Posts by TerryWalstrom

21

Jehovah's Witnesses and the Picnic Extinction

by TerryWalstrom in

jehovah’s witnesses and the picnic extinction.

(“those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end…”).

it was another world back then; another time and another place.. you had to have been there to have any sense of it--as a young, impressionable jehovah’s witness under the watchtower presidency of nathan h. knorr--social gatherings (backyard bbq’s, swimming parties) among the ‘friends’ consisted of having a great time at a get together or a picnic.

TerryWalstrom

I have a good friend, a young man, he's still in--except--his mind is out of there.
He's hanging on to his family and his fiancee's family.

He tells me the young men--his friends/Brothers--"engage in loose conduct" and then
SNITCH THEMSELVES OUT.
The fear and guilt overwhelm them.
Girls are mostly put on probation while the boys may be DF'D.
Armageddon may be any day now--but the urges cause them to flirt with 'death.'

Really, it is very 17th Century.
The bottom line is this. The young are not body-controlled--but they are MIND controlled.

21

Jehovah's Witnesses and the Picnic Extinction

by TerryWalstrom in

jehovah’s witnesses and the picnic extinction.

(“those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end…”).

it was another world back then; another time and another place.. you had to have been there to have any sense of it--as a young, impressionable jehovah’s witness under the watchtower presidency of nathan h. knorr--social gatherings (backyard bbq’s, swimming parties) among the ‘friends’ consisted of having a great time at a get together or a picnic.

TerryWalstrom

The pushback (re oral sex) was a gigantic tsunami back in the 70's and I'm pretty sure it must have scared the crap out of the GB. The prohibition mutated into a 180-degree position shift.
A matter of "conscience"--is--a fallback for Pharisees caught puppeteering.
JW leaders have never trusted "conscience."
In 1967, I was taken into the back library by the Congregation leaders and told what my "conscience" was telling me to do about the Draft.
I was also given clear instructions never to state out loud to anybody who asked how I was coached, advised, or otherwise taught by my religion's leaders.
It must keep the GB awake at night wondering how to get into the mechanism of conscientious people and install the remote control so dear to their self-aggrandizing power fetish.

21

Jehovah's Witnesses and the Picnic Extinction

by TerryWalstrom in

jehovah’s witnesses and the picnic extinction.

(“those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end…”).

it was another world back then; another time and another place.. you had to have been there to have any sense of it--as a young, impressionable jehovah’s witness under the watchtower presidency of nathan h. knorr--social gatherings (backyard bbq’s, swimming parties) among the ‘friends’ consisted of having a great time at a get together or a picnic.

TerryWalstrom

I'll get around to the "rest of the story" very soon...

21

Jehovah's Witnesses and the Picnic Extinction

by TerryWalstrom in

jehovah’s witnesses and the picnic extinction.

(“those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end…”).

it was another world back then; another time and another place.. you had to have been there to have any sense of it--as a young, impressionable jehovah’s witness under the watchtower presidency of nathan h. knorr--social gatherings (backyard bbq’s, swimming parties) among the ‘friends’ consisted of having a great time at a get together or a picnic.

TerryWalstrom

Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Picnic Extinction

(“Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end…”)

It was another world back then; another time and another place.

You had to have been there to have any sense of it--as a young, impressionable Jehovah’s Witness under the Watchtower presidency of Nathan H. Knorr--social gatherings (backyard BBQ’s, swimming parties) among the ‘friends’ consisted of having a great time at a get together or a picnic. It was not at all as it is today.

Let me tell you about it.

Pull up a chair. I’ve got a story or two to share

______

I was a young teenage boy, not yet baptised, surrounded by beautiful female creatures. My genes and hormones had a chance to orient and adjust themselves toward natural mating instincts. If I hadn’t shown up at the local Kingdom Hall, being a shy boy in Ft.Worth would have condemned me to a vacuum of solitude. Inside the Kingdom Hall, however, it was fertile mating grounds!

Era-wise, I found myself in the peaceful eye of the Watchtower hurricane.

The wartime chaos of Judge Rutherford’s presidency was over and a more businesslike gentleman, Nathan Homer Knorr, was busy organizing efficient preaching methods rather than picking fights and creating upheaval.

Back in the 1950’s and 60’s, JW’s were practically living like Amish folk in some rural setting as far as sophistication. Such outside nonsense such as beatniks, rebels with / without a cause, rock n’ roll music, or sexual revolution had nothing to do with peace inside your local Kingdom Hall.

