It's now been nine years since I lived in Texas, and another one probably since I visited Kerrville, my favorite place in Texas. I have only good memories of Kerrville.
Kerrville is home to the Kerrville Folk Festival, which is arguably the best folk festival in the US, certainly one of the biggest and longest-running. As a fiddler it was a joy to me to go and saw away with some Austin musicians who just happened to be there. Probably its best asset is that it's not far from Austin, and Austin is a place with way too many musicians, not enough for them to do in terms of well-paying gigs, and good reasons to flee the city (traffic, prices, stress, politics, etc.) which would make a fine musician want to go park in Kerrville for a while.
The Quiet Valley Ranch is not directly on the Guadelope River, and thus was spared from the most devastating impacts of the flood. At the ranch one can find a small core of dedicated people - dedicated to making one good festival once a year in May - and being nice to people the other eleven months of the year. It's a kind of counter-culture stopping-off point, a place for the young and others to find refuge from the mean and dirty world of Texas and the south - and, most amazingly, the swamps of east Texas and the scorching desert of San Antonio turn there, going west, into a hilly country that actually has a few lakes, not to mention the river, so that to some it's the prettiest part of Texas. To me it was, for sure, though I always liked the Panhandle too. But it crossed my mind, and that of others too - if I were to stay in Texas, and retire there, what better place than a hilly, cool place with lots of music all the time and especially once a year?
I never asked them, nor did I even meet the people who are more or less permanent at Quiet Valley. I heard a lot of good things about them - they are widely respected, and really nice - but they wouldn't know me from anyone. Some guy who played some wild fiddle one night in the camping area, and wore an old Texas Tech hat.
I had friends from Illinois, actually, who were devoted to the place, and would go down there every year. It was like that - the people who loved the place, really loved it.
Back to the flood. It turns out, what the ranch has that it can lend to rescuers and cleanup crews is RV hookups. That's what they have and that's what they offer. They of course know people all over Kerr County - know people who died, know people who are searching, know people who know things. They are good neighbors and well connected. To me, it's interesting to see it a little from their persepctive.
Grateful, again, that it is not me or mine that got swept away in that wall of water.
Wednesday, July 9, 2025
Saturday, February 26, 2022
I just visited Lubbock, and was impressed by several things. There was actually a possibility that I would move there, given the fact that New Mexico, where I now live, has become unsustainable for family reasons. Certain family members have to find a place to live, and Lubbock was a possibility. We lived there 2012-2016, and I still have a fondness for the place.
First, as a city, it's incredibly manageable. It's easy to get around. It doesn't confuse you or get you lost much. When you have an address you can figure out where it is. It has everything but it's not too big. Well, not everything - no major-league baseball, for example, but Tech provides most of that excitement pretty well. And its airport is functional and accessible.
Second, my friends there are still close friends. Something about the ultraconservative nature of it makes it so all of us in the "other" category have a lot in common. And they have stayed friends even over the five or six years we have been gone.
My joke as a musician went something like this: Person 1: "Lubbock is so hot, and dry, and dusty, and flat, and miserable, about all you can do is sit around playing music." Person 2: "Yeah, that's what I like about it."
First, as a city, it's incredibly manageable. It's easy to get around. It doesn't confuse you or get you lost much. When you have an address you can figure out where it is. It has everything but it's not too big. Well, not everything - no major-league baseball, for example, but Tech provides most of that excitement pretty well. And its airport is functional and accessible.
Second, my friends there are still close friends. Something about the ultraconservative nature of it makes it so all of us in the "other" category have a lot in common. And they have stayed friends even over the five or six years we have been gone.
My joke as a musician went something like this: Person 1: "Lubbock is so hot, and dry, and dusty, and flat, and miserable, about all you can do is sit around playing music." Person 2: "Yeah, that's what I like about it."
Saturday, September 18, 2021
Monday, November 16, 2020
Lubbock and the covid
I always knew Lubbock had an attitude, and I loved Lubbock anyway. I knew that it was one of the only big cities in the US to consistently vote Republican - it is so conservative that even the poor city folk vote Republican. Or at least they don't vote Democrat. In any case, it's one red town, bless its heart.
