Tea for Texas - weekly column, 10 September 2023

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Tea for Texas

Major General Urquhart: "Hancock, I've got lunatics laughing at me from the woods. My original plan has been scuppered now that the jeeps haven't arrived. My communications are completely broken down. Do you really believe any of that can be helped by a cup of tea?”

Corporal Hancock: “Couldn't hurt, sir.”

-A Bridge Too Far

 

Bubba Ebarb, of happy memory, required certain specific performances for his several successful restaurants.  One of his rules was that the iced tea would never reach the old age of one hour before it was tossed and replaced with a fresh brewing of the refreshing leaf.

This is the sort of value that made him a great success. Unfortunately, such reasonable expectations appear to be rarer now.

Iced tea has been a staple since around the time of the St. Louis Exposition in 1904 (Meet Me in St. Louis) when mechanical ice-making, the existing popularity of tea, an especially hot summer, and thirsty fairgoers together made a historical shift in refreshment.

Once upon a time in Texas a glass of good, fresh iced tea was easily available at any café’ in the Lone Star Republic, but now it’s a little more difficult to find at all and is often a vintage sludge.

Last week I stopped at a Famous Name Fat Foodery in Buffalo, Texas for a refreshing mid-morning cup of the good stuff, and the muffly voice crackling through the grill said that they didn’t have any tea-tea but that their mango tea was really good.

Mango tea. 

In Buffalo, Texas.

As Macduff does not say in Macbeth, “Oh, Texas, when wilt thou find thy wholesome ways again!”

Has Texas become a colony of West Hollywood? Is Mission Espiritu Santo at Goliad now a fusion cuisine restaurant specializing in avocado toast? When Cabeza de Vaca and his companions made their epic, years-long trek across Texas did they consider the majesty of the land and its vast spaces and exclaim, “Here we will establish our fruit bars, our incense shops, our therapy spas, our vegetarian Thai takeouts, our tea shops of infused bamboo shoots!”

On down the road I found a big Famous Name Brand truck stop which featured several tanks of iced tea.  The first tank oozed out something like an oil change.  The second tank dribbled out something even darker and more viscous.

I bought a bottle of water from the cooler.

Look, I’m not a tea snob; I’m even cool with teabags (gasp!). In the winter I like a good cuppa char; just a good black tea / schwarztee, and at all times I’m up for a glass of iced tea, Texas’ national beverage. The essential factor is that the tea is fresh.

Real Texans / Texians / Tejanos / Texicans drink real tea and drink it real fresh. Bubba would expect no less. God bless fresh tea, God bless Bubba Ebarb, and God bless Texas.

-30-

 

Watch Where You Step; There Might be a Senator - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

 

Watch Where You Step; There Might be a Senator

 

 

But hiss for hiss return’d with forked tongue

 

-Paradise Lost X.518

 

 

The summer heat like judgement on the earth -

It fell upon the roiling afternoon dust

Where two foul snakes in deadly combat writhed

With hiss and strike and hate-spittled fangs

 

In a world of crunchy grasshoppers and tasty frogs

Of careless bunny rabbits and baby squirrels

The snakes found only their hatred for each other

Until one serpent choked on the other, and both died

 

And there, my children, is a lesson in brief

About the government of the State of Texas

 

Will the Plowed Boys Find Love in the End? - poem (of a sort)

 

Will the Plowed Boys Find Love in the End?

 

Romantic robots could bring peace to our streets -

The Plowed Boys would have something to fondle

Other than their idle trifles and bang-bang rifles

For in the end they would have dates after all

 

And will they wear

 

Their he-man soldier suits and bug-eyed shades

Their he-man soldier toys dangling from carabiners

Their radios and whistles and lip-dangling ciggies

 

                                                while in bed?

Joining the Class Struggle - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Joining the Class Struggle

 

“Yuri, what splendid words!”

 

-Anna in Doctor Zhivago

 

Lift high the red banner, comrades and comradettes!                  

Lift high the made-in-China bullhorns against the rich

Make crudely misspelt signs and block the streets

(How dare the workers work while we’re yelling at them)

 

Pull down the statue of St. Joan of Arc!

Because she was, like, you know, a Confederate general

And smash the windows of the corporate coffee shops

(Make mine a decolonized double decaf)

 

Liberate the people’s goods! To arms! To arms!

(But who will stay behind to work the farms?)

Toys at the Base of an Oak Tree - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Toys at the Base of an Oak Tree

 

“We'll be Friends Forever, won't we, Pooh?” asked Piglet.
“Even longer,” Pooh answered.

