Goodbye to Texas?

 

There’s a song called, “Leavin’ Old Texas.” The cowboy/singer laments that they’ve roped and fenced the cattle range, “and the people there are all so strange.” Well, it’s true—the open range is fenced, the mythic days of the cowboy are gone, and some of the people in Texas are purely strange now.

But when a writer friend posted on Facebook that she didn’t understand why anyone would live in Texas and not leave, let alone move there, I jumped to our state’s defense. Possibly she was referring to the strict abortion restrictions, so much in the news with the Kate Cox case recently. Or maybe she meant the absence of gun control—no training, no screening, no license. Want to carry a concealed gun? Be our guest. Or perhaps it’s the troubles at the border with record number of illegal immigrants last month. Maybe it’s the restrictions on what can be taught in classrooms, from kindergarten through college—don’t even think of mentioning DEI, which is now outlawed. (How you can outlaw an abstract concept is beyond me, but Gov. Greg Abbott has managed it.) Maybe she meant book bans—we lead the nation in the number of titles marked for “consideration” or actually banned. There are many reasons to leave Texas for states, even countries, where there is more personal freedom and you are not forced to accept the state doctrine. (Does that echo of Nazi days? The state doctrine? Yes, it does).

I haven’t seen statistics on how many people leave Texas because of our extreme right-wing politics, but I know from personal experience—friends who have thrown their hands up in the air and said, “I’m through. I’m leaving.” Often they are couples of child-bearing age. And new corporations? Again, I don’t know statistics, but I have heard of companies that refuse to relocate here—despite our attractive tax laws and other incentives—because employees with families would not follow along.

I credit Texas’ disastrous reputation to Governor Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and Attorney General Ken Paxton. I’m not sure what fascination these men hold for Texans, except perhaps the habit of voting Republican and a blind, inbred of fear of Democrats that makes it hard to pull any lever, mark any ballot except the red one. Why would you ever vote for a man who puts razor wire in a river to injure and kill people? Or who sent poorly dressed, hungry migrants by bus across the country to a northern city where no provisions have been made for their unannounced arrival? If you live in a small town or rural area, why vote for a man who desperately wants to close the school that is the center of your community? It makes no sense.

But I digress. When I read that post, angry as I am at our state government, I immediately felt defensive, compelled to leap to the defense of Texas. I am not a native Texan, but I have lived here almost sixty years, and my two careers—as an author and as a publisher—have relied heavily on the history and literataure of this state. I feel invested in it, and I’ll be darned if a mean little man like Abbott is going to ruin Texas for me and my family.

There’s so much to treasure about our state, politics aside. We have, I suspect, the most varied landscape in the 50 states. In Texas, you can go from beach to mountains, from the stark, spare country of South Texas to the lush high plains. We have forests and pastures and rolling hills and vast expanses of empty land. Texans value their history—okay, we now pretty much agree much of the Alamo legend is in large part myth, but there’s still valuable history in the basic story. And in Sam Houston’s Runaway Scape and defeat of Santa Anna’s troops at San Jacinto. There’s history in the early cattle drives and the gradual shift from an agrarian to an urban economy in too much of the state. We have a proud and strong literary tradition, with writers who chronicled Texas history and wrote their own versions of it, from J. Frank Dobie and his pals to Larry McMurtry, Cormac McCarthy, and Elmer Kelton. Women writers too—Sarah Bird and Sandra Cisneros come to mind. Dr. Ron Tyler has given us several books documenting important artists of our state. Texas food, once mocked as brown food, can compete with upscale servings across the country. We have James Beard award-winning chefs and upscale restaurants with offerings for the sophisticated palate. We also have Tex-Mex, chili, barbecue, and down-home food.

Enough singing the praises of the state I love. My point is Texas is too wonderful to abandon to the narrow minds of right-wing politics. I am not leaving. Greg Abbott was not always governor and will not always be. I will stay to fight his inhumane policies, joining such groups as Mothers Against Greg Abbot, the Texas Democratic Party, and Beto O’Rourke’s Power to the People and speaking out whenever I feel the need. Texas needs to regain its proud reputation, and I want to help. How about you?                               

 

The virtues of Texas, some book news, and a new word for the day

 

Downtown Fort Worth, taken from a country road about twenty-two miles away.
Photo by Mason Scott

 
Texas has been getting a bad rap lately, thanks to Ken Paxton and his barbaric handling of the case of Kate Cox, the young Dallas mother of two who was pregnant with a fetus that would not live and would endanger her future fertility and possibly her life. Paxton ruled that she had not shown sufficient evidence of danger to her life to warrant an abortion and threatened any hospitals and physicians who performed the procedure. His horrific judgment, which he was in no way qualified to make, was backed up by the Texas Supreme Court. All this is known not only to most Texans but across the country, where Texas is being scorned as the armpit of the world, a place most would never move, etc.

As someone whose whole career has revolved around the history and literature of Texas, I feel compelled to jump to my state’s defense. Yes, I’m a transplant, but I’ve lived here over fifty-five years and feel pretty much at home, have no desire to go elsewhere. The picture above shows just one fascinating aspect of the Texas landscape—the flat open space. But I thought it spoke of Texas as a special place. Texas people are friendly and good, the history is rich, the landscape varied and sometimes spectacular, and the food terrific, whether you want beans and barbecue or a Michelin-rated upscale experience

We have several new high-end restaurants in Fort Worth, from French to Italian to seafood, and yet we treasure our hole-in-the-wall places where you can get the best chicken-fried steak or chili in the world. Our Stockyards National Historic District attracts tourists from all over the world, and it’s not unusual to hear the babble of foreign voices on the brick-paved streets.

What’s not to love about Texas? The politicians, and we’re working on that.

Kate Cox’s tragic circumstances have held much of my attention in the last days, but today a new bookish threat grabbed my mind. It’s called review-bombing. A debut author, first book, a sci-fi novel, scheduled for release next spring, began leaving one-star reviews of competitors on Goodreads, Amazon’s book review web site. Not only did this author trash other debut others, particularly people of color, but in each review, she praised her own forthcoming book. Dumb, dumber, and dumbest. What a giveaway. The guilty author was found out, of course, and her contract with Penguin/Random House cancelled. So her book will not be coming out in the spring. She did apologize, blaming it all on addiction and now declaring she is sober. I’m not sure that’s enough.

