Truth

We all have our obsessions. At least most of us do. An obsession-free life must certainly be a boring one. One of mine is verisimilitude in film making. Yeah, I know you’re probably tired of it by now. But just think.

How many times have you seen an actor empty a semi-automatic pistol only to have it go “click, click” after the clip is empty? It doesn’t do that. The slide just stays back, that’s all. No, it’s not dramatic from a photographic viewpoint. But that’s what it does.

We won’t get into World War Two scenes where every member of a rifle squad carries a Thompson sub-machine gun.

Oh, and guess now many bursts of full-automatic rifle fire you get with an M-16, or whatever they call them these days? Hint … it ain’t 15 or 20 like the movies would have you believe. Free historical fact: When the Russians designed the AK-47, they purposely made it cumbersome to shift to “full-automatic” so the untrained wouldn’t fire bursts, but would stick to single rounds. Oh, and despite what the producers would have you believe, the NVA regulars were excellent shots, much better, apparently, than the Empire Storm Troopers.

Watched the John Wayne classic, The Searchers the other day for maybe the millionth time. Great flick. Unarguably his best. The opening scene may form one of the best brief shots in cinematic history. But, you know what a fool I am for accuracy. I’ve never gotten over the image of a working cattle ranch in Monument Valley. Free historical fact two: The reason those cattle ranges in Texas are so huge is not the result of manly bravado. They developed from the fact that it takes a hundred acres of land to support a cow and calf in Texas.

While I’m at it, did anyone ever tell the screenwriters in the western genre how long a horse could carry a grown man before it required a meal?

Ever notice how most of the fathers in the golden era of studio movies averaged, maybe, 65 years of age? Couple that image with all of the pre-teen children and you get some additional respect for the “Greatest Generation.”

Stay tuned. Someday I’ll post my choices for bad casting choices. Hint, David Carradine as Woody Guthrie stands above them all like Mount Everest over a field of ant hills. Be thinking about your candidates.

They're gonna have pills
some day that do what?

Worthy Labors

Random thoughts on a lazy Labor Day:

Unlike the other adults of the 327 million Americans, I have no “bright-line” solution to the mass shootings that plague the United States at present. I am, though, struck by the coincidence of these latest rampages and my reading of Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide by Tony Horwitz.

Horwitz follows the travels of Fredrick Law Olmsted who, before coming America’s most renown landscape architect, was a journalist who made a couple of trips through the pre-Civil War South and transmitted his observations for publication in the fledging New York Times.

May I surprise the reader by saying that Horwitz’s book amazes in two ways. The first is in the difference between the American South of the 1850s and the American South of today. The second raison d'étonnement is the similarity between the American South of the 1850s and the American South of today.

What concerns me most today is Horwitz’s impression of modern Texas. Let’s just say he isn’t kind in many ways. The most apparent observation is the hard-headed belief among so many Texans that paradise lies in a rather unique world. That world stays free from any moral strictures other than selected (very carefully selected) passages from the Bible, especially selected parts written by Bronze-Age nomads. If, only: everyone wore guns, the earth needed no protection from us, the “least of those among us” deserved no help from us, greed borne aloft by self-reliance was the only worthwhile catalyst worthy of rule-making, and the only governmental needs were local and national armed forces necessary to see that no one took our well-deserved wealth from us, the world would be pleasant. Yes, it would be pleasant indeed.

In other words, as James Madison posited, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

Or, as Texans and most other Southerners seem to believe, “If we each carried a Glock strapped around our fat asses, there would be no gun deaths in America.”

Of course, the old South thrived, as Olmsted observed, on the use of slave labor as the primary foundation for that self-reliance. What must unnerve thinking people is the number of modern Americans, many with vast amounts of wealth and power such as the late David Koch, who still support slave, or near-slave labor for individual enrichment.

That brings me to another thought on this day on which we honor the simple and highly-lauded act of honest labor. And, I won’t forbear noting that the time to contemplate these thoughts is not provided today by self-reliant capitalists. It is provided by the blood of organized laborers.

