Wednesday 20 March 2019

A slice of life during "those times" in The Past

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Noble person, JOSE GALLARDO MARCIAL…

     And it was a merchant and a Highway Patrolman who served as witnesses (essentially character witnesses), both Anglo/Teutonic of ancestry. Please notice that Jose Gallardo Marcial's race/ethnicity is recorded as White, which is actually more correct than other terms and faux inventions such as "Hispanic".


    Also it is interesting to take notice that the recorder in Travis County (Austin) managed to misspell Penjamo (twice), and Morelia (once). Another point that is compelling is that Jose Gallardo Marcial had a well-developed hand in terms of writing in script (cursive) form, indicating an advanced intelligence and discipline, developed at an early age.

      It shows that he probably completed primary, which in these times in Texas would be more than equivalent to High School completion.   He might even completed Mexican secondary, which would to-day, be about the same as two or four years of university in Texas.   (Yes, Virginia, seriously)
   One final thing that is of interest is the fact that his Naturalisation occurred shortly after the Roosevelt Administration had completed a Mexican and foreign nationals expulsion programme. This meant that the two aforementioned witnesses had to have substantially vigorous commitment to keep this obviously worthwhile member of the American community….in Texas (and therefore America).
      We include the above note due to the fact that Conservative / Republicans are always linked to the notion that we want to drive out people of different languages, colours, races, ethnicities, or whatever.  The fact is that we are the most accepting of having new people arrive who are actually qualified to access the ladder of success and who can fold into the peculiar American culture as positive contributors. 
     It was Roosevelt, his wife Eleanor, and the ghouls of the "New Deal" who figured out that the best way to solve the Great Depression problem was to run off all the Mexicanswhich they did.  Somewhat lamentably, about 20 per cent of all those who were run off (deported) were American citizens.   Another large body of them had been granted work permits and permanent resident-alien status.  That designation was the last step to qualifying for candidacy for citizenship once completing the civic and moral examinations required. 

    Jose Gallardo Marcial went through all of that, and succeeded in becoming an American citizen.   It took eleven years after he was accepted into the country temporarily.  He became a family man, with his wife,  Maria.   He was one of those peculiar birds who never missed a day of work.  He was active in his Church (Roman Catholic) and performed in Christmas Pageants as Joseph for many years.  He served also as sacistran for the Church.


    An oddity or co-incidence, is that my father served as head counsellor at Del Valle High School when he moved up to Austin, Texas in 1966.  Del Valle was adjacent to the recently established B-47 Air Force Base, and the school district had a large military dependent student body.   Jose Gallardo Marcial lived in Del Valle, Texas and had children who attended that high school where  my father was the senior guidance counsellor.  



Thank the Good Lord for people such as Jose Gallardo Marcial who came to Texas to make this land great.


El Gringo Viejo

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Monday 4 March 2019

Confusion, Contradiction, Disorder, and Disaster - We comment before departure to our place in NoWhere, Mexico...

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Stephen Fuller Austin

Father of Texas by default.  A Good
and Reasonable man who saved Texas.

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        Yesterday we posted a Eulogy that was actually delivered by Col. Juan Sequin when he was essentially mayor and military commandant of San Antonioalmost one year after the fall of the Alamo to the forces of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.   A few days less than a year before, something between 184 and 212 combatantswho all had a militarily possible chance to leave the fortress before all exits were blockeddecided incorrectly to stand up to the most powerful force on the North American Continent in combat at that time and on that date.  It was, to be blunt, a fool's gambita "glorious fool", but a fool nonetheless.  
     James Bowie knew betterbut he was in and out of delirium for his last month of life.  James Bowie's closest friend in San Antonio de Valero was a fellow by the name of Gregorio Esparza, who literally snuck into the Alamo, well into the siege, to assist his friend who he knew to be near death due to consumption, and/or cumulative coronary problems, and/or prolonged episode of recurring pneumonia due to exhaustion.  Bowie had lost his second wife and his two very young daughters by that wife (1833 - cholera).   That woman was the daughter of a very ranking politician and businessman of the Verimunde family, which was held in high regard in what was then still known as the State of Coahuila y Tejas. 
\
     These side trips into this alley-way and that path to the top of a hill can delay a person who wishes to read about the "Texian Revolution" for a millennium and a half.   There are literally thousands upon thousands of Texas Tales…many of them true…that have a long record of enthralling the masses with tales, stories, recountings, and memories about this fabled State.  But, to-day, I am here not to divulge stories and lead people around  the graveyards and smouldering buildings and homes and explain the errors in the historical markers we encounter as we drive through a State larger than either France or Germany.
     To-day's submission is a charge to the OROGs to lurch forth and learn, speculate, "try on" the times and smell the odour of burned sulphur that hangs over battles.  We urge that the OROG tries to truly sense what was going on…this time during the withdrawal of Texas from the Mexican Republic…and why it was so pitifully and miserably a suffered time in this great region.