Do you check reviews when considering a book? If you do, I’d advise ignoring one-star reviews. They are most often revenge-motivated or written by someone who has not read the book. Some people delight in being negative and destructive. My philosophy is that if I can’t leave at least three stars, I simply don’t review. Why ruin an author’s hopes? On Goodreads daily emails, I’ve noticed one author who gets on a run of reading a particular author’s works—recently, it was Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries—but she almost never gives more than three stars. And I want to scream, “If you don’t like the books any better than that, quit reading them. Choose a new author. Quit damaging this author, though Rex Stout probably won’t suffer much from his posthumous reviews.

Still I wish readers would be a bit more sensitive to the author’s feelings and reputations. If you like a book, say so on Amazon.com or Goodreads.com. A review doesn’t have to be long and deep. Two or three sentences that say, “I liked this book” will thrill most authors. And it doesn’t take that many positive reviews to boost an author’s ratings. If you can’t find much good to say about it, leave it alone. Readers will assess their own and reach their own ratings.

And my new word for the day: elitch, which means ghostly or weird. I read it in a review of a WWI novel titled, The Warm Hands of Ghosts—a very favorable review, by the bye. But I thought it an odd word. It doesn’t even sound like an adjective.

Okay. Lesson over for the day!

In the dark of the night

 

I had forgotten how black dark can be until we lost power about eleven o’clock last night. All evening I heard reports of rain nearby, some of it heavy, but our immediate area seemed dry and clear. Until about ten o’clock when I heard that first clap of thunder and, suddenly, Sophie was under my desk at my feet.

The wind rose, thunder rolled occasionally, and then we got one of those amazing light shows—spectacular to watch. But then one big strike, a loud noise, and the world went black. I was already securely locked in for the night, sitting at my desk with my “go to sleep” glass of wine, my hand on my phone. When I looked straight ahead, I could see a little out the windows, but behind me, deep in the cottage, it was all black, impenetrable.

Pretty soon Christian came out to check on me, so without a light I made it to the patio door and let him in. He put away the meat that was defrosting, fetched my flashlight from the bedroom, and settled on the floor to comfort Sophie who was not as all right as I was. I lit my electric candles, and we had a nice visit, talking mostly about politics. After a while Jordan called to say their beloved Cricket was freaking out and sleeping in her arms. She wanted Christian back in the house.

Sophie and I went to bed, though I slept fitfully. If I didn’t’ mind the dark so much, I minded the heat a lot. It hadn’t occurred to me until Christian and I were talking that the a/c would be off too. I shed blankets and layers, but I was still uncomfortable.

And then suddenly, about three o’clock, power returned and the cottage was ablaze with lights. I turned off the computer and lights, filled Sophie’s water dish, and went gratefully back to bed. At five-thirty, Sophie wanted to go out. At six-thirty, she thought it was time for breakfast. I told her firmly it was too early. At seven-thirty, she insisted, so I gave her first breakfast, let her out, and once more went back to bed with that feeling that I hadn’t had my full sleep. Praise be, we slept until nine o’clock.

But the dark blackness of the night stayed on my mind because I’d been thinking how little most Texans understand about what is going on in our world. They are in the dark.  Start with the Paxton impeachment proceedings: his lawyers keep protesting that he is the people’s choice, they elected him knowing all the accusations against him. Truth is, he won by a slim majority, not the major turnout you would expect for an established Republican officeholder in Texas. And polls have shown most Texans had no idea that he has been under indictment for fraud for seven years, that his own office staff reported him to the FBI for bribery and other irregularities, that he had a notorious extramarital affair. The information has always been public—but apparently Texans didn’t read, didn’t care. Maybe now they do.

In Fort Worth, some millions of federal funding for pandemic recovery has gone unused, so the county commissioners have decided to transfer the funds from encouragement of low income housing and other services to the underserved to boost law enforcement, including increased use of a private prison over a hundred miles away. Among many things wrong with that plan, like the wrongness of private prisons to begin with, is that many families, counselors, and lawyers will find it difficult to travel that far to visit and serve inmates. As for low-income housing, one commissioner brushed it off with slight regret and, “It is what it is.” Doesn’t sound pro-active to me, especially since homelessness is on the rise. But most Texans don’t know this.

And then there’s Clearfork—the upscale shopping/residential/office area on the city’s southwest side. And I do mean upscale. Neiman Marcus, Burberry, Gucci, Johnny Was, Louis Vitton, Tiffany—you get the idea. Restaurants match the shops, and who knows how much those upstairs housing units cost. The City of Fort Worth is getting ready to sink millions into an expansion of Clearfork, including an upscale automobile dealer. Without a nod to the need for low-income housing. But most Fort Worthians, let alone most Texans, don’t realize this.

I have a feeling I’m preaching to the choir here, but I don’t know how much or what else I can do to get Texans to wake up and realize the importance of knowing what’s going on, in depth, in our city, our state, our country. We hear repeatedly that the atmosphere in this country resembles the thirties in Nazi Germany, and I think it terms of public apathy, ignorance, call it what you will, it’s an apt comparison.

Folks, the power’s not going to come on magically. We have already seen drastic controls on voting, on women’s rights over their own bodies, on freedom to love who we want, on what books our children read, what version of history they are taught.

Oops sorry. I got preachy. But I am so appalled by the darkness. The literal darkness didn’t scare me; the metaphorical darkness scares the heebie-jeebies out of me. Please help me spread the word that we must all pay close attention—and not stay silent.

Enjoy this cooler weather. Only in Texas is it cooler in the upper eighties. I love living in free Texas. I hope you do too.

