Tag Archives: senior citizens

If You Can’t Trust an Oak, Who Can You Trust?

Posted on April 1, 2012 by | 4 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

The analogy between Robert E. Lee, Gettysburg and that oak is still nagging at me, but I doubt I’ll belabor this post with the troubling similarities between the two this morning.  Though I might.

Gale came down the morning after the Gettysburg event and we performed an after-action analysis of the damages, the implications, and ultimately the other oaks surrounding the cabin showing some level of potential for similarly Gettysburg-like thinking.  We concluded there’ll be several other trees coming down because they’re already losing bark, or obviously dead.  Others I’ll prune the larger branches on the cabin-side so’s the weight left will cause them to fall away from anything they can damage.  Hopefully.

Fact is, the leverage a few MPH of wind in the upper growth exerts a huge mechanical advantage and a person might be prone to over-confidence about the salubriousness of fooling with the weight and balance.

Somewhat the way Pickett trusted the judgement and wisdom of old Robert Lee until the pricetag of trusting was already paid.  Lee locked his mind in one direction and managed to blind himself to the obvious, and he said what Pickett wanted to hear. 

But I said I wouldn’t go there this morning, and I’m not going to go there just because old Pickett spent the rest of his life blaming Lee for allowing him to do exactly what he wanted most.

Even Meade, the Union commander, trusted Lee so much he was ready to abandon the superior ground, pull back his larger force, more guns, rather than mistrust Robert E. Lee, his opposing commander.  Meade’s officers voted to hold position, or there’d have been no Gettysburg.

But I said I wouldn’t go there this morning, and I’m not going to go there

A while back I was trusting the invader cat to be a pregnant female because it was pacing around meowing something awful.  Trusting it other times to be a female in heat for the same reason.  But I discovered around the same time I made the discovery about the oak, that the invader cat has a pair of jingle-bollocks.  I don’t know why the hell it’s meowing.  But I trust a pair of jingle-bollocks more-or-less completely when it comes to it.

A lot more than I’m ever going to trust an oak again.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules:  1940′s and 1950′s in the USA?

Old Jules, what were some of the social, political, and religious aspects of the 1940’s and 1950’s?

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Posted in History, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Texas

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Jeb Stuarts, Jeb Stuart MacGruders and the Fallen

Posted on March 30, 2012 by | 6 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I’m five years older than old Bob Lee was when he had his little problem at Gettysburg.  I’ve fingered a lot earlier than when I was 65 that I could have avoided what happened to him if it had been me, instead of him dealing with a particular horse soldier.  Jeb Stuart, or Jeb Stuart MacGruder, I think it was.

Bobby Lee should have had the good sense to follow the advice of Longstreet and not become an invader, I always figured.  Should have stayed the hell down in Virginia, fought in defense of his home soil.

Lee was plenty old enough to know the great majority of the leadership on both sides was composed of the spiritual kinfolk of Stuart, Lincoln, Custer, Fetterman, Hooker, and other dandies too absorbed in what the newspapers were saying about them to keep their eyes on the ball.

Bobby Lee didn’t think that way, but he got the smell of blood in his nose anyway.  The men following his orders and getting shot to hell would have been just as happy defending Vicksburg, but they trusted his wisdom, they had the smell of blood in their noses, too. 

Same as these today.

But while I was thinking about that last night the damn tree fell on the storage building, so I don’t know where I was going with it.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules:  Escape from Reality?

Old Jules, why is escaping reality ultimately harmful?

 

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Posted in Senior Citizens, Solitude, YouTube

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Dressing Hoes, Handles and Whips

Posted on March 28, 2012 by | 10 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Different world.  This is one of the first adult jokes I ever remember hearing:

First morning on her new job in a hardware store a man approached her.  “I need a flat bastard.”

“Cad!”  She slapped him and he rushed out.

The manager was aghast, but she explained the customer swore at her, so he just shook his head and went back to his business as another man approached her.

“I need a flat bastard.”

“Cad!”  She slapped him and he ran from the store.

This time, the manager questioned her and she explained the offending language.

“Ahh.  It’s okay.  They were asking for bastard files.  See,” pointing to a bin of files, “Those are called bastard files.”

She apologized, and he went back to work.  Another customer approached her.  “I need a file.”

“How about one of these flat bastards?” Glowing with new-found knowledge.

“No, I think I’ll take this little round son-of-a-bitch.”

Trying to dress my tools, all the little bastards I could find around here were Chinese s-o-bs.  Worthless.  I ended up using that grinding wheel as a whetstone, which was slow, but worked.  But the stone soaked up a lot of oil while I used it. 

