Much as our day of skiing had disappeared, our plan for dinner and a few hours of wild nightlife dissolved along with Mick’s good health.  We had stopped at a grocery store and laid in a loaf of bread, some canned food, luncheon meat and a few beers.  Lucky for Nan, Gail and I as that was all we had to eat and drink.

The little condominium had two full-sized bedrooms, a living room with a wood-burning fireplace, a small kitchen and one bathroom.  We three healthy ones built a fire, had a sandwich and a few beers while we listened to Mick tossing his cookies through the thin walls.  Mick’s flu continued through the night.  The last time I looked at the clock it was three in the morning.  Early-riser Gail shook me awake around six.

“Get up or we’ll miss half a day of skiing.”

Dragging myself out of the warm sack, I washed my face and pulled on my heavy ski apparel.  It was only twenty-eight degrees outside as Nan, Gail and I drove up the hill to the ski resort, Mick still too sick to get out of bed.  We were soon on the bunny slope, Nan giving Gail and me a few quick instructions.

Nan smiled and nodded when Gail said, “I can do this.  Let’s go to the top of the mountain.”

After a quick demonstration of how to get on the ski lift, Nan and Gail mounted the chair in front of me.  I slipped and slid but managed to scurry into the next chair beside an older woman that refused to look at me.  She was dressed in the finest skiwear, her boots and skis the top of the line.  She had a frown on her face and just kept shaking her head.  She did not reply when I said, “Nice day.”

Mounting a ski lift is one thing, exiting the first time something altogether different.  My heart raced as we approached the dismount area.  Having no idea what to do, I pushed my rear off the wooden seat, my boots instantly tangling.  It wouldn’t have been so bad to fall off the lift, but the moment I lost my balance, I grabbed the snobby woman beside me.  She struggled to release herself from my grasp, but like a drowning swimmer, I held on, refusing to let go.

The stranger and I tumbled off the lift and slid down the hill for at least a dozen feet.  When we finally slid to a stop, the woman quickly untangled herself , dusted herself off and skied away, hoping, I suppose, that know one had seen the disgraceful debacle.

Two people had.  Nan and Gail were standing about ten feet away, laughing their butts off.  The remainder of the day deteriorated from that point.  I tried my best, but I could not get the hang of free falling down a mountain on a pair of unwieldy fiberglass slats.  By noon, I was bruised, exhausted and completely humiliated.

Gail, on the other hand, was a natural athlete.  She skied to the bottom of the mountain, never falling.  I should have been so lucky.  I made it to the bottom of the mountain, but mostly on my face.  When I finally reached the lodge at the base of the mountain, I found Nan and Gail waiting for me.

“You’re a real piece of work,” Gail said.  “I don’t even know how to describe how much you embarrassed us, or even what to call you.”

“Super Klutz,” Nan said, laughing.  “When it comes to skiing, you just suck.”

Like the mountainside, the day continued downward from that point.  Feeling like a complete fool, I followed the two laughing females up the mountain again, dismounting with much the same results as before.

Next time down, I pulled off my skis and went to the bar in the lodge.  There I waited until five when Nan and Gail tapped on the picture window to indicate they were ready to go back to the condo.  As I plodded to the orange Saab, I was looking forward to a peaceful evening.  My humiliation had only just begun.

CONTINUED

I had the brakes nailed to the floorboard but the bright orange Saab slowed not a mile-per-hour.  The pickup truck in front of us had stopped for a red light, a naked engine block in its truck bed to supply rear-end ballast on the icy roads.  The four of us had an eternity to brace ourselves for the ensuing impact.  It seemed like forever as we finally experienced the sickening thud that followed.

The very low speed impact had no effect on us physically, or on the truck that we hit.  It did peel the hood back on the Saab and bend the radiator backwards.  The Texas farmer just smiled and shook his head when we offered to call the police, or at least exchange phone numbers.

“You hit that old engine block.  You did not touch my truck.  You don’t owe me nothing and it was your fault, so you’ll have to pay for the damages on that orange whats-it of yours.  I don’t see any reason to call the police.”

Neither did I.  We quickly decided there was no mechanical, only structural damage to the car and continued the final two-hundred-fifty miles to the Red River Ski Resort.

The remainder of the trip went without incident but it was late afternoon when we reached Red River – not enough time to ski so we got the keys to our condo instead and then stopped at a ski shop to rent boots, skis, etc.  It was dark when we pulled into the front of the little condo, Mick frowning and less than a happy camper.

“This condo is nice, and at least we can eat dinner at a nice restaurant and catch up on a little nightlife.”

Mick’s frown and silence had accompanied us practically since leaving Dalhart.  “I don’t know about dinner,” he said.  “I’m feeling a little sick.”

“Don’t be that way, Mick,” I said.  “I did the best I could.”

Mick was glancing around for a bathroom, his right hand shaking in time with his head.  His other hand was at his mouth.  “It’s not you,” he said.  “I’m sick and think I’m gonna puke.”

CONTINUED

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I went skiing for the first time with my best friend Mickey.  We both worked at Cities Service Oil Company during the middle seventies.  Mickey and his then wife Nancy were expert skiers.  Gail, my then wife and I had never been before.  They were our best friends and convinced us we should take a weekend ski trip to Red River in New Mexico.

“We’ll leave Oklahoma City right after work and drive straight though to Red River,” Mick said.  “We’ll get there in time to ski the whole day and then rest up a little before party time begins.”

We were all younger then and the plan sounded plausible.  We left OKC before six and headed west on I-40, soon aware our plans had already begun going awry.  It started snowing around five, I-40 becoming increasingly impassible by the time we reached Amarillo and stopped for a hamburger.  Gail and I are both from Louisiana and not used to snow, much less the amount that had fallen and was continuing to fall.

Gail and I had our first new car, an Oklahoma State University orange 1973 Saab.  It had a heated passenger seat and front wheel drive.  The salesperson had assured me that no car was better in snow or on ice than that particular automobile.  His words gave me little comfort as I had struggled to keep it on the road for the past six hours.

“Let’s get a room here in Amarillo, I said.  “The Interstate is a mess.”

“Not in the plan,” Mick said.  “We keep moving.  Conditions will improve.”

Famous last words.  Mick and Nan slept in the back seat, Gail in the passenger seat as I plodded through a blizzard worse than I could have ever imagined.  When I finally made it to Dumas, I pulled into the first motel I found.  Mick was less than enthralled.

“We can’t stop here.  We’ll miss an entire day of skiing.”

Mick, Nan and Gail, having slept most of the distance from Amarillo, had no idea of the weather conditions.  On the other hand, my eyes were almost blind from trying to discern the pavement from the ditch – all solid white - for the past two hours.

“I’m stopping,” I said.  “If you’re serious about heading on to Red River, I’ll call you a cab to the bus station.”

Mick glared at me but followed me to the office of the motel.  There was one room left, thank heavens, and Mick and I flipped a coin for the single bedroom.  He won.  He and Nan spent the night on a real bed, Gail and me on a lumpy couch.  It didn’t much matter because exhausted, I fell asleep almost immediately.

It was no longer snowing when we awoke early the next morning.  Mick questioned my manhood as we ate breakfast at a nearby truck stop.  I ignored him, all the way to Dalhart.  We were in town when he began yelling.

“You’re on a sheet of solid ice and driving way to fast.  Slow down, Wildman.  You’re going to hit that truck in front of us.”

Driving on ice is one thing.  Stopping quickly on ice is something else altogether.  We braced ourselves, and held our collective breaths as we plowed into the back of a stationary pickup truck.

