While growing up in north Louisiana, I wasted many hours at a place known locally as the Bossier Strip.  This three-mile row of night clubs, restaurants, liquor stores, and striptease joints was billed as the largest bit of neon between Las Vegas and Miami Beach, and maybe it was.

Probably the biggest and most popular night club was Sak’s Boom Boom Room, later known as Sak’s Whisk-a-go-go.  Clad in flashing neon of reds and yellows, the building looked like a rocket under full launch from Cape Canaveral.  There was always live music of all varieties along the strip, but Sak’s provided the biggest venue to the biggest soon-to-be-famous artists.

The thing I remember most about Sak’s was the bikini-clad go-go dancer suspended in a cage above the dance floor.  There was no nudity but there was a distinct aura of sex that abounded along with the loud live music, strong drinks and uninhibited dancing.  I saw many acts and a friend recently reminded me of the comedienne and singer Rusty Warren performing her bawdy ballad Knockers Up.

The Bossier Strip prospered because it had a captive audience – the men and women of Barksdale Air Force Base, the largest SAC base in the world.  Even the smallest of clubs had live music, along with the mystique of illegal gambling and prostitution, courtesy of the Southern Mafia.

Today, the “Strip” is mostly history, replaced by legal gambling in gaudy riverboats moored along the Red River between Shreveport and Bossier City.  Many music venues still exist, along with the palpable undercurrent of sex and danger that provided the place with an excitement like no other, and will likely never disappear.

Eric’s Website

Just East of Eden is my book of stories published in 2007 by Gondwana Press.  Chicken Fries is one of the stories in the book and recounts an episodic ten days sitting a drilling oil well in Grant County, Oklahoma while staying in Wanda Jackson’s former RV.

Part of the story deals with the drilling of the well while another part expounds on many of the strange happenings going on in the area at the time – happenings that included cattle mutilations, crop circles and a County sheriff that seems to know all about it.

The story includes a midnight meeting with Ralph and Goldie, two people Anne and Eric suspect of Satanism.  The reality is something quite different but still quite unusual.  Here is an excerpt from the story Chicken Fries:

Hearing the throaty exhausts of a Harley pull to a stop outside the RV, we waited, listening to someone scrape their boots on the stair ramp leading up the door.  Then footsteps –

Anne made a face as I opened the RV’s door.  “Come in,” I said.

Ralph was not alone.  A woman he introduced as Goldie his soul mate accompanied him.

Goldie had long blonde hair decorated with pink, azure and purple beads, and had big expressive blue eyes.  She wore a leather-fringed jacket beaded with the same colors, along with American Indian totem signs.  She seemed like a sixties flower child that had put on twenty pounds in the seventies to become the quintessential earth mother.

Ralph also wore a matching leather-fringed coat.  For the second time since meeting him, I saw him without a hat or helmet.  His dark hair was also long, draping almost to his shoulders and I could see that he was much younger than I had previously thought.  Pointing to the built-in seating around the stationary table, I invited the Sonny and Cher look-alikes to join us.

“Would anyone like a beer?” I asked.

Ralph and Goldie both nodded so I brought a round of Coors from the RV’s little refrigerator before sliding in beside Anne.  The lighting was dim.  When Goldie began rolling a joint on the table top, the atmosphere became suddenly surreal.

The hallucinatory odor of burning pot permeated the RV as Goldie lit the joint, took a deep drag and then handed it to Ralph.  After taking his own pull from the joint, he passed it to Anne.  She took a hesitant puff and quickly passed it back to Ralph.  Ralph shook his head and nodded in my direction. 

I’m a non-smoker and no fan of the effects of marijuana, but I could already see the big picture.  If Ralph and Goldie were going to impart their knowledge of Satanism and cattle mutilations to us, they first wanted us to join them in a simple illegal act.

Anne’s eyes grew large as I took the pencil-thin joint, drew a deep lungful of the smoke and held it for a long moment before blowing aromatic smoke rings toward the RV’s ceiling.

“Like it?” Goldie asked.  “Home-grown from our own private patch.”

Goldie was grinning, as was Ralph and Anne.  I soon realized that so was I.  When I arose to get us more beer from the refrigerator I almost fell on my face.

“Creeper weed,” Ralph said.  “It takes a while to catch up with you, but when it does –“

Anne lit a candle, put it in the center of the table and turned out the lights.  Along with the pungent odor of marijuana, rising smoke and flickering candle light, all we needed was a little heavy-metal music.  We made do with the chorus of crickets and tree frogs outside the RV.  Finally, Ralph spoke.