Born-in Dubs didn’t go to suggestive movies, listen to loud music, or watch violent TV shows.

Only outsiders (like me) who loved horror films, shoot-em-ups, romantic comedies and such had “notions” of what boys and girls did together (if they ever got together). My ideas were only as sophisticated as Hollywood writers had made them seem.

A sister of my best (JW) friend told me cryptically and suggestively, “Terry, girls want the same things boys want--but--we need to be coaxed into it under the right circumstances.”

I confess: I didn’t know what the hell that meant! I did suspect it might be dirty. (Or at least I hoped)

Eventually, I found out. (I married her.)

______

PICNICS

When Jehovah’s Witnesses put on a picnic at a local park or one of the 6 lakes around Ft. Worth, you could count on 3 things for sure.

1. Chaperones watching your every move

2. Lots of the opposite sex (especially from nearby towns) arrived to check each other out.

3. Fun, games, laughter (like real people) and sneaky flirting would occur.

For a shy kid like me, watching smooth Brothers chat up a Witness girl was quite an education. But not in a good way. It was immediately obvious to me they were DOING IT ALL WRONG!

How did I know?

I had watched Rock Hudson with Doris Day, Cary Grant with Sophia Loren, Troy Donahue with every young actress in Hollywood. Those guys were funny, smooth, suave, and swept the girls right off their feet.

The best Hollywood writers allowed for banter, wit, clever conversations filled with delightful double-entre.

Sadly--that wasn’t the case for Watchtower boys!

JW boys were clunky, corny, over eager and dull.

What puzzled me for awhile is why the JW girls pretended they were enjoying it. The answer was so simple I had overlooked it. Dub girls were BORED with their lives and the total lack of opportunity to BE GIRLS, to be fun and sexy! The only chance they had for dating or conversation (or other ‘stuff’) with the opposite sex--maybe some “bad Association” to spoil their useful habits-- was pretending the Witness boys were

A-m-a-z-i-n-g.

At a swimming party, JW girls wore one piece swimsuits.

For JW boys, they may as well have been cavorting naked--it energized the same impact on our hormones! We were like Elizabethan era gentlemen catching a scandalous glimpse of a lady’s ankle!

BOOM! CRASH! Be still my beating heart-on. (Yes, I said that.)

Once we had plunged our throbbing bodies in the lake, we gradually inched our way toward the center and out of the line-of-sight of chaperones. We could “engage” in conversation and maybe even an embrace. (All this shocking language may be too much for you. If so, I apologize :)

My point in telling you this is obvious. Boys will be boys and girls will be girls--except--if you were one of Jehovah’s Witnesses--the tensions and suppression and constant surveillance made it barely possible to express all the exploding feelings of puberty and beyond.

But on picnics: IT WAS SOMETHING RATHER THAN NOTHING!

Eventually, the sexual revolution and the Youth Rebellion of the late 60’s and early 70’s created a tidal wave which spilled over from “worldly” spaces into the Kingdom Halls. Almost every young person had access to media and figured out the world at large was having way MORE FUN than they were.

For us, there was only modest, godly dating.

Dating meant you-know-what. Experimentation with out-of-control hormonal expressions of exploratory delight. (In other words, you were in a duel between what you wanted to do and what you’d be allowed to get away with. Note: you both hoped you’d lose.)

The Dallas JW girls motored over to Ft. Worth to scope out the Ft. Worth boys and eventually, everybody dated everybody else in the ‘food-chain.’

It was like a sanitized group orgy of experimentation without any actual sex. (Allegedly).

The goal could only be one thing: MARRIAGE!

You couldn’t be a Jehovah’s Witness unless you figured out that’s what Dub girls were ‘for.’ We were under a big reinforced delusion that marriage solved the ugly sex problem.

Guess what? It did NOT solve the problem.

So many JW guys had extreme hang-ups about sex they were messed up in their head.

They wanted sex but were made to believe their thoughts and actions were unnatural, evil, and wrong…(leading to being murdered by death angels at Armageddon coming soon to a battle near you.)

JW males took out their frustration on their wives by dominating them and controlling their homestead like Medieval liege Lords. Can you say, “Me Freud--you Jane”?

I digress…

PICNICS ended. Party’s ended. Social gatherings after books studies ended.

Why?

The Watchtower Organization would not and could not give up their obsession with total CONTROL over their members. (And the members of their male members, wink-wink-nudge-nudge.)