CONTINUED

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The ancients were avid students of astrology.  Many early civilizations followed the cycles of the sun, moon and earth with mathematical accuracy.  Druids, Mayans and American Indians - as well as inhabitants of ancient Ireland - constructed elaborate stone cairns to assist in pinpointing both the autumnal and vernal equinox, and the summer and winter solstices.

The spring equinox, quite literally means there are twelve hours of darkness and twelve hours of light, an event that occurs only twice every year.  Pagans and neo-pagans celebrated this day as holy.

Holy or not, the cycles of the universe, life and death, are of interest, like the ancients, to all of us.  It is a pity that there is little or no written record of the secrets the ancients possibly knew.  And isn't it interesting the seemingly worldwide knowledge of the nether-science of astrology that not one person in a thousand knows today?

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I am working on a new novel, a murder mystery set in Logan County, Oklahoma.  In addition to murder, the book features cattle rustling, a stalking black panther, and an all- female commune that practices paganism as well as extreme earth-sustaining measures.

The novel’s main character, Buck McDivit, returns for the first time since appearing in my book Ghost of a Chance.  Bones of Skeleton Creek is the mystery’s tentative title.  Here is an excerpt from the book:

Excerpt from Bones of Skeleton Creek (first draft, unedited)

Muted sunlight peeked through a thick cover of clouds as Buck stood in a semicircle with a group of men, waiting for the arrival of the investigator.  No one spoke as they watched a gray van back up to their location.  It must have already started out as a banner day for homicides in Logan County because the person exiting the van was Satchel Pratt instead of Doc Watson, the usual man on the job.

Even though a chill wind whipped the tree limbs at the nearby ranch house, Satchel’s only jacket was a light, waist-length jacket with the words medical investigator printed on the back.  Satchel wore glasses that did little to impart an air of studiousness to the large man with dark, shoulder-length hair.

“What’s up, Cowboy?” he asked Buck, ignoring the other half-dozen law officers and ranch hands observing the situation.

“Bad news,” Buck answered, nodding toward the body occupying the eye of the circle.

No one had approached the body, wary of destroying evidence at what was obviously a crime scene – a gruesome crime scene.  The body in question was that of a man lying on his back, his legs bent at the knees and folded beneath him in what would have been a most uncomfortable position – if he were alive to notice.  He wasn’t.

The first job of a medical investigator is to check for trauma, something that may have caused the death.  Sometimes trauma isn’t apparent, or the actual cause of death obvious.  No such problem existed with this death.  The man was quite naked and lying in a puddle of blood that pooled mostly beneath his buttocks.  Satchel Pratt put on a pair of rubber gloves and knelt beside the victim.  From the black bag that he carried, he removed a syringe which he used to extract a sample of blood from the victim’s femoral artery.

Pratt had a sheath on his belt from which he took what looked like a meat thermometer and quickly inserted it beneath the right side of the man’s rib cage, an area of the body known as the intercostal space.  Deftly, he directed the thermometer into the dead man’s liver.  The lead cop, a Logan County Sherrif’s deputy, stepped closer.

Satchel wiped off the thermometer with a wipe and placed it back in the sheath.  “Can I borrow your pen?” he asked the deputy.

The dead man’s head rested on a mess of blood, bone and brains.  Gently lifting it, Satchel inserted the pen in the gaping hole.

“This is the exit wound,” he said.

The man’s mouth splayed open in a grotesque smile.  Satchel used the opening to probe inside with the Deputy’s pen.  When he removed it, he turned around and offered it back to the person that had loaded it to him.

“You keep it,” the deputy said, shaking his head and taking a step backward.

Satchel grinned, one Buck had seen many times before.  It was Pratt’s shtick and he always performed it for the benefit of those police officers that had not yet observed the scene of a homicide, and for the entertainment of the others that had.  Zipping down his light jacket, he slid the pen into his shirt pocket.  His performance wasn’t yet finished as he anticipated the Deputy’s next question.

“How long has he been dead?”

Buck tried hard to keep from smiling as Satchel removed a second meat thermometer that he kept sheathed on the right side of his belt.  Holding it close to his myopic eyes, he touched the instrument to his tongue.  Both deputies and the three cowboys gasped.

“Maybe as long as twelve hours,” Satchel said, “But it could be less because of the cold weather.”

Seeing the men’s stunned reaction, Buck could contain himself no longer, breaking into an uncontrolled bout of rollicking laughter.  It stopped abruptly when a familiar voice spoke behind him.

“What’s so funny, McDivit?”

From the distinctive, raspy voice, Buck knew without turning that it came from Logan County Sheriff, Big Jim Hagen.

Buck didn’t bother answering because the sheriff, he knew, had already witnessed Satchel’s little act more than once.  Someone even taller than Sheriff Hagen, accompanied him.  It was a man that Buck recognized instantly and knew very well - Clayton  O’Meara, Buck’s former boss and the owner of the ranch on which the dead man was murdered.  Although he rarely saw the man, this was the second time Buck had run into him that day.

“What’s the story here, Satchel?” Hagen asked.

“You got yourself a homicide, Sheriff.”

Buck starting taking notes as Satchel Pratt began to recite.

“Caucasian male, about thirty.  Someone brought him into this clearing about ten to twelve hours ago and forced him to strip off all his clothes.  They tied his hands behind his back with chicken wire and had him kneel.  They castrated him – while he was still alive from the amount of blood on the ground.  Then they stuck a weapon in the victim’s mouth and pulled the trigger.”

“Sounds more like a suicide to me,” the sheriff said.  “No one would let a shooter stick a pistol in their mouth.”

The deputy snickered, but quickly turned his head away when Pratt said, “You mean right after he cut his own balls off?”

Sheriff Hagen said, “I’m just saying that when somebody dies from a gunshot wound in the mouth, it’s usually suicide.  What’s your take on it, Buck?”

“This seems more like a case of revenge to me than a professional hit.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the victim knew who killed him.  He also has a nasty contussion on the side of his head.  I imagine his killer nailed him with the pistol he used to kill him with.  Maybe he was unconscious when the killer jammed the pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger.”

“Satchel, does that sound about right?”

“His upper lip is split.  I’d say it makes for a pretty convincing story.  Now all you need is the killer.”

Big Jim Hagen digested Buck’s theory and Satchel Pratt’s take on it.  Glancing at the big man standing beside him, he asked, “You recognize the victim?”

Clayton O’Meara nodded at the Sheriff’s question.  “Name is Frank Boggs.  One of my hands.  Only been working for me about a month or so.  He’s a local and my foreman can get you all the information we have on him.”

Sheriff Hagen glanced at his lead deputy, still ashen-faced from observing Satchel’s little joke.  “Get your head out of it, Lamont.  Cardon off the victim and start combing the area for evidence.  Don’t look like we’ll find much, but you never know.” 

Clayton left the crime scene, shaking his head and taking his gawking hands with him.  He didn’t speak Buck before leaving, but he smiled and nodded in his direction.  It didn’t matter.  There was still much to do before he and Satchel bagged the body and carted it to the van.

The day had started out cold and had only grown colder.  As Buck and Satchel finished their work, the murder scene looked like a washed-out oil painting.  It was the end of a long day and wet flakes of snow began falling from the ashen sky as the two men rolled the gurney to the back of the van.

Eric’s Website

  Here is a scene from the banks of Lake Arcadia, near Edmond, Oklahoma.  Lake Arcadia is the Edmond City water supply.

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Oyster stew is a Louisiana staple, but is prepared and eaten everywhere the succulent pelecypod is found.  There are many variations, some heartier than others, and one even by James A. Michener in his book Chesapeake.  Here is an authentic Louisiana version of the recipe from Comeaux’s Louisiana Bar & Grill in Alpharetta, Georgia.

