Franklin BBQ - Finally

The Ribs Exceeded Our Lofty Expectations

At long last I made it to the famous Franklin Barbecue today. My very good friend @theleftoverchef had told me that the line was ridiculous and that the food was equal to the painful task of waiting. For those of you who don't know the good Dr. he is without question the most discerning eater I have ever known and his recommendation for a food joint is not something to take lightly.

Myself being an enormous fan of Texas Hill Country BBQ (especially brisket) cooked over a hot oak fire I had been excited about Franklin since they opened the trailer 2+ years ago. Why had I not already eaten there, you may ask. Because, I don't do lines. Simple as that, I just do not wait in line for anything. I will drive 15+ extra minutes through city streets to avoid lines of cars on the highway. I will go for sushi at 5pm sharp to be the first in the door at the bar, and you can bet your sweet ass I never go to any film on premier night. Nightclubs, not a chance, ice cream on a warm spring day, I get it from the grocer.

All of this being said, Franklin had been touted as freakin' Mecca for cue heads and while I am not some bowling shirt-clad Guy Fieri douche boy getting my primal man versus food fix, I am quite the fan of salty meat and fat interplay with a heaping helping of carcinogen crust. I knew after 6 months away from Texas I needed to bite the bullet and endure the line on this cloudless 72 degree day in Austin.

Juliet and I met another of our meat-loving friends and we chatted up the full 1 hour and 35 minutes before we got to the counter to order. $83 worth of brisket, ribs, sausage, sides, and pies were shortly on some pre-greased butcher paper and staring us in the face. $83 damn dollars for cue stung like a full jigger of Sex Panther stings the nostrils, but just like everyone else in the joint we were smiling as we paid and damn near high by the time we left. This is serious stuff and while the sides were actually pretty weak compared to some other local producers, the meat was exceptional across the board.

Of course, eating this kind of weight in salty meat makes one dry up and bloated like a lifetime member of Weight Watchers and Franklin would really do themselves and their clients a favor if they added a toilet  or two with a high flush capacity. People are not going numero uno here friends.

At the end of the day the line was actually kind of fun and filled with chatty expectations for a meat feast like nothing else in the city. I for one still prefer the overall charm of Lockhart, TX and the drive to get the cue there is a Texas right of passage. For the city of Austin though, Franklin now gives Austin the clear crown of best large BBQ city in Texas and makes the Hill Country hands down the top BBQ region in America for Brisket.

I will leave this with photos of what we loved and while I still miss a $6.99 3 meat plate at Bubba's in Ennis, TX.  I can see where the allure lies in paying heavy shekels for this kind of rare experience.

My strong advice is to skip breakfast, take a Zegerid, and get in line about 10:45 AM on a cool morning. I think a party of 4 is about the right size to sample everything and to walk away completely gorged like a Brazillian competitive eater at a Churrascaria.

I will likely be back someday here in the Big A, but I will not be ending my drives to Lockhart as the confident owner of Franklin's suggested I would do after trying his cue.

My 1st White Christmas + The Ghosts of Christmas Past

Red wine awakens my senses, inspires my creativity, and gives me the patience to see that calm is not simply an ideal. It also makes me more loose of tongue than usual and freer with comments and criticism. Last night the copious amounts of red wine I consumed allowed me to calmly reflect on the cycles of Christmas Joy and Misery. In the microcosm of the holiday all of life's ups and downs are magnified. The symbiotic times where joy within mirrors the joy of the season is counterbalanced against the personal heart breaks standing in stark contrast to the prevailing mood. It is with great introspection that I will experience my 1st white Christmas and I share with you the ghosts of my first 40 years.

Christmas 1979 - My First Television

It was always very difficult to sleep on Christmas Eve. My brother and I were so jazzed about Santa and what we might receive, we could not contain this energy and we always had very restless sleep filled with dreams of shitty tinker toys and various other antiquated gifts we would have despised (see above photo). We worked hard on our lists and it was nightmarish to think we would not receive what we had worked so diligently to highlight in the Sears Wish Book. For me, Christmas was everything, because my stupid birthday was only 6 days before and so I was often saddled with the Xmas/Bday gift combined while my brother whose birthday is in May always got killer stuff for both.

