Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Library Lines Redux: A Brazos Bend Romance: Please Don’t Feed the Alligators: April 2004


by M. Riley

     The blazing hot sun beat down on the two weekend explorers as they searched for the fabled Brazos Bend alligator.  With sweat blinding their eyes, the two explorers parted from the main path and ventured into less chartered territory.
     Trudging through the wild marshland, Sir Thelonius Crocodilius watched as the narrow path gradually receded into a tangled outgrowth.  When he could no longer see the tops of his well-worn but trusted Adidas running sneakers, he called back to his faithful companion, “Are we crazy or what?” And again, “Has our pursuit of this legendary beast driven us to the brink of madness?”  And once more, “Are we, like Icarus stretching his artificial wings ever closer to the fiery sun, spiraling to earth in a flaming ball of self-delusion and grief?”  Crocodilius stopped and began to turn back, but the desire to go where no Friendswoodian (he knew) had gone before propelled him to turn around and face the fear growing steadily inside him. He trudged on.  He could barely make out how the terrain was beginning to curve slightly to the left and then drop totally out of sight.  As he moved cat-like toward the bend, his senses became fully engaged and his heart began to pound in the back of his throat.  He became so finely attuned to his surroundings that sight and smell gave way to pure clairvoyance. 

     He knew the beast was lying in wait just around the bend. Pulling back the dense row of cattails like a man facing his final curtain call, Crocodilius saw before him what he knew all of his life would one day be there to greet him --- and greet him it did!  He heard the sly hissing sound before he even saw those two steely eyes fixing him as if to say, “The better to see you with my dear.”  The beast was at least twelve feet in length from craggy tail to grinning teeth.  Its whitish underbelly protruded out from either side of its ancient coat and made one wonder what unfortunate being had recently crossed paths with this skillful hunter.  Crocodilius only knew that he didn’t want to find out.  
     So what did our intrepid hero do?  Did he put those well-worn but trusted Adidas running sneakers to good use?  Did he stand stock-still like a deer caught in headlights until the beast slithered off into the murky waters?  Did he grapple with the mighty gator, twisting and turning until one enemy released the other in triumph or defeat?  There is but one clue to the mystery of Thelonius Crocodilius’s fateful day.  Somewhere in the wilderness that is called Brazos Bend State Park, a single well-worn Adidas running sneaker is stuck, cemented into a patch of dried mud.  Trailing off from this sneaker are footprints set as far apart as an Olympic long jumpers, one bare the other rubber-soled.
     If you are feeling adventurous or just plain lucky, you might find this rare artifact buried somewhere beneath the overgrown vegetation.  But are you sure you want to reach down for the muddy prize?  Please don’t feed the alligators!


Friday, March 23, 2012

Last Night - Music of J.S. Bach Concert



An overflow audience came together at the Friendswood Public Library to hear The Music of J.S. Bach performed and directed by pianist Stephanie Poyner, flutist Leslie Engle, and the Hope Lutheran Handbell Choir.  These fine musicians performed eight Bach compositions including Toccata, Air, Wake, Awake, and Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. Director of Music Stephanie Poyner also shared her knowledge of Bach's life and provided insight into these compositions. A fine evening of music was enjoyed by all!




Monday, March 19, 2012

Family Reunion by Dr. Ted L. Estess, Dean Emeritus at the University of Houston




University of Houston Honors College Founding Dean, Ted Estess, will read from his new book—The Cream Pitcher: Mississippi Stories --- at the Friendswood Public Library on Wednesday, April 25 at 7pm. Dr. Estess has long emphasized the importance of stories and storytelling, including using a Samuel Beckett quotation: "To have lived is not enough. We have to talk about it." Come hear how Dr. Estess talks about that living. Some of the book is devoted to Estess family stories, as well as stories passed down from family and friends. According to a review in the Tylertown Times, these stories "passed down as an Estess family tale would be suited to any other family," especially in the Mississippi area where Estess' family lived. Of course, the book and its stories are not limited to Mississippi and its inhabitants—you might see your own story or family, if you imagine a few details differently.
“Family Reunion” appears in The Cream Pitcher—Mississippi Stories, by Ted L. Estess (Portland, Maine:  Inleaf Press, 2010), 7-18. Ted Estess is Dean Emeritus and Professor of English in The Honors College at the University of Houston.


