We Move Along to Speak of the Passing of Rush Hudson Limbaugh, III -

 RUSH HUDSON LIMBAUGH, III

 A Legacy, a Presence, a Monumental Contribution to America

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             We join in these moments with the many who included Rush in their orbit of life. He was a pleasant family presence during his early years, born of a good line…fathered by a heroic World War II combat pilot father and an ancestry of distinction and accomplishment dating back many generations. It is well that we consider his place of birth, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, a place that is distinctive because of its setting of profound normalcy. Rush's people were always given to service and sacrifice. Interestingly enough, during the War Between the States, his family took the Confederate side, although they were decidedly anti-slavery. Their cause was to protect the local control and self-reliance that is commonly encountered to this day among many people of the South.

      More on this will be recounted as we revere and contemplate the reality of this magnificent presence in the American panoply. We could easily drone on about Rush's ancestry and family, and certainly we should touch on those things, but we must remember the seemingly awkward social movement of Rush in his younger days. While his family was and is an historical fixture in Cape Girardeau and elsewhere, and while they were well-to-do and comely and accomplished in many, many ways…Rush was not the prettiest face or figure in town. Intelligent, yes. Good deportment, pretty much. Great student? When it was necessary.

      His daddy, beyond being a combat was an accomplished attorney,was also a P-51 combat fighter pilot during the Second War, was a famous attorney in Missouri. Judges and all nature of accomplished relatives abounded among his his kith and kin. But Rush was always that guy who looked at a different horizon all during his "growing up years". He had a "pace-car brother" in the sense that David was serious and goal oriented like the rest of the family. He was also a "looker" and socially adept person. He has become quite the author among other accomplishments…but such is a hallmark of the Limbaugh lines since their arrival to Pennsylvania Colony from eastern Germany in the 1730s.

      Rush, at a very early age, began to take seriously something already becoming outdated…something called "AM radio". He was, according to all who commented, an affable boy and one who caused few problems, if any. His biggest problem when growing up was his weight. David was slender and comely, while Rush was…shall we say "big". Still a nice looking boy, but…big...and round.

      But, he kept on fiddling with silly AM radios. He tried his hand at University, and lost interest in the first year. He actually landed jobs at places of his first interest, radio stations! He became a platter-master and did the whole microphone thing, but he frequently left the owners consternated about his helter-skelter programming performance. It is said by some that the audiences liked Rush's "off-the-wall" microphone routines, but the bosses were not impressed. Unfortunately for them, they would lament letting Rush walk out the door.

     

      He did a stint as in sales and other stand-up jobs for the Kansas City baseball team, and then one day the Sun broke through the fog…but before Kansas City, Rush landed behind a microphone where he could do social and political commentary. He found his correct place in the field of giving ulcers and curing sociopolitical despondence. He was behind a microphone speaking to a large audience, every weekday…taking calls, and generally hobnobbing with the real world. In Cape Girardeau he warmed a microphone after leaving college. Then, he went on to bigger and better things at WIXZ in McKeesport, Missouri and later to Pittsburg with the big audience on KQV radio. These venues were rewarding but Rush always seemed to wrinkle the brows of his bosses…and his services at the two stations were relatively short. He went back to the homestead, muttered and kicked cans, and then one day picked up a job at the Kansas City Royals operation.

     Sales, even hobnobbing and public relations with fans was a wonderful fit for his gregarious ways. He might have been the fellow you saw adjusting the microphone by the mound for the singer of the National Anthem in about fifteen minutes. And…after football…Rush loved baseball, especially good baseball, and big crowds at the ball game.

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      Many are familiar with these notes about Rush and how he swam against the current to finally be able to do what his calling had required. There have been and still are numerous excellent radio announcers and commentators. But it must be stated that when the Rushmore of Radio Luminaries is carved into some important mountainside, Rush Limbaugh will have to be the first one and Paul Harvey will be the other first one.

      My venture with Rush began in the later 1980s. I informed my middle brother( El Gringo was the last born 1947,  Norman the second 1942, a truly iconic mover and shaker in the Republican Party of the Republic of Texas, and Milton was the firstborn - 1936)  that he (Norman) needed to come down to McAllen because the greatest personality in Radio in America had agreed to a full scale rally as the "Rush to Excellence" at the McAllen Civic Centre known as the "Rush to Excellence" rally.  His show was pure Republican cavalry charge and folksy humour.

   My wife and I had, perhaps overly energised, gone in with three other sponsors to pay everything up front, and provide a gay old time for the Faithful in the McAllen and Rio Grande Valley area. At the very latest moment, my brother who had been the AA to Sen. John G. Tower, and who had been the executive director of the Republican Party of Texas for several years declared that he wasn't going down to McAllen to listen to a nobody from Nowhere, Missouri. This was the brush off that caused a schism that never actually healed.

    This was the brother who had founded the Associated Republicans of Texas…a grassroots mobilisation organisation geared to the election of local and county level Republicans across Texas. It became the Death of Democrat Hegemony in Texas. One can imagine my grumpiness and haughty sense of being abused, but at least the rally was massively successful. A convention hall that could hold 1,800 seated people wound up with standing room only and people in the back, and hundreds gathered in standing room only, outside listening to Rush's jokes and lectures via loudspeakers.

