Turkey Day . . .

Turkey Day was nice. Judie worked her buns off, I did a few errands and the family gathered around once again. We were missing Jake, Anne and Will, but they were cozy in their tiny little co-op in Manhattan. All the rest of our family were here to enjoy not turkey but prime rib.

Judie has this recipe that is allegedly from Heddy Lemarr for cooking prime rib roast. One heats the oven to 500 degrees, inserts the prime rib, cook it for so many minutes per pound, turn off the heat and let it sit for an hour and half. One must absolutely not open the oven door until all the time has expired. It is always cooked with bones in. It comes out perfect every time - on the rare side but great.

Then I slice it up and we dine in rare fashion. Yes, the meat is rare and we have almost all the eaters chowing down on that rare prime rib slice. There is mushroom sauce, a jus gravy, smashed potatoes and gravy, green beans fixed ala Ernestine Scott, salad ala Joan and even some cranberry jell for those that want it. There were plenty of snackos prior to dinner, steamed shrimp, blue cheese, raw cauliflower, tiny carrots and dipping sauces for all of them.

We ate well. Jake and Anne called in and the family played games as I watch Texas demolish the Aggies.

We are thankful, had a long and significant grace prior to our meal. We even remembered the dogs next door with some scraps.

It was a good day.

A Short Term Congressman . . .

Young Don Cazayoux, son of Ann and Don Cazayoux, a relatively long term state representative from New Roads, was ousted from office. He was elected six months ago against a black Democrat and a slimy Republican. So Don was in office for six months.

He maintained that he was a "Conservative Democrat." Nice try, that went out with Barry Goldwater back in the mid sixties. All those so call conservative Democrats have died off or retired from the political scene. They were driven out by the likes of Lydon B. Johnson and Jimmie Carter. They are dead and gone.

And then he solicited and received a boost from Barrack Obama. That sort of sealed his fate.

To be fair, he was running against the same black fellow as an independent and strong republican candidate. Don maintains that the independent black candidate drew off enough votes to sign his defeat. He lost by about 15,000 votes. True his black opponent also garnered about 15,000 votes. Maybe enough to elect him but not enough as the Republican candidate got enough votes to seal the election. When you beat your opponent by 15,000 or so votes, it means you won handily.

So what went wrong. Well there was the black independent splitting the black vote but they are the majority voters, so . . . Don worked hard to help the people of Pointe Coupee and New Roads and got a lot of local votes but just not enough out of South Baton Rouge and Iberville and West Baton Rouge Parishes to make it. He got beat up pretty bad over the Obama endorsement. Did not help him and indeed may have hurt him. Obama did not carry Louisiana.

Word is that he will be appointed Central Louisiana Federal Prosecutor. Of course, that means Obama will have to fire the existing prosecutor (he's probably a Republican). Seems like there was a lot flak for George W. Bush for firing federal attorneys. So I wonder. He would make a good prosecutor but . . .

It is ironic that we share a common cousin though we are not related to each other in Lindy Boggs. Don's great grandmother, Auntie LeBlanc, Mae Hess' mother was the sister of Lindy's grandmother. Further irony is that Mae Hess was my God Mother.

I learned just a few days ago my God Father was Uncle Ham. Did not know that while he was alive but always greatly admired him. He died to young. He rose to the rank of Colonel in the Louisiana National Guard and was even a contender for Brigadier General but that was not to happen. He gave me his desk name plate, beat up but functional. I used during my days as USAF Colonel on active duty. Lots of folks could not understand why I had that beat up desk plate but I was singularly proud of it.

Any way, I am a Republican. My father went from being a "conservative Democrat" to being a Republican before his death. I am not a Republican because he was one, it is something that happened to me in the service of my country. I saw first hand what the likes of Jimmie Carter did to our defense establishment. I was a Ford supporter before Carter and yes, I did vote of Dick Nixon. Nixon was a crook of sorts but he was the finest foreign policy President of our times. Reagan was even better but that era is past.

"Now we wait" - a line from Harry Potter. Barack Obama, the change man, is putting Clinton Democrat after Clinton Democrat into the cabinet. So where's the change? The American public has been fooled and fooled badly. There is no change, except that Democrats are replacing Republicans.

I wish him luck. He's gonna need it, because the Clintonistas are gonna wreck harvoc in his administration.

