Les' Station Wagon. The archetypical beach mobile
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
God Bless Les
It's 3:00pm and Les is out of hours. Les is the tech who works at the lab, mainly doing the Texas Beachwatch sampling. Every week this time of year he samples stretches of the beach for water quality, usually on the four-wheeler. Les is the type who can make almost anything work by using common items one might find on any moderately well stocked kitchen shelf or garage. He's a genius with things like PVC pipe, wire and hose clamps. His collection of homemade items scavenged from flotsom and jetsom on the beach is legendary. He's a locksmith too, able to open just about anything with a narrow assortment of tools.
A consumate islander, Les moved here long ago from the inland city of Edinburg. His primary residence is Kellys Irish Pub up on the north end of town, where he spends almost every evening and earned dollar, downing rum and cokes, a fixture there, as vital as the eight liner game machines or Guiness tap handles that dispense draughts in that place as smokey dark as the beer. No doubt he's earned a personalized barstool, and has probably achieved patron saint-of-the-bar status too.
Once, on the way out, late at night, he backed his ancient rusting station wagon into the wooden parking lot fence, taking out a whole section, and forever closing a passenger side door. Next day he was over there fixing the damage to the fence. That's how Les is. The station wagons door is still crushed shut.
He doesn't like kids. He was married once to a woman who had a real passion for tarantulas and cats, and he'll still help her out whenever she moves from place to place between the Island and Port Isabel. One requsite for being a true islander is the ability to recognize treasure from junk on the beach. He's always finding orphaned clothes, kids life jackets, swimming suits and flip flops and lots of times they'll appear over by the communal washing machine, earmarked for our twins. He doesn't like kids, but I guess he makes an exception for ours.
Last year Les brought in an object that looked like nothing more than a long piece of pipe. Turned out to be a recording sonde that some oil company contracted to have airdropped into the Gulf of Mexico. This particular instrument transmitted weather information back to some shore station, as it drifted along on ocean currents. It was worth a two hundred dollar reward to Les. He said it financed his Kellys tab for almost a week. For awhile he was collecting hard hats, blown off of oil rigs into the water during heavy offshore storms where they ride the same currents, and sometimes appear on the beach like so many plastic mushrooms, sprouting from the sand after the rain. He'd clean them up, and sell them over at the Port of Brownsville, at Amfels offshore construction where they manufacture the same oil rigs, in sort of a cosmic full tilt circle. I think he was getting about a buck apiece for them, but after awhile it turned into too much work, and was seriously cutting into his Kellys time.
Les doesn't like to work any more than is absolutely necesssary to sustain existence, which means pay his bar tab, and if enough is left over, the rent. I mean, who really does in an island environment, custom made for screwing away the day on the beach or in the bars? He makes a pretty decent salary and can clock in for forty hours each week but seldom does. Every day, just after lunch, his shoes get real tight, and I can hear the sound of the time clock go click! Then he'll stop by my office and casually mention, "I'm takin' off...outta time", and off to Kellys he rolls.
A consumate islander, Les moved here long ago from the inland city of Edinburg. His primary residence is Kellys Irish Pub up on the north end of town, where he spends almost every evening and earned dollar, downing rum and cokes, a fixture there, as vital as the eight liner game machines or Guiness tap handles that dispense draughts in that place as smokey dark as the beer. No doubt he's earned a personalized barstool, and has probably achieved patron saint-of-the-bar status too.
Once, on the way out, late at night, he backed his ancient rusting station wagon into the wooden parking lot fence, taking out a whole section, and forever closing a passenger side door. Next day he was over there fixing the damage to the fence. That's how Les is. The station wagons door is still crushed shut.
He doesn't like kids. He was married once to a woman who had a real passion for tarantulas and cats, and he'll still help her out whenever she moves from place to place between the Island and Port Isabel. One requsite for being a true islander is the ability to recognize treasure from junk on the beach. He's always finding orphaned clothes, kids life jackets, swimming suits and flip flops and lots of times they'll appear over by the communal washing machine, earmarked for our twins. He doesn't like kids, but I guess he makes an exception for ours.
