FRIJOLES

All ya'll forgive me for the following self-indulgence as it is a bit more history about "me" for my children which I feel they do not know, don't know if they want to know, but offer it as partial explanation of the unusual person they may perceive me to be. The rest of ya'll jus' 'scuse me!@

I graduated from Highway Patrol School on June 5, 1970, and was stationed in San Antonio at the ripe old age of 20 years and 5 months (yeah, a mere child that drivers I ticketed reveled in reminding me of?).

Now one would need to know that I spent my entire life to that point in Wright City, Texas, population (kin to or thought I was kin to everyone (pop. = 40?) and thrived there in the rural, backwoods, and country lanes. San Antonio (Mexico, as far as my dumb butt knew) was a metropolitan population of one million (mostly American citizens, but a few(?) were suspect???)

The first week of August 1970 (after at least three weeks "seasoning" as a road Trooper), Hurricane Celia made landfall at Corpus Christi, Texas and the ole Tin Star Ranch Hand was never again the same naive, shy, green, innocent, bon vivant that he had the good fortune to experience prior to that moment.

About 10:00PM on the night of hurricane landfall (125 MPH wind with $450,000,000 damage in the dollars of that time), my partner (Jim Pribble), called to say that we had been deployed to "Corpus" until further notice for "hurricane duty". All ya'll would need to know that a Wright City boy was not persactly sure what a hurricane was???? Hadn't seen no "tornado", no "tsunami", no "typhoon", and for the truth of the matter, didn't have a clue what I was heading toward (I was still wondering what "tide" was in the distant "ocean"?? and Striker Lake was the biggest body of water I had ever "navigated" with Uncle Buddy doing the directional stuff)

What the hell, I was twenty years old and therefore bullet-proof, dog bite-proof, immortal, amphibious, ambidextrous, and whatever other stupid idea was in my mind. I strapped on my Trooper crime fighting "costume", checked my ammo, wiped my butt and as all others fled for their life from the "catastrophe", ole dumbutt drove at full speed toward the challenge with (in truth) a bit of eager anticipation of the excitement to follow).

On the way (I didn't have a clue where we were going other than South), we drove in a convoy of black and white HP cars at or above 100 MPH. Never mind that it was raining like Noah's flood or that there were huge trees, power lines, cows, (dogs, cats, possums, etc.), and associated crap in the roadway for the last (too many miles), we were the "cavalry" and going to (hell, I didn't really know where). I just knew (after a few weeks on the "job") it was something I was destined to do for my entire life (run toward the storm and "stay there" as others fled, til the last person was safe, and all was calm. This is what I have done for the last 39 years as a "cop" and in truth it is who I am, what I do, and I don't know any other way of life.

Being perpetually "lucky", I was assigned the 6PM to 6AM shift in the general vicinity of Robstown.

Now picture this:

1. Every sign of any kind (road, advertising, warning, whatever) was blown to hell and Hiawatha by the storm (didn't much matter as I didn't bring a map).

2. I didn't know East from Up, or shit from shinola about where I was at any time.

3. No electricity = No lights (no where, no how, no matter what) You ain't seen "dark" til you are lost in a strange country with no moon/stars and you be lost like the country bumpkin you are?

4. I was responsible for "helping" folks, preventing theft/looting, getting my sorry butt back to "home base" each morn, but in truth wasn't sure at the time I could "help" myself? ("Home base" was the naval air station at Kingsville with WWII vintage barracks at the end/beginning of runways where jet trainers practiced touch and go landings all day under full throttle while we "slept" (ya got no idea what that "sleep" was like unless you live in a subway tunnel?) "Air conditioning" was a large belt driven fan that the belt stayed on at least an hour or two per day before the belt went AWOL. "Chow" was in the navy mess hall where the rule was, "take all you want, eat all you take" (the "take" was stuff like greasy calf liver and tasteless greasy anything cheap and essentially inedible/nasty/greasy/unrecognizable?

