Final August entry.

Walking on Velvet Green. A nice song.
(I'll post a nicer Ian Anderson song tomorrow )



Walking on Velvet Green - Scots Pine growing.
Isn't it rare to be taking the air, sinning -
Walking on Velvet Green.

Walking on Velvet Green - distant cows lowing.
Never a care; with your legs in the air, loving -
Walking on Velvet Green.

Won't you have my company, yes, take it in your hands.
Go down on Velvet Green, with a country-man.
Who's a young girl's fancy and an old maid's dream.
Tell your mother that you walked all night on Velvet Green.

One dusky half-hour's ride up to the north.
There lies your reputation and all that you're worth.
Where the scent of wild roses turns the milk to cream.
Tell your mother that you walked all night on Velvet Green.

And the long grass blows in the evening cool.
And August's rare delight may be April's fool.
But think not of that my love, I'm tight against the seam.
And I'm growing up to meet you down on Velvet Green.

Now I may tell you that it's love and not just lust.
And if we live the lie, let's lie in trust.
On golden daffodils, to catch the silver stream
That washes out the wild oat seed on Velvet Green.

We'll dream as lovers under the stars:
Of civilizations raging afar.
And the ragged dawn breaks on your battle scars
As you walk home cold and alone upon Velvet Green.

Walking on Velvet Green - Scots Pine growing.
Isn't it rare to be taking the air, sinning -
Walking on Velvet Green.

Walking on Velvet Green - distant cows lowing.
Never a care; with your legs in the air, loving -
Walking on Velvet Green.

Gene Owen's column.

They are all good, but I especially liked this one.

Traveling to Texas with a dog

By Gene Owens

"He travels fastest who travels alone," wrote Rudyard Kipling, and the old boy's right. But traveling with a dog slows you down only a tad, and the company's worth the extra minutes.

Since Miss Peggy was minding our grandson Chase in Georgia and I was overdue a visit to my son Matt on South Padre Island, Texas, I decided to take advantage of her absence to drive to the Mexican border. My great-grandson, Kaiden, was 5 months old and I hadn't seen him.

"You're not driving down there!" said Miss Peggy. The assumption is that a 72-year-old man can't find his way across six states, even with a GPS to guide him.

"I'm not flying," I told her. I've never felt comfortable in the air, and the Hassle of air travel, connecting flights, baggage claims, and car rentals negates for me the advantage of jet speed. I prefer to stay on the ground, faithful dog beside me, a rest area every 35 miles and a McDonald's, Hardee's, Burger King or Shoney's at every third or fourth exit.

I planned to stop overnight going and coming in Mobile, Ala., with daughter Cherie and her husband, Joe. Mapquest.com told me it would take me 13 hours to drive from Mobile to South Padre Island. I figured that 13 hours behind the wheel was no more exhausting than 13 hours in front of a computer screen, and I've pulled that off many times.

Miss Candi, my 14-year-old Peke-a-poo, would be my travel companion. I broke her in to car travel when she was just a few weeks old, and she accompanied me on many a trip around the state of Alabama when I worked for the Mobile Press-Register. Arthritis now makes her accustomed perch atop my shoulder uncomfortable, so I outfitted my Toyota Matrix for her comfort.

The back seats folded down to form a flat floor, and I placed her bed on it. I spread out a blanket and put her food dish and a water dish on it. She has a cushion to smooth her way across the console when she wants to move from the shotgun seat to my lap. And she could curl up for a nap in her own bed whenever she liked. We packed a supply of her favorite dog food in her travel bag, but she also got a ham biscuit whenever I stopped for breakfast. I would go through the drive-through and order my meal and hers. Then I would stop in the parking lot and we would share breakfast. She would eat the ham and I would dunk the biscuit in my coffee.

Traveling with a dog is different from traveling with a wife. The dog never wants to stop at an outlet mall, never has to pick up emergency supplies from Salley's, never wants to listen to Streisand when I prefer Old Hank. She's just as happy at Hardee's as she is at Applebee's, where the food is fancier but the service is slower.

As I traveled across east Texas, I stopped for Texas barbecue in a town called Refugio, and ate in a hole-in-the-wall in a rundown strip mall that I wouldn't have taken Miss Peggy into. The ribs were good, even if they were taken from an animal that said moo"instead of one that said "oink." And I could go home and tell people that I ate in the town that gave the world Nolan Ryan. It says so on a sign at city limits. The only thing Nolan Ryan and I have in common is arthritis, but it felt good breathing the air that a Hall-of-Fame pitcher had breathed. By 10 p.m. I was pulling up to the LaQuinta Inn in Brownsville, where I knew from past experience that my 10-pound dog would be welcome.

I hooked up my GPS and let Gypsy direct me to Matt's front door. Gypsy is the synthesized woman's voice that comes out of the pathfinding instrument. She spends a lot of time telling me to make a U-turn at my earliest convenience, because I often ignore her directions.

I spent a couple of days with the kids, took them to Brownsville's zoo, ate seafood near the mouth of the Rio Grande, had a Presidente margarita at Chili's (they don't make them better in the local joints), and allowed Candi to bask in the attention of my grandchildren.

