Trees are afire along the Katy trail.

This happens each year. The first frost occurs — it was 29 degrees Fahrenheit (1.67 degrees Celsius) one morning last week. That daybreak the bugs ran shivering for cover, and the potted plants drooped unsmiling waiting for the morning. Those plants knew they’d soon be moved to the garage to wait out the months of cold.

This morning, in the bright first rays of day, the tops of the trees exploded in torches of shimmering color.

Even on the ground, I could hear the talking up there in the branches.

The Saps were leaving.

Sap 1: “I’m out of here.” Sap 2: “Why?” Sap 1: “Don’t be such a sap, the temperature has gone south; if we stick around, we’ll be frozen into horehound cough drops.” Sap 2: “Oh, right, I’m running kinda’ slow this morning.” Sap 1: “Well, you’d better get flowing — these leaves are headin’ for the ground and they’ll take you with ‘em if you don’t start snapping.” Sap 2: “Where are you going?” Sap1: “Me and the family have a real nice place just down there, under the roots of the tree – we’re snowbirds when it comes to cold weather. You ought to come along. A change of scene will do you good.” Sap 2: “Thanks, I think I will.” Sap 1: “Well, start headin’ over there to the main trunk. It will be congested with all the traffic on the way down. We’ll catch up. I’ve got to help the Missus with the packing. You know what they say: ‘It’s the early sap that catches the winter nap.’”

With the Saps leaving, the grounds are already covered with dropped and drying leaves.

While overhead, the bright foliage still clinging to the branches has turned bright reds, yellows and oranges with the exercise and puffing of one last fling in the sun.

It’s not just the leaves, the seed pods are on their way off too. They hang dry and shriveled. Soon, a gust of wind will break them free, and they will fly and scatter their seeds to wait and sprout with the April rains.

Until then, we walk down the tunnel of the Katy,

Past the bare silent sentinels of approaching cold,

The last red roses guarding the gates of winter,

Climb the rough-hewn steps to the soon cave,

Past Francis brooding in thought over his fallen flock,

And Armor, the Armadillo, heading to hibernate in his dug den beneath the root home of the vacationing Saps.

Pull out the warm clothes and put an extra blanket on the bed.

The leaves they are a changin’ and the snows will soon be here to whiten our days.

Grandpa Jim

I discovered pizza in 1964 in Cedar Falls, Iowa. In this old house down the street from the college, the proprietors served round thin flat hot bread with tomato sauce, cheese and Italian sausage. I remember the sausage because it was not sliced from a link like you’d find on sandwiches and other dishes. The sausages on top were irregular hand-pinched hot-crisped dollops that tasted to a Midwestern teenager like heaven from the oven.

I never forgot that taste.

I grew, I traveled and I found other pizzas, but those pizzas did not taste the same. That first sausage pie was the best ever, and I missed it soooo.

As a student in Italy, I found the home of pizza. Well, actually, the origins of the dish go back to Greece where the locals covered their bread (pitta) with oils, herbs and cheese. It wasn’t really pizza yet, but the Romans liked the word pitta and got to thinking. What if you took that dough and pinched it down (pinsere, to press, in Latin) into a flat bread (a pittsa – starting to sound like pizza) and baked that pittsa with oil and cheese on top in an over? Presto, Change-oh!!! Those Italians had invented pizza, and the folks down the coast in Naples did it best. Their Neapolitan flatbread pizza with tomato sauce (red), basil (green) and mozzarella cheese (white) looked so like the Italian flag that Queen Margherita named it her favorite. You can still find that red, green and white Pizza Margherita in just about any good pizza joint in the world.

I looked and I did. I found the Queen’s pizza and many other varieties. I became something of a pizza junkie. But, I never found that first pizza. Where was it? I dreamed at night of that original thin delicious sausage pie that had introduced me to the pizza world. The taste of that pizza pie remained forever locked in my taste buds waiting to be reawakened and released.

