevy, he did a good job and the truck, drive out and three year extended warranty came in under to price of what I paid for my house back in 1983. I'll call it a win.
Cleaning out the old truck I found the old window sticker with the price I paid for the old truck and that helped me feel better about spending money I had not intended to. This price was not terrible much more and it is a nicer truck.
Since this was a used truck on the test drive I took it by my mechanic at John's Auto. John has worked on my cars for almost 34 years. He pronounced the truck mechanically perfect but his caution was that on the Ford Eco Boost motors he would not buy one without getting the extended warranty. He said the turbo will go out but you don't know when. As he described the signs of Eco Boost failure I realized even though my old truck had just hauled the travel trailer all around on an 11 day trip, the boat on hundreds of fishing trips and a couple of recent heavy firewood loads and seemed to be running fine there were some signs that indicated this failure was coming and with it a repair bill that John described as "thousands of dollars." So maybe we received another miracle though I know some will say, "at least it was not an electric car that needed fixing."
I'm not really extend warranty guy but I followed John's advice and got it. Jorge the salesman made the deal good enough that with the drive out and the warranty the price was what other dealers had as sticker price on similar trucks. It does cover oil changes for three years and with that service nudging up in the neighborhood of $100 I think I'll be ok.
Just for the record here's the old truck. It made it 158,000 odd miles. If you search the blog there might be other wreck cars pictured here and there. I would also like to make a shout out to Solo Wrecker service. They will treat you right so like them on facebook and put the number in your phone. Never know when you will jinx yourself.
The whole reason for our recent camper trip, other than the fact we make fun a year round seasonal occupation was to visit Cathy's Aunt Shelia in Edgewater, Fl. for her 90th birthday. Her kids, Claire, Ann, Doug and Paul were all there in addition to some of their kids and grandkids so we count them on our cousin world tour list and a very good visit was had by all.
I think as best I can recall that in addition to the local Florida residents states represented were Pennsylvania, Alabama and Massachusetts as well as Texas. Shelia is Cathy's dad Bill's sister. Her husband Art and Bill passed away within a few days of each other back in 2020 and as it was at the beginning of Covid and due to the various restrictions there was never much of a family gathering to honor either man so this was a joyful fun celebration.
There were several gatherings for nice meals at local restaurants and in the evenings the cousins hosted get togethers at one location or another.
Shelia lives in a very nice assisted living facility and we visited her there. Cathy enjoyed the remembrances of the many old family photos that decorated Shelia's apartment.
Ok, who is up next on the cousin tour? Cathy asked me last night what trip I wanted to make next year.
Secret Flounder Fishing Spot Revealed Texas History and Always More...
Old Colonel Travis cut a dashing figure at the Battle of the Alamo. The legend of the line in the sand is certainty inspiring but the reality of his presence in Texas is that he was avoiding his debts elsewhere and when he stuck his head up over the battlements that day in San Antone and when he had it blown off pretty early in the battle he accomplished that. Same thing would probably happen to me but it was enough for Travis to have this fort on the tip of Bolivar Peninsula named after him. It's now a Galveston County Park. Entry is free and we took the self guided walking tour and Cathy showed me the equally legendary Cooney family flounder fishing hole that Bill snuck all the kids into in the 1970s before the park was developed and the property was off limits to trespassers which I guess kind of makes them like Travis, intent on avoiding trouble.
The area had fortifications as early as 1816 but this spot saw building began in earnest in the first years of The Republic of Texas to protect Galveston Bay from invasion. Slave labor was used to erect the big dirt battlements and construction continued in one way or the other till WW2 when about 2500 troops were stationed here.
There are good stations with historical facts located on the paths through the park. Cathy stands on one of the biggest gun emplacements and as far as I could tell there was never a shot fired in anger from this Fort. It seemed from the information available that every time a new gun was installed there was always some development in the enemy tactics or their own countermeasures such as aircraft and radar that made the gun obsolete and because of this some emplacements never even had guns installed. This brings to mind Ike's farewell address where he warned us about the military industrial complex. Nothing was really defended but people made money building.
Even though the fort was sold as military surplus in 1949 chemical warfare is still a concern.
Cathy heads to the smaller batteries that guard the narrow part of the pass.
Cathy says these were open in the 70s and she went inside.
Cathy located the secret flounder hole right here. In the 1970s the park was not developed and Bill would take Cathy and her younger brothers, Jim, John and Matt over a fence, along a jungle type path (it's all open, clear park space now) down the 15' seawall and fish for flounder from the rip rap breaking the waves. Cathy recalls the little boys hanging up a lot and requiring her deckhand skills but the water stretches out shallow for a long way making it great for the big flatfish.
