Smoky Visit With The Retired Elsie Hotpepper

Til yesterday I had not had a chance to meet up with Elsie Hotpepper since she retired from her decades long career at a job the details of which Hotpepper has always refused to reveal.

Undercover government employee of some sort has long been the Elsie Hotpepper job speculation of many.

The week Elsie Hotpepper retired she left Texas, via Galveston, on a one way cruise through the Panama Canal, followed by a month in Mazatlan before flying back to Texas.

Hence the reason why Elsie Hotpepper is looking more sun tanned than is her norm in the selfie she took for this blog post.

Meeting up with Elsie for the first time in over a year I felt obligated to ask if she had any plans to try to give up on her three plus packs a day Camel unfiltered cigarettes habit. That puff of smoke in my face, you see above, was Hotpepper's answer to that perfectly legitimate query.

I asked Elsie what she has planned for her retirement years. Another run for political office? Mayor? Congress? Governor?

The answer was a resounding NO.

Elsie says her main activity is going to be being an even more active supporter of the Bucky Elementary Grade School from which Elsie graduated decades ago, way back in the last century.

Around the turn of this century Elsie Hotpepper was made an honorary lifelong Bucky Buckaroo after someone made note of the fact that Elsie Hotpepper, in all the years since she graduated, had never missed a single Bucky Buckaroo football homecoming parade, football game or post game dance. And that Elsie Hotpepper was an ardent supporter of just about all Bucky Elementary activities.

Now you who did not grow up in Texas, or the South, might think it unusual that someone would pay any attention to the grade school from whence they graduated. Well, the thing is, for many in Texas, and the South, graduating grade school was their last bout of higher learning, stopping their school years at 8th grade, never venturing on to high school.

Later generations, for the most part, in Texas, and the South, do go on to high school, with many managing to graduate and go to college, leaving their high school and grade school years in their distant past.

I thought maybe, now that she has the time to do so, Elsie Hotpepper might get her GED high school equivalency certificate. So I asked if that was something she might think of doing.

Again the answer was a resounding NO. Along with verbiage which sounded like Elsie Hotpepper was channeling Pink Floyd, telling me she did not need no education, did not need no thought control.

I thought maybe Elsie's use of double negatives indicated otherwise, but what do I know?