Tales From The Travels

When I first arrived in Connecticut I was talking to a woman and made a comment about how green the scenery was.

She said, ‘Yeah, well, what color should it be?’

‘Yellow, brown, grey,’ I replied.

Having come from the plains I was use to a very different landscape, one that I have a great love for, the Great Plains. One of the reasons I went back to South Dakota this summer was to spend some time out there, and it was a pleasure.

I have heard people talk about how they can’t live away from the ocean or they can’t imagine living where there are no mountains or they have to live somewhere where there are lots of trees. These places are easy and, indeed, I am a great lover of the ocean and the mountains and the forests myself. But, you don’t often hear people talk about how they couldn’t live anywhere but the plains. Usually, what you hear a person saying is how boring they are and how they couldn’t wait to get out of them. But, there are certainly people that love the plains as much others love the mountains or the ocean or the forests. And, I’m one of them. I was born on the plains in north Texas. At the time, it was open farmland clear to Canada and I was allowed to roam unsupervised pretty much where ever I wanted to go. That’s probably when it got into my spirit.

The plains are not for everyone. I’ve been driving with people and heard them comment about how boring it is. I use to be amazed by those comments and would point out to them the enormous beauty of the plains, the rolling hills, the sea of grass, the birds, even the great vistas. Seldom could they see what I was talking about. I still hear the comments, but I no longer bother trying to show them the beauty in front of them. If they can’t, or won’t, see it for themselves, no one can show it to them.

That, I’ve come to learn, is the great strength of the plains. The plains are a place where you can lose yourself in your soul. I’ve sat in places and done nothing for hours but listen to the sound of the wind and the birds and watched the sun and wind play in the grass. For as far as the eye could see. And drink in the deep, clean, earthy smells. You learn a lot about yourself in places like that. When there is no Internet or Starbucks to lift you, when there are none of the trappings of our modern world to cloud your mind, you look deep inside yourself and reflect on who you are. I believe the people that love the plains the most are the people that are the most comfortable with who and what they are. The people that aren’t comfortable with the plains are those that aren’t comfortable with themselves. In this way, I guess the plains act as a reflection of ourselves. We see ourselves when looking at the plains. People that fall in love with the grandeur of the mountains or the ocean are falling in love with that grandeur. I am as much in love with it as anyone and am not criticizing. But, the plains are a reflection of ourselves, a view into our own souls. That would be my guess as to why you don’t hear people comment about how they couldn’t live anywhere but the plains. It just isn’t important to them to say that. I would guess that is why, while living out there, I would always have places to go to when troubled, places I could sit quietly and reflect.

It really is a wondrous region of the country.

I am one of nine children, the seventh of the nine and the youngest boy. This means I have three older brothers, three older sisters, and two younger sisters. Of course, my older siblings are all villains and tortured me mercilessly when I was a child. To hear them tell it, I was a spoiled brat and they had to teach me to be at least semi-human. Like I said, they were all villains.

For one short year when I was just a child, we all lived under the same roof. Then, my oldest brother graduated high school and joined the Army. Since then, we have all grown and followed our own paths so that today, we are spread out all over the country. But, the bonds endure and we try to get together as often as possible. We can usually get a group together, even a large group, but this summer was the first time all nine of us were together since Labor Day of 1990. It was a crowd. Besides us kids and our 85-year old mother (still going strong!), and some of the grandkids, my mother’s sister was there with both of her kids and their spouses, as well as my godmother. All told, there were 27 of us. A nice little crowd.

We have been planning a family reunion for a number of years. With nine families, it was hard to come up with a date that we could all get together, but we finally managed it. At our mother’s (the princess) request, we had it in the YMCA camp in Estes Park, Colorado. This is a great place and we actually had a family reunion there in 2002, although only seven of us were able to make it to that one.

The camp is right in the Rocky Mountains, just outside the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. The camp altitude is 8300 feet, and this caused some altitude sickness for some members of my family, but they were able to take some medication that helped a lot. But even so, we’re all starting to get upwards in years and the thin air left many of us breathing heavily after even a short walk.

Obviously, the scenery is magnificent. The lodge rooms are nice with beds and a private bathroom, but no real amenities. I went the whole week without watching any TV or accessing the Internet even once. (Don’t worry, I recovered quickly). The camp has a busy schedule of things to do for all ages and you can just pick and choose what you want to do. Of course, there are also plenty of things to do outside the camp. I went fly fishing for half a day and was pleased to see that it was only $45. I tried to do that in Montana a few years ago and they wanted $500 for the same period of time.