Family Reunion by Ted L. Estess

            I

     There's nothing like going to a family reunion to disabuse you of the notion that you are an altogether separable, unique individual. You talk to one uncle and realize that you stand as he stands. You move on to a cousin and see that she purses her lips and turns her head as you do. After several such jolts, you begin to think that you are in some bizarre hall-of-mirrors.
     I was reminded of these things this past Sunday when my wife Sybil and our son Barrett went with my parents, Ansel and LaVerne Estess, up to Jackson for the annual Estess eat-off, otherwise known as the holiday family reunion. On Sunday, Uncle Charles told me that I tilt my head to the right and prop it against two fingers of my hand as my father does. Charles is the same uncle, who at another family reunion some years back observed that I walk like Uncle Jesse, who was one of my grandfather George’s brothers.  Uncle Jessie was born in 1861 and died when I was five years old.  He probably walked like somebody whose name he didn't even know. To top it off on Sunday, my Aunt Carey told me that when she saw me coming in the door, she said to her brother Elton, “There’s Ansel.”
     So at the family reunion, I was reminded that we are all composites, with the ears of one relative, the hips of another, the smile of another, the walk of another. We all are bionic creatures, stitched together from spare parts borrowed from others, some present, but mostly some absent.
     Now it’s true that members of some families flee each other like the plague, because families—as one of my good friends is given to say—while they might sometimes be heaven, can also be hell. Usually are—both.  So some brothers and sisters and parents and children stay far from one other, likely because they know each other too well.
     But this Estess family into which I was born has three or four reunions a year. I suspect that some in the family, especially some of the in-laws and children, get tired of it.  Nonetheless, they usually show up. Lately, I’ve thought that either these Estesses don't know each other well enough—hence they get together to rectify a problem—or they really do enjoy one another. I’m inclined to think it’s the latter, because when we all get together there is always a good deal of hilarity and announcements of upcoming reunions.
     In Jackson, my father invited everyone to gather here at the farmhouse as the family does on the first weekend of every April. His brother Elton announced the reunion that occurs in Alabama when Mississippi State plays Auburn; so in October, fifty or so Estesses will drive nearly three hundred miles to see the Bulldawgs play football, even if they expect to lose, which they usually do. Aunt Carey mentioned the annual Smith gathering in July at cousins Willa and Alda Smith's house. A good number of Estesses pile in for that one, too. It just goes to show you that some people will drive a long way to get a good piece of chocolate pie.
     Sybil, Barrett, and I missed the last three holiday gatherings. For two years we went to Flagstaff, Arizona. The year before that, we traipsed all the way to Montana, but this year we decided to be with the family. So during the holidays, our son Barrett, who is coming up on his thirteenth birthday, is having time with his grandparents, Sybil is enjoying being at home in Poplarville, and I am having ten or twelve days, mainly alone, here at the old farmhouse near Tylertown and my parents.
     When we decided to come to Mississippi for the holidays, Sybil said, “You know, it might be the last year for Paps”—who is my father—“or for Papaw”—who is Sybil’s step-father. We are aware that time presses in on these two octogenarians. And also on my mother, who is Barrett’s “Mams,” and his “Mimi,” who is Sybil’s mother.  Thinking of these four as old allows us to forget that each of us—every last one of us—is equal distance from death. Who knows, it might be the last year for Sybil or Ted or . . . Barrett. As my Uncle Smith said in September when the doctor told him that he had brain cancer, “That's a hell of a note.”
     One needn't be too gloomy about these matters, I suppose. For instance, I stopped by to see my father’s cousin Kenneth Estess this morning. Kenneth is seventy-six now and pretty well broken down. He said, “I tell you whut, Teddy, I tried to die four times, but they won't let me.”   
     Kenneth laughed and went on to tell me that his dentist had pulled out the rest of his teeth and put in a set of false ones. He said, “I wish I’d had all the damn things pulled out fifty years ago. It wudda been a hell of a lot less trouble. And you know, Teddy, they put in some new lenz-zes when they took off my cataracts. Now they want to put in hearin’ aids. If I buy them damn thangs and ever shake my head, everythang is liable to fall out all over the floor. It would take me thirty minutes to get all that damn stuff back in.” 
