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"Alone"
by Edgar Allan Poe
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were--I have not seen
As others saw--I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I lov'd, I lov'd alone.
Then--in my childhood--in the dawn
Of a most stormy life--was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold--
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by--
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
"Hurt"
by Claude Hall
Until now, a very long and dull night had been laced
only with large cups of hot dark coffee and the soft
odor of honeysuckle. Now, however, there was a
definite smell of blood in the air.
When I discussed this talent--the ability to smell
blood at a distance of time and space--with J.D.
Candor, the lanky Texan had snarled the characteristic
word "guano" and withdrawn even deeper behind his
newspaper. He had been studying the stockmarket
reports for an hour in spite of the dim light in the
room. But you'd never have suspected. The newspaper
was upside down.
I gave up and cut off the TV. The noise from the
police radio had interfered with the movie anyway.
The movie had featured John Wayne and Gail
Russell--"The Angel and the Badman." A great movie.
But I'd seen it several times. And everytime thus
far, John Wayne got the girl at the end. That was
interesting, but not realistic.
The police radio on the wall behind me was real. Life
out there. A robbery in progress at some drug store
in North Las Vegas. A cop car checking a prowler
report.
Standing up, I stretched to get some of the kinks out
of my shoulders, then moved to the open window where
the odor of the honeysuckle was almost overpowering.
A watermelon slice of a moon floated out above the
distant Frenchman Mountains, outlining the ghostly
jagged peaks; they looked like the teeth of some angry
dead wolf in the dim glow of the moon.
"Have you ever looked seriously at the Frenchman
Mountains?"
"No," said J.D. "I've got better things to
do."
"The mountains look like teeth," I said.
"Absurd," said J.D. "If anything, they look like a
pregnant woman sprawled on her back."
"I thought you said you'd never looked at them."
He did not respond.
"Any moment now," I said.
J.D. merely grunted. Obviously, he did not believe me
and, even more, did not care.
"Pretty morning," I added.
J.D. switched from scowling at stockmarket quotations
to scowling at me.
"No such thing," he said.
"Sour. Very sour attitude," I said.
"Merely a realistic view," argued J.D. "My stocks
are
down. My wife ran away yesterday with some creep. My
dog bit the mailman last week and I've just received a
notice that he'll have to be checked for rabies."
I thought that was immensely funny.
"Rabies!"
"Of course, he has rabies!" J.D. snarled, but in a
half-sarcastic tone. "Wouldn't have a dog that
didn't."
"I'm very sorry about your wife," I said.
I'd only met her once. The day J.D. had asked me to
pick him up at his apartment on Tropicana. She had
appeared to me a strangely thin and aloof little waif.
I could not imagine her running away with anyone.
But then, neither could I figure out why anyone, waif
or not, would have married someone like J.D. He was
not the marrying type.
"No big deal," said J.D. "She was getting on my
nerves."
That amused me, too: How could anyone get on J.D.'s
nerves?
"You going to file for divorce?"
"You're kidding! I'd look pretty damned silly--if
that's the correct word--in court, wouldn't I?"
I stared at him.
"Yes. I guess so."
Then I stared out the window. Honeysuckle vines were
planted along the outside wall of the building. The
parking lot of the hospital was rimmed by bowed palm
trees; their fronds waved gently in the prevailing
southwesterly breeze. Usually, the desert wind died
down at night. Sometimes it didn't. Sometimes, it
even blew like a pack of wolves on the chase and the
blowing dust caused your mouth to grow dry.
"Blood," I said. "Are you sure you can't smell
it?"
"Bat guano," was all J.D said.
His voice, now that I thought about it, had a sound
like a machine that needed oiling. Texans, I thought,
were supposed to drawl.
"Does your dog really have rabies?"
"How should I know?"
"You know the symptoms--foaming at the mouth, that
sort of thing."
"Do you foam at the mouth?"
"Of course not."
"Neither does my dog. Maybe he just likes to bite
people."
"Phobia dementia," I said.
"What's that?"
"Maybe your dog is crazy."
"Yeah. Never thought about that. My dog could be
crazy. He could have caught it from my wife."
