My Front Porch

 

  Sunrise from the front porch.

                                            

     I’m setting on my front porch because that’s what I do—I set, I don’t sit.  I set here in the early morning and have my coffee a lot of days, because this place has pleasant weather most of the time and I can set here in a robe and still be comfortable, especially with a steaming cup of strong coffee.   Sometimes, in the evenings, I set here with a drink of whisky.  Depending upon a lot of things, I sometimes set here at the end of the day with a big glass of  iced tea.

     My front porch is fifty feet long and over eight feet wide.  I have six rocking chairs and a porch swing, plus sixty feet of rail wide enough to set a drink on if you have to stand up because all the seats are full.  I built it this way so I could set out here with my friends or family whenever I wanted.  The porch deck is unfinished, as are a lot of things at my house, because I ran out of money and energy before it all got done, but the house is solid and strong and safe and comfortable to live in.

     I wired the porch for sound when I built it—we didn’t have all the new-fangled wireless speakers back then—I put four stereo speakers up in the rafters so the music filters down in the background and you can hear it but it doesn’t interfere with any conversation going on.  When I’m out here by myself, in the dark of early morning or the shank of the evening, I sometimes crank up the volume and immerse myself in music.  Depending upon my mood, it might be Asleep at the Wheel playing Bob Wills, or Simone Dinnerstein playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations.  Usually it is both, with Norah Jones, Hank Thompson, and Dakota Staton thrown in, all magically mixed by a machine back in the mechanical room.

     My front porch faces east, and the neighbors are far enough away so they can’t hear my music.  At sunrise, I have to go back in the house because the sun is usually so bright it hurts my eyes, but in the evening the sun sets behind the house and lights the distant hills with spectacular color. The view across the valley always includes the limitless sky and is fresh and new every time I look.  I can see Bandera Pass in the far distance and tell stories about Texas Ranger Cap’n Jack Hays, all the while watching the magnificent panorama that plays out in the sky here everyday at dusk.

Company must be coming--all six flags are out!

 

     I have six columns on my front porch, one for each flag that flew over Texas.  When I was running out of money, I had to decide whether or not to finish the porch deck and handrail, or buy the mounting hardware, swivel poles, brackets, and flags.   I bought the flags and I fly them on  holidays and anytime out-of-town visitors come to see us.  I’m glad I chose the flags.  They add history and color and personality to the house and the temporary deck and handrails work just fine.

     Among the trees in front of the porch, I planted three arrows my friend R.G. Box made for me.  They are thirty feet tall and sticking into the ground at an angle, as if a great big Indian shot them at the house from the hill across the valley.  If that Indian had four arrows, I'd be in deep trouble.  Box also made me a sign that says, “Watch out for great big Indians.”

  I don't believe there is an ordinance against arrows in our little town.  Just to be safe, I didn't ask.

 

     My front porch is the best place ever to enjoy a thunderstorm.  Most of the weather here comes from the north or west, and the house shields the porch from those directions.  I can sit there during a raging storm, hear the rain or hail beating on the tin roof, and experience the violent side of nature without getting the least bit wet.

     When friends or family come over and the weather is nice, we just naturally gravitate to the front porch.  We talk and drink beer, wine, tea, or something stronger—I don’t discriminate—I’ll drink anything my guests bring.  We talk and laugh and just enjoy each other.  Sometimes it’s after supper with the immediate family and we listen to the grandkids’ adventures at school.  Sometimes it’s extended family from out of town and we catch up on each other’s lives, triumphs, and disappointments.  Sometimes it’s an old friend and in the words of Wayne Ratisseau, "we sip some mash and talk some trash." 

     I sometimes feel we have too few young friends, but that is not really true.  We have a number of friends in their thirties or forties that we have known since they were babies and we have vicariously enjoyed their lives and consider their children our own.  We are complimented that these young people take the time to drop by when they’re in town, and we hurry out to set on the front porch with them whenever they visit.

The storm passed over and headed toward Bandera.

     Any of these uses justifies the time and effort I spent designing and building my front porch, but, as an added benefit, I get to set out there all by myself and hatch ideas like a mother hen.  I can turn a story over and over in my mind, before I write a word.  I can think about that silly yankee who got so angry at me in the HEB, or the pretentious young doctor trying to expand his practice, or the time I misplaced my pickup.  I can dream of big arrows and great big Indians.  I can remember my life, the mistakes I made and the things I did right.  I can wonder what ever happened to that special girl in high school, and I can imagine my life had I made different choices.