Well with the COVID it's been deemed one of the worst. It has a bad combination of situations - students who come and go from around the country, if not the world, a government that is not inclined to put any restrictions on business whatsoever, and people who in general value money more than safety. It doesn't seem to me that it's necessarily a "Republican" thing to avoid wearing masks, and to in general discount the severity of the virus. But it has kind of worked out that way, that Lubbock is right in line with that kind of general sentiment, and as a result it is "one of the worst."
Unlike the rest of Texas, Lubbock, along with Amarillo, actually gets something of a winter. The winds blow hard and cold; there is dust everywhere; people go inside a lot. Winter is actually kind of nice in Lubbock. You get the feeling of winter, and a little bit of the snow, without too much of the inconvenience. One winter it snowed a lot, snowed hard, right before the new year, when we were coming out to New Mexico. Here in the mountains of New Mexico it snowed maybe fourteen inches, and the plows were right on it; they had it cleared off, and people were driving in it. Back in Lubbock, where they'd had maybe only four inches, they still hadn't plowed it when we went back. Someone told me they only had one plow in the city, so they just did the main roads. They don't do the residential streets, they said, because people complain about the piles of snow blocking their driveway, and nobody owns a shovel.
Well it's kind of like the hurricanes in Florida after a while. One side of me says, you knew what you were getting into, you knew this wasn't safe. You vote for Trump, people are going to die. You wreck the environment, the environment will come around and wreck you back.
I don't think Trump intentionally set out to kill those quarter million people. It just happened. It's like Yellow House Canyon. It will go down in history, and future generations might not even know what I'm talking about. The winds that rake across the plains, maybe they'll remember.
Well with the COVID it's been deemed one of the worst. It has a bad combination of situations - students who come and go from around the country, if not the world, a government that is not inclined to put any restrictions on business whatsoever, and people who in general value money more than safety. It doesn't seem to me that it's necessarily a "Republican" thing to avoid wearing masks, and to in general discount the severity of the virus. But it has kind of worked out that way, that Lubbock is right in line with that kind of general sentiment, and as a result it is "one of the worst."
Unlike the rest of Texas, Lubbock, along with Amarillo, actually gets something of a winter. The winds blow hard and cold; there is dust everywhere; people go inside a lot. Winter is actually kind of nice in Lubbock. You get the feeling of winter, and a little bit of the snow, without too much of the inconvenience. One winter it snowed a lot, snowed hard, right before the new year, when we were coming out to New Mexico. Here in the mountains of New Mexico it snowed maybe fourteen inches, and the plows were right on it; they had it cleared off, and people were driving in it. Back in Lubbock, where they'd had maybe only four inches, they still hadn't plowed it when we went back. Someone told me they only had one plow in the city, so they just did the main roads. They don't do the residential streets, they said, because people complain about the piles of snow blocking their driveway, and nobody owns a shovel.
Well it's kind of like the hurricanes in Florida after a while. One side of me says, you knew what you were getting into, you knew this wasn't safe. You vote for Trump, people are going to die. You wreck the environment, the environment will come around and wreck you back.
I don't think Trump intentionally set out to kill those quarter million people. It just happened. It's like Yellow House Canyon. It will go down in history, and future generations might not even know what I'm talking about. The winds that rake across the plains, maybe they'll remember.
Sunday, August 2, 2020
Hands Off That Pear
Hands Off That Pear
& 23 other short stories
Available on Amazon $5.29 + shipping
Available on Kindle $3.79
more coming!
& 23 other short stories
Available on Amazon $5.29 + shipping
Available on Kindle $3.79
more coming!
Thursday, June 8, 2017
e pluribus haiku 2017
Available at Amazon $6.29 + shipping
Available at the Createspace Store $6.29 + shipping
Available on Kindle $3.59
Those of you who know the Tech Terrace neighborhood may recognize the cover photo...
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Mannequin Challenge
& 20 short stories you can't put down
Available on Amazon
$5.50 + shipping
Available at the Createspace store
$5.50 + shipping
Available on Kindle
$2.99, also on Kindle Select
Monday, January 16, 2017
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Got some perspective on Lubbock recently when I left it, and went to the mountains of New Mexico for a vacation. Upon my return, Lubbock was sizzling - going over a hundred every day this week, and people driving their white pickup trucks around, air-conditioned cabs and all, like this is how life is to be lived.
