Imogene Taggart dies at age 89

Imogene Taggart died November 17, 2010 in Grand Prairie, Texas.

She was born in Paris, Texas on January 11, 1921 to Leslie and Daisy Templeton. She was the oldest of four children, preceding Johnnie, Haskell and Mickey Templeton. The family would later become residents of Fisher County.

She married Ivey Buster Taggart on April 9, 1937 in Roby, Texas. The couple had two children, Barbara and Jerry Taggart. The couple was residing in Grand Prairie by the time the children were born.

She was preceded in dead by her parents, daughter, brother Haskell and her sister Johnnie.

She is survived by her husband, son, brother Mickey, grand-daughter Robin Morris and grand-son Phillip Taggart, and one great-grandson, Logan Morris.

They call it stuffing for a reason

I mean, beyond stuffing the turkey. Or it's accurate if the turkey is me, because I have single-handedly been trying to eat what's leftover, and I'm stuffed. I think this job might be better suited to our canine Hoover. She never even looks at what's going in her mouth, just holds it open so you can pour it in, and she never gains an unsightly pound, just weight pounds. Yep, she can help me clean the fridge.

We had a houseful of friends and family. I didn't take photos of them because it seems to jinx things, or when I look back I'll think someone didn't look like they were having a good a time. There were a couple of people not present that are dear to me, and I missed them, but I sure appreciated those who came. The photo is of my front door, but everyone came in the back. It's just not as pretty.

I keep meaning to update the Kinder Morgan CO2 pipeline story, but since I have no facts, I guess now is as good as any time. I'll just tell you what I see.

Everything is all buried up now and fences have been mended with new gates. The station by the cemetery has become permanent and has been manicured with caliche and fencing, and the piping has been painted. There is another permanent station east of Camp Springs. I don't know what they are for, but the pipelines come up out of the ground and have big round valves on them. Maybe emergency shut offs, maybe they move stuff in and out of the pipes. You oilfield folk probably know the purpose.

We're in the thick of cotton stripping season. This is the time of year you see the big machines scouring the fields, even at night. Funny to get a feeling of holiday just from seeing lights filling the cotton fields after dark. But I do. That's when I know summer is truly over in Texas.

Big winds today. That oughta make cleaning the chicken coop fun.Or walking, opening car doors and seeing. It's really whistling through the house and beating on the siding. Dang, this is my first day off in a long time and I had planned on doing a lot of stuff outside. I guess I'll just pay bills online go to the movies. Maybe all the junk in the yard will just blow away and I won't have to clean it up.

The Wind, the Holidays and a One-Eyed Cat

- Pumpkin aka Punkin the pirate cat -

About the one-eyed cat. A sweet little stray that disappeared for a few days then came back with her eye poked out. Now she has to be beloved because she cost so much at the vet. She has gone to the head of the line as our most expensive cat, beating out a fat cat that broke her leg. Oh, the drama.

Poor Mister Husband got elected to take the cat to the vet. He was totally humiliated because he had to say the cat's name out loud in the waiting room. It's hard to sound manly when saying "Pumpkin".

The wind. The danged old blowin' wind. I know there must be some reason in nature for the wind to howl like a durn banshee, but justification does not remove the fact that it grinds, grinds, grinds on the nerves. Also, you can not do sheet metal projects in the keening wind unless you think you might like to be decapitated.

The holidays. Hmmm. Lots of pressure to try to create artificial feelings of goodwill and family togetherness. I'm chucking it all for the guy perspective, let's eat and watch football. I call that a no-fail plan.

My biggest gripe of the holidays is the Christmas music playing in the stores two months before the event. Those freaking tunes get stuck in my brain and I'm singing them continuously in my head, but not in the happy way they're meant to be sung. Maliciously, disparagingly, cynically, as though I were eating bugs and wanted to spit them out. That canned music will surely be the reason we finally boycott Christmas.

Yulecon and some Speculating

Here is a delightful photo of me at an Anime Convention. I'm so glad we could get the butt-crack in the frame. Look to the left of me.

I thought it was interesting that the American Airlines Convention Center that we stayed in was built in 1957 as a stewardess training center. It was a nice place, but the room was so small that I was embarrassed to later see the guy who checked us in because he knew I was a sucker.

We were somewhere near Irving in Tarrant County.

All of that was fact, now on to speculation. Recently, the Goodwill in Sweetwater changed staff, in a "They cleaned house" sort of way, you know what I mean? I figured something must have gone down, because the two main people who had been there for years and years were suddenly gone and the whole store was drastically reconfigured. Soon after this happened, I asked one of the new clerks if the other two still worked there and she politely told me the store had changed management. This was maybe three months or so ago.

Yesterday, I was in there looking for a bed frame and I was waiting for the customer in front of me to check out so I could ask a question (Do you have any bed frames?). A harried looking man resembling Ed Begley, Jr. came from the back, or really the north room, where I've noticed a mountain of clothing-stuffed trash bags rising nearly to the ceiling. His name tag said he was some kind of manager and I didn't recognize him as a regular employee. He told the pretty, older clerk, "I'm going to save that upstairs room for Mr. So-and-so to see on Friday when he comes here to inspect. It's unbelievable." And he didn't mean in a good way. He conveyed in his demeanor that it was such a God-awful mess that a book could be written on it. The clerk said, "Oh, I could give him a personal tour", expressing that if he thought that was bad, she could show him some other areas that would make his skin peel off and remove all hope from mankind. That was my take, anyway. It would be interesting to know the whole story, but then I would have to ask people questions and write on a pad, so you could see how that would just be inconvenient. For me.

I heard last month that the Hobbs School will be closing after this academic year. I was told that Ricky Williams announced it at homecoming. I have not confirmed this with the school. The school office window has 1897 - 2011 written on it in paint, though, and that would only be appropriate if the school were closing. They've been decorating the front nicely, doing some gardening and putting messages in the fence with colorful cups. I don't know if that's done by the school or a local alumni committee. Perhaps I might call the school or the Sweetwater ISD to see what's going on. I theorize that the schools who used to send students to Hobbs decided that they could do the program on their own campus or within their own district and hold on to the funding. There is not a bit of fact to that statement, it came straight from my head.

Opening Weekend 2010

I was glad to see the hind-end of a deer hanging off the tail-gate when the guys drove in this morning. I could tell they were disappointed after coming back with nothing yesterday. The left-hand guy, Ken, bagged this sweet six-point. And, of course, there's a story.

The guys were sitting in the blind this morning when a buck crossed their line of sight. The deal is usually for Ken to take first shot since he's our guest, but this year Ken told Fred to take it. So the buck is hanging around the feeder, but they can't get a bead on him. He started walking into the next field, where another hunter is set up, but he wasn't occupying his stand this morning. A cow scared the buck back towards the guys, but then he got into the tall grass and they lost him.

Well, right about then three doe came through the feeder area, but they didn't stop to eat. They were acting jittery the whole time and soon moved out of sight. The men thought their window of opportunity had closed.

Fred decided he had to stretch and got up to walk around. He checked the perimeter, looking all around when all of a sudden, here came that buck again. He grabbed his gun and tried to get a bead on him, but he just couldn't line it up. He finally took a shot, but it was just as the buck took two steps forward. Luckily, Ken had a line on the deer, so when Fred missed and said "Take a shot, Ken!", he nailed him.

The guys had to go get the pick-up to haul the deer out, and as they were leaving after loading it up, they saw a doe and her two fawn picking their way to the feeder. There should be plenty of deer for another day.