It was a very fitting send off today….BYU is leaving the Mountain West and today was their last conference game in The Pit and the Lobo’s kicked their butts out the door…Coming back from being down 13 points or so, the Lobo’s played as hard as I have ever seen them play. Jimmer played well, 32 points, but 2 or 3 of our guys kept him company all day long….It was a great game….The Lobo’s may not, and probably won’t, win the conference this year, but the rest of the teams in the conference better bring their A game or we will…. The Lobo’s have one senior this year, losing Gary, so look out for the Lobo’s for the next few years. But back to this year,  what a game…If you didn’t see it you  missed a good’un..Lobo’s win, 86 – 77…THE PIT was jumping…..GO LOBO”S…..

Folks down in southern New Mexico are now having to protect their nuts… Oh, well, lets make that “protect their nut crops”…. Seems as though people are coming onto pecan owners property and stealing pecans. One fellow said he had a 5 gallon pail of pecans on his porch and some dude came up on his porch and stole it. The city trees have been used for years for poor folks and charity and now folks are helping themselves to them. When pecans are selling in the shell for 1.75 per pound or so I reckon some would be pecan harvesters are harvesting wherever the crop is located, no matter who the property owner is. I should not be surprised as I remember some folks would help themselves to corn crops all over the south…Matter of fact, I harvested a few ripe watermelons from various patches myself. Only difference, the pecan thieves are taking all they can get their hands on. The Roswell police Captain said if he caught any of them they would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law…..Folks arrested just  might become nut cases, huh?

My Dad has been gone several years now, but I still miss him a lot….I guess I always will….He lived up into his nineties and was still very quick witted and agile for some one that age…You know up until about age 82 or so, I think he could have whipped my behind any day should he had chosen to do so..Thank goodness he never did…At age 82, he was out cutting weeds on a ditch bank and had a heat stroke which started a down hill slide for him that included him losing his drivers license at a later date. That seemed to take a lot out of him, though he kept going strong for a long time. But he learned to live with each new episode of life, graciously and with humor…I loved to hear him laugh…Back in the late forties we went to the little store in Coal Fire to get some items…He asked for an item and they were out of it, he asked for another item and it was on order, another item and it had been back ordered and did not come in…Other than the owner, I was the only other person in the store..Dad turned and looked at me and said, “You know, this would be a damn good place to have a store.” There are many other like sayings I could lay on you, but I won’t do it today…..I loved my Dad and today I honor him on this Jan. 25th, his birthday…..Some of you folks around Reform, AL might remember him also…He was about 5’4″ tall, solid muscle and a lot of  heart…a whole lot of that was heart……

I asked number 2 son the other day if he had visited the Bisti Badlands, “no, he did not think so,” he said. Well, I want him to take a day trip with me to see this area of New Mexico. I don’t think there is any advertising about them and I don’t know why not. It is a beautiful area of eroded land, eons of wind and rain eating at the sandstone hills of that area. You can google the Bisti and view some of the pictures and also get directions to this area of New Mexico.  From Albuquerque, we will probably journey west on I-40 to Thoreau, turning north on NM 371 and along about mile marker 70 or 71 turn right on a county road and I hope you will see some signs or info directing you toward the Bisti. I have been there but it has been years and you need better info than I am equiped to give you at this time. But you will enjoy seeing these formations. I have borrowed a photo  from one of the web sites, www.americansouthwest.net/new_mexico/bisti/photographs and you can go to that site and view several nice photos of that area. This is another good area for you to visit should you come out our way. No. 2 son and I will try and get a few shots of our own whenever we can get over that way…I will keep you posted…Pete

This Ruben Navarrette, Jr. fellow really gets under my skin…He is continually trying to stir up trouble….Republicans do not like immigrants he says….Totally wrong, we love immigrants….We dislike law breakers, Mr. Navarrette, repeat, law breakers…..What’s more, you know that and ignore that fact….Stirring the hatred is all you are doing….I am a republican…I do not hate Latinos….I have many, many friends who are of Mexican descent…Most of them seem to like me. Please learn that there is a difference between an immigrant and a illegal alien, big difference…In my opinion, you appear the bigot, sir…America welcomes legal immigrants…..Always have, always will….