Now, a couple of New Testament parables have always bothered me. The first is that of The Prodigal Son. I’ll attend it in a moment. The biggie, though, is the sad story of paying the laborers. You remember the story, as told in The Gospel of Matthew 20:1-16. As summarized by Matthew L. Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, Saint Paul, Minnesota:

“The story goes like this: Early in the morning, a landowner (who seems to represent God in this parable) hires people to work in his vineyard for the standard daily wage. He hires additional people at 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m. and again at 5 p.m., telling each of these groups that he will give them “whatever is right.” When the hot workday ends, he first pays the folks who labored only a single hour the standard daily wage, the same amount he pledged to those who worked nearly sunup to sundown. When the members of that full-day crew get to the front of the line, they receive the same amount, exactly what they were promised.”

Now ain’t that something? Try that with the crew at the donut shop. But, as Professor Skinner points out, the Galilean’s parables “ …often include absurd behavior to deliver their message.”

But what in tarnation is the message?

Allow me dive off the high board. I think, see, based on a fairly close study of the Scriptures, that some parables weren’t designed by the authors to teach precise moral lessons. Rather, they were written to ward off disquietude among the early Christian cult members.

In my view. The Galilean is voiced to assure early converts that any "laborer" who accepts the invitation to the work in the vineyard, i.e. the Kingdom of Heaven, no matter how late in the day, will receive an equal reward with those who have been faithful the longest. Case closed.

Of course, the parable of the prodigal son not only confused me, as the oldest son in our family. It really pissed me off, for reasons obvious to anyone who knew my family. "Work? We don’t need no stinkin’ work. Go have fun, they’ll take you back."

Then one day I realized that the parable wasn’t about children at all. It was about apostates. Should the early church groups re-admit those who had strayed from the righteous path but who wished to “return to the fold” and escape the horrors of a greedy and self-reliant secular world? Muslims can kill them. Christians must take them back into the fold.

I think the Amish practice of Rumspringa is somewhat mythically viewed as a time for adolescents to experiment with sex, drugs, and other worldly pleasures. At any rate, a period of absence from religious constraint may simply represent a socio-religious rite of passage. It makes more sense than coddling wastrels.

That’s all my head-spinning for today. I think I’ll go listen to some Bach, and offer thanks for having been a member of a family with a long tradition of being workers that needed not be ashamed of their labors.

A whip or a good Glock will keep her
from taking what is rightfully mine.

Movie review time ...

Been watching a good film lately, several times in fact. To see it, you will need Netflix. I’m talking about the Netflix film The Highwaymen. It tells the story of two aged Texas Rangers, Frank Hamer (Kevin Costner) and Maney Gault (Woody Harrelson) who set out to stop the murderous rampage of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. It is superbly done, worth watching, if for no other reason, than to see actress Kim Dickens playing Hamer’s wife. Ahh.

We might view the film as a correction of the 1967 (highly romanticized and inaccurate) version that pictured Frank Hamer, known as the most famous Texas Ranger of all, as a bumbling meanie played by Denver Pyle. This new film doesn’t always follow history, but the inaccuracies derive from maintaining a storyline and screenwriter’s license. It plays heavily on the popular adoration of the outlaws. Actually, as Jeff Guinn tells us in his meticulously researched biography Go Down Together, the public allure of the pair disappeared after the April 1, 1934 cold-blooded murder of Texas Highway Patrolman H.D. Murphy near Grapevine, Texas.

Guinn says that one of the other gang members did the murder, not Bonnie or Clyde. But Patrolman Murphy was engaged to be married, and after his finance wore her wedding dress to his funeral, public sentiment for the country’s most famous criminal pair evaporated like a Texas wind funnel.

The interplay between the old rangers is a marvelous bit of cinema, played by two great talents who aren’t afraid of growing old on screen. I can’t imagine how the producers managed to capture the look and feel of Depression-era America, but they did. Wonderful, wonderful, film.