A crackdown on how Dub girls dressed, how they wore makeup became ever more control over the years. Even married JW’s felt the icy penetrating stare of Governing Body invigilators in the bedroom. In 1972, the official denouncement of oral sex struck the Kingdom Halls like the Black Plague.

A letter to the Watchtower asked if it were okay for married people and the answer was a supersonic bang: NO! (Note: apparently such behavior was only for homosexuals to enjoy).

More and more repressive pressures applied from the Governing Body of the Watchtower in public and private life ratcheted down on the squirming humanity inside the Kingdom Halls.

The disappearance of Picnics and parties was just a symptom of the greater problem of CULT LIFE. Yes, it only becomes truly provable how much of a cult the Watchtower Organization truly is when you view the overwhelming mind control instituted over the decades, like a python swallowing its prey.

Today, JW sisters aren’t allowed to date a young JW lad unless he has Congregation privileges of one sort or another. This insidious strategy is obvious. Young horny JW’s can’t date unless they pass the litmus test of congregation duties first. Girls will never have a chance at sex unless they marry. They can’t marry unless they date pre-approved boys willing to knock doors, give sermons, and uphold the dictates of the corporate overlords.

The memories of a relaxed era of innocent fun at PICNICS is a distant memory now. It was a kinder, gentler social atmosphere back then. I was fortunate to have known such a time because I developed social awareness around girls. It probably wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

As for my story?

I was engaged to a young JW girl just before I went off to prison as a conscientious objector. While I was away, JW boys kept asking her out on dates (knowing full well her situation) and she finally decided it was all innocent fun. I got my feelings hurt (i.e. heart broken) and that was that. How blind could I be? I was out of the dating/mating pool for a couple of years.

Two years later, the first social get together after my parole was at--what else--a picnic.

I was a hot commodity, believe it or not.

I would have been pre-approved by any JW father for dating his daughter.

Some day, soon maybe...I’ll tell THAT story.

But for now--the story of Picnic Extinction is just as I’ve described it.

“We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun…”

NEVERMORE!

________

9

First Girlfriend first kiss

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

first girlfriend first kisswho was my 1st girlfriend?.

the first girl i took notice of in any real sense of "notice" was a brunette named robbie.. i was in first grade, so i must have been six-years-old.. i had no idea why this particular girl caught my neurons and trapped them.

adolescence was a thousand miles away so it couldn't have been a sex attraction.

TerryWalstrom

I've published 2 books. The first is the story of becoming a JW and going to prison as a "conscientious objector." (I Wept by the Rivers of Babylon)
The second book is a Sci-Fi novel about Martians, Pastor Russell, Rutherford, and cult mind control. Yes, I know :) (The Monorails of Mars.) Both are available on Amazon.
____
I've been working on this third book a long time and if I wanted to, I could publish it immediately I'm still editing. It will take up where my first book left off, just before 1975, when I fled my Jehovah's Witness milieu to move to Hollywood.
It will be a memoir.
The working title is (A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to Armageddon.)
____
Thanks to all for the kind response!

9

First Girlfriend first kiss

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

first girlfriend first kisswho was my 1st girlfriend?.

the first girl i took notice of in any real sense of "notice" was a brunette named robbie.. i was in first grade, so i must have been six-years-old.. i had no idea why this particular girl caught my neurons and trapped them.

adolescence was a thousand miles away so it couldn't have been a sex attraction.

TerryWalstrom

That's a whole nuther story, my friend!

9

First Girlfriend first kiss

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

first girlfriend first kisswho was my 1st girlfriend?.

the first girl i took notice of in any real sense of "notice" was a brunette named robbie.. i was in first grade, so i must have been six-years-old.. i had no idea why this particular girl caught my neurons and trapped them.

adolescence was a thousand miles away so it couldn't have been a sex attraction.

TerryWalstrom

FIRST GIRLFRIEND FIRST KISS

Who was my 1st girlfriend?

The first girl I took notice of in any real sense of "notice" was a brunette named Robbie.

I was in first grade, so I must have been six-years-old.

I had no idea why THIS particular girl caught my neurons and trapped them. Adolescence was a thousand miles away so it couldn't have been a sex attraction. Nope. Not at six.

I made shy boys look aggressive. So, I never spoke to Robbie. She can count herself pretty lucky. My interests at that age were Hopalong Cassidy, Tarzan, rocket ships, archery, knife-throwing, and rubbing kittens on my face.

