A friend of mine, known as Colin to most, was looking through
some old memorabilia a while back, when he came across some
stuff he wrote in third grade. We were in the same class, and our
teacher had us keep a book called "All About Me" where we
recorded a little bit about ourselves, to help us remember what we
were like. So Colin went through his third grade portfolio.

Some results:

Favorite Movie(s): Beat Street, Breakin'
Favorite Person (or Person I Most Admire or Hero or
something along these lines): Ty Cobb

I can't recall ever hearing about Beat Street or Breakin'.
Given that we were in third grade in the 80s, maybe they were
movies about break dancing. Who knows.

Colin mentions Ty Cobb, but he was pretty big into Reagan then, too.
But then, weren't we all in OC?
(With the sole exception of John Barber, the only kid who raised his
hand in support of Alan Cranston.) I mean, where else did kids
run home to catch the Rush Limbaugh Show or regularly
refer to Clinton as "Slick Willy"?

For the record, here's a quote from old uncle Ty:
"Baseball is a red-blooded sport for red-blooded men. It's no pink tea,
and mollycoddles had better stay out. It's a struggle for supremacy,
survival of the fittest."

Ya gotta love old Mr. Cobb.

And as it is in baseball, so it also is in the larger world of sports--
a struggle for supremacy. I hear baseball ain't doin' so well now.
Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? It's a jungle out there.

C.S. Lewis once wrote that "a man loves his family, not because they are
great, but because they are his." I love my family also because I admire
them and enjoy their company.

Though I never lived in the former republic of Texas, I have family
all over the state: Lubbock, Dallas, Waco, San Antonio, El Paso, etc.
My immediate family lives near Houston. Well, quite a bit outside
Houston, about fifty miles to the north. There's a lake there, Lake
Conroe, and a lot of people who work in Texas live out there in the
extended suburbs nearby; places with names like Willis, Cut 'n' Shoot,
Grangerland, Cleveland, The Woodlands, etc. And of course, President
W's home in Crawford is pretty close too.

My mom and sister live in a house in the town of Willis and my dad lives
in a single-wide trailer about ten miles to the north. My
parents divorced a couple of years ago. It's unknown where each might
move to once my sister leaves home-- she's 17 years old now and itchin'
to leave home, perhaps for California.

This past weekend, I went to Lubbock, actually the small nearby farm town
of Slaton. I went to my great-Aunt Sue's house for the first ever Ross
family reunion-- that being my dad's side of the family. I had about 40
relatives there, all told. It was quite overwhelming for my grandfather
Ross and my dad. They both kept repeating how they'd never seen so many
kinfolk at once.

I met people I hadn't seen since they were in elementary school. Some
cousins I didn't even know existed. There was one cousin named Jeremy,
who's my age. Last time I saw him he was in high school. Now he's
married with two kids and drives truck for a living. He loves driving
truck and seems to have turned it into an art form. He was good to talk
to. Meeting him reminded me of something a friend named Colin once said,
"Truckers are the closest thing we have to cowboys now, they're the
cowboys of the American road." And as you all well know, the Wild
West provides some of the only legends young America has. And so
truckers are the inheritors of the legendary mystique.

Speaking of the Wild West, let me mention my Uncle Mo. Uncle Mo's what we
call him, the Mo being short for Moses, as he was dubbed the "new
Moses" during his wilder younger days in the charismatic Christian
movement known as the Jesus people. You will notice as you talk with Mo
that he has a passion for end-times prophecy. Perhaps it leaks out when
he casually refers to America as "Babylon," or when he discusses the
military build-up occuring in China and Russia, as they prepare to march
on Jerusalem and possibly America-- excuse me-- Babylon. He's an
eccentric fellow and I like talking to him. I think he should write a
book.

Speaking of eccentric, I also have a great uncle Jerry Don. He's quite a
ladies man for a good ol' boy in his late 60s. He's also got a great
pad/workshop. His latest interest has been model trains. So he turned
his workshop into a huge model train depot. Splayed out on a series of
tables the size of several billiard tables, he's got hundreds of feet of
track and at least a dozen trains. Some of them smoke and make sounds
like the powerful locomotives of yore. And the model is so intricate that
he's almost recreated his own town (Wilson, Texas) in model form. In his
backyard, as I reckon it oughtta be called, he's got a bunch of old cars
and trucks, with grass all growin' wild in and about it.

One thing I've noticed about the Ross family is their use of nicknames and
colorful lingo. I know many relatives only by their nickname, having not
ever learned their "given name", iffen they ever had-a one. There's my
uncles Mo and Zip and my cousins Colonel, Little, and Bert. It goes on
too... I've been known to give people nicknames myself, and to take on
aliases as the occasion arises.

