Dig up the bones of Francis Scott Key? I think not...

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An image of Francis Scott Key during

the bombardment of Fort McHenry -

Mr. Key is aboard His Majesty's Ship

 HMS TONNANT (Thunderer)

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     As usual, the know-nothings are those who howl the loudest.  While my President is not precisely what we would consider "…my cup of tea…", he is at least interesting and accomplished at getting things done that need doing.

     He is a bit too inclined to employ a government order to accomplish things that could be done by private and/or local initiatives.   But, I am afraid we shall forever have to deal with politicians who like to "give" things to the citizenry.   Mr. Trump seems to have more restraint than most of the "overly-generous" politicians, at least.

     A few days back, I was trapped by having to talk on the telephone while a television article was busy pointing out more weaknesses among the icons who make up the unique personalities, heroes, and magnates who advanced America into the realm of greatness.   There was an image on the television showing the statue of Francis Scott Key being pulled to the ground by people who knew nothing about Key, nor did they care, nor did their action prove anything beyond the existence of  their own vituperous uselessness.

    People who do not own a particularly valued property have no right to scar, damage, steal, or otherwise nefariously deal with that property.   It is against the law, and a long time ago, people who did such things as tear down monuments and other publicly (or privately) owned structures without cause…were thrown in jail, prison, and/or fined heavily.   Now mainstream reporters dash to the next incident as if to celebrate of the tumbling down of a monument or statue of some poor dolt of an historical figure such as a Francis Scott Key and many others too numerous to name.

    During these hours, lower-case scum is marauding in various cities in the United States, burning, breaking glass show-windows, knocking down doors so as to be able to loot and carry out millions of dollars worth of products that need to be sold to willing buyers,  not stolen like sub-human scavengers.    Packs of hundreds and even thousands, of mainly rich, lazy, and spoiled young people literally are dedicating their time to full-scale rioting.

    Should one inquire, the activists respond they are destroying things to punish the rich people and also to establish of a new order wherein all will be equal.   In each case it is apparent that the rioters want to destroy things.   Then they want to go back to mommy and daddy and find their marijuana stash, beg some money from big sis or granny, and then go out on the prowl again to burn, destroy, intimidate, steal, and terrorise whole cities in the United States.  All of this they do to demonstrate their sense of "democracy".

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In this image, one sees the senseless "Black Lives Matter" hoisted high.

  Why senseless? Because if one says, "Yes, and all lives matter," another will

 be correcting you almost immediately.   You will also, most probably, be called

 a racist and Klanner etc.

Please take note above that almost all the "Black Lives Mattering" are

 Caucasian, almost all of whom are garnering walking-around-money

 from Soros, and shekels from mommy and daddy.

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    Folks involved with "Black Lives Matter" are certain that they have the right to essentially expropriate entire blocks of downtown properties…stores, saloons, medical facilities, offices…and chase the owners and patrons out.  After two weeks or so of such a "taking", the area is always a mess of waste matter, garbage, drunks and druggies draped over benches or passed out, covered in vomit, with a needle still dangling from the forearm…all in the name of "equality". 

     It is a kind of equality that makes a civilised person want to puke, barf, and throw up at the same time.  Once he takes a whiff of "real democracy" brought to us by the BLM,  we know it really means sewer stench and really gross BO.

     Your humble commentator is aware of several hundred riots and destructive, frightening episodes brought on by these nouveaux parasites who wish for the destruction of America.   He knows of people who have been scared literally to death when people would come  into a restaurant and begin to overturn  tables, throw chairs into clusters of restaurant patrons, and even stooping to the level of drinking peoples' drinks if they were fresh alcoholic beverages.  Free is hard to beat!!

       We have watched an elegant old saloon with century-old mirrors cracked and destroyed.  The place, in spite of its style of business, had never had a barroom brawl, or even a broken chair…now destroyed by the people who swagger around, chanting and menacing while lending the impression that they are some "new wave' of uniform democracy.  Their calling apparently is to  forge the establishment of a perfect world where everything is free and where no one has more and no  one has less than anyone else.

     They would first be well advised to truly understand the basics about the historical figures they are condemning.   Francis Scott Key is not simply the fellow who wrote the poem that was a little later turned into…or better stated…adapted to the strains of a British suds-pub anthem.   Key was an especially talented, kind, brave, and industrious person…an example of dealing somewhat  poorly at times and nearly perfectly on other occasions.

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A Truer Description of Francis Scott Key

     While we know that Key wrote a clever and nicely turned poem regarding the intense battle between British Naval and Marine forces and a steely, resolute group of American defenders in Fort McHenry, Maryland, our friend Mr. Key had many other significant accomplishments and characteristics.  That battle in 1814 was and is legendary, but there were other interesting things.