Louis Canelakes moved from Waukegan, Illinois to work in the restaurants of Fort Worth and Dallas. By all accounts, Louie was a very likeable fellow who made friends easily. Yesterday’s paper described him as something of a streetwise Greek philosopher who treated princes and paupers alike, could talk with anyone about anything, and made strangers feel like regulars.

After serving in other people’s restaurants, Louie decided to open his own. In 1985, he found what looks like and old gas station on the east side of Dallas, painted it white and put up a small sign with his name.

For the new establishment, Louie wanted something special. He wanted to serve pizza, but not just any pizza. He wanted to serve Waukegan-style pizza with box-cut slices. With his brother, Louie did just that. The restaurant was a success, and the pizza was rated Best in Dallas.

I did not know any of this when I moved to Dallas in 2006. I was just hungry for pizza. One evening a friend suggested we try a place she’d read about in the paper, a hang-out for newspaper reporters, a local joint with a reputation for good food.

Sure, why not?

When we walked through the door, I wondered at the framed hand-drawn caricatures covering the walls. The interior was dark and small. Friendly faces talked at the bar and around at the tables. The tables and chairs were definitely not fancy, mostly old plastic lawn furniture. When we sat down, the smiling waitress propped up a table leg with a folded paper napkin to keep the top from rocking. We ordered pizza, and we waited. Nothing seemed to move fast. I watched other pies delivered on round metal plates. I could see the pizza was definitely a thin crust with an odd cut, in little squares. I noticed no one was leaving any food on their plates. We talked and sipped and waited. From the kitchen, I spied our waitress approaching, a pan over her head. With a flourish, she swung the pizza down to the middle of our table and whisked away.

We looked together.

I carefully extracted a square from the steaming pie and slid the piece onto the small white plate. It was hot. I waited. I lifted the square, blowing on it, opened my mouth and bit into the crust and cheese and sauce and the small mounded morsel of crisped sausage. . . .

I never met Louie. He died Sunday. I know one thing. He makes the best pizza in the world. With that first bite, I found the pizza of my dreams. I’d come home, and I haven’t stopped coming back since.

I think the best people in the world are those who spend their lives making others happy.

Thank you, Louis Canelakes.

Grandpa Jim

In the United States, Thanksgiving Day this year will be officially celebrated on Thursday, November 28, 2013.

Years ago, the Pilgrims reached the coast of the present-day state of Massachusetts. After about 65 days of mostly rough weather at sea, land was sighted on November 9, 1620. Despite the misery they had endured on the long voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, the passengers stopped and recited together a prayer of thanksgiving to have reached the shores of the Americas.

Of the102 passengers who had joined in that voyage from persecution to freedom, two died enroute and one, the child Oceanus, was born. From their sailing vessel, the Mayflower, 101 colonists disembarked in the cold and wet of November, 1620 to land and step on Plymouth Rock.

By the end of that first winter in March of 1621, only 47 of the Pilgrim band remained alive.

Spring presented little prospect for thanksgiving. Very little food remained. The surviving settlers had seed and drive, but the new arrivals possessed little knowledge of their surroundings and no experience with the planting and raising of the native corn. The Wampanoag did. This was their home. They watched, they waited and they approached. The native peoples helped the newcomers to plant the crops and hunt and gather from the lands of the Massachusetts.

The Wampanoag had little cause for their generosity. The tribe had been decimated by European diseases, and many of their members had been sold into slavery by European traders. Yet, without expectation of return, they extended the strength of their hands, the knowledge in their heads and the kindness of their hearts. This land was their home. They knew its ways, and the natives showed the new ones how to make the land theirs.

A harvest was made, and it was a harvest of plenty.

No one knows the date of that first thanksgiving on the shores of the Americas. I like to think it was on the anniversary of the Pilgrim’s arrival, and unlike the cold and wet day in 1620, this day in November of 1621 was a warm sunny day, a day of Indian summer along the New England coast.

