Month: April 2007

As mentioned Friday, it was sad to hear of the death of local police officer Lisa Beaulieu. She was killed Friday morning on a Beaumont, Texas, freeway after being struck by a suspected drunk driver while directing traffic at another accident. I did not know Officer Beaulieu but that type of news always hits hard in smaller cities like ours, perhaps even in large cities.

Today I learned of the death of another public servant whom I did know, I once worked with and considered a friend.

Capt. Ed Ivy of the Nacogdoches Fire Department in East Texas died of a heart attack while attending a firefighting conference out of town. He was 51.

Eddie was one of those larger-than-life creatures who crosses your path if you are lucky.

When I started fire academy in Nacogdoches some 29 years ago, I must admit I didn’t quite know what to make of Eddie. His brother, Danny and I were in the rookie school class together and the Ivy Boy’s cousin, Ricky, would rejoin the fire department a year or so later and would become a friend.

On the number of occasions I worked the same shift with Eddie, he definitely was the one who could get you to laugh with his stories told in his unabashed East Texas drawl. One of the funniest things I ever remember hearing Ed say was a quote for a story I wrote while attending journalism classes at nearby Stephen F. Austin State University.

During the period of time that John Travolta thrust the drugstore cowboy craze onto the country with “Urban Cowboy,” Eddy was one of a couple of firefighters who worked on their days off as real cowpunchers. I wrote a feature story for class about how Eddie and fellow firefighter Bob Templin moonlighted by rounding up cows for local ranchers.

Eddie told me about once having a cow fall over and having to give the bovine CPR.

“I didn’t give her mouth-to-mouth,” Eddie said, noting that he jumped up and down on the cow’s chest to get its heart going.

He was also one of those firefighters who put everything they had into battling blazes. Eddie was the type of fireman you wanted around when things got hairy.

Of course, it’s shocking to hear of a friend dying suddenly like that. Unfortunately, that is something that continues as a presence as you age. The situation reminded me of talking to a young woman tending bar awhile back. She was in her later 20s and spoke of a friend going through a divorce, something that she experienced a year or two before.

I told her that, yes, “I remember going through a period when my friends were getting divorces. Now, they are just dying.” I said that not altogether seriously but perhaps with a tinge of sincerity. I don’t know why I said it. Perhaps it was to make the young bartender aware of the fact that, although it is not fun to see your friends divorce, neither is it pleasant to hear of them dying. But that’s neither hear nor there.

It seems like life just doesn’t get any easier as we travel along this old cosmic interstate.

Adios Eduardo.

Sad news here in our city — Beaumont, Texas. A Beaumont Police Officer was killed after being hit by an alleged drunk driver while she was working a traffic mishap. Lisa Beaulieu is the first woman on the Beaumont force to be killed in the line of duty.

“Well, Granny never put any distinctions on any of God’s creatures. She always used to say, ‘Meat’s meat, and man’s gotta eat!”

Well hello friends and neighbors. As some of you may know, I was living for a couple of months out of my Toyota Tacoma, the small version of the pickup truck. Since finding a decent-paying part-time job with Uncle Sugar, I have mostly stayed in different hotels until I could find some living quarters which were both affordable and relatively decent.

As one surely knows, staying in motels gets expensive fast so I checked into one of the local roach motels yesterday to stay for at least a week. This gives me some breathing room that I have not had for awhile and will perhaps give me time to extensively search for a real place to live.

As motels go, and I lived for years in a motel on the outskirts of Waco so I think tha gives me some particular insight into the subject, the place in which I am staying is the mother of all dumps. Jeez, it is so trashy that I just don’t know where to begin describing its particular ambiance. So I will have to ask you to just trust me. That’s right, go ahead and kick the football whilst I hold it. I promise not to do a Lucy van Pelt on you.

But as crappy and exceedingly seedy as this motel is, I do have to remind myself that it fits a loose description of housing. It has cable TV, refrigerated air, a shower, a nice-sized closet and it has — even though I have not yet fell to temptation to try it out or even see if it still works — a coin-operated bed massage. If that’s not living, then I’ll kiss your ass.

