Seasons

When I was a child I was taught there were four seasons which were formally introduced as Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. Spring was always depicted as having birds and flowers and beginning in April. Summer had a bright sun and started in July. Fall showed colorful leaves swirling in a breeze and began in September. Winter showed snowflakes and started in December. It was all very colorful, precise, and very wrong.

 Living on the gulf coast of Texas for most of my life has given me a different perspective of seasons. This thing called Spring, I guess you could say we get that, but it typically occurs sometime in late February or early March. There will be very nice sunny days and temperatures in the 60s and 70s with the nights dipping down into the 50s. It is grand and usually causes me no end of gardening fervor. Life is great, I have boundless energy, and many, many projects get accomplished. There are no mosquitoes, no bugs, and every day is a joy. This lasts approximately two weeks or less.

Then comes April, which begins to behave in a very bipolar way. Some days it is spring-like and others have highs in the 90s with 90 percent humidity. Often in April there will begin a series of torrential rains that continue into May. These rains will make the ground a bog and cause two different reactions in the garden. Reaction one is that certain plants will grow like mad and escape any restraints or trellis. They cannot be brought under control because to do that I would have to wade into a quagmire to get to them. Reaction two is that the plant drowns. There is nothing I can do for them so I usually end up standing by their corpses and apologizing for having put them in a swamp.

With all the torrential rains come the mosquitoes and an oppressive humidity that makes me fear I will contract either a mosquito born illness or parts of my skin will begin to rot from the constant moisture. From May into June there is a sense of dread that becomes stronger and stronger. Even if there is a rare day where the temperatures are reasonable I cannot enjoy it. Summer is taking over. Every year I go through the stages of grief about it. Denial - "It is still Spring. It isn't that hot yet and perhaps this year it won't get too hot." Anger - "Why do I have to live in this God forsaken part of the world where the Spring is so short and the Summers try and kill me?" Bargaining - "Just let there be one more week of reasonable weather, just one more week and I will do every house repair and garden improvement known to mankind." Depression - "This will be the year the summer kills me. Why bother even getting out of bed. Spring is over and there is nothing but relentless heat and humidity for the rest of my life." Acceptance - well, I don't recall ever reaching this stage, I just cycle back through the other stages.

Once Summer begins it takes a choke hold and lasts well into September and often into October. Hell, it may not give up. There can be 90 degree weather in December. Summer daytime temperatures can remain in the high 90s to 100s but the worst is that the night time temperatures will stay in the 80s. No, let me correct that. The worst is that the humidity stays at 80 percent or higher. No adult human can endure this kind of torment for very long. For example, I know that the Native American people that lived along the Gulf coast, the Karankawas, were purported to be cannibals. That's what the heat, humidity and mosquitoes can drive you to do. Thank God for air conditioning. Even with the AC, indoor temperatures usually stay close to 80 in my house. I become an indoor creature as opposed to the sun as any nocturnal animal. Sleep becomes a challenge due to the necessity of having several fans blowing on me at all times. The fans make it bearable but a combination of fan and AC can make it too cold which will cause me to pull up a sheet. This will then make it too hot so I will kick off the sheet. So sleep in the summer becomes much more athletic.

Then comes August. It deserves its a separate season designation so I am crowning it Mega-Summer. Take everything bad about summer, notch it up by about 20 degrees and then let it go on and on and on. I swear that there is some time distortion in August that gives it far more than its 31 allotted days. Forget about the garden. Every year at the start of Spring, in some sort of amnesic delusion, I vow to continue to garden throughout the summer. I will water every day. I will tend the plants. Every year I give up completely in August. Why bother watering when the air temperature cooks the plants as they stand.

As far as Fall is concerned I am not sure I have ever experienced it. Supposedly, from what I have read and seen on TV, there is this time where the temperatures cool off, the leaves on the trees change color and people ride hay wagons. Not here. Yes, occasionally we will have a few days where the oppressive Mega-Summer heat ceases and I will emerge from the dim recesses of my AC environment to blink like a cave creature dazzled by the sun. Usually though we go from one extreme to the other with a temperature drop of over 40 degrees in a single day. Forget about the leaves changing colors, they just fall off the tree in blackened clumps.

We do have Winter, but it doesn't usually arrive on time. I think I look forward to winter the most so that I can wear my winter wardrobe which consists mostly of shirts with long sleeves. These clothes are so seldom worn that they last for years and years. Once Winter decides to get here it is not as cold as some places, but it manages to combine some of the most uncomfortable seasonal characteristics without any charm. Snow is something we might have every decade or two but we do have cold rain, bitter winds, high humidity and mud. When it does drop below freezing - good luck traveling on any of the roads. There will be ice on bridges and overpasses and a tremendous number of drivers completely out of their element merrily slamming into one another. Even if the city wanted to sand all the roadways it is not like they have the equipment necessary to deal with the hundreds of miles of city streets.

Sometimes I fantasize about living where there are four seasons, where everything happens by the book in proper order. Until then I will just have to keep enduring Short-Spring, Summer, Mega-Summer, Virtually Non-existent Fall and Winter.

Garage Snake

My mother, bless her heart, hates snakes. More accurately, she HATES snakes. She does not care if they are venomous or not. One of her chief sayings to us as we were growing up was that it didn't matter if the snake in question was a non-poisonous one because a poisonous snake was chasing it. No amount of arguing or showing her entries in the encyclopedia would sway her position. There were two kinds of snakes. Poisonous ones who will bite you and kill you and non-poisonous ones who are being chased by the poisonous ones who will bite you and kill you.

At a very young age she showed us the snake bite kit. This consisted of a green oblong soft plastic device that split into two pieces. Once taken apart, each half of the device could be squeezed and then placed over the skin to form a suction.  Inside the empty halves was a sheet of instructions and a small razor blade. The instructions spelled out in great detail how to deal with a snake bite. You were to use the razor blade to make two incisions over each puncture wound and then place the green halves over the area to suck out the poison.

