Tomorrow Morning Early, Get Ready, Be Ready.

At about 7:30 am, CST, in my morning, the newest Uncle Joe story will be published and posted right here on the Home page.

I am about to start the very last review and make the final edits. This is it. The anticipation is mounting.

Who will you meet tomorrow? What will they be doing? Where will they be at?

As you know, with Uncle Joe, anything can happen to most anyone in almost any setting.

Don’t miss being right here at the start of a new Uncle Joe adventure.

See you in the morning,

Grandpa Jim

Friday morning, I read “Uncle Joe and the Eyes Out of the Dark” to my granddaughter’s 2nd grade class. I shiver and laugh thinking about the story. It’s not easy to find a big animal like that one. If you’re wondering “What is he talking about?” this is a good time to click on “Uncle Joe Stories,” page down and click “Uncle Joe and the Eyes Out of the Dark” and start reading.

The second grade class was well behaved and attentive. Thank you all and a special thanks to their very excellent teacher. “Uncle Joe and the Eyes Out of the Dark” is always here for the kids to read and share with their family and friends.

A new Uncle Joe story is in the works. The plan is to post the new story next Monday morning, October 1st, at 9:00 am CST. I still have some work to do, but the signs are good. You may be surprised where you find Uncle Joe in this story.

Thanks for stopping by and keep reading,

Grandpa Jim

The gray wolf is the only remaining wild ancestor of the dog.

About the overall size of a German Shepherd, the gray wolf has a larger head, narrower chest, longer legs, straighter tail and bigger paws. It’s fur can be a mottled gray with browns, reds and blacks. That’s what a gray wolf looks like.

Wait! I just saw one last week.

I was driving to an early meeting. It was dark, about 5:30 am, no other cars on the road, in the middle of the City of Dallas. I drove down a hill and stopped at the stop sign at Turtle Creek, which is a flowing urban stream with landscaped vegetation connected to the Trinity River Basin only about 2 miles away. I looked up and this large long-legged dog-like animal ambled across the intersection right in front of me, only about 50 feet away. Head slightly down, it looked over, but did not rush its steps. The glance struck me as intelligent. I remember thinking that’s a smart animal. I turned my bright headlamps on and watched as the creature disappeared into the bushes by the water. I thought that was a tall coyote, a really tall coyote.

That was no coyote. I just looked at a picture of a gray wolf on the web. What I encountered was a wolf, a gray wolf looking very comfortable in the groomed confines of Dallas, Texas.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced that the gray wolf population has recovered to the extent that the wolf has been removed from the protections of the federal Endangered Species Act. In 1973, the gray wolf was listed as endangered because at that time only a few hundred were left in the lower 48 states. 300 years of trapping and hunting had nearly exterminated the gray wolf. Congress said enough and put in place the protections of the Endangered Species Act to prevent the extinction of the species. Today, there are an estimated 6,000 wolves in the contiguous United States and 7,700 to 11,200 in Alaska. The wolf populations have been deemed to be “recovered” and, as such, are no longer covered by the Act. Without the federal protections, the individual states can now decide what happens to the gray wolf.

On October 1st, Wyoming will join the growing list of states to legalize wolf hunting. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is still exercising some oversight. That agency has required Montana, Idaho and Wyoming to maintain 450 adults and 45 breeding pairs. The last statistics show 1,774 adults and 109 pairs in those western states. Surprising observers, Montana’s wolf population actually rose 15 percent after last year’s hunting season – if the numbers can be trusted. This season, Montana has decided to allow unlimited hunting between September 1st and February 28th and trapping for the fist time in a very long time.

In summary, the gray wolf is no longer endangered – it is now in danger. In many states, it is already not safe to be an individual wolf or wolf pair, and it will soon be even more difficult and dangerous for the species to maintain its existence. The gray wolf is said to be an apex predator, with only lions, tigers and humans posing a serious threat. If I were a gray wolf, I’d stop worrying about the lions and tigers. We are now again its greatest threat.