“Word is going around that you’re meddling in things that aren’t your business.”

“Is that why someone tried to kill me the other day?”

“No one tried to kill you.  That was an accident.”

It unnerved me that Ralph knew what I was talking about, even if it were an accident.  The pentagram and dead chicken weren’t accidents,” I said.

“The boys was just trying to warn you to mind your own business.”

“Or?”

“Or nothing.  They didn’t mean nothing by it,” Ralph said.

“We wouldn’t turn you in, even if you are Satanists,” Anne said.

Goldie laughed and rolled her eyes.  “We’re not Satanists,” she said.

“Sheriff Arch called you Satanists.  If he’s wrong about that, then what are you?” I asked.

“We worship the moon, the stars and the cycles of the earth and planets,” Goldie said.  “Some people call us pagans.”

“Pagans?” asked Anne.

Warming to the conversation, Goldie spoke up and said, “It’s the oldest religion in Oklahoma, and maybe the world.”

It was my turn to ask, “How could you possibly know that?”

“Because of the excavations at the Spiro Mound sites in southeastern Oklahoma.  The site was the hub of religion and government for prehistoric Indians for thousands of miles.  The religion is connected to the Druids and Stonehenge and is likely the world’s oldest religion.”

Ralph droned in.  “Like the people at Stonehenge and Spiro, we still celebrate the cycles of the earth and stars.”

“You worship cycles?” Anne asked.

“We worship the universal pulse that controls everything,” Goldie said.  “We call ourselves the Southern Death Cult, after one of Spiro’s branches.  Some of the followers are part of the Buzzard Cult.”

“How many followers are there?” asked Anne.

“Thousands likely,” Ralph answered.  “No one exactly knows but there are branches all over the world.”

“And what about cattle mutilations?” I asked.

“We naturally get blamed for lots of things we don’t do.  Sometimes coyotes kill cows in these parts.”

“What about the removal of udders and sexual parts with almost razor-like precision?  How could a coyote, or any other wild animal, do that?” I asked.

“Bacteria,” Ralph answered.  “It’s a proven fact that if you leave a carcass outside in these parts, bacteria will remove those parts in a matter of hours.”

Anne caused my heart to skip a beat when she asked, “Yeah, if you aren’t Satanists, then how do you explain your use of human sacrifice?”

The looks on both Ralph and Goldie’s faces told me that Anne had offended them.  Like experienced diplomats, they both took deep breaths before speaking.  Before answering, Goldie rolled another joint.

After making a production of lighting it, she took a deep drag before passing it to Ralph.  Ralph took his own deep drag and I could see by the expression in his dark eyes that Anne’s comment had not made him happy.  This time, when he passed the joint to Anne, she also took a long toke, as did I when she handed it to me.

As a Vietnam vet, I am far from a virgin when it comes to drugs.  I like beer, but that doesn’t mean that I have never sampled the weed.  This weed was different.  By my second puff I was stoned.  I stifled a giggle when I observed the hurt expressions on Ralph and Goldie’s faces.

“The Southern Death Cult doesn’t practice human sacrifice,” Ralph finally said.  He giggled himself when he added, “maybe a chicken or two, but nothing more.”

At this point, Anne began laughing uncontrollably and Goldie, Ralph and I soon joined her.  I staggered up to the refrigerator and got us more Coors.

When I returned with the beer I asked, “If you don’t practice human sacrifices then why have a name as ominous as the Southern Death Cult?”

“We couldn’t have made that one up if we’d tried.  Southern Death Cult is the original name the Indians used.  No one really knows why.”

“So why all the secrecy if you’re not really Satanists?”  Anne asked.

“Oklahoma is the hub of the Bible Belt.  The only Southern most of our neighbors understand is Baptist.  What we came to tell you is you got a problem with the well.”

“What kind of problem?”

“The spot you are drilling on is hallowed, an old Indian burial ground.”

“Are you sure?  I never found anything in the literature.  How do you know?”

“It’s been passed down and there’s a curse against anyone ever making use of that spot of land.  You’re drilling almost the exact location.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and neither could Anne.  “What should we do?  We’ve spent too much money to quit now.”

“This ain’t about money. It’s about sacred land.  You got to make amends.”

“Or what?”

At this point, Goldie’s facial expression went from a pretty smile to an angry frown.  Standing from the table, she said, “Seems like we’ve done all we can, Ralph.  Let’s get the hell outa here.”