Am I a Texan or a Chicagoan

 

I’ve lived in Texas since the summer of 1965—that’s a whopping fifty-eight years, well over two thirds of my life. That first summer saw the flourishing of the “Born in Texas” movement, and shopping malls, which we frequented then, had kiosks with T-shirts bearing that slogan and others, like, “I wasn’t born in Texas, but I got here as soon as I could.” You could buy certificates that certified that you were a native Texan, although of course it would have been easy to cheat. In a few years, by the time I had children and wanted T-shirts for them, the craze was over.

People in Texas thought I talked funny with my Chicago flat speech, but after a year, when I went home or talked to a relative back home, they all laughed at my southern accent. To this day, my kids say my accent depends on what I’m talking about—If I am, as I frequently have in the past, talking about author Elmer Kelton, one of my heroes, they say I get a cowboy twang.

Much of my career—as an author, as director of the TCU Press—revolved around Texas, and over the years I began to feel like a native Texan, even if it was a bit of a lie. Still folklorist Joyce Roach and I had a dog-and-pony show we took to meetings and other places—once even performing for an elite group of big donors at TCU. Joyce talked about the glories of being a fifth-generation Texan. My talk was titled, “Notes from an outsider.” I knew my place.

Not every book I’ve written has been about Texas, but a high percentage of them have. I’ve been best known for writing about women of the American West—Elizabeth Bacon Custer, Jessie Benton Frémont, cowgirl Lucille Mulhall, and Etta Parker of the Hole in the Wall Gang. But there were lots of Texas titles—a book about Elmer Kelton, books about Texas food from chili to great chefs, and most recently, three mystery series set in Texas. Yes, I claimed my credentials as a Texas writer.

But in the last ten years, a feeling for Chicago—I’m not sure how to describe it, but perhaps affection is a good word—has increasingly taken a place in my thinking. Years ago I wrote a y/a novel, I Wish I Lived at Eleanor Lee’s House, about something that really happened when I was a teen. I was then published by a small Texas press, and the publisher had no market for a Chicago title, so I put it aside. I’ve recently gotten it out and reread it with some interest.

But it was The Gilded Cage, a fat historical about Bertha Honore (Cissy) Palmer, wife of hotelier and robber baron Potter Palmer, that first renewed my interest in Chicago. I loved exploring the complex history of the city in the late nineteenth century, from the Great Fire to the Columbian Exposition, with the Civil War, the Haymarket Riot, Pullmantown, and a myriad of fascinating subjects.

None of that, though, explains why I set a new series of mysteries in Chicago. What may have sparked my more intense identification with the Windy City is a trip there with all four of my children. We toured the neighborhood where I grew up and the University of Chicago where I went to school, gazed at the lake, ate in fine restaurants, and took the historical tour at the Palmer House. I fell in love with the city all over again.

That may be behind the Irene in Chicago Culinary Mysteries though I cannot tell you where the characters came from. They were just there one day: Irene, the domineering, demanding faux French chef who claims a Cordon Bleu background she does not have, and Henny James, her apprentice, who tells the stories in a slightly snarky tone of voice.

Now, suddenly or so it seems to me, there are four Irene mysteries—Saving Irene, Irene in Danger, Finding Florence, and Irene Deep in Texas Trouble. They haven’t set the bestseller lists on fire, but they’ve earned respectable stars on Amazon and enough people have commented that I think someone out there enjoys Irene’s shenanigans.

A couple of months ago, I started a new Irene book—Missing Irene—and then for reasons unknown to me I set it aside, tried to write a bit on a memoir, fiddled and procrastinated and didn’t know what I was doing. Tonight I went back and read what I have of that new manuscript, and guess what? I rather liked it. Maybe I’m getting bolder but it will revolve around a case of incest. I think for the time being I’ll go back to it. I hope you’ll read it one day.

A word about electricity and a lot about book bans

 

I may be the last person in the world you would suspect of doing scientific investigations, but I sort of did today. When I found both my teakettle and my can opener weren’t working, I unplugged them, moved them to another plug—and voila! They worked. Just when I was on the verge of calling the electrician who has worked on my house for years. When I told Christian this, he (much more practical than I), said, “It probably just needs to be reset.” And he did. And tonight they both work in their original spots. I also read the troubleshooting directions for my garbage can and decided what we hadn’t done was to unplug it and leave it for hours. That was less successful. It still doesn’t work. Still, one savors the small victories.

I am overcome tonight with the hate in the world. A lengthy article on a bookseller’s newsletter this morning details an Arkansas law that bans almost every good book I’ve ever read and jeopardizes not only the jobs and income but the freedom of librarians, teachers, and booksellers. Can you spell Nazi? The law, signed by the odious Governor Sarah Huckaby (yes, I used a pejorative adjective) provides that anyone can challenge the ”appropriateness” of a book in public libraries, but it does not define “appropriateness” nor does it provide a standard by which to judge books. Those who support the law say anyone under eighteen should not have access to books that include racism, sexual activity, or LGBTQ topics. They call such books indoctrination. I call such laws suppression of knowledge. Seventeen organizations, including booksellers, librarians, publishers and parents and some international groups, have brought a lawsuit. I wish the Godspeed.

I did not raise my children in a vacuum. I remember when one of my daughters read Flowers in the Attic, about four children struggling to survive as they are hidden in the attic of a mansion. Scary stuff but intriguing to a fourteen-year-old mind. We talked about it. When she moved on to books by Danielle Steele, I did read a couple of them, because I wanted to know what my child was reading. One of her brothers was devoted to the Dungeons and Dragons series and was the kind of a kid who read by flashlight under the covers at night. I never had a complaint about that, except that he was hard to wake in the mornings. None of my four grew up to be a sex maniac, racist, or bigot.

The Arkansas law means booksellers can be liable for displaying “questionable” books but does not define questionable. That means booksellers can display only innocuous titles—cookbooks, maybe?—or they have to forbid children to come into the store. If there was anything my son Jamie loved, it was a trip to the bookstore where he would beg and plead until I bought whatever caught his fancy. And I remember a nephew who at fourteen or so was fascinated by Anne Rice’s vampire fiction. He’s a successful physician today, father of four, a good guy.

