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.

http://www.ericwilder.com

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.

http://www.ericwilder.com

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.

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.

http://www.ericwilder.com

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

http://www.ericwilder.com

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

http://www.ericwilder.com

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.

http://www.ericwilder.com

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.

http://www.ericwilder.com

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.

http://www.ericwilder.com

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.

http://www.ericwilder.com

My Aunt Dot Pourteau is a wonderful person and a wonderful cook. She recently published her second cookbook titled ALL THE FOODS WE'VE LOVED BEFORE that features recipes collected through the years from family, friends and various publications. I was drooling as I read through the recipes and happy to see that many were provided by my uncles, aunts, cousins, my grandmother and, yes, even my own mother. Here is one of Dot's personal recipes for southern pecan pie. I can't wait to try it!

3 eggs, beaten
2/3 cup sugar
1 dash of salt
1/2 cup white Karo
1/2 cup dark Karo
1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted
1 cup pecans, chopped or whole

Beat 3 eggs throughly with sugar, salt, dark and light Karo, melted butter. Add one cup of pecan halves. Pour into 9" unbaked pie shell. Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) 50 minutes or until knife inserted halfway between center and edge comes out clean. Cool.

http://www.ericwilder.com

I've talked about my maternal grandfather many times before.  I remember him as a big, strapping man with coal dark eyes that could stare holes straight through you.  He also had big earlobes that seemed to increase in size the older he became.

Grandpa was not a bad person, far from it.  He was generous to a fault but he believed that you should earn his generosity.  Moreover, Grandpa was an entrepreneur.  He owned his own gas station in Vivian.  When war broke out, he opened a gas station in Leesville, the home of Fort Polk, a place that has trained soldiers for almost forever.

Being an entrepreneur must have run in the family because my grandparents had a neighborhood grocery store right behind their house.  My Grandma ran the store but my Grandpa sliced meat in the butcher section when he wasn't running the gas station.  The store seemed huge to me then with aisle after aisle of canned goods, bread and candy.  It was actually quite small.  When they finally closed the store, they converted the building into a stand alone two car garage.

During the summer of my second year in college I attended a geologic field camp that I serialized in the story called The Summer of Bologna.  There was still a month of summer break remaining when I returned to Vivian from the camp at Batesville, Arkansas.  All the good summer jobs were all already taken but Grandpa got me a job at the ESSO station that he once had owned.

Mr. T, the new owner was a crotchety sort with a heart of gold.  I worked from six in the morning until eight at night, six days a week, for a salary that amounted to less than $40 per week.  Those were the days of the full service filling stations and I pumped gas, washed windows and put air in tires.  Mr. T even taught me how to lube a car.

The person that I worked with at the station was named Major - his first name.  He didn't like coffee and always had an RC Cola and bag of peanuts for breakfast.  Working for Mr. T was the zenith of his existence and he truly had no further aspirations in life.

The hours were long and the pay was low but I managed to have some fun.  A pretty girl named Tammy worked at the Tastee-Freeze, the local ice cream, teenage hangout just across the street from the ESSO station, and we flirted the entire summer, culminating with a date to see James Brown in concert in Shreveport.

When I got older, I started my own company.  Through thick and thin, mostly thin, I've managed to make a living on my own for almost thirty years.  I'm almost positive that I inherited my entrepreneurial spirit from Grandpa Pitt but unfortunately that's not all. Glancing in the mirror the other day, I noticed that my ear lobes were now even bigger than his had been.

http://www.ericwilder.com

I got to thinking about this event in my life.  I was twenty-two years old and working for the summer in New Orleans for a company that is now defunct.  I was only making two dollars an hour and I was an hourly employee.  When the 4th of July came around, Darris, my boss told me that Steve and I (Steve was also a college student and an hourly employee) would have to work July 4th to earn our money.  Fine, we thought.

I decided to stroll down Bourbon Street that night instead of going directly home to my tiny (now destroyed because of Katrina) apartment in Araby.  Strangely, I ran into a person from college that I knew.  I will call him Vincent because his real name has long since escaped the database of hard facts my feeble brain attempts to keep.

I knew Vincent from college in Monroe, Louisiana where I was attending.  Vincent was an ex-SEAL and to say that he had a double pair of kahones would be putting it mildly.  After Vietnam, he had worked offshore Louisiana, drilling for oil.  Once, when a hurricane was bearing down on his offshore rig, he had volunteered to stay through the storm and keep the hatches battened (well, he collected a few thousand dollars from the oil company for his bravery).

Vincent had another talent - he could chug a pitcher of beer in one swallow!

