TEXAS POSTSCRIPT

This is a (sort of) continuation of my recent post Memories of West Texas. Nothing profound - - just a few afterthoughts.

I always emphasize that I lived in WEST Texas. This is because it's radically different from other parts of the state. Raw, rude, crude - - it is the untamed epitome of the wild west.

Somehow - amid the unrelenting inhospitality - there is a fierce romanticism, steeped in a surrealistic dream. The brutal, unrelenting dust storms, the fiercely burning sunsets, the endless skies and boundless land. If nothing else, it will pique your imagination and inspire your soul.

Gringos are minorities. I loved the Mexican culture and traditions - - and the food. I admired the hard-working ranchers and genuine cowboys.
I forced myself to be a Texan, but it wasn't truly in my heart. I knew that I didn't belong.......

Amid the vast intrigue, there were (many) disadvantages - - -

A blogger friend, A Brit in Tennessee, mentioned in a comment on my blog about experiencing a strong smell of burning oil while she was traveling through Texas.

I could relate to that. My (retired) parents had a home in Odessa, TX. Whenever the wind blew on target, there was a very strong stench from the nearby oil refineries. It was overpowering.

Me at my parent's house in Odessa

Another incredible West Texas phenomenon are the frequent dust storms. You'd have to experience them firsthand in order to absorb their potency.

My back yard during a dust storm

I often wrote about the searing heat and droughts in West Texas - - yet I included photos of snow in my Memories of West Texas video.

After my father died in Odessa, my mother sold the house and I moved up north with her (and cared for her until she died four years later). We lived on the high plains in a tiny town about forty miles from Lubbock. The winters there could be harsh.

My mother died in December, 2009, and that was the worst winter I could remember. Numerous blizzards and ice storms.
Fortunately, snow usually doesn't last very long in West TX. It melts in a few days.

My pickup truck

Back yard

A few more (unrelated) photos from West TX

Pumpkins from my garden

Pumpkins in the snow

Tortoise in back yard

This fox stayed in my back yard for three days, then mysteriously disappeared.

The Concho River in San Angelo (where I lived for several years) and statue of a mermaid holding a Concho pearl.

Me by the surveyor's shack at Fort Concho

My trusty truck

My (sometimes) dusty boots

MEMORIES OF WEST TEXAS

 

I initially despised everything about West Texas when I moved there. It's not a place for the timid or faint of heart. Crude, tough, unsophisticated, seemingly lawless, relentlessly unforgiving. Endless dust storms and violent winds, searing heat, brutal droughts, hoards of scorpions, rattlesnakes, tarantulas, fire ants, and chiggers.

I only came to Texas to be near my retired parents. We eventually all realized that it could be an inhospitable place to unsuspecting outsiders.

My initial disdain for West TX was intensified because of all the unpleasant times and bad luck that I had there. Both of my parents died there. I later eventually lost all my savings due to bad business deals and identity theft. It took nearly four years to sell my house. It was  a large, beautiful home - but it was located in a tiny one-horse town where nobody wanted to live and where money was scarce.

After the house finally sold, I and my three cats headed to rural Tennessee - where I now find myself existing in acute poverty, alarming squalor, and unrelenting  ill health.

In retrospect - despite the bad times - West Texas has a lot of unexpected and  untamed beauty. My frequent explorations yielded many pleasant surprises - and I took some of my best (and favorite) photos there

If it wasn't for all the devastatingly negative times, perhaps I would miss it.

The music I chose for the video is one of my absolute all-time favorites - - Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Francisco Terrega (1852 - 1909). It is hauntingly bittersweet, with tender sadness and yearning for memories of the past.

                                              Jon

Video is best viewed full-screen 

MEMORIES OF WEST TEXAS

I lived in West Texas for many more years than I care to remember. I went there solely to be near my retired parents.

I always emphasize West Texas, because it's a world apart from other areas of the vast state. And it's a severe culture shock for someone who was raised in Southern California like myself:
it's a raw, rowdy, crude, rough, unforgiving, sometimes lawless place.

I lived in three TX towns - San Angelo, Odessa, and a minuscule cow town on the high plains about 50 miles from Lubbock (which shall remain nameless).

Both of my parents died in Texas. After my father died in 2005, I took care of my Mom until she passed away in 2009.

