The Alamo, its protection, operation, and guidance

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     When Texians gather to bloviate, opine, and and palaver....all of which are favoured pass-times for us.....the topic might turn to something like, "What is the most important place or site in the Republic of Texas?"    Responses can be as varied as the number of people sitting around the table or at the bar.   One might say, "the home", another "the beaches", one might even say something like his home-town's name, or the Astrodome.   After name a score of more of this place and that thing, someone will inevitably say, "The Alamo".  

     Everyone at the table or bar, or on the deck in the patio will quiet for a bit, and then agree.   The Alamo.

      There are relatively few people living in Texas who can say that their lineage dates from a time of the First Republic of Texas or before.  Most understandings, even of citizen Texians, about that time and the time of the Siege and final Battle of the Alamo, come from the Davy Crockett series of productions by Walt Disney, other movies including but not limited to John Wayne's fusion of  The Alamo and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.  Both movies had considerable fact and impressive casts and colour, but each also made detours and convenience stops on the way to the place that would actually permit a totally true image of the circumstances.

    We have stated many times on this fountain of information and commentary that both overall commanders of the theatre of action by the Texian  and Mexican Centralists would have been tried before a military court for dereliction during any saner time.   It was a case where both sides, if fully committed to their respective offence and defence, would necessarily lose that battle.  The only question to resolve would be, who would win the final battle later.

     Our issue here concerns another battle.   It is one that has brewed for scores of years and it involves the deportment of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas and their stewardship of the building, grounds, and operation of all things directly pertinent to The Alamo.  To be sure, it has been a difficult task, requiring considerable acts that would challenge even the most competent high-wire performance artiste.  Crossing the Niagara Falls cataract would probably be simpler.

    (1)   For instance, The Alamo is not a movie prop.  It is a mission chapel of Roman Catholic missionary orders who established a string of small to medium sized churches and plantations in and around an outpost known as San Antonio, fairly late in the Spanish Colonial period.   It was designed to attract what can only be described as primitive Indians who were caught between very superior military and cultural Indian nations...to the north, the Comanche, certain Apaches, Kiowa and Kickapoo raiders....to the east by Caddos and related types of Cherokee, Chickasaw, Alabamas, Creek,  all of whom were accomplished and strong in war and agriculture and internal cultural complexity.  To the south there had been an array of advanced MesoAmerican ''Indians'' over the millennia, among them the Huastec, Tarascan, Totonac, Nahua (Aztecs), Mexica, Otomi, Tlaxcala, and others who regarded the Indians of that area that would in these days be known as "Texas" as inferiors and essentially sub-human.
     The friars strove, with varying degrees of success and failure, to educate and instructive and guide the Indians from around-and-about what was San Antonio de Valero.   Incessant Indians raids, chiefly from the north, seemed to always set all or most efforts back every few years.   But, at their finest and during their best hours and days, El Alamo and the Mision de San Jose rose to true Spanish and Roman Catholic grandeur.
    One of the "lesser" problems is that it is known that both pre-Spanish and post-Spanish arrival, there were many interments of native peoples in and around the place generally associated with the plantation zone of the Alamo.
   Massive, quality crops, animals, irrigation, mills, fibres of many kinds, Indians with two grades of school...or more....and elegant structures marked various cultural and economic high-water marks in an area that the Spanish Court had to consider what we would equate with a colony on Venus or Saturn's moons during these days.
     These things all are fed into the "computer archive" of reality concerning this fabled place.   And, of course, we have another huge elephant in the parlour when it must be considered that The Alamo was and will remain forever, Christian Holy Ground.

     (2)    It is an historical place.  For all the things that went on before the famous battle, it is historical.  For the events of November through the first week of March of 1835 - 1836 it is famously historical.  And its legacy as a football in the game of high-stakes tourism, cultural preservation, sociological egocentrism, has been involved in a minimum of five to ten per cent, directly or indirectly, of everything that has made politics and cultural issues percolate in San Antonio since shortly after the War Between the States.
     Angling for position at the very centre of the second largest metroplex in the Republic now, are all new and continuing commercial interests.  One needs to consider, for instance, that the Alamo Dome, where the San Antonio Spurs play, can be reached by a not too distant 20-minute walk (with comfortable shoes) from The Alamo.   HemisFair Plaza, La Villita commercial district, and all nature of business and accommodation is within the same walking distance.

