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Sandra Spieker (Ringo)

David,

Just noticed that your wife Martha has been hospilized for an infection since Monday.  I hope they get this thing under control and she gets better.  Sounds a bit scary to say the least.  My thoughts are with you and your family.

David Cordell

Thanks, Russ, Sandra, and all.

Martha is feeling better. Apparently a viral infection. Big concern was extremely low potassium level that caused risk of heart arrythmia. It also took away all of her energy. Potassium is better, but not in normal range. She'll stay in hospital tonight. If she continues to improve, she might go home tomorrow. 

Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

David,

I wish Martha a speedy recovery too!  So sorry she got the nasty viral bug, but happens to many folks all the time, including me.  Tell her to eat bananas!  They have lots of potassium!

I heard on the radio this morning that there is a new variant  going around in some countries, but not here in the US yet, however, the Feds say it is only a matter of time before we will be facing Omicron.  That is what it is called at the moment, and it appears that we will need to get a new kind of booster shot or possibly a pill to fight it, as they say it is pretty darn virulent.  It's beginning to look like we will always be having to get shots or take some meds, just because of what the Covid monster has caused to happen to all people everwhere.  Those nasty, evil Communists should be chastized in SOME way, but probably won't be.  They will never admit to any of this crapola at all, just as is their usual mode of operation.  And the idea that Biden and his sycophants, including the NIKE Corp., are still cozying up to those evil Commies is disgusting and un-American, in my opinion!

Wayne Gary

Janalu,

I am in a Maderna booster trial.  The booster I got is a modified vaccine to be more ettective abainst Delta and future variants.

Lowell Tuttle

David, my son had to intern for his Anthropology degree at SFASU.   He found a summer job at the Lufkin Zoo.

While he was there, a large giraffe passed.   

A serious issue with disposal, as you can imagine.  

David Cordell

Martha's nephew, Cornell Barnard, is a news reporter for the ABC affiliate in San Francisco. Here's his report on one of the big shoplifting/robbery events in the Bay Area. Note: This will take you away from this site and you will have to navigate back to it.

Also, once you're on the ABC site, you have to scroll down to get to the right video panel.

https://abc7ne.ws/3x8uvJp

Steve Keene

Lowell,

I can just imagine he was up to his neck in excessive disposal rendering charges.  Good luck on your surgery. 

Ron K.

I was saddened to hear of your kidney problems.  You can bet I'll keep you in my prayers.  They sometimes restrict your diet of proteins.  I hope that doesn't include chicken fried chicken.  I have always wondered how they trained those chickens to fry their friends.  Then I watched the liberals train Tommy.

David Cordell

Hmmm. How things change!

President Biden yesterday:

Candidate Biden, February 1, 2020

Rick Wilber

Kurt Fischer

Lowell:

Your mention of the Lufkin Zoo brings back memories.

We lived in Lufkin from 1976 to 1978 while I was on a long term consulting project at Lufkin Industries.. The Ellen Trout Zoo was one of the special places to visit in the city (maybe Lufkin BBQ was special too...).  At the time they had an otter exhibit and the little ones so enjoyed watching them dive into the water and swim around.  The zoo is now much larger than it was back then, but it's a great spot to visit.

One of activities which the more sophisticated people in Lufkin would partake was to drive up to Nacogdoches in order to go to restaurants and shop.  My second child was actually born in Nacogdoches.  Our hospital in Lufkin would not allow fathers in the delivery room, so we had to make the trip in order to use the more "modern" facilities.  

Steve Keene

Kurt,

The love of my life, my first wife got married in Nacogdoches to her first husband whom we both met in Dallas when I moved her into her own apartment.  I still lived at home and could not drink in bars till I was 21.  He had just returned from the service and was a man of the world pot smoker.  When Rebeca married him in Nacogdoches I drove down uninvited to the wedding.   I drove by the church where her and her bridesmaids, most of which I knew, were decorating for the wedding.  I was driving my 1961 pastel yellow mercedes convertible, four speed on the column with a burled walnut dash and the last of the old late 1950's curved staff car styling.  (They sell on the internet for $350,000.00 today.)  After making an appearance I drove to Lufkin and hung out there and sat for a long time at the Ellen Trout zoo and park to pass the time.  At the last minute I drove to Nacogdoches and entered and saw her in her dress before her husband.  Her family saw me come in and dispatched their brother Mark to sit next to me to make sure I did not cause a scene. Their family owned Talley Air Conditioning there. 