Locally, I am not over my disappointment in Mayor Mattie Parker of Fort Worth. The Fort Worth Public Library prepared a big publicity campaign—print materials, etc.—for its annual Mayor’s Summer Reading Program, with a special Pride Badge for youngsters who read one book with an LGBTQ theme. A splinter group—with “Liberty” in its name, of course (such words have become red flags to me)—complained to the mayor and she caved. Gave the library an ultimatum: withdraw the Pride Badge or she would withdraw her endorsement. The library felt it had no choice and withdrew the badge. So wrong. I wished for just a moment there that I were director of the library because I would have, I hope, told the mayor to go fly a kite. And she did this at the beginning of National Pride Month. Bad call, bad timing, Mayor Parker.

Today I read that Texas and Florida (of course) have passed stringent laws that forbid immigrants from certain countries to buy land except under certain circumstances—proof of citizenship or a green card and then only land not close to a military installation, etc. The laws in large part are aimed at Asians and decisions are often made on facial structure. Is this really the land of the free?

There’s a meme on Facebook that says if you have to pass laws punishing certain minority groups to prove your faith or morals, you have no faith or morals to prove. So true.

I cannot fathom people with so much hate and fear in their hearts, but I know that they are a slim minority, and we must all fight back, each of in whatever way we can, to keep them from changing the face of our land, the way we live and raise our children. My moral standard may not be yours—as long as neither of us infringe on each other or commit a crime against society, that’s fine with me. How about you?

No sweet dreams tonight. Dream instead of every good book you want your children or grands to read.

 

Bringing terror to education

 

Yesterday online I saw a news photo of a sheriff, standing in front of a jail, announcing new, hardcore school discipline policies in his Floriday district. He was big, burly, overweight, and standing as though braced for a fight. Behind him, standing in what look like parade rest stances, were a uniformed officer, the school board chair (a man, naturally) and an elderly woman whose role I couldn’t figure out. But they were all scowling. Take a minute and let this register: A sheriff, in front of a jail, was announcing school policy. Why not the school board chair announcing it in a school setting? Talk about intimidation much?

My mind went immediately to a quote I’d seen online earlier that day: “Christianity should sound like, ‘I am deeply committed to deepening my love for others and seeking their best,’ not ‘I am obsessed with how others are not conforming to my personal beliefs, and I must make them do so by any means necessary.”—Rev. Benjamin Cremer. Reverend Cremer is a pastor at a Nazarene church in Colorado.

While Governor DeSantis didn’t actually craft these new disciplinary guidelines, he was certainly behind them. He openly supported the alt-right candidates who have now taken over school boards in many Florida districts. And we all know he supports bullying techniques. The sheriff was not specific about the disciplinary measures, although he promised students it would be their worst nightmare. Good one, buddy--how to encourage learning. Ss to be expected much revolved around bathroom issues and who uses what bathroom. I’m suddenly envisioning scores of kids with urinary tract infections and gastrointestinal problems because they were afraid to go to the bathroom when they needed to. Or even kids who, forced to wait, have classroom accidents. Can you imagine the humiliation?

Several years ago I worked on a writing project about a school for troubled children—it had once been a storied orphanage but had evolved over the years. I was in the superintendent’s office one day when he looked out the window at a group of kids, turned to me and said, “You know what’s wrong with these kids? Nobody every told them they’re okay.” I’ve thought about that a lot—we all need to be told from time to time that we’re okay. And we need to hear it as a message delivered with love.

What schoolkids in Florida are hearing is a message that they are not okay; they are deviant, unworthy, and the message is being delivered with anger and hate. For too many kids, school is going to become a place of terror. There will be dropouts and failures and probably psychological problems. With the current pace of “discipline” and book banning and teacher censorship, Florida will raise at least one generation of undereducated children, many of whom will fail at life.

I did hear today that a judge came down hard on Florida’s attempt to pass the Stop Woke Act forbidding college faculty from teaching about institutionalized racism or any history that might make students feel guilt or anguish over racial matters. The act was tied to faculty review for tenure, which made it clearly a threat. Calling the act dystopian and referring to George Orwell, the judge said that it gave faculty academic freedom only if they expressed the views of the state and did not allow for a robust exchange of views and ideas.

Cheers for that judge, but I fear as long as DeSantis is in power, the judge is a lone voice crying in the wilderness of Florida. Living in Texas, I can’t say much, for I see the same hardline alt-right policies destroying much that I love about the state where I’ve lived for over fifty-five years.

It comes down to who is in charge of education—parents or teachers? I come down hard on the side of trained professionals who understand the long-range effects of education. It’s not about this book or that—it’s about learning to make your own decisions, to read and study wisely and decide what makes sense to you and what doesn’t—and not blindly accepting what someone tells you. And, yes, young minds are malleable and fragile, and we need to encourage them, not stifle with fear. In Florida, however, those ultra-conservative school boards are firing “noncomplicit” teachers and superintendents.

Most days I feel pretty optimistic about our world and our country, but there are days when I despair that common sense will win. The Florida sheriff gives me the willies. Thank what he does to kids!

Welcome visitors

 

Not Rose, but close.

Sophie had a dinner guest tonight—and she was only medium graceful about it. Rosie, a yellow lab twice Sophie’s size and just her same age, was graceful and ladylike and not at all interested in Sophie’s food or her treats. I fed Soph early, in anticipation of the visit, but she hadn’t had her treat or eaten her second helping, which is kibble, when Rosie arrived. I put the kibble out of the way to avoid disagreements. The dogs got along but pretty soon Sophie began her demanding bark—I gave each of them a treat, but Rosie, unfamiliar with that treat, declined it. And Sophie barked until I gave Rosie’s treat to her.

Then she began to bark again, which made conversation difficult. I tried fresh water. I tried everything. Finally, Rosie’s person suggested it was the kibble. I gave Sophie that, she ate and settled down on the floor. At one point, she was lying so close to Rosie I thought they were cuddling.

Rosie’s human is Babette Hale, columnist, publisher, and short story writer. Her collection, A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers won the 2021 best short story award from the Texas Institute of Letters. Babette is also the widow of Leon Hale, longtime columnist for the Houston Post who died just over a year ago at the age of ninety-nine. Hale’s columns, musings on everyday life often down back roads, were legendary in Texas and his fans legion.