It brings up some interesting questions. If you can make a lot of money by being where the economy is, where people are building, and people have money, is it worth living in a hot plains, flat and dry, with a howling wind and nothing to look at? Actually I kind of like Lubbock for all those things, but you have to admit - not much of a downtown, not much for things to see as you drive around, and endless, relentless, hot & dry.
People have been nice to me in Lubbock, I'll say that. Natalie Maines complains about the culture, the churches, the pressure to be born again or whatever. That doesn't bother me. If people think that you need to be saved, and they love you, and they want to see you go to heaven instead of hell, why shouldn't they open their mouth? You can take it as genuine concern and let it go at that. They don't do that to me, because they don't know me, or maybe because they figure I'm doomed anyway, but either way, I see the church-going nature of the city as a sign of meaning well, no matter how misguided, of wanting what's best for their kids and the world.
So it's like 95, and it's only about noon, and all these white trucks are tearing around cutting me off and getting in a hurry to go somewhere or another. When you have a "peace" bumper sticker you always assume that they're cutting you off out of hostility toward your bumper sticker, but in fact they probably cut everyone off, and they're just in a hurry to get down the road to their next construction site. One guy I saw, maybe at Einstein's bagels, was all dressed up, and I was wondering, you're ok at Einsteins, and in an air-conditioned car, but can you really function in this 95 + weather, all dressed up like that? Seems like the pits of hell to me, especially the synthetic part of it, which gives me a rash. But you have to dress up, get into the political thing, impress everyone. Then, you can eat your bagels on your break.
I myself took the bagels, and headed for the mountains.
It brings up some interesting questions. If you can make a lot of money by being where the economy is, where people are building, and people have money, is it worth living in a hot plains, flat and dry, with a howling wind and nothing to look at? Actually I kind of like Lubbock for all those things, but you have to admit - not much of a downtown, not much for things to see as you drive around, and endless, relentless, hot & dry.
People have been nice to me in Lubbock, I'll say that. Natalie Maines complains about the culture, the churches, the pressure to be born again or whatever. That doesn't bother me. If people think that you need to be saved, and they love you, and they want to see you go to heaven instead of hell, why shouldn't they open their mouth? You can take it as genuine concern and let it go at that. They don't do that to me, because they don't know me, or maybe because they figure I'm doomed anyway, but either way, I see the church-going nature of the city as a sign of meaning well, no matter how misguided, of wanting what's best for their kids and the world.
So it's like 95, and it's only about noon, and all these white trucks are tearing around cutting me off and getting in a hurry to go somewhere or another. When you have a "peace" bumper sticker you always assume that they're cutting you off out of hostility toward your bumper sticker, but in fact they probably cut everyone off, and they're just in a hurry to get down the road to their next construction site. One guy I saw, maybe at Einstein's bagels, was all dressed up, and I was wondering, you're ok at Einsteins, and in an air-conditioned car, but can you really function in this 95 + weather, all dressed up like that? Seems like the pits of hell to me, especially the synthetic part of it, which gives me a rash. But you have to dress up, get into the political thing, impress everyone. Then, you can eat your bagels on your break.
I myself took the bagels, and headed for the mountains.
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
Friday, May 13, 2016
I finally decided what I like about Lubbock, or at least why I find myself generally happy here. It's a town that doesn't have much pretense. Yes, it's conservative, and people care passionately and give each other a hard time sometimes. But it's genuine. It doesn't pretend to be one thing, and then go off and do another.
The weather is kind of wacky. It's been steady 20-30 mile wind with no rain, clear blue sky, and sometimes dust in your teeth, and this has been going on all spring. Finally tonight it rained a little. It's been kind of a drought. Most years, we have two or three inches by now; apparently, so far, we only have one and a half, maybe. But it hasn't been so bad. For one thing, plenty of rain last year has left things green, and that holds down the dust. So, less dust in your teeth this year. Same steady wind, but less dust. I kind of like it. It changes all the time, and the wind is really the thing to watch and get familiar with - the wind even determines how fast the water dries that you sprinkle on your lawn. In this kind of northbound steady dry heat, watering your lawn seems especially hopeless. But, when the dust rises, you're glad for every little stump of grass that's holding out in the great outdoors.
