The Price of Pecans

This is the first time I have posted anything written by another person on this blog.  This was written by Sharla McLaughlin Campbell, my niece. She is the daughter of my brother and his wife, Penny Jones McLaughlin.  Sharla wrote this about her mother, Penny.

I can stretch my rules enough to allow Sharla’s words to appear here because she was born and

raised in Lubbock.  Her father, my brother, lived his entire life in Lubbock.  I believe her mother,

 Penny, was born in Lubbock County, I’m not sure, but I do know she grew up on a farm between

 Idalou and  Lorenzo.  I copied this directly from Sharla’s Facebook post and resisted the urge to

 “correct” it.  I have not talent enough to improve this work and have not earned the right to edit it.

  Everything below was written by Sharla McLaughlin Campbell—I wish I had done it. 

 Jim McLaughlin

 

This is my favorite Christmas gift this year and probably one of my favorites I have or will ever receive.  These are pecans from my brother’s pecan tree in New Mexico that my Momma sent me.  A whole big quart container of them!  Anyone who has seen pecans in their natural state know that they do not look like this when they fall off the tree.  They are covered in a thick husk with sharp points that peel back from the ripe nut and sometimes fall away naturally.  Once that is removed by hand you get to the nut.  The nut itself is in a hard, beautifully variegated brown & black shell that must be cracked open with a nut cracker using great hand strength—but not too much—in order to extract the two whole halves of the pecan meat.  See how beautifully intact and perfect mine are?  Now that the nut meat is extracted, they must be picked free of the remaining bitter encasement that protects the nut in the shell.  Unlike other nuts, pecan are then ready to eat..a perfect food, very high in good fat, protein and antioxidants not to mention sweet and delicious right off the tree…even better after they dehydrate a bit.  They are known for their cancer & other degenerative disease preventive properties as they knock down free radicals, are anti-inflammatory preventing cell damage, and are rich in the nutrients that prevent strokes, migraines and arteriosclerosis.

But that is not why she sent them to me.  She sent them to me for a few reasons…1) She knows how much I love them, would use them and that I eat nuts daily now.  2) She is on a very tight, fixed budget most of which goes for her medical needs and it is something she could afford to do.  3)  She is from a generation that wastes nothing and to watch them just lay on the ground in abundance and ignored is not her way of doing things.

Here is what makes them so precious to me.  Most of you know my mom struggles with degenerative disc disease in her spine and has had 7+ surgeries in her spine to keep her mobile.  She lives with a pain pump to assist with the crushing pain of neuropathy, poor function, and compressed nerves.  What most of you do NOT know is that she is also suffering from a very progressive and aggressive arthritis particularly in her fingers, shoulders, knees and toes which is keeping these joints inflamed, tender, swollen and is deforming her hands and feet quickly and painfully now.  She probably won’t like it that I told you.  Tough.

When I think of my sweet little mother out gathering those pecans, bending and sorting those nuts into a basket and carrying them to the porch, where she sat for hours to shell and pick them with her hurty, gnarled hands, selecting only the most perfect ones for me…for this gift - I am just devastated and overwhelmed with her love for me.  The tenderness and care she took to keep them mostly whole is so like my mother…so much like she raised my brother and me.  I wonder what she thought about as she sat there with her little dog all that time painfully making my gift…did she relive moments with us, with my dad, did she miss him like she has for these 25 years he has been gone, think about the book she is reading, think about the stress all around her in frustration and helplessness, think about me and who I would feed with these nuts, or was she just content, like Momma is most of the time?...I am gonna ask her.

She is in her golden years and I don’t know who determined these years are golden but yes, she is growing old and it ain’t golden or easy on her.  I have her with me right now and these pecans are precious like she is.  I treasure them and her.  (If I ever say I treasure something..that is a VERY BIG DEAL…)

I made a pecan pie last night with 2 cups of them along with the Steen’s Cane syrup My Own Sweet Uncle Jim introduced me to (but that is a different story).  I ate a piece for breakfast with my first cup of black coffee and served Roger one in bed with a latte and he felt very special.  I savored every full of love decadent forkful.

In a culture that values huge, showy Christmas gifts of vehicles, high end techie toys, designer duds and fragrances, expensive jewelry, frivolous home goods and epicurean foods, I will take this plastic tub of pecans from my Momma and consider myself the most blessed of all.  Now go hug your Mom if she is still here or nurturer of choice if she is not…that is important…

Borders of Texas--Conclusion

A valley in Colorado near the source of the Rio Grande, the original western border of Texas. 

