I am old...it is time that my path must harden and the Truth be told...

____________________

     All the thinking, believing, and understanding has pretty much been done by this boy who was born to two lines…each very similar…and each totally different.   The mix seems hopelessly one of oil vs. water, or dogs vs. cats.  But the two lines came into focus in 1911 when my father was born to a lady of upper-caste full of Massachusetts and New Yorker magnates and industrialists.  By the time the baby of 1911 was ready to quit the United States Army, 12th Cavalry (Mounted) in 1933 and get a real job, he made a play for a girl from Tennessee…eastern Tennessee…from a place named Winchester.

     Before long, this young ex-horse soldier had started up his own grove care operation in Hidalgo County, Texas on the Mexican border very near the Rio Grande.  His parents had moved into that area during the height of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 - 1917.  And, oh yes…he girl he married was the prettiest girl in Edinburg, Texas High School …and he establishing his business interests, a marriage, and a home in quick order.  That all began in 1934.

     For my father, there is the paternal line that came and dwelled in Massachusetts, coming directly out of London and close-by places in that vicinity.  Bishops and vicars, men of the Parliament, titled people who came to good position in the "colonies" far to the west of Mother England all were mixed into a proper society.  These were people who managed the people of the rough and tumble times of settling an immense stretch of geography that no true Englishman could have possibly considered in a single glance, or even a million glances.

     After four or five generations of the establishment of Anglo and similar settlement across the Atlantic Ocean these Brits had established a new sub-culture…one that dealt with Indians and industry and a new form of long-distance trade .   They pertained to those people commonly referred to as "New Englanders" or "Hudson River people" who had "made well" during the 1640 through 1800 period.  By establishing clans, social interrelationships, and business connections these folks landed themselves into a plush life and a new culture.

    Along with them, and about the same time, came yeomen, well to do and not so well to do people of southeastern England.   These folks were mixed with a not-insignificant number of lesser pretenders to title (those born after the first-born of an aristocratic English family).  They tended to prefer the warmer Southern areas of the "New World"…places that would soon sport names of both English, Scottish, and other Britannic types as well as the hallmarks of the natives of the "New World".   So, in the southern part of the newly discovered continent, parcels of great extension of lands (by English standard) had names like Carolina and Virginia and Louisiana.  Those formal names mixed together in that new wonderland parcels of huge dimension that came to be named Alabama, or Tennessee, or even Mississippi.

     To a large extent, those were the people of my mother's side.   Her family took to the waves in mainly after 1650 and before 1680.  They entered into Virginia and then North Carolina with the intention of obtaining property and farming lands.  They also could be found in the pursuit of merchandising…stores, saloons, way-stations for travellers going and coming by coach or stage and even breeding fine cows and horses.  In the process they found themselves balancing things like relations with different Indians nations and groupings.  They also had to deal with the reality of Black African slavery

     Both of these family groupings came into the eastern edge of the continent at almost the same time, leaving the dull security of England for the risk and chance of gaining lucre and position in a place soon to be known throughout the World as America.   Predictably, perhaps, these kindred people seemed to be compatible due to the similarity of the language, and of course the varied but similar forms of the Christian religion.

     This great similarity would also come to include cultural irritants that would create great difficulties for the generations ahead.

_________________________

     With the above very quick and very general overview of your humble writer's somewhat  distant beginnings we would like to move somewhat quickly, and somewhat clumsily down the road that will lead us to our purpose.   One can readily understand that the southern Brits were accustomed to warmer climate provided by the oceanic Gulf Stream warmth,  than those further north in the Kingdom.

  A small point, to be sure, and one very obvious has generally been overlooked when Americans think about the early settlement of "our home continent".    Southern Brits seemed to gravitate to the balmy "down South" territory.  Brits of the "northern persuasion" seemed to generally be willing accept the dull, grey, and very cold winters of those latitudes closer to the North Pole.

     These two bodies of Caucasian sorts had problems with the aboriginals of the new land.  There were elements of friction and violence as well as compatibility and even friendships and intermarriage.  When all was said and done, all the begetting and all the fretting,  the establishment of lifestyles, of establishing families and clans did certainly help in the conversion of North America into a driving force for the development of a civilisation, a set of adjacent sub-nations, and a dynamic caused by Negro persons being brought into a Caucasian and Aboriginal mix of affairs.

     There was so much diversity demanding conformity…so many colours of people, languages, accents,  and pursuits…that it had formed its own Universe-apart.  The cultural scene in the "New World" became at once a peculiar quirk within the human race, a possible danger due to the ever-present dangers presented by weather, and armed contention of and by tribes and settlers.  Conflicts, even those between overlapping Protestant and Roman Catholic and Anglican dogmas and traditions, provided more sociological edge and cultural tensions among the of the peoples of such a sundry ancestry.

________________________________

A common rural Anglican Church
circa 1350 AD
_________________ 

      Demon alcohol formed one of the great bases of founding a bloodline into the future. A fellow by the name of David Christian had established an outpost of the Christian family in Eire (Ireland) in the outskirts of Dublin.   Other extended Christian Family folks could be found in southwestern Scotland and throughout the northwestern parts of England.   Large accumulations of Christians inhabited the Isle of Man, an island between western England and the Emerald Isle.

     Bunches could also be found in and around the fabled precincts of Nottingham.   And, another large batch…very large…inhabited East Anglia, on the other side of the Noble Island.   This all conflicted with my mother's side, who could be found more in abundance  in Sussex and Jute.   And, while there were real and imagined differences between the type of folks above described, it is true that they did have their quirks and peculiarities.