Babette and I have known each other a longtime but really bonded after we both sort of retired—and got new pups. I said tonight it was the dogs that brought us together, but she said it was also cooking and writing. And those were the topics tonight—the kind of intellectual discussion none of us get often. Shared interests, shared subjects—such fun. Babette lives in Winedale and was stopping in Fort Worth on her way to Santa Fe (yes, jealous—I wanted to sneak Soph and me into the back seat of her car!).

So what did I serve to someone who says we bonded over cooking? An appetizer of goat cheese with pesto; a crab salad—halfway through the meal I confessed it was Krab, faux crab, really whitefish—she said it tasted more like lobster than crab, and who’s to argue with that?). For dessert, chocolate bon bons from Trader Joe’s—small chocolate covered bites of ice cream and cookie. A good light meal.

As so many people do, Babette had trouble backing out of the driveway. I swear I had the dishes washed before she successfully hit the street. But what a lovely evening.

Otherwise, not a lovely day. Not a bad one, but not lovely. This morning it took me until almost eleven-thirty to read and respond to emails plus read the news of the day and do a quick check for messages on Facebook. I find the news of the Democrats increasing approval—both mid-term candidate and the president—an occasion for cautious encouragement, though I never want us to become over-confident too soon. But I am increasingly appalled at the arrogance and disregard for our country that trump showed in stealing security documents.

I suspect I’m preaching to the choir here, but I find the possibilities of what he may have already done with them, who he may have shared them with, increasingly frightening. It may be the one most blatant case of treason ever in our history, and I am anxious to have him punished to the full extent of the law. We cannot live in peace until that is done. At whatever cost. (If I weren’t a lady, there are several things I would say to Lindsey Graham.)

Locally I am perturbed by what I just found is a new Texas rule: schools must display a banner or whatever that says, “In God We Trust” and displays the American and Texas flags. I love the poster who suggested it be on a background of rainbow colors, since the background isn’t specified. Yay to the Carrollton/Southlake ISD which has rejected the signs (and I thought they were a leader in book banning—got to rethink that.) The power of the alt-right Christian movement scares me more than I can say, and this is just one little ripple.

It is in the seventies tonight, and my patio door is open. Poor Rosie couldn’t figure out how to go in and out of the flexible screen door, no matter how often we showed her. As Babette asked tonight, “Why is it so humid if we’re in the midst of a drought?” At any rate, I am enjoying the cooler temperatures, sorry that the rain has skirted all around us.

Time for all good dogs and the rest of us to be asleep. Sweet dreams. I bet Sophie is dreaming of food and treats.

Taking care of each other

 

My amaryllis twenty-four hours later
It gives me a lot of hope

If we merge mercy

With might, and

Might with right, then love

Becomes legendary.

  Amanda Gorman

Dumbstruck, still and forever, by the amount of hate in this world. Hate for people who are different--race, sexual orientation, religion, politics. The counter to hate, to me, is empathy. Instead of railing about illegal immigrants (someone once said no human being should ever be called illegal—call them undocumented if you must), why not think about that woman who walked three thousand miles carrying her possessions—and her young child—on her back? What had happened to her, her family? What made her so desperate? What did she hope to find? My mom was fond of the old saying, “Never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.” (Only she used a Native American version that substituted moccasins for shoes.)

I read recently of a man who had been a participant in some capacity at the Nuremburg trials of the Nazi war criminals. He said that after careful study he had concluded that the greatest definition of evil was lack of empathy. Makes sense to me, and I am sad that I see that trait all around us these days.

Here’s the dictionary definition: empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Synonyms are: sympathy, pity, feeling, concern, considerateness, consideration, tenderness, tender-heartedness, kindness, kind-heartedness, sensitivity, insight, fellow feeling, brotherly love, neighborliness, decency · humanity · . Gentle words, aren’t they?

Practicing empathy is not easy. I am the first to admit that I too often jump the gun, figuring I know the situation. Not only that, but I am usually quite sure my point of view is the right one. I am trying to teach myself to slow down, find out everything about the situation, listen to the other point of view. Yesterday I talked to ATT five times, three of them to the mechanized voice; Today the Wi-Fi stopped working again, and I called. But I know the ropes now and how to get a real person, and when I did I made it a point to be as nice as I could. Yes, I told him my frustration, but not in accusatory tones. And I asked where he lived, thanked him for his attention. I got what I want: a new router is one the way.

Far too many times, when I try to post what I hope is reason about some of what’s going on in Texas—book banning, voter suppression, that damn wall—I get responses that tell me to go somewhere else, get out of Texas. I want to shout, “I may not be native, but I’ve been here fifty-five years, my family, my career, and my life are here. I’m not leaving.” But the angry voices on Facebook don’t care. They have no empathy.

Right now I think the elected officials who run our country—and most definitely our state—could practice a lot of empathy instead of extreme partisan politics. I think of Tip O’Neill who was Speaker of the House in the late Seventies and early Eighties. He was known for reaching across the aisle, and there was a spirit of collegiality in the House. President Biden, when he was a senator, was also known for collegiality. There is none of that today. Votes are almost strictly along partisan lines, with it seems to me, little thought about their effect on our citizens, and a lot of though about the politicians’ careers.

Take Gov. Abbott’s deployment of troops to “secure” the border. They have had their lives disrupted—businesses closed, educations interrupted, families torn apart, while they sit in poorly equipped camps, bored, never seeing a migrant. But Gov. Abbott is making the former guy and their base happy. What’s a few discontent soldiers? What they are is human beings with lives and hopes and families and fears, not pawns in a game.

If I got a little preachy, I apologize, but empathy—the lack of it, the need for it, has been on my mind for a while. And it’s a hard subject to write about. Years ago, I titled my first novel, “A Year with no Summer,” but the New York publisher changed it to “After Pa Was Shot” because year and summer are intangibles. So is empathy, but we can make it real in our daily lives.

