MuddyPuddles

One time, when I was in early high school, I had been visiting with my aunt Pat and uncle Weldon and my cousins, Bruce, Ricky and Phyllis in Idalou.  My parents were away somewhere else and wouldn’t be coming back home until late.  Weldon had this rooster that he was beginning to hate.  It would perch in his window sill and then crow at 3:00 in the morning.  So, he told me that if I could catch that rooster I could have him.  Hey, I needed a good rooster so I tried and succeeded at catching him and bringing him home.  All us kids were already in bed asleep by the time mom and dad came home so they didn’t know about the rooster. 
After they had been asleep awhile, my mom heard some kind of commotion in the garage.  She got up and looked out the garage door window and then came back to the bedroom and said “James, there’s a skunk chasing our rooster in the garage.”  Dad replied, “We don’t have a rooster.”   Mom, in her groggy state of mind said, “Oh, okay,” and got back into bed. 
Evidently the rooster got out of the garage relatively unscathed because after leaving the garage he decided to go around to the back of the house and roost on the brick ledge of their window.  And, as was his custom, at 3:00 in the morning he crowed.  I don’t know what kind of conversation took place when that happened but I’m sure it was interesting.
We had “chicken” for Sunday dinner that week.  God Bless.  Dennis       

One of our main goals here in Honduras is to teach the students (and the teachers) the correct pronunciation for English words.   One of the problems they are having is that the Honduran accent that the teachers have is what the children are learning.  So, we work on it every day and every period.  I thought we were doing a pretty good job until I happened to walk by the classroom where Bonnie was teaching and I heard her say “Poot jore peenseel een jore noatbewk end luke et me.” (which is “pig Spanish” for “put your pencil in your notebook and look at me”.) Then I realized we had a little backwash going on here.  It’s not really that bad but when Bonnie told me today that she had caught herself saying “poot” instead of “put”, I died laughing because I had caught myself doing something very similar as well.  It’s like all these people have ganged up on us to try and make our English sound like theirs.

Today I watched one little 5^th grader, Avalardo, give a research report.  It was about erosion.  He was in the front of the room facing the class and I was sitting in a chair about four feet to his right.  I could almost reach out and touch him.  He had a poster taped to the board and he read from it as he told about his information and pointed at things with his yardstick.  He would say “eruption” when he meant “erosion” and he mispronounced so many words that I was having a hard time keeping a straight face.  He was pronouncing words like “flewd” (flood) and several other words that I can’t recall and he had such a serious look on his face and he was so sincere in his delivery.  It was all I could do to not laugh.  I did have my hand over my mouth at this point.  Then he said “teacher, I have a demonstration” to which the Honduran teacher in the room said “okay, do your demonstration.”  So Avalardo went over to the corner and got our two rectangular rocks that weighed about four or five pounds each.  He laid them on the floor where he had been standing.  Then he tore open a little baggie of sand and dumped it on one rock.  On the other rock he placed a folded towel.  This was to represent vegetation.  Then he needed to go get some water but the teacher told him to use some water of another student (bottled water).  I began squeezing my face to keep from laughing as I was starting to get more tickled at the sight of him putting these rocks and dirt on the tile floor and anticipating all that was about to take place.  So he grabbed the bottle and bent down and started pouring the water.  He meant to pour it on the rock with the sand on it, but it came out a little fast and over shot the rock and went directly to the floor behind the rock.  That’s where I lost it.  I was able to laugh quietly enough that he couldn’t hear me (the noise level from the other classes is deafening) but I was bouncing uncontrollably and starting to sweat (more than usual) and turning red in my efforts to not hurt his feelings.  He finally got the water onto the sand and eroded it off of the rock and then he poured water onto the towel to show how the vegetation prevented erosion.  As I glimpsed up, several of the students were looking at me and were laughing almost as hard as I was, but not at the demonstration.  They were laughing at this “gringo loco” and wondering what he had in his water bottle that made him so crazy.  Avalardo finally finished his demonstration and then had to go get a mop to clean up this rocky mud pit he had created.  It was quite a demonstration.  I then went over his poster board and corrected the pronunciation and the whole class repeated after me.  What a great experience.  If you don´t find it humorous, this is one of those things where you had to be there.  At least I enjoyed it.           

