Read an Excerpt

Winship's Log

Texas Review Press

2/25/98

A DOG'S LIFE

We moved to Segovia for good in June, 1997, my First Mate and I, and the early weeks were taken up in finishing our new home. We're still doing that, really; but it was six weeks or so before the weekend guests began to come.

Then in September we did the first real Act of Formality, which was to go back to Houston for my 50th high school class reunion. The date was September 13, 1997, for the 50th reunion of the Class of 1947 of John H. Reagan Senior High School. We met at Ramada Plaza, Highway 290 and Pinemont, at six-thirty in the evening. Some were still there at midnight.

Seventy-eight have died of the class of 530, and you get a tug from each one when you read such a list, because the faces come to memory; a hundred twenty-four more are "missing"—but I'll bet they all know where they are and how they got there. Of the remaining three hundred or so, virtually everyone was there that night.

Billy Valentine came all the way from New Jersey. He had been a member of the Flying Valentinos Circus Aerial Troupe when he was a kid, and they wintered in Houston Heights then. As a matter of fact, I used to throw their afternoon paper for a time when I myself was a smaller kid, before I was in high school. We sat and reminisced at the reunion about almost beating the then-state champ Waco Tigers the first game of that last football season and finally losing 13-6 and of Angel (Billy: we called him Angel because he looked like a pro wrestler of the era named The Swedish Angel) going to sleep later that night in the hotel where we were staying, holding a half-eaten hamburger in his hand. He had played the whole game at right guard and was pooped.

We laughed about Mrs. Marshall Green calling the two of us to the front of the classroom in physics later that last spring and telling us—telling the whole class, really—that I was getting a D for the semester and Billy an F....

I told myself there goes valedictorian; a half-joke, but I really had been in the running to that point, as I remember, before I missed three pop- quizzes because I was absent on school business and didn't make them up. But Angel had a different scope on it. He couldn't think of anything to say, so he started tearing the paper cover off of his physics book and cramming it in his mouth. Memories. There were many that night.

But the get-together was great. Nobody looked real old and ugly, which was a surprise after fifty years and not what I expected. There was only one surprise: I had an easier time identifying the guys than the gals—irrespective of the hair-loss thing—and I wonder why that was.

No. There was one other surprise. They sold us a book for five dollars. A book about the class. It had everybody's updated name, address and phone number; the class group photograph; and a shot of the class Bulldog mascot picture that everyone had signed in 1947. It had one other thing. On page four, without fanfare, was a copy of Robert Fulghum's "All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten."

You know how this reads. The second paragraph goes, "These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some...." And so on.

All this for class graduates, mind you, people who chased the American dream—and from the looks of them, these were all people who found it—so why Fulghum's piece in a book dedicated to success and the successful? Is it saying the obvious: that we wasted our time, after all?

Could it be that this kindergarten piece, had it been available, would not have shown up had we had we had the reunion ten years ago? I mean, this '47 bunch was sophisticated and able.... Could it be that popularity of this page four in our class book answers something that's beginning to show up in our culture—the fact that maybe the rule of unexpected consequences, especially for those who try so hard and succeed so well, is beginning to show up here and there? What you gain on one front you seem to lose on another, so let's have another look at the basics? Something being felt now about the need to unlearn some things even?

I didn't have a chance to ask people about this at the party, but I've thought a lot about it since.

The other day our daughter-in-law, who teaches math at Klein High School in Houston, dropped another one on us. This one comes from way earlier than kindergarten, even, yet still seems to me to make sense. It is entitled, "Things We Can Learn From a Dog." See what you think.

"Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride. Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy. When loved ones come home, always run to greet them. When it is in your best interest, practice obedience. Let others know when they have invaded your territory. Take naps and stretch before rising. Run, romp and play daily. Eat with gusto and enthusiasm. Be loyal.

"Never pretend to be something you are not. If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it. When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle him or her gently. Thrive on attention and let people touch you. Avoid biting when a simple growl will do. On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree. When you are happy dance around and wag your entire body. No matter how often you are scolded, don't buy into the guilt thing and pout ... run right back and make friends. Delight in the simple joys of a long walk."

3/4/98

A SUDDEN CHANGE OF PLANS

At some time back in the seventies I bought a fur cap in Moscow that I immediately brought to the Texas Hill Country. For fifteen years it did double duty both here and there, as I was spending substantial time in both places. This is the story of that cap.