     Then to think about it…Mexico and the United States would suffer even greater horror just a few tears of the calendar pages down the timeline.  After all was said and done with the Texian Experiment…we entered into a ridiculous war, desired by both sides, that pitted the Republic of Mexico against the United States of America, 1846 - 1848.
     Before long, a prophesy by Mexican General Mier y Teran, a lower level aristocrat, well studied, and cited for bravery in battle.  He declared after speaking with some people who had been moving into Texas,  taking advantage of the laws encouraging Anglo and American investment and legal residencies when Texas was still very much part of Mexico, "You Texans will someday seek to join the Nation which you left (the United States of Mexico) and upon doing so, you will soon wish to leave it.  Beware of that for which you might wish."

    And, certainly enough, Texas voted to leave the same nation it joined in 1846…fifteen years later.   Certainly enough, Mexico lost Texas and great extensions of essentially unoccupied land in what would become the American Southwest after that stupid war.  They thought they were going to take over everything up to and including the Missouri River.

  And then, while the Texians went to fight in 1861 against the hated Yankees and northern industrialists…the French decided to take charge of a punitive war expedition against Mexico and its bad debt and dangerous travel conditions…by installing an Austrian monarch, Maximilian von Hapsburg in 1862…whose reign lasted less than five years.   The Texians thought they were going to escape Washington D.C.'s high-handedness and capricious legal entanglement…but what we wound up with was 10 years of "Reconstruction" (Texas being the longest period of all Southern States) and we wound up with those 10 years and essentially a 50 year depression following "Reconstruction".
Spindletop - 1901

After its first 10 days of spewing mainly pure
East Texas oil, from about 600 feet below the
surface, it was calculated the spew-waste was
1,000,000 barrels.

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      That's right, Mary Lou and you too, Jasper…Texas was something between the Promised Land, the Doorway to Heaven, and just above a "third world" situation for many, many years after  "Reconstruction".
     Pockets of wealth, such as certain oil-field strikes like Spindletop outside of Beaumont, Texas and a few other places had boom-times.   Successful farming, some irrigated, cropped up here and there.  Forestry and ranching, of course were always "going on", and there was a certain level of commercial activity that made Texas and its traditions seem pleasantly prosperous.   As a child and growing up in a rural setting in Texas, I never felt hunger or deprivation of any kind.   
     We swam at the Country Club and at private homes and at the biggest and best public pool in the Southern half of Texas. Heck, we even had a television by 1957although my parents (mainly mother) would not allow us more than 60 minutes per nightincluding the news.  We liked the AM radio better anyway.
     Allow, we pray, that we return to the mission of this posting.  The time between the dawning of the 2nd day of March, 1836 and the setting of the Sun on the 6th day of March, 1836 is that period of pronounced lack of information…leading to numerous deep and wide bad decisions and overreactions and under-reactions.   Most Texians have a hard time with determining which date pertains to which event…like which came first, the chicken or the egg or the clad de pollo?    They…even the ones such as my boss…have to remember "When were they fighting the Mexicans? the Spanish? the Yankees?  It all runs together.    Who was in charge here?"   

Captain Robert Edward Lee surveys the damaged
Fortress of Liberty…The Alamo in 1854

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   That problem is a  reasonable problem.  We move quickly to challengeare YOU sure that the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Texas against the will of the Usurper Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna occurred on the 2nd of March or was it the 6th of March…both of the year 1836?

     Or was it visa versa?   Captain Robert Edward Lee was impressed with the lack of impressiveness of "The Alamo".    He seemed to concur with the idea that the people inside,  defending the Alamo, both Latinoid and Angloid, must have been…(one searches for the kind words)…overconfident (or perhaps deranged). 

    One must understand, once again, that the Army brought to bear upon that one point on the continent of North America, by a deranged, and brilliant, General of a powerful nation's commanding general who was obviously invincible by the analysts from the point of the defence.   They should have left 10 days earlier, but they did not read their own tea-leaves…

General Jose de Urea
Brigadier, Mexican Army of Invasion

Under the Command of Gen. Antonio
Lopez de Santa Anna - 1836

We also recognise that this photo from
the 1840s reveals an image that is very
much the same as my 2nd Nephew.
They are very similar in that they are
 both iron-willed, very intelligent, and
of very similar appearance (handsome).

