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Behold the approach of the seven warning signs of Christmas

For the past several weeks I should have looked out for them. But today was when it really hit. I am talking about the seven warning signs of Christmas.

Now I’m not sure what all the signs are. But here I am on “Black Friday” — Really a horrible name for a day that is supposed gold for merchants who may finally get their books back in “black” — and here I was walking in Kroger earlier only to hear:

“Just hear those sleigh bells jingling,
Ring ting tingling too
Come on, it’s lovely weather
For a sleigh ride together with you … “

Such a wonderful song to hear where it has been cold enough to wear a sweater and a coat the last few days, only to get the shorts ready for another day or so.

Other signs abound. Commercials with Christmas music on TV. Santa Claus appears, though not ready for his IFR ride across the planet, at least the jolly fat man gets his lists together and gives them an initial once-over. Fat f***, I bet he doesn’t have Type II diabetes either. Ho, ho, ho.

Folks are out, shopping ahead of the crowd for their fake Christmas tree. As if the supply of faux spruces and firs will disappear, just as, did the old growth longleaf pines that once majestically stood over our deep pineywood lands in East Texas.

I can’t remember ever having anything but a real tree for Christmas when I was growing up in a small town in the boonies of Southeast Texas. Back in the day, property wasn’t all posted off to keep everyone away. The way things worked was that you went on the big forest tracts, most owned by the big timber companies, and you found a little tree to cut. It was the same as going hunting for squirrel, rabbit and even deer, when I was a kid. I’m not sure when it began, that the timber companies began leasing their land to sportsmen. That is, the land where they didn’t cut trees. And you just didn’t want to go on the timber company land for a tree anymore. You started worrying about things like trespassing. Or being hassled by a range rider, a private dick for large landowners who normally would just shoo you off the property on which you were trespassing. Some would hold you for the law. Some nuts would even shoot you.

My Daddy never had a chain saw. He always cut a tree with an ax, or a hatchet. I imagine if I went for a real Christmas tree, I would fell it with a chain saw. I’m too damn old and achy to cut down a tree with a hatchet

I am sure I will have to make a trek to some of the area shopping cities for work. But I have no interest in doing such for my own fun.

Anyway, the tell-tale signs are here. Can hear what I hear? Can you see what I see? Oh yes.

I had fun that one time I got to play Santa in a mall for a newspaper story. You know, a first-hand account, behind the scenes, an undercover account, the man behind the suit. But in the end, I had to go back and write a story about it. Ah, the damned quid pro quo again, taking me on a ride.

Oh well, ho ho ho. We’ll see more of these warning signs. Get ready for them. Have a good time. While you can

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Texans need fixing but keep it in perspective

The Houston Texans suck!

That seems to be a prominent sentiment in the sports world. The Houston broadcasters, at least at the station I halfway listen to, appear as if they are either jumping for joy or are just plain pissed off at the nine-game losing streak Houston has amassed. Even the heart and the soul of the team, Hall of Fame-bound receiver Andre Johnson, cannot let slide the horror that has become the Texans’ season.

“We suck,” Johnson told reporters.

Okay, at 2-9, the Houston Texans are bad. We get that. Why, will be one of these things studied like the conspiracy angles of the John F. Kennedy assassination. Well, perhaps not examined that deeply but will require study. The Texans were 11-2 last year, losing in the AFC playoffs to New England. Those two teams meet — Houston 2-9 and New England 8-3, oh my — Sunday in Houston. Houston was touted by many of the sports luminaries during pre-season as a Super Bowl favorite. But instead, the team has fallen like a house of cards. Why? We keep asking ourselves that very question.

The Texans have played while missing key stars including injured running back Arian Foster and linebacker Brian Cushing. On the coaching side, head coach Gary Kubiak suffered a transient ischemic attack, a.k.a. TIA or a mini-stroke. The last two games saw him leading from the boxes upstairs. Defensive coordinator Wade Phillips served as interim coach in two games, likewise losses, after losing his father and Houston favorite coach Bum Phillips. Phillips has held this interim position with several other teams and came to Houston after an unsuccessful stint as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. The difficult times for these coaches, in addition to coaching a losing team this year, came toward the last month or so. This story from Eric Frenz of Boston.com (Boston Globe) doesn’t really address why Houston is bad this season, rather he puts the Texans’ losses in context with what the Patriots face this Sunday.

