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Friday, September 29, 2023
Tuesday, September 26, 2023
Biden Joins UAW Picket Line
This is so wrong. Just as wrong as Trump plugging businesses and products he liked while he was in office. Both are forms of demagoguery - taking sides, appealing to one segment of the population instead of another.
Other Democratic presidents from FDR on down have voiced support for worker's causes - but this is going much, much too far. It's not leadership - it's electioneering.
Biden has done good things too, but he should be called out on this egregious mistake.
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Sunday, September 24, 2023
Friday, September 22, 2023
Sunday, September 17, 2023
Friday, September 15, 2023
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
The Pork Boys Do Summer 2023
There's not much to show, because this was longest, hottest, most godawful summer ever - the temperature outside was usually from 105 to 115, and inside, our overworked a/c system could only cool the house down to 85 or 90 degrees. Consequently, even with all fans going, we sweated all day and most of the night, and could hardly do anything - even think - because of the oppressive, relentless heat. I've never seen anything like it in my life, and hope I never do again.
During June, July, and August, we ate very few dinners at the table; mostly we sat at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, and mostly we ate simple fare, easy to cook without heating up the house even worse. So picture-taking opportunities were few. Here are a few snaps, mainly for our own record, of a few nice dinners we've had in the last couple weeks, as the heat has moderated. There were more pics on M.P.'s old phone, which died and had to be replaced; the pics were, alas, unrecoverable.
One Sunday, M.P. used his cookery magic to make a ham steak so tender that you could almost eat it with a spoon. Clockwise from 6 o'clock you see ham, fried sweet potato slices, a deviled egg, two halves of a buttered biscuit, turnip greens, and in the center, creamy cooked coleslaw - easy to chew. All of it delicious!
One weeknight, M.P. asked your Head Trucker to cook Chicken Fricassee, which he has liked a lot in the past, and I was glad to accommodate him. Below is a chicken thigh at 6 o'clock, leftward is sautéed corn with garlic and chives, at top is rice covered with fricassee gravy, rightward is a pile of green lima beans, followed by a buttered biscuit. I didn't get the roux dark enough this time, but M.P. pronounced it all very good indeed. Notice the lovely sunset-colored roses I bought on sale at the grocery store to use as a centerpiece.
Below, chicken fricassee in the pot, ready to dish up.
A closer view of the plate.
And finally, last Sunday M.P. cooked a pork roast in the crock pot all day, so for dinner we enjoyed Pork & Pineapple over rice; leftward is garlic bread; followed by sweet potato chunks in sweet sauce; fried onion rings; and at right, fried Italian green beans with Ro-Tel and bacon. Mighty good eatin' - I tell you what, boys.
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Sunday, September 10, 2023
Sunday Drive: Begin the Beguine
Cool weather has returned to Texas! It's only 88 degrees outside! And 68 inside! Hooray!
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| Click to enlarge. |
To celebrate, here's one of your Head Trucker's all-time favorites, a breezy tune by Artie Shaw and his Orchestra:
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Friday, September 8, 2023
Tuesday, September 5, 2023
Fifteen Years of the Blue Truck
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| Rainbow over a Texas highway. |
It's hard to believe, but I published my first post in this blog 15 years ago today at this hour. I started it on a whim, with no particular plan, and have continued it on the same principle ever since. For a long time, it was a convenient vehicle for my ranting and raving about the state of the world and the sadly misguided people in it - to put it mildly - but the last few years I have mainly given up ranting, which serves no purpose (good advice is never welcome to misbehaving ears) and keep blogging just to have something constructive to do in retirement. I know it is no great shakes, certainly - your Head Trucker has never been a crowd-pleaser - but it pleases me, if no one else, and that's enough.
