A Lesson on Verbal Warfare

She didn't answer his question.

I'm not shocked.

He's young, maybe 4 or 5. And adults tend to look right past young people. Not engage them.  Disregard them. Unless, of course, the people involved are special or the setting is FOR children exclusively.

Today's setting is not a kid environment. It's the elegant and recently restored Beauvoir (Beautiful View), the final home of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy.

Two years ago, we'd sneaked a peak at it from the road and saw near devastation: A shell of a house with a partial roof and dangling shutters struggling to stand amid mountains of debris. She'd taken a direct hit from Hurricane Katrina. 

Today, we see a revival of her original beauty, thanks to $4 million from state and federal agencies.

We're on a group tour (about eight of us) in this beautiful mansion, built in Biloxi, Miss., before the Civil War. Our guide is a woman of about 45, who wears period clothing (post Civil War, about 1889) and smiles a lot. She tells us inside stories about the lives and loves of the first family of the Confederacy -- the only first family of the Confederacy.

Our walk from the front to the back door takes about 20 minutes because we've stopped at each of the rooms to hear about the way the people lived in this ocean-front summer cottage, about the severe damage caused by Katrina and the restoration efforts still going on today.

All the while, the little boy with piercing blue eyes remains attentive. He listens to the tour guide's stories, tilting his little head upwards to hear with his eyes and his ears. He's so well behaved. Respectful. Curious.

A little red wooden train on the carpet in the living room catches his attention. He turns to the tour guide and asks "Why is there a train in there?" Our guide responded, "It's very old." Then just smiles.

What?

That's no answer. That's a dismissal. Why not just answer his question?

I'm fuming. This little boy is, after all, a paying part of our tour group. He's listened to everything she said and has walked quietly with us on the whole tour, never touching a thing (well, he DID touch Jeff Davis' grandfather's grandfather clock, built in the 1700, and the oldest piece of furniture in the house ... but his mom was quick to catch and release.) 

A non-answer like "It's very old" insults that little boy. 

I start to speak up, to reprimand that tour guide in front of everyone for ignoring the child when I see his mom whispering in his ear. She does it quietly, respectfully. The boy nods his head. He likes the answer. He skips out the back door and down the garden steps.

I take a deep breath and realize my plan to right that wrong with a public tongue lashing was as rude as the original wrong.

So next time (and there will be a next time because adults often disregard our kids) I'll take a lesson from our mom and not draw my verbal sword in public. Instead, I'll kindly whisper in the offender's ear.

A Pizza Pie Anthology

The pizza I grew up with came in a box (with a bag of floury stuff and a can of red sauce)  from Chef Boyardee. It was salty and doughy and we gobbled it up at slumber parties, along with M&Ms, bottles of Coke and chips and dip.

Pizza was not a meal. It had no food value. It was just water, flour, salt and the red stuff we poured out of that can.  I lived in West Virginia and we did not eat pizza for dinner. We snacked on it. At parties. Because it was fun for kids to make. From that box mix.

When I moved to Pennsylvania, I was in my 20s, and like me, pizza was growing up. Places called Victory Pig and Pizza L'Oven retrained my thinking because the pizzas they made were substantial. They were a meal. They had real food like pepperoni, chicken, ham and a variety of vegetables and fruits swimming on top of a luscious, thick, rich tomato sauce. And melted cheese. We can't forget the cheese.

The dough serving it all up was crunchy outside, soft inside, with a taste as refined as a baguette.

Over the years, while living in New York,  I've enjoyed exquisite pizzas at places such as Twin Trees, Sardo's, Gina and Joe's and even Pizza Hut.

Tonight we dine at Pizza Hut, back in the South, in Hammond, La., and I'm happy because I'm hungry, for a meal, a sumptuous pie we can eat lots of now, then some of later as a snack. Yum. The best of my youth and my grown-up years.

Our waiter seats us a table under a TV showing a national cheerleading competition out of Orlando. Thank goodness. Because after we order (a hand-tossed crust loaded with pepperoni, mushrooms and sausage), we wait about 40 minutes for our pie.

Finally, it arrives. But what he serves is not our grown-up pie. Thin, doughy crust tastes like a big communion wafer that holds a very browned cheese smothering a few shriveled mushrooms and squiggles of sausage. We can't find (or taste) any pepperoni. The smattering of red must be the sauce. Hard to tell.

We don't complain. It took 40 minutes to get this pie and we are determined to eat it. But it's dry, and salty. As it cools, the cheese turns leathery.

We eat about half before we surrender to this retro pie, the pizza of my youth.

Here in the South.

Is that Chef Boyardee in the kitchen again? 

Suspicious Activity in The Hood

We see a lot of park rangers around here on Padre Island National Seashore. But not the like ones swarming the car next door.

These guys mean business, talking into their hands-free walkie-talkies, toting big sidearms (Glocks, maybe?). Some ride in those big white pick-up trucks; two slither out of an unmarked Ford with red, blue and green lights splashing back and forth across the rear window.

Something's going down and I'm dying to know what.

They're blocking in my new neighbors, a bunch if teens (well, I'm guessing they're teens) tent camping on the beach. They've been gone all day and just drove back in, parking their big, black Lincoln Nagivator in the empty lot next to ours.   Six or seven of the kids in the SUV spill out and start unpacking their gear (including fishing poles)  while the cops talk to them.

No one seems concerned. But the cops stay a long time. Are they searching their car? Looking for drugs? Terrorists??

I am so curious. I need an excuse to wander around outside, to ask questions, to root out the reason the cops (well, park rangers) are investigating my neighbors. Ah. A book. A book I can leave in the bathroom (that's where the book exchange is).

I grab "The Pilot's Wife" (by Anita Shreve) and walk outside, meandering toward the book drop. I ask a few people, "What's up?" Dunno, they say.

I ask a few more. "Dunno, either. But, let us know if you find out."

I drop the book off in the bathroom and turn to walk back to my motor home. A big park ranger (and I mean really big, like football player big) pulls his huge white ranger pickup truck right next to me and leans out the window and says, with a big Texas drawl, "You seem concerned."

Bingo! This guy'll know what's what!

"This face is not a face of concern," I smile, trying to joke my way into getting my answers. "This is a face of curiosity."

"Well, they were speeding. Through the park. That's all." Then he drove away.

Speeding. Speeding. All this activity for a speeding ticket? Do I buy this?

I turn back to the folks who want my report and file my story.

"Don't believe 'em," one guys says.

"It's just a front," the woman remarks. "Something else has to be going on."

"It's a coverup," the third guys says, then cracks a smiles and whispers:

"Aliens." 

The Beach Awakens From Its Winter Nap

It's mid-March and I'm walking the beach and see lots of footprints in the sand.