I told Mark that I promised Rebecca that my most looked forward to moment was looking in her eyes on our wedding day.  He wisely suggested that I not try to attend the reception.  As the married couple came down the aisle I gazed at her feeling that everything I wished for was lost.  Her husband spotted me and went ballistic.  As they stood on the steps taking pictures, I slipped past and jumped into my convertible and headed back to Dallas.  I was later told it ruined their honeymoon because I was all he would talk about and what he was going to do to me.  Two Christmas's ago her great aunt Freda who had invited my son for a party, said everytime the family gets together they still talk about me showing up in Nacogdoches dressed to the nines and in my fancy convertible.

I returned to college and enrolled at Texas Tech and got my degree  in Petroleum Engineering and went to work for Chevron in Denver.  I remember praying for God to return her to me and I must have wished on a 1000 falling stars. A few months after I went to work, I got a call from Rebecca and she said she had gotten the number from my mother.  Her husband had committed suicide and left her with a 3 year old.  She asked if I was ever coming back to DFW.  I told her not till this weekend, which was about two days away.  We had a date at Benihanas and to make a long story short we married about six months later.  My oldest son Jeremy Kyle lives in Seattle and I have a beautiful granddaughter there named Aurora.  She is only related to me by love, but that's all you need.

Lowell Tuttle

Kurt, I've told thi story before.   When I took my son to orientation for SFA, they separated the parents and students and took the parents on a bus tour of Nacogdoches.   At one of the stops, supposedly one of the oldest school houses in Texas (maybe oldest univesity building,) they told us the old Nac story of how the Marx Brothers began their comedy run.

The Marx brothers were a traveling opera/musical show, touring the country.   They set up at the theatre in downtown nacogdoches, and were performing one day.  In the middle of the show performance, there was a huge clattering disturbance outside.   The audience left the musical performing Marx brothers on stage and went out to the street to find a mule had overturned a cart and caused wreckage in the street.

When they came back into the theatre, Grouch was so pissed off the went into a tirade critcizing them all as country bumpkins calling them names and cursing.

The audience started laughing at him.  It got so ridiculous, the Marx brothers realized they were a much better comedy act than opera/musical, and history was born there.

Also, i think they adopted the name of their country for their film from Nac's relation to the Fredonia history there in Duck Soup.

This story has been adapted by the memory of Lowell Tuttle and no further corrective comment need be made.  But if I am in error on anything here, leave me alone with it until I am gone.

Thank you for you attention.

Wikapedia says Fredonia came from Fredonia ny, but  Fredonia ny was well after the Fredonia revolutionary country established in nacogdoches for several months before the Mexican army put it down.   So I like to believe it sourced the name.

Steve Keene

Lowell,

You said not to comment, but I could not help myself.  Are you sure the Marx brothers weren't performing at the first Wreck Center?

Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

Steve!

What a tale of your first true love!  Your going to her wedding is an incredible story and a gutsy one!  It reminds me of the scene in the movie, THE GRADUATE, with Dustin Hoffman's character banging on the upstairs glass window of the church, during the wedding scene, screaming "Elaine!  Elaine!"  And then her mother's expression toward "Dustin" of 'cursing fire and damnation'.  Pretty darn hilarious!

How weird and funny to hear you say that the bride's brother came to sit next to you in the pew, just to muzzle you if you began to utter a word during the ceremony!  HA!

How you had the nerve to attend the wedding is beyond me!  What torture for your anguished soul!

Didn't you say in a previous post that the poor lady went crazy in the end?

So you had a stepson and then also another son with her?

Hope your second marriage was an easier time for you, full of bliss with her and your two twin daughters.  They surely are lovely and very accomplished ladies to have in your life, as you continue down life's road.

I'll have to google a photo of an old 1950's style Mercedes convertible, to get the whole true picture in my mind, of the entire scene of your departure from the infamous wedding from Hell, from your perspective.  GEEZ MAN!  

What an experience!

David Cordell

Great story, Steve. Were you hoping for a Graduate moment when you went to the wedding uninvited?? (EDIT: I wrote this before Janalu's comment appeared above. I'm a slow writer.) By the way, Martha was very appreciative of the flowers. Thanks from me, too.)

Watching a football game and seeing a Goodyear commercial that features Steppenwolf's Magic Carpet Ride. Love that song!  I have mentioned before that I received speeding tickets on two occasions while listening to the flip side of Magic Carpet Ride - Born to Be Wild. Then there is a commercial for the Pac-12 that brags about the "progressive spirit" of Pac 12 schools. Good to know. Then a commercial for Dior perfume that features Janis Joplin's voice singing Cry, Baby. Not sure what to make of all of that.

Good news in the Cordell household. Martha's potassium level stabilized in the "normal" level, and they released her. So, we are at home, but she is whipped.

