POTR #36 Back In the Grove

PEACE ON THE ROAD
Back In The Grove
December 21 , 2007

We are in Mission, Texas at the same resort where we spent last winter, Bentsen Grove RV Resort. While we have only been here a week at this early writing we have done more than we do in a normal week. We have been back to the dance class that we started last year and already I am getting tired. The instructor is a very good instructor, but to be right honest I am not as enthused about learning a lot of dances as he expects all his students to be. Two left feet don’t help. I want to learn some of the dances and some new dance sequences. It actually is a lot of fun and I enjoy dancing with my wife. When I learn enough it will be fun to try a few dances at one of the dance venues that are around here. It will be a new experience for me to go to a place and dance in an open ballroom in December or January. I have not done that yet but I have seen it being done by others. This year we have an orange tree just a couple feet from the side of the Vectra. I have not tried any of them yet but I fully intend find out if they are sweet or not. I did not know that oranges and other citrus trees are grafted to specific rootstock just like most apple trees. I have been told that some of the trees in the park have been frozen back to the root stock and the oranges are not fit to eat. I’ll know soon. I have been told that I can pick fruit from any unoccupied site in the resort, and there are over a hundred sites empty at the current moment, I will find some good oranges. (I tried mine and they are good.)

A VARIETY OF WATER BIRDS

Do birds of the feather really flock together? From the flocks of several thousand grackles that we have seen, the hundreds of green parakeets that gather together for the night, the huge flocks of black skimmers that fly and land like a single organism and the massive gatherings of seagulls I would say that is an accurate statement in most cases. The brown and white pelicans will associate quite closely with each other when there is a chance that a fisherman might feed them. But it seems that when they start flying any distance, say over a couple hundred yards, they fly with others of their own species. I felt rather lucky one day when I saw a flash of pink. I turned the car around and found an unusual grouping of species. In one little pond there were three roseate spoonbills, an adult white ibis and just out of sight a juvenile ibis. There was a great white egret, and just a short distance away there was a blue heron. In the background there was a flock of grackles. In my experience there is not usually that many varieties that feed so close together. But I enjoy the birds in groups or in singles.

It does not seem possible that Christmas is so close to being here. In only eleven days from the writing of this it will be Christmas Day. The stores here, just like everywhere else are filled with decorations and items that they hope you will buy as presents for your friends and family. I don’t know if the decorations that are put up here are more than anywhere else, maybe I am simply more aware of them. There is a border town, Hidalgo, TX, that really goes all out in the city decorations. They have several parks, fire station, and city hall that are so full of displays that there is hardly room to see between the displays. It must take a large warehouse to store all the displays during the summer months. Between things like this and the floats for parades and other items that are seasonal there must be some huge buildings that are being used for little else beside storage.

ONE CHRISTMAS DISPLAY IN HIDALGO, TEXAS

I suppose that a lot of what has come to the front of my mind lately is actually due in part to the aging process. When I was a boy one of the neighbors of my Father had a huge barn. It was very tall and very wide. The hay mow was large enough to hold enough hay to last any farmer many years. In the sheds on the ground floor there was enough room for an entire herd of cows and also shelter for a herd of hogs and room left over for the tractors and equipment. I remember that it just had to be the biggest barn in the country. Then something funny happened. I guess like certain clothes that shrink when they get wet the same thing happened to that barn. When I visited it this year I discovered that it was not nearly as tall as it had been one time. The stock areas on the ground floor could only hold a few cattle and for sure not an entire herd like it could when I was small. Everything about the barn that I remembered had shrunk. I am going to guess that there are many things that have made the same kind of changes over the years. In Corpus Christi there are three ships that have done the same kind of shrinking. In 1992 reproductions of the three ships of Christopher Columbus, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, were built and sailed the oceans until they returned to their permanent home in Corpus Christi. When I was in school, about 1948-1955, those three ships were very large ocean going vessels, at least in my mind. When I saw them I was amazed at the tiny size of them. These were ships that carried one hundred and twenty men, between the three ships, along with cargo and supplies. In actuality the ships were only about twice as wide as my motor home and about ten foot longer. In our Vectra we have three people. If we were loaded like the Nina we would have between fifteen and twenty people making it their home along with supplies that would have to last for months. I really do not know how people were able to live in the confinement that must have been pretty usual in 1492. I was also amazed at the amount of curvature of the deck of the ship. It looked like it would be difficult to stand upright on it under the best of conditions, let alone when it was rolling on the ocean. I also suppose that the deck would be heavily loaded with cargo and possibly with living animals in pens, so even as the ship now sits in the harbor it would be spacious compared to the situation when it was coming to America the first time. I am so often amazed by the abilities of the generations that lived before the 1900’s or so. I wonder how modern man would cope with those conditions.

