Eight Feet Deep

It is a cool and rainy day on the Upper Texas Coast. It is the type of day that must’ve been good for liquor stores and the bootleggers before them in the little East Texas Pineywoods town just up the road where I was raised.

Back in the day the big bidness in my hometown was the woods. People made their living cutting and hauling timber, mostly pulpwood and logs. It’s funny watching that reality show, Ax Men, about loggers on the History Channel because the loggers on the show are so alien from the woodsmen where I grew up.

The show is set in Oregon and these dudes cut some heavy-duty wood in some very rugged terrain. East Texas logging and pulpwood hauling takes place in relatively flat or slightly hilly pine forests. There are other differences including cultural and racial ones between those in my part of the country and in the Northwest. Even the lingo is different. Those who cut trees in the TV show are called “Fallers,” or so I think. Where I grew up the people who fell trees are called “Flatheads.” I think the reason why should be obvious.

Getting back to my primary thought, those who sell liquor where I was raised should have made good money on rainy Fridays like today. At least that was the case when I was a kid. The why stems from the inability to get into the woods due to the wet ground. The roads in the woods, where they exist, are hardly Interstate 10 and of course the rain just makes matters worse. Thus, the hands might go in long enough to get paid, it being Friday, then skedaddle because they can’t work. And once you can’t work you certainly have to talk it over with your friends and co-workers over a six-pack or three or a bottle of I.W. Harper.

The pine forests of East Texas have long been home to what some refer to as the “Buckle on the Bible Belt.” Because of the heavy religious influence legal sales of alcoholic beverages in most areas there are a relatively new phenomenon. Portions of my hometown first voted in sales of beer, wine and liquor for “off-premises consumption” slightly more than 30 years ago. Before that one’s choices were limited if you wanted a “snort.”

One could drive across the river into Louisiana to such scenic places as Leesville (home of Fort Polk or as some soldiers who trained there called it, “Fort Puke.”) Then there was DeQunicy or Vinton. The nearest legal liquor in Texas was in Silsbee, just north of Beaumont until Browndell in northern Jasper County went wet. Browndell is a whole different story, being one of what I call “liquor towns” which sprung up in Texas over the years. These are tiny little incorporated cities which exist for no reason except to sell booze in otherwise “dry” areas. Such cities in East Texas include Seven Oaks on U.S. Hwy. 59 in Polk County and Cuney on U.S. Hwy. 175 in Cherokee County.

If one didn’t care to make the haul out of town or ran out of hooch before legal liquor came to town the only choice would be to buy from a bootlegger. Now when I say bootlegger I am not talking about the long-bearded hillbillies who make corn squeezin’s and play hide and seek with the “revenuers.” No these were men and women, in my town who sold hooch at inflated prices.

These bootleggers operated with the full knowledge of local authorities back then. Once in awhile the state would bust them and sometimes the local yokels would tip them off while other times John Law would let the illegal booze merchants take a hit for appearance’s sake. I remember one summer afternoon while at a bootlegger’s place, I saw a flat-bed truck drive up with its bed filled with jail inmates from the adjacent county. They had been doing some work for a certain county official and stopped to get some refreshments for the ride back to the slammer.

Well, I certainly rambled on from a simple little comparison about the rainy Friday afternoons of my younger days and the present day. I am sure some of my story must sound foreign to people who always had a convenience store or liquor store around the corner, but that’s just how it was. I am also sure rainy Fridays in places where alcoholic beverages have always been sold likewise produce some good business with construction workers who are rained out as well as other folks who just want to start the weekend early. Rain, rain go away? No thanks.

It is somewhat difficult to write something with a modicum of thought when the writer is in a pissy mood. What put me in a pissy mood is irrelevant. Even I don’t fully know why my disposition is foul. It is a combination of factors.

But aren’t you always pissed off, you might ask? And your point is … ?

That isn’t to say I can’t write when I am of ill humor. I don’t know how many words I have written while pissed off over the 17 years I worked full time for newspapers. If a way existed to determine that number of words typed while ticked I am sure it would be a number or a percentage of such sheer size that it would depress me.

A great difference may be found in writing for work, especially under a tight deadline, and writing for the pure pleasure. Yes, I write this blog for pleasure. It’s a hobby and one which helps me to keep in touch with the thought processes I must summon when I have, what has become, the occasional writing job these days.

Interestingly enough, once I became good at deadline writing I found I enjoyed it albeit in palatable doses. I did “rewrite” during certain breaking stories. It wasn’t so much that I handled that task because of my skill, it was more like I just happened to be on top of the event and ran with it. For non-newspaper people, when I say rewrite, I refer to taking calls from reporters in the field and writing them into an ever-developing story. The only monetary prize I received in my career as a full-time journalism — my half of a $1,000 company-wide award shared with another reporter — was during a breaking story in which I did the rewrite. I have to say that I miss the adrenalin buzz from breaking news, but not enough to quit what I am doing and going back to work for a newspaper.

I seemed to veer off the original subject a bit even though that is okay. The point I wanted to make is that although at times I am might possess a bad mood I can still write and sometimes just the action of putting together words — perhaps cleverly every once in a while — can lighten my mood.