_____

My first real girlfriend and my first kiss came NOT because of any natural attraction on my part. It was a strong sense of competition between myself and my best friend, Johnny Santa Cruz.

Johnny and I were rivals. We never spoke about it. It was one-ups-manship. Two Alpha-males. Natural as can be.

Johnny went all googly-eyed over Carol Brown, the blonde girl across the street whose face was a natural habitat for freckles.

He was determined to get from her his first kiss.

Carol Brown didn't push any magic buttons inside of me but the idea that Johnny would get the first kiss before me--well, this will NOT stand!

We were 15-years-old.

Johnny was full tilt into adolescent glandular upheaval. This dude was in heat! I, on the other hand, probably had delayed onset of puberty. All those internal churnings didn't really happen for me until I was about 19. Yeah. Really.

Walstroms are late-bloomers and long-lived.

The efforts Johnny was making consisted of complimenting Carol. On what? I dunno, the plenitude of her freckles, I suppose. She seemed to react with moderate interest.

Wherever Johnny went, I went. I was his shadow. (He was a wide-load kind of fellow and already had a substantial shadow.) Consequently, when Froggy went-a-courtin', I was like the "sword and pistol' by his side.

He held her hand.

His voice dropped into a Barry White whisper (years before there was a Barry White.)

I was nauseous.

I listened to him telling me how great she was and I squinted hard without confirmation.

It was only when he made the bold declaration, "When Carol gets back from summer vacation with her family, I'm going to give her...her first kiss."

"You mean, your first kiss, don't you?"

The fact he didn't want to say it was enough for me. I KNEW.

_____

Before Carol left, I sashayed across Parkdale Ave. and walked up to the Brown's house. Carol's mother answered the door.

"Yes?"

"Hello, Mrs. Brown. I'm Terry, a friend of Carol's. I was wondering if you'd be kind enough to give her this letter I wrote for her to read after you folks arrive at your destination?"

The nice lady gave me a very Mom-like once over.

I was tall, slim, good-looking, blue-eyed, and very polite.

"What's this all about, if you don't mind my asking?"

I scuffed the toe of my shoe against the door jam and looked down at the ground.

"I have a crush on your daughter, Mrs. Brown. But--I haven't said anything because of my best friend from across the street, Johnny. He has plans to become Carol's boyfriend--I don't want to be a bad friend. I just...well...I want Carol to have a choice as well as time to think it over without pressure."

Carol's mother stood very, very still with her mouth shaped like she was about to whistle. Her brain was ticking away and I could imagine the calculations inside a mother's noggin.

"Sure. I'll give it to her, Jerry."

"Um, it's Terry."

_____

I had written--NOT a letter--but a poem.

I had a knack for writing. It was my strong suit.

I'd made Carol's Mom promise not to give the poem to her daughter until she was settled in when they arrived in Corpus Christi.

That evening, I sat on the front porch of my house and listened to the cicada's astounding symphony of buzzing lyricism in the trees surrounding the yard. Stars punctured the dark leaves with pinpoints of silver light. I was working at psyching myself up for my first kiss only 30 days away!

I was confident!

_____

When you're young, a minute is an hour and an hour is a day. If you talk yourself into being in 'love'--and you are waiting on the object of your obsession--a month is a life sentence!

By the time Carol Brown returned from vacation some transformations had occurred inside both of us--mostly as the result of internal romantic imagination.

She and I had fantasized every possible scenario!

We weren't in love, of course. We were in love with the grand fantasy of being IN LOVE.

Girls mature faster than boys. Especially THIS boy. She was way ahead of me.

Johnny and I sat in front of his house watching for the Brown family's station wagon to appear. THIS was ground zero and D-day. He had no idea what was coming thanks to my Machiavellian machinations. (i.e. treason.)

Sure enough, the car appeared and chugged up into their driveway which was up a slight hill. I made an instant reckoning. I ducked out. Carol and her family would be exhausted after a long, long drive on the hot Texas freeway in August without air-conditioning.

Let Johnny be the casualty of BAD TIMING! His choice--not mine.

_______

It was 1962.

Johnny was going to celebrate Carol's return by having a little backyard party at sunset with lanterns and lemonade and a phonograph playing 45 rpm records.

I had with me only one single to play at exactly the right moment.

