Shipwrecked at Angola

Shipwrecked

Well... We made it back from the rodeo all in one piece.  We even had a good time, mostly.  Successful trip, I'd say.  Wouldn't you?

We began the journey later than we meant to, but, of course, that's my fault.  Somehow.

As you may or may not know, Fiancée has two sons.  One, of course is the little tornado; he's eight.  The other is a freshman in college; he's eighteen.  We decided to swing by his university and include him in our little rodeo soiree.  I was happy to do so, and I'm glad he went.  Besides, he's thin, so he doesn't really add much weight to the bus.

After picking up skinny boy, we headed to Vidalia, Louisiana to overnight in the Wal-Mart parking lot there.  I'm really getting acquainted with the Wal-Mart parking lots in America.

Crossing the Mighty Mississippi

I went to sleep with instructions to be awakened at a certain time, but Fiancée took pity on me and let me sleep in.  (For you English critics out there, "in did she allow me to sleep.")  She's really very sweet to me.  And I do try hard to appreciate her kindnesses.  My new motto is: "Clocks be damned!"  It's easier that way.

We crossed the mighty Mississippi River into Natchez, Mississippi and headed south to Angola.  I've never been this way before, so I had no knowledge of the local roads.  I followed the GPS which directed me onto a "highway" that has a speed limit of 45mph.  Hmmmph.  I came to the conclusion that 45mph was a very optimistic assessment of the maximum speed that one should travel on this particular stretch of asphalt, patches, and potholes.

Angola Prison (Rodeo) Bound

Each spring and fall, Angola Prison in Louisiana hosts one of the most unique events in America: The Angola Prison Rodeo (APR).

To date, I've been four or five times and I've enjoyed them every one.

If you're thinking that you don't much care for rodeos, don't stop reading because the APR isn't a regular rodeo and it's not just about the rodeo; there's much, much more.

For starters, the rodeo has events that sane people wouldn't even begin to try.  Pictured above is an event called Guts Poker.  In this event, four inmates are seated around a card table.  Sounds simple enough, until you learn that a bull is released into the arena.  The bull is then goaded into attacking the participants by the rodeo clowns.  It's a game of attrition... the last one seated is declared the winner.  The event is aptly named; all it takes to win is guts.

The other part of rodeo day is the hobbycraft area.  Over the course of the year, inmates built a wide variety of handmade items.  Leathercraft, woodwork, sculptures, paintings, etc. are all for sale.  In the past, I've bought a handmade guitar, several rocking chairs, and various other small items.  All of high quality and terrific craftsmanship.

I can't emphasize this enough:

 

GO TO THE RODEO AT LEAST ONCE IN YOUR LIFE.

 

You won't be sorry.

Our plan is to hit the road this Friday (April 21, 2017) and attend the rodeo on Saturday.

If you know anything about how our adventures go, there will surely be some sort of catastrophe along the way.  It's just how we do it!

Stay tuned for the adventure.

SOLD !!!

Recently, Fiancé made a discovery. 

Not to be outdone, I also had a Eureka moment.

My discovery was that a woman with too much time on her hands and a knack for surfing the internet will find new and strange ways to spend money and cause general mayhem.

She discovered online auctions.

Did you know, for instance, that, for just a few dollars, you can buy a storage room full of junk?  Honestly, I didn't know that.  But, may the good Lord have mercy upon my soul, I know it now.

The super cool thing about this is that for, say, five or ten dollars, you can be the proud owner of a room full of garage sale items.  But the thing I love most is that this cheap room full of stuff is usually in another city.  It's ideal, really.

Just this past weekend, I had the good
fortune to travel to Houston to pick up a room of junk.

On the Road

One day, out of the blue, fiancé had a simple idea.

(Most disasters in my life begin with a simple idea, but they're usually my own.)

She wanted a place to sleep when we go visit my mom.  Now, mom's house is just fine, but, when we go to visit, we have a tornado of a little boy and a mammoth of a puppy.  Our 10 month old puppy now weighs almost 180 lbs.

As such, my fiancé doesn't sleep well because she's worried that our invading force will wake the rest of the house.  It's all in her head, of course, but try telling her that.  Really, please try telling her.  I've not had any luck with it; perhaps you will.

A couple of months ago, she sweetly said that it would be nice to have a small travel trailer that we could leave at mom's place.  That way, she explained, she would have a place to collect her brood and know that she wasn't bothering anyone.  In so doing, she could finally get a good night's sleep while visiting.

She had something like this in mind:

I wasn't too wild about a little-bitty thing like that, but, whatever.  All I could imagine is how many times I'd bump my head and scrape my shins.  I have to tell you, I wasn't warm to the idea.  I was willing, but it didn't sound like very much fun.

Then she kept on researching.  She discovered that one could get an older motor home for a reasonable price.

Unfortunately, that little discovery unleashed an avalanche.  Before we knew it, we were knee-deep in motor homes for sale.

Up until this point in my life, I'd never wanted a motor home.  Now all I could see was me cruising across the country with my house strapped to my back.  Johnny Appleseed and Lewis & Clark eat your hearts out!

I had the fever.

Huck and Jim Had a Dream

Through a convoluted series of thoughts this morning, I got to thinking about Huckleberry Finn.  That led me to think about my relationship with his story and the banning of the book now and then throughout the course of its history.

First off, let me say that, if you've not read Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, you should.  Ernest Hemingway famously said that it was the "one book" from which "all modern American literature" came.

Not only is it great literature, it's an essential tale of Americana that should not be overlooked.  Critics complain about the offensive language, and, it's true, the language can be offensive.  They also claim that it puts slavery and discrimination up front and center.  That's true, too.  It does.

Mark Twain

What critics fail to see, however, is that Huck's tale is a story that condemns not only slavery, but discrimination.  As a lad, reading it for the first time, I came away sickened by the inequality experienced by the African slaves portrayed in the book.  Jim, the slave running away from owners in order to be with his family, is a favorite character of mine.  I love his essential goodness. 

Post-Election Stress Disorder

When I was a youngster, I read a quote by Sherlock Holmes.  He said that the truth is far stranger than fiction.  It's funny because Holmes is/was a fictional character, but, nonetheless, I thought he was wrong.  In my young, concrete, adolescent mind, I figured that the feverish imaginations of humans would be far stranger than the truths in the world.

I was very much mistaken (which means that I was wrong.)

It seems that each week, sometimes each day, I read about something that makes me close my eyes and shake my head in wonder.  The latest is this nonsense about PESD.  I promise you that I'm not making this up.  Sometimes I parody a point of view, but this is real.

‘PESD’ Is PTSD For Dems Who Can’t Stop Crying Over The Election

Berkeley's Brand of Tolerance

Unbeknownst to me, there's an English guy who is Greek, half-Jewish, gay and very conservative. 

Weird, huh?

This guy has so many political identity categories that it's hard to keep track of them all.

Oh, and he mostly dates black guys.

Meet Milo Yiannopoulos.

I'm not much in the mainstream of trendy things.  Most would say that I'm so far out of the mainstream that I haven't seen flowing water in years.  They'd probably be right.  I came to know about Milo because of the riots at Berkeley last week.  He was scheduled to speak there but lots of people didn't like that much.