The Last Day

One Last Day

If you spend a little time looking back on the last 364 days you often find that there are patterns that tend to repeat themselves.  Some are good and others are not so good.  Every year I end up reflecting on those the other 364 days usually on the last one.  Today being the last one is no different.  The last Texas frontier was good to me today.  I floated out of the country for awhile and had lunch in Mexico, then enjoyed the aftermath huge ice and snow storm up high in the Chisos Mountains.  Now I’m sipping a glass of wine and wondering about patterns and corners and such.  It’s almost hard to believe that I will “reboot” some things tomorrow.  I try to do it from time to time but there really is something about new year.  It almost feels like you get a free pass to start things over with a New Year.  I’m not much on resolutions because I seem to never be happy with the results.  Even on those rare years where I did try to stay the course on a few....even if only for a few weeks.  2014 I did a bunch of just throwing things to the wind and letting the universe sort out my issues.  Let the truth be told that the universe did a pretty good job.  I’m thinking much better than all the planning and strategies from the best You Tube guru’s.  I just placed my bet and if I won, I let it ride.  If I lost, I went to another table.   Since we are such a phone savvy society.  I will try to put it in a language we can all understand.  My year if it was texted to you..

Lot’s of Travel :)

Lot’s of Sex :(

New Friends :)

Making a difference :)

Romance :)

Old Friends :(

Bank Account :(

Not needing that shit :)

Feeding habits :(

Guilt about it :)

Living in beauty :)

Stress Level :)

La Crema availability :)

Blood Pressure Meds :(

Liver function  :) 

More Tolerance :)

Reinventing my Life :)

Understanding What is Important :)

So as you can see, I have had another wonderful year.  Even by text standards.  Well, I must say I would have like to turn that frown upside down on a few....LOL.  What ever happened to talking to the person you wanted to communicate with in person or at least by phone.  LOL  OMG LMAO

I hope all of you have a wonderful New Year and find all the things you have missed in the coming year.  My quest is to find another level of understanding about myself and my destiny so I’m going to be making a few magnificent changes in the next one.  I wish you all a dry road in deep snow, no cavities on the next visit, and someone to scratch your back when you need it most.   Farewell  and Much happiness.

Confessions of a closet Fry Cook

As I surf the crest of my mid-life Tsunami I can’t help but wonder what else is lurking around the corner.  One year older and and new year on the only a couple of sunrises away.  What imagined dreams are whispering to me from the distant plains......YEP, that’s it.... FRY COOK.  My dear departed Mother already has the words, “mercy Larrrrry”, out of her mouth before I could hit the all caps.  Fry Cook?  The truth is I have always been completely fascinated by the men in white slinging and slapping and throwing food out on the grill or flipping skillets full of eggs  or omelets around all over the place.  “chef needa sunny and cher in the sack with a blanket”, has always made me tingle.  That is eggs over easy with a greasy piece of bacon on toast with some gravey!  Really just ask the fry guy at Jimmy’s tuck and truck in West Virginia.   There is something about keeping all that going and listening to the sizzle that makes me wonder if Waffle House is hiring.  Not just any waffle house but the one on the highway just outside of Covington Louisiana about 3 am.  I mean you get to see some true characters when you get that shift.  Or how about doing the morning shift at Camelias in the Quarter in New Orleans during Mardi Gras.  Oh what a ride. How do they do it?   The last few days I have gotten up early and done my own version of “chef” in my miniature kitchen in Terlingua.  “A double cluck pie, skinny with a row and flat pig”.  I have to say I think I’m getting it down.  A prize to the winner of the translation of that one.  Credit to Chef Mike, in Waffle House #453, Trinidad, Colorado.    So, it’s a new year and I even own a food trailer so maybe...just maybe....

The Perils of House sitting, Terlingua Style

Sure you have heard the stories....huge wine cellars at your finger tips, the pool and spa filled with beautiful girls and big music, maybe a exotic car tucked away in the garage with the keys on the rack.  I know, that sounds like heaven, right?  Well, believe me, it's harder than it looks.  Sure there are a few perks to the job almost anywhere you go....Terlingua is no different.  But what most don't see is the danger and constant fear of the situation.  House sitting in Terlingua only magnifies those fears.  I am managing to cope with my fear as best I can.  I'm high above the Terlingua ghost town isolated on a hill.  Yes, I know it has the most perfect view on the planet, and of course there is complete silence but that may seem great until you have to try to sleep with the 360 degree panorama of stars to put up with.   So far I have managed but it hasn't been a cake walk.  It's Christmas eve and I know things could go wrong.  What if I over cook the steak?  It's miles to a store and most likely it will be closed.  Or maybe I get a little wild listening to Bing Crosby tonight and I knock over my wine.    No drive through window for boozing Santa's here.  Just lonely stretches of desert to quench that thirst.  Who knows, it may even snow you in like yesterday.  No I tell you, house sitting in Terlingua takes a different breed.  It's not for the faint of heart.   So, wish me luck and I will try to direct the sleigh to your houses and loved ones tonight.  Because in Terlingua you can see him go over for sure.  Merry Christmas to all and safe passage.  

viva terlingua

On the Porch in Terlingua

Well I have to say that one of the things I enjoy most about the last frontier is the porch at the trading post in Terlingua on a Sunday afternoon.  You never know what is going to happen.  It could be some music or lot's of music, it could be a few more than friendly dogs, or maybe some tourists just wandering around and looking like tourists.  Today it was some music and the giant hooper.  Biggest one I have ever seen.  Alicia handed it like a pro.  The only bummer to the most perfect weather was I was on duty.  No suds for this cowboy today.  Now, tomorrow?  Hum.

