Fresh from the war, I started graduate school at the University of Arkansas.  Separated from polite society for almost two years, I was trying desperately to regain some of its social graces.  My new thesis advisor, Dr. K, reminded me as much every day.

Dr. K had an idea for a thesis project in the Ouachita Mountains.  Arkansas is one of the most geologically diverse areas on earth.  Almost every mineral occurs there naturally, and many other minerals are found no where else.  Dr. K, a brilliant man, was a graduate of Cornell University and to say that I was a bit intimidated by him would be an understatement.

I wasn't the only person returning from Vietnam.  There were half a dozen of us, including an ex-Green Beret.  Dr. K and I were walking down the hall one day when we came upon Mr. GB, his back to us and obviously in deep thought.  When Dr. K tapped him on the shoulder, he wheeled around, coming up with a vicious blow to the good Dr's groin and laying him out on the hallway floor.  When Dr. K regained his senses, and his breath, he dragged himself off the floor.

I understood GB's motivation.  It took me months to keep from hitting the ground whenever a car backfired near me.  Still, I fully expected Dr. K, the chairman of the department of geology, to lower the proverbial boom on the ex-green beret.  Instead, he began speaking in a soft, friendly tone.

"I realize where you just came from and how horrible it must have been, but you're back in the States now.  I'm going to let what you just did pass this time, but sometime in the future I'm going to tap you on the shoulder.  If you ever lay a hand on anyone ever again, for any reason, you will be dismissed from the Arkansas geology department and you won't be welcomed back.

I was with Dr. K the next time he came up on Mr. GB from behind and believe me, I wouldn't have done what he did.  He tapped Mr. GB's shoulder and stood there, waiting for the inevitable reaction.  As if in slow motion, Mr. GB bent forward, almost touching the floor, and then began his karate twirl.  This time he stopped abruptly before he ever made his turn, his deadly blow pulled before ever making contact.  When he saw Dr. K, he began to shake uncontrollably.

Dr. K nodded, smiled slightly and said, "Welcome back to the world."

In southwest Arkansas, just south of the Ouachita Overthrust, is a geologically complex area known only to a few lucky people.  Before I ever set foot on the terrain, I got a lesson in life from an amazingly complex person that understood the human heart as well as he knew the heart of the earth.

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Frequent readers of Musings already know that I'm not a perfect person.  Here is a story that will extend my less-than-perfect persona to the point that there is no doubt.

For years I bowled on a bowling league.  I never carried much more than a one-forty average.  Part of the reason was because we all started drinking beer the moment we walked into the bowling alley.  One night, not quite ready to go home, two fellow bowlers and I went to a local bar, the Samurai.

The Samurai was owned by a Japanese man with a passion for rock and roll.  A live band played there almost every night, the place almost always filled with revelers of both sexes.  We sat at the bar, ordering shots and sushi from a very friendly bartender named Patty.  Half past two shots, the devilment inside me began to overcome my inner angel.

Patty had long brown hair that draped her bare shoulders.  She had big brown eyes and a smile to match.  She also had something else big and her scanty tank top highlighted them to their best effect.  Finally, I made some crude comment and offered her a twenty to show us her breasts.  When she eagerly complied, we practically fell off our bar stools.

It was Friday night and I was having a party the next day following a 10K race being run through the neighborhood.  I pulled out my wallet, a business card and a hundred dollar bill.  After drawing a map to my house on back of the card, I gave it to the pretty bartender, along with the hundred dollars.

"I'll pay you a hundred dollars, in advance, to come lay out at the pool - naked that is.  All you'll have to do is drink, sun and have a good time."

I fell asleep from over indulgence shortly after reaching the house.  The next morning, I filled chests with ice and beer in preparation for the party.  After completing the 10K through the neighborhood, I climbed in the shower, surprised when Anne banged on the glass door to tell me that a girl named Patty was on the phone.

Oh my God! I thought, suddenly remembering the previous night.  "What does she want?" I asked, praying it would be to tell me she wasn't coming.

"She said you gave her a hundred dollars to lay out by the pool naked?  Is it true?"

By now my head was throbbing.  Grabbing a towel, I went to the phone to talk to Patty.  As I dripped on the tile with phone in hand, Anne stood glaring at me.