Fall is closing in on us. . .

Yes, it is. Fall is closing in on us, we have already had one frost. Soon the Lantanas will be brown, they can not take the cold. And some plants like the Begonias are showing extreme stress. The pepper plants have lost their leaves and some odd peppers are scattered around. The Cananas are burned back too. Roses are holding on but soon they to will shut down.

The curiosity is that we have a couple of Iris' blooming. They are rebloomers but to do so this late, well that is something. And the Daffodils will start to punch up. I am sure the Home Depots and Lowes has abundant bulbs for sale. It is time to plant them more or less.

The two Shumark Oaks out front are showing some color now. The one in front of the den has a few reddish brown leaves while the one in front of the bed rooms is much farther along it its fall colors. Genetics makes them change or drop their leaves at a slightly different time. The curiosity this that the put on leaves the same way, its like they are three weeks apart. And I note the little one next to the big Hackberry on the side of the house is well on its way to changing colors but then it is only about five high and maybe an inch in girth at this time. We know that it will eventually replace the Hackberry. Had a Post Oak in there too but we have cut back so many times I think it has quit.

We have even shut down the sprinklers. Give the well time to recharge for next year, at least we hope so. We had a nice storm the other night, about two plus inches, some places got as much as four inches of rain.

The Christmas turkey has been ordered. We get a smoke turkey from Tyler, Texas every year for Christmas. We have been doing that for years now. We order the turkey by relative size, they smoke it and ship it out in time to arrive at its destination. Then they send us the bill. They still do business the old fashioned way, once you are an established customer, well they treat you right. And all of our family now expects to eat smoked turkey at Christmas dinner.

So fall is here - again.

What a Game . . .

Wow, what a game. Troy State appeared in Baton Rouge for the "big check game." It happened to be LSU's homecoming game too. So everybody thought this would be turkey shoot - what a surprise they had in store for themselves.

LSU received the opening kick off and did a three and out. Troy took over on their 8 yard line and preceded to pass their way down the field into the end zone for touchdown. And they kept it up for the whole half. Went into the locker room with a insurmountable 24 to three lead. Man, it really looked bad, LSU at that time had a total of two first downs earned to Troy's dozen or so first downs earned.

LSU was sloppy. LSU could not run the ball and the LSU offensive coordinator who is dumber than a rock continued to try to run. Troy recognized this and stuffed the line every time. It was so obvious it was painful. It was stupid. It was just disgusting.

And then the freshman quarterback, Lee, threw his usual pick six and Troy scored again. It was 31 to 3 midway through the third quarter. It looked grim. The fans were booing LSU (and the coaching staff). They stadium had almost emptied, folks were going home or out to eat - whatever. They were leaving in droves.

With 16 minutes and 26 seconds to go in the game things began to happen. The freshman quarterback caught fire. And LSU scored 37 unanswered points in that 16 minutes and 26 seconds. Troy State was in shock. They thought they had it locked up and won. They were going to say to Auburn and Bama, "Look what we did that you could not do." Recruting would have been terrific.

In stead they go home with the big check and perhaps some awe. They thought they were going to add a victory to their belt that made them really look good. They were cherishing the great victory. At least they were until the middle of the third quarter of the game.

I guess the moral of the story is do not piss off LSU. Ohio State did it last year and got their skins handed to them in the BCS Bowl. Alabama almost go theirs handed to themselves this year, in fact, won the game in overtime.

Well maybe LSU will redeem itself after two whopping big losses to Florida and Georgia. They still have to face Ole Miss and Arkansas. Ole Miss is beginning to come alive under Houston Nutt (the great Arkansas mistake letting him go). So Ole Miss is going to be a tough game and you can bet they will watch the films of the Troy State game and use that intelligence to their benefit.

As an aside, congratulations to Vandy, they beat one of their rivals, Kentucky. That qualifies them for a bowl and I am sure they will get picked up for one. I hope it is a good one.

Would it be interesting if LSU played Vandy; you can bet it would be a good game. There is talk that LSU, if they win out, will go to the Cotton Bowl. But I think that is just talk.

A New Family Member . . .

Welcome William "Will" Neujahr Morrison, born November 14, 2008 in Manhattan, NYC. He weighed in at 7 pounds 7.2 ounces and arrived a 0021 hours. Mother and son doing well (so is Dad).

