Travel with a Twist

IN RESPONSE TO GOV. RICK PERRY, LOCO JOE THROWS HAT IN RING

2011-08-21T17:20:00.005-04:00

PRESIDENTIAL PLATFORM OUTLINED

_________________________________

Candidate Loco & 1st Lady, Karen

AUSTIN, TEXAS. If you are up for a serious candidate and a refreshing spoof, then check out guest writer Loco Joe Heidelmeier's platform for the presidency below. Loco decided to enter the race when he heard Gov. Perry was praying (as governor) for rain in Texas -- and it didn't rain. (New York Times rain story) I suppose, if it had rained, Joe would have voted for Perry. Comments and campaign contributions welcome.
-- Russ Barnes, Moderator, "Travel with a Twist."

LOCO: THE PLATFORM

Downright scary. I've not seen a candidate in any party that I could vote for. I just don't want Jesus with my eggs and grits when we are at war on 3 fronts, and appear to be going back into recession. I wish we had someone like a Bob Schieffer (CBS' "Face the Nation") or a Colin Powell. Michelle Bachman is preaching anti-government and she worked for the I.R.S., pays for medicare, and has a farm that gets Government subsidies. I would probably vote for Hillary if she wanted to run, but that's not going to happen.

Obama is in a tight spot. He promised too much, and all his senators and reps are taking it apart. But we don't need another Palin, McCain circus.

LOCO FOR PRESIDENT

No religion, but respect all. Good brains. (what's left). No affairs. No quirky financial dealings (no money). No skeletons in the closet. Like guns, pets from the shelters, and Mexican food.

From Texas. Don't pay $100 for a a haircut. Don't get 'em. Like beer. (That's a lot of votes.) I can go hunting without shooting a colleague in the face. Don't know a thing about law. That's why you hire lawyers.

Never been in the service, but went to a lot of buddies' funerals that died in Viet Nam. My dad was a P.O.W. in WW2.

Wife, Karen, would be first lady. Teach people how to make their own clothes instead of going to Wal-Mart.

I'd appoint Russ Barnes and Wayne Langham to be on my cabinet. Of course we would have Sharon Barnes to document all our triumphs. The White House would have a Cabela's in it.

CHICKENS IN THE ROSE GARDEN -- BBQ CLOSE BY OVAL OFFICE

There would be a BBQ pit close by the Oval Office. Beside Michelle's vegetable garden, there would be a place for my chickens, and maybe a goat or two (cabrito). No Donkeys or Elephants.

My son John would be Secretary of Transportation and teach people how to save by riding a bicycle. Lance Armstrong would be his assistant.

Instead of Camp David, we would go to A.C. Ranches in Fort McKavett. Sit in the bar, plan strategy, then go shoot an Elk. Trips would be limited to the Northern Hemisphere. Save on jet fuel. All the other dignitaries (from other countries) would have to come here. Instead of the Secret Service driving black Suburbans, they would have jacked up F-350 4-wheel-drive trucks. Their clothing would all be from the Cabela's in the White House.

Every new foreign dignitary would have to take a course on John Wayne and Elvis.

Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton would be in charge of entertainment.

I'll be on CNN in the morning. Just got paid; so that's my campaign fund for now.

-- President Loco JOE

PLEASE NOTE: Joe Heidelmeier runs for President of the United States using the nom de plume, “Loco Joe.” His party affiliation is “Party for America.” Anyone can write in the name, Loco Joe. To get his votes counted, a petition is required signed by about 35 people. An email affirming your desire for Joe to be on the ballot counts as a signature. Send affirmative emails to jhknives@austin.rr.com with this language included: “I believe Joe Heidelmeier is the best candidate for President of the United States. Therefore I sign this petition and affix my name in order to place Mr. Heidelmeier on the ballot for the general presidential election in the year 2012.” By signing the petition, you do not obligate yourself to vote for him -- only to get him on the ballot as your option.

Please send the address of Loco Joe’s announcement of his candidacy and platform to all your friends at http://travelwitwist.blogspot.com/2011/08/in-response-to-gov-rick-perry-loco-joe.html. Link it to social media.

A NEW NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE BANK?

2011-08-02T16:02:00.008-04:00

REGIONAL ECONOMICAL DEVELOPMENT-- THEN AND NOW
(c) by Russ Barnes

I'm a Main Street type of guy.

So I have a story about debt and spending which many will understand. What a boring subject -- debt and spending, yes? Maybe we can liven up the story a bit!

DEBT, SPENDING, AND THE THIRD LEG OF THE STOOL

Today the debt ceiling of the United States was raised -- after much angst. Most of the commentary focused on two factors: expenditures (what cash goes out from the government) and taxes (what cash comes into the government).

What has been little discussed is a third leg of the stool: regional economic development -- the enlargement of the whole economic pie all around. With a larger pie, expenditures and taxes both decline in importance.

Cluss Lumber Company truck

BUILD, REPAIR, AND CREATE JOBS

I know this from personal experience -- from my family. And I'm telling this story because I would like to dramatize the importance of infrastructure building in the equation which has been mostly avoided in the current discussion -- by politicians and Wall Street speculators alike. And I would like, later in the discussion, to bring in a Texas perspective.

So to the story. Infrastructure. Building things. Repairing things.

The story is set in the 1950’s and 1960’s in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. I was part of an extended family most of whom lived in houses built close to 19 Eggleston Street. My grandfather owned a family business, O.C. Cluss Lumber Company, which sold construction materials for building houses, roads, bridges, and other structures. His two sons, Charles and John, worked there, and also my father, Barney.

About the three-legged stool: there were months when our family business could not meet payroll. I was in my late teens at the time. I cannot guarantee the complete accuracy of this report -- but here is what I remember.

LOCAL BANKER

At the time the company had about 50 employees. They needed to be paid. The lumber company was reliable as there were good months ahead to pay the debt.. So my dad, my grandfather, and my Uncle Charles would go downtown to the Fayette National Bank on Main Street to meet with the bank president, Jay Leff. This was not Citibank for sure. This was a local bank that was invested in the community.

One month, Mr. Leff declared, "I want to loan you more money than you are asking for simply to meet your payroll. I would like you to expand your business. If you come up with a good plan, I will put my money into it. It will do me good as your banker if you do more business; it will help the entire Uniontown community, and that will help both of us. What I ask is that you go in with me on this investment. Take some of your year-end bonuses and match them with what I am offering. If you are not willing to expand your business, I can't help you to meet your payroll."

NO BAILOUT

This was not a bailout. This was spending for a purpose. What the banker was asking was that a distinction be made between monthly revenue requirements (such as paying employees and maintaining inventory) and making a capital investment. Two different kinds of money, two different kinds of expenditures. He was asking my family to expand the community pie.

Do we not, in fact, need this sort of action in the United States right now?

My dad, Barney (C.J. Barnes), went to work on the case. With the extra capital at his disposal, he spearheaded an effort to build a concrete factory as an extension of the construction company . Building U.S. infrastructure back in the 50's and 60's was politically correct. Both parties -- that of Eisenhower and that of JFK -- cooperated on such projects as the interstate highways and the repair of the old Pennsylvania Turnpike -- all of which benefited all our nation. I was sent by my grandfather to Washington as well as to Harrisburg, the capital of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to make bids for the company's concrete product to contribute to building the country's infrastructure. It was a perfect alliance between the private and public sectors and created many jobs in our region and elsewhere. Such kinds of efforts were a winner, both locally and nationally.

TEXAS PERSPECTIVE

This Thursday I will publish another personal story to illustrate the importance of spending and capital investment. After that, my plan is to interview several sources in Texas on this subject. I like Texans' views on capital investment. While they are conservative, they are also interested in local /regional development, which makes for a bigger economic pie. I am especially interested to hear their viewpoints about the Infrastructure Bank which the President mentioned in his speech this afternoon -- hopefully modeled after such institutions as the local Fayette National Bank in Uniontown so many years ago.

Please check in again on Thursday and beyond for ways in which the past may herald the future which awaits us -- perhaps in Texas, perhaps across the nation.

TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS AND MANY JOBS MAY YET LEAVE THE U.S.

2011-06-08T20:35:00.004-04:00

Money, Labor, Building, and Creativity

What Can We Do About That Now?
The Build Act
Text (c) Russ Barnes

WASHINGTON, DC, June 8, 2011. The participants were bi-partisan. Republican and Democrat. Labor and business. United to plan a fix for the eleven year slide in American employment and productivity, let alone building a new America. The legislation being introduced into Congress is called the "Build Act."

Today, in almost 100 degree weather, I went to a public affairs conference I liked. Senators John Kerry (D) Massachusetts, Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) Texas, and Mark Warner (D) Virginia stumped for a concept called the National Infrastructure Bank for a solution to America’s dilemmas.

The conference was brisk, snappy, on target, and on-time. Business, labor, politics together front and center. It was also friendly. It was sponsored by The Atlantic.

NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE BANK

"Doubt" is what is the hobgoblin here. Senator Kerry pointed out that "Doubt" -- in the world about America's capacity to re-make itself, "Doubt" -- about our capacity to deliver goods and services, "Doubt" -- which affects everything from jobs here at home to our U.S. foreign relations policy -- is what we urgently need to confront here.

Capital, here and abroad, is waiting for us. Valuable labor waits for us here at home. Capital, money, jobs are all waiting here for us to act., Kerry pointed out. If we don't, it will all go elsewhere.

CREATIVITY AND EMPLOYMENT

Senator Hutchison spoke about creativity. She spoke about research. She spoke about how a new American middle class must embrace the development of knowledge in order to come into new wealth. She described a desalinization project for parched El Paso, Texas that saved millions of dollars through a creative solution based on bold research at our universities. Such creativity, she said, saves money while building infrastructure.

DIFFERENT SORTS OF MONEY

There seems to be a difference between what you save for the future and what you have to spend now to bring in the groceries. There is a balance between the two. One is capital spending and the other is operational spending. Senator Warner made this financial distinction clear.

WHAT'S NEXT?
This is my quick report on The Atlantic conference. In another venue and format, I will be doing interviews on employment, creativity, and wealth formation in Texas that could be a model for the rest of the nation.

Stay tuned. Your opinions appreciated.
-- Russ Barnes

QUILTING AND THE COMING CREATIVE ECONOMY

2011-05-13T19:23:00.008-04:00

HANDS ON AN EMERGENT WEALTH FRAMEWORK

Part 3 in a series on quilting

© Russ Barnes, 2011 All rights reserved. Text & photos. Reproduction permissions: russ@bonmeasure.org

WASHINGTON. May 14, 2011, My Austin quilt maven, Karen Alexander, guides me around the floor of the vast Houston Convention Center during our one day, November 6, 2010, at the International Quilt Festival.

Karen is my walking encyclopedia of quilting culture: from techniques, fabrics, fashions, periods, regions, guilds, tools, sociology, machines, quilting luminaries, intersecting influences, shows, utility, and artistic presentation. The convention floor we stroll is divided roughly into two parts. On one side -- the finished art, the quilts. On the other -- the paraphernalia required to manufacture a quilting cornucopia of artistic and utilitarian work.

IDLE HANDS -- "WORK OF THE DEVIL?"

Karen Shops for Needed Quilt Paraphrenalia

We pass a collection of quilts featuring “reverse applique” --a type of divergent, creative, decorative technique. Children are the subjects of many of the displayed quilts. This prompts a curious observation from Karen. She reports that, in earlier days of quilting, care of children was not considered work(!). There was the old “puritanical” maxim that “Idle hands make for the work of the devil.”

As if raising children requires no more than “idle hands.” To make the story short, women began quilting to keep their hands occupied and the devil away. Quilting, unlike child-rearing, was work. It was, in those days, utilitarian. It kept you warm at night, provided a protective cover for a side-board, and other creative uses for old rags industriously employed for manufacture.

Karen pointed out over-and-over how hands serve as representational themes in many quilts of different quilting periods and styles, and how hands represent work. That handiwork also often took women out of the isolation of family and child-care and into social units called guilds.

In those earlier days, Karen pointed out, quilts were not “valued” for their resourcefulness and creativity. After all, quilts were made out of rags. They were used for utilitarian purposes. The work in making them was considered a “hobby,” a harmless diversion for “idle hands.” Value has a slippery meaning. “Value” is, almost always, synonymous in the collective mind with “money,” cash. This fallacious equation has ruled establishments at least since the industrial revolution. A vein of coal is inert if left un-mined and unimproved -- as are the rags and scraps of old dilapidated fabric. It takes work to make coal productive for social purposes.

CREATIVITY A "HARMLESS PASTIME?"

Quilt Detail - Patriotic Theme

So “productivity” is one factor that separated men from women in the yesteryear of quilting, the mines, and the farming fields. Men did productive work that made “money.” Women performed a pastime that was “idle,” or at best, “harmless.” A privileged hierarchy of productivity existed. This social system had to do with the relative worth and value of using one’s hands -- depending on whose hands did the work and the resulting product.

As we tromped the quilt festival floor, some of the newer quilting traditions graphically portrayed newer, emerging traditions representing a kind of blueprint for a coming era of work and compensation. One of these works had the title, ”From Trash to Treasure,” by Gyleen X. Fitzgerald, clearly alluding to “value-addition” by means of labor.

A STORY OF A 100-YEAR-OLD IOWA QUILT

A quilt story. It says something about the past, about value, and about worth. The narrative is from Nori Muster of Los Angeles:

“A quilt made nearly a century ago was passed along through generations of my family. It came into my care several years ago. This historic quilt weighs over thirty pounds. It was my great grandma Marie Christiansen -- born in Crawford County, Iowa -- who quilted it.

“She was so frugal she stitched the enormous quilt out of scraps from her husband’s worn-out suits. When this hefty quilt came into my possession, its felt fabric had faded over nearly a century’s time to a dull-color.

“My great grandparents lived in a Denison, Iowa house during the days when the quilt was being handcrafted. I visited the Iowa house in 2002 and was invited inside by the current owners to observe and imagine the past. I know that five children lived, at intervals, in the old house. I found out that, in those days, the house had a large cook stove fueled by corncobs and the like. All the plumbing for the house was located outdoors.

“Through the generations there has been a kind of tacit family duty to preserve and archive that quilt. It has a ”numinous” quality to it despite its age and appearance. A kind of inexplicable energy surrounds it, aura-like, maybe because every stitch, every layer of it had been touched by a human hand. The quilt went to my aunt at first, then on to my mom, and then to me. I kept it for five years and in 2005 donated it to the Golden, Colorado Quilt Museum -- who welcomed its presence among the museum’s other valuable quilts.”

There is much to be said, and felt, about Nori’s brief story: utility, generational transmission, family care, resourcefulness, workmanship, artistry, social collaboration, human magic.

These are all worthwhile topics. For now, I wish only to consider the story as it illustrates the labor and the creative resourcefulness of the maker of the quilt, Mrs. Christiansen. Walking the floor of the Houston Quit Festival, one is astonished by the labor, value, ingenuity, and skill required to accomplish the kaleidoscope of stunning works displayed on the walls.

Many workers in our society are paid handsomely in cash for similar labor. It is doubtful whether Mrs. Christiansen, one-hundred years ago, received any cash for her efforts. She may have received rewards, but no cash to use at her own free discretion. And not receiving discretionary cash for value itself can be debilitating and subjugating.

Karen and others assure me that times have changed and many quilters receive compensation in several ways: outright sales, festival awards, pattern sales, and exhibition fees.

In addition to all of what quilting involves and represents, it is creative. Creative work of many kinds has, more-or-less, from at least a hundred years ago up until today been stigmatized as “no real industry,” but rather as a frill practiced by women, children, and certain marginal men.

FALTERING INDUSTRIES -- NEW HANDS

David Harris Speaks to Austin Performer Creativity

Until today. . . . Maybe. Our faltering economy is either an extraordinary abyss in the ordinary economic cycle. Or it is a sign that there is a change in the world’s economic and labor fundamentals. Old industry after industry appears falling like dominos: publishing, manufacturing, bricks-and-mortar retailing to name only three examples. Commentators such as Adriono Pianesi claim that we have to “unlearn” our old economic ways to reclaim a wealthy economy.

Such “unlearning” may require more of what is already on-going: a reassessment of the value of creativity for a new, post-patriarchal, wealth-building economy. It may not be far-fetched to equate both the integration of feminine labor and all creative labor as not only valuable in emerging economies, but also much worth paying for and cultivating -- as are many quilts valued today.

