Probably Mentioned Before, but...

Other things remembered  from the drought conditions of the 1950s in South Texas:

     My mother was co-chairman of the Democrats for Eisenhower, Hidalgo County, Texas during the 1952 elections.   My godmother, Lucille Hendricks, was also co-chairman.    The offices for the campaign was on South Broadway Street in downtown McAllen, Texas, where Broadway intersected with Dallas Street.  Broadway runs north and South, while Dallas runs east and west.    This was during the Summer run up to the elections....with the first televised National party conventions....and a lot of electricity about Robert Taft for the Republicans and the huge unpopularity of Harry Truman whose approval stats finished much lower than George W. Bush in spite of what the mainstream media says.
      Truman decided to retire from the run for re-election after decisively losing a primary vote in New Hampshire to Estes Kefauver, US Senator from Tennesee...but this was not the real issue in Texas.   Kefauver finally lost the Democrat nomination to Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson.
   Conservative Democrats in Texas finally decided after Taft's Republican convention defeat that they would go along with Eisenhower, even if he was backed up by Yankee "moderates".     Eisenhower was still better than the Democrat Stevenson, who would not side with Texas on the Tidelands Issue.

      Beuford Jester, Governor of Texas, had died in office, leaving the seat to Allan Shivers.    Shivers had begun a campaign during the Democrat Primary of 1952, outflanking the crook, Lyndon Johnson, by saying that he would fight for Texas's right to Supreme Authourity over "The Tidelands".   "Landslide Lyndon" Johnson stayed in the US Senate seat he had stolen in the primary of 1948, by beating Coke Stevenson by 83 votes...the last ones delivered about two weeks late.   Johnson and his lackey Lloyd Bentsen  had wanted kick-back money, favours, and other considerations from the oil companies, while Shivers just wanted the principal of "States Rights" to be enforced.   It was a cheap date for oil and gas interests big and small.    Shivers ran in the primary with little or no real opposition.     His opponent was a firebrand liberal named Ralph Yarborough.   Ralph would do better two years later, but still lose.  He finally won a US Senate seat in a 1957 special election for an un-expired term.

     The "Tidelands"  was the area (depending upon historical reference point and specific resource issue) from the coast out to 3 miles, and then 3 leagues (10.5 miles, plus or minus), to in some cases affecting Texas up to  60 miles, over which the Republic of Texas disputed authority against a foreign invader,  the government of the United States of America.   Texas had had an uneasy relation with the neighbouring country's government for many years, exacerbated by the fact that it had had to endure Reconstruction Occupation until 1876....the longest term of the post-Bellum period of the War Between the States.   Old scars, wounds, suspicions, and angers melt away slowly in Texas, even to this day.  It is truly a friendly and open place, but real Texans are apt to say, "Forgive and Remember".

       Texas had a claim by treaty and other agreements declaring exclusive rights to commercial assets pertaining to those off-shore waters known as the Tidelands and the regulation of the exploitation of those assets.   The Tidelands of Texas and Louisiana were, are, and forever will be stuffed full of good oil and sweet natural gas, not to mention shrimp, oysters, and fish. The Texian and Yankee oil people would prefer to deal with a Texas approach to recovery and processing of oil and gas by oil and gas people.   The common Texan in the street, sober or inebriate, also had more faith in their cads and cigar chewing politicians than in a bunch of people who had  managed to let communists into the State and War Departments of the neigbouring country.
       So, the Democrats had nominated Allan Shivers in the May Primaries to be their candidate for Governor.  The Republicans nominated him as well.  All issues of political office in Texas, local or statewide, were settled in the Democrat Primary from 1876 until the middle of the 1980s.    Now they are substantially settled in the Republican Primary, save for a narrow zone along the Rio Grande where the majority of the population lives on 8 different streams of welfare and public assistance.

