You can’t visit New Orleans without trying the oysters. An early-day chef from France began using them, trying to find a substitute for escargot, an almost impossible commodity to procure in the colony.

New Orleans chefs now prepare them a thousand different ways, from fried to raw. Here is a simple but wonderful recipe from the Acme Oyster House on Iberville. As their name implies, they know oysters. Try this recipe and enjoy.

OYSTERS LOUISIANA
Ingredients:

• 4 oz. butter - melted
• 1.5 pints oysters - drained
• 4 green onions - chopped finely
• 3 cloves garlic - minced
• ½ lb. fresh lump crabmeat
• ½ cup bread crumbs
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Melt butter in a skillet. Add oysters and cook until dry. Add onions and garlic and cook slowly for at least 10 minutes. Fold in crabmeat and crumbs. Simmer 5 minutes more. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Eric’sWeb

After returning from Vietnam, I entered the master’s program at the University of Arkansas.  Gail and I both had part-time jobs; I was on the GI Bill and had a quarter-time assistant-ship.

We raked in well over a thousand dollars a month.  Since we had no debt and little overhead, I probably had as much money at that time as I ever have in my life. My quarter-time assistantship consisted of work at the University of Arkansas Museum located then on the fourth floor of the Old Main Building, the oldest building at the University.

When I wasn’t giving guided tours to grades one through three, I was unwrapping rocks, bones and other artifacts.  There seemed to be at least ten times more material in the back than there was in the actual museum, most still packed in the same boxes as when it came to the University.

It was sort of creepy working late in the old museum because there were rows and rows of human bones and complete skeletons, mostly stacked unceremoniously on the various shelves.  The rock, mineral and ore specimens were wrapped in old newspapers, most very old.  I spent half my time, it seems, reading old newspaper stories.

One of the museum’s greatest treasures, at least in my mind, was the giant quartz crystals donated by geologist Hugh D. Miser.  Some of the crystals weighed a thousand pounds or more.  They are rare and irreplaceable.

I loved leading tours through the little museum and seeing the eyes of the young people, all agog with discovery.  It struck me that enthusiasm and desire to absorb knowledge, filled kids of this age.  Less than professional teachers often manage to blunt most of this desire and enthusiasm.

Yes, I had a canned story that I used on all age groups. I usually ended at the quartz crystal display where I attributed the collection to Hugh D. Miser, Arkansas’ greatest geologist ever.  One day, a group of adults followed along as I conducted my tour.  When I concluded, the teachers and kids thanked me and departed.  One of the women listening to my conducted tour approached me.

“Excuse me, but you said that a man named Miser was Arkansas’ greatest geologist.  I beg to differ.  It was my father John Branner.”

I know my mouth must have dropped as this unknown woman invoked the name of the first Arkansas State Geologist.  I took a breath and said, “Your Dad was truly a great geologist and did so much for Arkansas.  He and Miser were both great men and I was judgmental to say Miser was the greatest.  It is only because I’m a mineralogist and he donated those beautiful crystals that I admire so much to the State.  I apologize if I offended you because your father was truly a great man.”

The woman must have accepted my apology because she smiled, shook my hand and thanked me.  She and her party departed with smiles on their faces, leaving me with a rapidly beating heart and a greater understanding about blanket endorsements.

My thesis advisor, Dr. K almost busted a gut laughing when I told him the story.  He shook his head and said, “Wilder, you may never make it as a geologist but you have the best line of bulls—t of any student I’ve ever had.”

Eric’sWeb

While a geology student at Northeast Louisiana (now University of Louisiana Monroe), I attended a Geological Society of America convention in New Orleans.  The St. Charles Hotel was the convention headquarters.  When we arrived, I learned the hotel had lost my reservation.

It was an earlier place and time.  Instead of turning me away to seek lodging some other place, they erected a cot for me in a large towel closet (I kid you not!) and I spent the night there.  It was only for one night because they found a room for me the next day.

The original St. Charles Hotel burned in 1841, reconstructed and burned again in the 1890’s.  I stayed in the third hotel built on the original site, it razed in the 1970’s.  It was already a bit seedy when I stayed there but the original St. Charles Hotel was widely accepted as the most regal hotel on earth at the time.

The original St. Charles Hotel was a meeting place for wealthy Americans.  The French built the equally regal St. Louis Hotel.  Like many historical places, they had their dark sides.  Stocks for selling slaves stood inside both hotels.  Here is a compelling excerpt from an account of the everyday slave trade as told by Harnett T. Kane in his book Queen New Orleans – City by the River published in 1949 by William Morrow & Company.

The two hotels shared a sight that made certain visitors, Southern as well as Northern, wince.  Here stood blocks on which human beings were auctioned.  From one point of view it was merely a sale of property, no different from that of a horse or a table.  From another – but let us watch such an event as eyewitnesses reported it.

An elderly dark woman, sunken –chested, is helped up to stand on the block. The auctioneer starts briskly: “Now, gentlemen, here’s Mary.  Clever house-servant, excellent cook.  Only one fault, shamming sick.  Nothing wrong with her any more than with me.  Put her up, gentlemen.  A hundred dollars to begin?”

Several men reach over and prod Mary in the ribs.  “Are you well?” one asks.

“No, very sick.”  The words are strained.  “Bad cough, pain in my side, suh.”

The auctioneer interrupts: “Gentlemen, I told you she’s a shammer.  Damn her humbug!  Give her a touch or two of the cowhide, and she’ll do your work.  Speak, gentlemen.  Seventy dollars only?  Going, going, gone!”

Nobody is much interested.  “Lots of skin and bone,” a younger man comments, and his neighbor chuckles loudly:  “Guess that ‘ere woman will soon be food for the land crabs.”  Amid general laughter, the sick slave is led away.

A bright-eyed youth steps up.  The auctioneer praises his intelligence.  Neither he nor any of the others would be for sale, the man says, if their master were not in financial trouble.  Several growers escort the boy to a side room to strip him for sores or other imperfections.  A high price.  Next!

A smile on her lips, a pert mulattress glides over.  A stout man opens her mouth to examine the gums.  He and several others make a motion to the auctioneer and take her away, as in the previous case, for private examination.  A yet higher bid, a lively raising of it while the girl’s smile widens proudly.  Sold!

A middle-aged woman takes the block, her eyes somber, in her arms a sleeping child.  “How much/” The auctioneer describes her training at length.  Not once does she raise her eyes from her baby.  He tells of her experience, what her masters have said of her dependability.  She still stares down.  Sold!  Next –

The planters stroll about, bored.  “Not much left, eh?”

“Have to hurry home, anyway.”

They throw on their top coats.  Tonight they will be back, a few feet from this spot, sipping wine, dancing.  And the cadence of the music will rise where Negro men and women have been whispering together, and the dancers’ feet will slide across a polished floor where slave people shuffled to the block and off it again.”

There are still many compelling stories about New Orleans but there were no slave blocks in the lobby when I stayed at the hotel, only friendly people trying hard to accommodate a young geologist wannabe.  Still, I felt the specter of the slaves as they dragged their shackles down the hall - that night long ago spent in the towel closet of the St. Charles Hotel.

Eric’sWeb

After spreading Anne’s ashes, Angela and I stayed another night on Cape Cod before returning to Boston.  We stopped for dinner in Salem, Massachusetts (at least I think it was Salem.  I wasn’t very coherent at the time) and met some very friendly folks.

I don’t remember the name of the restaurant but it was in a two-storied wood-framed building that overlooked the bay.  Angela and I went upstairs to a room that featured a large picture window affording a wonderful view of the boats moored in the marina.  The bar wrapped around in a 360-degree oval, manned by a friendly waiter that introduced himself as Matt.  Affable darkness draped the room with comforting shadows.

At least twenty-five feet long, the bar was expansive enough to seat fifty patrons.  It was nearly empty but we weren’t alone.  I ordered a Sam Adams when Matt asked us what we wanted.

“I don’t usually drink beer but I think I might like one tonight,” Angela said.  “Do you have a suggestion, Matthew?”

Angela is an attractive woman and she instantly enamored Matt with the flash of her eyes and tone of her voice.  “Why don’t I let you taste some samples,” he said.

Matt, a slender young man with wavy brown hair was youthful enough to be Angela’s son.  It didn’t matter because Angela exercises, watches what she eats and usually passes as someone at least twenty years younger than she is.  In addition to her youthful good looks and expressive eyes, she has the wonderful resonating voice of a radio talk show host (which she was at the time).

Matt proceeded to open a selection of different beers and then pour small samples into shot glasses.  Angela sipped each proffered selection, turning her nose up at all of them.  Matt didn’t seem to mind.  He just kept smiling and pouring.  She finally decided on a glass of chardonnay instead of beer.

Matt gave me what she didn’t drink and I was soon feeling eerily loose.  Never at a loss for words, I asked, “Where is everybody?”