I guess the year was 1977, and the place was the Berioska shop in the Rossia Hotel. Berioska means birch tree, and that was the name of the shops set up under the Soviet system to bring in American dollars, British pounds, French francs, German marks, and so on. The locals could not go into those shops.

The Rossia had six thousand rooms, and, at that time, was the biggest hotel in the world. Maybe it still is. It covers an entire city block down by the river, and you can hold a track meet in any one of the halls, each of which connects at the corners in a square. What I was doing there in the first place was selling oil and gas equipment to the Soviets—all with the blessing of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Defusing the Cold War, we were, without knowing it. It took fifteen years, but it worked....

Anyway, it was cap time, so I went shopping. There's this thing about the weather over there: I think that's what is wrong with those people. Also, they have a theory that if your head is warm, then you are warm. Not a bad theory. Especially at forty below, with the wind blowing thirty miles an hour. Chill factor, anyone?

The cap I chose was gray—but not the white-and-black gray of the rabbit skins. This one was plush and puffy, with just a tinge of beige in it. Siberian squirrel, they called it. I paid my sixty bucks and walked out with it on. In Moscow in wintertime everybody has a fur cap.

I couldn't wait to get my cap home to the family place at Segovia, to really try it out deer hunting. One morning that first winter I went out with it at six a.m. and walked in the dark, straight into the teeth of a Texas norther. It was twenty degrees, and the wind was blowing twenty or thirty miles an hour straight at me. When this happens, you untie the ear flaps on top and bring them down and tie them again under your chin. I did this.

Within two hundred yards I had to stop again and untie the flaps. I was sweating profusely under the cap, and sweat was running down my face. Believe it or not. Dress like the animals, they say, and you will be warm.

But I learned very soon that my cap is alien to this region. Three things have happened which have taught me to wear it with care, when the weather really gets cold.

The first was a bobcat. I have lived here part of each year for sixty-five years, and to the point this happened, I had never seen a bobcat. Not one. Oh, I had seen where they had been seconds before: dying rabbits, flopping rabbits, limp rabbits, tracks; but never the elusive bobcat himself. I used to talk about it all the time: how can it be, in a country full of bobcats, never in a half-century to see one? But I had not been doing it right, you see. The trick is to buy a Russian cap and put it on.

One morning I was sitting on the ground against my east fence with the fur cap on my head and my deer rifle in my lap when the sun came up. It was the kind of cold that bites your fingertips—even through the gloves—and numbs your toes.

Out walked a bobcat, right in front of me. Twenty feet away. He sat and looked at me, maybe thirty pounds of cat. Pinkish gray and black-spotted. He cocked his head some, studying me. It seemed I could imagine the wheels turning in his head.

"You been talkin' about me," he was saying, "for years. Well, here I am, you idiot. What do you think?"

He cocked his head some more. Then he cocked it some more. It was almost upside down. Then he squared his head and hunkered down and was coming. Creeping. Stalking. At me!

It was the fur cap, of course. As soon as I realized this, I shifted the deer rifle so the business end of it covered the cat; he reconsidered his hunt and melted away back into the brush.

Another time the same thing happened at dusk, and this time I was near the house and the perpetrator was a great horned owl. They can do as much damage, as fast, as any bobcat, I clue you. Especially to eyes and ears.

I was on the west fence line after sundown this time, watching a deer- crossing point near the road, and this jobber flew to the top of the Kimble Electric power pole over my head. He was two feet high. It was getting dark. I had not seen any deer and was thinking about going in, anyway, when I happened to look up and see the owl. It was a good thing I did see him, because he was studying me intently. In fact he was coming, leaning now and then and flicking his wings absent-mindedly, very small, the way they do when considering a dive....

The cap, again. Again I could imagine the wheels turning in his head: "There's a rabbit, eatin' a man. I'll wait 'til he's through, then I'll git him."

No, sir. Not this time. I whipped the cap off and held it behind me while I got up and went to the house. In fact I backed out of sight of the owl. He sat there watching, wondering where his rabbit had gone.

But animals are one thing and man is another, and the acid test of the unsettling capacity of anybody's fur cap has to be a story involving humans. Sure enough, one morning during an arctic front my son Steve and I ran into such an episode at the Segovia Truck Stop Restaurant, where they do breakfast the way breakfast was meant to be done....

It was back during Cold War days. Steve and I were to meet for breakfast at the restaurant, and I got there first at eight a.m., wearing the cap.