In our tradition we would always visit my mother's family on Xmas Eve, Santa would deliver Xmas morning, and we would go to my father's family for Xmas lunch. We also knew what we would get from each occasion. On the 24th my uncle would give us some very cool gift, toys, electronics, and always something unexpected. My grandparents on both sides almost always gave us clothes: BORING! Of course Santa brought the mother-lode of wish list greatness (usually).

In 1979 my uncle gave my brother and I our first television. A totally bad-ass 19 inch B&W from Montgomery Ward. I remember the drive home to Bristol that night with our new TV and couldn't help but be a little disappointed I had to share it with my brother. I remember the 8 track of The Eagles "Hotel California" playing on the way home and I kept asking my mom why the doctor needed cash in the song "Life in the Fast Lane". She never really gave me a satisfactory answer.

I was amazed when we got home that my parents took the time to set-up the tv for my brother and I. Typically anything that required effort on Christmas Eve was brushed aside as my parents told us they needed "grown up time". In this case, the TV was set on our dresser, the rabbit ears installed, and the TV went live just in time to watch the Christmas episode of Little House on the Prairie. My mom loved this show and so it became a household staple. With Michael Landon narrating, my brother and I slept better than any prior Christmas and the TV made such a lasting impression on me I cannot even remember what Santa brought the next day.

Christmas 1982 - Le Divorce

In 1982 we moved from Bristol to Ennis when my parents separated. I was looking forward to Christmas because I knew that Jesus and Santa would answer my prayers and bring my parents back together. On the last day of school and a day before my twelfth birthday my mom sat us down and told us that she and my father were officially divorced. My dad would come to see us Christmas morning, but this brought an end to our family being together like it had always been.

I had received an Atari 2600 the previous year (actually it was the model Atari made for SEARS) and so I knew this year I would get so many games and also my parents would be smiling and Santa and Jesus were going to make it all good.

Christmas morning I received 1 Atari game, Pitfall (how appropriate) and a pair of walkie-talkies. My brother got a load of toys and so he could not be bothered to play Walkie-Talkie games with me and I remember standing out in the cold at my grandmother's house in Palmer, TX and trying to raise anyone on the walkie. I began to say awful things out to the airwaves but I knew if Jesus and Santa were not listening; nobody was.

Christmas 1984 - The End of an Era

My father's parents moved to Fairfield, TX in 1984 to a house I helped to build during the summer. Fairfield had long been part of the family and finally my grandparents would be able to retire to a lovely small home with a pot belly stove and an extra room for guests. As usual my grandparents harvested a sparse little cedar for their Christmas tree and while I always thought it was so ugly, I realize now how cool it was to harvest your own tree from your own land. Of course my wimpy, asthmatic ass would nearly convulse in the presence of the tree and I knew all my toys and cool gifts would be at home and not here where I always got underwear, socks, and some sort of educational item like a pen, a notepad, or some book. At least the Christmas candy was always plentiful and all homemade (fudge, peanut butter fudge, date loaf, divinity, and brittle).

Santa had brought me a new dual tape deck portable stereo this year (SEARS of course) and I longed to be home listening to it. Imagine my amazement when my grandfather after all the gifts were gone grabbed my sad self and took me outside where he showed me the beautiful brand new desk he had built for me. The desk was designed to hold my stereo and my TV while giving me room to work underneath.

My grandfather would pass away 2 months later on Valentine's Day. My desk would be the last piece of furniture my grandfather would ever build. I still own and cherish it to this day.

Christmas 2001 - A New Tradition

My first wife and I split in May of 2001 just after our 3rd anniversary. I dreaded Christmas that year because I had really taken to all of the Czech traditions of my in-laws and especially because my brother was also married to a Czech girl and so these Xmas traditions from our home town became the closest thing to fitting into that close-knit society I ever had. Of course, my brother was still married and my mother had adopted many of the traditions of my step-father who is Mexican.