1 stick butter
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, finely diced
2 tablespoons Cajun seasoning, plus more to taste
2 pints oysters (with liquor), drained and liquor reserved
1 quart seafood stock (see Note)
1 (10-ounce) can Rotel tomatoes, pureed
1 quart half-and-half
¼ cup white wine or brandy
Garlic croutons

In a large (2-gallon) stockpot, melt butter over medium-high heat. Add garlic, onion and carrot and cook, stirring constantly, until onions are translucent. Add 2 tablespoons Cajun seasoning and stir to combine. Add oyster liquor, seafood stock and tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Cook 10 minutes. Add half-and-half and bring back to a simmer. Add oysters and cook until their edges begin to curl. Add wine or brandy and adjust seasoning to taste. Serve at once in hot soup bowls garnished with croutons, green onions, parsley and paprika.

Note: It is not difficult to make your own seafood stock. This method makes about 2 ½  quarts. Use 1 quart for this recipe and freeze the remainder. Place about 2 pounds fish heads and/or bones and/or shrimp shells in a large pot with some trimmings from onions, celery and carrots in 3 quarts water, or enough to cover. Bring to a boil and simmer 35 to 45 minutes. Strain.  Serves 8.

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Marilyn and I bought an outdoor sauna in October, but I didn’t get around to trying it out until tonight.  What a night!  The temperature was only sixteen degrees as I padded out to the sauna, and record lows all over the country.

Shaped like a barrel, the cedar sauna accommodates six adult, or eight very good friends.  I only remained in the one-hundred-fifty degree heat for about half an hour, or until I finished drinking about a quart of whiskey.  Just kidding!  I only had a large glass of ice water with no alcoholic beverage added.

Yes, I felt like a Finn, or maybe an American Indian in a sweat lodge.  I do not know how many impurities I sweated out of my body, but I enjoyed myself thoroughly and I intend to work on my regimen again tomorrow.

Eric’s Web

There is no reason that I should like men’s college basketball as much as I do, I just do.  A while back, I watched Oklahoma State and Texas battle through three overtimes until Mario Boggan of OSU finely outdid Texas’s freshman phenom Kevin Durant, icing the game when he sank a long, desperation shot with less than four seconds remaining on the clock.  It was an exciting basketball game, and I have seen quite a few.

What makes my love for basketball so unlikely?  As a kid, I was always the last person selected when Captains chose sides for baseball, football, etc.  Well, unless my friend Rod was around.

I have an excuse, though.  Near-sighted does not come close to explaining my vision.  When I first got glasses in the fifth grade, I remember seeing the blackboard clearly for the first time in my life.  Corrective lenses cured my vision problems but did nothing to enhance my depth perception, or should I say my lack of it.

Its hell standing in the outfield, tracking a baseball as it plummets from the sky toward you, hoping beyond hope that you will somehow snag it deftly with your trusty glove before it hits ten feet away.  It’s even worse hell seeing the looks of derision on your teammate’s faces when you drop the ball and the winning scorer reaches home base, ending every chance of their pulling that elusive upset of the best team on the block.  Hey, if you look up klutz in the dictionary, you will see my picture beside the definition.

I tried every sport: football, softball, basketball (when I tried out for the team in the fifth grade, the coach simply shook his head and frowned), track and field.  Being a skinny kid, I was a good runner, but nothing special.

Why do I like basketball so much?  My first three years at Northeast Louisiana the football team lost every game.  My senior year, they tied a game.  Basketball was different.  When I was a freshman, the team went sixteen and three.

Every home game, sixteen-hundred or so fans and students would crowd into our painfully tiny gymnasium, and go crazy when five-foot-nine basketball legend Tommy Enloe started dunking balls.  We never lost a home game and for about two hours, we basked in the team’s success and felt (pardon the cliché) like kings of the world.

As I watched first-year head Coach Sean Sutton almost faint after a particularly stressful play (I’m not kidding) I remembered that feeling.  As Boggin’s winning basket swished through the net, it intensified even further.  Hey, I am old, I am fat and blind as a bat, but at that moment, I was once again King of the World.

P.S. – Kudos to my old bud Rod.  He was no athlete either, but he was one of the best and most intelligent persons I have ever met to this day, and he served his country well, and with pride, as an armored company captain during Vietnam.  He is now a wine expert, living in Napa, California.

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I was in Houston when Marilyn called to tell me my dad had gotten into a fight at the reminiscence care unit where he lives.  A resident, another old man, had entered Dad’s room late that night.  A scuffle ensued when my dad tried to push the intruder out of his room.

Bill, the man that had invaded my dad’s room, was a problem for the attendants.  He wandered through everyone’s room, taking things and causing strife.  He had a dowager’s hump and skinny legs, but he seemed, to me at least, more cognizant than the other residents.

The scuffle resulted in no injuries to either party but my brother and I had to take Dad to a geriatric psychiatrist for an evaluation (State law).  Dr. D, the friendly psychiatrist from India immediately understood the problem.

“Your dad was the victim, but the other man isn’t responsible.  He is what we call a roamer and because of the progression of his disease, (Alzheimer’s) he cannot help what he does.  It is up to the facility where they stay to monitor their patients but it is not possible to watch them every minute of the day.”

“What can we do?” my brother and I asked.

“You can move your dad to another facility, but I do not recommend it because he needs continuity.  There are problems at every facility.  Sometimes we just have to cope with an imperfect situation.  Bring your dad back in three months and we will see how things are going.”

Incensed by the incident, my brother Jack said, “Dad was not at fault.  Why does he have to see a shrink?”

“I know,” I said, “But we can’t take a chance on having them ship him off to a mental hospital.”

I was as upset about the incident as my brother was.  It didn’t seem fair to have a patient terrorize the other occupants of my dad’s facility.  Bill the roamer continued terrorizing the other patients.  My dad has a phone in his room with my name on one of the speed dial buttons.  He called my cell phone around ten one night.

“You have to come get me,” he said.

“What’s the matter?”

“There’s a man here that says this is his room and I need to pack my things and get out.  Can you come get me and take me home?”

“You just sit tight awhile,” I said, hanging up the phone and dialing Dad’s facility.

An attendant hurried to Dad’s room and ousted Bill.  Dad had forgotten the incident within ten minutes and was soon asleep.  I did not forget and the incident prompted a meeting with management.

Management told Jack and me that they would do their best to remedy the situation.  In the meantime, they would try to keep his door locked.  This did not sit well with either Jack or me, as it seemed to be punishing the victim rather than the transgressor.

A few days later, Brother Jack and I visited Dad.  We were in the garden outside when

Bill came out and joined us.  My dad did not seem to know who he was, and I don’t suppose that he did.

“The weather’s turning chilly,” Bill said, rubbing his hands together.

He smiled knowingly when I said, “It’s Oklahoma.  If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.”

Bill nodded at the old joke.  I had trouble feeling any animosity toward him when he saluted and said, “See you boys later.”

Dad’s problem with Bill the roamer ended shortly before his next visit to Dr. D.

I could not help but grin when Dr. D asked me, “How is your dad coping with the roamer?”

“He’s dead,” I said, quickly apologizing for my levity about the old man’s death.  “When I picked up Dad to bring him here, I noticed Bill’s picture on a table near the office.  It included a note mentioning that he had passed away and hoping “that God likes jokesters and Texans.”

Dr. D shook her head knowingly.  “Death is a fact of life at these facilities.  The roamer has gone home.”

