BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I DID THE STROLL

I went to the local pub Saturday night to see Swan Song, the Led Zeppelin tribute band.

A girl asked me if I knew how to dance to Led Zeppelin.

“Sure” I said "Its easy....just unbutton your shirt, stick a sock in your pants and pretend you are Robert Plant."

LOVE AT FIRST BITE

Aunt Laura Lee. She specialized in drop biscuits and fig preserves and raucous laughter. When I went to Alto, the little town where she and all my folks on my mothers side hail from, back in May, my cousin Khim told me a story about her I’d never heard. 

It seems back in the 30’s, during the Great Depression, she and her mother, my grandmother, opened up a little roadside café. My grandmother cooked, and Laura Lee Williams, she waited tables. When business was slow, she would go out to the side of the road, Highway 69, and she would sing. If you'd have blinked you would have missed Alto, but you could not miss Laura Lee in her apron, belting it out. In 1935 she would have been 24, with legs that went all the way to the ground, and flashing blue eyes, and hair that hung down in ringlets. She sang everything from “Cheek-To-Cheek”, the song made famous by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, to Shirley Temple's “Animal Crackers in My Soup”; she would sing at the top of her lungs at the side of the road. 
(this may explain a lot about yours truly) 
And that is how she came to meet her future husband, Jack Phillips. 
She sang him into the café one day, and it was love at first bite!
After he retired some 50 years later, Jack Phillips was County Judge for Cherokee County, and she was his secretary for about 15 years. He was one of these West Texans that basically talked with his mouth shut, between his teeth. They are different from East Texans that way. Laura, she talked with her mouth wide open, and when she laughed it was a big laugh, raucous, with her head throwed back.
Me and Shila passed through one year on our way to a fishing trip at Toledo Bend. We stopped at the Court House to visit them. While we were there, the phone rang. All we got was one side of the conversation:
"County Court, this is Laura, how can I help you?" "Hello Harlan, how is Phyllis?" "You don't say?" "Bless her heart, you give her our love. What can I do for you?" "Yes, I know that bridge, its Andersons Crossing" "Did they? Oh no, not again" 
(raucous laughter) "Is the fire out?" “That's good they had some barricades to put up. Wouldn't want anyone running off into the Angelina river.” (more raucous laughter) "Well, Harlan, they burn that bridge down every year just before deer season" 
(more raucous laughter; apparently burning Andersons Crossing somehow enhances the deer hunting in that region between Cherokee and Anderson County) "We'll let the roads department know, thanks for calling Harlan" (hanging up phone, more raucous laughter, hollering to Jack through the door to the judges office) "Jack, they burned Andersons Crossing down again last night!" (silence from the judges office, then a soft whisper, like a man talking through clinched teeth echoes back) "Well, shoot, they do it every year. When are we going to get us a metal bridge?"

Uncle Jack, you may recall from a previous story, is the "the good man with the barbed wire wit and big heart" who had told me when I was 4 years old that my mother had fallen into the well, and the only way to get her back was to go in the house and turn the faucet on, which I did, crying my fool head off.

BULLET HOLES ART

My tapestry. Finally hanging on a wall again, MY wall, after many many years. Its one of a set of four. I used to have two of the four, the first having belonged to my grandmother. I was completely fascinated with it from when I was a little boy. I ran across the second of the set (the one pictured above) a long time ago, and it became my life ambition to find the other two.
I have since lost, through neglect and dissipations of a personal nature, one of the two I had. It is still my life ambition to replace that one, and to find the other two as well.
Take a good look at this. Should you ever run across one of the other three that go with it, you will know immediately, and I hope will make haste to contact me.

********

I wrote the above a while back, and posted the image to Facebook. It was a desperate plea to replace the one I lost, and maybe find the other two that go with the set.

That very week i was looking on EBAY and found the missing Tapestry, one just like the one my grandmother had given me, the one I was so fascinated with as a boy. 

100 bucks, an auction item on EBAY. 

With much excitement, I placed my $100 bid an hour before the auction expired, and was over joyed to find that I had won, and the missing tapestry would be replaced....

