Purple Martins

The other day I put up our martin houses.  I have two poles with twelve plastic "gourds" on each pole.  I know that, when we return from South Texas in early March, its time to get the martin houses up, even if I haven't seen any of the birds.  Sure enough, I got the gourds on the first house and before I could get the second one up, there were martins sitting on the first one!

Were they just lurking around somewhere out of sight, waiting for me to get their houses put up?

Martins are part of the swallow family and among that family's largest members.  They are migratory birds and spend their winters in South America, returning to our area in the spring.  Interestingly, they depend almost entirely on humans for their nesting places, using only gourds or houses put up by us.  They do have several enemies, including starlings, sparrows, snakes and hawks, and I have fought them all.

I used to have the familiar hexagonal houses with round entrance holes in them.  The starlings loved these things and I couldn't keep them out.  The gourds I use now are equipped with starling resistant entrance holes, or SREH.  These holes are slightly smaller than a semi-circle and the dimensions are critical to keep starlings out and let martins in.  The change to these gourds did solve the starling problem.

Sparrows are not so easy.  They, like starlings, are prone to evict martins and take over their houses.  About the only way to keep them in check is to clean out their nests on a regular basis.  The use of gourds does make it harder for snakes and hawks to attack them but I have seen it happen.  In fact, one night I caught a snake which had climbed the steel pole and gotten his head into the opening of one of the gourds.

For decades we were told that the martin was a mosquito eater and, because of that, we should do all we can to keep them around.  That story has been almost completely debunked now - martins do eat flying insects but mosquitoes are a small part of their diet.  In spite of that fact, the martin is a very gregarious creature and I love to watch them fly, sing, and interact with each other.  I think I'll continue to be a martin "landlord".

Drag Racing

I'm one of those people who had been to a few drag races as a spectator but who had never been involved with the sport.  In 2000, however, at the urging of my neighbor, Jess, and my son, Dan, we finally decided to try it.  Some people would think 54 years old is a little old to start something like this but I didn't.  After all, Warren Johnson, a professional drag racer, was way older than me!

We had a little '63 Nova street car and we put a mildly warmed up small block engine in it, a powerglide tranny behind that, and a pair of 9" slicks and 4.56 gears in the rear.  We didn't have any idea what we had but we went out and tried it.  I was convinced that it would run in the high 11's; low 13's was more like it!  After a torque converter change, it did get down into the mid-12's on a consistent basis.  For you non-racer's, that number is the elapsed time in seconds to run a quarter mile distance.

My first real racing, after several weeks of test and tune, was at the Spring Nationals in Tulsa.  Believe it or not, I won my first two rounds in the No E (no electronics) class and began to believe that I could go all the way.  On the third round, I pulled up to stage and the flagman waved me off, saying I was leaking fluid.  As I got out of the car and headed up there to have a gentlemanly conversation with him, I glanced back at the car and noticed the stream of antifreeze pouring out.  End of conversation!  After tearing the engine down, we discovered porosity in a head which had to be welded and machined.

The Nova had been running hot so we used this as justification to put it on alcohol.  As my engine building buddy said later, "Wait a minute – the engine was running hot so we changed the fuel we are burning instead of addressing the cooling problems?"  Well, why not?

We found out that the learning curve on getting enough alcohol to the carburetor is much steeper than we had imagined.  We spent several weeks, and several hundred dollars, on fuel logs, regulators, pumps, AN fittings and other miscellaneous stuff getting the car to run right.  Meanwhile the season was dwindling away and all I could do was go to test and tune!

Finally, we had the old Nova back to about as quick as it had been on gas.  We then decided that we needed bigger jets.  If a little fuel is good, then more is better, right?  In went the new jets and back to test and tune we went.  In the meantime I should tell you that my son and I had been trading off the driving because we both wanted to drive the car.  Obviously, my reaction times were much better than his because age and wisdom outdoes youth and exuberance any time!  Anyway, the night we went back to test and tune with the bigger jets, my 25 year old daughter, Rachel, who is a mother herself also wanted to drive.

That night, I made two passes, my son made two, and my daughter made five.  Her first one was a 17-something at about 80 miles per hour.  Her last one was a 13.32 at 102 mph.  She was beginning to catch on!  In the meantime, none of the passes any of us made was within a half a second of our old times!  Apparently, the new bigger jets just killed the engine!

