Life in the lily-white 'burbs

Some years back the Dallas paper ran opinion piece written by a smug, self-righteous nit wit from a privileged enclave in Dallas.  Her point was how 'diverse and forward' her little neighborhood was and how fortunate such progressive folks such as herself and ALL of her like-minded friends have a place like her's to call home.  She boasted that her son had an actual minority classmate, a Pakistani (I believe his father is a local heart surgeon), and how his private school [note: he was not enrolled in Dallas Public Schools] composted the uneaten radicchio left over from the school cafe (thus saving the earth; Yes! You earned 30 more greenie points - but who's counting?). She observed that at her local Mexican restaurant they had an actual honest to Virgin of Guadalupe Hispanic cook [bless hear li'l heart, she doesn't even realize that their are Mexican cooks in most every Chinese, Indian, barbecue and even Mexican restaurants all over town]. And dang!  Put another gold star on her liberal card, she even had a homeless man sleeping in a park near her neighborhood!  

Of course she contrasted her existence with the monotonous and presumably backward "lily white" suburbs surrounding Dallas; proudly mentioning she hardly ever drives north past Loop 12 to these embarrassing locations of affordable housing that contain what she implied where people of primitive social development and lacking proper political thought.  She would never want to live in a such a "Leave it to Beaver", lily-white suburb, thank you please.

I wished I would have clipped that article for reference when pointing out examples of baseless ideas held up a truth by those who've never even experienced what they so righteously to condemn.  Alas, I am afraid I do not recall her name either, but I would like to suggest a nom de plume for her: I. Ramos (short for Ignoramus).

Saturday, April 18, 2015.  Just another day in my own lily white world.  

At around 1 PM, Adam rang our door bell.  Adam is a 10-year old with a mop-top of dark curly hair who just moved in to a house one block over. He and his younger sister had moved from Longview, Texas with his mother and her boyfriend a couple of weeks ago.  Before that they lived in Colorado.  He was born in Egypt, but moved to the US at the age of two.  I asked if he was Coptic Egyptian?  He quickly corrected me and declared himself Egyptian-American (the ever important hyphen); he then went on to say that even though He was born in Africa, making sure I was clear on my geography, pointing out that Egypt is on the African continent, he was not to be referred to as African-American, because his skin was not black.  He then asked what "Coptic" meant.  I told him the Coptic's were a sect of Christian Egyptians. Adam said that they became Christians only when his mother moved in with her boyfriend.  With the ethnic and geographical questions settled, we got down to business.

He had come by our house a few days before to make the acquaintance of our backyard tortoises, but soon worked into the conversation with Sue that he was available for odd jobs in order to earn cash to buy a video game.  When pressed today he confessed that the desired game was rate "M" (for Mature) - but he quickly assured me that he already had lots of other M-rated games, so I was not to be concerned about being the very one who was starting him on the road to perdition.  I was to rest assured, he was already there.  We had agreed to hire him for $10 to cut the sucker limbs off the two ash trees in front yard.  We would pay him $20 upon completion of this task, with the expectation he would return in 2 weeks time to prune the Lady Banks rose bushes hanging into our driveway for which he was now being paid in advance.  We shook hands.  I provided the combination pole saw/shears and demonstrated how the jig worked and set him to his task.  He came and knocked on the door asking for a glass of water and then with help re-fastening the folding saw blade.  After about an hour, he was done.  He pile up the trimmed switch limbs on the curb ready for Wednesday morning pick up by the city bulk waste removal trucks.

I admire this kid's pluck.  Out-going, willing to work for a few bucks to obtain what he wanted.  Forthright in his desire to get the job.  Used to be in Ward and June Clever's neighborhood (lily-white or not), the neighbor kids would mow lawns and do gardening chores for pay.  Now days most everyone around here hires Hispanic crews to cut their lawn and trim their trees and shrubs.  I like hiring Adam - or even doing it myself.