Mingling with dog-paw marks and flip-flop prints, I notice remnants of children's feet, lots of lovely happy children's feet. I stop. I smile, wide-eyed. In awe. Because I've just witnessed something I've never seen before: A beach awaken from hibernation.

When we first arrived at Padre Island National Seashore, it was early February. And it was cold, windy. The beach population was two. Us. Well, four, counting our two Standard Poodles. The elements rushed everyone off. The sand was not smooth. It was dotted with tiny wisps of jagged sand ridges, each topped in black,  creating amazing geometric patterns.

The wind constantly worked to erase all prints, ever ours, to create those patterns.

Over the next few days, the wind calmed a little, and the fishermen joined us, adding their wader boots prints to our shoe prints and paw prints. Soon we noticed other prints in the sand, too, those of more people and more dogs. Necessary walks; nothing casual. Yet.

After a while, the tormenting wind turned into a gentle breeze (well, it does keep losing its temper from time to time, but mostly, it's a gentle ocean breeze). So joining the necessary walkers and waders were sitters, mostly women, the wives of the fishermen, who often walked the beach, looking for shells. Then, others, also shell seekers arrived. Casual walkers.

Today, as we walk the beach, the wind is at rest, the warming sun shines brightly and a melange of footprints mingles with ours. The beach is transformed, no longer bearing evidence of just fishermen, wives and dogs. It explodes with life, with people of all ages,  playing, swimming, chasing soccer balls and footballs (Here's a slide show; click on the slide show button top left, then click on the minus sign to change the time from 3 to 1 second in order to watch the toss. It's fun.)

Children shriek happily, running in and out of the waves. Teens and 20-somethings flirt. I see a beach wedding. Kids sing while sitting on top of cars. Others snowboard down the sand banks. There are lots of sand castles rising from the sand and kits taking flight. Fire pits under construction signal barbecues to come.

The beach is young again. Full of life. Vibrant, happy. Joyful. It has awakened from a long winter's rest. Ready to play again.

Heading South, On the Beach

Shovel. Check.

 Carpet. Check.

 Bucket, rope, check, check.

And lunch, water, towels. And a dishpan to carry the sea shells and sand dollars we find. 

It's 9 a.m. and we're ready, ready to drive down island, down about 60 miles to explore the rest of Padre Island National Seashore. Our goal: If we can't go all 60 miles, we want to AT LEAST frolic on both Little Shell Beach and Big Shell Beach.

It's not as easy as it sounds. The "road" we  travel is the beach (Highway -1). It's "paved" with hard-packed sand and soft sand (now you understand the supply list).

But we're driven to make it to the top (well, figuratively speaking.) So, we're off. 

And, "we" ARE driven, by my brave husband, Allen. The "we" are me and my two new friends, Sherry and Cindy (and Cindy's shitz tzu Bailey). Sherry (in a motor home) and Cindy (in a tent) travel the country alone. Well, not really alone; they both have dogs. My new girlfriends are 55 and 54, respectively, and smile, a lot.

Allen drives Sherry's Jeep and all goes well, for the first eight or so miles. The beach is littered not with debris, but with motor homes, kids playing, dogs running back and forth, and driftwood. We laugh, we smile. We joke.

We are unaware of the beast that lays in wait about 10 miles down until we slam into him, head, um, tire on.

The beast is the soft sand.

Allen captains our ship as we ride waves of that sand, up and down. He maneuvers around driftwood, and guides us through ruts so deep we hear the sand scrape against the Jeep's underbelly. Then we bounce over those ruts, like a jet ski crossing the wake.

Are those perspiration beads I see forming on his brow? 

Twice, Allen gets out to walk ahead, to check the viability of the "road." 

At 20 miles, we agree we can go no farther. Too soft. The beast wins. How deep are those ruts anyway? 12, 14 inches? Maybe 17?

So we turn back, our goal unmet. But, we're still smiling, still laughing, and still having a great time. We picnic on the gentler sand and search for small shells on Little Shell Beach. Cindy sheds her skirt (she wears a bathing suit underneath) and dips into the Gulf. Pictures here.

We return to the campground by 3 p.m. and unload the emergency supplies we never had to use (because Allen controlled the helm). And we vow to one day return to the high seas sands and dock at  Big Shell Beach.

Editor's note: According to the National Park's own Web site, we made our goal. Big Shell Beach stretches from mile 17 to mile 28. We made it to mile 20. So although we saw no big shells, we made it to Big Shell Beach. We made it. We made it.

. 

What About Bob

We're outside, puttering, when Bob hollers over. "When ya leavin?"

Bob's one of the hard-core anglers here in Padre Island National Seashore. He's been camped here or near here since November and fishes just about every day. Despite cold, wind and rain. And age. Bob is 71.

He leaves his waders outside to dry, so it always looks like there's another person over there at Bob's. And often, there is.

Bob's a people magnet. I looked up from my book one day and saw Bob climb out of his aging fifth wheel and start to work on something -- a bent fishing pole, a rusty generator, maybe he's filleting some fish. The next time I look up there are three other men there, one with a dog.

So today, Bob wants to know when we are leaving, because he wants to fish us some fish. (Look closely at the picture and you'll see the fish he just caught.) He offers the fish as a thank you for the chili I sent over the other day as a thank you for letting us hook up to his generator for a day. The thank yous never end here. It's kinda nice.

Bob says the chili (I notice his eyes start glistening) tastes almost like that that his wife had made for him -- the wife who died two years ago, just across the street, while the two of them were camping here. Lung cancer.

Linda Jean, was her name. She was his third and fifth wife (he married her twice). The others meant nothing, because combined, he and Linda Jean were married 36 years. Just two years before his wife died, his 18-year-old son Timmy died. In a car accident, while delivering newspapers. He says losing his wife was hard, but losing his son was fatal. He feels he died the day his son died. His son, his funny, gentle, loving son. The 300-plus people at his son's funeral gave Bob a stand ovation for his eulogy to his special son.

Bob says he doesn't believe in God because where was God for those two minutes Timmy needed him to save his life. Then he shows me letters from long-time friends who do believe in God. And send prayers his way. He has lots of friends and writes about 24 letters a month, just keeping in touch.

Bob unfolds his life to us in 20 minutes, all this while we stand here in the street. Eventually, I decline the offer of fish (Allen doesn't eat fish and I don't want the smell in our motor home) and walk back across the street. Then, and I don't really know why, I turn around and holler back, "We're here for four more days."

Maybe deep down I want to accept his thank you, for our thank you. Because, after all, Bob is so nice, and anyway, it's kinda nice when the thank yous never end. 

A Good Samaritan

Don (Sherry told me his name) has a big dog (Amigo, Sherry told me his name, too) who's a menace.

The year-old German Shepherd looks, acts and sounds vicious. And I don't say this lightly.