       It took about 40 minutes for all the vehicles to manage their way out of the very large parking lot. My mother and my Godmother attended and were truly stunned at the size of the crowd and the grandeur Rush Limbaugh had brought to the Republican effort deep in Democrat territory. My wife and mother had gone earlier as guests of honour to the special mid-day luncheon at the fancy penthouse level of McAllen's tallest building (16 stories of the McAllen State Bank building), and passed a very pleasant time. During those moments pictures were taken, and the ones with Rush, Diana, and my mother were interesting because it revealed that Rush bore a distinct resemblance to my mother's youngest brother, William Grant Neal. We still have that photograph somewhere in our heaps of paper in some storage facility somewhere.

      My mother was stunned, in any regard, having come down for the event from Austin…and to see her grandchildren in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. She would divulge to her other son in Austin that he had missed a chance to have seen the man…"who will become the most important conservative commentator in a America…mark my words." As was normal, my mother was largely correct about this and most everything else.     

     So, from 1989 on until recent days, 24 February 2021, my wife and I, and several million other Rushies have been left without our voice of reason. Our bulwark of willingness to stand for the common law and to fight against the scourge of socialism just left at an age far too young.

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The  portals of the Quinta Tesoro
 de la Sierra Madre

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The above photo of our little adobe hideaway deep in rural Mexico,  where several hundred folks have visited, stayed, hobnobbed, and birdwatcher in one of the very best birding places in the Hemisphere.      I can remember always trying to be close by my radio, during the early weekday afternoons, listening to Rush's monologues.  Our little adobe place is a jewel of a place, and I was so pleased that, although we are 200 miles into the interior, the little station in McAllen/Edinburg, Texas could stretch its 5,000 watts to San Engracia, Tamaulipas. Perhaps being up against the Sierra Madre mountain range helped.

    The setting, the myriad numbers of birds and species of birds, a crystal river 125 yards away lined by 1,000 year old Sabinos (150 feet high cypress trees)…maybe a cold beer with my neighbour with the lime Hacienda next door…and Rush railing on the radio, nailing every dumbo Democrat failure and lapse of character and/or moral fibre…it was and is an amazing experience. 

       The reader has endured a considerable amount of the tales of the  Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre our little hideaway in the Santa Engracia area of central Tamaulipas State.  We have suffered few pins and needles and our accomplishments have been many enjoyed. We relished the large and forceful of these times with Rush Limbaugh seemingly always present in the background. Our businesses, with our families' losses and gains…has all been very interesting. 

       

     During all of this commotion several years back, your humble servant was winnowing through some papers my mother had left behind. Among some of the letters was a lengthy note from a first cousin of my mother. Although he was living in Alabama, he was actually in the cultural orbit of southeastern Tennessee, around Winchester and such places. This letter had been shown to me once or twice and it was of some interest concerning the Chisolm, Chisholm, Chism, and Chisms dilemma. My mother's mother was a Chism or a Chisum depending on the cousin who was testifying. It was and is all very interesting and complicated. There was a lot of begetting and begetting.

      For instance my maternal grandfather was one of 12 who survived, and such was the nature of things in the area around Winchester, Tennessee in those times. My mother was one of four, one girl and three boys being birthed from 1913 through to 1941…by the same couple. Imagine…southeastern Tennessee is a strange place…lots of anti-alcohol people, but some of the best whiskey produced in the world. Substantially anti-slave, but ferocious Confederates in battle.

      But steadily my research, along with a very distant cousin in Connecticut, began to fill in a lot of blanks concerning my descent from the Ancestors of the Old World and the New World. This relative was the brother of my Newton grandfather from back in the early 1860s. A lot of my father's line began to really reach back into the really distant past, and then my mother's genealogy gurus piled in as well. Lo and behold…we found a nice German girl…in Franklin County, Tennessee who told her daddy that she had a nice Anglo (English-speaking) boy who was interested in meeting her family. This would be around 1830.

    The boy was named Asa Grant…a cousin of a guy who would later wind up wearing a blue uniform and always having a scruffy beard. The girl's nickname was 'Meli', short for "Amelia". And her surname was…...Limbaugh, essentially drawn from the blood of many generations of people from Saxony, in deep eastern Germany.

     Peter Limbaugh, the father, was third generation American, but still very German. He had brothers and a father who had continued to the west and settled at a place that would come to be named Cape Girardeau, Missouri. All lines of that family were competent people, prosperous, and hard-working. And so, according to my genealogical advisor, Rush Limbaugh and I are Ist cousins, three times removed. And finally, sparing all in the audience any further anti-climactic or pointless conjecture, you know why my Uncle Billy looked very much like his kin, a fellow named Rush Hudson Limbaugh, III… My Uncle Billy left at a very young age…51, from pneumonia. My eldest brother left at the same age, nearly the same time.

     Not long ago, my middle brother left to be with the Angels, and I was given the honour of having delivered the Eulogy at the elegant Austin Club, block or two from the impressive and imposing Capitol building in downtown Austin, Texas.   Several hundred gathered to hear three other friends and me remind the folks of my brother's legacy of establishing much of what became the Republican Engine in Texas, and the subsequent "Republicanisation of Texas" during these times.

     

      And now Rush is gone…along with all forbearers of the Newton, Christian, Neal, and Chism (Chisholm) tribes as they relate to me. It has been quite a ride. Thanks one and all for putting up with this recounting…but it was an interesting episode in the panoply provided by Texas, and our little place in NoWhere, Mexico.

 EL GRINGO VIEJO

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RACIAL CONTROVERSY AND IMMIGRATION!!! The mainstream media reminds you what to think

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(UP DATED:  At the risk of revealing my paranoia, we have noticed that over the past 18 months or so, peculiar changes occur in our texts after publication.  We have also noticed that other parties, with whom we might communicate now and then, have taken note of such events.   We have tried to follow, somewhat religiously, normal compliance with rules of grammar and spelling, although we confess to "Britianicising" our parlance, just for the fun of it.