A new book coming

 

A quick note from my publisher, the TwoDot imprint of Globe Pequot, sent me checking listings for my forthcoming nonfiction title, The Most Land, the Best Cattle: the Waggoners of Texas, due out October 1. To my joy, it is available for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Bookshop.org, and IndieBound. Probably others, but I did not check beyond these.

The Waggoners have long fascinated me, since my first encounter with the late Electra Waggoner Biggs, a sculptor of some note, in the early 1980s. She was the third generation of Waggoners to live on that vast expanse of land in North Texas—the largest ranch under one fence. Six counties, over 520,000 acres. But more than a story of land and cattle, this is a story of people—some of them admirable, others not so much so, several of them flamboyant and well-known for their excesses, from marriages to famous houses.

Founded in the mid-nineteenth century by Dan Waggoner, a strong stalwart man who personified the stereotype of white settlers who moved ever farther west into Indian lands, he became the patriarch of a family of men who loved horses and cattle, and women who mostly loved money and celebrity. Eventually the family split into factions, and then there was trouble—and lots of lawsuits. The Waggoners may hold the record for litigious families.

Today, for the first time in over 165 years, no Waggoner lives on the land. It has been sold to Stan Kroenke, a billionaire businessman who owns large ranches and sports teams. Change is in the air. If you’re a sentimentalist, you may not see it as progress.

What this book is not: a scholarly study of ranching. It’s more a human story of men, women, horses, and cattle. Red Steagall put it best in his blurb, for which I am ever in his debt: ""The majesty and intrigue of a ranch is of course invested in the land and livestock. But the true soul of a ranching property rests with the humans involved, both staff and owners.  Judy Alter has done a magnificent job of explaining and describing the amazing family of the world famous Waggoner Ranch, all under one fence."

As I work at my desk, I have a huge window immediately to my right. This morning I looked out and saw the mama cardinal on the fence, surveying as though she were queen of all she saw. Well, she is—she and her partner are our resident cardinal family, though by now they’ve raised their family for the year. I watched her, fascinated, and then moved my gaze to the vine on the fence. The seeds were given to me as grape hyacinth, but Christian went online and doesn’t think that’s what they are. Whatever they are, they are suddenly branching out with long tendrils of pale pink blooms. The flowers and the cardinal really made me happy. Unusual, too, for Texas to be this green in late July. I’m loving it. Aren’t you?

A collection of bizarre news

 

North Texas is gradually drying out, though for a bit this afternoon it looked like we might get dumped on again. Now, with rain behind us, we’re in that season when weather forecasters talk about the heat index. When I was a kid, they simply told you what the temperature was. Nobody thought about heat index. You knew it was hotter in the sun, cooler in the shade—what more did you need to know? I do not want to be told it feels like 107—if it’s not really 107, don’t go there. Tell me it’s 91 and humid. I can handle that. Unfortunately, the heat index is supposed to be high for the next several days. I am going to ignore it.

But no rain until maybe Friday. I don’t know if that’s true in England or not, but did you read that the ark is dry-docked in Ipswich, England? It seems that British marine authorities are not sure it’s seaworthy and won’t let it depart. The ark is a 21,000+ square foot “replica” structure built on a flat-boat that houses a Biblical museum—I’m not sure what kind of artifacts it holds but I am almost willing to bet they aren’t genuine from the time of Noah’s Ark. In fact, the owner, appaarently a man from Ipswich, admitted that he had live animals on board but they proved too difficult, and he settled for carved imitations.  

The ark has no power of its own and must be towed wherever it goes. Before landing at Ipswich, it had visited the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Norway. Once in England, it began to accumulate detention fines, etc., so that now moving it will be an expensive proposition, unless some compromise is reached. The owner(s) want to tow it back to the Netherlands but are held up by paperwork requirements and the need for fire equipment, life jackets, small boats, etc.

Where is Noah when you need him?

And speaking of weather-related phenomena, there’s always last winter’s extreme snowmageddon. Governor Abbott has assured us Texans that the legislature took all necessary steps to ensure that the power grid was ready for any emergency, and we would never again have the catastrophe we had. Comforting—until ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) today urged Texans to willingly turn off some power to preserve the grid, which is approaching a breaking point because of high use during this hot weather. Wait. A. Minute! What happened to that legislative fix?

The only bright spot I see in this is that now when Jordan complains that my cottage is too hot and musty and surely, it’s not good for me, I can tell her I’m being patriotic and protecting the grid.

Thanks to Avis Herndon for the new word for today. It’s drachenfutter, which is straight from the German. The literal translation is dragon fodder. Today, it means a gift given to someone who is angry with you in an attempt to soften that anger—in other words a peace offering. It occurs to me I should be keeping a list of these new words; otherwise, they will slip from my vocabulary, and I’ll never use them. Then again, I doubt few of us will slip drachenfutter into our daily conversation—so much easier to say peace offering. I have enough trouble with schadenfreude, which is fairly common in use—to take pleasure is someone else’s pain or difficulty. And then there’s doppelganger—look alike, or “double walker.” We owe the Germans a lot of language debts.

So gute Nachtschlaf eng. Sleep tight, sweet dreams.

Saturday just feels different

Dinner tonight - cheese enchiladas

If you’re quarantining, as my family and I, Saturday’s no different than any other day. Sunday, for us, stands out in the week because we attend virtual church service and we try always to have a special Sunday dinner as a family. But Saturday? No. You get up, do whatever it is you do during these days, eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, follow your routine. As I’ve confessed more than once, I am a creature of routine, and I do best when I have a set pattern for my days.

Monday through Friday that works just fine. My day includes work, reading, internet activity—yes, I follow social media, usually at the same time each day. But Saturday just feels different. On Saturday, email slows down (I get an extraordinary number a day) and social media isn’t as active. You can’t take care of business details effectively, so I have two follow-ups on my desk for Monday morning. Not as much takes up my time, so this morning, I browsed through the New York Times Cooking Community Facebook page--twice, something I rarely do. Even so I started on my manuscript and wrote my thousand words well before lunch—usually it’s 12:30 before I get there.