My mother took a great deal of time showing us the kit and explaining exactly how it was used. I think she fully expected that sometime soon one of us would be bitten and this snake bite kit would save our lives. So she showed it to us and asked us to repeat how it was used. I noticed that the instructions showed that the cuts over the bite marks could be made either as an X mark or as a plus mark. To me it seemed the plus mark cuts looked less painful so I asked if it had to be done to me could I have the plus mark cut. She said no, you didn't get to choose how you were cut. I was pretty disappointed about that.

So we were, in her mind, prepared for the snake disaster she was sure would happen. Strangely there was no talk about calling for an ambulance or going to a doctor, there was just the snake bite kit drill. I think she was hoping that the horror of it would somehow instill us with greater caution. All it instilled in me was an absolute obsession on hoping I would get the plus mark cut.

I can remember very clearly being in the car alone with her one day in April or May. I am about five years old and we have just come back from the store. It isn't yet summer but the weather is already rather warm. We pull up to the garage and she gets out of the car to open the garage door. I am about to get out myself but she rushes over to my door and tells me to stay in the car and not get out. She says lock the door and that I am not to roll down the window. She is wild eyed and her tone of voice has taken on a note of hysteria. I ask her why and she tells me again, "Stay in the car and keep the windows rolled up!"

I watch her race into the garage, with her eyes locked on a spot to the left of the garage. She runs in keeping close to the right side of the doorway and disappears into the house. I try to see over the car hood what she had been looking at, but I cannot see anything. A minute passes and the car starts to get very warm. I want to roll down the window, I want to get out of the car, but I don't want to get in trouble. More minutes pass and the car becomes hot. I begin to worry that she is not coming back.

At last she finally emerges from the house and she is carrying a pistol. This is very shocking because I have never seen her touch a gun before. The pistol is big and black and looms large in her hands. Somehow, while holding the pistol she grabs a broom and strikes at something on the floor of the garage. I scoot over from the passenger seat to the driver's seat to see what was happening. At first all I can see is my mother's back but then she walks further out and turns partway. I then see a large black snake slithering away from the garage into the front yard.

My mother is a petite, dark haired woman who normally moves with grace and fluidity but now she is rigid with fear. The gun she holds seems much too large for her hands yet she holds it firmly with a double grip, pointing the barrel toward the ground. To get the best aim she stands over the snake but because she hates and fears the snake so much she straddles it with her feet as wide as possible. She pulls the trigger. BOOM! The sound of the gun makes me jump and I see her hands forced upward from the shot. She misses. The snake, seemingly unconcerned, slithers slowly onward so my mother is forced to waddled another couple of steps to keep the snake between her feet. She points the gun at the ground and again fires. BOOM! Another miss, so she staggers forward another step and fires a third time. BOOM! I am transfixed by the spectacle of it all. Here is my normally mild mannered mother blasting away with a handgun and it seems with her poor aim and the snakes slow progress she is going to waddle her way across our yard until she either has to reload or she perforates that snake.

At this point my aunt who lives across our street comes flying out of her house and runs to my mother shouting, "What are you doing?!?" My mother points with the pistol to the snake and says, "I've got to kill this snake."

My aunt begins to laugh and says, "That's not a poisonous snake, that's just a rat snake," which is a pretty brave thing to do considering that my mother is holding a gun and is about as unhinged as a person can get. Upon hearing my aunt laugh I get out of the car which earns me a nasty look from my mother but she hardly spares me a glance because she is keeping her eyes on the snake. It is still slithering forward across our front lawn. Eventually my uncle comes out and dispatches the snake with a stick even though he agrees it is non-poisonous. He probably figures this is the best way to get my mother to put down the gun.

She eventually does put the gun away, but then she tells me to go to my room. "You got out of the car when I told you not to!" she says. I point out that I would have died from the heat if I had stayed in the car. She then says, "Well you should have rolled down the window!"  I say, "You told me not to!" and she says, "I also told you to stay in the car. That snake could have bitten you." No amount of my pleading that the snake wasn't poisonous or that my aunt and uncle were there to protect me sways her. She has been frightened by a snake, traumatized by having to fire a handgun and then humiliated by her sister and brother in law. Someone is going to pay and that someone is her daughter that got out of the car. End of discussion.

Later that evening she again shows my sister and me the snakebite kit and goes over the instructions in slow and patient detail. I just know if it is up to her, I will be getting the X marks.

Mosquito Magnet

Certain things set people apart from each other. Certain traits or abilities are distinctive and unique to a person and often that person can use such innate skills to be successful in life. And then there is my unique trait and ability, which is that I am a mosquito magnet.

Now don't get me wrong, in certain situations I could be a sought after commodity. Say for example you are having some sort of garden party and you want to make sure your guests are not bothered by the flying leaches. Just send for me. Within moments no one else will be bothered in any way by mosquitoes, although it will probably spoil the mood to have me over there slapping and cursing.

What amazes me is that some people don't seem to attract mosquitoes. One of my friends is this way. She is constantly inviting me to go outside. "Let's go outside and look at the garden"; "Let's go outside for a walk"; "Let's go outside and just stand around" - and she does not get why I always say no. It's because if I go outside she will be happily just standing there looking at the garden or walking or just standing around and I will be flopping my arms and legs around like some manic marionette vainly trying to forestall the inevitable bite. They always get me.

It doesn't take going outside for me to get bitten. I can be indoors and end up with a dozen bites. If in a controlled scientific experiment they were to release one mosquito in a building the size of a city block and put me in the room, that mosquito would find and bite me - guaranteed.

Let's not get me started about mosquito sprays. First of all, I am mortally terrified that they contain some substance that will ultimately mutate me into some horrible creature. Maybe not at normal dosages, but to combat the irresistible allure of me, I have to practically bathe in it. I usually resort to wearing long sleeves and long pants and liberally dousing the clothes with the spray. That way the contact with my skin is muted, hopefully, although wearing long sleeves and long pants in 100 degree temperature and 90 percent humidity is just another awful way to die.