Viva Terlingua

Ranger Rick and Plastic Babies

I have always enjoyed teaching.  Yes, it’s true.  My teaching resume includes, well some tennis, emergency medical stuff, substituting, scuba diving, English, YES, English., swimming, and a kindergarten science fair.  Those of you who have pending law suits against me in any of those disciplines as a result of malpractice, please stop reading.   I have come to the certain conclusion that the old saying is right as it applies to me,.....jack of all trades and master of none...or is it... those who can do, do and those who can’t...well you know that one....   Well, I can speak passable English with some help.   

As always, I am just a step ahead of the malpractice judgement and it was no different this last week when I spent three days teaching National Park Rangers the finer points of airway management, rapid trauma assessment, and of course child birth.  Nothing seems to twist up a single late twenties something guy more than delivering a baby or even the practice that is required to “keep current”. Maybe it’s worse if they carry a gun.  It was no different in my class either.  The females seem to have the concept completely wired even those who have not taken that ride yet.  Men only have kidney stones to compare.  Guys look just like you would think they look, clumsy and awkward and totally out of place.  Still, there is some glow to them when they finally execute the plan and hold up the lifeless, pale, non breathing form made of silicone and rubber and declare, “it’s a boy! or girl, maybe”?  

They all were really good so if you decide to come out to Big Bend and have a car wreck or maybe give birth, go ahead but tell them you know me so they will pay a little more attention.  

Viva Terlingua

Momma Had No Idea

Another Birthday gone by.  I have to say I’m used to it....there have been enough of them.  And truly I have had some strange ones.  This may be right up there.  First thanks to all those folks out there in Cyberland for the Happy Birthday wishes.  And yes, I can’t believe I am still here either.  Who would have known.  

Yesterday started out with the awesome sunset and ended with some funky trauma and a helicopter evacuation.  I mean where are the candles and cake in this picture. LOL.  Just goes to show you that you never know what is going to happen in the “Last Frontier”.  The funny thing about this patient was he was messed up but that didn’t stop him from taking photos of us WHILE we were working on him.  He has a blog and if you know about survival people you may find it.  Geez, I hope my hair looked ok.   

So this is my first day of the new “next year on earth”.  Hum?  Should I change anything?  Or should I just write down that I am going too and let it go at that?  There are only a couple of things I would like to change and you will have to guess about those....  So, I suppose it’s on with the show.  I will begin the new “life” year with my favorite quote.

“No matter what your resources, the world is yours to the exact degree that

you summon up the fortitude and the faith to leave orthodoxy and convention

behind and invent your own life.”

Thanks again my friends for the kind words and memories....... 

Trail Gnomes and Associated Phenomena

I have come to realize over the last few weeks that the desert has many oddities and secrets.  None more perplexing than the newly found trail gnomes of the Big Bend Region.  While their legend is only recently being circulated I feel like it’s time to make peace with this bizarre desert netherworlder.   Is it an apparition gone bad?  Perhaps it’s a guardian sent to watch over the hikers....Maybe it’s the manifestation of your alter ego....or simply a piece of mud and clay.  Mysterious? Yes, Threatening? somewhat.  Charming? Absolutely.  So give me your own take on the trail gnomes and I will continue the search for others and their origin.    On other associated Phenomena I would like to name a couple that continue to defy my ability to explain.

1. What happens to socks?  I mean really.  How is it possible to go to the washer with two of same socks and leave the dryer with three completely different ones?   And usually one of those was the most expensive pair of socks you ever bought.  What makes this entire strange exercise even worse is you know you are going to keep the single socks with the hope that one day the other will show up where the first one did.  The laundry gods are cruel and evil I think. 

1. How is it possible to write a password down and put it in plain view on your computer screen and not have it work?  Then you go through the crazy mess of resetting it which requires you to remember the birthdate of your first pet, or the name of the first girlfriend? Really?  Gina? or was it Kelley?  What do they mean when they say girlfriend anyway?  Then you get that done and you decide to use the same password because it’s obviously not correct so you use it and it tells you you can’t use the last password you had.  WAIT, that is the one they said was Not your password?  How can that be?...

1. The mystery of packaging.  You finally pony up and get the deluxe drone so you can hover over the neighbors yard at night and see what those strange noises really are.  It’s expensive and comes with the dreaded, “some assembly required” sticker on the box.  As a guy, I am usually excited to get a package so I don’t pay much attention to how things come out of it.  I mean I have some schooling ...granted no organizational management sciences courses on the books but still.....I would have thought that I could at least put something back in a simple box.    So you assemble this beast hoping to get out there and do some voyuering ( new word), and the gyronnanowackerometer is broken.  No worries right, Just return it in the current packaging.  There is no question in my mind that this freakin cardboard is not the same package this thing came in.  It is impossible to get it back in the way it came and absolutely no way it’s going to fit back in the outside box even if it were still in tact.  I need answers folks...