No rule says quit at a thousand words and many days I go over, having done as much as 1700 in one day. But today at a precise 1,014 I ended a scene and thought it best to do some thinking and planning before going on. So there I was, not yet noon, and I was through work for the day. I do have a couple of projects that call me, but I had effectively met my goal for today.

My day got a lot more interesting late this afternoon. Good friend Jean came for a distanced happy hour—we laughed about quarantine, but she has been so isolated that she has not had to put gas in her car for over two months. We talked of many things—history and houses—and it was good to take a break from riots and looting and conspiracies and health crises. As our country is in a mess on many fronts, it amazes me that daily life goes on so pleasantly.

Jordan was our chef tonight, and we had chicken/cream cheese enchiladas—a recipe I’d clipped some time ago because of her love of all things with cream cheese. The enchiladas were rich and delicious, and the recipe madelots—she says we have 300 left. She made a huge salad with blue cheese dressing, and we feasted.

So another Saturday down. I just counted. This is twelfth Saturday I’ve spent in quarantine. No wonder I’m tired of them. It feels good to be opening up just a tiny bit from quarantine—we are only seeing people, no more than two at a time, who we know have been as careful about quarantine as we have. Still, it’s a bit scary since asymptomatic people can spread the virus. I read today that twenty-four states have uncontrolled outbreaks of COVID-19, and Texas leads the list. To me, it’s due to two things: a lack of strong national leadership and a large section of the populace who is non-compliant. I wonder what outbreaks there will be after this weekend of protests.

Be safe out there, folks. It’s still scary.

Staying safe

Snow? Tornadoes? Unseasonable warm temperatures? A sudden freeze? Take your pick—it’s Texas. One hardly knows how to dress for the weather, let along take safety precautions. But friends and I had a sort of negative safety lesson last night.

Five of us were enjoying glasses of wine when the drizzle intensified into a good steady rain, thunder boomed, and lightning flashed. I assured everyone that the cottage is sturdy and added that I love a good storm. All was peaceful.

Until my alarm system began to beep. The youngest among us, a college student, went into the hallway, studied the control box, but apparently came to no conclusions. The system beeped again—so I went into the hallway, saw that it was warning us of a tornado watch, which is of course more serious than a warning. I punched the button that said, “Mark as read,” and went back to join the group.

It beeped again, I got up again, reassured the thing that I had read it and knew that we were in imminent danger. But it wasn’t reassured and kept beeping. Now I don’t mean to play the pity card, but each time I had to go look at it, I had to get up from my walker, flip it around so I could actually use it as a walker, and navigate the threshold between living area and hall. It was, to put it mildly, a nuisance.

My guests began to leave, and I truly was afraid I’d be left alone to deal with that balky alarm system the whole evening. By then it was raining hard, so as the first two left, the door was open several minutes while they retrieved umbrellas and moaned about ruining their shoes. The alarm system went bananas, but I didn’t think it was urgent.

Until the gentle but annoying beeping turned into a shrill siren sound. Somehow in all my fiddling I’d reset the alarm and now it thought my departing guests were people with evil intentions breaking in to do me bodily harm and steal my worldly goods. I didn’t think to use my handy bedside remote control, so there I stood at the main control panel, trying to punch in the code with my too-fat fingers. I kept getting an error message, which flustered me and made it even hard to punch in the code. The remaining guests sat on the couch holding their hands over their ears. Finally I was able to turn it off, and quiet descended. It was wonderful.

As I drifted off last night, I prayed that the alarm would stay quiet all night, and it did. This morning, the cottage was chilly—31 degrees outside—and after I settled at my desk with a cup of tea, I saw snowflakes drifting down. They melted on impact, of course, but it was nice to see seasonable snow in January after the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been having. The world was that dull gray-blue that snow brings, and I thought that was just fine. I’d settle myself for an inside day, as cozy as I can make the cottage.

And then the sun came out, as though it were a fine spring day.

A soliloquy on winter mornings

Winter, for me, somehow seems most heartless in the mornings. Growing up in Chicago, winter mornings were cold with deep snow. When I was quite young, I didn’t think much about cold mornings but anticipated going sledding. We lived in a park with a small hill that was just right for a five- or six=year-old to sled.  By the time the neighbor children and I reached ten or eleven, we were bored with the hill’s smallness.

My mom used to save statistics she found in the newspaper about how much soot fell per square foot in Chicago during the winter. I was young long enough ago that many households still used coal for heat. We did at least until I was in my teens, and my dad would get up extra early to light the furnace and shovel coal. And snow never stayed white for long—all that burning coal turned it a dirty gray.

In Missouri, where I was in graduate school in the small town of Kirksville,  winter mornings were even worse. Everyone in that town burned coal, and I remember waking up and looking out the window and wishing just once I could see something over than that vast expanse of gray snow.

I think I found the kind of winter mornings I dreamt of in Santa Fe when the children, as teens and older, and I would go for Christmas. Eventually those became ski vacations, though I never went near the slopes—couldn’t bear the thought of the ski lift nor of standing on top of a mountain and plunging down it. But the snow was clean and deep, and the air was that crisp cold.

By contrast, winter mornings in Texas should be easy, but I have let myself become spoiled. I have pushed those extreme cold memories so far back that I moan and groan on mornings like we had today. Thirty-seven and wet, dismal, damp, bone-chilling. Today, it set the mood for a stay-at-home day, and I cancelled plans to go to a breakfast meeting. Of course by noon, things changed, and the sun came out, though it’s been cold all day. But we didn’t get the snow that had been promised—and I am just as glad.

When my children were little, we had a beloved housekeeper who used to predict cheerfully that it would “fair off,” and sure enough today, it faired off enough that I felt guilty about not doing my errands. But I’ll do them tomorrow when it’s supposed to be warmer.

Even Sophie with her thick curly coat doesn’t like the cold. Tonight she doesn’t want to go outside, though I have tried to explain  that she needs to go pee now, because we aren’t going at three in the morning. She is curled up in a chair, regarding me with baleful eyes. I’ll have to resort to bribery with a piece of cheese.