"Look, last night was all a misunderstanding.  I'm having a party but there will be families here, kids and everything.”

Anne took the phone and said, “You're welcome at the party but bring a bathing suit."

I watched her hang up the phone, wishing I could transport myself to a different universe.  Instead, I blurted the whole story to her.  Frowning, she just shook her head.  The party went on as planned with fifty or sixty guests.  Yes, Patty showed up in a very revealing bikini.  The males guests were happy, their wives less so.

Anne was a real lady and realized that I had done little more than make a total fool of myself.  It had embarrassed her. Still, she forgave me when I apologized and promised it would never happen again, and it never did.  That brings me back to the part about being less than perfect.  Anne knew me well enough to know that there would always be something else to try our marriage.

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Sometimes you don't know what you are going to do until you actually do it, and this is especially true when you are young.  This is a truth that I've still never fully come to grips with.  I found out as much many years ago in Vietnam.

I was months removed from my former job in the triple canopy of central Vietnam.  I was a clerk typist working in what was called the First Team Academy.  Since FTA had an altogether different meaning to many of the soldiers serving in country, we soon changed the name to the First Team Combat Training Center.

I lived in a barracks with about ten other men.  Each person had a small cubicle to call his own.  Plywood separated each cubicle but we weren't allowed to have a front wall.  Instead, we resorted to plastic streamers to achieve at least a hint of privacy.  Hey, and a hint was about all the privacy we ever had.

The days were long and we worked seven days a week.  Still, none of us had a weapon and we weren't expected to shoot anyone.  We also had starched fatigues, polished boots, pizza, lots of entertainment and plenty of beer and whiskey.  The one thing we lacked was women.  How did this affect us?  Just think about the boys in the novel Lord of the Flies.  Now, age these boys into young men and then add another measure of craziness and stir.

Most of our night time activities included getting drunk, or stoned, or both.  One night, Montie, Bauslaw, Cobb and I were especially inebriated and someone started a water fight.  We had oil drums filled with rain water outside our barracks that our hired Vietnamese help used to wash our clothes.  Soon, we were all drenched.  Then things began to get nasty.

Montie, a large man with a friendly face and bad attitude began ripping down the plastic tassels from the front of my cubicle (maybe I said something, but I can't remember).  I'm no small person but Montie towered over me.  He barely flinched when I punched him in the mouth.  Next thing I knew, he had lifted me bodily off the floor and threw me through a plywood wall.  I struggled to my feet and could see in his eyes that he wasn't finished with me.  Grabbing a nearby empty wine bottle, I broke off the top of it against the concrete floor and started after him, not really knowing what I would do if I caught him.

A cooler head prevailed.  It was mild mannered Bauslaw (all these names are fictitious) who grabbed my arm and took the bottle away.  He spewed forth some speech about how we were all friends and shouldn't be fighting.  Hell, it worked.  My fury was spent, and so was Montie's.

The next day when I awoke I couldn't open my eyes.  Neither could anyone else.  We had all contracted a bacterial infection from the water in the barrels.  We were diagnosed with some horrible tropical eye infection.  We were light sensitive and had to administer eye drops for a week.  Luckily, none of us went blind, or got an Article 15.

I certainly never expected any of the events of that night to happen, but what I have learned about myself is that given the right amount of stress and alcohol you never know what you are going to do until you actually do it, and then it’s oftentimes too late.

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Born on the day before Halloween, I seem forever destined to be 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, so 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.  He was soon followed by Nancy, a geologist, dressed, strangely enough, as an Indian princess.  John, another geologist, came a little later, his only costume a black mask.  Making the best of the situation, Anne and I broke out the alcohol and we all began to party.

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 should have been disqualified and O'Grady declared the winner.  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 slaughter house, all the viewers, myself included, in total shock.  The fight was soon called and Watt proclaimed 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 Halloween party that continued as planned the next day.

A few years later I met Sean O'Grady at a Christmas Party in Oklahoma City.  The room was crowded and I was standing against a wall, sipping my whiskey.  When O'Grady spotted me, he pushed his way through the crowd, looked me straight in the eye and said, "You look just like "Little Red" Lopez."

He wasn't smiling and I could tell from his expression and the clinch of his fists that he was getting ready to slug me.  Having seen his devastating punching power on more than one occasion, I immediately raised my right palm.

