The Great Midnight Procession

I’m gonna get in trouble with someone sure as hell for blogging this one…

Back in the 80’s I had a couple of crazy friends who I used to hang out with quite a bit. RBY and Hunter. Now understand before I begin the story, we were fully grown adults.

RBY had gotten in trouble with us when we went to Pepes on the River following a three day road trip to North Texas. We had inadvertently left him there, and he had to catch a ride home with some old wrinkle-neck, and when he walked into his house, his wife noticed that he had his shirt zipped through his pants zipper. She suspected something.

So RBY got put on restriction. We tried to get him exonerated, even sent his then-wife a “Honey-do” basket, complete with flowers, toilet scrubber and paintbrushes. This resulted in an even tougher sentence.

After sitting around one night with Hunter drinking Cuba Libres, we decided we’d extract our own form of punishment on RBY for being such a pussy and not standing up to the old ball and chain. Show her who’s boss.

We jumped into Hunters mothers big black Lincoln Continental (he was babysitting the thing for her while she was out of town) and throwing a great fishtail, lunged off towards RBY’s house on the golf course with no real plan in mind. Once we got there though, we knew what we had to do.

Near the curb, Hunter gave the big old black boat the gas, and we hopped the curb into the finely manicured St. Augustine lawn, spinning the tires and digging a trench at least 6” deep the length of the front yard. We sideswiped the big green plastic trashcan, as Hunter looked in the review mirror and declared that he was going back for the two plump black trashbags laying alongside, so we repeated the offense in reverse…..

We decided that that’d show the bastard.

Well, this started years of payback. No sooner had one lawn recovered, than another one fell victim. First Hunter, the RBY then myself, in a revolving cycle of retribution, someone always had the handiwork of the midnight burnout in their front yard.

As the game escalated, we found new and creative ways to torment one another. One creative method was to stuff the head of a recently slaughtered deer (does only) into someones mailbox as a sort of scaled down version of the “Godfather”. This however came to an end, when one of RBY’s boys decided to copy the trick and try this on an ex-girlfriend. Her father however, failed to see the humor in this, and called the local sheriff, who, thinking it was an infestation of the mailbox by a rabid bat, shot the damn thing with his .357, and realizing his error, hauled the errant head away in a big ziplock bag labeled “exhibit A”. This ended the head incidents.

RBY got remarried, Hunter was trying to settle down (unsuccessfully), and I was an “older student” in college living out in the country, in a groovy little place I called “the nest”.

We used to have some insane parties out there.

It was my birthday in 1993, and there were about twenty five people out there, seven or eight cars. We had spent the evening barbequing, indulging in copious quantities of alcohol, and around midnight, in a fungal inspired haze decided to burn through Hunters lawn. It was something we hadn’t done in a long time.

Assembling in a procession of cars in the dark near the canal that bordered Hunters house, with me in the lead in my topless little Suzuki Samurai, we lined up. As if on cue, and with a sudden collective lurch, we each ground through his perfectly manicured grass, throwing great hunks of sod on the cars behind us, on the walls of his house, and into the street. Little man, at the tail of the procession said that he saw Hunter peeking out from behind the curtains. We dug a virtual Grand Canyon that night in Hunters lawn. Later we wound down by driving the unholy procession through about four or five other lawns of people we didn’t even know, unleashing all of the fury that Detroit and Tokyo could muster…..

I guess that was the last time I ever extracted the revenge of the lawn burnout on anybody. It was a wonder we never got caught anyway. As with all things in life, that which doesn’t kill me (or sends me to jail) makes me stronger.

Every now and then though, I get the notion to hop a curb, and leave my calling card across a well manicured front lawn in some quiet neighborhood….

Fences

D wrote this as a letter to the editor. I am happy to pass it along:

I’ve just seen a new use for shrimp doors that I would have never thought of. Residential fencing, boy does it look tawdry. I was driving down to South Point Marina when I noticed the shrimp door fence adjoining a tastefully created southwestern style stucco fence belonging to the soon to be new Pirates Cove Subdivision that some are talking about. The owner for that subdivision has done a superb job in providing PI a badly needed facelift to a former industrial area, otherwise known by the old timers as “la palengana.”

In comparison, the trailer park on the North side that has provided “the shrimp door fence” is complete with requisite trash pile that the city of PI seems to ignore for mysterious reasons. Is this due to apathy, or deference to the property owner on the part of PI? Perhaps there are no enforceable codes?

This is the conundrum I pondered as I drove passed these two edifices which seem to represent PI as it is (status quo) and the potential of what PI could be.

I would hope that the future of Port Isabel is as it could be.

90 or 180 days

We had lunch with my friend George the other day.

We decided to eat at Marchans, the all you can eat fish plate. It's pretty good, in my opinion the best all you can eat fish in Puerto Isabel. The tourists don't really know about it (yet), maybe the Winter Texan crowd does, but we don't eat there a lot in the winter time. The fish is light and flakey, with a killer potato salad (or fries), cole slaw and roll. Washed down with a giant glass of ice cold iced tea, well, it's one of the things that make living here in the summer time bearable. We usually sit by the window which overlooks the harbor so that I can admire all of the boats, especially one lovely little ketch on the middle finger.

The tourists stick to the glitzy places like Pirates Landing and The Lost Galleon, and that's fine with me.

Anyway, we noticed George and Scarlets van parked out front as we were going in. It had the utility trailer attached, with a freezer strapped down, and I wondered if they were doing a little free lance hauling along with eco tours and the nature center.....

Marchans was pretty crowded, the waitress told us we could eat over in the far room, where there was only one other family. On the way over there, we passed George and his friend Sam, getting ready to have the famous all you can eat fish. We stopped along their small table, and they invited us to sit, but being as we're all sort of big, we invited them to our table, which was much larger. George said they'd be over as soon as they got served as things were moving pretty slowly what with the rush, and they wanted to get their food first.

After a bit they came over and sat down, and we started catching up on things. George comes from a pioneer family in Port Isabel, his father ran one of the early ferry boat services to the island, long before the first causeway was even built. George has carried on in the tradition as a boat captain.

So naturally, a good deal of the conversation had to do with boats and the seafaring business. Most of the non-commercial work here revolves around the tourist trade, things like eco-tours, para-sailing, fishing, dolphin watching and party cruises. George has seen and done it all.

He chartered out to a bunch of McDonalds executives who were in town to celebrate the opening of the new McDonalds on the island, when it was first built years ago. He took them out, and they caught fish, they caught a buzz and in general they caught a good time. Afterward, they asked him; "90 or 180 days?".

George was bewildered. "90 or 180 days, what?"

"90 or 180 days terms for payment, that's the way it works, and by the way, where do we mail the check?".

George thought about it for a minute and replied. "Oh, I see....so that means that every time I want an order from McDonalds, I can just drive through, pick it up and ask the person behind the window...90 or 180 days?".

"That's how it works right?"

The Sailing Kabala of Doctor David

On the ancient wall of China, where a brooding Buddha blinks, deeply graven is the message, ‘It’s later than you think.’

The clock of life is wound but once, and no man has the power, to tell just where the hands will stop, at late or early hour.

Now is all the time you own, the past a golden link, go cruising now my brothers, it’s later than you think.


All I want to do any more is sail.

Find a way to finance my habit. From the minute that I light the first piece of canvas, till the boat is washed and the sails bagged, I want to explore distant tropical islands and seas, maybe finding a homeport far from the chaos that is rapidly spinning out of control before us. I'll admit it. I spend countless hours in nautical catalogs, and have pushed google pretty much to the limit purusing infinite links to sailing sites. I am presently at work, outfitting Olivia in spartan, utilitarian splendor, provisioning her for the series of passages to the hinter world of the sailing promised land. My dreams are filled with azure water, warm trade winds and coconut palm covered islands.

I know the reality. Sailing is mostly work, hard work, with contrary winds, currents and seas. It is living in shoebox sized spaces often wet tired and dirty. It is worry about your anchor holding in some shitty rough bay, or the possibility that the dreaded H word will fuck up your day. It is also magical work, transported by the wind to destinations that otherwise normal people, in all reality, will never see.