Of the colorful lingo, there are phrases like "sakes alive" or "everlovin'
tar", as in "Well sakes alive! If you ever go snoopin' round that house
yonder, you'd best be ready to get the everlovin' tar beaten outta ya."

That's all for now, gentle reader.
I may have a comment thingy up and runnin' soon.

I'll leave you with a little nonsense poem by my grandfather Ross:

I saw Esau.
Sittin' on a seesaw.
I saw Esau.
He saw me.
-- Billy James Ross (b. 1920)

I'm leaving for Lubbock, TX to go to a family reunion on my dad's
side of the family: the Rosses. I'll let you know how it went.

And boy, do I need a comment thingy or what! I gotta
figure out how to get one...


In the meantime and in-between time, here're some quotes to think about.

The time has come: God's kingdom is approaching; open your hearts and
believe the good news.
-- Jesus of Nazareth (c. AD 27 )

The unexamined life is not worth living.
-- Socrates (5th century BC)

It's better to debate an issue before settling it,
than to settle an issue before debating it.
-- unknown

The man whose opinion never changes is like the standing water, and
breeds reptiles of the mind.
-- William Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course,
powerful muscles, but no personality.
-- Albert Einstein

There is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy,
Horatio.
-- Hamlet, by William Shakespeare (c. 1600)

The universe is wider than our view of it.
-- Henry David Thoreau

We mock what we do not understand.
-- unknown

So I've started a blog.
I guess I'll begin by posting my responses a year ago to one of those "get to know you" mass emails.
Some of my answers are the same.


Brain Tour

1. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BOOK?
Dune. Narnia Chronicles. Desire of the Everlasting Hills.
Cloister Walk. 1984.

2. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSEPAD?
At work, it's solid black, like a heart of darkness.
I have no computer at home.

3. FAVORITE MAGAZINE?
National Geographic (I like pictures).

4. FAVORITE SMELLS?
Flowers. Some kinds of womens' shampoo.

5. FAVORITE SOUNDS?
U2 music. Some classical guitar. Rain outside. Silence.

6. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD?
Being stuck in the middle of nowhere when your car breaks down. But then magic Native Americans show up out of nowhere and happen to have a grappling hook that drags your car out of the ditch it fell into and everything is peachy again.

7. FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING?
Oh wow, "they" didn't get me. I live to see another day.
Usually, it's just, "I overslept by an hour and a half again!"

8. ROLLER COASTER - SCARY OR EXCITING?
Exciting. I prefer rickety old wooden roller coasters to
sleek new ones, where you feel like it's gonna break any second.

9. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE?
Usually 2.

10. FUTURE DAUGHTER'S NAME?
Rachel.

11. FAVORITE FOODS?
Used to be Carl's Jr's Western Bacon Cheeseburger and pizza. Then I turned Yuppie and decided I liked frappuccinos and hummus.

12. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA?
Vanilla. Chocolate's just too much.

13. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST?
Yes. Why drive slow?

14. DO YOU SLEEP WITH STUFFED ANIMALS?
No. Never have. But when I was young and angry, I used to beat them up.

15. STORMS - COOL OR SCARY?
Cool and scary. If you're stuck in the wilds without shelter or dry/warm clothing, then they're just cool.

16. WHAT TYPE WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?
1986 Mazda 323, manual transmission. Lots of people have driven it. Five learned to drive stick on it. Almost blew it up in the desert as a fitting end. Once thought of driving it to the Darien Gap in Central America on an Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego adventure.
Sort of.

17. IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON, DEAD OR ALIVE, WHO WOULD IT BE?
Jesus comes to mind.

18. FAVORITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK?
Wine. Fruity things mostly. If it's hard drinkin' time, whiskey.

19. WHAT IS YOUR ZODIAC SIGN?
Sagittarius, but I had no control over that. Which reminds me of a thot Mikey had:
I think a really funny joke would be for NASA to send up rockets and push a
bunch of planets out of alignment. Then they could sit back and laugh when
everyone realizes that their horoscopes aren't coming true.

20. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI?
Yes, but I had to grow into it.

21. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB YOU WANT, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
"Travelling healer, poet warrior, and intrepid explorer of the freaky way-out forever pattern."

22. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR?
I tried blonde and black. I'll stick with my own for now. But auburn might be interesting to try.

23. EVER BEEN IN LOVE
Yes, twice by my reckoning.

24. IS THE GLASS HALF EMPTY OR HALF FULL?
Wait a second... okay, now it's totally empty.

25. FAVORITE MOVIES?
Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Apocalypse Now, Schindler's List, The Mission.

26. ARE YOU A LEFTY OR A RIGHTY?
Right. You are correct, sir.

27. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?
Monopoly? Balderdash is good.

28. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE KEYS?
You could say that.

29. WHAT'S UNDER YOU BED?
I don't have a bed. The cold earth is below me.

30. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER?
I was once told that it should be 137.
So there it is.