Old learnings die hard. Back in Austin from the Quilt Festival, I talk with David Harris, a production manager within Austin’s thriving entertainment industry. Harris drew for me a picture of talented, creative people (both women and men) on the streets of Austin -- he went so far to call some of them “geniuses. They are given a pittance and a pitcher of beer,” for their labors, Harris says. Just as in quilting, many creative arenas must be re-assessed for their value and worth if our economy is once again to gain wealth.

LINKS AND INFORMATION

* Other Travel with a Twist posts on quilting. “Threads on a Bed;” “Quilting Takes More than Stitches.”

* Coming up, the 2011 International Quilt Festival is in Houston November 3-6, 2011 at the George R. Brown Convention Center. More information at: http://www.quilts.com/newHome/shows/viewer.php?page=FallFestival.
* Like to see more photos of Karen Alexander’s sewing and quilting work or learn more about her, visit: Karen's Blog.
* Genealogy of one quilt? Information provided by Nori Muster. “The quilter is my mother's mother's mother. Marie Lochmiller, born Nov. 19, 1882; died July 7, 1966 in Denison, Iowa. Grandma Christiansen (as we call her) lived in Denison, Iowa when she made the quilt, probably in the 1930s. Married Marcus Bonnichsen Christiansen August 14, 1901 in Dow City, Iowa.Five children: Marie Louise Oct. 14, 1901; Dorthea, March 18, 1903; Ella Anna (my grandmother) May 25, 1905; Martha Maria Augusta, March 7, 1907; Neva Pauline Oct. 4, 1912, and Jr. Marcus Bonnichsen, April 16, 1918."
* Adriono Pianesi, (about ”unlearning”) ParticipAction Consulting Inc.

* Gyleen X. Fitzgerald, at Colorful Stitches. Interview with Gyleen coming up in a future quilt post.
* If you have a relevant link you would like to be posted here, contact: russ@bonmeasure.org.

Destination -- International Quilt Festival: Houston

2011-04-16T16:28:00.006-04:00

THREADS ON A BED:

FIRST POST IN A SERIES ON QUILTING

Quilting, you might gather, is a humble practice. Warming family threads on a bed. Grandma era arts crafting. Is that what quilting is about in today’s world?

Hands-on Quilting

On a mission to answer such questions, I traveled with longtime friend, Karen Alexander, from Austin to Houston, 150 miles by chartered bus. It’s Saturday, November 6, 2010. Boarding time for the idling bus from the Austin parking lot is six o’clock in the morning. It will prove to be a big day in the big city.

ON THE BUS TO THE HOUSTON SHOW

Our destination in Houston is the George R. Brown Convention Center. Over 60,000 people come to crowd and browse this three-day event, the International Quilt Festival, the largest quilting congregation world-wide. Has a computer or electronics convention ever drawn that many attendees? What’s going on here? What’s this about?

Forty-five minutes out of Austin, we travel route 71 through East Texas prairie and make our first stop at Weikel’s Bakery in Bastrop near La Grange, Texas. Good, sweet Kolache. You may want to try one. Coffee? The john is handy for mid-morning travel -- although a bit of a line for the women’s room. Back on bus, seats filled. The conversation buzzes about quilting project progress and gossip around the sociable, local quilting guilds.

George R Brown Convention Center in Houston

We arrive at the Convention Center. A sprawling palace of commerce, drama, energy, and talent. Festival attendants tag your wrist for coming and going. You walk through the main door. The immensity of the place, and its bustle, staggers you in your tracks. Color, movement, things to buy, things to see, people to meet.

Eleven football fields of space to travel through, and somehow to digest and experience. On one level, it is like a reality TV show, American Idol on steroids, with all the excitement of judging the winners and the losers. On another level, the quilting show is about creativity and the resilience of the human spirit with a fascinating window on feminine priorities and interests: past, present, and future.

MY QUILT GUIDE

Karen is my leader through this maze of fabrics, variegated threads, applications, appliqués, and “best of show” contenders. Karen is now a sewing machine collector and retailer. She is a sewing and quilting teacher and, of course, an enthusiastic quilter. One of the book titles I saw at her East Austin house was, Help:! I Married a Quilter. Requisite guidance, I assume, for her husband, Joe.

The lanes and the nooks of the Quilt Festival "walkabout" are strewn with titles -- exhibitions with names like “Piece in the Hoop,” “Electric Quilt,” “Gadget Girls,” “Log Cabin,” “Courthouse.”

ABOUT FAMILY -- AND "BEST OF SHOW"

As we enter the main hall, Karen calls attention to the place where one of her quilts was displayed, “entered,” in a past Quilt Festival, 2009. Karen pointed just to the left of our entry in the main hall. “Made my rep right on the spot with our Austin Quilt Guild as they all got off the bus,” she reports with a bit of pride and a touch of self-irony. The title of her quilt, “Fifty Years of Love for Nancy and Harold,” was made for her parents for their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Family is not always the subject for a quilt. But significant human connections I found while walking around the Houston show floor drive the energy around many quilt creations. I will get to that subject more down the page a bit.

Creation, "Mystique," by Sharon Schambers

What struck me first upon walking into the hall, is the sheer industry of quilting. The time and attention to detail it takes. Its specificity. Stitch-by-stitch. Minute-by-minute. In the 2010 show, Sharon Schambers from Payson, Arizona was “First in Show.” Her creation, “Mystique,” shown here in my amateur photo appears super-human in dimension, conception, execution, and effort. Sharon showed us the 3-D layers of her work: the blocks of fabric for the front, the padding, the backing, the stitching.

Sharon, standing in front of her winning piece, reported she logged 1500 working hours in four years dedicated to the making of the quilt. She won $10,000 for her effort.

BUSINESS -- CRAFTS

Do the math on that one at an hourly rate. What chief executive could make a claim to have put that much effort into her corporate work? Why this dedicated industry for this result? What’s going on here? What appeals about quilting? What need wants to become fulfilled?

If the quilt show in Houston is the city’s biggest convention nearly every year -- big business -- why isn’t such a show on the radar as a significant event that it really is? I mean where is the Wall Street Journal? Where are the class arts-and-style sections of newspapers and magazines?

Thread -- a theme -- and Buy it at the Show

Those are some of the questions I asked myself as I began to cruise the Houston floor walkabout. Karen began helping me with some perceptions on those questions. So did a remarkable quilter I met at the show, Gyleen X. Fitzgerald -- with whom I conducted an audio interview.

Stay in touch. I formulate answers to these questions -- and raise others -- every Friday for a spell. Let me know your thoughts, questions, reports, and experiences. That would be appreciated by me and my “Travel with a Twist” world-wide audience.

LINKS AND INFORMATION

* Coming up, the 2011 International Quilt Festival is in Houston November 3-6 at the George R. Brown Convention Center. More information at: http://www.quilts.com/newHome/shows/viewer.php?page=FallFestival.

* Like to see a slide show of Sharon Schamber’s work? Go to: http://aboutquilts.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/slide-presentation-of-best-of-show-winner-sharon-shambers-mystique-international-quilt-festival-houston-november-2010/

* Like to see more photos of Karen Alexander’s sewing and quilting work or learn more about her, visit: http://www.karenquiltslife.blogspot.com/

* Good video at the International Quilting Show walkabout. The video title is “Stitchings: The Film.” You can get information about the film at: http://www.stitchedfilm.com/

* If you have a relevant link you would like to be posted here, contact: russ@bonmeasure.org.

Audio Interview with Peggy Engels, Playwright of Red HOT PATRIOT Now Playing in Austin

2011-03-12T18:52:00.007-05:00

During South-by-Southwest Event. "Completion Complex" Featured for Creativity

© Russ Barnes, 2011

Margaret Engels is a playwright, a journalist, and a twin. Listen to all about that stuff, the creative voice, freedom of speech, and more at MP3 audio interview at: http://bonmeasure.org/engels.mp3 The play is performed through the South by Southwest festival in Austin through March 13.

Not only was I impressed with her stage play written alongside her sister, Allison, which is an interesting story in itself. But I was also impressed with the Zach Theatre production of it in Austin, and the actress who played the one woman show, Barbara Chisolm. Standing ovation. I especially liked it when Peggy said that “creativity requires a completion complex.” It’s not just ideas. It’s also about getting them implemented. Meeting a deadline. Our country, the United States, needs that kind of action and that kind of thought.

Check out the interview. If you have a difficulty opening it, let me know and I will try to fix it for you. The interview is sponsored by the American Creativiy Association of Austin. For information about this global organization on creativity, open to you, send me a line at: russ@bonmeasure.org and I will get you in touch with the right folks to sign up. We need your creativity for a better society and better individual fulfillment.

Molly Ivins at Austin Theater.

2011-03-07T19:08:00.005-05:00

Okay,

I am going to do something a little different here. I'm going to send along some comments about the play, a review of "Red Hot Patriot," by ACA Austin board member, Roberta. This piece loses my usual thread, but I think Roberta's comments are worth it. I also agree with Phyllis that we should not be political. Our purpose is to create creativity wherever it can be manifest. And that's it. Democrat and Republican be damned both. And may both blessed be. But Molly spoke her mind. And for that we honor her.


ACA Crew at Casa de Lux. Photo by Heather Hart

So in an unusual blog post, here is what Roberta, now my (russ') colleague, says:

Hey Creativity champions for the revitalized ACA-Austin,

Talked with Russ this AM, who encouraged me to polish up the following "creative flow" that just had to spout out, this early AM from our "launch" of our first creative ACA-A adventure at the ZACH Theatre yesterday afternoon............ Wanted you both, Connie and Bud, to "be with us," so here are some "creative minutes" of that meeting.......... Open to corrections and feedback, all.

After threading our way through the traffic for South By South West, Mardi Gras Weekend and the first days the fruit trees burst into bloom, we got to Casa de Luz. Lots springing forth around Austin this weekend.......

ZACH had to hold the curtain for over 15 minutes, for all those determined enough to get themselves to the sold out house...... Thanks to the contributions of Bud and Connie, who filled our group of 10. We were able to give two tickets away "back to the house" for which they were very grateful.........

My write-up below is my "report to all" about our creative adventure to "open the door" of ACA-A reactivated in the glow of the HOT PATRIOT. Where shall I send this.............

By the way, Phyllis realized that her daughter Kathy could capture a photo of us with Barbara Chisholm after the performance. The former ACA-A treasurer, Melissa is in the photo, too.

I wish to nominate Barbara Chisholm as our first ACA-A Honorary Member........... She loved the interview with Russ on Friday and spent a good deal of time with us after the show...... Russ thinks he will have both the interview and photos by his friend, Heather, up on e-screens today....... Stay tuned.

We are launched.................

Roberta

==========

Molly Ivins Did Say That! Thank goodness!
RED HOT PATRIOT: The Kick-Ass Wit of Mollie Ivins: ZACH Theatre, Austin, TX

Molly Ivins speaks again! Molly has been theatrically reincarnated on the stage ofthe Zachary Scott Theater. This daughter of Texas returns to us thanks to awardwinning playwrites, Allison and Margaret Engel, who have given local Austinactress, Barbara Chisholm, a powerful and historically accurate script to deliver toAustin audiences. The Engels’ play is convincingly staged, right down to the antiqueteletype machine that beats out the rhythms of a press room that comes alive on theZACH stage.

Kudos to the depth of artistic skill that creates this brilliant theatricalmagic. Nothing is more powerful than a true story, especially when the backdrop ishistory-viewed-large, with actual photos from “newspaper morgues.” For 90minutes, the audience is fast paced from birth to death, and back again, through asignificant period of history for this politically problematic bio-region, knowaffectionately as Tex-ass.” Chisholm, a dynamic red-head of impressive stature, likeMolly Ivins, built the creative energy of this well-staged historical vignette to thecrescendo of a standing ovation at the end. Molly is back, at least on stage, at leastfor this week.

This Texas larger-than-life review of our local heroine transports the audience backto a transformative period in Texas history, around the historically significant typewriterof Molly Ivins. She “lived large” among us, observing and reporting for her state-mates,as editor of the Texas Observer. The humor and the irony of Texans loving and hatingthe “limelight of being published” were captured with her humorous voice, deliveredwith spunk and sass. Only the more private Smith College Molly, the elegant and classygentle-woman from the Prep School in Houston, was missing for some of her localfriends who attended. Still, her great heart was felt, as the audience could not resistreacting to the force of personality coming from stage central. Some of us felt tearful asglimpses of past Tex-ass characters flowed in front of our eyes.

Molly lived and worked near the capitol center of the great political shift fromthe ole Tejas Democratic government of the people changed by the bon fires of theRepublican barbecue stampede that brought the Shrub to office. “I named him that,” shesaid. Molly knowingly spoke the truth, as only a Texan-born writer could do. Hopefully,Molly’s year on the New York Times’ best seller list will bring this exquisitely capturedAmerican heroine to wider audiences, to those across America who admired this Texas-tall woman who knew the difference between a tall tale and the truth, who wished to be remembered as a leader of “freedom fighters for free speech.”

Multi-dimensional Molly recognized and reported both the difference, and the political significance between a caring Texas statesman and a horse trader who come to town “to do his business at the “leg”-islature. It was the final “call to action” by Chisholm’s Molly, “to speak the truth to the dishonest power-mongers” that brought us all to our feet. The beginning of Molly’s mythology lives this week at the Zachary Scott Theatre, where she “emerges as the fierce Venus” archetype that she embodied among us. This play is not to be missed and needs to be held over another week, and seen in theatrers across the America which Molly loved, traveled and worked

(c) Roberta Shoemaker-Beal, Wimberley, Texas; Creatas@aol.com

More on The Red Hot Patriot: Molly Ivins @

http://www.zachtheatre.org/sites/default/files/pdf/Molly-Ivins-play-at-ZACH-Theatre.pdf
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/17/133847166/Molly-Ivins-A-Red-Hot-Patriot

Kick-Ass Theater, Creativity and Molly Ivins

2011-03-07T17:35:00.003-05:00

This is an unusual post for me. It's not my usual post. But it is extraordinary. So I publish it. Most of it comes from Roberta, a board member of the American Creativity Association of Austin Texas. I publish her words. Its a review of a stage play in Austin about a creative Journalist, Molly Ivans, a creative, a fierce, and a funny journalist. We at ACA-Austin had a ball experiencing this play in Austin yesterday. Now Molly was a Democrat. She gave Republicans a hard time. Phyllis, one of our board members, cautions us against playing up the "liberal" side because creativity comes up wherever it comes up. That's true. I'll just leave you with Roberta's words and review. You can make up your mind. We would like you to become part of us, whoever you happen to be: an entrepreneur, a quilter, a bricklayer, a writer, a jewelry maker, a psychotherapist, whatever. You can reach me at russ@bonmeasure.org. Here's Roberta. Don't miss her perceptions: (Oh, a few pictures courtesy of Heather Hart. More to come later. Get yourself on the mailing list to see everything.) Hey, y'all, comment. We need your words.
-- Russ

From Roberta:

Hey Creativity champions for the revitalized ACA-Austin,

Talked with Russ this AM, who encouraged me to polish up the following "creative flow" that just had to spout out, this early AM from our the "launch of our first creative ACA-A adventure at the ZACH Theatre yesterday afternoon............ Wanted you both, Connie and Bud, to "be with us," so here are some "creative minutes" of that meeting.......... Open to corrections and feedback, all.

After threading our way through the traffic for South By South West, Mardi Gras Weekend and the first days the fruit trees burst into bloom, we got to Casa. Lots springing forth around Austin this weekend.......

ZACH had to hold the curtain for over 15 minutes, for all those determination enough got them to the sold out house...... Thanks to the contributions of Bud and Connie, who filled our group of 10. We were able to give two tickets "back to the house" for which they were very grateful.........

My write-up below is my "report to all" about our creative adventure to "open the door" of ACA-A reactivated in the glow of the HOT PATRIOT. Where shall I send this.............

By the way, Phyllis realized that her daughter Kathy could capture a photo of us with Barbara Chisholm after the performance. The former ACA-A treasurer, Melissa is in the photo, too.

We are launched.................

Roberta

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Molly Ivins Did Say That! Thank goodness!