It’s a strange world out there so tread lightly and watch for those trail gnomes.  

Viva Terlingua

Never Settle

What is it about a good glass of wine and some fancy cheese that makes you feel like an aristocrat?   Any of you aristocrats feel free to comment.     A small table, a red table cloth and yes I know the checkered variety is preferred but its that storage issue...., and a comfortable chair or at least a chair.   It’s always been fascinating how often the “road less traveled”, as yielded that little pot of gold.   This amazing spot was courtesy of my buddy in Terlingua who spent 27 years as a river ranger.  A box canyon with a huge shelter cave lined with rock art.  I will have to take his word on the art as the aristocrat in me chose to indulge in the wine instead of the cultural history.  I feel the shame rising in my bones.  But it was perfect vino so...   Salud to my Native American ancestors.  

It’s tempting to launch into a diatribe about choices, or never letting the “other things” get in the way... but I’m going to spare you the free advice..which is of course worth the price you pay, and just say.....  If it’s shade and you want sun?  Move on.....If it’s rocky and you aren’t building a fence,  then try a few feet farther....  If the view isn’t the best....drive a little more....if your wine is warm and it’s not the way you like it....open the other damn bottle.

Strange Encounters of the 4th Kind

There is always a stabbing bolt of adrenaline when the EMS alarm goes off.  The “tone”, as we trauma junkies call it seems to excite and scare the shit out of you at the same time.  Day or night it has always done the same thing to me.  It brings me to some bizarre level of awareness long before my brain is awake.  I hear and remember things said by the dispatcher but can’t remember to put on my socks.  I’ve quit trying to figure it out and I suppose it doesn’t really matter.   I have to come learn over the years that doing this job isn’t really about any of that.  It isn’t about lights and sirens, big motor vehicle crashes, cardiac drugs, shocks, or blood.  It’s about people.  And it always has been.

The other day the “tones” went off on my radio and I was at my “tiny house”.  The same bolt of adrenaline hit me as it always does.  This one had a fairly large “pucker factor” involved.  No you won’t find those terms in the paramedic textbook but they seem to be universal.  A rollover with three victims and two laying in the road.  That road was a rutted dirt track about 30 miles away and no one was completely clear where it was.  Remember this is truly the last frontier in Texas.   Even a helicopter is an hour away if you can get one and they can find a place to land.  Oh, did I mention they only can take one patient?  or maybe that we only have one ambulance?  Luckily and strangely too what Terlingua loses in distance and equipment they make up in some first rate paramedic talent.  Fast forward to the scene.  A jeep upside down on the side of the road and yes on this rare occasion the information was correct.  Three people and two were laying in the road.  It looked bad.   Difficulty breathing, knocked unconscious, paralyzed  legs, back pain, all the things that you would expect from the “big one”.  With one exception....they were all alive. One was even uninjured. I will spare you the details of the medical side but make note.  No helicopter on this one.  One ambulance and two patients and 45 minutes on rutted road to pavement.  Then a short hour and half race to a hospital.  We were going to double load two very hurt people and make a mad dash to an emergency room.   Myself, my top notch colleague, and two people strapped, taped, glued and wedged on very hard uncomfortable boards were getting ready to be very very friendly with each other.  Again I will spare you the details but the back of the ambulance was completely covered with tubes, bags of saline, wires, blinking lights, gauze, clothes, and serious noise.   There was some screaming, thrashing, twisting and moaning on both sides of the isle for sure.  I’m certain that there are no long code three paramedic runs in Texas longer than this one.  So you have time to work and hope and second guess what you have done and what is going on along the way a couple of times over. 

In that hour and a half of terror I witnessed what I believed I had known for years.   Nothing is more important than human contact.  The physical touch of another human being in time of need is without equal in it’s power.  The same can be said for a kind and thoughtful word and genuine interest.   As we rattled down the road I came to understand the most important part of my treatment this evening is simply holding a hand.  Other things had to be done and were vital but none would be more powerful than my hand in hers.  Every time I had to do one of those, “important”, things, the first thing my patient did was start searching for my hand or my touch on her shoulder.  She couldn’t see me very well if at all but she could feel my touch even though my gloves.  My partner was doing the same thing with her piece of this chaos too with the same immeasurable results.  The best advice I got in my early days of doing this job was always call a person by their name.  It doesn’t matter if they are screaming, or trapped or nuts, (ah..I mean “altered”) as we say.  That will be the only thing that they hear among strangers and the madness of crisis.  It has never failed me and didn’t this afternoon.   We should all be humbled by the beauty and force of human contact.

I would ask that when you find that person in need some day...and you will.  Please remember to offer a hand or a kind word.  Call them by their names... if you don’t know it...ask!  And never forget what it means to be human and alive.  Young or old we all find strength and life those small interactions.  