For the previous 8 Christmas Eves I had been opening gifts with my wife's family, eating a huge meal, and enjoying the bounty of amazing Czech pastries made in the bakery by my mother-in-law, who was a legend in the town. I came to really love all of this and it always made the holiday seem so much richer. I had 2 events with my family and one with hers so I was steeped in tradition and Christmas had become so much fun. Now it was over and I had no idea what to do.

That year my mom invited me to spend Christmas eve with her and my step dad. I obliged and boy was I glad I did!. Mexican Christmas eve is heaven for a food geek like me. There were multiple tamales, pozole, beans, rice, rice pudding, and so much laughter among all the brothers and an amazing number of kids. My step-grandmother cooked as if she wore an angel on her shoulder and I miss her amazing food and above all her welcoming kindness. No one questioned why I was there and I felt completely at home.

I went to bed that night and prayed the agony of my lost life would come to a speedy end, then I cried myself to sleep.

Christmas 2006 - The Joy Returned

On December 11, 2006 I met Juliet Williams for dinner at Gravitas in Houston. Since that night we have spent exactly 5 nights apart and this is the story of why there are not 6 of them.

Juliet and I were sitting in my car just outside of The Tasting Room at River Oaks in Houston on December 23, 2006. Juliet had just found out that her family dog (really her dog) had gone missing as she was preparing to go home to East Texas for the holidays.

I remember Juliet tearfully telling me the story of Sadie and how it would ruin Christmas for everyone if Sadie were indeed gone. I had some final gifts to buy before I left town to my family and so I reluctantly said goodbye to Juliet whom I had only know 12 days and yet I was completely, madly, and irrevocably in love with her.

5 long years and 5 bizarre Christmases later, I finally felt the joy again in the holiday, yet we had to be apart as it was just too soon in our relationship to throw ourselves on each others' families. I had been warned in 2003 by my brother that I done this much too early with a girl who burned me and I was not going to risk any one's hearts this year but my own.

As it turns out Sadie was safe at a neighbors and Juliet and I each celebrated a wonderful Christmas with our families; yet something was not quite right. My family could clearly see in me that something was up as they did not recognize the silly smile on my face that would not wane. Juliet was scheduled to work the day after Christmas so she had to in fact drive home Christmas night.

I was at my father's that night and having spent the previous 2 nights without Juliet I had become increasingly anxious and troubled. We had enjoyed an amazing dinner with my grandmother, my brother, and my father and his wife (she is a total bad-ass) and we were settling in to watch some sports and Xmas movies. I had just spoken to Juliet on the phone as she left her parents and we hatched a plan.

I waited 1.5 hours as Juliet made her way south towards Houston and then I told my family that work was pressing and I needed to go in at the crack the day after Xmas to do inventory. Everyone seemed surprised I would leave and drive at night back to Houston. As I explained my fib in greater detail my father looked at me from across the room and said "you better not be going back to see that girl!"

He knew the truth, and so did I. I could not spend another night away from this amazing woman, and certainly not Christmas night. I am quite confident now that my family approves of my departure as Juliet has brought me more joy and peace of mind in these last 5 years than I ever had in my previous 35+.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a great wife! (or husband :-)

Much love and peace,

Michael

Bristol, TX

I moved to Bristol, TX in 1976 just before the bicentennial celebration of the USA. I remember walking across the street from our house with my Mom and Grandmother to attend the 4th of July celebration at the "ball-field" as the local baseball/softball diamond was called in that time. As I watched Jodie Taylor singing Margaritaville from the back of a flat-bed tractor-trailer that stretched between 3rd and 1st bases across the pitcher's mound I truly believed I was witnessing something great, and in relative terms I was correct. Jodie was the coolest guy in glasses singing one of the coolest songs of the Dazed and Confused era.

