Sunday Morning Essays

 Is This Even Legal? Photo: This is one of the many flags that mysteriously appeared one morning lining our street. In the background you can see our new house and the prehistoric horse apple tree (see previous blog). The undulations on the lawn a clear sign that a mammoth was there. TAXES, AFTER ALL, ARE DUES THAT WE PAY FOR THE PRIVILEGES OF MEMBERSHIP IN AN ORGANIZED SOCIETY.” — FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT My travel companion and I scratched our heads this weekend when we walked out of our Texas home to go to brunch (brunch is a big thing here in Dallas). The streets in our neighborhood were lined with American Flags. When I was a homeowner in the California Bay Area I wouldn't dream of putting the American Flag in front of my home. It would be considered too divisive. I cringe at the thought of the community backlash over my flag after a quarterback for the Bay Area team the 49ers decided to kneel during the anthem. The 49ers weren't even doing that well...

 What the Heck ARE These Things? As I have mentioned before, I moved to Texas from California and purchased a modest house north of Dallas with my travel companion.  When people here in Texas ask me where I am from I smile back at them in my beanie, my multiple mala bead bracelets, and my bicep ink and I tell them very softly, "California." I don't want too many people to hear. Dallas is very weary of California immigrants. They like their Red State with its low taxes and even lower homelessness. Sure, Texas doesn't have the mountains or the Pacific Ocean but it also doesn't have a Coastal Commission or even a Highway Patrol for that mater and they like it that way. Many times on answering the question I'll get a dirty look and a finger in my chest warning me not to change their state. I rarely leave the house wearing a beanie without my Shepard Malinois mix (Chief).  The Russian mafia movers delivered my furniture and surprisingly left all my fingers still c...

  Canadian geese and swans mate for life. Both are part of the   Anatidae   family. As birds they are not very religious and so this might cause some   people to scratch their collective heads in wonder -- certainly in California.   But I believe after some careful research that there was a period in their evolution, long before man kept records of such things outside of a few still   undiscovered cave walls, where there were just too many geese divorce lawyers and the birds just had had enough.   No goose would mate with another goose practicing law -- gander and goose alike -- and soon the subspecies, or gaggle, died out. The swans saw   the geese euphoria and followed suit. In two generations both entire species were devoid of expensive family-law firms and there was no longer   reason to be anything but monogamy once you found a mate. It ended up being much better for the goslings as well (geese are very fond of their   offspring) an...

Headington (oil guy with taste) eye sculpture that he placed on a property on Main St. that he wanted to develop and the city council was worried it would be an eye sore.... Nothing is more Dallas. I bought my mom an  air  pistol and ammo. I got it on Amazon. I gave her instructions on how to use it and the loaded gun sits in a drawer next to her chair at all times. She’s about 75. To avoid trips to the emergency ward or even more fatal accidents I mades sure the gun and the ammunition were made out of plastic. It's still hurts but it's not life threatening which is important. The gun is to be used in cases only that involve a political conversation between my step father — her husband of 35 years — and me. To say that we are opposites of the political spectrum is a bit mild. He is a retired and pensioned fire captain. I am a semi retired entrepreneur in dot-com. Our dialog gets  a bit heated at times but we both love it and love each other to death. When the arguments ge...

As explorers and finding ourselves precariously in the middle of nowhere to see a graduation, which we were told was someplace in Missouri, we instinctively make the two hour trip to the launching pad and return point of possibly two of the most famed travelers of all time -- Louis and Clark. With a sense of flair they waited for a few hours there on the banks of the Mississippi in September of 1803.  The riverbanks look very different now visible below the very sexy top floor bar lounge I am sitting at. After four years of trekking through uncharted wilderness, the last two years of which sustaining themselves on domesticated dog, they wanted to make sure the timing was just right.   "[…] about 12 o'clock we arrived in site of St. Louis… fired three rounds as we approached the town […] the people gathered on the shore and huzza-ed three cheers[…] in the evening a dinner & ball". -- Lewis Diary Entry After a few more huzza's they and the entire town ended up a...