I have only been to Nacogdoches once, looking for genealogical information for my Martha's family. I posted this photo once before. Martha's two-great and three-great grandfathers lived in Nacogdoches for a few years and were involved in the Battle of Nacodoches -- William Young Lacy and Martin Lacy (misspelled as Lacey on the monument)

Kurt Fischer

Steve and Lowell:

You both had excellent stories involving Nacogdoches.  Although the story of our daughter being born there may carry greater importance, both of your stories were much more entertaining than mine!

Steve Keene

Janalu

https://images.app.goo.gl/AwnMeUC9JFDzB87D9

She did go crazy cause she thought I traveled too much.  She needed constant attention.

David Cordell

Steve, are you talking about a woman or a car or both??

In what shape was your Mercedes's sheet metal when you sold it?

Steve Keene

David,

My comment was about the car.

I bought that car for $1800 when I was 20 and sold it when I was 32 for $17,000.  You saw it at the pike house.  It was quite a bit more than sheet metal, It was a 1961 that they made for three months before they switched over to the boxy square model.  I bought a second 1958 220 s model for $4000 and spent another $4000 restoring it in when I was 35.  The North Park Bank cross collateralized it with a poorly performing oil loan I had and refused to let me pay it off again.  They sold it at private auction to one of their insiders for $8500 when it was probably worth $30,000.  It was candy apple red with a white and red leather interior and a white top.   I got the girl for nothing and it probably cost me $500,000. to completely get rid of her.

In retrospect, I should have given Northpark the deed to my house and kept the car.

David Cordell

Like they say, you can sleep in your car, but you can't drive your house.

David Cordell

Watched part 1 of Peter Jackson's The Beatles: Get Back on Disney Plus. It's a bit slow, but it gives an inside look at the creative process as they try to come up with lyrics. Also, friction in the group.

Saw this quiz on NextDoor. Find the names of 20 Beatles songs in this visual. I admit to performing poorly! Answers in the next post.

David Cordell

David Cordell

Remember my post (that Bob Cederberg corrected!) about Dodger pitcher Clayton Kershaw's philanthropic activity? There was a big article in The Dallas Morning News today about Kershaw's activity that included a photo of the event we attended. Not sure if this link will work for nonsubscribers.

https://edition.pagesuite.com/infinity/article_popover_share.aspx?guid=afa78fc8-473a-4484-9543-a2beeb595563

David Cordell

HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL

Richardson swamps nation’s top team

FORT WORTH — Teams like Richardson — teams with state championship aspirations, and the talent to realistically support them — don’t often celebrate wins in November with a water bottle ambush on their head coach in the locker room. Not before district play, not before the season’s most meaningful games have begun.

But there were Richardson’s boys basketball players, camped out inside of their locker room bathroom inside Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, spraying head coach Kevin Lawson with water, jumping and screaming like a team that had just won in San Antonio.

That’s what happens when you beat the No. 1 team in the country.

Richardson, a 6A state semifinalist in 2021, beat Compass Prep (Ariz.) 61-38 at the Thanksgiving Hoopfest on Saturday. Alabama pledge Rylan Griffen (25 points) and Kentucky pledge Cason Wallace (22 points) handled the bulk of the scoring for Richardson (7-0).

Compass Prep is 247’s top prep team in the nation. ESPN ranks it as the No. 1 overall high school program. The game was never particularly close.

“I try not to look at rankings for school teams,” Griffen said. “But I looked at that one, and I saw they were No. 1. So we just wanted to come out and punch then in the mouth first.”

Richardson led 17-5 after one quarter. Griffen scored seven points before Compass Prep scored its first. He finished the first half with 20 points, and Richardson led 30-12 through two quarters.

“He was very locked in today at practice,” Lawson said. “He honestly might have missed one shot. ... He’s the type of kid, when he gets rolling like that, he can just flood points in.”

Wallace, the No. 7 recruit nationally in the class of 2022 per 247, scored 18 points in the second half alone.

Richardson held Compass Prep, which features five-star juniors Kylan Boswell (13 points) and Mookie Cook (seven points), to 32.5% shooting on the game. It forced 21 turnovers, largely thanks to its 11 steals — five of which came from Griffin. Richardson out-rebounded Compass Prep 26-19.

“Every time down the floor, we locked in,” Lawson said. “We took it personal that we didn’t want them to score.”

Steve Keene

David,

I just watched a Western on Tubi.  It was THE FASTEST GUITAR IN THE WEST starring Roy Orbison.  It was soooo bad!  The exwives of the Sons of the Pioneers wouldn't even go see it.  I think that must have been the in-flight movie on the music tour in the Midwest and what made Buddy Holly crash the plane.