I have tried the mosquito clothing made for such places as Alaska or other mosquito rich environments. The clothes are made of a fine mesh and in theory they should work, however in practical application they work no better than long sleeves and long pants. Anywhere the mosquito clothes touch your skin is a vector point for a bite. Mosquitoes don't care if it is fine mesh. Their little damned proboscises aren't thwarted at all. They don't have to get inside the clothes with you, thank you very much, they can just poke their snouts through.

What it would take to make truly mosquito proof clothing would be some way to make the clothing so it would never touch your skin. Something sort of like the way they make a clown suit or a hoop skirt where there is a stiff circular piece that would keep the fabric constantly off of the body. I have drawn up elaborate plans and have even purchased yards of netting material. Unfortunately, I am more of an idea person and much less of a seamstress. My ultimate use of the netting material was to layer it around my head, shoulders and legs, turning me into some sort of amorphous blob shape. It was surprisingly colorful because I had purchased several remnant pieces of various colors. I tried to wear it only when I thought the neighbors were not looking because I did not want to be held liable if they saw me and suffered some sort of physical damage from laughing too hard.

So, my current solutions are either 1. Coat myself in potentially mutating substances; 2. Wear clothing completely unsuitable for the environment; 3. Suffer humiliation. I am not pleased with my choices.

Now through the years I have had people tell me things like how they used to be bitten all the time until they started eating garlic and now they suffer no bites. I have eaten tons of garlic and that just seems to make the mosquitoes more happy. After all, who could blame them. Their favorite meal just added a tasty condiment. I have had people tell me that mosquitoes are attracted to the smell of sweat. They dare to look me right in the eye when they say this too. I kindly inform them that my hygiene is 1. up to par, 2. not open for public discussion and 3. not the cause, because I have been bitten in the bathroom many times just after having had a shower.

I have researched a product that uses a machine to lure and trap mosquitoes. In researching this device I discovered that the mosquitoes in my area were very attracted to a certain type of lure. The lure duplicates the scent of what the mosquitoes are most attracted to. It turns out it is cow exhale. So in other words this company is implying I exude something akin to cow breath. I am not pleased with this tidbit of knowledge.

Barefoot

Throughout most of my childhood, whenever possible I was barefoot. Shoes, in my opinion, were totally unnecessary and got in the way of developing the proper amount of hardened callous which would render my feet impenetrable to all sorts of assault. Due in a large part to this perspective, my feet were often recovering from various misfortunes.

Once when playing softball I managed to land barefoot onto a sharp stick and drove a piece of it several inches into the arch of my foot. This was a rather magnificent injury in that there was a large amount of blood and it happened in front of my cousins and my sister. This meant there was an appreciative audience and my sister, who previously in softball had pitched one straight into my eye and told me it was my fault for not ducking, actually tried to carry me inside. The drama was quite satisfying even though there was also quite a bit of pain. My sister couldn't carry me because, although I weighed slightly more than a paper bag, she was not in any way athletic. Still, it was admirable that she even would try considering how much she detested my presence most of the time. When she gave up on trying to carry me, she helped me hobble into my aunt's house where my mother and aunt had been enjoying a few minutes of adult-themed leisure.

Now my mother hated blood and even went so far as to yell at my sister and I "Don't bleed on the carpet!" when we would come home after various mishaps. My aunt's house didn't even have carpet except for one room and that was deep burgundy red probably chosen no doubt for its blood hiding capabilities. My aunt had three kids all prone to nose bleeds, so she was immune to blood-induced anxiety. She was also very matter-of-fact about injuries. Between the two of them, I was in queasy and capable hands. First, they put me up on the kitchen counter and soaked my foot in running water. My mother blanched from it all, but my punctured foot seemed to fascinate my aunt. She was saying things like "Look, here is another piece of it." as she would squeeze the wound to try and dislodge the stick that was jammed inside. After a few rounds of this, I wanted no more and luckily my mother also was getting more pale with each of my aunt's forays. It was decided that the stick would just work its way out.

Now in the perfect families of TV land, I would have been rushed to the doctor. In the reality of my world, we seldom went to the doctor. Perhaps it was the distance because we lived miles from civilized life, or maybe this was some offshoot of survival-of-the-fittest mentality. Whatever it was it meant that we received a sort of 'field dressing' to most wounds and were told to be on the lookout for any red lines, the sign of blood poisoning, running up from any injuries.

I had been the victim of blood poisoning before, also caused by being barefoot, but that time it was from walking over oyster shells while wade fishing. The bottoms of my feet had been cut up but within a couple of days, there was a red line going from my foot into my lower leg. This had brought about a visit to the doctor's office. Our doctor, a gray-haired woman of German origins had given me some antibiotics and told my mother to keep my foot wrapped in wet washcloths until the infection went away. This meant I had to wear a plastic bag around my foot and soak my foot several times per day, but it worked and I survived.

My mother decided to use the wet towel method on my stick punctured foot. Sure enough, within several days the rest of the stick eventually worked its way out of my foot. As it healed this injury left a very impressive scar and I always used to love the visceral reactions others would have as I showed it to them. "This is where the stick went into my foot," I would casually remark, and nine times out of ten the person I was showing would shudder.

My worst barefoot-related injury came from an attempt to wear shoes. At least that was the way I choose to remember it. My cousin and I were playing in my uncle's woodshop. His shop was a rather large building next door to his house which meant it was across the street from my house. My aunt, my mother, and a lady from down the lane all worked as carpenters in the shop. There were many different types of equipment from drill presses to band saws to table saws, and scraps of lumber all around. Everything was coated with sawdust. There were always staples and nails on the floor which were often obscured by a heavy layer of sawdust. It would be hard to imagine a worse place for anyone to go barefoot. So of course I was barefoot in the shop.

Usually, my mother was very accepting of my shoeless condition. I am sure she would have rather me wear shoes, but she also probably would have rather I acted more like a girl-child and less like the free-range feral child that I was. If she had her way I would wear dresses and have combed hair and take an interest in personal hygiene. As it was she had to choose her battles, so she settled for demanding dresses only for special occasions, and even then I got to wear shorts underneath. She made me comb my hair only for these special occasions and school, also. The hygiene we fought over and she insisted I take a nightly bath and would check to make sure I hadn't just pretended to get in the tub. Running barefoot she took for granted except in one instance. I was never to go into the woodshop without shoes. Never. Ever.