I became fascinated with Bonnie and Clyde as a pre-teenager because I thought they looked a bit like my mother and daddy. You can imagine the fantasies that produced. The fascination continued into adulthood and culminated some months ago in a road trip with pal Sonny Rhodes. We trekked to the actual site, near Gibsland, Louisiana, where the duo was gunned down, sans Mirandizing, by a group of law officials that included, yes, Frank Hamer and Maney Gault.

Oh, and I leave you with a tidbit from Arkansas. One brief scene in the film shows Frank Hamer reviewing crime scene photographs of some victims of Bonnie and Clyde. One quick snippet is, I am told by Alma, Arkansas officials, the actual photo of Marshall Henry Humphrey.

As the city marshal of Alma, he was making his rounds on the night of June 22, 1933, when he was surprised by Bonnie and Clyde's gang. They forced him into the town bank, tied him to a pillar with baling wire, and stole the bank's small safe. They even stole Humphrey's gun.

The next afternoon he again unexpectedly ran into the gang, this time on a road north of town. A shootout ensued, Humphrey was mortally wounded, and the gang then stole his replacement gun. The city recently erected a monument to Marshall Humphrey.

Bonnie and Clyde were holed-up in a motel in Oklahoma at the time, having sent the gang members to Fayetteville to rob a grocery. The film (somewhat) accurately pictures Bonnie with a limp from being burned with battery acid when Clyde ran their car off a bridge. Guinn says that, by the time of her death, Clyde actually had to carry her.

The duo appears only briefly in the film. They mostly serve as off-screen presences. The film is about Hamer and Gault, two old lawmen sharing one more adventure with grouches and insights sharing equal billing..

Watch the film. It’s real sleeper. If you don’t have Netflix, subscribe. Else ways, burst in on someone who does. Not me though, some other feller.

Where the crime spree ended.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 27 (Cont._2)

Our visit with the parents went well. They were the kind of people I had known all my life, only lacking some of the prejudices that so stain the South. We discussed those on the way back and both felt that perhaps things were improving racially. On the other hand, perhaps then, in 1972, the old hatreds were simply disappearing underground, waiting to re-surface into a more welcoming environment someday. Who knew? We didn’t.

Back at my apartment, she found an old hat that Gary Toler had solemnly presented to me after a night of drunken singing. I was straightening a closet and had laid the hat on the bed. He claimed it belonged to a Texas grandfather of his who had been a genuine cowboy. I had intended to return it to him, but, as you will see, that never happened.

It turned out that Brenda had an uncommon fondness for all things Texan. Her own grandfather had been born there before his family moved east. Her grandmother had married and moved to San Antonio when she was 15, living there until widowed, returning to Arkansas to marry Brenda’s grandfather and start a new family.

Anyway, she put on the cowboy hat and it became hers in that instant. I wondered, as she admired herself in the mirror, if it meant we were “going steady.” I hoped so. A man couldn’t keep company with a cuter person than the one I saw modeling that ancient hat, whether it had belonged to a real cowboy or not.

We went to the patio to enjoy the last of the daylight. Putting on the hat must have performed magic. It unloosened a flood of memories and thoughts that left me spellbound and stricken. Sitting across from me, her hair cascading from beneath the time-stained felt, she smoked, sipped a beer, and talked.

She told me about how her grandmother’s first husband had died of tuberculosis shortly after their child was born. The young widow, still in her teens, had boarded the train in San Antonio with her infant child and made the long trip back to Arkansas alone. The husband, whose family lived back East somewhere, lay in an unvisited and lonely grave outside a small Texas town, unknown, as the immortal tribute goes, “except to God.”

“His family did construction projects for the railroad,” she said. They sent him to Texas thinking the dry climate might be good for TB. It didn’t work.”

She reached and tipped the brim of the hat up an inch and looked at me with a solemn intent that almost caused chills. “Someday,” she said, “I’m going out there and find that grave. He deserves a visitor.”

I had no doubt she would, as she looked at me in that bizarre hat. Lord, what a woman. Outside, the sun set, bidding farewell to a marvelous day and leaving red skies of delight as a final blessing. The world turned mellow as she talked about Texas and other things. I decided then and there to attempt an escalation of our budding relationship. Did I dare? Why not? Success awaits the bold.                                 