Anyway, I took it on myself to show him the town.  There is little that I remember of that particular night except being threatened by someone for flirting with his wife.  Also, I have the vague remembrance of watching an old black man play a bronze dobro at some club along Bourbon.  I think he was Lightning Hopkins but I can't really swear to anything that happened that night.  The old man let me play "St. James Infirmary" on his axe and shared some stories with me - all of which I have forgotten!

Next morning, I somehow managed to make it to my job.  There was no one there but me.  I felt so horrible, that I found a dark closet and went to sleep.  Steve came in around ten and discovered me.  He wasn't in very good shape either and, as I remember it, we both left early.

Many years have passed and I never saw Vincent again, nor did I see Steve again after that summer.  He joined the Navy, and, like me, was soon bound for the jungles of Southeast Asia.  Still, to this day I fully believe I played St. James Infirmary on Lightning Hopkins beautiful bronze dobro.  If I didn't, don't tell me!

http://www.ericwilder.com

Happy Super Tuesday to all you political junkies and happy Fat Tuesday to all of you fun junkies.  Politics affects all of our lives and I watch what's happening with the same interest as any other concerned citizen.  Still, when it comes to being a junkie I fall into the latter category more than the former.

Many other cities celebrate the pre-Lenten season with both festivities and frivolities.  Most prominent, other than the Big Easy is Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.  Much of the year's income for many of Rio’s inhabitants is the direct result of Carnival Season.  Fat Tuesday is always the day before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.  Because this date, like Easter, is governed by the moon's cycles, it occurs on a different date every year.  This year, it is on February 5th, the earliest it has been in twenty years.

An official in Rio wants the date for Carnival to be on the same day every year.  This is because the earlier the event occurs, the less revenue it generates.  My close friend and fellow author r. r. Bryan, himself a devout Catholic, assures me that this will never happen.  r. r. wrote All the Angels and Saints, a novel about a Catholic missionary in Guatemala.

While a devout Catholic, r. r. is also a fun junkie who lived in and around New Orleans for many years.  His son Matt (whose birthday is today, incidentally - he as waited for this day all his life!) didn't believe it when we told him that crowds were often packed so tightly on Bourbon Street during times past that you could literally raise your feet off the pavement and remain suspended in the air.

I find it hard to believe that today is the third Fat Tuesday celebration in New Orleans since the devastation brought by the monster hurricane season of 2005.  While far from full recovery, NO is moving in the right direction.  It was 84 degrees in the French Quarter today and I sit in front of the TV watching the early voting returns, I am wishing I was there instead of here.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Here is a picture of a crow captured with a wildlife camera and modified using Microsoft Digital Image Suite and Roxio Photosuite.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Here are a couple of pics of the Penn Theatre located in a strip center near 12th and Pennsylvania in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  Today, the theatre houses a junk store.  Check out the story at http://www.ericwilder.com .

http://www.ericwilder.com

Here’s a pic taken a few years back at a motorcycle race in Houston at the Astrodome.  Pictured are Eric Wilder, friend John and a gorgeous model (I believe she is a Denver Bronchos cheerleader).

http://www.ericwilder.com

I don’t follow most sports but one that I do is car racing.  Like many other little boys I grew up loving cars.  When I was ten or so I remember waiting for the new model year, in rapt anticipation for the body style changes.  As a boy I also liked speed and consequently started following auto racing.

In the fifties, sixties and probably even the seventies, all motor sports were mostly an unorganized mélange of racers, racing enthusiasts and promoters, and Europe was the motherland of racing.  In Vivian, where I grew up, there were mostly Chevrolets and Fords.  In Europe there were Jaguars, Mercedes Benzs, Ferraris and Maseratis.

I loved European cars and I loved European racing, and I had my heroes, the greatest of whom was Stirling Moss.  Moss was the most fantastic racer that ever lived.  He rarely had a car as powerful or as fast as the competition, but he almost always found a way to win anyway.  The cars were just as fast then as they are now but they weren’t nearly as safe.  If you wrecked at speed in the 60s you were likely to die, or at least sustain horrible injury.

Formula 1 was in its infancy and I always rooted for the American racers – Phil Hill, Ritchie Ginther and Dan Gurney.  In 1962, there was a sports car race track in Bossier City, Louisiana called Hilltop Raceway.  I talked my parents into taking me and my best friend Rod to a race there.

I can’t remember the exact month but it was following the 12 hours of Sebring in 1962.  Sports Car Illustrated, my favorite magazine, reported that the Gonzales Brothers, Dan Gurney and Stirling Moss would race at Hilltop the weekend following Sebring.

