Everything's okay, and then the wheels fall off....

     Normally, it is the intent of the Old Gringo to write three or four....more if possible.....entries during my time up in Texas.    This time things were complicated by a problem that Charlie Chaplin could not have choreographed.   Perhaps the Three Stooges....but, you be the judge.

      While typing away with my normal braying and grumping, the television went dead, the computer stopped working, although the rest of the electrical stuff in the house continued to function.    I checked the land-line telephone and it was dead.     So, it was apparent that the TW bundle service had gone North for the Summer.   I waited for a bit.....but by early evening, it was apparent that the service was not coming back on line.   We called the somewhat cumbersome, somewhat effective automated service request line, were connected to a "customer service" person named Stephen, and after he determined that he could not solve the problem, he set a service time.    From Wednesday night, we would have to wait until Saturday, mid-day, to have a technician arrive.      Stephen did say that there was a chance that a solution could be found on Thursday, but if not, we would have to wait until Saturday.

       No solution was found on Thursday.    So, We waited.   Finally Saturday arrived.    Things went fairly close to programming....My technician called to indicate that he was arriving within the next 20 minutes.    He found his way to our little hidey hole in downtown, parked, and presented his credentials.

        I diverge a bit to point out here that whenever we hear a person say "All Mexicans are....." it would be advisable not to listen further, because the speaker is usually a jackass.   My technician's name is Carlos Luis Wong.

       As I passed his identification badge back, I asked if he were part of the Wong family of Reynosa and Tampico...people who are highly regarded in the medical field in Mexico.    He seemed surprized that some old Gringo would know about such things, but did say that many of his family people were and are doctors, both in Reynosa and especially Tampico.   Mr.  Wong does carry a bit of Chinese appearance still, but could have "passed" for any number of ethnicities and even like the Hong Kong folks, of course. 

       Tampico is an important port city, as we know.   Wherever in the world one finds significant ports, especially "between the Tropics", we will encounter a small but important Chinese community.   Sometimes it will be embedded genealogically, but always it will be present in the professions and in heavy commerce....usually industrial cleaning, laundry services, fish procurement, marketting, and processing, and medical professions.    The same can be said for almost all national capitals in Latin America...whether they be coastal or inland.
      In any regard, there is no doubt that my technician was a superior member of the human race.    He was affable, competent, and quick to understand the nature of the problem.   What he diagnosed was stunning. 
        He checked our equipment....all was well.   Then he went ....as we say in the South....around back....and checked out the fixtures and fittings of Time-
Warner's equipment.   Imagine his surprize when he located the problem.   All the connections for Time-Warner existing or potential clients in the area had been disconnected.    This was the result of a couple of contract morons, with a disconnect order for one of our nearby neighbours for the 6th of April...had arrived and, unable to determine which of the leads pertained to our neighbour....had disconnected eight (count 'em....8) Time-Warner cable connections.....I guess just to be on the safe side.      What amazes the Old Gringo even further is that six of these connections were active.....AND WE WERE THE ONLY ONES WHO WHINED AND MOANED TO THE SERVICE DEPARTMENT!!
      In any regard, we are up and running.    It was good to note that I had won another 1,000,000 Irish pounds in the Sweepstakes for the third time this month.....so I sent them my various bank account numbers and a couple of my social security numbers so that they couple deposit the money directly to my account.        The Prince of Swamboozi appreciates my helping him during these times of instability in his country.    He wants me to continue to deposit my money in his Swiss bank account #220 - 39A - 9494 (this is a secret account number).     Is it not a wondrous thing to be a member of the World Community?    And...the children....

      And by the way.....For all those who believe in FEMA, Hope, and Change, but not Saint Nicolas....you take care of your children...and grandchildren...and I shall take care of mine.


Once again, thank you for your attention, time, and interest.    We shall be making more observations and shipping other news your way during the coming days.
El Gringo Viejo 

Accepting That What is....Is...

     Made it back in yesterday.    McAllen had 103 F. for a record-setting high of 94 set back in 1955.     Brownsville made it up to 101 F. but did not break a record.    One-hundred degree days in March and early April are not common, but they are also not un-heard of.    I remember Frank Blair....who was the news and weather reader on the old Today show for NBC....when he had to report that McAllen had reached 101 F.  degrees on February 3rd...I think in 1959 or so....but Jack Lescouli and Dave Garroway would not believe it,

     The winds kicked in during the mid-afternoon as well.....dry, hot, and dusty.     We had various reporting stations with 50 mile-per-hour sustained winds (sustained velocity enduring one minute or longer).    The front went through....dry....and then the evening cooled off quickly and briskly.    Many places in South Texas were in the 50's this morning at the dawning.