Saw a t-shirt today that said "Dust City Hooligans," and seemed to be a soccer team. I was surprised, Dust City is another name for Lubbock; this was news to me. Dust City, somehow, sounds better than Hub City. The only good thing about being Hub City is that you can get from places like Littlefield and Plainview to places like Brownfield and Levelland - all roads go through Lubbock. Boston, too, used to be "Hub City." It struck me as nothing special. Maybe I'll rethink it somehow, so I have a good logo which I can then use on this blog.
A semester ended, and I'm free for a spell. I might be contributing here a little bit. I actually like the place - yet I have no idea what I could say that would make any difference. I'll work on it, promise. And, I haven't stopped taking pictures.
The weather is kind of wacky. It's been steady 20-30 mile wind with no rain, clear blue sky, and sometimes dust in your teeth, and this has been going on all spring. Finally tonight it rained a little. It's been kind of a drought. Most years, we have two or three inches by now; apparently, so far, we only have one and a half, maybe. But it hasn't been so bad. For one thing, plenty of rain last year has left things green, and that holds down the dust. So, less dust in your teeth this year. Same steady wind, but less dust. I kind of like it. It changes all the time, and the wind is really the thing to watch and get familiar with - the wind even determines how fast the water dries that you sprinkle on your lawn. In this kind of northbound steady dry heat, watering your lawn seems especially hopeless. But, when the dust rises, you're glad for every little stump of grass that's holding out in the great outdoors.
Saw a t-shirt today that said "Dust City Hooligans," and seemed to be a soccer team. I was surprised, Dust City is another name for Lubbock; this was news to me. Dust City, somehow, sounds better than Hub City. The only good thing about being Hub City is that you can get from places like Littlefield and Plainview to places like Brownfield and Levelland - all roads go through Lubbock. Boston, too, used to be "Hub City." It struck me as nothing special. Maybe I'll rethink it somehow, so I have a good logo which I can then use on this blog.
A semester ended, and I'm free for a spell. I might be contributing here a little bit. I actually like the place - yet I have no idea what I could say that would make any difference. I'll work on it, promise. And, I haven't stopped taking pictures.
Friday, April 15, 2016
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Golden Pecans, part II
People who know the Lubbock area probably know the place I'm talking about, out on the south edge of town going west, on the south side of the road, you run into this place that will shell your pecans, and they sell all kinds of pecan-related things: pecan bars, pecan candies, pecan mulch. I love everything about the place. I took them 26 pounds of pecans and they shelled them all for $23, giving me 26 pounds back, all in two bags, no shells in them anymore, I presume. Since pecans are ordinarily about eleven dollars a pound, I figure I saved about two hundred bucks getting out there on my hands and knees and picking them up, though I doubt I'd buy 26 pounds in a single year if it weren't for the novelty of being able to have them shelled. On the spot I gave them another thirteen pounds, and they said they'd be ready about September. I'm wondering if I'll have any of my 26 pounds left, when September rolls around. My plan is to give some away to relatives, saying that they are home-picked Texas pecans. Which they are. I'm very proud of them.
I started in with the owner about the mulch, and he gladly shared a few large handfuls with me. There are two kinds; one, he has a waiting list two years long for; it's rough, but it's highly valued, and they use it for all kinds of things. To make dyes and to make sculptures were two uses he mentioned that I remembered. The other kind is finer; it's more like mulch for your roses, and that's the kind he gave me; he said it was acidic but the roses liked it.
But then I asked him about using it on the roads in the icy season. He hadn't heard of that, and asked me where I'd heard it. I saw it, I said, in Pittsburg, Kansas, many years back. Turns out the guy was born in Pittsburg, Kansas. Still, he'd never heard of the practice. It had snowed hard one time and it was all iced up out there, and they put these pecan shells down; it would have been the rough kind. The cars kind of ground it into the ice, and it made a wonderful sound. It also worked, because ice was slick, but the rough shells had sharp edges that cut right into it, and the dirt from when it was ground up cut right into the ice. It was impressive.