     Our concern, however, is simply that we actually re-read, proof, seek correct spelling when in doubt, and attempt to punctuate phrases and construct to the best of our ability.   Increasingly, we notice that invariably there are amendments to our text.  For now, I shall chalk it up to voltage variation…a small problem down here in retro-reality Texas.

     We certainly doubt that the minions of (Sir Edmund) Hillary Rodham and His Majesty Father Obamaham are playing "dancing puppets", although there are others much more intelligent such as John Kerry who commonly flies three hundred and eighty five billion miles a week to inform us dolts that there is climate change because of Republicans.

     Thanks for your attention.  Please excuse the overreaching comparisons and exaggerations. 

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    We had the misfortune to read a little notice in our pitiable local newspaper wherein the Associated Press laments that someone named Chris Harrison, who hosts something called "The Bachelor" has been driven from his position and has been forced to resign from his "position", apparently because of a position that he assumed without having been fully sanitised by the Powers of Rightness and Wrongness, Inc.

     It seems that he confessed to "Excusing historical racism" and therefore was requiring himself to fall upon his sword.   Lamentably it seems that the hapless loon was so stupid as to allow or be in the presence of someone who said something that had something that might have, in a convoluted way, implied or construed something that had something to do with wearing a formal gown that was designed for a formal ball in some Southern precinct, and all for a scene about a formal  ball scene…you know…"an antebellum plantation themed ball" type of formal ball scene.

     Worse, of course, was the fact that the silly girl, Rachael Kirkconnell as an actress, was so wantonly arrogant and unconcerned about the irremediable damage that had been caused by her wearing a costume that was made to be worn by an Indian girl.   Mr. Harrison, at first, was extremely disappointed that Miss Kirkconnell was condemned by all the right people because of her offensive aggression against Native Americans' sensitive senses.   As the minutes passed however, Mr. Harrison learned that his insensitivity had caused further insensitivity that resulted in what is known as "Insensitivity Meltdown  Insensitivity Syndrome  (ISIS)".

     Literally hundreds and thousands of ambulances were seen throughout this Solar System that is so terribly enfeebled by simultaneous plagues of simultaneous Solar System Cooling and Solar System Warming  (SSC and SSW).  And now this…when will they ever learn?   Where are the Kingston Trio singing lecturers now…when we need them?

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     Next we have something that also might throw another log on the fire of this Solar System.   To begin, we have the scene of a newly elected President of the United States issuing suddenly Orders of a Royal…bypassing anything like a participation by a Chamber of Deputies, a House of Lords, a Congress of Congressmen, or perhaps a Senate of Senators.  This is, perhaps, a welcome event to some, but to others who are used to some kind of Congressional / Executive / Judicial branches of government arrangement…along with certain sovereignty of the various States composing a nation such as the United States of America, it is troubling.

      We have a fellow who somehow managed to win an election for the Presidency by hiding in the 8th story basement of his Blunderbunker.  That he won a nationwide election against a huffing and puffing hufferpuffer is laudable…or not. It is, however, a bit strange that a certifiable incompetent could reel off 40 or 50 Executive Orders…without benefit of clergy, Congress, Sir Edmund Hillary Rodham's permission, or even a telescope or an out-of-date cellular telephone.

     True enough, all of the "Executive Orders" were Peron and/or Castro like gestures…devoid of consultation, debate, and/or analysis.  We can at least point out that Biden managed to issue more Executive Orders that the previous five Presidents before him…during their first three weeks or so.  We mean Biden's issuances were greater than all five COMBINED!!!!

Suffice to say, Biden's "Executive Orders" were vacuous, ill-timed, ruinous as in the events pertaining to the transcontinental gas line and certain other acts, but…whose counting?   Everything will be a lot better after we summon enough life-boats for 300,000,000 people.

More Later.   Thanks for being here when it counts.

EL GRINGO VIEJO

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GRUMPY OLD MAN THINGS

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       A recurring bother has almost but not quite caused me to stop listening to fancy-doozy television broadcasters and broads who are also casters when they are reading their scripts.   They call it news, you humble servant calls it something else.   Newspapers at all levels…weeklies, dailies, regionals, nationals, etc.,  and the radio - television folks do this, apparently everywhere in this solar system.

     When a dumbo holds up a bank and drives fifty miles over there somewhere followed by fifty three automobiles with flashing lights and police identifiers naming sixteen different communities and counties…the dumbo should pull over and get ready for a lecture.   He might as well take out his driver's license that hasn't been up-dated for nine years.  His excuse will be that he couldn't get a new one while he was in prison last time.

     All of that is reasonable.   The 103 officers who just ran the guy down, probably saving his life and those lives of several others, can head for their favourite diner and tell Myrtle Lou and Candi Ann all about the adventure.  They, We … I … all are happy no one was injured or killed.

     On the evening news…and in to-morrow's front page, however the news will come out.  The black and white print…maybe a photo of the dolt and his costabularian custodians carry the news.   There will certainly be said or entered in to the newspapers the following, "…and he appeared before the magistrate for preliminary hearing at booking.  After the interview in the court, the judge…"…gave the defendant a bond of 30,000 dollars…".

 

     SCREAMBLOODYMURDER!!!!!

    The dumbo who was detained was not given a stick of chewing gum, a Holy Rosary, or a B-52 bomber to drive home…or the hot date he always wanted with Hillary Clinton. HE WAS GIVEN A HOLDING TANK IN THE HOOSEGOW!!!

