A Sunday Walk With The Village Creek Indian Ghosts Coming Across Evidence Of A Gun Battle

Bullet Casings From A Possible Village Creek Shootout

I just got an incoming warning from my fellow weather obsessor, CatsPaw the Skywatcher, telling me I should make haste to get in my daily visit to the Tandy Hills because a massive duststorm is heading our way.

I was already safely back in my duststorm-free abode when I received CatsPaw the Skywatcher's warning.

I did not go to the Tandy Hills today. Instead I went to my semi-regular place to go, on Sundays, for my daily endorphin inducing aerobic stimulation, that being to Village Creek Natural Historical Area, to walk with the Indian Ghosts who haunt the place where they were mass murdered, years ago, by incoming Texans acting in an early version of AVATAR, only in this early version the natives lose and the invaders take their paradise.

I found something slightly disturbing a short distance down the trail that leads from Village Creek Natural Historical Area's westside parking lot off Dottie Lynn Parkway.

The slightly disturbing thing I found was the collection of bullet cartridge casings you see in the pictures above

Closeup Of A Village Creek Bullet Casing

I am not even remotely a gun nut, so I have no idea if the name for these bullet remains is actually cartridge casings. All I know about guns and bullets I know from watching cops shows on TV.

I could not read what was imprinted on the bottom of the casings til I got back to my abode and took a picture.

From all the crime procedural TV shows I watch I know the info printed somewhere on some part of a bullet is critical to solving the crime.

These casings say "FEDERAL AUTO 45."

Does this mean this was an FBI Federal operation that left all these bullet casings?

I looked around for other evidence of a raging gunfight and found none.

Switching the subject from Village Creek gun battles back to the weather.

When I was getting ready to leave my abode to head to Village Creek I glanced at my computer based temperature monitoring device to be shocked to see it was now 37.

37?

Serene Village Creek

But, it was 45 when I woke up the computer heading to a high in the 70s. Where is this chill coming from?

I almost had the second leg of a long pair of pants on when I remembered I'd switched the temperature being monitored to Mount Vernon. I switched it back to Fort Worth, saw it was 61 and took off my pants.

It is now 75, apparently with a massive wall of dust in storm form heading this way.

I had an extremely pleasant walk in the serenity that surrounds Village Creek. The Indian Ghosts maintain a nice sanctuary. There were many other people also enjoying the Village Creek Indian Ghost Sanctuary today.

I think I shall leave my abode now and see if I can see this incoming duststorm CatsPaw the Skywatcher has warned me about.

At Chesapeake Energy's Party In Fort Worth You Must Attend Attired Like A Pirate Or A Cocktail

Elsie Hotpepper and I are looking forward to next month's Chesapeake Energy "The Party In Fort Worth" where the Fort Worth elite meet and greet to raise money to raise awareness in the rest of the nation about Fort Worth being the Best City in the World.

Individual tickets have now SOLD OUT. Which is not surprising as the Individual tickets only cost $200.

Sponsor Tables have also sold out.

1200 -1300 guests are expected at Chesapeake's Pirate Party.

I did not know until Elsie and I received our informational packets that specific attire was required.

As you can see via the screencap from The Party in Fort Worth website, where it says...

Attire: Pirates of the Caribbean style costumes, or cocktail

Or cocktail? Is that thrown in just to make sure J.D. Granger shows up? So he can come as a Martini rather than Blackbeard or Jean Lafitte?

Is J.D's mom going to be attired like a pirate wench, like the ones the pirates chase in Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean? Will Betsy price also be a pirate wench?

Is The Party in Fort Worth going to be televised so the 748,922 who are not among the Fort Worth elite can watch all the pirate fun?

After all, the party is taking place in a public facility, the Fort Worth Convention Center, which the non-elite did help pay for.

Maybe the 748,922 Fort Worth non-elites should descend on the Fort Worth Convention Center on February 25 and crash the party. That would fit in well with the pirate theme....

Betty Jo Bouvier Says Hello Handsome My Name Is Rose

Betty Jo Bouvier has been on a quest to cure me of my pessimistic outlook on existence.

In other words, to improve my attitude.

Or something like that.

A couple weeks ago Betty Jo sent me the story of The Last Cab Ride.

A couple days ago Betty Jo sent me the story of a college girl named Rose. So far I detect no change in my basic attitude....

Hello  Handsome My name Is Rose 

The  first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged  us to get to know someone we didn't already know. I stood up to look  around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder.

I turned  around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a  smile that lit up her entire being..

She said, 'Hi handsome.  My name is Rose. I'm eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?'

I laughed and enthusiastically responded, 'Of course you  may!' and she gave me a giant squeeze..

'Why are you in  college at such a young, innocent age?' I asked.

She  jokingly replied, 'I'm here to meet a rich husband, get married, and  have a couple of kids....'

