With Mom & Dad At Riscky's BBQ In The Stockyards Watching The Fort Worth Herd

I came upon that which you see above a couple days ago whilst looking at webpages I'd not looked at in a long time. That is my mom, on the right, looking at my dad, on the left, trying to take a picture of the Fort Worth Herd ambling their way through the Fort Worth Stockyards.

Our herd viewing vantage point was from the outdoor patio at Riscky's BBQ where we were having the all you can eat ribs along with other Texas delicacies.

The webpage on which my mom and dad appear is titled FORT WORTH HERD IN THE STOCKYARDS. On that webpage there is a link to another webpage, with that one titled FORT WORTH STOCKYARDS VIDEO on which, if I remember right, if you watch the video, and pay close attention, you may see Elsie Hotpepper.

The above photo was taken during mom and dad's first visit to visit me in Texas. I believe this was in late October or early November. I know the year was 2001, shortly after 9/11.

Also anchoring the time frame in my memory is I remember driving mom and dad south on I-820 when something came up in the conversation which had me picking up my phone and calling my sister's number in Arizona.

My favorite nephew Jeremy answered.

Jeremy was 14 or 15 at that point in time. Jeremy was home alone and being a bit nervous. It was from Jeremy we learned that America had begun its bombing of the Al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan. This was Jeremy's first experience where he was old enough to understand what was happening when America was starting up one of its ubiquitous wars, hence the being a bit nervous.

Seems like only yesterday, but that phone call to Jeremy took place almost 14 years ago.

The last time mom and dad visited me in Texas was in January of 2009. On their first visit, mom could still see. On the last visit mom's macular degeneration had rendered seeing very problematic.

I called mom and dad on Saturday and learned my dad is about to get a pacemaker installed. I don't think mom and dad will be taking any more roadtrips to Texas. I probably should be taking myself on a roadtrip to Arizona....

The Afternoon View From Miss Puerto Rico's Thinking About Learning The Afghan Language Pashto & Turkey Soup

You are looking at the late Wednesday afternoon view from Miss Puerto Rico's balcony, looking north,.

I was over at Miss Puerto Rico's to deliver a pot of turkey soup and to check out what was needed to hang her new big TV.

Today I did not go on my regular daily salubrious aerobic walk in the noon time frame because of a doctor's appointment in Hurst.

Sometime around 4 I left my abode to head to Quanah Parker Park and Town Talk. As I began driving I called Miss C. McP. I've been trying to get Miss C. McP on the phone for weeks. Today I succeeded.

Miss C McP talked to me all the way to Quanah Parker Park and my hour walk in Quanah Parker Park and then on to Town Talk when I terminated the talking.

There was a surprising number of people walking in Quanah Parker Park today. Methinks the park improvements have been a good thing.

Back to Miss C. McP. She was exiled, along with her family, to Oklahoma, the same month I was exiled to Texas. In 2008, Miss C McP and family moved back to the Skagit Valley in Washington, thus ending their Oklahoma exile.

The first time I went up to visit the McP's in Ada, Oklahoma, their little girl was 12. Their oldest boy was 17 and a senior in high school. Now the little girl has graduated from the University of Washington, with some sort of Oceanography degree and is working for NOAA on a research ship in the Atlantic.

Miss McP's oldest son went to the University of Oklahoma, where he got married. Then joined the army, served 2 or 3 tours in Iraq, is now back in the states in training to be a Delta Special Forces guy, or something like that, part of which is learning the Afghan language, Pashto, which he apparently has become fluent in.

And Miss McP's oldest now has 4 kids.

All of this made me feel old. And that I have been in Texas a long time.

Sleepwalking In Texas While Driving In Afghanistan With Betty Jo Bouvier

We are looking out at the morning of the 3rd Friday of the last month of 2010. Only 14 days to go til the end of this current holiday season's excessive joy.

I had a rough night of nightmares last night. The nightmares had way too much action going on.

I think there may have been some sleepwalking involved.