Put this all together and you have a team that is losing and thus is hurting. That’s not a good situation for anyone, especially a pro football player or coach. There are mechanical aspects of the losses by Houston. Likewise there are psychological reasons both individually and team-wise. But it is, thus, the individual who knows they will feel the boos from the crowd. Plus, in this age of 24/7 news and gossip-mongering, the Houston players have to know that the most innocuous slip can put them in the headlines. Take this ridiculous excuse for a sports article: A big wad in the knickers seem to exist by someone over Washington Redskins QB Robert Griffin III receiving a visit in the locker room from his father after the team’s 26-7 loss to the San Francisco 49ers Monday night. How ridiculous!

There looms a ton of stupidity out in the world among those who watch and cheer for the NFL. Some of the ridiculousness will be shed off the backs of players. For others it will be too much. Take this sad tale of when NFL glory crashes and burns.

If something is wrong the problem may eventually be patched up and sent along its way. Too bad Jovan Belcher, who killed his wife then himself — the latter in front of his former Kansas City coach Romeo Crennel and GM Scott Pioli — could not find that fix.

Hopefully the ship that is the Texans will be righted. It might cause some heartaches. Some goodbyes, even to favored coaches or players, will probably happen. But hopefully fans and those involved in the game can keep in context that pro football is a game, albeit a very well-paying one at that.

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Man, there are Cajuns everywhere!

Yesterday I was waiting to have my name called for a nurse visit at the Beaumont (TX) VA Clinic. I listened to the cacophony of people’s names shouted out by folks in Primary Care mixed with those attempting to yell louder from the laboratory or X-Ray for patients. Soon, it hit me like a ton of boudain. This place has Cajuns up the wazoo.

A nurse would yell for “Mr. Breaux.” Then someone would holler “Mr. Led-ger,” her pronunciation for a Mr. Leger, which is most times spoken as “Lay’-jhay.” With those folks found, on the intercom came “Mr. Melancon please go to the pharmacy.”

I suppose I had me what us pseudo-intellectuals like to call an “epiphany.” I don’t know what my Cajun friends might call it, maybe an “epiphany.” Me, the pseudo-intellectual might say: “I had an epiphany this morning but I lost it in a paradigm shift.”

The northern part of Southeast Texas is where I was raised. I now live in Beaumont — the largest city in Southeast Texas if you don’t consider Houston as Southeast Texas — by way of Mississippi, the Western and Southern Pacific, as well as East and Central Texas. Now I must clarify the terms “East Texas” and “Southeast Texas.”

Folks down here in deepest Southeast Texas consider Jefferson, Orange, Newton, Jasper and Hardin counties as Southeast Texas. Okay, maybe even Tyler County. Now if you extend the boundaries of Cajun Country from the most southwestern Louisiana parishes into Orange and Jefferson counties, one might have to say the boundaries of Southeast Texas also include Calcasieu and Cameron parishes. Of course, we are talking cultural boundaries here.

I had a chief petty officer from Dallas who was master-at-arms, kind of like the head of the security guards, when I was stationed in Mississippi. We would argue to no end about what was and what isn’t in East and Southeast Texas. I said I was an East Texan. Because we didn’t have alligators and chemical plants where I grew up. But the chief said, “No that country is Southeast Texas.” After all these years, I have to say the chief was right (as always.) If geography didn’t make me a Southeast Texan, then I suppose demographics finally did.

We didn’t have many Cajuns where I grew up in northern Southeast Texas. Oh there were Cajun folks there. I had some good friends whose grandma spoke Cajun French. That was pretty exotic though. What happened was that some of the crackers in South Louisiana who saw the Cajun people as some kind of second-class folks. The Cajuns weren’t even  allowed for many years to speak or learn Cajun French in school. Then in the late 60s, a cultural revolution that hit the rest of the country came to Louisiana. And, in the intervening years, many Cajun folks had moved to Southeast Texas, for jobs related to the petrochemical industry and shipbuilding. The latter being mostly during World War II and the former after the war.

When I moved back to the Golden Triangle — Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange — I had to learn to pronounce many of the Cajun names I didn’t otherwise know. Why names like “Thibodeaux” and “Fontenot” (“the place is buzzing,” ‘ol Hank Williams sang.) take up considerable space in the “Greater Beaumont Area” phone book. Along with names like Chavez, Hernandez, and others I tried to correctly say I have somehow become at least partly apt at taking a spoonful out of the ol’ melting pot.

