U.S. Tico and The Man at Rockport Fulton Market Days...

 I've written about my old friend, Donald Setterbo, or as we called him in college Donnie "Mo-Honny" or as friends and family know him, "Papa Turtle" or as he is now known through the branding of his retirement business venture, U.S. Tico. I helped him this weekend in his booth at his hometown Rockport Fulton Market Days. 

I case you don't know "Tico" is a term for a native Costa Rician. Setterbo has been living in Quepos, Costa Rica for six years. He is U.S. Tico, a Tico at heart from the USA. Quepos is a tropical harbor town, surrounded by rain forest and famous for big game fishing. It's an easy place to fall in love with and identify yourself with the relaxed pace of living and the ecotourism that replaced the banana plantation economy. Do I need to mention that resident Americans and Europeans enjoy the cheap rents and cool breezes off the ocean?    

U.S. Tico got the idea for his brand one day while walking the harbor along Marina Pez Vela. He encountered a young Nicaraguan woman out to enjoy a stroll down the picturesque waterfront. The woman pushed a baby carriage and the chubby cheerful baby wore a hat that said, "No Soy Tico" or translated to English "I'm not Costa Rician." This set the wheels of creativity turning. Costa Rica is a beautiful, easy place to be. It also spends 6.9% of it's budget on education compared to a global average of 4.4%, is rated at a higher level of human development that other countries of similar income and scores as the worlds 23rd happiest place according to the World Happiness Report. Let's get together and talk sometime about why you don't want to be Tico.    

U.S. Tico goods are high quality. The prints and logos are created and drawn by humans, not AI machines. Hats and other items are embroidered.  At the Market Days U.S. Tico introduced his new line for Ticas, or for non Spanish speakers, the girls. 

Looking around the Market Days Fair grounds there were several hat booths. These are different. They  fit my big head. That's quality. 

Creativity runs in the Setterbo family. Click the link to check out his daughter Naedas's children's book, "Sloth Bunny Goes to School." U.S. Tico reviewed the book for me, "there's a lot of different levels..."

You can pick up Sloth Bunny on a hoodie. 

Of course in the short time span of one weekend's work U.S. Tico did not covert the whole USA to the Tico life. That's their loss, but he told his story, sold a few hats and talked to other local business owners interested in carrying the line in their shop. No one else is doing this. Why not make the sales pitch? Pura Vida is a Spanish term used in Costa Rica to describe the culture there. It means the pure life. Why not be Tico? Why not be Tica?    

Shop now, someone with that many nicknames is bound to have something going on.

U.S. Tico

 

U.S. Tico, the Man, Q, Catfish and Music How Else can you Live it Love it Wear it?...

It's numerology bouncing around my brain when U.S. Tico visits the Man. Thirty pops up on my calculator which is about the number of years since we last saw each other. When Q, not the anonymous Q but just regular old Q, shows up input 43 and that's how long since those two saw each other back on the old red brick streets of Nacogdoches. When we were all in college together the number on the dorm where we met, old Mays Hall was Dorm 11. Add seventeen because that's how many months, stuck down in Costa Rica because of Covid restrictions it took for U.S. Tico to grow his ideas. When we spent two days (do you multiply?) on Lake Sam Rayburn catfishing the number produced is 45 because that's how many catfish we caught and ate. To tie all this together is a variable number and this is the number of guitars owned by U.S Tico and the Man. No one knows that value but add one, the loneliest number and that's represents the keyboard that Q jammed on.     

The U.S Tico Fishing Team 2021, left to right Q, Tico, the Man. 

Just for the fishing record the lake, after the high water of spring and early summer is dropping fast but our honey hole Los Brazos is still producing. Two days, 45 cats and we left them biting. Fish ran a bit bigger than average for this spot and we could have caught many more. The fishing log shows four trips this summer and 150 fish caught at this place. Fish are hanging suspended 10-20 feet, easy to catch pitching to them on JPiggs stink punch bait, 

The Man and Q. That's the real Q to you. 