Because one of my pillows was outside this morning, sitting on a table on the patio. I did not know this til I looked out the window to take the picture you see here and saw the pillow.

I do remember one of my nightmares.

Betty Jo Bouvier, the Wild Woman of Woolley, and I were on The Amazing Race. The task was to drive ourselves from Kandahar, Afghanistan to Kabul. We were provided with AK-47s in case we ran into any Taliban. It was a nervewracking drive to Kabul, with Betty Jo complaining all the way, blaming me for getting her stuck on this ridiculous race.

I woke up exhausted.

I have no idea what I am doing today, except for being absolutely certain there will be no driving in Afghanistan.

Texas Travesty George W. Bush & Other Things Making Me Cranky

Time passes, fresh trauma causes older trauma to fade.

A book I recently read was setting the tone at the start of a chapter, reminding me of something that had faded from memory, what with so much fresh trauma.

This is what I read...

"Front page articles covered campaigning by George W. Bush and Al Gore for the presidential election coming in November 2000.

Some readers worried about more prosaic announcements. The average price of gasoline had leaped to $1.64 per gallon. In other financial news, President Clinton announced that the government's anticipated budget surplus would exceed projections by almost $2 trillion over the next decade-a cornucopia of cash that would make social programs achievable. GOP presidential nominee George W. Bush said the estimates validated his claim that there would be plenty of room in the federal budget for his ambitious plans to cut taxes and still have money for other priorities."

We got George W. Bush as president, with Al Gore having received a couple million more votes than Bush. Clinton had fixed the chronic budget deficit problem. With surpluses in the $trillions projected.

I don't think it made any difference who'd become president as to the horror that happened on 9/11/2001. I do think Al Gore would have led America in a direction different than Bush did, post 9/11.

A couple days ago I saw a legless Vet riding an electric wheel chair device. Were his legs lost in Iraq? Or was it Afghanistan?

I'm pretty much 100% sure had Al Gore become president America would not have started its first pre-emptive war. A wiser president likely would have simply beefed up America's presence in Kuwait and waited out Saddam and his intransigence over Iraq's alleged, now known not to have existed, weapons of mass destruction.

How many billions of dollars have been lost in Iraq? How many lives?

As for Afghanistan, once Al Qaeda had been identified as the 9/11 perps, with their training camps being in Afghanistan, if I had been the president I would have launched a massive attack on the Al Qaeda camps as soon as possible. From the air. No ground troops. No takeover of Afghanistan.

How many billions of dollars have been lost in Afghanistan? How many lives?

What would Al Gore have done differently I can't help but wonder? Would he have put a different perspective on the barbaric, primitive attack than had Bush? Would a President Gore have led the battle against terrorism differently? With a guiding principal being not letting the terrorists cause America to over react in fear and anger.

The Al Qaeda attacks killed almost 3,000 on 9/11. More than that number of Americans have died in the 2 unnecessary wars since 9/11. How many soldiers have been seriously injured? The number is in the thousands.

I believe the War on Terror was basically won on 9/11 when The People onboard Flight 93 fought back and caused the plane to crash in Pennsylvania, rather than its target in Washington, D.C.

Since 9/11 there have been other instances where The People have thwarted a terrorist.

I think what we go through to get on a plane now is ridiculous. We've let the threat of terrorists alter our freedom, way too much. There has to be less intrusive ways to determine if a person poses a threat.

Had Al Gore become President, instead of George W., would we now be seeing those Clinton surpluses, rather than the humongous deficits? Would there have been a financial meltdown? Would the world economy have plummeted to the worst recession since the Great Depression?

I don't know.

What I do know is seeing that legless Veteran yesterday made me cranky.

Hearing CNN or Fox or whatever cable news I had the TV on, trumpeting that, after the break, the story of a soldier who lost all his limbs. I turned off the TV. I don't know which of the unnecessary wars the soldiers limbs were lost in. But, I do know, that this did not need to happen to that soldier, and would not have, had America not been misled by someone who I really think never should have been President of the United States.

A travesty we are still trying to recover from.