They all gathered: the Pilgrims, the crew who were now colony members and the Wampanoag. Each brought what they could to that first celebration. The bounty was spread on the tables and on blankets across the ground. It was more than enough, much more.

Family, friends and neighbors spent that day together sharing what they had in common, smiling, watching the children run and play, tasting each other’s special dishes, trading stories, exchanging keepsakes, napping in the warmth of the afternoon, waking, stretching, gathering up the empty dishes and full families, waving across to the departing groups, and in their various languages wishing each other well as they returned happily to their homes in the fading light thankful that from the turmoil and trials of the past year there could be such a simple day of Thanksgiving and hoping for another day to spend together the next year.

In this land of the United States, we will spend that day together soon on November 28^th. I think all the lands and all the peoples of this globe have their special days of Thanksgiving. All peoples have suffered, encountered generosity, and been rewarded with good harvests and new friends — perhaps not always bountiful harvests, but always true friends to help us on our ways. Perhaps it is these shared experiences and faithful companions, as much as our good fortunes, that cause us wherever we live and on whatever the date to stop and whisper “Thank you,” gather and hold our own special Day of Thanks.

May the bounty of the land and the warmth of friendship greet you on your Thanksgiving Day,

Grandpa Jim

Wikipedia defines a “kolache” as a “a type of pastry that holds a dollop of fruit rimmed by a fluffy pillow of supple dough.” Well said, but the real thing is so much better than the definition.

My wife’s great grandparents arrived in Central Texas from the Czech Republic around 1890. They came seeking new farmlands and they arrived with old recipes. In the small Czech village of Verovice in the province of Moravia, they had baked kolaches as a special treat for weddings. In the new country, the times were hard and the work long. They needed a treat to brighten the days and encourage their labors between weddings. So, on the weekends, the families would bake kolaches on Saturday and share them with relatives and friends on Sunday. They’d sit together, kolaches in hand, smile, laugh and remember the old with the new. Like any good memory, the kolache caught on, became a part of the expanding communities, was tasted and accepted enthusiastically by the neighbors, and earned a special place in the hearts and on the tables of the citizens of the growing State of Texas.

Except . . . she took the recipe with her!

When my wife’s mother died in September, she left without having written down the family kolache recipe. The seven daughters and four sons were in a dismay. Something must be done. It is generally recognized that one cannot go long in the State of Texas without the bite of a good kolache. Something had to be done and done quickly.

A couple of Saturdays ago, the First Annual Kolache Recipe Recreation and General Family Bakeoff was commenced at an early hour in the Building next to the House at the old family farm.

The newly devised secret recipes were written down and arranged next to the ingredients being mixed.

Uncle Joe and Brother Charles had purchased a new commercial oven and a heavy duty restaurant mixer to assist the efforts of the family throngs rushing into the Building to help and observe.

The first batch was concocted and carefully placed in the electronic mixer.

Removed, the precious dough was hand-kneaded under the close supervision of seasoned veterans.

To rise, the rounded globules rested in assorted pans between the heat of the oven and the warmth of the stove to allow the dough to double and triple in size.

Fillings were patiently prepared from the peaches of Grandma’s old tree next to the house and the ground poppy seeds you see here from the home-grown poppies she had hand harvested herself – all with plenty of butter to go in, on and over everything (butter is the great comfort and sure secret of the friendly family kolache).

The risen dough is pinched into balls that are flattened. Fingers push a depression into the middle of each. Fillings are spooned into the shallow cavities, and the pastry sheets of prepared kolaches are lined on the tables to await their turn . . .

. . . to slide into the oven for the bake and watch and wait.

Extracted burning hot with just a touch of brown, more butter is sladled onto the tops and around the sides to relax the the fruit fillings and glisten the rims of the pillowed dough.