THE BOW (FRONT) HALF OF THE NINA REPRODUCTION

A few days ago I saw a sign that said, “Education Is Power.” Of course there are those that say that “Money is Power.” Other times I have seen signs that indicated a higher education equates to more money earning power. We all have used the quote, “Love of money is the root of all evil.” I will admit that most people quote it as, “Money is the root of all evil,” and some even go so far as to say “Money is All.” Now add to those quotes, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” These are all good quotes that most people will agree with. It seems to me that when they are all put together we could be teaching our children something that none of us would desire. When you put all the quotes together we are saying “Get lots of education, earn tremendous amounts of money, use the education to gain lots of money and power and become totally evil.” Should rephrase our quotes?

Most things in our lives are based upon a comparison. I thought that one of the gullies that I knew about near some relatives home in Nebraska was large until I saw Black Canyon in Colorado, and I know that Black Canyon is dwarfed by the Grand Canyon. There was a lake near my childhood home that I thought was huge, until I saw the ocean. When I took a day cruise out of Florida to the Grand Bahamas I realized again that my idea of the ocean needed to expand and even then it was only a short trip. There is a group here in Bentsen Grove that is called the BG Auxiliary. They help out some people in an area close to Mission. The people are hard working families that need help to simply have the basics of life. The BG Auxiliary gets together to make quilts for the families at Christmas and even other times of the year. It is relatively warm down here all winter, to get down to freezing is not very typical, but I think it must get there a few times ever year. Many of these families do not even have enough blankets to cover up with at night. All or most of them are working on building homes on land that they have bought. The homes are often cement block homes, sometimes with dirt floors. As soon as a family has a one room, roofed house they will start to add an additional room. They will put in electricity if they can afford it, but sometimes their electric comes from an extension cord that is run to a neighbors house who has been working longer on their own house. I understand that some of them get their water through a long garden hose in a very similar manner. Erma and I have gone to join the group making their quilts. So far we have only tied the quilts with yarn. I think that I have done something unusual. I seem to be the only man that has ever actually worked on the quilts. There are some men that set up equipment and take it down for the ladies or do hauling of furniture or household appliances that have been donated to the BGA, but I don’t think that any have actually worked on the quilt. With all this said I think that in my entire life I have known people who were comparatively wealthy. Even back in the days when I went on a weeks vacation with only a ten dollar bill and a gasoline credit card in my wallet I was wealthy compared to the people that have been described to me. Today we went with the BGA to deliver Christmas gifts to the children and food to some of the families. To say the least it was an education. No matter how old I become there will be some new thing to learn and it may change my perspective on life. Hopefully for the better.

This will not reach some of you until after Christmas or even until 2008. No matter when you get it we want to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, or as it is often said by many down here in the Valley, Feliz Navidad y Prospero Ano Nuevo. It is really hard to believe that it is so close to Christmas and I have seen eighty three degrees registering on the temperature display of the Jeep today. The weather report says that there is some cold coming into the valley and it may only get up into the mid sixties in just a few days. I have to laugh when I think about Erma and I dreaming a cold winters day being one that was sixty two or sixty three degrees. Well we finally know what it was that we were dreaming about. If it seems like I am rubbing it in a bit about the weather here, you’re right. I am just getting even with those people who sent me all the pictures of the snow last winter. All of you that did not send me pictures are welcome to join me in laughing the last laugh, for this year anyway. I fully expect that there will retributions after that statement.

The night before last we attended a Christmas Cantata that was put on by a choral group that is totally organized within this RV Resort. It was a very enjoyable presentation. I thought it interesting when it was announced that there were certain people who had an early Christmas up north and came to Bentsen Grove in time to join the performance. There are also people that have delayed their departure to the north for Christmas just so that they could perform in the cantata. There are many people here that enjoy doing things to enhance the enjoyment of others. In previous POTRs I have mentioned several activities that could not exist if it were not for the volunteers that give of their time. To me it is beside the point that they may enjoy doing their work more than the people that are reaping the benefits of the activity.

Till Later This Is Doug Of
PEACE ON THE ROAD