Five o’ clock a.m. comes early and us boys head to the McDonalds at Lomas and Juan Tabo in Albuquerque most every morning of the week. Some of us read the newspaper, others do crosswords, some eat, most drink coffee, most tell jokes that are occasionally funny, and I catch up on travel posts.
Art and Robert are looking up the age of Martina Navratilova for a newspaper brain challenge while John waits for an answer to his latest question. J,B, buys coffee and Claudia serves up another morning like the last. Mario and Sid will come in around six thirty.
Having coffee every morning, at the same time and place, with the same people, gives me the feeling that the world is stable.
Claudia gets paid to be here, and, bless her heart, she puts up with us.
By tonight we more than likely won’t know much more than we think we already know.
If we could find cheaper coffee and a place closer to our homes, we would probably go there.
At a certain age, compromise is what you settle with.
Most people call these ” clouds ” and stop.
A few go further and describe them as ” beautiful clouds,” or, if a scientist, ” atmospheric conflagrations. ”
My aunt called them ” buttermilk ” clouds when she was hunched in a bird blind shooting photographs of eagles nesting in the top branches of cottonwood trees on her ranch.
Tonight, these graceful puffs of smoke move languidly through the cerulean sky, just before sunset turns the heavens reddish yellow.
These cloud fingers are delicate as a concert pianists hands,look like Octopus tentacles reaching for prey near a coral reef, resemble the crust on a fine pastry in your town’s best bakery.
No matter how you describe this natural phenomenon, the safest posture is to bow your head and appreciate your good fortune for a world you didn’t make but get to live in.
The creek is in better shape today than fifty years ago.
Then, creek banks were crowded with brush. Now, you can stand on the bank and easily cast your tackle. There are still cat tails in the creek but they are controlled by a local wildlife biologist for a monthly stipend.
Fifty years ago there were perch in the water, small fish that strike impulsively, put up a fight, and have lots of bones to work around at the dinner table. We ate them fried in a blanket of corn meal along with cornbread, black eyed peas and Texas toast fixed by Grandma. In the creek, we kids waded in undershorts seining for minnows to use as bait. For city kids, the creek and the ranch were a place to look forward to visiting when school shut down for the summer.
The water today is dark, opaque, ten foot deep in the middle. It’s surface is a mirror reflecting trees on the other side of the bank. Like so much of nature, you can feel a lot more beneath the surface than you can see.
Growing up, I had no idea I would be fishing the creek when I got old.
Even the future can’t swim away from the past.
River Falls has a make believe golf course in a cow pasture not far from the Texas Palo Duro Canyon.
This area has been transformed from grazing to ranchettes. With an airport, five acre lots, utilities and roads, the development attracts people with money who want to get away from big city life. Plenty of city folks make huge money in urban jungles but like their leisure with their horses in wild open spaces.
The River Falls Country Club has a small unattended clubhouse, a short nine holes with raised indoor outdoor carpet greens, bumpy fairways of prairie grass, no traps or trees, a steady West Texas wind.
Alan and I watch out for prairie dog holes and rattlesnakes and navigate the course somewhere north of par. If you hit short of the green your ball bounces back towards you. If you hit the green your ball bounces off the green and you have a tough chip coming back.
Those old Scottish guys, who invented the game, played on courses like this in weather like this. It isn’t hard to see them savoring scotch whiskey after a round with the elements.
When I think of the equipment they used and the scores they achieved, I am glad they aren’t playing today.
We wouldn’t have a fighting chance, on the course, or at the bar.
In the 1950’s, Patsy Cline was the premier country western singer.
Her lyrics mirrored those of today; broken relationships, falling in and out of love, working for a living, heartaches and headaches. She was talked up in the tabloids, wore clothes as far removed from the range as a cowgirl could get, sang classic songs that still pop like champagne bubbles.
” Smokey “, Alan’s cookie jar horse, passes his time on the range listening to Patsy on headphones in Texas.
When cowboys get hungry in the bunkhouse they separate Smokey’s head from his neck, reach for a peanut butter cookie,then carefully re-attach the head and neck in one sure handed gun slinging motion.
Patsy’s best song is ” Crazy.”
” Crazy ” brings back memories of me and the construction guys sitting in an east side Albuquerque Waffle House, feeding quarters into a juke box, playing Elvis Presley and Rolling Stones hits while waitresses crooned out waffle and scrambled egg orders in raspy voices.
” Crazy” should be our new National Anthem.
We don’t have trouble being crazy and Patsy sounds more prescient every time I listen to her.
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