He said that when they first started up that business they had way too much mulch and didn't know what to do with it. Now, they have no trouble getting rid of it at all. Lots of people are dying to put it on their roses, and in pincushions, and in lots of other things. Still, it was nice for him to just give me some; it smells good, and I'm sure it will work fine on our flowers. Acidic, maybe, but definitely the right texture.
I'm aware that they use "beet heet" these days, and cheese whey, on the roads, wanting spread that is more ecological than just salt. I stand by pecan shells. It's partly that I have a general harmony with the whole feeling of them, and am especially impressed that they seem to be abundant in the area; I didn't have too much competition, picking them up.
I started in with the owner about the mulch, and he gladly shared a few large handfuls with me. There are two kinds; one, he has a waiting list two years long for; it's rough, but it's highly valued, and they use it for all kinds of things. To make dyes and to make sculptures were two uses he mentioned that I remembered. The other kind is finer; it's more like mulch for your roses, and that's the kind he gave me; he said it was acidic but the roses liked it.
But then I asked him about using it on the roads in the icy season. He hadn't heard of that, and asked me where I'd heard it. I saw it, I said, in Pittsburg, Kansas, many years back. Turns out the guy was born in Pittsburg, Kansas. Still, he'd never heard of the practice. It had snowed hard one time and it was all iced up out there, and they put these pecan shells down; it would have been the rough kind. The cars kind of ground it into the ice, and it made a wonderful sound. It also worked, because ice was slick, but the rough shells had sharp edges that cut right into it, and the dirt from when it was ground up cut right into the ice. It was impressive.
He said that when they first started up that business they had way too much mulch and didn't know what to do with it. Now, they have no trouble getting rid of it at all. Lots of people are dying to put it on their roses, and in pincushions, and in lots of other things. Still, it was nice for him to just give me some; it smells good, and I'm sure it will work fine on our flowers. Acidic, maybe, but definitely the right texture.
I'm aware that they use "beet heet" these days, and cheese whey, on the roads, wanting spread that is more ecological than just salt. I stand by pecan shells. It's partly that I have a general harmony with the whole feeling of them, and am especially impressed that they seem to be abundant in the area; I didn't have too much competition, picking them up.
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Friday, March 4, 2016
election day
OK I'll be straight with you, I'm a Bernie supporter, and a Democrat. As a Democrat my main concern was whether Bernie could win, given who he is, etc. but I had myself convinced that Hillary is so genuinely unpopular that Bernie had a better chance, so I was prepared to vote for Bernie in the Texas Super Tuesday Democratic primary.
But as the election neared, I had two other problems. First, I had a strong urge to vote in the Republican primary (as anyone can do in Texas; you just say which party you are or you want, at the door, and they give you that ballot) - just to register my feeling about the different Republican candidates, and second, I wanted to have a say in who got elected in the Congressional district.
In our district, this guy is retiring who has been accused locally of using the office to make himself rich; he also was unable to distinguish, back in the day, when somebody closed a federal monument, that it was the Tea Party that had closed down the government, rather than the park ranger himself, and he blasted away at the park ranger for closing down this monument. So he was kind of a laughing-stock, nationally, and very well known for greasing the wheels that got him where he was. People took care of him, financially, and he used the government to take care of them. I thought, and people keep electing this kind of guy? What's up with that?
So now you have these eight or nine candidates vying for the Republican nomination, in this district, which includes Lubbock but also Big Spring and Abilene, and the Democrats have nobody. Nobody. Not a primary race, not a single candidate, nobody. So, going into the general election, you have these Republicans, which start with a Bush advisor, then comes the mayor, then comes the steel-toed boot, then comes the ex-Marine, and they get more conservative from there. The Bush advisor, maybe, is the most liberal of the bunch. And the campaign is nasty, with apparently the dirtiest most low-down accusation they could make of each other being the mere association with the gay community, ads that say, in effect, that so-and-so ran in the color race (?), or worked in an organization that allowed gays to work there, and we might be talking about an army base here, or someone who may have had to allow gays to work there. So, if you're not strongly, publicly, energetically committed to excluding gays, you're not conservative enough? That's what it would appear. The steel-toed boot went so far as to say something like, hey, if you even appear to support the gays, that's really not what Republicanism is about, is it? At one point the poor Marine guy went into the hospital. Said he'd been attacked by terrorists, attacked by guys with guns and all, but never attacked so viciously as he was in this election.
