The HEB Diet

The West Entry of my HEB Store.  This door marks the starting point.

     I have wrestled with a weight problem most of my adult life.  I enjoy eating and have from an early age, which has contributed to my ongoing battle with bulges.  After watching Oprah and The View on TV, and learning that nothing is really my fault, I discovered that the root cause of my life-long obesity was my psychotic mother.   

     Mother grew up in East Texas on a red dirt, dry-land farm in the midst of the Depression.  During those Dust Bowl years, everyone was hungry and, consequently, skinny. Mother wanted fat babies.  In her eyes, well-fed babies were healthy babies and she worked to make her babies fat, happy, and healthy.  My poor mother equated love with food and she loved her children.

     No meal at our house was complete without potatoes and bread.  We had biscuits for breakfast, light bread for lunch, and corn bread for dinner.  We enjoyed foreign foods--German Fries in the morning and French Fries at dinner.  Everything was fried in lard until Mom got on a health kick and started using Crisco.  Fried chicken and chicken fried steak were staples, and mother loved us so much, she always cooked extra and insisted we have seconds.

     It is refreshing to know that I can blame Mom’s psychosis for my problems, especially when she is not here to defend herself.  I have learned I am not just a weak-willed fatso, I have a “Food Addiction” and it is not my fault.  I have dealt with this addiction by employing a series of diets.  Over the years, I have lost several hundred pounds and have put back on several hundred and thirty-four pounds.

     My latest diet is one I call the HEB Diet, after my favorite supermarket.  The HEB (Here Everyone’s Beefy) Diet is simple.  I eat a light breakfast, a good lunch, and a light dinner.  Typically, I have plain oatmeal for breakfast, salad for lunch and a small piece of broiled fish for dinner--total calories maybe 1200 to 1500.  This sounds boring, and it is, so I liven it up by visiting the HEB Store.

     The HEB Diet gives me the bonus of being able to eat anything in the store that is available as a free sample.  Rules are I cannot buy and eat anything, nor can I steal and eat anything, but I can avail myself of everything offered as a free sample.  This innocent little twist adds variety, color and interest to an otherwise boring and mundane routine.

     At the HEB Store, I like to start at the west entry, near the produce area.  I circle around by the station where they make guacamole.  The little girl will give you a small container with a tostada and some fresh guacamole, or a little cup of orange juice.  (Some days she squeezes fresh orange juice.)  Check around the apples and oranges too—they sometimes slice one up and put it out for people to taste.  The cheap ones are not sliced up—only the Fujis or Honey Crisps for $3.98 a pound.

Free Panini Sandwiches and Pizza sometimes adorn this counter.

     I generally move over toward the sandwich bar and check for samples there.  Sometimes bite-size bits of melted-cheese Panini sandwiches are available, or if you’re lucky, pepperoni pizza samples.  The store employees don’t monitor how much you sample.  Check out the center aisle—for about a week they had Jordan Almonds—I sampled several handfuls every trip.  My, my, they are tasty.

The Roast Beef is a bit rare, but the cheese is good.

     On top of the olive display are little plastic cups.  Use these to sample anything in the olive bins.  I like the little sweet red peppers and mozzarella, but the kalamata olives and pickled garlic are also excellent.  Any of these temper the sweetness left over from the Jordan Almonds.

     Moving on down past the deli, I check for samples of roast beef and cheese, perched on little acrylic-covered islands.  Even though the beef is a bit rare for my taste, the price is right.  I stab two or three pieces of meat and four or five chunks of smoked Gouda on one of those long toothpicks.   Next in line, the pastry department usually has cut-up cinnamon rolls, cookies, or brownies available on little islands.  After all that roast beef and cheese, something sweet for dessert goes well.

Artisan Breads.  Note sample box in center.

     In the bread department, up on the slanted shelves with the artisan breads, little boxes hold bread samples.  I prefer the cranberry walnut loaf, but the Asiago cheese bread is really good.  Again, no one seems to care how much you sample, but get there early.  The cut up bread dries out quickly.

     Around the corner, past the gooey pastry case and glass-doored frozen fish display, look around for the sweet, well-endowed blond lady with perfect teeth.  She’ll be passing out wine samples from a little table.

     “This here's a new Pie-not Nore from out in California.  Would jew like a taste?”

     I take a sip and say, “It is nice, robust, and fruity, but it slides off the palate a bit quickly.  Could I have a bigger sample to see if it will cling?”

     She looks suspicious.  “I’ll have to ask my supervisor.  What’s a pal-ate?”

     Meanwhile, at the Cooking Connection, old Jim, looking silly in a black chef’s hat, is combining an eight-dollar jar of Tortilla Soup Mix with a two-dollar can of Rotel Tomatoes. He calls that “cooking.”  He’ll be happy to give a sample to anyone he doesn’t recognize. 

      He recognizes me, and frowns.  I grab a chunk of ciabatta bread from the display on his counter, dip it in olive oil and keep moving.  I like Jim, but he acts like he owns the store—takes all the fun out of free samples.

     Unless the red-haired lady is cooking sausage wraps on an electric skillet, or the Asian guy is pushing sushi, there are no more samples until the island in front of the dairy cases.  Another little acrylic station there sports mixed nuts, or trail mix, or dried cranberries.  A good handful of any is really filling.

     Turn right here—no sense in going into the dairy aisle—nothing free there.  At the end of the gondola on the right are the specialty cookies.  Almost always, Chocolate Chip Galore cookies are provided as samples.  These are really good.  I hear they were once featured in a James Bond movie.