     Up in Jackson on Sunday, it occurred to me that we were not getting together only to see the living, we were also—even without saying anything about it—remembering the dead. To tell the truth, it could be that families, at least old-timey families, are—or were—held together as much by those who are absent as by those who are present. The ones long-gone come ‘round and visit in memories and stories and dreams.
     You mix together absence and presence and words and silence and you get the stuff that helps families and communities cohere. The biggest deterrent to cohesive communities might be that folks can't put up with absence and silence long enough to get connected with one another. We flee them, and in the process we flee each other, ourselves, too. To some extent, we know ourselves only as we meet ourselves in the others, which is the best explanation I know for why we sometimes get really aggravated at other folks, especially relatives:  seeing ourselves in them, we often don’t like what we see.
     At the reunion just past, things weren't right. Seventy or so of us were there, but we were aware of someone not there. We felt it. You could say that an absence was present. No one talked much about it, but absence stalked the restaurant of the Sun-n-Sand Motel like a cat. After feasting at the restaurant, we retired for further visiting and grazing at Aunt Carey's house on East Riverside Drive.  
     Things were not right because Uncle Smith was not there. When the doctors told him that the cancer was in his brain, they went ahead and told him they couldn't do anything for him. He was eighty-three years old, but we wanted him to live on and on. We wanted him to lead the laughter as he always did. Once there were seven brothers and a sister. Now there are four brothers and Aunt Carey. We miss Uncle Smith and wish we could get him back. 
     In mid-October, I flew over from Houston with Barrett so that I could visit Uncle Smith.  Dad had told me on the phone, “Ted, Smith’s in bad shape, real bad shape.” Barrett and I drove up to Canton with my parents. My cousin Penny and Aunt Daphne were there, bearing up nobly. Uncle Smith smiled to see us. With my prompting, he started a story. But he botched it.  He conflated a mule story with a horse story. He couldn't follow the line, and we all felt what was slipping away.  
      When we got ready to leave, Dad shook his brother’s hand, and I leaned down and gave him an awkward hug, my cheek brushing his. Barrett hung back, and then went over to stand awkwardly by his great uncle. The old man raised a limp arm and draped his hand across his great-nephew's shoulder. The last words I heard Uncle Smith say were directed to Barrett:  “He's a fine boy.” It was as though an ancestral voice from a deep source in the deep past bestowed a benediction on a member of the rising generation.
     Through the fall, Dad and Mother went back to Canton a few more times and kept me posted as Uncle Smith declined. One night on the phone, Dad told me that he had taken some sugar cane from his garden up to Canton and peeled it for his dying brother. Over seventy years ago, these two would walk about two hundred yards south of this farmhouse where I am sitting just now, and there in the cane patch, their father George would peel sugar cane and pass pieces among whichever of his children happened to be standing around, Vardamon or Lynn or Carey, Smith or Ansel, Charles or Wensel, and later Elton, each one getting a piece in turn, mashing the cool juice in the mouth and standing to wait for another sweet slice as their father gave to each in turn. 
      Years later, when I was a boy, my brother Roy and I repeated this country communion. There we would be, standing in our father's garden, chewing Blue Ribbon sugar cane. Every time, we were amazed by the ease with which our father wielded the knife. And just yesterday, Barrett and I stood in the same garden with my father and my brother. This time I took the knife and handed the pieces around. My father chewed gingerly, his teeth now not up to the pace; but Barrett and Roy waited with extended hands, taking the stringy fruit as fast as I could hand it over. 
     It must been a touching scene in Canton in early November, just after the first cold snap brought up the sweetness:  eighty-year old Little Estess putting small pieces of sugar cane in Big Estess' mouth. The two got these names at Mississippi State in the early ‘30s, my father Ansel called Little because he was younger and smaller than his older brother Smith. Only their college friends remember this, and most of them are dead. Sybil's step-father, R. F. “Racehorse” Cochran, lives on and still uses those old names. Over the years, Racehorse has often asked me, “How's Big Estess doing?”