Although by now, I had invested considerably more money in drag racing than I had promised my wife I would, I decided to play my hole card.  Telling her that the '63 was unsafe because it didn't have a cage and only had lap belts, I began to shop for a better car.  A friend of mine, Kent the engine builder, gave me a lead on a '71 Nova "roller" which was for sale and I went to look at it.  I knew before I even got out of the truck that I was going to buy this car.  In keeping with the story that I had told Louise, I told the guy who had the car that I didn't really want to go faster; that I was just looking for a safer ride.  He looked me in the eye and said, "You can lie to your wife but don't lie to me!".

Anyway, I wrote him a check and carried the '71 home.  My son and I pulled the motor and tranny out of the '63 and began the task of putting it into the '71.  In the meantime, I had ordered new, smaller jets for the carb.  Remember, the big ones had killed the performance of the engine.  So we were hooking up the throttle linkage in the new car and I told Dan to watch the butterflies to make sure everything worked as I pushed the throttle.  He hollered, "Hey, Dad, the back two barrels aren't opening!"  To make a long story short, when I put the bigger jets in the carb, I had gotten the accelerator pump in a bind and the back two barrels were indeed locked up.  I don't know which feeling was stronger, the one of relief that the problem had been found or the one of stupidity that I had done such a boneheaded stunt! I told Dan that, if he had done something like that, I would have kicked his #@%*.

In spite of all of our trials and tribulations that year, we thoroughly enjoyed drag racing as a participant sport.  One of the neatest things is to meet new people and share experiences with them.  Sometimes I'm tempted..........

Total Hip Replacement

For the past year or two, I've noticed that my range of movement in my right leg was declining.  I began to think that I might have to wind up wearing the dreaded Velcro fastening shoes just to get them on!  Finally, in October of last year, I went to see the doctor.

After talking to me for a bit, he sent me down the hall for x-rays.  In a few minutes he came back in and told me that my right hip was completely shot and needed to be replaced.  I swear to you that that hip had never hurt until that moment - suddenly it started hurting!  He gave me a referral to a hip surgeon and I went to see that doctor on November 15.

The hip doctor confirmed that yes, my hip was completely worn out and needed to be replaced.  He did dwell at some length, however, on my weight and suggested that I should get some of it off before we did any surgery.  He made an appointment for me to see him again on January 2.

I guess I've taken these events as a kind of wake-up call.  I was able to lose twenty pounds between November and the January office visit.  I'm convinced that, had I not lost the weight, he would have not scheduled my surgery.  He did, however, and I'm supposed to get a new hip on March 26.

In the meantime, I'm now down 35 pounds and walking two miles every day.  Surprisingly, even the hip doesn't hurt as badly as it did at first.  I really feel that I'll be able to reach my goals this time!  I'll keep you posted.

August: Osage Moon

As Louise will tell you, I rarely go to a movie.  I couldn't tell you why, I just don't.  Its probably for the same reasons that I seldom watch television.  However, the other day we decided to go to the movies.

We were trapped in the motor home and the weather was horrible for south Texas (still a lot better than at home).  We had heard some PR about August: Osage County and since it was filmed in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, about seventy miles from our house, we decided to go see it.

It has been about a week now since we went and I still can't tell you what I think about it!  The profanity was terrible but I guess thats pretty much normal for Hollywood today.  The movie did not need it to develop the characters and plot however.

Without giving the movie away, I'll try to tell you a bit about it.  Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, two amazing actresses, developed their roles perfectly.  I don't know a thing about movie making but I suppose that the director, John Wells, had a great deal to do with this as well.  Several other actors and actresses played outstanding roles as well.  One of my favorites was Misty Upham, who played the role of Johnna, the Indian girl who was hired as a housekeeper.

The entire movie was a dark one; if you are looking for a "feel good" show which will make you happy, don't go to this one.

Of interest to Louise and me was the location shooting in Pawhuska.  Many of the buildings were recognizable, including the unique triangular shaped multi-story building in downtown.  Being a car guy, I kept an eye out for unusual vehicles - the two most memorable were a Ferrari and an old F250 Ford pickup.

I usually measure movies by how often I get up to go to the restroom (perhaps out of boredom).  In this case, I stayed in my seat.