     Mistakes have been made and successes have been achieved with reference to the space, time, and application of activities and resources in the centre of San Antonio.   But, festering just out of sight, during the past two or three generations, has been the discord and disagreement concerning the handling and administration of the physical, abstract, literary, and legal use rights  of the property and existence of "The Alamo".
     Much of the "sticking in the craw" has been a perceived difficulty in dealing with the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.   As stewards of the property, by deference and Legislative Act of the Legislature of the State of Texas (Congress of the Republic of Texas) the ladies have done considerable work and improvement of the physical plant and good order of the Alamo.  The problem is that they have been perceived by some as becoming increasingly high-handed and hermetic in their operations.
     There is all manner of disagreement about the handling of important documents and accounts of the events.   Rumours and complaints arise, some frivolous and selfish, others that raise legitimate question according to respected observers, about favouritism and unjustifiable selectivity concerning historical interpretation, access to documents, and matters that are very serious...in no wise petty....about substantial administrative issues concerning the state of affairs to-day.    We defer from participating or commenting further so as to not mislead and so as to avoid being dragged into court.
     The fact remains that State of Texas, its Legislature and Governor, acting through the good offices of appropriate authority, the Land Commissioner of the State, have decided to re-assume ownership and control of the overall operations of The Alamo.  It is my estimation that the overwhelming majority of Texians....both of the ancient and studied order and those who have come later....are in favour of this action.  A powerful group of philanthropists / business people with a long history of doing things in the great and general good of the Republic of Texas, along with the good order of the Republic will make a good thing better.   It will become more involved in the deep academics of the issue of what was and is The Alamo, and the Sanctity of the Place and those who have lived and died at and about it will be protected.

     I endorse the assumption of The Alamo by the Texas Land Commission, although it is my recommendation to oppose at all costs any further allowance of the dedication of The Alamo and all of the Spanish Colonial Missions and structures...to the category of UNESCO World Heritage site.

El Gringo Viejo

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(More Archivial Wanderings...the Truth is never far away) Another Reminder of Reality Lost

MSNBC'S MADDOW BLAMES BUSH FOR MESS IN THE UKRAINE

     The esteemed Rachel Maddow goes back to the well to find the real reason for the lack of any reasonable and/or coherent positioning or thinking or action on the part of Obama or his administration.   The explanation....George Bush.

El Gringo Viejo responded to her lunacy as it appeared  on a popular screed, and shares his own humble wisdom below.

 

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CORRECTION, PLEASE, MISS MADDOW.

TO WIT:

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       Bush and the Americans, et.al. invade Iraq. Destroy the Iraqi military, capture Saddam Hussein al Tikriti, and generally win the war. The Gringos establish some semblance of civil society and do a fairly good cultural and social mop-up. The issue remains with the marxist / anti-American elements in the United States..."Bush lied and people died". The fact that Hussein had WMDs cannot be disputed. He had them, they were used frequently against the Iranians and against Iraqis....Shiite, Kurds, and the Swamp Arabs. Many, many thousands died. During the Iraq - Iran War (8 years), perhaps 1,000,000 were affected. During Kuwait, the environmental "lack of sensitivity" expressed by Hussein was revealed by the setting afire of 142 active and producing oil wells.
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            I did not think much of the invasion, but in military and even cultural terms it was a considered success. Most knowledgeable analysts and observers are convinced that the bulk of Hussein's WMDs were moved to Syria shortly before the outbreak of the American, et.al. invasion. Some of those munitions quite probably were those being used both by Assad and the "freedom fighters" during the present Syrian disorders.
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           The anti-Hebe nutcases in the present administration (which includes all of the members of this administration) are totally committed to the total erasure of Israel as a sovereign state, and in truth, to the elimination of the Jew presence within the ranks of the human race. I am not a Jew, so I am not begging for someone to save my race and me. It must be recognised, however, that all socialists...Bolshevik, National, progressive, etc...hate the entire Judaic - Christian "thing". Many of the Jew-haters are atheist Jews who hate their own "non-existent" Yahweh, their ancestors, and any notion of Judaic historical validity.
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            The correct analysis for what has occurred in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the Far East, and the rest of the world is that the Bush team did a high-mediocre to sometimes excellent job, won two wars, defended Israel to all reasonable limits,....left office...and watched this administration squander it all as it snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.....purposefully.
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            Why? It was, is, and always will be the purpose of this administration to destroy, debilitate, and denigrate everything about the United States of America. These people will continue to do it while in office and sustain their efforts upon leaving office...hoping that when they leave that there is nothing left but smouldering ruins in their rear-view mirrors.   Their creed...hate traditionalist Jews, hate traditionalist Christians, hate agnostic libertarian thinkers, hate America, hate self-reliance, and give reverence to degeneracy.  Great creed.
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  Thank each of you for your kind attention.
  El Gringo Viejo

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Jeb Bush - Visits from the archivial past. (Humour and sadness)

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     Jeb Bush has taken heat from some on the right for agreeing to present an award tomorrow to Hillary Clinton for her work in public service.   Bush, who is chairman of the National Constitutional Center, is presenting the award in Philadelphia. he said in a statement. "While Secretary Clinton and I disagree on many issues, we certainly agree on the importance of civic engagement. The Board looks forward to the Center’s annual celebration of the vision of freedom, responsibility and equality embodied in the U.S. Constitution.”