After Adam had stacked up the cut limbs, he took off on his lime green bike.  Good to see kids on bikes I think to myself.  A few hours later, I look out the front door window and I see an Asian man sorting Adam's cut switch pile into separate stacks.  I watch.  I try to understand what is going on in my front yard.  I holler to Sue in the kitchen, "Hey, there's an Asian man going through the pile of branches in our yard, and making two piles.  I don't know what he is doing.  I would say this is quite inscrutable."   She advised me to watch and see if I could make the scene 'scrutable'.  I scrutinized for another minute, then I stepped out the front door.  The man looked up to me as I held up my hand in greeting, he motioned a greeting in return, and then gave me a look, that said, "I hope you don't try and talk to me in English", and then stooped to finish inscrutably sorting the stacks of fresh cut branches.  He then looked at me, and pointed to the sky in a way of explanation that I did not understand.  He then gave me the 'thumbs up' signal and smiled, and then said "thank you" in English as he tucked a full arm-load of leafy suckers under his arm and returned to his house two doors down.  Between us and this Vietnamese collector of green sticks, lives a Turkish family that moved in a few months back.  We delivered Christmas cookie to them in December.

For the ignoramus, who though never having lived or driven in a suburban community, to proclaim them lily-white.  She may be shocked to find the likes of Adam the Egyptian-American kid on a bike, the inscrutable Vietnamese gatherer of switches, the Turks next door or even Matthew from India across the street. 

Beaver Clever moved out long ago. 
Oh, and did I mention, we've had a compost pile in our side yard for years.

Show Me Tour - Literary Lights

Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn
On the bluff overlooking Hannibal, Missouri

Ninety miles from our HQ in Columbia is Hannibal, MO; boyhood home of Samuel Clements aka Mark Twain.  We had planned to pay our respects to this hamlet and the raft of beloved characters who dwelt there on the west bank of the Big Muddy Mississippi before our son graduated from The University of Missouri - who knows when we'll ever be back in this neck of the woods again.

Just behind the levee sits some of the old building that were the haunts of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Becky Thatcher, Aunt Polly, Injun Joe and the others that populate the pages.  The building have been preserved and a museum dedicated to Mark Twain's life and work was our re-introduction the author, his family and the history and events that shaped Mr. Twain.  We toured the original home of Samuel Clements and his family, the Justice of the Peace office where his father held court until his death at Samuel's age of 10, the reconstructed crude dwelling of the Blankenship home (Tom Blankenship was the model for Huck Finn) and Grant's Drug Store where the Clements family shared the upstair's residence upon the death of Mr. Clements.

Boyhood Home of Mark Twain (right)
Hill Street
Hannibal, MO

 A worthwhile excursion, again reinforcing the facts as to how 19th Century life was rough, tenuous and often unexpectedly marred by tragedy.  The Clements family by all accounts was respected, came from land-owning (and slave-holding) background, reasonably educated, yet could not find economic success in a series of business ventures.  Finally being impoverished upon the death of the head of the household.

Mark Twain himself being broke on several occasions and literally down to his last silver dime once in San Francisco before finding great success as a writer and lecturer - only to lose his fortune again.

Mark Twain seated at the table
in his boyhood home

*******

On our way out of the "Show Me" State, we headed once again for a return visit to Mansfield, Missouri; home to Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House on the Prairie series of books.  Sue is a big fan and as of her latest wedding anniversary, now has I believe every single book on Laura Ingalls Wilder.  This includes the latest, Pioneer Girl, an annotated history of the original manuscript composed at the kitchen table in "the Rock House" on there MIssouri apple farm.

The Rock House
Built for Laura and her husband by their daughter Rose

The old farm house that Laura's husband built from the ground up was then taken over by their daughter Rose, who had dreams of turning this Ozark apple farm into a writer's colony.  The dream never materialized during the Great Depression and Rose moved to Connecticut.  Laura and her husband quickly moved back into their familiar home to live out the rest of their lives among the memories of their own house.

Laura Ingalls Wilder
Old Farm House
Mansfield, Missouri

 Having seen the homes of two of Missouri's best known writers, it was time to return to Texas and write a blog.

"Show Me" Tour - Rock Bridge State Park

Breakfast at 9 in the morning is quite a civilized meal, so that is how we began our Friday mid-morning. Grant picked us up and took us to Cafe Berlin.  Sue ordered the pancake tacos, I had to chose between the Rebel and the Union, and I am a Union-man, so I got browned potatoes along with my bacon and eggs.  I drew a 'dillo cartoon with the caption "Dillo-licous vittles" on the blank spaces inside the book that came with the tab.  Our waiter picked up the tab, complimented me on the drawing, saying it was very good, thus earning a fatter tip.

