I Need a Zapper!

I was going through my e-mail file earlier today and wished I had a junk mail zapper, you know like those bug zappers you put in your back yards. I get so much rubbish in my e-mail account that I spend more time cleaning it out than I do reading my good e-mails. And that bugs me!

Really, the stuff I find there. I’m a little too old for a college tuition loan. A cruise to the Caribbean Islands might be nice, but not to Sandals Beach Resort for Singles. “Invest now for your future,” another e-mail said. “If you start now, you’ll be rich when you retire.” I don’t think so. I retired five years ago. Even an Obama economist couldn’t make that promise come true.

One e-mail which did look promising, but don’t tell my wife, offered a senior’s dating service. It wanted me to send in my profile with an appropriate picture, and for $9.95 a month I would receive profiles of five women, complete with their pictures, and a monthly dating magazine. I’m not currently in the market, but it is good to know I have options. I wonder if the monthly magazine contains a centerfold.
It wouldn’t matter. I’d only be reading it for the articles.

One e-mail which left me wondering advertised that I could become a corrections officer over the internet in eighteen months. It is nice to know that you can receive an education while in your own home, but don’t you think prison guards should receive some hands-on training? The next thing they’ll promote is to do the work from home.

Have you seen the You can work part-time from home ad where they send you stationery and you have to buy stamps and send the letters out to about a thousand of your closest friends. Just having to buy stamps would bust me. You get paid three cents for ever letter you mail. It costs you forty-four cents for the stamp.

Another advertisement is for Dental Assisting School. Like I’m going to let someone who got their degree from correspondence courses look in my mouth. I don’t think so. The same goes for online training for your commercial truck driving licenses. I think I have seen some of the graduates driving down I-20.


Another popular advertisement, especially now that I’m getting older, offers vitamins and drugs online. I like that idea, but if you could just order one, would you pick the vitamins, Zoloft or Viagra? That would be a hard decision when all these would be useful.

I also had an e-mail today selling dance flooring. How does that differ from regular flooring? I put that one in my junk mail file. I don’t think I’ll be doing any dancing soon. Some things are best left to the professionals.

Another e-mail that caught my eye was for electronic cigarettes. It made me laugh. Could this be similar to the electric chair? Now, that was something to die for, wasn’t it? Do electronic cigarettes come twenty to a pack like regular smokes? I think that might be overkill.

Utility services are often featured, phone service, faster internet connections and a plumber. What, a plumber? You can get your plumbing fixed over the internet? I would call up for service, but I’m afraid I’d get some guy from India on the other end of the line telling me what to do with my stopped up sewer line. I get enough of that from my computer software provider.

Palm reading is something I definitely stay away from. Something about reading my palm via the internet I don’t trust. You scan your palm print and send it off with your payment of only $19.95. Do you think Ron Popeil has some connection with the fortuneteller?

Well, I guess I have rattled on long enough. My inbox is full again and I need to clear out the new junk mail. I am sure you have your own junk mail stories. Feel free to post one in the comment section below. Many of your comments compete nicely with my blog notes.

Until next time, have fun and keep reading.

Riding on the East Texas back roads

When I get restless, which is about every other week, I get in my car and drive with no particular destination in mind, just a drive and change of scenery. The other day, I found myself on the south side of my hometown on a street that goes through and follows the city limits.

My drive soon became a trip down memory lane, taking me back to a distant time when I was young and lived in the Highland Park addition, and Peterson Road was just an oil topped road leading into the piney woods. Small farms were hidden away along the road that cut through the countryside, but the main purpose of the road was so the oil companies could get to their oil wells.

Following the oil topped road back into the backland would take you past numerous lease roads leading deeper into the woods. Oil wells had been drilled here and pumped for fifty or sixty years. Today as I drove, the old roads turning off and crossing cattle guards were mostly deserted.

Back then I attended a country school built with oil money from the oil boom of the thirties and forties. I would board the bus at Peterson Road and follow the black oil pavement across the countryside, the road undulating as it made its way deeper into the woods.

Everyone, especially the young kids riding the school bus, took the oil coated roads for granted. We had no idea of their uniqueness. Not until I was a teenager and visiting my family in Oklahoma did I realize everyone didn’t have oil topped roads. In Oklahoma the roads were a rusty red clay which had been plowed and were somewhat level. Red dust coated everything. In the winter, the red clay absorbed the rain water and deep ruts were pressed into the goo. Often the roads were almost impassable. Cars were left parked and four-wheel pickups took over the commuting job.

Of course, our oil roads had their own problems. In the rain, they would become slick and everyone knew to slow their speed when traveling the wet roads. In the winter, ice coated the roads and all traffic halted. We always liked the fact that our country school would close at the least sign of ice.

As I drove along, following the old bus route, I thought of the thousands of gallons of oil that had been poured over the sandy land and plowed level. Today it is an environmental hazard and is against the law. Besides, the price of oil makes it too expensive to waste on the ground.