   He was NOT "given a bond", as an award for his fancy driving for which he gained seven citations, two of which were felony grade!!

     To guarantee his appearance in court at the time appointed, and   much later, during the days after detention, perhaps an attorney can arrange for the necessary release bond that will satisfy the conditions of the court as well as the bonding agency.

        Sometimes a bond setting can take a couple of hours, for minor matters, for instance, but for more serious crimes, haggling can take a month sometimes if the case is particularly cruel or depraved.

   The the judge, the prosecuting attorney, and the person being charged with the serious misdemeanour or felony will come so an agreement about the terms, and this is called a "setting" …it is not "giving" a dumbo or an innocent arrested guy a bond.

      The News people should then say or write, "Judge Garcia set bond at 25,000 dollars due to the fact that there were also outstanding warrants against Daryle Dumbo concerning arson incident in the County Hospital's first-floor restrooms. The cost to repair that damage appears to be well over one million dollars, and Mr. Dumbo was the only person to enter and was the seen leaving the restroom area  on security camera less than two minutes before the fire alarms began ringing."

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     Now, turning to people who seem to like to talk with their mouths and not their brains, we always seem to have an entertaining episode when we listen to leftists, the demo-commies, the "liberals", the 'democratic socialists (a contradiction of terms , to be sure), and all those who lecture me because I take exception to the idea that some brain-dead galoot who is 6' 8" and 240 pounds is playing against one of my granddaughters in…say…a varsity basketball game.

     Those five girls will probably never break 5' 9", one of them might break 5' 1o" even though they all seem like their height might make a run for it.   Your chronicler is 6' 2".

   The 6' 8" brain-dead galoot decided last summer, perhaps, that he is a "transgendered" brain-dead galoot and he learned from his advisor, M. Mysterectess that in fact this 6' 10" Gerbix is a transgenderess.

      It is fairly certain that sometime before my demise, we will have the Translympics and no one will watch.

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     Finally, and for good purpose, it is necessary to bellyache about the stupidity and utter blather almost all Democrats muster, especially when they attempt to wax eloquent.   They also demonstrate a certain je ne sais quoi  -  perhaps a sense of demonstrating great posture and emphasis being co-mingled with blithering bilge that could bore a baboon and a bug biter at the same bell.  Amazing, Grace.

     While they dig up old Trump again and drag him down to the gallows again and hang him, we shall see if the knot slips again.  So,  please allow me to finish with this quiet entreaty for the sake of the readers.   The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court would normally preside over a matter of a high official, such as a President, in office during his term or held position.   The present Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. somewhat less than politely refused to serve because he felt that it was imbecilic to find a President guilty when that President is not the President.   These proceedings were strictly made as a type of medicine designed to help deranged people believe the bilge that is being issued forth from the "prosecution" before, during, and after this "court proceeding".   

Adam Schiff
Mr. Mendacious is just one of his 
many titles.
His image appears here for no
particular reason

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     What is being described by the   For instance, the "judge" of this proceeding  was referred to as the "Chief Justice" on several occasions by overdosing reporters and even members of the "Prosecution".   Simple errors, and perhaps I am small for ridiculing simpletons who make simple errors, but the first impeachment was a dog and pony show. doing what has become, apparently, a warm-up for this second dog and pony show.

     Adam Schiff, above and people such as Patrick Leahy are actually two of the more acceptable members involved in this new Impeachment and Judgement process.   After all, Schiff, as one among many nincompoops, can pour out barrels of sludge about all the info he has on Trump dealing with Putin, and a person has to admire that kind of pointless, slobbering, an bellowing.

Patrick (Leakey) Leahy
United States Senator
presides over the Trump
re-lynching presently
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   Poor Mister Leahy…affectionately known as "Leakey Leahy", is the judge of overseer of the proceeding.  He is so named because of his habit of passing around top secret and highly sensitive material.   It's the kind of fellow Democrats would like to have at the helm of such an important pair of people as incoherent and deranged as Nancy Pelosi and Chucky Schemer, who brought this matter forward.

    En lieu of the Chief Justice  of the Supreme Court, the good Senator Leahy   is given this very delicate task and ever so important charge with the premise that it not leave the room, unless Leaky Leahy approves…secretly.

     His age and his lack of honor and good sense combine to make him a nincompoop similar to Mr. Schiff, and approximately ninety per cent of the entire Democrat Congressional consist.  So we can expect a one sided settlement that results in nothing because to convict in this matter, as we all know, it will require sixty-seven votes, and such an event is very, very improbable.

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More later.   Thanks for the attention of all.   We have appreciated the renewal of old friends and we are enjoying a peculiar increase in European, Japanese, and Latin-American following as well!!

El GRINGO VIEJO

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Legacy of a Hero - A brief story about the life of Henry Clay Reeves Davis

 Writer's explanation:

     This entry in the seemingly never ending roll-out of commentary by your humble writer is of particular importance.  What I considered to be a high honour and complement, an individual of high note, and deservedly so, gave me the charge to write a few notes concerning what would be good words or short phrases to describe one of the very most important figures in the establishment and impulse of progress in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas.   As a Texan, it was not only my pleasure but certainly my obligation to render opinion to this man who is a direct descendant of Henry Clay Reeves Davis -  Man of Adventure, Man of Noblesse Oblige, and  Man of Humility

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   Allow me to just point out a few views Henry Clay Davis gives my "inner understanding"  of that incredibly fascinating individual.