 We are thankful for the opportunity to be here.  I´m really enjoying these beautiful people.  God Bless, Dennis

A few weeks ago Bonnie and I had the opportunity to go up in a 14 passenger plane and take a 10 minute flight around the small city of Clovis , NM.  We were visiting my sister, Sandra, and my brother-in-law, Albin for a couple of days.  From about 500 feet up, I got to look down on the farms outside the city and I saw many of the giant circles which were caused by the circle sprinkler systems which have taken over as the predominant method of irrigation in that country.  I also saw fields that had been freshly plowed.  One field stood out to me because it reminded me of my younger, tractor driving, days on the farm.  It was a field in which the person who was pulling the plow had, either accidentally or on purpose, “drawn” an unusual shape on the field.  It reminded me of pulling the disking plow when I was a boy. 

The disking plow was used to plow up the weeds or the stubble left over after the crops had been harvested.  It consisted of large discs (shaped like contact lenses) which dug about 4 to 6 inches into the soil and tossed it to the side a few inches.  Then, another row of discs tossed it back to the original position.  This dug up or chopped up the weeds or stubble.  This was one of my favorite assignments because of the “fringe benefits” that came with the job. 

Since you were not disking up and down the rows, you could plow in any direction you wanted.  In fact it did a better job if you went at an angle to the former rows.  What the field I had seen from the plane reminded me of was of the times that I would write notes to the airplanes in the sky.  While my dad thought that I was busily plowing the field in the most orderly fashion, I was sometimes writing giant letters on the ground with the disk.  I wrote things like “HI” or “WAVE” with a big circle around it, just in case a plane might fly by sometime and look down.  You’ve heard of “sky writers”.  I was a “ground writer”.  I don’t know if a plane ever saw it, but sometimes things are just worth doing for their own sake.  So, I’m proud of the fact that I was a friendly “ground writer” even before that became a famous (it is famous isn’t it?).  Maybe I inspired some aliens to do crop circles.  You never know.

Another reason I liked disking was because I was plowing where the most wildlife was located.  Many times there were birds and rabbits and skunks and mice and all kinds of creatures and varmints living in the fields where I was plowing.  Therefore, if the field was just weeds and had not been a crop, I would usually plow around the circumference of the field first and then just gradually spiral inward until I got to the center.  This way, if there were animals, they would just keep moving more and more toward the center of the field.  When I would see mice I would stop the tractor and try to hit them with clods.  When I would see young birds that couldn’t fly very well yet, I would stop the tractor and go out and try to chase them down so that I could keep them for pets.  Sometimes I would find a nest on the ground with eggs in it.  Many a time did I gather eggs in the field.  I stored them in the tool box in a rag until I could take them home at the end of the day.  At home I would set them in a shallow box at the base of the refrigerator so that the warm air would cause them to hatch.   

My favorite animal to catch was rabbits.  Sometimes I spent about as much time chasing baby rabbits as I did plowing.  I remember one day when I was wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans and I was plowing (or should I say I was hunting with the tractor).  I started seeing baby rabbits.  So, each time I saw one, I stopped the tractor and started chasing it.  When I caught one, I didn’t have a good place to keep it where it wouldn’t get away so I just tucked in my T-shirt and put the rabbit down the hole in my shirt where my neck was so the rabbit would be trapped inside my shirt (just like me).  I kept seeing these baby rabbits and I kept catching them and putting them inside my shirt.  Once inside they would just go round and round just above my waist.  By the time I was finished, I had nine rabbits in my shirt.  I had to catch that last one with eight rabbits in my shirt.  Have you ever tried to run to catch a fast rabbit with eight other rabbits in your shirt?  They were flopping around like crazy.  It’s not easy — I can tell you for a fact.  I had to plow for quite awhile with those rabbits circling my waist.  They were pretty warm so it was a little uncomfortable, but it was worth it.  Nine rabbits was a pretty good haul, even for me. 