Robert Allan Shivers
Governor of Texas
1951 - 1957

      The ratio of votes in the Democrat Primary to Republican Primary in the Republic of Texas in 1952 was 15,000 to 1.   Literally.    But, all 4,000 registered Republicans in Texas decided to nominate Allan Shivers based upon his reputation as a good conservative, anti-communist, and defender of the inaliency of Texas's Dominion over the Tidelands.
       All of this was what found the Old Gringo hanging around in the offices of Democrats for Eisenhower.....because in those days "child care" meant hanging around with your mother.   Across the street was the Republican Party's office supporting their candidates....Let's Clean House with Ike and Dick....buttons with brooms...all that .   But only three or four people would come and go there during the day.    Our offices would have a hundred or more.   We even had a Coke machine, telephones, and something called a "television".
       The Old Gringo remembers being called to perform....remember that he was five years old at the time....and his mother would yield to calls from various of the blue-haired old ladies, who smelled like heavy perfume and moth-balls,  to have him spell rewohnesiE frontwards (Eisenhower backwards), which always resulted in great applause and a nickle.    The meeting where this performance took place were normally short and well attended by 40 or more women...and a few old huffing and puffing old geezer men of high repute in the Conservative wing of the Democrat Party.   Colonel So and So, Judge Hack and Sploot, someday the Old Gringo will paint this canvas with a bit more detail.
       Also profoundly remembered was our coming into town in the morning during those late Summer, early Autumn days and crunching, squnching, and splattering millions and billions of dead and dieing black crickets.   They were all over, but especially in downtown....perhaps they were more noticable there.    They filled the streets, the gutters...sometimes overflowing deep onto the sidewalks.    The doorways would be blocked with a foot...and up to two feet of dead crickets piled against the doors and outer walls.    This would be in addition to the piles of drifting dust during windy periods....especially with early northers.      Something caused them to die by the quadzillions...it seemed to go on forever....and it was associated with the drought.   That is what the Old Gringo remembers.

This map shows in brown the counties carried by Stevenson,

and in blue, those carried by Eisenhower.   Texas, Florida,

Tennessee, and Virginia were the Confederate States

that voted for Eisenhower.  Please note that Hidalgo

County....at the tip of South Texas, voted for Eisenhower.

      Eisenhower kept his word concerning the tidelands.    Shivers and the conservative Democrats could reasonably strut around with the facts demonstrated that they could "...cipher a good Yankee from a bad one....or even a good Republican from a bad one."    Eisenhower would carry Texas and the United States for a second term by an even wider margin in 1956.   Shivers would be re-elected two more times, (two year terms back then), serving a total of over seven years as Governmor.   That, in terms of continuous service, was the longest stretch until the arrival of another Democrat...but one that became an official Republican...named Rick Perry.
     Folks might be surprized to see that the South voted Democrat, in the main, for a liberal Democrat, instead of for a War Hero.   Negroes in the South voted for Eisenhower, about 5 to 1, but , of course, there were very few who voted.  My grandfather....my mother's father....never really did quite get over the idea that his daughter could or would actively campaign for a Republican...of any stripe.    He did not speak to her directly, face to face, for three years afterwards.   He would direct his comments through my grandmother Mamie.
       My mother would grump about this saying, "How stupid is it to vote for a Yankee pinko who thinks he is smarter than all us hillbillies....that's how he sees us....instead of for a General who was born in Texas, who comes from a farm, and who beat Hitler?  Daddy just has to think about that."    The Old Gringo, even at that age, decided that it would be more effective and efficient both, to just be a Republican.    My other grandparents had been Republicans, although my grandmother on that side was more of a "progressive" type who even believed in public education.   Ghastly.  Women voting....???  That solved all the problems.   Prohibition!   That solved all the problems, forever....again.
     The Southern grandfather was a teetotaler, but did not support Prohibition, which he referred to as a "Yankee employment project, and a backdoor re-institution of The Reconstruction by way of an invasion of Revenuers."

       Allen Shivers married the Shary girl (Marialice, pronounced "Mary Alice) from Sharyland, princess of one of the most important families in the Lower Rio Grande Valley at the time.   He went on to be the most beloved and respected Governor in the lifetime of this Texan. He despised Lyndon Baines Johnson....so there is no way he could have been all bad.
    He did put me on the tail of his chartered airplane one time in 1954 and pronounce to my mother and godmother, that "This little man here will grow up to be a good Democrat" .....so I guess everyone has the right to be wrong every now and then....or perhaps being a good Democrat, then means being a good Republican, now.