RED HOT PATRIOT: The Kick-Ass Wit of Mollie Ivins: ZACH Theatre, Austin, TX

Molly Ivins speaks again! Molly has been theatrically reincarnated on the stage of the Zachary Scott Theater. The award wining play rights, Iowa twins Allison and Margaret Engel, have given local Austin actress, Barbara Chisholm, a powerful and historically accurate script to deliver to Austin audiences. The Engel’s write from the perspective of Molly Ivin’s national significance, as highly creative journalism teachers, themselves. The Engels’ play is convincingly staged, right down to the antique teletype machine that beats out the rhythms of the press room that came alive on the ZACH stage. Kudos to the depth of artistic skill that creates this brilliant theatrical magic. Nothing is more powerful than a true story, especially when the backdrop is history-viewed-large, with actual photos from “newspaper morgues.” For 90 minutes, the audience is fast paced from birth to death, and back again, through a significant period of history for this politically problematic bio-region, know affectionately as Tex-ass.” Chisholm, a dynamic red-head of impressive stature, like Molly Ivins, built the creative energy of this well-staged historical vignette to the crescendo of a standing ovation at the end. Molly is back, at least on stage, at least for this week.

This Texas larger-than-life review of our local heroine transports the audience back to a transformative period in Texas history, around the historically significant typewriter of Molly Ivins. She “lived large” among us, observing and reporting for her state-mates, as editor of the Texas Observer. The humor and the irony of Texans loving and hating the “limelight of being published” were captured with her humorous voice, delivered with spunk and sass. Only the more private Smith College Molly, the elegant and classy gentle-woman from the Prep School in Houston, was missing for some of her local friends who attended. Still, her great heart was felt, as the audience could not resist reacting to the force of personality coming from stage central. Some of us felt tearful along the way, with glimpses Tex-ass characters flowing our history in front of our eyes.

Molly lived and worked near the capitol center of the great political shift from the ole Tejas Democratic government of the people changed by the bon fires of the Republican barbecue stampede that brought the Shrub to office. “I named him that,” she said. Molly knowingly spoke the truth, as only a Texan-born writer could do. Hopefully, Molly’s year on the New York Times’ best seller list will bring this exquisitely captured American heroine to wider audiences, to those across America who admired this Texas-tall woman who knew the difference between a tall tale and the truth, who wished to be remembered as a leader of “freedom fighters” and free speech. Multi-dimensional Molly recognized and reported both the difference, and the political significance between a caring Texas statesman and a horse trader who come to town “to do his business on the ledge.” It was the final call to action by Chisholm’s Molly, “to speak the truth to the dishonest power-mongers” that brought us all to our feet. The beginning of Molly’s mythology lives this week at the Zachary Scott Theatre, where she “emerges as the fierce Venus” archetype that she embodied among us. This play is not to be missed and needs to be held over another week, and seen in theatres across the America which Molly loved, traveled and worked.

A Remembrance of Molly Ivins

2011-03-02T15:39:00.005-05:00

A CREATIVE TEXAN

[NOTE: Guest writer Bud Wurtz had the luck to spend an evening with Molly Ivins. Here's his story. It provides unique background to ACA Austin's event celebrating the new reach of the the Austin creativity association on Sunday, March 6 at Zach Theatre's "Red Hot Patriot: the Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins." For more information on ACA Austin go to: http://community.icontact.com/p/americancreativityassociation/newsletters/austin/posts/american-creativity-association-austin-launch. Thanks, Bud.]

By (c) William (“Bud”) Wurtz
Board Member, American Creativity Association - Austin

I had the privilege of spending an evening with Molly Ivins back in June 2005. Molly had come to College Station, Texas speak to the Brazos Valley chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

I was the chapter president at the time, and Molly’s appearance was a life-saver for the group. A few like-minded civil libertarians had banded together as Board members to revitalize the chapter, situated in the shadow of the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library on the Texas A&M University campus.

Of course, it was the first President Bush who had famously stigmatized Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential campaign for being “a card-carrying ACLU member”; this, along with the notorious Willie Horton ad, is (probably) what helped Bush beat Dukakis.

The damage to the ACLU has lingered past that particular campaign, to some extent marginalizing the organization. It is though this group, devoted to defending the Bill of Rights and extending its protections to all Americans, became in the public’s mind somehow responsible for the putative breakdown in law-and-order. Mr. Bush’s was a popular view in the very conservative precincts of south central Texas and no doubt helps explain why the chapter had become moribund in the first place. Molly, a proud member of and staunch advocate for the ACLU, was particularly scornful of her fellow Texans “tuff on crime” attitudes.

Our ACLU chapter was hoping that a “big-name” speaker of some sort would bring much needed attention and revenues to our struggling cause. Since we had no money to pay for travel or an honorarium, we needed someone who had some name recognition, was somehow at least vaguely associated with civil liberties, lived within driving distance, and would be willing to come to College Station and speak for free. These exacting requirements made for a very short list of possibilities, but Molly’s name was on it. And to our great surprise and delight, she readily agreed to do a presentation based on readings from her many books and articles.

I was to learn during the presentation why Molly accepted our offer. Though she won numerous prestigious awards for journalism over her lifetime, Molly claimed in her mischievous manner that thetwo greatest honors accorded her were 1) having the pig mascot of the Minneapolis police department named after her and 2) being banned from speaking on the campus of Texas A&M University. What could please a committed civil libertarian more than the opportunity to exercise her First Amendment rights within a couple of blocks of where she had been forbidden to speak?

(I should probably explain here that I was in College Station attending A&M at the time, and that I am an loyal Aggie grad – PhD 2008 – who is proud of my school’s outstanding record of academic excellence and its many grand traditions and spirit. That said, it must also be noted that no one is likely to confuse the political leanings, culture and lifestyle of the A&M campus and its environs, situated in the twin cities of Bryan-College Station, Texas with, say, the University of California – Berkeley and the Bay Area.)

With Molly booked, I and the other Board members confidently began our planning for the event. Dreaming big, we projected the event would attract as many as 75 people, this despite the fact that College Station would be in its typical summer lull at the end of the academic year. (Even a couple of Board members couldn’t attend because they had already booked foreign travel during the summer.) So I trudged down to the College Station Hilton and put my credit card down to reserve a sliver of the mammoth ballroom.

We then began our sophisticated advertising campaign promoting Molly’s appearance with free promos on the progressive community radio station and with photocopied flyers posted on the bulletin boards of area retail stores and restaurants, along with plain old word-of-mouth. And the ticket requests started to roll in … and then more … and then more … until we had received a total of just under 400 orders. I had to go back to the hotel to book more space; eventually we booked the entire ballroom.

We were flabbergasted. So was the State ACLU staff who drove Molly – one of their most prized assets, whom they determinedly protected --over from Austin for the event. I had told the executive director in advance that Molly’s appearance was becoming the big social event of the summer in College Station. But he remained skeptical until he escorted Molly into the ballroom and saw the hordes of people waiting to hear her. At that point his jaw dropped, followed by a grin as large as Texas.

I first actually met Molly after introducing her and welcoming her to the lectern. She was slender, her hair curly and short that particular evening, dressed simply in recognition of having to endure the 180-mile round trip between Austin and College Station in a crowded van on a typically hot-and-humid Texas
summer day.

She captivated the audience from the very start, reading her pieces in that distinctive Texas accent, seasoned with her sly, low key wit. The end of each reading was greeted with loud guffaws and enthusiastic applause.

My favorite reading performed by Molly that evening was this one, found in her book, Who Let the Dogs In?: Incredible Political Animals I Have Known (New York: Random House, 2004, pp. 246-7).

“On a blazing hot summer day last year, the director of the Central Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union was frantically phoning members to announce that the First Amendment was in peril from the Austin City Plan Commission. The First Amendment tends to be under steady fire in the Great State, but the Austin City Plan Commission is rarely found on the side of jackbooted fascism. What happened was, the Reverend Mark Weaver, a fundamentalist divine with a strong local following, hell-bent on driving all the dirty bookstores out of town – he had come up with a zoning scheme by which this was to be accomplished.

The Plan Commission held a hearing that night attended by more than three hundred members of Weaver’s group, Citizens Against Pornography, and by six members of the Civil Liberties Union. The Libertarians flocked together. Nothing like sitting in the midst of sea of Citizens Against Pornography to make you notice that your friends all look like perverts.

“The Reverend Weaver rose to address the Commission. An eloquent preacher, he took right off into the tale of a woman who lives directly behind the pornography theater on South Congress Avenue. The very day before, she had watched a man come out of that theater after the five-o’clock show, go into the alley behind the theater, right behind her house, and … masturbate.

Three hundred Citizens Against and the members of the Plan Commission all sucked in their breath in horror. Made a very odd sound. “YES,” continued the Reverend Weaver, “that man MASTURBATED right in the alley, right BEHIND that lady’s house. And she has two little who might have SEEN it – if it weren’t for the wooden fence around her yard.” And with that the Reverend Weaver jerked the stopper and cussed sin up a storm. It looked bad for the First Amendment.

“When it came their turn, the Libertarians huddled together and decided to send up their oldest living member. He shuffled to the mike, gray hair thin on top, a face marked with age spots and old skin cancers, one eye long since. He spoke with a courtly Southern accent. “Members of the Plan Commission, Reverend Weaver, Citizens Against, ladies and gentlemen. My name is John Henry Faulk. I am seventy-four years old. I was born and raised in South Austin, not a quarter ofa mile from where the pornography theater stands today. I think y’all know that there was a lot of masturbation in South Austin before there was ever a pornography theater there.” Even the Citizens Against laughed, and the First was saved for another day.

“Thirty years ago John Henry Faulk destroyed the blacklisting system that had terrified the
entertainment industry during the McCarthy era. His was one of the spectacular show trials of
that sorry time; he won the largest libel award that had been granted in the United States ($3.5 million) and was honored up to his eyebrows by freedom lovers everywhere. Then he went back to Texas – broke, his career still ruined – never saw any of the money, and learned you can’t eat honor. This is the story of John Henry Faulk’s life since Louis Nizer won out over Roy Cohn in their courtroom battle about whether the man called the Will Rogers of his generation was actually a communist.”

It is a classic Molly story, told in her inimitable style. She captures the distinctive dialect of Texans, along with the pomposity of the Great State, driven by a writing style that is understated yet somehow florid at the same time. There is playfulness, along with a hint of naughtiness, but also a more serious purpose. For, of course, once you get past all of the hilarity of people at their silliest, the story is about the tragedy of a good and decent man, a man who despite past defeats continues to stand up for what he believes in well into old age. Molly suckers us in, lowering our defenses with the humor, and then wallops us with a very powerful and pointed punch.

After the reading ended, many of the audience came up to greet Molly, some to get her to autograph their copy of one of Molly’s books. People milled around the ballroom chatting loudly and excitedly for quite some time, a reliable indicator of a successful event. But, finally, as people started to leave and the crowd dwindled, Molly, the ACLU staffers and I adjourned to the hotel bar.

I can’t recall who or when, but sometime that evening someone had whispered to me that there were growing concerns about Molly’s health, fears that her breast cancer, which had twice been battled into remission, might be recurring. (In fact, that diagnosis was confirmed later in the year; she died on January 31, 2007.) Yet Molly was the same bright, funny, sassy person hoisting a few with a small group of friends and supporters as she was on stage. About the only noticeable change was that her disparaging opinions of certain political figures were not quite as understated as in print or at the lectern.

Like her good friend and hero, John Henry Faulk, Molly Ivins fought to the end for what she believed in, for civil liberties and human freedom. Molly fought the good fight, with humor not hatred. She recognized that all people are prone to folly, and the most appropriate remedy is to lampoon it, all the while reveling in and celebrating the great human comedy.

Since graduating and leaving Texas, my energies have been poured more and more into promoting creativity development. I remain a committed ACLU member, though not as active as before, guilty of frequently being late with my membership dues as many impatient renewal notices remind me. But I recognize that the link between civil liberties and creativity is inextricable: you can only be creative to the extent that you are free. The fight is the same. Molly Ivins taught me that you can have one hell of a good time fighting that fight.

Molly Ivins, World Creativity, and Austin

2011-02-28T17:07:00.012-05:00

By (c) Russ Barnes

AUSTIN, Texas. It seems anyone who loves to travel also loves other creative solutions -- whether it be a simple puzzle, a recipe, or an international perplexity. There is a common thread to all.

I’ll make this personal. I love to travel. Travel forces me to bring together things in my brain I would never have associated otherwise. Bringing disparate things together in a disciplined way is both pleasant and -- guess what? -- it helps not only with survival, but prosperity. Interested?

Iconoclast and creative, Molly Ivins

About creativity (of which travel can be a subset if rightly pursued). In the past I served on the board of directors for the American Creativity Association. I since went on to other committed responsibilities having to do with advocating creative discipline and fulfillment. During that time, I stayed in touch with my old ACA colleagues, Bud Wurtz and Marilyn Schoeman, both past presidents of ACA. When the two of them approached me recently about expanding the reach of the Austin, Texas chapter of ACA to a national and global dimension, I was hooked.

Why? Because I love the peculiar (what Austinites call “wierd”) creativity of Austin. Somehow that wierd sort of creativity seems to fit the modern world: from Bangor to Tallahassee, from Philly to ‘Frisco, from Minneapolis to Sante Fe, from Kansas City to San Diego. Ever further, from London to Shanghai, from Moscow to Cairo, from Nairobi to Capetown, from Sydney to Buenos Aires.

You get the idea. Austin’s unusual, funky, democratic creative spirit, pluck, and industry has something singular in store for all these places, and, of course, more. That may be one of the reasons The Atlantic Monthly magazine published a ranking of the thirty most dynamic cities in the world. Austin was one of them and the only one so ranked in the United States.

ACA Austin wants, I think, to be the global conduit for practical and personally fulfilling creativity.

You gotta start somewhere. Hey, what about Austin?

And ACA Austin begins this weekend here with a kick-off “social” centered around Zach Theatre. Just to demonstrate our style, our panache. Old Austin creative advocates and practitioners will be there. And so will new devotees from other parts. A band of creative brothers and sisters will assemble at 1:00 p.m., March 6 for a “social” at Cafe de Luz and then to witness across the street the stage production (at 2:30 p.m.) of “Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins.” Molly is an Austin icon, (or should I say, “iconoclast”) and, as heroine in the popular stage play, she will set the tone and the stage for many surprising materials and events upcoming from ACA Austin.

ACA Austin is scheduled to interview the actress who performs the one-woman stage play, the artistic director of the theater, and the two (twin) playwrights of the play. Let us know if you are interested in witnessing these vibrant interviews drilling down on the essence of creativity and its special relationship to Austin and the world. Inform us if you would like to know how to get affiliated with future ACA Austin events and materials.

We would like to have you around. We advocate many benefits generated by creativity. But one of the effective qualities we like about creative discipline and personal creative fulfillment is “heart.” We like each other, and we like to reach others through “heart.” We know that “heart,” love of our own materials, our game, our passion, our creativity, our art is universal and that is what the world needs encouragement from us now.

Look for the next ACA Austin’s events. They may pleasantly surprise you and challenge you. Drop us a line at ACA Austin (russ@bonmeasure.org). We’ll set you up with the communications we have at hand for your preferences and desires.

One thing Molly said, and I listened, “If you’re in a hole, stop digging.” Creativity helps you to stop diggin’. P. S. If you are going to the play another time, or just can’t get to it right now, come to the “social” at Casa de Luz. Just mosey right in. You will be welcomed by creatives.
=====================================
Some links you might want to consider looking at are:
ACA Austin newsletter -- http://community.icontact.com/p/americancreativityassociation/newsletters/austin/posts/american-creativity-association-austin-launch
Connie Harryman, President, audio address -- http://bonmeasure.org/ConnieHarryman.mov
Press Release for journalists and newsletter editors -- http://bonmeasure.org/PRCreativeAustin.pdf
For a review of “Red Hot Patriot” -- http://www.austinchronicle.com/arts/2011-02-04/red-hot-patriot-the-kick-ass-wit-of-molly-ivins.
For more information on Zach Theatre -- http://www.zachtheatre.org
Questions? -- russ@bonmeasure.org

HICKORY PASS RANCH #14

2010-07-28T22:59:00.008-04:00

THE REST IS ANOTHER STORY

LAST DAYS

NOTE: Today is my birthday, 2010, and I conclude the journals of my stay at Hickory Pass Ranch near Marble Falls, Texas. The story follows and concludes:

By MID AUGUST, I was nearing the end of my stay at Hickory Pass Ranch. Back to my urban life –- not born again, but with an incremental difference.