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A NOTE TO ALL OROGs:

   We were privileged to have been contacted by the Republican Institutional National Organisation (RINO) requesting that we assist in the composition of a short address for the famous conservative. past-governor of Florida, allowing us to amend his speech slightly before its presentation at (Sir Edmund)Hillary's award for "Public Service and Civic Engagement"  (?)   My inspired words came out something like what is found below.

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      Former Secretary Clinton has dedicated her life to serving and engaging people across the world in democracy,” Bush said in a statement. "The simple act of corkscrewing into the heavy enemy fire in the Balkans and shielding Sinbad and her own daughter from the withering sniper and mortar fire as they ran across the completely exposed tarmac, prove that this woman is truly a daughter of Jean d'Arc.

 

      We all remember when she suggested to Maggie Thompson and Bernie Nussbaum that it might be nice to "tidy-up" Vince Foster's office after poor Vince was found at Fort Marcy Park after having suffered a calamitous health issue, something like a work-place violence incident, perhaps brought on by an anti-Mohammed video. (Sir Edmund) Hillary, always thinking of others, asked her staff to clean up the office so that Mrs. Foster would not have to be burdened.

 

     And we are moved to think how difficult it was for her to supervise the ghost writers of two different books...two! mind you....when she had so much on her plate, on behalf of women and children and minorities. It is very difficult to supervise two different books, when one realised that neither she nor anyone else ever read them. (Sir Edmund) Hillary emoted the new literary process, far ahead of its time by Cerebral Osmomosistic Diffusion, a process she invented and perfected, and will be awarded, later in the day, ten consecutive years of combined Nobel Prizes for Peace, Science, Literature, and Divinity. While some light a candle instead of cursing the darkness, (Sir Edmund) Hillary is more like a Times Square Solstice and Kwanza and LGBTRZOKH Tree, lighting the way for what has been called the New Normalcy and Tolerance.

 

     The Wall Street Awards Group gave her, simultaneous to the Jeb Bush Award for being just like (Sir Edmund) Hillary, the coveted Bernie Madoff Award for devising new Techniques in Cattle Futures Trading. The Academy of Cattle Futures lovingly engraved her imitation silver and gold trophy with the message embossed over the image of an Old Cow, reading "It really does take one to know one".
 

     And of course, sitting in the front row of the admiring and adoring audience was Mrs. Ron Brown, and the members of the White House Travel Agency staff who were given, let us say, a nice "early retirement" when (Sir Edmund) Hillary first entered the White House advised the FBI that they seemed to be tired and needed a rest. Always thinking of others, you see.
    She placed her cousins and some of their friends in charge of the White House Travel Office, and they served well enough until some were let go because of little discrepancies here and there.   Only two or three were ever convicted of felonies or anything, however.

 

    It was like when (Sir Edmund)Hillary and Janet Reno decided to have the FBI, the ATF, and Gen. Wesley Clark liberate those poor children from those crazy, religious gun-nuts outside of Waco, Texas. We are comforted in knowing that because of the heroic efforts of that team, led by (Sir Edmund)Hillary, those children are in a better place now.  Turned out the "gun-nuts" had fewer guns per adult-under-the-roof than the average home in Texas.  It just goes to show what a reasonable approach to Climate Change can do to forward the blunting of simultaneous  Global Cooling and Global Warming.

 

    It doesn't really matter, whether we are talking about holding 1,300 FBI raw data files for two years or leaving a briefcase on Vince Foster's White House office desk, three days after the office had been visited, photographed, and dusted.   Either way, it really is phenomenal, folks, really, because Chuck Colson who worked for Nixon in the White House had one unopened raw data file, and he had to sit in the Big House for three years for that offence.  Imagine!  All of (Sir Edmund)Hillary's were opened and the papers returned in inaccurate manners.  We are talking about a really magical personality.