THE DUST WAS SO BAD, during the first four years of the 1950s that we would waste water to dampen the gravel road that ran east and west in front of our house, to "keep the dust down".   It did little good against the dry "northers" that would blow in on 30 to 50 mile an hour winds.   At times the dust drifts from the plow fields would come up against our north wall, one to three feet high....like snow.    Our front porch, normally an elegant place to relax in the shade (a long rectangle of about 400 square feet), on at least one occasion that I remember, managed to yield a complete 55 gallon drum full of dust, swept up by the family during a long morning.     And that dust came in through a well and tightly-screened exterior!!!

There are scores of other weather and drought stories that are equally boring, and perhaps some of them might appear here in coming episodes.

That was one of the ways it was in the 1951 through 1955 period.
Thanks for wading through this addendum.
El Gringo Viejo.... 
          

A Glimpse Into the Inner Sanctum

A question came in from a long time family friend....fixture more like it.   This woman is a PH.d. and has a daughter (an MD) who is the same age as our daughter.   The two girls grew up together and are still close....in the way that urban life allows closeness.

           The family friend is an educator extraordinaire and has always been a positive bleep on our radar.   She is also a strange form of liberal....Democratish.   Why she doesn't beat me over the head....and my wife over the head....I do not know.  She is up to lecturing me at times, and for some strange reason I will just take the mental torture and abuse.    She might be the bucket of cold water that is needed when I really am wound up into a knot.    She is an OROG, and must just shake her head and shudder at what must seem to her to  be my barely functional psychotic episodes.

            In any regard, from her comes a set of good questions.  What about the drought of the 1950s?   In Texas?  In the Valley?   What are the significant hurricane events for South Texas?   What about the heat records?     She says a great deal more than I, and does it in many fewer words, and the Old Gringo thinks that her questions would be of more than a little interest to other OROGs.   So, a segment of a private email is included here....with a few amendments for the sake of clarity:

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     (In response to your questions...)    It was a strange time....from 1949 through 1954. Remember that I was born in 1947, but I am one of those rare birds who has vivid memories from infancy. What a useless clot in the brain, no? The freeze of 1949 was a doozy and I remember being "swaddled up" in our back room....the "fireplace room" ....and throwing a fit because the big people would not let me go out and help chop and bring in wood with my brother Milton. He was actually like one of the big people to me, since he was eleven years older.

About thirty percent of the citrus was destroyed by this freeze that came in during the late days of January and receded on the 5th of February. From that point, things were okay, weatherwise, although water for irrigating was always a concern and it was expensive. My parents operated a very much "hands-on" grove care business which took about 30 hours a day, 9 days a week. Irrigation was a word heard in every sentence. If not irrigation, the word would be "water" .

Things steadily became drier. Then exactly two years, almost to the day and hour, the Freeze of 1951 hit. Although there had been a bit of recovery for the citrus since the 1949 damage, this time would be the real doozy. This time the Winter had been warmish, so the trees were setting blossoms and had a lot of very new growth....entering into South Texas Spring. The freeze of 1951 essentially destroyed about 70 percent of all citrus and 90 percent of ornamentals in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Recovery via cotton and vegetables would depend upon water, irrigation, and good luck. There was little of any of those commodities available at that time.

In the meantime, although there was no water in the Rio Grande to speak of, construction began on Falcon International Reservoir. It was finished and openned for business in 1953, being dedicated by the simultaneous presences of Adolfo Ruiz Cortinez and Dwight David Eisenhower on a very hot, windy October day about a year after Eisenhower's election as President, and entering the third year of Ruiz-Cortinez's election.

Seven months later, what would now be considered a category I hurricane formed up late in the Gulf....(but early for the season....being born in June)....and moved slowly onshore, just barely south of the mouth of the Rio Grande. The storm moved very slowly up the entire length of the Rio Grande up to Del Rio,   finally coming to rest over the Pecos River watershed. Rainfall totals went as high as 25 inches at various points. Perhaps as many as 70 people were swept away in flash floods in Piedras Negras, Coahuila and Pecos, Texas, along with a few other places. But, it did, in a matter of days, fill what was then the largest lake in Texas...Falcon Reservoir. People could not believe it.

