It's Not So Bad, If You Squint Your Eyes...

-Birkla-

I was telling my kids earlier today that I had a dream about the first boy I loved and how he is now a mayor and insurance salesman. Then I rambled on to say he was a super-funny guy with a motorcycle, but I cheated on him (i.e., kissed) with his best friend, a Matthew McConaughey type character (see photo, right). There were more than a few similarities in the "Dazed & Confused" character and our own hometown smooth man.

One of the kids said that I oughta put that stuff in a book. I'm surprised that they would be interested. I won't even look closely at photos of my parents "in the day" when they were young and beautiful. I have a hard time picturing them in their teens and twenties, or even thirties. If they did half the things I did, I do not want to see it written on their faces.

I must say, I'm very jealous of a Texas blogger, known as The Bloggess, for achieving the writer's dream of publishing for money, and a book at that. What really upsets me is that in a blurb I read, she said that no one believed her when she said she used to swim in a tank that they washed pigs in. Well, hell, if I knew people were interested in that kinda stuff, I could write all day! I'll write my pig trough anecdote and perhaps I will be published soon.

On our farm, we had a big rambling farrowing barn, built for chickens, used for pigs. There was also a penning area called the lot. In the lot was a big concrete trough, originally made for cattle, I think, but it had been modified for pigs to drink out of, with lots of little fountain things placed on the outside where a pig could mash a tab with its snout and the water would come out. This trough was only about three feet high and the pigs would sometimes crawl in the water to cool off.

My grandmother, known as Daisy to me, Mrs. Templeton to others, would ask if I wanted to go swimming, and guess where she would take me? That's right, to the pig trough, down in the lot right behind her house. Pigs are not discriminant about where they crap, either. Yes, it was squishy between the toes on the bottom of the concrete (mini) pond. I was pretty young then, at that age where bugs and spiders still didn't creep me out and I would eat pig knuckles willingly. Sometimes referred to as the good old days. Goat on a rope and all that. A tale for another time.

Okay, publishers, editors, rush me! I got a jillion of those down-home on the farm stories just waiting to get out of me. I'm like a gold-egg-laying goose. Catch me if you can (really, it will be easy).

I'm Clint Black

I'm killin' time, like ol' Clint sings about, hanging out in Hobbs, waiting for the weather to change.

I came across this photo in my albums, but I know I didn't take it. It was the basis of the mural in downtown Rotan. Probably Ricky Niell sent it to me. Ya got the Double Mountains in the background there and it makes me love it.

I kill a lot of time scouring the internet, and I saw that the Hogg Maulies are scheduled to play at the Rotan Rodeo Pavilion on June 2 for a steak cook-off. This event is listed on Outhouse Tickets and Hogg Maulies facebook. Maybe if we all follow them on twitter, we can figure out if it will really be happening.

The Fifth Annual Hog Fest Bike Rally has been slated for the weekend of September 1. I bet they're hoping for cooler temperatures so the fire truck doesn't have to go around spraying down everybody, although that was pretty fun.

I saw in the newspaper that Big Country Electric will be offering high-speed internet next year. I'm ashamed to say how much I pay for satellite internet, so I am definitely interested in an alternative. I  just hope it reaches this far out and that we aren't forced to bundle services to get it. Right now I pay $9 a month for a Dish receiver that's stuffed under my bed in order to get WildBlue internet through them.

Cooler temperatures have made this day pleasant already, and the likelihood of rain today and tomorrow looks good. I would rather have to mow the lawn than step on dry grass that impales my feet, and we're hoping the Tifton we planted two years ago will finally get a chance to take off. We sure don't want another year of fire.

Paper Posts Story About Two Boys' Death

The Rotan Advance / Roby Star Record has an in-depth story on the deaths of Jeremy Claxton and Nick Walker that occurred on Bill Pfluger's China Creek Ranch last week. There are photos of the well accompanying the article. Contact The Newspaper Office in Rotan for information on acquiring this issue, 325-735-2562.