Dr. D’s words stayed with me long after I had returned Dad to his room.  Alzheimer’s affects many people and has numerous manifestations.  Bill was a roamer because of his disease but probably an intelligent and wonderful person otherwise.  As I exited I-35, I realized the answers to our problems are not always as simple as locking someone in, or someone else out.

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Here is the text of President Obama's inauguration speech. Less than 2500 words, it is a beautiful and important document that will be studied and discussed for years. If it doesn't move you, then you should check your pulse:

President Obama’s Inauguration Speech

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.  I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition. 

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath.  The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace.  Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. 

At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents. 

So it has been.  So it must be with this generation of Americans.  

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood.  Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.  Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. 

Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered.  Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics.  Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land -- a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights. 

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real.  They are serious and they are many.  They will not be met easily or in a short span of time.  But know this, America -- they will be met. 

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics. 

We remain a young nation, but in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.  The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation:  the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given.  It must be earned.  Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less.  It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. 

Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn. 

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life.  They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction. 

This is the journey we continue today.  We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth.  Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began.  Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. 

But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions -- that time has surely passed.  Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done.  The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act -- not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth.  We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.

We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technologys wonders to raise health cares quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.  And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions -- who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans.  Their memories are short.  For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.  

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them -- that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.  The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works -- whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. 

Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward.  Where the answer is no, programs will end.  And those of us who manage the publics dollars will be held to account -- to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day -- because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill.  Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control -- and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. 

The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart -- not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.  Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. 

Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expediences sake.  And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born:  know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more. 

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions.  They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please.  Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy.  Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort -- even greater cooperation and understanding between nations.  We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan.  With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. 

We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.  We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers.  We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace. 

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.  To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their societys ills on the West -- know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. 

To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.  And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the worlds resources without regard to effect.  For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains.  They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. 

We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves.  And yet, at this moment -- a moment that will define a generation -- it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies.  It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. 

It is the firefighters courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parents willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate. 

Our challenges may be new.  The instruments with which we meet them may be new.  But those values upon which our success depends -- hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old.  These things are true.  They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history.  What is demanded then is a return to these truths. 

What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence -- the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed -- why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled.  In the year of Americas birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river.  The capital was abandoned.

The enemy was advancing.  The snow was stained with blood.  At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America.  In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words.  With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. 

Let it be said by our childrens children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and Gods grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

God bless you all and God bless America.

Eric’s Web

I will be attending the Edmond Author’s Book Fair this Saturday, the 24^th of January, at the Edmond Historical Society & Museum.  The museum is located at 431 S. Boulevard in Edmond, Oklahoma.

The event begins around 1 pm.  If you are in the area, please drop by and introduce yourself as I would love to meet you.

Eric Wilder

Years ago, I lived in northwest Oklahoma City. Few finished houses occupied the new subdivision at that time and I could see the lights of downtown Oklahoma City at night from my front yard with no problem.  The subdivision where I lived was near the north edge of town, at least at that time.

For frequent readers of this column, you may recall my story of seeing a mountain lion not far from my house. That was twenty years ago. Urban sprawl has continued unabated and my old house is now located at least ten miles south of the town’s north edge.

Despite rapid urban growth, many wild animals continue to live in the city limits of town. Bobcats roam Edmond's Kickingbird Golf Course, as do foxes, coyotes, skunks and raccoons. There is a pair of hawks living in the trees behind my house and bald eagles nesting at nearby Lake Arcadia.

I once saw a dead deer on the sidewalk as I drove along 15th Street. The deer had bounded into the busy road from a forty acre wooded field south of the street, likely the home of more deer (where there is one, there are usually many). I have an office near the field and often observed a pair of chaparrals (yes, roadrunners) as they chased bugs in the parking lot, oblivious to the nutty humans pointing at them in amazement.

I was sure the mountain lion has also moved away, maybe to the deep canyons and thickly forested realm of nearby Logan County.  Maybe, but the other night I watched a large coyote as he ate food from one of my cat’s bowls.  Duke, my big tomcat, walked right past him, apparently unafraid.

With many of their habitats destroyed, the wild animals are now living among us, so close even the domesticated animals recognize them.  It is a full moon tonight and I am going out to take a picture of it, and maybe listen for the growl of that old mountain lion as he hunts along the creek near my house.

Eric’s Website

During the fourteen months that my wife Anne suffered with cancer, we spent endless hours in a large room where friendly nurses administered chemotherapy.  I saw and heard many interesting things during this time, some funny, some sad and all surreal.  I remember one such story that seems almost like fiction, but is true.

Pink Lazy Boy recliners populated the chemo room at Oklahoma City’s Mercy Hospital.  Anne liked the one in a corner.  She would get comfortable in the chair as a nurse inserted a needle in her vein to supply the cancer drug suspended from a drip (unlike many cancer patients, Anne had no port in her chest to accept the drug).

Benadryl was usually one of the components of the chemo cocktail.  The drug usually put Anne to sleep.  I would read a magazine or newspaper (usually a U.S.A. Today) cover-to-cover while Anne slept beneath a soft blanket on the reclined Lazy Boy.

Treatment times vary, but Anne’s always lasted a couple of hours.  She would awaken before the last drop of chemo fluid had drained from the plastic bag.  The steroids that were part of the chemo cocktail made her feel stronger and better, and she often made cell phone calls during this time.

These conversations always amazed me because for a few hours after the treatment, her former healthy persona seemed to return.  It was drug-induced, of course, but we both cherished the first few hours following a chemo treatment.  After listening to one of Anne’s animated cell phone discussions with a friend, the man in the pink Lazy Boy next to us introduced himself.

“I heard you say you went to high school at Capitol Hill.  Where did you live?”

“Near SW 42 and Western,” she said, giving him the exact address, and telling him the years that she lived there.

“I also have lung cancer, but we have something else in common.  I remember you as he little girl,” he said.  “I lived across the street from you.”

Anne and the man began talking and exchanging information when the man sitting across from us interrupted them.

“I know you’re going to find this hard to believe, but I lived in the house behind you during the same time.”

The three former neighbors spent the rest of their time in the chemo room exchanging friendly anecdotes and comparing notes about everyone they knew in common.  I put down the paper that I was reading and listened to the amazing conversation.

Call it a coincidence, but all three patients were receiving identical treatments for the same type of cancer at the same time, and all three had lived within a block of each other for a period of several years.

Smoking is the usual stated cause for lung cancer.  Anne was a heavy smoker but had quit more than four years prior to contracting the disease.  The man sitting next to us had also been a heavy smoker, but not so the man across from us.

“I never touched a cigarette,” he told us.

The strange coincidence lingered in my mind long after that particular trip to the chemo room.  What else did these three patients have in common that could have caused their cancer?  I can think of only one explanation.

The part of Oklahoma City where Anne and the two men lived is near the center of a large oil field known as the Oklahoma City Field.  Once the World’s largest producer, the Oklahoma City Field will ultimately produce around a billion barrels of oil.  During the early days, many of the wildcat wells “blew in” for twenty-thousand barrels of oil per day, much if it covering the ground for miles because of prevailing winds.

Were oil by-products the cause, or the catalyst causing Anne and the two men’s cancer?  I am a petroleum geologist and it pains me to believe it could have happened.  Oil companies cleaned up the oily cesspool decades ago but it is impossible to know how many harmful chemicals sank into the soil and leached into the groundwater.

Environmental oversight of oil and gas drilling is far more stringent these days and a spill of even a single barrel of oil can result in stiff fines and penalties.  It still makes me wonder what other industries are doing to harm our fragile ecosystem.