______________________________

     Suffice now to say that there is an inexhaustible amount of lore and legend that can be drawn from the English theatre, both in general and as it pertains to the Newton, Christian, etc. family lines.   But such dull revelations can quickly bore even the most enthusiastic genealogist.

      It should suffice to note that my parents married, and produced three male off-spring. Each was similar…and each was different…one from the other.   Before the Revolution, we know that Lord Admiral Howe contributed to our gene pool…and before the first efforts to populate what would become North America…we had various and sundry Bishops, counts, viscounts, and a Duke or two in our lineage.  This is not the place where I would choose to begin such a recitation.

     It would be necessary, however, to confess or reveal (as one might wish) that our purity of ethnicity is a bit clumsy to describe.  Such is the case due to the fact that some character by the name of George Frederick Limbaugh (1737 - 1815) came into America as a child and wound up being a soldier for the uppity colonials in their fight for Independence from King George III.

     George Frederick had settled as a child with his family in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania.   As fate would have it, he joined the forces of the American cause against the British Crown, and served as second in command of a largely Germanic artillery unit during the time of the Duress in Valley Forge.   He served heroically, and during his long life, finally managed to settle and forever remain in Cape Girardeau, Missouri (a wondrous clash of German and French and Indian names all crammed into one little space on a River known as the Mississippi).   And, yes Virginia, Mississippi is a real word, drawn from the Algonquin Indian language, "miss sippi",  mangled by the French, and finished off by the English.

    We shall attempt to finish this article in the coming hours and days, and then continue our life-commentary now that I am restored a bit and now that various of our family's little bumps-in-the-road have been fixed.   Thanks to all for your comments and following.

EL GRINGO VIEJO

____________________________

We waited on the decision by the Supremes

_________________________

     We have waited long and well.   And, truthfully, we bear no rancour against the decision by the Supremes.   Each member of the Court has his or her thought process, conditions, understanding, and sense of the meaning of the words of history and the law in the United States of America.

     There are four Justices who will almost invariably vote for what is known as "progressive interpretation", because they are disposed to support any line of reasoning that endorses socialism and absolute central government control.   Every now and then, one of these Justices slips up and votes as might a conservative member of the Court.  Rarely

     There are four other Justices who are common law thinkers and who believe that functioning jurisprudential deference to historical precedent and reasoning fair to the facts of a petition are the guideposts. These Justices can be thought of as "common law" interpreters of a case matter.

     Then we have one Justice of the Supreme Court…the Chief Justice…who is dedicated to that Great Legal Principal of 'what if?' and 'on the other hand' and 'the last time I voted to the left so this time I'll vote some other way, just to keep my posse guessing'.   But really, this time, the old ones and the new ones, the rightwing ones and the lefties all got in line and decided that Texas did not have the right to tell the other States how they must vote.

     The position of your humble servant wavered slightly in different directions.   On the one hand…as my grandfather Neal would say…El Gringo Viejo was disposed to the notion that Lieutenant Governor Paxton was meddling with matters that were entirely within the confines of the frontiers of each sovereign State being considered.

     On the other hand, there was the fact that six states in the past Nationwide election had fallen into a miserable morass of peculiar processing procedures.  As well, there was considerable possibility that the voting machines being used by various of those States were defective, were programmed purposefully to disregard votes for the Republican column or the two Republicans at the head of the ticket. And there were, as well, credible reports of large numbers of illegally registered or undocumented voters' registrations having been recently procured far afield from normal, legal processes.

      There were many reports of registrations (what we used to call poll taxes in Texas) that had been written in the same hand.   Others were credentials of people who had to be thought of as "Miracle Voters"…because they were dead.   There were many who had been born in the 1880's and 1890's…many.   There were, in all six states, well over 40,000 who were ineligible due to having been convicted felons.

     Of peculiar interest was the truck driver pulling out of New York State with his load, en route to Somewhere, Pennsylvania.  He arrived at the appointed place and time, and opened up while some nice fellows unloaded the parcels.  The driver took note that the packets were ballots for the election that had just been conducted two days before.           He had the opportunity to look at one of the ballots, and they were sure 'nuf, real live ballots that pertained to the issues of November 3, 2020 in Pennsylvania.   The good fellow receiving the cargo had mentioned that there were supposed to be 200,000 ballots, and according to the quick count, there were.

     Later the next night, your humble servant was splashed in the face by live television with the presentations by two attractive, very well spoken, and coherent Black women.   They were not together, in that the two presentations were aired some individually, in terms of distance and the hour. While they did not say the same  thing in the same order of words, they did convey a very similar message.   Each indicated that they had seen election personnel purposefully damaging ballots or dumping them, loosely thrown into a container. Each woman gave witness to various highly irregular voting administration errors.   One was Republican and the other Democrat.

     While trying to sew this up, because it is truly nothing that I witnessed, it was necessary to consider peculiarities.  For example:

     (1)    Your humble servant is a 73 year old person. He is a graduate of Southwest Texas State University, and he has held significant employment and he has been deeply involved in international business for many years as a sole proprietor (including his wife).   He has been deeply involved as well in the political experience, serving in various  capacities pertaining to the Republican Party.

     It is probable that this observer has seen almost everything possible in terms of voting fraud,  subterfuge, and treachery.  My parents actually saw even more during the times of Lyndon Johnson and earlier in the 1900's.  Texas was an interesting stage to watch when politics was in play in those times.