“We don’t get many tourists after Labor Day,” the man across the bar answered.

“We’re not from around here but we’re not tourists,” I said, already tipsy enough to explain our mission on the Cape to the stranger.

The couple introduced themselves as Beth and Dutch.  After my story, they became immediately friendlier.  “I could tell by your accent that you aren’t from here,” Beth said.

At first glance the couple looked to be in their fifties but the timbre of their voices suggested they were both much older, Beth’s well coiffed and bouffant hair popular during a decade past.  I had the notion that her highlighted brown tresses had cost a bundle at an expensive salon and the big diamond on her finger did nothing to belie my observation.  She had shoehorned herself into a low-cut slinky black dress that went perfectly with expensive accessory jewelry adorning her slender bod.  I couldn’t see her legs but imagined she was wearing black, fishnet stockings.

Dutch’s hair was also perfect – maybe too perfect.  The diamond encrusted Rolex on his wrist clashed with his diamond pinkie ring.  The cut of his handmade shirt indicated wealth and my fiction author’s mind surmised he could have attended Harvard with the Kennedy’s.

“Born in Louisiana,” I told her, “But I’ve lived in Oklahoma so long now that I call it home.”

Jay and Linda were sitting to the left of us.  A burly man with dark wavy hair, Jay had a small tattoo visible beneath the sleeve of his flowered Hawaiian shirt.  He looked younger than he probably was because Linda’s hair had gone totally gray.  Their shorts revealed athletic legs that likely took many long walks along the beach.

“I was in Louisiana during Vietnam,” Jay said.  “Fort Polk.”

“Me too,” I said.

“Basic training,” he explained.  “I was on my way to Nam but blew out a knee.  They sent me home after that.

“Where in Oklahoma are you from?” the man sitting to the right of Angela asked.

“Oklahoma City,” I told him, along with a brief description of my past twenty years.

His name was Ray, his wife’s Sandra.  They wore shorts, and matching tee shirts featuring a procession of ships sailing into New York harbor.  The caption said “Tall Ships.”  They were drinking draw beers and eating bowls of chowder.  Ray had a Wyatt Earp moustache that drooped to his chin.  Sandra was a blonde-haired woman whose blue eyes twinkled when she smiled, even in the interminable darkness of the bar.

Matt had implanted himself in front of Angela, his elbows on the bar and his chin resting in the palms of his hand as he hung on every word she uttered.

“This is wonderful,” she said.  “The view is gorgeous.  I wish I lived here.”

“Its hell until after Labor Day,” Dutch said.  “We rarely get out during tourist season.”

The three couples had lived in Salem their entire lives.  They knew each other and all hated tourists.  Angela and I dined on lobster thermidor, drank more beer and wine than needed, and continued to kibbutz with the locals.

Before the evening ended, it seemed as if we had known each other all our lives.  I invited them to visit me in Oklahoma and they asked Angela and me to call them next time we were in the area.  Finally, it was time to leave.

Matt held Angela’s hand, beseeching her to stay until he got off work.

“I’m married,” she said, showing him her wedding ring.

I have never returned to Salem since that night and Angela now lives in California.  Still, I’m grateful to the wonderful folks we met in the bar that night because for a while they took my mind off Anne’s passing.

Driving as if unimpaired, Angela returned us to Boston.  I sat in moody silence, battling without success as aching melancholy crept slowly back into my soul.

Eric’sWeb

  My dog Lucky died today. He was twelve-plus, an advanced age for a Labrador retriever. My deceased wife Anne bought Lucky six months before she died and the big pup soon became my constant companion and best friend.

Lucky helped ease me through a hard time in my life. I am sad tonight, but I am happy that he lived such a long and happy life, and died on such a gorgeous day with no apparent trauma.

Goodbye Lucky and rest in peace. 11-02-2009.

Eric’sWeb

Some say Edmond is a hotbed of urban legends
Tales of paranormal activity haunt on.

http://newsok.com/some-say-edmond-is-a-hotbed-of-urban-legends/article/3413267

Eric’sWeb

Edmond, Oklahoma is the home to thousands of crows. Here are a few pics I took in my backyard.

Eric’sWeb

Born on the day before Halloween, I seem forever connected to that holiday.  Anne and I married early in 1980 and decided to host a Halloween party that year.  Halloween was on a Friday, but we planned the big bash for Saturday.

Not all of our guests got the message as three revelers showed up for the party Friday night.  Jakob, an Israeli expatriate that was doing stonework around our house for us, came as a cowboy.  Nancy, a geologist, dressed, strangely enough, as an Indian princess, soon followed.  John, a fellow geologist, showed up a little later, his only costume a mask.

Nonplussed, Anne and I broke out the alcohol.  There was a championship-boxing match on television that night - Oklahoma City's own Sean O'Grady versus James Watt, a Scottish boxer.  The fight took place in Glasgow, Scotland and to say that there was a bit of home cooking going on is but a mild statement.  After a few rounds Watt head-butted Sean resulting in a horrible cut over his eye.  Watt De served disqualification and O'Grady the title.  Instead, the local judges ruled the cut caused by a punch rather than a head-butt.

Those days there was no rule about excessive bleeding.  To say that there was a little blood strewn around the ring would be a true understatement.  The ring looked more like the inside of a working slaughterhouse, all the viewers, including myself, in shock.  The ref soon called the fight and proclaimed Watt the world champion.

We went on to drink, carouse and to celebrate into the wee hours, neither Anne nor I in much shape for the real party that continued as planned the next day. As it happened, the first Halloween party I ever hosted, an unscheduled party became the one I remember the most.

Eric’sWeb

Halloween, my favorite holiday, is almost upon us and one of the reasons I love this time of year are the tasty pumpkin pies my Mother and Grandmothers used to make.  Here is an old yet simple recipe that I hope you enjoy as much as I do. HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

• 1 ½ cups fresh pumpkin
• ¼ tsp nutmeg
• ¼ tsp cinnamon      
• 1 cup milk
• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp butter
• ¼ tsp salt

Combine ingredients.  Mix thoroughly.  Pour into pastry-lined pie pan.  Bake in hot oven (425 degrees) for about 25 minutes, or until an inserted knife comes out clean.  Serve with whipped cream on top.

Eric’sWeb

22 year-old Sammy Wanjiru of Kenya won the Chicago Marathon in 2:05:41, the fastest marathon ever recorded on American soil. I was thinking about the feat as I began my walk tonight. Thousands run the marathon every year. Few have covered the more than twenty-six mile distance in one-hundred-twenty-five minutes forty-one seconds – an average of less than five minutes per mile.

I’m too heavy and too old to jog anymore but I can still walk. As I left my house tonight before six, intent on beating the darkness, I thought about the young Kenyan’s feat. My mind, still as nimble as it was at twenty-two, quickly raced to other subjects. My thoughts transformed from running to writing.

The screenplay I am working on, adapted from my book Big Easy, is forty pages too long. I spent much of the day trying to mend the problem with varied success.

It was spitting rain as I commenced my walk tonight. Temperatures have fallen in central Oklahoma recently and we turned on our heaters yesterday. My mind wasn’t on the rain, or the falling temperatures, but Sammy Wanjiru, and which actor should play Lieutenant Tony Nicosia should my book ever result in a movie.

While I will never run a sub-three-hour marathon, I can still walk, and walking- for all you enthusiasts out there - is a great thought catalyst. During my walk, It dawned on me the best person to play Tony Nicosia is John Travolta.

I finished walking in the spitting rain, dreaming of running a world record marathon, and trying to convince Travolta to star in my movie. Hey, maybe I’m a hopeless dreamer, but sometimes dreams are all we have. I also have a feeling 22-year-old Sammy Wanjiru dreamed of running the fastest marathon ever recorded on American soil long before he ever did it.

Eric’sWeb

A few years ago, I took a mineral lease not far from Lake Arcadia, Edmond’s water supply.  I wanted to get an oil well drilled at a location about two miles south of Route 66.  I became friends with Carroll L, the mineral owner and one day, just before lunch, he showed up at my office.

“Let’s go to lunch,” he said.  “I’m buying.”

I had no other plans so we piled into his truck.  Instead of taking me to lunch, though, he had other plans.  We soon pulled up outside a house in Edmond.

“There’s someone here I want you to meet.  Her name is Nita.  She’s a seer and I’m going to have her read your cards.”

Nita was apparently expecting us, quickly ushering us to a back room complete with a table and deck of Tarot cards.  She smiled and basked in the accolades as Carroll explained all the missing persons she had found for the police.

“I have a talent,” she admitted.

Nita was an attractive Oklahoma woman that in no way looked like a witch doctor or soothsayer, but she had a confident manner about her that caused me to trust her instantly.

Carroll, apparently, was more interested in learning if she thought there was oil and gas under his property than in listening to my fortune.  Listen, though, he did because Nita dealt my cards and proceeded to predict my fate.  I don’t remember everything she said.  One thing I do.

