A Story by Grandpa Jim

The Turkey was reading. More precisely, he’d Googled “turkey” on his iPad.

“I’m a large bird native to the forests of Mexico and North America,” he read aloud. He liked to read and talk on his perch. “Most people don’t even know I ‘perch.’ All they ever see is my frozen cousins in the grocery. Poor birds.” He scanned down the page with his beak. “So that’s where the name came from. The early settlers thought I was a guinea fowl from the country of Turkey. I’m not. I’m a completely separate and independent species. The cheek.” He cleared his snood, uttered an incensed gobble and read on. “They’re right about that one,” he cackled. “We’re older than these pesky homo sapiens. Over 20 million years and counting. All the way back to the Early Miocene.”

He lifted and shivered. Winter was approaching. More precisely, Thanksgiving was approaching. He shook his wattle at the thought.

“Squanto was behind it all. He and those Wampanoag committed that first fowl act of inviting his roasted ancestors to Thanksgiving in 1621.” A native American, he reconsidered the criticism. “It was the Presidents,” he huffed. “THEY declared a formal November Holiday. From Washington, to Lincoln, to Roosevelt, those in Washington conspired to set the table for a feast on the fourth Thursday in November.” He could understand corn, potatoes and pumpkins – even eels (slimy things), but his friends? He lifted and strutted on the branch before roosting back with a sigh. It had been a struggle ever since.

He’d escaped years ago. More precisely, he was a free turkey – perhaps the last.

“’Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.’” He kee-kee’d the lyrics into the damp woods. “’Nothin’, don’t mean nothin’ hon if it ain’t free, no no.’” He missed Janis Joplin and loved to listen to her on YouTube. In another life, he would have liked to play guitar in her band. Just to be her friend, not Bobby, just her friend, and help when she needed help. “’Hey, feelin’ good was good enough for me, mm-hmm.’” He sank a little lower on the branch. “I would have been her friend,” he whispered to the rain.

There would be no “Return of the Ape” movie for him and his kind. More precisely, their days were numbered, as they were each year.

The rain fell lightly across his feathers

It had been long since he’d had a true friend

His beak touched the iPad off

The games were fun and the media too

But there was more to life

He bowed his neck on the soggy branch

And hummed

“’And, feelin’ good was easy, Lord, when we sang the blues’”

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXV_QjenbDw[/embedyt]

Keith Urban is a very successful country music singer and songwriter. Keith was born October 26, 1967 in Whangarei, New Zealand. When he was 17, Keith lived with his parents in Caboolture, Queensland, Australia. His father owned a convenience store. One day, his dad placed an ad in the store window for a guitar teacher. The rest, we know, is musical history.

Thirty-five singles by Keith Urban have reached the US country music charts. Eighteen have gone #1. The young singer has three Grammy award singles.

On June 25, 2006, Keith Urban married American-born Australian actress Nicole Kidman. They have two daughters, Rose and Faith Margaret.

In June 2015, Keith released a new single to critical and fan-held acclaim. In part, the verses go: “I’m a 45 spinning on an old Victrola. . . . I’m Mark Twain on the Mississippi. . . . And I learned everything I need to know from John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16.”

John Cougar Mellencamp is a 64-year-old singer-songwriter. He is called a “roots rocker.” Mellencamp’s songs describe and document “the joys and struggles of ordinary people.” His rock ‘n roll “looks directly at the messiness of life as it’s actually lived.”

Cougar’s most successful hit single is “Jack & Dianne.” The song was released in 1982 and spent four weeks at #1. In its own words, the work is a “Little ditty about Jack and Dianne, Two American kids growin’ up in the heartland.” It is a sadly haunting piece, an aching after the lost days of small town youth, and a deep sigh for a past that echoes ever in your head. “Oh yeah, life goes on, Long after the thrill of livin’ is gone.” That refrain is its own lament to the fading glory of two young people lost in the heartland of their own souls.

Since 1837, John Deere has been tractors — rough engine growls in the cold morning and the endless checkerboard of plowed fields at day’s end. I grew up with the green and yellow of the leaping deer, the company’s mascot for the past 135 years. My Dad worked in their engine works, my relatives ran their equipment, and Uncle Joe favors the Deere on his lands. “Nothing Runs Like a Deere” is the proud slogan of the company and the pure country it serves.

The 1993 film “Pure Country” was not a particularly successful movie, but it was George Strait’s most successful country music album. A theatrical bombshell, it was nonetheless a musical blockbuster; and it contained the #1 song, “Heartland,” with these memorable lyrics: “Sing a song about the heartland . . . Where they still know wrong from right . . . Where simple people living side by side, Still wave to their neighbor when they’re drivin’ by.” The joys of the heartland were there for George Strait; and from his film and music, they continue there for us today.