     For instance, one might ask, "Why was Key, an American on a old rebuilt French Third - Rating, Man-o-War (battlewagon) hanging around with a bunch of high-ranking British Admirals?   Well, imagine asking to board an enemy ship so as to speak as a civilian American concerning reasonable release terms for a fairly high-ranking American soldier who had been captured in Washington D.C.  during the brutal and destructive battles in and around the District of Columbia just a few weeks earlier (Third-class rating for a battleship is nothing negative.  It simply means that it is heavily armed with a count of a minimum of 76 to 80 very powerful cannons.)

     The Admirals Cochrane and Cockburn, along with a theatre-grade British General Robert Ross had formally received and correctly detained Key and a couple of his buddies during hostilities.  They were being held due to the fact that they had seen troops, artillery, Navy ships and coastal boats being loaded and/or repaired while under sail, and would have, therefore, been able to tell the American military critical information about British tactics, conditions, and placement.  For the British officers, it would be necessary, then to keep Key and his American friends on board, and not in Baltimore, briefing down the American commandant of Fort McHenry about the size, number, and "etceteras" concerning the British level of strength.

     Incredibly enough, the British effort against Fort McHenry wound up being a draw.  That meant that the overpowering British might had lost the effort to win and take ground.   The defence had won simply because they were still in business and eating breakfast at sunrise that next morning.  The British Fleet had to sail out for restocking and repairs.   We have been given that an effective prisoner exchange was executed, so Key and his buddies, and the American military fellows got to head for Baltimore, while the British military captured earlier by the American force, were repatriated with their fellows on the HMS Tennant.   The British Naval authority would have had every right by military law to have had all  taken out and shot after their fine supper at the merest insult or faux pas by a slip of the lip.

     This act by Key was fraught with danger.   He was a famed attorney, true.  But he was also an activated member of the American Army's reserve units.   He was involved in active military service…but essentially "disguised" as the  sedate, and seemingly dull lawyer he was and could appear to be.  The British Naval authority would have had every right by military law to have had him taken out for the merest insult and shot after their fine supper.   Sometimes, manners are a pretty cool hand, Luke.

     Another worthy adventure was his service as the lead prosecutor of the man who shot twice but luckily both pistols had discharged ineffectively against the American President.  It is said that Key was among the number to step up quickly to forcibly restrain Andrew Jackson's assailant.  Only slight remarks have been found by this writer concerning this fact.

    As a top-off however, Key served as the prosecutor of that man who shot President Jackson.  Key told his friend, the President, that he would seek justice in the matter, and did manage a healthy sentence, albeit deferential to the defendant.  He was severely mentally ill, and dwelled in delusions.

    His name was Richard Lawrence, and he proclaimed himself to be the King of England.   He had moved, at the age of twelve, with his family to the United States from England, and established a very good house painting service at a young age.   Some thought that the fumes of the oils and mixers may have caused Mr. Lawrence to have brain damage.   Key did convince the court that the remainder of Richard's life should be lived in protective asylums.  The Judge concurred, and so it was.

     Finally, remembering that Francis Scott Key was a man of his times, we must speak to that matter .   He was usually straight-laced and well presented, and at times depressed and clouded with the darkness of self-doubt.  At other times he stood capable of great oratory, great contribution, and concern for man and beast.

   He fathered eleven children during his one marriage.   He had only the one wife, a daughter of the wealthiest and most prestigious family in Maryland.  Her name was Mary (Polly) Taylor Lloyd.

     He father was the wealthiest person in Maryland, and he served a lengthy period as governor of the Colony.  Maryland (Mary's Land…named for Mary, Queen of Scots) and the only Colony of the Crown in the New World's thirteen Colonies whose Governor normally would be a Roman Catholic.  Francis married into the family of the Lloyds, but he remained a fast and loyal member of the Church of England for his lifetime (Episcopalians of Olde were born, not made).

      Key was given life's trials frequently, because of the Negro Situation.  He saw the Black Man as inferior, but he endeavoured for their advancement and reasonable placement in society.   He was also a strict enforcer of the laws and conditions pertaining to slavery, manumission (award of freedom and full citizenship of a person formerly held in slavery), emancipation, and even of the programme American Colonisation Society, which arranged for free Negroes in the United States to return to Africa and "repatriated" in a place named "Liberia".   The name was, obviously, a Latin form for the word Liberty, and the new entity had considerable similarity to the American governance procedures.   It was more or less successful, and during these times seems to have begun to enter a fairly good cultural and living-standard situation.

     We finish with the simple observation that Francis Scott Key is somewhat overlooked as an historical importance, but he actually was.   Wealth, reliable and vigorous legal work, a constant citizen in the truest sense, and even a member of the somewhat surreptitious "Kitchen Cabinet" of President Andrew Jackson.

More of these tales later, and thank one and all for your patience and understanding.

EL GRINGO VIEJO

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BLM….insidious George Soros…Pope for Anarchists…where will all end?