Sirius, the Big Dog star

On one of my last nights at the ranch, Jacquelyn and the three girls were staying in the Big House. I heard them fire up three of their four-wheelers. And one of the girls, the eleven-year-old, Ava, steered by the guesthouse to invite me out with them to see the annual August meteor shower. Shooting stars over Texas skies.

I got on the back of the four-wheeler Ava was driving, and we followed everyone else down the ranch road. Murphy ran back and forth between the vehicles, biting at the tires.

Jacquelyn had brought along blankets and pillows and all five of us lay out beneath the Texas sky and watched the celestial extravaganza. We identified constellations: Scorpius, Sagittarius, Aquilla, the Big Dipper pointing toward the North Star, Polaris. And of course there was Sirius, that star known in English as the Big Dog. Well, we had him right there among us, Murphy, sniffing around and wondering what this camp-out was all about.

One of the girls said to me, "I think Murphy likes you better than he likes us." I replied, " I don’t think so. He seems really happy when you all come to the ranch." Her mother commented -- with wise diplomacy, "That’s true."

Sensing my downhearted feelings about leaving Murphy behind, Joe said to me, "Dogs are good people."

Next morning, Karen made a visit on my next to the last day at the ranch. She sat on a couch in the guesthouse. Murph was stretched out beside me, tail wagging slowly while keeping one sleepy eye on me to make sure I didn’t make a move. Karen had arrived for a last visit. As she sat on the couch in the guesthouse, I patted Murphy on his flank and impulsively spoke to him, "My bud." Karen tilted her head to the right. And sighed. And smiled a half understanding smile.

It is my last day. All packed. I’m back now in Austin at Karen and Joe’s.

I go to the Seminary of the Southwest two days in a row for two separate counsels which I need. I hear the same message, “Follow the spirit.” Doesn’t sound like it, but it is practical advice. Still have anxiety. But I feel secure.

I wait to catch my plane back to Washington. As I pack my things into Karen’s red Miata, Ken, my new friend, from across the way shouts across the street, “Goodbye, Russ.“ Joe is at work. Karen drives me to the airport. I take my two bags out of her car’s back storage space. Karen hugs me. Then I turn my back and walk away. The rest is another story.

--THE END--

=====================================

CREDITS

My gratitude to the Mouton family: Jacquelyn and David; Lia , Ava, and Maddie -- for their hospitality, generosity, humor, fun, parties, rocks, whimsicality, and for man’s best friend -- for a while -- Murphy, who was a challenge -- but I loved him.

My gratitude also to Karen Alexander and Joe Heidelmeier:

Karen for her loyalty, her subtle penetrating and realistic intelligence, her drop-dead accurate advice, her true aesthetic values and sense, her beauty as a person, and her cool femininity.

And Joe for his stories, his masculine guidance, his friendship, his fun, the maturity of his understanding, his power as an outdoorsman, his humor, and for his astonishingly equipped old truck, Silver, of which I also became fond.

My many thanks also to Anne Tongren who has expertly edited these posts and without whose help I could have never come to the perceptions I have arrived at in this series of posts.

HICKORY PASS RANCH #13

2010-07-27T13:41:00.003-04:00

WAFFLES, MAPLE SYRUP, & A HARMONICA

-- DAY 21

July 28, 2008, Monday. My actual birthday. The girls make me waffles. These little girls treat me like a king. I am serene. They give me the best maple syrup. I am hale and hearty.

Gifts from Anne

I open Anne’s presents from a pretty box I bring all the way from Washington. There is a harmonica. Perfect for “Home on the Range.” The dog goes wild when he hears that harmony. I love the Byron Katie stuff on the CD Anne packs. [“Is that true?” Byron Katie asks.] And a jar of Indian herbs good for making squash soup.

Taking it easy today. No writing. Just meditating, pacing.

I’m thinking about what Joe says. He says, Karen never could work with a man. I countered, “She could work with me." Joe said, “You were different. You made her feel good about herself.” I said to Joe, “She was good about herself .” He says, “Yes, that's true.”

NEVER MARRY THE CHEERLEADER

Joe tells me much about the troubles in his first marriage, which was brief. His advice: “Never marry the cheerleader.”

The dog is not around me today. He’s been with the girls all day and they put him through different sorts of paces. I’ll let him rest and then I’ll run his butt off again.

I realize I have only nine or ten days before my plane returns to Baltimore. I have been a happy camper here at Hickory Pass Ranch. I have no idea what my situation will be like when I get back to Washington. In preparation, I contact Trinity Episcopal Church in Marble Falls and the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin for possible counseling about my return. Graciously, they make arrangements for meetings scheduled for the two days I will spend in Austin before my departure.

It’s a scary time for me. But I have had such a positive experience here, have gotten so much work done, have had so much friendship, so much fun -- even joy -- and cooperation that I feel energized even in the face of uncertainty.

I remember in another context saying to myself in a moment of doubt, “My heart is beating and I am a free man.” For all the trouble in life, there is nothing better than that.

To be continued tomorrow.

Go to sequel #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6 ,#7, #8, #9, #10, #11 #12, #13

HICKORY PASS RANCH #12

2010-07-26T17:18:00.004-04:00

ROCKS, FOSSILS, & A CAMERA

-- DAY 20

July 27, 2008, Sunday. This is the actual celebration of my birthday. The real birthday is tomorrow. This date is usual because my brother Doug’s birthday is July 26, and we always celebrated in between the two birthdays, July 27. And it is a great day. Blue sky. Tall sky over central Texas. We’ve got the girls, the three daughters, who arrive. They play monopoly. They give me rocks for my birthday. Fossils. I adore these. Even heavy, I will take them back to Rockville in my luggage. Joe and I go out to a new tank. Big holes. Beavers. Jacquelyn brings the best cut of steak anyone can imagine. Joe ages it. Herbs it. Barbecues it slowly. It is a feast. Joe picks up the religious imagery laughing, “And God said it was a pleasing scent.”

Bell, poblano, & serrano peppers

Karen can’t make it as she has to work in the sewing machine shop today. But she sends a scrumptious chocolate cake.

THE CREW PERFORMS ON STAGE

Now I engineer a reading of CRABS ALIVE! Somehow I know Texans will understand this play which is the one I need to work on next. So the whole crew comes down to my guest house. I set up the computer. I sit in the background. I am not the star. My desire is to make them stars. The three daughters take turns reading the female character, Jovita. Joe reads the part of Captain Charlie.

Somehow George Washington, “father” of our country, occurs to me on this day. Washington was a solid man with character. Mary Custis, his wife, had a fortune, land, and slaves. It was in some ways, her fortune that brought the United States of America into being. She had some kind of powerful faith in her husband, George Washington. And her inheritance and plantation land fueled the founding of an idea that reverberates around the world even today. George would have been nothing without his lady. He was tough. But not self-sufficient.

WHAT IS THE GREATEST?

I opened my present from Robbin. It makes me weep to see it and the affection I feel for her over it. I have wanted a digital camera for over ten years. Because photos are an important part of reporting. I’m not the greatest eye for the camera, but I am pretty good, I am not the best piano player in the world, but I do have a bit of soul. I am not the best lover in the world, but there are some who like what I do because I really do love them, appreciate them. And I show that within the best of my power.

Coals for a portion of the barbecue

I can write. Especially plays. They are not the best ever written. But in the human catalogue of communication, they will be among the best. For somewhere, someone in time, my words will be salvation or at least enlightenment. Not the biggest deal in the world. But will get someone through where they need to get to. And this may be for centuries. And they are for people whom we need to get empowered upon our earth. That’s why I’m here. I’m here to empower people.

I talk with Robbin later in the evening about Stacey and David. Appalling behavior. Makes me sad. Tender for Stacey. She has been, I perceive, trying.

Getting near the end of my stay at Hickory Pass Ranch.

To be continued tomorrow.

Go to sequel #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6 ,#7, #8, #9, #10, #11

HICKORY PASS RANCH #11

2010-07-25T17:32:00.006-04:00

BIRTHDAYS ARE A-COMIN'
-- DAYS 18 & 19

July 24, 2008, Thursday. I write like crazy. Plumbers arrive about 9:15. Hurricane rain starts. Gets heavy. Streams all over the place. Texas has no sewers or gutters for run-off. Plumbers work in the rain. Joe shows up about 11:30 a.m. We talk and talk. Story after story. He scrutinizes Murphy. He says, “This dog has improved. Needs to be around a man. Stays outside. Follows tracks. Girls are 'good people'. But a dog needs a man. Any animal that licks its own ass for pleasure can’t be all bad.”

Jacquelyn shows up with four girls. It's Maddy's thirteenth birthday and three friends have come along to celebrate. Joe and I go down to the tank and look for pigs. Nothing moving but the jumping fish. We come back up to the guesthouse. We talk until 11:30 p.m. about aging. He talks about hard-scrabble growing up. About the chicken farm in West Virginia. And the fish in Florida. He talks about growing up hard-scrabble, but it’s really not that different when it really comes down to life, its pleasures and its troubles.

Joe talks about his dad dying. His mother wouldn’t take care of him then. He had a heart attack in a bar. And a guy resuscitated him and broke a rib doing so. Then he had a cancerous pancreas. Joe and Karen were living in Las Vegas at the time. Joe drove all the way to Florida. Put his dad in the back seat with everything he owned, and drove his him all the way back to Las Vegas. Karen and Joe took care of him for a year and a half. He was “a tough mother-f**ker,” Joe says. When his dad died, it It was the hardest thing in his life.

WE DISCUSS DEPRESSION

I describe my depression at the death of my parents in 1991. Joe says, “depression doesn’t describe it. I have not recovered yet. I just don’t have the faculties I used to. I can shoot a deer at three-hundred yards right between the eyes. But I have trouble gettin’ outa the truck. You know, Russ, this is all just fun. When the fun is gone -- that’s it. The switch will turn off. I said, ”I think I have at least a good twenty years left.” Joe said, “You run that road on your bicycle like you do and you might just make it, Captain.”

“I just don’t want to have to start over again,” Joe said, rather mournfully.

I told him about how I got over my depression. At that time it had to do with the smiles from girls while I crossed over Key Bridge on the sidewalk to Georgetown one day, and then eating two plates of mussels. Appetite back. Joe says, “That's like New Orleans, Russ.”

We talk into the night about girlfriends. Joe says, “Listen to that shit over there in the big ranch house. They’re watching a dancing movie. But it’s a bonding thing goin’ on over there. Those little girls with a mother, giggling and stuff. That’s happy stuff.”

Joe wants to know what was the love of my life. I am puzzled. He says, ”This one woman. Now listen up. I had a practice marriage. Then I married this blond Texas woman, and it is good. I mean good. She is my partner and I love her dearly. Forever. But there was one woman. I’ll never forget her even till I breathe my last breath. I still communicate with her sometime. Unforgettable, Captain.”

FISH, ANIMALS, WOMEN, GRASS, TREES, & DIRT

One thing I realize. I can write better in Texas than I can in Washington. The language is so direct here. It’s fish, animals, women, grass, trees, dirt, water, sky, snakes, food, and the blues. In Washington, language is circuitous. It beats around the bush by passive voice and jargon. Joe says every day, “Life is good in the brush.” And the language reflects that simplicity. I am writing better here.

July 26, 2008, Saturday. I take the dog, Murphy, on a big hike. Take him again down the road to Cow Creek. Me on my bicycle. He heels to my right, next to the front tire. Just fine. It is a stretch for him as he is a back yard dog. I have him way out in the country as I have done with all my dogs. He was so nifty as he was smart enough to get over all the cattle crossings -- which Joe says takes intelligence in an animal.

COW CREEK

This was like a twelve mile trip both ways over big hills. I bring water and a bowl for Murphy in my little blue bike carton. We get down to the swimming hole. I strip off my clothes and wade in. Up to my neck. Do the back stroke. Murphy tentative. But he takes the plunge. Swimming all over the place. Jumping back onto land. Shaking off and jumping back in. I am encouraging: “Yee-haa! Go Murphy! Swim!”

We go back uphill. It is a hard pull through this hill country. The sky is tall blue and the green yellow leaves of the live oak make a contrast against the blue sky you can gaze at it all day. These trees are not like dark tall oaks of the east, but rather are all craggy and twiggy and kind of snarly with air-plants living on the limbs. I wave to all the motorists along the way raising four fingers off the right handlebar. That salutation means you know Texas friendly. Murphy and I go through the ranch gate. Up another 1/2 mile. Tough ride for dog and man. Murphy is out like a light after a cool draught of water.

WANNA TAKE MURPHY HOME WITH YOU???

Jacquelyn’s husband, David, shows up to check out the ranch plumbing. He says, “That dog seems awful relaxed.” Well, I guess so. He says, “You can take him back to Washington. Why don’t you? We’ll pay for his airfare.” I say. “Love this dog. But where I live I would have to put him on a leash, and I don’t believe in doing that with a dog. I feel it is cruel. Furthermore he would attack policemen on the street.”

Jacquelyn arrives with her brood and is a bit concerned that I took Murphy on such a hard ride. So is the ranch manager. Well, I think, I friggin' made the journey at 65 years old. So can Murphy at eight and a half months. I say, "The dog is working out. I mean we’re improving his cardiovascular system. He will get better going on these trips. Dogs need to run!" Then Maddy says, "Yeah, it’s just like basketball. He’ll get in better shape." Murphy sleeps practically for two days. Good for him. Texans are known to be tough. But I perceive we guys from western Pennsylvania are pretty tough too.

To be continued tomorrow.

Go to sequel #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #12

HICKORY PASS RANCH #10

2010-07-25T05:23:00.002-04:00

PIE AT HAPPY HOUR -- DAY 17

July 23, 2008, Wednesday. The dog sleeps by my bare feet just now, and I am a happy man. Karen arrives today. Robbin spoke of her granddaughter, Maddy, yesterday, by cell phone as I stood on top of the hill to get a signal. Maddy says she doesn’t want to go to Colorado. Robbin is upset, understandably. Difficult to figure the reality. Thirteen-year-olds are a case and a half. Maddy breaks up with her boyfriend -- which is hard. We tend to diminish such an important event as that because they are just children. But it hurts even if you are a child. And the expression of that hurt is difficult at that age. So they lash out instead. Their way of communication. Maybe ours too.

My hope is Maddy will chill out on the sheep ranch in Colorado. And come back refreshed and ready to go for a new school year. I do think grandma, Robbin, needs to be more independent of her grandchildren, especially Maddy. If Robbin gives attention to her own love, she will get more respect from Maddy and many others. The principle is, love someone, and the children follow in proper relational love. Direct love with children is not so beneficent. They like their parental love indirect. So they can finally separate.

Karen and I get on mountain bikes. I lead the way going down a bull-dozed trail toward Pen Central and the old windmill. Steep rocky trails going down. The dog is out ahead. Karen and I walk down some of the hills as they are treacherous for a bicycle. I have plenty of water for us and and an apple apiece. Karen stops and finds many fossil shells as this was once an ocean bed (and probably will be one time again). She and I go into town for shopping and internet.

We eat lunch at the Bluebonnet Cafe. Talkin’ about country food. I eat the meat-loaf special for Wednesday with mashed potatoes and green beans. And Karen eats chicken-fried chicken livers. And we have German chocolate pie for dessert. There’s a sign out front that says. Pie happy hour every evening. At HEB grocery store get some Jalapeno potato chips that really have that true pepper flavor. On internet, I hear about meeting at Penn State. Also hear from drummer person which I will pursue when I get to whatever is home.

Karen brings her dog, Buddy. I separate them by putting Murphy in his kennel for our trip down town. When Karen and I get back, we bring them together in the guest house. Major dog-fight ensues. I break them up with by slapping a big book between them. Scares them apart. And we separate them. Territory. Actually the little dog, Buddy tries to hump the larger dog, Murphy for superiority. Doesn’t work. Murphy owns this place and is twice a big.