It was Roy Orbison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7M-g1fW9XM

Earlier, I waited for Johnny to barge on up as the exhausted travelers emerged from their journey. He plunged right in like a puppy at meal time.

Whatever he said to her I don't know, I remained across the street standing in the shade. I saw Carol craning her neck to look and I knew she spotted me. I stepped out into the light with a smile like the unveiling of an elegant sculpture in her honor. I waved, turned, and walked back into Johnny's house.

My idea was to let the Johnny tsunami crash on her shores first and leave all the anticipation and mystery for later.

____

It was the evening at last.

Music filled the humid night air, drowning out the zing of mosquitoes. Johnny's sisters, friends and a few neighbors were dancing in his backyard. Carol was dancing with my good buddy and I played coy, being quite cordial to everybody without tipping off Carol how I was timing things to the optimum moment.

Johnny wandered into the house at last. I was a duck on the June bug. I appeared by Carol's side magically just as Roy Orbison started his dramatic sonnet to competitive love and angst, RUNNING SCARED.

"I've been wanting to talk to you all day."

Her freckles glistened with moisture. There's nothing like a sweaty Texas girl to start a cowpoke's heart a thumpin'.

"Aw, I didn't want to intrude. After all, Johnny saw you first."

"I read your poem. It was beautiful. I must have read it a hundred times."

(YESSSS!)

"Before you left I went off by myself to a quiet spot and thought about things. I found myself writing my feelings and once it started--well, I couldn't stop. When I'd finished, I knew I had to let you read it. I'm too shy to say anything otherwise."

(Roy Orbison's amazing crescendo was winding upward, like a drumbeat for a Commanche attack on a circled wagon train.)

"I was hoping you'd ask me to dance."

"I couldn't possibly do that."

"Why not?"

(Wait for it...wait for it...wait for it...)

"If I had my arms around you I wouldn't be able to stop myself from kissing you."

(Orbison's voice is rising, rising, rising as the orchestra swells to a majestic turn--a cataclysmic reckoning--seconds from the revealing ending.)

_____MY HEART IS BREAKING, WHICH ONE WOULD IT BE?___

"I've never been kissed before. I was kind of saving it for the end of a perfect date."

"Well, what are you doing Saturday? We could go to a movie."

"I'd really like that."

"There's no reason not to rehearse our kiss, just so-- by the time the end of the date comes around--it will be perfect..."

(Orbison knocked it out of the park:)

____YOU TURNED AROUND AND WALKED AWAY WITH ME-e-e-e-e-e___

I leaned in and planted a real Hollywood smacker on Carol Brown's pink lips exactly the way I'd seen Troy Donahue liplock Suzanne Pleshette in 'ROME ADVENTURE.'

___

I can close my eyes right now. I recorded everything in-the-moment and it is permanently etched on some dusty row of neurons in my brain vault. The night, the music, the smell of Emeraude perfume, Roy Orbison's voice, the mosquitoes, and the feeling of this freckled blonde's heart pounding against my skinny body.

By the time Johnny came back out of the house (where I knew he had his marathon BM each evening) I had strategically maneuvered my troops to the high ground and planted--not the flag--but my lips.

Carol and I shared our 'moment' on the side of the house in the shadows, but we were fooling ourselves if we thought we hadn't been seen.

Somebody ratted us out to Johnny.

He told me later that night.

"I'd already made up my mind I wasn't interested in Carol anymore."

"Oh. Really? Why is that?"

The answer was a long time coming. Come it did.

"The only thing she wanted to talk about was you."

This is when I knew I would be a good writer. A good writer is effective at bringing about FEELINGS inside his readers.

I had known I had to write something which would kindle feelings.

I'm embarrassed to say--I actually remember the first line of the sonnet I had written for Carol in that letter. It sure doesn't sound like anything today as I look at it on the page in black and white. I'll set it down for you anyway.

______

"All things worthwhile are worth waiting for--

or so the saying goes

But just how hard it is to wait--that few people know

Unless someone who they love has gone from them away

And they've waited hopelessly throughout each endless day"

_______

Try as I might, I can't recall the rest. It filled a whole page.

I just wonder to myself...wherever Carol is...does she still have that tucked away someplace?

3

Aw Shucks

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

aw shucks___________.

her voice caught my ear.

“i’m gonna jerk a knot in yer tail!”.