 I.   Adventurer

      The first notion I had was the title of Adventurer.  Any person who would have travelled from the refined and established place such as Kentucky, striking out for a wilderness such as Texas had to be a person who would have be willing to endure discomfort, adapt to different races and ethnicities never before encountered, eat strange concoctions, endure weather and climatic extremes, and so forth…to the extent that most people of that time preferred frankly to "stay home".   Much is said about those who pressed westward, it is true.  But the fact is that the huge majority of people in America at that time were satisfied where they were.

     Therefore, I would classify any person who travelled from Kentucky into the wilds of Texas, considering all of the challenges and changes to be confronted, and to stay in Texas successfully…would certainly qualify that person as an adventurous soul.

*     An "Adventurer" is the person who qualifies for the title, not so much
by wandering around and having personal fling.  The adventurer is a person who a  history of taking that chance, and striving for that goal that proves a man (or woman) worthy of being known as an "Adventurer" because of accomplishment of a positive goal.   It is not a task for one who relaxes upon his experiences of little import and less accrued success.

*     Henry Clay Reeves Davis went from Georgia to Kentucky...then into the
essentially unknown and unpredictable area little known or understood
during those times.    Texas was foreboding, marauding and fierce Indians of various nations, a foreign type of government was the source of law, and the certainty of information was largely shrouded in misty portraits.*
      Its description could have been styled as the old story about the four blind men trying to identify a camel by the touch of their fingers.  The truth of the conditions in Texas had to be experienced and not fantasied.

*     As one studied the nature of Henry Clay Davis, it was apparent his
"adventurous nature" always seemed to have purpose.  He was the kind of man who understood that adventure was a matter of gaining knowledge, and taking great risks with one's life and lucre.   And...in my opinion...a true adventurer values his / her life and lucre while conquering and adapting to different challenges of geography as well as the cultures*

       Henry Clay Davis certainly had positive impact upon his companions and associates as well as upon his possessions and upon the land wherein he dwelt.

   _______________*II.   Noblesse

   Equal to the title "Adventurer", my impression of Henry Clay Davis
is of a person who carried a streak of "Nobility"...of service and deference, even as he was striving to establish a significant presence in his new settings.   We do not include the pretentious presence that reveals only a shallow sense of formality by watching men with "flair" and "courtly manners".  

*     Henry Clay Davis found himself involved with people of his own
kind...people of a Southern culture which included non-Southern people who enry Clay Davis developed a comfortability with people of his own stripe as well as others of different ethnicities and races.   Many folks might have thought that Davis must have been a good student and learned Spanish from books and stern schoolmarms.   But such was not the case!

 *     His mother was actually a lady by the name of Catarina Regdon de Fuerte who married Amos Davis early in the 1800's.  Amos lamentably died at a very young age, but thankfully he had the opportunity to bring forth a son about whom we write at this time.   La Señora Catarina came to America as an indentured servant, although it was noted that she was obviously well-schooled and poised in the nature of civility and manners.   It was said that she came from a good family but had left home to avoid an arranged marriage she did not want.

*      When she married and subsequently bore this remarkable son, she taught him the elaborate and educated Spanish that she herself spoke as well-studied and exhibited the style of a person who was well cultured.   She taught her son the language of her native Spain and it is certain that she was also polylinguistic.

*      Therefore,  one might assume, and correctly so, that Henry Clay Davis took the choice of going to Texas at a time that many folks would have thought the area to be too dangerous.  While in Texas, Davis quickly learned the ropes and the best route to adventure  and prosperity. He joined the formal militia...an army so to speak, and was involved in engagements with the likes of the Comanche, Kiowa, Kickapoo, and Apache among others.

 *     His flexibility caused him a few problems as well as considerable solutions.   For instance, during the Winter of 1842, and during the Somerville expedition, chasing General Adrian Woll back to Laredo on the Rio Bravo (Grande), the Texians learned quickly that they had made an error in judgement.    The town was fairly active and it was heavily garrisoned with Mexican reserves.  It was also within one to three days of over 1,200 active infantry and cavalry, leaving the Somervelle's overall command structure grossly at the disadvantage.

 *      During the time there on the Rio Grande, Davis had occasion to become involved in a fight of sorts wherein he had called down some Texian
soldiers who were harassing Mexican soldiers and civilians while hanging
around uselessly, with no orders of any import, he determined to abandon the pointless hanging around in Laredo.  He struck out, heading downriver along the course of the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo del Norte to the Mexicans).   One thing led to another, and finally, after learning about the supposedly perpetually verdant farms downriver, he struck out, heading east. 
    
 *     He was actually moving, alone and once again, totally surrounded by literally thousands of regular and national guard type Mexican soldiers of mediocre to excellent order.  These soldiers were spread over six or seven Texas- sized counties.  Davis considered his "jaunt" just a self-guided tour of the Rio Grande downstream.   He was leaving and heading downriver to see what he could see.

*       Simultaneously, a ranking Texian officer, Col. Tom Green and a body of
some 300 effectives, began a drive down the Rio Grande, looking for some kind of worthwhile fight.   It was apparent that Henry Clay Davis had parted company with the Texian armed forces at a propitious moment…being two weeks removed from the Tom Green Folly.

*      Riding alone, and well outside of the military Zona de Trequa (temporary treaty zone), Davis was in jeopardy.   Somewhere between Camargo, Mier, and a place named San Felipe de Jesus de China (to-day known as China) our friend Henry Clay Davis was detained by a column of Mexican cavalry.  He was transferred to a town named San Fernando, centre'd in the very middle part of the State of Tamaulipas.  (All of this area had been part of Nuevo Santander Province the later stages of the Spanish Colonial times).