Last year Les brought in an object that looked like nothing more than a long piece of pipe. Turned out to be a recording sonde that some oil company contracted to have airdropped into the Gulf of Mexico. This particular instrument transmitted weather information back to some shore station, as it drifted along on ocean currents. It was worth a two hundred dollar reward to Les. He said it financed his Kellys tab for almost a week. For awhile he was collecting hard hats, blown off of oil rigs into the water during heavy offshore storms where they ride the same currents, and sometimes appear on the beach like so many plastic mushrooms, sprouting from the sand after the rain. He'd clean them up, and sell them over at the Port of Brownsville, at Amfels offshore construction where they manufacture the same oil rigs, in sort of a cosmic full tilt circle. I think he was getting about a buck apiece for them, but after awhile it turned into too much work, and was seriously cutting into his Kellys time.
Les doesn't like to work any more than is absolutely necesssary to sustain existence, which means pay his bar tab, and if enough is left over, the rent. I mean, who really does in an island environment, custom made for screwing away the day on the beach or in the bars? He makes a pretty decent salary and can clock in for forty hours each week but seldom does. Every day, just after lunch, his shoes get real tight, and I can hear the sound of the time clock go click! Then he'll stop by my office and casually mention, "I'm takin' off...outta time", and off to Kellys he rolls.
Monday, March 28, 2005
Friday, March 25, 2005
TCEQ's Dogshit Campaign
The infamous dogshit poster, from TCEQ's campaign to clean up the Arroyo Colorado. Remember, by shoving dogturds down the drain you're impacting the quality of the Arroyo. Never mind the tons of nitrogenous waste that municipalities and farmers shovel in there everyday....
The Arroyo Colorado
Yesterday the director and I went out on the Arroyo Colorado to gather water quality data with the Hydrolab instrument. We were looking at the effects of barges running up and down the stream which cause mixing with a consequent reduction in things like dissolved oxygen. Without boring you to death with a lecture on aquatic chemistry, just let me say that the Arroyo Colorado is the most quality compromised stream in Texas, and probably one of the most filthy in the United States. Every major city in the Rio Grande Delta uses it as a dumping source for their treated sewage effluent and storm drainage, and countless farm fields runoff into it. There's a long standing joke that the headwaters of the Arroyo Colorado are a sewer outfall. Chemicals like dieldrin, DDT, DDE and others are still lurking in the sediments of this stream.
And still people swim in it run jetskis, eat fish and generally treat this toxic watercourse like an honest-to-god river. It's hard not to be lulled into a sense of false security as you travel along it's miles of meandering tree lined banks, or perhaps view the houses built downstream around Arroyo City, huge houses with manicured lawns, lighted docks and palatial layouts. But the stream is what it is.
The mouth of the Arroyo Colorado empties into the Laguna Madre, depositing it's nitrogen rich waters in an otherwise hypersaline (super salty) environment. This rich soup is responsible for increased algae blooms, and probably contributes to the Brown tide. My friend Joe K. calls the Arroyo "the biggest open pit toilet in Texas".
Recently, the state has become quite aware of the quality problem and is addressing it in response to pressure from some citizens groups, like the Arroyo Colorado coalition. Personally, I find their efforts ludicrious. One of the funniest was an advertising campaign designed to get people to stop shoveling their dog shit down the storm sewers where it eventually will end up in the Arroyo. It won't make a bit of difference...not even a turd in a bucket...
Then the state (TCEQ), the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality decided they needed more outreach, and hired a woman from Austin to run the program. Smart move. In any event, substantive change to the quality of that watercourse probably won't occur in my lifetime. It would take a radical restructuring of the entire economic base here (agriculture) to significantly reduce the amount of fertilizer and pesticide runoff, as well as figuring out a solution to the seweage and drainage problems for each municipality that dumps into the Arroyo. A daunting, overwhelming task that will probably take generations to accomplish. And that's why it's so laughable to try and get people to quit shoveling dogshit down the drain.