It was scary seeing that wolf walk across the road. In my car, I stayed put because I was protected in a cage of metal. If I had been walking, which I do very close by, I would have turned and walked quickly away in the other direction. They are wild animals and should be afforded the respect and distance wild animals deserve. One almost in my backyard may indicate a healthy and growing wolf population, but it reminds of an acronym, NIMBY, which means “not in my backyard,” please.

It is said that the gray wolf is the most researched of the animals, and the one about whom more books have been written than any other. The close kinship of the wolf to the dog may cause us to regard it with a certain guarded fascination and even fondness. In writings and thoughts, we may wish and even feel a closeness to the wolf and its ways.

But, alas, it is still a wolf and not a pet, and for that difference, it must indeed be wary.

Best seen in frame and read in word, not caught in view across the way.

Gray wolf your steps to watch, tread warily, warily tread indeed.

And If you would, with us and you, go there.

Please go, gray wolf, with care,

Grandpa Jim

About 9 am last Sunday morning, September 23rd, Mei Xiang honked in distress.

Mei Xiang is a female giant panda who lives at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C. She is 14 years old and she weighs about 216 pounds (100 kilograms). Less than 7 full days before on Sunday night, September 16th, around 10:30 pm, Mei Xiang gave birth to a baby panda cub weighing just 4 ounces (113 grams). Though tiny in size, the little one was surprisingly loud of voice, emitting a high-pitched squeal as it cradled in different positions in its mother’s arms.

A week later, hearing Mei Xiang’s distress call, zoo keepers rushed to help. Nothing could be done, the small panda had stopped breathing and could not be revived. One visitor to the zoo had referred to the baby panda as “a little piece of hope.” And so the little one was, and many mourn the passing.

The giant panda is itself endangered as a species. In the wild, they remain in a few small pockets of bamboo forest in remote mountainous regions near Chengdu, China. They eat the bamboo, and they eat a bunch of bamboo. A munching adults eats 12 hours a day, plucking about 28 pounds of bamboo before drifting off to sleep and dreams of more bamboo in the morning. Only about 1,000 to 2,000 pandas remain in their wild homelands. Zoos around the world offer lodging to about 100 more. In their zoo homes, cubs are few and many do not live long. A newborn is pink, with its eyes closed and no teeth showing. At birth, it is very small, only about the size of a butter stick. The babes need a lot of care. In about a month, the distinctive black and white pattern of the fur and the emerging personality show through. Mei Xiang’s baby never had a chance to show us what she would look like and who she would be.

Mei Xiang has started eating again. She slept Sunday night cradling a small plastic toy. Mei Xiang’s other child, a boy named Tai Shan, is 7-years old. He lives in China. Mom is still young. Pandas can live into their mid-30’s. Mei Xiang and her partner Tian Tian could have another cub. The world is waiting. Let’s hope.

May hope lift your spirit and help us look forward to tomorrow,

Grandpa Jim

Try this recipe to surprise the Texans or anyone else in your life.

You need about 3 and ½ pounds of chicken legs and thighs with the bone in and the skin on the pieces. You can use chicken wings, especially if you are making an appetizer. This will serve 4-6 people, depending on their eating style – if some don’t eat chicken or are vegetarians, it will go much further and you can invite some more friends over. We put Cajun rice on one side with another side of fresh green beans blanched and tossed with water chestnuts and mushrooms sautéed in olive oil with Italian spices.

Please note at this point you are preparing a meal of Texas Czech Cajun Vietnamese Chicken, Cajun Rice and Italian Green Beans. It may be better not to tell your guests this until after you’ve plated the food. That way if they leave screaming with their hands in the air at the sight of all those spices, you will have at least enjoyed their company through the appetizers and catching-up chit-chat before the meal.

Back to the main dish — the secret is the marinade.

In a nice big mixing-type bowl, put in the following 7 ingredients:

½ cup of soy sauce

(It’s that dark liquid in the bottle with the red cap and the Asian character on the front. It tastes salty and you’ve probably used it on Chinese food and rice. These parenthetical comments are optional and can be ignored by real cooks.)