While I was dressing those blades and working linseed oil into the handles I found myself wondering whether anyone does that anymore.  As a kid I was taught that nobody would respect a person who didn’t take care of his tools.  But I suspect there aren’t enough people doing any hoe work anymore to cause them to bother with it.

And of course, the tools aren’t made to last, anyway.  Aren’t even made to do the job they’re shaped for.

I’m going to keep my eye out at auctions and thrift stores for some broken tools with metal D-handles, I reckons.  That shovel has a lot of life left in it if I can find a handle that was made when the folks making it thought someone would use it eventually.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules:  Open Range Ranching?

Old Jules, what can you tell me about open range ranching in the 1800s?

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Posted in America, Country Life

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Fire Ants, Food Sanitation and the Old Cottage Try

Posted on March 15, 2012 by | 1 comment

Good morning readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning. I’d thought that moth might survive a while because the cats were intimidated by it, but I was wrong.  Tabby made a meal of it before sunset.

The phone line’s being a communist this morning, so I don’t know whether I’ll be able to finish a post and get it up.  If I save frequently enough I can progress two steps forward and one back, losing the connection but only losing the unsaved part of the immortal prose.

The fire ants came out of hiding yesterday, so I’m back in business food-sanitation-wise.  It will be a considerable relief getting their help on the dishwashing around here.  Fire Ants, Dishwashing and Drought

Good news from Kay on the phone yesterday about the Invader Cat.  Seems it’s doing the Texas Two-Step.  A neighbor a couple of miles the other side of them asked recently if they ‘had’ a black cat, or had seen one.  Turns out the Invader Cat migrates over there a couple of days at a time, also, and has done for a considerable while.

That puts to rest any concerns I had about it joining the household.

I had a considerable bit of immortal prose I was going to do this morning, but the distraction of this dial-up is killing my muse.  I think I’m going to have to save it for sometime else.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules: Old Jules, I love one girl very much, but she is not responding, what should I do?

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Posted in 2012, Adventure, America, Animals, Nature

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The Social Security Entitlement Adventure

Posted on March 13, 2012 by | 20 comments

Good morning readers. I’m obliged you came by for a read.

I got an email yesterday from an old acquaintance who’s carrying a serious chip on his shoulder about somebody calling the Social Security pension he lives on an ‘entitlement’. He raged on about how he paid into it fifty years, and his employers matched everything he paid. So, he says, it’s not an entitlement.

Sheeze. I wonder what else a person would call it. He’s entitled to it. What the hell is it but an entitlement?

But I think he’s concerned that because ‘entitlement’ has become a buzzword for something else he doesn’t like.  Namely a whole range of government payouts to bank owners, automobile companies, multi-national corporations, all manner of people bleeding the US budget dry with bailouts and payoffs.  I think he figures they might quit paying him his pension because they called it an entitlement.  Putting him down with scum bankers and CEOs and Chairmans of Boards and politicians.

Seems to me he’s just not thinking right.  He’s gotten old up there in Al Capone country and no longer seeing the opportunity it would represent if they took away his retirement check he needs to live.

Truth is, we lived fairly tame lives, we retirees.  Generally we did what was needed and more-or-less stayed within the boundaries of the laws and ethics while we did it.

In a lot of ways we screwed ourselves out of the adventure we were entitled to.  The adventure of sticking up banks and shooting it out with the cops and whatnot.

Those bankers and CEOs and politicans got to have all the fun, though they didn’t do it in a way that would take them out in a blaze of gunfire.  But we spent our lives in an environment with them in their houses on the hill, and down on the street corners and alleyways people were shooting it out with one another and the cops.

We just plodded along working our asses off not getting to drive limosines nor scoot around in the shadows mugging anyone.  But now maybe they’re finally going to give us our shot at having some fun finally.

Seems to me it’s about time.

Old Jules

20 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, America, Human Behavior, Senior Citizens, Social Security, Survival

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Exciting Project for Parting

Posted on March 8, 2012 by | 10 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I trekked up to Gale’s yesterday for a while to talk wind and see whether his face had gotten over the baboon butt similarity it had the previous week.  He had a good photo of it during the worst stage I begged him to allow me to post for you, but his refusal didn’t appear to leave it open for discussion.

But he told me about a project I’m feeling uppidy about working on during the year.  This place has been overgrazed, probably since the invention of barbed wire, and it shows.  I’ve thought from the time I arrived here I’d like to do some cheap but time consuming erosion control, but it never had a priority.

Seems to keep his agricultural tax exemption on the land, though, Gale could go back to having three cows fighting over every blade of grass in the traditional Texas fashion, or he could switch to wildlife management.  He had a lady from Texas Parks and Wildlife out here going over the place with him the other day helping devise a plan to submit to the County.