And still people swim in it run jetskis, eat fish and generally treat this toxic watercourse like an honest-to-god river. It's hard not to be lulled into a sense of false security as you travel along it's miles of meandering tree lined banks, or perhaps view the houses built downstream around Arroyo City, huge houses with manicured lawns, lighted docks and palatial layouts. But the stream is what it is.
The mouth of the Arroyo Colorado empties into the Laguna Madre, depositing it's nitrogen rich waters in an otherwise hypersaline (super salty) environment. This rich soup is responsible for increased algae blooms, and probably contributes to the Brown tide. My friend Joe K. calls the Arroyo "the biggest open pit toilet in Texas".
Recently, the state has become quite aware of the quality problem and is addressing it in response to pressure from some citizens groups, like the Arroyo Colorado coalition. Personally, I find their efforts ludicrious. One of the funniest was an advertising campaign designed to get people to stop shoveling their dog shit down the storm sewers where it eventually will end up in the Arroyo. It won't make a bit of difference...not even a turd in a bucket...
Then the state (TCEQ), the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality decided they needed more outreach, and hired a woman from Austin to run the program. Smart move. In any event, substantive change to the quality of that watercourse probably won't occur in my lifetime. It would take a radical restructuring of the entire economic base here (agriculture) to significantly reduce the amount of fertilizer and pesticide runoff, as well as figuring out a solution to the seweage and drainage problems for each municipality that dumps into the Arroyo. A daunting, overwhelming task that will probably take generations to accomplish. And that's why it's so laughable to try and get people to quit shoveling dogshit down the drain.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Shell Games
It never ceases to amaze me. The manners of our northern visitors. By and large they're the most self centered, cheapskate bastards that I can think of. This is a perfect example. For years, each winter they come in hoardes, like migrating shitbirds. One of their favorite pasttimes is rape, pillage and plunder the resources. Some of them fish every day in the surf keeping virtually everything (except stingrays which they drag up on the beach and leave to die in the sun..."them damn things are vicious Gerturde..." )They fish with fifteen foot long rods spooled with five hundred yards of thirty five pound test to catch fish that don't weigh half a pound. And the women....they walk up and down the beach and bay all morning every morning with walmart plastic bags in hand, eyes glued to the sand and mud, taking every hapless shell in the way. So much so in fact, that a whole area adjacent to their favorite trailer park has been almost wiped out. The other night there was a meeting with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and several of the viejitas showed up, bitching and complaining how the new law, designed to close that area was targeted specifically at winter Texans...well....no shit. They're the only ones who act in such a classless manner. There's even one guy who comes here in a motorhome from Florida every year, and takes tens of thousands of shells...doesn't make any difference to him if they're live, have hermit crabs or anything like that. My friends George and Scarlet have been on a crusade for a long time to limit the plunder of this area, I hope it succeeds....
Friday, March 18, 2005
Jerkoffs Gone WIld
College jerks gone wild. They might like spring break...but for us it's a big pain in the ass. Some of the area merchants (especially restaurants and bars) make enough money off of spring break to keep going through the whole year, but the rest of us suffer. In typical old fart reflectionism, I remember when this island was just a strip of sand, dotted by a few fishing shacks and a mix of people as salty as the gulf waters. I had a friend who was the only tattoo artist around for a long time, and during one particularly rough streatch of my life, I decided to get a tattoo. At that time Barrys shop was located over in Port Isabel, and he really didn't know me. So anyway, I got the tatt, and afterwards we started talking surfing. I mentioned that I was not too comfortable with my current stick, and he told me he had a board that was perfect....showed me a seven two fun shape, which I immediately fell in love with. But as a college student, I had little money. He told me to "take the board, and bring the payment when I could". I managed to scrape up the money, and paid him the next week when I came to the island to surf. That was in the springtime too, when we usually get the best waves. Harpoon Barry and his wife were killed on the night of September 15th 2001 when the car they were driving plunged off of the broken Queen Isabella Causeway.
Spring break is a time to trash the island, a time when all of our future leaders can operate on their worst behavior.