The rice cake exploder gun is in the background, next to the lie about prices.  Almond butter in foreground.

     Straight ahead, at the front of the store, on the left, is a table with exploded rice cakes and almond butter.  Sometimes I like to start here and do the tour in reverse, but ending a meal with guacamole and pizza is awkward, so I usually go clockwise.  Skipping around to get everything in proper order takes a lot of effort and, with only 1500 calories a day, I don’t need the exercise.

     Funny thing.  As careful as I have been, so far I haven’t lost any weight.  In fact, I gained four pounds last week.  Maybe I should cut out the oatmeal.  If only Mother had been mentally stable…but then, I guess we can all say that.

How Texas became the Lone Star State--Continuing a Series on the Women of Texas

Joanna Elizabsth Troutman designed this flag and made it from silk skirts

    

  Joanna Elizabeth Troutman was born in Crawford County, Georgia, February 19, 1818.  At age twenty-one, she married Solomon L. Pope and they lived comfortably on the plantation “Elmwood,” near Macon, for the rest of their lives.  Joanna and Solomon had four sons.  After Solomon died in 1872, Joanna married W.G. Vinson, a Georgia Legislator, in 1875.   She died in July of 1879, and was buried in the family plot at Elmwood, next to her first husband.

     Why is there an oil painting of this demure Georgia girl hanging in the Rotunda of the Texas State Capitol?  Why is the only statue of a woman in the Texas State Cemetery a life-size bronze of this Georgia teenager who never set foot in Texas?  How and when was her body moved to Texas? Why?

     The short answer to these questions is Joanna Troutman first identified Texas as the “Lone Star State.”  A single star appears on the great seal of Texas because of Joanna.  She is the reason a lone star dominates the Texas Flag and appears on all official state correspondence.  Even though she never saw Texas, she loved the idea, the spirit, the romance of it.  She loved the thought of brave young men fighting for freedom, giving their lives for an ideal, making a better world.  Joanna, hopelessly idealistic and incurably romantic, loved Texas.

     When she was seventeen, Miss Troutman lived with her parents in Knoxville, Georgia, not far from Macon.  Her family owned and operated the Troutman Inn, a hotel on the main road from Macon to Columbus. The family lived a half-mile away, on top of Mulberry Hill in a spacious frame home with a wrap-around porch on three sides.

      “Texas Fever” was sweeping over Georgia in 1835.  Letters from William B. Travis, exaggerating the difficulties imposed upon the colonists by Mexican despots appeared in the local newspapers, along with requests from Sam Houston for men and money to fight tyranny.  Reports of the first shots being fired at a place called Gonzales dominated the local newspapers during October.  The brave Texans defied an order to return a small cannon to the Mexican Army, inviting them, with a homemade flag, to “Come and Take It.”

     Joanna heard from travelers at the inn about a “Texas Rally” held in Macon on November 14, and a fiery speech made by her friend, Lt. Hugh McLeod.  McLeod, a recent graduate of West Point, was on his way to his first duty station.  The young lieutenant resigned his commission in the U.S. Army and joined the Macon Grays to fight in Texas.  The fact that he was last in his class at West Point may have influenced his decision to resign from the army, or he could have been afflicted with an especially bad case of "Texas Fever."

      This generation of young men in the south had grown up hearing war stories.  Their grandfathers had fought in the Revolutionary War and their fathers had battled in the War of 1812.  They wanted this war.  They needed this war.  Their legends and their fortunes would be built in Texas.  The spell of Texas was magic and they could not resist it.

     The evening after hearing about the rally in Macon, young Miss Troutman sat on the big wrap-around porch at the family home and looked up into the night sky.  She was too excited to sleep, thinking over and over about the brave young men going off to Texas.  If she were only a man, she would go and fight the Mexican tyrants.   As she sat there, she noticed an unusually bright star, rising from the horizon.  Being much brighter than any other star, it dominated the sky with a clear, blue-white light that over-powered its neighbors.  Joanna compared it to Texas, shining alone in the dark, fighting for independence.  Suddenly, she knew what she would do.

     For the next two days, Joanna and her girlfriends commandeered an upstairs bedroom at her family’s inn.  They ripped apart two silk skirts and a petticoat and sewed a flag that Joanna had designed in her mind as she watched the lonely star.  Joanna put a blue, five-pointed star in the middle of a white silk field with the words “Liberty or Death” on one side and a Latin phrase meaning “Where Liberty Dwells, There is My Country,” on the other.   Nothing about the finished flag looked homemade.

     On November 19, as three companies of Texas-bound Macon Grays marched through Knoxville, Joanna stood on the steps of Troutman Inn and presented the battle flag to Major William Ward, asking him to accept it for Lt. Hugh McLeod and fly it as they went into battle.  The crowd cheered and several young men from Knoxville joined the volunteers, then and there.  One who joined was John Turner Spillars.

     Ward first flew the flag over Velasco—present day Freeport—on January 8, 1836.  When the Georgia Battalion moved to Goliad, under command of James Fannin, the flag was the first to fly over the fort after Fannin heard the Texas legislature had declared independence from Mexico.  Because of improper handling, the flag was shredded by its halyard.  The shreds were left hanging, perhaps fittingly, while the Goliad Massacre took place.