The debate raged heavily at the time about the lyrics of the classic Jimmy Buffet tune as to whether Jimmy was saying "my outlaw shaker of salt. my lost shaker of salt, my lost jigger of salt, etc." We did not have Google and no one printed lyrics in the album covers or on a leaflet accompanying an 8-track tape which was the highest form of audio-cool at the time. If you had a CRAIG  tape deck (and it was always called a deck) you were very popular. Nevertheless, I did not know the accurate lyrics to Margaritaville until I started scamming Columbia House for CDs in the late 80s, and by then I didn't give a shit whose salt it was so long as I was able to drink a marg. and blow out my flip-flop with relative frequency.

Bristol is a town that with only 500 inhabitants managed to have its own sub-dialect of North Texan, (Brest-uhl) a convenience store/grocery, a pool hall, a skating rink, a baseball field with concession stand, 3 churches, a justice of the peace, but no schools. There was a super cool school building which had been the Bristol school Pre-WWII and was now the deep left field wall (The Red Monster, if you will) of the ball-field. There were of course children in Bristol; including my little brother and I, and we along with the rest of Bristol's kids had to be bussed to one of 3 local school districts. Depending on which neighborhood you lived and/or which side of the street  determined if you went to Ennis, Ferris, or Palmer schools. This was pretty much the way in which the kids of Bristol, Texas were organized; by school district and that is just how simple it was to create often violent rivalries in a redneck town.

In essence, the most compelling components of my youth and the most shocking really happened to me in the 6 years I lived in Bristol. I rode bikes, had motorcycles, rode the bus, got in fights, got beaten up, lit fireworks, made gas bombs, went to pool halls, witnessed guns being drawn on people and saw animals gratuitously murdered in the name of good sport all while often being lulled to sleep by the revving of a 440 cubic inch engine being prepped for another show of ego along the lawless stretches of FM 660. I always knew that road was one 6 short of hell and it never failed to disappoint.

People may try to tell you that we were not rednecks or that we were somehow a notch above the local Bristol bumpkin because we moved from Irving (suburb of Dallas) Texas and our families had been pretty much the first suburbanites of the baby boom. However, don't let anyone fool you. We lived a life that would make Jerry Springer edgy and the pride, anger, and miscreant depths of the local ne'er-do-wells were the impetus behind great films like Deliverance, Dazed and Confused, Winter's Bone, and Natural Born Killers. Yes, we may have been the educated family on the block, but doesn't that make our crimes all the more egregious because we knew the life we lived was flawed and yet we carried on as if it was irreparable?

Tonight is only the beginning of a series of tales from the life I remember so vividly, but do not miss for one single second.

I could feel each bump in the back of my legs, back, and neck as the 1974 Ford F250 4x4 Truck (no one in Bristol said Pickup under the age of 50) bounced along the rows in the Bristol bottoms. These river bottoms were the places where people went Woof Huntin' or Keye-oat (coyote) Huntin'. There were no wolves in the Bristol Bottoms but woof huntin was what we kids called coyote hunting because to a kid a coyote looked a lot like a wolf. To the adults with the spotlights, coyotes looked like easy prey.

We were running off and on the road at about 20-25mph it seemed and my Dad's very good friend Steve Taylor was driving the truck. This monster vehicle was outfitted with a lift kit and tires with tread that naturally cut through the tilled rows of cotton along the bottom-floor near the Trinity river. These rows were called buster-beds by the "hunters" and they made for one hell of a bouncy ride, but boy did they ramp the anticipation and excitement of the hunt. In the back of this two-tone cream and burnt orange truck was unique structure that looked much like a modern-day moving pod. The box was made from 1/4 inch plywood and was painted a strange shade of red. There was a length of rope attached to a door lever near the top of the box which ran along to the cab of the truck and through the window.