2 tablespoons fish sauce

(If your guests are Texans, definitely do not tell them about this ingredient until after they’ve eaten. I will tell you all this, but shhhh, the only ingredients in fish sauce are pressed black anchovies and sea salt. It’s really quite good – in moderation down here in the southwest, of course. This is only ½ the recommended amount from the original recipe. This “halving” is the “Czech” part of this recipe, because most Texas Czechs have never heard of “fish sauce,” wouldn’t believe you if you told ‘em and would certainly grab your hand and cut back if they saw you pouring — bless their fun-loving polka-dancing hearts. My fish sauce says “Made in Vietnam” on the label, and it’s the real thing.)

2 tablespoon Asian sesame oil

(I used an “Unrefined for Medium Heat Toasted Sesame Oil.” I have no idea what this is, but it smells good and is oily.)

2 tablespoon brown sugar or granulated sugar

(I know this! It’s under the counter. I used brown sugar.)

4 teaspoons five-spice powder

(You can find this one in a regular grocery store in the spice section, if you look hard. I had to go to the specialty grocers for the fish sauce and sesame oil. The label on this one says 5-spice powder is a mixture of cinnamon, fennel, cloves, star anise and white pepper. It smells a lot like Christmas. Oh, for those cooks like me, you can unscrew or pry off the shaker top so you can get the teaspoon measuring thing into the bottle – much easier than trying to shake the powder into that little teaspoon thingie.)

1 teaspoon salt

(I used sea salt because, at this point, I was beginning to feel somewhat international and culinary.)

Texas Cajun hot sauce

(I added 3-4 shakes of Tabasco sauce, and I call this the Texas Cajun part of the recipe because there was no hot sauce in the original version and because Tabasco from Avery Island, Louisiana is right at home in Texas, which is part Cajun anyway.)

Now, mix up the soy sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, sugar, 5-spice powder, salt and hot sauce. It will look kind of thick and oily with little bits of powder floating and sticking to the sides of the bowl, but that’s okay – I hoped.

Next, stir into the bowl and the mixture the following 2 ingredients, which you remembered to buy, right, because you took a copy of this recipe to the store with you? If you forgot, go buy ‘em. The rest can wait. When you get back, stir in these two:

2 tablespoon finely chopped garlic

(What is “finely” and how to you chop garlic anyway? I found this fresh and already smashed and mashed at the specialty grocer. Worked just fine and I didn’t have to wash my fingers ten times, which I would have had to do if I had tried to chop that garlic myself.)

4 teaspoons finely chopped ginger

(Don’t try. I saw the ginger root and put it carefully back. They have jars of this. What a relief.)

That’s it, the marinade is ready.

Now, unwrap the chicken on the paper next to the bowl of marinade. Look at them both, and wonder what to do next to bring them together? This may have been the most challenging part of the recipe for me.

What I did was put the chicken in a big zip-lock plastic bag. Then I carefully poured the marinade into the bag and zipped it shut and tight. Then I turned the bag over and pressed some of the dark liquid into the chicken pieces. Then, I put the bag of marinating chicken into a Pyrex baking dish (so if it leaked, it wouldn’t get out and make a mess). Next, I put the dish of bagged chicken into the refrigerator overnight and until the next afternoon. Every once in a while (not when I was sleeping, but the other times), I would pull the dish out of the fridge, set it on a counter, turn the bag over, give it a couple pats to distribute the marinade and carefully return it all to the cooling box.

The next afternoon for the evening dinner party, I preheated the oven to 375 degree Fahrenheit (about 200 Celsius), put aluminum foil on a baking sheet (for easier clean-up), placed the chicken pieces on the foiled pan, popped the chicken in the oven and cooked it all until Mary said the chicken was ready, which meant it was a rich crispy brown on the outside and fully done on the inside (she stuck a fork in and wiggled it to determine doneness), which was about 1 hour and 15 minutes for our oven, but it could be less or more for yours. (I found a “Mary” a helpful addition to the cooking phase of this recipe.)

Use hot pads, get it all on out of there and serve that Texas Czech Cajun Vietnamese Chicken as hot and fast as it can be put on the plates with the rice and green beans.