- A. A. Milne

 

You find them at the base of a tree sometimes:

A pewter knight or a plastic Robin Hood

Or a marble lost in the long-ago

Turned up among the weeds by shifting roots

 

In the leafy silences of summer a little boy

Practiced the arts of magic and manliness

With Robin Hood and the pewter knight searching for a jewel

To present to their Lady Marian

 

When he was a little older the boy walked to town

To the bus station, and off to a distant war

A jewel sacrificed to the blasphemy of the State

You’ll find his name at the base of a stone

 

But the pewter knight and the plastic Robin Hood

And beautiful Lady Marian still wait for him

 

Even the Oak Trees are Dying - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Even the Oak Trees are Dying

 

“Wildfire…evacuation of nearby residences under way”

 

-news bulletin

 

Poor drought-dead leaves in mockery of autumn

Wind-rustle across the lawn as the dried husks they are

Rattling like withered exoskeletons along the dust

Or The Ancient Mariner’s dead sailors upon the deck

 

The exhausted earth is hot from a summer of drought

Cicadas have no hope in their poor songs

A drifting dragonfly wobbles in its flight

And the weather reports are but cruel teasings

 

The sour smoke of a month of forest fires

Chokes even the stars, who in despair do not appear

 

Another Funeral in Margaritaville - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Another Funeral in Margaritaville

 

 

Introibo ad altare Dei.

 

Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meum.

 

-Missale Romanum

 

 

Of course all our friends are dying away

Old age sneaks up on us, ghosting us in turn:

Yevgeny, Jimmy, Dusty, Judith, Rod, and we

Who blessed each other in our happy youth

 

But I tell you we have a duty to sing our songs

Our perhaps artless lines lost long ago

Except that they’re not: we gave them to God

And He joined them to Creation for all of us

 

Of course all our friends are dying away

Except that they’re not

                                        See you in Margaritaville

Shelving Children Instead of Books - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Shelving Children Instead of Books

 

“…it is estimated that Germany…destroyed over 100 million books in Europe.”

 

-Molly Guptill Manning, When Books Went to War, xv

 

In Texas

 

We ban children’s books

We don’t ban guns;

And thus we discard

Our daughters and sons

 

HISD to eliminate librarians, turn some libraries into discipline centers at 28 campuses (click2houston.com)

A Cat is Stillness Becoming Motion - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Cat is Stillness in Motion

 

For Tuxedo-Cat

Who Simply Moved in One Day

 

There is no stillness like a cat

To the laws of physics a stillness unknown

When all is still he is stiller still

Even stiller than a stick or stone

 

There is no motion like a cat

A silent slink upon delicate paws

A smoke-like current now still again

To eye a chameleon

and sharpen his claws

The Gift of a Fountain Pen - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Gift of a Fountain Pen

 

For Max

 

A fountain pen is an instrument of civilization

Its flow of ink explores the mysteries

Of all the sciences, the mind, the heart

Sorting out the good, the beautiful, the true

 

A fountain pen is an instrument of civilization

Through creativity, with thought and craft

Marking the line between good order and ferality

Limning the eternal romance of Creation

 

A fountain pen is an instrument of civilization –

(It’s also pretty good for shopping lists)

Did You Grow Up in a Palace Too? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Did You Grow Up in a Palace Too?

 

In Memory of the Palace Theatre

 

If you were fortunate you grew up in a palace

A Technicolor palace where Robin Hood

Saved England for only twenty-five cents

And the royal feast was popcorn and RC Cola

 

If you were fortunate you grew up in a palace

Which was so big that the Comanche Nation

Could encircle both a fort and a wagon train

And a candy bar was chuck-wagon stew

 

If you were fortunate you grew up in a palace

And softly, sweetly found another’s hand

As the cowboys and Indians rode away in peace -

There was a newer magic for you to discover

 

If you were fortunate you grew up in a palace

In the summertime of your happy youth

They Make Patriotism a Dirty Word - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

They Make Patriotism a Dirty Word

 

“…Devil with Devil damn’d / Firm concord holds…”

 

-Paradise Lost II, 496-497

 

How did they make patriotism a dirty word?

A conjuring not of loyalty or love

But rather foul images of bloated men

In bug-eyed shades, knee pants, and slogan tees

 

Cradling their guns in flabby tatted arms

 

Why did they make patriotism a dirty word?