Going through the community of Claunch, NM kind’a reminds me of Coal Fire, AL…But Coal Fire is huge compared to going through Claunch. In Claunch, a couple of buildings grace the community, one of them a church, and  two or three houses and one wonders where they get enough people to keep the church going. Every ten or fifteen miles are so you see a ranch house around Claunch and you see houses all around Coal Fire…There is a church in Coal Fire, but the only thing is, there are many churches….and many houses within a few miles…In Claunch, no so much and I think one denomination fits all or at least they make it fit. But they get together in the community center, play music, games and have fun…Takes one back to the good old days when the tv was not so important..Folks still get out and visit….When one of the ranchers is having a round up, folks come from miles around,  branding and dehorning and giving shots, etc , all of them doing turn about to help each other out….I like the life style down ’round Claunch…It’s like the good old days still exist in some parts of the world….I’m gonna have to go down there again soon..It kind of takes you back,  back to a slower, easy living pace….Most days they can have a beer and drive home and never pass or meet one single car or pick up on those gravel roads…probably send a herd of antelope scurrying along though…Just so you’ll know, the main road through Claunch is paved…a good road too…..

There was a picture floating around the Internet today, circa 1953 or 1954….High School, no less…..Yes, I was in it along with a bunch of long lost buddies…Buddies that I am sure have forgotten me, or best shot, a very faded memory of an old boy who used to stalk the halls around Pickens County High, Reform, AL….The heck of it is, I recognized most of the guys in that picture, but I wonder how many of them I would know if we passed on the streets today…And how many of them would know me?….This was Sadie Hawkins Day festivities…I was Marrying Sam.. I remember that…But it took this picture to remind me of that fact…A cousin of mine was in the loop of e-mails the picture was passed to and he passed it on to me….Thanks, cousin, I enjoyed looking at the picture. I have it downloaded and stored away…I have enlarged it up a couple of times and seems like every time I do that, I remember something else…It was good to see all the gang and remember them from way back when…..

Well, have you noticed the absence of any football talk lately.Been busy around here…I sure do hate the Mountain West is Breaking up and at the same time rebuilding.We did good this year, huh?…TCU beat Wisconsin, hooray for the Mountain West beating a solid Big Ten team….Great going, and we wish you well TCU in the Big East….Air Force, Mountain West beat Georgia Tech, good job….San Diego State, Mountain West beat Navy, (by the way, ex=Lobo head coach Rocky Long is taking over next year for Brady Hoke who is moving to Michigan),….BYU, Mountain West beat C-USA school UTEP, and BYU is going independent next year….Our lone  Mountain West loss was Utah (going to PAC 10)  to an incoming Mountain West team, presently WAC leader Boise State. So, as a conference we were 4 – 1 in the bowl games…..I think that is pretty good playing…How about them Tigers of Auburn….There’s the SEC and then there is everybody else…Newton is declaring for the NFL…Nick Fairley may declare for the NFL today….Those two will be hard to replace….Mississippi State might be the powerhouse in the SEC next year, what do you think?….Well, it could happen….

Several years ago while visiting Alabama I lashed out at an individual…Within seconds, I regretted those spoken words…No amount of apologize will ever change those words and I wish that I could….So, at this site, I try to control the words that I write and also, to some extent, words that others write. I try to let most comments stand as sent in by the commentors….Hurtful words, cuss words and inappropriate words will not make the site. The shooting in Tucson was sad. I have family there. Thankfully, they were not in attendance of that meeting, but they could have been..I have no knowledge of the shooter’s intentions, reasons or mental condition, but something was bad wrong with the guy….My heartfelt sympathy goes out to those families involved in the shooting and I will not publish anything that remotely resembles sympathy for the shooter…..I just cannot do that….

Censoring Twain = Revising History, Albuquerque Journal, Jan. 10, 2011….Mr. Pitts has a very good article in todays Journal discussing the censorship of Mark Twain and changing the term n—–  to slave….He points out that to change Twain would be in effect be changing history….Twain used the langague of the day in his writings.  . A lot of us would like to say this history did not happen, rewrite it and go on. We could, but that would be more wrong, a lot more wrong, than allowing history to stand as written. The only way to right a wrong is to understand that a wrong happened and keep it from happening again….We know now not to use certain words because they are inappropate and other words can be used that are less sensitive…..Mr. Pitts covers this subject matter very well and I hope you will read the article, but I want to share a couple of paragraphs of that article with you on this web site,….”Huck Finn is a funny, subversive story about a runaway white boy who comes to locate the humanity in a runaway black man and, in the process, vindicates his own. It has always, until now, been regarded as a timeless tale…..But that was before America became an intellectual backwater that would deem it necessary to censor its most celebrated author”….I agree. I hope Mr. Pitts or some respected writer will one day report on “God” being censored….stricken from  reference in our schools and government, etc…..