       This high temperature phenomena is not caused so much by the hot sun beating down, or by Al Gore throwing pieces of broken dinosaur bones out in exactly the right direction and at the correct stage of the moon.   Here in South Texas, as well as at our little place in front of the mountains, this heating is caused by the descent of dry, continental air coming from the due west....falling off of the Mexican highlands.....and then coming down sharply in elevation until reaching at or near sea level.     Places near the coast lose their "sea-breeze advantage" because their winds are coming from the "wrong direction".    The air compresses as it falls....heats up that way as well as by travelling over already warmer terrain.....and the air-temperature shoots up...sharply.

      Sorry Al, but it has been going on for centuries....and although George Bush did not stop it from happening....you haven't done anything about it either.....so we might as well become accustomed to it all.

AND THEN:

      The 1st of April marked my father's 100th birthday.    He was born in Gwinner, Sargent County, North Dakota on that date in 1911.    Five years later he moved to South Texas with his mother (Esther Lee Christian) and his father (Norman Newton) where they would join up with the already in-place Peter Bonesteel Christian (Esther's father) who lived in the newly founded frontier town of Donna, Texas.       Those were hairy, scary, wild, and interesting days on the border with Mexico....with the Revolucion still pretty much underway and the opening of large tracts of previously undeveloped land being opened up to plow agriculture by the thousands of acres per month.

      During my father's life he went through being a late-in-life, pampered, only child born into very comfortable, monied circumstances....to being suddenly abandoned by his parents by death coupled with the calamity of the Great Depression.    During the earliest days of the collapse, his father essentially lost everything, primarily due to certain illegal acts and manipulations of banking interests both on the Border and back in North Dakota.   My father went into the Army, training in the mounted cavalry at Fort Sam Houston, and then serving back on the border as a cavalry soldier and officer....He married in 1933 and established himself in civilian life as a grove-care operator and farmer in area around Edinburg, Texas.    Grove care was an important, profitable, and gruelling business in the Lower Rio Grande Valley during those years....much of the profit coming during World War  II when citrus operators were pretty much under orders from the War Department to "Produce, Baby, Produce"....

      For almost a quarter-century, Milton Birchard Newton provided his grove care service and farmed cotton, vegetables, and corn, both on land he owned and land he would lease or use in return for payment on debts owed to him.  He became a school teacher during the early 1950's and finished his first degree.....gradually moving into a calling that had appealed to him....possibly because of the influence of his parents who were both studied and educated people.

      He became a full-time teacher at the secondary level, establishing a presence of positive effect at the Mission High School in Mission, Texas where he taught geography, history, economics, and civics for many years.   During this time he also finish a master's degree in psychology and began to consider administration in education....and perhaps even a move to Central Texas, around Austin.    It was a favourite area for both him and his wife, Nola Frances Neal.   By 1966 they had established themselves in Austin, and my father continued his studies at the University of Texas, completing an Ll.d. in psychology.....working as a guidance counselor at Del Valle, Texas...and then finally ending up as Superintendent of the Austin State School for the Mentally Retarded a position where he served for about seven years.

      There are hundreds...nay, thousands of antedotes....about my father's life that would interest folks...I shall continue to invest them in our widening audience as the days go by.    But, right now....

       We also celebrate my Compadre's birthday....my granddaughter's and her great-grandmother's birthday and mine all during these days.   It seems a shame that we no longer can really state our dates of birth on line...but I will allow that the three latter named individuals all have the same birthdate.   The first one is but a few short days earlier.    Quite a cluster.

FINALLY:

    And briefly, it will be next to impossible for my prized flamboyan trees to make a significant comeback this year.    After investing much useless optimism and hope, they are just not doing what is necessary to engendered further hope.   They have recovered to survive, but not to prosper....perhaps next year will be the charm.

More Later

The Old Gringo

Buying Things

     We have spent the morning spending money....one of my least favourite sports....ranking down around soccer and roller-derby.     The Old Gringo happens to live in Texas, along with about 25,000,000 friends, relatives, and neighbours.    The rest of the world lives either in Purgatory or Hell and wishes they could be here.   The Congress of the Republic of Texas is about to approve a bill requiring every voter to present a photographic identification that would be derived from a document that would prove his citizenship.