The Pierce Family

As I have mentioned earlier, my biological father was Roy Moses Pierce, Jr. He left my mother when I was less than a year old and I never saw him again until 1999, some 53 years later. Roy was called “Junior” by his family. Junior was also the father of my brother, Gary but never saw him. Mom and Dad (Tommy) never kept this a secret from us but we didn't talk about it a lot either.

When Junior was a very young man, he had a severe accident which impaired him for the rest of his life. He was working on the railroad back east somewhere (I believe I was told in Massachusetts) and was critically injured. He was not expected to live but somehow did and his family brought him back to the Cromwell area, where he had been raised. Mom and he got married in late 1945, a couple of years after his accident. For the rest of his life, his family used the accident as the reason for his challenges.

Junior had several brothers and a sister, most of whom lived in the Bakersfield area where their parents had moved in the 1940's. As a child and young man, I never had any contact with any of them except for once when I was about 18. I was working at Ted Norwood's service station in Mannford when, one day, Ted came back to where I was working and told me that Pete and Bessie Barton were out on the drive and wanted to talk to me. Pete and Bessie were long time Mannford residents but I hardly knew them and found it strange that they would want to talk with me. When I went out to their car, Pete and Bessie were in the front seat and an unknown couple were in the back. We had an awkward two minute “how do you do?” conversation and I went back to work. That evening I was relating the meeting to my mother and she told me that the woman in the back seat was my aunt, Ninah Melton, Junior's sister. She had known that the Bartons knew Ninah and her husband somehow.

Many years later (35, in fact), I was talking to Mom one day and she told me that Ninah had contacted her and asked if Gary and I would have any interest in seeing any of the Pierce family. Since I had just retired and was somewhat curious anyway, I called Ninah and talked to her. Eventually, Louise and I decided to make a trip to California to see the Pierce's. I talked about this with Gary and he had absolutely no desire to meet any of them. In fact, I think he was somewhat upset with me that I would consider seeing them. I was concerned about hurting Dad's feelings; he was my true father even though he had adopted Gary and me.

Eventually, Louise and I did go to Bakersfield and meet the Pierces. Ninah, being the only girl in the family, was kind of the “hub” of the group. Junior had had a stroke and lived with another brother, Lloyd, in Bakersfield. Lloyd was a widower and enjoyed Junior's company, I think. The whole time we spent there was kind of surreal; they didn't quite know how to treat me and I was probably a bit of an ass to them, wanting to remain aloof.

While I was there, I did learn about one of my uncles, Larry Stanley Pierce. He had served in the Army in Viet Nam and had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously. He had thrown himself on a grenade to save his platoon. He was one of the first Viet Nam era recipients of the Medal and his family was flown to Washington, DC, to have the Medal presented by President Johnson. Larry was married and left two small children behind. I have never met his wife or children. Today, both a street and a post office in Taft, California are named after him.

I was surprised to learn that Junior had never remarried and had no other children. I had really expected to find that I had some brothers and sisters. Because of the stroke he had suffered, he had a speech impairment and was extremely self conscious about it. After a couple of days, Louise and I returned back home. About a year later, Rachel, my daughter, indicated that she would like to meet the Pierce family as well so she and I flew out to Bakersfield. Again, it was a somewhat awkward meeting. Dan, my son, never had any interest in meeting them, not because he harbored any ill will; he just was not interested. I wonder today what Junior thought about us showing up. I don't know whether he was truly glad to see us or whether the whole deal was Ninah's idea and he wished we had just not shown up.

Ninah died in 2002 and Junior in 2003. We had not stayed in contact and I didn't know until sometime later that they had both passed.

In about 2000, I became interested in genealogy and did a lot of work on the Alexander and Mooneyham families. My mother's mother was a Mooneyham. I didn't spend a lot of time on the Pierce's (since I didn't know much about them) or on the Nash's, my mother's father's family.

In about 2010, however, I began to do some study on the Pierce family and quickly found a cousin, Sharon Pierce, who was also into genealogy. Sharon lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina, with her son Christian, and her father, Coy. I had talked to Coy on the phone back in 1999 but had not gotten any feel for what kind of person he was.