Transferred to cool on paper towels, the tables are massed with baked kolaches by the 100’s!!!! On that one day, the army of relatives baked some 600 kolaches, around 50 dozens with all manners of fillings, toppings, stuffings and cinnamon swirls.

In the midst of that plenty, the great joy is not the many, but the single warm beautiful kolache in hand waiting for the first welcome bite home.

Yes, the consensus was, every kolache from every kolache recipe was the best ever and must be made, tried and eaten again the coming year at the Second Annual Kolache Recipe Recreation and General Family Bakeoff.

Thank you, Mom, Grandma, Great Grandmother — you are the best.

We couldn’t have done it without you.

See you all, next year,

Grandpa Jim

In honor of the night of October 31st, Uncle Joe Stories is posting a Halloween story on the Home page.

“Uncle Joe and All Hallows’ Eve” is a dandy of a story with a visitor who is sure to surprise, and a scare or two lurking near the dark waters of the stock tank. What is the mark on the newborn calf’s forehead, and who is Boomer related to? I just reread the tale and can assure you the answers to these questions and more can be discovered by those with the courage to read on.

Have a safe and fun Halloween and keep an eye out for. . . .

Grandpa Jim

A pumpkin is a squash.

Pumpkins are round and smooth and orange. Orange is my favorite color. And, pumpkins have these little ridge lines or dents running from top-to-bottom over their thick smooth skin. And, they have this kinda’ brown handle on the top, where they were connected to the vine, but don’t try to pick them up by the handle, because once the pumpkin is harvested that handle dries, and it’s no longer strong enough to support the pumpkin (if it every was), and that brown stem will probably snap if you try to lift it there, and you will have to catch that pumpkin before it hits the floor and smashes open and all the seeds spill out.

WHEW! That was close.

But, don’t worry, if it breaks open you can make pumpkin pie filling from the pulp inside the skin. Pumpkin pie is my favorite pie. And, you can invite me over to eat the pie while we make Jack-o’-lanterns out of some of the other pumpkins in the patch. Places full of harvested pumpkins for sale are call pumpkin patches, and that is where you see a lotta’ pumpkins.

Every pumpkin is different, and they all make excellent Jack-o’-lanterns. You could say that once you’ve seen one pumpkin, you’ve seen them all, but every Jack-o’-lantern is different, and you never see two Jack-o’-lanterns exactly alike, because every person has his or her own way of pumpkin carving, and you just can’t carve two pumpkins the same, even if you really try.

My Dad was an excellent pumpkin carver.

I still remember the process: slicing out the top hat with the handle, scooping out the icky insides with a big spoon, drawing a face on the outside (it’s hard to draw over the dents), carefully cutting the face pieces (curves were the hardest), popping out the eyes, nose, mouth and ears (we made ears, and we stuck our hands inside and popped all the pieces out from the inside), making a little place in the inside bottom of the pumpkin for the candle, putting the candle in, trying to figure out how to light the candle, lighting the candle, turning out the lights and screaming.

The face was so cool. It really wasn’t scary. It was so cool.

We’d take the Jack-o’-lantern (pumpkin no longer) outside and carefully place him near the front door. Then, we’d run to the sidewalk, look back, and see how it looked from this angle and then that direction. Placement and appearance are very important to pumpkin carvers turned Jack-o’-lantern designers. We’d smile and laugh and think in our kid heads that a carved pumpkin is fun, a good friend and a scary guard. Maybe it wasn’t much of a guard, more of a magnet actually, but it certainly was a friend to warm the cold of a fallish evening as we ran and played and waited for that special night that all kids know will be coming soon after they see that first carved and glowing Jack-o’-lantern.

Those are good memories.