5. I was perpetually lost and perpetually throwing down on "folks" with my 12 gauge five shooter with promises to blister their butts if they didn't quit stealin' from the folks that fled the storm (and not sure what I would do with their gut shot bodies/paper work/mess)? Ain't never yet figgered why some human nature is to "crap" on others when the "others" are at their most fragile and vulnerable?????/

Other than spending two weeks there, wonderin' where the hell I was at, and thinking every minute that I would be forced to take a (miserable thievin') human life to save my own as part of my "duty", there were a few associated issues:

1. There weren't no/any/nada drinking water anywhere after the hurricane and the bottled water scam wasn't invented at that time (the Pearl beer company filled their beer cans with "pure water from the country of 1,100 springs" and sent trucks to us to quench our thirst)( now picture full grown "Trooper"dudes slurping gustily from Pearl beer cans (filled with water) to quench their thirst?

2. Freezers will "keep" meat for a bit after the electricity goes off, but it ain't gonna last forever. In spite of, or due to my youth, my hunger "button" didn't quell as a result of the disaster. Another words, my sorry rear was HUNGRY on a regular basis. In the beginning,the restaurants fed us all the free steaks we could eat with the explanation that they would ruin anyway. When they "ruined", we were like everyone else with no source of food? For my first time, but not near the last over a 33 year Highway Patrol career, the Red Cross showed up with tuna fish sandwiches. Don' t much care what you think of what my Dad called "tunie" fish, it is larupping good when you are near bout to eat your boot heels.

As a "side" story, the all-Hispanic Robstown police department announced one night that they were cooking "frijoles" and we were invited (YUM, local authentic home cooked manna). The local constabulary built a wood fire in front of the police station in the street and fashioned an iron "stand" which supported an iron kettle suspended from a cross bar. Into the pot went water, some "meat" (I never want to know what that was, but i'm thinkin' possum?), dried ground chili peppers, onions, and garlic. As for the "piece de resistance" (beans/frijoles), they produce a dusty rough brown sack of about 20 gallons of pintos and dumped them in the pot (dirt, rocks, burrs, insects, crap, crud, corruption, and you don't want to know) and smiled the satisfied countenance of the ever most cordial host, secure in the knowledge that they had "scored" a tow sack "coup" with the Estada de Tejas Policia!

Folks, after much discussion (well, mostly gesturing as I didn't really parley their habra) the feast was ready. Wasn't nuthin' to do but accept a HUGE bowl of the offering, take a spoonful, and ................... (think grit, sand, rocks, gristle(?) whatever) and just keep dippin' and swallerin' to not offend our gracious hosts? Don't know if I matured from that experience, or just staved off gnawing the tires off my Plymouth, but as you may know, it did make an impression on my psyche.

3. Gasoline pumps at gasoline stations work off off electricity. There was no electricity. Therefore, there was no gasoline. Therefore, us Troopers had a fuel problem. Some enterprising soul eventually took the cover off the gas pump at his station and hooked up his gasoline powered weed edger with the belt hooked to the gas pump and was able to "suck" some fuel from his storage tanks to keep us mobile. Thus, American ingenuity triumphed over mother nature (temporarily).

4. Electricity is also necessary for clothes cleaners to "clean" Trooper uniforms. Another surprise, after a few days wearing the same uniform in hot/humid/hurricane weather, one begins to reek of (Hmmmm?)...you don't want to know. (Just had to endure that one as a lesson in doing what ya gotta do when ya gotta do it?)

5. Ever take ICE for granted? Ya wouldn't after a few weeks in a hurricane impact area?

6. If ya ever doubt the strength of the human spirit, research pictures of C.C. following Hurricane Celia and then go visit it now to see the "after" picture.

I could go on with stories of "confrontations" with pistol packin' home owners who we had to sort out from looters, local cops who contemplated shooting me as I approached their roadblocks at night, and every rattlesnake in the free world driven from their underground burrow by flood, but you get the picture of how the ole WC "kid" got a relatively fast "baptism" into being a "road" Trooper.

I'll consider more of these "FASCINATING" (BS) stories for future TSRH blogs, but will just have to see what is therapeutic for me (I reckon there is a bit of it that I am still kinda "struggling" to mentally deal with) and that which is sufficiently "G" rated for the Waller children (Hell, ya'll will alway be kids to me?)

Til then, much love and God's own soul saving grace, healing forgiveness, and goodness to all.