Several years ago, we got caught on the causeway one night around midnight. While waiting in line, the car next two us, a white Lexus full of twenty-something little girls deposited a couple of empty fourpak winecooler bottles on the ground. D leaned over me an yelled: "pick up your bottles". One of the passangers shot the finger at her. On the dashboard of our old van there was a big old cold greasy onion blossom that my daughter had purchased at the livestock show and rodeo just hours before. I picked it up like a baseball, and hurled it at the pearly white Lexus with open windows. Part of it splattered on the windshield, and the rest showered the kiddies inside. The electric windows went up, and the passengers all sat bolt upright, frozen for the rest of the ride across.
Eat or be Eaten
It's getting to be that time of the season again. This big Mako shark was landed offshore last week. Not the best eating shark in the pond, I guess the folks who caught it decided to keep it anyhow. Back in 1995 I went fishing in the (in)famous "shark hole" near the Queen Isabella Memorial causeway. Instead of my intended prey, after a three hour fight, I ended up landing a 220 pound Atlantic Stingray. I kept the monster, only because I figured it probably would be a state record. As we transported it to the island, it discharged about 10 live pups in a huge gush over the side. Then the engine on the skiff overheated, and we had to be towed back to port. By time we reached the island, it was late and no certified scale large enough for the critter was available. So we put it in the environmental chamber at the lab, and waited till the next morning to transport the behemoth over to Port Isabel, at the Shrimp porcessing plant where a certified scale was available. Missed the state record by something like 18 pounds. It would've for sure been a 35 pound test class record though...but what a dubious honor. I decided to carve it up into steaks, and for months, everybody had their fill of blackened, grilled, fried, broiled stingray. No, it doesn't taste like chicken...more like scallops. As an afternote, the epic struggle between man and chondrichythid caused a completely torn extensor tendon in my right arm, which later had to be surgically reattached. The fight was like being attached to a livingroom rug with a 25 horsepower evidnrude turned up full throttle....
Chris' Canoe
My friend CB working on his perennial canoe. He's actually gotten to a point where fiberglass is being laid over the wooden strips. I do believe that it will one day float, but it might be a bit anticlimactic after all of the years of effort that this project required. Yes Chris, the devil's in the details.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Shiner bock and an alfredo sauce, anchovy onion and mushroom pizza at D Pizza Joint. With spring break full tilt on the Island, we haven't been there as much as usual, but last night it was cold and windy, and the breakers must've been holed up, so we stopped in. Everybody was there. Mike, Parke, Marvin, Pianoman Mike and Larry from On the Beach. We stayed for awhile.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Black and White, Hit and Run
Recently Joanne has been involved in something horrifying. About a month ago I received a telephone call from Denver Colorado, a guy named Tilo Voitel, who identified himself as a detective with the Denver PD. Obviously the first call, you fear the worst...a parents nightmare. He assured me right away that Joanne was OK, then went on to explain that she was a part in, or witness to a hit and run accident. Of course, I was stunned, but listened, and offered to help in any way possible. Later, after having verified his story, I began to dig into the event. Joanne was being vague regarding the event, protecting the driver of the car, and right away I figured it was here "boyfriend", a black who identified himself as "Eric Stokes". This guy is a real loser, crack addict, violent asshole, who deserves the term, nigger. Unfortunately, Joanne has a child with him, and so he holds the baby over her head like an ax.
She stayed with us from late August to October, during which time we figured she was trying to make a break from this scumbag. In October, without warning, she aquired our bank account information, as well as a friends credit card, cleaned out our account, racked up all kinds charges, and split for Wichita Kansas. Needless to say, we were devistated.
As we came to find out, the hit and run fatality occurred in July in Denver. The driver fled the scene after dragging the hapless victim, Travis Kubiak almost 700 feet to his death. All along I suspected this "Stokes" guy, and finally last week, my daughter, under pressure implicated a 41 year old black man named "Gerald Brown" in the incident. He had been living with relatives in Wichita Kansas, and I believe that "Eric Stokes" is probably his alias. As you can tell from the article, he is an honorable man ("What the fuck did I hit?"......screeeech...varoooom), with a penchent for doing the right thing (crack). I can only hope they give him a long and unmitigated sentence, but knowing how the system works, I have my doubts. He'll probably try and pull some racial trick ("they's violated my cibil rights..."). That's the way it is in America today. Gotta pay the reparations for our ancestors slavery....