     John Turner Spillars was one of only two of the Macon Grays at Goliad to escape the massacre and eventually return to Georgia.  When the Mexicans started killing prisoners, John was lucky and quick enough to run away in the confusion.  Lt. Hugh McLeod was detained in Louisiana while his resignation from the U.S. Army was processed, and this delay saved his life.  McLeod, not a favorite of Houston's, missed the fight at San Jacinto, but enjoyed a long military career in Texas.

     William Ward and virtually all the young Georgia volunteers died at Goliad.  Most were not given the honor of dying in battle, but were among the three hundred fifty marched out and shot down in a pasture on Santa Anna's orders.

     Little more than a month later, Houston’s army defeated and captured Santa Anna at San Jacinto and the war was over.  Among the spoils, Houston captured the silver chest of the high-living General Santa Anna.  He arranged to send a place setting from the chest—an oversize fork and spoon—to Miss Joanna Troutman as a thank you for the flag she contributed to the Texas cause.  Her descendants still own and treasure these pieces, and the letter from General Rusk that accompanied them.

The sculpture marking Joanna's grave in the Texas State Cemetery

     Thirty years after her death, Joanna's sister-in-law, Mrs. John Troutman, Sr., noticed Joanna’s untended grave in the overgrown and neglected family plot.  She contacted Texas Governor Oscar Colquitt, a Georgia native, and made him aware of the situation.  Knowing of Joanna Troutman's contributions to Texas, Colquitt immediately responded, and, as a result of his efforts, in 1913 her body was moved to Austin and buried with honors in the Texas State Cemetery.   An oil painting of her at seventeen, working on the flag, was commissioned and placed in the State Capitol.  In 1919, Pompeo I. Coppini finished an eight-foot bronze statue of Joanna, and placed it near her grave.  Coppini’s other work includes the Littlefield Fountain on the Austin Campus of the University of Texas.

       In 2011, two Georgia historians visited the planetarium at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon, Georgia.  With the aid of a computer program called “Stellarium,” they were able to roll back 176 years, and view the night sky as it appeared from their location on November 15, 1835.

       Sunset occurred at 6:30 that night and two prominent stars appeared; Vega, in the west, a part of the constellation Lyra, and Capella in the east, a part of the constellation Auriga.  About 9:30, the planet Jupiter and the star Rigel, of the constellation Orion, started to rise from the eastern horizon.  In 1835, all of these were easily visible from Joanna’s wrap-around porch.

     The museum professional assured the historians that Joanna would have seen virtually the same sky any night within ten days either side of November 15, 1835.  The three men agreed that the planet Jupiter was, without question, the most dominate light in the sky and almost certainly the inspiration for Miss Troutman’s flag, and for the Lone Star of Texas.

     Other flags bearing one star have flown over Texas, some of them much earlier than January 8, 1836.  In 1818, the filibuster group headed by Dr. James Long carried a red and white flag similar to the United States flag, with thirteen red and white stripes and a single white star in a red field.  In September of 1835, Sarah Bradley Dodson designed and sewed a flag for Texas similar to the French Tri-Color.  It consisted of three equal vertical stripes, blue, white, and red, with a white star centered in the blue stripe.   This flag is believed to have flown over the Alamo.

The painting of Joanna in the Texas Capitol

      The De Zavala Flag, a single white star on a blue field with “Texas” spelled between the points of the star, may have been used briefly, but the first official flag, approved by the Texas legislature on December 10, 1836, was the Burnet Flag, a single white star in the center of a blue field.  This flag was identical to Joanna’s flag, with the letters deleted and the colors reversed.  On January 25, 1839, a sketch of a Red, White, and Blue Lone Star Flag done by Dr. Charles B. Stewart was approved and adopted by President Lamar and the Republic of Texas legislature, and is still in use.  Today, the flag that evolved from a Georgia teenager’s imagination is recognized all over the world. 

    

    

William Barret Travis--On This Day In Texas History

     Willian Barret "Buck" Travis' dreams came true in Texas. In little more than four years, he established himself as a prominent attorney with a long and prosperous client list.  He paid all the debts he owed in Alabama. Travis allowed his estranged wife, Rosanna, to file for an uncontested divorce and he was engaged to a wealthy Texas planter’s daughter, Rebecca Cummings.  His son, Charles Edward, was staying with his friend, David Ayers, so Travis could visit often.  Just as his personal life was taking a brighter turn, war clouds were gathering, and revolution was in the air.

     In June of 1835, Travis led an attack on Velasco and Anahuac, called the “Second Anahuac Disturbance.”   In October, he  rushed to Gonzales just in time to be too late for the “Come and Take It” battle.  He was known in the colonies as a “War Dog,” a name given to those colonists activively promoting war with Mexico. He was not a land promoter or real estate developer as were Jim Bowie, Ben Milam, the Wharton brothers, and most other War Dogs.  Travis, with with a vast knowledge of contemporary romantic literature, but no military experience, made inflammatory speeches, held rallies, recruited volunteers, and generally encouraged rebellion.

     Henry Smith, Governor of Texas and a close friend, appointed Travis lieutenant colonel of the cavalry in the Texas army.   Smith asked him to recruit one hundred men and go to the aid of William Neill, the commander of the Alamo in Bexar.  Travis found less than thirty volunteers to go with him to San Antonio, but when they rode up on February 3, 1836, they were welcomed.  He knew Jim Bowie, and they became better acquainted at this time.  Within a few days, Davy Crockett appeared with a few volunteers from Tennessee.