     Due to the efforts of Coronado and other Conquistadors, Spain was a super power by 1550.  For the next 200 years, the Spanish enjoyed a dominant world position, which began to erode by the mid 1700s.  Wars, revolutions, extravagance, inept rulers, and internal strife all depleted the vast fortune the nation had amassed.

     In 1788, Charles (Carlos) IV ascended to the Spanish throne, a job he didn’t particularly care for.  Consequently, he spent his days hunting, leaving the operation of the government to his wife and his trusted friend, the prime minister.  The queen and the prime minister dabbled in affairs of state and affairs with each other, and Spain continued to decay. Napoleon posed a growing threat, and outright rebellion was feared in the western colonies.  These external pressures, continued civil unrest, and the fear of bankruptcy forced the government into drastic action.

    Spain ceded Louisiana to France in 1800 to settle debts and escape conquest by Napoleon.  At that time, there was no clear border between Texas and Louisiana.  Spain owned everything west of the Mississippi River, and a large part of everything south of the Ohio River, making internal borders unnecessary.  Spain was weak and in a poor position to negotiate, and Napoleon promised never to allow the territory to fall into the control of any English-speaking nation, so a deal was struck.  Not one to allow a promise to interfere with a profit, three years later Bonaparte sold the whole thing to the United States for $12 million dollars.  All of a sudden, in 1803, the untrustworthy Anglos were next door neighbors and financially troubled Spain was forced to define and defend her borders.  

      General Andrew Jackson, sensing the Spanish weakness, obtained the Florida Territory simply by occupying it, then saying “Let’s talk.”  The talks resulted in the Adams-Onis treaty of 1819, which gave America all of Florida, all of West Florida, (which included southern sections of present day Alabama and Mississippi), and territory in the Pacific Northwest containing the current states of Washington and Oregon. In return for this territory, America paid $5 million compensation for property damage caused by American citizens who rebelled in Florida, and agreed to recognize the boundaries of Mexico and Texas.

     Even with the generous terms of the treaty, landowners in the south were furious.  They felt that the Texas border should have been pushed west to the Rio Grande.  With that simple change, Texas would have been included in the Louisiana Purchase, and the southerners would gain access to its rich cotton land.

      Jackson, however, was pleased with the outcome of his bluff.  When he was president, he sent his friend Sam Houston to Texas to attempt a similar ploy with the Mexicans.

     An important aspect of the Adams-Onis Treaty was the definition of the border between New Spain (Mexico/Texas) and the United States.  According to this treaty, the Mexico/Texas border followed the Sabine River from the Gulf of Mexico north to its source, and continued north to the Red River, and then west along that river to its intersection with 100W longitude.  The border turned north and followed the 100W line to its intersection with the Arkansas River, where it turned west along that river to its source in present day Colorado.  From the source of the Arkansas, the border went due north to 42 N latitude and then west along that line to the Pacific Ocean.  Spain owned outright this vast territory which eventually became ten western states.

     The Texas border, in 1819, followed the route of the Mexican border on the east and north sides, with the Gulf of Mexico on the south, and the Rio Grande River from the Gulf to its source on the west, dividing Texas from the rest of Mexico. At the source of the Rio Grande, the Texas border continued due north, across present day Colorado and into Wyoming where it terminated at the 42 N latitude.

     In 1821, Mexico gained its independence from a beleaguered Spain, took control of all this territory, and continued foolhardy efforts to establish American colonies in Texas.  The Mexicans wanted Anglo colonists to provide a buffer zone between the dreaded Comanche and good Mexican citizens.  That plan didn’t work out very well.

     Colonists from America believed they carried inalienable rights with them when they crossed into Texas—the Mexican government had no patience with such strange Anglo notions.  The ruling class in Mexico made the rules and the peons abided by them.  Discussion was not allowed.  A revolution was not only predictable, it was inevitable.

     When Texas won its independence from Mexico in 1836, Texas claimed its southern and western border was the Rio Grande River, while Mexico insisted the Nueces River was the border.  In 1841, during Mirabeau Lamar’s tenure as Texas President, he sent an expedition to Santa Fe to proclaim New Mexico the property of Texas.  Under the less than inspired leadership of Colonel Hugh McLeod, the expedition was captured and imprisoned in Mexico.  Texas claimed New Mexico as its territory, but lacked the military strength to enforce that claim.  Mexico still claimed Texas, and planned to take it back, just as soon as it got its stuff together.