No consideration of what is best for the nation

But rather foul images of treacherous men

In tailored suits and subtle imported ties

 

Cradling their contempt in Pandaemonian cant

 

The Q, the X, mechanical law degrees –

Devil with devil damn’d firm concord holds

 

Cradling their proud disobedience before God

Riding to the Sound of the Guns: Fighting Fires in East Texas - weekly column, 26 August 2023

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Riding to the Sound of the Guns

 

In hot, burnt, smoky East Texas this summer we are again and again reminded that in hard times there are men and women who ride to the sound of the guns and then there are guys who slouch on the couch with their he-man video games.

 

In Texas most firefighters are unpaid volunteers, a rare contradiction to the axiom that you get what you pay for. Volunteer firefighters don’t get paid nothin’, but their names are written large on the scroll of Texas heroes.

 

Professional firefighters in the cities and industries often retire to the country where they immediately sign on as volunteers. Oooh-rah!

 

Texas is always hot, but this summer has been gaspingly hot, Rime of the Ancient Mariner hot, with its “hot and copper sky,” 100+ degrees “day after day.” Simply to be outside in this heat can be dangerous, to work outside more dangerous. A firefighter’s bunker gear, also known as turnout gear, can add 30-40% to his or her body weight and God alone knows how much extra heat.

 

And then there is The Fire. The Fire – hot as three (Newarks), blowing, twisting, running, sneaking, exploding, and wildly unpredictable. A fire is not a sentient being, but given the conditions of drought, wind, and fuel can present as a malevolent monster who wants to destroy and devour anyone who presumes to deny it mastery over the lives and works of people.

 

In the sky, covering and hovering, are the crews of the various types of water bombers. Being in the sky sounds like a better deal, and perhaps at times it is, but note those aircraft: the jets are old civilian aircraft re-fitted for purposes never intended by the manufacturers. The crew must fly those machines within mere feet of the treetops to drop their loads of water or fire-retardant chemicals. If anything goes wrong – a bolt that was not secured properly, a wing or panel which after years of service finally gives way to metal fatigue, an engine that chokes up for only a second - there is no chance for recovery, no chance of life for the crew, only death. Take a look also at the helicopters and crop-dusters modified for fighting fires, and how vulnerable they are.

 

Other support includes firefighters from all over Texas, power crews working downed lines through burning woods, and the several state and local police authorities guarding roads all the way through the crisis, and seeing to the safe evacuations of the people and the protection of their homes.

 

When a mission is over, the sweaty, dusty, ash-stained, exhausted fire crews in all the disciplines then return their equally work-stained machines to the barn for hours of service, repair, washing, and detailing. The crews might not get any sleep, they might not even finish washing up their machines, their gear, or themselves before the sound of the cannons through squawking boxes and old-timey sirens calls them out to the scenes of another disaster.

 

There are guys who know Call of Duty on little plastic boxes that light up and make noises, and then there are real men and women who know the true call of duty.

 

There is a difference. God forgive us if we forget those who keep us safe.

 

-30-

 

August is Unusually Hot - Someone Must be Punished for It - weekly column, 20 August 2023

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

August is Unusually Hot – Someone Must be Punished for It

 

The gentleness of heaven is on the Sea:

Listen! The mighty Being is awake

And doth with his eternal motion make

A sound like thunder – everlastingly.

 

-Wordsworth, “It is a beauteous Evening, calm, and free”

 

Having barely graduated from high school (I think the quarter-credit for driver’s education put me over the top) I am certainly no climatologist, meteorologist, or vulgar Swedish child, but I am not persuaded that the concept of man-made climate change obtains.

 

Certainly the climate itself changes. Visitors to America’s high desert mountains often find fossils of sea-creatures from the long-ago when much of the western states were the bottom of the sea. There were land bridges between Asia and the Americas and between Europe and Britain which disappeared beneath rising oceans (gasp!) in times when human technology was pretty much limited to people throwing rocks at each other.

 

The Roman colonization of the then-warmer Britain included instituting the cultivation of grapevines for making wine, a practice which continued until the global cooling of the Little Ice Age of the 15^th-18^th centuries froze the vines out of sustainability in the island. The economic activities of Celts, Romans, Danes, Geats, Angles, Saxons, Frisians, or Gauls had no influence on the ever-changing weather.

 

Thus it is illogical and even presumptuous to conclude that someone driving to work in a vehicle powered by an internal-combustion is capable of unnaturally altering the climate of the planet.

 

We cannot even predict the weather accurately, much less control it.

 

This is a season of unusual but not unprecedented heat, drought, flooding, tropical storms, and, along the Mexico-USA border, an earthquake to accompany the flooding. To blame any of these aspects of weather and climate on any individual or group is a burn-the-witch mentality unworthy of adults who can read, write, do sums, and tie their shoelaces.