The thing that was very popular with the family is how you can get a meal plan at the cafeteria. This is great because it means no one has to cook or clean-up every meal. The cooking ranged from OK to pretty good, depending on what you got. There was always a variety of choices and going hungry really isn’t an option.

We rented a cabin so that we would have a common meeting area. This is where we would get together for games and conversation, often going late and getting loud, which we tend to do. But, it was great! Telling stories and jokes and catching up on what everyone was doing.

It was a good time to reflect on how lucky I am to have such a family. We’ve had our differences over the years, some of which have been pretty big, but we’ve always stuck together. I remember a time when I was a kid one of the neighborhood kids told one of my brothers that he’d beat him up, except that he knew he’d have to face all of us if he did. Another time there was some kind of row with one of the kids across the street. Well, he went to get his two brothers and they came marching across the street, looking mean, intent to get whoever it was that pissed them off. But, when they looked over and saw all of us lined up waiting for them, they stopped in their tracks, talked to each other for a few seconds, then turned around and went home.

Family get togethers used to be wilder when we were younger. We would stay up until who knows what time in the morning playing cards and swapping stories. They were a lot of fun, but hard on the body. Now that everyone is getting older (my oldest brother is 63 and my youngest sister is 46), we still have the games and the stories, but are usually all in bed before midnight.

I don’t really have a hometown. We moved around so much that there isn’t anyplace I identify with. The international airport is about the closest thing I have. So, having a good family is important. It really means a lot to me and I’m grateful for all of my family, even when they’re jerks. Partly, because they’re grateful for me, even when I’m a jerk. I’ve seen other families that make me very thankful for what I have.

And, if you’ve been following my blog, you might be wondering what happened to our practical joke. We had secretly arranged to put the older siblings to shame when they started yapping about a recent study that said the oldest were the smartest. Well, they never brought the subject up, even when we baited them. So, on the last night together we fessed up the plan. That’s when my oldest brother told us he was going to tape a copy of the study to all of our doors, but forgot to bring them with him. Ah, ha! I knew it!

Family!

If you ain’t ever been there, then I guess you ain’t been told; that you just can’t live in Texas ‘less you got a lot of soul.
- Waylon Jennings
‘Bob Wills is Still the King’

Now, I know that most people aren’t fortunate enough to have been born in Texas, and I forgive them for that. I also understand that most people haven’t been able to move there, and I’m grateful to them for that. Texas is a great and wonderful place, but it’s starting to get a little crowded in places.

There really is something different about Texas and there’s no denying we have an attitude about our state. In fact, its one of the things we’re most proud of. I remember reading an article about it. One of the things pointed out was that people from other states are proud too, but they don’t go around making earrings out of the state shape. That seems to be a uniquely Texas thing to do. We’ll put the state shape on just about anything. I have Christmas ornaments shaped like Texas. I even have a cake pan shaped like Texas. It’s all part of our pride in our land, our culture, and our heritage. Besides, its fun.

Part of all of this is a requirement that school kids have to take courses in Texas history in school. I always enjoyed Texas history because, quite frankly, its a good story. There are a lot of very colorful events in Texas history. None of these stories is bigger, or more colorful, than the story of the Alamo.

The Alamo was a mission on the outskirts of San Antonio, (San Antonio dé Béxar, as it was known at the time). The Texans (Texicans, as they called themselves) engaged in open hostilities with the Mexican government, which had sovereignty over Texas at that time. General Santa Anna (who was also president of Mexico) marched on the province in the winter of 1836 to crush the revolt. An interesting story of the march is that they were caught in a severe winter storm, including snow, and many of the peons actually froze to death. A snowstorm in the Rio Grande valley! Amazing!

There was a garrison at the town of Goliad that consisted of about 500 men, led by Colonel James Fanin. Surrounded by the vastly superior Mexican force, they were persuaded to surrender. They were then forced to dig their own graves and executed. The Alamo was about 100 miles northeast of there and was the next stop.