*     San Fernando had significant Mexican lancers, artillery, and infantry and Henry Clay Davis wound up there with his "escort".  It was the Mexican military's reconnaissance  that the Texian rump-group coming into Mier, back up on the Rio Grande (known as the Rio Bravo del Norte to the Mexicans), had assaulted various small towns as they went down the Rio Grande.
*    It wasn't long, however, before the Mexican military learned that the
Texians had engaged Mexican Army units in the city of Mier, about 80 miles downstream from Laredo.  During a bitterly cold Christmas battle, lasting about two days, the Texians, numbering 303 actives, were reduced by one third (depending on the counts).   It was a catastrophe caused by arrogance and,  frankly, by the Texian military leadership.

*      The remainder were made prisoners of war, and trekked to the dreaded Castillo Perote, deep into the distant mountainous precincts in Vera Cruz State. The location was not far from the precincts of the famously notorious Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the general and politician who famously tormented the Mexican condition for many years.  

 *     Luckily for Henry Clay Davis the Mexican military authority admonished the "wandering soul" and ordered him to return to where Camargo is to this day and to continue back to Texas.   As the days and months would go by, Henry Clay Davis did return, but in keeping with his nature, he took careful note of the people and *the settlers, their activities and crops and all such things that entertain a man with a lively eye and discerning ability of observation.  His capture had turned out to be, truly, a blessing in disguise.

*     This trek back to the north caused a series of events to be put in place.  Davis passed by the mouth of the San Juan River where it emptied into the Rio Grande.   Davis thought deeply about making a regional complex with river transport, large stretches of tillable, fertile land and great extensions of rangeland fit for both rough and fine cattle.  Manufacturing could be brought in due to the ready ability of the population to learn mechanics and such.  Almost all were literate in Spanish, and a significant number could speak, read, and write English as well.*

*      Incredibly enough, the War with Mexico beginning in 1846 and ending in 1848 crossed over the lands and peoples Henry Clay Davis had been considering forming into his great new Garden of Eden.  His idea included the development of a commercial centre tying together two nations and essentially forming a North American entity that would rival Europe's complexity.   Davis had also fortuitiously  married a woman with a considerable dowery, named Hilaria de la Garza Falcon.  She held several large "porciones" (extensive "long-lots" sometimes exceeding 10,000 acres or more).
 

 *    All the porciones fronted on the Rio Grande, mainly on the Texas side of the river.  The watercourse had an almost permanent flow, helped a bit by the tributary from Mexico named the Rio San Juan.   Davis began almost immediately building a family as well as changing the land known as Carnestolendas (Shrove Tuesday) into an urban and agricultural centre almost overnight.

*      Luckily, with the Mexican - American War underway, most of the
activity passed on through, with the American forces winding up marking time in Monterrey, having suffered a blunting by Mexican forces just beyond Saltillo.   

*       With the peace treaty in place by 1848, the bellicosity came to an official end, the area around Carnestolendas (Rio Grande City - Camargo complex) could worry about bandits and political "generals" like Juan Nepomuceno Cortina Gosencochea, ...or just "Cortina"(b. 1824 - d. 1894) in the vernacular of the locals.   He styled himself a "general" and at times was actually commissioned by proper Mexican authority, more or less.  Henry Clay Davis was integral in the effort to neutralise the volatile trouble-maker.

*       My oldest brother, and I, his helper, spent much time Starr County back in 1965 taking advantage of interviewing various of the old timers.   It is said that Cortina came to the home of Davis, and threatened his wife Hilaria, declaring that he was going to kidnap her.   Hilaria ran him off, some said with her pistol, and it is said, she did so lamenting ever having been known to be his second cousin.   Davis had a good laugh at that one.

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III.   Humble  (Humility)

       Finally, we employ the noble word "Humble" in the sense of putting good things first, of providing for his own and others.   My aforementioned brother Milton, who did his Master's Thesis titled "Certain Aspects of the Political History of Starr County", collected many old timers' remembrances concerning Henry Clay Davis's acts of generosity and service.
*       There was one little old lady who showed us pictures of Dona Hilaria and documents of Davis...as she droned on and on about how he helped this old lady here, and aided in rebuilding a damaged home of an old man there…etc.  Her collection and memories of her forbearers was fascinating, especially since she had so many pictures and letters.   Considering that she had never known Davis, who died in 1866, it was as if she were clairvoyant, or so it seemed to us.

*       I shall end, humbly, by not droning on pertaining to this very special characteristic that pertained to Henry Clay Davis.  His many acts speak for themselves.   My time is done, the issue is yours to do your pleasure or application to the topic.*

     Thanks for the opportunity to be involved a bit in the matters pertaining to a truly significant figure in the history of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, of Nuevo Santander, and of the Republic and State of Texas.

David Christian Newton

3 February 2021

Mission, Texas

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Where to Begin…and where to end?

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     We have to disregard appearances.   That guy laying over there in gutter clutching his whiskey bottle…wearing tattered clothes…bearded by the aid of nine unbathed days…is in all probability a fellow who is down and probably out of his luck.   But in these times, it is interesting how many folks fall under the "poverty line" or who have numerous children lacking adequate nourishment due to having been exploited by the wealthy.

     What has gone wrong when the richest nation on Planet Earth has this ever increasing crush of starvation and want?  Lady Gaga sings for the Democrats and a few foot-kissing Republicans while wearing an outfit that cost over one-hundred billion dollars so that the adoring chosen ones could adulate Lady Gaga and other such superlative representatives of the Human Race.