Karen and I talk a walk with Murphy out past several ubiquitous country fences. We enter a pasture. There we encounter cows and a bull. Murphy’s DNA kicks in and, in his teen-aged inept way, begin herding the cattle. They are all over the place. Barking. Finally, the bull takes a stand. Stomps his right foot three times and snorts at Murphy. Karen and I retreat downhill. Finally, Murphy figures out this animal is bigger than him and he joins us in a fast scamper. Then he finds a cow pie and rolls in it. When we get back to the ranch house, we try to wash him down. The dog is a clever dodge when it comes to this.

At the Bluebonnet Cafe in Marble Falls, I tell Karen that Joe is so smart, intelligent. She says, “I don’t hang out with stupid men.” Well, I kind of take that as a compliment for myself too.

To be continued tomorrow.

Go to sequel #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12

HICKORY PASS RANCH #9

2010-07-23T14:56:00.004-04:00

AHEAD OF THE CURVE -- DAYS 15 &16
By (c) Russ Barnes. All rights reserved: text. Photo credit: the Mouton family

July 21, 2008, Monday. Joe leaves about 6:30 for work at the school. I don’t even wake up. Jacquelyn transfers the dog, Murphy, AKA Queso, over to me at 10 a.m. He disappears instantly trying to find the track of his mistress who leaves. Finally, he comes back to me, the only thing he has left. I give him some barbecue pork, and we are forever bonded. He roams a bit. Then he sleeps while I revise the second act. We have lunch. I give him my plate to clean. I don’t think his mistress allows that. I like having an animal around. It’s better than a dish washing machine. Sharon is in Chicago . She hears about Murphy. Her 30s something reply, -- “Awesome.”

I take Murph for a walk, actually a six mile run by bicycle. He keeps right up -- unlike what Jacquelyn says. She says, he won’t follow on bicycle. He definitely does follow. There are cows and a bull on the way. They all scat when they see the dog. Murph crashes when we get back. We stay on the porch and he slobbers. Good for him. He will sleep well tonight. I am talking about, he is knocked out.

Yesterday, Joe asked me about the business model of plays. I said I’m making didley squat on them now. But explained how, if things work out over time, the plays may bring in some very good passive income -- which is what I’m looking for.

July 22, 2008, Tuesday. Slept in till about 10 a.m. Dog slept here too. Was good dog. Probably all the exercise. Joe has given me a book by John Graves which I am now reading. He is a regional writer. About this region of Texas. Famous book is Goodbye to a River. It is so Southern in its love of place. The southern writers are among the greatest American writers. They know how to articulate meaning in slight details. Graves is wonderful with description and metaphor of birds.

I am kind of an oddity as a Pennsylvanian; i.e.: “yankee” writer. Who would try to understand Uniontown, PA but me? I have no competition. But the people in Uniontown or Pittsburgh do not see the elegance and drama of their place, their habitation. (George Washington, the Southerner, did when he was in the region.)

THE SPIRIT OF PLACE

When I published Modern Saga of Monongahela River (which see here) in the Pittsburgh Press, the most enthusiastic piece of fan mail I received was from a Texan. He said he and his wife travel to Pittsburgh on business, and they love the land, and the personality of the people. I suppose I do have qualifications as a southerner. Granny was from Virginia. And the Cluss side was from Missouri which I think counts as southern.

Been reading here about George Marshall. He was raised in Uniontown. But much of his family was from Kentucky. And one of his relatives -- John Marshall, the early supreme court justice, was a Virginian. Marshall loved Uniontown and Virginia. I wonder whether “Red Dog Dirt” will ever be a hit in Pennsylvania. I wonder if it may first take off first in the South. Rewriting this play. Plays are much more difficult than non-fiction books or novels. Novels can be very particular. Plays MUST be particular and universal at the same time. A play evokes, does not describe, feelings. A play is all action, not reflection. The audience gets to reflect on the action. The audience is not spoon-fed. They must come to their own conclusions.

GRAZING ON DATA PASTURES

Drama deals with action and data. Been thinking about something I heard on KUT, NPR, on Sunday. A guy, a scientist, talked about “the Google model.” He said, Google does not look at a web page and figure its MEANING. It simply looks for DATA and then it makes correlations with other data. The correlations of data are what make meaning. Not speculations, or theories, about meaning.

This knocks dogma and political ideology off the chart.. Kind of goes back to the nominalist/realist controversy during the middle ages (REF: Abelard) whereas the realist started with ideas and worked backward to things (Plato), and the nominalists started with things and worked upward toward ideas (Aristotle.)

This commentator said theoretical science is dead. With all the processing power we now have, we can put in data, cross-reference it with algorithms as Google does, and we will arrive at reality -- without theory. Without policy. Darwin, he said, had a theory. Those were the days. But Darwin was ahead of the curve. Because his journey on the Beagle provided data first and foremost. It was then Darwin was able to extrapolate something like reality. And what he came up with explained a lot about all us animals. And how we came to be and, in fact, are. Not in contradiction to religion, or the Bible. Data is God’s speech. The word. We experience the Word through particulars.

I told Joe a story day before yesterday. The story is about a Puritan preacher from New England who rides south on a horse to convert the Virginians who, as some say, are “Episco-pagan.” Thrilled, the preacher meets his first Virginian. He asks from atop his horse to this old Virginia farmer who tills: “Do you know Jesus Christ?” The reply from the Virginian: “I don’t believe the gentleman lives anyplace around these parts.”

To be continued tomorrow.

Go to sequel #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12

HICKORY PASS RANCH #8

2010-07-22T14:08:00.005-04:00

BIGGER PASTURE -- LESS SCRUB

DAYS 12, 13, 14
By (c) Russ Barnes. All rights reserved: text.

July 18, 2008, Friday. I do another recorded interview of Joe in the guesthouse. (Audio interview at http://travelwitwist.blogspot.com/2010/05/outfitter-describes-harvest.html) He is animated, dramatic, and loquacious -- astonishingly more so than I am.

Joe slows my writing down a bit, but not too much. Meditation is impossible. But there are rewards. I record more of his narrative. He tells a story of his best friend who is part Indian. Gary Gray.

Gary has a growth on his face he doesn’t like. He goes to the doctor and the doctor says he will have to cut it off. Gary says,” Let me see the knife.” It’s shown. Gary says, “Let’s make another appointment and I’ll be back with my own knife.” He goes home, takes a piece of flint, chips on it for hours, and sharpens it to a fine edge. Gary takes it back to the doctor who is skeptical. The doctor pops the growth right off with no complications.

Gary, whose Indian name is Buzzard, says, "I have eaten so many animals in my life, when I die I want to be taken to the top of a hill and let the buzzards eat me. I need to give back."

BUZZARDS CIRCLE

I do a 45 minute bike ride at about 5 p.m. New path through the ranch. Soil changes to sandy loam. Bigger pasture. Less scrub. Travel along ridge overlooking the canyon. Eerie feeling as nothing is stirring. Three buzzards follow me riding effortlessly on canyon thermals -- probably just thinking and hoping. “If we’re lucky, this old guy will keel over any second. Or maybe he’ll have a picnic or something.” Or they will have a picnic. Joe and I go down to to the tank about 7 p.m. Buck and two does are watering and eating corn. Park the truck under a cedar tree. And just wait to see what happens. It is so peaceful. Not a sound. Sun sinks. Full moon rises orange red.

July 19, 2008, Saturday. Get note from Sharon. She leaves for Chicago today at about 2:30 p.m to meet with the Obama team. She is so excited that I will have a dog for a while. Wants to know all about it. She thinks she will lose her New York apartment.

FIRST AID KIT

Sharon wants to know whether I have enough water. How about a first aid kit? She is becoming a Jewish mother already.

Joe departs mid-morning.

Go on a one hour bike ride over new sections of the ranch. When I return, Jacquelyn arrives. She said some guests were coming in from California July 31 to August 3 -- a bunch of friends and their children. There’s still room for me, but she offers her Austin house for me to stay in while she and her husband are out of town during the same period. She also offers me her car. Will be good since then I can be on the internet for several days running.

One of the things I realize staying here: there really is more liberty and more of a positive attitude here than in Washington. There is also more poetry. It may not even be poetry after my own style, but it is poetry. Which you don’t get much of in Washington, at least not real live created on the spot poetry like you get here.

I use the word Wonk here and they don’t understand what it means. I think about it. It really is the formulation and enforcement of political ideology. It’s close to the formulation and enforcement of religious dogma. When you get off the metro in Rockville, or cross the campus of NIH, you see signs that say, NO, NO, NO. I like Washington’s cosmopolitan atmosphere, but not its pervasive negativity, its do-goodism, and its enforcement mentality.

July 20, 2008, Sunday.

Jacquelyn offers her truck for me to go to Marble Falls this morning. I leave for town about 9:40. Go shopping at HEB. Go to restaurant for breakfast and internet -- but their Internet doesn’t work. So I eat and go next door to a Ramada Inn. They set me up and it works fine. This is Texas.

Sent email, upon Jacquelyn’s request, to Doug and Tim Carrington (World Bank) REF on getting school supplies to sister school in Ghana via a Franciscan monk.

ROLLING IN FISH

Joe arrives about 2 p.m. We futz around and go down to the tank at about 3:30 p.m. Catch six fish, bass. Nice size. Hot. Epizote all around. I will pick some, dry it, and take back to Washington. We come back. Joe cleans the fish which are still alive, batter up in some cajun stuff Joe has made, and fry in a wok on the tailgate of the truck. Best fish I have eaten since I was at the Lake of the Woods in Canada at age 13. Fabulous. Dog is with us. Murphy loves the smell of that fish. Anything we drop is eaten or rolled in. Murphy gets excited. This is better for him than being around girls all the time as he is in his ordinary family. Starts running around like a maniac. Joe howls. And the dog howls back. Joe says, “Be a dog! Be a dog!” The dog obeys.

I speak by cell phone with Robbin after her party for Betty in Washington. She fell on the way into the house and hurt her leg. I wonder whether she speaks with her friends about me as much as I speak to my friends about her. Joe gives me a book by John Graves, an excellent regional writer about life and wildness in Texas. Very sensitive about animals and nature and relation to human well-being. Good writing.

To be continued tomorrow
Go to sequel #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7

HICKORY PASS RANCH #7

2010-07-21T14:25:00.003-04:00

MURPHY -- MY DOG -- & I HOWL AT THE MOON --
DAYS 10 & 11

July 17, 2008, Thursday. I am writing away, and about 2 p.m. Joe knocks on the door and yells out, “Jehovah’s Witnesses!” Have just finished the first act, 49 pages of Red Dog Dirt revision. Joe and I kibbitz as always. We find the tank just to the west and down the hill from the ranch reached through a hunting encampment which is leased to hunters for thousand of dollars per year. At the tank, Joe does some fly fishing and brings in about eight fish in 20 minutes. Bass. Four of them are big enough to eat. Throws them back in because we don’t have permission from the owner -- although the tank is over-populated.

CORNING

When the owner arrives, we get permission. So next Friday, we will have a fish fry at my guest house. Joe says, “Never announce a fish-fry until you have caught the fish.“ The ranch owners do not like fish.

There are deer and pig tacks all around the tank. We corn one side (both sweet and sour corn). Sour corn is made with stale beer and yeast and becomes practically sour mash -- pre-Jack Daniels. Deer and pigs love it. The idea is to concentrate the game in one spot. Deer will not be killed (harvested) because they are not in season. Pigs (feral pigs of a certain type) will be killed because they unbalance the environment. Texas has open season on them, and the U.S. Park Service recommends their extermination.

I interview Joe, and record on the computer using the microphone and Wire Tap Pro software. Fifty minutes. Among the more provocative questions I ask him is why it was he missed having a daughter. What are his feelings of loss? He was eloquent in describing how he initiated his son, John, into manhood. (Listen to audio interview at: http:/travelwitwist.blogspot.com/2010/05/outfitter-describes-harvest.html)

I also ask him about the religious implications of the WHOLE process of the kill all the way to the table.

FISH-FRY

Joe says hearing the question gives him a little scariness in his stomach -- as he doesn’t relate to religion. I asked, "How about sacred?" The Indians felt all this was sacred. I tell Joe I read the Prayer Book’s Daily Office often, and in the Hebrew Bible, you find things like (Leviticus at least) giving elaborate directions of the slaughter of the sacrificed animal, how it is to be cleaned, how it is to be served, and how God “finds its scent pleasing.” The holy sacrifice is shared. Joe says, “No, you don’t eat alone. The fun is sharing it with everyone. Your neighbors. Food is love.”

In the evening, Jacquelyn arrives with her three daughters, Lia, Ava, and Maddie and a teenaged friend. We have a big talk with the girls. They have gone to a pet shop. They are giggly, but have an awareness of adult decorum. They describe strange and intriguing animals -- such as a sloth. One of the girl's says she fed a giraffe out of her mouth. We eat barbecue pork in burritos. Tender, smokey.

Jacquelyn asks me whether I might like to take care of their dog, Murphy -- as they are going to be traveling. He is a pure bred Black-mouthed Cur, a Southern dog; over a thousand dollars in price. I ask whether the dog will stay close or roam. Stays close. What does it eat? Dog food, and scraps. I said I allow dogs in the house, but not in my bed. And I will run the dog several times a day to expend its youthful energy -- nine months old.

HERD AND HUNT

Yes, I will take the dog. I say the only problem I see is that the dog and I will bond, and then separation will be hard. The dog, which has herding and hunting instincts, does bark excessively. Several miles of trotting along a mountain bike at sometimes over ten miles-per-hour over rocks in 100 degree sunshine and skinny-dipping in a swimming-hole, will cure the dog of excessive barking I am certain.

Murphy and I become pals quickly. He senses intruders -- man or animal, a mile off -- by some kind of super-sensitive central nervous system he has. On our first night together, on the hill overlooking the canyon at dark, as the near full moon rises, the two of us howl at the moon together. It gratifies my soul.

To be continued tomorrow

Go to sequel: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8

HICKORY PASS RANCH #6

2010-07-20T11:44:00.008-04:00

SOCIAL OUTING & KRISPY KREME DOUGHNUTS -- DAYS 8 & 9

July 15, 2008, Tuesday Substantially revised “Red Dog Dirt” play to thirty pages. I’m having characters crossover from "The Meeting Place of the Living and the Dead" setting and the "Hallucinatory Past" setting. The border is permeable. Very little narrative left. Almost all dialogue. Should come out to the same number of pages: somewhere between 90 and 110 which means a play of about two hours including intermission. Heard from Robbin this morning from McAllen, Texas. Should be home tonight in Rockville. Look for a report on the tomatoes. Did a laundry by hand and hung them on a ranch fence to dry. After all it has been a week and Karen visits me tomorrow.

WHAT I PACKED FOR THE JOURNEY

I travel light. A pair of shorts, a pair of jeans, a bathing suit, 4 pair underwear. two pair socks, two pull-over shirts, an Hawaiian shirt, a tee-shirt, old tennis shoes, hiking boots, topsiders, a few vitamins, and a minimum of grooming products.

Rain predicted for late afternoon. So I decided to take the bike out at noon. Hot! But it was partly cloudy; so I got some relief. Round-trip it was about 12 miles. Two killer hills! 90 percent of trip on bulldozed rocky, rough road. Went back through the ranch to an area called, “Central Pen.” When I first heard that, I thought it must be a branch of a Pennsylvania State College. But, no, it was a central place to corral animals. There was a big old windmill there, still rotating, but doing no work.

There was quite a kind of prison aviary there with cow birds which prey upon Golden Cheeked Warblers which are an endangered species unique to the ecology of Balcones Canyonland of which Hickory Pass is a part. The ranch has an agreement with the U.S. Park Service to protect the Warblers. These apparently rogue cow birds had quite an excitement seeing me approach.

Cruising by bike, my heart rate stayed at about 128 beats per second. Not bad, but my energy crashed on the last two hills up to the top of the ranch house, and had to push part of the way. Further, I couldn’t get two of the ranch gates open with the combination lock. So I had to lift the bike over the fence and then climb over the fence myself. Tumblers probably need lubrication. Drank half a gallon of water upon arrival at the guest house.