Keith Urban saw the heartland in the music of his trade and in the equipment that works the land.

The heartland.

The heartland is the Bible Belt, and John 3:16 is the centerpiece of that book. “For God so loved the world” is the start and the heart of the verse. Those words remain to echo long after the thrill of life is gone. They are still running long after the Deere has stopped. They are the singer’s vision that follows the beat of the music and the throb of the land. They are the heartland.

The heartland.

John Cougar, John Deere and John 3:16.

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdu8M2val_w[/embedyt]

Oh, the weather outside is chilly

But the chili is so delightful

Let us Eat! Let us Eat! Let us Eat!

It’s that time of year. CHILI TIME!

The temperatures have dropped as the monsoons have approached. It’s wet and soggy, it’s soup time in Texas, and that means chili.

Long before now, the Spanish landed in Mexico and discovered the native peppers. “Chili” is the Aztec word for a chili pepper, and for an Aztec to fast was to abstain from salt and chilies. The variety of chilies is mystifying, but all chilies have two things in common: they are tasty and they are hot. A man who lost his taste buds to peppers invented the Scoville Scale to measure the degree of heat in a chili: Hmmm, better, hot, hotter, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE. The Spanish saw it, tasted it, liked it and invented the chili brick for their travels.

The first chili was a brick. You took dried beef, salt, suet (fat) and a generous portion of dried chilies (of your choice – the hotter the better, it may be a long trip). Next, you pounded the ingredients together into a pulverized mass of pepper and beef. Then, you shaped the mound into the form of a brick, set it out in the sun to dry, and waited to begin your journey.

The next expedition was to Texas. The bricks of Aztec chili were ready. History was about to be made.

But wait, let’s fast forward and go back to the future. We’ll circle around and come back to those Spanish travelers and their bricks, but first the grand unveiling.

* * *

It was 1893 and the Chicago Word’s Fair was in full swing. Let’s say the day is October 9, 1893, the day the fair set a record for outdoor event attendance: 751,026 people. You’re in the crowd. Someone points. There. Over there. In the food court. Do you see it? The “San Antonio Chili Stand.” (This is where Old Dave and Ciddy got the idea to introduce the world to the Texas hamburger at the St. Louis World’s Fair coming up in 1904 — see the blog post of August 28, 2012). San Antonio used the Chicago World’s Fair to introduce the  rest of us to Texas Chili. I mean the fair goers stood in long lines for a good hot bowl of Texas Red, and the planet has not been the same since.

The chili race was on. Everyone reached for the stove. Chili parlors opened everywhere. Why, over in Cincinnati, they put cinnamon in their chili and served it over spaghetti. The peoples of our globe could not contain themselves in the rush to make Tex-Mex the cuisine of choice and chili the king of the kitchen.

* * *

It was 1895. Back in Texas after the fair, rancher Lyman Davis of Corsicana was so excited he developed a new lean mean chili, named it after his pet wolf, and started selling pots and bricks of “Wolf Brand Chili” to local cafes and neighbors down the way.

The brick was back and the world loved it.

Why, just the other day, I spied a can of Wolf Brand Chili on Uncle Joe’s pantry shelf.

It’s really hard to argue with chili success.

* * *

Now, let’s return to those first Spanish expeditionaries to Texas.

They were tired and worn. It had been a long trek across the Chihuahuan desert. They’d forded the Rio Grande near the Big Bend and found shade and friendly folk in a place called Terlingua. The cook had big pots of water boiling over a couple of fires. Everyone was watching. Cookie threw bricks of that Aztec chili into each pot and started stirring. The locals smelled and smiled and got their own ideas. One group ran and picked armfuls of tomatoes. Another raced for beans. This one grabbed the local spices. Another reached for fresh meats hanging from the morning hunt.

They returned to their pots and threw in their offerings: beans here, tomatoes there, some extra meat for sure, and spices flying through the air. It was a competition. They laughed, stirred, sampled, shared, sat back and enjoyed a good hot bowl of Texas chili.

That was the first Terlingua Chili Cookoff, and the participants were all happy and relaxed winners that year. Tex-Mex chili was invented, discovered and had found its true place on the planet.

The world would have to wait until 1893, but Texas was right at home with the official dish of the State of Texas.

* * *

Visit the Terlingua Cookoff this year?

It’s down Big Bend way and that is a farther piece.

Dollars to donuts, you’re sure to find every Texas chili imaginable.

And a whole fine mess of the most friendliest folk,

Stirring up an adventure in every bite!!

Now, can you take the heat?

I bet you can.

Adio,

And Yippee,

Bring on the Brick!

It’s CHILI TIME IN TEXAS.

Grandpa Jim