      Interestingly....the Anglos, Teutonics, Slavs, Nords, and other stripes, types, and mixes of these Texans approved of this overwhelmingly whether or not they have Indian blood or any other mixture.    Interestingly, the overwhelming majority of people of Mexican or Spanish or Latin descent, whether completely White or of mixed ancestry approve of the measure as evidenced by the Mexican-American Republican Caucus's endorsement.    Also, the overwhelming majority of people of Black African ancestry have also indicated approval, although their representatives have yet to go on record on the floor of the Congress of the Republic of Texas.

      The Republicans have over a 2/3's majority in the Congress and a seated Governor.   They are almost certain to move this bill to passage and signing  tomorrow.     Another bill is being presented that will require all candidates requesting votes in favour of the electors for a specific candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America, to present proof positive and with certification that the candidate under consideration is a natural born American Citizen.

       Another thing about Texas is the availability of access to the Grocery Stores known as H.E.B.      Established by H.E.Butt back in the late 1940's, they gradually came to be the final, high standard of what such stores should be.   Anyway, the Old Gringo was shopping for necessaries to take back down with me.    We might have to say grace over a meal, because, oddly enough,  we seem to have more visitors all of a sudden.     McAllen, Texas was said to have been the second of the modern era HEB stores to have been opened, I believe in 1952.....perhaps a year earlier.    You can imagine me entering a store with pneumatic, automatically opening doors.....and an interior where a person could actually (almost) see his breath....it was so cold.   It was the first fully air-conditioned business I had ever been in.
     My understanding is that Mr. Butt's mother had a grocery in Kerrville, up west of San Antonio.....that was the Anglo (Confederate) town, and a bit north of there is Fredericksburg, the German (Union) community....home of Admiral Nimitz.    Anyway, it is said that when Herbert came home from the Ist War he designed to expand, and went to Del Rio which was primarily Anglo & Mexican in background....because he ".....had had his fill of Germans"..
      That venture did not do so well....but learning processes are learning processes.   Before long he had successfully opened in Corpus Christi, Austin, San Antonio, and down on the Frontier in McAllen, Harlingen, and Brownsville.     For many years the Butts did not choose to sell beer and/or wine, even as cooking ingredients. (Some people in South Texas literally cannot make beans without putting a bottle of Pearl or Lone Star in the mix)
This was due to the fact that they were very staunch Southern Baptists, and lived by that prescription. 
     "Old Man Butt" was a very demanding taskmaster....quick to scold and have what amounted to red-faced tantrums when he encountered sloth, uncleanliness, or lack of dedication to duty.     Almost always the employee on the receiving end would say, "I deserved it.   He warned me, and he gave it to me just like he said."    But, he was generous, like a lot of cantankerous coots, and he played an even hand with the Mexican-American population.   Before long assistant store-managers and then full local operation managers had names like Hernandez and Garza and so forth.   (Before quotas & affirmative action, Mrs. Pelosi).
      Old Man Butt never knew this, but when I was very little...about four...we were waiting for the HEB to open in McAllen.   It was about 4 or 5 minutes after opening time.   An old Anglo man strode up to the automatic doors, step on the rubber entrance matting about 20 times...then did a two-footed stamping shuffle on the matting....and then commenced to clack-click-clack on the door with his money-clip.    I thought the glass was going to break.
      Finally a man came running to the door and flicked the necessary switches....and began to received the wrath..."I don't give a hoot about me being out there in the wind and sun!  But you have women and children out there...you have people who have places to go, things to do....you think they're supposed to be out there waiting on you to decide when you want to open this store.    I put that schedule on the door out there last month when we opened.....It wasn't a suggestion to you about when you should open more or less....It was my word to the customer that he would find the store open and ready for business at that time!!"
      My brother Milton turned to me...(we were sitting in the Willy's Jeep box-wagon)....and said, "That's a good lesson.   Make sure you do what the boss tells you to do, when he told you to do it".     I logged that into my computer forever.
      There are many HEB stores now in Mexico....and they are very popular.   The entry of HEB caused some good stores in Mexico...like Soriana....to become better, and counter intuitively, more profitable.   The competition has "lifted all boats on the same high tide"....but HEB remains the best among equals.  

This is the Headquarter areas of HEB's main offices in San Antonio, Texas

      One of my favourite ways to start the evening meal is with this Gaelic/English petition to the Lord....

 Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some would eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit!
 