My friend Jim, from Island Time says that they don't subtract the days you sail from your existance. This might be true. Better yet, I think that one day on the sea, under canvas equals twenty two point five days ashore, doing things you don't want to.

Like all addicts, I thought I might be alone in my illness, this obsession with the sea. The other night I was sitting on the back deck with my good friend Doctor David, an equally addicted sailor. We were drinking a couple of cold Spaten Optimator dopplebocks, watching late night fishermen coming in trying to trailer their boats in semi drunken stupors, and talking about all things nautical. I mentioned that I detest yard work, hate it, hate anything that has to do with lawn maintenance. For years I have wrestled with this apparent abnormal, deviant and antisocial behavior. I would rather be working on a boat, down in the engine room, covered in oil and diesel, or sweating in some closed compartment painting areas that require the contortions of a carnival rubber man.

I told David about this, said I didn't even want a yard and he laughed, said he hated yard work too....didn't want one either. I mentioned to him that every time I drive down the street and see some guy slaving in a yard that looks just like it came out of the goddamn Sunset Magazine, I wonder to myself "what's wrong with me?". He snickered and replied: "I wonder....what's wrong with them?".

So I have now decided that I will surrender to the sailing kabala, and consider all who don't understand, outsiders.

I won't be much of a party conversaionalist if you want to talk about varieties of roses, or mulch, or weed eaters, or sprinkler systems. I'll probably be over in the corner dozing off.

But if you want to talk about raritan heads, norseman fittings and Micron 33, things like that, you just might get a response.....

Whale Passage

I had gone back to Kodiak in the Spring of 1980 for reasons that I don’t remember now. Most of my life following the military, I had spent running from one thing or the other. I had freedom, and no one could tell me when or where to go.

I probably was running from something, more than likely myself.

It was a rainy spring, as most springs on Kodiak are. I spent a great deal of time in the little bar adjacent to the bowling alley, drinking Christian Brothers Brandy (“someday I’m gonna make a pilgrimage to Reedly California where the good monks produce their fine elixir”), playing music and in general neglecting responsibility which was better attended to. Somewhere along the way I scored a term aboard the Bold Lady, a refit ugly old gulf coast, Benders shrimper that had been tanked and converted for multi use fishing in the Alaskan Waters. On April fools someone had left a seacock open, and the big white boat sank at the moorings. Flooding the engine room before being able to be raised, the main engine underwater, a major rebuild was now in order. The crew which consisted of the Chuck the skipper, Chucks brother, Hank (“Uncle tape”) and Glen Ingvie (who had owned a boat which had sunk the previous year) were busy rebuilding the big 12 cylinder diesel in order to retrieve the crab pots which were left in the water following the mishap. They were anxious to get that done in order to rig for shrimp season which was coming up.

So I got to watchdog the boat with the understanding that if anybody quit, I would be next in line as crew. It was a pretty groovy job, all I had to do was make sure the thing didn’t sink and that no unauthorized people came aboard in exchange for a warm place to sleep and cook meals. I would fish regularly, catching flounder, ling and bass right there in the channel where she was moored, side tied. Once the scalloper tied in front of the Bold Lady turned me on to a gunny sack full of giant succulent scallops, just waiting to be shucked and fried. The rain fell with regularity, mostly a light mist, as the island awoke from its winter sleep, and boats made their way up and down the Near Island channel to or from fishing grounds. The Alaska Star Cannery was busy pumping out the end of the season Dungeness and Tanner crab, and clouds of steam from the processing permeated the town, mixing with the smell of the ice cold Pacific, the surrounding primal forests mosses and lichens producing a nourishing almost edible smell that still lingers in my memory, and possibly always will.

Chucks brother decided to cash it in, and so I became a crew of the notorious Bold Lady. We finished overhauling the big engine, and finally one day we were ready to get out there and bring back the gear. Our first trip out, we rounded Cape Chiniak, a very rough stretch even on a good day, when the rudder post decided to snap, leaving us without steering. Chuck and I descended into the lazarette in pitching, rolling thirteen foot seas, and I held the two parts together, as best I could while Chuck welded them, both of us standing in shin deep cold water. The repair held, and we retrieved a portion of the gear near the southwest part of the island under gray skies and gray seas.

Delivering the gear to town, I felt like a king to be fishing again. We had tanked the few crabs that were in the pots (even though they were out of season), and sold them under the table to the Kodiak VFW. Back in town, we offloaded the gear (and illicit crab), split the money and lived like pirates for a few days, partying day and night.

The next trip out, we headed over to the Shelikof Strait, another bad piece of water, the large pass between Kodiak Island and the Alaska Peninsula. Leaving in the late afternoon, we hit Whale Passage around 2200. Whale passage is an area where, when the tide turns, the entire Shelikof Strait / North Pacific channel necks down to a funnel like the center of a giant hourglass. Whale Pass only lets one through on slack or standing tides. At the tidal change it becomes a howling, raging torrent of energy with great swirling whirlpools big enough to eat large ships, sucking them into the oblivion of the depths.

I had the first watch, everyone else was asleep down below, and I was simply minding the autopilot, making small corrections here and there as we steamed east under fair skies, a crystal sunset and glassy waters. Near perfect conditions.

Around 2300 were well clear of Whale Passage, and the night had fallen to a blanket of ink, with just the profiles of the jagged peaks framed like cardboard cutouts on a quilt of black. Scanning to the port side, I noticed a group of three elongated oval lights which seemed to be hovering above the mountains in the distance several miles away. I figured that they were just a Coast Guard helicopter hovering, out on night ops, or maybe a SAR. I watched for a minute with barely any interest, when almost instantaneously they accelerated, moving toward the starboard across our bow at a speed that I could not even comprehend, and were just as quickly gone, out of sight. As they crossed our bow, the autopilot suddenly kicked off, the rudder went hard to starboard, and the Bold Lady started chasing her tail. I shot below, woke up Chuck who reset the thing. I told him the story, but was met with skepticism, so I quickly backed off, saying no more.

The rest of the trip went uneventfully except for the return through Shelikof Straight, when we were in the midst of a raging storm, and the swell had kicked up to some 25 feet or so. I had the night watch then too, and was watching an approaching boat on the radar, watching him close on us down range, closer and closer. I couldn’t see shit through the driving spray and mountains of water. Out of the blackness to our port passed the target, another fishing boat no more than a couple of hundred feet away….way too close for comfort in those conditions. We made it back to town, offloaded the gear again and rigged for shrimp.

I learned how to mend net sitting there in the parking lot with the guys, singing a-capella to the rhythm of the net needles and twine. My tenure as a shrimper didn’t last long. On the first trip out, with barely 3000 pounds in the hold, the main engine broke a connecting rod, shot it right through the block with the sound of a hand grenade exploding. When we went below it was a surreal scene, broken piston rod playing hide and seek in and out of the engine block, spraying oil on everything like some mechanical artery had been severed. We were towed back in, and had to wait at Whale Passage while the tide turned. It was the first time I had ever seen that, and I suppose my own eyes were the size of dinner plates, as the tranquil scene was replaced by utter chaos from Neptune.

I got my three hundred dollar check for three months work, booked a cheap standby ticket and flew back South. Haven't been back since.

Free all the Freakin' Orcas

Last Saturday we were up in San Antonio with the kiddies. It was hotter than hell, and sometime late in the scorching afternoon we decided to go to the Shamu show, the Orca exhibit.

They have something like five Orcas that they keep in captivity for our collective enjoyment. Beautiful wild animals, hunting machines that are kept in a couple of acres of artifical seawater and blue painted cement tanks. Gitmo bay for cetaceans.

I have a real problem with that.

Of course, I'm not a tree hugger or even a "green person" by any means, but some things just shouldn't be done, and keeping magnificent, highly intelligent animals in captivity is one of them. However, they do put on one hell of a performance for a few measly pounds of squid and herring....

The kids wanted to sit in the "splash zone", the area where during the course of the show, the animals collectively pound the water with their bodies and tails, soaking everyone in the first twenty rows or so. Here, the sides of the tank are clear acrylic plastic, and you can see the entire animal as it pushes ice cold water onto the gleeful crowd. A great way to cool off on a very hot afternoon.

At a pre-rehearsed moment, a young Orca appears from the depths of the tank and stares at us for a brief instant prior to giving his massive flukes a flick, shoving hundreds of gallons of water onto the expectant audiance.