Viva Terlingua

Old Corners

In 1976 I won a tennis tournament.   It wasn’t sanctioned as they say and few people outside the area even knew it was going on.  It was played in the old automobile building at Fairpark in Dallas on a cold December weekend.  The court surface alternated between polished concrete and a basketball floor with tennis court lines faintly outlined on a platform that was elevated 8 inches above the ground.  If you drew a “basketball floor” it would come complete with a basketball goal just about where you would normally line up to serve.  Truth is I loved playing in that building and my game, what little there was before this day, was kind of suited for the off centered oddities of the venue and surface.  

This little tournament only had 16 players.  That’s it just 16.  There was no big BBQ party, no tournament desk, no real stadium court.  By all of the normal standards it was bush league.  I mean most of the time you played between inner city basketball games with screaming, yelling, moving, hollering people everywhere.  They never even noticed you or that silly game some people called tennis.  It was bizarre and bush league in every way....except for the players.   Every one of the 16 players were anything but “bush league”.  That little tournament had 8 of the top 10 players in the state and no one was ranked under 20.   There were sectional titles and national championships and a long list of storied tennis pedigrees in the draw.  No, it wasn’t bush league at all.  In those days I was “getting better” as some would say.  “Not quite there”, is another phrase used to describe my fairly out of control approach to the game.  Lot’s of lessons, money, racquet clubs and travel in that group.  Except for me and a couple of other mortals in the draw.    I’m sure every one and most likely me too, expected that I would provide some warm up for the big boys early and be heading back home by lunch on the first day.    I’m not going to bore you with major triumph or a blow by blow commentary of each match but let’s just say I had one of those couple of days.  I got better.  Each match I found some groove, gear, inspiration, genius whatever you want to call it.  I was “TREE’D” for those tennis oldies out there.  As the tournament went on I kept getting better.  Guys would just shake their heads when the match was over and grumble and walk off.  My win in the finals was witnessed by my mother and a host of  family members belonging to my opponent.  All with extreme tennis history.  It was an ugly ending as tense tennis matches can often be when the “David whacks a Goliath”.   I have to think my mother was the only happy one in the enormous Building that Sunday which was filled with hundreds of people and only two tennis players.    I was in another place completely different from happy.  Anyone who has had that sort of unlikely success knows what I’m talking about.   Heart racing, it’s hard to sit down, you are tunnel visioned, and relived most of all that you didn’t screw it up somehow...but happy...no way.  What was not even remotely clear to me 40 years ago is as clear as a desert sky today.   I had turned a corner.  I was no longer the outsider and my name would be playing first on that team.  I became a believer.  

Dab the tears from your eyes for a minute and then realize that the corner  I turned was not just a tennis one but the belief that drive, hard work and a dream can accomplish more that anyone would ever believe.   Sitting out on the Old Maverick Road this evening watching a beautiful Fall sunset in the cool crisp desert air reminded me that it’s never too late to “turn the corner” again.  

Miles

Viva Terlingua

The importance of being unimportant

If you really want to know how important you are in the world we live in please read on.  If not just stop reading and always wonder.  Simplicity...complication....material excess....minimalism, can all be measured in one fairly common but unnoticed means.  Keys!  It’s all in the number of keys you have in your purse or pocket.  When you were a little kid in school who was the most interesting person at the school?  No doubt about it...the Janitor.  He had that wad of keys hanging off his belt.  Every time someone had a crisis at school he was the Lone Ranger coming to the rescue by unlocking something.  Security guards, your dad, how about your mom rummaging through that abyss of a bag to find whatever key was necessary to get the job done.   

Granted things have changed on the technology side but the theme is still the same.  The more keys you have the more important and complicated you are.  There is also a flip side to that but “wait for it”.  So by definition, the fewer keys you have... the more simple and less complicated your life is, right?  Well, again yes and no.  

In my recent exodus from the complicated world, I have come to believe completely that the number of keys one has should be regulated by divine powers.  A couple of days ago I moved into a posh mother in laws digs here in Terlingua.  A real top shelf residence with running water and electricity.  Hot water may be an issue but I have a burner so problem solved.  For the  bulk of my last few years I have been besieged  with keys.  Keys for the ridiculous crap that I buy, rent, already own, etc...  The wad of keys in my pocket had gotten to a point where it was not going to go into my pocket....safely...men you know what I mean.   The most crazy fact about this problem is that I do key management all the time it seems...for personal safety mainly.  I get that wild hair and cull through this pile of keys and try to figure out what they are for.  Eventually, I have two or three that I have no idea what they go to.  None.  I labor in frustrated agony trying to get them off of the nail breaker contraptions they are on and then put them in a box.  Yes.... I don’t know what they are for and I keep them.  The fear of one day going to some obscure locked box deep in storage that potentially contains some long lost treasure and not having the key forces me to hedge my bets and keep the stupid keys.  Storage, trailer locks, door keys, box keys, truck cover keys, closet keys, fire safe keys,  vespa keys and the locks that are around it, over and over.  At one time or another they have been in my pocket and on my “ring”.   Sorry, back to the exodus.  Moving away from the metropolis of Canton and all the keys associated with ownership, I did formal key management last night.  The result was my “ring” was down to two keys.  Yep, two.  Can you imagine how it felt both physically, guys you know what I mean, and emotionally to be that simple or maybe in this case “unimportant”.  The last time I had two keys in my pocket I was wearing snug fitting Levi’s and owned nothing. Maybe that is the practical joke of life.... When you own nothing you can have two keys and wear good fitting jeans and when you have a ton of shit you have to wear baggies because all those keys won’t fit.  Just a thought.  