“Now wait a minute,” Anne said.  “My father was a Baptist minister.  You can’t just come in here and tell us that you’re members of a cult called Southern Death and that you are descended from Indians that believe in cycles of the universe and expect to convert us in one fell swoop!  Tell us what it is you want us to do.  At least respect us enough to give us a chance.”

Anne’s tirade caught them both by surprise, as well as me.  Goldie and Ralph exchanged glances and Goldie resumed her place at the table.  I went to the refrigerator and got us more beer.  Then I said, “Now, please tell us what to do.”

Ralph drank some beer and leaned forward in his seat.  “All right,” he said.  “If you’re really serious, this is what you need to know.”

I know now Ralph and Goldie aren’t Satanists, they’re Pagans.  Pagans exist everywhere, even here in Edmond.  It’s been a lot of years but, since it’s autumn again, a mystical time of the year, maybe I’ll just take a drive to Blackwell and see if they’re still around since I haven’t seen Raph on a drilling oil well lately.

Eric’s Website

Autumn is here, a magical season fraught with changing colors and spirits of long ago.  I remember a few particular spirits and have my own mystical tale – one I have never told before.

I grew up in north Louisiana.  My Grandmother lived nearby on a farm located near the tiny community of O’Farrell, in Cass County, Texas.  When I was young, we visited my Grandmother at least once a week.

Grandma Rood married a man named Oscar, a company pumper for Humble Oil.  I remember a picture that hung proudly in their house - her parents, my great-grandparents, Annie and J.P. O’Rear.  John Pinkney was sitting in a chair, his wooden leg detached and propped against the wall, Annie standing behind him with her right hand on his shoulder.

Pink, as he was called, served in Company D, 1^st Texas Infantry during the Civil War.  How he lost his leg I haven’t a clue but he was captured and spent much of the War in a Union prison camp.  When the war ended, he was released and hiked the entire distance from somewhere in Georgia back to his homestead in east Texas.

I must point out that Pink and Annie never owned any slaves, nor did most Southerners.  Like today, however, these lower-middle class folks fought the war of the south’s wealthy for a principle that was fed to them as States Rights.

I had seen Pink and Annie’s picture many times and heard their story, although I was just a kid and promptly forgot most of it.  Pink was just a picture on the wall to me – until something unexplainable happened years later.

I was drafted into the Army in 1970 and bound for service in Vietnam as an infantry foot soldier.  If I told you I wasn’t frightened, I would be a bald-faced liar.  Vietnam was different than Iraq.  Every night on the news we witnessed row after bloody row of body bags being unloaded from transport planes.  Worse than coming home in a body bag was to return limbless, or eyeless - or hopeless!

I was young and strong but I was frightened to the very core of my being that I would be killed or maimed – or worse yet, I would kill or maim some other poor human that didn’t deserve to die.  I was having a hard time coping and none of my family or friends had the right words to say.  And yes, I had trouble sleeping.  It was during a particularly restless night when I saw a specter, or perhaps had a vivid dream.  I don’t know, but this is what happened:

Something disturbed my dream and caused me to open my eyes.  Gail was asleep beside me but she never woke up.  There was an ephemeral glow at the foot of my bed, not a strong radiance but a peaceful aura that surrounded an apparition I vaguely recognized.  As I lay there, eyes wide and unbelieving, the old man spoke to me with a raspy voice in a dialect so southern that at first I hardly understood him.  He stood erect on a very noticeable wooden leg.

“I’m Pink, your great-granddad.  You’re going to war, Son.  I spent most of my powers getting your Daddy back from the last big war.  I ain’t got much left but now you’re in need and you ain’t got nobody to help ‘cept me.  There ain’t no good wars but the one you’re headed for is real bad.  You keep an eye on what’s going on in front of you and I’ll keep an eye on your back.  Have faith, Son, pray, and I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

I awoke the next morning with no memory of the dream and many years passed before it crept back into my psyche.  I was visiting my parents in Vivian and it came pouring forth, back into my mind, as I stared at the picture of my Great-grandparents in my parent’s front room.

I miraculously made it home from Vietnam unscathed, although I barely missed death, often by friendly fire, at least a dozen times.  I once had a mortar round land between my legs without detonating.  Old Pink was with me every step of the way, his powers diminishing every time he turned a bullet away for me.

Autumn is here, a magical season fraught with changing colors and spirits of long ago.  It caused me to remember a dream I had many years ago.  Or was it a dream?