When the police-band radio came to life with an
address and the number for a traffic accident, J.D.
quickly dropped his newspaper onto the coffee table in
the small lounge and stood up.
He went to the window, whipped off his dark sunshades,
and looked out.
"I don't like this," he said. He looked at his wrist
watch. "I was hoping we were through for the night."
"This won't take long," I said. "We'll hurry."
"It's not you who's taking a chance," he said.
"Just a quick out and back," I promised.
"You could take Nap."
I groaned.
"Nap is a pain in the ass," I said. "Never brushes
his teeth."
"He is, indeed, the king of foul breath."
"And get this: I gave him a bottle of Scope a few
days ago. Sort of a not-so-gentle hint. He drank it.
Probably thought it was Ripple. And his breath isn't
the only thing that smells. He probably last took a
bath about the same time as Napoleon."
J.D. grunted. "I thought he was Napoleon. Because
of the name." He glanced again out the window. "I
can't risk it."
He picked up the phone and dialed a number. After
several rings, someone finally answered the phone.
J.D. spoke briefly, listened, nodded, then hung up the
phone.
"Damned carrion eater," he snarled in a low tone.
"Do you know you nodded on the phone?"
"What do you mean?"
"You didn't say yes or okay. You nodded."
"I did not."
"You did."
"I hate the phone anyway," said J.D.
I moved to the door, stopped, turned.
"You coming?"
He glanced again at his wrist watch.
"I'm coming. But you owe me one."
"Want me to bite your wife next full moon?"
"Don't bother. If I ever catch her, I'm sic'ing the
dog on her for sure. Wouldn't that be something--a
bitch with rabies?"
I was still laughing as I backed out of the parking
area--tires screaming--and steered the ambulance onto
Hawley where it intersects with Dodgett Lane. In a
minute, we were on Sahara heading east, siren at full
blast, J.D. holding onto the edge of the car door,
face white.
There are few things I enjoy more than driving an
ambulance.
J.D., on the other hand, hates ambulance duty. If it
had a motor on it or in it, he didn't like it. Under
other circumstances, he probably would never crawl
into an ambulance or car.
"Noise," he once explained.
And he was as scared of horses as they were of him.
Usually, he rode a bicycle. On him, old-fashioned
coattails flying as he pedaled furiously back and
forth to work, the bicycle seemed merely a very old
and quaint custom.
When we reached the intersection of Eastern and
Sahara, I whipped the ambulance to the left three
lanes and drove against the traffic.
One startled driver barely got out of the way in time.
A girl on a Spree motor scooter arrowed out of the
road onto the sidewalk and slammed into the trunk of a
tall palm. She wasn't hurt, but she probably had a
headache aspirin wouldn't cure.
The siren and the blinking lights of the HRT Inc.
ambulance cleared the rest of the cars out of the lane
near the center. Traffic was fairly light this time
of the night.
"Jesus, Chuck. I'm getting too old for this," said
J.D.
"Chicken," I said. And I had to laugh at that idea,
too.
I jerked the steering wheel of the ambulance to dodge
an elderly couple attempting to cross the street. The
couple couldn't make up their minds which direction to
flee.
The ambulance missed them by inches.
By the time we passed Lamb where it headed south and
north, I had the ambulance back on the right side of
the road and was going 80 miles an hour.
Frenchman Mountain really looked beautiful this
morning. In the brief hour or so before dawn, a
blue-black glow painted the sky behind the mountain.
It wasn't really my driving that caused the sweat on
the forehead of J.D.
A few moments later, I pulled the ambulance into the
middle of an intersection on Nellis Boulevard.
What a mess! There had been little need to hurry.
One body--or what was left of it--sprawled over the
curb. Blood oozed from the side of the head.
I looked away; I can't stand the sight of blood. Hell
of a note for an ambulance driver.
Another body was in the middle of the street. Two
more had been thrown into a parking lot in front of a
dingy cafe. The neon sign of the cafe threw an orange
glow over the bodies. They did not seem human.
A car blazed about 50 feet away. Another car, one
wheel still spinning, rested on its back by the wall
of an apartment complex across the street.