Grant had class project obligations from late morning through mid-day, so we geological-nerd parents were naturally attracted to anything that had the name "Rock" in it.  We found ourselves at Rock Bridge Memorial State park just a few miles south of Columbia.  We hiked the 'Sinkhole Trail', wound down the hillside to the 'Devil's Icebox' and then up and over the 'Rock Bridge' and back to the car.  A pleasant Spring time jaunt through the woods, soon to be leafed out.

One of the characters we met along
the Sinkhole Trail

We were serandaded along the trail

The Devils Icebox
A stream that flows from a cave under a limestone outcrop

The stream flows out from under on side of the Devil's Icebox
and then flows into the other side.
We are peering into what was once a subterranean stream 
coursing through a cavern system, but this portion of the 
cave roof collapsed, creating "The Devil's Icebox"

A few Red Bud blossoms
at mouth of "The Devil's Icebox" cave

We cross over the Rock Bridge
returning to our carriage

The "Show Me" Tour - Mizzou & Como Environs

The garage smells of new rubber wanting to meet the road.  I just put a new set of Pirelli All-Season Touring tires on the wife's car.  They're Italian and the auto is Korean.    And with this European and Asian world-mix sitting in the garage it didn't seem right to hold them in down here on the farm when adventure and touring were calling.  We all could be out on a road trip by merely backing out into the alley and pointing the touring tires somewhere away from here.  We had been wanting to visit Grant at the University of Missouri in Columbia (CoMO as it is known by the local slang); so, we two said how about next weekend we 'go Como'?  

Grant will be graduating in mid-May, and we will be there then in the thick of all the confusion and locust swarm of parents to celebrate at the appropriate time. But, if we showed up a month early, we figured we could pretty much have the run of the place to ourselves, and Grant could provide a tour of his haunts on and off campus relatively free from the madding crowds to come.  We also planned to work in a Missouri literary tour; visiting Hannibal, MO, boyhood home of Mark Twain (Samuel Clements) on the Northeast quadrant of the state along the muddy Mississippi.  Then make a second pilgrimage to Mansfield, MO to visit the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the "Little House on the Prairie" series of books, an oft referenced source of 19th Century American pioneer life and favorite read of Sue's going way back. 

We put in 1551 miles (RT) with pleasant spring time weather all along the way - other than the drainage ditch drencher driving dime-sized hail stones upon us on I-44 in Rolla. The boldly color profuse blooms of the red bud and dogwood trees were blooming in the wooded understory beside interstate and rural highway all through Missouri.  The lurid colors of the red bud are nature's "red carpet" rolled out for the entrance of Spring.

Our four-day round trip begins with a series of photos from Grant's environs as a radio journalism student at Mizzou.

Grant's house is several blocks from campus, and he shares it with three other roommates.  

Certainly no room for parents to crash, so we booked a room at Como HoJo not too far from the action.  Our first night we shared the motel  parking lot with a Severe Storm/Tornado chasing vehicle.  The tornadoes that ripped the St Louis area the day before had moved further east and left us with pleasant weather for our stay in Missouri.

Armored severe storm chase vehicle is a chick magnet

Storm chaser equipped with hydraulic 6-inch spikes to anchor in-place
1-inch steel debris shields and wielded plating.
The 3-man crew says it is mostly boring driving around all spring and summer
with a small percentage of excitement and a bit of terror thrown in at 135 mph.

Fine Print on license frame
"Do Not Follow During Adverse Weather"

The University of Missouri (1839) the oldest public university west of the Mississippi.  Grant quickly grew to appreciate the marble and brick buildings that give the place a solid and stately character and the well appointed grounds that he believes makes it one of the more beautiful universities to be found.

Jesse Hall (Administration) is set behind the famed pillars of a former building that
long ago burned - leaving just the stone columns 

The Mizzou journalism school has a long and honored relationship with China,  And as a gift the J-School was presented a pair of marble lions that sit guarding the integrity of The School of Journalism in an archway were the spoken word is magnified and and the echo projected.  The story goes: Once there were two students who as they walked under the lion-guarded archway were boasting between themselves about how clever they were to have just cheated on an exam without arousing the suspicion of the professor.
   The professor who had just given these students the exam was some distance away, but from the acoustics of the archway, he was able to hear their boastful conversation.  
   When these two students had their exams returned, they were dismayed to discover that their professor had given them both failing grades.  When they asked why they had flunked after giving the correct answers, the professor told them that their cheating was the reason for their grade of zero.
  With dropped jaws, they asked how he had uncovered what they believed to be an air-tight scheme?  The professor's only explanation was, "The lions told me".