We were surprized to note the vast numbers of people who had driven up to see the Lake after the hurricane. None of us had ever seen such an extension of water, save for the ocean....like at Padre Island. We were visiting where my Godfather, Harold Hendricks was finishing up on his project building the new Zapata High School and ISD re-location. Zapata had been translocated, like Guerrero, in anticipation of the Lake filling some day. Uncle Harold had also built all of the private housing for the "Dam Workers" at what is called Falcon Village, on the grounds of the Government Offices about a half-mile from Falcon Dam. I think it was 20 houses with 2, 3, and 4 bedroom configurations. They are nice houses and still in use to this day.

From that time on through to those particular problems the latter 1990s and the early part of this Century, there were never any significant water shortage issues. A few floods affected the Valley, like Hurrican Beulah's run-off in 1967, but those waters came into the Rio Grande at the Rio Alamo and the Rio San Juan, which enter the Rio Grande on the Mexican side and below Falcon Dam. Other floods were the result of heavy localized rains in most cases.

Long answer to the question....but when communication is infrequent, details are precious. I really appreciate having that chance to see you all in Austin. It was good to see Xxxxx and Xxxxxxxx....things change but stay the same at the same time sometimes....said Yogi.

XXX

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     It should be noted that during the 1890s, the Old Gringo's great-grandfather and his daughter (the Old Gringo's grandmother) lived and ranched in Tuxpan, Vera Cruz, midway between Tampico and Vera Cruz City.  They had a nice ranch up in the mountains.   They suffered three successive freezes in those years which essentially sapped my great grandfather's willingness to continue his project.

        We could have done with a bit of Global Climate Rizbafutubchip back then.    Rizbafutubchip is the new word I made up to try to keep ahead of the Global weather catastrophe de jour.   In my lifetime it has swung back and forth between Ozone holes, Ice Age a'comin, nuclear winter, iceberg melting, asteroid punishment by extraterrestrials because we don't share the wealth, etc.    So I just made up a word that makes about as much sense.   It's all George Bush's fault anyway.   And women and minorities and children and the poor will be the ones who suffer most when the world ends anyway.

Back to work to-morrow, you all!   Armageddon beckons!    I hope Father Obamaham and Father Bernakeham and Father Geitnerham send me my check.   Not your check....my check first.   I'm me.  Don't give no flip about no stinkin' grandchildren or America or any of that slop....only me!   And I mean ME!      Me first.

El Gringo Viejo

(only joking, folks.   Spare the commentary line on this one)

           

     

Update and Obituary for Tropical Storm Don

     The first point does not have anything to do with anything, per se.  It is just necessary that we all whine and complain to FOX News.   They should desist with their dumboe insistence on announcing a "FOX News Alert" with all the fanfare and graphic....and then announcing "Charles Lindbergh says that he is planning a trans-Atlantic solo flight!"     So many of their alerts are "old cow" that sometimes I wonder if Rip Van Winkle was left in the FOX News Alert control room.    FAUX NEWS Alert! "Gen. Grant allows Confederates to retain side-arms, and horses fit for travel and plowing, in terms of surrender agreement at Appomattox!    More after these announcements."

      Now, after that perambulation, the Storm, Don, came up to Boca Chica like a tired, drunk sailor.   The voyage over the Yucatan, the upper reaches of the Bay of Campeche, and the southwestern Gulf of Mexico ended, partially over land and partially over water.    Please be aware that the "official" readings of the storm's track did not match the facts.   It tracked about 50 miles to the south of what was being cited by the Hurricane Center.   The circulation center was ill-defined, but it was readily detectable by anyone following the storm on a home computer, linked to Weather Underground's sources.   Oddly, the circulation center's strongest moments were its last, when it almost formed a complete rain shield of 360 degrees.    Areas just to the east of Boca Chica had up to 13 inches of rain...all over water....McAllen had a trace
      Of particular note was the forecasting of the path after landing.   It had no path.   It literally evaporated and died on the beach at Boca Chica, the mouth of the Rio Grande during the twi-light and early nighttime hours of 29 July 2011.   The weather service followed a dry, spin-off vortex across South Texas, saying that it was the "post land-fall depression".
       Normally the Weather Service and the private services do an adequate to excellent job in their dealings with tropical weather.   This time was wierd.  The Old Gringo does not understand why there was such a breakdown and an unwillingness to just say, "We are having a hard time fixing a center of circulation due to the lack of organization on the part of Don".     The probability is that the area to be affected, deep South Texas and northeastern Mexico is really of no importance or significance.