I stare into his baleful knowing eye, instantly transported back in time to a deep bay between two islands in Kodiak Alaska.

I am at the controls of the hydraulic reel of my boat Marusa as we pick down a mile or more of long line string, set in about fifty fathoms of water, soaking on the bottom, waiting for some giant Halibut to take the salmon heads bait. I like fishing for Halibut, you never know will come up on the next hook. In this same area I had recently hooked a gargantuan fish that we estimated to be upwards of maybe five hundred pounds. We never got it aboard, it thrashed far out on the surface, straightened out the big 26/0 hook and was gone, leaving us all in awe. The water here is crystal blue, as dark as navy blue velvet as it heads into the inky depths. Halibut fishing is a summer time fishery, and the air can be warm, with calm seas, air redolent with the scent of spruce and moss from the ancient mysterious islands.

On this particular day there is little wind. The surface of the water is unusually glassy. A few Codfish and small "chicken" Halibut in the hold, and we are busy rebaiting and laying the string back out as quickly as we work it. We are near the backside of Long Island, and the black sand beach, dark green spruce forrest and deep blue sky make a picture perfect back drop.

In the depths we spy a giant octopus entangled in the line, hooked and writhing, being dragged to the surface. Octopus make excellent bait for everything from King Crab to Halibut, and the canneries pay well for them, so naturally we are intent on landing the critter. This individual is probably around eighty or ninety pounds, outstreached, maybe fifteen feet from end of hood to tip of tentacle.

Anyway, the octopus comes alongside and predictibly sucks on to the port side of the Marusa, a thirty foot wooden planked longliner, clinging to the hull about two feet below the waterline. This creates a unique dilemma. How do we get it to let go to bring it aboard? If we keep applying pressure, the hook will pull out and we'll lose the animal.

I come up with an instant solution. Lets just sink four or five hooks on the line in the beasts hood, then let off the pressure. He'll think he's free, then we can quickly haul him over the rail before he has a chance to discover otherwise.

So we go to work. I lean over the side, reach down into the water and sink the first hook. Then another. All of the sudden, the water darkens as if some undersea cloud is gathering on us, and out of the blue flashes a goddamn Orca, halting just in front of the octopus clinging to the side of the boat. I do not have time to react, as we all stand staring for a moment forever frozen in time and memory, staring into the eye of the whale, which is staring curiously at the octopus, the boat and us.

Then, as quickly as it appears, the Orca disappears into the depths, sinking and gliding effortlessly downward. I don't even debate, I know I have to get the octopus off of the hull and into the hold, remove any temptation before the animal returns for hors' dervours, something that the old boat might not survive.

All the hooks in place in the critters hood, and I return to the starboard side controls to let off pressure on the longline. The Orca appears from the depth again just as the octopus lets go, and stares at it as it wriths, suspended in the blue. He stares at the boat and us again, then disappears into the cold deep Pacific for good, leaving us incredulous, if not a bit shaken.

We quickly haul the octopus over the port rail, and dispatch him with the end of an axe handle, putting him into the ice in the bottom of the hold. We continue to fish, never seeing the Orca again.

I want to think that he knew we had worked hard to capture that octopus, fishing just as he did, and so he just decided to leave us alone, let us have it for the effort. That's why I have a special soft spot in my preditory heart for those animals.

Mr. Smudge

Mark O. Karl works for the US Inefficient Wildlife Service. He has some sort of namby-pamby title like “outreach specialist” or some such horseshit.

This means he doesn’t do a whole lot except suck the cocks of his superiors, and get Herculean pay raises on a regular basis. My botanist friend that works there can’t stand him.

“I’m gonna find some endangered species like Lila-de-los llanos just so it fucks up his plans for a project here” he acerbically commented over his shoulder as we walked a small finger of dusty fine sand jutting out into the Bahia Grande, which for all practical purposes is drying up ever since “the service” decided to cut a channel from the Brownsville Ship Channel into that dustbowl, in an effort to flood it back to its original state, which was altered after the Ship Channel was built in the first place.

The new channel has silted in just like I predicted before they went to great expense and fanfare to cut it out of the mangroves and salt marshes, routing it under the road. That’s the way it is with the feral gumment by God, and you just better get used to it buddy.

The same way it is with Mark O. Karl, a short grinning little bastard with an undefined job.

Mostly my friend says, he attends meetings and talks on the phone, but as long as he keeps his nose firmly planted up the refuse managers collective asses, well, the sky’s the limit. My botanist friend told me that recently one of “the Services” managers, a Herman Goering wannabe, a skinny putrid bastard named Joe Riparian called an office wide meeting to try and address the growing discord that’s spreading throughout the refuse like some sort of malignancy. Of course, my friend, whom I consider a consummate scientist and professional (if not a bit of a healthy iconoclast) along with most of the rest of the place brought a litany of observations concerning the managements lack of management skills to the table….all except Mark O. Karl, who just sat in the back with that shit eating grin, finally raising his hand and commenting; “ Gee…..I don’t know what’s the problem…..I think management is doing a swell job here!”.

The management seems to have a problem with people who really produce

I think it’s the threat thing. Nobody is allowed to succeed, hell no. This might expose the Joe Riaprians, the Lenny Demerits and the Mark O. Karls, people who represent the vast majority of do-nothings that inhabit the nebulous ranks of the feral gumment like giant amoeba waiting for a handout to swim by.

My botanist friend has recently been demoted for his achievements, the labor of over 15 years of faithful service, and is now relegated to a welding,-tractor driver-herbicide applying drone. He observes; “this is why I got a masters degree….to spray roundup”.

I worked among these folks for a couple of years, on a peripheral job, driving a tram, and talking to busloads of gente and viejitos, working as an interpretive naturalist.

A volunteer during that time named Scary K was working there, along with her then boyfriend, Eupatorium. When they broke up, she spent a lot of time shitfaced, and at almost every refuse function she’d show up lit. Sometimes she’d show up over at my friends house, late at night with a case of beer. He told me that he’d drink maybe one or two, and she’d kill the rest of the case. He’d always make her clear out, just send her home, to her house where she had about 12 cats, a house always in disarray, and stinking of unkempt cats and dirty clothes.

We were all friends.

He coexisted with an old tomcat at the time, a refugee from the alleys of Weslaco, that he named Mr. Smudge, due to its dirty complexion. Mr. Smudge was ancient, and suffered from an ailment common to all old male cats, a urinary problem. He figured that he’d have to euthanize old Mr. Smudge as soon as he got back from visiting relatives up in middle America.

When he got back though, Scary K had taken Mr. Smudge to the veterinarian, and against everybody’s better judgment (including the veterinarian), had an operation performed to remove Mr. Smudges' penis and balls, routing the piss hole back to his asshole so that urine would not back up in his bladder.

My friend was livid. He said that from that point on, Mr. Smudge just dribbled piss wherever he went, looking more morose and forelorn tha ever. Mr Smudge, he said, would look up at him with big pleading eyes, as if to say; "just put me out of my misery..... Finally my friend took Mr. smudge back to the vet and had him put to sleep.

Then he received the bill for the piss-routing operation, which he had never authorized in the first place.

Scary K was on his shitlist for a while after that, but my friend being the good natured cuss that he is got over it, and the neurotic community that represents the finest of the feral gumments US Inefficient Wildlife service settled back to its normal state of abnormal.

Scary K kept up with her drinking, but it all finally came to a head one Christmas when she attended a Christmas party at the home of another employee, another outreach specialist named Corky Braunfels. Corky has a reputation of being a true feral gumment maestro, one who truly lives up to the creed; “Never do today what can be put of until tomorrow”.

According to my friend, who read the documents filed after the fact, everyone was drinking. Around midnight, ol’ Corky bursts into the living room, where his wife, Scary K, and another woman were seated, and waving a bottle of half consumed champagne, bellowed; “ WHO WANTS TO GET LICKED SUCKED AND FUCKED?”.

My friend wryly observed that this in reality, was a perfectly legitimate question, certainly one unworthy and uncalled for Scary K to file a sexual harassment charge over.

”Hell” he said….”Who wants to get licked, sucked and fucked?”…..

“Everybody does”.