He barks, not a "hello, how are ya" bark. Not a "come play with me" bark. But an "I'll eat you alive" bark whenever we walk near him. And "near" is relative. He's feigned an attack when I'm 30 feet away or 15. Doesn't matter.

I and others in the campground talk about Don and Amigo. We complain about how loud the dog is, and how fearful we are of him. We gossip about how Don can't control the dog, and about how odd Don is anyway with a wild mop of curly hair. We see him on the beach, struggling to keep the dog under control. We walk circles around the two of them, never getting very close. We stay away.

Sherry stepped outside our crowd and unlike us, extended the hand of friendship to Don. Albeit cautiously, so Amigo didn't bite it.

Sherry spent time with Don, talked to him about how to train Amigo to be a better friend, a happier dog, so he wouldn't bark so much, so he wouldn't scare so many people. She gave Don some homemade brownies, drove him to the store, with Amigo chewing on her hand the whole time.

Don's a kind, gentle, intelligent man, Sherry said. His wife recently passed away. He's just in over his head with a dog he thought would grow up and out of the unruly behavior all by himself.

While the rest of us walked around this man and figuratively spat on him as he struggled, Sherry extended a hand to lift him up, to ease his pain.

 "A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. By chance a certain priest was going down that way.

"When he saw him, he passed by on the other side.  In the same way a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he traveled, came where he was.

"When he saw him, he was moved with compassion, came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, and gave them to the host, and said to him, ‘Take care of him. Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.’

"Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?" He said, "He who showed mercy on him." Then Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

Luke 10:30-37 

The Fog Comes On Big Lion Feet

The TV newscaster wants me to watch the 10 p.m. news, so he headlines the biggest news of the day: Fog.

Fog.

Right.

Fog.

"The FOG returns," he stares right at me, warning me. "More at 10."

Fog. HA! The FOG is headlining the news down here in Corpus Christi.

Oh, I am so self-righteous.

Today, the FOG returns. Nearly all day.  I've never seen anything like it. It blankets the Earth. No color exists in my world. It's black, white and shades of gray. People resemble little gray carrots moving through a cloud. I see shadows where buildings used to be. Birds sitting on a fence look like knobs.

I hear the ocean, but cannot see it until I'm almost upon it. 

The fog blows in thick, like heavy smoke from a brush fire, everywhere. As in a Stephen King novel, it moves toward me, threatening to envelope me. Then it does. I see, feel and smell it wrapping its tendrils around me, overcoming me, encompassing me and everything around me.

I touch it back. It feels cold, damp, palpable. 

This is the kind of fog that headlines the news.

Cigarettes Kill Books, Too

My new friend Sherry walks up to me with a green bag full of paperback books.

"Are you a reader?" she asks. Well, sure! I've read 13 books since Dec.13.

"Then here," she says. "Maybe you can find something in here you can read."

I'm more than just a reader.  I'm a collector. Well, a hoarder, really. I must have 2,000 books, half inherited from my father and the rest picked up at thrift stores, yard sales, Amazon.com, Barnes & Nobles, friends. I love books. 

But, ACK! Not these books.

I open the sack  and Phew! They stink. Like cigarettes. I'm a reformed smoker. The worst kind. I can't stand the smell of cigarettes. It sickens me. These books sicken me.

A smoker gave these books to Sherry, who now gives them to me because she's not fond of any of the authors (Harold Robbins, Belva Plain, John Lescroart, Anne Rivers Siddons, Maeve Binchy).

I've read nothing by any of these authors, never found a reason to be interested in these authors and own no other books by these authors, But, I'm a hoarder. A book hoarder. I need to keep these books. So I post a question on facebook: What can I do to get cigarette smell out of books? 

I MUST rescue these books. I NEED to keep them.

The sentiments pour in from my friends: Burn them, recycle them, just throw them away, baking soda, laundry sheets. 

I try laundry sheets and now the books stink like cigarettes and chemicals. We leave them outside overnight and still cigarettes claim them. 

There is no hope. No cure. Cigarettes kill.

So I pack them up in a sealed bag and head to the trash bin. On my way, I see two people, smoking. I offer them the books. I explain why, you know, about the smell. They open the bag and sniff. Smells fine to them.

So I essentially recycled the books, sparing them a sure death. And me the smell.

Letting Kids In On The Fun

I can't believe my eyes.

I'm sitting four or five rows up in  $20 "preferred seats" (actually, butt space on bleachers) at the National Professional Bull Riding Association's rodeo in Kingsville, Texas. I'm surrounded by Texans, whole families of Texans, whoopin' and hollerin,' clapping, standing, pumping their fists in the air (and chugging down huge cups of beer). 

I notice a darling little girl, about 6, decked out in pink -- a pink cowboy hat and pink chaps -- climbing on the fence, the only thing protecting her from those bucking, rocking, snorting bulls inside. Then I notice more kids, lots of kids, all looking like little cowhands and they're moseying on down toward that fence. The little boys wear black or plaid shirts, chaps and cowboy hats, just like their dads. The little girls look like their mommas, wearing cowboy hats, and vests, boots and belts all bedazzled in bling. Lots of bling. There are ribbons in their hair.

And then I see the darndest thing. Those moms and dads pick up their kids and drop them, DROP THEM like sacks of potatoes, over that head-high fence into the rodeo ring, that place where seconds earlier angry bulls snorted, bucked and rocked. What are they thinking? Why, some of bigger kids scramble up and over by themselves.

Soon there must be a 100 miniature cowboys and cowgirls milling about inside that ring.

What I see next, drops my jaw.

Three calves, cute little things with bows on their tails, charge into the ring. And those 100 kids? Round and round they chase those baby cows. The kids work like cattle dogs, moving those calves,  cutting them off from each other, all the while grabbing GRABBING for those bows on the little cow tails. The audience roars. It's bedlam in there. The calves kick, rock and buck and the kids dart, duck and charge. 

It doesn't take long, maybe three minutes, before three kids secure the treasured golden rings of calf chasing. For their efforts? They get $5. Enough for a pony ride.

The kids pant, gleefully, as they climb back over the fences to where moms and dads retrieve them. 

I gawk, still, at what I've just seen. And then applaud. Because no one stopped all the fun, worrying that it might be too dangerous. No one stopped the fun. Thank goodness, no one stopped the fun.

Spring Brake

Ah, the vagaries of youth, and the weather.

We're walking the dogs along the road that bisects the campground because a storm dares us to try, just try, to walk along the beach.

We did that a few days ago; we pushed past that weather bully and met its wall of 50 mph winds that blew us, our dogs, buckets of sand and an ocean of water all the way home (well, all the way back to our motor home.)

So, today, because we lost to that tyrant in the past, we stay off the beach, walk the road then turn to head home.