My intense disdain for Texas came from the fact that I had some incredible bad luck there and wound up losing an enormous (and I mean enormous) amount of money. Which explains why I'm presently living in poverty in Tennessee.
Texas provided me with a myriad of bad memories.

Despite all the negatives, there are things that I miss about Texas:
the sprawling endlessness of the land, the vast skies and incredible sunsets, the ravaging surrealistic dust storms, the ubiquitous Mexican culture. And the food.

Texas is where I bought my infamous El Cheapo digital camera, which quickly became my inspiration for taking a vast amount of photos.

My most recent video, Memories of West Texas, contains a small collection of photos from my massive Texas files. It was very difficult to choose favorites.

The accompanying music that I picked is the haunting Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Francisco Terrega (1852 - 1909) - - one of my all-time favorite Spanish compositions.

Video (as always) best viewed in full-screen mode.

FUN IN TEXAS

 Twin Buttes

near San Angelo

On my previous post, on my replies in the comment section, I mentioned the fact that I've often used the herb valerian to calm my nerves. That suddenly reminded me of something that happened when I lived in Texas.

I lived in three different towns in West Texas. San Angelo was definitely the most challenging of the three (I'm being very polite with my choice of words).
I'll cut to the chase and get to the valerian story:

Directly behind my house was another house filled with illegal aliens (or immigrants - - "aliens" sounds too outer spacey).

Their back yard was filled with dogs in cages. I don't know whether they bred them or just sold them for taco meat, but it was slightly unnerving. They always kept one particular dog running loose (as a guard...or perhaps a mascot). 
Anyway the loose dog was a non-stop barker. It barked 24/7 and annoyed the holy spirit out of me (among other things). The worst thing was that I couldn't sleep from the incessant nighttime barking.

An aside:
there was no chance of calling the police or Animal Control, because laws don't exist in San Angelo. Trust me on this.

Finally - completely unhinged from lack of sleep - I decided to take matters into my own trembling hands. 
Should I kill the dog? Shoot him?  Smother him?
Naw. I might be a bitch. But I'm usually a sweet bitch.
I decided to sedate him.

This is where the dog lovers are gasping in shock.
This is also why I love cats. They don't bark.

I'd never sedated a pooch before and wondered what I could use. I certainly didn't want to lethally harm him. Well, not much anyway.....

Suddenly-
it dawned on me that I could use valerian root. I've taken that herb very often to sedate myself (God knows, in Texas I needed it). It sure as hell wouldn't hurt to try it on a dog.

I grabbed a leftover hot dog, split it open, and stuffed it with some valerian.
Fed it to the dog (who gobbled it greedily). And waited.
Voila!
Within twenty minutes Rover calmed down, stopped barking........and I got some much-needed sleep.

It sure as hell didn't solve all my Texas problems, but it was a pleasant interlude.

While I have your attention, I'll mention a few more things about my San Angelo neighbors.

The neighbor to my right was a woman who ran a "daycare" center with about thirty screaming kids (I kid you not!).
Here's the kicker: 
She drank and (I strongly suspected) dabbled in drugs. Her son was arrested for giving alcohol and drugs to minors.
AND
let's insert a drum roll here for effect
The woman rented her upstairs rooms to prostitutes.
I swear to Gawd I couldn't make this stuff up.

Are you ready for more? Take a deep breath and hold onto your garters before reading this one. 

The neighbors to my left were drug dealers and at least twenty people lived in the house.
One of the many residents was a huge - and I mean horrendously alarmingly huge - woman who got angry at me 
(I won't divulge details on a public blog)
 and shot at my house numerous times!

And I won't mention the fact that her drug-dealing cronies despised me and used to follow, threaten, and intimidate me......it's a pathetically long story.

  Big Mama was eventually wanted for murder....and she was featured on the TV show America's Most Wanted.
By this time she fled Texas and went to Louisiana - - where she was murdered by some of her drug-dealing "friends".
They cut off her fingers, stuffed her ample body into a car, and set it on fire!

I'm tempted to mention her name - - but I won't.

These are just a few of my Texas adventures. There were many more, far worse ones - - but I'll spare you. 

The photos were taken at Twin Buttes, near San Angelo, where I used to go hiking. I encountered lots of rattlesnakes.