Las Palabras de Cuba Libre

Thanks Joey for writing this:

CUBA LIBRE
By: Joey Tamayo / Performed by The Bongodogs

Hey
Cuba que vacer tu gente
Cuando se muera el Presidente
Y aqual vacer tu decisicion
Al enterrar lo en el panteón

Ojala…sea Cuba Libre
Cuba Libre deben de calar
Ojala….sea Cuba Libre
Cuba Libre deben de probar

Toda la gente de Havana
Y de Santiago y de las Cruces
Después de tanta agua salada
La Libertad es agua dulce

Ojala…sea Cuba Libre
Cuba Libre deben de calar
Ojala….sea Cuba Libre
Cuba Libre deben de probar

Cuba que vacer tu gente
Cuando se muera el Presidente
Y aqual vacer tu decisicion
Al enterar lo en el panteón

Ojala…sea Cuba Libre
Cuba Libre deben de calar
Ojala….sea Cuba Libre
Cuba Libre deben de probar
Andale Cuba

Vamanos

....El Estomago

Snook Sandwich

I went fishing with the New Sheriff the other day.

He wanted to go early, up the Brownsville Ship Channel looking for snook, wanted to leave around six AM, to which I reluctantly agreed. D and Jen (Ms. Sheriff) were having a yard sale, so it seemed like the perfect time to duck out. But then I decided, ahhhh, fuck it, six AM is way to early, so I laid around like a big bed pig until around ten or so, when I was awaken from a soporific sleep by the whistling wind outside rattling the windows.

Spring time is normally a windy season here on the coast when the late season northers march their way south, only to meet equally powerful high pressure ridges advancing from the distant tropics, colliding in a leviathan shoving match which usually creates severe weather along its boundaries somewhere up there, but leaves us with only a violent howling south wind that pushes great quantities of dust and dirt derived from the vast loma expanses to the south, and the dredge spoils heaped up along the ship channel fouling everything in a thirty mile radius. I spent over two hours cleaning Menagerie washing fine silt, leaves and garbage that had blown onto the foredeck and under the cockpit seats, only to have the winds return the next day and start the process all over. I felt like Atlas rolling the stone up a hill only to have it roll back down, over and over again….

So the New Sheriff called and said that he was going fishing anyhow, and did I want to go? Ah, what the hell. I grabbed a few things and decided to go flog the water for a bit anyway. We stopped and got ice, braving the spring break crowds. About ten thirty or so I cracked open a breakfast Tecate.

The New Sheriffs’ skiff is an ancient Jon Boat, resurrected from its final resting place at his dads house in Florida. The Rusty Duck has a center console, with a steering wheel that’s broken off, and is nothing more now than a stub, but it still turns, still works. It has an vintage Johnson Seahorse Sixty Horse engine that makes it go like a bat out of hell. Most importantly, mounted on the bow is a trolling motor. Now this particular trolling motor did not come straight out of the pages of Bass Pro catalog…no, this trolling motor has seen far better days, but it still works, and that’s the important thing. The corroded cover has been wrenched off, and the New Sheriff now has to use a cut off ax handle, jammed into the pinion gear to change it from forward to reverse, but he’s got the whole cantankerous thing under control.

Hell, I used to have a skiff like this one. Named “the pickle”, it was a modicum of idiosyncratic behavior. Like Steinbecks Sea Cow, it generally ran, but it generally never ran right. It did however lead us to catch a lot of fish.

And so it is with the New Sheriffs boat.

Like myself, he has fallen thoroughly in love with catching the mysterious snook that live up in the reaches of the Brownsville Ship Channel. We’re fortunate to live in the only place along the Gulf (outside Florida) where there is a population of them. I discovered fishing for them about ten years ago or so, when during a particularly strong cold front that had us shut out of the Laguna Madre, we decided to explore the Ship Channel and the adjacent shrimp basin. I was bored with drowning shrimp for mangrove snapper, so I tied on a topwater bait and mindlessly plopped it close to the shore along the rocks. After the ripple dissipated, I twitched the lure, made it do a big GLUG when instantly; WHAM!, the water swirled, and my rod doubled in a “U” shape. It was like tying into a largemouth black bass with a supercharger up its ass….

The fight lasted no more than about thirty seconds before the fish cut the line with its razor sharp gill plate.

I fell instantly in love.

Now launching the New Sheriffs’ boat in this gale, years later, I remembered each snooking trip, each savored experience, each one as much about the adventure as about the catching. However, I couldn’t help hoping that I might again tie into one of these rockets. ….

Heading out south towards the open channel from the Highway 48 ramp, past the Saturday crowds who were braving the sandblasting wind, throwing great hunks of mullet into the water in hopes of catching a big red or maybe black drum, or maybe even, a snook, the New Sheriff deftly steered the little skiff with the stub steering wheel through the chocolate whitecapped water. Other gente lined the shoreline crabbing with string and turkey necks. Once out into the open Ship Channel, the New Sheriff carefully put the Rusty Duck on plane as we bounce along the south shoreline.

Cutting back across the channel, we stop along the north shore, where we toss soft plastic baits up against the rocky slope. Almost instantly, something smashes my bait, doubling the road. After about ten minutes, I land a Jack Crevelle about ten pounds.

One of the strongest fish around, Jack Crevelle can make a wreck out of even the best fishing gear. I return this one to the water, and the New Sheriff and I have a laugh, and a fresh Tecate.

Working our way up the channel, we ease down a side cut lined with mangroves, one I used to fish in years ago. We watch a belted kingfisher flying along the shoreline, working the oyster lined banks. In here the persistent wind is almost calm, shielded on both sides by high banks and vegetation, mesquite and retama trees lining the banks, creating a cool and shady hideaway. We work the spot hard, but don't find any fish. That’s OK though, because the New Sheriff is a great guy, full of interesting stories, and so the intense silence is punctuated only occasionally by observations and commentary. The way any good fishing trip should be. Anyway, I’m always in a reflective mood on any good fishing trip, remembering friends and experiences from past trips, adding the current one to the collage.

We venture back into the wind, and working along a wall, just past the granary for awhile, trying to get the mangrove snapper to bite, but the wind is so violent that it is hard to get the bait down where it needs to be. Finally the New Sheriff catches a fat sixteen incher, which he immediately deposites into the fishbox where it protests by smaking its tail against the platic begging to be released. No dice fucker.. The wind here is so bad, that it was blows seagull shit and feathers off of the dock and down on top of us, and we are afraid that our open beers might get compromised, so we put away the trolling motor, and steam up to the end of the Ship Channel, near where long ago, was held the La Frontera Blessing of the Fleet (and Shrimp Festival)…that however is a story for another time.

Up here in the unprotected turning basin, the wind is blowing way too hard to fish effectively, so we flee and duck under the Montagine Fuel docks, where I used to fish with El Estomigo, Mr. Vamanos hisself. A former outdoor TV celebrity, we’d fish for huge snook there late at night, misbehaving badly in the process.

The New Sheriff and I cast up under the shady pilings to the snook we see laying there, finally enticing two small fat ones to bite, both of which we turn back. By this time it is about two in the afternoon or so, and we figure we better on meander back so we could get ready to do a full assault on Matamoros Mexico with the Ladies that evening….

Back out on the open water, and one last fishing spot. I was recounting a story about something, as I casually flipping the soft plastic bait up toward the shoreline. On the first cast a sizeable snook smacked the bait. I lead him to the net, deciding to keep this one for fish sandwiches….

The wind has now increased to a frantic speed, and the channel is eerily, obnoxiously obscured by blowing dust, which works its wretched way into every clothing opening, all of our pores, into open eyes, ears noses and mouths. We pass a bay boat, as it chugs along, deep in the hole. I guess they are afraid to get up on plane for fear of running into something. It is like a brown terribly toxic and abrasive fog. I feel like some sort of fucking aquatic Lawrence of Arabia or something, lost in a blowing sand/shit storm. I could barely make out the side channel leading to the boat ramp….

My eyes felt sandpapered for three days afterward…..

Back at the docks, I try to drive the Rusty Duck on to the trailer, but it is a losing battle. Like my own skiff of long ago, it only wants its owner and nothing else. We finally load up , and crack open the final Tecates of the trip, washing about a pound of silt and sand, down our throats.