     I can swell with pride as I remember accomplishments, or shed warm tears as I remember disappointments.  No one will know except me, alone, here on my front porch.

       This front porch is my place.  I dreamed it.  I built it.

The Road to Texas--The Natchez Trace

The Modern Natchez Trace parkway as it appears on a warm day in October.

     In the 1820’s and 30’s, when hundreds of American families were migrating to Texas to take advantage of the liberal colonization policies offered by Mexico, there were few roads in that direction.  Dense forests, sparse population, swamps, and hostile Indians surrounded Texas and made it very difficult to simply go there. 

     Nashville, Tennessee, was accessible and from there, the Natchez Trace offered a convenient, relatively safe wagon route to Natchez on the Mississippi River.  Once in Natchez, the travelers could choose to float down the Mississippi to New Orleans, and then take a ship to Galveston, Velasco, or Indianola, ports on the Texas Coast.  A slower, but less expensive choice from Natchez was to go cross-country to Natchitoches, Louisiana, then overland and enter Texas at the sister city of Nacogdoches.  Both these routes grew popular and well travelled, and early Texans knew them well.

     I cannot remember when I became aware of the Natchez Trace, but I first saw one end of it in 1973 at the Belle Meade Plantation on West End Boulevard in Nashville.  I knew it had been a main route for immigrants from the Ohio River Valley.  They hung out the “Gone to Texas” signs and headed west to pledge allegiance to Mexico, join the Catholic Church, and claim their near-free homestead land.   I didn’t know the Trace (as some trails were called in those days) started in Nashville.    

     James Michener wrote about a twelve-year-old boy walking to Texas from Baltimore on the Natchez Trace, so I believed for many years the Trace started in Baltimore.  I should have paid more attention.  In 1801, Thomas Jefferson, perhaps anticipating the Louisiana Purchase, sent the U.S. Army to clear a mail route from Nashville to the Mississippi River.   Jefferson wanted a reliable road to the “southwest.”  The army simply widened, marked, and improved ancient Indian trails that led to Natchez, Mississippi.  By 1809, the entire route was wide enough to accommodate wagon traffic in either direction.

      The Trace starts in Nashville, Tennessee, clips off the northwest corner of Alabama, heads diagonally across Mississippi and terminates in Natchez, a distance of just under 450 miles.  It follows the high ground in the forest between the rivers on a ridgeline trail that was used by Native Americans for hundreds of years.

A map of the original Natchez Trace.  The current Parkway skirts the cities.

     “Kaintucks,” the name given a rough, semi-civilized group of backwoods farmers in Kentucky and Ohio, used the Trace to get back home after delivering their crops and livestock to market in Mississippi.  These enterprising men built river barges, loaded their stock and produce, and floated down-river to willing buyers waiting in Natchez.  Because the barges would not float upstream, the Kaintucks either sold or traded them for wagons.  The more industrious dismantled the barges and sold the lumber.

      The Kaintucks, flush with cash, made their way back home overland on the Natchez Trace.  By 1810, over 10,000 Kaintucks made this journey, along with hundreds of pilgrims heading west.   Dozens of inns and hostels (called “stands”) sprang up along the Trace.  Highwaymen, thieves and cutthroats camped in the adjacent woods and preyed on weak or unwary travelers.

     Merchants, plantation owners, and genteel society members of Natchez built mansions on the hills above the river, but the docks and warehouses were located in what was known as “Natchez Under the Hill.”  In this wicked underbelly of the city, a hotbed of saloons, dance halls, whorehouses, and gambling dens competed for the opportunity to fleece the unsophisticated farmers carrying in their moneybelts the proceeds from a year’s work.  Then, as now, these “victimless” crimes were mostly ignored and lawless activity flourished “under the hill.”

     The Natchez Trace enjoyed a colorful, but relatively brief, existence.  In 1820, then-General Andrew Jackson completed the Jackson Military Road from Nashville to New Orleans.  The new road was east of the Trace, through the Alabama swamps and about two hundred miles shorter than going by way of Natchez.  West of the Trace, steam-powered riverboats began to ply the Mississippi and Memphis became the center of commerce upriver from New Orleans.  Traffic began to fade on the Trace.  The Kaintucks preferred the river route home, and, after the 1830s, most colonists headed west by different routes.