DOUGHNUTS LEFT BEHIND

July 16, 2008, Wednesday. Big social day. Karen comes out from Austin to visit. Brings Buddy her dog. Go down to look at Cow Creek Pool. Long talk. She loves being out in the country. Go to Marble Falls to shop at HEB and we had lunch at a place that has internet. Downloaded all my email and haven‘t read it all yet. At lunch I asked Karen about Joe. And she said, while there is the outdoorsman he-man aspect to Joe, there is also a New Age side, a sensitivity that is almost feminine. To wit, his raising son, John, from almost birth to adulthood.

I point out that Jung posited that each sex contains the other sex in a minority position within itself. And when the dominant sexual persona is in good communication with the minority sexual persona, then a man becomes more of a man, not less. And a woman becomes more of a woman, not less. One of the problems, I perceive, in the sexual relations in America. American writers are notorious for not always being able to convincingly portray the opposite sex.

Leaving the restaurant after the internet session, we find in the parking lot that Karen’s Miata has a flat tire. We change it with the truncated spare in the parking lot. Stop and fill the tire to 45 psi. Lying on my back on the hot asphalt, I comment, I’m getting too old for this s**t.” When Karen departs the guest house, she leaves several Krispy Kreme doughnuts -- which I eat. I had sent from the restaurant my revisions of the play script to Director David Maslow in Pittsburgh for his review over the internet.

To be continued tomorrow

Go to sequel: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #7, #8

HICKORY PASS RANCH #5

2010-07-19T12:41:00.005-04:00

COMING OF AGE -- DAYS 6 & 7

July 13, 2008; Sunday. Awake 8 a.m. Go through the ritual of making coffee. Butane stove on porch. Percolator coffee pot which I haven’t used in decades. Light breakfast in guest house.

Pace to get ready for revising. Dive into it at about 9:15 and work till about 12:30. It appears to me to be working. Knocking out most narrative for action. Making the division between the two worlds of the play (the “Meeting Place of the Living and the Dead” and the “Hallucinatory Past” clear as well as the passageway between the two realms. Make clearer why Granny and the Captain are there where they are. Also clarify the role of the audience as “the town looking on and implicated.” Went to make lunch at the big house. Sat out on the breezy hill overlooking the scrub wooded valley and Lake Travis in the distance. Returned to do two and a half more hours work on the play.

STRIPPING DOWN & DOMESTIC DISCIPLINE

At about 4 p.m., I get on the bike and roll down hill about 3.5 miles to Cow Creek Road where there is the creek and a swimming hole. I strip down except for old tennis shoes and go in for a 30 minute soak. Water is about 5 feet at deepest. Clear. Minnows and some trout swimming around me. I reach out to grab and they are reet, petite, and gone. Water is cooling, but pretty warm -- about 78 degrees. Sun is blazing. Later I talk with Joe on the phone about the experience. About the elusive fish, he says, “Use a spear.”

Get dressed and begin the arduous bike climb to 1700 feet. I’m not in excellent bicycle shape yet this summer. I stop three quarters up the public road alongside the ranch for rest, shade, and water. I go through the ranch gate. I push half the steep driveway stopping twice for rest and water. Arrive back at guesthouse about 5:40. Cool down. Begin hour’s meditation at 6:15.

Watched the sun set at 8:37 CDT, “burn orange,” as Texans say, over the southwestern part of the valley.

Am reading materials about George C. Marshall in the evening to prepare for that play I am contemplating. Thinking about dilemma and structure.

July 14, 2008, Monday, Awake 7 a.m. Is this Bastille Day? Talk with Robbin. Miss her. I miss shared experiences, shared perceptions. She pushes me to see more things. I miss sleeping together. It feels right. Fear I may not be right for her as she may need someone on the more preacherly side.

NARRATION SHIFTS TO ACTION

I make my way to about 19 pages of revision of Red Dog Dirt. 8 a.m. to 12:15. It seems like about five minutes. It is arduous work. Narration to action. More stage directions to guide the director. More family stuff. Will be controversial in my family, but will be valuable to the public. Doing my best to universalize it and not just make it the story of one family, one person, or one town. There is not just one protagonist in this version. There is Granny, Russell, Richie, Guts, the town (audience), and Mongolusa. I would say the themes are childhood innocence, coming of age (socialization), losing ones way (adulthood, manhood) through avoidance and regression, shame, guilt, eucharist.

CLOUDS ROLL IN

Ominous black clouds blew in from the west at about 11:45 a.m. They seem to disperse and have made a generally overcast sky all day. Windy. Know enough about Texas weather that it can change in a minute. And that change is ordinarily violent. So I do not take out the bike today for my exercise and exploration. I let it blow over, and try to do it earlier than usual tomorrow.

“Blue Monday” on KUT radio tonight. Celebrating 20th anniversary of Antoine’s. Downtown Austin. I have seen some of the greats there: Bobby Blue Bland, Junior Walker, Marcia Ball, Eddie Cleanhead Vinson.

I’m not struggling here for some remedy to my life problems. I’m just doing my disciplined routine: work, exercise, eat, sleep, walk around enjoying the scenery and the animals, meditate, keep house, pray (for general insight), tell myself and God funny stories.

To be continued tomorrow

Go to sequel: #1, #2, #3, #4, #6, #7, #8

HICKORY PASS RANCH #4

2010-07-18T12:19:00.004-04:00

KEEP YOUR FACE TO THE WIND -- DAY 5

July 12, Saturday. 8:30 a.m. over to the main house for breakfast. At breakfast Jacquelyn announces she has just had a dream. She walks out of the ranch house, and there is a bison out on the grounds. It is friendly. Lia is with her and so is Russ (She thinks “it is Russ.”) In her dream, they all go to Marble Falls, including the bison, and go to a nice restaurant. While sitting there, the bison leans his head up against her. She says it’s one of her more vivid dreams seeming very real.

The four wheelers won’t start. So we drive around to all the ranch gates. We open one gate that leads to a pristine pure water creek. Many pools with various types of fish. Sand as nice as Virginia beach. Beautiful sun-bleached outcroppings. Visit a swimming hole. Fish. It’s a two mile bike ride. And I intend to soak later during my stay.

The two of them depart for several days. I am all alone on the ranch. It’s beginning to feel good. I pace to evoke the imaginative tasks ahead of me in my aloneness. Plan to hike and do the Daily Office readings each day for discipline breaks. Turn the radio on once a day for brief update on election. And KUT Austin’s “Twine Time” and “Blue Monday.”

Then the cell phone rings and it is Sharon in New York who announces she will be one of four videographers to follow the official Obama campaign. I hear this right on top of this Texas hill. She will write copy, shoot video for live television feeds, commercial takes, websites, etc. My heart almost leaps out of my chest.

A chance of a lifetime for Sharon. I must admit I have parental pride. In spite of my many deficiencies, I must take in that I added something to her self esteem -- not to take away in any way from her own achievement and what Susan, her mother, obviously added. But I did, almost methodically, try to add to her self esteem and sense of herself as herself. Self-congratulations! Can be taken too far, but also not to be minimized. Balance for the sake of reality. She texted me, “I am not prepared for this job.” I texted back, “You are worthy.”

Meditated for a long period of time -- maybe two hours. Afterward, I pace furiously up and down the guest house. The new shape of the “Red Dog Dirt” stage play, thanks to Pittsburgh director, David Maslow, begins to dawn upon me.

Took the mountain bike out for the first spin in the afternoon. Short ride to get used to it. Went through some fences. Crossed a few cattle bars. I do like the bike’s low gear, lows for big hills and rocky terrain. Climbed the paved driveway, a steep one-half mile hill. Turned off onto a bulldozed rocky trail and three deer were plenty surprised by my down-wind, quiet approach. One of them jumped a high, close-by fence in a perfect jack-knife leap.

As Joe, my guide, says, “Keep your face to the wind and your powder dry.” Need I explain the meaning of that?

To be continued tomorrow.
Go to sequels: #1, #2, #3, #5, #6, #7, #8

HICKORY PASS RANCH #3

2010-07-17T13:53:00.009-04:00

BUNGIE JUMPING -- DAY 4

July 11, Friday. We awake. Me later. Joe makes coffee outside. We head out in the truck for a trail head. We go down, down hill. Rogue cedar trees have been bulldozed. We go through ranch fences. We meet cows, Rocky. Beautiful old live-oak trees, very few mesquite, and a few cottonwoods. Enthusiastically, Joe gives me all the skivvy on animal tracks: deer, bobcats, feral pigs, coyote. We see a klatch of wild turkeys, a hen and her almost grown chicks.

I get instructions on rattlesnakes. “Walk in the sun during day. Be careful when walking in the shade. At night always carry a flashlight. If you see an animal in the sunlight during summer, it is probably rabid. Either shoot it or back away quickly. There is no 911 out here Russ. Don’t die in the house. It’s bad manners. If you die outside the buzzards will eat you and the only thing we’ll find will be your glasses and watch.”

PICK A TARGET

Joe insists on providing me with a single-barrel shotgun. ”You are the only police force out here,” he says. He checks me out. “Open the barrel. See the chamber. Load a shell. Remove the shell. Close the chamber. Pick a target. That’s it. Now dry fire it.” Click. “You would have hit that target, Russ. Now, would you like to live fire it?” “No,” I said. “Only if I have to.”

Joe has been a wilderness guide, an outfitter, an outdoorsman. And if he had it to do all over again, this is what he would do for his life’s work. His passion. I get the feeling I’m now the beneficiary of this, I think, sacred energy. He explains to me when he kills a deer, he cleans and processes it all himself. He says he can take a deer apart entirely with only a penknife. The city-slicker in me shudders. He explains how the bullet must enter the deer to make the most tasty meat. You can’t just shoot the deer and kill it. You must kill it in a special way. Then he explains all the different parts of the deer and how each one needs to be aged, seasoned, and cooked according to their properties.

We walk about 4 miles over rough terrain. Return to the truck about 10 am. Nice town. I try unsuccessfully to get on the internet. Will try again when Karen arrives on Wednesday.

MY HOST

Joe leaves about mid-afternoon. I do more settling in. About 7 p.m,, the Ranch owner, Jacquelyn Mouton arrives with her nine-year-old daughter, Lia. I go to the main house to visit for introductions. Lovely person in her forties or so. Out-going. Generous. Her daughter is obviously thrilled to meet a writer. And she talks about her own writing using terms like metaphor! At the age of nine yet. At nine, I would have thought it was a railroad signal. Anyway Jacquelyn offers me a huge space in the refrigerator. We talk for about an hour and a half -- about the Episcopal School, about fundraising, conservation, education, cooking, Texas, Virginia, and New York. She invites me on a four wheeler tour of the ranch the next morning.

Her daughter asks me pointing to her mother, “She bungie jumps. Do you bungie jump?” Well, I can tell I’m in Texas. Clear contrast with one of my recent dates who requested an elevator to hike up a hill along the civilized Potomac. I have to answer, “No, I don’t bungie jump. But there are other risks I have been known to take.”

I retire at 11:00 p.m. All heart palpitations have disappeared. Heart rate is 60 b.p.m.

To be continued tomorrow.

Go to sequel #1, #2, #4, #5, #6, #7

HICKORY PASS RANCH #2

2010-07-16T21:28:00.013-04:00

SALMON AND EGGS; DAY 3.

By (c) Russ Barnes. All rights reserved: text and photos

July 10, 2008, Wednesday. I wake up in the morning about 7:30 on the couch in the “hood,” East Austin. Slept straight through without a stir. Karen fixes me eggs and salmon; and coffee. Then she takes me on a tour of the old places of Austin. And many of the new places which are awful. America corporate retailing. It’s good to be with my old friend zooming around in her Miata. Joe arrives home around 11 am and he begins readying “Wall Mart” for the move to the ranch.

He says,”Make a list, Russ. Make a list.” His outdoors guide kicking in.

We get to the ranch, on a hill altitude 1700 feet. 360 degree panorama of the Texas Hill Country and you can see Lake Travis and the horseshow bend. Tallest hill in Central Texas. 3500 acres adjacent to the Golden Cheek Warbler Wildlife Preserve operated by the Park Service. There is a largish, well-furnished, but modest, by Texas standards, ranch-house. I occupy a two-story guest house. And there is another guest house, called the bunkhouse, on the hilltop property, plus a habitable log cabin. Because of the altitude, there is a pleasant breeze at all times.

I unpack myself and begin to set up for living and work. Joe brings in the stuff: butane stove, paper plates, plastic flatware, detergent, flashlight, towels, radio to listen to KUT, mountain bike equipped with a gun-rack, home-made salsa, home-made barbecue sauce, a case of beans, freshly cooked rice, binoculars, garbage bags, a cell phone, camp-like folding chairs, corn to feed the deer, medicine in case of snake or wasp bites, and more

Joe also sells me two knives for a penny. One is a nice, useful buck knife. Single blade penknife, really sharp. The other is a multipurpose penknife with many tools including a can opener, two saws, a church key, and a cork screw.

WHAT YOU NOTICE

Joe and I survey the immediate land. At sunset, he pours himself a vodka cocktail and we watch the lights of Austin, far in the distance come on. Then we talk in the house till about 11 about adventures, including the adventures of our children and our attitude toward them.

In the evening, Joe and I get into a big discussion. We talk about you don’t condescend to women, and you don’t try to dictate the lifestyle of your children. (He says he despises guys who make off-color remarks to women about them being women. He says they usually take it, but they are thinking, “What an asshole.“ This is another reason Joe and I are friends.) He talks about the Episcopal School and how he has to lug around altars, etc. He says, “They gave me full benefits right off. Gave me three weeks vacation; now I’m tellin’ you, not at the end of year, anytime I want it starting on the first day! When I was in the hospital with a hernia, they gave me full pay, and when I came out of the hospital, they gave me a check for $500.00.”

AGING

We discussed age. Joe said he has a hard time now doing computations in his head. “I’m mean I couldn’t do long division in my head and I used to be able to do it as easy as a saddle on a horse. Maybe it’s just computers do all the work for you and your forget how to do it, or maybe it’s age.” I told him about my mushroom hunt in the Rockies, and how Peggy Godfrey, the Moffit, Colorado shepherdess and cowboy poet said, “Real intelligence is what you notice. There’s where quality of life comes from, what you choose to observe.” And I said, “Joe, you observe things; you look at quality things. That hasn’t diminished with age; it’s improving all the time. Let the computers do computation.” We turn in about 11 p.m.. Not a sound outside.

To be continued

Go to sequel #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8

HICKORY PASS RANCH #1

2010-07-15T22:12:00.014-04:00

Out of Washington. Day 1 -- Day 2
By (c) Russ Barnes. All rights reserved: text and photos

_________________

Here’s a story. A journey in daily journal form. All the way from Washington, DC to Austin, Texas and the ranch. I will be publishing these posts from today till July 28. I hope you will join with me by your comments and wisdom. Please check in every day for the duration.

July 8, 2008, Tuesday -- Washington DC -- I pack; organize for trip. Haven’t flown in eight years. Nervous, anxious. Anxious about where I’ll be. Will I have enough to survive? Will I really have time to do my work? Will Robbin abandon me while I’m gone? Will Anne be okay with her house without my help? I’m also sad. I feel alone. I know I will miss everyone. This is not going to be social I think. It is going to be lonely. But that’s what I think I need. Don’t exactly know why.

I develop severe heart palpitations. They last the whole day without let-up. Heart skips a beat - at least three times a minute. Irregular heartbeat too. I feel bad, fluttery in my chest and stomach. And that adds to the anxiety, a sense of dread. I feel so bad, I call the doctor. She says to take a moderate amount of diazepam all the way up and through the flight. The palpitations don’t go away; but they diminish.

July 9, 2008, Wednesday. Washington to Austin -- I get through security, new to me after 9/11, almost without a hitch. The flight is close to routine. I even sleep a bit. Fly south out of Houston along the Gulf to avoid a thunderhead between Houston and Austin. In the airport there were live jazz and blues bands playing in several spots. Welcome to the spirit of Austin. Karen meets me in Joe’s truck, Silver, with a gray-top, AKA Wallmart. Since, if there were seven 9/11s, you have everything in that truck to survive. On the dashboard are the skulls of animals like bobcats, sundry other bones, teeth, bullets, feathers, and such things the black neighbors call Ju-Ju. Evil spirits will not come near.

EAST AUSTIN

Karen at 53 is smashing as always. She talks a stream, Joe talks a stream. We all three talk a stream. Non-Washingtonian. It’s about plants, animals, cooking, adventures experienced, business, who was hospitable and who was not, about ways to get out grease and dirt, put things together.