 

    Or, we can consider the phenomenal ability to have Web Hubbell serve two different long terms in the Big House so that (Sir Edmund) Hillary could keep her wide....uh...her wide.....uh...presence ensconced in the White House, or that she is the only person in this 5,000 seat auditorium at this time who can say with pride that he or she knows well over 100 people who have met with violent and/or untimely deaths, sometimes unexplainable and sometimes ruled homicides and sometimes ruled suicides, and/or folks who are serving or who have served prison time stemming from activities with or around the famous pair, Bonnie and Clyde, excuse me, Billy Jeff and (Sir Edmund) Hillary.   Now, go ahead and say  what you might...not many people can duplicate that record.

 

     This list can go on forever, shaking down political contributors, foreign and domestic, who are trying to buy a Presidential Pardon or obtain some well-deserved illegal favour, saying that her daughter was at the twin towers on the morning of 9 - 11 - 01, saying that she was named for Sir Edmund Hillary three years before he began his assault of Mount Everest, or telling a nice crowd of folks that she tried to volunteer for the United States Marines but was turned down because of her eyesight.  We all just have to stand in awe of her.  We simply must.   Or else.

  

     Who would have ever thought that we would have the opportunity to pay homage to a person who could actually be forever remembered for falling into her 1,000,000 dollar an hour airplane while drunk, and then avoiding a pernicious Congressional inquiry for three months, by faking first stomach flu and then faking a brain concussion and then faking a broken jaw.  What better way to work out of a really tough hangover?
 

     And she will forever be remembered for those inspirational and patriotic words, "What difference, at this point, can it possibly make?" We shall forever remember that defiant, scowling, witch-like face, skewed into a look of contempt for such common people to even think about calling her to account for herself and her stuperous inaction during the time Americans were being killed because she was too blotto and/or too uncaring and/or too self-involved to have considered addressing the need for beefing up security for a consular compound in some silly remote country full of funny looking dark people.  At least it wasn't 03:00 some dark-thirty morning.

 

    Finally, I, Jeb Bush, demand that we have a moment of silence so as to consider deeply, everything....and I mean everything...that (Sir Edmund) Hillary has done for women.....and children......just think of everything she has done.....everything. Monitoring cameras and microphones are on, and will be reviewed after this event so as to ensure compliance with (Sir Edmund) Hillary's demands.

    Thank you all.  And may (Sir Edmund) Hillary bless America.

 

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    Thank you, Governor, for allowing me to advise and contribute to your attempt to speak reasonably about such an interesting personality.   I have been guided by my parents' admonition to only say the most favourable things one can about the living or the dead.  We believe that admonition has been served.
    Suffice to say, I and all of mine will vigorously oppose any effort that you might make in terms of gaining any further elective office.  The notion that you can render homage to a certifiably psychotic narcissist who is a dedicated marxist, committed to the destruction of this Republic and the establishment of a socialist replacement, while at the same time you are denigrating personalities like Ted Cruz, is disgusting. 

 

Sincerely,

El Gringo Viejo

Corkscrew Comedy Hour (Repost- Because the Truth just becomes richer)

Sunday, 31 March 2013

Comedy Hour

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   Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday at the United Nations, where she held a news conference after giving a speech. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times        

   
   

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1. Probably one of the most recognized faces around the world, Hillary Clinton has to be the most popular First Lady of United States since its inception. Not only was she the First Lady from 1993 till 2001, she was also the first woman to be elected as the US Senator from the state of New York and went on to become the Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013! A lawyer by profession, she has led numerous battles on behalf of victims of child abuse and has been the voice of woman empowerment since her inception in the White House!
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     It still begs that original question...after all the inceptions and concussions and victims of child abuses and women's empowerments....(what in the Sam Hill does 'women's empowerment' even mean?)....What possible difference does any of it make?  (Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton - February 2013)

 

     This is the longest serving fountain of mendacity that the United States of America has ever had to endure.  For those who think that (Sir Edmund)Hillary gives a granite grubhoe about any female other than herself...those folks should consider...Linda Tripp, whose FBI raw data files were ordered out of the personnel department of the Department of Defence,  during the Saga of Billy Jeff and Monica, back in 1997.   Simple unauthorised possession of an FBI raw data file on any citizen is a felony that can result in long prison terms.  Chuck Colson, in the Nixon White House, had ONE .....that had not been openned....in his desk....and he did three years hard time in the Federal Pen.

    (Sir Edmund) Hillary had 1,100 and up to 1,300....and apparently had copied all of the contents of most of them...so as to be able to blackmail and bludgeon in typical Bolshevik fashion...old and possible new enemies of hers and of her wayward, violent, and drug-slug husband.    That is how she managed to order the leaks on Kathleen Willey....whom Billy Jeff assaulted in the White House at the same general period he was having his peculiar interlopements with Monica in the Oval Office and elsewhere.  Suddenly, when Kathleen Willey speaks about those incidents and the intimidations she suffered later, Hillary caused there to be released private mail correspondence from Kathleen Willey to the White House, requesting any intercession in order to obtain employment due to the fact that her husband had committed suicide and that, as a femme sole, she would appreciate being upgraded from her intern and volunteer status to career staff status.