     The Trace is memorialized by a paved, two-lane road that parallels the original trail and is called the Natchez Trace Parkway.   Established by the National Park Service in 1938, construction on the Parkway was completed in 2005.  The speed limit is fifty miles per hour, commercial vehicles or trucks are not allowed, and frequent rests stops and historical markers abound.  Gas stations, convenience stores, and commercial activity, including signs, are banned from the parkway. 

     I first rode the parkway in 1996, on a motorcycle trip with three friends.  We visited the Vicksburg Battleground early one morning, then rode east and picked up the Trace about twenty miles west of Jackson.  We rode northeast about 200 miles and dropped off at Tupelo, on our way to barbeque and blues on Beale Street in Memphis.  

      We had travelled across two states and over 600 miles on public highways and freeways, buffeted by windy backwash from eighteen wheelers every mile of the way.  We searched among the billboards on either side of the road for the next exit sign, where we could get gas or take a leak.  We often were forced to ride, white-knuckled, over ninety miles-an-hour just to get past a truck and out of the turbulence the big semis create.  We filled our lungs with diesel and gasoline fumes, dodged unaware drivers as they changed lanes indiscriminately, and concentrated on the road ahead for loose pieces of debris that will wreck a motorcycle.  I can tell you, the joy and freedom of motorcycle touring does not come easy.

     By contrast, with my motorcycle at fifty miles-per-hour on the Natchez Trace Parkway, I could hear the birds singing and I could smell the flowers. Pristine lakes dot the countryside, and thick green forests crowd the roadway.  Lush manicured grass grows next to the pavement and no weed dares raise its ugly head.  Frequent rest areas with picnic tables break up the ride, and spotlessly clean restrooms are strategically placed to ensure comfort.  All points of interest are well-marked with uniform National Park Service signs, each clear, concise, and fresh-painted.  If there is a downside, the route is almost too sanitary.

     In 2008, my wife and I drove the Natchez Trace Parkway, from its inception on West End Boulevard in Nashville to its terminus at the Mississippi River in Natchez.  We stayed in one of the magnificent plantation homes on the hill above the river, and had dinner at a white tablecloth restaurant in a trendy section of town called “Under the Hill.”  Everything about the experience, from the bright-eyed little cutie who served us to the “Kaintuck Strip” sirloin we ate, was entirely pleasant.

     I am not the first in my family to travel the Natchez Trace. In 1828, my great-great grandfather, James McLaughlin, left Nashville and headed for Texas.  I cannot help but wonder, after over a month on the Trace, if he paused to relax “Under the Hill” in Natchez.   If so, could he have been served by our little cutie’s bright-eyed great, great grandmother?

A view of the original Trace, cut through the woods by countless wagon wheels and horse's hooves.

 

The Death of Davy Crockett and Other Reasons to Visit Disneyland



Davy Crockett's final monents as depicted in story and song---dawn on March 6, 1836

 

     Everyone knows that Davy Crockett died in the courtyard of the Alamo, swinging his Kentucky long rifle like a club, surrounded by sixteen dead Mexicans.  That’s basically the story Joe, William B. Travis’ slave, told after he was spared by Santa Anna.  Susannah Dickinson, the teenage mother who was also spared, said she saw Crockett’s body on the floor at the door of the chapel.  Not enough difference to quibble about.  Enter Walt Disney, who un-earthed the story,  identified the market, wrote a catchy ditty, and cornered the market for coon-skin caps.

     In 1837, Ramon Martinez Caro, Santa Anna’s personal secretary during the Texas campaign, published his memoirs which contained an interesting paragraph mentioning Davy Crockett.  According to Caro, after the battle, General Castrillon brought five prisoners to Santa Anna and asked him to spare them, saying he had guaranteed their safety.  One of the prisoners was identified as the famous ex-congressman, David Crockett.  Santa Anna, incensed that his “no quarter” instructions had been ignored, ordered the immediate execution of the entire group, and turned his back.  The five were fallen upon by soldiers and murdered on the spot.

     In June of 1836, a letter reportedly written by William H. Attree, was published in the New York Courier and Enquirer, telling essentially the same story.  The story was picked up and published in several newspapers of the time, among them the Frankfort Commonwealth of Kentucky.  Attree was an eastern reporter of some note, who was visiting Galveston Island in the weeks immediately following the Texas Revolution.  He attributed the story to a Mexican officer being held in a prisoner of war camp there.