Ahead of us, we see a couple of college kids carrying sleeping bags and other stuff across the road to pack it all into the back of their car. Then we see more kids, climbing/struggling through the sand, wrestling with that thug, that tormentor I told you about.

"Hey, guys," I holler. "Were you the ones in the tents, on the beach?"

"Yes," the guy groans. "We give up."

Ah, the weather bully wins again.

So I chat for a while and learn there are eight of these kids from Texas State University in San Marcos  trying to live out their spring break dream of camping on the beach at the Padre Island National Seashore, enjoying the surf and the sun.

Instead, the winds billowed their tents all night and early this morning, the rain seeped through and they all got wet. And exasperated. And called it quits. Because the wind is relentless and the skies are gary and the Gulf of Mexico won't let anyone in to play.

And, anyway, one of the girls shyly admits, they noticed all the other people here in the park are, well, old. She grins her apology to me, one of the ones she consider, well, old.

So they're striking camp, but they've already shed their sadness. They no longer see this as a failed vacation. Instead, they've revamped  and plan to drive three hours north to San Antonio, where the mom of one of the kids will dry them off, cook their meals and pamper them.

So they are happy to be leaving, laugh at the memory they've just created and acknowledge the weather, tomorrow, should be swell.

One Man's Trash Is Often Just Trash

I'm walking my dogs (two Standard Poodles) on the county beach on Padre Island, Texas, (it butts up to the National Seashore) and I see a nail. So I pick it up.

Then I see another, so I pick it up, too.

I'm not infuriated at some careless Joe who dropped nails where my dogs or someone's child might step. Because I know how the nails got here. Well, I sort of know. 

You see, Padre Island is trash heaven. Because of the way the Gulf of Mexico ebbs and flows, trash from around the world washes up on the beaches. Mostly, the debris is worthless household trash -- soda pop bottles, plastic food containers, plastic bags, rope, balloons, and itty bitty swatches of plastic, cloth, glass, wood, metal and Styrofoam.

It's doubtful anything of value awaits my discovery. (Sherry: I Googled that John Adams dollar coin you found: Minted in 2007. Value? $1.) But, I keep looking, and pick up anything dangerous I find along the way. Like the nails.

So far, I have two nails in my hands, a rusted piece of metal that looks like an old bent coat hanger and a belt buckle.   Now I see more nails. I take a few steps and see a lot of nails, embedded in the sand. Far too many nails for me to pick up and tote away. So I stand and stare and begin to see, oddly enough, some beauty in the way the nails swirl randomly in the sand, a snapshot of chaos. 

So I take a picture. And I rethink what I think about all this trash.

It's worthless now, yes, but in the hands of creative people (the kind who turn found objects into art)  the debris becomes art. The trash becomes something of value.

I walk on, see more nails, bits of burned wood, then a dead duck,  a dead catfish and a dead jelly fish.

All thoughts of art end.

A Genuine, Generous Midwestern Kindness

Doris is at my front door. Well, it's a side door really, to my motor home. And, as is the custom in campgrounds, she doesn't knock. People don't knock on motor home doors, I've noticed.  They stand a few feet away and holler out "Are you there?" Or "Hello?"  Or as my friend Carolyn hollers, "Are you up?"

Doris hollers "Hi" so I know she's there.

When I answer the door, she holds a Mason jar of maple syrup up to me (she doesn't climb the three steps into my motor home; I'm standing at the top of the stairs and she's at the bottom, so she holds the syrup up to me).

And because she's holding it up, the sun tries to pass through it, and I see it's nearly opaque. The thick, rich amber  syrup is clean and pure, not a blemish floats in it. I know immediately how special this pint jar is.

Lowell, Doris' husband, taps his Minnesota maples in early spring and cooks the sap out in the woods until it turns into this delicious, naturally sweet treat. It's his hobby, he says, just like bird watching.

I met Doris and Lowell while bird watching (they rode in my car), and later, I invited them to use our Wi-Fi.

The syrup is a Thank You. A Thank You that far outweighs the favor, I'd say.

Tonight, we buy pancake mix.

A Bunch Of Little Birdies

My girlfriends know I always volunteer to drive. I like to drive. I like the way my car feels with me inside. I fit in my car.

So I volunteer to drive me and three birders around Padre Island National Seashore to watch the birds. For four hours. We're part of a group of 13.

Before we go, George and Mary, the 70-somethings leading this group, deck us out in bird-watching gear: bright orange vests (so the birds see us coming?), walkie-talkies (in case someone gets lost, or is attacked?), binoculars (I know why we need these), bird lists and pens, all pulled from the trunk of their car.

I'm feeling like a bad fit here. The vest pulls around to my sides only, I can't work the walkie-talkie. And the bird list? Well, some of the names are familiar because I used to edit a bird column for my local newspaper. But the chit chat convinces me I'm with hard-core birders. They discuss the list with each other, point to names, share vignettes about the last time they saw this bird or that.

Clearly, I don't fit in. I'm glad I'm driving. 

So the little three-car caravan gets underway and minutes later, we land on the beach and spill out onto the sand, us in our orange vests, holding binoculars, lists, pens and walkie-talkies.

Yes, people stare.

"The birds down on the fence," Mary begins, "Are Forster's Tern. In winter plummage." 

Wow. They are beautiful birds, Bird's I'm familiar with. Last year, I took their picture (above) and I thought how unusual these little birds looked. So, wow. I know these birds.

"And the black-headed birds bunched up in the surf are laughing gulls." 

And they really laugh. HA! 

"What's the little round bird, up in the surf?" someone asks. (Ruddy Turnstone, Mary says.)

"And how about the other one, the one that keeps running away from the water?" (A Sanderling.)

And more questions, more pleas for identifications, lifestyles, habits. I take note of who's asking. He is. She is. And her. Why, I'm not so alone here. More than half of us don't know what we are doing, except we are having fun and learning a little about birds.

So I'm as good a fit with this group as I am in my car, which is where we return time and time again throughout the next four hours, driving from spot to spot, documenting sightings of 33 different kinds of birds. Asking questions. Laughing. Looking silly as we stand in the road (AHA! The orange vests!) peering all which ways through the binoculars for the bird (a hawk, falcon or harrier or something) that just flew away. And talking to each other on the walkie-talkies, helping each other locate the birds (at 4 o'clock, just below the log ... see the log? Well look to the left, then down.)

And, of course, making friends. And plans to do more of this stuff later, together. 

Tales From the Dog Park: This Is All True, Promise

About 10 years ago, Mary Scully was arrested (and acquitted).

Her crime? Loving animals so much, she joined an organized protest over using them for genetic research. ("It was after I saw a dog, a black lab, in a cage, one day without an ear, the next without an eye. She was in such pain."). For this she was fingerprinted and booked (unlawful gathering.)