So, there I was in the shop barefoot and I was aware of my infraction. I had even gone as far as to bring my shoes with me, but before I put them on I was distracted by my cousin and lured into the shop. Midway through looking at something particularly captivating the door opened and my mother and aunt entered the shop. Their arrival reminded me of my barefooted condition.

I sprang into action and quickly sprinted toward the back of the shop where my shoes lay untended but about halfway there my left foot collided with a sheetrock cutter. Now for those of you who have never seen one of these, imagine a five-inch curved blade, almost C-shaped, attached to a handle. The handle of the blade was trapped under a couple of pieces of sheetrock until my foot collided with the blade. The blade caught me between my little toe and ring toe and sliced in deeply. My forward momentum took me past the contact point and although I knew something very bad had just happened my first instinct was to run away.

On an adrenalin surge I ran out of the shop around the back of my cousin's house and then climbed a tree in his front yard before I paused to survey the damage. I was hoping it was just a scratch and something I could hide from my mother. No such luck. There was a deep slice almost to the bone which was bleeding profusely. Not only that but it was beginning to hurt in a big way. I sat up in the tree crying for a while and compressing the wound but it wouldn't stop bleeding. Finally, I realized I would have to consult my mother and this was almost more unbearable to me than the cut itself. Climbing down out of the tree was much harder now that the pain had set in and so was the long walk back to the shop. When I got to the shop I had to send my cousin to get my mother who was not at all pleased to find me wounded. All the way, from the tree to the shop, and while I waited for my mother to come, I tried to think of some way I could have gotten this injury without admitting the truth. If I could find some explanation that did not reveal the details of my shoeless in the shop portion of the incident I felt I could avoid getting into trouble. Try as I might I could think of nothing that could explain the nature and seriousness of the injury. I settled for trying to explain to her that I got injured trying to obey her. I was walking over to put on my shoes when I got hurt. She did not buy my logic and became very angry with me. I again had to endure the sink treatment by my aunt but this time with my mother radiating fury at me. I was bandaged and given very little sympathy and even my cousins were told not to sympathize with me seeing as how I was the cause of my misfortune.

The lack of sympathy rankled me more than just about anything. Here I was with a magnificent injury that was sure to leave a legendary scar and I was not allowed to talk about it. Every time I mentioned feeling pain I was told "That's what you get for going barefoot". I think she thought this would be an excellent 'life lesson' for me and after this, I would wear shoes. No such luck. After the wound healed I was as shoeless as ever although I did learn something. From then on, when I was barefoot in the shop, I was much more careful.

Wasp Nest

Growing up I was lucky that I had a best friend and he happened to live next door to me. That he was also my cousin made things all the more special because that meant we also got to be together during family holiday celebrations. Bobby was a couple of years younger than me and that suited me just fine because I was the youngest at home. Being a younger sibling always left me on the powerless side of most interactions with my sister, but being older than Bobby gave me almost limitless power with him. Of course, it helped that he practically worshiped me and would do almost anything I asked him to do.

Summer months found us inseparable, especially since we were commanded by our mothers to exit the house at daybreak and not to return until dusk. We, being known to create mayhem inside, were not allowed to come into either of our houses and remain together, so we chose to stick it out in the most uncomfortable heat to enjoy each other's company.

We had ways of combating the hot days and one of them was to find shade whenever possible. My family had a barn, or at least what looked like a barn, which was a two-story structure with red cedar walls. It wasn't really a barn since the floor was a concrete garage and the upstairs a plywood floored loft. It was however the perfect childhood haunt and we had several ways to access the upstairs from the ground floor, only one of them using the actual stairs. 

On one summer morning, Bobby and I decided to go into the barn for the sheer lack of anything else to do and in hope of being a little cooler in the shade. The downstairs of the barn was already uncomfortably hot and it got worse as we climbed the stairs to the floor of the upstairs loft. The entry was covered by a plywood sheet. As we lifted the plywood a blast of hot air hit us like an oven. The upstairs was completely dark and I only found the latch to the north window by feel. The windows were covered by wooden shutters which swung outward. Opening the window let in more light but made nearly no difference in the room temperature. It was outrageously hot. I scurried over to the south side of the barn and opened the window there. Mercifully a light breeze blew in and very soon the loft was reasonably comfortable.

Having solved our air temperature problem we now just needed to conquer boredom. The loft provided ample room for several activities such as roller-skating if we put the plywood back down over the stairway. Unfortunately, the skates were not upstairs and both of us were too lethargic to try and locate them. So we looked around for anything to do. After the barn was built, numerous cedar shingles had been leftover and a couple of bundles of these were up against the eves of the loft floor. Bobby went over and grabbed a shingle and then pitching a crayon in the air, spanked a shot that sailed straight out of the barn window. Not to be outdone I also grabbed a shingle but being spectacularly un-gifted in anything athletic I barely hit the crayon I tossed up. Bobby's first shot had been his best and although he made contact with another crayon it failed to make it out the window.

It was on a subsequent attempt that something happened that changed the day for us. While Bobby was standing near the window and trying to line up another shot, a red wasp floated downward about a foot from his head. The wasp was not in any way threatening us and was merely caught in an eddy created by the breeze blowing through the window. Bobby's response was automatic and immediate. He brought the cedar shingle up with a smack that brought the wasp to a mid-air conclusion. The deceased wasp sailed out the window.

Generally, we were never the kind of children that took our pleasure from the torment of any animal, bugs included, but wasps were in a special niche. We had a very complicated relationship with several of the types of wasps that inhabited our rural acreage. There were mud wasps or 'mud daubers' as we called them. These were a harmless type that spent their lives on a quest for mud which they gathered to make their little nests on practically any flat surface. The only way one of these wasps would sting was if you stepped on one. They did not even defend their nests, which allowed us to break into them to go after the immature mud dauber larvae. We fed the larvae to captured lizards in a sort of benevolent act toward the lizards for allowing us to catch them. 