Eric’s Website

It was almost dark when I finished feeding my dogs and returned to the house tonight.  The television was off in the front room, only the red pulsating light of a Lava Lamp and our herb grow-light illuminating the room.  As I walked toward the kitchen I saw the shadow of a woman moving around in there.  I assumed it was Marilyn but it wasn’t.  She was in the back bedroom, watching television.

I’m a sane person, not prone to wild speculation.  Still, I had to wonder if the shadow I saw was of Anne, my deceased wife, or my Mother Mavis, futzing around in the kitchen.  Things such as this are easy to explain away – an errant shadow, an unexpected flash of light.  Maybe!

My faithful readers will probably remember pictures of my magic moonflowers, usually in full bloom this time of year.  Marilyn and I haven’t had a single moonflower since my Mother died two years ago.  What’s the problem, Mom?  Tell me!  You know I’ve always been a little dense.

Monday is the Autumnal Equinox, the first day of autumn, day equal to night.  It is also a day filled with spirits and the first day of a season filled with spirits.  I’ve already seen my first on autumn eve and I know it won’t be my last.

Eric’s Website

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.  It was reconstructed and burned again in the 1890’s.  The hotel where I stayed was built on the original site and it was razed in the 1970’s.  It was already fairly 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 St. Louis Hotel, equally regal, was built by the French.  Like many historical places, they had their dark sides.  Stocks stood inside both hotels for the purpose of selling slaves.  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.”

Hey, the book is great and there are many compelling stories about New Orleans that are impossible to put down.  Grab a copy and read it if you get a chance.

There were no slave blocks in the lobby when I stayed at the hotel, only friendly people trying hard to accommodate a young geologist wanna-be.  Still, I palpably 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’s Website

If you are lucky enough to find a mayhaw bush loaded with luscious red berries, pick a batch of the very nicest ones.  Take them home and wash them up.  About six cups of water are needed to cover two quarts of mayhaws.

Put them in a large pot, add the water, bring to a boil and cook for thirty minutes, or so.  Press the berries in a colander using a big wooden spoon, and then strain the juice through damp cheesecloth.  Now you are ready to make the jelly.

5 cups of the mayhaw juice you just extracted

7 cups sugar, preferably cane

1 box of pectin, powered 

Mix the juice in a large saucepan with the pectin until it is completely dissolved then place on the fire.  When the juice reaches a rolling boil, add the sugar, return to a boil and continue boiling for five minutes.

Remove from heat and skim the foam with a metal spoon.  Skim again after placing juice in clean, sterilized jars.  Seal jars and place in boiling water for fifteen minutes.  When you finish, you will have eight or so jars of the best jelly you ever tasted.

Eric’s Website

Growing up in northwest Louisiana, I recall trekking to Jeems Bayou in search of wild mayhaws so my mother could make mayhaw jelly.  Although I didn’t know it at the time, this is the fruit of a variety of Hawthorne bush that grows profusely throughout the south, especially in swampy environments.  Jeems Bayou, near Caddo Lake is a perfect spot for the elusive mayhaw.

Mayhaw jelly is thought by many to be the finest jelly in the world.  I can’t argue with that sentiment.  If you can find a jar, buy it and try it.  You won’t be disappointed.

Mayhaws grow ripe in May and June, a time of abundant vegetation and wildlife, including snakes, in the area around Jeems Bayou.  Once, far from the car and deep in the heavily vegetated area where mayhaws abound, my mother crossed paths with a snake – probably a harmless grass snake.  It didn’t matter.  It may as well have been a boa constrictor.  My mother screamed bloody murder and didn’t stop running until she reached our brown and tan 1950 Ford.

My brother and I found the scene pretty funny but we didn’t laugh when we learned that we had also missed out on mayhaw jelly for the rest of the summer.

Eric’s Website

During my stay at Fort Polk, I became close friends with a fellow draftee named Tommy Picou.  We went through Basic Training, Leadership Preparation and Advanced Infantry Training together.  There were only four draftees in my AIT; all the rest were in the National Guard.  Because of this, the four of us performed every KP and sh-t duty that came along.

During the summer of 1970 at Fort Polk, draftees were the lowest of the low, at least in the minds of our superiors – literally everyone, even the cooks.  Picou and I became best friends because we had lots of things in common.  We were both recently married and both from Louisiana, although I was from north Louisiana and he from south Louisiana.

Picou was of French-Acadian descent and spoke fluent Coon-ass French, a language I, and apparently he too, assumed was exactly the same as the Mother tongue.  A series of events that happened during AIT proved us both wrong.