    (2)     For instance the fabled BOX 13, Jim Wells County of Texas where the Uncle Archer and Nephew  Parr click engineered the totally fraudulent nomination of Lyndon Baines Johnson to candidacy for United States Senator, back in 1948.   In that matter people were killed and honour was sacrificed.   My distaste for Lyndon Johnson and for the Parr Clan's corrupt lording over  the lives of several-score thousands of South Texans was well developed before I finished high school.  George Parr the father, and Archer (Archie) Parr the son, were born with no souls.  Many dead folks, and by to-day's standards, billions of bilked public funds.

        The second Parr (the nephew also based in San Diego in the County of Duval like his Daddy) engineered the great and famous Landslide Lyndon's come-from-behind victory over ex-Governor Coke Stevenson, where Lyndon carried a "suddenly found" batch of 200 ballots which were converted quickly to an 88 vote victory in a runoff race that racked up 1,000,000 votes across the whole of Texas.   That was five days after election day.

   One amazing characteristic of that batch of votes was the sign-in sheet for the Precinct 13 - Jim Wells County voters (principally from Alice, Texas)  showing that the last 202 voters signed in…but in alphabetical order!!!   AND, they signed-in in the same hand!!!The script, "in the same hand",  was very much like the perfect script of an august and very educated Mexican woman whose origins were in 

This would have been the County Clerk's
style of writing.   There were not large
numbers of folks in Alice at that time
who could write as such.

Monterrey, Nuevo Leon where she had attended very prestigious Roman Catholic  girls' schools through University.

   So, she happened to have the very elegant handwriting of the epoch, which she continued to use throughout her life.  She moved to Texas in during the Mexican Revolution of 1910 - 1917 with her parents, and continued her studies at advanced university level.  Some people felt that Archer Parr coerced her into providing that "registration service", as if it were a joke of some kind.   That list wound up electing Lyndon Baines Johnson to the United States Senate. 

(Please refer to the tome "A Texian Looks at Lyndon", by J. Evetts Haley.  Also, please review the massive "The Years of Lyndon Johnson…..a path to power".)

______________________________

     After reading about the above mickey-mouse type of wheeling and dealing in the 1940s, the kind of election stuff that Philadelphia and other hopelessly crooked places, honest Pennsylvanians must have been  affected to the roots of their noble souls.  The "big city" operators are the quintessential types of political crooks who care naught for honour and everything for squeezing the populace with charade and mendacity.   The bags of greenbacks and political favouritism come as a bonus for the crooked political engineers.

      It will be well preserved when we could consider the "Long Pause" of election night and as the Third of November turned into the Fourth of November, and there was no significant reportage of the ballot count by the mainstream telemedia to those living in the Central Time Zone.   That was one of my measures that closed the arguments about whether or not tabulation games were being played.  They were being played.

    The leftist television networks were playing us, the Democrat Party was playing us, and now they have saddled the United States with something that wobbles between being governed by a man whose strong  suit is incoherence, and his back-up plan which is a full-scale non compos mentis assault.    

President-to-be has been warming up so as
 to be prepared  for his difficult encounters
 during his administration. He is the first
 President to have had the nickname "of non
 compos mentis".

YOU GO, JOE!!!
___________________________

 Before the coming year is complete, the demure Ms. Kamala Harris will be President of the United States of America.   She roils with hatred of the Americans and America.   She is relatively famous for being able to speak for eighteen minutes without breathing nor saying any coherent message.   By the latter days of 2021, it will become apparent that Good Ol' Joe will have become a vegetative image of his distance self, retiring to his favourite basement.   

     Her campaign effort was defined as significant by the Lamestream Press, considering that the average attendance at her own appearances as a vice-presidential candidate without Good Ole Joe, was in neighbourhood of between 52 and 30.   Our figures might be a little off…but for sure, not by much.   After Joe is sent back to his basement of choice, Kamalalala will be in charge, in spite of the fact that she is a one-note dunce. Pretty soon it all runs together and makes less sense than no sense.

________________________

The time has come to stand or forget about it.

________________________________

     The normal classes of Americans are now met by the mountain.  I begin by establishing a new nomenclature for the identity of Republican and / or Conservative  persons.  We are dismayed and troubled by the Hallowed Ones who "have it all" and still have a certain disdain against their fellow party members who might have oily grease under their fingernails.   Even though they at times talk as would an Elephant, act as would an Elephant, and participate as would a member of the herd, they are aloof and removed from those of us who are merely Elephants.   And they are  quick to concede to the leftists many wishes and demands for "reasonable compromise" when negotiating funding and taxing issues.

     One of the few exceptions about our royalty, perhaps, George Prescott Bush, the nephew of King George II, the grandson of King George the First.  George Prescott Bush served eight months in on the ground in Afghanistan as a Naval Officer.  He attended and graduated from Rice University and dirtied his hands and uniform as a member of Rice's baseball team.  He took a degree in law from the University of Texas.  He must be a purebred aristocratic Elephant because his mother's origins are in Mexico, in the State of Guanajuato and many of this grandfathers hail from Massachusetts over many generations.

  George Prescott Bush, however, unlike almost all the Bush's…was born on Sacred Soil…Texas.   And, as frequently happens, a person becomes a mix of all his / her biology, cultural experience, and such things.  Conscience is usually beneficial.  So, some might be surprised, this writer feels relatively comfortable with the presence of George Prescott Bush assuming high position.  Put more simply, it seems to me that his rightward bearing overbears his bearing to the leftward.

____________________

 We shall sign off as of this moment.  Further matters concerning this topic will be forthcoming.