      This is fairly easy to translate, but for those who would like to put it into a bit more modern English...it would read.   There are those who have food but cannot eat, and there are some who will to eat who cannot.    But....we have food and we can chew, so let the Lord be thanked!


AND THEN:
     The Old Gringo will be out for about three weeks.   You all need to write in and communicate with Diana concerning fine tuning of arrangements or making reservations...etc.     Things are calming down a bit....as each day goes by things seem a little better.    It  will never go back to 1957, but we are moving in that direction.   Our little corner still beckons any and all to take advantage of that peculiar tranquility that rests at the face of the Sierra Madre Oriental.....to see the sunset on those massive nearby ranges....and to count the billions of stars that seem to hover ten feet over your head in the early morning hours before sunrise.

We might make one more entry before departure.   Or not....Thanks for tuning in.....and Remember fellow OROG....the price you paid to read this blog is worth every cent of it.
EL GRINGO VIEJO
 

Heading South....

     "The time has come", said the spider, "to fly."     So it's off to the south again to check on my charges and re-establish the presence of a pleasantly deranged Gringo in his enjoyable self-made asylum where he can hurt no one.   At least he will be able to feed his animals and count hummingbirds.  Of course, the Comision Federal de Electricidad will appreciate my paying the bill....which will be a little higher this time.    I am anticipating something around 800 pesos which will be around 64 dollars for two months' service.   it would have been 56 dollars back in September, but the firm of Bernacke,  Obama, Geitner, Frank, and Dodd - Economics Experts Extraordinaire have managed to devalue the American dollar by 12.5% against the Mexican peso in that length of time.

      Still-in-all, 32 dollars a month amounts to about one dollar per day to have cold milk,  Fox News,  indoor plumbing with water under pressure, a bit of home-made ice, and other such necessary luxuries.     While last year's gross income for the CFE  was a bit in excess of 20 billion dollars (bumped up a bit with the take-over of the Mexico City albatross Luz y Fuerza de Mexico), I am certain that they are anxiously awaiting my critical capital infusion.

      In reviewing my ranting and raving about Japan, methinks that my observations were pretty much 'right on'.    As an American, I am glad and dismayed simultaneously.    Glad, because there is still a group of people under one flag who can calmly "do the next thing" even when everything has been destroyed.     In Nashville, Tennessee where the hicks and hillbillies live it seems that they do well without FEMA intervention or visits from Obama or even a mention that said city had been completely inundated by the worst floods in its history a few months ago.
    But in much of the rest of America, politicians seem to hope for a disaster....earthquake, flood, fire, or whatever...so that they can unleash the next disaster, a disaster which consists of a cascade of money, empty, lost, and or un-accounted-for double-wide trailers, officials with briefcases & laptops, and forms to fill out.   The politicians' disaster is complemented by slothful, stupid slugs trundling out to begin the "Queen for a Day" show and to complain about how badly FEMA has treated them.    WHAT DID WE DO BEFORE THERE WAS FEMA?

      Japan is a bit different....of perhaps substantially different.    They prosper from their lack of "diversity".    They are wonderfully communitarian.   First they take care of their own problems, then they move on to their neighbours.  This self-reliance spills over into a pride of self-sufficiency.

      Conversely, they really do not like to have too many heads sticking up above the rest of the group.   When somebody says "We are all on this ship together".....judging by the size of the country and the number of people on the limited number of square miles that they have....everybody had better use the oar that they were given to either row or beat tuna over the head and haul them aboard.
      The mostly ceremonial Emperor spoke to his people.    The rail line on the western side of Honshu Island was restored within 7 days.     The press reports have been alarmist....authoritative....and frequently either wrong in part or wrong in parcel.    It was all totally predictable.    At this writing we are hearing finally some what less alarmist, yellow "journalists" mumbling about the possibility of "re-starting" the entire nuclear operation at Fukushira     and I cite this link....                                                                                                           http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Pressure-Stabilizes-in-Japan-Reactor-2-Survivors-Found-118322559.html     

        Please, everyone ...you all....view all press reports about anything with suspicion.    And....I really do not think that any of my readers or my family need to run out and buy iodide tablets.....unless you like the taste of iodide.

IN ANOTHER VEIN:
      We continue to take advantage of damaged trees and shrubs to begin a new discipline and "look" for the upper and middle parts of the property.   More will be done in the future to make geometric topiary presentations, and to provide better views of the mountains.   We might even be considering a "portal" (a free standing open structure designed exclusively for providing shade).    This  will be helpful for our summertime visitors and might even have a bit of additional daytime cooling effect for the Quinta itself. 

