It has been suggested by readers and fans, that I ought to outline some kind of walking tour of Fredericksburg, Texas – the location where much of the Adelsverein Trilogy took place. Because the story encompassed those founding and early days of Fredericksburg, the lives of real… Read full post »

 Some few Christmases ago, when my daughter, known as Lance Corporal Blondie was still on active duty and stationed at Camp Pendleton,  and my personal economics allowed me to fly out to California to spend the holiday at Mom and Dads’ house, my daughter and youngest brother conceived… Read full post »

Butterflied rock Cornish game hens on a mound of stuffing

The main trouble that I have always had with the traditional turkey and all the side dishes - the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, bread stuffing of any ilk, the gravy and the cranberry relish, and the… Read full post »

A lady of certain years by the time she became moderately famous, Angelina Belle Peyton was born in the last years of the 18th century in Sumner County, Tennessee. For a decade or so Tennessee would be the far western frontier, but by the time she was… Read full post »

We do like our cars, and we dislike being without one for very long. When I wrote a long account of our mountain adventure in my Army buddy Marsh’s fire-sale priced heap, I was reminded me that many civilians would not be aware of that venerable military institution, the “base heap”… Read full post »

(The remains of the gun turret of the Arizona, taken from the memorial by me, in 1971)

Note: This is not of my own writing, but something I clipped from the L.A. Times around 1971 or 1972, and tucked into my paperback copy of Walter Lord’s… Read full post »

Map showing the 'northern colony' of Tejas, as Lopez de Santa Anna wished to see it.

Strange but true – General Lopez de Santa Anna’s invasion of Texas in 1836 was not to be the last time that a Mexican Army crossed the border into Texas in full… Read full post »

It's called Comanche Hill, or Comanche Lookout Hill. It's said to the be fourth-tallest hill in Bexar County. The Apache and Comanche came there often, in the days when San Antonio was a little huddle of adobe buildings in the distance, and the King's Road to Nacogdoches and the… Read full post »

Beautiful Downtown Austin, Texas, circa 1841

The Pig War was not actually an honest-to-pete real shooting war. But it did involve a pair of international powers; the Republic of Texas, and the constitutional monarchy of France. And thereby hangs the story of a neighborhood squabble between… Read full post »

For your seasonal enjoyment:  The food-court flash-mob, singing the Hallelujah Chorus. Avery nicely planned and executed stunt, which took place last month in a mall in Ontario, Canada.

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In the early 1990s, I did a tour in Korea;  a year at Yongsan Garrison, working at HQ-AFKN, barely a stone's throw from where my father had spent a couple of weeks at Camp Coiner in 1953. Camp Coiner was where new troops were processed for assignments in-country, and it was… Read full post »

(A reprise Thanksgiving post, with extra links and a picture of some of my fellow barracks rats, from November 1978)

Yes, we dressed up for Thanksgiving that year: kid on the left is Joey, whom we called the Italian Stallion, girl in green dress fell in love with another… Read full post »

(From Iowahawk, courtesy of The Bookworm Room)

Having witnessed one form of American rebellion flame up from small individual local protests into a political movement that is about as unstoppable as a wild-fire with a Santa Anna wind behind it, now I am wondering if I… Read full post »

All right then - for Procopius and for Boanerges, who love history; the first chapter of the book after the next book - which got to be so substantial that I broke it into two parts. This is the first chapter of the book after the next - which will be… Read full post »

So, coming down the home stretch on the next book – which originally had the working title of Gone to Texas, which the Daughter Unit didn’t much like because she found a couple of others, fiction and non-  with the same title. So, when released, it will be/… Read full post »

Color plate #1 - Cocoa fruit pudding and chocolate cream pie

Well, that’s not what it’s called, actually – the cookbook is a hundred-year old general cookbook, put out by Lowney’s – a turn of the last century chocolate manufacturer. The company does not seem t… Read full post »

Image lifted from an exploration of tasteless toppers, here.

Can’t stand the usual run of reality TV shows, but for some reason, this particular show hits the spot for me. Eh, maybe I am a snob, but it is one of life’s small pleasures, enjoying the sight of… Read full post »

(Don't have any liquid in your mouth while watching this ... look, I warned you, I'm not paying for any new keyboards.)

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 Daughter Unit at USMC Birthday Ball - some few years ago

In honor of this momentious day - a repost of the USMC's Rules for Gunfights:

The Daughter Unit is, as I have mentioned before, the absolute queen of yard sales, thrift stores and estate sales. She views each possible venue as a rich hunting ground – and regularly emerges triumphantly flaunting a high-quality and originally expensive item bought for a relative… Read full post »

Oh gosh – since Halloween was just two weekend ago, then it means that New Braunfels’ annual celebration of sausage and meat-onna-stick in every form imaginable and sudsy, tasty adult beverages roared into full swing immediatly following. Yes, it's Wurstfest!

Str… Read full post »

The Riverwalk - the pride of San Antonio. Which originally started as a flood-control measure. Talk about making making lemonade when all you have are lemons.

Riding high, at Halloween trick-or-treating in La Villita - the 'little village' - once a small settlement just under the… Read full post »