Another type of wasp we frequently encountered was the black or red wasp. These wasps were rather large, about one and a half inches long, and a solid rusty red or black color. Red wasps were more aggressive than the mud daubers, but only if you were messing with their nests. They were so big they could not move very fast and rather bumbled through the air in a sort of J pattern with ups and downs in their forward progress. Since they nested rather high up we rarely encountered them in any negative way.

The worst type of wasp where we lived were yellow jackets. These wasps were the smallest of the three and had black wings and legs with a yellow-banded body. These guys lived to be aggressive and built their paper nests all over the place. You merely had to be close to the location of one of their nests for them to go after you. They might be small, but they were rocket-fast and tended to attack in groups as well. Practically everyone in our families including the two of us had been on the receiving end of their painful stings.

When Bobby launched that red wasp with his shingle it was as if a truce had been broken and all of our pent-up wasp aggravation was unleashed. A couple of other red wasps were floating around and both he and I smacked them to oblivion. We were glee stricken but then thwarted because there were no other wasps. A solitary red wasp floated in on the breeze and we both rushed to attack it. Bobby was closer but in his desire to reach it first he swung his board so high it smacked edge first into the upper window sill. A rain of red wasps descended from a nest we could not see. We made sure these half dozen wasps went the way of their kindred and we were laughing and calling out to each other. 

As soon as they were gone we banged the window sill to bring down some more. After several repeated efforts, the floor was littered with wasp bodies and there were fewer and fewer wasps that responded to our knocking. Well, this just would not do. Both of us were high on wasp-fueled adrenalin and wanted more. We carefully made our barefooted way around the wasp bodies and down to the south end of the loft to the other window. We reasoned if there had been wasps in one window area there were bound to be wasps at the other one.

Bobby struck the window sill with his board. Nothing happened. He smacked it again and still, nothing happened. The disappointment was crushing. In a final attempt to reclaim our wasp-fueled glory, Bobby banged the window sill as hard as possible. Immediately a shower of wasps rained down along with a wasp nest as well. A paper wasp nest about the size of a softball and covered with yellow jackets that it shed as it rolled toward us. Suddenly the air was filled with small darting and above all, angry wasps. I was slightly further back in the loft than Bobby so they reached him first. He began swinging his shingle wildly, but they were relentless and coming in from all angles.

I dropped my shingle and began to back away quickly or to be more accurate I turned and ran. But I didn't get far. Behind me I heard Bobby cry out, "Julie! Help me!" which reached some altruistic part of my brain. In the next instant, I turned and headed back his way. I snatched up my shingle and battled my way to him swinging frantically non-stop. Together we made it to the stairs and tumbled down them. Only after we were out of the barn did we stop to take stock of our wounds.

Surprisingly Bobby had only about three or four stings on his neck and shoulders. I, on the other hand, did not even have a single sting which was amazing owing to the sheer numbers of wasps we had run through as well as the bodies of the red wasps on the floor we had run blindly past in our bare feet. Still, for Bobby, that many stings were pretty tough to take so we decided to seek help. First, however, we had to get our story straight. There was no way either of us was going to tell an adult what actually happened.

Being as we were no strangers to getting into trouble we went to exhausting lengths to always appear as innocent as possible. Taunting wasps would not be seen as harmless fun. We needed to make sure we looked like victims in the encounter. We also knew that our stories would be compared by our mothers. Coming up with spontaneous fabrications usually didn't work well for us so we had gotten into the habit of getting our stories straight, especially before seeking medical care.

 This is the lie we came up with:

We went up in the barn loft to play. When we opened the south window the wasp nest just fell down. Lucky for us a couple of shingles happened to be lying around so we were able to protect ourselves as we hastily exited the area. We were both wearing shoes.

It seemed good to us. There was the element of wholesome play, the element of innocent victims, we had covered why they would find shingles and wasp bodies on the floor and had thrown in the shoe wearing for good measure. They always asked if we were wearing shoes and the truth was we never were.

Bobby also wanted to make it so he had rushed in to save me. This was a problem. Lately, when we were making up our cover stories, Bobby had taken to adding in some sort of heroic twist. I was not about to let myself be seen as needing rescuing so I nixed that plan. He relented quickly no doubt due to the painfulness of his situation. We parted company and went home. The story seemed to arouse my mother's suspicions. She said, "You were wearing shoes?" and I said "Yes." which got me a narrow-eyed look. She knew. She may not have known what the details were, but she knew. She later sent me back up to the loft to close the windows. I said, "But what about the wasps?" She said, "You will be fine. You'll be wearing shoes."

Movie Making 101

I am unsure exactly when we thought "Let's make a movie". Now granted we had been collecting footage for many years by then and I suppose the idea of a movie had been just hovering under the surface for a long time, but we actually began to 'make the movie' in 2003. 

 Some people choose to write screenplays and hire actors and state important concepts in their movie. We set out to do just one thing. Put together conclusive evidence that the state of Texas had surf, it had people who could surf and when you put the two together it was fun to watch. Up to that point in time, there had been very few attempts at making a movie about surfing in Texas. This makes a lot of sense because although Texas has over 400 miles of coast, it has just a few areas that receive appreciable surf for more than a handful of times per year. 

 Ask just about anyone where they think people go surfing and they will answer Hawaii, California, and maybe other places like Florida or Fiji if they have any knowledge about surfing. Almost never will they say Texas. So Texas surfers suffer from a lack of recognition and often harbor insecurities due to this. They know their favorite surfing spots don't have good waves all the time and quite frankly they never have waves equal to some of the better surf locations in the world, however, each Texas surfer knows that on the right day with the right conditions there is surf in Texas. "If only there was some documentation of it," they mourn, "If only I could prove it to all of my ignorant friends and relatives that scoff at my surfing because I do it in Texas".