Colonel Travis led 186 defenders at the Alamo, including Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett. They were quickly surrounded and cutoff by the overwhelmingly superior Mexican army on February 23, 1836. When a demand for surrender was delivered, Travis answered with a cannon shot. Eventually, all 186 died in the effort after a 13-day siege that ended on March 6, 1836, but not before inflicting huge casualties on the Mexicans. Today, there is a county in Texas named for each of the defenders.

This is great stuff and known to every school kid in Texas. The problem I have is that it is always characterized as a defeat of the Texans. I presume this is because they all died in the battle. But, that isn’t the way defeat and victory are measured in war. This is done by examining the military objectives and whether or not they were met. So, what were they military objectives of the Alamo defenders? And, did they meet those objectives?

To start, we can logically assume they were not out to defeat the Mexican army. The Mexicans numbered in the thousands, and by some accounts, as many as 10,000. But, the numbers don’t tell the story. The Texans were a mostly ragtag group while the Mexicans were a professional fighting force. Armament was also in the favor of the Mexicans. There was no expectation of defeating this force.

So, what were they trying to do? One stated military objective for the Alamo was to delay Santa Anna long enough for the rebels to get organized. On March 2, the highly fractionalized Texas politicians agreed on a decree, declaring Texas independence from Mexico. Legend has it that the Alamo defenders learned of this before the final attack.

Another major objective was to give General Sam Houston time to raise and train an army. Houston was able to put together an army of approximately 900 men, and on April 21, 1836, attacked Santa Anna’s army at San Jacinto. Yelling ‘Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!”, the Texans soundly defeated the Mexicans in 18 minutes, inflicting over 600 casualties, while suffering fewer than 10 themselves. Santa Anna was later found dressed in a common soldiers uniform and hiding in the weeds in an attempt to escape. The 570-foot tall San Jacinto Monument now stands at the site, the tallest columnar monument in the world (http://www.sanjacinto-museum.org/).

So, by the measure of military objectives, it seems to me that the Battle of the Alamo was actually a military victory for the defenders. Of course, that could just be the Texan in me talking.

My father lost his left eardrum when he was a boy. He had an ear infection that was misdiagnosed until it became so serious that it cost him his hearing in his left ear. As can be imagined, this had quite an effect on him growing up. But, my father was the kind of person that was determined in life and he still pursued many of the things he wanted to do. What he most wanted was a military career. His eardrum would have normally kept him out, but during the depression-ear 1930s he was able to fake his way in. He was successfully pursuing his career, met my mother on furlough, and everything was looking good. One day, they were out doing maneuvers in the field and were returning to base. The driver of the truck that he was in fell asleep at the wheel and crashed the vehicle. Fortunately, no one was injured, but they all had to undergo a routine physical as a result. When they discovered my father’s ear problem he was processed for a medical discharge. A week after he was discharged Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Considering I was born 12 years after the end of the war, I have to wonder what percentage of men that were in the army at the end of 1941 lived to see the end of 1945. I really don’t know, but I have to guess the percentage was small. Which means my brothers and sisters and I probably owe our existences to an unknown army driver that fell asleep at the wheel years before our births.

So, how many times have all of us done some small little thing that will have such a long-lasting effect?

Before my father died, he wrote his memoirs for all of us kids. It was really wonderful and I’m very glad he did it. It gave me a chance to learn a lot more about my father than I ever did before. Later, at our request, our mother wrote her memoirs, also. Then, for Christmas one year, she had it professionally bound, along with our father’s. She also included letters and diaries from her parents. This gave us a record of who we were and where we had come from with first hand accounts going back to 1870. I enjoyed these so much that I began to think about writing my own memoirs for my son, to continue the story. He is 13 and enjoys listening to my stories when I tell him, but he hasn’t shown any interests in understanding his heritage. Who is his father? How did he get to this point in life? Why is he the way he is? He may not be curious about these things now, but he will be one day.

So, I’ve started writing snippets of my life and my Travels. I’ve been very fortunate to have led an adventurous and event filled life and have been enjoying this endeavor. My son isn’t the only one to learn from this. I’ve been learning and relearning a lot about myself. This inspired me to start my own blog and to share my stories with you. All of the stories I will tell are true. Plus, sometimes I will write little op-ed pieces about things I think about or things people ask me about. My purpose is to entertain you, to make you think sometimes, and, hopefully, to think about writing your own memoirs for your children.

I hope you’ll come back and read my stories and share your comments with me.