A rainy day in Texas but not too tightened up as of yet

 It’s been a long, hot summer in Texas. Why, you might ask, isn’t it supposed to be?

 Well, yes and no. If you start looking at numbers like averages and means and the hypotenuse of the pituitary then you start getting your eyes all glazed over after becoming confused to the point that you just want to go back to bed.

 But there it is. Today has been one of those days when it’s nice to go back to bed. At least it seems like the typical early September day in Jefferson County, Texas (home to Spindletop and the modern oil bidness, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Harry James, Johnny and Edgar Winter, and last but certainly not least, Jason’s Deli.) It’s been cloudy, rainy and a bit on the humid side. Of course, humid is Beaumont’s middle name. Yes, I kid you not. Beaumont’s whole name is Beaumont Humid, Texas, Sr., with a Junior to be named for a Trey at a later date.

 It will only get wetter too, or so says the Bureau of Weather, also known as the “Bureau of Whether.” I am just joking. I have a lot of respect for the weather bureau and NOAA. Do you find some humor in the fact that the organization which controls the National Weather Service is called “Noah” as in “Hell, I don’t Noah, you build the ark.”

 And did you know there was a “Noah’s Ark Water Park?”

 “Rising in the Heart of the Wisconsin Drells, The Waterpark Capital of the World.” Check it out for yourself. Maybe you will even discover what the Wisconsin Drells are. Perhaps they are related to Archie Bell and the Drells . Archie Bell and the Drells hail a mere 90 miles away from me in Houston, Texas. I would not have known that fact had Archie not mentioned it in the intro to their hit “Tighten Up.”

   “Hi everybody/I’m Archie Bell of the Drells/From Houston, Texas/We dont only sing/but we dance/Just as good as we walk … “

 Then Archie and the band began tightening up everything from their drums to their bass to their guitar to their organ (or perhaps their organs) to the point that everything is pretty well tightened up. And just as tight as things can possibly be, someone from maintenance comes along, whips out his socket set and proceeds to untighten everything until there is nothing but a large mess of the untightened strewn from Houston to just the other side of Cut and Shoot. And yes, that is a real city in Texas.

 At some point in time, we hope that the meaning behind the lyrics concerning Archie and Drells singing and dancing “as good as we walk” will be revealed. I must point out here that perhaps it would not have been as funkified, but I think “or even better” at the end of  “as good as we walk” would have been an appropriate aside. It might have been funnier. But then, we are dealing with my sense of humor here. : ” :

 Anyway, it looks like rain for the next few days. Maybe even some flooding. But that’s just normal for early September in Beaumont, Texas. So I plan to stay high and dry. Well, dry at least. I plan to tighten up too. But not so much that my friends wouldn’t recognize me.