“You ride a motorcycle, don’t you?” she asked.  When I admitted that I did and had two motorcycles, a grave expression appeared on her face.  Her next statement caused me concern.  “You’re going to have a motorcycle accident and you’re going to lose a leg.”

I was still reeling from Nita’s prediction when Carroll changed the subject to his minerals.  Nita thinks there’s a wealth of oil and gas beneath my property, don’t you Nita?

There was a moment’s hesitation between Nita’s answer and the look of doubt in her eyes.  I knew right away that no matter what her lips professed about how much oil and gas we were going to find, her eyes were telling the truth that she believed.

We never made it to lunch that day, Carroll returning me to my office, confident that he would soon have a wonderful well drilled on his land.  After our meeting with Nita the seer, I was not so sure.  The meeting unnerved me to the point that I have never again ridden a motorcycle (well, okay, just once maybe.)

Nita’s eyes did not persuade me that there was no oil or gas under Carroll’s property and it took the drilling of two dry holes to convince me otherwise.  While I don’t believe that Nita knew anymore about the oil and gas (or lack thereof) beneath Carroll’s property than I did, I’m still not going to run out and buy a new Harley.

Eric’sWeb

I recently finished the screenplay adaptation for my novel Big Easy. Even though I removed several subplots, I still ended up with one-hundred-sixty pages - forty pages too many.

I called my business and writing partner, r.r. bryan and asked him what I should do. My friend just finished adapting his novel, All the Angels and Saints, for the movies and he knows much more than I do about the intricacies of screenwriting.

“Just cut every fourth page,” he advised.

He was just joking and after he quit laughing, he promised to look at my script and see if he could find a way to fix it. Humbled, I realized that penning a novel doesn’t qualify you as a screenwriter. It also made me realize why so many movies are so very different from the book that originally spawned the story.

It’s a cold night in central Oklahoma so I think I’ll go to bed early. Maybe the solution to my writing problem will come to me in a dream.

Eric’sWeb

We had a torrential rainstorm in central Oklahoma today. When I left my office to meet friends Terry and Debbie at nearby Louie’s Restaurant, red muddy water was gushing from the vacant lot near the office. The rain and incessant dampness caused me to remember something from my past.

It happened almost forty years ago in the hills of Vietnam, near the Cambodian border. I was a machine-gunner for the 1/8 Cavalry (1^st Cav). Deep in the jungle, we came on a deserted Montagnard village situated by a stream.

The North Vietnamese hated the Montagnards because they supported the South Vietnamese regime. They killed every Montagnard that they could and I felt certain that some atrocity had occurred at the deserted village we found on the outskirts of the jungle.

It was monsoon season and it rained every day. It didn’t matter much to us grunts because we wore the same clothes until they became as stiff as cardboard. We didn’t worry about dirty underwear. We didn’t have any underwear, dirty or otherwise – well, except for socks.

Like everyone else, I wore jungle boots. I usually kept them on for fifteen days at a time because I didn’t want to have to run through the jungle barefooted in case we came under fire at night. Snakes and scorpions also had a tendency to crawl in your warm smelly boots when you took them off.

My memory is faulty after forty years, but I remember a few desecrated structures made of brush, and a few campfires in the Montagnard encampment. The ground was bare of grass, which told me that someone had lived there for quite a while before vacating the premises, probably in haste. Something that happened later that night told me that they didn’t all make it.

We luxuriated in the stream, washing away days of mud and grime. That night, it rained so hard that the weight of the downpour almost took down the poncho liners Gary Clark and I shared as shelter from the storm. Water gushed through the tiny village, lifting my air mattress and washing me into the rain.

Falling water awoke me immediately, although I wasn’t fully asleep because you never really achieve deep sleep in a free fire zone. Grabbing my air mattress and other possessions that had floated out into the rain, I quickly poked them back under the poncho liners. It was then that I turned and saw something that I will never forget.

It was the villagers, men women and children. They weren’t real, just spirits of the dead, their lives destroyed by several decades of war. They weren’t alone. Behind them were the ghosts of North Vietnamese regulars, Vietnamese villagers and several dozen American soldiers. I stood there in the pouring rain, watching until the vision flickered and disappeared into the darkness.

Forty years have passed since that night so long ago. Tonight, as torrential rain dropped more than three inches of water on central Oklahoma, I remember the looks on the faces of the dead and realize you don’t have to be a genius to know what they wanted to convey.

Eric'sWeb

As I sat out by the pool tonight, playing with my pugs, I recalled something from my past when I glanced up at the full moon partially covered with pregnant clouds.

I have mentioned many times that Halloween is my favorite holiday. There was little or no crime during my childhood in Vivian, Louisiana and the parents allowed us to stay out until the wee hours on Halloween night. Despite the darkness, I can only recall being frightened on one occasion.

Darkness comes early in late October and it was well after dark when Rod, Wiley and I left my house, intent on collecting lots of candy and treats. Parents didn’t accompany their kids when I was young. They didn’t need to. The three of us had hit every house on our block. We were moving east when we first encountered a church group engaged in a scavenger hunt.

“We have to get a flower from the cemetery,” a girl’s voice dressed as a witch told us in passing.

“Let’s get that piece of obsidian from the graveyard,” Rod said. “You’re not scared, are you?”

“Not me,” Wiley said.

“I ain’t scared,” I said. “But we shouldn’t steal from the graveyard just because it’s Halloween.”

“You’re a wus, Eric. You wait here and Wiley and I will get the obsidian.”

“You ain’t going no place without me,” I said. “We’ll see who the wus is.”

Louisiana is always humid. Halloween night had a rare full moon that year, but rapidly moving clouds covered much of the stars and moon. Vivian is hilly, the town cemetery at the top of the highest hill. The pumpkin moon had just disappeared behind a cloud when we reached the top of the hill and headed for the obsidian grave. When we reached it, we found something unexpected.

There is no obsidian in Louisiana, at least not natural obsidian. Someone had placed a large chunk of the rock at the foot of someone’s grave. As an amateur rock hound, I lusted after it. I had talked about it so much that both Rod and Wiley also coveted it. Stealing it from the dead was another matter. I had the big hunk of obsidian in my hand when I noticed someone kneeling in front of the headstone.

The person looked like a witch and at first I thought it was the girl on the scavenger hunt. When the person stood and faced us, I realized that it wasn’t.

I was close enough that I could smell the dank fabric of the dark clothes the woman wore. When she turned to face me, I thought she was wearing a mask. As I stared at her, I realized that she wasn’t.

Rod and Wiley didn’t hang around; they ran away when they realized the person was not a trick-or-treater. I looked at the ugly old woman, my heart racing, still holding the hunk of obsidian in my hands. When she raised her hands over her head and took a step toward me, I screeched at the top of my lungs and started running. I didn’t stop until I was at the bottom of the hill where I found Rod and Wiley.

“Did you get it?” Rod asked.

“No thanks to either of you.”

I kept the hunk of obsidian for two days, but my conscience wouldn’t let me keep it. I returned it to the cemetery, placing it at the foot of the grave where I had found it. I forgot about the old woman until tonight when a full moon cloaked by pregnant clouds reminded me again.

Eric’sWeb

I have used Pascal’s Manale as a setting for two stories, both featuring Mama Mulate, my fictional voodoo mambo/Tulane English professor.  In the short story Conjure Man, Mama visits Pascal’s during a hurricane to visit her much younger boyfriend/bartender. In my novel Big Easy, Mama and Wyatt Thomas seal a partnership that sets the stage for the stage for the French Quarter murder mystery.

There is no better place on earth to eat a few dozen oysters and drink cold Dixie Beer while waiting on a table to dine on Pascal’s signature barbecue shrimp and finish up with what may be the best bread pudding in all of New Orleans.

Below is the recipe for their bread pudding straight from the Pascal’s Manale website.

Ingredients:

• 3 Loaves French Bread
• 15 ozs. Raisins
• ½ Gallon Whole Milk
• ½ lb. Sugar
• 10 Eggs
• ½ Pound of Melted Butter
• 3 ozs. Vanilla Extract

Directions:
Cut French bread into cubes. Pour milk on French bread. Let milk soak into bread. Add the remaining ingredients to French bread mixture. Mix with hand until blended evenly. Pour mixture into ungreased pan.

Pre-heat oven at 350 degrees. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Makes 15 or more servings.

Topping

• 3 ozs. Brandy
• 1 lb. butter
• 8 ozs. sugar
• 2 ozs. vanilla extract

Let butter sit at room temperature until very soft. Add the remaining ingredients and blend with mixer until smooth. Pour over bread pudding.

Eric’sWeb

Barely October and central Oklahoma’s weather has already turned chilly and misty – perfect Halloween weather. As a Halloween baby – well, almost, I was born on the 30^th – I love this time of year. As a writer, I feel like penning a few ghost stories. No time for a full-blown short story, but I will tell you my inspiration for one when I get around to writing it.