Several months ago, she learned, the FBI suspected her of harboring weapons of mass destruction (dismissed in January). ("Now what would I do with those things anyway?")

Today, she's at the McAllen Dog Park in Texas, telling her stories while her charges, Princess and Madam, two heavily spotted dogs,  sail around the perimeter of the 12-day-old park in unison, like greyhounds on a racetrack.

"What WMDs could I possibly have? Exploding underwear?" she tilts sideways, embarrassingly, then  giggles with the rest of us. There are six of us sitting near her, some on benches, some on the ground, all mesmerized by her tales. We're like kindergartners at her feet.

It's no wonder. She spent years teaching children with special needs.

Mary's from Minnesota and talks with a delicate lilt. She's tiny, just a few inches over 5 feet and has to sit forward on the bench before her feet touch the ground. 

She's 65, but looks 10 years younger ("oh, ya know, I dye my hair"). She's delicate, soft-spoken and sweet. It's hard to imagine this woman a threat. To anyone or thing. 

But the school system in McAllen, a mid-sized city in southeastern Texas near the Mexican border, felt threatened. It  denied her a job based on the misinformation. This sweet, former nun, from a family of 19, just wanted to continue teaching children with disabilities.

How sad, we all say. Then we sit back for more.

As she regales us with her tales of medical tests on animals, jails and conspiracies, her dogs soar round and round, their feet exploding dust bombs when they chance to touch the ground.

The dogs, she says, belong to her neighbors, a working couple who spend the days away from home. She felt bad for the dogs, cooped up inside. So she asked permission to bring them to the new dog park while the couple was at work.

How nice of you, Mary, we all nod.

She talks on and on about these dogs, about their life in Mexico, before their family moved here, about how one of the dogs, Princess, was abused. There's a permanent lump on her head to prove it.

Mary, you are a gem, we all agree, a great neighbor, a fabulous person.

Her phone rings. 

She answers, then squawks! Albeit, a dainty squawk.

Seems her neighbors, the ones who own the dogs, weren't off at work today at all. They ran an errand and when they returned, they discovered their dogs missing and panicked.

"I have them," Mary exclaims and points to where she last saw them fly.  

She finishes her call, then giggles, just a bit. Her eyes twinkle, because now she can add "thief" to her stories to tell.

And her stories are true. I found them online, at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune.

A Playdate With The Zoo

We're at the zoo, the Gladys Porter Zoo, in Brownsville, Texas, and we ohh, ahh, giggle and smile at all the babies.

It's sunny and cool, about 55 degrees. Which means nearly everyone mills about. Because they can. (Pics.) Because the normally oppressive Texas heat went somewhere else for a while. The wonderful weather invites the animals to get up and move, and it invites the animal mommas to bask in the sun with their babes.

We see a momma mandrill (like a baboon) tucked up against a viewing window, clutching her infant (I can see just the baby's ear).  A spider monkey lays on a grassy bank with her baby sprawled on her lap.  She picks at the baby's head. The baby reaches up with her long spindly arms and returns the favor.

Around the corner, another baby monkey romps with her siblings, until momma crashes the party and whisks her away, climbs a tall palm and hangs out on top. She glares down at me.

I walk on. Look back at her. She still looking at me. So I walk on, feeling a little intimidated, then foolish for feeling intimidated. 

I see a momma giraffe nuzzle her little one; and at the nursery, a lonely camel baby searches the crowd, probably looking for mom.

It's at the tiger's exhibit we see the most action.

There are no babies here, but the pen is full of big guys who play just like kittens, rolling, leaping, swatting, whacking each other with their hips. One lays in wait behind a big rock and attacks when his "brother" strolls by. Another dances on his hind legs, boxing something (or nothing) he sees (or imagines) in the air. 

We stand mesmerized by their kitty-like antics, a spell broken when a zoo worker heads behind the exhibit, we think to mop out the muck.

Immediately, the curious cats lunge toward a metal grate at the side of the pen, three, four at time, up to six of them jockeying for position at the gate. Feeding time? At 3 p.m.?

Outside, there's more action. Three electric cars pull up and the drivers leap off and run -- not walk -- inside the back of the den.

From inside, where the men are, I hear a growl, then a mournful wail.  From a cat. There's a tiger inside there with all those men.

A car, not an electric car, a real gas-driven car, pulls up on the walkway and stops. THREE men leap out and dash in. They all have walkie-talkies. They  look concerned.

What could it be? I hear the wail again. The cat is not happy.

Is a  baby being born? I wonder I wonder. Of course! I'm sure it's a baby. The zoo is full of babies today. How exciting. A baby!

One last electric car pulls up and the driver, a woman in full zoo uniform, parks and walks in.

We wait. And wait. So do the tigers outside, trading spaces to stare through the grate.

Then one by one, the men leave the den, like bees from a hive. The final person to leave is the woman. She's the one I approach. Because she's lingering, not flying away. 

"What's happened?" I ask expectantly.

Nothing exotic or exciting, she replies. 

The cat didn't eat breakfast; his handler freaked, panicked over the walkie-talkie, making it sound like death was imminent.

But all's well, the woman says. The cat'll eat when he's hungry. And no, no baby's on the way.

At least, not today.

Tales From The Dog Park: Scarlet, the one with a big heart

Scarlet stays close to Rob Breeze. She's a dog (part-Great Pyrenees, part wolf, part other things) and he's a guy, 40-something.

They visit the Old Pearsall Road Dog Park in San Antonio so Scarlet can play, but she stays close to him, very close. She wants to play with my two Standard Poodles so very badly. But she circles Rob, then sits right next to his legs.

She looks up  at him.

"Go on, girl," he waves over toward where my Poodles play. She instead scoots closer to him,  and stares. She wants to play, but her devotion to Rob is strong, Super Glue strong. So he walks close to my Poodles and Scarlet finally plays.

"She won't go too far from me," he says. She’s protecting him. Keeping him safe.

Rob figures she’s repaying him, because he rescued her from certain death eight month ago.

Her first life was as a guard dog, but her heart's too big to do much guarding, so she wound up at the shelter, where they discovered diseases serious enough to take her life.

Ron ended up at the shelter, too, a month after his 17-year-old lab died.  He wanted a quiet dog. With a big heart.

As he walked the shelter’s chain-link row, little dogs, big dogs, all desperate dogs, woofed and leaped, rattling the chains. Too much for Rob, until the end, the last cage, where Scarlet sat quietly, just, well, smiling as he walked by.

He was smitten, so was she.

After  an extended medical stay, Scarlet came home to Rob’s, where she guards his bed until he falls asleep each night. Just like she guards him now, at the dog park, to make sure he’s safe.

So really, Scarlet, sweet, sweet Scarlet, is a guard dog after all.

Yin Yang in the Natural Word

We're at the World Birding and Nature Center. But we aren't birders.