I saw no one fishing here on the rainy weekday morning we visited. We decided the climb down the seawall and over the rocks was probably easier when you are 16 instead of in your 60s and admired Bill for doing it with little kids as crew.
Cathy says her brothers are going to kill me for reveling this spot but I don't thing they have visited it lately.
Like the fort it's self all the gun emplacements are named for men killed in the Mexican War or WW1. Even with the sneaking in, the advancing over treacherous terrain and the uneven footing of the rocks no one was ever lost during a flounder trip and with it's development the park is a great tour and I bet the flounder are still there.
Someone, an old friend told me the other day, "come over I want to record you. Bring tuba, cigar box guitar and your resonator and let's capture what makes mudbelly mudbelly." I was honored and flattered at this idea thinking, wow my stichk must really be good or either he's thinking my music is like a painting by the early peoples of the desert that you might find hidden in a West Texas canyon. It's worth noting, seeing and documenting because one day old mudbelly will join them peoples to dance around a fire in the many rooms of the afterlife and while we won't want his sun baked cave paintings to hang in our living rooms it will be good to know they existed.
Music has been picking up for Cathy and I. I think it has for all musicians with the easing of covid and vaccinations and I am seeing many friends busy also. All this spittle spraying from tuba blowing and yelling into microphones has not given me covid or made anyone else sick.
Depending on where you see us playing you might see anything going on and with this blog entry I thought I might try to cover the range of musical activity that has been underway for the last few months. It might not all be rock and roll but as a musician I think you let your talent guide you and most of all you put music in places where it might not be.
Of course there is the tuba playing that has been an ongoing cross to bear since 1969. Our Lufkin Brass Quintet has not been much active this year but we are going to begin again after Easter. In the meantime the Angelina Civic Band has been busy with rehearsals each week and a concert is scheduled May 1st at 2pm in Temple Theater. Here is a video of Leonard Bernstein's Danzon by our band from the last concert.
I also had a chance to jam with the Stone Wall Rockers and the Brazos River Rats and Bluegrass Orchestra to make a big racket to celebrate the re-election of Judge Travis Kitchens to District 258. There's a lot of rules in these jams like this. You can't use music, I think they make you sing a song you don't know or at least have never performed (that's what they do to me) and then you go back and see the rule about no music. I don't know if this politician we honored with all this chaos is a Republican or a Democrat and I've known him for 30 years and it's never come up but there certainly seems to be a spirit of all men are equal as long as they have an electric guitar in their hands which sounds like something the Founding Father probably would not say.
That's Chris Edwards in the background on the Stonewall Studio stage. I'm reading his book "Nobody Come to Visit Anymore" and you should also.
After a couple of years of slowed activity playing at church retirement has helped us pick it up. Cathy is the musical director in this and the music is bilingual English and Spanish. We don't play a regular Mass but play anytime bilingual music is required. I just stand behind her and if her foot comes down and I'm not playing I start, if I'm playing when the foot comes down I stop.
We've played music for a lot of funerals during covid, I wish I would have counted but thankfully we are seeing more weddings these days. The last two weddings have had good parties afterwards. We play real good for our supper and the food was excellent at both of these.
With the Lenten Season coming to an end we furnished music for a couple of retreats. I think the fact that we both chose yellow shirts was as impactful as the music this day. It does not matter if it's church or a sweaty VFW stage somewhere this just reinforces my rule that you should always dress like you are with the band.
Mary sings with us here and has shown a real talent for organizing retreats.
This is a youth retreat group. I messed up and did not wear the yellow shirt fut the music was fun and the kids sang well. .
Youth retreat group.
Cathy and the other adults Mary, Maria, and Jose lead the kids. I worked the sound board.
Speaking of soundboard we have a new one, it's sounding good and also a camera to improve the livestreaming of services. Live had been done from a phone in the past and it's all been some new things to learn but I can compare it to my instruments. You have to put in the practice.
We will be doing Easter music on Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Vigil. Cathy blew her voice last week and between singing and yelling at grandkids she has had laryngitis but reports this morning, "better."
Hopefully she is back to full strength by Thursday. I will sing and actually my Spanish is getting better but it will sound nicer if my cave paintings are not hanging out front in the living room.
Next time you see some catfishing photos posted on this blog or you can simply click on the catfish tag below and notice the orange cap Cathy wears while on the lake. It has the famous Davy Crockett quote, "you may go to hell and I may go to Texas." She has kind of a fan girl thing going for him.
In hindsight we know that Texas turned into a terrible mess for old Davy but we are left with a courageous historical story that is probably part fact and part myth. Cathy got worried that maybe Crockett was not such a nice guy as many historical figures sometimes seem to be in it for their own benefit. So she did some research and turns out he was an ok guy who stood up for the indigenous people's rights, stood up against Andrew Jackson in politics when history shows was not such a nice guy despite saving New Orleans from the British and as this newspaper clipping proves Crockett was a friend to my 4th great grandfather George Massingill.