     Other private communication from and to Willey were leaked...all the more sordid because the above letter was dated at or around the time of one of Billy Jeff's assaults upon the person of Mrs. Willey.

 

    Jennifer Flowers,  Susan McDougall, and Juanita Broderick were just a few of the bimbo and  not-so-bimbo women that Billy Jeff had assaulted, toyed with, and/or brutalised.   Poor dumbina Paula Jones was lucky that she got out of her mess with Billy Jeff without being fished out of some murky stretch of the the Mississippi River.   The Miss (Some Southern State) representative to the Miss America Pageant....is still living at some location in Canada, where she fled for her life....due to threats concerning her  involvement with Billy Jeff while he was Governor of Arkansas.

     It is the strangest thing that a woman...and her husband....who are the only common denominators  in the events of the murders, untimely deaths, associates sent to prison, and suicides of well over 100 people over the years of their "public service".... could possibly be held in positive esteem for anything.  Even by the measure of low information and low intelligence voters, it must be clear that when so many people are found dead who are at the 1st and 2nd level of interaction or personal relationship something has to be considered out of whack....so to speak.

 

     Following the logic of the Obsolete Press and the (Sir Edmund) Hillary apologists, the following can always be said with certaintly:

 

 (Sir Edmund) Hillary Corkscrew never really did anything for the poor left-handed Eskimo Children nor their mothers....or for anyone in particular, but at least she did it with other peoples' money.  And, above all else, "At this point,what possible difference does it make?"

 

El Gringo Viejo

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(repost) Christmas on the Border, in those Days - 1952

Tuesday, 24 December 2013

Christmas in Those Days - II

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     In those hours and days of Christmas of 1952, on the Border in deep South Texas, big changes were in the wind.    They were not changes that a five year old could fully comprehend.  But a child a that age can sense that there are changes in the offing.  Some of it was revealed by a little less attention being given to the yard.  It was still a showplace, but there were fewer of the Mexican workers arriving to do the citrus care.    That meant fewer Tarascan Indians from Guanajuato who were driven, addicted, and compulsive in terms of gardening....heavy duty gardening. It is what they did, and still do, when they are resting.

     There was little or no grapefruit or orange production.   There seemed to be considerable reluctance among the old growers to even plant new orchards after the double whammy of the 1949 and 1951 really hard freezes.   By really hard, we are talking about single digit temperatures in some places, and long, 60 hour freeze durations.

     There were fewer pick-up truck rides in to town to buy supplies, to buy irrigation water.    Of the Water, there was little or none to buy for the mandatory irrigation that was required in the Magic Valley.   The Rio Grande was essentially dry from the prolonged drought.  It was a bit of a rough patch.   No citrus, no cotton, no vegetables...or very, very little...farming and grove care was at a near standstill. 

     Another change was the frequent absence of my father's mayordomo, an older man of about 73 - 75 years, and one of the colonials from Ciudad Mier, an isolated, very noble little place up the Mexican side of the Rio Grande a ways, where Falcon Dam was being built, about 60 miles from McAllen.  Agustin Salinas was a "colonial". and his family was from the land-grant people of the Spanish colonial period.   He was tall, red-faced, sandy haired, and blue-eyed.  He was always grumpy, but he was always kind to me.

      El Gringo Viejo would later marry into another "colonial" family of the Spanish episode in what is now northernmost Mexico and southernmost Texas.   His wife's people are some of the few who were almost exclusively established in Texas long before the Anglo entry, and who had two distinct lines from two distinct and widely separated colonising episodes....one in the 1570s and 1580s in Saltillo, Monclova,  and perhaps Cerralvo.  The other line , like Agustin's, arrived during the 1749 Rio Bravo colonisation.

    My mother's talking to people about actually taking a paid position at a place that paid a pay-check was something that did not compute.   It was a novel notion, because she had always run the books and managed much of the operation of the grove-care business.  It was something she did from home, and with a pick-up truck.
     She had worked actively in the Parents and Teachers Association (PTA) and had been awarded a lifetime membership due to her contributions.   She had also been elected to the position of President of the Hidalgo County PTA (about 20 school districts), where she continued to serve and then was re-elected even after taking the "paid position" with Central Power and Light (the regional electricity company).