'No seriously,' I asked. I was  curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge  at her age.

'I always dreamed of having a college education  and now I'm getting one!' she told me.

After class we walked  to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake.

We became instant friends. Every day for the next three  months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always  mesmerized listening to this 'time machine' as she shared her wisdom  and experience with me..

Over the course of the year, Rose  became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went.  She loved to dress up and she reveled in the attention bestowed upon  her from the other students. She was living it up.

At the  end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet  I'll never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped  up to the podium. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she  dropped her three by five cards on the floor.

Frustrated and  a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said,  'I'm sorry I'm so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey  is killing me! I'll never get my speech back in order so let me just  tell you what I know.'

As we laughed she cleared her throat  and began, ' We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old  because we stop playing.

There are only four secrets to  staying young, being happy, and achieving success. You have to laugh  and find humor every day. You've got to have a dream. When you lose  your dreams, you die.

We have so many people walking around  who are dead and don't even know it!

There is a huge  difference between growing older and growing up.

If you are  nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don't do one  productive thing, you will turn twenty years old. If I am  eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do  anything I will turn eighty-eight.

Anybody! Can grow older.  That doesn't take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by  always finding opportunity in change. Have no regrets.

The  elderly usually don't have regrets for what we did, but rather for  things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with  regrets..'

She concluded her speech by courageously singing  'The Rose.'

She challenged each of us to study the lyrics  and live them out in our daily lives. At the year's end Rose  finished the college degree she had begun all those months ago.

One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep.

Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in  tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it's never  too late to be all you can possibly be.

Read All About It In The Fort Worth Star-Telegram How Parents At Fort Worth Stock Show Use Many Ways To Transport Children

Last night I blogged about how appalled I am regarding the embarrassingly bad state of Fort Worth sidewalks, with this sad sidewalk situation not being worthy of a World Class City that makes the rest of the World Green With Envy.

Fort Worth does not have what most city's in America have, that being a major newspaper of record that acts as the community's watchdog.

What Fort Worth has is this pseudo newspaper that calls itself the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, but should more accurately be called the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce Pravda-Like Star-Telegram.

This morning Elsie Hotpepper sent me a link to an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about parents pushing their kids, in strollers, around the Fort Worth Stock Show.

For those of you not in Fort Worth, who don't know what the Fort Worth Stock Show is, it is basically a county fair held in the middle of winter.

My blogging about Fort Worth's sidewalks, yesterday, was prompted due to having seen a mom struggling to push a stroller up a Fort Worth hill, alongside a road with no sidewalks.

You will read not a word in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about the sad state of Fort Worth's sidewalks, but you can read the following article from this morning's Star-Telegram, which is clearly illustrative of how ridiculous this sad excuse for a newspaper is....

Parents at Fort Worth Stock Show use many ways to transport children

Look around the Stock Show, and you are likely to see a stroller. Or a hundred.

For most parents, the stroller reigns supreme as the best way to move kiddos.

Val McCorkle wondered Saturday whether she could squeeze her family's double stroller between a stall and a man shearing a sheep. Her children, 3 and 18 months, seemed oblivious. "We take this pretty much everywhere," McCorkle said while holding the hand of her third child, 4. "The walking would be too much for the kids."

Other parents appear to have ditched strollers for wagons, leashes, slings and carriers. Amber Topley carried her 7-month-old daughter in a moss green Moby wrap.

"With a stroller, you have to be so careful maneuvering," Topley said. "With the sling, she's attached to me. It's much easier."

Topley's other two children, 3 and 5, rested on a bench, tired from using the most old-fashioned means of movement: their legs.

-- Sarah Bahari

The Next To Last Sunday Of 2012 Dawns Cloudy & Frost-Free In Texas

Today is already the next to last Sunday morning of the first month of the New Year.

Looking out my primary viewing portal on the outer world on this 22nd Day of 2012, after the arrival of the sun, you might be able to tell that there is a layer of clouds between my location on the planet and that aforementioned sun.

Due to the lack of condensation on the primary viewing portal's window panes. you might also guess that this morning, unlike yester morning, it is not freezing.

We are already heated to 50 degrees this morning, heading to a high of 69, if the temperature predictors prediction is correct. Those same weather predictors are also advising that it will be windy today. I am never quite sure why we need this advice.

Meanwhile up in my old home zone it is also windy, but their weather predictors make it sound more dire with the words HIGH WIND WARNING.

Below are the 5 Day Forecasts for my new home zone and my old home zone. The new home zone first, then the old home zone. Looking at those forecasts which would be your home zone choice?????

Unfortunately, I don't think I'd be going swimming this morning no matter which of my home zones I was currently located in.

Seeing A Struggling Mom Has Made Me Cranky About Fort Worth's Sidewalks To Nowhere & Its Trinity River Vision Boondoggle

About an hour ago I took a walk to take a picture of a sidewalk. Well, more accurately, I took a walk to take a picture of the lack of a sidewalk.