Anne’s cancer treatment cost our insurance company more than a million dollars.  One chemo cocktail treatment cost nearly twenty-thousand dollars and did absolutely nothing to curtail the disease.  Our scientists can put a man on the moon but they do not have a clue what causes cancer or have an inkling of how to cure it, except to inject expensive, painful and worthless toxic chemicals into the patient’s veins.

Will there ever be a cure for cancer?  The answer is a resounding no!  Too many pharmaceutical companies and scores of doctors are making far too much money to introduce a cure.  One thing I know for sure.  Some patients survive cancer but it is not because of their doctors or the toxic drugs injected into their veins.  It is because their immune systems reengaged and killed the cancer.

I am not a doctor but as a geologist, I know that if you keep drilling dry holes, you must be looking in the wrong place.  If I had the same success rate as most (I really mean all) oncologists, I would have been out of business years ago, and I suspect this is true for almost all businesses.

Sorry for the rant, but spending hours beside a pink Lazy Boy gives you plenty of time to reflect on life’s absurdities, and the almost total lack of control we have over them.

Eric’s Website

A recipe for Johnny Marzetti?  What the heck is Johnny Marzetti?  Check it out.  It sounds pretty good.

Cowboy comfort food | csmonitor.com.

Eric’s Website

   Lake Hefner is one of the city water supplies for Oklahoma City.  Situated in one of the windiest spots in America, the lake provides wonderful sailing conditions.  This large lake provides a safe haven for all manner of water fowl.  Here is a pic of some Canadian geese wintering near one of the lake’s marinas.

Eric’s Photo Page

I may be prejudiced, but the Oklahoman is my favorite newspaper.  I rarely miss reading it, and then only when I'm out of town and can't find a copy.  The paper is a great source of wonderful regional recipes and this one appeared just in time for the national college football championship game between OU and the University of Florida.  I haven't tried it yet but I don't think that I will be disappointed when I do.

SOONER STEW

3 pounds chuck eye steak or roast, well-trimmed

Salt and pepper

¼ cup flour, divided in half (half to sprinkle meat and half for thickening stew)

3 tablespoons canola oil (reserve half for second saute)

2 cups chopped onion

2½ cups chopped red sweet pepper

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup red wine (zinfandel or Chianti work well)

1 (14.3 ounce) can chopped or petite diced tomatoes

1½ cup carrots sliced ¼-inch thick

1½ cups red potatoes diced ¾-inch, scrubbed, skin left intact with blemishes and eyes removed

3 to 4 cups chicken broth or beef stock

12 ounces frozen whole green beans, thawed

→Cut meat into large bite-size chunks and sprinkle with salt and pepper, dusting lightly with flour. Heat oil in the bottom of a large Dutch oven or stew pot. Brown meat in batches. Do not overcrowd meat for best results.

→Prepare onions, garlic and peppers. Add additional oil if necessary and saute, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon or heatproof spatula. As onions and peppers soften and become translucent, incorporate flour, stirring thoroughly.

→Deglaze mixture with wine, stirring to loosen any remaining drippings. Add meat and canned tomatoes, stirring well. Cover and allow mixture to simmer for 30 minutes. Prepare carrots and potatoes, and stir into the mix along with at least 3 cups of broth or stock. Cover and simmer over low heat for 1 hour. Stir in green beans. Serve hot with thick slices of crusty bread and olive oil for dipping.

→Cook’s notes: It is essential to pay careful attention to browning the meat, being sure all sides are browned. This is the foundation for flavoring the stew. It takes about 2½ hours to make this stew, so get it started before the game. I do not recommend serving this stew with Gatorade.

Serves 6 to 10 depending on appetites and scores.

→Source: Sherrel Jones, The Oklahoman

Eric’s Website

I have fond memories of the vacant lot next to my family’s house in northwest Louisiana.  The remains of an old fence bordered our yard and the adjacent lot, and a thick muscadine vine, covered much of the fence.  I don’t recall the time of year the vine bore fruit, but I remember vividly my brother and me picking the thick-skinned berries for my mother, eating one for every five that we collected.

We didn’t worry about washing pesticides off the muscadines before we ate them because there were no pesticides at the time – except for DDT, which we didn’t,\ at the time know that would hurt us.  As I recall, the purple skin was too sour to eat so you simply popped open the fruit, eating only the pulp, less the seeds of course.

A blackberry bush grew adjacent to the muscadine vine and we collected and sampled them when they were ripe.  My mother made jam and jelly with all the various berries my brother and I gathered - jam and jelly devoid of preservatives.  The vines and bushes provided a bit of shelter from hot Louisiana sun – shelter for critters such as grass snakes, stinkbugs and stinging scorpions.  My brother and I collected them as well.

There is a new fence between my parent’s house and the once-vacant lot next door.  Gone are the muscadines and blackberries, replaced now by mown grass, brick and concrete - at least for the outward world to see.  The muscadines still grow on that vine, their thick purple skin still as sour as their insides sweet.  There they will remain until the last remnant of my vivid childhood memories waft away like wispy Louisiana clouds racing from the sun.

Eric’s Website

As a child of the south, I grew up in a much simpler time.  I am not saying better, only simpler, and not necessarily safer.  As a point in fact, cars had no seatbelts and little or no crash protection.  There was not much, if any regulation on the food we ate, or the dangerous chemicals we could readily buy over the counter.

I only recall seeing, or hearing of one person that had cancer.  An old man in town had a blackened and deteriorating cheek, probably the result of chewing tobacco.  I don’t even remember hearing about anyone having a heart attack.

The little rural town of Vivian had almost no crime, and my parents let Brother Jack and me roam the neighborhood and nearby woods unsupervised.  Once we ate dinner and did our homework, what little we had, we headed outside to ride our bikes, play Army with our friends, or just hang out – always until way after dark.

The weather in northwest Louisiana can grow hot in the summer but is rarely very cold.  Plant life abounds, as does every manner of insect, including mosquitoes.  During the fifties, Vivian acquired a fogging machine – a noisy contraption that passed slowly through our neighborhood every evening.  The machine belched out a noxious chemical cloud that billowed past the sidewalks, through the yards, and into the open doors and windows of every house in town.

We kids used to chase the fogging machine, running through the gray cloud, playing war and pretending we were in a gas attack.  Little did we know!

A half-century has passed and DDT banned in much of the world.  The world, for the most part, currently regulates dangerous chemicals, and cars now have seatbelts.  Something else has also changed.  Cancer, heart disease, diabetes and all manner of other dread diseases are not only commonplace, they are rampant.

Life was simpler in the fifties but things have changed.  Maybe we have more cancer and heart disease now because of the thoughtless things we did, but hey, at least we managed to eradicate malaria!

Eric’s Website

Growing up in northwest Louisiana, I often swam in the shallow depths of Caddo Lake.  Like now, its warm water held too much sediment in suspension to make visibility possible beneath the surface for more than a foot or so.

Surrounded by giant cypress trees with water-gorged trunks and branches draped with Spanish moss, I often imagined myself shunted back to a prehistoric time - the Devonian Period, say.  Whenever a long, pointed head broke the surface with a splash, and the frightening creature opened its mouth to reveal hundreds of razor sharp teeth, fantasy quickly became reality.

It wasn’t an unusual sight because gars are plentiful in Caddo Lake, as are many other species of fresh water fish, all manner of snakes, and even alligators.  Once I had a start when I inadvertently stepped on a large water moccasin with a bare foot.  I was strolling near the Lake’s bank, paying little attention to where I walked.  Thankfully, the snake was slow to react.  When it did, it simply slithered into the shallow lake, swimming lazily away in an arcing path.