El Gringo Viejo's mom
when she was 17.
Three years later she was
my oldest brother's mom.
And yes, her mom made the
prom dress, and on a Singer
 treadle machine. 

     She had also been asked to serve as Chairman the Hidalgo County March of Dimes fund raising efforts, a position she filled  for three successive years.  This was during the last great devastating polio epidemic (1947 - 1952).
  And, she had been named to the McAllen City Traffic Safety and Planning Committee.  The latter was an adjunct to the Planning and Zoning Committee and the Traffic people evaluated the need for school zone marking, speed limits, street repair monitoring, and evaluations of extensions including curbing and guttering and measurement compliance.   As well, they essentially managed issues such as new traffic light and other intersection control methods and police initiatives in terms of traffic patrol, collision investigation, and the dreaded electronic and radar speed assessment devices. This was all quite an honour for a girl who in actuality lived outside the city limits of McAllen.
     On top of that she was a lead-enumerator for the United States Census for 1940, 1950, and the 1953 re-take, due to military and other demographic impacts.
     Putting all of that together with a very active presence as a conservative Democrat operative, a delegate to county and State conventions, and a general troublemaker against the Bentsen political establishment she had a pretty full plate.  Riding herd on three boys, born in 1936, 1942, and 1947 caused even more fun and games.
     She served as the precinct chairman of the largest voting precinct in Hidalgo County, and also went as a delegate to the State Democratic Convention on two occasions.   Even flew in an airplane, she did, all the way to Mineral Wells.  (It must be pointed out that in those days, Texas for all practical purposes had no Republican Party.  All local and 99% of all national offices were settled in the Democrat Primary, long before the "official" General Election in November.)

    As a certifiable beauty herself, she was also called upon to be a beauty contest judge with some frequency, and always declared that the girl with the largest swimming suit would always win.

      She was a busy girl.

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    In any regard, the lack of tractor noises in ever increasing lengths of contiguous time, and the sharp lessening of the "bracero" documented workers, and some of the other not-so-documented  workers, and the increased amount of time we spent "in town" and with me wearing shoes gave the impression that something was going on.
    We went to Edinburg, the county seat, one morning, and my father stopped at a bank.  He came back to the pickup-truck, put some documents in the money safe he had bolted into the cab of the truck, and then he took some other papers out and had me follow him across the main street to a land title and surety company.  There he put down two 100 dollar Yankee greenbacks, which a clerk took.   She returned about three minutes later, and said, "Here's your title, all sealed, signed, and now delivered and a few dollars change.   You make sure that if you want to buy any more property you come and see us."   She was thinking that with the losses to the citrus, my father might want to buy some suddenly cheap irrigated farming or orchard property, and she was making a reasonable offer to serve in the financing of such a purchase.  He was only 42 years old at the time.
    He answered my inquiry by saying, "No, as good as I feel right now, I think that I'll never want to be in debt for anything again." He had just paid off a 4,000 Yankee dollar purchase of 20 acres of land (with mineral rights) on the outer northern edge of McAllen, Texas.  Within 15 years, that property would sell for many, many times more than that, (with my father keeping the mineral rights), when we moved the entire family up to Central Texas.  To-day, of course, it is Gone With the Wind....an unidentifiable four city block area of commercial and townhouse development...now considered a "mature" development.   It fronts on the 2nd busiest non-highway boulevard in Hidalgo County of Texas, a block away from the busiest urban interior intersection south of San Antonio, Texas

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    Another norther had blown in, reminding one and all that nothing good comes from the north in Winter, and we drove back to the homestead.  Dust was everywhere, no rain, no citrus, just cold dryness.   From 1951 through 1953, McAllen registered about 12 inches of rain, down sharply from a three year normal total of 60 inches or so.  The crickets were so thick in downtown during the 1952 election campaign period that my mother and her co-workers had to spend a half-hour sweeping out crickets from the doorway and access...enough to fill a 55 gallon drum....just to clear a path to the front door of the Democrats for Eisenhower / Nixon campaign headquarters.  There was even more dust blown in on the October early northers.