Someone in the car cried softly.
While J.D. got on the radio with the office, I pulled
a stretcher out of the rear of the ambulance.
"One for sure," J.D. told the dispatcher. "Two
possibles. Make that probables. Another, I don't
know yet."
"Probably that last one is a DOA," said the
dispatcher.
"Undoubtedly," said J.D.
I knew what they were talking about. And it bothered
me slightly.
At the very least, the dispatcher and J.D. shouldn't
be talking about matters like that on the air. What
if someone had been listening?
There was also the vague implication that we allowed
patients to die en route to the hospital.
J.D. hung the mike up and crawled out of the
ambulance.
A uniform officer was standing by a police car as we
walked over. He shook his head.
"Fast! You guys got here just about the same time we
did."
"He drove," said J.D. He nodded his head my
direction. "Give him a ticket."
The uniform glanced at J.D. to see if he was joking.
The problem is that J.D. doesn't look like the kind of
person who cracks jokes.
The uniform quickly glanced away and took some flares
and began placing them out along a perimeter to alert
coming traffic. The flares sputtered as they fought
for life. One went out.
This time of the morning, the violent red of the
flares looked pretty. The whole scene took on a
shimmering appearance...that of a fantasy acted out on
some stage. The blinking roof lights of the police
car and the ambulance created a hypnotic effect. The
burning car out in the street resembled a bonfire.
"Anyone in there?" J.D. asked. He pointed to the
blazing car.
"One," said the uniform. He turned the other
direction, as if unable to think about the person
being burned alive out in the street. "There's a girl
in the vehicle over there."
"Right," I said, staring at the car that was burning.
Police cars usually carried a fire extinguisher.
Evidently, the officer had decided it was too late or
had more-pressing problems.
J.D. was already half-in, half-out of the Chevy
Spectrum. He'd crawled in the window to get to the
girl. She wasn't visible, but she was still alive; I
could hear her quiet, almost apologetic moans.
I placed the stretcher, a new light-weight model, on
the pavement beside the car.
"Chuck, give me a hand," said J.D., his voice not
quite as flat and dull as usual.
I moved quickly around the Spectrum, half running.
"Is this the possible DOA?"
"Go to hell," said J.D. His hat fell off. He
picked
it up from the depths of the car and slammed it back
on his head with an almost vicious gesture.
I tried to get the door open on the passenger side,
but it was either locked or jammed. I didn't want to
kick the window out, for fear that a flying shard of
glass might hit J.D. So, I reached in and unlocked
the rear door by J.D. and--careful that the cop wasn't
watching--jerked. The door, with a protest of
shrieking metal, came open.
I crawled into the gloomy interior of the car.
"Can't get this seatbelt loose," said J.D.
"I've got a pocketknife," I told him.
I wriggled the pocketknife, a small-bladed Buck knife,
out of my pocket, opened the blade, and sliced through
the web seatbelt as if it were butter. You could
always count on a Buck knife.
"This help?" asked a uniform officer. He shone his
flashlight through the front windshield of the
Spectrum.
The girl, who'd been hanging upside down, collapsed
into J.D.'s arms.
"Thanks," J.D. told the officer. But I sensed the
rancor in his voice. He was never happy around bright
lights. J.D., who could not tolerate anyone calling
him by his real name of Jayson Dwight Candor, also
could not tolerate unwanted interruptions. He knew
what he was supposed to do.
Slowly, J.D. eased the girl out of the car. With the
help of the uniformed officer, the girl was gently
placed on a stretcher, one hand grabbing a necklace
around her neck.
We carried her to the ambulance, followed by the
uniform.
One police officer with a flashlight was motioning
cars through the accident scene. He was using the
flashlight much as would a classical music
conductor...with a flourish. I wondered if he was
humming under his breath.
I took out another stretcher.
The body sprawled over the curb was no problem. I
rolled the body onto the collapsed stretcher, then
with J.D.'s help, the stretcher was pulled up and we
rolled it to the ambulance.
"Shouldn't you get the girl to a hospital first?" one
of the uniformed officers asked.