Ok, the promised flip side.  Have you ever seen that person who gets out of the luxury car at Starbucks with only one key?  BEEP, and that’s it.  Do not be fooled by that overt display of counterfeit simplicity.  It is not true.  While that person may have simplified on the outside, they no doubt have several draws located in the “writing” alcove filled with keys to doors, boxes, ignitions, devices, and secrets.  They are impostors.  If that’s you stop.  Go get a huge key ring and join the rest of us in our wretched excess.  

What do you really need and enjoy?  Think about it.  Downsizing is like a prostate exam but the result is like find out your internet company has not been charging you for a year by mistake.  Simply marvelous and worth the short term pain.  I’m still not completely there and yes there are keys in the drawer but fewer than there was and going down.  

Viva Terlingua

NO SERVICE...write me a letter

Cell phones, smart phones, mobile devices, pads, skype, drouds, IPhones, flip phones, car phones.  I remember when they were just phones.  Yep, that is what they used to be called.  The funny thing is that the actual function was to make a phone call.  That is where two people, I mean living humans, actually had voice communication.  You didn’t ask some Chic with an Indonesian name if she could find you a blow up doll, or some alien sounding electronic voice wanting to know your credit card number but an actual human voice.    Real phones are funny looking things.  Large and clunky.  They used to even have wires on them.  Sometimes they were even in two pieces.  Shit....get out...no really I remember that.  The banana shaped things that would deform your ear.  Ours was located in this weird looking hole in the wall in the hallway?  Why the hallway?  I guess was the central location or something.  I would sneak in there and attempt to call Kelley from there.  No real conversation but still it was a big event.  At least I could hear breathing on the other end.  How about car phones?  Remember those?  Those huge grey things with the heavy wires going to some unknown place in the dashboard.  I think you got about 10 minutes for 95 dollars or something like that.  No one I knew could afford to actually call anyone but they looked cool in your ride as long as you had enough leg room for the cast iron mounting system that resembled the underside of the stadium bleachers.  

The “hand phone” brought the world from the hallway into the light of the modern world.  Those cucumber sized things with that weird antenna soon decreased in size.  I mean its obvious size does matter....  Unfortunately, smaller has now gone out of style again.  As our civilization progresses....I use that term “civilization” with some reservations... we are now completely dependent on these strange little playing card looking boxes.  (oh, remember playing cards?  Not the shapes on the computer or the device but paper things).  We can’t live without them.  We design our lives and emotions around them.  They are now an instrument of love.  No...not that just yet....shame on you.  They move worlds and economies.  They coordinate airstrikes,  set off IED’s, find fresh sushi, and the strangest to me....convert the spoken word to text..  Often they are the most looked at, hoped for, feared, and prized things in our lives.  Why?  My own personal experience is just the above.  Hoping for that special text, or waiting for the email or text that you know will just hurt or make you mad and who knows...might just make you smile.   How many times have you just looked at the stupid thing and hoped for it to tell you something.  Over and over.  Waiting...  

So...the big question!  ARE WE NUTS?.  Wait for it...don’t go for the obvious immediately.  Ask yourself what would happen if you ... had no service?  I realize that most of us would walk, crawl, drive, or climb to another place.  You can’t be off the grid.  No way.  Being out in Terlingua and parts beyond has made me do some thinking about connections.  What do they mean?  What could you live without if you had only .001 MB of “data”.  Who would be the text or the email?  It’s like putting a message in a bottle and only having that little yellow stubby pencil that you used to get when you went to play miniature golf with your girl. The stubby tiny things that were completely flat with no eraser.  You know.  You only have a few words and you have to make them count.  I know this sounds like an Ebola Twister game to most of you but just think about it.  NO SERVICE is almost like the announcement,  “Brace for Impact”.    Do me a favor?  Take a few days and turn the “Device” off.  I know I know... you have responsibilities.  But humor me.  You will need to go through the nine stages of device grief and that can be ugly.  

1. The on/off.  You can only keep it off for a few minutes.
2. Separation anxiety.  Going to get it in the car when you are supposed to be  romanticizing. 
3. Sneak checking your mail.   Ugly and usually done in the bathroom.
4. Leaving it for a full day....  peace followed by panic, when you remember you haven’t checked it.
5. A day without connectivity.  The world keeps turning.  The kids didn’t get arrested for drugs...your deal didn’t fall through....your mother is still around... the yard man showed and cut the grass..
6.   A few day of actual conversation, maybe a movie, some whoopie, maybe reading a mag on the john again....  Just a different perspective.
7. The pre- apocalyptic aura phase.  Where you have perceived flash forwards of things you are supposed to do or things to worry about. 
8. Relapse.  The ugly truth about “Device Addiction”.  You are a down trodden, humiliated shell of a human being, controlled by “inbox”, and IM, or Text,  destined to be forever enslaved by a fancy remote control that brings no joy to mankind.  
9. Getting the new bigger, faster, more powerful device with more data.  