Some of my school mates lived along the road and I would go visit them. We often walked the mysterious trails back to where the actual oil wells were located. As I traveled along the road each day, I would see the many side roads leading back into the woods and wondered what lay at the end of the black ribbons. Now I know the lease roads broke off into other smaller paths winding to the wells and a battery of oil tanks which was built on the lease to hold the oil production.

It was sad to drive the road and see how it had deteriorated. The majority of the oil wells have been plugged and the tank batteries dismantled or left to rust away. I was amazed to see small pine trees growing where the oil topped lease roads had been. I could still see the lines of the road, but native Bermuda grass and goat weeds grew through cracks in the oil topping, a demonstration of the natural progression of nature. The land may be destroyed or trees harvested, but given time, Mother Nature will reclaim what is rightfully hers. Even the oil coating the land can’t stop the cycle.

By the time I reached my old school, my mind had been refreshed. A trip back into nature helped to mend me. The red brick school still stands, serving children from throughout the countryside as it did when I was a kid. If the old buildings ever become unnecessary and were to be abandoned, they too would return to the forest it had been before man intervened.

It was great to get out and on the back roads of East Texas and relive my early years. I know I can never go back, I’m not sure I would want to if I could, but to recall those days for a little while was enough for me. It rejuvenated my spirit. It made me smile.

I have put it off long enough.

I hate to be one to gripe, but this is too much. It’s that time again. You know, the time when you get hungry for a snack, go to the pantry and can’t find anything you want. There are no potato chips, crackers or even nuts to be had. Cereal for a snack just won’t work, especially since I had eaten a bowl full for breakfast. I was perturbed.



My next option was to eat something healthy as a snack. I looked in the big bowl on the kitchen table and found it dusty and bare. Not a single piece of fruit remained in the almost always full bowl. My mouth watered for the taste of an apple or banana. I’d settle for an orange or tangerine if we had one. Desperate now.

The refrigerator is another place to find food, right? I opened the door and looked over the shelves. Nothing readily popped out that I wanted, so I began going through the containers of meals from the past. The slices of roast from... well, I can’t remember, appeared almost like modern art with purple and yellow fluorescent designs on them.

The small container of macaroni and cheese would have been acceptable except for the green and gray growth. I spent the next thirty minutes cleaning out the containers and flushing the disposal full. When I went back to the fridge, I opened a fresh box of Arm and Hammer to absorb the odors.

Now that the refrigerator was empty of old leftovers, I began to knot inside. Even the fridge was bare of anything to eat. There had to be something in the freezer, so I hurriedly took a look. Frozen peas, broccoli and ice cubes headed the list. There were also some popsicles, but those were for the kids. I needed substance. Finally, success, there was a squashed box of Eggos. I should say Eggo because there was only one. Coated with a white blanket of ice, the treat would have to do.

I knocked of as much of the ice as I could and then put it into the toaster oven. As it began to heat, I went back to the pantry for the syrup. No such luck. There was a bottle but it held only a teaspoon of syrup, I needed quantity. What is a replacement for maple syrup? I took out the cans of yams, corn, and green beans only to find there was no substitute.

As I tossed the package of two heels of bread, I spotted a jar of peanut butter. It would do so I took it and headed to the toaster. It was smoking and there was a mostly black Eggo inside. I said something bad, but it didn’t change the fact that I had burned the last thing in the house to eat. I burned my fingers as I pulled it out of the oven and then scraped as much char off as I could.

Not bad, I decided as I took the brown and black Eggo and placed it on my plate. I opened the peanut butter jar and saw it was almost empty. It took a teaspoon to scrape the sides and bottom of the jar to get the last bites. I tossed the jar in the trash and realized the container was full. I filled a small glass with milk and added the quart container to the trash.

As I ate, chewing every bite much longer than was necessary in order to make it seem like I had a big meal, I began compiling my shopping list. I could not put off a trip to the grocery store any longer. I am an organized kind of guy and have made a list of the usual items we buy at the store each month. I have the list laid out to follow the flow of the store.



I took the printed sheet and began checking the items to purchase. Cokes and Sprite were first because they were located in the very back of the store. I like to push the empty basket to the back and load on my way to the front. Next were bottled water, eggs, butter, and milk. Item by item I mentally marched through the store as I marked off the items.
Times have really changed. I remembered going to the store with my mother. The grocery store was half the size of the big stores today. We would shop for Kellogg’s, Folgers, Tide, Coke, and Del Monte canned goods. They still have these brands, but now there are several more to choose from. The big one is the store brand.

The cereal section is full of names of stuff I’ve never seen before. Fruity this or chocolate that, I’m not sure I would even sample some of the mixtures. We had Cheerio’s, shredded wheat, oat meal and malt-o-meal to choose from.