 

Personally, I blame all this rough weather on fluoride, cod liver oil, and Catholic space lasers but, hey, that’s just me.

 

Weather happens without regard for our activities or techno-superstitions.

 

At least that’s what The Voices keep telling me.

 

-30-

August is a Yellow Flame - poem

 

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

 

August is a Yellow Flame

 

 

“That August was like a yellow flame”

 

-Anna Ahkmatova, 1917 / Anno Domini MCMXXI / III. The Voice of Memory

 

 

This August is indeed like a yellow flame

Death writhes among brown-burnt withering leaves

The grass is as sere as Macbeth’s acrid soul

And garden hoses drip in futility

 

The sun-bleached visage of Ozymandias

Might frown upon this blighted desert wrack

For not unlike the Ancient Mariner’s ghostly crew

The usages of summer drop and decay

 

But look...

 

But look above the last barren clouds in the west -

A tiny sliver of the promising moon

The Bronze Serpent - poem

 

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Bronze Serpent

 

Moses established a serpent within the camp

A fiery brazen serpent upon a pole

And all who looked upon it were thereby cured

Cured of their judgments slithering through the dust

Phillis Wheatley: A Sweet, Strong Voice - weekly column 13 August 2023

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Phillis Wheatley: A Sweet, Strong Voice

 

A friend mentioned that he had graduated from Phillis Wheatley High School in Houston, which prompted me to re-read some of Wheatley’s poetry.

 

Wheatley is an interesting writer of much historical significance: she was an African, a British subject in bondage, an American revolutionary activist in bondage, and then an American, granted manumission at last not by the laws of any nation but of the later good will of those who had presumed to own fellow humans. She is possibly the first American woman poet whose work was published, though in England.

 

Because of her frail health and to seek publication for her book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, the Wheatleys sent her to England where, indeed, her book was published and she became a celebrity.

 

She corresponded with and visited George Washington, Thomas Paine, the Lord Mayor of London, the Countess of Huntingdon, British and revolutionary army and navy officers, and other notables both in the colonies and in England. Wheatley wrote to the King and was to have been presented to him, but for reasons unknown returned or was returned to the colonies before this could happen. She learned to read in English, Greek, and Latin, was thoroughly versed in the Bible and in Greek and Roman mythology, and was often discreetly subversive in her poetry and in her letters in appealing for the end of slavery:

 

May George belov’d of all the nations round

Live and by earths and heavens blessings crownd

May heaven protect and Guard him from on high

And at his presence every evil fly

Thus every clime with equal gladness See

When kings to Smile it sets their subjects Free

 

-from “To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty on his Repealing the American   Stamp Act,” 1768

 

Wheatley’s poetry is much influenced by Alexander Pope and other Augustan / Georgian poets, and her highly skilled and carefully structured verse, common to the 18^th century, can be something of a challenge for those us raised in a time when careless, unstructured, self-pitying, I, I, I, me, me, me free verse passes for poetry.

 

After the revolution her English support languished and although she assembled work for her second book these poems were not published in her short lifetime. Because she wrote so many poems and letters to her many friends and correspondents, fresh discoveries of her works continue.

 

The rest of Phillis Wheatley’s short life was tragic. She made a bad marriage to an idler, her three children died young, she was reduced to serving as a kitchen maid in a boarding house to support her family, and died in poverty around the age of 31 in 1784.

 

Was Phillis Wheatley an African poet? English? American?

 

She was all three, reconciling multiple cultures in her sweet but strong voice.

 

-30-

 

One Judge, Two Sheriff's Deputies, and Five Police Officers Take on a 98-Year-Old Woman - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

One Judge, Two Sheriff’s Deputies, and Five Police Officers

Take on a 98-Year-Old Woman

 

“Try that in a small town”

 

The 11^th of August was neither the beginning nor the end

Of sheltering the Constitution from thugs

Some in judicial robes, some in dark uniforms

When Joan Meyer stood

between them and us

 

A newsroom pillaged by judicial fiat

Private homes looted by armed bully-boys

Ordered by a heartless magistrate

When Joan Meyer stood

between them and us

 

When Joan Meyer died

between them and us

 

Raid on Kansas newspaper is an intolerable overreach by police | Editorial (yahoo.com)

What Did Jesus Look Like? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

What Did Jesus Look Like?

 

What did Jesus look like when He was on earth?

He looks just like the boy or man you’ll meet next

 

What did Mary look like when she was on earth?

She looks just like the girl or woman you’ll meet next

Wordle for Klingons - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Wordle for Klingons

 

Let the captain win now; he is one of your betters -

Revenge is a dish best served with five letters