Assuming it gets accepted, I’m figuring something I learned in one of my professions, at least, will finally get put to some worthy use.  Between now and my departure from here I’ll have rock and brush dams collecting water and soil into every channel on the place.

I truly love erosion control, but it had slipped my mind how much.  I hate to admit the urge to dance naked in the meadow celebrating.

Old Jules

10 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, America

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Edna Milton Chadwell – RIP – Shadow of an Era Fades

Posted on March 5, 2012 by | 9 comments

I never knew the lady well, but I was briefly acquainted with her when I was writing the piece for Men In Adventure Magazine, Vietcong Seductress, et al.  She was a lot more understanding about the slant the editors put on the piece than Sheriff Jim Flournoy.   But that was before the Texas news jumped onto the bandwagon.

Edna Milton Chadwell, Last Madam of ‘Chicken Ranch’ Bordello, Dies at 84

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Edna Milton Chadwell, the last madam of the infamous Chicken Ranch brothel, died last week at the age of 84. The Chicken Ranch of La Grange, Texas, was the house of ill repute that inspired the Broadway musical, “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.” It later became a hit movie.

Chadwell’s passing inspired a surge of interest in the 1982 film starring Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds. The flick was an enormous success, taking in nearly $70 million. It was one of the biggest musical hits of the decade, despite mixed reviews. 

After the Chicken Ranch’s demise, Chadwell moved to Arizona where she met her husband and remained for the rest of her life. Her obituary from the Associated Pressquotes her nephew, Robert Kleffman.

“She was a hard-nosed lady. She was very straightforward, didn’t put up with no monkey business, no nonsense,” he said. “Hard-nosed. But with a spine of steel and a heart of gold.” Kleffman added that his aunt didn’t like to talk about her time in La Grange, but she also wasn’t ashamed of it.

http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-talk/edna-milton-chadwell-last-madam-chicken-ranch-bordello-185916723.html

Here’s wishing her the best in whatever she decides to do next.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 2012, America, Current Issues, Hack Writing, Senior Citizens, Texas

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A Bit More About What’s Not Happening

Posted on March 4, 2012 by | 9 comments

First off, The Invader Cat’s not becoming a fixture around here.  It’s just hanging around getting meals and paying the fare by being bullied by chickens and the other cats.  It has a home somewhere.  I’m certain of it because sometimes it vanishes for a couple of days.

But it’s not a fixture and it’s not becoming a fixture.  Even though when I was putting the piece of the can of feed I’d saved for it down last night, it came within a couple of feet of me scratching it behind the ears.

Secondly, if you’re among those trying to figure out what’s not happening by tracking Ganymede, you’re a day late and a dollar short.  Ganymede looks great at first, but the further you hone things down the more you’ll conclude something’s missing.  I’d suggest doing some dizzying calculations correlating Ganymede positions with with the position of Mercury.  Which, if you run through enough ways of measuring where they are, will give you a lot clearer view of what’s not happening.

Thirdly, I worked a lot on the brush dams in the ruts on the road coming down here yesterday in hopes of further rainfall runoff forcing the hill to give up more of the dirt it’s been bringing down from above.  Over the years it’s gradually been filling the worst blow-out-a-tire, high-centering ruts.  Now if we can keep getting a few of these male rains I think this will finish it off. 

Which is to say, spectacular erosion won’t be happening and past erosion will have reversed itself somewhat.

Lastly, despite your hardheadedness on the issue if you’ve got any, cold weather isn’t happening.

If you’re going to be a part of what’s happening you’re going to have to switch from felt to straw.  If you try to hang on to your outdated good-times idea about felt you’re going to have sweat running down around your eyelids and getting into your ears next time you go to town.  And you won’t be happening.

Just saying.

Old Jules

Edit 8:37 am:  I neglected to mention earlier while talking about Mercury and Ganymede that Saturn seems to be happening a little bit.  Even though it’s way to hell and gone off the other side of things where you’d expect it to have to be.

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Posted in 2012, Astronomy, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Science, Senior Citizens, Solitude

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Placitas – Impossible to Stay but Hard to Leave

Posted on March 3, 2012 by | 19 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

That adobe was built sometime in the 1930s as a turkey barn, then later converted to a dairy barn until the 1950s.  The walls were 18 inches thick, the floor a couple of inches of poured concrete, flat roof that held several thousand gallons of water when snow accumulated on the roof and the canales intended to drain the melt became solid ice.

No heat, rotten iron pipes for plumbing, and a back wall ready to collapse next snowfall.  The vigas holding up the roof, cracked timbers sagging with the weight of 75 winters.  Roof leaking into the adobe walls, eroding them beneath the vigas enough to cause me to arrange the couch I slept on in such a way there’d be something between me and it if the whole thing collapsed.