      In 1960, a graduate student working on his thesis discovered a letter from one Sergeant George Dolson to his brother, written in July of 1836 and published in a Detroit newspaper in September of that year.  Sergeant Dolson was a Texas army interpreter at Camp Travis, a prisoner of war camp on Galveston Island, and interviewed Mexican prisoners being held there.  He related a story of the death of Crockett, told him by an unnamed Mexican officer who supposedly witnessed the event.   In Dolson’s version, General Castrillon brings six prisoners to Santa Anna, but outside that detail, the stories are identical.

     The eastern reporter and Sergeant Dolson may have interviewed the same Mexican officer, or two different officers may have recounted the same event.   According to all reports, there were dozens of witnesses.  When added to these stories, the account given by twenty-eight year old Jose Enrique De La Pena, written in his diary during the battle for Texas in 1836, makes a compelling case.  Lt. De La Pena tells the same story, except in his version, Castrillon delivers seven prisoners to Santa Anna, not five or six.

     De La Pena came to Texas with Santa Anna’s army and distinguished himself in combat at the Alamo.  He kept a daily journal through the whole Texas Revolution and was truthful, but less than kind, about his military superiors..  He blamed Santa Anna for the debacle at San Jacinto and Filasola for the disastrous retreat across the muddy Gulf Coast.  He accused Sesma and Gaona of everything from avarice to cowardice.   

      De La Pena, fiercely proud of his Mexican heritage, mistrusted foreign generals, mercenaries hired to shore up the leadership of Mexico’s army.  He praised every action of General Urrea, one of the few Mexican generals in the army, and constantly found fault with Filasola, an Italian.  

     His journal may have been published in 1838 or 1839, but, if so, was likely quashed by officials high in the Mexican government.  In 1955, a hundred and seventeen years later, De La Pena’s diary was published in Mexico at the height of the Davy Crockett frenzy created by Walt Disney.  While much of the two-hundred-page document was accepted as fact, the two paragraphs concerning Crockett’s demise were considered questionable.  For this reason, the whole work was brushed aside by many historians.    

      When De La Pena’s journal was translated into English by Carmen Perry in 1975, all hell broke loose among serious students of Texas History.  One side held that Crockett died fighting in the battle and any other tale is akin to blasphemy.  Another group believed that the manner of Crockett’s death was not important, because it was honorable—a nod to Hillary Clinton’s “What difference does it make?” defense.

     The original story, based upon two “eyewitness” accounts, leaves ample room for doubt.  Joe, Travis’s slave, was known to tell whatever story he felt his audience wanted to hear, and he disappeared (ran away) not long after the war.  Susannah Dickinson’s recollections grew more vivid and outlandish as time passed while she sank deeper into alcoholism and debauchery.  

      Doubt was cast on the De La Pena narrative because he was mistaken in his account of the death of Travis.  He told of a handsome, blond Texian officer that he assumed was Travis,  killed while bravely rallying his troops on the south wall.  According to Joe, the dark-haired Travis was killed on the north wall by a random shot to the head in the first moments of the battle.

      The debate over De La Pena’s diary continues to rage. Detractors claim it is a forgery, but cannot say who forged it, or why, or even when it was done.  The high rag content paper used in the document was tested and found to have been made in Lisbon between 1825 and 1832.  Historians agree that this Lisbon paper was used by the army in Mexico in 1836, and De La Pena had access to it.

     Mature, level-headed, intelligent scholars are at odds over what happened to Davy Crockett.  Four different accounts, from at least three different eye-witness sources, tell essentially the same story.  Learned individuals frantically search for details that differ, or accuse long-dead writers of making up bald-faced lies for less than apparent reasons, or claim forgery on hundred-year-old paper.  Carmen Perry was castigated by some of her peers for simply translating De La Pena’s work.  When the paper from the diary was proven genuine, the opposition quickly assumed the position that even if the diary was authentic, there was no reason to believe it was accurate.  Historians want to be precise.  Sometimes.

      De La Pena wrote a rough draft, his diary, with entries faithfully scribbled every day during his sojourn in Texas.  When he returned to Mexico, he revised and expanded his notes and provided conclusions for many of the questions he raised.  His announced intention to publish this work in 1838 was not met with universal enthusiasm.  After spending some time in prison, he was mysteriously murdered one night on a dark street in Mexico City.  Historians think it was 1841, but, to be precise, it might have happened in 1842.

A Lubbock Boy's Carriage ride in New York City

  

A cabriolet similar to the one Charlotte and I rode through Central Park--different horse, different driver, but Springtime in New York.