 My nephew's wife is actually more
 intelligent, but that will be an
 argument for another day.
  She is also better-looking and.
 an attorney of record,

 Gen. Urea and my nephew are
 both better looking than your 
humble servant, but we pray thee
 prayest naught to nary a person of
 such confidence.

(Yes, Virginia, that is the way your people
and my people spoke 200 and 300 years
 ago. It is fun to practice!")
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    They had many Spanish / Mexican allies in their ranks.  They had men who needed more training and instruction about what it means to be Texian.  They, quite frankly, needed to retreat and join with another strong man…one to and with whom, I have no particular affection nor allegiance.
     Samuel Houston…but whom else could weld together a reasonable defence and a reasonable channel towards the establishment of a land of liberty and a life of Liberty?

    The destruction and murder of the Goliad Prisoners…a matter much more complicated and convoluted than  even Texians to the Core have knowledge or understanding…raises its ugly head.  It is my opinion for instance that General Urea was, as a lowly Brigadier, searching for some way to rid his beloved Mexico of this horrid, self-consumed, nut-case…Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, looking for some backing to dispatch said Maximum Commander to either Hell or into perpetual nothingness. He would have his chance not quite later than sooner.  My affection moves to Urea…but reality had other intentions and motives.

     It is lamentable…but much like the loss of Alexander  Hamilton to a useless piece of garbage such as Aaron Burr, Vice-President of the United States…Mexico lost this man…Jose de Urea…when he foolishly failed to declare the "Presidente y Commandante de las Fuerzas Militares de la Republica Mexicana" a failed and flawed,  immoral, and un-Mexican fraud,  Antonio de Padua Maria Serverino Lopez de Santa Anna y Perez de Lebroncreature from Hell, enemy of Mexicans and Gringos alike painted the unfortunate portrait of Mexico and Mexican leaders for the world…and worsefor the Gringos before there was such a thing as a word that described "Gringos" at that time and at that place.  Such a word became heard and recognised in the latter-most 1840 decade.  If Jose de Urea had taken the reins of power and forged an agreement with the Royalists and later... the military and the forces of representative democracy in the various State CongressesMexico would have looked more like Texas.  But he chose, "I say, old man, perhaps it is better not do so,"as the Brits would say.



    But, once againlet us charge ahead to…what about Lorenzo de Zavala?3,000,000 dollars Americanos of his personal moneyinvested in the War Against Lopez de Santa Anna.  He and the son of Moses AustinStephen Fuller Austindefeated the Powerful Nation of Mexiconot Houstonnot Somervillenot American resourcesIt was a cloudy time.



    Please dig into your own research.   We tend to find something like 2,300,000 direct and indirect followers of our remarks about the time we publish about things that carry import to the history of those times in the formative period of Texas.   There will be more, when we have time and effort stored up  about the restincredible stuff…that does not favour Fess Parker swinging Old Betsey on the parapets or scenes of cowardly Mexican running away from the wallsat the beginning of the final attack…

Please remember:
      There was only one devil in the matter of Texas establishing itself as a separate and equal State in the Mexican Republican Union…and his name was Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.   We mustMUST…avoid referring to him as "President", or "General" or "Vice-President", or "Maximum Authority" because he sacrificed all those titles due to his avarice and lack of concern  about those soldiers who died, advancing his orders, thinking that he had any idea what century it was or what planet he was on.   (!!!)

More Later
EL GRINGO VIEJO

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Saturday 2 March 2019

Eulogy for All Times

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Col. Juan N. Seguin

Colonel Juan Nepomuceno Seguin'sAlamo Defenders' Burial Oration
delivered in San Antonio
25th February 1837

Eulogy published in the 
Telegraph and Texas Register
of Columbia (later Houston), Texas April 4, 1837
 
 
"Companions in Arms!! These remains which we have the honour of carrying
 
 on our shoulders are those of the valiant heroes who died in the Alamo.
 
  Yes, my friends, they preferred to die a thousand times rather than submit
 
 themselves to the tyrant's yoke. What a brilliant example! Deserving of being
 
 noted in the pages of history. The spirit of liberty appears to be looking out
 
 from its elevated throne with its pleasing mien,  pointing to us, and  saying: 
 
 "There are your brothers, Travis, Bowie, Crockett, and others whose valour 
 
 places them in the rank of my heroes."   Yes! Soldiers and fellow citizens, these

 are the worthy beings who, by the twists of fate, during the present campaign

 delivered their bodies to the ferocity of their enemies; who, barbarously
 
 treated as beasts, were bound by their feet and dragged to this spot, where
 
 they were reduced to ashes. The venerable remains of our worthy
 
 companions as witnesses, I invite you to declare to the entire world, "Texas
 
 shall be Free and Independent or we shall perish in glorious combat."
 