II

          Almost all the Estesses went to Uncle Smith's funeral in the First Baptist Church in Canton on the Friday before Thanksgiving. He and Aunt Daphne lived in Canton for over fifty years in the same house on Semmes Street. In Canton he was known as Sam Estess, another name he picked up at Mississippi State. Smith Estess, Big Estess, Sam Estess:  you needed several names to contain this man, and three weren't enough as we filed into the church house. It seemed as if the whole town showed up, even on a rainy day. There were more Estesses there than at a family reunion, including, of course, Aunt Carey and the four surviving brothers—Ansel, Charles, Wensel, and Elton. Thirty Rotarians were honorary pallbearers, men remembering a friend. 

          Sitting there I thought of a measure that I sometimes apply to my relationship with a colleague, friend, or erstwhile friend:  I wonder whether the person might show up for my funeral. I don't consider whether he actually will be there, but whether he would be so inclined were he around and if it were reasonably convenient for him or her to do so. Fifteen hundred miles, say, would be too far to travel for my funeral, unless I owed a man some money. I do expect my parents and brother to show up, if they are still hanging on, and of course Sybil and Barrett. My neighbor down the street won't bother. He thinks I'm a jerk. Applying this measure to estimate the probable attendance, I’ve told Sybil to plan on holding my funeral in the telephone booth on Calhoun Street near the University of Houston where I work. Problem is, now there are no telephone booths. Sybil doesn't care for my humor.  
          Smith Estess' funeral drew a lot more folks than mine likely will, and one reason is this:  he was a storyteller. People came to his funeral to remember him telling stories. More precisely, they came to remember how they felt when he told stories. They wanted to reserve a little of that feeling against the time of its absence. 
          Stories affect people that way. They feel more connected with themselves and with other folks when they hear stories. Life makes more sense and it’s easier to laugh when you’re around a fellow who tells lots of stories. With all its starts and stops and messes, life seems more manageable, more amenable to our inclination toward order when someone corrals the dissonances and loose ends of human experience into a story.
          The preacher at the funeral mentioned how Sam Estess sat in the same pew every Sunday for years, right up in the front on the side. The preacher said that every Sunday folks gathered around Sam for thirty minutes before church, hoping for a story. He mentioned how Sam and a few of his friends got together every week at the Courthouse Cafe off the square in Canton. The preacher said he would see them there, four or five old men, drinking coffee and telling stories about old times, crooks, preachers, and assorted types. Sitting in the church, I tuned out the preacher and tuned in a story that Uncle Smith told me some years ago.
        One time, [he said,] I was maybe thirteen or fourteen years old, Papa said to me, Smith, I want you to take that wagonload of cotton over to the compress in Tylertown. Tell old man Sumrall to store it in the warehouse in my name. I'll get over to town one day and sell it when the price is good. So I hitched two mules up to that wagon and headed off to Tylertown, but when I got there, I found out that the price of cotton was up, at least old man Sumrall said it was, so I sold the cotton and was ready to head back home when I ran into one of those travelin’ salesmen that used to cover the country. This one was dressed up in fancy clothes and was playin’ a banjo to draw a crowd on the square in Tylertown. It was Saturday and that square was full of people. Wagons and buggies, and horses and mules, were all over the place. This particular salesman was sellin’ straight razors and that razor caught my eye. I reckon I was gettin’ ready to start shavin’ myself. I watched that salesman take one of his razors and hold up a long piece of hair. He said, Look here! See what this razor can do!  It slices right through this hair! And he moved his arm in a wide sweep and cut that hair as pretty as anything you ever saw. So I bought me one of those razors and headed back to Silver Creek with it in my pocket.  The closer I got to the house, the more I thought that maybe Papa wouldn't exactly be happy with me sellin’ his cotton and buyin’ me a razor with some of his money. I decided I would just have to tell him about it. He'd find out anyway. So when I got home, I went in the house to tell Papa. He listened to me, and I saw I mightta stepped over the line a bit with him just sittin’ there lookin’ at me. So I tried to justify myself by showin’ off that new razor. I held it up like that salesman did in Tylertown. I reached up—I had thick black hair back then—and I pulled out a long hair and held it up with one hand, like this. I kept one eye on that hair and one eye on Papa. I took that razor and with a wide sweep of my arm, I brought the blade against that hair. But when I did, a piece of that damn razor went flyin’ all the way ‘cross the room. It passed right in front of Papa's eyes. That razor just fell apart. I felt like a damn fool. I decided right then that no damn salesman would ever take me again. I never sold any more of Papa’s cotton unless he told me to either.
        Later, as we gathered at the graveyard in a heavy downpour, all of us wanted to undo the work of time. We didn’t want to leave him there with the rain pouring down. 
          So on Sunday at the family reunion, for the first time Uncle Smith was not with us to tell stories. We heard his voice being silent. We heard his laughter not in the room. It made us uneasy, at least it did me. Sensing his absence, I could imagine my own.
          One day a few years ago my good wife Sybil, as she periodically does, inquired as to the amount of life insurance I carry. I have all such information written down for her, but she gets concerned that I might be planning a devious exit from this world, leaving her destitute in the process.
“Anyway,” she said, “Ted, I just want to know I can get by if you drop the bucket.”
“Sybil,” I said, “it's kick the bucket. “
 “Whatever,” she said, “drop or kick, how much life insurance do you have?”
          On Sunday, I thought that if I drop the bucket, the Estess family reunion will go on without me just as it goes on without Uncle Smith. All through the reunion, it was hard to feel right if for no other reason than that things were not right.