The U.S. Tico Fish Team. We still did not get a photo of anyone modeling a swimsuit but I think I feel a product idea coming on. 

Back in the old Nacogdoches days at Stephen F. Austin State University we spent afternoons lounging and listening in old Mays Hall to Bob Dylan songs. Now we jam on Dylan songs.  

Cathy joins in on our jams. Yes, girls can be on the U.S. Tico Fishing Team and in their guitar army.  

It was a great weekend. Tico is wandering Texas for a couple of more months. Q headed back to his home in Tyler. We will gather again, I just don't know when. I have numbers to add up and there may be answer produced by my ciphering. 

 

U.S. Tico and the Stephen F. Austin State University Rugby Reunion...

 U.S. Tico is in the USA. With numerous goals to accomplish and orders of business to take care of after 17 months of  pandemic assisted venturing the adventure in Costa Rica the first thing to see to besides family was a reunion of Stephen F. Austin State University Rugby Team Alumni at the Houston SaberCats game. It's sad to note that the SaberCats lost but I am sure they played the third half well.

There's U.S. Tico standing third from the right. Maybe we can put some names to these guys and The Man might actually know some of them but it's been a long time sice he played a third half with them.  

Rugby at SFASU is a Sport Club. Like other sport clubs such as bass fishing, judo, rock climbing and more it's a student run activity with most funding from donors. These clubs provide leadership opportunities and competition with other schools at the state and national level. Alumni donors offer one rugby scholarship each year. 

The Man never joined these guys to play rugby but as you can see from this group it's a friendly sport. After the game anyone not on the team has the chance to play the third half. It's a tradition to play the third half  around a keg of beer with everyone joining in the singing of bawdy songs, usually to the tune of well known nursery rhymes that must be finished flawlessly or you chug a beer. I note that now a days rugby songbooks can be downloaded and printed. That kind of takes some of the challenge away from your third half playbook.       

Of course there are other traditions such as the elephant walk as well as some that may not be named yet. There is also group of girls that follow the team called rugger huggers. See the girl in the top left of the above photo? That's a rugger hugger.

That's U.S. Tico on the far right standing. This photo from the Oct 3, 1978 issue of the Pine Log student newspaper celebrates the SFASU Rugby Team State Championship. 

Ok time to compare. Look at the SaberCat photos. Look at this one. Now chug your beer and name names. 

Here's another Pine Log clipping on a defeat of the Sam Houston Bearkats. It's always a good day when you beat Sam. Note the story below the game report, if you like SFASU Rugby donate here. 

I also note that there is now SFASU Women's Rugby. Research is underway to determine what they call team followers and if they need any. 

Venture the Adventure While Holding a Baby...

U.S. Tico always says, "Venture the Adventure."  I say, "Yeah, but I'm holding a baby." Just do it. that's the whole idea. Pura Vida, with the meaning that you should be thankful for what you have and live a simple life is the way for Ticos but I lived it on one particular vacation to Mexico. 

The summer of 1991 had been very eventful. In July my youngest daughter was born. There had been house remodeling, family adjustments for the three older children and school was soon to start. As a consolation prize for the new baby taking away some of their summer fun thunder we promised the kids that there would be a vacation to Disney World as soon as mom and baby were ready to travel and before school started. Reservations were booked. Only problem with all these goings on, you must remember this was pre-internet when you could just google up this information, the trip was booked after the start date of school. Hasty adjustments were made, Disney World was canceled and it seemed that even though the baby was three weeks old, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico was a good idea.    

Puerto Vallarta is located on the Pacific coast of Mexico. Long a place where Hollywood celebrities could cavort while escaping prying paparazzi at the time it was not on the general American tourist's radar and was a preferred vacation destination for Mexico's domestic tourist. It was a great place, sunny skies, clear, calm water with a deceptive wave break right at the beach that would strip a bikini from the unguarded swimmer in an instant while beach vendors selling cheap silver and fat lazy green iguanas watched.      