Colonel Juan N. Seguin, Commandant
San Antonio, Bexar, Texas 
Army of the Republic of Texas

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Thursday 28 February 2019

Just a nice, calm picture…Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre, upper gardens…a pleasant, jumbled mess that pleases me immensely...


Just a nice picture of what El Gringo Viejo sees in the early morning with his coffee and dog
and the birds and the butterflies.   Amalgamated Butterfly Union does not permit butterflies to
 work before 10:00 in the morning.

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Tuesday 26 February 2019

Ocasio - Cortez and the re-re-rewriting of the 638th rewriting of History and the Democratic Socialist Final Solution of Evil, Poverty, and Bad Stuff…and everything…all the time

(1)     Bulletin:

From Reuters -

(1) UK appoints top cop as new anti-slavery chief, after criticism over delay
(2) Water-stressed Pakistan looks for billions in donations to build dams
(3)  Future of food under "severe threat" as species diversity disappears - UN
(4)  Insurance not enough to offset financial risks of climate change, analysts say
(5)  Prepare now for accelerating climate threats, military officials warn



(2)     FROM -     OCASIO - CORTEZ's PLATFORM for AMERICA



The clarion call for all people to be given everything they need all the time.
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     Quite obviously, the time has come to SCREAM BLOODY MURDER…!!!   We, as a nation, have stumbled along now for 240 years or so, generally accommodating business potentates, business conglomerations, labour leaders and groups, all nature of social organisation, unions, guilds, and chambers of commerce and so forth.  We have seen these crops prosper and those crops wither.
     
   We have seen factories, military bases, farms large and small produce, fail, re-establish, change crops, fail, and start over again.   We have dealt with these and those peoples with this and that language and background…who have gone and not returned, while others came to replace them.  And we have seen people who declared they would never leave, leave and die a great distance from where they were born, regretting having left or wishing they had left sooner.

     In short…we have seen it all,  done most of it…and still wonder how it can be.  Truly, how can it be?   The "Platform" for the Ocasio forces is truly the representation of a pitiably immature, totally self-possessed and involved nine-year old.  She is certain that she can sit upon a variation of a baby's high-chair, while decked out in taffeta and velour, with a silver wand topped by a a solid 19.5 K gold star with a large diamond in the middle and appoint this occurrence and dispatch that bad, evil, wrong thing to the bin of iniquity.

     It is rather much like Puff, the Magic Dragon, but done for and by little girls who wave their wands about during the sleep over…and who, as midnight draws near…decide that "staying up to see the dawn" is a little out of reach.   Some little girls are 29 years of age, by the calendar, but still cling to the notions held as pre-adolescents, nurtured by deranged college professors who think the next try at marxism will be the one that finally works.

It never works.
El Gringo Viejo
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Sunday 17 February 2019

Of "caravans" and "immigrants" and other things…along with interesting and worthwhile commentary from our other Curmudgeon...

Thoughts

 Owls and why I relate to them:

 These  "Birds of Prey" love to sit quietly and still so they observe their surroundings and strike when needed.

 Some say that the Owl has wisdom, even foresight, but they still are considered familiars of the witches.  They are creatures of the night and early morning.  Some consider them bad luck, and predictors of poor health and death.  They are still considered the main harbingers of death and doom in Mexico, much of the South, and Latin America.

    I hear and see them every evening at dusk, and early morning and have for years.   I am, and always have been, an early morning person.  Ok,  sometimes I have started to put together a re-written version of the " The time has come".    My version as  it stands is poorly written and needs help.

An Owl doing a bit of "soul searching"

   It is as follows:

    THE TIME HAS COME, THE OWL SAID, TO SPEAK OF MANY THINGS: OF SHOES ---- OF SHIPS ----- AND OF SOCIALISTS--- AND KINGS.

  OF WHY A REVOLT IS RISING--- AND WHETHER CONGRESSIONAL PIGS HAVE WINGS, AND FLY.

  THEY DO, AND THE FAT LADY IS STARTING TO SING. WATCH OUT!  AN OWL IS PASSING BY.

 El  Buho

(El Tecolote)
(The Owl)
Contributing member of the blog "A Gringo in Rural Mexico"  -   dedicated to topics of history of Texas and Mexico, political and cultural opinion and fact, with special emphasis on current events, at times, and historical milestones at other times.   No place within the three nations of North America (four if counting Texas separately) is immune from our scope.
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Update on the matter of the "Caravans" and "Immigrants":

     We continue to be befuddled and confused about the difference between what is being reported by almost all sources of the American and other media sources as opposed to what this observer hears, sees, and experiences concerning the "immigrants" and the "caravans".