"Saves gasoline this way," chortled J.D.
"Rules and regulations," I explained, afraid for a
moment that the police officer might make trouble.
He didn't. He backed off and went to check the
burning car. Someone screamed from inside the car.
The officer turned away. His face was very white.
In a moment, we'd loaded the other two bodies into the
ambulance.
We had the entire scene cleaned up by the time the
ambulance from General Medical Center arrived.
The driver parked on the side of the road, circus
lights blinking wildly. He got out and stood by the
door of his ambulance and glared at us.
J.D. paid him no attention.
I waved. No sense being enemies.
"I'll ride in back," said J.D.
I nodded.
The motor started instantly. With siren blasting, I
eased the ambulance out of the flow of cars--held
temporarily at bay by a police officer who'd just
arrived on the scene--and headed up Sahara.
"Speed it up," said J.D.
"No need to hurry now."
"That sun's coming up in a few minutes!"
"Right."
I think one of the corners on the return trip still
has tire skid marks.
We arrived at Human Resources Technologies Hospital in
even less time than the out-going trip.
J.D. nodded sharply at me.
Before the ambulance stopped rolling, he darted out of
the back door, threw a quick glance at the east where
already a red glow signaled the approach of the sun,
and ran quickly to his bicycle.
I started to yell that I would drive him home.
But he really did not like cars. And, anyway, he'd
already disappeared around the corner of the hospital.
Some attendants came out of the hospital's emergency
entrance to help.
"The girl's DOA," I told them.
(to be continued)
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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Commentary
by
Claude Hall
October
20, 2003
Patriotism is the nonessential ideal that binds
any
group of people against them when there should be no
them. The concept of them is what separates us from
our fellow human beings. Thus, the concept of them is
not only demeaning, but degrading as well as
non-conducive to cultural progress. Perhaps,
non-conducive even to the survival of mankind as we
know it. The flag, the song, the tree, the bird--these
are all Napoleonic elements designed to promote a
separate entity as opposed to a common world. As long
as we think of ourselves as a state, as a country,
even, perhaps, as an individual we are limited.
Togetherness is not just an ideal, it must be a way of
life. World togetherness. Thus, when anyone spouts
American patriotism as a reason--and no other rational
cause exists--for the killing of men, women and
children in any foreign country, I'm appalled. They
are not slaughtering them, they are slaughtering us.
Killing has never been and will never be a part of the
educational process.
In generations past, I've heard of the citizens of
Mason fighting the citizens of Fredericksburg and the
citizens of Junction and such citizens fighting back.
These were original colonies--Scot, German, Swede, in
that order. I grew up hearing my father say, often
kindly but just as often not, "Aw, he's just an old
Swede." I have no idea what the term meant nor what
my father meant for it to mean. You see, I grew up on
the edge of the fabled Hill Country of Texas. I
suppose we were all different in that land which is
literally alien to me now. All of us. But I grow
sick when I remember my mother telling me at age five
not to call the man hoeing weeds in ragged, filthy
overalls in the yard the n word we're not allowed to
say now in polite circles, but a colored man. I grow
sick even now when I think of him having to ask for a
job like that...the horrible necessity to avoid
starvation around 1937 in Brady, Texas. I stop, even
now in my writing, to pray for that man. I hope there
is a heaven and that he's there and better off now.
Yet, I must somewhat correlate that man with the
Secret Nation. You know, those people you refuse to
admit exist today, this very day, the people you
claim, if you care to talk about them at all, "It's
their own fault." Dick Cheney knocked down $34
million in a bonus from Halliburton (after all, the
was the boss and he thought he deserved it), yet the
Secret Nation lines up for food at a local mission, a
local church, the Salvation Army and I suspect that
Cheney doesn't care. The Secret Nation goes without
proper medical treatment because they can't afford it.
If they're lucky, they sleep on thin pads in rows
across a floor; often there is no room left and they
are turned away in the dark of night to find an
alleyway. A couple of years ago, I stopped to listen
to a citizen of the Secret Nation, his knapsack
resting on the concrete beside him, as he played a
flute. He was good. I really don't think it was his
fault he was out there in the sun, hungry, no place to
go. There aren't that many of them, you may say.