"Night of the Iguana", starting Richard Burton and Ava Garner was filmed in 1964 at Mismaloya, a beach south of Puerto Vallarta. Our trip, with a three week old baby had none of the drama associated with the John Huston directed film about the human wrecks descending on an isolated resort. Instead there were jungle trips, donkey rides, good food, plenty of beach time and souvenirs to purchase from wandering sellers willing to negotiate what was perceived as the lowest possible price for their wares.        

Since much is made of the movie filmed there and the Hollywood connection to isolated relaxation it seemed like a good idea to book a boat cruise to Mismaloya Beach and Los Arcos Marine Park. The tour promised coastal sight seeing in the vicinity of the movie set, beach time, a jungle trail, waterfalls, snorkeling, and a roasted chicken lunch. Seems like an easy trip for a baby.   

It's not hard to imagine Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor living in a hillside home with the beach right below. 

Waterfalls and jungle trails capture the iguana movie mood. 

I must admit that it has only been in recent years on a trip to the Cayman Islands that I became comfortable breathing through a snorkel. I have a bit of claustrophobia and things such as reclining in the upper berth of an Amtrak sleeping compartment or trying to breath through a pipe activate it. I was perfectly happy to let my wife, Cathy, snorkel while I held the baby.     

Los Arcos became a protected area in 1984 to preserve the habit, fish and birdlife that is abundant in the waters around these granite islands carved down to arches by time and the elements.  

I should mention at this point that the roasted chicken lunch, with side dishes of beans, rice and tortillas had been washed down with cheap tequila, and Modelo beer. The boat crew was a gregarious bunch and seemed to lead the charge when it came to the cheap tequila. Maybe that's why it looked like a good idea to drive the boat through the arch. I have heard U.S. Tico was here in 1982. I am not sure if the boat Captain had heard about Venture the Adventure yet or not.      

These are all photos that I made that day. I don't have photos of the boat ramming the arch, running aground and shattering the rail. It was the pre-digital age so no cell phones to capture all action and post to Instagram. In the chaos I was too busy holding on to the baby. I could imagine the headlines. "Man drowns but saves baby." To Venture the Adventure you must survive it. I think that's a U.S. Tico rule. 

As you can see the boat did not sink, I did not drown, calm returned and I still had the baby. She's 29 years old. We made it back to port with the tour boat engine dying as we bumped up against a docked ocean liner. With the boat damaged and the cheap tequila gone the crew was not as entertaining on the return trip as they were earlier. As I think back on this experience and have learned more about the delicate ecosystem of Los Arcos I would think that compounded with the boat damage there might have been some consequences for the crew to the boat grounding on the protected reef.    

Pura Vida. Venture the Adventure. Even if you choose Costa Rica over Mexico and have to hold a baby. 

 

Slip Inside This House...

 The Man pulled his dark blue 1971 Dodge Demon off the dusty red dirt of old Martinsville Rd. into the driveway of the long brick ranch style duplex. A knock at the door was answered by U.S. Tico who said, "Slip inside this house." The Man entered. The universe shifted and changed by the actions taken and U.S. Tico drew down the old paper roller shade that hung over the front window and a pen an ink of Don Quixote tilting at windmills that had been sketched there by a previous tenant with plenty of time and better than average talent was reveled. 

Slipping inside this house is a mind set, an idea, a way to live that happens in so many ways and in so many places. The Man slipped inside U.S. Tico's house that long ago day to venture a friendship that would last decades with lances tilted to the "fierce and unequal combat" of life. Don Quixote slipped inside the house of adventure when he prepared to attack the windmills he believed to be giants. If you visit Costa Rica and step inside BenJammin's porch out of the tropical rain the afternoon will pass with song and fun before you know it. 