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For one, Stop the Madness  -  The business of rotting out the centres of major cities by turning said cities into essentially perpetual destruction zones where nihilists and brutes destroy while chanting meaningless bilge that doesn't even rhyme, is rational?    Billions upon billions of dollars worth of structure and progress has literally been Hiroshima'd east of the Mississippi and Nagasaki'd west of Old Man River.   And for what?

     Even during these hours, fine and noble cities…Portland, Chicago, New York City, Seattle, Austin, Minneapolis, and many others, like Ferguson and St. Louis in Missouri are being gutted by well-orchestrated  mayhem provocateurs…many armed with various kinds of weaponry.  There are scores of communities suffering from these seemingly perpetual, nightly, acts of nihilism and multi-billion dollar vandalism.   The idea that gaggles of deranged, semi-uniformed, semi-militarised by the scores of hundreds…even thousands…are laying siege to the centres of scores of major and important communities throughout the Republic is mind numbing.    

    And, we ask, "…to what end…to what purpose?   Black Lives Matter, a false sham of a blankly repeated, meaningless, droning gobbledegook…"black lives matter!! black lives matter!!"   Well, apparently black lives do not matter if the central social and cultural order collapses in the areas where small businesses and the hope of downtown renovation descends into a forgotten dream for what the honest and productive elements have always desired.

    (1)    In reality, under the tenets of my upbringing and religious and moral code,  all lives matter and all lives are equal before the Eternal Power's own judgement.   Oriental people, Middle Eastern people, Indians from India, Indians from the New World, Extraterrestrials, even Germans are people too.  And Yankees, and women…of course.  And, frankly, Democrats…Black Africans and White Africans…Eskimos…and union members…and people who park too close to the parking space line.   All lives matter.

      It is necessary to point out, however, that black lives matter to everyone, apparently, except black people.   While every year there are six to twelve incidents involving police (and at times civilians), and "community leaders" and  "African American protestors" and others dash out to destroy the inner cities where proprietors are trying to operate stores and service facilities in an ambience always tinged in fearfulness, concern, and worry.   When 6 to 12 white or "coloured" policemen or policemen in general can cause huge social tremors and massive riots conducted by hundreds and thousands of brigands to conduct three or four night of looting, something is dreadfully out of focus.     But few in the Lamestream Press are willing to point out that equally dreadful truth.

     A certain fact must be faced.   Black Lives Matter is known to be a marxist  cum-communist front organisation under the control of people in the United States, but more especially Russia and Red China.  Other controlling offices are located in various points in Eastern Europe…where much money is raised, polished, channeled, and forwarded to the BLM and other radical agencies dedicated to destruction of the inner workings of the United States, Japan, Israel, Taiwan, Great Britain, Australia, Mexico, Canada, and certain other nations and entities.   

   Throughout the world, there are people and organisations, non-profit community service associations, and Non-profit Corporations doing "human improvement opportunity" work.  For instance, the shadowy and compulsive George Soros is a known pro-communist who declares himself to be an investor in "charitable social improvements".

   It is true that he has "given" as much as twenty billion dollars from his "foundations" and almost all of such generosity has been dedicated to the economic and cultural destruction of America.  We submit this condensed commentary and synopsis that extol this Latter Day Saint and Miracle Worker.  To Wit:

The Life of George Soros

George Soros is one of the world’s foremost philanthropists. He has given away more than $32 billion of his personal fortune to fund the Open Society Foundations’ work around the world. He is also the founder and primary funder of the Central European University in Budapest, a leading regional center for the study of the social sciences.

Under his leadership, the Open Society Foundations have supported individuals and organizations across the globe fighting for freedom of expression, accountable government, and societies that promote justice and equality. The foundations have also provided school and university fees for thousands of promising students who would otherwise have been excluded from opportunities because of their identity or where they live.

This giving has often focused on those who face discrimination purely for who they are. He has supported groups representing Europe’s Roma people, and others pushed to the margins of mainstream society, such as drug users, sex workers, and LGBTI people.

Soros has experienced such intolerance firsthand. Born in Hungary in 1930, he lived through the Nazi occupation of 1944–1945, which resulted in the murder of over 500,000 Hungarian Jews. His own Jewish family survived by securing false identity papers, concealing their backgrounds, and helping others do the same. Soros later recalled that “instead of submitting to our fate, we resisted an evil force that was much stronger than we were—yet we prevailed. Not only did we survive, but we managed to help others.”

As the Communists consolidated power in Hungary after the war, Soros left Budapest in 1947 for London, working part-time as a railway porter and as a night-club waiter to support his studies at the London School of Economics. In 1956, he emigrated to the United States, entering the world of finance and investments, where he was to make his fortune.

In 1973, he launched his own hedge fund, Soros Fund Management, and went on to become one of the most successful investors in the history of the United States.