EL GRINGO VIEJO

__________________

A Prayer and a Strong Recommendation…The Common Man Speaks of today's Republic of Texas

_____________________ 

To be Texas or not to be Texas, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of stupidity, ignorance,

                          prepotency, and outrageous fortune,

Taxes that improve little or nothing…and which

                         destroy industry, self-sufficiency,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing… end them.

____________________

     The waves come…and at times leave…searching for something magic that has filled movie screens, television hours, and all sorts of imaginings, books, boots, and musings.

     Just to-day, Elon Musk was being interviewed on CNBC.  It was an oddly moderate and dull financial production, quite unlike its pinky and whiney mommy, the National Broadcasting Network.   Mr. Musk relatively quietly informed the nice interviewer about the why's and wherefore's he was moving his tents to the improbable destination of South Texas.  His explanation was rather long, detailed, and pointed.

   Another large financial company has also determined to leave New York City and move into the same misery in Houston…(bad thinking, fellows).   Mr. Musk surprised your humble writer by exhibiting a bit of cold blood and reasonability concerning his choice destination.   The financial services company has arrived at a seemingly improved choice, but they will rue the day they made that choice.

    Mr. Musk has placed a rocketry launching compound that has had a bit of stuttering during the "lift - off" phase over the past few months.   The compound is located close to the very most point of the tip of Southernmost Texas.  Essentially it is near the Boca Chica (the "little mouth" of the Rio Bravo / Rio Grande) where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf of Mexico.

This is Musk's most recent rocket
awaiting launch.  Supposedly, within
one year, Musk's works may include
a Lunar visitation.  There is some 
 rumouring about the owner might
will be aboard.
______________________

 There are some reasons for the location of this facility , having to do with centripetal and centrifugal force resolutions by being ever closer to the Equator, while remaining close to something reasonable in terms of comforts and normality. Just yesterday, another of the "test firings" was scrubbed, leaving an ugly behemoth of a rocket sitting forlornly on the launching pad.   Another effort might be tried towards the weekend…two or three days from this date (9 December 2020).

    There are numerous millionaires in Texas.   Many tend to ostentatiousness but, in the main, the majority might be mistaken for a ranch foreman or a small business fellow.  Bankers tend to put on the stuff and cologne, but they're generally okay fellows.  Musk has been view with a little skepticism, but in the main, the people are approving of his developing dream.

     Sometimes are  people are amazed to think about Texas as a potent national and international force.   In terms of juxtaposition as well as geographics, things can become very interesting if studied correctly.  For instance almost all high-school students make it through and continue with training schools, military, and/or university.   Many, in my opinion, are prepared nowhere near as well as during the period from 1920 through 1967.   In recent years, however, there seems to have been a bit of improvement in both traditional and new intellectual instruction techniques.

     Before this ramble becomes a harangue, however, it would be my pleasure to point out quirky things people might not know about Texas once you decide to look us over.   Texas is full of people who are very proud of knowing things that are not true.  Davy Crockett swinging his best friend, the rifle "Old Betsy" on the parapets of the Alamo, surrounded by hundreds of bloodthirsty Mexican infantrymen is interesting, but not true.   The true story is just as romantic and heroic and ridiculous.   For instance, Travis should never have chosen to defend the old "Alamo" Fortress / Chapel compound.   Two hundred infantry bottled up in an old abandoned church facility engaging 1,600 top-flight infantry and cannoneers is not  good odds for the 200. 

     Another example of "how we are" even though we don't even know it, is found in the following picturesque real and imagined family history.   This tale could be patterned after early arrivals and settlers back to the mid-1800s, and a bit before and a bit after.  Only the Spanish colonised effectively, but sparsely, in the times from the 1570's (very few) through around 1805 (perhaps 40,000 souls).

A TELLING TALE…ALL TRUE:

   A lady of high degree and pedigree…a Latin lady…prided herself in the length of her genealogy in what would become north central and northeastern-most Mexico and into Texas during the latest 1690's and into the 1760's.   Almost all of her genealogy was central and southern Spanish.

     Many of her forbearers had significant amounts of money to settle in where the environment was not precisely a garden party.  In the higher elevations it is bitterly cold in the Winter sometimes, even heavy snows.  Down lower along the coastal zones, fierce hurricanes could set back 15 years of hard work of bringing prosperity for folks, in less than 15 hours.   Indians came through, sometimes more or less friendly and looking for trade, although the majority of the "Indios nativos" were hostile to a point.   Lamentably for the Spaniards,the various Indian warriors were almost all triple - A minor league warriors or higher.   They had adapted well to the use of horses, something they had never seen before the arrival of the Spanish colonisers.

  The second church built in Mier, 
Tamaulipas, on the main plaza. The city
 was founded in the 1750s,  by the hand
 of Jose de Escandon.
  The church pictured is 210 years old.
 Thespire is 160 years old.
_____________________  

     Moving on, we learned that there were two great settling efforts.  One was a fellow whose last name was Carvajal y de la Cueva who settled areas more in the interior.  Dry mountainous extensions are the rule there, but with some spring-fed rivers and good grassing extensions grazing and pasturing was good for goats, sheep, and cattle.  There were even "joyas" (jewels) of extensions of good fertile soil for crops.

      The previous settlers' agent came in during the 1569 through 1590 time span in three different groups.   By the passing of forty years there was significant population, perhaps 40,000 people spread over 35,000 square miles or so.