We were inexorably drawn into this tragedy, and my waking thoughts and sleeping dreams have been tainted by it.
I'm hopeful my daughter will keep doing the right thing and work with the authorities to see this guy has a fighting chance at being locked up for a long time. My heart goes out to the Kubiak family and Ms. Zimmerman. If I were them, it'd be a hell of a hard thing to forgive someone like that. But then again, it's pretty hard to hold an animal on the same level one would a human.....
She stayed with us from late August to October, during which time we figured she was trying to make a break from this scumbag. In October, without warning, she aquired our bank account information, as well as a friends credit card, cleaned out our account, racked up all kinds charges, and split for Wichita Kansas. Needless to say, we were devistated.
As we came to find out, the hit and run fatality occurred in July in Denver. The driver fled the scene after dragging the hapless victim, Travis Kubiak almost 700 feet to his death. All along I suspected this "Stokes" guy, and finally last week, my daughter, under pressure implicated a 41 year old black man named "Gerald Brown" in the incident. He had been living with relatives in Wichita Kansas, and I believe that "Eric Stokes" is probably his alias. As you can tell from the article, he is an honorable man ("What the fuck did I hit?"......screeeech...varoooom), with a penchent for doing the right thing (crack). I can only hope they give him a long and unmitigated sentence, but knowing how the system works, I have my doubts. He'll probably try and pull some racial trick ("they's violated my cibil rights..."). That's the way it is in America today. Gotta pay the reparations for our ancestors slavery....
We were inexorably drawn into this tragedy, and my waking thoughts and sleeping dreams have been tainted by it.
I'm hopeful my daughter will keep doing the right thing and work with the authorities to see this guy has a fighting chance at being locked up for a long time. My heart goes out to the Kubiak family and Ms. Zimmerman. If I were them, it'd be a hell of a hard thing to forgive someone like that. But then again, it's pretty hard to hold an animal on the same level one would a human.....
Joanne
I have a daughter, Joanne who just turned 21 on Sunday (March 13). She has a troubled past....You know old story, child of a broken marriage, lived with an unattentive mother, no limits. She is probably as close to me as any of my kids have been, and my heart always breaks for her...a lost child. It's hard not to hold myself personally responsible for that, the "I should'ves". Within the last year we've reached out to her in where she lives in Denver to try and resolve a few things and give her the options of having someplace to call home and family (she's always had that, but made some bad choices).
It's hard not to remember Joanne as a young child. I remember going through a bad period a number of years ago, when she was about 6 or 7 years old. I'd lost my (poorly managed) business, and was working doing roofing work with a friend of mine. I had gotten a piece of roofing aggregate in my eye, and the subsequent visit to the emergency room had aggrevated it so that BOTH eyes became swollen shut. I was for all intents and purposes, blind. Joanne had been participating in a church play called "don't give up", and was sitting at the dinner table on this particular day, while I sat in a chair in the living room, feeling the sun on my body, but not being able to see the warmth of the day. A unique and unsettling experience for one who has been sighted all of their life. I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself when I heard this little voice singing quietly behind me "Sometimes it's not easy...being a child of the King...Sometimes the songs he gives us, are kinda hard to sing...". I broke down and started crying from blind eyes.
It's hard not to remember Joanne as a young child. I remember going through a bad period a number of years ago, when she was about 6 or 7 years old. I'd lost my (poorly managed) business, and was working doing roofing work with a friend of mine. I had gotten a piece of roofing aggregate in my eye, and the subsequent visit to the emergency room had aggrevated it so that BOTH eyes became swollen shut. I was for all intents and purposes, blind. Joanne had been participating in a church play called "don't give up", and was sitting at the dinner table on this particular day, while I sat in a chair in the living room, feeling the sun on my body, but not being able to see the warmth of the day. A unique and unsettling experience for one who has been sighted all of their life. I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself when I heard this little voice singing quietly behind me "Sometimes it's not easy...being a child of the King...Sometimes the songs he gives us, are kinda hard to sing...". I broke down and started crying from blind eyes.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
D' Pizza Joint
There's never any shortage of work to be caught up on around here, so lots of evenings we end up working late and don't eat till after 9pm. During most of the year, the Island is a pretty dead place on weeknights, and the litany of restaurants open is pretty limited. Mostly just fast food joints, a couple of after hour joints, and then D' Pizza Joint.