     Bowie and Travis clashed over who should be in charge.  Travis had little military experience, and Bowie was an acknowledged warrior.  Travis gave speeches, wrote letters, and read books while Bowie fought duels, battled Comanche, and skirmished with Mexicans.  The dispute was settled with a compromise.  Travis would command the regular army troops and Bowie would lead the volunteers.  Davy Crockett refused any kind of leadership role.  He just came to play the fiddle, sing a little bass, and help out with the Mexicans.  He asked to be a "high private."

     Crockett did play the fiddle.  The night of February 22, the defenders of the Alamo felt danger from Santa Anna and his troops sufficiently remote to allow a party to celebrate George Washington’s Birthday.  Crockett played the fiddle, Travis danced with the senoritas, and Bowie, suffering from an unknown malady possibly connected to his alcoholism, stayed in bed.  The celebration of Washington’s Birthday was a strictly American event, but, with a nod to the Tejanos present, enchiladas and tamales were served and the party became a fandango.

     Travis and Bowie ignored reports that Santa Anna’s advance party, General Ramirez y Sesma and fifteen hundred men, had crossed the Rio Grande and was closing on San Antonio.  The reports, brought by Tejano scouts, were discounted because the Tejanos were mistrusted.  On the morning of February 23, as Travis walked to the Alamo from his quarters at the Plaza de Las Yslas on Potrero Street, he noticed wagonloads of Tejanos heading out of town.  He learned that General Sesma and his troops were at Leon Creek, less than five miles away.

     Travis placed a lookout in the bell tower of San Fernando Cathedral, the tallest structure in Bexar, with instructions to ring the bell when the enemy was sighted.  After conferring with Bowie, Travis busied himself issuing instructions for improving the Alamo’s flimsy fortifications.   At three o’clock in the afternoon, Sesma’s troops were sighted, a mile from town.

     From the diaries and journals of other Mexican officers present at the time, General Sesma was held in contempt by his peers for his failure to attack when he reached San Antonio.  If he had done so, on the morning of the twenty-third, he would have almost certainly overrun the hastily constructed, shoddy fortifications at the Alamo, and would have little trouble conquering the unprepared, hung-over Texians.  His delay made the siege inevitable, and cost the lives of hundreds of Mexican soldiers.  The indecision of General Sesma gave Travis time to reinforce the fortifications of the ancient church, and made heroes of a group of adventurers who would have otherwise died in oblivion.  It also gave time and impetus for Travis to write one of the most stirring letters in history.

     Buck Travis, aware he and his men could abandon the Alamo as Sam Houston urged, chose to stay and fight.  Travis chose death for himself and convinced 180 men to die with him.  On February 24, 1836, Buck Travis became William Barret Travis, as he wrote the following letter:

                     The People of Texas and All Americans in the World:

Fellow citizens & compatriots

     I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna—I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man—The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken—I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls—I shall never surrender or retreat.  Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & of everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid with all dispatch—The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days.  If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor and that of his country—Victory or Death.

William Barret Travis

Lt. Col. comdt.

P.S. The Lord is on our side.  When the enemy appeared in sight, we had not three bushels of corn.  We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels & and got into the walls 20 or 30 head of Beeves.             Travis

      Travis’ “Victory or Death” letter was written 177 years ago today. Travis sent the letter by Albert Martin, one of the scouts who came and went from the Alamo with impunity during the siege.  Two days later, he sent “El Colorado” Smith, another scout,  with a letter for Rebecca Cummings and another to David Ayers for Travis' son, assuring the boy that his father had died for his country.  The “Victory of Death” letter was received at Washington-on-the-Brazos but the Texas government, flat broke, in confusion and disarray,  could do nothing to help Travis and his men.  It is obvious that Travis intended the letter for all Americans, not just the rebels in Texas, and it was published in newspapers all over the United States after the fall of the Alamo. 

     On March 2, 1836, the Texas legislature did take action.  They adopted an American style Declaration of Independence, and declared themselves free of Mexican rule.  On March 6, Santa Anna stormed the Alamo, and, as promised, put all 189 defenders to the sword.
     The original copy of Travis' Letter was delivered to the Alamo today by armored truck, from its resting place in Austin.  It will be on display at the Alamo until March 7th, thirteen days, representing the thirteen days of seige.  The letter is back at its place of origin for the first time since Albert Martin took it from Travis and rode away into the night, one hundred-seventy-seven years ago today.  Take two minutes and listen to the letter as read by that great Texan, Willie Nelson.   Just click on this link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q43iuWIjJUU

Brave men died at the Alamo.  The world learned of it because of William BarretTravis. (Actually this is a photo of the Alamo replica used in the John Wayne movie.  This one is located near Brackettville, Texas.  The two outside windows on the second floor did not exist at the time of the battle.  They were added by the U.S. Army in 1846, along with the iconic arched facade.)

William Barret Travis

A sketch of William Barret Travis in 1835 by Wiley Martin.  This sketch was done barely three months before Travis' death during the fall of the Alamo.

    
        I have been working on other things and have neglected this blog.  I apologize, but I have nothing new written.  I will, instead, insert a character study I did on "Buck" Travis some time ago.  I pick him up as an adult in Alabama and follow him to Texas in this piece.   If I can get it done, this will be in the "Readable Texas History Book" that I plan to write.  Most history books I've read are written by PhD's and the language is so stilted I have to read every sentence three times to decipher the meaning and it puts me to sleep.  When I get my book finished, no one will think a PhD wrote it.

