A Heathen's Perspective

From politics to media, from music to spiritual matters, and from obscure issues to the latest hot button topics, comes the blabber from a true heathen, without regard to the breaking wind of socially-acceptable attitudes, yet with an almost sacred devotion to humor in the face of today's polarized, shout-down-your-opponents climate of fear and intimidation. Original content is copyright 2001-2006, The Heathen Monk. All rights reserved.

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Location: Austin, Texas, United States

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Sunday, May 28, 2006

A Young Girl From West Texas

If you saw Greg Palast on Democracy Now last week, and, aside from his new documentary, how he wired himself for sound in London, spoke the magic word "Enron," and gained access to 10 Downing Street, not to mention how pleasantly surprised Tony Blair's "poodles" were to visit with someone from EndRun after Blair had already signed the waivers making a fine money pie for Ken "Betcha Can't Cheat Just One" Lay in England, you might be disheartened deeply enough by this global web of energy mobsters to go back to kerosene and wood stoves.

When this kind of immense betrayal sinks in, I usually find myself thinking of all of the lives, and the life stories of "regular" folks around the world, ya know...from "Joe Six Pack My Ass" to "Annie Got Her Gun and You'd Better Watch Yer Mouth, Mister." Living human beings whose lives have been made even more difficult by the greed and arrogance of a few hundred families and transnational corporations, and not just for this generation, but as far as this generation's eyes can see.

All of that takes me, in one of my infrequent lucid episodes, to the lives of the people in my lifetime. One of them is my mother, and believe me, our relationship has been everywhere from mutual love and the deepest affection to "say, I'm all alone, this Smith & Wesson might make my pain go away, and LOOK, IT'S LOADED! Yippee and goodbye cruel world and crepe soles...now where DID I put those old clam diggers from 1960? Gotta look my best when the sheriff finds me!"

But today, as I have a few times recently, I called my mom, against my doctor's advice, and made a promise to her, and knowing her hardscrabble childhood as a middle daughter from nowhere, her exceptional organizational skills, and years of taking dictation from full bird colonels at Ft. Meade in the 50's and 60's, I gave mom my lifetime gift to her. A promise to edit, archive at the county courthouse, and make copies available at the Heart of West Texas Museum of her "regular" life, seen through the eyes of a young girl growing up in West Texas on a poor ranch in Silver (don't bother looking for it on a map, it's been gone for years, but you might find Silver Creek near Colorado City, Texas).

Raised by a father who was from the first set of white twins born in the history of Nolan County and later, as a young man, rode on one of the last true cattle drives before finally leaving ranching to become the deputy sheriff of Mitchell County, and raised by a mother who'd actually come to Texas as a child from Alabama in a covered wagon, and went on to become a beloved school teacher in the days of one-room schoolhouses. This "regular" person has a life story, one affected by wars, the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the days when the entire free world fell in love with America through John and Jackie Kennedy, and didn't really fall out of love with us until the Drugstore Cowboy came along.

Came along with his daddy's and his ancestors' buddies to mash down on the authentic spirit of America like no group has ever been able to do, and in a mere five years. These gigantic, Nixonian, Trickle On, They Hate Us For Our Freedom assholes affected the life of a young girl from West Texas. And she happens to be my mother. And that makes it personal, very, very personal. And this "regular" woman, with all her talents and warts is now in her 90's, and still sharp as a tack. Still able to drive herself. Still living unassisted, and managing her affairs. SHE represents West Texas, NOT some nitwit who should have peaked as "Man of the Year" by the Midland Chamber of Commerce after opening his second Western Auto store in the "suburbs." SHE has a story to tell, one that hasn't damaged the reputation of her county of origin, much less West Texas.

So, after my mom passes, the story of a young girl from West Texas will be available at the county courthouse or the museum, for the curious and those interested enough to do a little research on what life must have been like for folks living in West Texas during the first half of the twentieth century. Her story is real. The Boy's is real too...all too real, and for a small time shithead like BoyGeorge to claim West Texas as his own is a betrayal so deep, a few of us from West Texas would like to invite him NOT to set up his presidential "liberry" in Midland or Waco, but maybe up in New Haven, where he was born.

Now, don't you feel a little less disheartened? I know I do. Mom has already started writing her life story. She's been working on it for...oh, about ninety years now.

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