"Believe me, I'm not "Little Red" Lopez.  I'm one of your biggest fans."

Sean's expression thankfully changed and we proceeded to have a nice conversation.  Lopez, it seems, had beaten the then teen aged O'Grady badly and he had never forgotten, or forgiven.

That was the first Halloween party that I hosted, eventful like everyone else that followed.  I have another Sean O'Grady story but I will save it for another day.

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The protagonist of my first novel, Ghost of a Chance, was Oklahoma cowboy detective Buck McDivit.  A mysterious lake in east Texas was the backdrop for the novel that highlighted lost Confederate gold, Indian artifacts, the ghost of a girl, and murder.  I’m presently working on a sequel to Ghost of a Chance, this time with the action occurring in Oklahoma.

The working title of my new book is Panther Stalking and the story involves modern-day cattle rustling, a compound populated by female pagans, and of course, murder.  I’m about twenty thousand words into the novel.

Before starting on Panther Stalking I wrote a Buck McDivit short story to reintroduce myself to a character that I haven’t visited in almost three years.  Prairie Thunder plants McDivit back in his home turf of central Oklahoma.  Moonlighting as an assistant medical examiner, McDivit helps investigate the death of an American Indian artist.  The story leads him to Oklahoma City’s historic Paseo District.

Anyone who read Ghost of a Chance and is interested in reconnecting with Buck McDivit is invited to visit my website http://www.ericwilder.com.  Sign my list and I will email you the short story in PDF format.  Thanks – Eric.

Miss C and I were only an item for six months, or so, but it was a memorable six months.  Miss C had a girlfriend named Miss A and Miss A had a boyfriend straight from hell.  He was a Vietnam vet but unlike me, also a Vietnam vet, Stan (not his real name) was the kind of person that gave all returning Vietnam vets a bad name for many years after the conflict had ended.

Stan had a steel plate in his head and took therapy for his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder every week at the VA Hospital.  Normally, Stan was fine but let's just say that he possessed a hair trigger.  Fortunately, I was never on the receiving ends of one of his tirades but I had seen him in action.  That said, Miss A was no angel herself and also had the temper of a wounded badger.

Stan was a big handsome man with brown wavy hair and expressive eyes.  Miss A was tiny but drop-dead gorgeous.  She also had large natural breasts that any stripper would kill for.  And did I mention that Miss A was the jealous type?  Both Stan and Miss A liked to drink.  In those days liquor by the drink was illegal in Oklahoma but you could buy a drink at most any bar and even walk out the front door with a "roadie glass" filled with as much alcohol as you could afford.

One Saturday, the four of us decided to drive to Cimarron City, a vacation community on the slopes overlooking the Cimarron River, just south of Crescent, Oklahoma.  We went swimming in the communal pool, all the while smoking Oajaxan marijuana.  Before returning to Oklahoma City, Stan stopped the car and chatted with some of the residents of the little community.

"We're having a pig roast down by the river tonight.  Plenty of booze and fun.  Join us if you'd like."

We had no thought of doing any such thing.  At least I thought.

Much later that night, Miss C and I had a call from Miss A.  "Please come get me," she begged.

Miss C was asleep so I pulled my bathing suit back on, and my tee shirt and drove over to her apartment to get her.  What I  found was three Oklahoma City squad cars, all with red lights flashing.  I climbed the stairs to Miss A's apartment and what I found wasn't pretty.  After dropping Miss C and me off at Miss C's house, Stan had dropped Miss A at her apartment and told her he needed cigarettes.  Instead of cigarettes, it was fun on the Cimarron he was after.  When he returned after two in the morning, all hell broke loose.  The two of them proceeded to have an argument from hell, breaking all their furniture, dishes, walls, etc. in the process.

When I arrived at Miss A's, Stan was already handcuffed and on his way to the Oklahoma County Jail.  One of the cops grabbed my tee shirt, lifting it to make sure that I had something on underneath.  Thank goodness I did or I would have spent the night in jail along with Stan.

Miss A slept on Miss C's couch that night and the next morning the three of us had breakfast at Denny's.  Two days later, I was still shaking my head but Stan and Miss A were already cozy again.

That was years ago, another time in my life.  Still, I get a chuckle when I recall it and wonder how I managed to survive.