Some 40 years ago, I didn’t even know what boudain was, much less pronounce it. I remember when Mr. Latiolais (pronounced by him as “Latch’-o-lay,” some others with that name have different ways to say it) came to town and opened his supermarket called “Latch’s.” That was my first exposure to boudain and I fell in love even though some say “Ecchh” or “Nasty stuff.”

I have seen the Cajun culture grow in Southeast Texas, and around the country and even the world. Of course, we are part of Cajun Country even though we are Texans. So, yeah, there are quite a few Cajuns here. I am glad there are. I couldn’t imagine a world without Cajun cuisine or Cajun waltzes or Zydeco music. I know both states come with its baggage. Some of those first bags were made of carpet and we still see those types though they hide their bags. But this area of the country has become a much richer place to live.

 

 

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A rude awakening

A good antidote to spending an evening at work is a nap. Or maybe it isn’t I don’t know and I won’t know, at least in the short term. That is because a phone call on my iPhone awakened me just awhile ago with an apparently excited and definitely fast-talking man saying Ted Cruz needs money to fight Obamacare. Yeah, Ted. I got my checkbook on my desk … There it will stay, unopened, at least for anyone or anything associated with Ted Cruz. That is, unless the call wants a donation to defeat Ted Cruz, or run Ted Cruz out of Texas and back to Canada, or at least as far as Ok-la-homa.

To make matters worse this robocall was made on a supposed “Do Not Call” registry phone. It seems a lot of people don’t know that or choose to ignore it. I have received more and more unsolicited phone calls as of late. This started when I was furloughed from my job. That, of course, is the absolute best time to call someone to ask for money.

The call on Cruz’s behalf came from the Restore America’s Voice PAC. The link is to OpenSecrets.org. It has information that has been filed, so far, for the 2014 election cycle to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Some 362 individual contributions over $200 received by the PAC, whose treasurer is located in Stafford, Texas. Stafford is located in Harris and Fort Bend counties, in other words, a Houston suburb. Those of you familiar with the area may take that fact for what it is worth.

I have filed a complaint with the Do Not Call registry and am pondering a complaint with the FEC, for all the good it will do me. I can easily look up the phone numbers of those 362 donors, though not listed in the OpenSecrets.org information. I am pretty good at finding phone numbers. I have even improved my methods since leaving my job as a full-time reporter. So maybe I should find some of those numbers and call them during times they might be setting down for the evening meal or perhaps when they are asleep and say:

“This is the Committee to Run Ted Cruz Out of Texas and All The Way Back to Canada At Least As Far as Oklahoma Ted Cruz is a weaselly-little ambulance chaser or corporate attorney not that there is anything wrong with that and needs to go back to the country where he was born because we need a real American for president and U.S. Senator from Texas and not someone from Alberta that’s in Canada So send me all your money NOW NOW NOW!!! Paid for by the Committee to Run Ted Cruz Out of Texas and All The Way Back to Canada At Least As Far as Oklahoma.”

Except I can’t talk that damned fast. Maybe I will just ignore it.

 

 

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Little football for Texans but a lot of soap

What in the Sam Hill Freaking Yankee Doodle Dandy is going on with my alleged pro football team a.k.a. the Houston Texans?

Their eighth loss in a row to Oakland was the most pathetic of the team’s recent disasters. That is saying quite a bit because the Texans had their head coach back from a mini-stroke, although he did his stuff from way high above Reliant Stadium in the press box.

Even former starting QB Matt Schaub came back in the second half. He had what would have been a winning toss to one of the first Texans and best damn wide receiver in the universe, Andre Johnson, but it didn’t work out. It did result in a sideline tiff between Schaub and Johnson. Ever cool Johnson left the game to cool down as the Raiders were taking the winning knees. Johnson, of course, downplayed the spat. Kiss and make up? Don’t want to think about it.

Coach Gary Kubiak said rookie QB Case Keenum will start against next week’s game with Jacksonville. Keenum, who lets his balls (footballs) all hang out is fun to watch but that doesn’t always get the job done.

So what will happen next on “As The Texans Turns?” (“Or As Texans Fans Stomachs Turn.”) Will Schaub and Johnson make up? Oh man, don’t want to think about it. Will Keenum win his first start as a NFL quarterback? Will Wade Phillips take over for Gary Kubiak as head coach. Stay tuned. (Organ music please.)