       Finally, if the word "compromise" is used again, the Old Gringo will puke some more.   Compromise in the issue of the debt limit....in terms of the issues like the national government's budget deficits....is what has gotten us into this quagmire.    The word 'compromise' infers that each party has a valid position, from which a new and stronger weld can made of two fine metals.
      Compromise to a marxist and or most Democrats and to too many Republicans means...."Let the Party continue, more champagne and caviar , Jeeves....let the little people have Lone Star Cards....make sure the gate is locked at the subdivision entrance....are Rosie and Whoopee here yet?"

     Anything that is recommended that will really cure the problems is immediately met with, "What will we do about the firemen and policemen and teachers and people who need help to not starve and Social Security Checks and veterans' benefits?"    Geitner pulled that one off the other day like a six year old threatening his mother with burning the barn down...after the six-year old was caught with his hand in the cookie jar.   He even glowered slyly at the reporter...almost like, "Bet you hadn't thought of that answer, had you? Bet you don't really believe that we'd pull that off and blame it on the Republicans, do you?"     What a disgusting, marxist thug.

       Geitner and Bernacke are a pair of slugs who were purposely put into their positions to continue the destruction of America.    Imagine a head of the the Federal Reserve actually saying, "I really don't understand why" when asked about the unresponsiveness of the TARP and StimuPork programs.    Imagine the Secretary of the Treasury actually suggesting a THIRD StimuPork program to build upon the successes of the first two labour union funding projects.

      Special announcement:    The Old Gringo has found a good supply of well made Sylvania light bulbs for various applications.   They are long life, incandescents and they are made in the United States.    There are some made in Mexico and Canada.  None that I have found recently have been made in Red China.   These are being carried by the normally Red Chinese friendly HEB company.

Thanks for helping me leave Grumpyland this morning.
El Gringo Viejo

Under the Gun

     My poor wife will back me up I'm sure, but she is probably tired of it all.   About three days ago, the Old Gringo decided that there was a good probability that a bit of a hurricane would be forming in the northwestern Caribbean.  It happened, of course.

     Now it is ambling through the southwestern Gulf of Mexico.   It is a small, somewhat non-descript tropical storm named Don....the kind of a storm you might meet in a run down bar with warm beer and dirty rest-rooms.   But on a night like this, you have to dance with the only storm in the room.

       We have determined that three different fixings of the co-ordinates were not correct.    We have also noted that the stated course and projected paths did not follow any guidance factors with which I am familiar.   It is probable that the Old Gringo has been left out of the loop since Global Warming was created by George Bush and Cristobal Colon.    They no longer send me the new guidance factors for tropical disturbances. 

       The Old Gringo's guidance factors range from the "tongue of surface low pressure"....(an old system)....to the "middle-level steering  winds" notion (relatively new...50 years old)....with a little bit of the idea of the "blocking high pressure system"....(which is probably related to #2).    There are five or six other things but to explain them would be even more boring for me than for the normal OROG, who really does have better things to do than to read about Old Indian Chants from the Tennessee Cherokees which either attract or repel hurricanes depending what is needed at the moment.

      The deal is that the storm has had movement more to the west than has been anticipated by the NWS and even by private weather analysis services.   That means it will make landfall further to the south on the extreme South Texas coast......or somewhere within 40 miles south of the Rio Grande's mouth to the Gulf to 30 miles to the north.   The landfall can be...at this writing...anytime between 20:00 hours Friday to 06:00 hours on Saturday.    It is hard to determine the forward speed, in that the hurricane hunter plane has estimated it to-day to be ranging from 9 miles per hour to as high as 17 miles per hour as of an hour ago. 