Well under that situation, I really wanted to jump in there and say something, because, if not, anyone could be elected; that's how we got stuck with Cruz. In that kind of situation, it's whoever gets a fair number of supporters, enthusiastic or not, and the race is clearly among them; we Democrats, if we're true to ourselves, are off voting for Bernie or Hillary. And in fact, it was a raucous election, and we will get stuck with one of those guys, and if there was a large number of Democrats voting Repub I didn't see them.
At the last minute, I stuck to my Dem identity, and took a Dem ballot. I decided that if we really wanted a Dem to run we should have found a Dem to run, and run Dem. Maybe I should have done it myself. Much as I can't bear the spectrum of Repub candidates, at least they got the signatures. They got up there and ran; we didn't.
The place is crazy; it tricks you into thinking a Bush advisor is reasonable, liberal, educated, clear-thinking, acceptable. This guy advised Bush on energy issues. The others make him look like a calm, friendly, reasonable guy who would be our best choice in Congress. I can tell you this; in contrast to the others, that is true. That I could possibly consider voting for such a person is testament to how twisted my reality could possibly become, in a situation where my choice is basically so far away from my own thinking, that I question whether I can really even call it a "choice".
But as the election neared, I had two other problems. First, I had a strong urge to vote in the Republican primary (as anyone can do in Texas; you just say which party you are or you want, at the door, and they give you that ballot) - just to register my feeling about the different Republican candidates, and second, I wanted to have a say in who got elected in the Congressional district.
In our district, this guy is retiring who has been accused locally of using the office to make himself rich; he also was unable to distinguish, back in the day, when somebody closed a federal monument, that it was the Tea Party that had closed down the government, rather than the park ranger himself, and he blasted away at the park ranger for closing down this monument. So he was kind of a laughing-stock, nationally, and very well known for greasing the wheels that got him where he was. People took care of him, financially, and he used the government to take care of them. I thought, and people keep electing this kind of guy? What's up with that?
So now you have these eight or nine candidates vying for the Republican nomination, in this district, which includes Lubbock but also Big Spring and Abilene, and the Democrats have nobody. Nobody. Not a primary race, not a single candidate, nobody. So, going into the general election, you have these Republicans, which start with a Bush advisor, then comes the mayor, then comes the steel-toed boot, then comes the ex-Marine, and they get more conservative from there. The Bush advisor, maybe, is the most liberal of the bunch. And the campaign is nasty, with apparently the dirtiest most low-down accusation they could make of each other being the mere association with the gay community, ads that say, in effect, that so-and-so ran in the color race (?), or worked in an organization that allowed gays to work there, and we might be talking about an army base here, or someone who may have had to allow gays to work there. So, if you're not strongly, publicly, energetically committed to excluding gays, you're not conservative enough? That's what it would appear. The steel-toed boot went so far as to say something like, hey, if you even appear to support the gays, that's really not what Republicanism is about, is it? At one point the poor Marine guy went into the hospital. Said he'd been attacked by terrorists, attacked by guys with guns and all, but never attacked so viciously as he was in this election.
Well under that situation, I really wanted to jump in there and say something, because, if not, anyone could be elected; that's how we got stuck with Cruz. In that kind of situation, it's whoever gets a fair number of supporters, enthusiastic or not, and the race is clearly among them; we Democrats, if we're true to ourselves, are off voting for Bernie or Hillary. And in fact, it was a raucous election, and we will get stuck with one of those guys, and if there was a large number of Democrats voting Repub I didn't see them.
At the last minute, I stuck to my Dem identity, and took a Dem ballot. I decided that if we really wanted a Dem to run we should have found a Dem to run, and run Dem. Maybe I should have done it myself. Much as I can't bear the spectrum of Repub candidates, at least they got the signatures. They got up there and ran; we didn't.