My all time hero, Stirling Moss didn’t make the race, nor did the Gonzales Brothers but Dan Gurney did.  The race was sanctioned by no one in particular and there was a variety of race cars in the field.  Gurney had a modified formula 1 open-wheeled race car that was the class of the field.  He took one practice lap in a rented Corvair and then proceeded to smash the track record.

There were Porsches, Ferraris and probably even a few Triumphs in the race.  None were as fast as Gurney’s car, even though there were a couple of other open wheelers there, notably Lloyd Ruby and Roger Penske (yes, he was once a very good race car driver).  There were two one hundred mile races and Gurney easily won both of them.  I remember him screaming through the other racing cars, nonchalantly waving to the crowd as he lapped the field over and over.  One of my greatest treasures was Gurney’s autograph that I lost somewhere along the way.

I still love watching fast race cars.  Today I watched the finish of the 24 hours of Daytona, one of the world’s greatest endurance races.  It is always the first major race of the year.  This year it was won by the Chip Ganassi-Felix Sabates racing team with drivers Scott Pruett, Juan Montoya, Memo Rojas and Dario Franchitti.  Pruett, Montoya and Franchitti were all open-wheel racers in the old Champ Car series.

Many of the observers of motor sports in the world say that Formula 1 is the greatest form of racing, and the home of the greatest racing drivers.  To this I say BS!  The old Champ Car series spawned the best racers and the best racing that I have ever seen.  There is rarely a passed car in Formula 1 so how exciting can it be?

Despite the fact that many Europeans say there are no great American racers, I say their racers never raced against Al Unser, Jr. during his prime.  He was unbeatable.  Perhaps the greatest racing driver of all time, Little Al never got his due.  There is little doubt in my mind that he could have waxed the likes of Fernando Alonzo or Michael Schumacher in a head-to-head race.

That’s not to say there aren’t wonderful European race car drivers.  My favorite is Alex Zanardi.  It took the great Italian racer to finally dethrone Little Al.  If you watch the finish of a NASCAR race these days you will undoubtedly see the winner doing a burn-out donuts, a very American thing to do.  Was an American the first to cut celebratory donuts?  I don’t think so.  I think it was the great Alex Zanardi.

I digress.  Today I watched the finish of one of the premier events in motor sports.  Fox and the Speed Channel, to their great credit, aired fifteen hours of the spectacle.  In addition to the millions watching on TV more than 50,000 spectators observed the event from the infield.

The cars of NASCAR champs Jimmy Johnson and Kurt Busch finished 2^nd and 3^rd, a testament to the talent overflowing in what is today the greatest forum for motor sports racing.  Shortly before his death, Dale Earnhardt, himself a consummate race car driver, and his son Dale Jr. finished 3^rd overall driving a GT class Corvette.  I realized then that these Americans can race with anyone on earth, and win.  Three years ago, another wonderful race driver Tony Stewart, came within twenty minutes of winning the 24 hours of Daytona, before his rear suspension disintegrated.

My only regret about NASCAR is that most of the events are held on ovals.  This is a promotional deal because you can get more spectators into the stands and these spectators are never out of sight of the racers.  Problem is they are going so fast that it is hard to tell one car from the next – except on TV, and I guess that is the point.

I missed seeing my hero, Stirling Moss race in person back in 1962.  I did get to see Dan Gurney easily best a field that included Indy champ Lloyd Ruby and racing owner great Roger Penske.  Today I watched as Gurney’s son Alex finished second.  Am I a fan?  Dyed in the wool.

Who is the present greatest race car driver on earth?  I don’t know I like A.J. Almendinger, a racer that can compete in anything on wheels.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Here is a picture of a bridge on Highway 77 between Mulhaul and Guthrie, Oklahoma.  A pump jack is framed through a bridge over Beaver Creek, a tributary that drains into the Cimarron River.

http://www.ericwilder.com 

Hey, I’m on a roll tonight!  Check this site out. Eric

Shadowlands Haunted Places Index - Oklahoma.

I was looking for information on Skeleton Creek in Logan County, Oklahoma when I came across this very interesting article. Eric Wilder

Okeene, Oklahoma » Zipp Wyatt/Dick Yeager.

Pigs are remarkably adaptable creatures.  Over the years, many domesticated animals were released or escaped into the wilds.  Not only have they survived, they have thrived.  Here are two pictures of feral pigs taken by a wildlife camera in Logan County, Oklahoma.

http://www.ericwilder.com

I recently discovered a wonderful little cookbook written by Louisiana native Gwen McKee.  All of you afficionados of gumbo know that the key to good gumbo is the roux.  Those of you that have attempted to make a roux from scratch also know that the paucity of ingredients don't comport with the difficulty in creating this absolutely key ingredient to a perfect bowl.