Soros used his fortune to create the Open Society Foundations—a network of foundations, partners, and projects in more than 100 countries. Their name and work reflect the influence on Soros’s thinking of the philosophy of Karl Popper, (complete macro-marxist-lunatic) which Soros first encountered at the London School of Economics. In his book Open Society and Its Enemies, Popper argues that no philosophy or ideology is the final arbiter of truth, and that societies can only flourish when they allow for democratic governance, freedom of expression, and respect for individual rights—an approach at the core of the Open Society Foundations’ work (and presently does hourly work in a cuckoo-clock).

Soros began his philanthropy in 1979, giving scholarships to black South Africans under apartheid (thereby solving all economic and social problems there). In the 1980s, he helped promote the open exchange of ideas in Communist Hungary, by funding academic visits to the West, and supporting fledgling independent cultural groups and other initiatives. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he created the Central European University as a space to foster critical thinking—at that time an alien concept at most universities in the former  Communist bloc (…he helped transfer many of the communist professors over to American KGBversities).

With the Cold  War over, he gradually expanded his philanthropy to the United States, Africa, Latin America, and Asia, supporting a vast array of new efforts to create more accountable, transparent, and democratic societies. He was one of the early prominent voices to criticize the war on drugs as “arguably more harmful than the drug problem itself,” and helped kick-start America’s medical marijuana movement. In the early 2000s, he became a vocal backer of same-sex marriage efforts. Though his causes evolved over time, they continued to hew closely to his ideals of an open society. (Saints preserve us)

His giving has reached beyond his own foundations, supporting independent organizations such as Global Witness, the International Crisis Group, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the Institute for New Economic Thinking.  (?)

Now in his 80s, Soros continues to take an active personal interest in the Open Society Foundations’ work, traveling widely to support their work and advocating for positive policy changes with world leaders both publicly and privately.  In 2017, the Open Society Foundations announced that Soros had transferred $18 billion of his fortune (found one morning under his pillow, after a visit from a tooth faerie) towards funding the future work of the Foundations, bringing his total giving to the Foundations since 1984 to over $32 billion.

Throughout Soros’s philanthropic legacy, one thing has remained constant: a commitment to fighting the world’s most intractable problems. He has been known to emphasize the importance of tackling losing causes. Indeed, many of the issues Soros has taken on—and he would be the first to admit this—are the types of issues for which a complete solution might never emerge.

“My success in the financial markets has given me a greater degree of independence than most other people,” Soros once wrote. That independence has allowed him to forge his own path towards a world that’s more open, more just, and more equitable for all.    (?)

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   (2) Parting Notes:

        What is written above about good ol' George appears to have been written by his favourite Auntie.  Perhaps the most truthful thing could have been about the early days during the Nazi Germanisation of Hungary…actually from 1939 through 1945, George and his family had a tough time of it.  After the Second World War, a foggy window cast over the activity of Soros.   He became an "investor" and dedicated much time to investment in currencies as well as certain  industries.,   And, while Soros will occasionally declare that he is not a big fan of communism, he is also dedicated to the notion that he and his closest commie buddies can figure out some way to feed and house and educate everyone "for free" without collapsing a nation's economy.   Good Luck, George. 

     It was pointed out by some leftist observers that he was helping drug users and LGQFX3B people, and same-sex marriage people, and medical marijuana people, and the Open Societies Foundations, Global Witness, European Council on Foreign Relations, etc.  It seemed to reveal what appeared to be a remarkable and generous man.  His works seem ostensibly noble, but in his case they were and are all vehicles for the imposition of marxist economic structure.   They are also actions that are compliant with the world-wide campaign to "democratise" the human race.        

      He has been and continues to be under investigation by various treasury agencies of several European nations.  How he stays out of court processes in the United States is apparently a function of extraterrestrial intervention.

As always, El Gringo Viejo appreciates your time and interest.

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The Attack of the Grumpy Griper

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     These are the times that make men into ogres;  hanging around in the house…serving as a chef and bedmaker and chauffeur.   It is glorious, perhaps, to have such time and availability…sometimes circumstances allow me to go even so far as the NEXT HEB, and not the closest one.   Tell me if freedom and liberty is or is not a wondrous and/or terrible thing…..depending, of course.

    But, on to sterner stuff.  The quality of grammar, composition, and rhetoric steadily degenerates.  One can go back to Shakespeare, Milton, Cervantes (for your Spanish), Bobby Burns and Walter Scott, and a slough of scores and hundreds good and great writers and marvel how they managed to penetrate deep into the souls and minds of so many folks.

MARGARET MITCHELL

Author of the record selling tome

GONE WITH THE WIND

1900 - 1949

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     Although it is not my intention to infuriate the female race reading this screed,  I shall state….even women can write coherent and useful prose worthy of all men to be received.  Margaret Mitchell and her profoundly insightful tome, "Gone With the Wind" and the many works of Louisa May Walcott and a million other books written by thousands of other women were and are probably all worth the investment of time one might reasonably take.