   The next coloniser was Jose de Escandon, regarded by many historians as the best of all of the colonisers.   He bought in several thousand Spaniards, fairly late in the colonial period, those dates being from 1749 through the early 1760's.  Many settlements were established, most of whom are still extant to this day.

     SO Now we return to the issue of the nice lady who knew that her grandfather had been a hero in the War Between the States, thinking he had been a Yankee soldier.  And on she went about her business.  Remember, dear reader, that this nice lady is a really nice lady.  She is proud but not pretentious, and she is well educated.   She is gliding gladly through the nice little cemetery on the very frontier of Texas, within stone's throw of the Rio Grande, in a community known as Garciasville.

  Then suddenly something catches her eye.   Gasps…chortles, and catching of breathe. The nice lady sees a gravestone that she knew had to be in this cemetery, but because she lived about a few hundred miles away or whatever, she did not have a lot of chances to really spend  time with her cousins at their place.  The surprise, the dark doom of it all, causes the nice lady to confess her findings. "It must be a mistake."  None of her ancestors would have ever owned a slave, it's impossible, she thought.   The other family members together and gradually the real story comes forth.  The Austin American Statesman had some necessary and comforting words:

       Other readers, however, also quickly came to her rescue, not only with helpful history but also with a guide to finding out more about veterans buried around the state and the country.

“My ancestors on both sides of my family came to Texas from Mexico as soon as they could,” writes Fannie Cavasos Hewgley of Leander. “I am a third-generation American and have always enjoyed Texas history and our genealogy. But I recently discovered that one of my maternal ancestors, Fernando Farias Garcia, fought on the side of the Confederacy, and that a marker was recently placed on his grave in Garciasville Cemetery.”

Hewgley spoke of a gravesite in the town of Garciasville, up the Rio Grande from McAllen and Mission.    “I would like to think that he fought because he needed the money rather than because he supported slavery,” she writes. “I do have so many interesting stories about my family, but I would like to find out … why the Confederate marker was placed on my uncle’s grave (and by who).”

I reassured her that the military usually keeps scrupulous records, although I was unsure if the physical resources would be available during the pandemic. I need not have worried. The internet solves so much these days."

But first, two readers wrote to reassure Hewgley that service in the Confederate military did not necessarily equate with support for slavery."

'My great-grandfather, Dario Gonzalez of Laredo, Texas, served under Col. Santos Benavides in a cavalry unit that acted as a home guard patrolling the South Texas area and dealing with bandits, federal troops and preserving the trade routes,” writes Alex Moreno Jr. of Buda. 'They had little to do with slavery as there were very few slaves south of San Antonio.''

Moreno recommends “Vaqueros in Blue and Gray” by Jerry Thompson, which lists the 4,000-plus Tejanos in Civil War units and the unit in which each served."

     As time passed, slowly and quickly, the Confederate unit from deep South Texas under the command of Santos Benavides and his two brothers settled into the peace.   Every analyst and commentator who researched this corps of 2,700 light cavalry did conclude that this proud collection of Confederate believers were the equal to the best who had served gallantly elsewhere for the Confederacy.  This was the feeling of his peers as officers and later, during cold, hard evidence and analysis of Benavides's strategies and tactics.

      Benavides and his men served until the end of the last battle.  That engagement just happened to have occurred one month AFTER the signing of the accord between General Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant.   Two matters were in place on the south point of Texas.  The first was to protect a huge shipment of fine cotton in bales that in present-day terms would have amounted to about one billion dollars.   It was an extensive amount of bales steadily being transferred to French soldiers on the south side of the Rio Bravo (Rio Grande).  The French soldiers were part of a large body of same deployed in much of Mexico to defend and guard the Emperor Maximilian who had been installed as "Emperor of Mexico and Central America". 

    And the second point, there were Texans up in the San Antonio, Austin, Houston triangle and thereabouts who were debating and trying to re-organise.   There was even planning for a  re-withdrawal from any political nexus with the United States of America.

     They would then reinstate the old Republic of Texas  (1836 - 1845).   Benavides, his two brothers, and their men learned that the troops had been ordered to stand down. Throughout the South a devastating "Reconstruction" began, and the rough treatment by the occupying Union forces and "business scouts" from the North and the disorder amongst the white-trash element of the Southern population drove the better parts of the populace into emotional and economic depression,

     The loyalist Negro element and the Whites who had catechism and a sense of dignity and honour were the only things that helped lead the Southern people back to the conditions we find now in most places below the Mason and Dixon Line.  It has been a long, long return.

     This writer is relatively certain that the nice lady learned a bit about the system of slavery, manumission, bonded indenture, and freeman status.   The story could to on and on.   But we are here to speak to the issue of folks coming to Texas so as to avoid the poopy streets and alleys in downtown Los Angeles, New York City etc.  It does not help that in the advanced liberal areas like California, Oregon, Washington State, and almost all the northeastern sector of the United States are truly deteriorating.   Street bums and brazen thuggery and peculiar social codes have left people with a normal sort world view more than a bit out of focus.

The toil of practice and requiring perfection, the stage hands,
 keeping the restrooms clean, the tonnes of specialty lighting
 and the engineers to operate them, the doormen, the security
 people, the maintenance of buildings of this size,the physical
 and emotional response a person  must have after seeing so
 many perform for so few…each person in the audience knows,
 that for to-night,

 I am a King or a Queen.

But not  at the moment of this writing,
 because there is no joy to-night in Mudville,
 mighty New York City has struck out.
_______________________

     We have seen it in the north, extending even to the once admired small towns and cities where everyone pulled together.  Now the rot is setting in, and senseless laws, rules, and regulations are overloading  the ability for medium and even small cities and other entities to do much about catching up.