I first went to the place back in the early 90's, and it had already been opened for some time then. Small and way informal, it held an instant appeal. Now it has emerged as probably the hangout. Staffed by an eclectic mix, there's Mike the owners son, who seems to always be slaving away for his parents...sort of an indentured serventry. Mike is probably in his early to mid 30's, but the joint just wouldn't be the same without him, so I hope that his good nature continues to keep him there, he and his girlfriend Gina. She's Filipino and a real jewel...my Pansit queen, always smiling. Then there's Parke (Park-ee). Around 50 he's been there for about nine years. Parkes a bow hunting fool. I'm not sure if there exists a more generous and kind individual We had a fire back in 2003 that destroyed just about everything we owned. We were staying at a friends beach house, pretty much destitute a couple of weeks after the fire, when one night we decided to splurge and order a couple of pizzas to go. D and I like an alfredo sauce-anchovy-onion and mushroom, and the girls usually get a pepperoni. So I walked over there. The pizzas weren't ready yet, so I had a beer and told Parke the story. When the pizzas were ready, well, he wouldn't let us pay. We're going to get together with him for some competition pingpong/beer drinking/wild game barbequing...
Marvins' another employee there. I vacilate between liking and hating the guy. He's a certifiable islander, originally from somewhere else (like almost everybody...who's REALLY a local??) and crazy as shit...One of those types that still smokes pot and is proud of their addiction. The guy sometimes get's all shitfaced DURING work. It's hilarious, but if he's in a bad mood look out. Like Wednedays, the owners host a poker game for them and their cronies and they start really being assholes to the staff. "Marvin get me this, Marvin get me that...Mike why aren't you waiting on that table over there in the corner?...Parke...PARKE!!!" That's the time to avoid the place, and during real busy Saturdays too. One time Marvin pissed me off so bad we didn't go there for something like a month....
Finally theres the other Mike. Mike the piano guy. This guy plays piano for the place. He's a multitalented musician, real laid back, but lightning fast on the 88's. I don't think there's many songs he can't play or doesn't know. I hold musicians like that in awe. When the viejitos are there, they get him playing a lot of oldies but moldies, just singing along, which he really hates. Sometimes for perversity sake I'll shout out..."Hey Mike...how 'bout a little Chatanooga choo-choo" or maybe "little brown jug", really get those folks going.... dancing the jitterbug, or whatever the hell they do.
This winter there was this big fat retired guy from Wisconson that would make him play a song called "Johnny Verbeck"...about a sausage-makin'- machine. The guy acted like he was Dean Martin or some other lounge lizard. He had a whole repertoire of music that he'd corral Mike into playing so that he could sing...like a just offkey version of Jambalya.... by that time, I'd be laughing till tears were rolling down my cheeks...."Yea....I got yer sausage riight HERE!" Afterwards, he'd stroll around basking in fame (and the glow of five or six scotches)....probably hoping that someone would ask him for an autograph or frameable picture or something.
Anyway lots of nights, late, it's just D and I and whoever happens to be working. I guess one of the things that I'll always treasure are late night pitchers of Shiner Bock Beer and Muffalata and Ruben sandwiches.....