     As an aside, schools closed and even Roman Catholic Churches and Jewish Synagogues remained open on a twenty-four hours basis throughout the South after Margaret Mitchell was killed by a drunk driver in August of 1949.  Protestant Churches as well, of course…but it went on for a week or more, the outpouring of grief among the citizenry.   Some ladies even expressed condolences to my mother…hugs and other ickey  stuff…lots of runny makeup and sniffling simply because my mother was a look-alike to Margaret Mitchell.

     Why the hugging and ickey stuff?  Without any false pretence this humble writer owns up to the fact that the lady pictured above is Margaret Mitchell.   People would stop and ask to take a picture of another lady in McAllen, Texas back in those times thinking that the lady was Margaret Mitchell or a look-alike enough to fool their friends upon returning to the North after the Winter had left (McAllen and the Lower Rio Grande Valley was an important wintering place for "Yankees" in those days).   But, she was only my mother.   In those moments my greatest desire was probably to go back home and stir up an o'possum so as to have a playmate.

     We move on to my various points.   For one, it seems uncomely for an obituary to be posted with various spelling errors.  I fight them here because of the misinformation and incorrect grammar encountered on a daily basis.   "Jose Gomez, age 31, died and was barried in San Lorenzo Cematary with many of his closet family in atendance."is a small example of what we are served.   And, if one thinks it is a matter of an occasional blip down here among the unwashed, all the major newspapers in print, it seems, delight in grammatical and spelling errors.

     Some sour grapes comes from me due to the fact that some of my writing is drawn from archaic influences and the "spell check" and "grammatical cheque" sometimes works even overtime (like after I have already posted) to make "corrections" for me.

      More to the point are the failures in syntax and outright bus wrecks and building collapses one encounters en lieu of paragraphs.   For instance, "Mr. Bilbert Rogerstien was  detained by officers while driving down Mockingbird Lane last night at a high rate of speed.  After stopping the officers smelled liquor and administered a breathalyser exam, which Mr. Rogerstien failed.  He was transported to County Jail, and arraigned on a charge of Driving While Intoxicated.  He was held on a 100, 000 dollar bond due to his record of repeated violations."

     PEOPLE ARE NOT HELD ON BOND!!!!   PEOPLE SUSPECTED OF COMMITTING AN EGREGIOUS MISDEMEANOUR OR CRIME, IF THEY CANNOT FORK OVER THE NECESSARY LUCRE, ARE HELD "IN LIEU OF BOND" (meaning, instead of bond, because the dumbo was either broke, left his wallet home, or otherwise could not arrange for any method by which to post a surety bond.  He is thrown in the pokey until his wife or sister or bondsman comes up with the lucre.   If the lucre never comes, then the arrestee gets to wait for an opening in the Court Docket…a matter of five or six days…or months.).   As a for instance, the fellow who killed Margaret Mitchell had 26 arrests for DWI, at the ripe old age of 26.  Several of the citations resulted in short stays and slightly longer stays, because the family would scrape up the money to bail him out and then later pay the fines.   This last incident, in 1949 stuck him in the pokey for 12 years, being charged with "Vehicular Homicide and Driving While Intoxicated".

     But/…you all please remember…a person is held en lieu (or in lieu) of bond…not "on a bond".   A person can be released "on a bond" by posting the amount equal to the appropriate judge's requirements, conditions, and/or discretion.

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     After solving the problem above-reported we should wish to move on to the matter of the "mail-in ballot" absurdity.   First and foremost, we urge all to go an vote during the early voting period (usually about two weeks before the official election day) or, 'cause it's lots of fun really, to vote on election day.  One sees long lost acquaintances, friends, and even relatives whose names you cannot remember.

     Remembering all that we are writing almost exclusively about the matter of voting in the Republic of Texas.   Texas has had an interesting history in terms of some elections, and calamities have occurred in local, country-wide, State-wide, and national contest.

    There was a Democrat Primary race in 1948 wherein Coke Stevenson, who had stepped down from the governorship to run  for the U.S. Senate seat against a ghastly person by the name of Lyndon Baines Johnson who had been a Roosevelt lackey for a couple of terms as United States Representative for a Central Texas Congressional district.

     In those years, almost all the State-pertinent races were finished in the primaries, because in all the States of the Old Confederacy, there was frankly no Republican presence and so the matters stayed in the Post - Reconstruction Rules until after around 1962 or so.  Texas could vote Republican for a national office like President…but all the "lesser" offices required the approval of Democrat mossbacks.   It is just the way it was.

