AS THE WORLD TURNS …

ON THE MONDAY MORNING SIDEWALK

Some of you may recognize that title this Monday Morning, and most of you not. It comes from the afternoon soaps – soap operas – that were the fare of the people who were at home in the afternoons in the USA, and were originally created to push soap commercials … on radio nearly a hundred years ago, and then on the early TV network programming.

Turn on the news today, and there you have it. The world has turned since I have been away, and what we see? … well, it’s what we got.

WEATHER FREAKOUT

I was working in Round Top, Texas, the last eight days, selling art of my own, my SO’s and other Denton artist’s work. It was slow, not even a blip on the flat-brimmer’s radar really. We knew it would be a tough show, and being in Warrenton (a couple of miles southwest of Round Top) probably didn’t help us much. We shared the days, and the weekday boredom with our other friends occupying the tent, in great hope and expectation of the weekends, weekends that were in all truth, much better than the weekdays. My typical greeting of strangers to the booth, toward the end of last week was, “No tariffs here!” I did sell some of my South Padre Island photography, as well as a handful of art pieces from the collection I curated for Los Pes all those years ago .. an ancient memory now. The art collection is still here, even if Los Pescadores is not. And the collection is holding true value over time.

The weather was a huge variable, especially since our displays were tent-based. Rain, wind, incredible spring wind I have written so much about in the past, buffeted shook and soaked the tent in long intervals. In the end, the sun became more rare for days on end, and finally a real true cold front moved in – taking temperatures down about 30-degrees and sealed our fate.

MAYBE TOMORROW

Maybe by tomorrow I will have the week’s clothes washed, the boat charged and fluids changed … as my hopes spring eternal for a trip to Moss Lake on Wednesday. The skiff, in storage for the longest period in its ten-year life, is beginning to worry me in a deep way. But when you don’t know what you don’t know? What do you do? A mechanic at a hundo and hour? May as well go shopping for a new Toyota while I’m at it, right? What a world. I saw some fantastic cars at Round Top – those flat-brimmers have some good taste! I think THIS WILL BE THE YEAR my Toyota 4Runner breaks the 300-thousand mile mark. Are you as nervous as I am about that number? It’s my weakest link.

BUT I DIGRESS

It is still spring after all. I am getting some INPUT from my subscribers to the the text group, “HOTSPOTS25,” and they’re making me feel like following instead of leading the group! Nice, very nice fish being caught at Lake Lavon, Texas, and my road shoes are on now – since the two weeks of Round Top. By the way Round Top/Warrenton are a hog’s breath from two lakes I absolutely love (even if they didn’t love me) – Somerville and Fayette. The last one Lake Fayette, I managed to go see (to get a shower), and it was churning like an ocean that particular day. HOWEVER, the power plant was running non-stop, and I swear I saw some of the same tilapia fishers I saw the last time I was there. These guys are cast netting tilapia by the pounds, and I am betting – selling them at some backside market somewhere nearby. It’s the only thing that makes sense.