      The United States and the Republic of Texas reached an agreement, and Texas became the twenty-eighth state on December 29, 1845.  Two weeks after the admission of Texas to the Union, U. S. President James Polk sent troops under the command of Zachary Taylor to South Texas.  America had the will and the military strength to insure the border of Texas was set at the Rio Grande.  Polk realized a war with Mexico could be the cheapest way to fulfill America’s “Manifest Destiny.”

      Hostilities started in the summer of 1846, and ended in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.  With this treaty, our old friend Santa Anna sold the United States all Mexican holdings north of the Rio Grande to the Pacific Ocean for the sum of $18.25 million.  America now stretched from sea to shining sea.

     The current borders of the State of Texas were finally established, oddly enough, by the Compromise of 1850, an agreement made in the U.S. Congress between the slave states and the abolitionists.   This agreement postponed the Civil War for a few years, and addressed the borders of Texas.  Cash-strapped Texas ceded its claim to half of New Mexico, one third of Colorado, and parts of Kansas, Wyoming, and Oklahoma for a total payment of ten million dollars.   After heated debate, the U. S. Senate determined the boundaries between Texas and the adjoining states. The panhandle of Oklahoma, which separated Texas from Kansas, was disputed territory for a period of time, but was eventually awarded to Oklahoma.

      Two years later, in 1852, the North Fork of the Red River was discovered and, of course, Texans claimed the border followed that fork and planned to add another county to Texas.  Okies screamed like smashed panthers and the U.S. Supreme Court placed the border along the South Fork of the river and awarded the disputed territory to Oklahoma.

      Texas could have used better lawyers. They lost every single border dispute with Oklahoma, and, because the whole area is covered with oil wells, there were many.  Continuous border disputes between Texas and Oklahoma have been resolved by the courts, and the border is now officially along the south bank of the Red River, which the courts say is the more stable bank.  That solution places the capricious river, and all the oil under it, in Oklahoma.  The last border dispute with Oklahoma was finally settled in August of 2000, and signed by Texas Governor George W. Bush.  This settlement placed the border as it crossed Lake Texhoma nearer to the southern shore.  Surprise, surprise!   

 

The Establishment of the Exterior Borders of the Great State of Texas Part One

 

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, before his ill-fated journey.

 

 
       No discussion of Texas borders can begin without considering Mexico, and Mexico cannot be discussed without touching upon its relationship with Spain.  The Mexican people speak a variation of the Spanish language, and many carry Spanish blood in their veins.

     For seven hundred years, the Moors ruled Spain, until 1492, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella's army finally managed to drive them out by conquering the Muslim stronghold at Granada.  That same year the queen sponsored an Italian sailor named Columbus in a silly attempt to discover a shorter route to India by sailing west.  It was a good year for Spain, except, after the Moors were defeated, a lot of soldiers were left with nothing to do.

     Leftover soldiers are typically young, ambitious, unattached, and looking for adventure, wealth, and female companionship, not necessarily in that order.  Many of them headed west to the mysterious, newly discovered continents in search of fame and fortune.  For the next several generations, the Spanish explored, conquered, claimed, and otherwise acquired new territories in the name of the King of Spain and the Holy Church of Rome.

     Spanish soldiers-of-fortune became known as Conquistadors (conquerors) and explored and conquered new lands, primarily in search of gold, with the secondary purpose of saving the souls of the local populace and leading them to truth, light and involuntary servitude through the Holy Church of Rome.  The Conquistadors were brutal, ruthless, driven men with no mercy for the people they conquered, or the troops they commanded.  Thousands of natives died during this period, many in battle, and many more from exposure to European disease.  In my youth, I studied about these conquerors, but failed to realize their relationship to each other, and did not understand the timing of their journeys.  The Texas we know and love evolved from their efforts.

     A talented leftover soldier named Juan Ponce de Leon accompanied Columbus on his second voyage to the Americas in 1493, and was so attracted to Puerto Rico that he returned and established residence there.  He “discovered” and named Florida in April of 1513, and immediately claimed it for the King of Spain and the Holy Church of Rome. (No mention of his search for the Fountain of Youth occurs until long after his death, when a historian surmised De Leon was looking for the “Waters of Bimini” to cure his aging. This idea is a bit troublesome--de Leon was thirty-nine at the time, and the island of Bimini is east of Florida in the Bahamas.)