Oh, sorry gotta go....I’m in a high spot now.  

The Simplicity of Choice

Complications, simplicity, over generalization, self awareness, despair,

overwhelmenization (my word), and my favorite...ENOUGH.  It seems we don’t have control anymore.  All of the “extra fees” of life seem to drive the bus.  You can’t just show up and have your bag and your toothbrush and your wine opener anymore.  Someone is trying to profile you and take your stuff away from you. In the metaphorical sense unless you live in Houston, then they are doing it for real.   So it’s back to choices...go or stay, say yes or say no, call or don’t call,  do or don’t.  If you think about it, the choices are simple.  They really are.  You already know the answers to all of the questions you are asking?  You just can’t simplify and make your choice.  Too much bullshit getting in the way.  Too much of “you” getting in the way.   So perhaps we should start with the things we know for sure.

Things I know for sure

Kissing is a lost art

You should play out the third set

Grandma doesn’t always mean that

Always use a flame with Creme Brulee not the oven

You can do anything you want or come damn close if try

Actions speak louder than words

Always put milk in your scrambled eggs

Rabbits and deer really do have a death wish

One friend is worth a thousand acquaintances

Slow is better than fast most of the time

We are all one people no matter what they say

We are not alone.  They have just decided they don’t need our stupidity 

Silence is golden

It’s never too late to have the best day of our life

Old people have sex too

Always make your bed

Please feel free to add.  After all the choice really is yours...

Just Five Miles

642 am.  Not being a morning person or so I thought, I was not prepared for the beauty of the morning sky.  At a glance it looks much like the expansive brilliance of the night sky I said good night to a few hours ago, but it’s different.  There is a calm and stillness to it.  Like it’s settled in to it’s rhythm and is now ready to say good bye to the world.  It’s got softer edges.  Most of us have a routine I suppose and I have settled into mine.   It’s simple really but has come to be a very important piece of my life.  My simplified existence as it were. It is the crisp cool air wrapping around me as I sit in 1299 and drink my hot coffee.  I know the desert will cool down soon and make this rendezvous with the sunrise a little more challenging soon but for now it’s crisp and cool and perfect.  It’s been years, if ever that I have allowed myself the time to watch the night give way to the dawn.   The clutter of life with it’s baggage of worry, tension, fear, and schedule always seemed to muddy up the scene.  With most of that behind me, at least for the moment, this hopeful voyeur will no longer allow the dance of light and dark to go without an audience.  

Having successfully engineered the sunrise, the next duty has turned out to be my favorite part of the day.  Each morning I am tasked with making a five mile drive to make sure things are working.  It’s only five miles there and back.  Nothing fancy, no lights and sirens, no speeding, no excitement.  Just a short trip in the morning light.  It’s familiar to me now.  Like a walk around the lake out in front of the old homestead in Mesquite.  The sun is fighting to get high enough to spread it’s light over the western landscape.  The scattered buildings of this small place are waking up to start the day.  Two and half miles out and it’s time to turn around.  I am at the edge of civilization. a tenth of a mile more and the desert will engulf me.   I have come to expect the same people along my route and I believe they have come to expect me.  It’s the casual but important raising of your hand slightly from the steering wheel as you meet them on the road.  Not all the way, just a few fingers.  Being brought up as an Urbano driver, I rarely see the speed limit on the dashboard without the hint of radar around.  Now, I find myself moving along at a crawl on my way home.  Not because I fear the law, but because I really don’t want my journey to end.  It’s just five miles.  

Terlingua Olympic Moments

I realize that it's not an official Olympic year but that doesn't really phase the bike rally folks in Terlingua.  The crowds were not that big this year but it as still some ferocious competition.  You could tell that everyone appreciated the ambulance presence since some of these events are a little frightening.  I'm torn between my favorites....the hotdog bite and the straw stuff.  Maybe it's the skill involved or maybe you just have to be lucky.  Riding on the back of a bike going super slow looks a little shaky.  So, don't think the scenery is the only thing going on in Terlingua.  "Let the games begin".