Marilyn and I live on the southeast edge of Edmond, America. Unlike much of Oklahoma, Edmond is hilly and has many large trees. Creeks dissect the hills and many wild animals populate these creeks. The other night, I saw a particular animal outside my front door that you wouldn’t believe, even if I had managed to grab my trust camera and snap a picture before it ran away.

I feed my cats in the front yard and they don’t always finish their food. I know, I know - I can already sense my email heating up with veterinarians and other animal professionals telling me what an idiot that I am. Yes, I know about rabies but I love seeing these wild creatures up close. Last night I saw a wild creature that I didn’t expect.

It was a coyote, yes a coyote and not a fox or a dog. My cat Fang didn’t seem to notice, or to care, as the coyote ate cat food from his dish. Maybe he didn’t notice because the coyote was solid white. The animal either didn’t know that I was observing it through my storm door, or else didn’t care.

Not twenty feet away, I watched as the beast finished the cat food in the bowl, glanced around to see if anyone was near, and then disappeared into the darkness.

Was it a ghost coyote? I don’t think so. I saw it and so did my dogs in their nearby fenced area. They never stopped barking. Still, the coyote was ghostly white.

Barely October, our weather is already chilly and misty, and I am wondering what other specters of the night I will see before Halloween. I can hardly wait.

Eric'sWeb

There were two barbershops in Vivian when I was growing up.  My friend Rod lived up the street and his dad Coy owned one of them.  When I was old enough to start getting my hair cut by myself, I began frequenting Rod’s dad.  Before then, I always went with my Dad and his instructions to the barbers were always to cut my hair short – I mean very short.

I had a hybrid crew cut – flattop until I went away to college.  It wasn’t even much of a flattop, more of a cowlick just above my forehead.  I usually left the barbershop with only about a quarter-inch of hair on the top, hair pointing skyward with the help of a liberal dose of butch wax that was sticky and smelled bad.

College separated me from Dad and I was able to let my hair grow for the first time in my life.  For me it was a liberating experience.  When I met Anne, she introduced me to Tony, her stylist and one of the best hair cutters in the world.  He kept my hair in top shape for years.

Last year, the oil business became so hectic that I had little time to make an appointment for a haircut two weeks in advance, so I began dropping in to the local barbershop instead.  I went today and the look and feel of the old shop sent waves of nostalgia coursing through my memory.

There were four barber chairs in the place - all antiques - seated firmly amid the floor’s black and white tile.  The barber buzzed my hair with his clippers, and then shaved me with a straight razor lubricated by hot foam.  He finished by slicking my hair back with a glob of sticky pomade.

My Dad is in a rest home now and they have a professional stylist on staff.  Last time I visited, his hair looked like that of a pampered movie star preparing for a possible Oscar-winning role.

My Dad now has a well coiffed head of hair, not a strand out of place.  Meanwhile, I’m trying to wash the goop out of my own hair as I wonder what I look like.  I guess we’ve come full circle.

Eric’sWeb

There were at least a dozen Monarch Butterflies in my backyard when I went for a walk with my pugs. I only had my Nikon with the relatively short zoom and was unable to get any close-ups. Hurrying into the house, I returned with my Pentax and 200mm zoom lens.

Even though I didn’t manage to take any “drop dead gorgeous” pics, I had a great time clicking away at the fast moving little creatures. Most of the Monarchs had departed when I returned to the backyard but there were dozens of large yellow butterflies. Dressed in shorts, tee shirt and flip flops, I snapped away as mosquitoes made a meal of my legs and ankles.

After watching the first half of Alabama drubbing Arkansas, I threw in the towel and decided to take a walk through the neighborhood. Monarchs were everywhere, flitting in front of me but never quite close enough to get a shot with my Nikon. Reveling in the gorgeous creatures flying around me, I was unprepared for what I saw next.

As I topped the hill about a mile from my house, I saw a huge turkey buzzard in someone’s front yard. I stopped, extracted my camera, put it on full zoom and began clicking away. I was close enough to hit the huge buzzard with a spitball, but unfortunately not close enough to get a clear picture.

My little Nikon is great for taking still photos, mostly close-ups, but out of its element when taking action shots. As I looked at my pics upon returning to the house, I saw that all I had was a blur.

It was a gorgeous day in Central Oklahoma. I missed most of the good butterfly pics and totally flopped on the buzzard pic. Arkansas, my favorite team, was creamed but hey, it was a gorgeous day in central Oklahoma and you can’t have everything.

Eric’sWeb

While attending college in Monroe, my friend Larry and I decided to hitchhike to the small Webster Parish town of Cotton Valley, Louisiana.  Larry’s grandparents lived in the former oil and gas boomtown and had invited us down for the weekend.

The trip there was non-eventful, the trip home a story in itself.  I’ll save that account for another time and tell you instead about our encounter with a ghost in the Cotton Valley cemetery.

Larry had a twin sister named Leeann that was also visiting her grandparents for the weekend.  Her girlfriend Cindy had a car and don’t ask me why we hitchhiked to Cotton Valley instead of riding with them but it had something to do with sibling rivalry.

Larry’s grandparents, I’ll call them the Bloomers, had a large wood-framed house with many rooms that they had once rented to itinerant oil field workers.  By the sixties Cotton Valley had a population less than two thousand.  Still an oil town it was no longer a boomtown.  All of the Bloomer’s extra rooms were empty and Larry and I had our pick of the lot.

Like her brother Larry, Leeann was tall and dark.  That’s where their appearances diverged.  Leeann had the looks of a young starlet along with a Jayne Mansfield body. Tiny Cindy was as pretty as Leeann but was blonde, svelte and had a deep and lusty voice that belied her size.

In my teens, the girls could have both been homely as sin and I would still have had visions of a potential weekend liaison.  Leeann and Larry, as I mentioned, had unresolved family differences and my daydreams squelched shortly after the girls arrived.  I got my first clue when she and Cindy took rooms as far away as they could get from us on the other side of the large house.

Friday night and most of Saturday passed without Larry and me seeing much of Cindy and Leeann as they were off in the car and we were on foot.  Cotton Valley had neither a movie house nor any other form of recreation at the time and Larry and I soon grew bored.  I managed to stem my own boredom somewhat by keeping a running journal written in ink on a sheet of paper that I kept in my shirt pocket

The seclusion Larry and I felt had apparently also worked on Leeann and Cindy because shortly after a sit-down dinner with the grandparents they asked us to go for a spin with them in the car. We quickly agreed.

We drove away from the grandparent’s house after dinner, Larry and I in the back seat of Cindy’s Fairlane.  As I glanced over the bench at the half-hidden riches beneath Leeann’s plunging blouse and Cindy’s short skirt hiked high on her tanned thighs my daydreams quickly re-emerged.  They needn’t have.

We soon stopped at a house on the far edge of town and picked up Jim.  Cindy and Jim, it seemed, had met the prior semester at Northeast Louisiana.  After flunking out, he had moved back to Cotton Valley to work in the oil patch.

Cindy’s beau was a tall handsome fellow with a Cancun lifeguard’s tan.  When Leeann climbed into the backseat with Larry and me and told me to push over to the middle of the bench seat, all my sexual fantasies flew out the car’s open window and I could tell by her frown that I should keep my hands to myself.  I thought so when she crossed her legs and pointed them away from me toward the door and knew for sure when she wrapped her arms tightly around her ample bosom

It was just beginning to grow dark as we drove away from Jim’s house – a good thing as I had trouble keeping my gaze away from Leeann’s ample body.  Miniskirts were the vogue at the time and the short garment barely qualified her as fully clothed.  Feeling Larry’s cold stare over my shoulder I somehow wrested my gaze from her gorgeous legs and luscious breasts – except for an occasional stolen glance.

There isn’t, as mentioned, much to do in Cotton Valley and we were soon headed out of town on a stretch of lonely blacktop.  By now it was pitch dark, except for the stars and light of a full yellow moon.  Jim and Cindy apparently had a bit of a tiff earlier in the day.  We didn’t know it at the time but their relationship was near an end.  Luckily for the rest of us, they remained cordial the remainder of the evening and Jim covered up their quarrel skillfully by becoming our local tour guide.

“Slow down and I’ll show you the hanging tree.”  Cindy touched the brakes and pulled over as Jim pointed at a large oak tree on the side of the blacktop.  A single large branch stretched across the road.  Jim told us the tragic story of the rape of a white girl by a local black boy and the resultant retribution performed by an element of the town’s white population.  ‘They buried his body in the cemetery up the road and he supposedly still haunts it, especially on a full moon like tonight.”

“Have you ever seen the ghost?” Leeann asked.

There was swagger in Jim’s voice when he said, “Lots of times.  Once it waved a knife at a friend and me.”

“Did it scare you?” Larry asked.

