OKLAHOMA SCENIC TOUR

John and Nancy at church

We drove Sunday from John's home near Hartshorne to attend his church near Red Oak. It is a lot of miles from his home. Nancy and I attended the Adult Bible SS class taught by a descendant of one of the original founders of the church. Daniel Adams teaches class and then plays the piano for church service. John Johnston teaches the youth SS class. During the church service we sang three hymns from the Choctaw Hymn book. Carol and her mother Sarah joined those who sang in Choctaw. By the third song I was able to follow the words in the hymn book. It took a while to catch on.

This is Nancy with Daniel and his wife.

We drove from the church through the scenic hills of Oklahoma down through Clayton to Antlers. I showed Nancy the bridge over the Kiamichi river where the high school students would drive to and dance to music on the car radios back in 1944. We then spent an hour visiting with my brother Robert at their home. We drove down through Paris and followed the GPS that took us through McKinley and Grapevine. We stopped to eat at Steak and Shake in the Grapevine Mall area. I had a Hershey's dark chocolate shake. We got to Nancy's house at 10 and ready for bed. Slept late this morning and came back to Halsell Hill this afternoon.

Tommie Lu, Robert and Charles with his mouth working as usual.

OKIE IN OKLAHOMA

Carol and John Johnston Sarah and Carol

Friday Nancy and I took Bobbe and Yvonne Hightower to visit her son, John, who lives ten miles from Hartshorne, OK in the mountains. We drove the back road from Kiowa to Hartshorne on a winding road with 10 and 20 mph curves and shoulder drop-offs. We drove in the sunshine but saw clouds East of us. John said that it rained that morning. It was sunny all day but about 3 this morning lightning and rain came in and it rained off and on until about 10 this morning then turned sunny this afternoon. We saw deer come by this morning, but no other wildlife.

Bobbe and Yvonne Hightower

This is old home country for me. I graduated from Antlers High School just down the road from here. We plan to stop and visit my brother Robert after church tomorrow. John and his wife Carol are very active in the Thessalonian Baptist Church established in the 1800s by the Choctaw Indians.

John's home

Last night Carol's mother, Sarah, came for dinner. She has read everything that she can about the Oklahoma Indians with special consideration of the Choctaw. I told her about Don Birchfield. She had read all of Don Coldsmith's books and visited the Rune at Heavener, OK that was the subject of Don's book THE RUNESTONE. She has also read all of Hillerman's books. Nancy and I introduced her to James Doss. I told her about Robert Conley for Cherokee history. I also suggested the book by Paul Carlson on the Plains Indians.

BLESSINGS OF RAIN

I came home Saturday to find over 2" of rain in my gauge for the last two days with more drizzle lasting until Sunday. Friday after taking Nancy for a checkup on her shoulder and getting a recommendation on an orthopedic doctor to look at her arthritic hip that is hurting we returned to her house for a special reading event. Her daughter, Vicky, joined us to hear a long time friend, Bob Colehour, alias Bob Lovejoy or Windy Bob read from the cowboy poetry that he has written. I had read one of his booklets that Nancy showed me the first time I visited her house. He had mixed cowboy and civil war poetry in that book. He came from Burleson with a large bag of his stories and poems. He read from novels in progress and some of his great poems. Most are typical cowboy poems with a lot of humor like the two cowboys who fell in love with a madam who pitted them against one another until they were drawing on each other. They then realized what she was doing and shot her.

Nancy read from the historical novel she is writing and Bob gave her some pointers on improving the writing. I used the opportunity to practice reading the Declaration of Independence that I have offered to read for the Cottonwood July 4th celebration. It has a few words that I trip over like sanguinity. I need to practice more, but the content sounds a lot like the current tea party rhetoric.

Driving back Saturday we stopped at New York Hill restaurant at noon and noticed that hummingbirds were feeding. So today I put three feeders out and saw a hummingbird a short time later. I haven't seen any deer for several weeks. I presume the does have their fawns hidden. I have seen some goldfish in the pond but they don't come up to feed.

Today our SS class read more of Joshua and wondered why all of the many names haven't been used to name children. Caleb and Joshua were the only two names of the hundreds that we could relate to. At church I gave the stewardship talk and explained how our church is different from the many that have a drive with pledges and develop their budgets from the pledge cards. Our position is that you come to church to worship God. One way you worship is with your tithes and what you give of all that God has given you is between you and God. We then have the responsibility to spend those gifts responsibly. So we often fall behind on the budget but the Lord seems to provide for our needs in other months. Some appreciated knowing a little of our history.