          Aunt Carey had requested that I join with the wife of my cousin John, who is a fine physician up in the Delta, to give a little program for the family after lunch. John’s wife Dottie would lead the group in some holiday songs and I would play the piano.  And then, Aunt Carey said, I would read some of the family memories that I have been writing. 
          Dottie called all of the young Estesses up in front of the piano. There they were standing before me, all the little girls eager to show off their red dresses and all the little boys clearly willing to do nigh anything other than stand in front of an audience and sing “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” But Dottie was undeterred. She wins the prize for exuberance and vivacity in the Estess clan, which is why she is a good one to get folks singing about Prancer and Vixen on stomachs filled with turkey and cornbread dressing.
          But just about the time Dottie got to “then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say,” the memory, like cream in a pitcher, rose to the top. My fingers continued automatically to play the familiar tune, but the memory unfolded like a ground bass above which various ornamentations and reindeer filled the air. 
          The memory was of Laura, Dottie and John’s second child. On the Day of Epiphany, 1983, Laura, who was home from Ole Miss for the holidays, went in the evening to a convenience store near their house. She aimed to buy some soft drinks. 
          Dottie then directed the children to Frosty the snowman—that jolly happy soul—and then to Santa who knows who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. Still, the ground bass played on in my memory, all but oblivious both to what my fingers were doing on the keys and to the words that the children were by now belting out, the boys, too. Dottie had worked her magic again, even with this bunch of reluctant choristers. 
          At the convenience store, Laura ran into a high school classmate named Johnny who had made enough money carving catfish at the local plant to buy a new pick-up.  He wanted Laura to see his truck, so they went for a ride. By now, Dottie had moved to include the adults, and we headed on to deck the halls with boughs of holly.
          A month later, three duck hunters found Laura’s body in the Sunflower River.  Johnny, the son of a Mississippi State Highway Patrolman, is spending his life in the state penitentiary. 
          It was all I could do to follow Dottie’s directions that we end our holiday songfest by imploring heaven and nature to sing joy to the world. But, then, I thought, if Dottie can, why can’t I? If she so implores, why shouldn’t I? Ten years ago, Dottie and John entered into the darkest vale of every parents’ nightmare. Laura visits them every day. Their lives and those of their other three children are divided into before and after.  And yet—which Elie Wiesel calls the two most powerful words in the English language—they endure, sometimes prevail.
          As the children scattered around the room, it was my turn. As Aunt Carey had requested—or instructed—I stood to read some family memories. I was glad to, for I figured that if I take the trouble to write this stuff at least some of them can listen. I had thought about reading a story that Uncle Smith told about an old farmer in Lawrence County who tried to cure a mule by making him breathe smoke from burning tar. But I decided I couldn't. I knew my words wouldn't be able to stand against his silence.
          But I did hold forth. I started by commenting on how reunions are occasions for older family members to pass down accumulated family wisdom to the younger, less experienced ones.
          “You know,” I said, “I've learned a lot at these family gatherings over the years.  I've gotten investment advice from Uncle Charles and Uncle Wensel. Following their advice, I've pretty well lost all the money I ever hoped to have; but I have racked up some good losses for tax purposes. Back around 1955—I said—Uncle Wensel advised me that if I couldn't make fifteen thousand dollars a year I wouldn't be able to support a wife and two or three kids. In that assessment at least, he was right:  I don't think I could support a wife and three kids on fifteen thousand dollars a year.”
          At this, Wensel’s raucous laughter filled the room. His siblings Carey and Ansel and Charles and Elton looked at Wensel and giggled like school kids, knowing full well that in speaking of making enough money to support a family, I had touched an obsession that has haunted Wensel for all his life. He, after all, has a wife and four kids.
          “And,” I said, “I've gotten up-to-date nutrition and health advice from Aunt Carey, but it hasn’t done me any good. I'm pretty well broken down now and a good deal overweight.”
          Aunt Carey’s laughter, far more restrained than Wensel’s, was hearty, as was that of my cousins and their grown children, all of whom share with me distinct memories of Aunt Carey’s admonitions, mostly ignored, about diet and proper cooking and eating and exercise.
          “I also remember,” I said, “Uncle Charles' analysis of race relations in the Sovereign State of Mississippi. One time back in the early sixties at one of these reunions, Uncle Charles announced with an emphatic slice of his hand through the air, ‘I'll tell you one thing, Ted:  you'll never live to see the day when blacks play football at Mississippi State University. ‘”
          There was some laughter in the audience, but it was clear that folks were unsure of where I was going with this venture into the delicate matter of relations between blacks and whites. But I pressed on.
          “Several years later,” I said, “at another family reunion, a group of us were watching the Mississippi State Bulldawgs play in one of their infrequent bowl games. I joined with Uncle Charles to cheer on some black Bulldawgs on the TV. ‘Uncle Charles,’ I said, ‘do you remember when you told me that I would never live to see the day when blacks play football at Mississippi State University?’ Undaunted, he replied, ‘Well, Ted, I tell you one thing:  you'll never see one of ‘em play quarterback.’”
          Everyone relaxed into loud guffaws, knowing that I had caught one of our own voicing a cliché that, like so many clichés about blacks and whites, has long since been proved ludicrous. Fortunately, we are now at a sufficient remove from the sentiment voiced in the cliché to be able to laugh at ourselves in all our ludicrousness. 
          “Now,” I said, “I want you all to know that earlier today—this very day—Uncle Charles told me that the Bulldawgs probably would have gone undefeated this year if their quarterback hadn't got hurt. If I'm not mistaken, the quarterback he's talking about is a black kid named Sleepy Robinson from up around Ruleville, Mississippi.”