Enjoying a Good Screw

Every day seems full of surprises out here on the frontier.  A sunrise or a sunset, maybe an eclectic Terlingua character, or even an overhead story at the local coffee bistro.  Today it was getting a 10 cent screw.  Now, let’s just be honest here, a screw will almost always cost more than 10 cents.  It doesn’t matter if it’s in the country or a big city.  There is always a cost.  It doesn’t matter if you are a man or woman.  Even old people have to pay for a screw.  Right?  Today I was badly in need of one.  You know what I mean?  Lot’s of stress, things falling apart, I just needed to get a fix.  In all honesty, I was not going to be able to wait much longer.   You would think that an establishment that would sell a screw in this part of the frontier would be far and few between and being rather picky, would I even want it if I could find one?  Well, I am here to tell you that I got a screw in Terlingua.  Yep!  it was wonderful.  Perfect size and fit.  Now I’m not as stressed as I was and for all that are interested.....things are working just like they used to.  To top it off....it was free.   A free screw anywhere has got to be the dream of any guy.  So you can certainly see the smile on my face and the swagger of my rejuvenated rear end.   The last time anyone gave me anything for free  that didn’t require a shot or therapy,  was a long time ago and I was a few glasses of chard into the home shopping network.  You know, buy one get six free.   I don’t even think they sell  screws on TV?  Do they?  If you come to Terlingua and need to get a perfectly safe and 

Cracks

My ass if firmly placed in 1299 out in front of  the Terlingua Medics just watching another beautiful sunset.  I was sitting here contemplating the twists and turns of life and thinking about things that have managed to fall through the cracks.  We all have them.  Some are small and random and others are more significant and consistent.  How important they are just depends on the individual.  I wonder what yours are?  What are mine you ask?  That is what I am sitting here listening to the wind and trying to get a grip on.  It's not that easy.  If you are reading this, "both of you", then you must be friends and if you see this on Facebook or something you most definitely are friends because Mark Zuckerberg told me you are.  It says it right up front.  So, here goes....

I wish I had continued playing the guitar when I was a kid.  Yes, I tried....Red River Valley and all that.  The truth is, I own a very good guitar as evidenced by it being one of two things I grabbed during the great mountain fire of 2014.  Of course I picked up the vacuum cleaner too...

Ballroom dancing seems to always come up in conversation when someone asks me what I do with some extra time.....No one can forget "Scent of a Woman" and Al Pacino..."When you get tangled up...just tango on.."  Words to live by I think.

If I could have a nickel for all the Spanish tapes, books, dictionaries I have owned in my life I would be able to do a little more high dollar living for sure.  Somehow that language thing just seemed to fall through the cracks somewhere.  Now, I'm doing it again.  Books should be here Monday.  So yep, I would love to be able to Habla!

So what is it about doing things that you want to do that is so hard?  We all say that we let life get in our way but when you think about it it really is just an excuse.  Certainly, that's
what I have found.   So I'm going to fill in the cracks and stop letting things fall through.  I wonder if doing that will make my path more smooth and even.

Remember What Mark Twain said,

When you are in the rocking chair at the end of it all you are surely going to regret the things that you didn't do much more than the things that you did.  

Adventure before Dementia

I’m sitting here alone in Cottonwood campground with the wind blowing through the cottonwood trees.  It’s a beautiful place and so amazing because of the grand trees.  Trees are a rare commodity in this part of the world.  The sounds they make in the wind is worth the drive out here.  I can hear the Rio Grande just on the other side of the scrub brush and The high mesa walls on the Mexican side dwarf everything in sight.  It’s been another couple of days exploring and I suppose at some point I will have gotten down most of the roads in the area.  Yesterday was 4 hours on the old ore road.  Damn!  That was about the roughest road I have ever been on and was able to get down.  Let’s just say my body feels like I have gone the distance with Mike Tyson.  I may even have lost a few fillings in the adventure.  So, today is a pavement day for the most part.  I was so tired I didn’t get up for the lunar event.  Yes, I’m a slacker.

I ran across an Aussie couple this morning from Brisbane.  Now Aussies have been hard on me this year but these two were great.  They own an RV that they leave in the US and spend 6 months a year on the road then go back home.  It seems like the road is calling me in just about every thing that I do.  Hum?  They have a great tire cover on the RV.  Makes you wonder doesn’t it?    Still, I keep running into real estate where ever I go.  I was hoping for vaulted ceilings but you really have to go with the local architecture.  Funny thing is that this structure and I have history together dating back more than 25 years ago.  A late night drive turned into a romantic interlude in the “house of dwarfs”, only to be interrupted by a very zealous park ranger intent on making an arrest.   Extreme begging managed to save the day but I can see the paragraph now on those online applications.....1. Have you ever been arrested?  If so, please explain. .  It can be a hard life in a hard land....  Don’t forget...Adventure before Dementia.  

Fast and Furious..Terlingua Style

Most of the time things don't move too fast in Terlingua.  People walk slow, talk slow, drink slow, and live slow.  That's what they like.  It's part of the culture and the desert.  All of that changes for one weekend a year when the Shelby Mustangs come to town.   Mr. Mustang was the original Carroll Shelby.   The man who started it all.  As it turned out he used to own about 240,000 acres in the Terlingua area that is now Terlingua Ranch.  Well, Mr. Mustang is gone now but his legacy still remains.  He started this weekend and now it brings a little speed to the desert.   It's a little scary to stand on the closed highway next to the "ambulance" and feel these machines run by.  190 MPH is the record.  It felt like it as they crested the hill and blew by.   Now to "stangs" are gone and all is quiet again.  Sitting in the sun now waiting for something to happen...rain?  Nah...