That is not true; they number in the millions (a study
1990 by J.D. Wright in Rockville, MD, alone concerned
94,000 homeless people, according to the National
Resource Center, Delmar, NY) but they are also really
uncounted. There is no list of names.
It's a good question: Who caused the homeless? But a
better question would be: Why do they still exist in
a nation where a man is allowed to garner for himself
$34 million as a bonus and is still on the payroll of
that company while serving as vice president of the
United States? I'm left to ponder if Republicans are
more corrupt than Democrats? I do not know otherwise.
When I was eight, my mother told me I couldn't play
with Rudy Ramirez, who lived in a shack over behind
the Brady power plant. We lived in a two-room shack
at the time in front of the power plant; it is still
there and painted blue, but it's still a shack. "He's
Mexican," she said. My brother Buddy and I would
sneak off to play with Rudy anyway because we didn't
actually know what a Mexican was. All of us ran
barefooted in those days. We swam in the Brady Creek
sans bathing suits. We caught perch and cooked them
on a stick over an open fire on the creek bank and
thought it was grand food. There was little
difference in all of the kids that roamed that
neighborhood in Brady.
I finally learned what a Mexican was in public school
where I also learned how to break an arm or kill a man
with my hands from a coach just back from the war.
The school fired the coach when some parent found out.
Parents did not want us killing anyone, I guess.
They call such schools now middle schools. In those
days, they were junior highs and I guess I was 12 or
13 years old. I was told that Mexicans were the ones
outside the Alamo. But then one day I discovered that
there were Mexicans inside the Alamo, too.
After finishing high school in Winters, Texas, I found
that it was okay to kill people after all when I was
drafted. They called the Koreans gooks. Isn't it odd
how we always find a term like that for the them? I
qualified for overseas shipment on the firing range
using an M1 pencil. But then I discovered from some
soldiers who'd just come back from Korea that I was
really being sent over there to get killed. I was
told that the gooks would gather 10,000 strong on the
other side of the mountain and get doped up and come
over the mountain and no matter how many you killed,
someone behind would pick up their rifle and keep
coming at you. Fernando Corral was the only one left
alive when his artillery position was overrun; they
thought he was dead. He stayed firing until shot and
unconscious. There was no one left to write him up
for a medal, but they gave him the Purple Heart as a
token. He was a Mexican. They told him he could
become an American citizen. He said he preferred to
stay a Mexican. So, they kicked him out of the United
States after he got discharged. He would sneak back
into Texas to study at the University of Texas in
Austin and they would kick him out again. Finally, he
took a bus to Independence, MO, and knocked on the
door of the home of the former president of the United
States. After a couple of hours of shooting the bull,
Harry Truman called the White House and Fernando never
got kicked out again. Today, he lives in Mexico,
still a Mexican, and I'm left to wonder anyway why we
have a border between the United States and Mexico.
There are more people of Mexican descent in some
cities of Texas and New Mexico and Arizona and
California than there are of people like me. Anyway,
I've always had a special fondness for tacos and
tequila and I've also noticed that the border is more
for them than for me.
Now we're being told that we've got to kill, at the
moment, the present them in Iraq, previously them in
Afghanistan and soon them elsewhere, before they kill
us. I wonder just how many of them they want to kill.
When is enough enough? Already, our soldiers grow
tired of it. Some blood you can't wash off your
hands, you know. The White House says it's a just
war. I don't think many people believe that anymore.
The problem, then and now, is: Who can you believe?
I hear the news on CNN, I laugh. I know the lie. Fox
is worse. Even MSNBC is tainted. The news does a
quick survey of about 900 them on the phone and try to
make me believe that them is me. I switch to the
international news channel to try to find out what is
really going on, but it's just a different them
they're talking about. I'm confused by this point.
What is the truth? Will somebody please tell me
what's really going on! Because I'm beginning to
believe that mass media is controlled and everyone is
lying to me.
