Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

I'm sick.  

But we've had a great holiday weekend anyway.  I think I'll live.  Our friends from Texas said when they got here and found out I had a cold, "You should have called us and told us not to come.  You should have let us know because we told you if you got sick to let us know!"

To which I replied, "What you said was 'if either of you has to go to an ER or into ICU let us know and we won't come'," giving me a hard time about my recent hospitalization while on vacation.  Well, neither one of us had to do that, so I didn't call.  Besides - I wanted them to come!!

I've been managing with lots of kleenexes.  (Brand name there and I'm sure I should capitalize the word and show the trademark symbol, but won't.)  And we had a great time.  Although they spoiled the party by leaving too soon this morning.  Going to stop on the way home to visit another old friend.

Well . . . our traditional Thanksgiving dinner of Tom's award winning baby back ribs rubbed liberally with his dry rub and slathered and servied with the secret award winning BBQ sauce, baked beans, corn on the cob and homemade coleslaw was a huge success.  Marty graciously made the coleslaw dressing from memory and it  was a big success. as well.  Bill thought the ribs were by far the meatiest, tenderest best smoked ribs he's ever eaten.  Five stars from he and Marty, the two judges, for the meal so I'd say we scored.

Y'all just plain ol' missed out, I'm tellin' ya.  Boy it was good.  Even with my somewhat diminished sense of smell and taste it was still finger lickin' good.

After that mouth watering lunch we drove over to the Mississippi gulf coast to show them the Katrina devastation.  As often as we go over there it is always still really chilling to see.  The mind continues to be incapable of comprehending the loss.   

We spent the rest of the evening visiting, catching up on old classmates, watching football and watching a movie on our new big HDTV.  Tom finally has his movie theater at home, I think, after literally growing up living in the back of a movie theater (and drive in, too.  See "Living At The Movies").  All we need now are the red velvet curtains on the windows and walls, the luxury recliner seats and the pop corn machine.  Of course we did eat gourmet pop corn.  That was our dessert a few hours after our meal.  First class with us all the way, I'm tellin' ya.

Yesterday we spent most of the day in New Orleans.  First we ate seafood at River Shack on the Mississippi River road and the rest of the afternoon we walked around the French Quarter going into little shops of all kinds, but mainly art galleries.  Bill is a professional artist so we learned a lot from him about paintings and different kinds of art.  It was perfect sight seeing weather - about 70 degrees, warm in the sun, cool in the shade.  We drank daiquiris and laughed a lot.  It was a perfect day.

We came home to rest a bit and then headed out again to Mandeville to the famed (around here, anyway) Ruby's Roadhouse to listen to fantastic Louisiana Blues by Tab Benoit (Ben-wah) and his band.  He is an extraordinarily gifted young man on the guitar from Houma, Louisiana down in the bayous below New Orleans.  He burned and blazed through his show on his guitar that looks as if it is a pair of well worn shoes.  He's worn the finish off of it yet plays it still.  It's his constant companion.

In between having fun looking at art and enjoying art in the form of fantastic blues music talk came easy.  We enjoyed each other's company and the presence of each other after so many years of knowing each other. 

I met both Bill & Marty when I was 10 years old when we moved back to Texas and I entered 4th grade there in the middle of the fall semester.  Llife was simple back then, black and white, honed in the steely determination of the cotton farmers who farmed the verdant land of the lower panhandle of Texas.  It was a good life.

Marty lived in town, but Bill and I were out on farms and rode the same trusty old school bus together from 10 years on.  We were bus companions and class companions as well.  We wore our friendship as comfortably as an aged handkerchief folded lovingly in our pocket.  Friendship was born and grew out of the shared life experiences in childhood.  We were molded and modeled by our parents, our town, our very existence on the South Plains of the panhandle of Texas.

Life was good.  We didn't know it at the time, but it was as good as it can get.  Friendships were forged in fields of crops grown by our parents and harvested to give us sustenance for daily living.   Life on and from the land. 

Those are days gone by for most people in this country and it is a shame.  We must go back to the land to fully recognize our place in this universe.  God is greater than man.  The land's bounty is won by months of daily toil and God's providence in the rain and sun.  When harvest comes it is truly a time of thanksgiving.

Thus I think of those days these Thanksgiving holiday as I've spent them with long ago friends who share a common experience and view of life.  Our lives since have been molded by the children we were then.  And we are thankful, still.

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