I like to control my writing. I like to herd my wording like an old-time cowboy pushing those “little doggies” up the trail. I don’t always succeed either. But I also exercise more control when my mood is sufficiently stable and free from a sudden “damnittohell.” So, I’ll just kick back today and not attempt to write anything requiring much thought and I will hibernate thus lessening the chance of compounding my “tickedoffedness.” Is tickedoffedness a word? It should be.

 

In a grocery store earlier today I saw a sight that caused my jaw to nearly drop. The store folks were changing out prices in their cigarette case and they were putting up a sign for a carton — Marlboros I believe — priced at $60. That is Sixty Dollars a carton!

Over the past 10 years I have felt better and better about having quit smoking for health reasons as well as when prices go up, and they have steadily risen over time. But Holy Sprio Agnew! I never would have imagined seeing a carton of cigarettes selling for so much.

For those who are either so addicted or so rich they can still smoke, I am sure the reason for some of these increases will really tick you off. The best that I can call them are “pre-emptive tax hikes.”

This story in today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch explains:

“Just last Saturday, cigarette makers Philip Morris and Lorillard hiked the cost of cigarettes by $10 a carton. On Monday, R. J. Reynolds will follow suit. And that’s before the federal tax hike kicks in next month that’ll tack on an extra $6 or so for each carton.”

The rationale is the anticipated federal tax hikes hit carton sales the most because people buy cartons when the taxes increase. But cigarette manufacturers make less money that way thus the price increase.

All of this makes me wonder if eventually government will tax themselves out of a source of revenue by making cigarettes too expensive for anyone to purchase? Of course, you can still can get a pack of Bugler tobacco with which to roll your own for pretty cheap. I guess once cigarettes are no longer a source of tax revenue then they’ll go after rolling tobacco. Oh well, it’s no longer my worry. Thank goodness.

Has your head hurt more lately than normal? If that is the case one reason may be hot air.

A study published in the Neurology medical journal has concluded higher temperatures as well as low air pressure play some part in headaches. As one who suffers migraine-like headaches due to degenerative arthritis of the cervical spine, the latter part of that isn’t much of a surprise.

Periods of intense low barometric pressure such as from hurricanes and from certain types of winter storm systems often leave me feeling I was dragged through Hell hanging on to a sack of manure and the sack broke apart. I have read a good deal about the relationship or supposed relationship between low air pressure and arthritis but I don’t think any type of definitive link has ever been established. My friends sometime think I am stuck in the 19th century when I speak of my weather-related aches and pains.

But the higher temperature related to headaches is interesting. I have had headaches during times in which I was hot, including a few bouts of heat exhaustion. Also, I have seen people use a cool, wet rag on their head as a remedy for headache.

Given such news as this link between heat and low air pressure, it immediately gives me pause as to whether superheated air might be unhealthy such as that coming from our politicians. Of course, I don’t know whether all that hot air from places such as Washington and my state capital of Austin would produce high or low air pressure but either way I am sure if one is around it enough they are sure to get a headache.

But I also worry what might happen if all that hot air is not given a means to vent. Could you imagine? Why one day we could have a cataclysmic explosion (or implosion) from all that unvented hot air. So it seems we might have to choose. Do you want a headache, or do you want the Big Bang II?

Much ado about Barbie turning the big Five-O. I have to admit, the old gal still looks pretty good although it helps when you’re skin is plastic.

To celebrate five decades of America’s doll, Barbie is getting fabulous digs in Malibu as well as tattooed, whether that is as in “screwed, blued and tattooed” one can only guess. Ken is probably off somewhere searching for his Viagra.

Just what kind of scandal may result after Barbie finishes partying with the Hollyweird crowd remains to be seen. Of course, controversy and a hard-partying lifestyle has never been far from Barbie.

Barbie, born Barbie Jo MacAlister, grew up the daughter of a single mother who waited tables in a diner outside Cut and Shoot, Texas. The mother-daughter duo lived in a series of mobile home parks until being discovered by Mattel company officials.

With America in what some perceived as a more innocent age during the time of Barbie’s discovery, Mattel executives originally sought to mass market the Barbie as a very inexpensive doll whom young, impoverished girls could emulate. However, a focus group quickly steered the toy company away from the idea thus scrapping the idea for “Trailer Park Barbie Jo.”

The life of Barbie is the life of America over the past 50 years. If ever a trend surfaced, Barbie rode the crest of that trend. There was Beatlemania Barbie, Acid-Head Barbie, Patty Hearst Barbie, Punk Barbie, Saturday Night Fever Barbie, Urban Cowgirl Barbie, Flashdance Barbie, Wall Street Barbie, Coke smuggler Barbie, Federal Inmate No. 687743 Barbie, White House Intern Barbie, Pregnant Barbie, Conservative Blonde Talk Show Barbie and most recently AARP Barbie.

While some have expressed worries about the exposure from the 50th celebration of Barbie, they can rest assured that the Plastic One has kicked up her heels enough that she is in all likelihood too pooped to have a mid-life crisis.

Here is to another 50 years, Ensure Barbie and whatever the future holds.