You can read the clipping which is said to have appeared in newspapers across Texas in 1883. George seemed to be a pretty nice guy also even though my research shows he served under Jackson (I'm not a fan) in a unit of wagon guards and road builders in the War of 1812. He was at the battle of Mobile Bay and "probably the Battle of New Orleans" is the best I can find out.
I don't know if he was at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, an Indian fight led by Jackson that occurred in 1814, the year before New Orleans. I hope not as this adventure, conducted on intelligence that the Indians were siding with the British turned out to be an opportunity to take land from the people living there to be occupied by landowners who moved in the imported people they owned to farm cotton.
I don't think Crockett was at this battle and I don't know for certain about George but Sam Houston was there, Jackson was there as were some of the Wileys on my mom's side of the family. Makes me wonder if the average guy new what all was involved in these war strategies.
Enough speculation though and back to George Massingill. Somehow George avoided Crockett's Texas trip but by 1837 having divorced Hannah Gann (yes, I'm related to Ganns and he still owns the court the legal filing fee of $12.90) he married Polly and they arrived in Nacogdoches with 10 kids on a wagon train. They were rewarded land in the Shawnee Bottoms area which is still kind of a remote place from town in these times but soon moved to Angelina County.
George died in 1884 and is buried in the McKindree Cemetery off Highway 103 East probably 5 miles from my house.
George Massigill is on my Granny Wallace's side of the family. Massigills married Albrittons who married Nerrens who married Wallace's. I don't know how long the Albrittons been in the area but the Nerrens have been in Angelina County since the 1840s.
I have not been in any famous battles or I doubt that anyone I know will have an enduring legacy like Davy Crockett so I guess maybe my ancestors will recall I wore a mask during Covid 19. It's been the best I could do.
I still enjoy a trip to the Alamo and may enjoy it more in the future given these newfound facts. Cathy, in Davy Crockett fan girl mode says she knew there was something about me.
Checking Out The Sabine, Big Foot, Rare Blonde Albino Sabine Thang and More...
My fishing log shows that for the past several years we have been catch a few white bass on the Sabine River about this time of the year. We picked up Morgan and Parker and took a run over there just to see.
On the way down the road to the river we saw this sign. I'm not saying it was Big Foot they saw but down along the Sabine is as good a place as any to look and at this unparalleled time in the history of the world when someone that barely got out of high school knows more than a person who has studied their whole life you can bet it probably was Big Foot.
We did spot this rare blond albino juvenile Sabine Thang whipping the water to a frenzy with a Zebco 202 casting rig. As with so many sightings like this those people down the bank act like they are not seeing anything.
The guide at River Ridge Jane Gallenbach reported that a little rise from recent rain the bite, which had been in the river itself as opposed to up a creek when the water is high should pick up in a few days. We have not used a guide, preferring to fish from what they call "the sandbar." It can be hit or miss from the bank if you can't chase down fish in a boat but white bass is kind of a coarse eating fish and depending on the water body may have some consumption advisories. Sabine River white bass eaters are allowed six meals a month. That's more than I want anyway but be aware that with Trinity River and Lake Livingston white bass you are limited to I think one meal a month and none if in child bearing years.
You do know the difference in a coon ass and a jack ass? It's the Sabine River. Guess which side they are on.
Note that while sitting to fish the river has risen to Cathy's chair in a couple of hours. This was Cathy's first retirement fishing trip. I love the beautiful white sand beaches. Good place for the kids to play with lots of big mussel shells to find. The big filter feeders are usually a sign of clean water and big catfish.
Rare blonde albino Sabine Thang was impressed with Pop-Pop's mud hogging abilities in the wet river sand. For some reason the grand kids always ask "what are you doing Pop-Pop?"
The Zebco 202 rig has been a go to lately. Lots of practice casting in the yard, little bit of river fishing and it's perfect for luring those crafty felines out from under the truck. I think it might be unbreakable.
If there is no rain we will probably check the Sabine again soon. We might catch fish, see a Big Foot or just kill the day sitting in a lawn chair. It will be ok whatever happens.
The Mudbelly Guitar History or a Book Someone Needs to Write if Anything Ever Happens...
All the recent interest in the Beatles that has been brought back in focus with the new documentary "Get Back" that gave us insight into their creative process. For us guitar and gear nerds it was a pleasure to see what instruments and amps played what.