“No way,” Jim said

As we sat on the side of the road, listening to Jim’s story, a gentle summer breeze wafted the large tree’s leaves and branches causing shadows to dance across warm blacktop.  None of us commented as Cindy applied the gas and started away toward the cemetery.

As I recall the short ride to the suspected rapist’s place of internment, I realize that Jim probably had visions of mending fences with Cindy, and perhaps a romantic connection induced by her anxiety at possibly seeing a ghost.  When we reached the cemetery, I’m sure the visualization we soon saw caused his thoughts of romance to disappear out the open window, along with his phony boldness.

The little cemetery lay just off the blacktop and had a small dirt parking lot.  Cindy pulled into the lot and turned off the car’s lights.  The night was moon bright and it took only a few moments for our eyes to adjust to the relative darkness.  A fence of wrought iron surrounded the cemetery stretching before us like a silent metropolis of the lifeless.

“Hear it?” Jim asked.  “The dead boy’s soul is calling out to us.”

I couldn’t hear anything except semis passing on a distant highway along with a chorus of crickets and tree frogs.  Still, Jim’s words evoked a certain anxiety.  Cindy also felt it as she slid toward the center of the car and closer to Jim.  Leeann uncrossed her legs and grabbed my hand in a firm clasp.  I couldn’t see Larry’s eyes but I knew he must be frowning.  We had all just noticed something that none of us could explain.

Leeann clutched my hand even tighter when Cindy said, “Oh my God!  What is that?”

Before us, an eerie blue light rose straight up from the center of the little cemetery, stretching like the creepy luminescent beam of an ethereal spotlight pointing high into the sky.  A slight breeze caused the beam to vacillate like the luminous arms of a ghostly hula dancer.

We all sat in silence, waiting for the image to disappear so our minds could promptly deny what we all had seen.  It didn’t happen that way.

Talk of the ghost had elicited Jim’s desired effect on Cindy.  By now she was practically sitting in his lap, her arms clutched desperately around his neck.  Jim didn’t seem to notice as his eyes in the reflected moonlight were big as proverbial saucers, his own arms gripping Cindy as tightly as she held him.

They weren’t the only ones caught up in the spooky moment.  Leeann clamped my right hand with both of her own.  She couldn’t have drawn any closer without occupying the space where I sat.  What Larry was thinking about the situation briefly crossed my mind.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Leeann finally said.

Larry was having none of it.  “No way, we need to find out what’s causing that light.  I don’t believe for one minute it’s a ghost.”

When no one responded to his statement, Larry opened the back door and started for the cemetery gate.  I was more interested in Leeann’s pressing warmth and tender softness than the ghost was but it quickly returned to my attention when the door slammed behind him.  Concerned for her brother, Leeann released her grip and pushed me toward the door.

“You’re his friend.  You go with him.”

When I glanced at Big Jim, his wide-open stare quickly told me he would be of no help.  Leeann’s frown and folded arms had returned so I opened the back door and followed my friend into the night.

“Larry, where are you?” I called.

“In front of you,” he said in a whisper.  “The light is coming from over that rise.”

The little country cemetery was well kept, grass trimmed around the tombs.  Some of the headstones were large and ornate but most were old and crumbling, many no more than wooden crosses and rectangles of worn concrete.  We had no flashlight but didn’t need one as there were few trees to block star light and bright glow of the full moon.  A graveled path led up the hill toward the gleaming blue light.

Larry and I were in ROTC and both already experienced in night maneuvers.  The ghostly light that continued to beam from the center of the cemetery apparently didn’t frighten my large companion and I was feeling more elated anticipation than fear.  As we crested the slight rise we both saw the origin of the eerie light.

Larry halted in his tracks and held up his hand for me to stop.  Moonlight was shining directly on a large piece of blue foil once used to wrap a flower pot.  The light was reflecting off the foil and onto the polished marble surface of a headstone.  The resultant glow shone like the beam of a spotlight, straight up into the sky.

The light wasn’t all we saw.  In the darkness, just beyond the spot where the little hill began to drop in elevation, an almost indistinguishable shadowy figure came into view.  It remained a moment in one spot before continuing slowly toward us, its amorphous shape wafting in the gentle summer breeze.  Larry took a step forward to investigate but a shout from behind caused us to turn and look.

“Larry, where are you?”  It was Leeann.  Worried about her brother, she had followed us.  We watched as she picked her way up the little hill.  Just as she reached us she froze in place, put her hand to her mouth and said, “Oh my God!”

A vivid flash of summer lightning accompanied Leeann’s exclamation followed quickly by a clap of thunder that seemed as if it were right on top of us.  Leeann didn’t appear to notice.  She was staring at a spot behind us, still grasping her open mouth with her left hand as she pointed straight ahead with her right.  Need I add how wide her eyes had grown?

Another flash of lightning lit the sky as Larry and I turned to see at what she was pointing.  A sudden summer rainstorm had moved quickly overhead, already covering the stars and moon with dark puffy clouds.  As lightning dissipated, only gloom remained, but not until Larry and I saw a shadowy nimbus floating up the hill toward us.

Before either of us could react, Leeann grabbed me from behind and screamed, trying, it seemed to squeeze the breath out of me.  As she did clouds began unloading with large heavy drops of warm precipitation that lasted for no more than a minute.  Dark clouds passed with the rain, again revealing clear sky complete with stars and full moonlight.  Whatever we thought we had witnessed had disappeared along with the momentary storm.

“Did you see it?” Leeann asked, her long arms still wrapped tightly around my chest.

“I saw something but don’t know what it was,” I answered.

Leeann gave me an incredulous look when Larry said, “It was just a low-lying cloud.”

“My ass!”  Leeann said.  “It was shaped like a man and it was coming up the hill after us.  You saw it didn’t you Eric?”

“I saw something but I didn’t get a good look.  We turned away just as you called to us.”

“Trust me, it was nothing but a cloud,” Larry said as he led us back to the Fairlane.

Leeann had already begun to disbelieve her eyes as she followed her brother down the hill.  I didn’t know what to believe but I was already missing the warmth of her breasts against my back.  We had to bang on the car door for Jim and Cindy to open it.

“Did you see it?” Cindy asked.

“Yes, just before the rain started.” Leeann said.

“What rain?” Jim asked.  “It’s been clear as a bell ever since you left the car.”

“Well it sure as hell rained on us, didn’t it Larry?”

“For a minute or so,” he said.

Cindy and Jim stared at him, and then at me.  “You don’t look wet.  Are you guys pulling our legs?”

My shirt and pants were almost dry and I could do little more than shrug my shoulders.  By the time we dropped Jim off at his house, talk of the ghost had ended.

Cindy and Leeann were already gone next morning before Larry and I ate breakfast.  Larry didn’t want to talk about the ghost except to say it was “bullshit” and I never spoke to either Leeann or Cindy again.

The mind plays tricks and sometimes what you think you see is nothing more than an invention of your imagination.  Still, as Larry and I waited on the edge of I-20, trying to thumb a ride, I reached in my shirt pocket and pulled out the remains of my scribbled journal.  My shirt - we were out of clean clothes and I was wearing the same shirt and blue jeans as the previous night - was damp from sweat, crumpled paper equally moist.  Something prompted me to unfold the soggy journal and look at it and I got quite a shock when I did.

Either rain or sweat had caused the blue ink to bleed on the paper and render my scribbling indecipherable – except for one word.  In large blurry letters, it spelled out WRAITH.

Eric’sWeb

   September saw temperatures reach a hundred degrees here in central Oklahoma but when October arrived, it was if someone had pulled a temperature switch. We have already experienced fifties and even forties, and day after day of drizzly weather. Today was no different.

After work, as I set out on my walk, a misty haze cloaked south Edmond. Walking is good exercise and great stress relief. It must also increase the blood flow to the brain because I always seem to solve my toughest dilemmas, or remember something from my veiled past whenever I walk. Tonight, I remembered something that had occurred many years ago. How I forgot this incident, I will never know because it was one of the most singularly frightening moments of my life.

I was a freshman in college at what is now the University of Louisiana at Monroe. My brother Jack had started there the prior year and convinced me to join an ROTC precision drill team called the Fusileers. I did, enjoying the camaraderie immensely. Toward the end of the first semester, we underwent an initiation called Hell Week.

During Hell Week, we initiates had to go to class everyday in full dress uniform, and then hang around the student union in case a senior Fusileer wanted to make us do push-ups, or recite the memorized, rhyming answer to specific military questions. I can’t remember a single rhyme, but I knew them all by heart during Hell Week.

Hell Week culminated with Hell Night. There is a giant, mostly abandoned gravel quarry on the outskirts of Monroe. During Hell Night, the initiated Fusileers dropped off us uninitiated in the darkness to try to find our way to the entrance. Along the way, the upperclassmen would ambush us with firecrackers, cherry bombs and M-80’s - legal fireworks at the time. The night was dark and hazy and we had no flashlights. During a particularly frenetic ambush, I somehow got separated from the group.