          When I told this on Sunday, I thought Uncles Charles would lose his breath laughing at himself, everybody else, too. He’s the only man I know whose grin is bigger than his face. The whole room at the Sun-n-Sand shook with hilarity. I felt good.
          There is, I think, a strange and perhaps inexplicable connection among pain and memory and laughter. It could be that folks who remember more, laugh more. That’s one thing I’ve learned at all these family reunions I’ve been going to all my life. These Estesses eat a lot, but they remember and laugh even more.
          But pain gets stirred in there, too, if for no other reason than lots of memory is taken up with pain, just as it was at the Sun-n-Sand when we were missing Uncle Smith and Laura and many others. But, you know, if you want to get a good laugh, go to the visiting hours at some funeral home when somebody you’ve known for a long time is lying in the coffin. It needs to be an old person or a person who has been ill a long time, but it beats anything you’ll ever see:  there people will be, standing right in front of a dead man, telling stories and laughing their fool heads off.
          It’s too simple to say that laughter is a way to avoid pain. No, the laughter—which rises with memories and is conveyed and evoked by stories—doesn’t abrogate, much less deny, pain:  laughter carries pain. Like breathing in and out, laughter lets pain in and lets it out; but, more important, it takes pain out of the private and makes it communal. It’s not that laughter is, as the song goes, a bridge over troubled water;  rather, it provides a measure of buoyancy while you are flailing around in troubled water.
          But I haven’t finished with what I said at the Sun-n-Sand:
          “Last May,” I said, “we had a mini-family reunion of sorts down at our house in Tylertown; and even in a small gathering, I gained wisdom that I would like to pass on to you today.
          “Aunt Carey was there, and we were sitting in the living room just talking. At one point in the conversation, Ansel asked his sister, ‘Now, Carey, why is it that all of Uncle Sam’s family died young, while all of Papa and Mama’s children have lived into  our seventies and eighties, except Lynn, of course. Here,’ Ansel said,’ you have two brothers, both with big families, and Uncle Sam's children died out young and Papa and Mama’s children have lived to be old people.’ 
          “It seemed,” I said, “a reasonable question, and a good one, too, for what does make for a long life? To Ansel’s question, Aunt Carey proposed one explanation.  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘there must have been some difference in the genes, just some difference in the genes.’
          “But clearly,” I said, “that was not an answer that would satisfy a man as inquisitive as my father Ansel Estess. How could a difference in genes account for so bare a fact that six or eight people died out and another six or eight, born at more or less the same time and reared within a mile of one another, are living well into their seventies and eighties? Furthermore, the children from the two families, genetically speaking, have a lot in common. Ansel failed to mention this.
          “So,” I said, “sitting in the living room on Magnolia Street in Tylertown, we could all see questioning on Ansel's face. His dissatisfaction finally led him to suggest an alternative explanation, one more suitable to the startling difference in destiny of those children born in wedlock to Sam Estess and Melethia Miller Estess and those born in wedlock to George Washington Estess and Melissa Smith Estess.”
          At that point, I lowered my voice and assumed the tone of a serious college professor. “The tension,” I said, “settled in Ansel’s face as he came to an explanation, or at least an hypothesis worthy of the facts, one that would bear further scrutiny and merit further testing, one that, if true, would allow him to accept the startling difference in life and death attending the offspring of Sam and Melethia and those of George and Melissa, and one that, if true, would relieve us from the unsettling thought that so minute and uncontrollable a matter as a genetic difference could be the bane of some and the blessing of others. 
          “Then, the look on Ansel’s face turned to the excitement of a young scientist just coming upon a new explanation that will account for puzzling facts before him. ‘Well,’ Ansel said, ‘it couldda been Aunt Melethia's cookin’.’”
          At that, the whole room at the Sun-n-Sand erupted with laughter. Frankly, I didn’t expect it. When things finally quieted down, I continued.
          “The rest of us sitting there in Tylertown must, by our silence, have indicated that the appeal to Aunt Melethia’s cooking was not immediately self-justifying. Without elaboration, it was not of itself sufficient to explain such a startlingly manifest difference as that of life and death. Our apparent incredulity to his explanation prompted Ansel to marshal evidence in its behalf.  ‘Well, I tell you,’ he said, ‘I know Aunt Melethia couldn't cook. I stayed down there, and I tell you, Aunt Melethia couldn't cook.’
          “Having presented what he took to be evidence for his hypothesis, Ansel clearly felt better, and it must have gained currency because Carey, discarding so farfetched a notion as a genetic difference, joined in support of the gathering consensus. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you know, when Uncle Sam got sick, he went to see Dr. Brumfield.  Dr. Brumfield didn't know what was wrong with him, but he finally said, ‘Sam, it could be that cancer’s got in your stomach, that's what it could be.’ And Aunt Carey added, ‘After Uncle Sam died, everybody knew that's what it was—stomach cancer.’
          “Ansel nodded in approval. One could see that he was feeling justified, his hypothesis now elevated to the status of theory, now rivaling in its explanatory power the one first suggested by Carey, that it's good cooking, not genetic difference, that accounts for a long life.”
          Again, the room shook with laughter, which was led, above all, by Ansel and Carey. And again, I felt good. All I had done was tell a story. Actually, it was not so much a story as a simple narrating of what I had heard two persons say one May night in a living room on Magnolia Street in Tylertown, Mississippi, the effect of which was that a good seventy people had trouble breathing because they were laughing so hard, letting pain and memory in and out, in and out