Once a college student from Greece accused me of being
a racist because I gave her a D grade. I pointed out
to her that so far as I know there is no race called
Greek. She didn't know that I had two best men for my
wedding: Raul Cardenas Jr., later to become a Ph.D.
and one of the world leading experts on water and air
polution and Demetris Houtrides, whose real claim to
fame these days, in addition to introducing me to the
Greek cabarets that existed in those days in Manhattan
around 38th Street, is seven Emmys as a television
producer. You won't find any cabarets anymore around
38th Street. You go back to Fredericksburg, you
probably won't find any Germans either; that
particular them has literally disappeared. My oldest
boy, a lawyer, has some friends who are giants
compared to their Japanese grandparents. Maybe it's
the pizza or the hotdogs, I don't know. You will find
Japanese business men and women in Los Angeles, but
these have nothing in common whatsoever with my son's
friends. I see blacks named Hall playing football on
television and wonder how that happened to be and if
we're related someway back when. It appears as if the
Halls--around before the United States was
formed--indeed have a variety of limbs on the family
tree; I find nothing wrong with this and once wished I
had some American Indian blood in me that I might run
better; this is not a laudatory statement; it dates
back before I came to realize the concept of them...to
accept people as they are, to accept myself as I am.
Regardless, my family tree merged with some Frenchman
out of New Orleans about 1800. And there were Scotch
and Dutch and British and god knows what else along
the way before and after that. I guess you could say,
because of all of the genetic influences, I'm pure
mongrel. In spite of this, I'm a Hall. And mostly a
person that treats other people fair. That means I
might participate in what's going on--life--but only
in order to somehow standout because of my endeavors
and hard work more than for any other reason. I
refuse, essentially, to be one of them. I much prefer
to be one of us.
THE MESQUITES OF POLITICS
Mike Shannon, mike@knus99.com:
"Thank you for having
the courage to put your feelings and thoughts on the
line, particularly in a day and age where dissenting
opinions are no longer welcome. And you've identified
and underscored the character flaws in G. W. Bush that
I've been telling others about ad nauseum since his
governorship in TX. I believe as strongly about our
political convictions as I'm sure the conservatives do
about theirs and their president, and I'm equally as
tired of the bullying and dirty politics and PAC
favors and soft money that all undermine the
democratic process. There's not much more I can say
that you haven't already said. It's time for a
change."
John Hall, johnalexhall@hotmail.com:
"I read your
website. Isn't it amazing how some of the Bush people
are like religious nuts. Frankly, some of those
responses were laughlable. The irrational nature of
the 'Bushites' is such that they will not even allow
for someone to have a different view. Please note
that I did not say all Bush supporters. Some support
Bush for other reasons--personnal greed."
Raul Cardenas Jr., EnviroRaul@aol.com,
wrote: "Your
piece on the non-Texican-ness of Bush was superb."
Virginia Campbell, vcampbel@brockport.edu,
"You keep
tellin' it like it is! Great to hear from you. My best
to Barbara."
Ted Marvelle, shazam@mvdsl.com:
"You certainly have
not forgotten how to stir the pot. One thing is
perfectly clear as a result of your comments and the
comments of the diversified group who responded,
political views are in the eye of the beholder."
Richard Kimball, aaskdick@earthlink.net:
"Your piece
was right on point. Keep it up."
Joe Nick Patoski, joenickp@yahoo.com,
as sent to Ken
Dowe and copied to me; it's sort of a parody of Ken's
email to me a week ago: "Hi, Ken, I like you and have
for many years. It was great talking to you when I did
the profile on Bobby Patterson for Texas Monthly. But
I could not disagree with you more. To respond to
Claude by doing Clinton-bashing is bad enough. He's
not the president anymore. Bush is. But to cite Ann
Coulter as a journalist is plain irresponsible. Her
screeds may sell books, but her revisionism on
McCarthy, et al, is pure bullshit. As someone who's a
Texan and has met and socialized with the Bushes, I
can plainly state he is no leader and his cronyism to
enrich Halliburton, Brown & Root, and Enron at the
expense of plain old taxpayers like me is criminal.