Last night, when I as returning from my aborted attempt to play bingo at Paradise Center Camp Bowie Bingo, at about 7:30, well after dark, I was driving north on Bridgewood Drive, almost back to my abode, when I saw young mom pushing a stroller, with two kids in the stroller, up the hill you see in the picture.

In the past couple months a lot of roadwork has been done to Bridgewood Drive, for no reason apparent to my eyes. That roadwork did not include installing sidewalks along the un-sidewalked sections of Bridgewood Drive.

But, that roadwork did totally rough up the well worn pedestrian dirt paths on both sides of the road, making the paths bumpy.

That mom I saw last night was struggling hard, I assume trying to push her kids to the Krogers at the top of the hill, to get groceries.

In addition to the rough path, the street was poorly lit, very dark. I assume a street light, or two, may be out. Would not be the first time.

Why is there not some sort of mandate, a law of some sort, making it required, for safety's sake, to have sidewalks alongside roads in heavily populated areas?

Every other city, with which I am familiar, besides Fort Worth, installs sidewalks along their roads, I assume due to common sense being in sufficient supply in those towns. Maybe the Fort Worth Oligarchy could send out a task force to others towns, towns that have figured out how to install sidewalks alongside their streets, and discover how this is done.

I know I have gotten on the Sidewalk Bandwagon before. This is because this really bugs me.

Another aspect of Fort Worth's sidewalks, that being the sidwalks that do exist, that bugs me, is they are, for the most part, so narrow.

On most sidewalks in Fort Worth, two super-sized Texans, coming towards each other, could not pass with out one or the other, or both, stepping off the narrow sidewalk.

How can a city be so blind that it can have a vision wasting millions of dollars to build a river diversion channel that is not needed, a little lake that will cause giggles, non-signature bridges to nowhere and whatever else it is that is currently being seen by the myopic Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, when its city sidewalks, or lack of, are something one might expect to see in a town in a Third World country?

How many Fort Worth natives have taken a look at the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle's first completed project? That being the world's premiere wakeboard lake called Cowtown Wakepark? If that operation is the quality level that the Trinity River Vision sees as acceptable, well, the portent is not good.

Cowtown Wakepark looks tacky. Everything about it looks tacky and cheap. And what happens to Cowtown Wakepark the next time the Trinity River goes into flood mode? Wipeout?

Back to the lack of sidewalks. How can any self-respecting town, particularly one prone to ridiculous delusions of grandeur of the sort Fort Worth is prone to, maintain those ridiculous delusions when the town is so lacking in something as basic as sidewalks, that a mother of two has to push her kid's stroller on a bumpy dirt path to get to a grocery store?

Where this mom was pushing that stroller is not an area with few people. It is a densely populated area of Fort Worth.

Where is the vision for the rest of Fort Worth? The part not seen by the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle?

Seeing New Signs Of Tandy Hills Renewal Along With Town Talk Cuties, Cabbage & Newts

The Freshly Re-Painted Tandy Hills Sign

Since I am a creature of repetitive habit and since today is Saturday, that means I went to Town Talk today.

The Tandy Hills were once again my choice of location to get myself some endorphin inducing aerobic stimulation.

Since I was going to Town Talk I chose the View Street parking location, rather than the top of Mount Tandy.

Arriving on View Street I was pleased to see the Tandy Hills-Stratford Parks sign has been re-painted and restored to legibility. As long as I have seen the Tandy Hills I have seen this sign faded.

What looks like an antennae sticking up from the top of the right side of the sign is actually the Fort Worth Space Needle atop the aforementioned Mount Tandy.

What a difference one day makes in Texas, weather-wise. Yesterday I hiked the Tandy Hills in shorts with no shirt. And got HOT. By this morning it was freezing, warmed to 41, when I did my hill hiking. So, I had on long pants, two layers of shirts, a hat and a windbreaker.

If the temperature predictors have predicted correctly, today will reach a high of only 51. But tomorrow we will be heated up, again, into the high 70s.

I have not turned on my furnace today. And right now I have my computer room window open, even though it is only 49 degrees out there in the outer world at my location.

Today, at Town Talk, for the second time ever, I had to use a grocery cart, rather than just carry a basket. It was the bags of Cuties oranges for only a buck that required the grocery cart. That and some really big cabbage. And some butternut squash. Everything else I got could have fit into my usual handheld basket.

On my way back from my aborted trip, last night, to play Paradise Center Camp Bowie Bingo, as I drove down the hill that leads to my abode I saw something that really bothers me. I think I will take a walk in awhile to photo document what bothered me and then blog about it.