One of the pair of lions
guarding the integrity of the Missouri School of Journalism

Grant has worked as the Associate Director of Programming for KCOU, the campus radio station.  In past years he has co-hosted a talk show with his roommate Carson and done sports broadcasting as production work also at KCOU.

Grant in his domain
KCOU sound board and controls

Beside his volunteer work at the campus radio station, he has a part-time paying job at a commercial station where he monitors the equipment and does production work for some of the sports programming,  We visited his workplace on a quiet Saturday morning, bringing him donuts.

Grant explains to his mother, what knobs do what and 
when he has to push the right buttons  as we tour Zimmer Radio Group

Of course a parents job is to buy food while visiting the college kids.  We had a late dinner at The Heidelberg followed by a visit to Hot Box Cookies [a name that carries the connotation of "munchies" after pot smoking].  Breakfast at cafe Berlin (twice).  We were pleased to have Kaileen, Grant's girlfriend, join us on several dining occasions.

Holy Saturday Red Bud

We took a walk through the Blackland Praire Preserve a few miles from home on Good Friday Eve.  Red Bud and some wildflowers were on display in the twilight as a full Easter Moon rose above the vibrant green hardwood leaves.  It was a sight that filled my soul as a sip of cool water fill a parched mouth.  I purposed to come back the following evening and see if I could capture images similar to what I had just witnessed with my camera.

My weather app on the phone indicated that Saturday's moonrise was to be at 8:13 PM.  I waited in the dusk, looking and testing angles for a good shot of the brightly lit moon beaming through the red bud blossoms.  Clouds as harbingers of the coming Easter-morning rains drifted across the open sky at sunset, and as I waited and checked the time, the moon was not at all visible at 8:13.  We waited in a meadow as the darkness grew, listening to distant coyotes and a brief hoot of an owl.  No moon rise by a darkened 8:25 (so much for phone apps).  We trudged back to the car feeling the dews and damps rising from the Spring vegetation beside the white limestone trail that blazed through the dark ground cover.

Red Bud Blossoms
At the edge of a Blackland Praire meadow

Susan inhales a blossoming sprig

Red Bud before incoming clouds and weather
Holy Saturday

Beauty and Glory
Easter-tide

As we pulled onto our home street (8:31 PM), I could see the moon light shining through a bank of clouds on the eastern horizon.  My idea of a great photograph never materialized, but it was splendid spring evening.

In Memory of Muddy Paw-Prints

There is a mystic bond between man and dog as exist between no other species.

Strider ol' Friend
9/11/2001 to 3/30/2015

Strider was a mix.  
A mix of black Labrador Retriever and Chow.
A mix of nobility and at times raw fear turned sharp.

Dogs easily weave themselves into the warp and woof of a family's life fabric; or in deference to the canine-american perspective, the fabric of the pack (as we believe he saw it).  Strider was different than many, if not most all dogs, but when it comes to mixing with the family life and weaving into it with all of his furriness, Strider was no exception.  That mystic bond was tight between the two of us.

Strider was of noble appearance and countenance and this was the outward Lab on display.  As a noble, he had well established lines of decorum and which made him a pleasure in so many ways; he never raided the trash, no matter what manner of tempting odoriferous scraps where thrown in.  We always left the house confident he would not cause any trouble when left alone.  He had nearly impeccable manners, he would wait at the door until given the command to enter, he would sit, stay, lay down, shake or leap on his hind legs ("Be Shamu!" was his command to leap into the air).  He was not to get up on the furniture, nor was he to eat from plates of food or snack left at his nose level on the coffee table. These bounds were never broken. He was a gentleman.  His boundaries were solid and unwavering.  He was a noble beast.  He was a beast, yet a beast that was part of the Suneson family fabric.

He asked not for much, but he cherished those special opportunities when made available.  When the kids where underclassmen in high school, the morning invitation was at first; "Strider, do you want to go see some Mustangs?"  Yes he did. For that was an invitation to jump in the back of my 4Runner and ride to Inga's High School where I would roll down the back window and he would stick his big black wet nose out the window crack (his "smell hole" as we called it) and take in the sights, sounds and smells of kids getting ready to go to class.  When Grant entered a different High School, the invitation to Strider was; "Strider, do you want to go see some Owls?"  For him, the answer and tradition was the same, though the route was different.