    My lineage, with many generations buried in the middle ranges of the Hudson, or the other line in Pennsylvania, at the doll house town of Montrose in Susquehanna County, the people are strong…but Pennsylvania in these times chooses to succumb to perverse games of social "gotcha" and the ridiculing of normalcy.

    My grandfather lost two brothers of the Pennsylvania 96th Regiment of Infantry…one about 30 days before Gettysburg and the second one about 30 days after Gettysburg.   It is said that their father Hubbard  Newton (my great-grandfather) became an inert personality after losing his eldest sons.  He would speak only rarely.  He died, sitting in his chair on the porch, looking wistfully down the road to see who might be coming.  He had opposed the War in the beginning and never changed his position.

Downtown Montrose around 1902
The Newton place was about six blocks facing
the other way.

_______________________________

      Last we heard, in New York City and the surrounding area there have been 15,500 schools, decent saloons, restaurants large and small, movie houses, and attractions simply closed by order of some grand poobah bureaucrat or potentate Democrat office-holder.  Similar actions have been taken in hundreds of cities and towns throughout the old Blue Union.

     Chicago Land, with Paul Harvey speaking at noon about the Korean War and us listening by radio all the way down on the Mexican border, seemed like magic.  It was  something that, as a child, fascinated me.

     He came to McAllen, Texas one time on a speaking tour. I think it was 1955, held at our High School Football Stadium.  There were over 2,500 people who turned out for one of his famous patriotic lectures.   Of course, McAllen was not quite a city of 30,000.   Those were the times.

     But finally, we would like for all the people up north and over on the west coast to consider well before deciding to go to Texas because it's cheap and the people are so poor that they have to wait on the incoming people.

     You might have to hear old jacklegs such as me say things like,"You know….there's a fact, that Texas has a bigger Gross National Product than all of Russia, and we only have thirty million folks and the Russians have 200,000,000."

     Before the wanderer in a person begins to take to strong a hold, please consider a few things.   First and foremost, Texas has many dimensions.  Lamentably we have a segment of our population that believes like the politicians up north have come to think.  If you, as a place shopper, want to find comfort and adjustment and peculiar interesting things it is best to not become a citizen of Austin…Dallas, to a degree nowadays…Houston…and lamentably El Paso.

     My urging, without qualification of any kind, is to find yourself in the big city, and take your road map or geohydrogenating -distancometer or whatever works for you and drive out-a-ways, say between ten and forty miles.   You will find yourself before long in semi-remote Nowheresville so full of pick-ups and rifle-racks that your hand-held abacus could never count them all.

     You will encounter old-timers, busy housewives, beat-up old cars, normalcy, churches, nice little stores.   You will then look for a bier hall or a tavern or a nice little eating-place and go in and act nonchalant.   DON'T ASK NOTHIN'  'BOUT PROPERTY FUR SAIL.  If you speak to the waitress or the cook or the owner, you can say, "I sure appreciate the chance find a place where I can clear my thinking…this is a really nice little corner of the world." 

     Remember that you are just arriving.  Some of the people you might be sharing conversation with might be third or fifth generation.  If you "let things happen", it will not be long before people might be telling you, "Remember, turn right on Baker Street, just two blocks down from here, and go about six blocks, and you'll see our 'Town Lake' so to speak…it's real pretty and full of all kinds of birds!"

     Do this routine four or five times, leaving out from Austin proper.  Obviously, try and go in different cardinal directions to the extent possible.  Try your very best to avoid talking about political anything.  Your new acquaintances might well be embroiled in pointless rants that really do not need you for a punching bag.

     The passage of three to four months of this reconnoitering while comparing the places you visit to the downtown Austin, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio to a degree, you might like many others say…"You know, we can buy a place out here, fix it up a little, when we really, really have to go into Houston…well, we can go and come back to this little place."

     It is only fair that I advise that Texas is a huge place.  In Amarillo, temperatures can bust zero degrees Fahrenheit in January.  It can snow in San Antonio, and hit 90 degrees a month later.   In the Lower Rio Grande Valley we have hurricanes, but little or no freezing temperatures or freezing precipitation.

 

     Perhaps my "flow of consciousness and conscience" is a bit heavy handed.   But we have tired of people coming from the north and saying, "Boy, everything is cheap down here.   Too bad everything is so crummy."  Or the forever favourite,"Back up in New Jersey things are a lot more better.  Youse guys are behind the eight ball down here."

     We await the future.  But for this old geezer, it does not include living in a Democrat - controlled State.  I genuinely would go to our little place in Mexico and stay there en lieu of suffering the likes of the governors of New York and California, etc. and the messes they have made of places that were quite survivable before.

We beg your permission as I take my leave due to the number of chores my wife has prescribed for me this pleasant evening.

Thanks for your attention.   We will respond to individuals who would like further commentary about the pros and cons of the Republic of Texas.

EL GRINGO VIEJO

________________________________    

To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them.

Passing of an Intellectual Giant - Walter Williams, quiet genius and a loud impact

 

Dr. Walter Edward Williams

 Que en Paz Descanses

     As all followers of this blog know, the writer has a proclivity to expound and drone on.

This entry into this on-going body of commentary will be brief.   We require nothing more from our following that each search the words of certainly one of the five leading economists in the world.   Wise economists in some cases have declared him to be one of the top ten since the year 1700.  