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Here is another recipe from my Aunt Dot's wonderful new cookbook All the Foods We've Loved Before.  The recipe is a classic recipe from my grandmother Lela, also a great cook.

1     package yeast

1/4  cup warm water

1/2  teaspoon sugar

1     teaspoon salt

1/4  cup sugar

1     cup milk, scalded

1     each egg, beaten

4     cups flour

Moisten yeast in 1/4 cup warm water.  Add 1/2 teaspoon sugar.  Let stand.  Add shortening, rest of sugar and  salt to hot milk.  Stir until sugar is dissolved.  Cook, then add egg.  Stir in softened yeast.  Next add flour into liquid until will mixed.  Turn dough onto lightly floured board; knead quickly until smooth and elastic.  Form into a smooth ball.

Place ball in a well greased bowl and turn over once or twice to grease entire surface.  Cover and let rise in warm place until double in bulk.  Knead well again and shape as desired.  Place in greased pan, cover and let rise for one hour more.  Bake at 400 degrees for fifteen to twenty minutes.

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The sixty four dollar question.  Which is the devil and which is the angel? I think I have a clue.

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I thought Oklahoma was too far north for alligators.  Guess not!  This is what I found when I checked my pool this morning.

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Last night's rare full lunar eclipse reminds me of an episode in my past.  I was between wives and suffering from both bruised ego and self-esteem.  During that time I met a young woman that I liked quite a lot.  She was blonde and gorgeous, and heavily into just about any form of drug you could think of at the time.  As a Vietnam vet, I had already experimented with drugs but I was hot for Miss C and desperately looking for a change in my dull life.  During the short five months that I dated Miss C, I achieved the desired change in spades.

Miss C and I had a short and fiery romance during which I met many of her often shady acquaintances.  We once visited the apartment of a dentist.  The young man was handsome, refined and obviously intelligent and I wondered at the time why he was sitting alone in an apartment lighted only by candles and decorated with psychedelic rock posters.  He was high on weed as he listened to The Dark Side of the Moon, a moody album by Pink Floyd.

As Miss C and I smoked dope with the man, our conversation mostly concerned drugs and psychedelia.  I remember him saying that The Dark Side of the Moon was the most important album ever pressed.  He suggested that Miss C and I should attend a laser concert of Pink Floyd music held every Friday at the fair grounds.

Miss C and I did attend the laser concert along with a thousand stoned young people listening to Pink Floyd through state-of-the-art amplifiers while watching a laser light show on the ceiling and walls of the stadium, the odor of marijuana so strong that you didn't even have to light up to get high.

Months after splitting for good with Miss C, I read the young dentist's obituary in the newspaper.  Like so many young people during that era, he had overdosed, and died alone on the floor of his dark apartment.

Years have passed since that short episode in my life but I'm still reminded of it whenever I hear Pink Floyd's rock anthem Eclipse on the radio - a common occurrence as the album remained on the Billboard 200 for fourteen consecutive years, the longest amount of time in history for any album.

I’m sad because it was much too cloudy in this part of Oklahoma to see the rare eclipse, perhaps an inspiration for Pink Floyd’s song.  I doubt the young dentist ever left his dark apartment to try and experience such an occurrence.  I wonder what else he missed because of choosing drugs instead of life.

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It's likely true that the lessons you learn as a teenager do as much to cement the real values in your life as anything else.  That said, I spent many of my teenage years attending college in Monroe, Louisiana.  Majoring in geology, I took many science courses but I also dabbled in English and the arts.  Probably the most important course that I took at Northeast Louisiana was a lesson in life - a lesson in how to cope in a world filled with no family and mostly strangers.

When I attended Northeast a gallon of gas cost thirty cents, or less.  A Coke was a nickel and you could buy a pitcher of beer for a dollar.  My favorite watering hole, along with that of most of the male population of the college was the Trianon.  I wrote about the Trianon in my short story A Talk with Henry.  Henry was a real person and I took much of the dialogue for the story from actual conversations.

I started college during summer school, at the tender age of seventeen.  My Brother Jack and close friend Elwin also attended summer school the same year.  The year was 1964.  There was an air show at the airport that summer and a local pilot offered plane rides in his Beechcraft Bonanza for a penny a pound.  Jack, Elwin and I all took our first ride in an airplane for a cost of less than five dollars.