      William Barret Travis was born in South Carolina and moved with his family to Alabama when he was nine.   Young William disliked the idea of becoming a farmer, so he applied himself diligently to his education.  He read voraciously, worked tirelessly at his studies, and became a teacher, lawyer, and newspaper publisher.  He also became a Mason, fathered a child, and married one of his students, all before he was twenty years old.
      Travis was born on August 9, 1809, and was inducted as an apprentice into the Alabama Lodge #3, Free and Accepted Masons in June of 1829.  He recieved a Fellowcraft Degree in July and became a Master Mason in August of 1829.  Because the Masons have strict policies about age, Travis must have lied about being twenty-one.  If so, it would not be the last time--he lied to Stephen F. Austin about the same thing.

     Even though Travis was a talented writer, his newspaper suffered from lack of advertisers.  Claiborne, Alabama, wanted a newspaper, and Travis wanted the prestige of being the editor of a successful paper, but the paper floundered.  His law practice also floundered.  William and his lovely wife, Rosanna, were not getting along.  No matter how hard Travis worked, debts were mounting and there were  lawsuits pending.  The young man was miserable.

     William and Rosanna Cato Travis were living beyond their means.  They were supporting themselves, the baby Charles Edward, and three slaves.  The slaves were borrowed, but had to be fed and maintained.   Possibly Travis endured this expense to cater to the beautiful Rosanna’s need to be “the lady of the house.”  She was not a good housekeeper, being barely eighteen, immature, spoiled, and pregnant with her second child.  

      Travis had no quarrel with the idea of marital fidelity, so long as it applied to the female partner.  He could stray if he wished, but if his wife sought satisfaction elsewhere, he got all bent out of shape.  Rosanna had a friend, Samuel Cloud, and Travis questioned their relationship.  William suspected Rosanna had strayed and worried that the child she carried was not his.  Life was complicated in Alabama.

     Eight months after his twenty-first birthday, William Travis kissed his pregnant wife goodbye, mounted his horse, and left for Texas.  The court ruled against him on the debts and shortly a warrant would be issued for his arrest. He promised to return for Rosanna and the children when he could afford to support the family.  He rode out of Claiborne, crossed the Alabama River on the ferry, and headed west, never to return.    

      William Barret Travis had much time to think on his trip west from Alabama.  From his youth, he read romantic novels, Sir Walter Scott, Shakespeare, and stories of bigger than life heroes, doing good and righting wrongs.  Travis felt as if he had another chance at life and he would do it right this time.  He would be a dashing, romantic character.  Naturally, he would become wealthy, but on the way, he would live and dress flamboyantly, ride the finest horses, seduce every available woman, play cards and gamble.  He would be a raconteur, welcome at every party, telling stories, weaving tales and holding his audience spellbound.  Travis would fascinate people with his vast knowledge, deep intellect, and quick wit.  He would have the love of beautiful women and the respect of honest men.   He was twenty-one years old and his mistakes were behind him.  He would call himself "Buck."

      Texas was as good a place as any to get started.

My One Hundredth Post

     I first posted on this blog January 10, 2012.  This week represents my one year anniversary and I feel that I should do something to celebrate that milestone.  I searched my mind for some appropriate method of acknowledgement and came up with what I consider a brilliant idea.  I’ll post an essay.  This will be my one-hundredth post.

     During the past year, I have written about subjects near and dear to my heart.  I have tried to be honest, objective, and fair in my stories, but I admit I’m human and have my biases which might accidently show through.  I have written about Barbeque, oil fields, a road trip and my Uncle John Burleson.  I have discussed and included recipes for pecan pie, lemon velvet ice cream, enchiladas, guacamole, apple pie, and refried black-eyed peas.

     I did a series of articles about the Texas Revolution, the luck of Sam Houston and the egotistical arrogance of General Santa Anna.  A friend chastised me for mentioning that William Barrett Travis, the hero of the Alamo, was eaten up with gonorrhea.  My friend does not understand that I want to tell truthful things that were not in my history books.  Travis was no less a hero because of his propensity to dip his wick in tainted wells—he still wrote a mean letter and he wrote several beauties from the Alamo during the siege.  He was self-treating his affliction with mercury at the time, but I don’t want to infer that those fine letters were the product of a deranged mind.

     When I wrote about sweet Panchita Alavez, I mentioned the inept Col. James Walker Fannin.  Fannin felt he should have been supreme commander of the Texas army, based on twenty-one months undergraduate work he did at West Point.  He managed to leave the safest fort in Texas and allow his troops to be surrounded and captured in the middle of a pasture near Coleta Creek.  He did not do this by making an honest mistake.  He did it by repeatedly ignoring Houston’s orders through obstinacy, arrogance, indecision and stupidity.  The Mexicans forced him to watch the execution of his entire command before they shot him.  I’ll get back to him later.

     I have lately been involved with a series on the remarkable women of Texas, and there are many.  My reasons for focusing on the women are simple.  They are more fun than most of the men.  And tougher.  And better looking. This fixation on Texas women started when I looked at a family picture of my father’s parents, taken around nineteen hundred.