    Therefore, El Gringo Viejo requests and requires that readers delve into the works and history of this man.   All true Conservatives and all Libertarians who are on the right side of the centre line will be rewarded by studying this man's 84 years on Earth.

Thank you all for your kind attention.

El Gringo Viejo

_______________________

 

Sociological Indigestion - Is there no cure?

_____________________________

     My fellow father-in-law chastised me recently…but only slightly…wondering why I had not published something of critical insistence from the body politic.   El Gringo Viejo pleads guilty.  It would be my preference to publish three or four brilliant broadsides per week in my on-going effort to bring redemption to the culture, but the mundane rushes in with trivial matters such as life and death, and of course, rich or broke.

     These are truly the times that try men's souls.  Women are having a bit of a tussle as well.   We are enduring at this time a profound plague that it harvesting souls from the American and the Planet's population without much discrimination.  We lament each passing.   But it should be pointed out, for instance, that your humble servant survived the hideous poliomyelitis (polio) that burdened so many during the late 1940s through the first part of the decade of the 1950s.

    During those times a sullen, somewhat frightened, population had to deal with a silent, secret epidemic that was killing  and crippling children, seemingly at every other home.   The good Doctors Salk and Sabin each developed a cure in the 1950s…both of which were effective, and those injections were provided all around the nation fairly quickly.   My records were lost somehow, so I had to have two extra shots…or what turned out to be five, total.  Yes, I did survive.

      To put things into proper perspective, it should be noted that the Spanish Flu affected approximately one-third of the population of Planet Earth during the period 1917 - 1920.   It was devastating.  The planet had approximately 1,900,000,000 souls (one billion, nine hundred thousand), and almost one of every 32 people died.   The death toll was 675,000 in the United States alone, when the United States of America's population was 106,000,000 (one hundred and six million)…or one of every 150 Americans citizens died from the Spanish flu alone, all during a little less than three years.

     The toll was greater than the combined losses of Union and Confederate soldiers during the War Between the States.  Both sides uselessly lost a total of 400,000 men at arms.

     In my cold-hearted, but quite reasonable way, it should be pointed out that, at present, we are hovering around 320,000,000 people who call the USA home.   That is three times the number of people we had among us one hundred years ago in the United States.   We are fortunate, in spite of the numerous losses, to have had a total of 220,000 (4 Dec 2020) deaths by the coronavirus contagion because the old Spanish Flu, if it were killing at the same rate as it did back in 1920…would have taken almost 700,000 casualties by this point.

     These are salient points about the realities of life.  Another salient point is the quagmire of duplicity and mendacity when the Governor of the State of New York begged for help from President Trump, citing the overload of patients in the Metropolis and the State in general.  The President allocated two ships…one an advanced United States Coast Guard rapid transfer and attack craft, and the other a United States Navy Hospital Ship…old and totally renovated, and fully outfitted.   The Navy ship docked in New York's harbour and was used somewhat sporadically, and after a few days, was essentially unused.

The good ship "COMFORT USN"
Medical and surgical…1,000 beds…top flight personnel
but almost no patients.  Gov. Cuomo decided to send 
the afflicted to Old Folks Homes…and then he just
kind of forgot about them…and blamed Trump.
_______________________________________

     The great medical and naval authority, Governor Cuomo, pretty much either forgot about the huge asset sitting a stone's throw away, or he decided that he did not need the ship.   And besides, he hated Donald Trump.   First things first.   And a famous, highly decorated Ship by the name of Comfort with 1,000 beds for the injured and ill marks time…because of the indifference and incompetence of the Governor and his lapdogs Mayor De Blasio and brother Chris Cuomo.

     The Governor and the Mayor are two peas in the pod who have presided over the steady collapse of the World's Greatest Metropolis.  As in many areas such as northeastern-most Illinois State, including the area known as Chicagoland a similar downgrading in "life-style amenities" has been underway for a generation.  Racial disharmony, infrastructural degradation, and general quality of life issues have set in the once beckoning jewel.

    For the working class, middle class, and lower-range of the wealthy, they know that they  are looked upon as criminals who have made money by doing nothing more than work 40 to 90 hours per week.   Chicago land has a large plurality of people who believe they deserve full-subsidy housing, free or nearly free medical services, schools that essentially serve as social / gang gathering and staging areas along with free food…after all, who needs reedin', ritin', an' rithmetic?

 A USCG Cutter
Ready for service to transport the
 injured or to attack, if need be. This
 ship, above, is stationed in San
 Diego, California.

________________________

   Los Angeles and San Francisco…Hey!! What could go wrong, man? Texas is considering the prohibition of industrial and intellectual property being transferred to the Lone Star State because of the  tendency of incoming folks from California to say,"Everything in Texas would be even better if you people would just…blah, blah, blah …like we do in California.'

   For instance, a close friend of the family had a nephew who was born and raised in California, somewhere between Ontario and Los Angeles.  He and his wife came over to Texas to "escape" the horrid place his home area had become…puttered around here for about a year and a half, and then returned to his beloved area because Texas was too dull and conservative.

     We felt genuinely sorry to see them go, but after their departure, no one seemed to speak them again.   Texians have that characteristic of being overly talkative and open or quiet and reserved…as if studying a situation or a group of folks.  We also tend to overinflate the sights, sounds, and everything else about Texas, so one needs to become accustomed to those quirks.

     The reader should…or actually must…understand that Dallas, Austin, and Houston have fallen into the abyss of dull arrogance and pathological political correctness. Austin considers defunding the police, so as to be "with-it" with the likes of George Soros and Ocasio - Cortez.   For a long while my disposition was that, before long, a melting pot effect would finally absorb the Texian out-of-date approach to life and culture.