The rest is history. It was a success. The recipe has been requested, and this is what they’re getting. I can see you smiling.

I may not be Julia Child, but, owee, that Texas Czech Cajun Vietnamese Chicken sure tasted good.

Bon appétit,

Grandpa Jim

“M I S S I S S I P P I”

That’s how we learned to spell it in grade school. It was our biggest word.

It is the biggest river in North America, the Great American River, the Mississippi River. In the world, it’s #4 in length, behind the Amazon in South America, the Nile in Africa and the Yangtze in China.

“Roll on Mighty River” is a verse and image that flows and lives in the lines and pages of many a song, poem and book and in the memories of many of us.

Mark Twain couldn’t keep his mouth shut, and we are all the richer for that. He loved the river and the boats that plied its length. With Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, he sat on the bank with a hay straw in his mouth watching those big paddle-wheelers pass by and wishing someday he’d be on one. Mark Twain did just that. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, that young boy’s real name, became a master riverboat pilot, and he left those other boys on the bank to write about later. He was off on an adventure on the Ole Mississip. No time to write now. There was a sandbar to miss and a joke to tell. Great novels could wait when a Great River was calling.

When I was a very small boy, my Grandpa Harry, who bought and sold cows, would take me with him on his buying trips. There was this section of Highway 133, the Great River Road, going north outside the town of Potosi, Illinois. At that point, the road looped high and around a bluff with the river below. I would stretch up in my seat to stare wide-eyed out the window amazed and frightened to be at such a stunning elevation with the broad width of the Mighty River before me, and I would shiver and dream scared thoughts all the way to Grandma Sally’s house in a hidden valley upriver where her clan fished the river in every season for their livelihood. Those were the thoughts of a small boy. Years later, I laughed at how tame that high outlook was to a grown man, but when I reached the dwellings in that little fishing valley, I remembered the fun and excitement of summers near the river and watching the big fish from the day’s catch swimming in the large spring-fed concrete holding tank on the rocky hillside.

Dubuque, Iowa is just across the river and downstream. My mother grew up there, Grandpa Harry had a butcher shop there, and I went to college there. Dubuque is #10 on the list of the most populace cities down the length of the Mississippi River from its headwaters at Lake Itasca in Minnesota, where I stepped over the stream that is the Mighty River at its small start, to New Orleans and the delta reaching into the Gulf of Mexico. Surprisingly to me, because I always think of it as a bigger city, New Orleans is #4 on the list of big cities on the river, behind the Twin Cities of Minneapolis & St. Paul in Minnesota at #1, where my parents live now, followed by St. Louis and Memphis.

In 1814, Colonel Andrew Jackson, later to become President of the United States and know as “Old Hickory” for his salty and determined manner, stopped the British advance up the Mississippi River at the Battle of New Orleans. Johnny Horton wrote a catchy, if irreverent, cowboy tune about the battle — and I mean no disrespect to our British friends and readers. As the battle progresses and, with some unusual help from a somewhat distressed alligator, turns in favor of the frontiersman under Old Hickory, the tune draws to its end with these excited lines: “Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles, And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn’t go. They ran so fast that the hounds couldn’t catch ’em, Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.”

“M I S S I S S I P P I”

We spell it when we’re young, we step over and drive around it, we fish and float there, we write and read about it and its friends, we sing of its turns and fates, and we learn as we age that it may not be the biggest or longest, but for us that know and have felt its waters and its ways, it will always be home.

Enjoy yours wherever you may be,

Grandpa Jim

Texas is a long way across.

On a sunny spring day, we arrived in El Paso, which is about as far west as you can go in Texas. Dry and hot, El Paso sits in the middle of a desert with the sun shining almost every day. In the paper each morning was a “Sun Day” count, tallying the number of days since the last gray day, which are few indeed and far between.

“El Paso del Norte,” the Pass of the North, was what the first Spanish explorers, approaching from the south, called the cut formed by the Rio Grande River through the Franklin Mountains, the southernmost branch of the Rocky Mountains. It was an easy way to get through the hills, and it provided a welcome and refreshing respite from the desert heat for those weary travelers. Under the shade of a real tree, they could take off their boots and dangle their feet in the flowing waters of the Rio Grande.