I wasn’t hungry for over an hour after that……

Muy Pendejo

Pendejos and the PMF

It’s twenty eight miles from beach access 5 to the Port Mansfield Jetties. I used to drive that long stretch of beach once a week, more often if there was a turtle, dolphin or other chingaso reported up there. On weekends it could be hell. First, you have to make your way through the throngs of partiers between beach access 5 and 6…mostly folks from Brownsville, all parked just above high water, barbecues sending fragrant smells of fajitas, costillas and hamburgesas wafting on the breeze, making everyone inside a two hundred yard radius lust for Miller and Bud light….in great quantities. Children running amok, back and forth between the waters edge and the parked cars….vintage piece o’ shit vans (like I used to own), lowriders, troques with elaborate murals painted on the tailgates, tiny wheels dug deep into the sand, prime candidates for later towing out…the whole nine yards. And the adults, well, they’re generally unconcerned with anything more than swilling gallons of beerungas, sitting in circles getting thoroughly shitfaced.

Usually on this stretch, there’s always at least one, and often times several vehicles stuck in loose sand, throwing huge plumes of flying sand as they futilely gun the engine, spinning the wheels until ultimately, they’re stuck down to the frame, up to the doors. There’s a few “towing services”, who will unstick you, for around a hundred bucks in this area, which is still pretty close to town. The last time I ventured up the beach (and I hadn’t been there in a long time), there was a motorhome stuck in the sand. Big bastard, new, with a buncha spring breakers looking forlornly at the rear dullies stuck deep in the sand.

During the season, the “Winter Texans” line the beach from here to the Mansfield Cut, throwing bait into the surf, hoping to load up on our gamefish….mostly whiting, but sometimes reds, trout, shark and jacks. I’ve seen them take huge stingrays and toss them on the beach. I usually stop and try and explain that they shouldn’t ought to do that, the stingray is an important part of the whole system, and besides it’s a gentle fish that would much rather get out of your way than bury its stinger in your foot, in your leg. I try and explain to them that the stingrays stinger is strictly defensive, that if someone were to step in the middle of my back (my kids excluded) that I’d get pissed too, and probably try and whack ‘em right in the balls to get ‘em off….it doesn’t do much good though, cause the Winter Texans know just about every goddamn thing there is to know, and of course the only good stingray is a dead stingray, hell, everyone knows they’re dangerous as all get-out…I’ve even overheard the pinche bastards discussing the fact that they catch enough fish down here every winter to take “back home” for fish frys all year long. Bet they wouldn’t like it too much if I were to go on up to “back home” during the spring and summer, maybe Minnasooooota, and rape, pillage and plunder all of their goddamn walleye so that I could have fish fries all winter down here…

Just past all of the madness, the beach opens up as you pass a wide expanse of hurricane wash-over flats and pristine dune fields. Past the end of the paved road. Sometimes coyotes hunt along the beach, and flocks of Sanderlings, little legs running furiously, chase the water as it laps at the shoreline. I always watch for groups of gull and terns diving in the water, giving away the telltale location of feeding big fish.

About sixteen miles north of the end of the road, a shrimp boat is slowly sinking into the sand between the second and third sandbars. About all you can see now are the outriggers, top of the wheelhouse and the antennas, just visible above the surf. I was there the morning after the night it went aground. The Coast Guard had chased it, and once they hit shallow water, the shrimpboat crew bailed, and swam / waded ashore, where they were promptly apprehended. Just to the south was the reason why. A stretch of gillnet over a half mile long lay on the beach, jammed with hundreds of sharks, mostly sand sharks, blacktips and spinners, but there was one big blue about seven or eight feet long, and in among the sharks, a bull redfish about forty something inches in length. I untangled the red, looked at his gills and eyes, which were still bright red, and threw him in the bed of the truck, a fish destined to become blackened redfish and tasty bowls of ceviche.

Up here, the beach gets strewn with all manners of goodies. Once, D found a sonde, a buoy normally dropped from an aircraft, a regular old data gathering tube washed up on the beach. She sent it off to the address on the side, and got a 250 dollar reward. There’s gold in them thar beaches. And just north of course, is the nudie beach.

Marked by a spray painted giant log of driftwood (how apropos) is a stretch of beach that has been designated since I can’t remember when, as the naked beach. Of course, to a normal guy, a naked beach conjures up images of big breasted bronze blonde bathing beauties, lounging lugubriously on sweltering white sand beaches, bodies begging for suntan oil.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In the winter, most often, the nudie beach is populated by knarly old viejitos, refugees from the lands of endless snows, people who popularized nudist camps back in the 60’s. Now in their sixties themselves, they are leathery skinned bastards, women with saggy wrinkled tits and veryclose veins, the men, hunch backed and ancient, with flaccid ballsacks and weenies atrophied from eons of disuse. There used to be one who would sit in a lawn chair and smile and wave as we’d pass, just as happy as a pig in shit. In the summer, the naked beach is inhabited mainly by gays who ply their wretched morality far from the disapproving stares of town.

Just north of the nudie beach is an area that we all affectionately call “the narrows”. Here, the sand dunes extend down to a narrow beach which, at high tide, and during big storms is inundated, and impossible to cross without driving through the water. It is an odd area, out of place with the rest of the beach. At low tides, the prairie terrace, the ancestral consolidated base that the island rests on, a material which resembles mudstone is exposed. I have hauled ass through this area, screaming down the beach at sixty miles an hour plus, when big storms threaten to close off this section rather than get trapped north until the norther blew herself out. I always puzzled over why the narrows were there, until one day I was looking at a map of the island trying to determine where the old Singer ranch had been. It suddenly occurred to me that the narrows lie directly east of the mouth of the Arroyo Colorado, and when sea level was much lower, during the last ice age, this was the course of the river channel. Voila!

The island is segmented in various sections after large hurricanes breach it in numerous places. These areas of wash over eventually heal, but can always be identified by their lack of dunes and dune fields. One such wash over occurs just north of the narrows. The last time it was breached, there was a salt water stream which ran between the open Gulf of Mexico and the Laguna Madre which you had to ford in order to get to the Mansfield Cut. Those of us who’ve lived here our lives know how to do it, and if in doubt, get out and wade across to determine where the best crossing is. There’s almost always some space where the sand starts to fill in first as the river grows less and less pronounced, before finally being totally strangled off, and the wash over flat begins to heal to pre hurricane topography. On one trip some pendejo just decided to ford his new Ford wherever through the stream, and it sat in cockeyed mute testament to his lack of higher intelligence.

Of course, there are lots of pendejos who think they know better. Last time I drove the beach with D there was a maroon truck who passed us going about sixty or so (yea I know I do it, but I know when to), bouncing, vaulting up into the air and almost fishtailing out of control as it disappeared up the beach. We figured we’d come up on it flipped over. Later we saw the same truck up at the PMF jetties, with the driver pouring salt water on the engine, which had apparently overheated. Dumbass. They flew past us on the way back, with a sealed Texaco Oil Co. barrel which we had seen on the way up, a barrel that had washed ashore during some big offshore storm, one filled with probably some sort of toxic shit like benzene or hexane or something worse. Anyway, they were hauling ass again, with the truck sometimes becoming airborne, barrel jumping up independently in the truck bed as the truck careened almost out of control through the shallow water along the shore, sending huge roostertails high into the blue winter sky. We figured these guys life expectancy couldn’t be too long. For sure their vehicle wouldn’t probably last the week.

This far up the beach the flotsam and jetsam become large and odd. People can’t too well salvage the huge tanks, buoys and other industrial crap that washes off the decks of ships, boats and oil rigs, and so the beach hosts a graveyard of shit. Recently I found the remains of a pedal boat, the kind you see in ponds and little lakes washed up on the beach and wondered who the fuck would ever attempt to use one of those thing around here? Another time the beach was littered with computer monitors.