TerryWalstrom

I was reared by great-grandparents and grandparents and those folks go way back into the late 1800's. They had some odd expressions most of which I've forgotten.
My great-grandmother had come from Tennessee in a covered wagon chased by what she called "savages." Today they wouldn't dare.
Her favorite expression of stubborn refusal was to declare, " Don't hafta do nuthin' but die."

6

Confession: I, Safecracker

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

i, safe cracker _______________.

this is one story i doubt i’ve told before.

for obvious reasons…it was 1969; the place, fort worth; the location, the star-telegram building in downtown fort worth, and i was a lowly janitor working for $1.60 an hour on the midnight to 8 am shift.you might wonder what a tall, good-looking 22-year-old was doing struggling at a no-future employment for slave wages.

TerryWalstrom

I thought of Les Miserables. It wasn't stealing real bread, it was the 'other' kind and the sentence would probably be the same.

One of my daughters found an envelope full of cash one day when on a roller coaster at Six Flags Over Texas. She turned it in.
A friend who saw this (who had been sitting in the back seat) made a big deal out of it.
My daughter told her, "I got money from my grandma on a birthday and lost it a couple of years ago. I KNOW how it feels."
That is empathy.
I met a lady once (we were on a date) who told me about finding a briefcase with money in it. She was able to contact the owner. He wanted to give her a $200 reward which she refused.
I gave her a hard time about that (even though it wasn't my business.)
Her answer made sense, however.
"You don't return money to get money. You return money to return money."
The moral of every instance is a different variation on the "why" each person has
done the "right" thing.
It's way more complicated than it seems IF YOU THINK TOO HARD.

3

Aw Shucks

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

aw shucks___________.

her voice caught my ear.

“i’m gonna jerk a knot in yer tail!”.

TerryWalstrom

AW SHUCKS
___________

Her voice caught my ear.
“I’m gonna jerk a knot in yer tail!”

I flinched but I took quick notice.
She had a fierce, worn beauty; the kind I seldom see anymore. Those eyes on her stabbed like flashing blades.
The object of her scorn wasn’t yours truly, thank the Almighty. Whoever this poor bastard is, he’s hunkered down into the chair like a collapsed accordion. The air has gone out of him.
He’s gotta be in his late 40’s. He’s clearly a working man; a hardworking fella who spends all day in the Texas sun. The sun-spackled leather on his face and arms used to be skin. An expression of alarm has lit up his deep set brown eyes.

She’s still at it.
“A snake in a wagon rut is what you are, Henry Lee.”

I’m sitting way too close to this domestic turbulence for my comfort. I’m pretending to be invisible so I might observe without being observed.

She is hungry-thin; cheekbones and jaw firmly set, catching the light and casting prize-winning shadows. A black and white photograph of her would look damn near the same as a colored one.

He speaks!
“I ain’t gonna be no hummingbird on your string, Lulu. Leave me be. I ain’t drunk no more. I’m dryer than a popcorn fart.”

I’m wondering what language these strange folk are speaking.

The man is more or less gathering himself up into a ball of courage as he speaks. He un-slunk himself out of the seat and stands like he wants to bolt and never stop running.

I let my eyes shoot a few flicks askance. I know I’m going to be writing about this any minute now. Folks such as this are way better than crows and less likely to steal food.

The woman is wearing jeans. Old ones. She’s got a figure like a retired rodeo rider--all sinew and no meat to spare. I scan the table next to them. No hats. No guns!

______

Okay. They’ve gone.
What a pair these were. They ended up kissing like they were getting paid ten bucks a smooch.
As far as I can gather, they drove to Ft.Worth from Sweetwater. It was an anniversary. They ran into some old friends and the man got drunk and neglected her.
She hadn’t put up a fuss around the friends. She didn’t say a word. She waited.
I was the lucky listener.
She let him have it with both barrels until he’d gone through every excuse, angry defense, and finally surrendered with a heartfelt apology.
She got what she’d wanted.

Other than not speaking English (at least Standard English) the two of them should be preserved in the Smithsonian as a throwback to maybe the 1800’s. I could have listened to them talk all day and never grown weary.

I wanted to follow them when they left and see what kind of truck they were in. They weren’t.
An Uber came and away they went!
Now how in hell do you figure that??

One more thing…
His best apology I’ll share with you in parting.
This man put both of his large, leathery paws on the little lady’s shoulders and looked straight down into her cat’s eye marbles. He swallowed hard and she waited for it but good.

“Lulu, without you--I’m as lost as last year’s Easter eggs.”

Aw, shucks.
_______