          
          

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Anthem Performing Artists provide Superlative Evening of Entertainment

Anthem Performing Artists played the Hues family in Margaret Symmank's funny and smart melodrama An Odor of Sanctity. Cast included Lindy Pierson,Christy McDole, Tony Heileman, Jase O'Brien, Duane Ross, Crystal Lively, Ford Pierson, Connie Heileman, and Stage Manager Linda Ross; musical prelude and epilogue performed by Connie Heileman. Margaret Symmank's work has seen production on school, college, church, and community theatre stages for over thirty years. The Friendswood Public Library was honored to bring her work to the Friendswood library community.






Monday, March 12, 2012

Further Adventures of Clyde and Chester




The following investigative report, Corned Beef and Cabbage, is taken from the Chester P. Karrick, Jr. book entitled Clyde and Chester, The Investigators: Fraud, Embezzlement, Theft.  More reports are to follow.  Also read Over the Fence They Will Go
On Monday, April 9 at 7pm, Author Chester P. Karrick, Jr. will be at Friendswood Public Library to discuss some of the investigative cases conducted by himself and legendary Houston private eye, Clyde A. Wilson.

Corned Beef and Cabbage by Chester P. Karrick, Jr. 

Clyde and Chester went to the Mid-west to investigate possible inventory shortages in a client’s paint, dye and colors plant operation.  The client suspected that the plant manager was probably involved in fraud.
The client requested the plant manager meet with Clyde and Chester at a motel a few blocks from the plant at 2:00 pm the next afternoon.
Clyde and Chester arrived in the city about 11:00am on the day of the meeting and checked into the motel.  As this was hours before the manager arrived, they went to the motel restaurant for lunch.  The luncheon special that day was corned beef and cabbage.
Clyde quickly said he wanted the luncheon special.
Chester said, “Clyde, you know you have a spastic colon. Corned beef and cabbage will tear you up.”
Clyde replied, “No sweat, I’ll be alright.”
Clyde ordered the corned beef and cabbage and Chester ordered a BLT.
Over lunch they realized the need for a secretary that could take shorthand and type the statement that would be taken.
Chester went to the motel office to see if someone there could help them around 2:00 pm that afternoon.  The motel clerk introduced Chester to a young lady who said she would help.  She was told to come to the room at 2:00 pm.
The plant manager and the young lady arrived about the same time and were asked to take seats around the table in the room.
The girl got out her shorthand pad to be ready for taking a statement.  Clyde turned his charm on the manager.
The manager persistently denied any involvement in the inventory shortages.  After about ten or fifteen minutes the manager started crying and began telling Clyde about his thefts.
Clyde started dictating a statement to the young lady.  Every few minutes she furiously scratched her upper body.  This was distracting.
Finally, Chester asked her, “What is the problem?”
She replied, “Several friends and I spent last Saturday in Aspen skiing naked in the snow.  I got sunburned and am now peeling all over.”
Chester told her to go back to her office, as they didn’t need her anymore.  Chester told Clyde that he would write the statement out longhand on a notepad.
Just as Clyde starting dictating the statement again, he excused himself.  The corned beef and cabbage had just taken effect.  He headed for the bathroom.
By the time Clyde returned to the room, the plant manager had regained his composure.  He didn’t want to talk anymore. Clyde confronted him again with the plant losses.  In a few minutes the manager began to cry again.  He then began to tell Clyde all about his thefts.
Just at that time Clyde had to excuse himself again.
When Clyde returned, they had to start the procedure all over again.  Just as Chester was getting started writing the statement Clyde excused himself again.
When Clyde didn’t return in a few minutes, Chester told the manager to get his chair and pull it over in front of the bathroom door.  Chester also pulled his chair over to the door.
Chester then kicked the bathroom door open and there sat Clyde in the lavatory sink splashing cold water up on his behind.  The corned beef and cabbage had not only given him diarrhea but also aggravated his hemorrhoids.
Clyde yelled, “What is going on?”
Chester replied, “If this statement is ever going to be finished we figured we will have to join you.”
There they all three sat while Clyde dictated and Chester wrote in longhand the manager’s statement.
The manager was married and had three children living at home.  He just wasn’t making enough money to meet his family’s demands.
The plant where the manager worked was open five days a week.  During the weekend, the manager went to the plant and loaded his car with various dyes, colors, and paint.
At various times during the week the manager went by plant customer offices and offered to sell the products at a special discount price for cash.  The manager had converted about $90,000 in plant products into $45,000 in cash during the past nine months.
Afraid that his wife might find out about his activities, the manager stored his ill-gotten gains in shoeboxes hidden in the bottom of his closet. 
About $11,000 remained in the closet that Clyde and Chester recovered.  The plant manager was terminated.
The client advised that he did not wish to pursue prosecution.
The fidelity bond insurance carried by the client had a large deductible which precluded recovering the client’s loss.


Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Celebrate National Poetry Month with Host John Milkereit and Net Poets Society

                                                                        John Milkereit began writing poetry after taking a seminar on the poetry of Billy Collins in 2005 at his local church. His poems have appeared in Harbinger Asylum, Swirl, Poetry Revolt, the Texas Poetry Calendar and has been a juried poet at the Houston Poetry Fest the last three years. He also recorded several of his poems at Taping for the Blind. Pudding House Press published his chapbooks in 2010, and Paying Admissions was a Finalist-of Note in their 2009 chapbook competition. During the day, he is a rotating equipment specialist at a Houston engineering firm.

Come hear host John Milkereit, with poets Erica Lehrer, John E. Rice, Mona Follis, Dede Fox, and Adamarie Fuller at the Friendswood Public Library on Wednesday, April 4 at 7pm.



 Geisha
  
These nicknamed men,
                                   they aren’t looking for porcelain around Japan.
They aren’t looking for antique bronzes: just one-night jack stands.

They aren’t thinking about their seed on a kimono, or these broken
bits of concrete from the bombed factories.  Their Gucci boots
occupy the front door sleeker than my dogs.

But I was later proved wrong: Blue Bear outbid
the others for my danna.
                                   Cher doux ours bleu—
the truffle that preserved my sunflower oil.  He kept me from eating
charcoaled squid in graveled dirt.  He had tufts of hair
higher than the cliffs at Normandy beach.  He whisked me to his cave—
a farmhouse south of Provence.  We saw movies, Judy Garland,
and I swear he growled at the wicked witch and those flying monkeys.
Who would have thought a geisha could survive in France?
I wore black scarves around the village and caught fish
from the river and carried them to market in town.

Time for me is a jigsaw puzzle, now, years later, pieces scattered
upside down in an unlucky frame, the misfortune of Blue Bear’s
cancerous death is a crooked edge and now this moment,
       this dance back to Kyoto
is a piece of movement that doesn’t fit.
                                                          I’m addicted,
old Japan, to your spiderworts, your pickled sour plums,
                               your eyebrows of cooled paulownia twig,
               your drink of sake fantasy. 
I will nurture my little cub—mon petit ourson bleu—
in your land held by silver thread
                interwoven in a brocade of folded
                     rusts and golds.   

--- John Milkereit



Folk Song                                                                                              
The first note is almost struck.
A string could be picked at any moment.
You aren’t hungry yet.
Think of a guest entering the shadows
in the front room of your house.
This is the minute before midnight
when she turns seventeen.
The dynamite is fused in the coal mine.
The dragon is still asleep in the cave.
The lead singer introduces the piece
with words that tell us about the rise.
We could even have an Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
This is the inkling a war veteran
has to hammer a ring for his wife.
This is the train conductor saying All Aboard!
This is the prelude to your first kiss with her,
your first night with someone else. 
This is the section where the tracks turn green,
where lawn chairs outstretch,
when the lawyers draft your will.

The next part is the layer beneath the upper crust.
The coffee is stirred, the yokes burst on a plate.
Here the singer detours into a Paul Simon riff
or tells us how George Harrison autographed his guitar.
You begin to love a waitress with amnesia.
Photographs develop of you littering in the city dump.
Chris McCandless leaves for the wild.
This is the car driving towards the tornado.
This is the verse that puffs fire or explodes
and suddenly goes quiet.
The developers have re-named the place
after what they’ve torn apart.
The bridge spans thin air, but the oxygen bottles
are 3000 feet below.
This is sitting in the street for justice.
You’ve entered the witness-protection program in Anchorage.
So much of this song is quicksand, so much confusion—
snow in Austin, the break of a string, an appendix swells,
your friend does crack from a Coke can, the first gardenia
blooms, you leave Savannah on Christmas Day—

This is the last trimester.
The Jayco rental is almost over.
The pony is too small to ride.
This is the time to harvest corn,
dry ears in the bin.
The singer belts higher than what she sang before,
she goes down an octave or two, pleads the audience to sing.
Soap bubbles blow from the side stage.
Black sheep flock the front yard
careful not to nibble at the bodies of background vocalists.
Here is the last bit of change for the New Jersey Turnpike,
and your house echoes with haunting laughter.
The final strumming is the grave sounds we imagined.
This is what Arlo Guthrie lived for,
what rhythm we should feel like in the floorboards
before our heads are cut off.
This is the bell chime that begins a funeral
under the blood of stage lights.
This is a raccoon leaving a hollowed tree
outside a blanket of stars,
and above, or maybe inside the ribcages,
we hear the chords of each other’s angels.


---John Milkereit