May as Well Stand Firm On...Whatever

Back in my beginner rock-n-roll days, the church upped their guilt venture on teenage music, urging us to toss away the devil's words and snuggle up to Jesus. I put all my 8-tracks (hahaha!) in a shoe box, or two, and stowed them under my bed and strove to walk the straight and narrow. Come on, now, I couldn't throw out all my Columbia House 12-for-one-cent tapes, that would be madness! Anyway, after a few weeks, the lure of AC/DC and Molly Hatchet became too strong and the music was once again assaulting my mother's ears as she did her ironing in my bedroom of a Saturday morn.

I think preacher-man could have done a lot more damage if he would have just told us that our rock gods were mortal and the words to those songs, that I used to parse like CIA trying to crack a secret code, have no deep meaning. These days, Ozzy wants a colonoscopy, Eddie Van Halen needs hip surgery, and poor ol' Ted has tipped his rocker. I even heard Steven Tyler admit that it didn't matter if the words made sense, as long as they sound good together.

We have a local classic rock station, and at first that seemed cool. A song would come on and remind me of the good old times. Now the songs have been overplayed and have rubbed out the old memory, replaced by the memory of just driving down the road listening to a song, instead of, let's say, hearing Baker Street or Blinded By the Light while you were swimming at the Country Club and laying in the sun, and the cute boy you liked was being rowdy with his friends. And, seriously, we hardly listened to Pink Floyd except now and then, on special occasions. That stuff was too depressing and trippy.

I was looking up something on Hank Williams the other day (I think Hank was was rock-n-rolly, so I'm not off topic), and read on the Roadside America website that when you go to his museum, you better not mention Elvis, or you'll get plowed. You will be informed that Williams' success in his few years expanded way beyond what Elvis achieved in a life that was twice as long.

Which just goes to show that there's always a side to take. Here we go on the circuitous path of my mind.

Around here, if you respect the president, are a democrat, or are offended by racial slurs, you learn to keep it to yourself unless you enjoy being screamed at and possibly purged from the community.

I see that it's just the opposite in the liberal areas. Remember Kirk Cameron, up there in Californ-I-A, recently getting blasted for saying his piece about gay folk? It was just as bad a tar-and-feathering as if someone had walked into our local Dairy Queen and declared Jimmy Carter was the best president we've ever had. Man-oh-man, you better have some thick skin if your opinion goes against the grain of the local norm.

It makes me wonder, does the side you take really matter? Whatever side you're on feels just as strongly as the other about their own issues.What is it that makes people with differing opinions want to rip the others' throat out? A good debate is understandable, but why is a blood-letting, petty undermining and character assassination so close at hand? Do we just need a good rain?

ANYWAY, so whether you like the kids' music or not, let them have it. One day Nicki Minaj will go through menopause and Maroon 5 will be collecting Social Security. Ha-ha! Yes, now that will still be around.

Hobbs School to Sell By Sealed Bid

According to the April 26 issue of the Rotan Advance / Roby Star Record, Rotan Independent School District will be taking sealed bids on the Hobbs School Campus until May 16. The bids are to be left at the Superintendent's office. Contact Williamson-Branson Real Estate for details.

We Have a Name!

According to an April 19 article in the Oil and Gas Investments Bulletin, we are in the Cline Shale play. I kept running across the organization Devon in my research, and the information imparted by the author reinforces my idea that they are the big guys behind the recent leasing activity in Fisher County. Check out the Fisher County Oil & Gas Discussion on the Mineral Rights Forum website for more information. Also take a look at the Cline Shale discussion on the same site. Thanks to all the contributors there for enlightening us and also to the excellent oilfield journalists.

Hobbs School for Sale

Williamson-Branson Real Estate is now offering the Hobbs School campus for sale. Check out the details and spread the word. Wouldn't it be cool if a big college or university would buy it and use it as an extension? Texas A & M at Hobbs! University of Texas at Hobbs! Texas Tech at Hobbs! The University of Hawaii at Hobbs!