                                                                                    

     Charlotte and I walked in the warm spring sunshine across Fifth Avenue from the Plaza toward the lone Hansom Cab waiting at the curb on East 59^th Street.  Charlotte had spent the day behind the Red Door at the Elizabeth Arden Salon and looked fantastic in a form-fitting silk dress.  I finished my meeting early so we could ride a horse-drawn carriage through Central Park before we went to dinner.  After her full treatment at the spa—mud bath, massage, make-up, the works—I wanted to show off the knock-out-good-looking mother of my children.

     “Say there, young feller, how much for a ride around Central Park?  We’re tourists up here and want to see ever’ thang we can.  You charge by the mile or by the hour?”  I asked, with my best Texas drawl.  I discovered that Texans were given preferential treatment by most New Yorkers. Either they liked our accents or thought we were all very rich.

     “We charge by time, fifteen dollars for every fifteen minutes or portion thereof, or fifty dollars per hour.  I can get you through the park in thirty minutes,” the twenty-something, clean-cut young man answered with his memorized spiel.  He was a good-looking kid, wearing starched khaki trousers, white oxford-cloth button-down shirt open at the neck, spit-shined cordovan penny loafers and a completely out-of-place old, thick, dark green top hat.

     “Hell son, I didn’t want to buy that horse and wagon, just rent it for a while.  You reckon we could work out a better deal—what if I rented that rig for, say, two hours?” 

      Charlotte flashed a frown at me.  She hated it when I haggled.  It embarrassed her--she thought it degrading.

      The young man was sharp—he saw through my poor-boy act and knew we were going to make a deal.  He grinned.  “Oh, I can’t do that, sir.  It’s a hundred dollars for two hours and the company won’t let me charge any less.  I can do this—I get off at six-thirty, and I usually lose a little time waiting for a fare, so I’ll drive you around the city until then for a hundred bucks.  By the way, my name is Ronnie Fletcher, and the horse is named Dick.  He-he.  Funny name for a horse.”  He stuck out his hand, knowing if I shook it we had a deal.  I laughed and we shook hands.

     “I’m Jim McLaughlin, Ronnie, just call me Mac.   Meet my wife, Charlotte.”  I turned to her.  “Jump in, Sugar.  Ron here is gonna show us the town.  He’s all heart.  Gave us a big discount.”

       Ronnie laughed as I helped Charlotte into the forward-facing seat and climbed in next to her.  He climbed up to the driver’s platform and grinned again as I looked at my watch.  It was four-twenty-two.  The best I could tell, the generous young man was giving us eight free minutes.

     The carriage was technically not a Hansom Cab, but a one horse, four-wheeled cabriolet now common in New York City, painted white too long ago, with a high driver’s seat up high in front and two red vinyl passenger seats facing each other in the lower back section.  The dappled gray horse, Dick, was old, well-groomed, and apparently well-fed, with sleepy, but intelligent, eyes.  He welcomed us by taking a two-gallon leak on the pavement.

    “Are you from Texas?” Ron asked, as he leaned down toward us from his elevated seat.  “I’ll be going to Texas tomorrow.”

     “As a matter of fact, we’re from Houston.  Why you going to Texas, Ronnie?”

     “I have a job down there, with Texas Instruments, in Sugarland.  I graduated from New York University at 11:00 this morning, and start to work in Texas on Monday.  I have to pack the rest of my things tonight after work.  I’m working this one last shift because I need the money.”

     “Hell, this calls for a celebration.  If you can find a liquor store, I’ll buy the Champagne.  It’s not like they can fire you for drinking on the job at this late date.”

     Ronnie clucked at the horse and tugged the reins.  Dick did a u-turn, threading his way back across Fifth Avenue, between the Plaza and Central Park.  When I raised an eyebrow, Ron leaned down and winked.  “The cops don’t bother us much—they think we’re quaint.”  

     Dick didn’t need any help—stopped at the red light and clopped forward when it turned green.   Ronnie leaned down again.  In a conspiratory tone, he said, “I’ve already been celebrating with some friends since graduation.  I know a liquor store right around the corner on Avenue of the Americas.  We’ll stop there.”

     Ole Dick halted the carriage in front of the store and I went inside, bought two bottles of cold Champagne and a package of plastic cups.  I popped the cork on one of the bottles, passed around the cups, poured the bubbly, and we toasted Texas Instruments.

     As we rode through Central Park, Ronnie turned around to face us and let Ole Dick worry about the traffic.  “Ole Dick don’t need my help, unless we’re going somewhere off the beaten path.  I call him Big Dick, he-he.  Funny name for a horse. He knows the city better than I do.  If I don’t watch him, he’ll just naturally head back to the stables.  He’s ready to quit and get to the feed bag any time.”