And about Leslie. Leslie is a gay man dressed in a pink bra and a g-string who regularly walks up and down Congress Avenue. He was arrested. The Travis County ACLU intervened, and now Leslie continues her daily walks and has gained celebrity status.

Joe hugged me upon arrival at the house in East Austin. Ramshackle place as always. Nineteen sewing machines strewn about with other mind-boggling accoutrements having to do with my host's encyclopedic interests.

Dinner, the Eucharist, if you will. Well, more accurately, going back to the ancient sacrifices. Oil barrel barbecue grill in the back yard with a huffing and puffing chimney. Smelling of Fajita meat. What a meal: Fajitas in fried tortillas: the meat, sautéed onions and varieties of of peppers, guacamole, a french cheese, and home-made salsa. Then a Mexican bean soup on the side which was one of the best soups I have ever tasted. Then we made contact with Robbin by Skype video conference in Mexico. I had such a feeling of worthiness of these three people. We all talked together. A little stilted. But I was so proud of everyone.

To be continued tomorrow
Go to sequel: #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8

MONTICELLO: A CHRYSLER & A TEA SERVICE

2010-07-05T20:38:00.022-04:00

A GREAT COUNTRY HOUSE HELPS FOUND A COUNTRY

______________________________________

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia. The year is 1959. I am traveling with my grandfather Cluss in his 1955 blue Chrysler New Yorker.

Leaving Staunton, Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley, we drive through the Piedmont countryside -- our road overhung by the dark-green canopy of the Carolinian forest. Through the open car windows, you can smell the spring-fresh Southern Pine along with the oozing-hot road tar.

Our destination is Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s lifelong passion and his home.

DRIVE UP TO THE GREAT HOUSE

Unlike with today’s more organized tours, we drive right up to the front door of this Neoclassical American masterpiece and walk straight into the grand house.

We arrive here at the turning point between an old era and a new one -- the election of John F. Kennedy and the beginning of the turbulent, dynamic era of the 1960's was upon us. This era marker I somehow sensed as I walked through Monticello for the first time -- perhaps because Mr. Jefferson himself looked back and forward at the same time.

I won't outline here the architectural genius that produced Monticello nor the political and personal ups-and-downs of the author of the Declaration of Independence and the founder of the University of Virginia.

SOUL STIRRINGS OF A SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY

Rather, I want to chronicle the soul stirrings of myself as a sixteen-year-old boy upon encountering, on this Virginia mountaintop, something of greatness, an originality born of a fertile imagination, an engine of a new republic built upon daring.

Once in the house, our tour guide takes us past the obligatory inspections of inventions and gadgets: the “great clock,” the weathervane, the wheel cipher, the spherical sundial, the dumbwaiter.

But the thing that enamored my adolescent attention the most was displayed in the dining room. Today, I barely know why this single object, with its simple classical lines, seduced my imagination so. What captivated me was -- a teapot -- part of an elegant silver tea and coffee service.

Close by the teapot were drawings, practically cadcam-like, drawn by Jefferson himself and sent to a silversmith in Paris with specifications for execution and transport across the Atlantic back to Monticello. The drawings are so reasonable, rational, so exact with an eye to detail, practicality, and aesthetics that they, and the object itself, flooded the feelings of the boy I was then with a new vision of what was possible in life.

Here was a man who funded Lewis and Clark on their expedition across an entire wild continent, who negotiated with Napoleon for another third of our nation’s geography, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, who founded the University of Virginia, who insisted on attaching the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution . . . and yet, who could, simultaneously, design a lowly domestic accoutrement with such grace and utility to please any hostess entertaining elegant and powerful guests.

HOSPITALITY FUNDS A NEW NATION

And Mr. Jefferson did just that -- entertained at the Great House for the enjoyment of family and guests, all the while benefitting the fragile political and financial development of the nascent United States of America. Our guide pointed out that the Great House had a suite of rooms dedicated for the exclusive use of such luminaries as James Madison and his family. These guest rooms were like a home-away-from-home, but the guests were expected to show up for dinner and other communal occasions for lively discussions and activities such as music and stargazing.

Such discussions, for example, might bring clarity to projects as to how to frame the legislative language for the Bill for Religious Freedom in Virginia -- a bill which provided part of the foundation for the First Amendment to the Constitution.

European guests such as the Marquis de Lafayette also showed up on the mountaintop. Lafayette, who had been an invaluable general in the American Revolution, also later served as an ally in securing French funds for the new United States.

My adolescent mind imagined how it would have been to be there experiencing that domestic detail, thoughtful entertainment and conversation -- as well as the delights of the inventive new world built on ancient classical values which had appealed to so many previous visitors of that Great House on the hill.

During the 1950’s, paying attention to a silver tea service appeared, to the boy I was then, to be what we would have called "a feminine pursuit." That was the convention of the day. But what Monticello dramatized for me was that the “Great House” provided not only a roof over one’s head, but also served as an instrument in achieving one of the most sweeping political successes in human history -- and, that in some way, Mr. Jefferson had combined both masculine and feminine qualities in his pursuit of this political victory.

IF YOU GO:

Charlottesville has many comfortable lodgings and restaurants. However, The Boar’s Head Inn is one of the best. http://www.boarsheadinn.com. Opened in 1834, the 573 acre property features gourmet Virginia cuisine with locally grown herbs, golf, tennis, fishing, bicycling, a fitness club and spa. Stop for afternoon tea or dinner or for a night or two.

Don’t miss the University of Virginia. Check out this page -- http://www.virginia.edu/exploring.html

For information on travel to Virginia, go to: http://www.Virginia.org

HANGING OUT MORE BRILLIANTLY ON A TEXAS HUNTING RANCH

2010-06-21T15:42:00.022-04:00

UNUSUAL SOLUTIONS TO LIFE'S PROBLEMS

By (c) Russ Barnes

FORT MCKAVETT, Texas. Many successful people have explained that personal and business creativity thrives on limits. If you desire a creative frame of mind to solve some problem or initiate some needed personal innovation, then a Texas ranch may be the place to hang out for a while.

My daughter, Sharon, recently found this to be true when we visited AC Ranches near Fort McKavett, Texas. She is a filmmaker/producer in NYC, and graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.

STARK, BUT ABUNDANT

For exercise, Sharon took her daily run on the mostly deserted road in front of our ranch lodgings and witnessed stark limitation, the hard line of the big sky meeting scrubby land at the horizon -- and once even a rattlesnake stretched clean across the dirt road as straight as the horizon itself. What she witnessed slowed her down and made her think differently. “A bit more brilliantly,” she claims.

In the film business, as in most businesses, many creative problems and opportunities present themselves -- often as limitations to be overcome. On the ranch, the magic fences serve as boundary markers -- more than hemming cattle in and keeping poachers out, they mark psychic as well as physical limits.

“JOY COMES OUT OF THE PROBLEM”

Making a Texas ranch profitable, says John Sassin, is no different from any other business. Sassin, a 20-year ranch hand and head of a family aluminum re-cycling business in Dallas-Fort Worth, claims, “A place like AC Ranches gives you the perspective on how you might become profitable. The ranch clears away some of the noise that keeps you from thinking fresh.”

On AC Ranches there are 150 head of Black Angus cattle for which the ranch has signed a contract with Whole Foods (Austin) to test the market for meat which has not been industrially processed.

Unlike most industrial farming operatives, Sassin points out, Texas ranches mostly free-range their cattle (within limits). And because of the rise of profitable industrial farms -- which, he notes, are "virtual concentration camps" for animals -- the vast ranches of Texas (and elsewhere) have seen significant decline in profitability.

"THE ROMANCE OF THE WEST TEXAS RANCH"

"I have been told by others," Sassin notes, "that the cattle business is 'unprofitable.' I intend to prove otherwise by thinking creatively about change -- the greatest tool in any business venture. " And yet, as he is well aware, change is often difficult to accept.

Sassin muses on how ranch life braces the spirit in opening to unusual solutions to life's problems, invoking the myth of "the western" -- in both novel and film such as Lonesome Dove.

“The 'romance' of a west Texas ranch in my opinion," continues Sassin, "is conjured up in the mind of an individual 'caught up' in the everyday motions of typical life; i.e. wake up, breakfast, get kids to school, go to work, get kids home, dinner, pay bills, homework for all, bathe, sleep, wake up, repeat."

“NATURE IS YOUR NEIGHBOR HERE”

He meditates a minute on his statement -- and adds, "It's a cycle which becomes mundane." Then he modifies a bit, "On the ranch one's life becomes in some regards the same but yet excitingly different."
====================================
[NOTE: DISCOUNTS, Premiums for outdoorsmen and their companions -- You must mention these articles to AC Ranches and you will get 20 percent off your selected hunting and outdoor journey. Check out AC Hunting Ranches for rates and bookings at: http://achuntingranches.com Contact Allen Spence for information about transportation from Austin or San Antonio: allen.spence@wildblue.net. (325-387-2085) Future articles will feature other hunting and regional premiums which you may access by contacting AC Ranches or this website.]

___________________________________________

With the nearest sizable grocery store sixty miles away, and no significant access to 911, the limitations make one think differently, with more simplicity, and with a kind of blessed clarity.

"Here nature is your neighbor," Sassin points out. "For a change, instead of people, cars and traffic, there are deer and wild turkey to replace your ordinary morning and evening traffic as those animals cross the roads or fly overhead to their favorite feeding sites. Unlike in the fast lane on the highway, or the crowded avenues of the city, when a west Texas driver lifts up his hand up to signal you, the gesture is one that says 'Howdy' -- instead of something far less friendly. Stress disappears."

A FEW WORDS ABOUT A RANCH-HAND AND A FIRE TRUCK

John Sassin has no title. Everyone on the ranch appears to be a CEO of some ever-changing domain on this 20,000 acre ranch. "I'm a Jack-of-all-Trades," Sassin claims. "This past week I got the fire engine running that we purchased at the Ft. McKavett Fire Department Benefit Auction. She's a beauty, vintage 1964 Howe Chevrolet model pumper truck with all the 'bells and whistles.' We'll display it under the flag on the highway at AC-3 for everyone to enjoy."

AHEAD OF THE CURVE

John Sassin is a bit reluctant, because of competitive factors, to disclose details of plans to make AC Ranches profitable. But it is clear that there is interest in building a wind farm on one of the ranch's high hills -- a clear departure from the "as usual" oil energy sinecures exercised by many Texas ranches.

But he is forthcoming regarding several innovative areas the ranch is considering. "Sight-seeing, bird and wildlife watching, bed and breakfast are some ideas I can mention at this time that we are exploring." It's a new concept in supporting open farmland and ranch-land -- called "agri-tourism."

Sassin has also initiated some farming on AC Ranches: fields of Sorghum and Milo for wildlife and domestic animal feed -- as well as fresh vegetable gardens for human consumption at the ranch. Farming is not ordinarily practiced on ranches, which are conventionally for grazing herds, domestic and wild. But Sassin believes that growing crops may add to ranch profits. (More about this in future posts.)

Many west Texas ranches add other dimensions, in addition to the sport of guided hunting, among them a place for creative re-thinking of one's life.

==================================

To see more articles in this AC Ranch series, go to:

# 1 "Where the Wild Things Are"

Other Links:
The Ranch: http://achuntingranches.com

An Outfitting Guide Describes the Harvest -- Two audios range over topics covering outdoorsmanship. Click here: Hunting Guide

Sonora Texas information at: http://www.sonoratx-chamber.com

Many thanks to Anne Tongren for providing her excellent editing skills.

RED DOG DIRT, A Stage Play set in Uniontown, Pennsylvania

2010-06-12T16:18:00.006-04:00

YOUR TIME MACHINE TO SOUTHWESTERN PA.

_________________________________________

It’s not just a play.

It’s a time-machine. "Your" time travel. Your imagination. It’s a place in your memory -- a place in your heart. A place in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Or anywhere else you happen to remember.

But it is also a play. RED DOG DIRT, the play, is set in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. -- which could easily be in Thessalonica, Greece . . . or Lincoln, Nebraska. . . or Alamosa, Colorado. Because childhood experiences are universal.

THE "WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA PLACE" IN YOUR MEMORY

_______________________

It takes you back to wherever you started out -- and points to wherever you are going.

And yet, the setting for these memories is Uniontown in the 1950's, forty miles south of Pittsburgh on the western slope of Laurel Highlands near the Monongahela River. Main Street, Eggleston Street, Gallatin Avenue, Dixon Boulevard. Hopwood, Fairchance, Smock, Leckrone -- nearby.

The play’s action dramatizes a bunch of boys growing up: going to school; playing baseball; roaming the creeks and woods; exploring dead coke ovens; building clubhouses; confronting bullies, figuring out life and romance sitting up in sycamore trees; launching rockets and sassafras tea parties; drinking soda pop at the local mom and pop store; eating penny candy; looking for the "valuable striped gumball" out of the bubblegum machine; learning friendship; arguing the rules of the game.

The characters. They are fictional, but based around real people in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Guts Gillen, Lunchtime Steele, Tom-the-Bomb Steele, Richie "Catechism" Meyer, Worfty Worft. And there girls: Patsy Scheggia, Courtney Courter, Martha Newcomer and more.

THE END OF CHILDHOOD

________________________

RED DOG DIRT is also about the end of the golden age of childhood -- which goes up in smoke -- when the new world of adolescence begins its challenge. And that is the topic of conversation onstage between a grown man -- once a boy -- and his grandmother’s ghost as they rendez-vous at the “Meeting Place of the Living and the Dead.” Where does life go from here? That is the question.

RED DOG DIRT has been performed onstage in locations around the Washington DC and Baltimore area.

The stage play has not yet gotten a full performance in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Not that there is no interest. We have received many requests from the Pittsburgh region and around the United States from people wanting to see RED DOG DIRT performed onstage in southwestern Pennsylvania.

At the end of this post you can see comments from around the country. You may also see at "Bay Weekly" a review of the play's Maryland performances.

HELP US STAGE THE STORY TO ACTIVATE YOUR MEMORY

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We need your help. New plays are hard to stage. Your voice, your vote, can help us convince performance stages to put the play on in South- western Penn -sylvania. Add your voice by making a comment below, or by sending an email to: russ@bonmeasure.org. Not only will your “vote” help bring RED DOG DIRT to the region, it will also get you 50% off tickets for two when the play is staged.

In your correspondence, please include your name, email address, and location -- along with your brief comment about your memories of Southwestern Pennsylvania. We do not give out your name and contact information without out your permission. However, if you wish, we will send selected memories anonymously to theaters for the purpose of advertising and staging RED DOG DIRT. We thank you for your help and direction.

Suggestions for auditoriums or theaters for performance are more than welcome.

Again send your comments via this post or to Russ Barnes.

SAMPLE COMMENT

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“Just saying 'Red Dog Dirt' brings back a flood of memories. Being born and raised in Uniontown,as was my Father and his Father, it was not uncommon when giving someone directions to tell them to turn on the red dog road. I don't think there is another place in the world that uses the expression 'red dog.' I wish you the best in your efforts and feel certain that you are bringing a lot of joy to many.”
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Other Southwestern Pennsylvania links you may be interested in:

Pittsburgh PA - http://www.facebook.com/#!/PittsburghPA?ref=ts

Uniontown PA - http://www.facebook.com/#!/Uniontown?ref=ts

Ohiopyle - http://www.facebook.com/#!/Ohiopyle?ref=ts

www.uniontownonline.com - Find Events, Real Estate, Restaurants, Photos and More!

www.DiscoverOhiopyle.com - Discover Ohiopyle PA

www.FayettePort.com - The Social Networking Site for Fayette County PA

www.LiveandVisit.com/FayetteCountyPA.html - Read the Live and Visit Fayette County PA Online Magazine here !

www.RonLovelace.com - Realtor Specializing in Mountain Property and Luxury Homes

www.FayCoHomes.com - Find homes for sale in Fayette County PA

www.SWPALuxuryHomes.com - Real Estate in SW PA + links to Luxury products and Services

www.PAVacationHomes.com - Find Vacation places to stay and real estate for sale in Pennsylvania

www.homes15401.com - find homes in Uniontown PA for sale

www.ohiopylevacationrentals.com - find vacation rentals in and around ohiopyle pa

HUNTING GUIDES: HOW TO FIND THE RIGHT ONE ON A TEXAS RANCH

2010-06-07T16:49:00.011-04:00

WHITETAIL DEER -- MANAGEMENT BUCK, EXOTICS, HOG, TURKEY; part 2
By (c) Russ Barnes

AC RANCHES near SONORA, Texas. 2010. The owner of AC Hunting Ranches told me, “When you come to the ranch, you really become yourself. You get younger every day. It takes about two days. This place is the love of my life.”