     But, back to the Christmas thing.  The lady had locked the door of the titled office although it was still morning.  Things were shutting down early because it was "Christmas Eve'n" after all. This was going to be a long day.   Because?   Well, because we had to go home, line up the firewood, with everything turning colder, and then bathe, and then dress for mass. It was Wednesday,  the 24th of December, 1952.
    And...we needed to go to midnight Mass at St. John's Episcopal, about a mile south of our farmstead.  Services would begin with carolling at 11:00 pm, and then the "celebration of  Holy Communion", ending at around 12:45 am.  That was a long run for a 5 year old.  It also marked another change, because my father had finally decided to carry on with the Christian and Bonesteel part of his family's tradition, my mother acquiescing because she had been familiar with the Episcopal Church in Winchester, Tennessee, where her mother attended as a girl and preferred to attend.
   My mother's father was more of a fire and brimstone fellow, and he liked the camp and tent meetings.  He was about three steps up from a snake-handler or foot-washer.  Camp and/or Tent Meetings  also required less regular attendance.  His granddaddy had been, however, a duly ordained Methodist minister who said grace over two Methodist churches in Franklin County, Tennessee before and after the War, and had also served as a clergy resource (chaplain) to the Confederate Army for the duration.   Lots of funerals.

     In any regard, I remember being astounded by the fact that our little church was completely saturated.   Folding chairs were being brought out, every corner was filled, and we had almost 500 people at mass.  Sixty percent of them were not regulars, but they came because of the Episcopal "show" with fancy music, ancient English liturgy, the vestments, candles, carolling, the "coming in processional and going forth recessional".  and so forth combined to make a scene that :"looked like" a Christmas service.  Of course, it "looked like" a Christmas service because it was sincerely done as such by Father Rollo Rilling, a sainted vicar, and the acolytes, choir, organist, lay-reader, all bedecked in glorious vesture and the equally wonderfully bedecked congregation.  In those years all females wore wonderful mantillas or hats and "Sunday-go-to-meeting" duds.
   My parent went up to take communion, but not El Gringo Viejo and his middle brother.  The oldest went, because he had been confirmed already, and in those days unconfirmed children could receive a blessing at the communion rail, but no sacramental administration of the Eucharist.



    It had been a splendid event, and we left to drive back to the farm, about one mile away.   Although sleep was tugging at me, I kept spying all over the northern sky for Santa, his sleigh, and the reindeer.  My oldest brother asked my father, "Did you find those traps?"   to which my father said that he had found them and oiled them up and set them at the back door.
    "What are the traps for" asks a dumboe five-year old.
    "I'm going to put a couple of coyote traps in the ashes of the fireplace to see if we can catch Santa Clause," said my oldest brother, matter-of-factly.
     We continued driving.   Finally I said very emphatically, '' That is not good! Santa Clause won't leave us anything and if he can't leave, he won't be able to go to Mexico and the other places."
     To which, as we trundled on in our Jeep Wagoneer (box-style station wagon), Milton responed, "We'll be able to sell him to the circus for over a thousand dollars.  And we can make really good deer and possum sausage with the reindeer, and maybe we even sell the sleigh."
     My mother asked very seriously, "....But who could possibly want a sleigh down here?  It never snows."
     By that point I figured that the planning was done and the deed was going to be a fait accompli by sunrise.   Terribly dismayed, I could listen as Milton deployed the coyote traps inside the fireplace.  He washed up a bit, and joined his two younger brothers, in the low ceilinged Blue Room outback, cracking a window and a door and turning the gas stove on to the lowest possible safe setting.  Before many tick of the clock had happened, El Gringo Viejo was asleep to the world.   On really cold nights, the three boys would all sleep in the "oldest boy's" room, which was on the ground floor of a two story building, the second story being the quarters, (quite nice) of the farm's governess, Guadalupe.


     The next morning, before sunrise, I chased into the kitchen, where my father, as usual, was busy making his breakfast for everyone....oatmeal and butter and milk and brown sugar and scrambled eggs and bacon...a little molasses and tangerines, already sectioned.   Lupe our maid from Puebla and my mother were doing something in the living room, but my interest was in the fireplace.   "Did you and Milton catch Santa Clause?"  I asked cautiously.
     "Well son, the fireplace is right there.  Do you see Santa Clause?"
     "No, sir."
     Then my father suggested, "Maybe he was hung up in the chimney.  Milton is checking to see right now with the tall ladder.
     I immediately ran out and did in fact see my brother, on the ladder, peering into the chimney.   As soon as he saw me, he immediately began to descend, shaking his head.
    "Did Santa Clause get stuck?"  I inquired quickly.
    "No.   He's just too smart for us.  The traps snapped shut last night, but no Santa."
     So, running quickly back inside. I all but flew to the fireplace, where the Lincoln and Washington andirons faced each other perpetually (poor Washington) and peered into the scene of the crime. "Careful!  You're ruining the footprints" Milton admonished.
      I moved a bit to the side.  There, leading away from the fireplace were tiny bootprints, a bit smaller than the size of my shoes at that time.  And inside towards the backwall of the fireplace, two coyote traps, both closed, and between them two small bootprints deep into the ashes, neither four inches long.   It was a marvel.  The middle brother grogged in, yawning, came and looked at the crime scene, and declared, "That's weird."