I first went to the place back in the early 90's, and it had already been opened for some time then. Small and way informal, it held an instant appeal. Now it has emerged as probably the hangout. Staffed by an eclectic mix, there's Mike the owners son, who seems to always be slaving away for his parents...sort of an indentured serventry. Mike is probably in his early to mid 30's, but the joint just wouldn't be the same without him, so I hope that his good nature continues to keep him there, he and his girlfriend Gina. She's Filipino and a real jewel...my Pansit queen, always smiling. Then there's Parke (Park-ee). Around 50 he's been there for about nine years. Parkes a bow hunting fool. I'm not sure if there exists a more generous and kind individual We had a fire back in 2003 that destroyed just about everything we owned. We were staying at a friends beach house, pretty much destitute a couple of weeks after the fire, when one night we decided to splurge and order a couple of pizzas to go. D and I like an alfredo sauce-anchovy-onion and mushroom, and the girls usually get a pepperoni. So I walked over there. The pizzas weren't ready yet, so I had a beer and told Parke the story. When the pizzas were ready, well, he wouldn't let us pay. We're going to get together with him for some competition pingpong/beer drinking/wild game barbequing...
Marvins' another employee there. I vacilate between liking and hating the guy. He's a certifiable islander, originally from somewhere else (like almost everybody...who's REALLY a local??) and crazy as shit...One of those types that still smokes pot and is proud of their addiction. The guy sometimes get's all shitfaced DURING work. It's hilarious, but if he's in a bad mood look out. Like Wednedays, the owners host a poker game for them and their cronies and they start really being assholes to the staff. "Marvin get me this, Marvin get me that...Mike why aren't you waiting on that table over there in the corner?...Parke...PARKE!!!" That's the time to avoid the place, and during real busy Saturdays too. One time Marvin pissed me off so bad we didn't go there for something like a month....
Finally theres the other Mike. Mike the piano guy. This guy plays piano for the place. He's a multitalented musician, real laid back, but lightning fast on the 88's. I don't think there's many songs he can't play or doesn't know. I hold musicians like that in awe. When the viejitos are there, they get him playing a lot of oldies but moldies, just singing along, which he really hates. Sometimes for perversity sake I'll shout out..."Hey Mike...how 'bout a little Chatanooga choo-choo" or maybe "little brown jug", really get those folks going.... dancing the jitterbug, or whatever the hell they do.
This winter there was this big fat retired guy from Wisconson that would make him play a song called "Johnny Verbeck"...about a sausage-makin'- machine. The guy acted like he was Dean Martin or some other lounge lizard. He had a whole repertoire of music that he'd corral Mike into playing so that he could sing...like a just offkey version of Jambalya.... by that time, I'd be laughing till tears were rolling down my cheeks...."Yea....I got yer sausage riight HERE!" Afterwards, he'd stroll around basking in fame (and the glow of five or six scotches)....probably hoping that someone would ask him for an autograph or frameable picture or something.
Anyway lots of nights, late, it's just D and I and whoever happens to be working. I guess one of the things that I'll always treasure are late night pitchers of Shiner Bock Beer and Muffalata and Ruben sandwiches.....
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Guerrero viejo returning to the submarine world. The old church on the left has been out of the water for about 10 years or more, during our drought. Last summer we had beau-coup rain, and now Falcon lake is near conservation level again. The water level is near the plaza square, visable on the right, behind the truck. That's a few of the viejitos milling around by the church in the foreground, like a bunch of cabras or something...."Gosh Mildred, I had a friend who used to fish around this area every winter, said that the only way he knew he was around here was by the cross on the top of the old church, just sticking out of the water.....". Bullshit. Never did happen. Water level only reached about half way up the main door, during flood capacity, then water flooded over the spillway on Falcon dam, lowering the level. We take groups over there about once or twice a year. It's about 150 miles from the Island, but I enjoy it...a major history dissertation...
Monday, March 07, 2005
When the Coast is Clear
A view looking west towards Port Isabel. One of my favorite photos, this one was taken in November, before most of the Winter Texans are back. I think it was the year after the causeway collapse in 2001. The island takes on a different feeling during that time....it becomes an island again, home to an assortment of people and critters that would make John Steinbeck proud. My friends Paul and Cheryl are among them. They live aboard the Freedoms Hope, a big old steel hulled Ketch with their two kids, Machai and Shey, both boys. Every year Paul makes ramblings about going cruising, but I think they must still be a long way off, the island seems to reel him back in each time. He's an accomplished Kiteboarder, surfer and windsailor, and works as a physical therapist in the area. I met him when the causeway was down, and we had to commute via ferry boat each morning to Port Isabel. Freedoms Hope is full of kids toys, and sometimes we joke that the "diaper sail" is flying when Cheryl is drying the laundry on a clothesline streched between the main and mizzenmasts, laundry which consists mostly of baby Sheys diapers. They're real sweet folks, Cheryl is a vegetarian who doesn't have an ugly bone in her, and is at peace with the world. They have a bumper sticker on the back of their van that says "visualize world peace"...I think "visualize whirled peas" might be a better one though. Cheryl is an artist. A few years ago she was commissioned by the man who now is the Sea Ranch Marina Mogul, Daryl Golden to paint he and his wife, standing in front of a confederate flag rippling in the wind. She captured the pair well, but ignored my suggestion that she paint them with KKK hoods over their heads....