Gwen's recipe for Microwave Roux ably explains how to overcome this difficulty.  This book was published in 1986 but if you can somehow obtain a copy, I would highly recommend it.  The Little Gumbo Book has only twenty-seven recipes but all are outstanding.  Here is one of the recipes.

2/3     cup vegetable oil
2/3     cup flour
2/3     cup chopped onion
2/3     cup chopped celery
2/3     teaspoon minced garlic
2/3     cup chopped bell pepper
2/3     cup chopped green onions (optional)
2/3     cup hot water

Mix oil with flour in a 4-cup glass measuring bowl. Microwave uncovered on HIGH for 6 minutes.  Stir and cook another 30-60 seconds on HIGH for 6 minutes.  Stir and cook another 30-60 seconds on HIGH till the color of mahogany.

Now you can add your chopped vegetables, stir well, and "saute" them on HIGH for another 5 minutes till soft but not brown.

Now before stirring, pour oil off top.  Add hot tap water, stirring till smooth.  Beautiful! And it freezes for later use.

http://www.ericwilder.com

I'm watching the LSU - Ohio State championship football game.  As I watch, I think of two things:  the game is in the Superdome of New Orleans.  My thoughts return to 2005, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  Geraldo Rivera is reporting from outside the Superdome.  The building resembles a giant sarcophagus, the gray people in the background little more than eerie wraiths all but devoid of life.

My second thought goes further back, to the fifties.  When I was a boy, my family and I would listen to the LSU games on the radio, enraptured by the running of Billy Cannon.  He always somehow found a way to pull victory from the jaws of defeat.  Listenting to our scratchy old radio, I always felt that Billy would break a tackle, put his shoulder down and run for a touchdown.  I was never disappointed.

Seeing the two grand teams playing tonight in the Superdome, I get the same feeling about the people of New Orleans.

http://www.ericwilder.com

There is a nunnery up Chartre Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans.  NO is known to some as a wide open town, famous for all forms of free expression.  NO, though, is a city with deep religious roots.  The Chartre Street nunnery is but one example.

http://www.ericwilder.com

2 navel oranges, peeled
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 cup water
1/8 cup warm water

Mix sugar and 1/8 cup water in a heavy saucepan and heat very slowly until dissolved. Do not stir. Continue to cook to a rich caramel color. The water will evaporate and the color will change quickly after about 30 to 45 minutes. Remove from heat and quickly and carefully (there will be a lot of steam) pour in warm water. Return to heat and bring mixture back to a boil, stirring until caramel is completely dissolved. Cool.

Slice each orange crosswise into 4 to 6 parts and reshape, using toothpicks to fasten the slices back together. Pour caramel syrup on top and chill.

For an extra special touch, pare thin strips of orange peel, cook for 5 minutes in boiling water, drain, dry and sprinkle over oranges.

Recipe courtesy of Judy M. Heyman from Louisiana Entertains, a complete menu cookbook.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Marilyn and I visited New Orleans six months after Hurricane Katrina and parts of the visit are chronicled in my book Murder Etouffe. I came across this picture today while looking at some of the photo files on my computer.  It was taken on a street in the French Quarter, Chartre Street I believe, although I’m not sure.

http://www.ericwilder.com

This is the last working day of 2007 and for me, I didn't feel like getting out of bed.  It snowed here again last night, a clumpy, wet snow that had mostly already melted when I opened my window this morning.  The window framed a listless landscape of mostly black and white, all color seemingly lost to the inevitable onset of winter, and Mother Nature's cold breath blowing from the ice caps at the top of the world.

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com

Lustful moments frozen in meaningless time

lodged neath icy borders of meaningful rime

have thus our lost fantasies frought

banned from our hearts but not from our thoughts

Wilder-2007

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com

Christmas Day, It was 64 degrees in Edmond.  Today, as I hear Patch barking in the back yard, I gaze out the window and notice that it is snowing, the ground already white.

Growing up in the warmer and more predicable climes of Louisiana, it took me a while to get used to the rapid weather changes we have here in Oklahoma.  Those of us that live here joke about it but to our State's weather predictors it must be a nightmare.

They don't wake up in a cold lather worrying about it, though because they are usually already awake, chasing tornados and wild storms, and reporting their impending paths to frightened Okies.

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com

Downtown OKC has a very special attraction, the Crystal Bridge.  The CB overlooks a beautiful lagoon with several smaller bridges that cross.  Ducks, and various waterfowl abound.

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com

Last April’s Oklahoma City’s Arts Festival – The Food Court

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com

Here is a scene from Oklahoma’s recent ice storm, slightly romanticized.

http://www.ericwilder.com  http://www.gondwanapress.com