The tailgate of the truck was removed to allow the door of the box to drop and open completely flat when the rope was pulled from the cab of the truck. Inside the box a team of beautiful greyhounds waited anxiously to be released to begin the chase; a chase that would wind up inevitably injuring one or more of the dogs and of course resulted in the untimely and very violent death of the animal being chased. Inside the truck was an L shaped handle that was bolted through the roof to a spotlight capable of blinding someone or putting out security lamps along city streets that had an electric sensor or 'lectric-eye in Bristolspeak.

While Steve drove the truck, my dad would man the spotlight. I wanted so much to play with the spotlight, but I was told to keep quiet and not complain although my very skinny butt was being pounded up and down as we went down the rickety roads. At one point my dad was shining the light in a sweeping pattern when the very captivating glow of animal eyes came to our immediate attention:

Steve: Is that one

Dad: I don't know, get closer

Steve: I think that's him

Dad: Get'eem

At that point Steve turned from the safety of the rough road into the hell of tilled dirt, debris, and scrub that made up the central bottom land. I heard the engine roar  and suddenly everything and everyone in the cab was bouncing like we were being shaken by the giant hand of God. Wooooo! Yee-hah! the shouts were piercing from the adults in the truck including a late teens tag-a-long whose name escapes me, but whose mouth I will never forget. In just a moment it seemed we were right on the heels of a small coyote and I asked my dad why we needed so many dogs for 1 animal. My dad explained to me that when something is fighting for its life it can put up an amazing fight even against terrible odds.

At that moment, Steve pulled the cord and I heard the large piece of plywood crash into the steel truck bed with a slap. And in one blink I could see the white coat of the greyhound called Lightnin' racing past the driver's side of the truck and gaining quickly on the coyote. The coyote veered and weaved, but this was wide open country and there was no way the animal could evade us. In moments the action of running came to a halt and a coyote was now fighting for his life against a 4 ton truck, a spotlight, 3 bloodthirsty humans, and 5 larger, faster, stronger greyhounds. However, against unreal odds the coyote fought valiantly. The headlights and spotlight bathed the earthen stage before me in an extra-terrestrial light and the gnashing of teeth, whimpers of pain, roaring, growling, misery that I saw before me disturbed something deep inside of me. Although I could not take my eyes from the scene.

While my male tendencies and fight or flight were pushing my heart rate into the stratosphere, the ballet of movements from the talented combatants and the certainty of death to come pulled the parts of my heart attached to my mind and soul in completely different directions and the tears began to flow. I did not know this coyote, but I did not have any idea why he deserved this; why he likely was going to leave his mate or his pack without their best hunter. I was riveted to the 50 inch widescreen of 1976; the truck windshield. I was captivated by the looks on the faces of the men in the truck who I adored, and I was certain that I was missing something.

I was sure that I just must be too young to know why this Swan Lake was being played out before me with Foreigner's Hot Blooded raging in the background. I assumed this is just what men did and that animals were put on the planet for the pleasure of eating, petting, and destroying at our hegemonic whim. It was not until much later in life embarrassingly that I realized what I had witnessed as a kid was barbarism and waste on a level that is hard to pinpoint. After that night 2 of the dogs were mangled pretty badly and bleeding profusely from their wounds. The dogs would live, but they would not move the same ever again. I remember they were cared for dearly, but much like a soldier who has been injured in war the consolation they were given seemed to suggest if they had just been a bit faster or the enemy was not such a fierce adversary things would have gone differently.

As it was, I remember staring down at the shredded corpse of the coyote and realizing just how small the animal had been. I remember thinking to myself, we had a whole truck full of guns here, why did we not shoot the poor animal and spare it and especially the dogs all the grief? I was told the dogs loved to run, and of that fact I have no doubt. However, even at the time I thought isn't it our duty to protect our domestic animals from their own destructive instincts. The dogs likely thought the coyote was a threat to their master as all the noise and the growing scent of testosterone would suggest; but the coyote was no threat to us or likely to anyone's livestock or egg production. Even if the coyotes were a threat, it would have been much easier to trap or shoot them. What took place on a regular basis in the Bristol Bottoms was a cruel sport akin to the Coliseum days of Rome and in many ways continues today in the cockfighting and dog fighting that still runs rampant among those that remain so close to the  violent tendencies of our ancestral males.