Tonight should be entertaining television viewing, hopefully entertaining due to watching Newt upset Mitt in South Carolina. Even more entertaining would be Ron Paul upsetting Newt and Mitt. Rick Santorum upsetting anyone would not be as entertaining. At least to me.

The Morning Of The 3rd Saturday Of 2012 Is Freezing In Texas With Turkey

Looking out my primary viewing portal on the outer world, through a window dripping with condensation due to the outer world being chilled to a freezing 32 degrees on this 3rd Saturday of 2012, has me disappointed to have lost so many degrees overnight.

I was sure I was going to go swimming this morning, because we heated well into the 70s yesterday. I had my windows open well into the evening.

I do not ever remember having my windows open in January at my current location on the planet.

CatsPaw is assuming responsibility for my inability to find Paradise Center Camp Bowie Bingo last night. CatsPaw says she should have been along to provide co-pilot navigation.

I agree.

Changing the subject from CatsPaw back to the weather.

I just realized that even though it is freezing in the outer world, it is not at all cold in my inner world. I've felt to need to turn on the heat. This indicates to me that the drop in temperature must have occurred rapidly and not all that long ago. And that my abode has good insulation.

Changing the subject from my favorite one to something else.

I am cooking a turkey today. I'm glad the temperature has dropped. I don't like being in a hot kitchen with a hot oven with the hot furnace blowing hot air on me.

Turkey lunch will be about 2 this afternoon. Don't be late.

Friday Night's Practice Paradise Center Camp Bowie Bingo Grand Opening Did Not Go Well For Me

I Think This Is The Camp Bowie Bingo Parking Lot

Well. I have had myself a fun Friday night. I don't remember the last time I drove Camp Bowie Boulevard at night.

I remember the last time I drove Camp Bowie Boulevard in daylight was when my mom and dad were here.

With my mom and dad I drove the bumpy brick section of Camp Bowie Boulevard.

My mom did not like the bumpiness and asked why it does not get fixed. I told my mom it is very perplexing, but somehow the locals have convinced themselves that this bumpy brick road is unique.

My mom said something like "the locals must not get out of town much."

There are very good reasons I think the way I do.

Tonight I exited I-30 at the Camp Bowie West exit. This is past the part of Camp Bowie Boulevard that is made of bricks and is, instead, a modern paved road, with little bumpiness. Except for one horrible pothole that may have done structural damage to my vehicle.

I'd been told that the Paradise Center Camp Bowie Bingo operation was actually in Benbrook, not Fort Worth. This indicated to me that it was located past the booming Camp Bowie zone east of Alta Mere Drive.

I figured it would be easy to find the Paradise Center Camp Bowie Bingo operation.

I figured wrong.

I drove Camp Bowie West, under I-820, plus a couple miles more, before turning around. Without finding any bingo.

I called my dispatcher to find the location. I indicated where I was. I was told that Camp Bowie Bingo was slightly west of Williams Road, east of Las Vegas Trail. I drove east, past Las Vegas Trail, saw no Williams Road, soon came to Alta Mere Drive and realized there was no way Camp Bowie Bingo was east of Alta Mere Drive.

And so I gave up on my plan for Friday night Bingo.

But, making lemonade out of this lemon. I now know the location of the semi-recently opened Camp Bowie Fuzzy's Taco Shop. Plus Mama's Pizza's new Camp Bowie location. And I saw a lot of people outside on the Riscky's BBQ patio, which looked fun, on a warm January Friday night.

But. I saw no Camp Bowie Bingo. And I tried harder to find it than I usually try to find anything.

I am almost 100% certain I was the stupidest person trying to find Camp Bowie Bingo tonight, and no one else had any problem finding it.

I hope everyone had themselves a real fine time and won a lot of bingos. Even though I did not.

Back On Mount Tandy Doing A Forensic Exam Of The Mount Tandy Cable Tripwire

Cable Tripwire At Top Of Mount Tandy

Earlier today I mentioned yesterday's injury caused by a cable on the top of Mount Tandy.

Today I returned to the top of Mount Tandy to do a forensic exam of the cable to see if could determine how I managed to trip on it.

First off, when am I lost in the moment, with my wandering mind wandering, I can get into a bit of an auto-pilot mode.

Being in auto-pilot mode, yesterday, caused me to not notice that the cable had been tightened and raised, with a can tied to it to warn clumsy people of the danger.

So, being in auto-pilot mode, not realizing I should switch to manual pilot mode, my right foot caught the cable on its way over, causing me to lurch forward, causing the cable to cause a gash and scrape on the front on my lower right leg.

I probably should have gone to the ER and gotten stitches, but I suspect the injury will heal on its own, without medical intervention.

If any of you reading this, who hike the Tandy Hills, from the top of Mount Tandy, and I'm sure there are dozens of you, if you are short, like me, with short stubby legs, exercise extreme caution when you cross the Mount Tandy cable.

Particularly if you are clumsy.