 It was with that in mind we made our movie and with that in mind, we called it "There Ain't No Surf in Texas" meaning by the use of the double negative that there IS surf in Texas wink, wink, doncha know. For our movie, we felt we had the perfect name, the perfect timing since there were no other movies like it, and all the footage we would ever need because we had been videoing Texas surf for over 7 years. Piece of cake we thought.

 I will fast forward a bit here to avoid going through the blow by blow account of us learning how to capture analog video to a computer, edit video, create transitions, learn computer animation, acquire music and rights to use music, rent a venue to show the movie and make the final version of that movie. We will just jump right up to the point where two weeks before the show when we are doing all the final editing and touch-ups, we have a massive total computer failure that wipes out our hard drive with all the movie files. Some sort of 'electrical-power-something' that fried the motherboard and put an electrical surge into the drives. 

 Imagine you are running uphill through terrain you have never been in before. Imagine you are carrying a heavy load, oh let's make it really dramatic and say you are carrying a wounded friend. Now imagine it starts to rain so hard you can no longer see and your shoes fall off and the ground gives way beneath your feet so that you are falling backward faster than you can make progress forward. Oh, and people are throwing rocks at you and hitting you and you are really, really, really tired. It was sort of like that but only worse.

 Lucky for us the absolute forward momentum of the situation did not allow us time to contemplate the disaster. We just bought another computer found some files we had backed up (thankfully) and recreated over a month's worth of final editing work in just a few days. I am pretty sure that for both of us there is some sort of permanent damage. Upon our deaths, they will be examining our remains and point to an area of our brains and say "Look at that, all that horrible sign of stress. Why if they hadn't gone through that they would have lived much, much longer."

 But we did it, somehow. It was an uphill fight all the way, in fact as we were leaving for the show we had the final best version still rendering on the computer and had to leave with the next best version. The premier was great and sold out both showings and everyone who was there was hooting and hollering like only surfers watching surf movies can do. The walls shook with their shouts and rattled with their laughter too. Of my memories in life, this will be one of the finest. 

 What have I learned from making a movie? 1. Please yourself because critics are a fact of life and you will never please everyone. 2. Disaster is just nature's way of revealing how much harder you can work. 3. Back up your files and then back up your backup files. 4. Enjoy the show.

Preparing for Disaster

The first time we did it, we did it by the book.  Or at least by what I thought a book on evacuating for a hurricane would say if anyone had ever written one. Perhaps someone has written one and there are meticulous details on how to go about it. If so, I never read it, but instead, we did what we thought a book like that would have said to do.

 That about explains the mental state we were in as we tried in just a few hours to 1. Prepare our home to be flooded; 2. Pack all our most important belongings to take with us; 3. Plan our path out of the city.

 For part 1, we did things like empty the water bed and place the mattress part of it up on a table. Move several pieces of furniture up on top of chairs. We talked about putting the refrigerator up on cement blocks, but thankfully by that time, we were so exhausted we just hoped for the best.

 It turns out that all of our important belongings were most of our belongings, or at least it seemed that way as our van and pickup truck steadily filled with 'things'. Things like the computers, the photo albums, the cameras, the science fiction book collection, the comic book collection, the keepsakes, the summer clothes, the winter clothes, the good china - pretty much anything that could be put in one of many, many Rubbermaid totes we possessed. Of course, our most important belongings were our pets which consisted of two dogs and two cats and that meant all their food and crates and bowls as well. We might as well have just decided on the spur of the moment to move because the only things left in the house were large pieces of furniture.

 For some reason, I decided I needed to work for the first part of the day, which by my reckoning would leave us plenty of time to evacuate, an event not scheduled until the next day. I can remember filling my van with gas and seeing the person next to me filling not only his car but several gas cans. He looked nervous and this in turn made me feel nervous. Should we go out and buy gas cans and pack them too?

 When we finally parted from our now mostly empty house it was almost 3pm. We would have stayed longer but there was literally no way anything else could fit in our vehicles. I was in the van with the two dogs sharing the passenger seat and the cats in the back in a crate. Off we went and all was well until we hit the first major highway. Now, we were savvy and knew that heading north would doubtlessly be a crowded venture, so we set off west with the intention of turning south as soon as possible. Once we were on the highway we did not move more than a mile for the next two hours.

 Prior to leaving, we agreed that we would stick together which meant in reality, since I was following, I had to steadily drive like a jerk in order to keep up. One would think that in traffic that was not moving there would be no way to get separated, but one would be wrong. Within the first 2 minutes, three cars came between us. That's okay I thought, I can still see him and we have our cell phones. One of the things to know about 3 million people evacuating is that they all want to talk to each other on their cell phones. After about an hour of barely moving, I could no longer see his truck. I knew he had to be there and sometimes my phone would ring but we were only connected for a second or two before the line dropped.

 Finally, we crept to our first interchange where we pulled over and reassured each other that since we were turning south things were bound to get better. Never have less accurate words ever been spoken. The next three or so hours were spent barely moving but also jockeying for position against other insane with rage, fear, heat, and panic mad drivers. I am surprised there was no gunfire - at least none that I heard anyway. Cell phone reception remained a joke and night eventually fell. We finally crept far enough away from the monumental holocaust that had become the city's freeways to contact each other. He had stopped at a gas station and although it was closed it was a welcome relief. Having been in a heightened state of anxiety for more than five hours did nothing for my nerves and even less for my bladder. It was pee or die. Since no bathroom was available I found the equivalent of a bush (concrete pillar).

 We did make it to our destination south in what would have been considered remarkably heavy traffic, but because we were able to move greater than 5 miles an hour we were deliriously happy. We went on to experience evacuating motels, lost reservations, an amazingly kind and generous motel owner, the worst red tide outbreak ever possible on the gulf coast, a very scary asthma attack from one of our dogs who it turns out is allergic to red tide, and a cat who would howl at night unless I stuffed him under the covers with me. So in other words, good times.

 We returned home to a completely dry and undamaged home and no electricity plus a freezer that was filled with rotting food (forgot that one detail about emptying the freezer, which will definitely take up the first chapter if I ever write the evacuation manual).