There is a Bayou that runs through the campus of what is now the University of Louisiana at Monroe.  During summer, Bayou DeSiard is a hot spot for students.  While not quite Florida, sun bathing students line the beach and it was, and is, a great place to meet members of the opposite sex.  Jack, Elwin and I went swimming every day that semester and even light-skinned Eric had a tan before the end of summer.

At night, Jack, Elwin and I would haunt the Trianon.  There were gambling machines, the walls black, lighting dim and music loud.  We chugged lots of beer and discussed every important world issue there was.  At summer's end, Jack and Elwin both flunked out, unable to return the next semester because of poor grades.  I made it, passing, but barely.

Today, I can't remember a single course that I took that summer.  Grade-wise I almost flunked my first semester in college, but now it doesn't seem so important.  Looking back, I think that I probably aced the part of my life that was most significant at the time.

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I love south Louisiana cooking and as I have chronicled before, my former mother-in-law Lily was one of the best Cajun-Creole cooks ever.  She and Harvey had eight children of their own, and Lily had several sisters and a younger brother.  Except for the three youngest daughter's, all of her children and all of her siblings lived within a ten mile radius.  It goes without saying that there is nothing more important to a person from south Louisiana than is their family, and anytime Gail and I made it back to Chalmette it was cause for celebration.

I grew up in north Louisiana.  The people there are just as friendly but they are more likely to serve coffee to their guests than whiskey.  Also you were more likely to get hash browns for breakfast instead of grits.  Harvey and Lily were teetotalers and drank no alcoholic beverages at all.  They also frowned on those that did.  Still, they were the only members of the family that felt that way.  Whenever Gail and I knocked on the door of an aunt, uncle or cousin, there was always a drink (as in alcoholic) waiting for us on the other side.

Everyone in the family was a great cook and everyone enjoyed drinking and eating.  It didn't seem to matter because there wasn't a single fat person in the entire family and, except for a particularly obnoxious ex-brother-in-law, I don't recall anyone ever drinking more alcohol than which they could cope with.  Unfortunately, I've never possessed either seemingly inbreed talent.

I've had to fight my waistline all my life.  Harvey must have noticed because one evening we were alone and he called me over to the kitchen table.  He was drinking Lily’s strong Cajun coffee and I joined him in a cup, waiting anxiously to hear the reason he wanted to talk to me.

"When I was a young man, I had a problem with my weight," he said.  I had to listen carefully because Harvey always spoke in a voice just low enough that you had to hang on his every word.  Perhaps that was his design.  "My doctor gave me a bit of advice.  He said Harvey, no matter how good the food tastes, only eat one helping.  And when you are finished always have desert, a little something sweet to tell your brain that the meal is over.  You might try it sometime.  It works."

So that was Harvey's diet tip.  Enjoy your food but don't have seconds, and always have desert.  His advice for eating works.  I only wish he were still alive to tell me how to fool my brain into thinking that I don't need just one more beer.

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Harvey, my former father-in-law raised cattle and had a small pasture behind his house in Chalmette where he ran a few head.  Harvey had an old friend, a doctor that had a large cattle ranch in the eastern Louisiana town of Vidalia.  Dr. M became very wealthy when oil - a lot of oil - was found on his ranch.

Shortly after the discovery of oil, Dr. M retired from medicine and spent his days trading stock and traveling.  A devout Catholic, he and his family were granted a private meeting with the Pope during a visit to the Vatican.  Dr. M was also a member of the Krewe of Rex and had once paid a million dollars for the privilege of being King of that krewe during one Mardi Gras season.

Wanting to experiment with different breeds of cattle, Dr. M hired his old friend Harvey to oversee the operation.  Relishing the challenge, Harvey and wife Lili began splitting their time between Vidalia and Chalmette.  On a trip to Chalmette, Gail and I stopped along the way for a visit to the ranch.

Dr. M and his family rarely visited the ranch any more so Lili and Harvey had the main house all to themselves.  The living room, I remember, had a large mirror on one wall made of one-way glass.  Dr. M was apparently a voyeur and liked watching his guests through the one-way glass from an adjacent room that most knew nothing about.