     My mother and her family were just like that…there is a bit of a place nearby her home in Tennessee that tried to keep up with what was expected of prosperous and/or respectable people:

This is a fairly typical multi-congregational Baptism down

 by the River…probably western North Carolina or eastern

 parts of southeast Tennessee…probably in the early 1950s.

   Before all these people are through they will have been

 full-immersed baptised, especially the folks wearing white

clothes.  Most of these events were held by individual

congregations, but there were Pan-congregational where

all races, denominations, and social positions could be

seen praising Jesus and conquering the Devil.

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     It was a different time obviously, and we are certain that there was plenty of ostentation and puffery there and elsewhere during those time.  However,  one can tire finally of a complex and traditional culture being steadily denigrated by the haughty who thrive upon being self-important .   On one hand our people might be doing the degrading on their own.  But on the other hand, the progressive and liberal folks might be falsely stereotyping the traditional group because they are "backwards" or "in-bred" or worse yet, "Republican".

     Of course we do not wish to denigrate "reasonable Republicans" who were poured into the mold of stalwarts such as Elizabeth Cheney, the third ranking person in the Republican portion of the House of Representatives in Washington D.C.    BUT, when said ranking member of such an august body does a double-cross, stabs fellow Republicans both in the front and back, it is somewhat inevitable that the lower unwashed elements within the Party of Lincoln would take exception to her actions.   This writer would be among those unwashed elements.

     As an aside, sometimes it is worth noting that even Father Abraham Lincoln stabbed the Republicans in front and back when he established a similar but independent party in 1864.  For the elections in the North during the event s of 1864, the Republicans had to stand in line behind moderates, independents, semi-documented aliens and Democrats (loyal to the Union) who formed the new Lincoln political organisation formally named "The National Union Party".

   The Vice-Presidential candidate that Lincoln preferred and selected was Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee who, as a matter of fact, was a Democrat.   Johnson had never removed himself from his position as Senator for Tennessee, and so carried forth as Tennessee's senatorial representative to Washington D.C. even during the depths of the War, in Tennessee as well as scores other pitiable places.

      Andrew Johnson was a true anachronism.  He was a poor man from rural  North Carolina who bounced around in various saloons, apprenticed at one time before "taking off", and finally landing in a remote part of Tennessee where he managed to make a living as a clothier, specialising in coats and trousers.

     He did not like Negroes, free or slave, all that much but he truly hated wealthy people.   He was a life-long Democrat in the Andrew Jackson mode which proved his proclivity to admire people of a lower order.  He considered himself to be "one of them".  He ran for a position as Senator from the State of Tennessee, some thought it to be a humorous folly, but peculiar voting rules caused him to be elected to the  American Union's Senate as a Democrat.

Lincoln at his 2nd Inauguration in 1864.

  To his left is the Vice-President elect,
 Andrew Johnson.
   Lincoln would shortly be dead by the hand
of John Wilkes Boothe, a famous  actor, who
 also had a burning hatred for Lincoln.
 Andrew Johnson spent the un-expired term
of President Lincoln avoiding impeachment
 attempts by the Radical  Republican elements
 during the post-war period.  
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     He was chosen by Abraham Lincoln to be his candidate for Vice-President in the 1864 Presidential elections.   It was thought that by unifying the two major parties, Lincoln could press for a somewhat more amiable re-entry for a defeated Confederacy to rejoin the Union.  The assassination in April of 1865 put all of that into a far pantry, whose door would never open again.

     Johnson's fame, more than anything, was that he was known to have been sober once or twice during all of his time as a United States Representative and as a Senator.   Because of the assassination by John Wilkes Booth and his little gaggle of losers, Lincoln was buried back in Illinois. Andrew Johnson would serve out Lincoln's second term, arguing with the  Radical Republican element and keeping them at bay with continuous political manoeuvring.

     All of the above is simply a preparation  for the reader to be aware that a cold wind cometh.  We find ourselves now guided by the hand of another Democrat nincompoop who somehow stumbled into the front door of the Presidential Palace.  Mr. Biden has been impaired for several score years in several score ways and seems to be on the verge of finishing his degree in non compos mentis at every public venue where he might appear.

  We were given to understand that Good Ol'
Joe was looking for his driver's license at
this moment.  
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     We do have to give Good Ol' Joe credit for taking advantage of every possible chance to grab and snuzzle women's (and girl's) hairdo's and give "shoulder rubs" for free. 

     It is something like a cross between Dracula and King-Kong meeting and "helping"  your 10-year old daughter cross the street when there are no cars anywhere.

   Joe's problem seems to be that he always seems to do these things when he is in front of an audience and 2o or so national and international television cameras.

     So, here we are, all over again.   Americans of the normal, patriotic, self-reliant nature…who have conservative inclinations and aspirations, seem to do fairly well in the "American structure" of economic participation.  Things were bumping along fairly well until the Red Chinese Plague came upon us.   It seems that matters became worse after the television networks got through with their explanations about how many masks a person has to wear while taking a shower, and how many years children must stay out of school before the next millennium runs out of calendar pages.

     The approach to an epidemic has fit well into the intrusive instincts of the "I know better than thou" control-freak socialists.  One must remember, if he ever knew, that we studied the Asian Flu contamination at the end of World War I.       As the United States crawled out of the World War mess of Mr. Wilson, the Asian Flu managed to kill 650,000 people, when the population of the United States was only slightly more than 100,000,000 souls.