A guy at the dog park thought we might like this place, and considers it a Must See for tourists to South Padre Island, Texas. It's a world-class bird watching area. With an incongruous neighbor: A sewage treatment plant.

It looks bad (well, not in the picture above, but when you are here, you see it from just about every viewpoint) and it smells bad, too (ESPECIALLY when you climb to the fifth-floor observation deck and stand downwind. PHEW!)

But on most days, it's not so bad, says the volunteer/birder we meet.  Before the center opened in 2009, he'd slog through the dank boggy waters next to the plant to watch his birds.  Now, he sees his birds and stays dry by walking out over the center's mile of boardwalk. The walkway traverses the dank, brackish water and extends out into Laguna Madre (a huge lagoon and the only one in the U.S. saltier than the ocean).

So this Odd Couple is, apparently, good for each other. The water spilled by the treatment plant helps create the center's multiple water environments which attract about 300 species of birds. And an alligator or two. There's freshwater, brackish water, salty water, even saltier water and two kinds of wetlands, a muddy one and a watery one. So birds, take your pick.

Today, there are few takers.

A North Wind  (which means it's a cold wind, I've learned) sends most of the birds into hiding, so we spend more time with the few we see.

We are not birders. So we don't know if this big white guy out there is a heron or egret, or maybe a ibis? It doesn't matter. We stay with him for a while, watching as he walks stealthily though the salty lagoon, dining on little silvery fare he fishes out of the water with his bill.

We spend time watching a blue guy do the same.

We watch a black duck-like bird fly away and a lot of little round birdies with yellow bottoms dance in and out of the fence. We see a lot of white birds with black heads swoop down to the water and slurp? Are they drinking? Dining? We can't tell, but it looks like a ballet.

We watch and hear a black shiny bird (a grackle?) complain when we get too close and a big grey bird take flight.

We are not birders, so we don't know who these guys are or why they behave as they do.

But we're watching birds. So we're bird watchers. Next to a water treatment plant. And by the end of the hike, I don't mind at all.

Mardi Gras Fun in Texas

Where are all the cops?

We and maybe a thousand  other curiosity seekers (a gazillion of whom have brought their dogs) mill about the county beach on Padre Island, Texas, just waiting.

We're waiting for the Island's first-ever Mardi Gras parade. Revelers jump up and down in the rear of open-bed trucks, just checking to see if the parade's coming. (They have to jump to see over the dunes.) 

Others (much older than the jumpers) circle up their chairs in the sandy parking lot, partiers, revelers. They raise their cocktails in a unified toast. They laugh, down their swill, then laugh again.

The party spirit flows as freely as the beer and wine and tequila, but there are no cops.  No one cordons off the parade route. No one directs cars where to park, or chases away revelers who've circled up their chairs in the parking lot, hogging six and eight slots.

A truck pulls up onto the beach, skirts the crowd, then backs up almost into the surf. A woman, dressed in all white with a fluffy white boa wrapped loosely around her neck and flowing teasingly toward her knees, hops out. Her guy-friend hops out the other side, shoots around to the back and pulls down the tailgate. And tailgates while the surf gently laps the truck's wheels.

No cops make him move.

Kids run back and forth from the surf to the dunes, criss-crossing the parade route. No one shouts "Stay back."

Where are the cops? 

Oh, I  see one, in a truck. He's just sitting there. Doing nothing. But smiling at the crowd that's already smiling a lot.

And, guess what. Nothing needs to be done.

The parade is coming and the revelers whoot and holler and jump up and down and every one laughs and grins and chases the candy and Mardi Gras necklaces paraders toss our way.

The parade is a tiny beach parade. Two horses, a slew of kids holding banners, a few politicians, a couple of bars, a Save Our Beach float, a mermaid float, a rock and roll band. 

Oh yes, and a cop car. Holding up the rear. And his side-view mirror sports a Mardi Gras necklace.

At the end of it all, no one directs traffic, in or out, and amazingly we all know how to do it ourselves. No fenders get bent. No children or dogs run over. And that truck in the surf? She had to move it before the parade began because a wave tried to steal it away.

And no cops arrest that wave.

Tales From The Dog Park: Bullies or Babes?

At the Old Pearsall Road Dog Park in San Antonio, I see six, no, seven, no, six  Pits (two of them puppies and two of them look alike blue fawn-colored Pits), a massive Rottie, two Boxers, two shaggy Goldens and a couple of rowdy mixes.

And that's just the welcoming committee, the dogs at the gate, the ones poking their noses through the fence  waiting to get a good sniff.

Wow. Look at all those macho dogs. Pit Bulls, a Rotweiler and Boxers. He-man dogs. And then I glance at my two newly groomed Royal Standard Poodles (who five minutes earlier still had bows in their hair.) Well, looks are only looks; but my guys look like girls. Because they're poodles, with brand new hair cuts. I square my shoulders. Looks are deceiving. My dogs are all dog, too.

We reach the fence. I peer in. My shoulders sag. Look at them. They are all, well, such massive rough and tumble boys. I notice all of the Pits, the Boxers and the Rottie retain their manhoods (can't tell with the long-haired Goldens).

All that testosterone often translate into lots of squabbling, lots of positioning for power, lots of domination.

My guys'll get squashed under a pile of dog-fighting dogs to be top dog.

How, I wonder, can we slide unnoticed into this sea of machissmo?

We can't.

They're at the gate, welcoming us in, slobbering, leaping and barking. Just being dogs, even though they look like bullies.

One of the Pits, an all-white bruiser, must be a bulldog mix, because he walks on his knuckles, pounds the pavement, sort of threateningly. And he grunts when he walks. And sniffs, "Watch it there, buster."

The Rottie's so muscular, he has no neck, just bulging shoulders and chest.  He wears a Jack Nicholson, "Shining"  grin rimmed in thick silver threads of spit.

I see one of the boxers circling, looking at us sideways, carrying a filthy large rubber toy in his jaws. He won't put it down. Or make direct eye contact. He arches his neck. Was that a growl?

The other Pits, all muscle and jaws, swarm like killer bees.

The potential for disaster heightens when I notice the people attending these dogs. All macho guys. All clean cut, muscular. Wearing hoodies. No doubt airmen from the nearby military base.  Young. Twenty-somethings.

Oh, what do they know about dog behavior, fighting, power plays?

What to do, what to do?

We go in. Because my dogs want to.

Joshua prances to greet each man then fades from the crowd. Too much for him, I suppose. He plays it safe.

Jacob plows right into the crowd  (Oh, Jacob!) and pals up with Rico, a tan-and-white Pit who clocks 0 to 60 just chasing a tennis ball. Rico's a cannonball after that ball, shot low to the ground, if he even touches the ground.