The ranch was two full sections of land and abutted the levee on the west side of the Mississippi River.  Harvey and Dr. M were trying to establish a new breed of cattle for the area - black angus.  The weather turned out too hot and humid for this breed and the experiment ultimately ended in failure.

The ranch had a bunkhouse large enough to accomodate a dozen hired hands, if needed.  During our visit there was no seasonal help and Gail and I had the bunkhouse to ourselves.  We spent the day touring the ranch, examining the barns, stalls and cutting pens.  Lili seemed unhappy when we left the following morning and I'm sure she missed her large family in Chalmette.

Perhaps Harvey was also missing Chalmette and his own cows because shortly after our visit he quit his job as foreman and he and Lily moved back to their own home.  Gail and I were glad to see Lily happy again, but I'm glad that we had the chance to see Dr. M's large working cattle ranch before Harvey quit.

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It rained yesterday in Edmond, a late winter storm resonating with the sights and sounds of booming thunder and flashing lightning.  It reminded me of a damp trip my then wife Gail and I took to New Orleans, via Vidalia, Louisiana.

Like today, it was late winter.  Gail and I had finished work at our jobs and decided on a whim to visit her parents in Vidalia before continuing on to Chalmette.  Gail's father, Harvey was the foreman of a large cattle ranch just outside of the far eastern Louisiana town just across the mighty Mississippi River from Natchez.  We planned to spend the night there and then head south for a little respite from our college drudgery.

Darkness had already fallen before we pulled out of our Fayetteville, Arkansas driveway, drops of rain beginning to dampen the windshield.  Somewhere in central Arkansas, the light rain turned into a serious storm, the wipers on our old 62' Ford truck barely keeping up with the tempo of the downpour.  As we neared the rice fields of southeast Arkansas, the wipers halted altogether.

The downpour and our lack of wipers rendered us suddenly sightless and I cautiously pulled the truck to the side of the road until we could assess the mechanical failure.  After groping around under the dash, I soon learned that the cause of the malfunction was a missing "C" clamp.  We searched on the floor of the truck with the dim illumination of a flashlight with nearly spent batteries but it was to no avail.

The rain continued and we realized that we were either stuck on the side of the, or we would have to improvise and carry on.  Experimenting, I learned that I could manually manipulate the wipers by driving with one hand while using the other to work the mechanism.

The storm did anything but abate.  Southeastern Arkansas is flat.  Very flat!  Water was pouring across the highway in waves and I quickly learned the old saying "raining cats and dogs" was rooted in reality.  Fish from the rice fields and drainage ditches flowed across the road in our path.  It was quite an experience, steering with one hand while working the wipers with the other, all the while trying to avoid wildlife pouring across the road in front of us.

We finally made it to Vidalia, mostly unscathed.  The deluge continued as we said a late goodnight to Gail's parents and claimed a deserved rest in an empty room in the ranch's rustic bunkhouse.

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It’s raining in Edmond today and here’s a pic I just took with my new Panasonic Lumix.  I doctored it a bit with Roxio Photosuite.

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Yesterday's story about my old Triumph TR4 reminded me of another story.  When I quit Texas Oil & Gas, I gave up my company car, a maroon Plymouth Fury that I dearly loved.  I owned the TR4 that I had bought from my friend John, and a Triumph Bonneville 750 motorcycle that I had yet to sell to him.  Neither car nor motorcycle was the picture of reliability.  I left TXO to pursue fantastic riches as an independent oil man.  Being young and naive I only had about a thousand dollars, most of which I had borrowed from Carol, my girlfriend of the moment, to sustain myself until my first big break.

The Triumph served me well around town but I had not ventured far from my digs at the old Woodlake Apartments where I had moved after my first wife and I finally divorced and sold our house.  When my mother got sick and needed a medical procedure, this all changed.  Packing a suitcase, I tossed it in the trunk, threw caution to the wind and headed south.  My mother survived her procedure in the Atlanta, Texas hospital and we enjoyed a good visit.  I was feeling bulletproof when I finally headed toward OKC along winding Highway 1.

Shortly after leaving Louisiana and entering Texas, a sweeping curve appears that you can easily make doing sixty.  I was tooling along at a considerably higher rate of speed when I reached the curve.  How fast?  I have no clue because, like many of the other electronic devices on the Triumph, the speedometer didn't work.  When I hit the foot peddle, I got a very big surprise.  I had no brakes.  The sickly weak peddle went straight to the floor board and remained there.