     Six months after the discovery of Florida, in late September of 1513, Vasco Nunez de Balboa “discovered” the South Sea and claimed it and all the land it touched for the King of Spain and the Holy Church of Rome.  He called it the South Sea because he crossed what became Panama by heading due south.  Balboa, a smooth talker who stowed away on a freighter to escape debt collectors in Santa Domingo, had a talented young officer in his company named Francisco Pizarro, a distant cousin of Hernan Cortes who conquered the Aztecs.  Pizarro moved up in the ranks by arresting his former commander and turning him over to political enemies.   Balboa was tried, convicted, and beheaded in January of 1519.  Spain kept its claim to the South Sea which Magellan explored in 1520, re-naming it the Pacific Ocean.

     Meanwhile, Francisco Pizarro was busy in what would become South America, conquering native people, enslaving them, and forcing them to mine gold and silver.  In 1535 he established a Spanish capital city in Peru, named it Lima and began shipping tons of gold and silver back to Spain. One of Pizarro’s young captains, Hernando de Soto became wealthy with his share of precious metals liberated from the locals. He returned to Spain and sought permission to explore and colonize North America, in the name of the King of Spain and the Holy Church of Rome.

     In 1539 de Soto landed on the west coast of Florida with 620 men and tons of armor and provisions.  For the next three years he and his men wandered through the future states of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas.  They crossed the Mississippi River near present day Memphis, and, or course, claimed it, its drainage area, and everything else they saw for the King of Spain and the Holy Church of Rome, including the sacred American Indian site known as the Valley of the Vapors—now called Hot Springs, Arkansas.

      De Soto died of fever in May of 1542, on the west side of the Mississippi River in present day Arkansas or Louisiana.  His troops buried him in an unmarked grave and tried, unsuccessfully, to go back to Mexico City overland, through Texas.  After much hardship, the few that survived returned to the Mississippi River, cut down trees, built boats, and made their way back to Mexico by sailing down the river and along the Gulf Coast of Texas.

     At the same time de Soto was tramping through the piney woods of the Deep South, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was following a dark-skinned Indian guide called “Turk” across the Llano Estacado in search of the Seven Cities of Gold.

A depiction by Fredrick Remington of Coronado's Expedition, following the Turk across the Llano Estacado

 

     Coronado and his soldiers entered unexplored territory north of Mexico along the present Arizona/New Mexico line in 1540 and made their way north to the Acoma Pueblo, which, at that time, had been home to the Zunis for over five hundred years.  The soldier’s first view of the pueblo on the mesa was from the west, and the setting sun gave the mesa and the mud huts on top a golden glow.  It is said that an Indian guide pointed and said, “See. The City of Gold.” Coronado, expecting streets of gold and lacking a sense of humor, had the man’s head chopped off.

     Coronado sent patrols in all directions to explore while he recuperated from an injury suffered as he slaughtered Zuni Indians for refusing to share their meager food.  His men were the first Europeans to see the Grand Canyon and they explored what would become Arizona and parts of the Colorado River.   During the winter of 1540-41, they moved east to the Rio Grande River where they wiped out the Tiguex pueblos and a tribe of uncooperative Navajo, and set up a base of operations near present day Bernalillo, New Mexico.  From this camp, they explored the Rio Grande upriver to the Taos Pueblo, and downstream to the vicinity of present day Las Cruces. Of course they claimed everything they saw for the King of Spain and the Holy Church of Rome.

     In the spring of 1541, Coronado’s lust for gold led him to follow the Turk (so named because of his dark complexion) across the Llano Estacado and on to Kansas.  Coronado and his men were nervous and uneasy on the high plains—absolutely flat terrain, no trees, no landmarks, no rivers—it was as if they had been swallowed up by a sea of grass. The expedition moved into what would become central Kansas before Coronado lost patience and had the Turk choked to death.  They returned to winter in their base camp on the Rio Grande, and started back to Mexico in April of 1542.  Two priests were left to minister to the Indians, but otherwise the expedition accomplished little of value, except to strengthen Spain’s claim to territory in the New World.

     Because they found no gold, Coronado was ruined financially, and he and his field master were charged with war crimes committed during the expedition.  Coronado, penniless, remained in Mexico City and died of an infection in 1554.

To be continued…..