Jacob, to my dismay, can't follow the ball, even with his line of sight. Rico blasts off and Jacob prances, DANCES with his head and feet held high, like he's tip-toeing, or into ballet, looking toward where Rico goes. He meets Rico halfway back and starts nuzzling the dog's neck. NUZZLING! Rico ignores Jacob's advances and drops the ball at his macho master's feet.

Jacob steals the ball and prances around, teasing Rico and his man. This man does circles with Jacob to get the ball back, succeeds, and fires it off again for Rico to chase.

I'm shocked. Not at Jacob. At my own embarrassment. Why should I care if my dogs belly up to the bar or barre?

Then it all happens again. Rico soars. Jacob tip-toes. Rico scores. Jacob steals. The human persuades Jacob to drop the ball and the routine happens again. And again.

Yet when it happens again, I notice, PROUDLY, my boy's winning the race. He's making the score.  He's faster than that speeding Rico bullet.

YEAH JACOB! GO JACOB!

Time and time again he shoots, he scores!

I get it. Jacob wasn't being a doll baby. He was taking his time scoping things out. Assessing the lay of the land.  Calculating distances, getting the lead out, laying it on.

By the end of this play date, Jacob's covered in slobber. Panting. Ready to run again and again.

But it's time to go. A little dog, a Shitz Tzu, about a foot tall, has entered the fray and wants to take charge. She probably will. But we won't hang around to find out. 

It's time for us to go.

So I collect my dogs like trophies and leave.

Teddy Bears Stuffed With Faith

It sounds so cute. A church in southeastern Texas uses Teddy Bears to cheer up the sad, visit the lonely and  tend to the sick. 

The bears, my friend Carolyn says, have colorful ribbons around their necks and sit around the church sanctuary until they are needed. Anyone can donate a Teddy for this mission. There's a tag on each bear that says something like: "This bear has heard the Word, songs of praise and sermons. It has been given love. Now it comes to you, with the blessings of worship and love."

How cute to give a Teddy Bear to a sick child, a teen struggling with loneliness, a young mom whose baby is ill. Limited in its use, I think, but cute.

Then my friend Louie opens my world.

Louie's a man's man, a former grain elevator operator and manager from Minnesota. He's a member of the Moose  where he's held a number of top positions. He's a guy who's seen 75, but not yet 80. Louie took one of these Teddy Bears to a sick friend of his, also a Midwestern man's man.

This man's man wept. Over the outpouring of love from Jesus Christ. He felt that love through this Teddy Bear and Louie's compassion for gifting it to him.

 

So today I sit in this church, called Island in the Son, on the Corpus Christi coast Texas, next to these Teddy Bears, who have notes of love and ribbons around their necks. And I honor their mission, embrace their intent.

And also enjoy their undeniable cuteness.

Can't Never Did Anything

We know Louie and Carolyn are here because of the sign taped inside the windshield of their Pursuit motor home:  "For handmade cards, see Carolyn." They were here last year when we visited; and we're thrilled to see them again.

"Here" is Padre Island National Seashore, the land the sun forgot about. And their Pursuit is my escape from the cold, rain and wind outside. It's the kind of weather that shoves sand in your ears and reaches inside to rattle your bones and steal your breath.

But inside the Pursuit, it's warm and dry. No wind. And it's big. There's a couch. My motor home (a Navion) has everything I  need, but a couch. So I sit on Carolyn's couch while she sits at the dinette. We talk. Then she invites me to the dinette to make cards.

Me.

Cards.

Not exactly an obvious match. I don't do crafts. I can't. Then I hear my mother's voice in my head: "Can't never did anything."  I acquiesce. And, anyway. Carolyn's a friend and so eager to share her passion with me. I move to the dinette.

In a flurry, she pulls out papers, bling, stamps, presses, glue pens, glue sticks, ribbons, bows. Knives, scissors, magazines, die cuts, stamp pads (in various colors.) Overwhelming.

Carolyn's a pro and talks me through all of my decisions. I make two cards (shown above) and am spent. Exhausted. Neither card looks professional: smeared ink, skewed paper, missing bling, etc.

But I Made Them.

And I Am So Proud.

You have to laugh.

We're on Padre Island in Southeastern Texas, and, now, follow me on this:

It's 40 degrees, and windy. Gusts up to 50 mpg rock the motor home. A cold rain spits and spats, then pours. Is that hail? Thunder?

There's been a red tide, so dead fish litter the beach and the dogs can't be off leash because the fish are poisonous.

Each day, at 7:30 a.m., a payloader gets to work (beep, beep, beep) moving sand around on the beach, I don't know why. And a work crew is rebuilding the showers. Slowly.

At least we have a campfire to warm our hands (see pic).

Hello Muddah. Hellow Faddah, here I am at Camp Granada ....

A Test of Virtue

When my new friend Jerry tells me about the wooden head, I giggle. He says it's on a reclining statue of Saint Francis Xavier at the San Xavier Mission on the Tohono O'otham Nation in Tucson.

The statue looks like the long-dead Jesuit is lying in state, like his death occurred yesterday and we're here today to pay our respects. A blue cloth drapes over his  "body" and that wooden head sticks out from one end.  Jerry warns me to watch for the men who walk right up to that statue, slide a hand under that wooden head, then heft it three times. Smile. Turn and walk away.

Legend has it that only a virtuous man, a man of high moral standing, can lift that head. If a cheating man tries, the head turns to solid lead.

Jerry, laughing so his chests hops up and down, tells me to watch for the women who drag in their men to lift that head.

So I'm at the mission, and inside I find the sanctuary shaped like a cross and adorned with more than 300 painted or sculpted angels, 100 images of saints and a dozen portrayals of Mary, Christ's mother.

Straight ahead is the altar. To the left,  I spy my saint, stretched out just as Jerry described.

I walk over and notice a number of people in prayer. Candle shadows flicker across their faces.  Some nod as they pray, others stare. Men hold their hats in their hands.  When it's my turn to stand next to the saint, I see pictures pinned to that blue cloth, pictures of children, an ultrasound, families. There are a lot of Jesus-shaped charms pinned to the cloth, too. 

I'm not a Roman Catholic, but I understand faith.  My own, my faith in Jesus, is quite deep. So even though I don't know what these tokens mean, I know those who placed them here did so out of great faith.

So when a man slips past me, slides his hand under that wooden head, I smile, but I do not giggle. I smile because I know what he's here for. But I do not giggle. Because he's a man of faith, a man who believes.

And I'd like to think he's a virtuous man, because he lifts that head, once. Twice. Three times. Never does it turn to lead.

Scraps For The Poor

I'm standing at the cash register at the Community Health Foundation's thrift store in Truth or Consequences, NM.

Today's find is my "new" toaster, a white Sunbeam, tremendously clean inside and, yes, it works. I plugged it in to test it out. 