Bush is a Texan by convenience (check his birth
certificate). If I wanted a man's man for president,
I'd move to California and vote for an actor. I'd
prefer a leader who can lead and still work with the
rest of the world, not a bully who's expended every
bit of goodwill and sympathy expressed by other
nations in less than two years. That makes consensual
sex with an intern seem downright trivial. My
grandchildren are going to be paying for his policy
blunders because I'm NOT in the top 1% of wage
earners, though Kenny Boy (Lay, not you) certainly is.
I'm with Natalie Maines on this one. My two bit's
worth. I'd be curious to hear the reaction if you'd
voiced your sentiments publically to the listeners of
KKDA and K104."
No. Two from Joe Nick Patoski sent to me: "The bubbas
who defend Bush just because he's from Texas is
scariest, Dowe in particular (to cite Ann Coulter's
trash masquerading as books convinced me he's getting
Granny Emma disease; if the folks who work for him at
K104 and KKDA had a clue where his head was at, they'd
tar and feather him and run him out of Grand Prairie
on a rail). Perhaps I should pass his comments along
to Willis, Iola, and Bobby Patterson so they can see
for themselves what tripe he's written and actually
believes in. Ann Coulter, my ass."
I wrote Joe thanks for the notes and added that "I
still love Ken Dowe anyway!" and asked him where
Wimberly was because I'd lived in both Brady and
Winters:
No. Three from Joe Nick Patoski: "Wimberley is 20
miles west of San Marcos nestled in the Hill Country.
My house is 46 miles from downtown Austin and 55 from
downtown San Antonio. I swim in the Blanco River from
March to November, weather permitting, it's so clean;
and I can still see loads of stars at night though the
glows from San Antonio and Austin grow brighter every
year. I used to judge the goat cookoff in Brady--great
town--and my friend Tracey Pitcox at KNEL has single
handedly revived traditional country through his
Hillbilly Hits show and his country music museum.
Winters I know from when I was writing for Texas
Monthly. I found the Shed out in the sticks which has
been on TM's Top 50 list for Texas Barbecue both
times. I also cited in another story the Winters
Blizzards' fight song, "Walking in a Winter
Wonderland." These days I've been writing for the
Dallas Morning News and am finishing Eddie Wilson's
memoirs on the Armadillo World Headquarters which he
started, while working on a civil rights oral history
project for AARP that's going to be turned into a book
by Juan Williams of NPR. So yeah, I'm a Texas radical
leftist (anything to the left of Attila the Hun here
in the Lone Star version of Tikrit qualifies one as a
radical) who can't believe Dowe runs the stations that
are the African-American voices of the Metroplex. If
the listeners only knew. Don't back down. The Bush
true believers would've been backing Hitler all the
way to his last bunker. I guess McLendon rubbed off on
Dowe...what does he think about wasteful government
spending, a ballooning deficit and corporate welfare?
Oh never mind."
I had mentioned a week ago in a blanket email that I
was about to start my novel "Hurt" on the
website and
that, because of my Bush Commentary, someone had
suggested that I go back to Africa and also that a lot
of my Irish side had probably been here previous to
his and he was the one that should leave. Then, this
email from Jim Long, jim@onemusic.com:
"I will look
forward to 'Hurt'. As you may know my birth name is
Timothy John Moynihan. Jim Long was my maternal
Grandfather, so when I got into radio in 1960 I used
Jim Long as my radio name. My paternal Grandmother
and Grandfather came from Kerry. We spend a lot of
time in Ireland and I have duel citizenship. We have
a small company there, which is run by my cousin Peter
Bardon who is Ireland's biggest music publisher and I
love the passion, creativity and purity of the Irish
artists. Have a great trip to Africa and maybe we will
see you in Ireland soon. Thanks for sharing your
great gift of writing with us."