PB Oil & Gas Publishes Fisher County Article

RPQRR Rig

It's no secret, among neighbors, that everyone who owns mineral rights in Fisher County has been hit up for leasing or buying of said minerals. Rumors I've heard have offers ranging from $200 to $750 on the leases. No one I've talked to has had concrete information about what's going on, but today I ran across this article in The Permian Basin Petroleum Association Magazine:

Fisher County - A Quiet Little Boom, for Now.

Thank you, Moana Howard, for enlightening us.

The photo is a rig on the Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch, off FM 611. Word is that six other sites have been staked off in this location.

Tech Stuff: Smart Fortress 2012 Malware

It's been a while since I've had problems with the computer, but today I had one of those pop-up malware thingies that mimics your virus protection program. When I tried to open a file, program or browser, the rogue app would tell me it was infected and would prevent it from opening. I guess it's a scam deal, too, and they're trying to trick you into paying money for Smart Fortress 2012. I told my boy about it and he said "Look it up on YouTube!" So, I did and thanks to a video by Britec, I made short work of that piece of crud bug in my machine. I was also introduced to a few new and useful apps, one of which I will be keeping, Malwarebytes. It was nice to get rid of the problem in ten minutes instead of two weeks. I still have mixed up files from the virus I had in my computer three years ago. There's that ghost in the machine, again.

Life's Funny Little Paradoxes & Stuff

Look In the Middle

Yesterday, on a very nice afternoon, I was in the Ballinger Walmart, happily spending my money. I went to check out and just as the clerk was running my Corona over the scanner, a hubbub suddenly arose directly in the foyer. My hand was in mid-air as I looked out the front windows, only to see that the lovely blue sky and puffy clouds of the perfect day had disappeared and had been replaced with an opaque, swirling dust wall accompanied by a zipping sound. A manager-type person was running out the door and another manager-type person turned around and said "This is serious". Then it was over and a bunch of dazed, but unharmed, people stood around saying "Was that a tornado?" and "That was a tornado!". It knocked over a bunch of items that are kept outside in sidewalk-sale fashion and decimated a few plants. A woman and her son had been in the foyer, and, as I passed by on my way to the car (to get my id to buy the beer, believe it or not, haha!), she said the suction had nearly pulled them off their feet. A row of bicycles were also partially knocked over. The vapor in the middle of the accompanying photo is what was seen receding from the baby tornadoette scene.

What gets me is that the other night, when the cold front was coming in from New Mexico and a long squall line developed, reaching as far south as Big Lake and as far north as mid-Oklahoma, I stayed up all night watching it on radar, ready to go to the cellar. I was so prepared, the cellar top having been repainted to prevent leaking, the cellar itself had been cleaned and all bedding washed. I drug my kid down right when it started raining (I can only do this once, at the beginning of the spring weather season, after that I'm on my own in the hole), only to find myself hiding from gentle rain and a couple of lightning snaps. Then, here I am sashaying around Walmart with not a care in the world and zippety-pow! a tiny twister surprises me. There's a life lesson in that story, for sure, like "Quit worrying so damn much and enjoy living, 'cause you got no control over this thang!".

Me and the Mister have arrived at that time of life where we have no children in the household. They have taken over our former residence and we are now primarily stationed in the Concho Valley. I would have said 'finally arrived', but that's not what it feels like. When I was twenty-something, I could hardly wait for this day to come. Now that it is here, I've been too long in my kids loop to feel comfortable without them. I'm beginning to see why people (I would say elderly, but Lordy, what is that? My age?) have all the neighborhood children in, as some sort of way to ward off the empty feeling. The list of things that are bugging me are ridiculous. It's like saying I'm too comfortable. Here, you'll see what I mean: There aren't as many dirty clothes; no one eats the leftovers; there's always soda in the fridge; there's no one to clean up after (Mister's disarray is minimal). The only thing that doesn't look like a benefit is the milk goes bad before it's all used. I miss those little monsters. Even that is silly to say, because they both outweigh me by at least 50 lbs. Boy, this life is weird and strange.

But! I'm hell-bent on finding the fun in it.