I thought that I was going to wind up in the ditch.  Instead, the tires on the little car gripped and I ended up accelerating out of the curve, my heart in my proverbial throat.  That was it!  I had no brakes.  Doing what any other testosterone laden young man would do, I decided to keep going and worry about any potential repercussions later.

The Triumph had a strong motor and excellent compression.  When you let off the gas, the car decelerated rapidly.  The car's old tractor engine had enough torque to pull a tree stump and growled like a lion on the prowl.  It made me feel vital and alive.  Don't ask how, but I made it safely back to OKC - 362 miles in less than five hours.

I made no money during the first five months of my independence.  Finally, I earned a pittance for a consulting job.  On impulse, I bought an expensive Guild guitar with a bright red finish I somehow felt that I couldn't live with out.  It was the last straw for my girlfriend Carol and idiot was the nicest thing she called me that night.  She also called me a hopeless dreamer.  We broke up shortly after the guitar incident but I went on to make more than a quarter of a million dollars before the end of the year.

I made and lost lots more than that during the years that followed, but I also spent many of those years at a level of near poverty.  Still, I survived and I had lots of fun along the way.  Carol was a great person and she was there for me when I needed her.  She is long gone from my life but a few things from that era still remain - my Guild guitar, my Triumph TR4, and my hopeless dreams.

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My first wife Gail became a player on a softball team shortly after we moved to Oklahoma.  Oklahoma is a hot-bed for women’s softball.  The kind usually seen on ESPN is fast pitch.  Gail played third base on a slow pitch team.

Gail’s new friend Vickie, who played second base, and her husband John, soon became our best friends.  Not realizing that Gail and Vickie were already friends, I had met John when we inadvertently sat together at a game.  Our wives were losing badly to a much better team.  Some of the opposition’s husbands and boy friends began expressing their distain by braying like deranged jackasses whenever our team committed an error, or someone on their team hit a homerun.

John and Vickie liked doing many of the same things as Gail and I.  Like us, they were both avid campers, but that was just one of the many things we did together.  John, it seemed, liked everything that I liked – motorcycles, fast cars and strong beer.  He also had a strong attraction for British sports cars.

When I met him, he had two Triumphs, a TR3 and a TR4 that he was restoring.  I badgered him so much that he finally sold me the TR4, and along the way I sold him my Triumph Bonneville 750 motorcycle that I had grown tired of riding only during the day.  In those days most British cars, and motorcycles, had electronics by Lucas.

For those aficionados out there, you already know that Lucas was known as the “Prince of Darkness.”  This is because of the propensity of the lights and wiring of cars and motorcycles using Lucas Electronics to fail at the most inopportune times.  When the headlights would abruptly go out while driving the TR4 at night, I was deft at restoring power by manipulating the wiring behind the dash, all the while never unplanting my foot from the gas pedal.

Our marriages to Gail and Vickie are both defunct but John and I are still friends, even after several decades.  I also still have the TR4 although it is now parked in my garage, desperately in need of a new restoration.  And after all these years, I sometimes have to restrain myself from braying like a deranged jackass when I see someone performing at less than one hundred percent.

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Here is a pic of my eighty-eight year old dad Jack and my four month old pug Princess.  Yes, you can see from both of their faces that they hit it off.

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My Aunt Dot Pourteau recently published her second cookbook titled All the Foods We’ve Loved Before and I was happy to see recipes from my uncles, aunts, cousins, grandmother, and yes, even my own mother.  Dot is a wonderful person as well as a wonderful cook.  She was married to my Uncle Bertrand for many years before his untimely passing.  Bertrand grew up in Oil City, Louisiana.  He was of French extraction and his parents owned a cafe in the fabled oil town of Oil City.

To say that the Pourteau’s could cook is like saying the sky is blue.  Here is a recipe from Aunt Dot’s wonderful cookbook.  This is a very rare recipe that I don’t believe you will find anywhere else.  It was perfected by a family of French descent that catered to the ravenous appetites of the oil patch.  Try it if you get a chance and I’ll give you my Oklahoma guaranty that you won’t be disappointed.