       Finally, several questions and observations have come forward.   They are all appreciated.    Hopefully, my responses and answers were helpful.   The gist of my answers was ..... "There are many places where a person can travel in Mexico without intense concern.    It is like the U.S.A. in that sense.   There are places where even I would not go....specific locales and certain general areas....once again, like the U.S.A.      You will not see me practicing for a 25 K - Marathon at night in downtown Detroit or New Orleans or Baltimore......You will also not find me drinking beer at any saloon within 500 yards of the far outer-perimeter loop thoroughfare on the edge of Acapulco.     Be reasonable."
     If you send me specific destinations in Mexico, I will research them for you....going beyond my previous knowledge of the place....and attempt to gain a "real-time" status report......and either publish my impressions here, or send you a personal, private note.    In  no case will your name/address/ or personal data be divulged.


Thanks for your time and patience.   Another fresh entry tomorrow!
(The Lord willing and the Devil not objecting.)
El Gringo Viejo      

     

     

Jury Duty Done...Heading North, then South

     It seems like my exposure to jury duty is solved by the defendants and litigants all taking pleas and settling out of court.    Tomorrow (Wednesday, the 16th of March) will find us riding the southerly winds to Central Texas to meet up briefly with Christian, and then come back on Thursday with Priscilla and our granddaughters.....so that the girls can visit with their great-grandparents.

     Christian agreed to put us up, but we are only going to charge him 250 dollars for that service.     We are going to ask him for another 100 dollars or so for our trip to Whataburger.....and if he complains at all....we have our attorney on speed dial.    After all, we didn't ask to be born.

All who are reading this now are officially members of the Orbit of Readers of the Old Gringo....OROG...a secret society dedicated fervently to nothing in particular.

    

Japan

       These are special times.   The hysteria involving the cement dust seen blowing out from the explosion of hydrogen gas in the outer shell areas of the reactors has given great joy to the anti-American intellectuals who oppose any energy source required by the Great American Economic Engine.

     These are the people who oppose any type of exploration for oil and gas, who oppose the use of coal no matter how cleanly it can be burned, and who even oppose "wind farms" because the birds will be struck, hit, and disturbed, or solar power because it is unsightly and uses strange materials for the storage batteries.

      These same people, however, want us all to buy electric autos, because we know that the stork brings the electricity overnight and feeds it to our little cars that make us feel good about ourselves because we are better than "other people".....the "little, stupid people".....the people who are not "progressive" and who do not care about important things.

      The press people and talking heads are giddy about this new opportunity to assault America and to attempt to drive this great Nation into some kind of 5th World, pre-historic living condition.    After all, everyone knows that all the problems in the world are caused by America.....America is a horrible place....that's why everyone wants to come here....leaving behind the wonderful places where everyone can drink out of an open sewer.     And Cuba....where everyone has free medical care.....that would be closed down in America because the standards do not measure up to a veterinarian clinic standard in almost all cases (party officials have different facilities....or free transportation to Mexico or Canada or Europe for treatment).

      But to my point.    The Japanese people are a clean people.    My father used to joke thusly...."Do you know what a mentally-retarded Japanese person is called?"   The listener would say "No."   To which my father would respond ".....A genius."

       They are a communitarian people, they are clean, they are summarily intelligent, they are dedicated to the idea that they are one with their ancestors, they play baseball, they are industrious and generally honest.

        In a year's time, the Japanese will be nearing completion with the public works and restoration projects and they will be cutting ribbons all over their tiny productive empire.    We, on the other hand,  shall be debating specifics about how to rebuild the World Trade Center because of issues brought up by intentionally hateful anti-American Americans who desire the obliteration of America and the American example of community.     Those Americans will be helped along, of course, by anti-American immigrants who come to this country with the intent of installing the worst characteristics of their old country in order to hasten the ultimate decline of the American Experiment. 

      The word "immigrant", I know, is used incorrectly here, because many of these new "immigrants" are actually colonists and saboteurs.....who arrive here with no intention of becoming that peculiar and particular thing that is an American.   They are "Obama's Aunt".

      The Old Gringo is certain that the Emperor of Japan will speak, the people will listen, the politicians in Japan will become less useless for a while, and they will restore their great nation....relatively quickly.     They play baseball.    It will take a bit, but it will happen.

Batter up!

El Gringo Viejo