I appreciate more than I can say the kind attention of my faithful truckbuddies, who have stuck with me all these years, the ones who regularly comment and those who rarely do so, but merely lurk in the corners. Being effectively housebound at this late age, and resolutely opposed on general principles to what is called social media - a corrosive pestilence that will have to be suppressed sooner or later - the Blue Truck gives me a happy connection from time to time with like-minded friends, and that's a very nice thing to have.
To celebrate this anniversary, I reprint here from my second blog post an excerpt from E. M. Forster's essay "What I Believe," written in 1938 when the dictators and their rat-faced minions were preparing to carve up the world among themselves, bringing death and destruction to millions all around the globe. Thank God for the stalwart leaders and peoples of the democracies who stood up to them and thwarted their evil plans. We who are now old men have lived our whole lives in the long, sunlit afternoon of the postwar order - which, alas, seems daily to be coming apart at the seams, pulled and ripped in all directions by extremists and fanatics of the right and of the left.
In our fathers' time, the democracies were the golden mean, the middle path between the two extremes; and when the democracies finally realized there was nothing else to do but fight or die, they discovered their enormous strength and used it to subdue the wicked and restore peace, liberty, and justice to the world. But is there still a middle way to be found? Does anybody even want to find it?
I have my thoughts, but this Cassandra prefers not to waste breath by speaking them. Nor is it safe to speak freely anymore about any but the most trivial topics. Instead, I offer this excerpt from Forster's essay, which reflects something of my own thinking. I don't agree with Forster on everything, but this passage resonates in my own heart.
"The victory of our queer race . . ."
I believe in aristocracy, though - if that is the right word, and if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos. Thousands of them perish in obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke.
I give no examples - it is risky to do that - but the reader may as well consider whether this is the type of person he would like to meet and to be, and whether (going further with me) he would prefer that this type should not be an ascetic one. I am against asceticism myself. I am with the old Scotsman who wanted less chastity and more delicacy. I do not feel that my aristocrats are a real aristocracy if they thwart their bodies, since bodies are the instruments through which we register and enjoy the world. Still, I do not insist. This is not a major point. It is clearly possible to be sensitive, considerate and plucky and yet be an ascetic too, and if anyone possesses the first three qualities I will let him in!
On they go - an invincible army, yet not a victorious one. The aristocrats, the elect, the chosen, the Best People - all the words that describe them are false, and all attempts to organize them fail. Again and again Authority, seeing their value, has tried to net them and to utilize them as the Egyptian Priesthood or the Christian Church or the Chinese Civil Service or the Group Movement, or some other worthy stunt. But they slip through the net and are gone; when the door is shut, they are no longer in the room; their temple, as one of them remarked, is the holiness of the Heart's affections, and their kingdom, though they never possess it, is the wide-open world.
Hugs and good wishes to all my truckbuddies - thanks for riding along in the Blue Truck.
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Sunday, September 3, 2023
Sunday Drive: The Lord's My Shepherd, I'll Not Want
In memory of beloved Queen Elizabeth II, who died a year ago this week and now rests in God, far beyond all earthly cares. This was one of her favorite hymns and was played at her funeral in Westminster Abbey, as shown in the clip below.
Note to my truckbuddies: After two months of roasting in brutal heat, we have been blessed the past week with a merciful cool spell - temperatures only in the mid-90s, a merciful relief. (This means temperatures in the house have been 70-75, instead of 85-90.) This change has helped our feelings considerably. Temps are due to creep back up into the low 100s this week, and thereafter settle down into the 90s for the rest of the month - I do hope.
Otherwise, we are shuffling along here okay, though your Head Trucker walks even more slowly now and my eyesight has gotten a bit blurry, which plays hell with my typing and is most annoying. We both have aches and discomforts in various places; sometimes we can't sleep, sometimes we sleep all day. Getting old is no fun. But we have all we need at the moment, good things to eat, and a happy home, and that's a lot to be thankful for. I hope all my truckbuddies are enjoying the time, wherever they are.
There's only so many summers, babe, and so many springs . . .
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Saturday, September 2, 2023
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