 The Family of Ralph Yarborough in front of their
"Sears Home" newly installed in Chandler, Texas.
Ralph is the second child from the right.  He was
born in Chandler in 1903.

__________________________________

      People like Ann Richards and "Beto" O'rourck had set a good example so as to lead the masses into the orbit of people of such as Nancy Pelosi, Lloyd Doggett, and other such luminaries.   Ralph Yarborough, the ancient United States Senator and a true "happy warrior" (his nickname), was tolerable in his day as a "liberal" with a really weird East Texas accent.  I had the non-unpleasant encounter with Uncle Ralph on two or three occasions, he knowing my brother's and my GOP records, but he was always extremely genteel and open.  I learned that he had been born in 1903 and his daddy had told him every day to study, study, study…and, "…well, I studied and studied, and when I was done the only thing I could do was to be a lawyer!" It was a favoured ice-breaker.  He was proud that I had just finished at Southwest Texas State University, because he was a graduate of the Sam Houston State Teacher's College and both he and I shared the knowledge that the seven Texas State regional Universities were better than either the University of Texas or Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University, the two "premier Texas State universities".  As an aside I still believe that to be absolutely true.

     His words to me in the lobby of the County of Hidalgo Court House were nice, but he had to go back into the auditorium where he was going to urge the County Commissioners to vote to approve
the Children's Nutrition Programme bill that was working its way through the labyrinth of the Texas House and Senate.  His oratory was a real giggle for the Latin folks who had never heard a truly eloquent blowhard speak with a deep East Texas accent.   But, in truth, he was a great, homey elocutionist.    We leave those fond moments to the final point of this screed.

     As an erstwhile sociologist and historian, my certainty about a certain cobweb of interests has become ever more certain.  Beginning with the "Great Society" bilge that was slopped out on the American populace and continuing to this time we have borne witness to the subtle removal of sound social structure by always assuming that this or that person or family…"needs help".   It is true that almost every person and/or family at some point or another "needs help".   The point here is that the help when needed should come directly from a friend or assembly of friends, fellow churchmen, workmates, or whatever positive combination can conveniently unite and solve the given problem.

     But NO!!! shout the reformers.  The ones who truly care about the poor!! They can solve all the problems.   The first solution is food stamps.   With food stamps people can eat whatever they want and wherever they wish.   And they are free and accepted as currency in food store places. 

     Next, because of the stinginess of the people who have things, the people need low-cost housing operated by housing projects and spires of brick and mortar with thousands of little boxes inside where people who "need" can receive essentially free or extremely low rent arrangements.   Most frequently a cycle develops.   In a "neighbourhood" of 12,000 apartments in the same area, formed by 20 or more high buildings, extensive parking lots, sometimes even with a "community hall" or some rudiment of a tennis or basketball court area, we find one of the main industries of the "Great Society".

     Various of the younger women wind up without a husband (or facsimile).  The apartment is "free" because the Housing Commission or whatever pays the rent by allocations from some government funding source.   The young women frequently wind up with a pumpkin in the belly.    They go down to the emergency room with some kind of cramps in the belly and are taken in.  In a few days they're back home…in the cubicle provided by the Housing Administration.   Each girl has little money, but suddenly a big stud appears and says he heard about the new arrival.

     Comments are exchanged, and the girl asks the man if there is any way he could loan her a little money for the baby's food.  The man says everything will be all-right and that he will try to help her out a little when he can.   This is repeated over the months, and the man takes certain advantages of the girl who now has three babies…three babies in less than three years.  But she can almost make ends meet because the AFDC pays for a lot.   There's a "free kindergarten" in the Projects.  And the food stamps help, and there's other ways to make a little scratch.   She also has to pay 10% of her "public assistance" to the Nice Man who helped her in the beginning.  He turns out to be one of those types who maintains a covey of ten or twenty women who seem to have no trouble producing babies to gain the increase in allocations in Aid to Families with Dependent Children - AFDC  (titles and variable allocations are different depending upon the State and region).

     Many of us have heard of or seen the effects of this horrid socio/cultural oozing steadily into the gutter filled with drugs, violence, robbery, and death.   These projects have gangs that patrol and defend their corners.  Sometimes the gangs with elaborate codes, gestures, outlandish dress, leave their zones and invade other zones.

     Sometimes there are "manifestations" and outcries about the oppression brought on by White people who already "have theirs".   Whole blocks in noble cities are reduced to rubble, ruin, and charred remains.   The "looters" see their actions as a form of retribution and restitution, while leftist officials snicker and declare that it is all the fault of Conservatives and Republicans who want to keep people down who are poor and black…or purple…or green or whatever.

     It is truly a form of Sociological Indigestion.  It has become a situation from which there is no escape.  The suggestion that any woman who is on welfare or other form of public assistance who has birthed two children without benefit of clergy will have to consent to be spayed.   The only solution for the males, once proven by DNA analysis to the paternal partner in the birth of the baby with no father, should be neutered.

     Roars of laughter can be made as the commonly responsible people read this analysis and account of the socio / cultural disaster that is looming.   But the facts are…..the facts.  The Central Government taxes us…and gives the money to billionaires and women who produce miracle babies.    The babies grow up and in far, far, far too many cases turn into monsters with gang tats, semi-automatic firearms, and no sense of social responsibility.

Sociological Indigestion:   Is there no cure?

EL GRINGO VIEJO

__________________________________