From the picture you really can't get a feel for the scale. The piece is almost 6 feet long and  2 feet wide.
But not so fast...
It was my first experience with EBAY, and imagine my disappointment when the seller contacted me and said he was withdrawing the item, cancelling the sale.
His reason? He says he did not ask for enough for the tapestry, and it was worth much more that the $100 he had started the bid at.
"How much more?" I asked, because I want that tapestry more than anything in the world.
"Five-Thousand Dollars!" he said "Thats what it appraised at in 1978"
"Well, sir " I said "Your $5000 tapestry didn't garner much interest at $100. In fact, if it weren't for me coming along with my interest, and my interest being solely sentimental, you would have had zero bids at the $4900 discounted price. so why don't you go ahead and name a reasonable price, and we can go from there"

It didn't do any good.
I never heard back from him, saying he might take two hundred, or two thousand for it. I really can't imagine what his deal is.
I don't believe for a minute this tapestry is worth $5000 to anyone but me.
But one thing is for sure....that tapestry is out there somewhere, and I'll bag it.
I will bag it one day.

The one pictured at the top of the post that I still have, I bought that one in a junk shop back in 1983 for 40 bucks. Funny about that one...I've actually seen it in a movie one time, but it was a movie I'm best not to discuss, even here at Bulletholes...

Anyway, as I said earlier, take a good look at these. If you should run into one of the set it will be obvious, and I hope you will make haste to contact me.

Oh, here is a painting I have hanging on my wall. It is the same painting that is above the mantle in this image. it was my grandfathers. I wish I knew who the artist was.

DAD FISHING

I thought I had lost this picture a few years ago. It was very upsetting because I don't have too many pictures left of the old man. I don't even have much stuff of his left, like the tackle box that sits in front of him here, and all the lures that were in it. I enjoyed them for a while, and lost them, and I wish I'd set them aside, just so that I could look at them one more time, and show them to my boy, that he might enjoy them too.

But after I moved last month I came across the envelope that had gone missing, the envelope that said "Dad Fishing" on the outside, and to say I was overjoyed to find what was in it would be an understatement.

I don't know why I am such a sentimental fool, and so full of nostalgia, except to say that I love my memories, even the ones that hurt, even the ones that make me so crazy sometimes.  This picture was taken in March of 1958, I wouldn't be a year old yet, and as I remember Dad is at Lake Benbrook, pulling out of the Marina in Uncle Perk's boat, and I cant tell you how cool it is to think he fished wearing a tie and a fedora hat, like Rock Hudson in "Man's Favorite Sport".

 I can tell you that one of those lures in the top tray is a Heddon "Crazy Crawler" and it fetches about 80 bucks these days. but that is nowhere near the value this picture has for me.

248 WITH MY SHOES ON

Another good Dr. visit.
I lost another 2 pounds, and broke 250 for the first time since sometime in 2008. For the first time since I got the diabetes, for the first time since I had wild weight fluctuations from being on the “Jenny Crank” diet.
I've lost almost 30 pounds since April.

FYI, if you find yourself suddenly extremely thirsty and peeing all the time for a week or two, this is a warning sign of diabetes. If you are drinking 2 gallons of tea a day and still thirsty, and suddenly your vision goes blurry while you are peeing (because you are peeing all the time), well my friend, you are having diabetes.
One day while I was drinking and peeing, not knowing I had diabetes, I wrote this little song to the tune of Steppenwolfs “The Pusher”.
Seems almost prophetic now.
I sent it to Buddy Whittington a long time ago to see if he might want to use it, but he turned me down. Damn.

THE BAKERMAN
You know I smoked a lotta’ Perch,
Oh Lord
You know I mopped a lotta’ spills
But I never Poached nuthin’, noooooo,
That would have been better Grilled
You know I seen a lotta’ people walkin’ round
With Pate’ a Choux in their eyes
But the Baker don’t care, if they live or if they die

Got dang, mmm, the Baker
Got dang, hey hey, the Baker
I said got dang, got dang, the Bakerman

You know the Pastry Chef is a man
With the Love Dough in his hand
He’s got Eclairs an' Tarts an' Pastries
Good God, he’s not a Protein man
Aww, The Baker for a nickel Lord,
will sell you lots of Sweet Creams
You’ll get the Body Fat
And the Dia-bee-tees
There'll be little sprinkles and Confection Sugar
When you Sneeeeeeze

I said, Got dang, the Bakerman...

Well now if I were the Manager of this Hotel
You know I’d report the Bakerman
Immediately to “Personnel”
I’d toast him if he stands and
I’d truss him if he runs
I’d kill him with my Butchers mallet,
I'd Saute’ him till he’s done…

I said Got Dang, the Bakerman...