Tonight Nancy taught me how to play Phase10. After Ashley mentioned it in her blog about her trip to Romania and I had never heard of the game, Nancy brought her deck and tonight she let me win the first game. It was close all the way. I was embarrassed that I couldn't shuffle the cards. I used to do it well and even had some card tricks but too much time playing solitaire on the computer has ruined my card dealing skills.

COYOTES AND CALVES

Tuesday at Kiwanis my guest speaker was Larry Killgo who is a predator control specialist. He graduated from Texas Tech with a degree in Agriculture and went to work for Texas in rodent control. He moved up to predator control and was offered a job in New Mexico, where he had relatives, and became the director of predator control for over 20 years. He had experience with coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, and feral hogs. He has supervised killing them with airplanes and helicopters as well as poison from traps and around lambs necks. However his most effective control is the snare located where coyotes will dig under a net fence. Although they could easily jump over as creatures of habit they always dig a hole under the fence. This offers a perfect spot to snare them. He gave stories of how the coyotes breed and live as families in their territory. They don't join in packs like wolves and feral dogs.

He was hired by a deer rancher south of Cross Plains who three years ago had no fawns that lived. After Killgo harvested dozens of coyotes this year he had over 100% fawns. Larry told how the coyotes will follow cows and calves who are springing and devour the calf as it is born. After the program I asked him if he knew Wyman Meinzer. He said he was in class with him at TT. Meinzer in his book photographing coyotes argued that coyotes were falsely accused of killing calves when they eat the calf droppings that are like candy to them. Larry says that Wyman is dead wrong in that belief and has countless stories to back up his observations of calf predation by coyotes.

Asked about feral hogs, he said if he were permitted he could control them with poison but it is illegal and other methods like shooting from the air helps but will not provide complete control. They and coyotes will just get worse if more isn't done to control them. He wants all farmers and ranchers to do more to control the predators.

I hope that he gets to tell his story to more farmers and ranchers. I appreciated his talk to a small audience in CP.

LEARNING AND LITERATURE

This was a learning day. I went to the Chataqua lecture at Buffalo Gap Village, run by McMurry University professors, where the president of McMurry University, Dr. John Russell, gave a lecture advertised as THE HISTORY OF AVIATION, but he changed the title to be notable events in aviation. All of his degrees are in Aerospace engineering. His Bachelor's focused on propulsion, his Master's on structures and materials and his Doctorate on aerodynamics. He started with a slide showing the helicopter designed by Da Vinci in the 14th Century but didn't fly. He was focusing on the six aircraft that were keys in the development of aircraft. He reviewed the manned gliders and pioneers in designing aircraft. Otto Lillenthal was killed flying his glider but contributed to the knowledge of how to steer gliders. Samuel Langley had the first powered airplane but it didn't fly even though it was funded by the government. While he was highly educated the Wright brothers were bicycle mechanics who figured out how to warp wings to gain better control so the first major aircraft was their Flyer. He discussed the early wood and fabric "organic airplanes" built for WWI that had problems with the materials deteriorating and that led to his next notable airplane, Junkers J1, that was made of iron but had a power plant large enough to fly it faster than others. It had a maneuverability problem but led to thinking about metals and aluminum was chosen. His third airplane was the Boeing 247 (I think the number is right) that was built for UAL for passengers. It was eclipsed by the DC-3 built for TWA by Douglas. That airplane is still flying today. He then went into an explanation of the design of wings showing the development of airfoils by NACA and explained how theoreticians and experimenters got together to understand the aerodynamics and how to build better wings. He showed the equations for drag and how as airplanes approached sonic speeds the drag went to infinity by the equations. His next airplane was the P-51 with a wing that allowed higher speeds. But to go supersonic he showed that a German engineer in 1935 gave a paper showing that swept wings would permit supersonic speeds. Many years later he was brought to NASA after WWII and helped develop the swept wing aircraft that now are the shape of all modern airliners.
He asked for other suggestions and I supported my B-58 that was the first airplane to cruise at Mach2. But it didn't last long because General LeMay wanted a long range bomber that could fly to Japan and back. Russell is an exciting lecturer that is animated and loves his subject. I hope that he continues to offer such lectures.

I literature I am reading three books at the same time. I have been reading Edward Murray's book of short stories and just finished his story of First Calf about an old rancher near me who saved a cow and calf from a wildfire. It was too close to home. I am also reading Bob Favor's MY RANCHING DAYS before he gives his talk May 4 at our Meet the Author program. I heard him speak in Abilene and bought his book but hadn't opened it. He reviews his growing up days farming and ranching and tells about his stint in the Navy and as a Highway Patrolman before being accepted as a Ranger. His Ranger stories are varied and interacted with historical events, particularly the political scene along the border. He will tell us stories that aren't in his book. The other book I started is one I bought at the Texas Folklore Society. Paul Patterson wrote a romance called THE SHEEPHERDER that I have just started. It is humorous and an interesting read.