The Sun is Flooding in . .

Yes, the sun is flooding in the back door that opens on to the patio. The door faces directly Southeast, so old sol has moved into the fall/winter quardant. So when there are no clouds we get a very brightly lit kitchen early in the AM.

Had a tremendous thunderstorm last night at about three AM. The thunder woke me up and then I even heard a little hail rattle the windows. When I got the newspaper this morning, I noted Judie's long down spouts had gushed out a lot leaves alll over the sidewalk. So there was a lot of water.

We need the rain, the lake, Lake Weatherford, is down about four feet or so. That is kind of normal for this time of year, but with fall comes the rainy season and so the lake is being recharged. Last year, the lake got down about nine feet, a huge amount. This year it has only receded about four feet, we had a few recharging rains during the year. And I guess they have cut off all the well drillers from soaking up water to fracture the gas wells.

As I look out the front window I note the Red Oaks leaves are begining to turn, soom they will fall off. We have two of them out front, same age, put in by the builder. They are about 8 inches at the base right now. I know it is genitics but one looses it leaves about three weeks before the other one. And puts on leaves in the spring ahead of the other one too. Same genusis but a little different DNA.

The Post Oaks out back are showing signs of turning to fall too. The Hackberry's, trash trees but are mature thus provide shade where there would otherwise be none, have been shedding their leaves for some time now. Judie mowed the yard and spent an inordinate amount of time running over the leaves turning them to mulch. Pretty soon the lawn tractor will be winterized and parked until spring.

It is November and we do usually get a snow about Thanksgiving Day. Then the next snow is well into January or February. And that is about the extent of our snows. We get more rains than snows. And about every four or five years we get a good ice storm, we are due for one this year.

Tomorrow is the Day. . .

Yes, tomorrow is the day, election day. While I hope for the best it is probable that living in a Democracy we will get some kind of compromise. It seems our great nation must go through a session of agony of a righteous but misguided leadership. We as a populace seem always to have our hand out for something that is promised but never happens. And we endure the term of that leader with stoism. The populace does remember the past and results in a change of regime.

If the election turns out the way the polls and the media wishes then we have to expect changes, changes that may not agree with us very well. The good news is that the economy rarely, if ever, does what the politicians want it to do. I mean you can not give away the house and expect the house to continue to prosper. So amid the hoopla, there lies disaster. The stock market goes its way and is rarely ever wrong.

It is trickle down versus trickle up. Ever see anything trickle up? That is not in the nature of things. But we must not mix the reality of gravity with economic theory. We do know that vast experiments in "share the wealth" have not worked case in point is the now defunct USSR. We have seen what dumbing down has done to our educational system, is the economy next? If left to Barney Frank the economy will be next.

There may be yet one check in balance that the Democrats have not counted on, that is the Congress rarely does what the Executive Branch of government wishes it to do. And so compromise still reigns. May be less compromise but none-the-less some of it will remain. After all there are maverick Congressman and women from both parties and that may serve to control some of the rash exuberance.

It is certain that the black population will support Obama because he is black. That is not racism, that is black pride. I do not think there is anything wrong with black pride but one should listen to what he espouses, and that is not good. There is a possibility that he will suffer because he is black and that is bad. He should win (or lose) because of his positions and philosophies but no one is listening to to what is being said.

Jimmie Carter was and is a disaster. He was so inept that the Iranians made of fool of him. Ronald Reagan spoke out and the Iranians caved in immediately upon learning that Reagan was elected. Carter, a typical Democrat, slashed the Defense Department budget and we suffered through that period. Reagan restored the budget and increased it to the point that the USSR collapsed. Reagan brought down the Berlin Wall, the symbol of tyranny. Carter nourished it.

Well, we as a nation must go though these cycles. Presidents rarely can influence the economy, though Reagan, Kennedy and George Bush did. We will look back and compare the George Bush years with the Bill Clinton years and note that things were indeed much better under Bush than we thought. We will see that employment was greater under Bush than it ever was under Clinton. But we will rely on history for that information, and listen to the current demagoguery of the sound bytes. And we will suffer.

Now we enter the age of hard times. Harder than that of the Carter years but hard none-the-less.