Trees and green are prized in the environs of El Paso. Most front lawns are decorated with colored rocks and cactus. On the roofs, the air conditioners are “swamp coolers” blowing air through falling, evaporating water. In a desert with little humidity, a little cooled air was all we needed for conditioning.

Each morning, I’d drive from the east side of the Franklin Mountains through the Pass of the North on my way to downtown and work. On my right out the passenger window, I could see where the Rio Grande River marked the border with Mexico. Most mornings, the river was sand with no water showing, not the flowing, bubbling stream which was such a welcome site to those early Spanish adventurers. Dams and irrigation upstream have put the water to good use. Today, little flows to separate the modern-day cities of El Paso in the United States and Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. It would be an easy walk across, except for the fences.

To me, El Paso will always be a cowboy town.

Marty Robbins, the country and western singer, wrote a song about El Paso and cowboys that I still listen to as I drive through Texas. It is a sad song that starts out with these happy lines, “Out in the West Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl.” Then “a wild young cowboy came in, Wild as the West Texas wind.” “Wild as the West Texas wind’ are some of my favorite words because they are just like that. The two cowboys draw their guns in a real cowboy gun fight and when the smoke clears, “The handsome young stranger lay dead on the floor.” Our hero has broken the law, he  knows it and he rides for the “bad-lands of New Mexico,” but he can’t stay away. His love and his fate draw him back. “On the hill overlooking El Paso,” he prods his mount and rides down. The posse is waiting and this time the bullets find their mark. Somehow, our cowboy reaches the door of his “Mexican maiden,” where “cradled by two loving arms” he bids her “good-bye.”

On an early spring morning, I bid “good-bye” to El Paso and started to drive. Almost 800 miles later, I arrived in Houston and the start of a new life. The rich greens of Houston were a welcome change. Still, I missed the colors and tones of El Paso. There is a special beauty in that city in the desert and a shared warmth in those who live there. No place is without its troubles but some hold them well with a bright optimism that their sun days reflect.

“Out in the West Texas town of El Paso” is a song and a city that will always be in my heart.

May the sun find you today and lighten yours,

Grandpa Jim

Today is my 8-year old Granddaughter’s 8th Birthday!!!!!!!!

Congratulations. Loud Clapping. Hoots, Cries, Screams and Whistles. I Just Did A Back-Flip (on paper of course, but it counts). I did 8 back-flips. Stop, the words are getting tired and I’m winded. Wow and Double Wow. What a day.

We were climbing this mountain. It was about 3 months ago.

My granddaughter stopped, looked up the trail and asked, “Are you sure we want to climb this mountain, Grandpa?”

The rest of the family was far ahead of us. It was all up, with rocks, and it was getting hot. The scenery was beautiful, but the view can only carry you so far.

“Sure, let’s keep going,” I said.

Ten minutes later, I asked “Are you sure we want to climb this mountain?”

My granddaughter picked up a smallish rock, held it over her head and announced, “This rock will lead us to the top. Follow the rock.” With that, she marched off and up with grandpa in tow.

It worked.

We made it to the top!

Everyone was waiting with hugs and pictures and the extra water.

On the way down, my granddaughter stopped, looked me in the eye and asked “Would you like to be best friends?”

Talk about melting a grandpa’s heart. “Sure,” I replied.

“There are some requirements,” she said.

I knew there was a catch. “What are they?” I asked.

“First, what’s your favorite color?”

Not a fair question, even if I stick to the primary colors, that’s three possibities, blue, green and red. I like them all. So I have a 1 in 3 chance. This “best friend’ stuff was hard.

“Green,” I responded. My shirt was green.

“Right, that’s mine too. Good answer.”

Whew.

“Now, and this is important, are you flexible? Best friends have to be flexible.”

Good question. I knew she was smart. Now, I saw she was wise beyond her years. I secretly thanked her grandmothers for that inherited gift to their granddaughter.