In the primary of 1948, the vote was very close…and I mean VERY close.   And guess what?   Come to-morrow morning, and the newspapers couldn't name the winner of the election for the position of Senator to be sworn in during January of 1949.   There were people who were gunned down during and after the contentions about the vote count.   There were inter and intra familial disputes, there were Anglos against Latins, Latins against Latins, Latins for Anglos, etc.etc.etc.    Seven people were killed  as a direct or indirect result of this dispute about Box 13 and the whole Election of 1948.

     Lyndon Johnson was horribly corrupt personally and politically.  That's why a broad section of the Texas populace liked the guy.   He could "get away" with things.  He was an erstwhile rancher, a sometimes school-teacher, and a political gadfly…no philosophy beyond "…how am I going to rake off my share?"   His opponent, a fairly popular Governor, was a professional man and a politician of the old school, who tried to move Texas ahead, with low taxes and sober administration.   No real imagination…but steady at the helm.

     There are still people looking for the "lost suffrage rolls" and the like.  As Coke Stevenson had essentially scraped by for his election in 1942 for United States Senator by a total of 1,900 votes more or less, so had Lyndon and Lady Bird won the same Senator's seat in 1948.   It was George and nephew Archer's brilliance to take possession of Box 13 of Jim Wells County (adjacent and to the east of the Parr's empire centre in Duvall County) in the city of Alice, Texas.   It was reasonably estimated by various "estimators" that the Parr's "influence"controlled, at a minimum, something like 13 counties in the centre of South Texas.

    There was an intrepid poll worker and his team who had managed to find  another Jim Wells County ballot box during the wee hours.   The box held almost 800 ballots.   In this case, all voters were Spanish surnamed and they had all signed in with the same style of script…full of flourish and elegance, as if written by a young, well-educated lady.  Further, the voters who "signed in" with the elegant hand had the goodness to sign in by alphabetical order.   Almost 800 people.  Eight days after the close of the election.

    The "girl" who did the executive secretarial work had attended and graduated from a private (read 'Roman Catholic') secondary and preparatory in Monterrey's rich district, Ciudad de San Pedro de Garza-Garcia, Nuevo Leon State.  Very prestigious and very excellent.   The beautiful handwriting was there.   She was a bit older but her hand was infallible in terms of quality.   It was also said of her that she was the only person in the George and Archer Operation who was honest.

    Presently, in Texas a person can request a ballot by mail…but only one.   A person, upon receipt of the ballot must fill in the voter's choices, sign in with a regular signature, and then forward the ballot to the registrar at the County Seat.   It is recommended, I believe, that a person attempt to mail his/her ballot to the registrar a week before the Tuesday, which is the first Tuesday after the 1st Monday in November of even numbered years in Texas.

     What the Democrats across the Nation in these days are pushing is to have the United States Postal Service forward ballots to everyone.  That would be an undertaking that would open literally hundreds of Pandora's Boxes in every State of the Union.  The same slime who constitute "Black Lives Matter" would have people combing and collecting these blank mailed to "Resident"by the handful.   Collection Captains would deliver thousands…scores of thousands of voted ballots without much concern for the dates of compliance and proof of authenticity and qualification as an elector.

     Election judges would be in a quandary,  and for certain the leftwing activists would be crowding into the offices of the appropriate judges and authorities demanding that the ballots be included, "because everybody should have the right to vote".  It will be inevitable.

     The one hope we have is the fact that Biden's lack of quality as a candidate might cause a deflation in the willpower of the Democrat voters to actually turn out to vote.   This next "democratic function" of the election of 2020 could well make the events of Duvall and Jim Well Counties in 1946 seem like some old cowboy movie.

More Later

EL GRINGO VIEJO

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A Statement About Some General Information About the Family - many, many questions are asked by folks who seem interested so we bring this capsule to all...

Good Morning, All!!

     Please forgive my indolence.   We have been inundated by minor problems like medical issues among friends and relatives, and other minor social interruptions.   One of our lesser problems is the issuance of new regulations concerning crossing the Texas - Mexico border. Going back and forth has normally been either very simple to only mildly complicated during these many years.   Our family has been wandering around and doing business in Mexico since the 1880s...anything legal that needed to be bought or sold.

     We have also been involved in various businesses, raising family, being grandparents, and generally living life.  We have a little adobe home in the interior of Mexico which is very pleasant and profoundly scenic, although it has been a bit of a chore to go and come during the past couple of months…due to the before-mentioned complications concerning getting American permission to depart to Mexico and return. The world becomes pretty wacky at times.   Above is a view of our little place…it has served us well and has been a pleasant bird-watching centre as well as retreat for couples who just want to be in a scenic hideaway and relax.

Entrance to the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre

established 2002

      My Great-Grandfather Peter Bonesteel Christian…(father of my grandmother Esther Lee Christian) ranched about 1,200 acres down in the tropical areas of central Vera Cruz for about 20 years ...and Esther stayed down there much of the time.  She was Peter's firstborn, and his only daughter.   They enjoyed their time until the great freezes came, their otherwise their "stay" would have been totally profitable and enjoyable.

