Murals

Yesterday I found an unusual vase at a flea market in one of the barns at the Will Rogers Equestrian Center in Fort Worth. I knew Val loves “interesting” vases, but this was a little too large and awkwardly shaped for me to easily get back to England, so I didn’t buy it. When I spoke to Val this morning, she was intrigued, so I decided to return – if it was still for sale, that was a sign that I was meant to buy it (and I’d figure out how to get it back somehow).

I parked the car (they gave me a red Chevy Malibu this time), and started walking towards the barn where the flea market is held every Saturday and Sunday. You have to remember that the Will Rogers Memorial Center is a huge custom-built center for anything to do with horses and cattle – large areas of stabling, several arenas, parking for vast numbers of horse trailers – and this weekend it is hosting the cutting-horse championships (a cutting horse is used for “cutting” selected cattle out of the main herd, and requires precision horsemanship). As I’m walking, I hear a “clink, clink” behind me, and I turned to see the cutest cowgirl, complete with hat, neatly pressed jeans, and boots with spurs that were clinking as she walked. Naturally, I took the opportunity to ask some of the dumb questions that have been bothering me since I’ve been watching the equine events that seem so much a part of life here (and, no, I wasn’t chatting her up – she was probably only Amy’s age, with an armful of school books). Do they wear the spurs just for show, or are they really necessary? How do spurs fit onto boots? Do they hurt the horses they ride?

She didn’t find the questions at all dumb, and was happy to answer. If these are questions that bother you, too, I’m afraid you’re going to have to find your own cowgirl.

The vase, by the way, was still there, and only $8. I told the woman behind the counter that my wife was worth it – not the $8, but the grief associated with trying to get it home in one piece!

Duty done, I looked for something more … recreational. I’ve noticed while driving around the concrete jungle that is the DFW “metroplex” that several valiant attempts have been made to brighten things up with murals. You may have noticed, in some earlier notes, murals from Corsicana (the dilapidated railroad town) or Olney (whose only claim to fame is as the home of the “one-armed dove hunt”). It would take a lot more than a mural to make these towns anything more than what they are, but I came across some today that are quite extraordinary. Take, for example, the one (or two, if you count both sides) on the underpass where Belt Line meets Interstate-30 in Grand Prairie, just a few miles south of my hotel – scenes of wild horses, deer and buffalo on the plains, wolves in the forest, and egrets in the bayou. The whole mural is probably about eight feet high by a hundred yards long.

Or how about the mural on the wall of the Cowgirl Museum, within the Will Rogers Center – obviously professionally done, but still magnificent.

As you’re driving towards Fort Worth along Interstate 30, there is a tantalizing glimpse of a Hispanic-flavoured mural to the south. I tried to find it today, and it probably took me over an hour of driving round some of the backroads surrounding the Union Pacific railyards (where you definitely drive with the doors locked) before I found it. It was worth it – a ray of hope in an otherwise decaying area that will one day be the place to live, once the yuppies and the financiers realize the potential of these once splendid buildings (from a time when “architecture” meant more than the variety of things you can do with concrete, steel and glass). And I wonder where the poorer people will be living then?

The first IKEA in the area will be opening next week. This is only the 2^nd in Texas, but don’t worry if you missed it – there’s bound to be more (http://www.ikea.com).

The 10^th execution in Texas this year took place on Friday. Don’t worry if you missed it – there are 8 more scheduled for this year (http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/scheduledexecutions.htm).

APHA

Team Penning

Cowboy Zamboni

The Cowgirl Museum

There’s a great “antique mall” on the south-western edge of Fort Worth. The quickest way to get there is on Interstate 30. As you drive along I30, you come around a slight curve to see downtown Fort Worth in the distance. Most downtown areas have a distinct skyline; Fort Worth, unfortunately, does not – one of the few advantages that Dallas has over Fort Worth.

I spent a couple of hours in the antique mall, and decided to come back to the hotel a different way. Only a few blocks down Montgomery Street I saw the Will Rogers Equestrian Center on the right, surrounded by trucks, campers and horse trailers, so I pulled in to investigate. The first thing I found was a flea market in one of the barns. The heat was stifling, and the antiquated fans merely moved steamy hot air from the adjoining stables into the market, but it was a very interesting flea market nevertheless.

When I came out, I saw the 2005 APHA World Show opposite. It was free, so I went in, and soon discovered that APHA is the American Paint Horse Association. At this point, probably the same question pops into your mind as popped into mine, so I asked the cowgirl behind the Information Desk. It seems that a Paint Horse has to be registered, and the offspring of registered Paint Horses, or perhaps a Paint Horse and a Quarter Horse, or, more rarely two Quarter Horses … yes, I stopped her and asked that question too. She laughed (in a nice way) and explained that Quarter Horses are pedigree North American working horses, and that they have very strict specifications on the coloring of the horse: some white on the nose or around the hooves is permissible, but those with large blotches can’t be registered as Quarter Horses. Fed up with this, owners of Paints, sometimes called Pintos (although Pintos don’t have to be registered), formed their own association. The various colorings have names like Palomino, Sorrel, Buckskin and Blue Roan. It was a trade show as well as a competition, and the place was full of working cowboys in cowboy hats, jeans, and well-worn boots with spurs attached.


Today was the last day of the show, and they were finishing up at 6pm with the final competitions. I went back to the hotel, and returned at 6pm to a packed arena. The first competition was “team penning”: 30 young steers are grouped at one end of the arena, and each has a number from 0 to 9 on its back; a team of three riders enter the arena, and are given a number as they approach the herd – their job is to break out the three steers with that number on their back, and pen them in the shortest possible time.