We were at a rifle range, eating lunch when the MP’s brought a new addition to our training company.  The young man, like all of us, was dressed in fatigues.  None of us were very happy but this fellow seemed particularly indignant.  When we tried to talk to him, he replied only in French.

”What’s he saying?” I asked Picou.

Picou shook his head.  “Beat the hell outa me.”

“I thought you speak French.”

Picou grinned.  “He damn sure don’t speak the same French I do.”

“Try saying something to him,” I suggested.

Picou rattled off a few questions for which he received only a quizzical look from the Frenchman, an open palm gesture that is universally understood and a shake of his head covered with thick dark hair.

He seemed to understand when I said, “Want something to eat?”

We got the young man a hot plate of chow and sat with him beneath the trees as he ate.  When he finished, he said, in passable English, “My name is Charles and I’m from France.”

Charles just shook his head and grinned when I said, “Tommy’s French.  Didn’t you comprehend what he was asking you?”

“Not a word,” he said.

Charles proceeded to tell us how he was a flight attendant for a French airline.  On a layover in New York, he was conscripted for duty in the U.S. Army.

“They have no right to do that,” I said.

“Apparently they do,” he said.  “But I won’t stay here for long.”

“What’ll you do?” Picou asked.

“Escape as soon as I can.”

“Then what?  They’ll hunt you down.”

“Make it to an airport where my airline flies and catch a flight back to France.”

“But they’ll just come after you,” I said.

“I’m a French citizen.  They can’t touch me in France and I don’t intend to serve in your war.”

“We’re not too happy about it either,” Picou said.

“My brother was a soldier in Vietnam.  He died at Diem Bien Phu,” Charles said.  “My family has already lost too much to that damned country.  I swear they won’t kill me too.”

True to his word, Charles was gone the next day.  Picou and I both ended up in Vietnam, me in the First Cavalry and he in the 101^st Airborne.  We both made it home safely and kept in touch for several years. I don’t know if Charles got back to France or spent years in an Army prison, but I know one thing for a fact – he was a man of resolve and had no intention of ever going to Vietnam and fighting another country’s war.  I can’t say as I blame him.

Eric’s Website

Old friends Ray and Kathy dropped by my office today and took me to lunch.  They live on a scenic old farm just outside the Edmond city limits.  It was the first time I’d seen them since the book signing for my murder mystery Big Easy and their visit brought back many memories.

When Anne was alive, Kathy was one of her best friends.  The four of us went out at least once a week.  Ray, an accountant, was in the oil business before he got better sense and we did lots of deals together through the years.  We also took many trips together, perhaps the most memorable a weekend in Dallas.

After work one Friday, we took Southwest Airlines into Love Field, rented a car and drove to Fort Worth where we met Mike and Sara, friends of Ray and Kathy’s.  They took us to dinner at a Mexican restaurant that occupied an old house in a former housing development that had gone commercial.  I can’t remember the name of the place but the food was good.

The Ragin Cajun Doug Kershaw was giving a concert at the Fairmont Hotel and the six of us left Fort Worth and returned to Dallas.  Those of you unfamiliar with Kershaw’s musical performances are missing out on a national treasure.  He has a limited touring schedule these days but if he appears anywhere near you, I urge you to get a ticket.  You won’t be disappointed.

The Fairmont venue was small (probably less than two hundred fans) and intimate.  Anne and Kathy winked and flirted with Kershaw though the first performance that lasted about an hour and a half.  After the show, we introduced ourselves and got some autographs, and some hugs.  It wasn’t unusual that I was also from Louisiana since after all we were in an adjacent state

“Stay through the second show.  I never have anyone to drink with after a performance.” he invited.

It didn’t take much to convince us to stay, although Mike and Sara had a babysitter and had to get home.  The four of us stayed, drinking in the bar between shows and continuing to drink during the performance and intermission.  We waited in the hotel bar for an hour, drinking and beginning to think Kershaw had stood us up.  He didn’t.

Doug Kershaw is as friendly as he is talented.  We had talked for an hour or so when he invited us up to his room to hear “Some raw tapes.”

Kershaw’s tapes were for his next album.  The main song was titled It’s All Your Fault – and the song rocked, not just because we were all half-looped.  We had him replay it at least half a dozen times.  Kathy and Anne were exhausted and rested on Kershaw’s bed, listening as he made a phone call to his friend Glen Campbell.