Except for the initial adrenaline jolt, the close encounter with the deadly viper did little to ruin my day, my friends and I soon up to our chins in warm water again.  With cattle egrets winging overhead and insects swarming amid semi-tropical vegetation, it was easy to allay fear with immersion in a Devonian fantasy. 

As I think back, Caddo Lake was like the Garden of Eden - lush as life itself - and I one of its happy and mindless creatures.

Eric’s Website

In the early days of oil exploration, explorers had many reasons for drilling a well at a certain location.  If someone found oil, the leases around that well would suddenly become more valuable and other operators would try to drill as close as they could to a producing well.

Some companies still practice this technique of closology rather than geology.  During the seventies and eighties Texas Oil and Gas Corp. would sidle up as close as legally possible to a producing well, a practice called corner shooting.  TXO earned a reputation as corner-shooting kings.  A reputation that was not always good.

Before the days of seismology and other geophysical exploration techniques operators would often drilled near an oil seep, or on the crest of a hill.  Harry Sinclair, the founder of Sinclair oil was very superstitious and liked to drill near cemeteries.  He had a lot of luck finding oil that way.

Cities Service Oil was the first company to hire geologists to try finding oil.  Using surface mapping techniques, this band of geologists found literally millions of barrels of oil.  This includes the El Dorado, the largest oil field in Kansas, and the Oklahoma City Field, the largest oil field in Oklahoma and at one time the world.

When I began working as an exploration geologist for Cities Service in the 70’s the company had many maps of surface features that they had never gotten around to drilling.  They also still had a surface geologist that worked in Tulsa.  Ernie Tisdale was a wonderful man and geologist but a throwback to an earlier period of exploration.

I was working Kansas at the time, along with another geologist named Dave Forth.  While digging through a stack of old maps one day we came across an undrilled surface structure in Elk County, Kansas.  Management decided that Ernie, Dave and I would drive to Kansas and check out the surface structure in person.

Elk is a rural county in far southeastern Kansas.  We spent the night in Elk City in an old wooden, two-story hotel.  While eating at a local cafe, Ernie recounted a story about two Cities Service “lease hounds” that used to work the area.

The geological crews and leasing crews all stayed in the same rustic hotel as the one we were staying in that night.  Yes, the building was very old with no fire escape from the second floor, only a rope outside every window that extended to the ground below.  The two landmen, I will call them Ted and Joe because I cannot remember their real names, were partners but different as proverbial night and day.  Ted was quiet, a teetotaler and a minder of his own business.  Joe was anything but.

Joe was also quite the practical joker and Ted the usual butt of his jokes.  He told Ted that the owner had explained how afraid of fire he was and that the old wooden building was in constant danger of burning.  Later, long after Ted had retired for the night, Joe banged on his door.

 “Get the hell out.  The stairwell is on fire.  Climb out the window or you’ll be burned alive.”  Much to the glee of his partner Joe Ted shimmied down the rope with nothing on but his skivvies.  Joe, inebriated by this time, met Ted at the front door, still rolling with laughter.

That night I slept lightly, waiting for someone to bang on my door.  Thankfully, neither Ernie nor Dave was a jokester like Joe had been.

We spent the next day checking out the undrilled surface feature.  The structure was there all right, just as mapped in the 1920’s.  Maybe a million barrels of untapped oil.  We proposed a well and Cities bought leases and agreed to drill the structure.  Alas, Cities never drilled the prospect and it remains undrilled to this day.  The map is probably locked away somewhere in a warehouse in California.

I am thankful for experiencing at least some of the excitement early wildcatters must have felt when deciding to drill a well at a particular location.  Wildcatters such as Frank Phillips and Harry Sinclair found large fields, amassed untold fortunes and are now famous.  Many forgotten explorers like Ernie, Ted and Joe played important roles, finding the oil that made this nation what it is today.

Eric’s Website

My second wife Anne and I liked giving parties. Before we finally married, I had a bachelor’s pad just north of Oklahoma City’s Taft Stadium. The little house had two fireplaces, a redwood hot tub and a wet bar. I spent thousands landscaping the hilly front yard with sandstone walkways and retainer walls, courtesy of Jakob, a master stoneworker and Israeli expatriate (another story).

As a bachelor, I always wanted my guests to enjoy themselves and I always helped them along by preparing my famous rum punch. The last time I made rum punch was at a party at my last bachelor pad.

What I had found about my rum punch is that almost no one was too discernible when it came to taste. The ingredients consisted of crushed ice, three or four cans of Hawaiian Punch and copious amounts of one-fifty-one proof rum. Hell, after the first cup you had no taste left anyway.

The last time I served my famous rum punch was cold and dreary. The guests quickly finished a bowl of punch. By the time I had concocted a second bowl, all the guests had already lost total control of their inhibitions - and their bodily movements.

My good friend Mickey left the party, tumbling headfirst down the hill to his car. Several of my friends left with other guest’s wives and girlfriends. Anne confronted me the next day.

“No more. You are never making your famous punch again. You could have gotten someone killed.”

I always listened to Anne. That day, many years ago, was the last time I ever concocted my famous punch. Will I ever make it again? Maybe, but you will have to stay the night.

Eric’s Website

Debra (Debbie) Dawson is an Oklahoma City teacher at North Highlands and she worked with Marilyn when she was running the reading lab there.  Marilyn made this dish New Years Day and I can attest that it is wonderful.  I don’t know if Debbie is a Cherokee, but almost everyone in Oklahoma is, at least to some extent.

3          c. hominy, drained

1          can cream of celery soup

8          oz. sour cream

½         c. onion, chopped

4          oz. green chiles, diced

1          clove garlic, minced

8          oz. Monterey jack cheese

Mix all ingredients well in casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Enjoy.

Eric’s Website

My fifteen-year-old stepdaughter Kate searched the refrigerator in vain for something to eat, or at least for something she wanted to eat.

“I’m hungry,” she proclaimed.

Marilyn recited the litany of food in the refrigerator, freezer and pantry.  “I’m not taking you to Johnny’s for a burger,” she said.  “It’s too late and I already have my nightgown on.”

Unhappy with any of her mother’s suggestions, Kate began pawing through the pantry.  Marilyn joined her search, hoping to find something to satisfy her baby’s insatiable teenage hunger.

“Check this out, Kate,” she said, showing her a specially decorated commemorative can of Spam.

“No way,” Kate said.  “Spam is horrible and only poor people eat it.”

“Have you ever tried it?” Marilyn asked.

“No way!”

“Then how do you know how it tastes?”

“Who cares?  No one even knows what it’s made of.”

“It’s just ham in a can, Kate,” Marilyn said.

Kate was having none of her mother’s argument and finally microwaved a Hamburger Helper.  Still, the discussion caused me to consider the food I ate while growing up in Louisiana and how much enjoyment people miss because they have preconceived notions.

My parents were simple working folks, my mother a homemaker, my dad a pipe fitter.  My dad never made much money but I never thought of us as being poor, and I do not recall ever missing a meal.  I remember my mother’s Spam and eggs for breakfast, Spam sandwiches for lunch, and Spam and green beans for dinner.  Spam was not the only thing we ate by any means, but when we had it, I liked it.

Heck, I also enjoyed eating potted meat and Vienna sausages.  My Aunt Dot sent me a care package when I was deep in the jungles of Vietnam and I remember enjoying the can of Vienna sausages included in the prize better than I would have a lobster or filet mignon.

Money supplies the necessities of life but do more expensive purchases equate to a happier existence.  I think not.  A Rolls-Royce will not take you a single mile further than a Chevrolet, or get you there any quicker.

As the saying goes, money cannot buy happiness.  Now I wonder, how much happiness do rich folks miss because of their snobbery?  This I know - sometimes what you miss most are the simple things you never even think about, until you lose them.

