Bologna sandwiches and corporate mazes

Did your kids crave bologna sandwiches? I think one of mine did, and I was scornful, even though they’re a standard on the local deli menu. To me, bologna was scraps of leftover meat pressed into a roll and sliced. Guess what I had for lunch today? A bologna club sandwich on a kolache bun.

Fixture, a local trendy restaurant (translate: lots of kale), has offered the sandwich since its opening, and I routinely passed it by. But today the qualifier, “all beef bologna,” got me, and I ordered it. The sandwich was bologna-heavy to say the least—a generous portion. But it was good—Havarti, thinly sliced turkey, lettuce and tomato, no bacon. I was over-served and so full after lunch.

We ate on the patio and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Windy today but pleasant. The gravel path about did me in. At one point, I thought I was going to pitch forward on my walker because the wheels caught in the gravel, but I caught myself. Carol, who was with me, said she thought she hadn’t been watching carefully, but at this point I can’t expect my friends to watch my back every minute. Still, I may not try gravel again. Jordan’s comment, “I don’t think that was very smart.”

I fought the corporate bear today and would like to give a shout-out to the corporations who were easy to deal with, their telephone reps pleasant and polite: Van’s shoes (they will track down the pair I returned and see about getting me a refund); Target (they sent me a new gift certificate for the one that went astray); OpenSky promised to track down my order and get back to me; same thing with Heathen’s Hoard (don’t you love the name?) where I ordered a “perfect” gift for a grandson whose birthday is coming up; Frost Bank helped me figure out why South Side Rotary hadn’t gotten my check for the flags they put at the driveway on national holidays. The kinds of phone calls that usually take hours and involve lots of “Please hold” didn’t happen. What a great day.

And I wrote over 800 words on the revised novella—not much but baby steps; read 100 pages in the novel I’ve been avoiding; had a lively email discussion with my writing group and got lots of advice about memoir. I discovered I was again doing something I do too often—apologizing for myself. Some of those ladies have written memoirs about the death of a loved one, a bitter divorce, and other traumatic events—I thought my surgery paled in comparison, but they assured me that surviving severe pain is in itself an accomplishment, and many women my age will want to hear about my journey through pain, hallucinations, and surgery plus my lifelong battle with anxiety. The other bit of repeated advice was a memoir takes time. It needs to simmer and sit in your brain, and your understanding of events changes as you write and gain distance So I’m making notes and going on with other projects.

A good day. I’ll forgive the friend who completely messed up her calendar and our dinner plans.

Two Questions for Governor Abbott--and a bit of history

This is not a political post. I’m not attacking Governor Abbott or anyone else, but I am sincerely puzzled by two things I’ve been seeing on Facebook a lot.

The first is the new law limiting suits by communities and dollar amount against big corporations for pollution. With climate change and the environment one of the major concerns in this country and the world, I cannot see any advantage to this except protection of big corporations—and endangerment to the everyday Texans our state government is supposed to protect. I wish Governor Abbott would tell us his thinking when he signed this law—you know, transparency in government and all that.  I genuinely want to know, because it sounds like a disaster in the making to me. Once again, I am disturbed by what we do to Mother Earth in the name of greed.

The second questions has to do with all this gold bullion being stashed away to back Texas currency. What Texas currency? As far as I know we don’t have our own money. Does this hark back to Reconstruction when some Texans wanted to secede? I’ve heard that it’s a first step toward secession. Then I’ve also heard that the gold is safely stored in a New York bank, Why New York? If we’re stashing it, why not in Texas? If it’s an asset, why don’t we use it to help the poor with housing, medical costs, food, etc. Or schools?

The whole idea of secession has been around since we first became a state back in 1845, but today it make me shudder. Does anyone know the story of Van Zandt County’s secession? After the Civil War, that county decided to withdraw from the Union and from Texas. General Phil Sheridan was in charge of Texas during Reconstruction, and he stormed troops north to Van Zandt County to tell those misled farmers they couldn’t do that. But the farmers used a Revolutionary War tactic—they hid in trees and took potshots at the troops in formation as they marched up the road—and then turned around and retreated.

The citizens of Van Zandt County retired to Canton where they built a big bonfire and got out the little brown jug. Late that night, Sheridan’s troops surrounded the town, put all the men in a stockade where they kept them one long cold, wet winter. When spring came and the ground was muddy, the prisoners could push the poles of the stockade apart. One by one they disappeared into the night. Some never returned to Van Zandt County. I think it’s a cautionary tale.

Can’t resists getting in a plug: you can read all about it in Luke and the Van Zandt County War, winner of the best juvenile award for the year from the Texas Institute of Letters. Available from TCU Press, Texas A&M Press, or Amazon. Yeah, I wrote it. Maybe I should send the governor a copy—ya’ think?

If the guv answers my questions, I’ll be sure to let you know.