 

Alarming
degenerate dancing!!
"The Charleston"
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     Without wishing to seem ghoulish we are now standing at 430,000 dead based on a universe of 330,000,000 souls now resident and/or citizens of the United States of America.   Our present per capita mortality statistics, as they relate to the issue of the Red Chinese Flu are still rather pale in terms of per capita deaths of the late nineteen-teens and early 192os.

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     We move on now to a bit of opining and wonder.  

     There are many adjunct observations that one might make concerning this Flu Rampage…like the Roaring Twenties that brought us The Charleston and other such risqué dancing steps and the proclivity to drink alcohol when Woodrow Wilson and Margaret Sanger had ordered the prohibition of the use of Demon Alcohol for the rest of perpetuity in 1919…by order of a Constitutional Amendment requiring what was then referred to as  "The Prohibition".

   A countermanding of said Amendment took place in 1933 by an act of Congress, pushed by the new President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.    America remained in a "Great Depression" from 1929 through 1941, in spite of all of FDR's best efforts to cure the "Great Depression".   Roosevelt managed to take advantage of a convenient war when the Japanese decided to attack Pearl Harbour on the 7th of December, 1941 bringing America into World War II.

     The re-establishment of the sale of alcohol did not salvage the American economy…it was, in fact, the brutal Second World War of  the late 1930s up to the mid-1940s.   The dismal effect of denying alcohol to the public guaranteed the development of "black market" for Demon Rum.  Bad liquor was distilled and brewed up that wound up killing many, many folks, and few were made to pay for it.

     We did wind up with a relatively efficient cadre of thugs who could terrorise and control large bodies of individual who either wanted alcohol or money…or both.  While there still is black marketting in the alcohol business, we know to-day that drugs…illicit, prescription, fake, legal, or howsoever they arrive at the doorstep…it is almost alway certain to avoid and/or deny the use of them.

     And yes…even as you read this, nodding your head…you know your Mary Jane or that man over there who knows his son will be a Major League pitcher some day…both of those children might be dealing with a drug pusher even as I type.

     PLEASE WATCH OVER YOUR FOLKS.

      Then finally, I turn to the final topic of this polyglot of opinion, knowledge, speculation, despair and hope.   It is a matter of considerable concern to me.  We briefly dealt with the issue of the man who escaped Impeachment and conviction by action of the Lower House of Congress and the Upper house, the Senate, when Andrew Johnson had essentially lost control of much of the administration business of the United States of America. 

    Johnson had also lost much of his mental ability due to copious consumption of combustible material such as Tennessee whisky.  But he was tenacious enough to hold off repeated assaults by the Radical Republicans who despised him…primarily because he was a Democrat chosen by Lincoln late in the War Between the States in order to attempt an opening to the Southern parties to finally lay down their arms and "come to reason" .   That entire period, from 1864 - 1868 befouled as it was by the assassination of Lincoln, left a cloudy period that Americans of to-day would find incredibly incredible.

      We like to compare Lincoln and Johnson to Jefferson Davis, who was the President of the Confederate States of America.   For instance Abraham Lincoln advocated for the general abolition of the condition of forced servitude (slavery) but he was also very much opposed to the idea that the manumitted and newly freed should not be automatically eligible for the voting franchise.

     Andrew Johnson, who was a strange creature who despised wealthy Southerners and who also was quite certain that Negroes were not quite human, and he did not like being around them either.   He and Lincoln were much more alike than different.

       For instance, during the War Between the States, an incident occurred wherein a gaggle of well-dressed women, including Caucasians, Negresses, and manumitted Coloured Ladies were tripping along the sidewalks in Richmond on their way to some matter that might concern women.  Suddenly they all came upon a horrible scene where they witnessed a Negro man beating a very young Negro boy with a cane or stick (accounts varied).  The gaggle of women, startled at first, then charged the Negro man, took the child under cover of their own protection, and began condemning the man in no uncertain terms.

     The constabulary was notified, and in the meantime Mrs. Davis, the wife of the President of the Confederate States of America took, in her mind, legal possession of the boy.  She lectured and warned the mean old man that he was not to ever be in the presence of the boy or any of the ladies present ever again!

     Within days, after consulting with authorities, she and the ladies learned that the child could not be extracted so easily.  There had to be grounds, procedures, and such messy matters.  Mrs. Davis declared then that she was moving to adopt the child as her own…and she declared him a "free man" and that he had quarter and family at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson Davis,

and further, he would be quartered and cared for equally as the children of the President and his Wife. Besides, she declared, he will have mates of his age and we have learned that he reads and writes quite well for a child of eight years.

Jefferson Finis Davis
President, Confederate States of 
America…and much, much more. 
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     As the War tended to a final miserable end, the Davis family, along with a contingent of Confederate soldiers attempted to gain an exit from the pursuing  Yankee blue columns.  Interestingly enough, the Negro boy, whose name was Jim Limber (Davis), was travelling with the family…as a member of the family…and ostensibly managed an escape and according to the lore of the times made his way into the Bahamas.

   Davis himself was captured, treated rather badly, and remanded to a prison where he rotted for two years.  During the succeeding quarter-century Davis was almost continuously involved in the going and coming, to Europe and all points in the United States as well as southern Canada, striving to maintain his dignity as well as trying to make a living.   He was involved in many business ventures, some were somewhat successful, while others…not so much.

     Jefferson Davis died in December of 1889 of malaria and flu…and was finally buried in Richmond, Virginia…the place where he had attempted to serve as a vital and decisive President of the Southern Nation.   We would recommend that folks should review various tomes concerning the man Jefferson…a trying voyage through misery, service, accomplishment, and tribulation.

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