The place is crazy; it tricks you into thinking a Bush advisor is reasonable, liberal, educated, clear-thinking, acceptable. This guy advised Bush on energy issues. The others make him look like a calm, friendly, reasonable guy who would be our best choice in Congress. I can tell you this; in contrast to the others, that is true. That I could possibly consider voting for such a person is testament to how twisted my reality could possibly become, in a situation where my choice is basically so far away from my own thinking, that I question whether I can really even call it a "choice".
Friday, December 25, 2015
Golden Pecans, part I
Young, A. Lubbock's pecan bumper crop good for business, nut lovers, Lubbock Online. http://lubbockonline.com/local-news/2015-12-24/lubbocks-pecan-bumper-crop-good-business-nut-lovers#.Vn3qxlLjIeI. Accessed Dec. 2015.
It's good to hear about the people who are in the same occupation I am, namely picking up pecans wherever I can. My own back yard has been good for maybe ten pounds so far, and on my way to work, I stop at a professor's house and pick more. Also I have a neighbor who doesn't touch theirs'; I grab a few there as I walk by as well. I try to keep my hands off where I don't know the people or where I really don't know if they want to get out and harvest their own, but I've noticed that for the most part, people don't care. A whole town of pecans, and they're just sitting there, waiting for the harvesters.
A friend of mine told me that they're hot all of a sudden in China, but I haven't confirmed this. Does this keep the price high? Or would the price come down, later in the year, as people come out with these thousands of pounds of shelled pecans, and they all hit the market at the same time? Or, here's another question. Say I bring home my 26 pounds (as it stands, I've added a pound or two to that, but I'm not sure how it'll work, and I supposedly will be able to pick up my shelled pecans around the middle of March)....and let's say there's a glut on the market and I can't even give them away to my immediate relatives. Do they keep? If so, how? How long will they last?
The pecan place gave away two kinds of mulch: the rough kind, they sold, as people found it useful for all kinds of things. It breaks up the soil, someone said, so it's generally well-sought-after. But there was another kind, the finer mulch. That was free, and it sat out in their driveway in two large gallon-drums. People use that in pin-cushions, they said, and they gave that away free, or at least they gave some away free to an older lady who asked them. She had asked me first, but I had asked the worker there, who was an Iowa Hawkeye like myself, and also a musician. She, upon finding out that it was for pin cushions and was for free, got them to make her a bag of it, and she took off with it.
Now that set me to thinking: maybe I should go into the pincushion business. I have lots of quilt fabric still hanging around. I want to go back into quilt making, but for the time issues, and being overwhelmed by work backed up. Pincushions would allow me to basically do one little thing at a time, and, on top of it, put pecan mulch in there.
It's a true-to-life, down home, Lubbock-style occupation. We're into those, these days, due to the fact that the academic world is just pretty much going down the toilet.
It's good to hear about the people who are in the same occupation I am, namely picking up pecans wherever I can. My own back yard has been good for maybe ten pounds so far, and on my way to work, I stop at a professor's house and pick more. Also I have a neighbor who doesn't touch theirs'; I grab a few there as I walk by as well. I try to keep my hands off where I don't know the people or where I really don't know if they want to get out and harvest their own, but I've noticed that for the most part, people don't care. A whole town of pecans, and they're just sitting there, waiting for the harvesters.
A friend of mine told me that they're hot all of a sudden in China, but I haven't confirmed this. Does this keep the price high? Or would the price come down, later in the year, as people come out with these thousands of pounds of shelled pecans, and they all hit the market at the same time? Or, here's another question. Say I bring home my 26 pounds (as it stands, I've added a pound or two to that, but I'm not sure how it'll work, and I supposedly will be able to pick up my shelled pecans around the middle of March)....and let's say there's a glut on the market and I can't even give them away to my immediate relatives. Do they keep? If so, how? How long will they last?