Slipping inside the house of travel never goes out of fashion. It was the writer Henry Miller who said, "One's destination is never a place but a new way of seeing things." 

Maybe that's the best way to think about this idea. Slip inside this house. Make friendships that grow. Look for art that has personal meanings. Listen to the joy of music made by friends. Travel and experience the world outside familiar settings. Find a way to slip inside this house, even if it is a long brick ranch style duplex. Venture the adventure and life will take it from there.   

Keep an Eye Out for U.S. Tico...

 I mentioned a few blogs back I was beginning to write for an old college friend's Shopify web site called U.S. Tico. Things are moving right along and I don't know exactly when the web site goes live but it's exciting to have a place where my blogging will reach a wider audience. 

I can divide my life in parts. There's that part where I spent a lot of time playing electric guitar and howling at the moon, there is a part I spent raising kids and having a family, there is that part I spent playing a tuba, there is the fishing part, there is the part where I was a musician at church, there is the part where I traveled around, there is the part where I was a better electric guitar player but still howled at the moon and of course there have been a couple of different careers during all this. Some of those parts overlapped. The characters in these parts are mostly the same. There may be parts I have not unpacked or found a label for or even begun yet. I'm thankful that people have expressed interest in these things, or maybe it was the things I thought about all these parts that made them say, "hey, I want to read about this." 

It's pretty wild that this blog, begun in August 2005 has had 161,458 visits. I have written 2682 individual posts. I don't know how many words this has taken but it's a bunch. When I meet a blog reader on the street they usually comment on the photos. That's good too and if Cathy is with me they say, "The girl from the blog!" 

So keep an eye out. I'll let you know about U.S. Tico. There will be shopping, music, adventure and other blogs. May be you will have a part. If you do, I'll be sure to write about it. 

   

  

Don't Look in the Wrong Place...

 U.S. Tico and The Man were separated by time and distance. They were connected very closely by thoughts, ideas, experience and sheer number of hours spent sitting on the porch playing a guitar. Sometimes they play with friends or family but as is often the case the task of something you believe in can be solitary. Serenading can be a lonely business. It seems there is no one listening while you sit in a little room. Or perhaps they stop by the wrong room to listen? The Man only has to reach back into close family history to find a story that could almost be the one told by himself and U.S. Tico.

With a history that reached back to the 1870s string band music was popular and instrumentation evolved to include other members of the string family with the banjo fiddle combo that defined the genre it the early days. By the 1920s String band music was well on the way to becoming the modern country music we know about today that has incorporated rap beats to sing about pickup trucks, cell phones and drinking Guaro on Costa Rician beaches. Way before Central American beach vacations The Man's family roots were in Perry County Tennessee, Lick Creek specifically near the river where his grandmother's people the Ledbetters settled in the 1850s in close proximity to the Weems (pronounced Wims) family. 

The Man's connection to the Weems family is his great grandfather, Henry Clay Ledbetter had a brother, William Brownlow Ledbetter who married Martha Hale Lewis. Martha, who passed in 1908, the best way we can date all this, had a sister Mary Jane who married William Thomas Weems, reportedly an excellent fiddle player. Their sons formed the Weems Family String Band. In 1920s Perry County my family, the Ledbetters, would surely have known and seen the Weems play music. 

The photos used here are courtesy of The Man's cousin Charles. Charles is the grandson of William Brownlow Ledbetter and grew up knowing brothers Dick and Frank Weems. In his words "they died poor and would have never guessed that a Google search of the Weems Family String Band would produce thousands of results. They played dances and fiddle contests up to their death." 

The Weems Family String Band cut two sides for Columbia Records in 1928. They were standards "Greenback Dollar" backed with "Davy". These records are quite collectable. Cousin Charles has a copy. 