Musings from the End of the Road

Everyone wonders what they will think about when they get to the end of the road.  I know I did.  But with the help of my trusty sitting apparatus that I now refer to as 1299, I was able to ponder and then simply enjoy the view.  The Pine Canyon road and the perfect end of that road at Pine Canyon trailhead.   Another hidden find in Big Bend.

In the evening I was pondering the questions of life at another wonderful spot that has become my outdoor crib of late.  As I was sitting there this tiny owl stopped by just as he did the night before.  What you can't see from this photo is this little guy is about 6 inches tall.  Really.  He or she, I'm not sure how to figure that one out but it must have been fresh out of the nest because it was only about 5 feet from me.  Humm.  End of the road and meeting the wise....ok, not so old...owl, What is life telling me?  Later in the day I decided to drive the East River road.   Well something told me that there might be a river at the end of it.  After 22 miles of hot boring driving on awful dirt roads only to find no end and no river.  I did find some choice real estate however that seemed to be cheap.  A fixer upper you say.....indeed.  Could that be the message I was supposed to get from the owl and the end of the road?   Real estate.....  Any thoughts?

How to Listen to Silence

Even bears sometimes hug the corner going downhill.  If you poke around Big Bend enough you will see a few signs for bear here and there.   I have been here many times but never ever seen one or even anyone who had seen one.  Now, I'm a believer.   This guy was just going for a walk in the middle of the afternoon and using the road for a little relaxation.   Gotta love it.

It's amazing to be in a place that you love and not be a complete tourist.  By that I mean have enough time to actually explore without having to be some place.  Tourists have an agenda.  See this and see that and then we go here and stay there..  All that.  Being lost in between tourist and local is a strange new world.  I am now a "toucol".  Half tourist  and half local.

One of my new favorite places is Sotol View.  A little point that rises above the Maxwell road on the way to Castellon.  Simply breathtaking.  It's a shame that the photo doesn't do it justice.  I spend hours  there in my new chair.... 12.99 in Alpine.   The silence was unforgettable.  Not a human sound for hours.  Just the wind in the brushes and sounds of flying creatures humming around.

How to listen to Silence

1. Find a place that is silent.  Not quiet but silent.  Lot's of places in our world are quiet but few are silent.

2. Get a comfortable chair.  Spend more than 12.99

3. Face the sun.  Not for the sunset but for the warmth.  Looking into the sun will make you close your eyes and stop looking around at things.  Feel the warmth on your skin and breath.

4. Open your ears.  Relax all those things around your ears.  I know it seems weird but try it.  You will know when it happens.

5. Then here is the big one....move yourself outside yourself.  Stop thinking and listening to yourself and move your awareness just 10 feet from your body.  practice makes perfect.

6.  Find those sounds that have been lost from you.  The sound of grass rustling, leaves rubbing together, branches and bugs....  then listen to the sound of wind as it moves over your ears, that little roar that comes when you hold your head just right and how silent it is when you move it the other way.  Now it's time to move yourself farther out....until the reach the silence itself.   I think there are few things like it... 

Is that all you got?

Every once in a while a person gets impressed.  I mean really impressed.  Not about some guy driving a 500,000 dollar Bugatti or some NBA guy riding go carts in the living room of his 213,000 square foot crib or maybe some idiot trying to eat a 12 lbs cheeseburger in 13 minutes.  The kind of impressed that comes from knowing you are small in this world and those enormous problems you think you face are most certainly a fading piece of history that is gone in the blink of an eye.  Santa Elena Canyon makes the sunset more beautiful, the wine taste better, meat more tender, and color more vivid. Some things are always perfect.   The Rio Grande rarely flows like this.....Rain at the end of summer in the high desert.....go figure.  Mother nature....You naughty minx.

Now Jasper, that is a road!

No question about it.  FM 170 from Terlingua to Fort Leaton is the prettiest stretch of road in Texas.  Sure there are some good ones...337 from Vanderpool to Leaky for example, is right up there but none match the awe inspiring power of the "river road".  That is even more true when the Rio Grande is running over 6,000 cfs.   Having canoed the river at 4800 I can tell you that is one hell of a ride.  A big plus is getting to the entrance to Big Bend Ranch State park.  Tiny at 290,000 acres compared to the National park, it just sits there waiting.  I drove the 27 miles into Sauceda Station on washed out rutted dirt today only find out that I was the ONLY one in the park.  I would have to say that Felicia's job at the gift shop would have to rank high as one of the most boring anywhere.  The old Mexican ranch house at Sauceda is one of my favorite places to stay in Texas.  Old hand painted tiles on the floors and in the bathrooms combine with 3 foot thick adobe walls and tons of windows to make the place completely cool during the hot times.  I can just see the dinners around the massive oak dinning table when the place was a ranch many years ago.

Bushwacking does not have to be uncivilized however.  Nothing like a great chardonnay by an old cattle pen in the middle of day.  Yes, no emergency work today.  In the tradition of the great explorers like Magellene, Columbus, and Anthony Bourdain, I have managed to "wax philosophy" while laughing at death from snakes, the sun, wild indians, and a low supply of crackers for my cheese.  I have returned to my duties appreciative of the perfect silence and desolation of this place.  Again I say....Viva Terlingua.