Eric’s Website

I’m not the BCS, but here are my picks for the best college football teams in the land:

Here is a party drink that I know I could get into.

2 quarts orange juice
12 ounces maraschino cherries
4 ½ cups sugar
2 ½  cups water
6 quarts bourbon
6 pints lemon juice
6 oranges, sliced
6 lemons, sliced
Dash of Angostura bitters

Pour orange juice into two ring molds, arrange half the cherries in each, and freeze. Make simple syrup by boiling water and sugar 5 minutes. Cool; combine with remaining ingredients in large containers and chill 24 hours or overnight. Pour over frozen mold in punch bowl. Serve in punch cups over crushed ice.

Eric’s Website

I lay in bed this morning, unable to return to sleep after awakening with a full bladder and going to the bathroom.  Like everyone else during times like this, once back in bed my mind began scanning data lodged for decades in my brain, dredging up memories and replaying what seemed like megabytes of useless information.

Mostly, during times like these, I want to locate a key in my brain and turn it off, at least for a few hours.  This morning, it was not to be and proved somehow different.  While raking through the trash piles of my brain, I discovered something that blew me away.  I want say remembered, because this snippet of information is something that I have always inherently known, but have never put together in a logical thought process.  What did I discover?  Well, this may not sound so unusual to you fair readers out there, but the more I think of it, the stranger it seems to me.

For whatever reason, I was thinking about my grandparents.  My dad’s mother, Dale and her husband Oscar lived on a farm outside of Atlanta in east Texas.  My mom’s mother, Lela and her husband Jim lived about a mile from us in Vivian, Louisiana.  As random thoughts raced through my brain like water through an empty pipe, I gradually became aware of an apparent truth that had somehow escaped me my entire life.

The houses of both my grandparents were identical.  They were exactly the same size and all the specific rooms – bathroom, kitchen, bedrooms, dining room, and living room – occupied exactly the same place.  They even had the same directional orientation.

Strange, I grant you, but not beyond the realm of simple coincidence considering they were all built about the same time, and not more than fifty miles from one another.  Then it dawned on me.  The house were I grew up was the same as my grandparents, right down to each individual room.  The only difference was the directional orientation.  My house was situated perpendicular to that of my grandparent’s.

Wide-awake at four in the morning, I began trying to remember my neighbor’s houses and those of my friends.  My friend Clay’s house, I realized, was exactly like mine except it was oriented differently.  I could not quite remember the interior of Rod, Wiley, Elwin and Tim’s houses although I think they were different.

What in the hell does all this mean?  I admit the thought worried me at four in the morning.  After ruminating on the matter all day long, I can conclude only one of three things.  1) Some builder knocked out copies of the same house, and managed to market his product over many miles.  2) We are random although somehow ordered creations in the mind of some stellar being, or 3) there is some sort of chaotic yet orderly recipe for the world, as we know it.

My logic tells me that the first explanation is correct, but I wonder – do we have the vaguest clue as to who we really are, or even loosely realize what motivations or earth-shattering processes control our destinies?

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If we haven’t, we should.

Have You Read a Banned Book? - MSN Encarta.

Eric’s Website

Decades of clutter populates my house and office.  An organizational message appeared in my mail yesterday.  If you have not used something in two years, it said, chances are you never will.  Toss it was the impending message.  Clutter slows you down, impedes your life and makes you unhappy.

Maybe so, I thought as I folded my laundry.  Maybe I should throw away some of my old tee shirts, especially those with tears and stains.  I began sorting the tee shirts on my bed with that thought in mind.

The first tee I held up for inspection was from the Redbud 10K race of 2000.  I had to think a moment before its relevance came to mind.  When it did, it poured over me with a poignant flood of memories, still painful after almost eight years.

Barely managing to cope with the death of my wife in 1998, I had gained an enormous amount of weight, and I continued to seethe with an inner anger that would not quit saying, “why me?”  Jogging had helped me maintain my sanity during Anne’s illness and I needed to know that I still had the physical, and the mental strength to go the distance.

I parked my car a mile from the starting line and walked the rest of the way to loosen my muscles I knew would be screaming uncle long before the finish of the six-point-two mile course.  Halfway there, a young man jogged up and began walking with me.

“Are you doing the Freedom Walk,” he asked.

“Nope,” I said.  “The 10K.”

“You sure you can make it, big fellow?”

“Don’t know, but that’s what I’m here to find out,” I told him.

“You can do it,” he said.  “But you need to go out slow.  Don’t get caught up in the crowd.  Just run your own race.  If you get tired, then walk for awhile.”

With that, the man I am positive was an angel tapped me on the shoulder and jogged away without another word.  Before I reached the starting line, it began to rain.  It continued to rain until I completed the 6.2 miles that I did without stopping, not even once.  The torrent ended as I crossed the line.

“I can’t throw this baby away,” I said, folding the tee shirt and putting it aside.

The next tee was from the Downtown Oklahoma City Art’s Festival of 1995.  There was no Oklahoma City Art’s Festival in 1995.  City Fathers canceled the event because of the Oklahoma City bombing attack on the Murrah Building in April of 1995.  I bought the tee a year later, as the festival had an unsold stock of them.  The tee had a torn sleeve where my Labrador Lucky had taken a bite from it when he was a puppy.  Lucky, my best friend in the world, had helped me survive my grief.  Folding the tee, I put it aside.

“Can’t throw this one away either,” I said.

Ten raggedy tees later, I had failed to throw even one of them away.

Sitting here now, punching these random thoughts out for all you anonymous people in the blogosphere, I cannot help but think of the clutter in my life.  Yes, I need to throw some things away.  I know existence would be simpler and better if I could control the chaos in my house, my office and yes, in my brain.

Maybe, but perhaps the clutter in our lives is really the essence of our being, the essential glue that binds our very souls.  I do not know.  What I do know is that without memories we would be little more than pulsating blobs of protoplasm. 

Stuffing the tees in my chest of drawers, I forced shut the drawer and decided to worry about the chaos later.

Eric’s Website

I wrote this article more than a year ago and the walking woman no longer resides at my Dad’s old folk’s facility.  The staff does not make a big deal out of it when one of the old people dies.  This, I suppose, is because it is a common occurrence.  Here is a reprise of Walking Woman:

My dad Jack lives in the Alzheimer’s ward of an assisted living center.  Tonight, Marilyn, friend Debbie and I took him to dinner.  When I returned him to his room at seven-thirty, almost everyone had retired to their rooms - well, almost everyone.  One of the women was walking slow laps up and down the hall.  I see her every time I visit my dad and I call her the walking woman.

I do not know her name, nor have we exchanged even as much as a glance.  Since my dad came here, I have never heard this woman speak, or even acknowledge anyone’s presence.  All I have ever her seen her do is walk.

This woman is very slender and has white hair.  She walks in a continuous circle, back and forth, her hands clasped behind her back like an ice skater.  Her head always cocks to the left, resting almost on her shoulder as if she no longer has the strength to maintain its weight, or maybe the weight of the memories her mind contains.  At seven-thirty tonight, she was still walking.  The past couple of years have caused me to reevaluate my own thoughts, and the meaning of my own memories.

Twenty years ago, my wife and I had a small oil company with forty or so employees.  Caught up in the eighties oil bust, we lost everything we owned.  It was even hard to hold on to our self esteem and for many years all we had was each other, and the empty knowledge that we had always done the best we could.  During that time, I was grossly overweight and I began to jog.