      In the picture, Amanda, my grandmother, was a wisp of a girl, twenty-four years old, maybe ninety-five pounds, surrounded by her husband and eight children.  The children were all dressed to the nines in homespun clothing, starched and ironed.  Mandy wore a lacey, fitted black dress and grandfather was decked out in a suit and tie.  Mandy made all their clothing and probably starched and ironed everything that morning.  She was radiant in the picture, contented and smiling.  She was most likely pregnant, but her waist was still tiny.  The pregnancy did not yet show.

     I mention that because Amanda went on to have six more children in the next six years.  Dad was the youngest.  I’ve often wondered if some sympathetic doctor tied her tubes then, because she had the last of fourteen children at age thirty.  By the way—in the picture I mentioned Mandy was radiant and smiling.  James, my grandfather, had a different expression.  He looked for all the world like a deer caught in headlights—he was scared to death, perhaps wondering how he could afford to pay the photographer.

     Oddly, my most popular post has been the Pecan Pie Recipe, with 180 hits, most of them during the recent holiday season.  The “Village Blacksmith Outed,” about my friend R.G. Box and his creation “Rowdy,” follows with 107 hits, then Tom T. Hall with 106, and the cute, transplanted little Texan, Gus Gaunt, with 74.  The road trip story about Fresno and Bakersfield is next with 66 hits, then the World’s Championship Barbeque Cook-off, and on and on.

       I have not counted, but I estimate that I have written over 125,000 words here in the past year, and it is still fun.  I indulge myself with my writing—no one is grading it, so I do as I please.  I always capitalize “Barbeque” and refuse to capitalize “yankee.”  Drives the spell-check crazy, but pleases me.

     I’ll wrap this up.  My blog is most popular in the U.S., with over 12,000 page-views.   Russia is second with 375, but Russia has quit hitting the last few months and I don’t understand why.  Guatemala is third, with 137 hits, I’m sure because my friend John Bacon spends time down there.  I had 13 hits from Spain while Hugh and Ken visited Andalusia, and a few from Costa Rica where Jack and Mandy Robbins vacationed.  The rest are scattered around the world, probably spread among insomniacs with computers in some third world country with electricity.

     One last observation—I have accrued $30.76 in my Google account.  They pay me based upon how many people view the little ads in the top corner of each entry.  When I get $100.00, they will send me a check.  I had hoped this to be a source of fun and profit, but it looks like I’ll have to settle for fun.  You all go back and read something I wrote last year and stay with me now, ya hear.

Is Cinco de Mayo some kind of Mexican Sandwich?

                                                         

      If the number of people moving into Texas keeps rising, will Texas be able to pass on the Texas State of Mind?  That is the question asked by Robyn, a friend of mine who worries about such things.  Robyn grew up in California, and loves that state, but she has always been intrigued by the deep sense of pride and unwavering loyalty to homeland that defines Texans.

     She first noticed this phenomenon as a teenager when exposed to Texas children in California schools.  In the 1940s, southern families came to California in droves, forced by the Depression and the Dust Bowl to relocate or starve.  Some children, those from Oklahoma, Arkansas, and other beleaguered southern states, began to assimilate the culture of California, and adjust to their surroundings.  Not so the Texans.  They had no desire to adjust to this foreign country.  They incessantly griped about the weather, the scenery, the way people talked.  They constantly compared everything to Texas, and everything came up short.  They were slow-talking, loud-mouthed, uncouth little disciples from the land of the Rio Grande, and were going back there as soon as circumstances permitted. 

     My friend Robyn, and most everyone else in California, soon became tired of the obnoxious visitors, but she couldn’t help but wonder about a land that marked its people so deeply.  Now, as a Texas resident, she sees this unnatural pride of place, deep reverence for local history, and unjustifiable loyalty from a new perspective—and she sees it up close and personal.

      Her Texas friends and neighbors make statements like, “The best cantaloupes in the world come from Pecos, Texas.” "Everybody knows the Cowboys are the best team in football, except for the Texans.”  “The Texas Hill Country has the sweetest water on God’s green earth.”  “They grow more cotton in Lubbock County than they do in Egypt.” “Ain’t no watermelons as good as the ones from Luling, Texas.”  “Texas ought to secede from the Union—let them yankees freeze in the dark.” “Did you know the hamburger was invented in Athens, Texas?” “All the helium in the United States comes from some wells up by Amarillo.” “The best looking women in the world come from Dallas.”

     Texans make these statements in a matter-of-fact tone, leaving no room for discussion.  Robyn realizes, after years of conditioning, that Texans are not purposely being rude, they truly do not recognize any other point of view.  These “facts,” and many others, are ingrained into Texans from birth.  Texans know they are true—no sense arguing about it.

     The short answer to Robyn’s question—with the population increase, will Texans be able to pass on their state of mind—is no.  In my lifetime, the Texan mindset has eroded dramatically and will continue to do so.  The great leveling influence, forced by the passage of time and the influx of people, will slowly work to homogenize Texans into the same bland beings that inhabit the rest of our country.  As with other current trends, seemingly logical and just actions have unforseen consequences.

    Individualism, the very rock of the Texas spirit, is actively discouraged in today's world.  Individuals are viewed as selfish, greedy, and not to be trusted.  The popular view holds that individuals create and hoard vast resources and refuse to share with a needy public.  The public is needy through no fault of its own—it was not given the opportunity to accumulate a fortune at the expense of others.  Even if it had been, it was far too noble to have done so.

      Consider the spoken word.  Texans’ unique accents and mannerisms are disappearing.  College students, especially coeds, spend hours practicing enunciation to get rid of their drawls.  A “Texas Drawl” is considered a liability in the business world and seems to be forbidden in the entertainment industry.  Actors like Sam Elliot are allowed to keep their natural accents, and they are type-cast to emphasize their speech patterns, often for comic relief or ridicule.