Strider was of noble countenance, and spoke only when he had something to say.  Always thankful that he was never a 'little yapper', constantly making noise for little or no reason.  He was quiet and dignified, a small woof or even a punch at the back door when he wanted to be let in.  No need to press the issue.  However, if there was an unknown on the door step or a stranger traveling down the alley, he was pleased to announce his presence.  I encouraged such behavior from my 72 pounder hounder.  When younger and spry, he would hurdle himself at the front door when a stranger approached.  The cable guy admitted he almost wet his pants one day.  Back a few years, when the trains traveling on the tracks at the end of our subdivision were allowed to blow their horns, he would sometimes sing the "The Sad Doggy Song".  A mix of howl and whine that was a primal response from his wolf ancestors to the harmonic resonance of certain engineers and how they sounded the train horn.  We delighted in his singing.

Strider as a mix, was a mixed blessing as well.  His well established boundaries included his clear warning to never cross his lines; he would not tolerate being handled when he was frightened or scared and did not like anyone coming close to his head with binding devices such as muzzles or harnesses - we called this his "Chow brain".  We learned to respect his wishes as dictated by his Chow brain.

His nobility may have been interpreted as aloofness by some, but I understood Strider and he understood me.  It was a mystic bond.  His peculiar personality precluded him from being the kind of dog who ran to greet the master with kisses and a furiously wagging, curled and feathery tail.  No, that just was not who Strider was.  But, when I would go upstairs to work in my office there, he would soon follow me and come lay at the top of the stairs or curl up next to my chair in front of the computer. Strider's affection was quiet and subtle and constant.  I would extend my hand and scratch behind his ears, and then he would re-position himself to make sure I also scratched his ever-itchy tail joint.  Always his favorite form of petting interaction.  When down stairs in the living room, he would come by and stand over my extended toes as my heels rested on the foot stool, this way I would be encouraged to scratch his belly with my toe knuckles.  His communications were clear.  He was cool, and that was cool with me.  I understood.

Inside Strider there was a precise "dog clock", and inevitably, when he asked to go out for the last time at night, it was 10:20 PM plus-or-minus 2 minutes.  Early on, he put his metal tags hanging from his collar to good use.  If me and the wife spent too long in bed on a weekend morning, he would rise from his bed at the foot of our bed, stand staring with tensed lips and an expression of definite disapproval, and jangle his tags as a scolding reminder that we were burning day light and he wanted us up and out of bed.  Now.  The irony is that once he got me to rise, he would go back to bed himself.

Indeed, Strider was a mix.  He was a noble beast.  At times he could be a sharp and fearful beast.  But he was my beast.  I miss him.  For all the mix of personality, daily interactions and routines with him, he left his mark on me and the Suneson Family like a track of muddy paw-prints that walked all through our life for the last 13 years.  Those muddy paw-prints may fade with time, but they are indelible markings and they do not seem to be washed out by my tears over the past few days.  

Good-bye my old and faithful friend.  That mystic bond of ours now severed has left me me grieving - not for you ol' hound, for it was time to go.  Your dog clock knew it, as did I.  
But I grieve for the ceasing of the familiar wet nose against my forearm, your humble expression of the Creator's purest form of joy seen when merely offered the opportunity to take a walk beside your master.  
I grieve for all that is and all that was, wrapped in the great life-affirming mess of a beloved dog's muddy paw prints tracked across my life, that shall now be no more. 

****

When I took rhetoric in college, I came a cross this tribute to a dog given by George Vest, US Senator from Missouri (1879-1903).  Earlier in his law career, a friend was trying a case where his client was asking for compensation for the death of his dog.  The attorney, knowing of his friend's polished oratory skills, asked George Vest to give the closing arguments to the jury.  This is the moving tribute to a dog that clinched the case for his friend:

Gentlemen of the Jury: 
The best friend a man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most. A man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us, may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads.

The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog. A man's dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer. He will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings, and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.
If fortune drives the master forth, an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies. And when the last scene of all comes, and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by the graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even in death.

George Graham Vest - c. 1855

Strider and Me, December 22, 2004
Strider was a lover of the rare Dallas snowfall.
The kids built a snowman & Strider would rush it and knock it down and
 then chew on the snowman's stick arms.