So as a sign I saw on a motel marquis the other day: “Keep on the sunny side.” And it’s sunny when you are not exactly a street person.

Have a nice day. You deserved it.

Do you ever wonder what happened to Shirley Ellis? Who is Shirley Ellis, you might ask? I might have asked that too had I not heard the 1965 hit “The Name Game” playing in a restaurant earlier today. But I did not have to wait for long to find out who sang the somewhat funny yet somewhat annoying tune. It was:

“Shirley!
Shirley, Shirley bo Birley Bonana fanna fo Firley
Fee fy mo Mirley, Shirley!”

No. Seriously. I wonder what Shirley is doing? There certainly are much worse things for which to be known, like a mass murderer for instance. That’s all I’m saying.

Weasel and the white boys (not so) cool.

If you have ever read this blog before you know that certain individuals are usually identified by specific names that might not be their real names but rather something I call them. It isn’t that I call them these names because I might otherwise forget who they are. No, I only wish that I could forget some of these folks. For instance: Gee Dubya, a.k.a. President George Walker Bush, or The Weasel, a.k.a., Attorney General Alberto “V.O. 5” Gonzales. I call Bush Gee Dubya because others have beat me to other nicknames, the late Molly Ivins, for instance called him “Shrub.” I refer to our alleged attorney general as The Weasel because his expressions combined with his actions often remind me of a weasel. Of course, not all weasels are evil and arrogant.

With Gonzales being grilled recently in congressional hearings and hearing his name mentioned so much, naturally the Rickie Lee Jones song “Weasel in a White Boys Cool” ran through my head. I say naturally perhaps it is because of these lines from her great tune:

“He was pretty sleazy when I met him
A weasel in a poor boy’s wool … “

Of course, I never met Alberto but when I first started knowing very much about him was after he was already an attorney general who wonders why people get upset about torturing prisoners or eavesdropping on their phone calls without a warrant. The poor boy part is just, I guess, artistic license.

Whether this latest circus involving Gonzales and the firing of his U.S. Attorneys turns into something that will make him go away, either from the Justice Department or to prison, only time will tell. And one can only hope.

What is more important is why don’t you hear Rickie Lee Jones on the radio? Even some of the better stations I come across from time-to-time (across the board they aren’t in the southeastern part of Texas)don’t play anything Ricky Lee perhaps maybe “Chuck E.’s in Love.” That was not even the best song on her 1979 self-titled album. While I like “Weasel in a White Boys Cool,” the song, I think that even better is “Danny’s All-Star Joint.”

“Downstairs at Danny’s all-star joint
They got a juke box that goes doyt-doyt
The vice is nice, they stay in the back all day
But when the nighttime comes, hey-hey
There’s this cat down there that makes a bad kinda soup
I come around struttin’ my luck in my shoop coupe
Cecil gives me coffee
And he won’t never take my coin
I say, ” I got thirty dollars in my pocket!
Whatchoo doin’? “

I holler, ” Come on, Cecil, take a dollar!
Come on, Cecil, take a ten!
I’ve finally geared up into a whole buncha big ones
And you’re actin’ like I’m down-shiftin’ “

Then perhaps one of the best lines ever:

“I’m in a halfway house on a one-way street
And I’m a quarter past left alive “

Not that I’ve been in a halfway house on a one-way street or on any other kind of street, other than to visit someone. But I think the line puts into perspective just how screwed up things can be sometimes in your life.

Getting back to reality, relatively speaking, I don’t know what will happen to The Weasel Gonzales. But Rickie Lee has out a new album called “The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard” and I hope to hear it sometime. Maybe Gonzales will resign and perhaps Rickie Lee’s CD (I keep calling them albums for some reason, like being an ancient fart)will be wildly popular if it so deserves.

And maybe I will win the lottery. Rickie Lee probably has a better chance having another hit than fate dealing Gonzales a well-deserved losing hand (and my winning the lottery) But one can always dream.