So now you can see why disking was one of my favorite plowing jobs.  And, it did a lot of good for my dad as well.  It was just hard to find good help, like me, in those days.  He was really lucky to have me.  Seriously, I Thank God for letting me have those wonderful and memorable experiences on the farm.  There is nothing quite like them.  Sincerely, Dennis  

A few years ago a friend of mine told me about something that took place in the life of his father, Robert.  It seems that one of Robert’s windmills was malfunctioning.  So, he decided that he would make the repairs himself.  He took a friend with him in case he needed someone to throw some tools up or to help in some other way.   It was a windy day and the clouds were moving rapidly across the sky.  As Robert climbed up the side of the windmill he started noticing that it was shaking.  He was near the top when he suddenly realized that, with his extra weight, the windmill was actually beginning to fall toward him.  Fearing that he would be caught between the windmill and the ground he did what most of us would probably do.  He jumped outward as far as he could to make sure he didn’t get crushed.  Fortunately the windmill did not fall on him.  In fact, when he turned around, the windmill was still standing.  It never was about to fall in the first place.  The combination of it shaking because of the strong winds, and the rapid movement of the clouds as he looked up gave him the false sensation that it was falling and that he was soon to be crushed.  Imagine his friend standing on the ground looking up at Robert as he was climbing up near the top.  All of a sudden, for no apparent reason, this normally sane person just suddenly jumped as far as he could off the top of that windmill.  That had to be quite a surreal experience.  Robert was obviously banged up a little but was able to recover over time.  While recovering he decided to never fix windmills on cloudy windy days after that.  It’s just too dangerous.

I guess the lesson is pretty obvious here.  When we don’t have our feet on solid ground and when we have our eyes focused on fleeting things we become disoriented in our life and do foolish things.  When we have a good Spiritual foundation and have our eyes focused on Jesus, then we can make decisions based upon Godly principals regardless of the clouds that are moving around us.  If we have a vision and a purpose and a Godly heart that is trained in the truth then we will be blessed with good choices.  May God Bless you as you tilt your own windmills of life in the week ahead.  Sincerely,  Dennis

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I went to Lubbock to attend the graduation ceremonies of our daughter-in-law from Tech.  She was completing her Masters Degree.  All of her family was there as well.  Afterwards we all went out to a steakhouse to celebrate the occasion.  There were about 16 of us so we were strung out along a very long table.  The restaurant was noisy so you could only converse with the people closest to you.  At one point I looked at the opposite end of the table to see my 4 year old grandson, Trapper, with his hand up to his face and it looked like he might be crying.  His face was definitely wrinkled up and he looked very sad but I couldn’t be sure whether he was crying or not.  So I watched.  Momentarily he pulled his hand away from his face, along with the lemon he had in his mouth and his face returned to normal.  He wasn’t crying.  He was sucking the juice out of a lemon.  His dad told me that he will sometimes carry a lemon around for hours sucking on it.  What got my attention was the fact that he so seldom has a sad face that I thought something must be wrong.

A few nights ago on the season finale of the show “24”, the actor who played the senator (Audrey’s father) was sitting on the couch with Jack Bower (the hero) standing over him.  On one shot I noticed the most exaggerated upside down “smiley” face that I have ever seen on a human being.  It literally looked like the sad clown where the upside down smile is drawn on his face.  It was extreme.  That made me think about three other faces I’ve seen.

There are three people that I have known in my life that God blessed with a facial structure that gave them a natural smile.  Even when they were 100% relaxed it looked like they were smiling.  One of them was a girl named Karen.  She was a high school girl in the 80’s that went to church where we did.  Another was Shelley, a girl that went to our small town school and graduated when my youngest son did.  She just has that natural smile (It is not as pronounced as the other two, but is nonetheless there).  And, finally, there is my cousin Ricky.  Ricky is a banker who is always smiling.  It is just natural.  He told me about a time when the farm economy was really suffering and a farmer came in to tell him about his financial troubles and how he was having difficulty making his farm payment.   After he had told his story he suddenly stopped and said “Are you laughing at me?”  This caught Ricky off guard because he wasn’t laughing at all.  It was just his natural facial expression.  Except for a few isolated incidents like this, these three have been naturally blessed by their happy face.  People have a natural tendency to respond positively to them.  They are considered friendly and upbeat and I’m sure that they have been propelled in that direction because of it. 