The pecan place gave away two kinds of mulch: the rough kind, they sold, as people found it useful for all kinds of things. It breaks up the soil, someone said, so it's generally well-sought-after. But there was another kind, the finer mulch. That was free, and it sat out in their driveway in two large gallon-drums. People use that in pin-cushions, they said, and they gave that away free, or at least they gave some away free to an older lady who asked them. She had asked me first, but I had asked the worker there, who was an Iowa Hawkeye like myself, and also a musician. She, upon finding out that it was for pin cushions and was for free, got them to make her a bag of it, and she took off with it.
Now that set me to thinking: maybe I should go into the pincushion business. I have lots of quilt fabric still hanging around. I want to go back into quilt making, but for the time issues, and being overwhelmed by work backed up. Pincushions would allow me to basically do one little thing at a time, and, on top of it, put pecan mulch in there.
It's a true-to-life, down home, Lubbock-style occupation. We're into those, these days, due to the fact that the academic world is just pretty much going down the toilet.
Monday, December 14, 2015
Thursday, November 5, 2015
football
OK so the football season is beyond its halfway point, and I know enough about it to know we Raiders are a little better than expected, but not quite up to the level of the big boys, which this year includes Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor, and maybe TCU who we almost beat. I stand by my earlier claim that science and health are showing football to be deadly, at least at the level it's being practiced and played at these days, but I also find that I totally love Texas folks and can't help be drawn in to this Big 12 kind of town, totally involved in these games and their outcomes.
Of course I also have a lurid fascination for Oklahoma State, which received a few million from T. Boone Pickens, spent it wisely, and got a bunch of Texas kids to come up there and turn around and beat all the Texas teams. Oklahoma, too, grabbed our quarterback and made him a star. And it totally rankles all the Texas teams when they get beat by Oklahoma, it's like your little brother beating you at chess. It's unacceptable! But we don't have a T. Boone Pickens, so we have to play by the book, and use real money, and get kids who don't mind living in Lubbock. A tall order!
So to me the low point of the season was when Baylor's quarterback broke his neck and all they could talk about was this young kid who was coming up behind him, now they'd have a chance to have a look at him. All these teams have three or four quarterbacks, and sometimes the one who's playing isn't the crowd favorite, but wait a minute, the kid broke his neck....the article didn't mention whether he'd be paralyzed for life, or just have to wear one of those ugly neck braces around for an eon. I don't want to be so into fandom that all I can do is talk about the next victim.
Yet, like everyone, I look forward to the Thanksgiving Day game, and the rest of our schedule, and though I don't actually watch any of it, I do care. You can't live in Lubbock and not care. If I ever have a couple million to blow, I'll consider it, really. No, to tell you the truth, I probably won't. I wouldn't support that six trillion dollar war, either, except I had to, they made me pay for it. That's the way it is, though, we're all one family. If one of us is out there gambling the millions, the rest of us end up paying for it.
Of course I also have a lurid fascination for Oklahoma State, which received a few million from T. Boone Pickens, spent it wisely, and got a bunch of Texas kids to come up there and turn around and beat all the Texas teams. Oklahoma, too, grabbed our quarterback and made him a star. And it totally rankles all the Texas teams when they get beat by Oklahoma, it's like your little brother beating you at chess. It's unacceptable! But we don't have a T. Boone Pickens, so we have to play by the book, and use real money, and get kids who don't mind living in Lubbock. A tall order!
So to me the low point of the season was when Baylor's quarterback broke his neck and all they could talk about was this young kid who was coming up behind him, now they'd have a chance to have a look at him. All these teams have three or four quarterbacks, and sometimes the one who's playing isn't the crowd favorite, but wait a minute, the kid broke his neck....the article didn't mention whether he'd be paralyzed for life, or just have to wear one of those ugly neck braces around for an eon. I don't want to be so into fandom that all I can do is talk about the next victim.
Yet, like everyone, I look forward to the Thanksgiving Day game, and the rest of our schedule, and though I don't actually watch any of it, I do care. You can't live in Lubbock and not care. If I ever have a couple million to blow, I'll consider it, really. No, to tell you the truth, I probably won't. I wouldn't support that six trillion dollar war, either, except I had to, they made me pay for it. That's the way it is, though, we're all one family. If one of us is out there gambling the millions, the rest of us end up paying for it.
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