     As with so many facets of our existence, our country—the United States, not Texas—puts a high value on diversity, then exerts every effort to suppress it.  For an example, look at television news.  More and more women, and blacks, and Hispanics, and even a few token Arabs are broadcasting the evening news, but they all sound as if they had the same speech coach.  Women are welcomed, so long as they have fantastic legs and are willing to display them in impossibly short skirts.  They cannot get comfortable, knowing that the slightest movement will expose their assets.  Even the weather girl needs a boob job to get out of the sticks and onto the network.  We are encouraged to diversify as much as we want, so long as we conform.

     In my lifetime, I have watched colorful parades and lavish celebrations of San Jacinto Day dwindle to a scant mention in the back pages of the newspaper.  More people in Houston, and the rest of Texas, celebrate Cinco de Mayo than Texas Independence Day.  I was grown before I learned Cinco de Mayo was not some kind of Mexican sandwich.  The more diversified we are, the more people who crowd in to take our jobs, the less important our heritage becomes. 

     A few of us are working to keep that heritage strong, focusing on old-time values, reminding others of the great history of this state, and instilling Texas pride in our young people.  We are moderately effective, but people are indifferent, and the tide is turning. My son is a true Texan, but he lives in Colorado, where his son will grow up talking funny.  My daughter has a fervent faith in all things Texan, but her children’s eyes glaze over when I start to tell about how Cap'n Jack Hays and the Texas Rangers once fought the Comanche in our little valley. 

     I will keep spreading the word, and I will keep losing ground.  The Texas that I once knew--flamboyant oilmen,  frugal ranchers,  gritty promoters,  optimistic farmers--still exists, but is fading fast.  Ambition is viewed as a character flaw.   Courage, ethics, fortitude, and determination are laughed at by lawyers and spin doctors who know that image is everything, and reality is contrived to fit the situation. 
     No, Robyn, we won’t be able to pass on our heritage, our spirit, our love of this place.  That will all die—but it will die hard, and I will be lucky.  I will die first.

Juanita Dale Slusher---Texas Women Series

    No listing of notable Texas women would be complete without reference to Juanita Dale Slusher.  Writing poetry was not chief among her accomplishments, but held an important place in her heart.  She poured out her soul in poems such as this:

Hate the world that strikes you down,

A warped lesson quickly learned.

Rebellion, a universal sound,

Nobody cares, no one’s concerned.

Fatigued by unyielding strife,

Self-pity consoles the abused.

And the bludgeoning of daily life,

Leaves a gentle mind…..confused.

     Juanita wrote this poem in 1962, while serving time in the Goree State Prison Farm for Women, outside Huntsville, Texas. At the time, she was married to a fellow named Jack Sahakian, the Hollywood “hairdresser to the stars” of that day.  Jack was Juanita’s third husband and they were married in 1959, while she was headlining at a the EL Rancho Vegas Hotel.  Two weeks later, she was arrested by the FBI.  Her four-year-old daughter stayed with Jack while Juanita Dale served her time.

Who needs captions?

     You may know of Juanita by her stage name—Candy Barr.  Barney Weinstein, owner of both the Theater Lounge and the Colony Club in downtown Dallas, gave her that name because of her teenage craving for Snickers candy bars.  It was 1951 and she was a sixteen-year-old divorcee with an angelic face and  unbelievable body.

     Juanita was born in Edna, Texas, on July 6, 1935, the youngest of five children.  Her mother died in a car accident when she was nine, and her dad remarried.  The stepmother was physically abusive, and Juanita experimented sexually with a teenage neighbor boy and an older babysitter.  Knowing Juanita's proclivities, it was playful sex among consenting adolescents, but today it would be considered sexual abuse.  When she was thirteen, Juanita ran away.  She left the ninth grade and moved to Dallas, where she grew up quickly.

     Juanita Dale worked as a chambermaid in a cheap hotel and, when she was fourteen, was briefly married to a safe cracker named Billy Joe Debbs.  When the marriage dissolved, she started working as a cigarette girl and cocktail waitress in seedy men’s clubs.  Because of her perky good looks, quick wit, saucy humor, and willingness to share that fantastic body, she quickly became a favorite of the lonely patrons. 

     While most girls her age were learning ninth-grade geography, hoping to make cheerleader, and holding hands with their boyfriends, Juanita was dealing with drunken salesmen, obscene conventioneers, and immature frat boys.  She learned to dispense her charms in direct relation to the size of the bills the customers stuffed into her skimpy costume.  Most of her patrons were allowed a suggestive pat or perhaps a kiss on the cheek, but some of the more generous were invited to share her bed.  It was more Texas hospitality than outright prostitution.  As Reba McIntyre said, “Be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy, and they’ll be nice to you.”

     By the time she was sixteen, Juanita was five-feet-three, voluptuous, and absolutely beautiful.  A “producer” approached and asked her to do a screen test for a starring role in a movie.  She should have wondered when the “screen test” was held at a San Antonio motel.  She said she was drugged and coerced at gunpoint into making the fifteen-minute hardcore film, but that did not hurt her performance.   The 8mm pornographic movie was called “Smart Alec” and became an “underground” sensation

      At the urging of Barney Weinstein, she bleached her hair, stepped onstage at the Colony Club and soon became the most sought-after stripper in Dallas.  Weinstein named her “Candy Barr” and paid her $85.00 per week, about the same as a good civil engineer made in 1951.  Her trademark costume was a white cowboy hat, pasties, bikini panties, cowboy boots and two pearl handled six-guns, strapped low on her hips.  At sixteen years old, she brought the house down as she finished her act firing the cap pistols into the air while strutting offstage.