I headed for our favorite corner table—the big round one. Sure enough, it was open. As soon as I walked into the room, I was aware that I was under surveillance by a seated trucker, his eyes glued to the fur cap. As I walked past him, very quickly other things made themselves known. This trucker was a big trucker. He was a big redneck trucker. The big redneck trucker did not like my Russian fur cap.

Also I was aware as I sat down that our big redneck trucker was going to have some sort of patriotic (I hesitate to use the word holy) compulsion to say something about my headpiece. I could see it in his eyes. His lips twitched, framing words. He looked at me, then at his table top. He looked back at me, then at his table top. Then he started to get up. I knew it was to come in my direction....

At this moment Steve walked through the door and headed for our table.

Imagine Stacy Keach coming your way, a Stacy Keach the size of Dan Blocker. Good-looking. Square jaw. Big mustache. Capable like you wouldn't believe: just name your category. Friendly-up-to-a-point. A holy light—a real holy light this time—having to do with western omelet, hashbrowns, biscuits and gravy, and lots of black coffee—shining in his eyes.

Our trucker never got to his feet. He suddenly became preoccupied with his hands folded in front of him on his table. He began to inspect them with care.

Breakfast on that cold morning was out-standing.

What we call a Texas norther some people in this country call the Alberta Clipper. Where my cap was born the term for the same thing is Siberian Express ... only they say it, "Sebeerski Po-yezd." However you say it, when it happens, a fur cap is nice to have. But take care where and how you wear the cap. It has been known to make the natives restless.

3/11/98

IN THE DOGHOUSE

Coming from Houston and living in Segovia keeps one ever cognizant of the space age that is upon us, for obvious reasons. Anyone from Houston has been in contact with NASA: all you have to do is drive on NASA Road 1 in Seabrook and you can look out your car window at the Saturn Five moon rocket they have lying there on the lawn as a display. A football field long and thirty-plus feet in diameter, it is a completely different animal than the "little" shuttle rockets we watch these days on television.

And for anyone with ties to Houston, the Segovia skies at night are a constant reminder of the ocean of space and its immensity, and of man and his tiny boat in it. I even have a hunter whose grown son brings his big reflecting telescope out here now and then. The telescope is as big as a hot water heater. It even looks like one ... and, in fact, we call it "the hot water heater." With it he can show us the rings of Saturn, the many moons of Jupiter, and also the spike marks on the Kimble Electric power pole behind our neighbor's house, a half-mile away on a hill.

So it was not at all surprising when the San Antonio Express News story this past week about water being found on the moon started me reminiscing about space stuff I have been in contact with in years past. It even reminded me of one of the more spectacular visits to the doghouse I have made in my career of marriage. Doghouse lurks, you know.

I guess it started when a boss I had in 1969 was invited to go to Cape Canaveral and watch Apollo astronauts leave for the moon. He went.

"You wouldn't believe the noise," he told me when he returned. "We were in a concrete bunker ten miles away from the launch pad. When they lifted off, the building shook and we couldn't talk to each other ... couldn't hear what anybody was saying. Ten miles away, and we were indoors. The noise was unbelievable."

I looked it up. The Saturn Five moon rocket is the world's loudest manmade sound: a hundred ninety-five decibels. This doesn't sound like a very big number until you consider that sound measurement in decibels is logarithmic; geometric progression instead of arithmetic.

Anyway, any vehicle that can shake a building and kill conversation ten miles away is noteworthy loud, I give you a clue.

Not having been invited to Florida at the time, we were nonetheless treated to superlatives on the television. I remember watching on our set in Houston. Thirty minutes after launch you could still see the rocket on the TV screen. They were tracking it for TV with a 48-inch camera they called the Big Schmidt as the astronauts attained escape velocity. Ain't science wonderful?

Then some hours later we were treated to state-of-the-art television programming as we watched the first two moonwalkers, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, romp on the surface of the moon. I was particularly intrigued by Aldrin, who bunny-hopped toward the camera and then away from it, demonstrating what a simple two-legged hop looks like in the lesser gravitational pull of the moon. Impressive. Lunar choreography, it was. Vintage Aldrin, you might say, as my First Mate and I were to have the unexpected opportunity to learn some years later....

It must have been about the spring of 1980 when my boss called me into his office one morning.

---

Excerpted from Winship's Log by Robert N. Winship. Copyright © 2014 Robert N. Winship. Excerpted by permission of Texas Review Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---