Bristol taught me many things and the church there taught me that evolution was bullshit; and I agree, but for vastly different reasons than the church.

Puglia: The Finest Raw Ingredients in Italy (Part 1)

Mchel'...ma tu addò stae?

Literally: Michael where are you? (In the dialect of Bari)

I am not sure if my very dear friends in Puglia are asking that question today as so many magical things are unfolding in this amazing region at the beginning of the busy season, but I am most certainly wondering why I am here and not there this week typing this blog over a caffe' at Bar La Nave. It is Apulia Week on my very good friend Jeremy Parzen's outstanding wine blog Do Bianchi and he will be sharing some of the best information available on what is happening in the exploding wine world of Apulia. As for me, I am missing my second home; a place where I have spent almost a year of my life since 2008 and along with one of the most ambitious and talented people I have ever met, Antonello Losito, founded the most successful tour company to date in Puglia: Southern Visions Travel.  Antonello and I worked together for Backroads in 2006. While working for one of the most successful American tour companies Antonello and I became fast friends, in many ways because we believed we could do more than just take people on well-organized cycling trips through Italy. We truly believed and continue to believe that seeing a country for better or worse through the eyes of the locals, and in the culture of the native habits is the best way to authentically and hopefully even soulfully understand a place.

In the wine world sense of place and all things that go with it are referred to as terroir. Yes, wine friends I know I am oversimplifying so just keep reading my story and we can argue semantics over a bottle of bourgueil at my house later. Travel is basically the same recipe and the terroir of travel is why I am in the game in the first place. The place, people, soil, climate, cuisine, religion, common and divergent ethos(es), and even the time of day that people typically have sex are all part of the algorithm that calculates terroir. I have been asked on so many occasions, "if you love Puglia so much then why the hell did you sell your part of the company?"  This blog today is my attempt to answer this involved and very personal decision I made in August of 2010. Today I will share reasons that only some, and perhaps none of my readers, friends, or family know about why I chose to part ways with something that was very much like an incompletely nurtured child. For the sake of the reader who prefers to stop after this paragraph I will say it was an Obi Wan decision. I knew that if I removed myself from the job that I could become a more powerful ally than Puglia, Southern Visions, Antonello, or my family ever imagined...

I was 5 years old and my entire kindergarten class had just been ordered to nap by Ms. Barnes our kindergarten teacher. Poor Ms. Barnes had no idea that I did not roll naps, and that my poor mother had only recently struggled through her pregnancy with my brother because her older son (me) would not take naps under any circumstances. Basically a nap is like fasting but much worse. In a food fast one simply must give up the joy of taste; leaving smell, touch, sound, and sight well intact and in many ways heightened. A nap shuts everything down but the occasional dream and given the window of time that most naps last who really gets to enjoy the dreams anyway? Naps are for the sick and the bored and rarely am I either of those and this was especially true in Kindergarten. So, while my classmates sleepily and sonorously sounded off in their sacks I would lie on top of my towel (no cute little yoga mats in those days) and create scenes in my head and act out the stories on my fingers. Yes, my hands were opposing space fighters each with a unique finger position and political agenda. Of course, it would only take moments for me to be lost in the scene and launching into sci-fi inspired sound effects and gratuitous crash and burn sounds that drew the ire and sometimes even the paddle of my teacher. Can you believe they would beat me on the ass with a board for being creative? "If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding." Ahh the Ennis Independent School District for future public servants, order-takers, and pedants. How I loathed school even from the outset.