I must have walked a mile without calling out because I didn’t want the upperclassmen to capture me – having heard about the dire consequences the entire week. I soon realized that I was lost and began calling out.

The gravel pit was like the surface of Mars, rugged, rolling and completely barren of vegetation. Hazy rain had soaked my fatigues, my socks and boots wet from running through pooled water. When I stopped to listen for the other Fusileers, I heard something quite different and unexpected. It was the whumph of some large animal, coughing to get the attention of anyone near it. I didn’t know what it was, but it scared me. Not having a good grasp of what direction I was moving toward, I started away from the sound.

There was no moon or stars, only darkness and a persistent mist rising up from the broken gravel beneath my feet. I called out, “help.” No one answered.

I heard the whumph again and realized it was not my imagination. My heart began racing as I also realized that the sound was drawing ever closer. I tried moving faster which resulted in a face-first plunge into a cold pool of water. Another chill ran up my spine as I heard a low growl on the hill directly behind me. Unable to get away, I lifted myself into a sitting position and turned to face whatever was stalking me.

On the rocky hill above me, I could just make out the moving shadow of some dark, four-legged beast. With my heart racing wildly, I prepared for its attack, something that never occurred. Over the hill behind me appeared the old World War II Jeep the head Fusileers used to move about the rock quarry. I could see its lights coming up from behind. When it topped the hill, the lights flashed briefly on the beast at the top of the hill.

All I ever saw was the red demon eyes of some misty apparition. Lights from the Jeep blinded me when I turned around, the beast gone when I glanced away into the darkness.

“Wilder, where the hell have you been?”

“Lost, Sir,” I said.

Major Pfrimmer glanced at his watch. “Damn good thing for you it’s after midnight or I would have had to wash you out. You may be a sorry sack of shit, but you’re a Fusileer now, so get in the damn Jeep.

I crawled into the open vehicle, regaling in the smiles, handshakes and shoulder slaps from my fellow initiates that had also survived Hell Night. Someone passed around a bottle of cheap whiskey and I imbibed forgetting about the monster of the mist with glowing red eyes until forty years had passed, during my walk through a hazy Edmond neighborhood.

Eric’sWeb

I know I do.

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/mailbag/everybody_needs_a_vacation_140297.asp?c=rss

Eric’sWeb

I never believed my wife Anne would lose her battle with cancer but she must have had an inkling.  “Cremate me and spread my ashes on that beach I liked so much on Cape Cod.” Five or so months after she died, I flew to Boston to do just that.

My Cousin Angela and her then husband Bob accompanied me to Cape Cod.  They had a vacation cottage on John’s Pond and we spent the night there, spreading her ashes the following day.  Bob had to return to Boston but Angela and I stayed at the cottage.

“There’s a very good movie playing at the theatre.  It’s gotten great reviews and I think we should see it.  It will take our minds off everything.”

I wasn’t up for a movie but I decided to go anyway because I really wasn’t up for anything.  The movie was Smoke Signals and those of you that saw the movie will probably know where I’m going with this story.

The movie received many accolades and was the first film ever created totally by Native Americans.  Two young men live on a reservation in Idaho.  The drunken, abusive father of one of the men has just died in Phoenix, Arizona and the two heroes set out to return his ashes and belongings to the Rez.  Both men are conflicted by their relationships with the older man and the trip becomes a journey of self-discovery.

I won’t ruin the movie for everyone because it is worth seeing.  The final scene was unexpected and traumatic for me.  The two young men stopped at a river the father always admired.  Standing on the rustic bridge, they dumped his ashes into the water.  I cannot begin to tell you how the scene affected me.

One of the stages of grief is denial and yes, my mind had latched on firmly to that particular stage and was refusing to let go.  As the father’s ashes wafted off the bridge and into the rapidly moving water, the sledgehammer of realization crashed unexpectedly into the back of my head.  I began to sob like a baby and I couldn’t shut up, even though every person in the darkened theatre turned to see what fool was causing such an embarrassing scene.

I’m positive that my poor cousin Angela had no idea what was about to occur.  Even though the mother of two, she had no frame of reference to deal with the blubbering man beside her.  She patted my hand but I know she’d have rather taken a quick trip to the ladies room.

I finally got a grip, just as the credits began scrolling across the screen.  Grabbing Angela’s wrist, I said, “I’m not leaving here until everyone is gone.”  We finally hurried out of the theatre, my face red with both tears and embarrassment.

Even today, I can’t explain the coincidence of having spread Anne’s ashes the same day I saw the movie Smoke Signals, but I know that it jolted me out of denial and into yet another stage of grief.  When tragedy hits you upside the head it often leaves you dazed and mired for months in a muddy ditch beside your life’s path.

Like me, you’ll remain there until something quite unexpected happens – like seeing Smoke Signals - and propels you, once again, down life’s karmic highway.

Eric’sWeb

When Anne and I first married we lived in a large house with many windows that overlooked a small body of water called Ski Island Lake.  My Cousin Skip worked for Capitol Records at the time and had been recently transferred to OKC from Austin, Texas.  Since he was new to the City he spent lots of time with us and we enjoyed him immensely.

Skip would usually ride a bike from his apartment to our house.  He was slender and had a goatee and thinning hair he almost always covered with a jaunty Panama hat.  Skip knows more about the recording industry than almost anyone on earth, and he and his wife Connie recently retired to Austin after years in New York City and Los Angeles.

Whenever Skip visited Anne and me during his short stay in Oklahoma City, he always brought us LP’s or tapes, mostly of new and rising artists that we had never heard of before, but soon would.  He could make salsa and guacamole dip like no other person I have ever known, either before or since and here is his simple recipe.

5 green onions                                      1 clove garlic

¼ cup fresh cilantro                              1 half lemon or lime, squeezed

3 or 4 jalapeno peppers, seeded           3 ripe tomatoes

(How hot do you want it?)                    Salt and pepper

1 Tbsp olive oil

After making sure all the ingredients are crisp and ripe, uniformly dice on a chopping block with a sharp knife and then blend very gently in a food processor.  After transferring the ingredients to a large serving bowl add the lemon juice (or lime if that’s what floats your boat) and salt and pepper to taste.  Chill for an hour or so in the refrigerator while you slug a few Coronas or Tecates, or just grab a bag of your favorite tortilla chips and indulge yourself immediately.  Either way you will be in Heaven.

Eric'sWeb

I never had much money when I was pursuing my undergraduate degree.  You didn’t really need a lot because the cost of an advanced education in the 60s was far less than it is today.  As I remember, tuition, room and board at what was then Northeast Louisiana State College was only seventy-four dollars a month.

We had a wonderful student center complete with snack bar, pool tables and pinball machines.  I was never very good at pool but I was a wizard when it came to pinball.  The games in those days were mechanical (as opposed to digital - either not invented yet or else too expensive for common use) and cost only a nickel to play (five games for a quarter).

Every college student had an angle and when it came to pinball, the angle was this: a skilled and lucky player might win a hundred games.  Four players could play at a time so he would charge his three challengers a total of fifteen cents to punch off four games.

If one of the players also won games then he (mostly always a he) would split the take until all the games were played.  A skilled pinball player could support his pinball habit while making a few extra spending bucks every day.  Yes, pinball was an addiction.

I was a great pinball player but a horrible businessperson and even worse con man (you had to be a little of both to really make money at pinball).  I usually ended up sharing my free games with buddies, and my brother Jack who was a needy (and I use the word kindly) pinball player.

During the last oil boom, I was lucky enough to own a couple of analog pinball machines, including Aztec, possibly the greatest pinball machine ever created.  Like the oil bust my machines went the way of my money – gone and might as well forgotten.  Oh well! It was fun while it lasted.

I somehow managed to graduate from Northeast after four or so years but to this day, I know more about pinball than geology (my college major).  What a career move!  They don’t even have analog pinball machines now and any self-respecting ten-year-old (male or female) can whip my butt on Wii.  Let ‘em try it on Aztec though and I’ll teach the young pups a lesson they’ll never forget.

Eric'sWeb

   While digging through a box in my garage I found an old photo of ex-wife Gail and myself.  With us were three of my four best early friends.  I took the picture, using the camera’s timer function, at the Vivian bowling alley, a business defunct for thirty years.  A wave of memories swept over me as I gazed at the faded photo causing me to ponder all my friends, ex-wives and ex-lovers.

Gail is long gone; I haven’t seen her in years, but I still stay in touch – although infrequently – with Tim, Rod and Wiley.  Although married three times (a fact I would have never dreamed) Gail is my only ex.  Anne and I were married twenty years when she died.  Marilyn and I are still married.  While I only have one ex-wife, I have a slew of ex-lovers.  About the only difference is a signed marriage license.

An ex-lover is not simply someone with whom you once had sex.  During the pre-AIDS era one-night stands were commonplace and I had my share of nameless and faceless encounters.  An ex-lover is someone you were close to for months, or maybe even years, and someone you remember vividly.  I can count my ex-lovers on one hand.