     In any regard, to make a long, long story mercifully short, we might be away from the computer for a bit.   The first thing to do is to secure the persons and effects of my mother and father-in-law.    That will be a wonderland, because my mother-in-law will only believe what she hears or sees on the television news.   The television is usually wrong, of course, and is always about 2 to 5 hours behind in terms of the developments that can be readily gleaned from the computer.   So...it will be fun for a little while.

Thanks for your time and interest.   We shall advise if things are exceptionally boring or exciting....either way.

El Gringo Viejo

      

       

If the Old Gringo Won't Do It, Who Will?

This is not one of my reverse-logic melt-downs.   Nor is it one of my sardonic, sarcastic stabs at humour.   It is something that must be done on all screeds major and minor, in order to make certain this news is made commonly available. 

Wade Sanders

This man recently had his Silver Star removed from his person and record.   The silver star for gallantry and conduct above and beyond,etc. was taken due to the fact that it was awarded due to fallacious information, purposefully and willfully contructed by the person pictured above.     It is also true that information gathered for the awarding of the Silver Star was corroborated by other individuals who also were found to be giving deliberately false and misleading information concerning the events in question.

      The individual pictured above and his collaborators were found to be guilty of false swearing and perjurious testimony.   In short, the events described never occurred and were wholly invented.    The events were supposed to have taken place in the Republic of South Viet Nam during the American defence of that country.     The Silver Star was stripped from this individual sometime before other un-related proceedings were taking place.  

       The un-related proceedings were the investigation, findings, indictment, conviction, and sentencing to prison for approximately four years of the individual pictured above.   He was sent to prison for collecting, having in possession, marketting, and otherwise participating in the commercialization of the worst form of child pornography that can be imagined by a reasonable person.  Video material involving females from the ages of eight to thirteen who are being brutally subjected to forced situations is about as far as this writer cares to go.   The Federal Court documents are much more explicit and it is worse than it sounds here.

       This person needs to be known to all who cherish the Republic.

       Why?

       This is the kind of person who can walk into a nationally televised, national political party convention of nomination, and make an introduction of the soon to be nominated candidate of that party.    He made the introduction by referring to the Swift Boat for Truth group as Nazi-like members of a smear machine who were besmirching the good reputation of the soon to be nominee of said political party for the Presidency of the United States of America.   Even as he spoke from the podium, he knew that he would have a new delivery for his "collection" upon returning home.

        We have no information concerning whether or not that nominee was one of the corroborative agents to the testimony leading to the awarding of a Silver Star which later had to be stripped from the receiver due to falsification under oath.   We pray not.    We pray not because that same nominee supposedly threw his own Silver Star over the fence surrounding the grounds of the White House in 1972 or thereabouts.


addendum:
(This was found on another reliable blog that follows military and veterans' issues.)

John Kerry Ally Loses Silver Star

When John Kerry was being “swiftboated” (which is another way of putting, when the truth was being told about him) in 2004, Wade Sanders rose up to defend him. Will John Kerry, who by the way served in Vietnam, return the favor?

“Had the subsequently determined facts and evidence surrounding both the incident for which the award was made and the processing of the award itself been known to the Secretary of the Navy in 1992, those facts would have prevented the award of the Silver Star,” [Mabus spokeswoman Pamela] Kunze said.    ("Mabus" is the surname of the Secretary of the Navy at the time of this statement)

Sanders was Kerry’s superior officer in Vietnam. Sanders is currently in jail, on child pornography charges. Not sure how that relates to 1992, but the back story must be interesting.

Still nothing, but at least there is something

With reference to some questions that might be remaining about the three or four busses that went missing and their subsequent rescue by the Armed Forces, the following can be said.

     My best recovery of information is that the incident did occur.   The people who were rescued were advised that it would be best that they not "go public" for a time.    The people also asked the authorities involved to do equally, so as not to engender some kind of  "humiliation revenge" on the part of any of the parties responsible for the provocation of the incident.

      One of my respondents believes it to be true that the provocateurs were, in fact, deserters from the Zeta group.   This was based on a few comments by some of the passengers who were interviewed in Tampico.   Perhaps the deserters had found Jesus or had some other awakening.

Therefore, until there is new or contradictory information, the Old Gringo will also let the matter rest, respecting the wishes of those involved more directly.