While waiting for the clerk I notice a sign on her cash register: "We're looking for people to drive bags to Mexico and to the reservation."

"Bags of what?" I ask the clerk.

"Clothes," she says, while counting my change. "We send all of the clothes that are ripped or stained to Mexico. Anything we can't sell, we send down there."

So, I think to myself, we toss them our scraps.

And she continues: "They, well the men especially, don't seem to mind wearing stained clothing."

I think I'm staring, wide-eyed at her. Then I just walk away. Ashamed.

First, that someone in my thrift store community (I LOVE thrift stores) gives unfit clothes  to the poor and considers it generous.

And second, for my  silence, which endorses the discrimination.

Chloride: A Gem of a Ghost Town

Chloride, a long-dead silver mining town in New Mexico, might strike it rich again, as a ghost town.

Its mother lode is no precious ore; it's the people preserving it.

They live there. They roll up their sleeves and get dirty to preserve, protect it and show it off.

And so far, there are only three of them: Don and Donna Edmund (in their 70s) and their daughter, Linda (40s, maybe 50s). The trio's standing in the middle of the main road when we drive up. They welcome us with laughter (for blocking the main road of a ghost town) and we fold right into their conversation, as if they were expecting us.

And, basically, they were. They say they get about 10 visitors a day (we are numbers seven and eight), and oh, about 250 a month. How?

It's amazing anyone finds this place. It's tucked inside the New Mexico mountains off desolate Route 52, a beautiful drive with stunning vistas, a funny little town called Cuchilla, where a speed trap is manned by a police car with a cardboard cop and a mannequin inside,  and where multiple ranchers raise cattle, which crisscross right in front of you. So, slow down.

We're visiting today because I read about Chloride on a travel blog.

"So how do 250 people find out about Chloride?" I ask Donna, a patient, slight woman, who tames her bits of gray hair with a baseball cap.

Oh, she says, "Word of mouth. The Internet. Ghost Town enthusiasts."

So this is my word of mouth, on the Internet: Check out these few pictures, then visit Chloride. And soon.

It's when we catch up with Donna later that I learn she's as much a treasure as Chloride is.

She's giving the tour of the Pioneer Store museum (mostly a 1923 general store) that she and her husband restored in the 1990s. And she smiles, caresses things and lovingly cups them in her hands as shares her stories with us.  She has intimate knowledge of every item in the store, every tin of food, every piece of clothing. She knows how and why they were used.

Not because she studied the stuff somewhere.

But because she spent three years scrubbing decay and rot away from yesterday so we can enjoy it today. And because she learned from the now-dead old-timers in town who grew up with this stuff.

And now, she turns around daily and tells us what they said, for free.

In brief, when she and her husband bought the boarded-up general store in 1989, they found the 1920s general store inside. Intact. But, covered with bat guano, rat droppings and animal damage. They cleaned it up so it shines.

Their accomplishments exceed amateur status. Everything's professionally installed. Don and Donna and Linda did this. Not a hired team of Merry Maids or guys from "This Old House" or historians from the Smithsonian. They did it. Don and Donna and Linda. A couple of retired 70-somethings and their daughter.

And they give the tours. So I'm standing next to and listening to one of the very people who scrubbed and cleaned and identified each item in this store.

My head swirls. What happens with Don and Donna are gone? Their daughter plans to carry on, but then what? Can she achieve her parent's dreams?

Most of the charm of this place is with Donna. Would the tour be as  rewarding with a paid guide? Or a volunteer?

I hope so. What a treasure this is and what a loss it would be if it fails.

So before I leave, I dig into my pockets and find $9 to leave behind as a donation. It's a paltry sum in light of what needs to be done to rebuild this place. But I leave it behind anyway, as a good investment. Because the people in charge are dreamers, who roll up their sleeves. And I want to see them succeed.

So, why the fence?

My past meets my present today.

We head east across southern Arizona on I-10 when the desert landscape changes, dramatically.

Everywhere we look are boulders, huge, round boulders defying gravity, balancing on mountaintops, on other rocks, on ledges, just ready to roll. But they don't. They just hang in there.

Up ahead, a rest stop. Great! It makes it easy for us to grab a few pictures, read a bit of history, soak in the views. And find out where we are: Texas Canyon, AZ.

We walk around the gravel and sandy undulating landscape dotted with these boulders, very aware of the warning signs concerning scorpions and poisonous snakes.

What we aren't prepared for is the fence.

The rest stop is surrounded by a fortified metal chain-link fence reinforced with barbed wire, many rows of it, along the top.

Why, I wonder? To keep me out or keep me in?

We head back up the hill and find a weathered metal memorial to the Chiricahua Apache Chief Cochise and his surrender at Council Rock, just four miles up the road.

Council Rock. Here's my past. I did a report on Council Rock in elementary school, probably fourth grade. And, finally, here I am, more than 45 years later.

I remember lots of sadness about Council Rock. It was here in 1872 that Cochise signed the Broken Arrow Peace Treaty with the U.S. Government, which gave the Apaches the right to live on their own land. Four years later (two years after Cochise died), the government broke the treaty and kicked the Apaches out.

Shameful.

So back to the barbed wire. I think I'm being kept out.

Art in the Mule Mountains

We're riding higher and higher into the mile-high Mule Mountains, heading to Bisbee, a dried-up old copper mine town, I'm told, where old miners' shacks now house artists. Quaint, I think. A curiosity. Art in all this dust (it's still desert here.)

The drive from Tombsonte, AZ, goes southeast toward Mexico and take about 45 minutes. All uphill.

And in that 45 minutes, WOW! We enter a different world, but is it Italy? France? Maybe Mexico? I don't know, but I now know the meaning of Old World Charm.

This is not quaint. It's spectacular. It's no curiosity. It's serious living by creative artists, playwrights, singers, musicians. They've morphed this dried-up old copper mine town into a must-see gem of Southern Arizona.

To see it, we hold our breaths as we navigate up and down and around narrow lanes that meander over, around and through these mountains.

Homes, many of them small and dating back a century or so,  stepladder up and down steep mountainsides. How do they not fall down?  Most of the homes display some form of architectural or artistic creativity. It is, after all, an artist colony, not just a place where artists live.

I see tiles decorating lampposts, walking bridges, door frames. Hand railings of polished curved wood. Bells and birdhouses dangling from trees. Welded sculptures hanging out on rooftops, in side yards, atop fences and at front doors.

And the colors! Purples. Greens. Reds. Visually superb.

There are numerous fine art galleries in town and an excellent historical museum about the town's copper mining past (well worthy of its affiliation with the Smithsonian).

But to consume art, to absorb it, to savor its rewards, there's no need to park.

Bisbee is art.

(Go here to see the picture above by Elizabeth R. Mitchell and other photographs from Bisbee.)