On the other hand—(or maybe I should say “on the other head”) I know a couple of people that were cursed with a naturally “upset” face.  They always look mad (or sad)—even if they are not.  And most of these people seem to live more negative, pessimistic lives.  They look grouchy so most people avoid them or brace themselves for the grouchiness and I’m positive that this has contributed to a more grouchy disposition.  I’m not listing their names because they look kind of mean.  I’m afraid they might hurt me.

Most of us are in the middle of these two extremes.  We don’t have a natural bent.  We are smiley sometimes and unsmiley sometimes.  We have “ambidextrous” faces.  We get to choose which “sign” we are going to put on our window each day.  We get to choose if our cup is half-empty or half-full.  (Of course the others do too, but they start off with a natural bias to one side or the other).  We get to choose if we are going around with a lemon in our mouth or with juicy fruit gum.  We have truly been blessed by God.  I’m convinced that if I can keep that awareness of his blessings in my mind and in my heart, then it makes it much more easy and “natural” to put a smile on my face - which, in turn, blesses those around me.  Life is too short to waste it on negativity.  May God Bless you as you bring a smile to your neighborhood this week.  Dennis

One of the comments on my May 21 post (Gringo Perdido–Lost White Boy) posed the question about why I haven’t become a travel agent.  This got me to thinking that, yes, I could become a travel agent.  I could probably make a fortune over night.  I could call my agency “Gringo Perdido Travel Agency”.  But I need a good slogan or catch line.  I’ve thought of a couple—“We get you there further” or “Come see the world on your trip to Cleveland ” or ???.  Do you have any suggestions?  “We get you there in twice the time with twice the price?”  “We get you there by the end of your vacation?”  I know there is something better out there.  Let me hear your ideas.  It may mean the difference in my success or my failure.  Thanks in advance!  Dennis

Last year I had one of the strangest adventures of my life.  Below is the description of my true life adventure.  Many of you have already heard about it.  Enjoy it again, along with the newbies. 

Log 12/3/06

On this day, I was scheduled to fly from DFW to Antigua, Guatemala so that I could start a two week course in Spanish at the Christian Spanish Academy .   My flight was to leave DFW at 8:35 in the morning.  Since it was an international flight, I was supposed to be there two hours early (6:30 am).  Since I live about two hours away from the airport, I would have to either stay in a hotel in the metroplex or get up at 4:00 in the morning.  I chose the latter.

Everything went as planned as far as getting up, getting to the airport and getting on the plane.  My schedule was to fly from DFW to San Jan, Puerto Rico .  From there, after waiting almost 4 hours, I would fly to Antigua and should arrive at 8:35 pm.  Everything continued to go according to schedule.  A driver was supposed to pick me up when I arrived. 

So, when I got there, no driver showed up.  I decided that I would wait until 9:00 and then call a cell phone number I had to call a representative of CSA.  When I tried the pay phone, it wouldn’t let me dial it before it diverted to a recording that said it could not make the call.  So, I asked one of the airport people for some help.  They said that it was not a number from this area.  It had 8 digits and their numbers have 7 digits. 

So, I told them I was going to Christian Spanish Academy in Antigua and they said they had never heard of it.  As I thought back, when I was walking across the tarmac, I asked one of the airport security personnel, “how far is it between Guatemala City, (the capital of Guatemala,) and Antigua ”.  She said she didn’t know where Guatemala City was—she had never heard of it.

Now it was all starting to come clear.   I was on the Island of Antigua in the Caribbean Sea .  It began to dawn on me that the driver wasn’t coming to my location because I was probably 1,000 miles away from him on a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where I didn’t know a soul and it was 9:00 at night. 

I kept thinking things like “I can’t believe I did that,” and I wonder how long it is going to be before I actually get to Guatemala ?”  “Will I get to Guatemala ?  I knew that the Guatemala airport was in Guatemala City .  I just had a mental lapse when I made my reservations online using my aadvantage airmiles.  I don’t think I’ll ever make that mistake again.

The ticket counters were all closed at the airport and Hezekiah, who is some big dog at the airport told me that there were two flights leaving in the morning and going back to San Juan, Puerto Rico , but that they were both full.  Uh Oh.  He gave me an 800 number to American and said that I should try to make arrangements with them tonight if I was going to have any chance of flying out of there tomorrow.  I would probably have to go standby and hope for the best.