Soon, I will be walking the streets with my grandchildren, who I may not recognize because of their costumes. We will come to a house in the dark, look up and see him, the Jack-o’-lantern. We’ll all shiver and hug and say, “You go first, I’m not going up there.” Then, a brave child will carefully slide up the walk, ring the bell, step back as the door creaks open, and yell timidly “Trick or Treat,” with one eye on the candy in the outstretched hand and the other on that scary old Jack-o’-lantern with the big flickering smile. As the others see it’s safe and run shouting for their loot, I’ll walk up slowly behind them, reach out my hand, bend down and pat Jack on the head.

It’s always good to see an old friend . . . again.

Happy Pumpkin,

Grandpa Jim

The word “reprise” derives from a French word that means to take back, as in taxes owed on an estate (“Give that to me, right now!”), or to do over or repeat, as in the replaying of a musical interlude at a later place in the same work (“I remember that tune!”). In parts, this blog post is being taken back from last year and repeated here. It is a reprise. But, will it be of the same size and shape as it appeared last, will it be dressed in the same clothing, and why would a scary figure jump out and scare the audience on the night of Halloween?

The word “Halloween” is a form of “All Hallows’ Eve.” To “hallow” is an old English verb meaning to make holy or to “sanctify.” When used as a plural noun, “hallows” refers to all those who have passed from this life and are now holy persons or “saints” in the next world. So, All Hallows’ Day is All Saints’ Day, and the evening before that day is All Hallows’ Eve or Halloween.

If the saints are on All Saints’ Day, November 1^st, who is on All Hallows’ Eve, October 31^st, the night before the saints? Who is being reprised, taken back and repeated, and why do they jump out in the dark of the night and try to scare us?

All Saints’ Day was originally introduced in the year 609 AD by Pope Boniface IV. At that time, it was celebrated on May 13^th. In 835 AD, Pope Gregory IV moved the feast day, the festival, to November 1^st. This change in dates was apparently made so that All Saints’ Day would coincide with the Celtic festival of Samhain.

Samhain (which can be pronounced Sah–win or Sah-ween), November 1^st, is one of the most important days in the Celtic calendar. Samhain is half-way between the autumnal equinox (the first day of our fall when the day and night are of equal length) and the winter solstice (the shortest day and longest night of winter). On Samhain, November 1^st, the Celts of northern Europe celebrated the start of their New Year. Samhain marked the transition from the warm months of the sun to the cold months of the dark.

In ancient times in the Northern Hemisphere, the cold months were the sad months because without the heating systems of today, many of the elderly, the sick and the young could not survive the days of snow and ice. Sadly, they passed on. On Samhain, the cold time of year began, and the Celts remembered those who were no longer with them. As such, Samhain coincided well with All Saints’ Day. Both feasts remembered those who had passed to the next life.

In Celtic thought, October 31^st, the night before their New Year, was a “thin time.” Those early people saw it as a night when the boundaries that surrounded the worlds of the living and the dead somehow mysteriously moved closer together, touched and thinned. In those thin places on that night, it was thought one might see and even move through to the other side, and those in the other place might do the same. Perhaps a part of this view was a wish to remember and see again loved ones now in that other land.

To prepare for the night, children were sent house-to-house to request wood and food for a party. This procession of children knocking on hut doors may be the origin of the trick-or-treating we find at our front doors. With the wood, bonfires were lit, brightening the night and inviting friends and family to gather round. In the light of the dancing flames, the food was passed and the treats shared. Neighbors laughed, feasted and enjoyed memories as they waited for the dawning of the New Year.

As the flames dwindled and the night darkened, the storytelling began. Stories were the movies of the early ones. On that night, remembering those passed from view into the next land, the picture show became spooky and scary. This was a night when strange things might happen and strange shapes appear. Suddenly, a costumed figure jumped out from the smoke, sounded an eerie and frightening SCReeEEECH, and sent everyone screaming and covering their eyes.

Now, that was a good story and a good effect.

Well, the next year folks arrived around the bonfire wearing their own costumes. Perhaps, they wanted to be part of the show. Maybe, they wore the costumes because it made the night feel friendly, safe and welcoming to be dressed like the actors that were going to scare them. Or, maybe, they were dressed like the ones they had lost, the ones they wished were there to share the New Year.