     Weaving such a tale...which has literally hundreds of anecdotes...sad, hilarious, adventurous, and sublimely tranquil...filled the tales rendered down to my father by his mother (and father).    Lamentably, my grandmother and her husband, Norman N. Newton died long before my birth, so almost everything I learned about them came from my father...although he had numerous photographs of their times and places.  

     You should be aware that that father...my father...was a cavalry soldier (mounted) down on the Mexican border among other things. He enlisted in 1928, thinking of a career as an officer.  After marriage back in the 1930s he went into the business of care and production of citrus down here on the border...in the southernmost parts of the County of Hidalgo, Texas.   So now you know the dirty little secret.  We are just plain agriculturists...people who thought that farming and production-to-market was what it meant to be "making a living".       

     It is also the case that my father and eldest brother were both Ph.d's.   My father became a psychologist and finally an administrator winding up in his last years as the Superintendent of the largest MH and MR facility in the Republic of Texas.   He was a very conservative person...politically, religiously, etc.   Oddly enough,  he was also an innovator and a "fixer".   During his early days at the MH/MR campus, for instance, he encountered numerous children in the facility who spoke no English, or perhaps very little.   Many had been referred by public school "counsellors" who would test said children with a fresh Stanford - Binet or similar (in English)...and then proceed to declare that this little Juan and/or this little Maria could not make a creditable score and that the children were too mentally retarded to ever hope to "catch up". 

      As a token of caution please be aware that most of the "quick draw" testers were from out of State, and were admittedly prone to suppose the worst about anything Texian.    While some of this might be a bit of melodramatic over-statement, it is not far off the mark.

   My father set about testing the "mentally retarded" Latin children and in fairly quick order established that one or two were marginal, while the other 55 or so were at or above, at times well above, what was considered "normal".    It was not really an active measure designed to discriminate by the first crew...by that time high-achieving people of Mexican / Spanish extraction were commonly found in the "TOP 10" or as Valedictorians, Head Cheerleader or Drum Major of the Varsity band, etc.   BUT, there was that lingering "thing" back in the psychometrist's or psychologists mind, perhaps.

     During my father's waning days, I reminded him of his "stalwart position" above described.  He smiled slightly, and whispered with some vigour, "All in a day's work…all in a day's work".   Very shortly later, he died in Austin, Texas during a cold Christmastide  in 1983, less than a couple of miles from that "State School".   And oddly enough it remains simply one of his legacies.

An example of the "travois" for hauling things.
First it was done by dogs, but when the White
man came, horses were available, especially
to the Plains Indians…circa 1895
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    He had been born in Gwinner, North Dakota during a bitterly cold moment on the 1st of April 1911. His mother was there, as one might imagine because she needed to be close to her son at such an hour.  But his father was not "there"…he was in Minneapolis, buying necessities for the Spring planting.  The Stork had mis-read his directions and dates…he was almost two months early!!

     Although my grandmother was essentially incapacitated by the labour and birthing, she tried to warm the three year old, two-storied Victorian home. That home was a pride point for my Grandfather, but…who would come at this hour through the three to six foot drifts of new snow so as to help a new mother with her first born? Then, quite suddenly there were clunking sounds outside…women and children speaking in Indian language…un-shod hooves were clomping on the gallery floor at the front door!!

      Two more horses with travois pulling clothes and old women and young children came up and then into the living room, leading a gaggle of Sioux and/or Chippewa  women, babies, and children, and dogs.     The leader saluted my grandmother and gave her the required deference as a new mother.   All crowded around to see the funny, pale baby.   He was quite unlike his peers but also very similar to them at those moments.

    The fireplace was stoked, firewood was chucked over to one side of the fireplace.   The women set up camp...in a two story Victorian.  They made the older children take the horses out every couple of hours, and the older women, familiar with the homestead because of previous visits,  also told the children where corn and grain could be found for the patient beasts (happy to be in a warm home).

     There was a telephone with long distance capacity in Gwinner, a few hundred yards through a thick white blanket.   The Indian ladies went and requested a long distance call on behalf of the Lady Esther Lee (Christian) Newton to Mr. Newton.  Three or four days went by...each recounting of the story is the same and a bit different, but the ladies upon the arrival of the man of the house, organised up their convoy and headed for Fargo, some sixty miles to the northeast...on the border with Minnesota.

     Norman N. Newton took over the affairs of the home, and he mildly scolded the Swedish / Norwegian ladies (settlers from the old countries) who were aghast that "...those Indian squaws came in and stabled their horses in the parlour and poor Mrs. Newton had to protect the baby from the smallpox". 