     In 1953, she married Troy Phillips, a night club denizen who became her manager.  In late '54, she had a daughter.  Business at the Colony Club suffered when Candy was out with her pregnancy.   When her body regained its dazzle, Weinstein signed her to a $2,000.00 per week contract.  The sweet-looking, abused teenager from Edna, Texas, was making a $100,000.00 per year on the stage, taking off her clothes in a theater full of drunks. She was a product of the times.

38-22-36  But who's counting?

     Candy’s marriage went on the rocks and she filed for divorce from the abusive Phillips.  At five one morning, very drunk, he came to her apartment and kicked in the door, intending to beat her.  After warning him three times and trying to run away, she shot him in the lower stomach with a .22 rifle.  In her statement to the police, Candy said she missed high.  Charges against her were dropped when Phillips recovered and verified her story.  It was early 1956, and Candy was just twenty years old.  Next year, she could legally vote.

     After the public sensation caused by the shooting, Candy was more popular than ever.  She had long been playing to standing room only crowds, but the Colony Club was now forced to turn away customers.  Her notoriety caused the powers that be in Dallas to feel that Candy’s lifestyle was staining the reputation of the city. 

      Police started a wire tap on her phone, which soon led to her arrest for possessing four-fifths of an ounce of marijuana. According to Candy, she was keeping it for a friend. At that time, the penalty for such an offense in Texas was up to life in prison.  Even though the police burst into her apartment without a warrant, and the wire tap evidence would be illegal in today’s world, Candy was found guilty and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.  Today, if prosecuted at all, the same crime carries a six-month sentence. 

     No one knows who ordered the wiretap, or why it was done.  Candy obviously ticked off someone downtown, and  it may have been as simple as refusing sexual favors to some well-connected, vindictive official.  In any case, she received a call, asking her to hold something for a friend.   The friend dropped by, and two hours later, the police raided her apartment.  The police never admitted the wiretap or revealed the name of her "friend." She was a victim of the times.

     I was one of the endless stream of  “immature frat boys” who went to Dallas periodically back then for football games and weekends of debauchery.  My friends and I went to the Colony Club, the Carousel, or the Theater Lounge, depending upon who was on stage.  The rest of Texas, and Lubbock in particular, had no such entertainment.  The strippers were hard-looking older women, the clubs were sleazy, and I always left feeling dirty.  Even so, I went back every return trip to see if conditions had improved.
  
     I stared at the poster of Candy Barr in front of the Colony Club, but never saw her on stage.  I will always remember the picture.  Her face was so sweet, it made June Alison look slutty, and her 38-22-36 body was absolute female perfection.  I opined the picture was touched up and probably many years old, but a friend who had seen her on stage told me it did not do her justice.

     As the long appeal process continued, Candy took her act on the road.  She appeared to packed houses in New Orleans, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Hollywood.  Everywhere, men lined up to pay for the privilege of watching her take off her clothing.  She became involved with Mickey Cohen, a west coast gangster, after appearing in the Largo Club on Sunset Strip.  Cohen helped pay her legal bills and financed the appeals process.  He introduced her to Hollywood.

     Twentieth Century Fox hired Candy as a choreographer and technical advisor for the film, Seven Thieves.  She taught Joan Collins how to striptease for her part in the film.  Collins said, in her autobiography, “She taught me more about sensuality than I learned in all my years under contract.”  Joan also said, “…she was a down-to-earth girl, with an incredibly gorgeous body and an angelic face.”   Candy was twenty-four years old.

      In late November of 1959, Candy married Jack Sahakian, her hairdresser.  Her appeals of the marijuana conviction exhausted, she entered the prison farm two weeks later on December 4, 1959.  Juanita used the prison time to augment her eighth-grade education and served three years and three months before being paroled on April 1, 1963.  The terms of her parole forbid her return to exotic dancing or living in Dallas. 
  
      Candy returned to her family home in Edna and began a quiet life, raising pure-bred dogs.  She married her fourth husband, a railroad worker, and lived in seclusion.  Candy was pardoned of the marijuana charges in 1967 by Governor John Connelly, and returned to the burlesque stage briefly in 1968, her dancing career all but over.  She spent a weekend shacked up with Hugh Hefner in 1971, but nothing came of it.  They both must have felt the other would look good on their resume. 

      In 1972, Juanita published  A Gentle Mind....Confused,  a thin book of  poetry.   When she was a 41 year-old grandmother, in  1976,  Candy posed, scantily clad, for the cover of Oui Magazine.  For several pages of alluring nude pics, and the cover, she was paid $5,000.00.  Her last appearance as a stripper took place in the Ruby Room in Dallas in 1997, when she was sixty-two.

     Juanita died at age seventy in Victoria, Texas.  For business reasons in 1970 she changed her legal name, and those of her children, to Barr.  Her grandson, Ryan Barr, named his first daughter “Candy” after her.  Another of her great-granddaughters is named “Snickers.”

    



Candy Barr was a product and a victim of the times--beneath it all, she was a gentle mind....confused.