No matter how memorable they were, all my ex-lovers and ex-wives are long gone.  It’s different with my friends.  As I look at the old photo I realize all my friends - while they may be far away - are all still around.

Eric’sWeb

In writing, one maxim is true: all successful writers have “steel balls.” For every success story, there are hundreds of rejection slips, mostly impersonal. When I was trying my hand as a short story writer, I lived for the hand-written note from an editor that validated me as a writer. I received one such note that kept me going for almost a decade.

Many writers try their hands at writing short stories because, well, they are short. Short, maybe, but not easy. Short stories, at least in my opinion, are harder to master than writing a novel. You don’t have the luxury of four-hundred pages to develop your plot and characters. A good short story writer can do this in twenty pages. A great short story writer can do it in ten.

I began writing short stories many years ago in an attempt to hone my writing skills. Before I started, I read short stories written by Poe, Guy de Maupassant, Ian Fleming – yes, Ian Fleming – and many others. My all-time favorite short story is Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers. Every great short story elicits passion and pathos, and leaves you thinking about it for days, maybe even years later.

If you are an aficionado like me, a wonderful short story will make you cry and wring you dry. I have written more than sixty short stories and have received at least a few handwritten notes from editors, but none more important to me than the one I received from The New Yorker, the most influential short story market in the world.

My handwritten, unsigned two-sentence note said, “I liked your story and almost took it. Please send more.” The short story was A Talk with Henry, about an old black bartender at a bar near a southern campus. I don’t know if the passion and pathos are there, (I think they are) but the note from The New Yorker editor kept me writing.

Eric’sWeb

Days have passed since I saw the two ghosts cavorting on the street beside the creek that cuts through the Tall Oaks II addition in Edmond, Oklahoma. I look for them every time I walk, including the evening of the Autumnal Equinox, and have not seen them since the first occasion.

There is a large tree beside the creek and I noticed the next day during my walk that there is an old tree house in it. It has likely occupied its place in the tree for many years because, to my knowledge, there are no children living in any of the nearby houses.

I usually sit at the pool behind my house when I finish a walk, cooling off and playing with my two pugs. Darkness occurs now before eight and it is often well past that time when I give the pups a treat and go inside. Last night, I heard something in the alley behind my house – a sound that I couldn’t identify.

At first, I thought it was a large cat. I walked back toward the alley but the sound didn’t recur.  I can’t be sure, but it was like a Boy Scout trying to emulate an animal to convey a signal through the darkness to a nearby friend. Maybe it was, but no boys, or children, live behind me in that direction.

Western Oklahoma City is mostly flat and has few trees. This changes rapidly as you approach Edmond. The town is situated on hilly stretch of land, dissected by many creeks, some small and some large. Many tall trees and lots of flora grow in and around Edmond, especially around the creeks. Elevations can change a hundred feet or more in a short distance and Permian sandstone outcrops in many places.

Wildlife abounds in the largely undeveloped areas around the creeks. Residents commonly see foxes, skunks, opossums, rabbits, squirrels, hawks, owls and even deer. Having assimilated into the neighborhoods, these wild animals roam free at night, eating cat and dog food – and maybe an occasional cat or dog.

Are there ghosts that also haunt the creek beds? Haunting may be the wrong word. I believe there are spirits that wander the neighborhood. I have seen and heard them, but it is my opinion that they are benevolent and mean no harm to anyone. Until I catch a picture of them with my trusty digital Nikon, you’ll just have to believe me.

Eric’sWeb

My good friend Rod and I visited the den of iniquity one weekend when we were both home from college.  The place reeked of stale beer and cigarette smoke.  Old men sat at the table's playing dominoes and they didn't bother looking up when we entered the door. 

Red paint on the floor had almost worn away by decades of work shoes and oilfield boots walking across it.  The pool tables were probably mahogany but the wood had so many cigarette burns that it was hard to tell. Their red velvet stained almost black.  The two teens with arm tattoos and cigarettes in their mouth didn't bother looking up as Rod I gave the place the third degree.

My grandfather died when he was ninety-seven years old.  He continued playing dominoes until he became a little senile and I think that he finally forgot how to play.

While Edmond is growing - now the third largest town in Oklahoma - Vivian is in decline.  There are no new businesses to speak of, except for the Wal-Mart on Louisiana Highway One.  Main StreetEdmond is growing while Main Street Vivian is largely a row of empty buildings.

I doubt that most teens today have even heard of dominos, but I bet Grandpa Pitt and Uncle Grady are playing right now with the angels in heaven.  I don't know if they have old Fords there, but if they do Grandpa probably drove one to the parlor.

Eric’sWeb

Marilyn’s wind chimes are performing a chaotic symphony tonight because of an approaching storm.  Their resonance reminds me of an incident that happened in Vietnam, but not because of the weather.  I had the same eerie feeling - a warning from somewhere deep in the primitive portion of our brains that scientists never discuss, our animal brain that screams at us whenever something very bad is about to happen.

The mind plays tricks, even the animal part of our brains.  This is particularly true when the elements rob your senses.  Such is the case after darkness falls in triple-canopy jungle.  I was a grunt in an infantry line company.  We were somewhere near the Cambodian border.  Hell! We were probably in Cambodia.

The area was hot (firefight hot) and our sister companies had all made contact with the NVA during the past days.  Earlier that night we had watched and heard a B-52 attack as the big planes carpet bombed a nearby patch of jungle, hoping to disrupt Charlie’s intricate system of trails that somehow managed to keep supplying arms and supplies to their soldiers in the south.

I sat in a damp hole in the ground, my senses disrupted and seeing nothing, not even an occasional flash of light.  It’s true that when you have no vision your hearing becomes more acute.  I was aware of the sounds of night.  A tiger stalked in the distance and I could track its progress through the jungle by the low growls it periodically emitted.  I could also hear elephants and horses – yes, horses.  Don’t ask me how or why they were there in the jungle but their sound is unmistakable.  I also heard other things.

Helicopters supplied us every three days.  After cutting a landing zone in the jungle – a small LZ barely large enough for the choppers rotors – the birds would bring us food, water and fresh ammo.  They also brought us beer and pop and each of us got three beverages of our choice every three days.

You didn’t want to drink your beer immediately because everyone would beg a sip and there would be little or nothing left for you to drink when the can came back around.  Most soldiers savored theirs while pulling guard duty because it was about the only time you were ever truly alone while on patrol.  As I sat there, listening to the tiger, elephants and horses, I heard someone pop the top on a Black Label.  Then I heard something else – the low moan of a soldier, thinking of his wife or girl as he masturbated in the darkness.  I knew very well how he felt because I was thinking about doing the same thing myself.

Tension mounted as days went by without encountering Charlie.  As we cut our way slowly, single file through the jungle, a signal began being passed back to the rear.  The soldier in front of me pointed at a snake in the branches over our head.  I didn’t know its real name, but we called it a three-step snake because that’s about how far you could go before dying if it bit you.  Not far from the snake, I witnessed something as eerie as I have ever seen.

It was a thousand pound bomb lying flat on the ground amid broken jungle vegetation - a relic of a B-52 attack, a monster bomb that had not detonated but still had the stark power to blow a forty-foot hole in the ground.  Everyone in the row of soldiers realized as much and to say that I was frightened would be lessening the aching fear throbbing in the pit of my gut.  The bomb was longer than I am tall and even lying flat it came up to my chest.  We snaked around it, no one touching it for fear that it was booby trapped by the NVA.

Fifteen days passed without encountering the enemy and I still remember climbing the incline to the firebase hewn out of a Vietnamese mountain.  We were stopped at the perimeter and told the bad news that instead of our expected five day stand-down, we would be re-supplied where we stood and then sent back into the jungle for another fifteen day stint.

One of the men – a southern black man - heard his animal brain louder than the rest of us.  Pulling off his pack, he sat down and refused to move.  I remember our idiot Lieutenant holding a .45 to the man’s forehead, threatening to blow his brains out if he didn’t get up from where he sat.  He ignored the lieutenant’s threats and military police from the firebase soon led him away at gunpoint to an inevitable stay in the Long Binh Jail.  As we watched them leave, all the rest of us wondered if he wasn’t the smart one in the bunch and perhaps doing the right thing.

We stayed on the perimeter of the firebase that night, not allowed on the safer side of the razor wire.  Next morning we reentered the jungle for another fifteen days.  At this point, my mind numbs and my memories become blocked from the events that ensued.

Tonight, as wind whistles out my back door, distant thunder rattles the windows and lightning illuminates the western sky like a fiery B-52 attack, I get that same eerie feeling that I had so many years ago.

Eric’sWeb

Arnaud’s is a famous New Orleans restaurant that I visited the first time when I was in the eighth grade. Even though I have eaten at hundreds of restaurants since, I still remember my first Arnaud’s experience with vivid recall.