 So fast forward to the next hurricane evacuation. Even though it was aimed right at us and even though the prediction was that the water would rise about 25 feet and our house sat at just 22 feet above sea level we did not put anything up on anything else. We took the computer hard drives but no computers. We took the photo albums and the cameras and some clothes. We just walked away from it all, although we did empty out the fridge and freezer.

 This second time we evacuated to my father's house which was 52 feet above sea level and rode it out. I must say that this was the best evacuation ever and even though the city was brought to its knees for almost two weeks afterward and we were without power for almost a week it was a great time. Our only slightly upsetting event occurred when we finally made it back to our house a couple of days after the storm was over. We were prepared to see just a slab and had talked about how we would start over. When after several detours around downed massive trees and power lines, we pulled up to our home to find it had suffered barely a scratch. Just a few downed limbs. I had been anticipating starting over and rebuilding so much that it was actually quite a letdown to see the ugly thing still standing.

Never Lecture a Crab

Coming from a 'fishing family, it was only natural that I liked to fish. Now in some parts of the world, this might mean a family of hearty bearded men and rugged women all of them wearing rubber boots and rain slickers and setting out into gale-force winds on their 50-foot double masted schooner. We were nothing of the sort. Our fishing family consisted of a family of four in a collection of sneakers, life-vests, fishing hats, and a 15 foot reconditioned boat that sometimes tried to sink.

 We didn't always have a boat and sometimes even though we had a boat, it was in 'dry dock'. The dry dock was my grandfather's back yard where he and my father tried to figure out how to fix the boat so it wouldn't try to sink. This meant that we often fished from piers and jetties that lined the gulf coast. Of the two, I loved jetty fishing more because even though you had a greater chance of getting your line snagged on some underwater piece of granite, you were closer to the water and also closer to all the various debris left behind by previous fishermen. Things like fish heads and scales as well as snarled fishing line, and if we were very lucky we would find a fishing float. Plus there was always the wildlife which mostly consisted of these weird multi-legged bugs that would scatter like crazy when you came close to them and thank God for that because the very idea of one of those things touching me would send me into spasms of panic. In other words, it was a playground of the sort that seemed to be made with a kid like me in mind.

 I can remember one of my earliest fishing trips with my family. I am about four or five years old. We are on a jetty and my parents have some chairs set up to relax in while they wait for something to take hold of a line. The day is calm, which apparently makes it ideal for catching crabs. We have tossed out a line upon which there are tied a series of chicken necks and fish heads weighted down with a rock. Every ten to fifteen minutes we pull in the line slowly and as often as not there will be a blue crab hanging onto one of the pieces of bait. If we are quick with the net that crab will be scooped up and placed into a five-gallon bucket filled partially with water. After a while, there are quite a few crabs of various sizes all trying in vain to escape the bucket. A couple of the crabs are almost too small but I have pleaded to keep them anyway and so to placate me, my parents let me place them in the bucket as well.

 My father catches several fish which he places on ice in our cooler but he also catches some less desirable fish that he wants to keep for bait. He throws these baitfish into the bucket with the crabs. This of course delights the crabs who appreciate the fresh food. I am horrified at this. As my family begins to pack up to leave, I stand there transfixed by the ruthless crabs. How dare they attack the fish like that. I begin to yell at the crabs telling them to leave the fish alone. I am very dramatic about it and even shake my finger at them saying "You bad crabs!".

 The next thing that occurs seemed to happen in slow motion. One of the little crabs that I had caught is at the top of the crab heap. As I shake my finger over the bucket it sort of crouches down. I see its stalky eyes swivel up toward my hand and then it springs suddenly upward. There is at least a foot and a half of space between my fingers and the crab, but this guy was going for some sort of record. It launched itself upward and grabbed onto my little finger with a vengeance. I jerk my hand up and scream. Little claws or not this guy is clamped on tight and it takes several shakes to dislodge him. I see the little guy go skittering across the rocks and then happily scampering back into the water.

 My screams bring my mother running to me but as I tell her what happened she says that crabs cannot jump and "That's what you get for sticking your hand into the crab bucket". I protest and even asked my sister to back me up, but apparently, she had been looking the other way when the crab leap occurred. I run to my father and tell him what happened, but he too is skeptical. "Crabs don't jump," he says. I end up telling the story again and again about what happened and although eventually, they say they believe me, I can tell they are just humoring me.

 So be careful out there and to be on the safe side, never lecture a crab.

Let's Go Fishing

It could just be the whisper of a breath, barely enough sound to part the air molecules, but I would hear it. It could be the middle of the night, I might be so soundly asleep a cannon shot could not wake me, but with the speaking of those words I would become instantly awake. And not just awake, but totally, functionally, vitally AWAKE. Now it must be said that it wasn't just anyone who could say this phrase. The power behind those words belonged solely to my father. I do believe that if I were to be awake for two weeks straight, exhausted from unending physical labor and then finally allowed to sleep, to this day, my father could say "Let's go fishing" and I would sit bolt upright, completely refreshed and raring to go.

 To say I loved fishing as a child is like saying plants love the sun. Fishing was the penultimate thing in my life and everything else paled in comparison. Even horseback riding which I desired like an addict to a drug was nothing compared to the lure of fishing. Every event, no matter how unlikely the possibility, would be examined for a fishing opportunity. A picnic, family outing, a wedding, or any other social event would always elicit the question "Can I go fishing?" from my earnest little mouth. That question was almost always answered with "No" but it did not deter me in the slightest.

 Woe be unto my parents if an outing actually did afford an unknown fishing opportunity. I can remember shamelessly begging to be allowed to fish at several events where there just happened to be a pond or stream or even a water-filled ditch. Once, when we were at some sort of company picnic it turned out there was not only this beautiful pond but also a pier out over the water which revealed numerous fish. I became unglued about 'needing to fish' and began to pester my parents in a way they could not ignore, this being a work-related social event, nor could they curb me with threats of punishment, this being a work-related social event. In desperation to silence my incessant moaning, my parents came up with a stick, a piece of string, and a paper clip for a hook. Instead of placating me that just served to infuriate me with its obvious inappropriateness. I can remember stalking off to sulk looking over that pristine and perfect pond. Every fish that was visible under that pier was like a knife through my heart.