“How would you like,” I said, “to go with me to a planning commission meeting this week?

Heck you would have
fallen for her, too.

Growing Up Southern: March 6, 2018

Must go earn today. Will be fun to see my friends and associates in Searcy Arkansas. Not much time, but here's my favorite joke ever. It was told to me by my late Uncle Joe Henderson, who used more earthy language in the telling, so use your own imagination.

A guy walks into state headquarters in Alaska and says he wants to become a citizen.

Clerk sends him to the right place, a small cabin outdoors. He repeats his wish.

"Ain't that easy, another man says. You have to pass a test."

"I can pass any test you have," the applicant says."I'm from Texas. What must I do?"

"First, down a quart of Alaskan home brew."

"No problem. I'm from Texas, raised on it."

"Then  you must wrestle a grizzly bear."

"No problem. We grow 'em big down in Texas."

"Then make love to an Eskimo woman." (Here Uncle Joe told it better).

"No problem. I'm from Texas. You ever seen one of our homecoming queens?"

"Are you sure?"

"Let's get started. I'm from Texas and this won't cause me a sweat."

So he drinks a quart of Alaskan home brew. He wobbles a bit, but manages, "Next?"

The clerk points toward the woods and the man stumbles out. Soon, there is the awfullest commotion you ever heard. There were sounds of screams, thrashing about, trees breaking, and dirt flying. After awhile, the man emerges all scratched and bruised, with his clothes in tatters.

"Now," he says, "Where's that Eskimo woman you wanted me to wrestle?"

Well, when you're fourteen and on your first fishing trip with the grownups, that's funny. I don't care who you are.

Growing Up Southern: September 14, 2017

It's the only building I ever designed. The company I worked for couldn't find anyone else to do it. That was over 35 years ago. It's not an award-winner, but it's held up pretty well. 

Paid a visit to the small Southwest towns of Fulton and McNab Tuesday evening. It’s an interesting part of the state, if you look in the right places. The fire station/library/meeting hall sits in Fulton. That's one thing.

The two towns account, between the two of them, for a population of around 300 people. But they turned out a room full of folks who were determined not to let fortune pass their communities by, as it has so many small, rural towns in Arkansas.

Times are hard for such communities these days. The cost of providing public services has risen to the point where it is almost impossible to maintain the facilities and systems required for them. Young folks want to live where the action is. Old folks want to live near medical facilities. Folks in between want to live where it’s not too far to drive to work and their kids can go to “good schools,” whatever that means.

It is hard for the Fultons and McNabs to compete.

There occurred a major reason for hope a few years back. A company announced plans for a major coal-powered generating plant, now operating on a site about halfway between the two communities. The 600-megawatt facility employees over 100 people in what is a highly technical operation.

The plant hasn’t resulted in major growth for the two communities. The site is within fairly easy commuting distance from the State of Texas, just across the Red River from Fulton. That state has no income tax, so guess where local workers choose to live?

Speaking of Texas, Fulton was the site of a major supply and “jumping off” spot for those who eventually led the fight to remove what is now Texas from Mexico. Supposedly, Stephen F. Austin operated a supply store temporarily there. The towns are near Old Washington, the Confederate capital of the state and the site of some marvelous old homes. Troops marched and camped all around the area during the 1860s unpleasantness but no major battle ever took place. The two towns are only a few miles from the City of Hope, boyhood home of President William Jefferson Clinton. The area claims a spot in our state’s history.

We met in a first-rate community center in McNab, the result of efforts by energetic mayor. The communities plan to work toward more park and recreation facilities. I told them that was a good start toward making their cities more attractive to new residents. It’s going to be a “hard row to hoe” for those folks, but I left feeling optimistic. The land around is pleasant, green, and unspoiled. The towns are located practically on Interstate 30. People seem nice. The leaders have hope and energy.

And who knows? The next Walmart may decide to locate its headquarters there.

She has held up pretty well
for nearly 40 years.