So, I caught a courtesy van to the airport hotel.  I could get a room with a fan for $53 or a room with an AC for $70.  I took the fan.  I tried to dial an 800 number to American Airlines, but it wouldn’t work.  Finally the lady at the desk let me use the hotel cell phone.  I still could not dial an 800 number, but if I paid a small fortune it would let me call Bonnie at home in Hamilton .  Fortunately, Hamilton is two hours behind Antigua , so it was about 8:15 there and I didn’t have to wake her up. 

For $6 I got Bonnie and told her about my situation.  She said I jinxed the trip when I told her, before I left THIS MORNING, “this will be an adventure.” (Little did I know how right that was.) Anyway, I got her to call American and to put us on a conference call so I could hopefully get off of this Island before Christmas.   We would have to go through the lengthy phone tree to finally talk to someone and would tell them what happened and then they would transfer us to “international” where we told the story again to which they would respond, “I need to transfer you to an International Aadvantage agent.”  When we finally got the correct agent my phone cut off because I had run out of precious broadcast minutes, but I could redial if I paid another small fortune to the hotel. 

So, I paid a bigger fortune ($14) and called Bonnie back and told her that if we got cut off again to go ahead and continue the call with the agent and then to call the hotel cell phone after she had made the arrangements so she could tell me what they had come up with.  I had not thought to give her the cell number the first time, nor did I think to pay a smaller fortune just to call her to give her the call back number.  I was not even confident she would be able to get through to me from her end anyway.  After all, I was at the far end of the earth.  (By the way, the only internet set up they had at the hotel was out of order and I couldn’t make my laptop work since I didn’t have the necessary information to do it.)

Sure enough, after going back through the phone tree and then being on hold for about 5 minutes, we finally got the correct agent and then before we could get anything worked out, I got cut off again.  So I decided that I would give it 45 minutes and then if she hadn’t called me back, I would pay another $5 and call her to see what information she might have.

At 11:30 my time (9:30 her time) I still hadn’t heard so I paid my $5 and the hotel attendant contacted the cellular company who gave me more time.  As I was dialing the phone, it rang and it was Bonnie.  So, I had just made a donation to the phone gods.  At least, Bonnie must have information since she called. 

Sure enough, after much diligent effort by Bonnie and the agent (and the agent’s supervisor)they had worked out a plan (an expensive plan, but a plan).  I did get a reserve seat on the 8:05 flight back to San Juan where, after a 5 hour layover I could catch a Copa Airlines flight to Panama .  From there I could wait a few more hours and then catch another Copa flight which would take me to Managua, Nicaragua .  The same flight would then takeoff again after about 20 minutes and take me to Guatemala City where it should land at 9:38 pm. 

To make sure I caught the first flight (8:05 am) to San Juan , I got to the airport at 5:15.  I was first in line and I did make that flight.  In fact I made all the flights and with bleary eyes, a sore bottom and a smile on my face I disembarked in Guatemala City at 10:44 pm.  The driver was there to take me to my new home away from home in Antigua, Guatemala where I met my wonderful new host family.  I love it when a plan comes together.

So ends my little adventure of getting to Guatemala .  In the past two days, I have been on 6 planes and have made 12 takeoffs or landings.  I’ve learned several things.  The airport in Panama is really nice.  You ought to go there sometime.  I don’t recommend the flight from San Juan to Antigua , however.  It was a miniature puddle jumper which appeared, by the size of the seats and the space between them, to be designed to carry children instead of adults.   Thank you, God, for taking care of me.

Sincerely,

Dennis Ensor, Expert traveler (Gringo Perdido—(lost white boy)!