Now, this same creative energy I used to create space scenes was mirrored and perhaps even intensified by sheer curiosity. On the first day of Kindergarten I walked into class and saw this whole model kitchen complete with appropriately sized pots, pans, stove, oven, sinks, counters, and more. My mom and I walked into class and I immediately sprinted to the dream kitchen I saw laid before me and before I could lay my first happy paw on the first fake dial on the first faux appliance I was pulled away by the teacher's voice saying that these things were only to be used at the appropriate times and now was not that time. In fact, in one full Kindergarten year, it was "that time" exactly once. One fucking time I got to play chef and show these little cretins what it was like to make imaginary pear preserves, chicken fried steak, fried pies, and of course redneck gourmet staples, fried shrimp and steak. I had one chance to show the world my latent culinary passion and it was gone in the swat of a board upon the ass of the unruly. I am sure Ms Barnes is somewhere today watching re-runs of Growing Pains and tugging on her central line trying to hurry her daily dialysis so she can get to Braum's before they close. I am sure if she read this she would be proud and think to herself, "if it wasn't for me and my Draconian (she would never use that word) sense of discipline this little unruly hick might have enjoyed school too much and gone on to be a lawyer and been an upright member of an uptight community. She might very well have a point. Thank you Ms. Barnes for hating a loud, obnoxious, and persistently curious kid so I could get the hell out of your town and leave the Sam's Club-sized Doritos all to you and your kind.

Thank  God for a man named Walter D. Alexander. Mr Alexander as he was known to me my whole life was the principal of Travis Elementary and a shining testament to tolerance.  Mr Alexander, as an African-American principal in 1976 was no stranger to overcoming adversity and injustice as achieving the status of principal and leader a few years removed from the segregation of schools was quite an accomplishment in a small and conservative Texas town. In fact his wife worked as a dietician at the EISD administration building that only a few years before had been the "black school" in Ennis. I could sense even as a kid there was something genuinely inspiring about this man and although I pretty much hated almost every other school principal I met in my 13 years under the thumbs of fools Mr. A was an exception.

I met Mr. Alexander on the first day of classes and over the 5 years I matriculated at William B. Travis elementary I was in and out of his office frequently for reasons ranging from my father renting the gym to play hoops with he cronies, to numerous near-death sicknesses, twice as many feigned near-death sicknesses, and of course an array of troublesome parent conferences and the honor of being on the flag-raising team in only the 4th grade. Basically, I assumed Mr A saw me as a bright example of the kind of kid he wanted at Travis; curious, studious, and perhaps not willing to accept the social conventions of the time, or any time for that matter. I was content being at odds with my teachers so long as I had Mr. A looking out for me and my self-proclaimed genius. Mr A. was very aware that kids like me did not grow on trees nor could they be easily fooled by the ruse of authority initiated for control of the willing and the stupid and he spoke to me with care and maturity which to this day I have tried to emulate when speaking to any child.

Then one day it all seemed to come crashing down as I went to Mr Alexander to what I deemed, very reasonably ask for the head and job of Mr. Duncan, our gym teacher, after he unjustly paddled me because of wretched lies told  by fellow 4th graders Russell Caldwell, Damon Betik, and wussy Nick Roney whom I was attempting to help at that moment. Nick wavered in his own defense of an insidious crime committed against him by Russel and Damon and his reticence got me fucking beaten by a yin-yang two-toned paddle that Mr Duncan carried about like a loaded .357 magnum. Anyway, that little shit Nick bailed on me like a star witness who when staring into the eyes of Capone in a court room melted from fear and pled the 5th. Only moments before Nick has been reduced to tears as Russel and Damon ripped down his size 1 jeans and slapped him around a bit as his private parts flailed about for the whole of the student body from K through 5 to witness; and as the 1st bell rang Nick began to wrangle his pants up much to the delight of he attackers.