Of course preparing for Sunday School I am reading Joshua and tomorrow we will discuss why the Lord listened to Joshua and stopped the world from rotating for a day. Many cultures have the story of the long day, but modern people can't believe it. Should make for a good discussion.

SWALLOWS ARE BACK

Today I walked two miles picking up trash to get the mail and at the big bridge there were dozens of swallows in the air. I haven't seen any around the house yet and was worried that they were all gone. I haven't seen any deer for a week during the day. I know by my wildlife camera that they come in at night. We have had a pair of turkeys come through the yard and turkey season started last week.

I wasted a couple of hours trying to retrieve photos from my camera chip when I accidently erased them after I thought I had transferred them to my computer. I did find some wildlife photos to print for my annual report to the Appraisal District to support my wildlife tax situation. Quicken had problems giving my a spending report but I finally got something that worked. I am not too happy with Quicken.

CHRIST HAS RISEN!

It was great to celebrate Easter in Valerie's home church, University United Methodist in San Antonio. Bishop Lowry was their preacher before he became the bishop of our Central Texas Conference. They have a full orchestra with tympanies, brass, strings and a magnificant pipe organ with their choir.

Nancy and I drove to San Antonio after a full day at the Texas Folklore Society Friday. Thursday we missed the Hootenanny because we went to Maundy Thursday service at Cross Plains FUMC and it was too late to drive to Abilene. Friday morning bright and early we got to TFS in time to hear the start of the program by Lucy West, who lost her husband, John West, just a week ago. She and I exchanged feelings about the grieving process. We heard papers all day but the big surprise for me was to see Dr. Suzy Burnham at the meeting. I had been wondering about her. She is either the State Veterinarian or close to it. The last time I had heard about her she was working in Mexico coordinating vet problems across the border. She grew up in Mexico and we met her at TAMU when she was in Vet school. She and her husband have a Vet practice near Graham that we drive by every once in a while but have never stopped. I called Sylvia Grider to tell her about seeing Suzy. I had to call her again when Jack Duncan gave a paper on his remembrances of TFS. At his first meeting in 1971 in Wimberley he met Sylvia and had her photo with Sid Cox and James Ward Lee on his slide presentation. He recalled that she won a quilt being auctioned off and Sid asked her if it was the first time she had taken a chance on a quilt.

We heard papers by Lori B. Garrison who told about taking a 20 mile drive in the Hill country and going through 8 "demon" bump gates and scarring up her daughter's car because the gates swing back into the car going through them. W. C. Jameson gave a great paper on legendary rattlesnakes, claiming that he had measured one at more than 8 feet on a trip to Mexico. We enjoyed all of the papers and went to the dinner where Ken Davis was named the 14th Fellow of the society. A well-deserved honor.

Saturday on the way to SA I stopped at Hinckley's Country Store in Mason to buy birthday gifts for Christopher and Brent. I had stopped before but lucked out this time and found both Brent and Monica at the store. They were friends from the Wesley Foundation days at A&M and have been in Mason since. They operate the store on the square, a bed and breakfast, plus other enterprises. Brent said he has been mayor of Mason for 5 years and running again this year. We exchanged blog addresses. Their son, who served in missionary work in Honduras has a blog named familiahinckly.blogspot.com and it is very well done. Much better than this one.
When we got to Kathy's in San Antonio we got to visit with Jim and his family because Brent was still celebrating his Thursday birthday with a party that morning in SA. They had their new daughter, Faith, who is growing up and smiles at everyone. She was born December 10. Then the crowd arrived. Keith's cousin Crickett with her son, Jay and his daughter. Valerie's four girl friends came with the parents of one of them. When we got there Valerie and Ness were helping Christopher and Brent dye Easter eggs. So the big event of the afternoon was when Easter eggs were hidden in the back yard. Christopher and Brent had half the yard and all of the big girls had a basket and searched the other part of the yard like a bunch of school kids. Kathy had prizes for the prize egg and the most, etc.

Dinner was the great BBQ that Keith makes. He had pork ribs, chicken breasts and drumsticks. We had all kinds of salads by Kathy and Carol. The pediatrician Christy brought two great pies that she made, one chocolate and the other apple. Nancy got to meet all of Kathy's kids except Jon-Marc who is working in New York this week.

Sunday after church we went back for brisket Kathy had cooked overnight with potatoes and salad. We got to take a nap and drove following the GPS up 281 through Hico and Glen Rose to Granbury. Today I drove back in to Halsell Hill to try to catch up here.