One of the most embarrassing moments in my life (top 10) came during a Junior High basketball game in which my youngest son was participating.  We were playing in another town and were trailing by a few points near the end of the one of the halves.  Since we were behind, every second on the clock was critical.  One of the teams called “time out” so both teams went over to the appropriate bench for their coaches instructions.  Since it was a Junior High game, there weren’t too many people in the gym—mostly a few parents and friends.   Therefore, anyone who yelled could be distinctly heard.  Sometimes even a quietly spoken word could easily be heard if it was a quiet moment.  Generally speaking, when my sons were playing ball, I was not a casual spectator.  I was usually pretty intensely plugged in to the game.  I also had the habit of giving my wife a constant “play by play” analysis of what was happening and why (I’m sure she always appreciated this immensely).  I would comment on strategy and potential strategy and reactions of the players and coaches and fans.  In other words, I would really get in to it (I actually did it on the radio for awhile as well).  As I stated, we were slightly behind and it was near the end of the half.  Someone called “time out” and the referee granted the wish.   The players went to the bench.  I looked up and saw that the clock was still running.  Precious seconds were ticking away and I was sure that these refs wouldn’t have a clue about how much time should be put back on the clock.  Soooo, in a voice loud enough to shake the rafters I screamed out “STOP THE CLOCK!!!”  Then . . ., then I realized that this school had one of those new-fangled clocks that, during a timeout, would switch over to a one minute clock so that the buzzer would go off at the end of the time out period.  Then it would automatically revert back to the game clock.  When reality struck I could do nothing but bury my face into my hands and laugh (which is what I do when I mess up badly and publicly).  I felt like such an idiot.  It kind of reminds me of that old saying, “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and have people wonder if you are a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”  But I did prove to myself that even slow learners can learn and though I sometimes learn slowly, I learn well.  God Bless you as you go out and not make fools of yourself this week.  Dennis

I lived on the farm until I went to college.  I didn’t appreciate how much of a blessing that was until years later.  During that time, my dad had several hired hands to help out with the farming.  The first one I remember was probably named Manuel, but I always called him “Manwell”.  He did not speak English but he was able to teach me and my cousin, Bobby, that hot pepper was really hot.  I ran a quarter of a mile to my house after my pepper lesson so I could drink some nice cold water—lots of it.  I don’t know why I didn’t drink some of Manwell’s water.  I guess your tongue being on fire and beads of sweat coming out of every pore on your body makes it hard to think clearly.  If I remember correctly it was also Manwell that found a little baby mouse in the field and gave it to my little brother, Jace, who held it in his hands.  He was about 4 at the time, I think.  Then we all watched as Manwell temporarily put that gross little varmit in Jace’s pocket.  Jace was grinning the whole time (the little rugrat).  Jace then had the “power” because we were all so grossed out about the possibility of him touching us with his gross mouse hands that we avoided him like the plague as mom drove us home to where she made Jace wash his hands.  When he went back to Mexico to visit his wife he was never able to get another visa to come back. 

Later my dad hired Larry.  He was also a Mexican, but he could speak pretty good English.  He never called me “Holmes” like you hear some Mexican Americans say today, but he talked with that same type of rhythm and accent.  What I learned from him when I worked along side him is that when you see the boss man’s pickup heading your way you get up and start working diligently so that the boss man will think that you work diligently all the time.  I’m sure that he really had my dad fooled—especially since the boss man’s son saw him in action (or lack thereof) when the boss man wasn’t around. 