Finally you reach the Port Mansfield South Jetty, the Cut, PMF. This dredged cut through the island was created about fifty years ago, and since it’s not natural, has the tendancy to silt in. That’s the way it is right now. Without intervention, the island will heal herself again, and totally close off the cut, and once again one could (theoretically) drive all the way from the Brazos Santiago Pass to Aransas Pass along the beach. When the cut was first opened up, dredged, the remains of an old sunken Spanish ship yielded artifacts, gold and silver, but the state stepped in and claimed it all for itself, screwing my friend Billy K out of a fortune. I used to camp up at the cut, sometimes floundering at night along the channel edge for big old saddle blanket fish. Other times, I’d paddle across to go surf with friends, a caravan of gypsies on surfboards, the lead board being an ancient Dewey Weber longboard, with an ice chest of beers balanced on the nose, gingerly paddling across keeping a sharp lookout for the chingos of sharks that inhabit the cut.

I had a friend from Oregon that I’d fish with up there long ago. We’d fish in the channel, catching all kinds of fish. Jacks, Kingfish and Mangrove snapper, along with the ever present scourge, hardhead catfish. One time he got so mad at a catfish that he’d caught, one that had swallowed his bait, that he kicked it in disgust. Of course the catfish had extended his filthy, poison filled pectoral fin spines in self defense, extended them straight out, and when my friend kicked the wretched thing it drove the spine through his sneaker and deep into his big toe. My friend promptly fell down on the hard granite, writhing in burning pain, screaming “I’ve been hit!”…..”this is really it!”.

I had a hard time keeping a straight face…….

Pendejo

Sorry Faith, there is no Santa Claus

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Further South

It started sometime before the turn of the twenty-first century…. Ironically, a time, a date disputed. Exactly when did the new millennium actually begin, did it begin in 2000 or 2001? This was a pressing question debated by talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and others, hours spent on this question of great scatological significance. It really doesn’t matter much now…it was a silly, academic question anyhow.

We were lulled and brainwashed into a mindless state of acceptance by the Y2K myth… an event which never was. I remember waiting up on New Years eve for the inevitable meltdown, consuming expensive ancient champagne while the ball dropped – and absolutely nothing happened.

Meanwhile, silent and ignored, or maybe accepted as necessary, the revolution of miniaturization moved relentlessly forward, a high tech amoeba – and catapulted us into the misty twenty first century.

A host of computer driven equipment, from car ignitions to tiny MP3 players, required more and more powerful microprocessors. Inside sterile laboratories in Silicon Valley, and Austin, more and more functions were crammed onto miniscule wafers, giving birth to a host of enhancements, designed to improve the quality of our lives. We were assaulted and indoctrinated on all sides. Dell computers, Pentiums and Ipods, digital cameras and safer brakes sang us a lullaby, and we nodded off into a state of complacency.

It began innocently enough….It wasn’t long before a microchip had been developed that could be implanted under the skin of your pet. The chip contained information the same as a neck tag would on a dog or cat – immunizations and owner history, all able to be read by a remote receiving computer.

In a few years, GPS technology was integrated into the same chip, and the government saw a great opportunity to implant them in our military troops, so that they could be identified and located in battle. Pertinent information including date of birth, social security number and blood type, along with hometown, sexual preferences, school records, family members, hobbies and just about any other type of information could now be linked into a central government operated, networked GIS data base of DHS and DOD employees.

It wasn’t long before the new improved version was being implanted in all government workers, to provide a greater degree of “homeland security”. Convicts and ex-convicts got a chip, and they were added to the GIS database. Teachers, doctors and lawyers were required to have a chip implant in order to work. So were welders, carpenters and mechanics. Just about everyone in the workforce had to submit in order to work -even resident aliens.

A special chip was required for children too, to ensure their safety, in case of abduction or abuse. If parents didn’t comply, they were charged with child neglect, fined and imprisoned until they would finally relent. In short order, each and every child was implanted at birth, for their safety – by mandate.

It became impossible to buy food or clothing, to fuel your vehicle, even to conduct business at the bank without an implanted chip. This was necessary because transactions involving coin, paper and plastic became a thing of the past - for security reasons.

That’s why we’ve been out here riding the winds and the waves, staying far offshore, where the blue water is, with the dolphins and the flying fish, sometimes putting into third world ports, working for fuel and food before setting sail again further south, searching for a land of freedom.

I keep asking the question on night watches when the stars are crowding the open ocean sky and the sea is calm and quiet;

How could this have happened to the land I loved?

The question is carried on the breeze by the Frigatebirds and the Petrels, to the distant shore, and they return silent.

Joke Night

We just got back from the island. Tomorrow we have a tour to Guerrero Viejo with a load of viejitos, and our friends Don and Linda are going with us. Ought to be fun.

We decided to meet them at Fishbones, a normally innocuous bar / grill on the bay. It also has one of the only fishing piers around, so it’s always fun watching people waste money on generally unproductive waters. Mikey, our old friend from the Brewery now bartends there, and we go there sometimes on Wednesday nights while the kids are at church activities. Besides cold Shiner Bock beer (the national beer of Texas), they make one of the best burgers around.

I should’ve known something was up tonight when Mikey turned on the PA system that's normally reserved for the evening crooner who plays there. He plays about a thousand different songs, a la John Denver a real folksinger-wannabe, but he wasn’t there tonight. “What’s up with this?”, I thought to myself.

It wasn’t long till we began to find out, as a buttload of winter Texans began to stream in….this couldn’t be good.

And it wasn’t.

Turns out it was “Joke night” at Fishbones, a night when chingos of touristas get together and tell jokes to try and win a freebe dinner. Ah, the mention of anything free to a bunch of winter Texans brings out a feeding frenzy.

So we sit there trying to hold down our normally otherwise tasty food while a bunch of lutefisk eating retirees from Illinois, Missouri and Wisconsin told jokes. Terrible jokes. Where did these people learn this type of crap? We listened to jokes about transgenders, anuses’, Viagra, various bodily functions and other assorted sophomoric mouth-squirt. All the while we were snickering, not at their jokes, but at their apparent lack of shame. We began the comparison game too…..

After we hurriedly ate and paid the bill, my friend Don told us to go ahead, and we exited in somewhat, disgust. Once outside Don came up behind us, having left from the back exit, walking to the parking lot along the pier. He was snickering as he told us the following story:

“ I grabbed the Microphone and looked out at the crowd, and they all had big grins on their faces. I told them that I was from Texas, from the Island, and during the summer time, when they’re gone…..we tell jokes too".....

..... I asked ‘em “ Do you wanna hear one?” Of course, they all anxiously nodded, grinning from ear to ear".


"I said, OK, here goes":

“What’s the difference between a winter Texan and a canoe?”….

"Nobody made a guess, so I told ‘em”:

“Sometimes a canoe tips!”

Don chuckled and said; “The smiles instantly melted from there faces, and you could hear the ceiling fan, and the ice in their drinks”. “That’s when I took the exit, stage left, and went out the back, along the pier, out here”.

Krulls Research

I was an undergraduate at UTPA back in the early ‘90’s. I had over forty credit hours in geology, when the bottom fell out of the program, and I had to transfer to the Biology department to pursue a major in critter counting. During that time, I worked as a diver on an NSF grant, monitoring seagrasses in the lower Laguna Madre.

Joe and Krull were two graduates working on the same grant during that time. Both were public school teachers, working on their masters degrees. Since I was the only certified SCUBA diver, I did most of the sub aquatic work, taking core samples and setting quadrats, spending long hours on the bottom of the bay in the verdant seagrass meadows. Joe and Krull would occasionally do their own underwater work as well, holding their breaths, which is a hard way to do things. Part of their plan was to evaluate seagrass growth and population statistics by coring random areas with a homemade 6” PVC core tool, sharpened on one end, and driven by a small sledge hammer into the substrate. They’d then pull the plug out, and bag the seagrass and mud core, to be counted and chemically analyzed back at the lab. The 6” PVC tool was a bitch to pull out, especially in hard substrate, like shell and sand.

Joe and Krull were opposite personalities. Joe was a dedicated scientist, sometimes almost too much so, but certainly balanced and affable. Prone to seasickness, even in the placid bay, once he and I were out on a collecting trip during a norther, when the swell was running about two or three feet, collecting his samples. Joe would normally insist on doing much of his own work; legitimacy and integrity throughout his project held a great importance to him. Later, he gained a certification in SCUBA which made things a lot easier for him, but on this particular trip he was free diving, coming up again and again for air, swallowing great amounts of seawater in the process. After he finished his work, he crawled aboard, and while marking his samples suddenly remarked “I’M GONNA LOSE IT!” leaning over the side to bilge great amounts of seawater and breakfast at Teds in a chum slick that stretched far aft of the little Dargel scooter in the chocolate turbulent bay waters. After we got to shore and loaded the boat, we went to lunch at Blackbeards as if nothing had happened out there. My admiration for Joe that day was manifold.