On Monday, I turned in early, determined to hit the road the first time I woke up. I awoke at 2 a.m., after six hours of sleep. I roused Candi, and headed for home. The Border Patrol stopped me between Brownsville and Corpus to allow its dogs to sniff my car. Candi tolerated them without a growl.

I spent the morning ignoring Gypsy's admonition to "execute a U-turn as soon as possible." Texas had built some new highways around Corpus and she didn't recognize them. I knew I was returning the way I had come. Somewhere before I reached Victoria, she figured out where I was and directed me on a route that allowed me to slide through Houston on I-10 without a single jam. I regretfully bypassed the town that advertised "the biggest squirrel in Texas." I was afraid it would take me for the biggest nut in Texas and Candi would be stranded a thousand miles from home with no driver.

I got back to Anderson ready for a good night's sleep and a weekend in North Carolina with Miss Peggy.

The pace may have been slower than it would have been aboard Delta. But my baggage got home the same time I did. I didn't have to put my dog in a kennel. I didn't have to pay an exorbitant fee for parking my car at the airport and I didn't have to rent a car to drive around the Brownsville area.

I still hate flying.

(Readers may write Gene Owens at 315 Lakeforest Circle, Anderson SC 29625, or e-mail him at WadesDixieco@aol.com)

---

Miscellanous

I watched a couple of movies over the weekend.

• Sex and The City
• Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia

I enjoyed them both although on different levels as one might expect.

One thing that I thought was a little different was that Al Garcia featured a few different themes. One that I thought was maybe a little different for the time (1974) was the inclusion of the gay, dispassionate, suit-wearing hit men as characters. As I recall, back in the day, gay movie characters were fairly stereotypical. It took a few scenes for me to catch on.

Anyway, more later perhaps.

Can't say why this came to mind...

...just thirty minutes ago.

....

A junkie walking through the twilight
I'm on my way home
I left three days ago, but no one seems to know i'm gone
Home is where the hatred is
Home is filled with pain and it,
might not be such a bad idea if i never, never went home again

Stand as far away from me as you can and ask me why
Hang on to your rosary beads
Close your eyes to watch me die
You keep saying, kick it, quit it, kick it, quit it
God, but did you ever try
To turn your sick soul inside out
So that the world, so that the world
Can watch you die

Home is where i live inside my white powder dreams
Home was once an empty vacuum that's filled now with my silent screams
Home is where the needle marks
Try to heal my broken heart
and it might not be such a bad idea if i never, if i never went home again
Home again
Home again
Home again
Kick it, quit it
Kick it, quit it
Kick it, quit it
Kick it, can't go home again.



Another version

WWD's 1969 Coverage of Woodstock: A Weekend Trip - WWD.com

WWD's 1969 Coverage of Woodstock: A Weekend Trip - WWD.com

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Rick Pitino - "He's Our Guy"

I think this AP column hits the nail on the head pretty well.

To quote The Sports Curmudgeon, Don’t Get Me Wrong, I Love Sports…

////////////////////////

... lot of lessons to be learned from the lurid revelations about Rick Pitino, not the least of which are that moral depravity and dishonesty may not mean what you think and that the president of the University of Louisville should be a little more careful in choosing his words.

...A coach is only as great as the assistants underneath who work for him.

Vinnie Tatum was such a good soldier that he kept guard over Pitino in the back of a restaurant even as the coach was having drunken sex with a woman he had met just hours earlier....

....latest word from Pitino's lawyer is that the basketball coach was simply so concerned Karen Sypher had no health insurance that he reached into his pocket for a wad of bills to pay for it. Sypher was apparently posted upstairs at the clandestine rendezvous to make sure Pitino got a receipt for his largesse.

.....If only every rich person in America were as generous as Pitino, there would be no need for President Obama to campaign for health care reform.

None of this seems to particularly bother the people in charge at Louisville, ....hiding from questions about a hugely popular coach who went 31-6 last season and came within one game of the Final Four. The athletic director ... praising Pitino for being truthful, while president James Ramsey said only that some details of the whole sordid mess were "surprising."

Disgusting would be a more accurate description, but, hey, Pitino wins games and lots of them. No reason to jeopardize that, especially now that archrival Kentucky has its own superstar coach.

...Winning basketball games is a lot more important than taking the high moral ground at most universities.

Pitino said Wednesday he was at Louisville "as long as they will have me" and ... that figures to be as long as he keeps winning.

Yet he's drunk in a restaurant having sex with a woman he just met while his assistant listens in? He's giving her money in a secret meeting at another assistant's place after she tells him she's pregnant with his baby and plans to get an abortion?

Say what you will about Bobby Knight, but this wouldn't happen on his watch. He might throw a few chairs in a restaurant, but he wouldn't be having sex on top of one.

Vladimir Putin enjoys Russian nature like a real man

Life imitates The Onion.
I kid you not, this headline is directly from Pravda.

Also featured, Two Russian Nuclear Submarines Make USA Shake With Fear