The most interesting hired hand of all was a black man (the term “African-American” didn’t come along for another 20 years) named C.Ray and his wife “Evil”.  That really was her name.  She had a couple of brothers named “Satan” and “Devil” or something like that.  Evil said that her mother believed if you named your children with bad names that they would turn out good.  My name spelled backwards spells “sinned” so maybe that’s why I turned out so good.  Jace’s name backwards would have been “ecaj”.  For those of you that know Jace, need I say more???  Anyway, C.Ray told me that he was a “He-Man” and asked me if I knew what that was.  I mistakenly (partially mistakenly) guessed a strong man.  He corrected me by saying that a He-Man is a person whose left arm is just as strong as his right arm and that he could do things equally well with his right hand and his left hand.  I was impressed.  Not many people get to be in the presence of a “He-man”.  But I did, so I felt pretty lucky.  One day C.Ray told me about his frustration because of the previous day’s events.  He said that he got two speeding tickets in one day and that’s against the law.  He was under the impression that you are only vulnerable to getting one speeding ticket per day.  So, after his first ticket he put the pedal to the metal.  The patrolman in the next county wasn’t aware of that law about only getting one ticket per day.  I guess he missed his refresher course where they covered that.  Anyway, C. Ray felt like they were out to get him and he wasn’t happy about that.  As a bonus and an incentive for C. Ray to do good work, my dad let him use five acres to grow his own crop.  He could grow anything he wanted and he could keep the profits for himself.  C.Ray decided to grow watermelons.  As I recall, watermelons usually sold for about a dollar each in those days—more or less.  He, however, was able to sell quite a few of his melons for five dollars each—and he didn’t even have to pick them.  It all came about because of a large migrant Mexican crew that was there to “chop” cotton or pick tomatoes or cucumbers or beans or some kind of crop that my dad was growing.  Large migrant Mexican crews really like watermelons.  When they saw that field just full of watermelons they decided to go eat some.  So, they just walked through the field just busting open the watermelons right and left so they could eat the heart (which is by far the best part) out of them.  When C. Ray happened to see what they were doing (from a distance) he went to get Evil and the shotgun and the six-gun and his motorcycle.  Evil drove up from one side in the pickup with the shotgun.  C.Ray drove up from the other side on his motorcycle with his six-gun.  He was able to negotiate a deal for five dollars for every watermelon that his large migrant Mexican crew damaged and they seemed happy to pay it.  They did decide that they had eaten enough watermelon for one day, however.  It was a good year for C.Ray and Evil as far as crops go.

I wouldn’t mind seeing these guys again just to talk about old times.  If you happen to run in to them, ask them to give me a call, would ya? Thanks.  Have a great day!  Dennis

You may have noticed a new book on my recommended list.  It is called “The Roman Peter II…The Last Pope”.  I’ve just started reading it.  It’s the only book that I’ve put on there that I haven’t read at least once so I don’t know how good it is going to be.  It is the only novel on my list.  The reason I put it on there is because it is the first book that was written by a friend of mine, Jorge Araujo, and because I am one of the characters in the book.  I am a New York Times investigative reporter.  My first name is scattered throughout the book and, just quickly flipping through some of the pages, I’ve seen at least one time where my first and last name (my real name) is listed as part of the story.  Jorge has been telling me for years that he was doing this book and that I was in it, but I just didn’t really expect it to be a completed book with my name in it.  It was first done in Spanish but has now been translated into English.

Jorge has been an interesting part of my life.  I spent 10 days with him in London and Paris on what we hoped would be a huge payoff in a business adventure.  It didn’t work out but it was quite an adventure anyway (BTW, I like adventures).  I wouldn’t trade for it.  It was awesome.  Quite a bit of the time we spent in Paris was just waiting for the next meeting that wouldn’t take place until the next day.  Each day we thought we might be close to sealing the deal, but each day had another hitch that required getting some other papers and authorizations, etc. “swift wired” from a corresponding bank in Mexico or Switzerland or Mars and another meeting was set for the morrow.  We had to sign confidentiality agreements and affidavits and all that hogwash.  Every day it was a new story.  Another couple from New York was also a part of the deal.  They were a young couple that both smoked like chimneys in a blizzard.  I’ve never seen anyone smoke like them.  The guy spoke in hushed tones like this was some top secret deal.  He would look around as he was talking as if he thought someone might be trying to spy on us (what a clown).  I couldn’t hear about a third of what he said because he said it so quietly.  Sometimes I leaned in to try to hear as he tried to blow the smoke out of the opposite side of his mouth (so it wouldn’t hit me in the face).  They were good dresser’s, however, so I got some good pointers on looking sharp.  I learned that nothing quite matches a pure white starched 100% cotton shirt for looking sharp.  I agree.  That’s why the only white dress shirts I buy are 100% cotton and I then have them starched.  As they taught me, there is nothing that can match it for looking sharp.  (You can learn something from everyone—even quiet smokey clowns.) 

Anyway, because of the constant delays, I had a lot of time to kill.  Although it was cold and my feet hurt because I was wearing “dress” shoes, I spent many hours just walking around and taking in the sights.  I relished it.  It was awesome.  I truly could imagine what it felt like to be a character in a novel.  And now—now I am just that.  I can’t wait for my next adventure—what will it be???  God Bless!  Dennis