Friday, March 04, 2005
Day two point five: Old Guerrero (again) and more
Well, a little more gospel from the coast. Yesterday we were out all day long running a bunch of viejitos to Guerrero viejo, the old Mexican town on Falcon lake opposite Zapata. Started out at around 5am from the house, and dropped D off over in Harlingen to escort the bus to its other stops (Weslaco, Donna, Pharr and Mission). I followed along behind in La suegras car (we had been promised that the jeep would be ready over in Mission....it's been OOC for about three weeks now...always the same old story...manana....manana, then the mechanic ordered the wrong fuel pump, so it's back to manana again...but that's another whole story.
It had been raining overnight, and looked pretty grey all the way out to Rio Grande City. We had about 40 people on board, so it wasn't all that bad. They were a pretty good bunch too, and anyway I was N-GAS about the whole thing, so by time we reached Guerrero, everything was going pretty well (except for the microphone which kept cutting in and out on the rough road).
The water in Falcon Lake is now up around the edge of town, near the old church, which it hasn't been for many years. In fact, I had never seen it there, so it was kind of spooky....I'll post a pic tomorrow or next post (whichever comes first) whenever I can download the camera...
The food was as siempre, good. (As usual) I had the fish, which was lightly fried black bass filet (a big one) with rice, corn, tortillas, totopos, two different salsas (a wonderful green and a salsa de comal red) and a desert of butter pecan ice cream...not bad for a little Mexican town in the middle of nowhere...oh yea, and the complimentary margarita was excellent. El doctor took care of all of the arrangements, as we learned, sadly, that Rogelio appears to be very sick, if not terminal with cancer. We hadn't seen him since last year, and he wasn't there yesterday either.
It took a while to cross US customs, and we arrived back in Mission around 630pm or so. I had a presentation to the Texas Master Naturalists last night from 6 to 9, so I ended up there late. Another Lab thing, by request. We got there around 730 or so and I lectured till around 930, then D drove back home. We didn't arrive till pretty close to eleven....
It had been raining overnight, and looked pretty grey all the way out to Rio Grande City. We had about 40 people on board, so it wasn't all that bad. They were a pretty good bunch too, and anyway I was N-GAS about the whole thing, so by time we reached Guerrero, everything was going pretty well (except for the microphone which kept cutting in and out on the rough road).
The water in Falcon Lake is now up around the edge of town, near the old church, which it hasn't been for many years. In fact, I had never seen it there, so it was kind of spooky....I'll post a pic tomorrow or next post (whichever comes first) whenever I can download the camera...
The food was as siempre, good. (As usual) I had the fish, which was lightly fried black bass filet (a big one) with rice, corn, tortillas, totopos, two different salsas (a wonderful green and a salsa de comal red) and a desert of butter pecan ice cream...not bad for a little Mexican town in the middle of nowhere...oh yea, and the complimentary margarita was excellent. El doctor took care of all of the arrangements, as we learned, sadly, that Rogelio appears to be very sick, if not terminal with cancer. We hadn't seen him since last year, and he wasn't there yesterday either.
It took a while to cross US customs, and we arrived back in Mission around 630pm or so. I had a presentation to the Texas Master Naturalists last night from 6 to 9, so I ended up there late. Another Lab thing, by request. We got there around 730 or so and I lectured till around 930, then D drove back home. We didn't arrive till pretty close to eleven....
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