“I can be,” I said with a smile, hoping the next requirement wasn’t, Okay, now do a back-flip.

“That’s it. We’re best friends.”

The rest of the way down we talked about things only best friends talk about. Sometimes, words aren’t big enough or there really aren’t words. We walked and talked and didn’t say a thing, because we didn’t need to. It’s that way with best friends.

I learned a lot that day — about myself, about how much I didn’t know and about how much I appreciated my Granddaughter.

Sometimes you have to follow a child with a rock in her hand up a mountain and down again to really see what’s all around you and how lucky you are.

Eight more back-flips!!!!!!!! See, I really am flexible, on paper, but it counts.

Thank you Granddaughter for 8 wonderful years.

Happy Birthday,

I love you,

Grandpa Jim

Iambic Pentameter.

What in the words is it?

At its most basic, iambic pentameter is our way of being and speaking. There is a flow and rhythm to our bodies and speech which caught the ear of the poet. Those rhymers of words saw the sounds and patterns, and they presented the model of our beats and speech in the iambic pentameter of their works that are so pleasing to hear and lift us above the more common verse of our daily lives.

“I don’t have time to speak in iambic pentameter,” the student shouts goodbye to his mom as he rushes out the door, “Verse will have to do today.” And it does, but in that everyday verse are the seeds of the iambic pentameter of the poets, because we ourselves are the more poetic verse.

In “Romeo and Juliet,” Shakespeare has Romeo say of his maid Juliet who is fairer than the moon,

“That thou her maid art far more fair than she”

that THOU / her MAID / art FAR / more FAIR / than SHE

da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM

Can you hear it? That’s iambic pentameter? Each “da DUM” is an unstressed syllable (da) followed by a stressed syllable (DUM), and each da DUM is called a foot or an “iamb.” When a line has five feet, the line is referred to as a “pentameter,” with “penta” meaning five and “meter” representing the measure or length of the line. A line of five iambs is a line of iambic pentameter.

da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM

Let’s use a line from John Keats’ “Autumn,”

“To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells”

to SWELL / the GOURD / and PLUMP / the HAZ / el SHELLS

da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM

Now, a question for you: What do the individual iambs, the da DUM’s, sound like? Your heart — the human heart beat is the “da DUM.” That’s the “iamb,” an unstressed beat followed by a stressed beat, a relaxation (filling) followed by a contraction (pumping). Open and close your fist. That’s how your heart muscle does its regular work. It is our most basic rhythm, the one we remember from our mother’s heart close to us, the sound that comforted us in our beginnings and the sound we took with us when we were born, along with a good loud cry, meaning in baby talk, “I am here!” “I am” for iambic, and “da DUM” for the sound of your heart.

Why five “da DUM’s” to the line? Shakespeare’s lines are five. Why five iambs or feet to his lines? I think he wrote in fives because we speak in fives. It’s about the length of a normal or regular sentence, about as long as we like to say and hear a good sound bite. I will defer to the bard. William Shakespeare may have known words better than anyone who’s ever lived and spoken them. His sounds sound about right to me and many others, and he chose the pentameter for the pattern of his iambs, his normal heart beats.

Of course, Shakespeare varied his sounds because people do their’s, and variations make for more ear fun. So a da DUM may be a DA dum, called an inversion because it reverses the order of the stress in the syllables. Another thing young William did was add an extra unstressed syllable, da DUM da, to the end of a line to add interest and an air of mystery,

“To be, or not to be, that is the question”

to BE / or Not / to BE / THAT is / the QUEST ion

da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | DA dum | da DUM da

So Hamlet speaks in the line of iambic pentameter that is perhaps the most memorable and quoted in all of Shakespeare. “That is” is the inversion (DA dum), and “the question” (da DUM da) has the extra unstressed syllable at the end which is perhaps that most mysterious question without a question mark in the history of literature.

There is rhyme and rhythm to our lives and our words. The poets understood this and shared with us what we already felt but did not know so we could hear the echoes of ourselves in their words.

Listen to the words, put a hand over your heart and remember who you are,

Grandpa Jim