    I can only imagine.   One must remember that this woman had helped operate a large tropical fruit and vegetable production hacienda in Mexico, owned by her father.   She had learned Spanish and the two Indian languages and cultures of the Huastec and Totonac nations.  Those were the Indians who came and went daily and who were generally fixtures of the mountains, rivers, and jungles of the area during their time in the Mexican tropics in central Vera Cruz State.

   

    Above, the reader can study the amazing Pyramid of the Niches at the archeological site of El Tajin, just south of where the Christian plantation was…perhaps five or six miles to the northwest of this beautiful area.  The Pyramid and the huge site, with a minimum of over 700 major structures is normally associated with the Totonac nation.  It is still a vibrant group, numbering about 400,000 individuals.  This particular pyramid's niches actually do add up to 365 niches, total.

   

And then above, one can appreciate the dress of a traditional Totonac man of some significant resources.  The men have other vestments that are very similar, but rougher, for hard work in their fields and farms…usually very angular, and deeply sloped, and replete with some of the finest soil imaginable…good for almost any crop.

   One can see below the famous "Flying Indians", who perform this precarious whirling dive while tied (hopefully very securely) at the ankles while twirling around thirteen times. The descent is about 100 feet from the small platform.   It performed for touristic purposes and also, with much greater pomp and circumstance, much more expression and symbolism during certain periods of religious and cultural importance.

  It was a matter of considerable sadness when the father and daughter team boarded the steamer out of Tuxpan, Vera Cruz that last time. They would cross the normally pacific Gulf of Mexico and arrive in New Orleans…rest, and then begin the train return to Minneapolis.  This would have been in late 1901, I believe.   What precipitated this move was the effect of three hard freezes, complete with snow and all, in the years 1893, 1897, and, I believe, in 1900.

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Kelley Ann Conway - Happy Trails

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     An inclusion from an "Old Veteran" from the field of battle  concerning another "Old Veteran" who withstood the rigours of working in the White House.

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08/24/2020

To Wit:

New Jersey Native Kellyanne Conway Leaves White House:

     I do not at all participate in social media but this time I have to speak out. Kellyanne Conway is one of the brightest and most intelligent of any of the President's staff. I do not know Walter Shaub; however, in my opinion he is way off base criticising Ms. Conway with very nasty characterisations such as: she manipulative and, associating her with fascist regimes. Very totally untrue as she regularly denounces fascists and socialists who would do irreversible damage to this country.

     Donald Trump is a very true American patriot who, in spite of continuous and unrelenting criticism of made up personal and public attacks from extreme factions (mostly opposition ones in the Congress), cares for America and has done great unselfish things that will not be unnoticed in history. He has exceeded in job increases, bringing businesses back to the US, appointing federal judges, lowering unemployment, increasing jobs, defeating ISIS, bringing troops back from the Middle East, fast tracked FDA pharmaceutical approval for Covid-19 antivirus and many other unprecedented positive things all for the benefits of Americans.

      All this is to give credit to Kellyanne Conway for her devoted contribution and hard work as Senior Advisor to the President.  She is, and has been, a loyal and responsible member of the President's staff. She is a clear thinker who has been an important figure in the Executive functions of the United States.

     It is not clear what her daughter is doing but, at only 15 years of age, she cannot have enough wisdom to make a decision as serious as to emancipate herself from her family.   I do not know but to think she is being influenced by her teenage friends and/or progressive political figures who are using this child to continue their assault on the President. It is easy to imagine. Shame on those!

Kellyanne Conway will be very difficult to replace.

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El Gringo Viejo (David Christian Newton) concurs and agrees with the contribution posted above.   The woman speaks more quickly than I enjoy, but her defence of the Commander in Chief and his cadre has been worthy, to say the least.

     This contribution from our friend "El Zorro"… gives me this opportunity  to reveal that "El Zorro" is actually a college-grad, married to a nice nurse or doctor lady who is a true asset by any standard.   James Robert Hathorn (two tours and then some from the jungles of Viet Nam) and a veritable whiz by any standard about anything electronic or electric…computertronic…mechanical…or philosophical…historical…etc.

     He and I have lived on opposite edges of the Republic of Texas…he in the North…not far from the Red River and your humble servant within a stone's throw of the Rio Bravo del Norte…(more commonly known as El Rio Grande) at the southernmost extremity of the Republic.

     And, while well endowed with considerable blue blood in his veins, he also  bears direct descent from American Indian Royalty.   He is, in my opinion, a person who should be studied, and above all else, listened to…and, humiliatingly, he is a  crack characterurist as an artiste.  I, on the other hand, cannot draw a stick figure.  

   We retire to-night…somewhat diminished for I am living in a place where it is not possible to drive here or there if such a drive does not have "reasonable explanation and justification".   It has been three months that I have not been able to go down to our little hideaway due to this madness about coronavirus.  But…so be it.  This too will change.

EL GRINGO VIEJO

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