The rent was so high I couldn’t afford to pay it, eat, feed the cats and pay the utilities, even with the intermittent jobs I could pick up.  So they’d cut off the utilities every few months until I could raise the money to have them turned back on.

Maybe the best place I’ve ever lived.  Certainly the hardest.

That last winter living there I was shovelling snow off the roof, slipped and fell into the snow on the ground below and lay there unconscious some undetermined time before I awakened and struggled indoors.  Stove up something awful the rest of the winter.

But the cats loved the place and so did I, even as I watched the walls dissolve and the crack between the back room wall and ceiling widen.  The near-certainty the house wouldn’t last another winter gradually had me wondering whether I could find a bridge to live under without giving up the felines.

Gale had been suggesting for several years that I move here and live in this cabin on his place.  Another winter in Placitas, the cat necessities, and the vice grips of no-obvious-alternatives gradually persuaded me.

Gale and his brother drove up from Texas with a trailer, packed me up and hauled me, the cats, and all my worldly goods down here in one fell swoop.  A person can count himself lucky if he can have one friend in a lifetime like Gale’s been to me.

For several years here it’s been easy to not think about what comes next, to just savor being here and the absolute luxury of not being in the joy of Placitas, the adobe, the proximity of some bridge to live underneath.  We seemed a lot younger, that short time ago, Gale and me.  The cats, too, for that matter.

But aging comes more quickly these days and it’s creeped into the picture until it fills it.  The Coincidence Coordinators are nagging at me with increasing urgency and insistence to look for the next bridge not to live under. 

So far I believe I’ve been the luckiest man ever to walk the face of this planet, possibly among the happiest.  I’ve discovered I’m nowhere near as tough as I once thought myself to be and Placitas taught me I’m also not the pioneer my ancestors were.  I wouldn’t change a minute of those years after I gave myself a Y2K, but I sincerely won’t regret not doing it again if I don’t have to.

But maybe now I’ve toughened up enough to make the next step as much a blessing as this one’s been.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules:  Marriage Before Sex?

Old Jules, why is it important to get married for having sex?

 

19 Comments

Posted in 2000's, Homesteading, Music, New Mexico, NM, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Survival, Texas

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Why a Hermit? Escaping Loneliness in a Young World

Posted on March 2, 2012 by | 34 comments

I probably should post this on Ask Old Jules, but nobody much reads that blog.  Not that it matters whether anyone reads it, I suppose.  But if I’m going to compose words something in me likes it better thinking it will be read by someone else, than to just fade into oblivion.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this solitude addiction of mine lately, attempting to be candid with myself about it and what it means.  The tripwire involved several emails I’ve received asking what makes me do it, want it, whatever.  It’s plain enough the emails were sincere and genuinely interested, at least on some level.  But it’s also patently obvious the concept is foreign enough to those asking to leave them without a foundation for thinking about it.

One of the emailers was a cautious man carefully lo0king for someone to keep an eye on a property he owns in a remote area.  He’s somewhat caught between conflicting realities, I suppose.  There’s a need for someone ‘responsible, someone he can trust.  But anyone who’d stay there and do what needs doing is going to be a person he can’t understand, can’t identify with.

His concern’s legitimate.  If he allows someone to occupy the place and they happen to be the sort to cook meth on the side, or grow illegal herb, he’s in danger of having the property confiscated.  But he also runs that risk even if the grower or cook enter the unattended property without his knowing it.  Absentee ownership isn’t as seductive a proposition as it once was.

But the email exchange did get me asking myself to form some candid understanding of exactly what motivates me and why I’m a lot happier not being around people much.  And the eventual answer startled me a bit, seemed internally inconsistent.

I generally like people okay as individuals, I concluded, but dislike them in the composite.  I don’t have much in common with groups, but I can almost always find something in common with individuals.  So when I meet strangers in town I find I’m able to have friendly, enjoyable exchanges, though brief.

But I’m always acutely aware that each of those strangers is a part of some larger we, identifying with it, considering himself and it inseparable at some fundamental level.  And almost every ‘we’ I’ve ever examined closely has led me to want nothing to do with it. 

However, another piece of being around ‘we’ identifications scattered around all over urban landscapes is the forced realization of isolation and exclusion of a different sort than that of a hermit, deliberately self-imposing solitude.

The simple fact is, I get lonely and hell when I’m around people.  And I’m not lonely at all when I’m not. 

At least I think I might if I tried it.  I actually don’t recall ever feeling lonely under those circumstances, though I do recall not caring for it.

Old Jules

 

34 Comments

Posted in Senior Citizens, Solitude, Survival

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