I started out running to the end of the block.  Soon, I was much lighter, running 10 Ks and feeling better about myself.  When Anne got lung cancer, I continued to run, stealing a few precious moments alone everyday, even as I worried about being away from the house.  It was more than guilty pleasure.  The simple act of running helped me keep my sanity.  It also kept me strong, both from the physical toil my wife’s illness placed on me, and the mental tax that I knew I would inevitably have to pay.

Tonight, after leaving Dad in his room, I watched the walking woman and I felt that I truly understood her plight.  Her children must all be dead, or else not around much anymore.  She walks because she is trying to stay strong, retain her sanity, and keep a grasp on a fleeting reality that is rapidly forsaking her.

I wanted to communicate with her, put my arms around her scrawny old body, and give her a hug.  Instead, I realized it was beyond mattering.  She had achieved her goal.  Her mind no longer knew why she walked but her legs kept moving.  I punched the access code on the keypad, shut the security door behind me, and disappeared alone into the night.

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At Wal-Mart recently, I visited the pet department for dog and cat food.  My pups and kitties conveniently ran out about the same time.  While scanning the aisles for new products, I discovered a new doggie treat that looked like a package of Oreo cookies.  Yes, I bought them.

I opened the package to discover that they even smelled like Oreos and it made me want to scarf down a couple.  Instead, I read the nutrition label.  I did not see sugar so I decided that they were probably okay for my doggies, and maybe a bit too bland for me.

Yes, they loved them.  At least Patch and Lucky did.  I could not really decide about always-fussy Velvet.

I wondered to myself as I returned to the house – do fake Oreo dog cookies make my pooches love me more?  Am I giving them something that I would like myself in order to assuage my guilt for not spending more time with them?  Should I cut myself up in pieces or spread myself thinner to cover the people, pets and past times that I love?

Probably not.  I forgot my own mother’s birthday for forty years and she still loved me.  Well, at least most of the time.

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I found this recipe in Under the Mushroom, a collection of favorite recipes from the Little Mushroom restaurant, Dallas, Texas.  The ingredients remind me of the beef stew my Mom used to make.  Marilyn Romweber, owner of the restaurant, is the author of the great cookbook.  Grab a copy if you can find one.  Here is a recipe from Under the Mushroom I think you will like.

½         stick butter

2          T oil

3          onions, chopped

2          garlic cloves, minced

1          green pepper, chopped

3          ribs celery, chopped

Flour (seasoned with seasoning salt and pepper)

2          lbs. lean beef cut in 2/3” cubes

1          lb. pork cut in 2/3” cubes

½         lb. fresh mushrooms, sliced

1          can beef consommé

2          15 oz. cans tomato puree

3          T vinegar

1          T limejuice

2          tsp. soy sauce

1          T Worcestershire sauce

1          tsp. chili powder

¼         tsp. ground ginger

¼         tsp. ground cloves

¼         tsp. ground parsley

¼         tsp. dried oregano

½         tsp. dried mustard

1          bay leaf

1          tsp. liquid smoke

½         tsp. cayenne pepper

In a saucepan, sauté the onions, garlic, green pepper and celery in the butter and oil until soft.  Remove and set aside.  Dredge the meats in the seasoned flour and brown in the remaining oil in saucepan, adding more oil if necessary.  Add the sautéed vegetables, and all other ingredients, and stir well.  Cover and simmer on low heat for 3 hours, stirring occasionally.  Taste for seasonings.  Skim fat from surface before serving.  Makes enough for a party of 10.  Enjoy

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My step-Grandson Dakota was over tonight with Ron and Shannon, my stepdaughter and her husband.  As we watched episodes of Dog the Bounty Hunter, I told Dakota the producers of the program made it more dramatic for the camera and that little about the story was actually real.

“It’s real,” he said.  “It’s all true.”

Dakota is only nine and still believes in Santa Claus.  My Grandmother - although much older than Dakota - also believed in the impossible.

Grandmother Rood liked two things in life: Oral Roberts and Gorgeous George, and not necessarily in that order.  Oral Roberts, as most people know, is an evangelist.  Gorgeous George was a professional wrestler.  They both had a couple of things in common.

Oral Roberts started out as a tent preacher and raised lots of money from “true believers.”  When touched by the Holy Spirit, his voice would grow louder and higher pitched.  Often, before administering the healing touch, his thin hair would become mussed, and as wild as his hypnotic rants.

Gorgeous George made no pretense of being holy, but in the heat of every wrestling match, his beautifully coiffed, bleached blond hair would become mussed.  GG was a middle-aged flabby white man, but he was supposedly one of the best professional wrestlers of his day.  Even as a kid, I could tell the fix was in.

“You don’t really believe this is for real, do you Grandma?” I would ask.

It did not matter if I were asking about Gorgeous George or Oral Roberts, her answer was always the same. “Of course it’s real.”

I loved my Grandmother dearly, but even at a very young age, I knew that she was letting faith get in the way of her good sense.

Tonight, as I watched Dog the Bounty Hunter, the very popular reality show, I realized just how gullible the American viewing public is, and that little has changed since I was a kid.

Eric’s Website

Hey, it’s a new year so here is another drink recipe – a New Orleans special.

Cocktail à la Louisiane.

Eric’s Website

      During the last oil boom, Christmas parties became monster occasions in downtown Oklahoma City.  Schlumberger, Halliburton, Dresser Atlas and all the large service companies rented massive ballrooms and sated every guest there with food, drink and entertainment.  The oil companies were not far behind, especially those in constant search of investor money.

Single and still young, I once had three women that I was dating show up at the same party.  The ballroom was so large and the crowds so thick, I almost made it without discovery.  Well, almost!

A year or so later, I made the break from Texas Oil & Gas, forming a partnership with a geophysicist friend of mine.  We had an office on the eighth floor of the Park Harvey Center.  The venerable office building had a bank of elevators in the center of the floor.  A hallway wrapped around this center square with the offices on the outside, facing the windows.

In addition to John and me, there was a small oil company, a land (oil leases) company, two lawyers and a couple of independent geologists.  We all knew each other and decided to go together and have a Christmas party on our floor.  We chipped in for the booze and food, and one of the lawyers mentioned that he had a few waitresses as clients that owed him money.  He was sure that they would act as waitresses free in exchange for working off some of their indebtedness to him.

About this time, I had just begun dating Anne and wanted desperately to impress her.  When the night of the party arrived, John and I had a big shock.  The lawyer’s servers were actually strippers and they were dressed only in baby dolls.  Since we were not paying them, they were not afraid of us firing them, and they quickly began sampling the hooch as fast as they dispensed it.

Word soon spread.  Before long, leering geologists packed the hallways along with landmen and engineers.  The girls did not mind, soon doffing their tops, and then their bottoms.

Anne showed up with a friend, a matronly secretary.  After practically fainting, the older woman hurried back to the elevators, leaving the increasingly rowdy crowd for safer climes.  I do not remember a lot after that, having already consumed too much whiskey.

The party continued until all the whiskey was gone, and the girls dressed and departed.  Anne was a good sport about the situation, as was Debbie, John’s future wife that also showed up.  Anne remained sober, had a clear head and drove me home safely.  I awoke to a massive hangover and a ringing phone.  The news of the party had spread and those that had missed it were calling to see if the stories were true.

The following year John and I were drilling oil wells and had several employees.  Instead of the previous year’s drunken debacle, we hosted a sedate wine and cheese party that lasted only until seven.  It did not matter as hundreds of oil industry voyeurs showed up anyway, just in case. 

Those were the go go years of the last oil boom.  Even amid the blurred memories, many things that occurred read almost like fiction.  The events that occurred during that era were true.  Even I couldn’t make this stuff up.

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