This caused me to recall a website I once saw that must have had a photo as documented proof of every guitar and amp a Beatle was publicly seen playing and a history of that piece of gear. I can't seem to find that site but there are books written and another site very similar. The information on each item was amazing. I recall there were some amps spotted in the studio with one Beatle in the 1960s and then later spotted onstage at a live performance with another after the group disbanded. Imagine the call, "Hey you still got that old Fender Bassman, can I borrow it this weekend?"
This trove of info reveals that the fab four were pretty much like all guitar guys (except they played much better and more creatively) with it came to guitars. They worked on them, painted them, sanded them down, had them stolen, backed over by cars and traded back and forth. It seems like I read in a book that Lennon had a room in the Dakoda where he stacked guitars against the wall much like I do.
All this brings me to the old pawn shop Suzuki Classical guitar Bill Cooney gave me to repair in 2019. I made repairs and returned the guitar to him. It came back to me after his passing. I played it in public the first time this past week at a Religious Education Epiphany Celebration at my church. I decided if a bass guitar, what I usually play at church is not essential I'll play this guitar on the Spanish and bilingual music.
Maybe one day some one will collect up all the photos of me playing my various instruments into a book and try to explain what I was doing. Should be interesting reading.
If they write a book on Cathy there will be a lot of photos but they will all be the same guitar since that's the only one she owns.
Don't forget to include photos of me playing the shaker I made from the belly dancer
I walk around taking lots of photos. These days it seems like I make a bunch of grandkid photos and they are usually blurry. They are blurry because have you ever been able to make a ball of action that is just old enough to have it's own agenda be still? No I have not either but I try.
The phone, which you should never complain about when you see a poor person with a nice one because you just can't live with out that online connection for all business and it's a lot easier way for a younger person to do their business than trundling along writing on a desktop like I am, keeps me posted on photos. Each day some kind of memory thing goes back about 10 years and photos I made at the time magically appear. Often times they are photos that either I did not consider my best and did not use on a social media post, they are kind of random events and seem to have been made with phone or as I call it even though it's not, the big camera and I don't know how those get in the cloud so to speak. My point I guess is in retrospect some look pretty good.
I was walking near the PK house in Chicago recently. Of course I had my camera. I passed a little restaurant about a block down called Pizza Fried Chicken and Ice Cream. It's named so because that's what they serve.
The pizza is a tavern style, thin crust, cut into squares. It's a kind that came to be a favorite in Chicago bars after WW2 because you could just roll the crust out instead of hand tossing, bake with toppings and cut into squares to be served on a napkin for a guy drinking at a bar to eat so he did not have to interrupt his drinking to get up for food. If you did not know the world worked this way, wake up it does. I've had their pizza, not at the bar but take home and it's good.
I have not had the fried chicken. I only eat Cathy's fried chicken. It's one of those things young lovers promise each other in moments of passion. "only your's honey, it's the best." I've stuck to that promise almost 33 years now.
The ice cream is a bar on a stick type thing in whimsical flavors like shad blueberry and it's good to grab one after an evening stroll over to a nearby park but it's nothing like sinking your whole head in a carton of the cheapest stuff HEB sells while watching a Netflix series that you can't even connect with.
Ok, back to the photos. I've strayed and when that happens it's like the guy who messaged me when I went a period of time without a blog post about my late father in law. He wrote, "Get back to Bill."
PFCIC had an outside wall plastered in these old style posters in a design that conveys a sense of emergency. Here are a couple of examples. I made photos of my favorites thinking that these would be inspirational later on but I failed to take a big picture of the whole wall. They were all kind of subversive and maybe I thought some would take to much explaining so I picked the ones with the most apparent message.
I think now, about people in the world that don't take in the greater effect of their actions on all of humanity and maybe that's what happened to me standing in front of that wall. I did not take in a total view. I'll try to do better next time. I did not make a blurry picture, I just did not get the whole picture.
Hopefully I can get the whole picture before my phone reminds me to think 10 years in the future. I'll try.
After a period of hobbling around that was frequently exacerbated by a night at work on her feet, lots of stairs or long walks Cathy had a hip replacement on Sept 21st. Doctor Guse was the surgeon, Woodland Heights was the hospital. It was an anterior approach type surgery. I'm the boss of her physical therapy. The photo is the old hip cartilage. The worn area is circled.
The new implant. She's going to need that airport hurry through the metal detector card.
This photo shows the alignment. Looks like they evened her up pretty good.
She was home from the hospital less than 24 hours after the surgery ended. Getting around well with the help of a walker now but one of the benefits of the anterior approach is that recovery to the least assistive device is quick.
"...I know I've seen that face before," Big Jim was thinking to himself
"Maybe down in Mexico or a picture up on somebody's shelf..."Bob Dylan from "Lilly Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts
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