I’ve been feeling sorry for myself even before the weather turned, because I’ve been fighting off a cold. A couple of nights ago I couldn’t sleep because a scratchiness in my throat kept making me cough. It turned briefly into a sore throat, then just a tightness in my throat, and tonight I am left with just an annoying cough. Wish I knew what I did with that abundant supply of cough drops I used to have.

Jordan and I had a lunch fiasco which didn’t brighten the day. I opened one of those boxes of tomato soup from Trader Joe’s. It turned out that the foil covering was punctured before I opened it, and I had stored the soup in the pantry, not the refrigerator, We didn’t figure all this out until I’d taken several spoons full and found it quite good. But discussion led us to figure out that neither of us opened it, and that was a bad thing. Jordan refused to eat it, and I threw out mine, hers, and the remainder. I hate to waste food!

Sophie has just gone outside and quickly come back in, and Jacob has brought me some cough drops. All is well with the world—I hope it is in your world too.

Texas’ changeable weather, inflexible politics

You know that old saying—“If you don’t like the weather in Texas, wait a minute.” It’s proving true this week. Yesterday was bitter cold and gray, with sudden gusts of really cold wind. Not worth going out in, except that I went out for lunch and had a hearty Frito pie. But mostly I cowered in my cottage, a sweater over my shoulder, a prayer shawl over my knees—suddenly an old lady.

The trees are budding out. Indeed some are in bloom, and I worry about frost killing the blossoms. When friend Mary came for happy hour tonight, she brought a lovely bouquet of daffodils and hyacinth from her garden--she was afraid they wouldn't survive the frost and so picked them. They're a joy for me, but now she won't get to enjoy them in her garden for a longer stretch of time.

My Canadian daughter blew in for a glass of wine, complaining vociferously about the cold. When I said she of all people should be used to it, she said, “I don’t do that anymore.” When Sophie wanted to go out, I left the door open a crack so she could come back in. Sue closed it tight, saying, “I’m so cold.” Sophie stood outside the door and looked puzzled, but it’s a quirk of her personality that if you open the door and urge her to come in, she looks at you like “Really?” Now if you urge her with a piece of cheese in your hand, it’s an entirely different matter. “She’s spoiled rotten,” Sue declared, as though that was news to either of us.

Today was an improvement of sorts in the weather—deceptive bright sunshine and air that did warm up but is rapidly cooling now that the sun is disappearing. By Saturday the temperature will be in the seventies, though it will drop ten degrees or so the next week. And can you believe that daylight saving is already coming back this weekend? I am one of those who would welcome year-round daylight savings, so I’m happy about that. But I always am fearful I will set the clocks the wrong way, and I keep saying to myself, “Spring forward, Fall back.” Hope I’m right.

My lunch plan for today cancelled, and I stayed home to eat delicious leftovers—a Greek potato and chicken dish with lots of lemon and oregano. One of those dishes that is better the second or third day. Tonight: a big old baked potato. Mary has already come and gone for our Tuesday happy hour, rushing off to the TCU women’s basketball game.

Texas weather may be changeable, but Texas politics are all too predictable. I am discouraged to learn that fifty-seven legislators are backing a draconian bill that would outlaw therapeutic abortion after six weeks—before most women even know they’re pregnant. And of those fifty-seven legislators, fifty-four are men who cannot possibly understand the complexities of pregnancy, the heartbreak of a fetus that will not survive outside the womb. It’s an obvious conclusion to me that decisions about difficult pregnancies need to be between a woman and her doctor, not dictated by a bunch of men in suits.

A thread about this, on my wall, brought an eloquent response from author Clay Reynolds, with a good discussion of the varying beliefs about when life begins. Read it if you can find it.

The cling-to-the-past politics of Texas sadden me. I hope we can elect officials and legislators with a more compassionate and humane approach in 2020. Meantime, stay warm—cold again tonight.

Another Dark Day for Dallas

July 8, 2016

Dallas has had dark days. November 22,1963 stands out as the darkest, the day President Kennedy was assassinated. The negative reputation earned that day stayed with Dallas for years. I remember when I first moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, we drove to Dallas to look at the assassination site. Just the drive made me so nervous I thought my heart would beat out of my chest. Fifty years later, I go by it without a thought, which is a pity.

Now Dallas has another blot on its history—last night’s shooting that killed five and wounded seven, most of them law officers. So much has been said about it that I hesitate to add to the mass. Many people have asked an unanswered question—why Dallas? Some suggest it’s the racist divisiveness fostered by Texas’ extremely conservative state politicians. Other suggest it’s because Dallas has so many underprivileged, angry people with access to guns. (One protestor last night was carrying an AR-15 slung over his back—he supposedly came in peace but one wonders.) And then there are those who blame the racist hate-mongering of President Obama. Pardon me? I must have missed that. I find the president one who embraces all people and stresses the need for unity, not division.

So why Dallas? I suspect it was probably happenstance. The angry young man who was eventually killed in a parking garage could easily have been in Chicago, Seattle, Cleveland or Philadelphia. He just happened to be in Dallas. On the other hand I read somewhere that this was a plot hatched some time ago, waiting for an opportune moment to happen. That would certainly make it more sinister, if such is possible.

As a resident of Fort Worth, some 35 miles to the west, I’m not fond of Dallas. The pace is too hectic, the drivers are rude—though I have to add that the restaurants are really good. My feelings are not based on the traditional rivalry between the two cities (Dallas is where the East peters out; Fort Worth is where the West begins). But a recent poll showed Dallas to be one of the rudest cities, while Fort Worth is one of the friendliest. In Fort Worth, though, we feel the impact of events in Dallas and perhaps none more than today.

We tell ourselves that would never happen in Fort Worth, but that’s head-in-the-sand denial. It could as easily have been an angry young man here. We have a peaceful protest planned for Sunday, and I pray it remains peaceful.

Last weekend, speaking on the occasion of the death of holocaust survivor and activist Elie Wiesel, President Obama delivered a message that is particularly meaningful today: He raised his voice, not just against anti-Semitism, but against hatred, bigotry and intolerance in all its forms. He implored each of us, as nations and as human beings, to do the same, to see ourselves in each other and to make real that pledge of ‘never again.’

It’s a message we all need to take to heart today.