Krull, on the other hand was an ill tempered prima-donna, given to temper tantrums and fits of derision to those he considered “inferior”. Krull had a penchant for fabricating things, especially the statistics and results from his own “research”. Krull decided that the 6” core tool was insufficient for his “research”, and instead fabricated one out of 24” PVC. I snickered when he brought the goddamn thing onboard, determined to use it in his “research”. So one day we were out there just west of the island in a thick Thalassia bed and Krull goes down with that big-ass core tool, with a big-ass sledge hammer and proceeds to drive the bastard about a foot into the mud. He huffs, and he puffs and strains like shit to try and get it to come loose, with no luck. After about 45 minutes with still no luck, I decided to attach the bow line to it and drag the fucker loose. A bit of reverse throttle from the big 90 horse, and the thing popped out of the substrate with a massive swirl of mud, and Krull hauled it aboard. Now he had to get that huge plug of mud out and into a waiting garbage sack so that he could haul it back to the main campus for his “research”. No dice. Even though he had engineered a plug into the top of the core tool to release any vacuum that might be trapped, the plug wouldn’t come out. I sat on the stern of the scooter, trying not to laugh as he got frustrated, taking a big flat screwdriver and attempting to dig the core out of that big-ass core tool. It came loose allright, falling apart in small shit chunks all over the deck, chunks of Thalassia and gooey mud making the core totally useless. By this time Krull was gnashing his teeth, moaning and shaking in anguish. In a fit of rage, he picked up the tool and heaved it aft, where it whizzed by my ear striking a red metal fuel can on deck, putting a sizable dent in it before spinning to rest near the rail. We sat there in stunned silence, not speaking, even on the return trip, embarrassed and wordless after Krulls infantile outburst.

After that, Krull went back to using a 6” core tool, collecting samples to take back to the main campus to sit in the refrigerator for weeks on end until he had time to do his “research”. I was doing TA work in the biology department at the time, and that refrigerator was in my office. My friend, littleman, who had the displeasure of being abused by Krull, would in retribution, periodically take out the sample bags and urinate in them.

Joe got his masters degree, and has since contributed greatly to the aquatic understanding of the Lower Laguna Madre. I often see him both professionally, and as a friend. He continues his serious, but childlike fascination of this area.

Krull eventually completed his research, after handling many core bags, laboriously analyzing the chemistry, which were never over standard seawater parameters. Krull never completed his masters degree requirements. Occasionally, when I’m in need a laugh, I’ll go into TCA’s old office at the CSL and look up over the cabinets at the big-ass core tool and remember Krulls “research”.

Sirens Song

Each wave spends its energy after traveling from some distant point, to die on our shoreline leaving us with memories only.

Bowling for Fuselages: Invasion of the Saudimizers

“Life’s a dance you learn as you go
Sometimes you lead…sometimes you follow
Don’t worry about what you don’t know
‘Cause life’s a dance you learn as you go”
-John Michael Montgomery


It was 1981 and I was going to school in Waco, at Texas State Technical Institute (TSTI) getting certified as a gen-u-wine Aviation Mechanic. I moved there in August. Waco is a weird place, in the buckle of the Texas Bible belt. Its much bigger brother is Baylor University, a Southern Baptist college. On the cusp of the Texas hill country, Waco remains something of a holdout. It is much closer in nature to a town of the old pre civil war South, and in fact even had its share of slaves prior to the great war of Northern aggression.

The Campus of TSTI Waco is northeast of the town (which barely has any sort of recognizable nucleus in itself), and is near to the infamous David Koresch Branch Davidian compound. Religion plays a big part in these folks lives, no matter how cultish.

I was going to school with a lot of rather intelligent individuals, including my flying instructor, a 23 year old hotshot who had already amassed well over 3000 hours in the air, a lot of them as a flying hearse, shuttling bodies all over Texas and Oklahoma. Some of the other guys were college grads with degrees in fields like engineering, who for one reason or another decided that working on aircraft might be a lucrative means of earning an income. We were given to smoking giant Sherlock Holmes Meerschaum pipes and acting like avant-garde intellectuals instead of wrench turning grease monkeys.

The hanger where we all worked was filled with vintage, donated aircraft. There was an old DeHavilland Beaver, with an ancient Pratt and Whitney R-985 radial engine, a MASH era Bell 56 helicopter and various other salvaged pieces and parts. The hanger was a dirty collection of bird shit covered antiques, splattered with much excrement by the pigeons who had taken up residence in the rafters of the yawning cavernous old structure.

Outside resided an ancient DC-7 complete with engines and flight controls, where we’d disappear on breaks and smoke giant spliffs of bad ganja, pretending to be flying the ancient hulk, smoke billowing out of the hatches, windows and doors like there was an on board fire going on. I once saw a group of mechanic wannabes trying to hammer easy-outs into stripped screw heads on the wing panels, and it was at that time, like a revelation, that I made a conscious decision not to fly on commercial aircraft, unless under the direst emergency, knowing the quality of mechanics who happened to be headed for that field, a promise that I’ve kept for myself to this day…

Another aircraft sitting forlornly chained, like some sort of metal convict was the forward section of an old DC-3 sans wings and aft fuselage. This bird had killed a student just prior to my arrival in Waco when he leaned against the landing gear (which folds forward) while working in the wheel well, extruding his head though the nacelle firewall.

Around the back of the hanger were nine fuselages from old Cessna 150 trainers that the flight school operated, brightly colored little aircraft fuselages only, no interiors, engines, wings, or tail sections. The 150 is a tiny bird to begin with, and these sections were about 14 feet long, and 48” in diameter at the widest point, the engine firewall. They weighed less than a hundred pounds each.

One day we got the bright notion to set them up on end, on the firewall and arrange them like giant bowling pins. We’d take turns using an old tail wheel tire for a bowling ball, situating ourselves about fifty feet away. When the fuselages would fall, they made the most satisfying whack on the concrete, writhing and rocking in great metal anguish till they finally lay still on the hot August tramac, only to be picked up, re-set and bowled for by the next man up. Bowling for fuselages became a favorite pasttime along with hackey sack and copious ganja consumption which we did to alleviate some of the boredom of day to day life at TSTI, which could often resemble some sort of military training without the discipline.

Bowling for fuselages ended almost as soon as it began, when one day I launched a perfect strike ball, which, unfortunately took a hard hook after hitting an errant piece of two by four lying on the deck, bounced up and hit my friend John, who was the pin attendant, square in the nuts, causing him to immediately fall over in the classic Beavis and Butthead kicked-in-the-nads fetal position. The instructors decided to shut down our game then, before another lawsuit befell TSTI.

During that time, there were a number of Saudi Arabian guys going to school, taking aviation mechanics and flying. It was always a challenge being in the pattern with these guys. I was flying a lot too, and my flight instructor and I would often imbibe in a bit of ganja and then go out in the 150 aerobat to punch holes in the sky, doing screaming stalls, wing-overs and other fun maneuvers high above McLennan Community College, swooping down under the power wires that spanned the Bosque River, hoping that the pretty girls who went there would notice our valiant efforts. This all came to a halt one day too, when some shitstick decided to remove about six inches off of the top of the vertical stabilizer by flying too high under the wire…..fortunately he made it back, but the airspace around MCC was deemed off-limits for TSTI pilots. For our safety though, on the big flight board, whenever the Saudis were flying, there would appear in the Notice to Aviation Mariners (NOTAMS); “caution, Saudis in pattern!”…..

We renamed ‘em “Saudimizers” after the energizer battery, which just keeps going an going….Like the battery these fuckers would keep going and going allright, screwing up everything in their paths. You can’t polish a turd.

One day one of the Saudis walked in all covered with bandages, all black and blue bruises. Turns out that he’d crashed his new custom van (the old shag-vans from the ‘70’s and early 80’s) when he turned on the cruise control, and went to the back to mix a drink. Seems like one of the American students had told him that cruise control is just like having an autopilot.....