Why did the Weems Family only cut only two sides? They had a career that spanned generations and decades. As this short film will explain the record company wanted more but looked for the band in Arkansas instead of Tennessee. Also cousin Charles has related that an invitation to the Grand Old Opry was missed because the wives wanted to attend the gig as well and there was not an automobile large enough available to transport all to Nashville.   

Have you heard the Weems Family String Band? Have you heard of U.S. Tico and The Man? Don't look in Arkansas.  

 

  

  

    

The Man Calls Tico...

 Back in the mid 1970s behind what some called the pine curtain, certainly a designation that was an indication of a different civilization running it's trains on it's own time there was a small University in a rural East Texas town. It was an old town and Davy Crockett had passed through there on his way to the Alamo. Maybe he should have stayed because it's likely something in the air or water was already present that created the vibe of the place.

 Hamburgers and illegal smiles were cheap. Although Crockett was reportedly a fiddle player all long haired guys had guitars for this revolution. They lived in dorms that could best be described as upscale institutional. Hippie girls sunbathed on the lawn outside these dorms which decades later would be paved over for townhouse style student accommodations and the ugly but necessary parking garages. Fifteen bucks got a keg of Schlitz Malt Liquor and enough ice to keep it cool while the word spread of a gathering miles outside of town called a woodsie. During this time U.S. Tico met the Man.

It was school so they had to study a bit and U. S. Tico did get a degree of some sort. It was kind of vague, like his ancestry which he claimed was Norwegian. Maybe U. S. Norwegitico, knowing what is known now. The Man, majoring in music did not finish a course of study but did finish a useful degree 30 years later. As to the music thing about 45 years later a respected conductor told The Man that, "I see you are coming from a different place." Indeed, what we know now. 

Again back to the old days though when Pabst's Blue Ribbon was $2.39 for a 12 pack at the gas station on North. and the old Hole in the Wall Bar on Wettermark hosted great Texas Outlaw Country bands and songwriting troubadours like Rusty Weir, Steve Fromholz and Ray Wylie Hubbard backed by Jerry Jeff Walker's Lost Gonzo Band on most weekends. Those Lost Gonzos could burst ear drums with their version of "Communication Breakdown." U. S. Tico and The Man played guitars also. Cover songs were pretty rudimentary at the time but some heartfelt blues was belted out at the woodsies to the tune of brutally fingered E chord progressions with improvised lyrics bemoaning all sadness, trials and tribulations of student life.   

Just like the price of beer always going up, students move on. The day U. S. Tico left he was traveling light. He presented The Man with a set of of maroon dinner plates, more square than they were round and their surfaces scared by the sawing of cheap steak knives against cheaper, tougher meats. A gift? Maybe. The Man would eat off them for most of the next decade.

In fact it was about 10 years before they saw each other again and took a fishing trip together. Big trout cruised between the sea grass beds of Copano Bay and reds tailed on the spoil banks of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. They cooked this delicious seafood sautéed in butter or blackened with Cajun spices and of course better beer than PBR or Bull. 

Like the late songwriter Billy Joe Shaver says "the years rolled by, like a mighty rush of eagles..." U. S. Tico and The Man might have met at a rugby club reunion one more time but after that it would be awhile.  

There would be wives, kids, careers, happy times, sad times, proud times, grandkids, music, better guitars, many concerts, New Orleans Jazz Fests, hobbies, distractions, the tossing out ceremony of the maroon plates and all the things that happen for men as they wind through the fishing trip of life. One day, it had been maybe 30 years since The Man had seen U. S. Tico, a cryptic message arrived.

"I'm in Costa Rica. It's like college, but you don't go to classes. I have lots of time and am working on something big but need help. I want to venture the adventure! Tell our stories! Talk about music! Play music! The free thoughts are flowing!"

The Man wished he still had those maroon plates. He wondered how much a keg of Bull was these days. It occurred to him that U. S. Tico was not Norwegian.  He picked up a guitar and strummed an E chord. It was a good venture to begin an adventure.