Ray Whitworth, rayisbroadcasting@earthlink.net:
"Excellent article!! My dad was in WW2 as well, and
was a radar man stationed at Hickam Field on Dec. 7
1941. He was later stationed in India helping to
guide planes 'over the hump'. He was part of the
occupying army of Japan. In 1948 he was involved in
the Berlin airlift and he and other Air Corp folks
would use hankies to drop Hershey chocolate bars to
the German children of Berlin from the planes. Then he
was 'volunteered' to Yucca Flats, Nevada, in the late
40s early 50s for A-bomb testing and measurements. He
passed away Dec. 25,1956. I was a year old. I am so
tired that the country my father died for and you
proudly served for has become intolerant of free
speech. We see retaliation for our basic right to
speak out, if we are not in agreement for who or whom
is popular. Like his daddy before him. Dubya wants to
be remembered and hailed as an international
statesmen, but has become more of an international
embarrassment. The domestic policies seem to be
foremost when the given year ends in an even number.
Many presidents have come under scrutiny and
criticized for various things, but it appears since
the 80s if you dare speak of a republican president
you are a traitor. Since the 80s we have seen the
fairness doctrine eliminated and the rise of 'partial
talk show hosts' who are nothing more than a
continuous commercial for the GOP, and the other side
is often ridiculed or squashed. The deregulation of
the medium only serves those who wish to control it,
and not for the voices of the average citizen to
exercise it. The tide is slowly turning to overcome
that obstacle, but you wouldn't know it, due to
'corporate control'. Only the first method of
advertising is working...'word of mouth' and email.
Like you I am a Texan, and have lived in this state in
SA, Fort Worth, Dallas all my life. My father was Texan
born and raised in Bonham. George Dubya took a state
surplus in the treasury, and left a deficit when he
became president. He has done the same to the country.
Karl Rove only thinks in political gain and not the
average American's needs. Whoever the democrats
nominate, i will use all my resources Pro Bono to help
get them elected and the same goes to decrease the
republican legislature (who do not believe in
democracy) in Texas. Let us hope January 2005 will
dawn a new and fair, and free era for our country. We
do not have that now."
Heck of an article yourself, Ray. I only met one
person, circa 1952-54, who went into those trenches at
Yucca Flats so long ago. Don't think many of them
lived long. And they had to dig those trenches on top
of that. I swear to you: I'm sitting here crying.
Had a note from Chuck Chellman and I reminded him of
the old days during country music convention time in
Nashville. Chuck Chellman, chuckc@caldwelltrvl.com:
"Ahhhhh...the draft beer and the popcorn! The old
Starday days! Even though I had bigger jobs, the best
music gig I ever had was Starday and Don Pierce. I
got a call four months ago from a young man in Boston
who is writing a book on the history of Starday
Records. One time we had a hit with Johnny Bond, Gene
Autry's sidekick, entitled "Ten Little Bottles."
Smash. I had to go to LA to take some photos for
Johnny's album cover. It was December. Pierce gave me
a check for Johnny, $10,000 bucks. Johnny was
thrilled. He says, 'I never made a penny from
Columbia or any other label.' Claude, we saw the best
damn days of the music industry. I couldn't be a
promotion guy or record sales manager today. My gut
couldn't handle it. Best wishes...you've come a long
way from the Times-Picayune. I remember when you got
the Billboard gig. You served it proudly. Faye
(married five years) and I spent two weeks in Ireland
last month. Great. No Dublin, just the country and
smaller towns. Check out my publication
www.ParadeofStars.com.
Thirty years of this sheet.
Continued good health to you and your family."
Can anyone help? Pete Genovese,
pedrogeno@hotmail.com : "One of my old pals from
grad
school, a guy named Ed Morris, wrote about country
music for Billboard, so I would pick it up to see his
stuff and just generally read it. Did you know Ed?
He's with Country USA now, and I'm damned if I can
track him down."
Myra Chanin, whom Joey Reynolds, G1boney@aol.com,
calls the original chicken soup author, wrote: "I'm a
friend of Joey's and he frequently sends me your
commentaries. I just wanted to tell you how
interesting, wise and well-written I find your
observations."
I immediately wrote back: "Thank you. As you
probably
know, writers do appreciate praise. It's the maple
syrup of the mind. Or is that chocolate? Oh, well.
Your friend and devoted slave forever." My beautiful
bride of 40-plus years, Barbara, immediately pointed
out that I should have said chicken soup of the mind.
Oh, well.
October
20, 2003
Claude Hall
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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