Because we’ve been in bed with the Saudis as a nation for a number of years, and due to the fact that they are a rich bunch of bastards from all of their oil and gas revenues, they were never failed in any aviation classes. I remember when we were all rebuilding engine magnetos, a complex job at best and damn near impossible without some sort of higher intelligence, the Saudi students couldn’t follow the directions, and got frustrated. Instead of reassembling the thing correctly, they just lobbed the parts inside and screwed the case halves back together. One of the instructors held up a Suadimized mag, and shook it like a fucking maraca before signing him off to go on to the next section of aircraft repair.

I enjoyed my tenure at TSTI Waco, and spent a good deal of hours flying, smoking ganja and in general having a good time. I finally graduated and passed my FAA exams. Later, I worked in San Antonio for Dee Howard Aircraft, modifying a giant 747 into a flying palace for the king of Saudi Arabia. I wonder if they allow Saudimizer mechanics to service it?

Remembering Gabe

Winter on the island and the wind kicks up, the beach gets narrow, cold front born combers march in from the distant north-northeast, dying on the chilly wet sand, spending their energy without telling their tales.

Even the winter sun isn’t all that warm. It mimics its summer twin, shining limited sickly yellow light on the dunes forming damp, salty shadows where the beach plants, railroad vine and sea purslane struggle to survive the all too short South Texas winter.

Sea oats nod in the wind on the tidal flats, nodding in agreement that natures season will be replaced soon by the parched and sandblasted winds of summer. Days are short, and the water is cold.

The island hibernates for a little while, and the beach resorts and palapa bars only open on nice weekend days, hoping to snag a stray off season tourist or two for a cutesy rum drink and maybe a greasy burger. The madness of spring break is still months away, and the ugly island infrastructure that caters to that time of year is still dormant and buried under last years plywood and rusty nails, now sandblasted gray and weathered.

I’ve always loved winter on the beach. It is one of the few times when I’ve found some sort of solace. While my mother died back in ‘95, I came to the beach, sometimes neglecting responsibility in order to recharge and escape the horrors of the cancer that consumed her being piece by piece. I spent a great deal of time in the water, surfing, sometimes just sitting out there beyond the cold lumpy breakers, clearing my mind in the zen rise and fall of the swell. On certain occasions, ladies would accompany me to the winter island and we'd hole up at my favorite port-o'-call, the Yacht Club. Angelic, they'd mother and smother me with exotic perfumes and gentle embraces, another sort of wave, energy spent on an internal beach, on the coastline of the soul, leaving me filled with life.

On Tuesday the police recovered the body of Scarlets oldest son, Gabe from the dunes between highway access five and six. In one final and absolute act of utter desparation, he parked his car along the side of the road, walked west out onto the wind tidal flat and committed suicide, choosing to take his own life, for reasons only he could comprehend.

I knew him well. During that same horrendous period of my life, after my Mom died and at the same time, my marriage fell apart, I moved to the Island and met Scarlet, her then husband Tom and their kids. Scarlet home schooled the kids and they were far advanced, well beyond the average in terms of education and understanding. Scarlet and the boys volunteered at the lab, keeping the aquaria spotless and gloriously stocked with a wide assortment of local sea critters that they collected during that warm and magic summer.

I was taking care of lots of things at the Lab, including keeping the computer network running. Back in ’95 it wasn’t an easy task, and lots of the equipment was crude by today’s standards. It was the heyday of the 486…. I had just enough computer savvy to get me in trouble. Gabe taught me to write web pages (a difficult task in those days, pre- Front Page), troubleshoot the system, teaching me the finer points of computer maintenance. He was 14, I was 40.

I worried over Gabe that summer. His dad was working out of town a lot of the time, and so I took him under wing, shuffling him outside, away from the nether-world of silicon and data transfer, to the real world of surf, sand and sea.

I tried to teach him how to surf, pushing him into endless waves, only to have him get pounded in the shorebreak, skinny legs flailing one direction, board whipping the other. He returned time and again to the take off spot, determined to slide down the wave. Other times we’d go out collecting sea creatures for the displays, and sometimes we’d just hang out on the beach. I tried to visualize what sort of person Gabe would become. After I left in the fall, I frequently worried over Gabe. He was an enigmatic child, fragile and different from the rest. Hyper intelligent, I knew that he’d never find a way to totally fit in with the mundane masses. There was an ineffable yearning in him to be accepted and loved, vulnerable and gossamer. The world doesn’t provide for that sort of need.

I returned to the western side of the valley for awhile, and moved out here about six yeas ago. During that time, Gabe had left. He lived with his dad for awhile, and I heard that he’d moved up to Austin after a time. I had also heard that he’d found a bit of trouble, and knew that it was his rudderless nature, his intelligence and youth, and I prayed that he’d find his way.

He returned to the island a while back, and one day appeared at the lab, sitting back in one of the big rooms like the old days, working on a defunct laptop, trying to repair some sort of esoteric mechanical problem. He hadn’t changed a bit. Just gotten older. I’d see him periodically, and was proud and content. It seemed he’d finally found his niche, he had learned the locksmithing trade, and in his brilliance invented all sorts of gadgets and methods to get locks unlocked. I’d see him around town, and we’d always talk, with the connection of time between us.

Yesterday, we all remembered Gabe at the Island Traders bookstore, one of his favorite spots on this earth. It was a bittersweet moment, and Gabe was the cement holding us all together. The gathering, like Gabe himself was a collection of eclectic people, from the remember Che Guevara crowd, to the middle aged like us, family and friend holding hands - sometimes crying sometimes laughing. The day was as brilliant as Gabe too, bluebird sky and light warm wind, soothing us all in our grief. Afterward, we boarded a boat, spreading a bit of his physical being in the cool waters of the Brazos Santiago Pass, along with Dr. Pepper, cigarettes and flowers- all things that he loved.

Then we remembered him in the past tense.

I crossed the causeway after it was all over, brooding about life and death, youth and age. I headed over to Le Menagerie along with CB and two of his friends who had known Gabes father, and attended the memorial. Firing up the 9.9, we untied the boat and motored slowly out past 17, where we raised the main, set the full genny, sailing quietly, lost to ourselves.

I looked up past the top of the mast, to the heavens and gave thanks for finally having found my place after more than 50 years of living.

A dolphin rolled to our starboard, and I gave thanks for the community that I've adopted, the community that's adopted me.

As the big sails fluttered lightly in the gentle breeze I silently gave thanks for knowing Gabe.

As the water slipped laughingly past the hull, gurgling and speaking of things long ago, I prayed for Scarlet, George and Tom, Seth and Heather and everyone who were touched by this tragedy.

I thought about all of my friends and family and gave thanks for them, they are the cement that holds this crazy life all together.

Diversity Training

I received this email from a friend of mine the other day. I felt obligated to pass it along:

JW:

I DO hope you have enjoyed the enlightening and informative training video, "Diversity: Every Officer's Responsibility," that was filmed and produced by members of the San Francisco Police Department.

I especially like the part where the officer runs over a black female homeless person, who nonetheless is able to raise herself up post-flattening sufficiently to give the officer the finger.

In particular, I feel great empathy for the officer (now suspended) who stated, "This film is not offensive to minorities, women, homeless people or homosexuals. We didn't intend them to see the film..."

I am inspired to produce a similar film for our illustrious agency. I will call it, "Diversity: Fuck the White Man." There will be extensive footage of heterosexual white men, motivated by Clintonesque patriotism and politically-correct self-hatred, voluntarily resigning from their jobs to make room for under-represented Persons Of Color (POCS) and/or Persons Of Repugnant Preferences Of Intimate Sexual EcstacieS (PORPOISES). The film will also depict white men voluntarily cutting off their own organs of generation, to demonstrate their solidarity with the repressed People We Feel Sorry For and People We Feel Guilty About Having Previously Stomped On. Then the white men will allow themselves to be verbally, morally and physically abused, and finally, will voluntarily lay their unworthy necks across a rail of the Southern Pacific Railroad until a freight train comes along and chops off their heads, because they know that life should be fair and that they can't dance and have no right to exist.