I stared in disbelief as Nick was just going to meander to class without even considering punitive retribution for his assailants and I was simply not having that. I grabbed Nick by the arm and walked him up to scary ass Mr. Duncan's door, which was always kept closed so kids like Russel and Damon could carry out their nefarious undertakings in peace. We knocked on the door as the 2nd bell rang and Mr Duncan answered the door as cigarette-laden air filtered out through the crack and he simply looked down at us with a "what the fuck do you want 4th graders?" look in his eyes. Just before Mr. Duncan could fire off his trademark "Siiit DOOOoooowwwn" I spoke right up and said, "Mr Duncan, Russel and Damon just pulled Nick's pants down and beat him up in front of everyone and they should be punished." Russell and Damon had spotted us as we approached the door and once they saw that Duncan might actually listen to us they ran to intercede and plead their cases. They seemed to speak in unison as Deadly Duncan spied their approach, "Mr Duncan, Mr Duncan, Michael pulled down Nick's pants!" I was floored, I had not touched poor Nick, nor did I ever bully, torture, or fondle any classmate in all my years in school. "Nick, tell Mr Duncan I did not touch you." Nick just stood there sniffling and looking over at R&D. Mr Duncan asked Nick again if this was true and Nick stayed silent. "Little boy, did these boys, including me with his sweeping gesture, pull down your pants?" "Yes," whimpered Nick. As I sat there with a lump in my throat as big as Mr Duncan's fist I could not help but think this was not happening and my impetus at the time was to run out of the gym and down the street into traffic as surely that would be better than this.

As it was, I watched Russel and Damon each get 2 licks from the paddle and with each wind tunnel swat they screamed at the top of their lungs and jumped up and down writhing in pain. The images still disturb me to this day. Almost as much as I am disturbed to remember that for grades K  through 3 Damon Betik had been my best friend in school and we were always in the same class. In 4th grade Damon was in Mrs. Kitchens' class and Russell was a transfer from another elementary and also in Mrs. Kitchens' class and their new friendship became elementary tabloid headlines. I, with just a hint of irony, was in Mrs. Caldwell's class which was also Russell's last name. The irony runs deeper as after 4 years of teachers I would have preferred to have been eaten by a lion at the petting zoo (if petting zoos had lions) I finally had a teacher I loved, but some distant relative of hers cost me my ass on this horrible morning. My licks came swiftly and without nearly so much pain as to have made me jump up, scream, or hop on one leg. In fact, I wanted more than anything to grab Mr. D's paddle and beat that ginger-haired bitch Nick on his naked backside! I went to bat for him and in return I got a beating.

I never spoke to the Nick kid again and as I watched him over the years turn into precisely the kind of insular and socially removed person I expected him to become. I am certain if that day in front of Demon Duncan's door had gone differently and Nick would have demonstrated a modicum of courage, then years later the poor ginger teen in green army fatigues with ninja stars in his notebook would not have been voted most likely to gun down the joint, and may have even gotten laid at some point. Instead I am sure he mated with a 4-legged creature and somewhere they are happy little sheep awaiting a comfortable slaughter. Seriously, I could respect Russell and Damon for lying to save their own asses; however, I could not condone Nick's inherent weakness when faced with the rare opportunity of black and white justice.

So, when Mr Alexander heard my pleas, smiled his unmistakable smile in his brilliant plaid poly jacket and perfect teeth then basically told me that just because I said what happened was unfair does not mean that he would fire Mr Duncan. I was crushed. I had just been egregiously wronged by a weak kid, a thug who stole my best friend, Mr damn Duncan, my former best friend and now this!? Et tu Mr. A... At that point I was basically truant from class, my whereabouts unknown to most as I sat there in the principal's office and cried my eyes out in disbelief that this man who had supported me all these years would  let this kind of atrocity go unpunished. I thought that Mr A knew I was special. I knew he knew I was telling the truth, yet he simply told me that life was not always fair and how could he fire Mr. Duncan when the boy who was victimized told him that I was part of the crime as well. Mr Duncan was a long-standing quality educator and Mr A. knew that he would not have chosen to paddle all 3 of us had Nick told the truth. Nick had not told the truth and I had just learned a lesson that I would re-learn  time and time again. In life we have to make careful judgements and leave our help to those who want it and to also be mindful that an offer of help or altruism can very often come with painful consequences. This lesson was no more clear than on that fateful day in 4th grade and later in my life as a partner in Southern Visions Travel...to be continued