Check out their website. It is wonderful and not pretentious. Like many buildings in New Orleans, the one housing Arnaud’s is haunted, perhaps by Count Arnaud himself. What more can you ask for than ghosts, great food and the French Quarter?

Here is an original Arnaud’s recipe straight from their website.

Caramel Cup Custard
 
Simplicity and elegance are underscored in this deceptively modest dessert. It comes to table molded as the cup shape in which it is baked, then overturned on a saucer for presentation. The silky smoothness of the custard is a revelation. It has long been a standard at Arnaud’s and would be impossible to remove from the menu.

• ½ cup granulated sugar, for the caramel
• 1 tablespoon water
• 3 large eggs
• ¼ cup granulated sugar
• 2 cups whole milk, scalded
• ½ teaspoon best quality pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 275°.

In a small, heavy skillet over low heat, stir the ½-cup sugar and 1-tablespoon water until the sugar melts, is free of lumps and turns a light caramel color.

Divide the caramel among six 4 ounce custard cups and let stand until cooled.

Beat the eggs with the 1/4 cup sugar and add the scalded milk slowly, while stirring. Add the vanilla and strain carefully into the prepared cups, to avoid disturbing the caramel.

Place cups in a pan of hot water. The water should come almost to the top of the cups. Cover with foil. Bake slowly for 1-1/2 to 1-3/4 hours, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from the water and cool to room temperature. Chill until
serving time.

To serve, run a knife around the edge of the custard and invert the cup onto a small plate.

Serves 6

Eric’sWeb

I began watching Steve McQueen on TV in the 60s.  He played bounty hunter Josh Randall in the series titled Wanted: Dead or Alive.  McQueen was one of a kind.

There has never been another leading man before or since that could portray his depth of emotions with little more than a blank expression that conveyed more depth in silence than any other actor could summon forth with every word and gesture they have.

McQueen never appeared in a bad movie but my favorite is The Great Escape.  He has the courage to defy the Nazi’s and escape from the concentration camp on a captured motorcycle.  When he jumps the tangle foot wire, the evil Nazis in hot pursuit, you know that this is a man of substance.  Hopelessly tangled in the wire, he awaits the hoard, still defiant, playing with a baseball, the silent symbol of American resolve.

Tonight I was listening to Dusty Springfield, my absolute favorite diva.  She was singing her cover of Windmills of Your Mind from McQueen’s film The Thomas Crown Affair (watch the original and not the remake).  The song is pure poetry.

Listen to Dusty’s version.  If you’re not yet a fan, you will be.  Hey, and please take my advice and catch a few old McQueen flicks and they will hook you too.

Eric'sWeb

I was surveying some shallow gas wells near Billings, when I recalled the first well I ever drilled in Noble County.  I briefly recounted the story to the three people in the vehicle with me but I omitted telling them about the pathos I felt at the time.

It was near the lowest financial ebb for Anne and I following the eighties oil bust.  We had a very large glass piggy bank that we had filled with coins over the years and we had agreed to wait until our most desperate moment before opening it and spending the coins.  The time finally arrived.

We were expecting thousands but there was only about two-hundred-sixty dollars in the glass pig.  The money tided us over for the moment but we got down to our last dollar on more than one occasion.  Somehow, every time our money became dangerously low I would somehow manage to sell a prospect or make a few bucks doing a little consulting job.

There were few real jobs available in the State at the time and there was a joke going around about a geologist that applied for a job flipping burgers at McDonald’s.

“Sorry,” the manager told him.  All the geologists that work for us have Master’s Degrees.”

The story wasn’t far from the truth.

Before the “Bust”, I had an ego as large as Texas.  Geologists must have a second sense to find oil many miles below the earth’s surface and the best are dubbed oil finders.  I knew that I was good and I knew that I was also incredibly lucky.

One of the founders of Texas Oil & Gas once told me, “Eric, you have a gift.  You’re an oil finder.  There aren’t many around like you and if you can find oil and gas the world will beat a path to your door.”

It didn’t seem like anyone was searching very hard for me in 1989 as I remember going a year without selling a prospect.  Somehow, Anne and I managed to eke out a living but my pocketbook and my ego had taken a huge pummeling.  I had lost my mojo and everything I touched seemed to turn to turkey poop.

My dreams, along with my ego, took a severe bruising.  I continued working and had the idea for a drilling prospect in Noble County, a county I had never previously worked.  Unable to afford professional drafting I drew the map on a sheet of typing paper and colored it with a used set of thrift store colored pencils.  It took me a while to find someone that even wanted to look at it.

One weekend I read an ad in the Sunday Oklahoman classifieds posted by someone with a Dallas area code. The tiny ad said they were looking for a geologic prospect.  I called the number before finishing my first cup of morning coffee.

Two days later a man driving a Volkswagen with a large rubber roach attached to the roof drove into our driveway.  He had a small exterminating company in Dallas and he drove a bus at the DFW Airport.  Before the crash, he had worked in a phone room raising money.  He thought the time was right and that he could raise enough money on his own to drill a well.  He left Oklahoma City with my hand-drawn maps after giving Anne and me a check for $7000.00.  We were on Cloud Nine.

Two years passed and he hadn’t drilled the well.  He finally called and told me in his slow Texas drawl that he had decided not to drill it.

“My engineer says even if we find what we’re looking for that it will be drained.”

I spent the next hour convincing him that his engineer was wrong.  Tom D was (is) a good man.  He could hear the neediness in my voice and knew that if he had been there in person that he would have seen me on my knees.

“All right,” he finally said.  “You talked me into drilling the well but I’m only doing it because I believe in you.  I hope you don’t let me down.”

I barely had any swagger left by this time in my life.  As he began drilling, I knew that this was his one and only shot at success.  If he drilled a dry hole, he was on his back to driving a bus at DFW again.  I had pretty much badgered him into drilling the location, a well about which some engineer was still shaking his head.  With my ego damaged and mojo gone, I now had a ton of guilt on my shoulders to make matters worse.

All sorts of scenarios are possible from this point of the story.  We could have drilled a dry hole prompting Tom D to commit suicide, or something equally horrible.  It didn’t happen that way.  We nailed the zone, just as planned.  Anne and I had three percent of the well and it came on for one-hundred-forty-five barrels of oil and four-hundred-fifty MCFG.  The well made us lots of money over the years and it is still producing.

Hundreds of wells later my damaged mojo has never fully recovered and I don’t suppose it ever will.  As I returned from Noble County, I thought about Tom D and that first well.  I also thought about the good times Anne and I had during the bad times and it made me sad that she isn’t alive.

Times are tough these days and maybe my age and my own experiences qualify me as someone that can give a little honest advice.  It’s just this – Never quit believing in yourself no matter how bad things become.  You can’t really lose your mojo, but sometimes you have to remain persistent to coax it out of hiding.

Eric’sWeb

Growing up, my favorite television series was Route 66.  I never really knew where Route 66 went but I rarely missed an episode, and never on purpose.  All I had to do was hear the Theme from Route 66 to get in the mood for adventure.

Todd Stiles and Buzz Murdoch were my heroes.  Buzz always got the girl and Todd always got a broken heart but whatever happened they faced it with a sense of adventure and élan.

Todd and Buzz were Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.  I’m not sure who was which (or maybe which was who).  One thing I do know, that lusty red Corvette was their faithful steed that carried them into battle.

The highway known to the faithful as the Mother Road bisects Oklahoma and is only a mile from where I live, Edmond’s 2^nd Street.  If you travel east, you will soon reach the little town of Arcadia where the main attraction was once the Round Barn.  Now it is a café and filling station named Pop’s.  The café features hundreds, maybe thousands of different sodas from around the world.  The same billionaire oilman that owns an interest in Oklahoma’s new NBA franchise owns Pop’s.

If you head south on the Broadway Extension (along the old path of Route 66) out of Edmond you’ll be taking the same historic road many Okies used when moving to California during the Dust Bowl.  The landscape is still fairly green from lots of spring rain but later on, in the dog days of August when the grass is dead and dust devils are twisting along the highway, it’s won’t be hard to imagine a ghostly procession moving slowly along the road with you.

Marilyn and I were in a local restaurant when two men sat across from us at the oblong bar.  They were well into their second Budweiser when they asked the bartender about Route 66.  The young man shook his head and pointed them to a wall in back where they had a few pictures.  Even though he had lived in Edmond all his life he proclaimed to know little about Route 66.

The bartender’s statement got me thinking about what else we don’t know about important things that are right under our noses.

With my fiction writer brain working overtime, I wondered if the two men were sons of Todd and Buzz.  Maybe I wasn’t so far off.  They left the restaurant just before Marilyn and me.  As we climbed into our car, I watched as the back of a gorgeous 1960 Corvette disappeared around a darkened corner.  Yes, it was fire engine red.

Eric’sWeb