You may have been to an ice hockey game, or watched ice skating, at some time – if so, you’ll have seen the Zamboni going round at half time, smoothing the ice. The cowboy equivalent of this is a machine that sprays some sort of disinfectant on the sand and cattle poop before blending it together to that delightful consistency and aroma that gives the typical arena its distinctive smell.

The next competition was “bridleless western pleasure” – sounds interesting, but is really quite similar to watching paint dry. Cowboys (and cowgirls) take their mounts through a series of manoevres without the use of a bridle. I think “unbridled western pleasure” may have been worth the wait, but this wasn’t.

Heading back to the hotel at 8:30, it was still hot. I passed Hurricane Harbor (water park) and Six Flags over Texas (theme park), both still in full swing.

Driving along, it occurred to me that, although I’ve been trying to resist mentioning it, cowgirls are cute. I think it’s something about the hats, the highly embroidered tops, leather chaps, and coloured boots with spurs.

They really are magnificent.

July 4th 2005

We’ve spent many happy and memorable July 4^th’s in the States, so that just being here stirs many memories of barbecues and pool parties with friends and loved ones.

As I usually do when I’m at a loose end on a weekend, I got in the car after breakfast (two eggs over-easy on toast and fruit juice – I’m sadly predictable in some ways!), and headed off in a random direction. The direction I chose took me through some of the poorest Hispanic areas just south of downtown Dallas. It was appropriate timing, I thought, just as the G8 is about to meet, and protesters are gathering to call for an “end to poverty in the developing world, especially Africa” (Reuters). I suppose that poverty in the developed world is ok, magnified though it is by higher expectations and the surrounding environment extolling consumerism as a virtue.

The Herding Dog Association

Serendipity brought me to Dallas’ Old City Park, where they were staging an “Old-Fashioned Fourth”. The ceremonies started with the swearing in of 50 new American citizens. Had I been one of the 50, I can guarantee that I would not have turned up in shorts, t-shirt and sneakers, as quite a few did. We’ve attended graduation ceremonies in the past where the graduates have worn a cloak and mortar-board over similar attire. I know it gets hot here, but the sense of occasion seems to have been lost! A very good (American) friend said to me recently (via email) that “the USA doesn't have much political action about which to be proud these days so I am reaching way back for the sense of pride that used to come rather easily,” in which there is a similar sentiment. Maybe it’s a “generation thing”.

Parade

Gunfight!

At least I enjoyed the rest of the festivities: the parade, the demonstration by the East Texas Herding Dog Association, the Frontier Brigade Band on the bandstand, and the “shootout” on Main Street. And you can’t have July 4^th without a hot dog and a cold beer! On the way out, the temporary illusion was somewhat shattered by the sight of a young lady in a full-length hooped skirt and straw hat sneaking a cigarette behind the log-cabin, whilst furiously lifting her skirt bottom up and down to ameliorate what must have been a most uncomfortable outfit, given the weather. I laughed, made some comment, and she fortunately saw the humour of the situation!

Up here on the 8^th floor of the hotel, I have a clear view, over the flat Texas landscape, of “Six Flags over Texas” – a theme park four or five miles away. I’m sure they’ll have a great firework display, and I don’t even have to leave the hotel!

Driving back to the hotel through similar, but all too frequent, impoverished areas, I wondered which is worse: to live in abject poverty … or to die in it.

Texas Landscape

It’s July 4^th weekend. Everyone’s enjoying the long weekend, as July 4^th falls on a Monday this year. The temperature is around 100ºF (38ºC) and humid – too hot for most people to be outside. For some reason that I don’t know, East Texas is at its hottest around 5pm; it’s different in West Texas, where the desert doesn’t retain the heat in the same way.

As I look out of my hotel window, I see the flatness extending for miles, punctuated only by the water towers that are a feature of everywhere in America that I’ve ever been, and the occasional high-rise building – usually confined to downtown Dallas and Fort Worth. The electrical power plant behind the hotel, eight floors down, is the nucleus of single-file marching armies of pylons that stretch to the horizon. Despite the apparent, from ground-level, “concreteness” of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, large clumps of green foliage are visible in every direction.

Because it’s a holiday weekend, the parking lot is mostly empty. The participants of yesterday’s wedding have left. But a large camper occupies two opposing spaces, and a graffiti-ridden dumpster sits in the middle. What few cars and trucks there are, are parked in the shade of any available tree. Larger, articulated, trucks are parked behind an adjacent shopping plaza that is otherwise empty.

In the grounds surrounding an adjoining apartment complex, a barbecue is set up. Occasionally, somebody comes down from a third floor apartment to check on its progress. The metal barbecue tongs, having been sitting in the sun, are too hot to pick up at first, and the guy drops them quickly, and manoevres them awkwardly into the shade, where they sit for a few minutes before he can pick them up.

In the parking lot, a man is pacing backwards and forwards, but always keeping within the shade of a tree. He’s clearly troubled. He stops, and raises a hand to his brow, possibly wiping the sweat from his eyes. For a moment he seems to forget about the heat, and keeps walking into the full sun; suddenly he realizes, and moves back into the shade. He looks back towards the hotel, and stands with his hands on his hips. Then paces again. As he leans back on a parked car, still within the shade, a car pulls off the main road and stops alongside him. He gets in, and they drive off.

Our lives are often such a casual brush with our fellows. And this is part of the reason why, having just seen “War of the Worlds”, I’m so disillusioned with “Hollywood blockbusters” that seem to think you can replace emotions with special effects; and also why I will never regard Tom Cruise as an actor, but rather as one of the relatively new genre of “celebrities”. Laurence Olivier was an actor, Johnny Depp is an actor, Judy Dench is an actor, and there are many more. Tom Cruise is not one of them.

Oh, and while I think of it, somebody should tell “Sir” Bob Geldof that he couldn’t sing when he was with the Boomtown Rats, and still can’t. Power to him – just don’t sing!