In October, 2013, Louise and I were going to meet Dan and Dorinda in Atlanta where they lived and spend a long weekend in the mountains of North Carolina. I decided that, since we were already in the state, we should go on over to Fayetteville and meet Sharon and Coy. I called her and made the arrangements. When we met them, we were immediately comfortable and at ease with them. I supposed I had gotten over my desire to distance myself from the Pierce's.

Coy had been a career Army guy and the reason they lived in Fayetteville was its proximity to Fort Benning where he had been stationed for a long time. He moved in with Sharon in about 2012 to help her with her house and provide some company. Sharon is a sales person in the food service industry and has done that kind of work for many years. Louise and I enjoyed ourselves and were glad that we had made the decision to go visit Coy and Sharon.

If I had a “do over”, what would I change? Probably nothing except that I would have been more responsive on those two trips to California. Roy Pierce, Jr. could never replace Tommy Alexander as my father but I still would like to have known a little bit more about him.

Sons of the American Revolution

If you've read any of my posts, you know that I have been interested in genealogy for a long time.  Its a wonderful hobby and its addictive; the more you learn the more you want to find out more.

One of the many aspects of genealogy is organizations which are based on a person's lineage.  The most widely known of these groups is the Daughters of the American Revolution, or DAR.  It shouldn't have surprised me that there is also a group called the Sons of the American Revolution, or SAR.  There are also organizations dedicated to lineage from the Mayflower, from the Civil War, and who knows how many others.

As I worked backward in my family tree, I found a couple of ancestors who had fought in the American Revolution.  If you think about it, this isn't really remarkable since the number of potential ancestors grows exponentially as you travel back in time.  My fourth great grandfather, Andrew Rish, was the person I used to prove my lineage for the SAR.  In a typical family tree, you would expect to have 32 fourth great grandparents, 64 fifth great grandparents, and 128 sixth great grandparents.  These three generations, having a total potential of 224 ancestors, are the pool that you might have to work from, since we are about six to eight generations removed from the Revolutionary War.

To put this into perspective, I realized that Andrew Rish was the great-grandfather of my great-grandmother, Nancy Huffman.  Although I never met her (she died in 1940, six years before I was born), I do have many pictures of her and feel as though I knew her.  By looking at my family tree in this manner, it tended to personalize my ancestors.  This picture of her with a calf was taken in 1935.

A bit about Andrew Rish - He was born in South Carolina in 1756, twenty years before the Declaration of Independence was signed by our forefathers.  He fought in the war as a part of the South Carolina militia, somewhat akin to our National Guard today.  He died in 1818 at the age of 61, still living in South Carolina.  Many of his descendants wound up in Mississippi where they became members of the DAR and SAR through his participation in the Revolution.  I don't know the exact number of DAR and SAR members who used him as their patriot ancestor but it is substantial.

It is an old adage that you never get finished with genealogy.  I'm now working on additional SAR lineage through the Pierce family and I'm about ready to submit it.  We are also working on Louise's DAR membership through her mother's side, an ancestor named Darby Shawhan.  He is an interesting study and might be the subject of a future blog.  Many of his descendants became famous whiskey makers.  Louise's application has been submitted and is waiting approval.

I should point out that both the DAR and SAR have extensive genealogy libraries and are more than happy to help you complete a membership application even if you are not into genealogy.  Both are great organizations and I'm looking forward to more activities with them.

The Carnival is Coming to Town

Every year, just as surely as the swallows return to Capistrano, the carnival comes to the vacant field next to our RV park in La Feria.  This morning there was no sign of them; this afternoon the lot is filled with trucks and rides which need to be set up.

This carnival winters a few miles south of La Feria and their first outing of the year is right here in town.  I suppose its kind of a "shakedown" trip for them where they can see what works and what needs to be fixed.  Another thing we have observed about this carnival is that it is almost always accompanied by rain.  This year promises to be no exception since the forecast calls for rain off and on for the rest of the week.

From our standpoint, there are not too many problems with them being there.  We have lost our "dog walk" for the week but there is plenty of room in the park.  They generate quite a bit of noise but it always seems to wind down about the time we go to bed.  One concern we do have is the possibility of theft or vandalism with all the kids being over there.  There is a gate between the park and the lot where the carnival is but park management keeps the gate locked for the week.  So far, we've never had any problems.

We have never talked to any of the people who work there but it would be interesting to find out how far and where they travel to.  I wonder if kids still wander off and join the carnival or circus.  Probably not!