     We toasted New York University. We toasted Texas. We toasted Sam Houston. We toasted the Tavern on the Green as we passed.  We toasted the Dakota, where John Lennon was shot.  We toasted Yoko Ono.  We stopped and bought more Champagne.  We toasted John Hinckley.  I pointed out that Hinckley shot Reagan, not Lennon, but no one cared.   We toasted Jody Foster.

     It was dark when we passed the Shubert Theater on 44th, and I noticed it was almost seven o’clock.  “You think we ought to head to the house, Ronnie-Boy?  You want to join Charlotte and me for dinner?  We’d love to have you.  We’re going to a little place on 55^th street called L‘escargot.  Charlotte likes to eat snails.”

     “Oh my no, it’s late.  I better get back to the stable.”  Ronnie, slurring his speech, had slowed down considerably from his earlier pace.  He seemed to be in a stupor.  He faced forward now and was not talking much.  We headed toward Fifth Avenue, but traffic was heavy and Ole Dick stopped behind a row of cars waiting to turn left.

     As we waited, I said something to Charlotte and looked up in time to see Ronnie keel over sideways and fall off the high seat down into the street.  His green top hat crumpled under his head as it hit the pavement.  He sprawled there, in the middle of the street, out cold.

     I jumped out of the carriage and knelt beside Ronnie.  A burley fellow in a leather jacket and a yellow cab hat appeared and squatted next to us.  With a Flatbush accent straight from the movies, he said, “Did youse see dat sumbitch?  He did a high dive from way up dere.  Youse see dat sumbitch?  Is he all rite?  Damn. Youse tink he had a heart attack or sumthin?” 

    “Naw, he didn’t have a heart attack.  He’s just drunk.  I don’t think he broke anything.”  I checked Ronnie’s limbs as I spoke.  The hat protected his head when he landed, and so far as I could tell, he didn’t have a scratch.

     “Dat ‘splains it.  If he’d a been sober, he’d a broke his damn fool neck.  Drunks are just natchally loose.  Damn. Did youse see dat sumbitch?  Did a timber job from way up dere.”    

     I shook Ronnie and he opened his eyes, blinked momentarily, and shut them.  “Come on Ron, let us help you up—are you ok?  Break anything?”

    The Brooklyn cabbie helped me get Ronnie to his feet and guide him to the carriage.  Ron stumbled into the vinyl seat, next to the empty champagne bottles, and slumped down.  His eyes opened and he looked up with a crooked grin.  “I think I ought to get at least a 9.7 for that dive,” he said and closed his eyes.  Ronnie was fine.

     Charlotte was not in her seat.  After a moment of panic, I saw her, standing prettily next to Ole Dick, holding the bridle.  She took care of the horse while we attended Ronnie.

     “How youse gonna get dat horse back home?  What’s gonna happen to dat guy?  Youse tink he’s gonna be ok?”  The cabbie, a gruff New Yorker, was sympathetic and  genuinely concerned.  Except for the accent, he could have been from West Texas.

     “Ever thangs gonna be fine.  I’ll drive the horse back to the hotel and Charlotte will take care of Ronnie.  Thanks for the help.  You reckon you ought to shut the door on your cab before someone knocks it off?”

      The cabbie suddenly realized his cab was idling with the front door wide open in the middle of 44^th street.  I climbed up to the driver’s platform and Charlotte eased into the seat next to Ronnie.  When she settled, I popped the reins and Dick started toward the Plaza.

     Ole Dick eased up to the curb on 59^th street, almost exactly where he’d answered nature’s call earlier.  I shook Ronnie as Charlotte stepped out of the carriage.  Ronnie was snoring and not about to wake up.  I folded two hundred dollar bills around one of my business cards and stuffed it into his shirt pocket.  “You ok, Ron?  I put some money in your pocket—you ok?”

     Ronnie stirred, patted his shirt pocket, returned to the fetal position and resumed snoring.  I slapped Ole Dick, he-he, on the butt and he clomped off toward the wagon yard.

    Charlotte and I walked the four blocks to L‘escargot and enjoyed icy cold Plymouth Gin Martinis and escargot sizzling in garlic butter, then a hunk of tenderloin smothered in Marchand de Vin sauce.  I just love New York.

View of Centrak Park looking north over the buildings from about 55th Street

                                   

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…..