1        large fryer (or equivalent in breast and thighs), cut up

1 1/2   medium onion, chopped

1         large bell pepper, chopped

5         cloves garlic, chopped fine

4         cubes chicken bouillon

3/4       teaspoon poultry seasoning

3          tablespoons cornstarch

            rice

            file

            olive or canola oil

Clean chicken and remove skin.  I use a Dutch oven to cook this dish in, spray bottom of pan with Pam to avoid sticking, put in the chicken skin and cook the fat out until skin is crisp.  (This fat that is rendered out of the skin helps give it a little bit mor chicken flavor).  Besides, Penny, our son Steven’s dog that is making a home with us at the time, loves chicken cracklings.

Salt and pepper chicken pieces.  Fry chicken pieces until they are light brown.  Take out the chicken and set aside.  Add onion, celery, bell pepper and garlic.  Add olive oil, if needed, to saute vegetables until they are limp.  Sprinkle vegetables with a small amount of salt and pepper.  They will smell soooo good.  Add 1/32 cup flour and make a roux.  Do not let the flour get very brown, just a light tan color.  Add approximately 2 1/2 quarts boiling water slowly to roux and four cubes of chicken bouillion.  Taste broth, as it may need to be reseasoned at this time.  Return browned chicken to broth, cook on low heat until tender (DO NOT OVERCOOK CHICKEN!).  Remove chicken from broth.  When ready to serve thicken the broth with about 3 tablespoons cornstarch in about 1/3 cup cold water.  Slowly stir the slurry of cornstarch into broth.  Let broth come back to a slight boil, then you can tell if the broth is as thick as you wish, if so return chicken to liquid and cook, very slowly to avoid scorching, about ten minutes.

TO SERVE: Put steamed rice in individual serving bowl and sprinkle with file, as desired.  DO NOT put file in gumbo while cooking.  Put chicken pieces over rice and ladle gumbo over all.  May serve with a side order of salad.  Lettuce, tomatoes, celery, carrots, and anything else you like.  Garlic bread is also good with this meal.

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I served in Vietnam from July, 1970 until September, 1971.  As a draftee, it was not a place I chose to be but I met many wonderful people during my tour.  It is also impossible to spend fourteen months of total hell.  There were moments of total hell but most of the time was almost normal, some moments even fun.  Tonight I was remembering an event I still can't believe, even after all these years.  To say that I had fun is a lie because my rear end was puckered the entire time.  The event took place almost four decades ago, at the non-com club in Bien Hoa.

I spent the first six months of my tour in the boonies as an infantry foot soldier.  I've told the story of getting poked in the eye with a bamboo limb.  Recuperating in Song Be - relative civilization compared to where I had been - I played chess and became close friends with the company clerk of Headquarters Company.  When a position as a clerk-typist came open, I was offered the job.  I didn't have to be asked twice if I was interested.

A time came when I was asked to fill in as Battalion Courier for a soldier on R & R.  Long before the days of personal computers, the courier physically transported a satchel of papers and documents from our outpost in Song Be to the main headquarters in Bien Hoa.  I was a spec 4, the equivalent of a corporal but not considered a NCO.  A friend that I will call Sergeant Brown was going to Bien Hoa at the same time and wanted me to accompany him to the NCO club later that night.

"A hell of a place," he told me, "With the best steaks, beer and whiskey in Nam."

"But I'm not an NCO.  I'll get in trouble."

"No one knows you in Bien Hoa.  I got sergeant's stripes for you.  Tonight you're going to be an E-5 sergeant."

We made it to the club that night.  It was dark, smoky and loud, a Vietnamese rock band playing on stage.  We ate our steaks and we're well into our second whiskey when who was to suddenly appear but my worst nightmare.  It was E-8 Sergeant Roper (I will call him).  Sergeant Roper was big, easily three-hundred pounds, and he was black - a little scary for a southern boy that had never known many blacks, much less ones in authority.  I had never seen him smile.  Totally frightened of the man, I once witnessed him take away a live grenade from a drugged sky trooper that was threatening to blow up an officer's hooch.  To say that my heart was in my throat was an understatement and I fully expected to spend the rest of my tour locked in the infamous Long Binh Jail.

I waited for the other shoe to fall.  Instead, he asked, "How are you tonight Sergeant Wilder?"