We’ll never know for sure when the trick-or-treating began and the costumes started. Mystery surrounds the night of All Hallows’ Eve. The eve of Samhain is a time when forms can and do appear different from who they might otherwise be. I think there will always be that which is not fully known or understood of this night.

One thing is clear and should be remembered: When you answer the door on Halloween and hear the children shouting “Trick or Treat,” act scared (Ohhhh, I’m shivering), compliment the costumes (My, you are a nice looking frog — I’ve never seen such a furry . . . tree?) and hand over the candy (Take all you want and see you next year).

Have a safe and fun All Hallows’ Eve.

And, be ready for a . . .

Reprise surprise.

Boo!

Grandpa Jim.

The most popular tourist site in Texas is an old Spanish mission in San Antonio. It was never much to look at, and it’s not much of a site today. A sprawling complex with a few buildings and a chapel. The chapel has been restored, and the grounds are meticulously maintained, but the place is still not much to look at.

On March 6, 1836, 189 Texans died there.

In the early morning hours of that day, March 6th, President General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna of the centralist government of Mexico ordered 1800 of his men to assault the Alamo Mission. Above his command station, a red flag flew. The defenders had been declared “pirates.” As such, no quarter could be given. It would be a fight to the death.

Because Alamo defenders were related to soldiers under his command, Santa Anna did excuse those relatives in the Mexican forces from joining in the attack. It was a little mercy.

The remaining Mexican soldiers and officers followed their orders. They attacked the mission from one side and were repulsed. Another attack was launched from the other side, and that was thrown back. Finally, a third attack of the combined forces was made. Overwhelming the defenders with their greater numbers, the Mexican soldiers breached the outlying walls. Uniformed attackers poured into the Mission compound, firing their rifles and stabbing with their bayonets.

Some weeks earlier, the Commanding Officer of the defenders, William B Travis, had couriered an urgent message “To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World.” Perhaps the most famous part of that letter is this: “I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his honor & that of his country. VICTORY OR DEATH.”

Recognizing that attack was imminent and his forces could not prevail, on March 5th Colonel Travis gathered the defenders and explained their circumstances. The position was hopeless. The Colonel gave each the chance to escape or stay. At that time, Travis did not know that three days earlier, on March 2nd, the delegates to the Texas Convention in Washington on the Brazos had voted and declared independence from Mexico. The commander and the volunteers facing him were fighting for a new country, the Republic of Texas. Although they did not know Texas was a sovereign nation, those men knew who they were. They were Texans. The vast majority were from other states and other countries. A share were of Spanish descent. Whatever their origins, they were one and all Texans. And, they were fighting for their homes, their families and freedom. Each made his own decision. They stayed.

There is little glory in the aftermath of battle. The bodies are collected and buried . . . or burned. Many fell that chilly winter day in the new State of Texas. All the defenders lay on the cold ground. They were joined by many young Mexican soldiers who knew little of why they had fought. Brave men died that day – on both sides.

On April 21st, at the Battle of San Jacinto near present-day Houston, General Sam Houston and his army took General Santa Anna and his army by surprise and defeated the invaders in 18 short minutes. No red flag flew that day. When the captured General presented himself before Sam Houston, Santa Anna asked that the Texans “be generous to the vanquished.” General Houston was. The captured General and his troops were allowed to return to their homes. In granting mercy, Houston did reply to the Mexican Commander, “You should have remembered that at the Alamo.”

“Remember the Alamo!” is a cry that echoes still over the old Spanish mission in San Antonio. The buildings themselves may not be much to look at, even with the tender care they receive by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, but they do not go unnoticed. The blood of brave men stained the soil there. The visitors remember and they come. They come because men did not leave that mission. They stayed, they fought, and they died for what they believed.

Remember the Alamo.

Grandpa Jim