 Yes, as a child I was obsessed with fishing. The best thing was that I was also very good at it. My guess is that when your mind is totally absorbed in something it will hone its skill to a razor's edge. I always caught a fish. Maybe not the biggest fish and maybe not the most fish, but I always caught a fish. Everyone else might be skunked without even a nibble but I would reel something in. Often times what I caught was not by any stretch of the imagination a keepable fish but catch something I would.

 So it is no wonder that my father's words could have such power over me. Once I recall my mother and sister recounting how they were trying to wake me up in the middle of the night to give me some medication. My mother believed if the medicine was to be given every four hours then it was four hours around the clock. She had given me a pill at my bedtime at 8pm and now at midnight, she was trying to wake me for another one. No such luck so she woke my sister to see if she could rouse me. They tried everything and then my sister had the bright idea to try the 'Let's go fishing' on me. My mom told me when my sister said the words I sort of twitched but didn't wake. Then she said the words and I turned to her with my eyes closed and bared my teeth at her. They made a wise decision and went to get my father. "Let's go fishing," he whispered and I was instantly awake. Of course, I was also instantly angry when it turned out we weren't going fishing.

 It has been many years since I have heard my father use the phrase but the thought of it is reassuring. I have wondered sometimes whether I should get a recording of him saying it. After all, if I ever fell into a coma or got bitten by a tsetse fly this would be the ultimate antidote.

Early Signs

I am not sure, but I think most people don't get the sort of early signs I frequently received in my childhood. Previously, as I would reflect on these events, I would think "Perhaps this was an early sign of greatness". However, since greatness is still currently eluding me I am having to consider a more uncomfortable option. Perhaps these were warning signs. I will let you be the judge.

 Consider this event. I am around four years old and following my sister and mother into my grandfather's cornfield. It is early summer and although not extremely hot yet, it is hot enough that I am wearing shorts and sandals. My mother and sister are ahead of me and just beginning to enter some tall weeds at the edge of the cornfield. As usual, I am lagging behind completely absorbed in something other than what was going on. 

I am looking at my sandals as I walk because it was pointed out to me that I had been wearing my sandals on the wrong foot. I was studying my feet to try and see if I could tell which shoe was which. How did they know? I couldn't tell the difference. The toe of each sandal was equally round. Were they messing with me?

 Absorbed in these thoughts it barely registered that something had shot out of the tall weeds my mother was walking through, zoomed past my sister, and was now at my feet. It was a black snake about 3 feet long and it wasted no time as it began coiling figure eights around my ankles. This was a snake driven with purpose and since my ankles were rather small its passage from one leg to the other meant I had a continuous length of snake completely circling around and between my feet. It didn't stop either as probably somewhere in its snake brain it was in an escape mode driving it to seek shelter which was very inadequately provided by my stalk-like legs.

 Needless to say, this was an event unprecedented in my life and my first reaction to it was shock and awe. Having been so completely absorbed in my shoes to now having to deal with an emergency situation threw my brain into overload, so I just stood rigidly there looking down. My sister who saw the whole event transpire was not in shock. Perhaps it was because she was older or maybe just that God had imbued her with a better sense of self-preservation but she instantly responded to the situation. "Jump back!' she screamed, "Jump back!"

 I did not immediately respond. Her instructions, though clear did not seem to be the best course of action from my perspective. If I were to 'jump back' just how would I time it so the ever-moving snake's head would not collide with my ankle? The snake was so long that its head actually overlapped its tail and there was a continuous band of snake body constantly rubbing around and between my ankles. Not only was this alone disturbing but the coldness of the snake's skin was adding a chilling sensation to my ankles. To me, it seemed like a complex problem that would require precise timing. If I moved my foot too soon, the snake, instead of passing between my ankles would then run into my ankle which would no doubt be worse. Snakehead + ankle = biting... at least from my view of the equation.

 My sister interrupted my contemplation by again screaming, "Jump back!" So, I felt compelled to at least try it. Reluctantly I slightly shuffled my right foot backward. The effect on the snake was immediate. It redoubled its efforts in what must have been the equivalent of a snake sprint and began whipping faster and faster around my ankles. The speed of its movements combined with its scaly skin and the stalk-like thinness of my legs caused it to start rising up my shins. If my brain had been stalled before this new complication brought it to a complete standstill. Now, not only did I have a snake around my ankles, but soon, by all indications, I would have a snake climbing ever higher up my legs until it reached my shorts, and then...

 Well, I never did get to find out what my brain was going to think next because in the next partial second I was airborne and being violently shaken back and forth. My mother had turned around when she heard my sister's screams to find her youngest daughter being assaulted by a snake. Now if there is one thing for certain in this world it is that my mother, Does. Not. Like. Snakes. So, driven by the instinctual urge possessed by all mothers to protect their young and further driven by a much greater horror of all things snake, she had sprinted to my side, jerked me from the earth, and was vigorously slinging me to and fro. That snake must have flown for yards and yards.

 Eventually, she got tired and had to set me back down where she then proceeded to bombard me with "Where did it bite you? WHERE DID IT BITE YOU!?!" while my sister helpfully chimed in "I told her to jump back, but she wouldn't jump back". Upon determining that somehow, miraculously, I was not bitten she then began to grill me on what I had done to create this event. My pleas of innocence in the matter fell on deaf ears as did my explanation as to my reluctance to the plan 'jump back'. Obviously, I had provoked the snake because "Snakes just don't do that" and also I was in trouble for not obeying my sister. She finished by saying she hoped I had learned my lesson.

 To this day I am still attempting to 'learn the lesson' that encounter taught me and as of this moment, I have not yet figured it out. But I can confidently say - 'jumping back' was not the solution.