      As we worked on our breakfasts, it was noted that Santa had drunk most but not all of his Coca-Cola, and had eaten most but not all of his pecan pie slice (almost a quarter) and oatmeal cookies.   I maintained a bit of a silence while the "older ones" speculated that Taffy and Tippy had been barking around 03:15 and that must have been when the reindeer were on the roof.

     That was the Christmas that Santa had brought the middle brother a beautiful J&R 410 single-shot shotgun.  It was a real beauty.   My gift was a real live drag-line and a dump-truck that had wheels, shovel-pulley, and everything.  Milton received a lot of really dumb, big-boy stuff because he was going to be something called a junior, in something called High School, next year.  I was to be going into the 1st grade at the new David Crockett Elementary.   But that would be months away, I still had to play and try to figure out why Milton wanted to sell Santa Clause to the Circus.



       It was a long Christmas Day, To-morrow, more scenes from the farm on the frontier, during the magical times of Christmas.   But for right now, my mother is lighting the Yule log.  All the Christmas lights are on, and the really showy, very traditional 9 foot tree is ablaze with different coloured lights, icicles, Angels' hair, and ornaments.   Andrea Herrera, the maid of my God-parents has come with her delivery of several dozen of the best tamales in the history of this Planet.  Several of her family are in the back of the pickup, with four or five huge washtubs full of covered, steaming tamales...some of chicken...some of shredded pork...even some of ground beef mixed with venison or javalina.   Her family would make this round every Christmas or Christmas Eve'n, delivering to friends, family, and to a selected batch of preferred Anglo families....It was an honour of the highest nature.


      Ah! There's my mother again.  She's put candles everywhere, people are coming over to play 42 and/or canasta.  The house smells like pine boughs, rum and eggnog, fireplace warmth, and Bing Crosby singing some thing called "White Christmas".  Maybe Mac Hobson, the magical 'good witch' who was a real horse whisperer and equestrian psychologist (for real) will come, but I shan't ask her age this time.

El Gringo Viejo

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Please, (Sir Edmund) Hillary: Please just frump off the stage....stage left.

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      Please.  (Sir Edmund) Hillary!!  Snap out of it....Your Majesty!!! Your Majesty!!  Please, wake up!!!

     We remembered when you tried your best to give us free medical services.   You were brilliant when you and your super-secret 'study group' came to the brilliant decision that the way to stop increasing costs of treatment in some specialised medical matters would be to stop graduating doctors in that specialty from medical schools.   Repeat,  brilliant!!  The perfect marxist remedy.

     We admire your knack for blaming your many enemies of doing something they are not doing.   It does seem that what you do blame them for doing, however, is always something you practice on a continuing basis.   You have been fortunate to have a gaggle of dolts and dumboes who cannot think in any critical manner to form your cheering section and choir of the un-reasoning and incurably stupid.

     As they say, "What difference, at this point, could it possibly make?   After all (Sir Edmund)Hillary has done for women and all the miles she has flown, who are those who can think in some coherent manner to say that she is not the Lady in the Lake?  Was not Vince Foster the Gentleman in the Park?  Huh?  Huh?  Wouldn't anyone become hopelessly dizzy corkscrewing down to all those airports....with women waiting....and the Children?"

     To-day we shall be treated to an "explanation", quarter/truths, assumed ''misunderstandings".  We shall be told  what others had been doing that was the same or worse, but (Sir Edmund)Hillary will make certain that we know that only she is singled out by the "conspiracy".  She will offer that pitiable whimper of the wounded soul, "I would be judged differently, as so many times in the past when I was suspected of something and after exhaustive investigations, costing the taxpayers millions and millions of dollars, nothing was ever found....".

     (Sir Edmund) Hillary's explanation will be designed by Huma and the Choir so as to play to the stupid and worshipful, and it will signal to the Obsolete Media that they should remember that old Hemingway line, "Ask not for whom Fort Marcy Parks calls. It calls for you, and all who cross me in the slightest."

More later.   Perhaps we can figure out some way to explain how the Ponzi Security System's accounting with almost seven million geezers on the rolls who are aged 110 or greater, and the VA and ''If you want to keep y'er  (enter whatever), you can keep y'er (enter whatever)".   Here's to ya', Lois Lerner....welcome Shady Side Rest Home for those who have done nothing wrong.  Here, let me help you with that straight-jacket.

El Gringo Viejo

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