BECOMING YOURSELF

Your experience of being here may also become one of your loves. As a hunter, or nature observer, you confront the wild here. You meet yourself. You seek something exceptional inside yourself -- the wild part -- in the near-desert minimalism of this West Texas, hill-country ranch.

A GUIDE

You are not completely on your own in seeking whitetail deer or management buck, exotics, hog, turkey. As you may be seeking a high- or low-fence ranch experience, these aspirations may be why you come here to hunt, but you get something more, something else.

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[NOTE: Discounts, Premiums for outdoorsmen and their companions -- You must mention these articles to AC Ranches and you will get 20 percent off your selected hunting and outdoor journey. Check out AC Hunting Ranches for rates and bookings at: http://achuntingranches.com Contact Allen Spence for information about transportation from Austin or San Antonio: allen.spence@wildblue.net. (325-387-2085) Future articles will feature other hunting and regional premiums which you may access by contacting AC Ranches or this website.]
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Who you will find here is an expert outfitter guide, Allen Spence, experienced in the ways of West Texas game, their habits and the fascinating dry, big-sky habitat they thrive in. Allen will lead you to the best hunting opportunities on this 20,000 acres of ranch, which also may guide you for “getting to yourself.”

LIFE STIRS IN THE BRUSH

Rise in the morning at 5:00 a.m. Breakfast, served by Allison. Drink coffee. Take your rifle. Out on the truck. Through the ranch gates.

Wait for the magic hour up in the blind. At sun-break in the coolness of morning. The birds chirp. It’s dry and it’s stark. Life stirs in the brush.

Groups of hunters climb up their separate hunting blinds in different locations across the ranch. Allen guides you to your optimum place for what you want to accomplish. You observe. You wait. He says, “There are two ways to hunt. You can stalk or you can sit.” Sitting is the logical way of hunting on AC Ranches. Patience. Observation of nature. The movement of herds and animals. Of yourself in relation to the animals, their environment, and yourself.

Allen Spence has been a guide for nine years. He began guiding at AC Ranches in 2008. He describes his job as we -- his guests; Sharon, Joe, and I -- approach one of the many watering pools on the ranch feed by wells and pumped by windmills,

“Guiding is just like being in any customer service business,” Allen says. “The customer always is put first and you try and meet their demands to help get them what they pay for.”

He loves his job saying, “It fulfills a life long dream of working with wildlife and whitetail deer.”

Allen is about 55 years old and fit for the job. He is married to Allison who is both cook and co-manager of the hunting ranch. Allen is also expert in bow hunting. “One of the two best bow hunters I know,” says my friend, Joe Heidelmeier of Austin Texas, himself an outfitting guide.

“Out here,” Allen says, “You need to know the laws, guns, bows and how to set up the right situation for each individual hunter.”

STORIES AT NIGHT

You return. Dinner served again by Allison. You talk. You exchange stories of the brush with other outdoorsmen. The sleep is good.

MOON PHASES AND WEATHER

Allen astonishes me by informing, “Moon phases are important.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because animals, and herds, react to different phases of the moon. Hunters need to understand that information,” Allen replies. “We have printed tables.” These tables explain the relationship between animal behavior, their movement, and the phases of the moon. (information on moon phases at: http://primetimes2.com/pages/4-astrotables.html)

My friend, Joe, says, “Sometimes the full moon is as large as Texas.”

“The weather is important too,” observes Allen. “You could hunt out here in very warm conditions to below freezing in a matter of days and sometimes hours. So you need to pay attention to your local weather man or an old rancher who sometimes is more accurate. Wind can be your friend or your worst enemy if you set up wrong.”

KEEP YOUR FACE TO THE WIND AND YOUR POWDER DRY

One of the things said out here in West Texas is, “Keep your face to the wind and your powder dry.” The full meaning of that saw can only be explained in another article online here. Or if you can get to AC Ranches, just ask and you will learn. And take home much.

To see more articles in this AC Ranch series, go to:

# 1 "Where the Wild Things Are"

Links:
The Ranch: http://achuntingranches.com

An Outfitting Guide Describes the Harvest -- Two audios range over topics covering outdoorsmanship. Click here: Hunting Guide

Sonora Texas information at: http://www.sonoratx-chamber.com

Many thanks to Anne Tongren for providing her excellent editing skills.

OUTFITTER DESCRIBES THE HARVEST

2010-05-30T08:46:00.002-04:00

TWO AUDIO PROFILE INTERVIEWS

Joe Heidelmeier sounds off about what in his background made him an outfitter, an out-doors-man, and a guide to hunters -- as well as others who like to learn about the natural world. These two audio pieces profile more than just a “hunter.” They demonstrate a comprehensive perspective -- through the eyes of an enthusiastic storyteller and chef -- of our ecology and humanity’s relationship to it.

http://bonmeasure.org/Joe_h.Inteview.mov 50 minutes

http://bonmeasure.org/Joe_h.Int2.mov 35 minutes

Joe may be reached at jhknives@austin.rr.com in Austin, Texas

OUT WEST ON A TEXAS HUNTING RANCH: "WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE"

2010-05-20T16:48:00.094-04:00

Part One of a Series of Six Articles

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Wild turkey take wing here like the Royal Air Force. Deer -- Whitetail and the prized exotic Axis deer -- leap across a sparse prairie meadow. Feral piglets congregate roadside along Route #1674. A rattlesnake stretches out the length of its body and crosses the road.

The sun is up and the air is dry. On the southwestern horizon, the moon is setting. And looking out into the big Texas blue sky is like looking into the darkness of deep outer space, as we cruise in Joe Heidelmeier's 250,000-mile-old Ford truck -- "Silver" -- this early May morning on our way to the ranch.

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[NOTE: Discounts, Premiums for outdoorsmen and their companions -- You must mention these articles to AC Ranches and you will get 20% off your selected hunting and outdoor journey. Check out AC Hunting Ranches for rates and bookings at: http://achuntingranches.com Contact Allen Spence for information about transportation from Austin or San Antonio: allen.spence@wildblue.net. (325-387-2085) Future articles will feature other hunting and regional premiums which you may access by contacting AC Ranches or this website.]

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We had started out in the early morning darkness from Austin, two-hundred miles to the east, traveling along Route #71 on our way to the hunting grounds, the fields, the elk, the antelope, the springs, the caves -- to live oak, mesquite, ticks and chiggers, to bull frogs in watering ponds fed by windmills, dammed up by three levels of old stone masonry on the AC Ranches.

On our way to vistas at 2400 feet above sea level, down to the barns, the hospitality, the cowboys, the hunting and the challenges of all AC Ranches' 20,000 acres. And on our way to the ranch house of our hosts, Allen and Allison Spence, marked by an eighty-foot high-tech flag pole, with a windmill pumping water from the aquifer beneath, and from there to what would be our own quarters for the next four days among the several hunting lodges and houses spread across the landscape.

Our own version of "City Slickers" -- Billy Crystal and pardners -- come this time to Texas: Sharon Barnes, my daughter, an award-winning filmmaker from New York City; me, a writer from Washington DC; and our friend, Joe Heidelmeier. Joe is the 'non-city slicker' among us. Although he lives in Austin, he spends much of his time as an outfitter on Texas ranches -- a hunting guide and a knowledgeable outdoorsman.

Allen takes us to our digs at the White Rock House -- also known as Uncle Albert's House -- one of the hunters' lodges on this expansive ranch. Allen's boss says to me, "Look what God sent me -- Allen! His honesty is straightforward." The gift to us is that Allen is our guide to the hunting grounds, "where the wild things are," the unique spots in the wilderness, and the lore of the ranch for the length of our stay.

We ride with him in his 1998 Dodge truck with its Cummins diesel engine across the breadth of the ranch, traveling from hunting blind to hunting blind, to deer feeders, to watering pools, to magical places few people on earth have ever seen.

This 20,000 acre spread is also a place of farm crops -- especially turnips, which the ranch hands pickle along with beets -- and herds -- of black angus cattle, goats, and sheep. Sixty miles away from the nearest grocery store, the ranch is a place not easily reached by the "outer world." If you need to call 911, it will be a while before your help can reach you. Here you must depend mainly on your own resources, your wit, and with the help of your ranch compadres.

But the ranch has snake bite kits, implements for removing ticks, antibiotics, and a full range of other first aid paraphernalia -- things one should expect to be available on a well-managed ranch and which you will find here on AC Hunting Ranches.

First evening out in Allen’s truck, Thursday, May 6, 2010. Allen and Joe in the front seat, Sharon and I in in the back seat. It is just before twilight -- the time that the ranchers call the “magic moment” -- when the sun is ready to set on the west Texas horizon.

Sitting in stillness in a blind overlooking one of the 'tanks,' we are dazzled by the wildlife traffic which approaches the man-made tank to drink. In the dry air, in the diminishing western sunlight, the herds gather and frolic across meadows and fields before disappearing into the mesquite, juniper, and live oak brush.

Every day, Sharon goes for a run on the ranch road in front of our digs -- where hawks and buzzards glide overhead and the fields stretch out to the far horizon -- a decided contrast to the streets back home in Brooklyn. Gradually her sense of time slows down to a measured pace, a feeling of being at home in this world.

Later in the stay, the ranch owner says to us, “When you come here, you own this ranch. You really become yourself here. You feel like you get younger every day. Dirt in West Texas grows on you.”

[Next Installment: Don't miss it: Animal behavior, the herds, the flocks, and the energy of fences. Leave your email address by contacting russ@bonmeasure.org, and you will be prompted for the next edition of this story on “Travel with a Twist.”]
To see more articles in this AC Ranch series, go to:

# 2 "Hunting Guides"
# 3 "Hanging Out Brilliantly on a Texas Ranch"

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Links: The Ranch: http://achuntingranches.com
An Outfitting Guide Describes the Harvest -- Two audios range over topics covering outdoorsmanship. Click here: Hunting Guide

Sonora Texas information at: http://www.sonoratx-chamber.com

Many thanks to Anne Tongren for providing her excellent editing skills.

QUILTING TAKES MORE THAN STITCHES, PATTERNS EXPLAINS AWARD-WINNING LINCOLN NEBRASKA QUILTER, SHELLY BURGE

2010-03-10T13:44:00.022-05:00

Quilts Stitch Together Creativity with Fluid Social Networks

"From the early days of colonial America, quilt-making was a means to keep the family warm,” explains Shelly Burge, an award-winning quilter, from her home in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Today -- after centuries of American geographic and cultural migration along numerous routes from, for example, Pennsylvania Amish farms to homestead cabins on the American frontier -- “works of quilting, since then,” Shelly continues, “have often become dynamic pieces of artwork fit for the walls of the modern home or museum wall.”

WEALTH FROM BITS & SCRAPS

In speaking with Shelly and other quilters, I grew astonished by the requisite detailed workmanship and the ingenuity applied: bands of old clothing, stray rags, campaign ribbons, abandoned beads, a rainbow of dyes, and pieces of bed sheets. And of course the pattern, the schematic representation once-upon-a-time cut out of the newspaper -- today, downloaded from the internet -- provides the model from which to improvise the quilt out of sundry bits and scraps.

Quilting is exemplary in its capacity to tease wealth out of scarcity.

The skill and imagination of the quilter in selecting the most appropriate one-piece backing, the cotton or wool “batting” in the middle, and the myriad top stitches: these selections and combinations appear as if accomplished through a kind of wizardry.

There is something in the quilter's craftsmanship that fulfills the king’s charge to the miller’s daughter in the fairy-tale, Rumpelstiltskin, to spin gold out of straw. Somehow even an average quilter can accomplish this fairy-tale miracle.

GATHERING FULLNESS

I asked Shelly what it was that first propelled her interest in quilting. "My grandmother taught me to sew on a tiny hand-cranked toy sewing machine in the 1950’s," she responded." So began Shelly’s interest, curiosity, and and involvement in fabrics and thread. When she married her husband, Clint, in 1972, she bought a 1972 Touch and Sew Singer sewing machine. With that machine, she sewed clothes and other household goods for herself, her husband, her daughter Vicki, and son Ryan.

By 1973, she had moved on to quilting -- and never looked back.

“I mostly wore out that sewing machine making quilts. It took about eight years.” she said. “I started entering my quilts in the Nebraska State Fair in 1977. I began in 1983 to teach quilting at guilds and fabric shops. Then I tried coming up with my own patterns -- different from any printed one. I took parts of previous ones and combined them with what I had learned,” Shelly revealed.

“I am fascinated with fabric, the characteristics of each type of fabric, and how my knowledge of a pattern, stitch, or technique might lend itself to each of them.”

What has intrigued Shelly over the years is how the quilting craft -- now a $3.5 billion industry -- has morphed into its present rich diversity. From at first serving as needed house-hold items, quilts then became perfect for gift-giving, bestowed as heirlooms for descendants and loved ones, artifacts for cultural enrichment, and most recently, valuable as funding donations -- contributions -- to worthy causes. (These several topics will be explored in future posts of “Travel with a Twist.” Your topic ideas solicited.)

QUILT VARIATIONS “AS NUMEROUS AS THE STARS IN THE SKY”

Listening to Shelly Burge talk with passion about the craft of quilting made a distinct impression on me. I have experienced the beauty of quilts in their seeming infinite variety. It is clear that quilting is no mere art. Quilting is also a powerful means of social and cultural transmission.

In fact, it is a close cousin to digital social networking. The old, but not extinct, “sewing circles” are becoming extensive social networks, operating much as do digital ones. They make bottom-up, grassroots “link-ups” for the purpose of transmitting perceptions, techniques, patterns, as well as social, personal, and aesthetic exchanges.

The result is a transmission of quilting ideas and styles across geography and culture -- all working only by the creativity of a single artist at her sewing machine. When these sucessively influenced quilts are seen side by side, it becomes clear that quilting moves across networks of people something like genetic reproduction: similar features, but fierce and fulfilling in their individuality.

In Lincoln, Shelly belongs to an informal sewing circle of five women who have met once a month for more than twenty-two years. But information about quilting is not all that is traded in this small group, Shelly points out. “We talk about everything: our families, the schools, volleyball and football, the community. Everything gets discussed.”

“Even politics?” I ask. “You debate which political candidates to elect?”

“Yes,” she replies. “We influence one other.”

SHELLY BURGE, in addition to being an award-winning quilter, is also available as a lecturer on quilting, is a workshop instructor, and a sewing machine collector. For more information on her up-to-date quilting activities are at: http://www.shellyburge.com. Her pieces have won over 125 blue ribbons in the Nebraska State Fair including four Pride of Nebraska awards and five Best Original Design awards. Her quilts have received prestigious recognition in numerous quilt competitions across America, Europe and Japan. She is perhaps best known for her miniature quilts that have won first place in national quilt contests in California, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Florida, Texas and the 1989 Lynn Harris Award for best miniature quilt in the National Quilting Association Show. She is one of the founders of the Nebraska State Quilt Guild and in 2009 she was named to the Nebraska Quilters Hall of Fame.

QUILTING MUSEUM. The International Quilt Study Center & Museum is located in Lincoln, Nebraska and is part of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. One-of-a-kind, the Center houses the largest publicly-held quilt collection in the world. The 3000+ quilts date from the early 1700s to the present and represent over 25 countries. The museum is open to the public. http://www.quiltstudy.org. 402-472-6549.

LINCOLN, Nebraska -- The Prairie Capital City. The city’s attractions, accommodations, events information are published by the Lincoln Convention and Visitors Bureau at http://www.lincoln.org. (800) 423-8212.

THE AMERICAN QUILTER'S SOCIETY. For more information on quilting at http://www.americanquilter.com

(c) Russ Barnes, "Travel with a Twist" will appreciate interactive comments and suggestions. Send post to your interested friends. My thanks to Karen Alexander www.karenquiltslife.blogspot.com who inspired and helped with this post.