Finally, we departed to let him get a little rest.  We meant to stay at the Fairmont but soon learned there were no rooms available.  At about three in the morning, we coasted into the Anatole Hotel where we thankfully found two available rooms.

I felt like hell the next morning, my stomach churning, head banging, ears ringing and the inside of my mouth feeling as if it had endured an acid wash.  Ray and Kathy had just knocked on the door and Anne was letting them in when I reached in my pants pocket and got a big surprise.

I had a pack of souvenir matches from the Fairmont, complete with Doug Kershaw’s autograph.  I hadn’t bothered closing the flap and all the matches ignited when I put my hand into the pocket.

An entire pack of matches can cause quite a flame.  I began yelling, jumping and swatting at my leg, finally coming totally out of the burning britches as Anne, Ray and Kathy watched, aghast.  Sulfur smoke filled the room, along with their laughter as I stood in my shorts, trying to massage the pain away from my burned thigh.

Breakfast and the rest of the day were fairly uneventful.  After visiting one of Ray’s friends that owned the Texas Schoolbook Depository (no, I didn’t see the actual window from where Oswald shot Kennedy, but we did get a personal tour of other parts of the building), we flew home with no further incidents.

Back home in Oklahoma City, Anne and I were ready to hit the bed for a little well-deserved sleep when we got a call from Ray.

“I have four tickets to the Bahamas and rooms when we get there, all comp, but we have to leave in four hours.  Are you game?”

We were, but that’s another story.  Actually it’s about five other stories.  As Doug Kershaw would say, “Stay tuned.”

Eric’s Website

I love animals and grew up with many pets – dogs, guppies, parakeets, tarantulas.  Well, you get the picture.  Still, I was thirty-two before I ever owned my first cat.  Maybe I should say that I was thirty-two when a cat first owned me.

His name was King Tut, and he was a big orange, longhaired, full-blooded something-or-other.  Tut was as regal as his name.  Other adjectives also well described him – haughty, picky, and possessive, etc.  Tut and I were together almost sixteen years and somewhere along the way, he decided that he liked me.

Since Tut, I have had more cats than I can count.  You cat people out there know where I’m coming from.  You can’t own (there I go again) just one cat.  They sense when you like them and start appearing at your doorstep from out of nowhere.  Well, all this explanation brings me to my latest cat Duke.

I must digress.  Before I inherited Duke, I had a kitty named Bob, a yellow tabby with no tail.  Bob was a wonderful cat, but always pitifully skinny.  He was that way when Shannon, my stepdaughter, left him with me.  I think he may have had cat AIDS.

I was afraid to take him to the vet because I had once had a favorite kitty named Silky with the incurable malady.  The vet wanted to put her down because she was so contagious.  It broke my heart and I didn’t cotton to repeating the experience with Bob.  Yes, I know, you can’t hide your head in the sand.  Well, yes you can, at least for a while.

I found Bob stuck in the fence, too weak to pull himself our.  He was dead and I cried when I found him.  I was writing my New Orleans murder mystery Big Easy at the time of Bob’s demise and I somehow incorporated his story into the plot.  This brings me back to Duke.

Duke, like Bob, was skinny when he appeared on my doorstep.  He was also a frightened little mass of kitty hood.  There was nothing that I could do except feed and pet him.  He has now killed and eaten three squirrels and goodness knows how many birds (thanks to Marilyn, my house is a bird sanctuary.)

I’ve never gotten the little fellow fixed because I’m afraid to pick him up.  I tried one night after chugging a few brewskis and almost lost an eye during the attempt.  Duke has finally quieted down, maybe because he’s gotten a little older, or maybe because he ran into a bigger tomcat.  That happens in life sometimes.

Eric’s Website

Here is a picture of Oklahoma’s State Capitol Building.  The building went without a dome (even though the funds were earmarked decades ago) until a few years ago.  Notice the original steel oil derrick in front of the building.  Because of political manipulation, the Capitol Complex was the site of many drilled wells, banned in other parts of the City.

Eric’s Website

Marilyn watched the Country Music Awards on television earlier.  While passing the set, I stopped to hear an interview with Reba McIntyre.  “This,” the interviewer said, “is your tenth year to host the Awards.  How does it make you feel?”

Reba’s answer went something like this:  “I can’t believe it’s been ten years and I can’t believe they keep inviting me back.”

Ten years is a long time but not as far back as the first time I saw Reba in person.  It was at Gilley’s – the honky-tonk immortalized by the movie Urban Cowboy - in Pasadena, Texas near Houston, the year 1981.

I was on a