Rowdy Taoists Downtown.

A rowdy Taoist tourist.

A few minutes after midnight, there's a pleasant ruckus coming up the street.  No sight is more cheerful than a group of chums, stumbling arm-in-arm, singing boisterous Taoist drinking songs.  They usually don't head home this early, so it's doubly nice that everyone on the block is still up, and can join in.

I saw it on Urquhart Street.

The Best Burley

"You can't go wrong with the best burley raised in lucky Kentucky."  This should be a slogan.  For what, I don't know.  It came to me while I was thinking about Prince Albert in a can, but I don't think the good prince restricts himself to bluegrass burley, or if he contracts with only the best suppliers between Lexington and Paducah.

Kentucky produces about 70% percent of the burley in the U.S. of A.  The next highest producer is its neighbor to the south, the one and only Tennessee.  The Volunteer State is responsible for contributing 20% of the total burley crop.  The remaining, roughly, ten percent is scattered among a handful of other states of more or less importance.

If none of this makes any sense to you:  I am writing pipe smoking stories.  'nuff said.

Balaenius Rex!

A salute to Tyler, TX

The imposing skyline of Tyler, TX

Tyler is a city with the profile of a busted kidney in the heart of Smith County, Texas.  Tylerites call their city the “Rose Capital of the Nation.”  Their claim is justified.

As the capitol of Smith County, Tyler serves as a hub for surrounding cities many people are familiar with.  These include:  Lindale, New Chapel Hill, Whitehouse, Edom, Bullard, and Chandler, and Brownsboro.  In contrast to the unpredictable East Texas climate, Tyler is as stable as the East Texas bedrock.  Just as tectonic plates lift mountains, Tyler’s reputation as a great place to live has increased the population from 83,650 to 96,900 in only ten years according to the latest, official U.S. Census Bureau statistics.  

Money doesn’t grow on trees in Tyler, but many businesses find that the same ground that grows roses is also fertile for other profitable pursuits.  Two thousand one hundred employees diligently work night and day to keep communities in four states outside Tyler’s borders well fed.  Walmart is the sixth largest employer.  If there is anything a Tylerite enjoys, it is a bargain.

Don’t believe for a minute that Tyler’s economy revolves solely around the fickle service industry.  Several heavy industries have located their operations in Tyler’s business-conducive atmosphere.  Among them are: the Tyler Candle Company, Tyler Products, and Greenberg’s Smoked Turkeys.  Good wages and plentiful opportunities abound in scenic Smith County, Texas, and Tyler is the center of it all.  

Interpretive signage along Tyler’s magnificent “Azalea Trail,” and at the Cotton Belt Railroad Depot Museum, will deepen your appreciation of Tyler’s rich and diverse history and culture.  If you follow an interstate highway, you are bound to hit Tyler.  Once you cross the outer loop of asphalt that surrounds the city, you will be sure to pass the inner loop, and so on.  

Turn on your radio as you drive through Tyler to enjoy the sounds of Hot 107.3 Jamz.  Tyler is a city large for its stature.  Tylerites enjoy urban contemporary music that is both old school and today’s R&B.  On the other end of the dial, 89.5 KVNE is the voice of encouragement to a large proportion of the community.  Big city sophistication rules the air in Tyler, Texas.  

Of the 204,655 lucky people call Smith County home, 96,900 are the luckiest of them all.  They live in Tyler, Texas, a natural beauty. 

Carriage Ride Through The French Quarter.

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.

“I need to have a car,” she says.

I ask why.

“I need to pick my granddaughter up from school” she says, “then I need to pick up my son from his school.  Then I need to pick up my daughter when she gets off work.  Then I need to take her to babysit her boyfriend’s children.  After that’s all done, I have to get here, to work.”

She is telling me this as we take a carriage ride through the French Quarter.  She is driving the mule, so she is in charge.  It was quite the tour.  We passed by the statue of Saint Joan of Arc.  I don't remember much else.

Balaenius Rex!

Copyright DC Comics, and probably the estate of Bob Kane.

I've had the opportunity to perform a similar feat twice in my life, before slipping out to the open sea.  I have always lived close to Long Island Sound, Narragansett Bay, or Boston Harbor.  Given the necessity that I may have to startle the populace where I live now, I wonder, should I cruise over Lake Pontchartrain, or circle over the sparsely populated marsh country of Plaquemines Parish?

The whole point of the artful getaway is being left alone until the excitement dies down.   Of course, any panic caused has always been unintentional.  I am just a man going about his business, much of the time.  If I am ever on assignment, it is a covert operation, and I pass unsuspecting pedestrians incognito, as I bivouac between Uptown and Downtown.

Should I have to launch a dirigible in the shape of a whale, I should find a suitable launching and landing pad.  I could inflate the whole apparatus with a couple of hand pumps, helped by the neighborhood schoolchildren, on North Johnson Street, but air patrol requires only one pilot.  He should be able to take flight by himself.  What if civics class is in session?

I've been scouting some sites in New Orleans East, and also a couple of empty lots in Chalmette.  I am negotiating with Tulane University to contract air rights over the university's natural history museum.  The staff is afraid that a flying whale may excite their specimens, and disrupt their experiments.  Since the museum's grounds are not open to the public, I think this abandoned WWII munitions station would be a good place to stow my gear.  The sight of a flying whale excites more than fish.  Evil-doers cower in a whale's shadow.