     To begin, the entire "caravan" and "immigrant" thing is a sham.  The operation is a co-ordinated effort by extremists representing pseudo - religious interests operating under all nature of Protestant, Catholic, and even supposedly evangelical flags.
     Their objective has been frequently stated, repeatedly and they are all more or less dedicated to the same objectivesmainly more.   If you sit at a bar with some of the upper-middle leaders of the "movement" and subject yourself to the tedious lecture, the operatives and overseers of the "immigrants" and "caravan" (they are neither) will blather up a scenario of how the United States came and took all the easy resources from the Central American entities.Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama'.   Americans enslaved the oppressed masses and paid them next to nothing…and they established fascist and oppressive pro-American satraps to rule with the title of President when in fact they were dictators and corrupt.
     Many starved and were abused, and very few lived in opulence.   Of course, the United States built and operated the Panama' Canal…against all odds…a work that provided direct employment pay that was unheard of anywhere in Central America to that point.   Of course, the Europeans were quick to point out that the Americans had stolen the Isthmus of Panama' from the owner, the Republic of Colombia, strictly for the purpose of enslaving the people of Colombia, and divesting that country of a lucrative fountain of resources for some future time.
      These marxist minders of the "Caravana" movement had and have their explanations, histrionics, and propagandistic cant.   The fact is, however, that they are actually dedicated to that which they have always been dedicated, that being the destruction of the United States of America.   Their armaments are lies, drugs, violence, obtuse and demagogic reasoning, and the constant effort to drag down the United States and any other nation that remotely stands with the USA.

     The Obama administration determined to go full bore on this process of destroying any and all vestiges of the Out-of-Date American construct and the preparation for a "Democratic Socialist Society and Government".During the Obama administration, scores of efforts were put into place and function that would undermine basic American values and positive outcomes.  The "Fast and Furious" matter, the advising of Central Americans concerning how to arrive to the American Frontier and gain entry without any legitimate permitting or justification, to the incessant reliance on racial friction to roil the pot of witch's brewsuch as in Ferguson, Missouri, etc.
     We watched in McAllen how sullen people dragging two to ten year old childrenin clusters of three to six or a little morewould board busses at the McAllen Bus Terminal with their tickets to Trenton, Nashville, Kansas City, and Denverall of them with "provisional entry awaiting designated hearing date" and these numbers ballooned into the hundreds of thousands.
     News leaked out that DNA tests were showing that over 40 per cent of the children were not related to the women dragging said children into Gringoland and flagging down Border Patrol personnel to "arrest and detain them".  Many of the "unescorted" teenagers had gang tattoos representing the worst of the worst of the gangs in El Salvador and Hondurasthey were given passes, once they established contact with other "family members" who were also living illegally in the United States.   It was madness.
    With the arrival of Trump to the Presidency, a bit more order was put into place, but the onslaught is continuing.   Scores of thousands per month…scores of thousands…think of it!  Pregnant 14 year-olds, numerous girls in the single digit age groups, all sullen…unimpressed with the crummy food they were being provided, and the crummy clothes they were having to take for free(actually much of the clothing was new, stylish, and quite niceeven the used clothes were like hand-me-downs of a rich family).   Never a mention of thanks (or at least very, very rarely)and that air that if they were detained they would cause an event to occur that would be put into the media as proof that they were being brutalised.

     The blathering hyperbole of the leftist pressof people like Pelosi, Biden, and Co.  has been both repugnant and fascinating.  The ploy of showing children in a dog cage and chained, to boot was a remarkable coup co-ordinated between the Democrats and the Obsolete Press…especially when one considers that the pictures of the children in the dog-cages came from the time of the Obama administration.  
     We noticed good old Joe Bidenthe one who told a convention of Black Folks that they needed to be wary of Republicans because the GOP was just waiting for a chance to put all the Black Folks back in chains.Real class, Joe ,really stellar intellectual messaging.
     But, he followed that up recently with "…the need to keep Trump from ripping children from their mothers' arms!!!"   Real class, Joe, especially when one can almost bet that the "mothers" and the coyotes who will be managing these "migrants" once they complete their transfer to Cincinnati, or Oklahoma City, or Louisville, will be turning a large percentage of these girls to forced sexual performance.   It is well known.

We  shall pass along more to-morrow.
EL GRINGO VIEJO
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