I noticed it came from a Hill & Knowlton email address. Do you subscribe to their bulletins? Let's put a deadline to have a proposal together by Sunday, June 18, 2006 to discuss between us, and then let's make a list of people who could receive its first mailings. CASE is an interesting prospect, even if they are not willing to pay for irony. Why not send it to good old Johnny Engler? Please don't get me started on John ....
Right now, I'm sitting in a Starbucks in Denton, Texas. It's just a little south of Tioga, Texas, where Gene Autry got his start in life. A A fellow named Pat Boone came to perform in Denton at the University of North Texas, and he really liked his warm-up act, some fellow by name of Roy Orbison. Both men had studied at the University. Saw the loveliest woman arrive, a willowly, agile woman who bought a large coffee drink and completed her bible study at the table behind me.
Denton is south of Lake Ray Hubbard and north of Lake Lewisville, two lakes formed by impounding the Trinity River, a historical river that has to pass through the Fort Worth Dallas Metroplex before flowing down to Galveston and the gulf. To say it kindly, the Trinity River as it passes through FWD requires the millions of dollars in care that the Trinity River authority is raising.
Spent the morning kicking around Lake Texoma (I think it should be named Lake Oklaxas), one of the world's largest reservoirs, impounding the waters of the Red River, courtesy of the Army Corp of Engineers The water is fairly clear in its sand basin, and down in the depths lurk monster-size catfish and gar. Strangely enough, I found an Oklahoma town with three churches and a boat ramp, but I didn't see any other signs of a normal town, just the Powell Holiness Church, the Powell Church of God and the Texoma House of Prayer. I could see that a bushwhacker had cut back the lot of the House of Prayer recently, leaving uneven wild grass shoots and twig shards. You can see two of three of these churches marked on this Topographic map, which I think was drawn as Lake Texoma, dammed in 1943, filled up. The road going south from Powell doesn't go too far south of the House of Prayer anymore.
A lot of the land around Texoma is federal land, but not national park, so I noticed sports squatters dwelling at the boat ramp, a slant of red gravelly washed out earth. Under an arbor of crab apple, a couple had pitched a dome tent, and a tall woman wearing a white sun dress with black polka dots was combing out her long straight dark hair and her man with a green John Deere cap waved to welcome me to the neighborhood as I drove by to pick out my spot. The ramp has no latrine and no running water, so how she cared for her long tresses is beyond me. Her man must live in his shorts and cap. Another group had braced an 70-eras camper on the slope, and had moored their bass boats to an improvised dock. I'm guessing the camper kept them in air conditioned comfort because a generator's rumble puttered continuously. I parked my truck, and rolled out my sleeping bag over my bedliner and caught a few hours of shut eye before the sun had risen too high in the sky.
I had spent most of Saturday night at the Choctaw Casino in Durant, Oklahoma, except for two hours singing Karaoke at Tiny's roadhouse, a place where so few of the women were. Pairs of these girls like to touch tummies while dancing, and I'm not talking cheek to cheek dancing. I sung my songs under the name of Wilbo, which is my Dixie monicker. A fellow loudly smacked a woman on her left cheek, a blow that the entire bar heard over the loudspeakers, and a crew of ten bouncers interposed to keep the belligerants from making contact. Trisha interposed well, blocking two bruisers. This bouncer had befriended me a few minutes earlier, a polite woman with surprisingly nice diction, a good perm, stardust glitter around her eyes, and all kinds of curves not intended in the basic female design.
So I needed a few hours of shut-eye before driving South into Texas again. I can understand why not too long ago, the Democrats of the Texas legislature had sought asylum in Oklahoma. I had felt a touch of relief when crossing the Red River going north, too.
When I startled awake, I counted ten turkey buzzards gyring and floating overhead, but they were all moved along by the time I had rolled up my bag.
Lake Oklaxas
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