My granddad had a small neighborhood grocery. It was attached to his house and held the basic items a housewife would need. Granddad ran the meat and produce part of the store while Grandma handled the other. Neighbors would come by and head to the back to visit with Granddad. That is something else; I don’t know anyone at the stores today.

As time moved on and our country became more prosperous, the small family stores closed and the big super stores took their place. I’m not complaining, as I say, but I do miss the intimacy of the old ways. I wouldn’t think of stopping by Wal-Mart just to shoot the bull with an old friend, but in the old days that happened every day.

When I lived in New York City, the streets were lined with specialty stores, one for fruit, and another for cheese or bread. A fish market sold just fish and a meat market sold meats. Neighborhood women would go from store to store to buy for their families. I liked the way everyone haggled and interacted. It had an old world feel to it, but hardly efficient.

Well, now that I have my list made, my stomach is begging for more food so I had better get busy and do my chore. I won’t like the shopping part, but in the end I will be rewarded.

I put key lime pie on my shopping list.

This is a video you will enjoy.

Mystery of the Balloon Race

A pickup truck pulls into the freshly mowed field pulling a trailer. Experienced volunteers rush to help the driver unload the trailer’s valuable contents. The mystery of what is hidden behind the doors fascinates the young onlookers as the contents are removed.



First, a large woven basket is pulled out of the trailer. The basket is large enough to carry two grownups, but today only one man would be aboard. Next, large bolts of fabric billow out and are soon stretched out on the ground and attached to the basket. But the most curious of all the items is the jet like contraption sitting atop the basket.

The youngsters grow anxious as they watch and parents scold them to wait. The best would soon be here for them. As each component is assembled, the hot air balloon slowly takes form. When fuel tanks are added and the wind conditions are given a final check, the volunteers hold open the cloth envelope and the jet’s flame is lit.



The once anxious youngsters cover their ears and hide behind the adults as the jet comes to life. A mighty flame reaches out and begins to heat the air captured within the balloon. Blast after blast of fiery flame reaches into the growing cavity and the mysterious device takes shape.



From behind mom and dad, the kids peer out to see the multicolored creation grow and hover brilliantly over the dwarfed basket. The confined hot air strains to rise into the air, but helpers tether it to the ground until it is time. The extravaganza is just beginning.



In the evening, the glowing balloons reign prominent against the dark skies. Each balloon dressed in its festive bright colors is illuminated by the bright flame looming inside. The spectators ohhh and ahhh as each participant takes his turn showing off his balloon. The accolades from the audience are reward for the hard work in assembling the floating device.

On race day, even larger groups gather to watch. Dozens of balloons fill and take off on an undetermined flight. The skills of the pilot are combined with the will of the winds to carry the balloon across the countryside to its predetermined destination. The envelopes of heated air lift the basket up from the grassy field and drift into the heavens.





The sky looks soft and sedentary as we look into it from the ground, but it is layered with opposing wind currents. At five hundred feet elevation the winds may be blowing east at ten or twelve miles per hour, while at seven hundred feet they blow north at a much faster speed. The experienced pilots search out the wind currents that best serve their purpose.



I have watched them high overhead as they move almost silently by. Occasional roars from the jets break the otherwise silent void. I stood in my yard one day and looked up to discover two balloons passing over. They had arrived without fanfare and were swept away in equal silence.

During the Great Race days, you can see the sky filled with the brightly colored balls as they float away. It reminds me of a race between turtles, a slow but purposeful undertaking. It is still a marvel to watch, even after these many years of following the race.



Science explains the competition of hot air verses the cooler air. This struggle holds the balloons firmly in space, yet it is such a tempered balance. At any moment there could come a sudden downdraft of air or a cross wind running unleashed across the balloon’s path. Thanks to the skill and experience of the pilots, few accidents occur.



It can be humorous to watch the landings. Like an elephant trying to sit down gently, the basket is lowered to the ground. The pilot lets the hot air escape and the balloon slowly floats closer to the landing area. In a perfect situation, the basket touches down just as the envelope deflates. But that doesn’t always happen.

Sometimes the basket hits the ground and then the winds lift it back up, just enough to allow it to fall to the ground again. Then the basket is dragged across the landing field, hopefully only a short distance before it comes to a rest. Chase teams of volunteers following on the ground in trucks hurry to the sight to secure the precious balloon.



Each year our local balloon race grows. This year it was rated the number two race in the nation. Reno, Nevada ranks number one. The city of Longview, Texas praises the race for raising money for charities as well as bringing in money to the area economy, but the greatest contribution the race participants give us is the smiles and bright eyes on our children’s and grandchildren’s faces. They still possess the mystery and innocence many of us have lost.




A big thank you goes to all who come participate as well as all who come to watch, but the biggest thanks goes to the parents who let their kids experience the mystery.


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Here is a video with more beautiful pictures:



Pictures taken by the Longview News Journal