The Chair: Volume IV: Punt, Pass, & Kick

By Robert McKenzie

The Chair Volume IV, Punt, Pass, & Kick tells of a gala retirement ceremony for an employee held on a railroad trestle, a fishing expedition under the Idlewood Arch & Aqueduct, the bravery, battles, and bastions of the Texas Revolution, a quinceañera celebration near Matamoros, a standoff gun-boat battle on the Rio Grande between the Armada de Marina de México and Americans, an all-girl rock band from Topeka, a Thanksgiving dinner in 1971 Beverly Hills, a brunch with mimosas at the Pierre Hotel on 5th Avenue, a lunch at The Horse tavern in Baltimore, a docu-drama about a high-school football team in East Texas, intimate mother and daughter correspondence, an English suffragette who becomes an ocean-liner titan, four brothers from Italy creating a family olive-oil and wine-exporting company, the creator of synonym, antonym, and hyponym awareness for women entrepreneurs, a courageous cattle drive from South Texas to Wyoming, a seascape watercolor painter, and a teenage writer whose unpublished manuscript is found and read by Lana McCracken, the prime character in The Chair pentalogy, a story that can only be found in an old trunk between the real and imagined, a story for all times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fresh Ink Group
• Release date: Nov 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781958922095

Book preview

Chapter 29

Lon

I have rattled for much mammoth

I have charred for raptures blue

I have christened to vespers cloth

When trace wryneck distinct flew

I’ll tell you something you already know, Timothy would say to nearly everyone, knowing they did not know what he was going to say, and to ingratiate himself to them with his wit, candor, and corn pone, hominy, grits, and hamhock glibness. Although, at best, admittedly, he was a grade C with it. He was always trying to fit in. Tim now hangs around diners, feed stores, the barber shop, and high school football games, telling anyone who will listen, I hurt my knee playing my sophomore year in a game versus Arp. I could’ve played for Oklahoma.

He’d drive his truck into town going to the diner, the feed store, the barber shop, Ken’s Bar, The Jet Stream on over at Dyess, or maybe Conway Hardware. Many of his friends he grew up with were now either dead or dying, most bitching about their lives with their last breaths. One of his high school classmates, Lon Biddle, once said I’m going to open me up a steak and seafood restaurant. But Lon never did. He took a job as a surveyor with the highway department and moved out to El Paso. Patricia spent a lot of time at the grandbaby’s house. One Monday, Tim saw a car wreck up ahead on the highway, and came upon two women in their 80s who had driven into a ditch. He pulled them out of their Ford Taurus™ and walked them both slowly to the side of the road.

They said they were driving to Baird for bingo, Tim told the DPS trooper, Ron Carson, from Mexia originally, who came on the scene after Tim had reported it using his cell phone. An ambulance arrived, too, but the ladies were not injured, just shaken up.

Lon was back from El Paso. Wasn’t much else left out there for me to do no more. It’s an old dirty crummy town, he opined. Besides I don’t speak Mexican. The Idlewood Arch & Aqueduct, El Magnifico Puente a la Gloria, The Magnificent Bridge to Glory, was where Lon found himself in early June. Lon was a railroad toll booth operator. $7.78 an hour, but with insurance and retirement. You have arrived, Lon Biddle! he shouted standing with his arms raised in victory staring into the bluish orange rising sun before sitting into his tall revolving chair. Lon had on his prized ring some kind of opal stone in what appeared to be a college ring, but Lon, of course, never went to college. He considered the ring his talisman, ascribed with religious or magical powers intended to protect, heal, or harm individuals for whom they are made. But for Lon, this talisman would only protect and heal him. Ask yourself this question: Who would wear a talisman to harm themselves? But I think that is what is meant here without saying so is that some people will somewhere somehow someway sneak a talisman in on somebody causing them potential harm. That is just me view, based on the information provided. What do you think? Talismans are often portable objects carried on someone in a variety of ways, but can also be installed permanently in architecture. Talismans are closely linked with amulets, fulfilling many of the same roles, but a key difference is in their form and material composition, with talismans often taking the form of objects like clothing, weaponry, cave wall slab slivers, cracks in the mirror so to speak, marked with charcoal from a campfire, or parchment inscribed with magic texts that appear on the back of cereal boxes, some with entry cards you cut out with scissors, nearly all located at the bottom of the box so one has to eat all of the cereal before cutting them out, for prizes and contests.

This is my good luck ring, Lon said to Jasper. It also gives me a good vibe from what is going on up above in the celestial heavens, plus if I put it just right it serves as a sundial.

Lon, that is nice! Jasper shrieked.

Of course, you can’t just wave it around on your finger and shine a reflecting light beam on something or in someone’s eyes to figure out the time, which waits for no one, no favors has he, and it won’t wait for me, I have to set it just right flat on the ground with the imbedded deep blue sapphire gem adjusted for due north and pointing that way but after daylight savings time back and forth sometimes I set it to magnetic north which messes the whole thing up, so I get a pretty good approximation of what the time is then and most of all it’s fun for me, sometimes I will go flash it around when I go get some corn nuts, pretzels, pork rinds, FUNYUNS ®, a PayDay™, and a Cherry Cream Soda U-DRINK-EM™ or a Suicide Slush Snow Rainbow Cone at the at the U-Totem™ down the road near here in Bonham Acres Grounds and the old Maxey house near Travis Draw a ways from just south outside Fulshear north of the Brazos* and get me a Fulshear Herald © newspaper and check the solunar tables, the tides, the sports scores, Dear Abby, and of course the fishing report, ‘cause you know you have to know which way the wind blows and what the temperature is, along with the humidity and, of course, the dew point before you push your boat off the bank. Lon slowly explained so that Jasper would make no mistake about it.

Texan heroes indomitable inimitable infectious spirit was best described by David Robert McKenzie in his Texas quadrology, Lone Star ⭐ Volume I: Stars Big and Bright at Night ⭐, Volume II: Deep in the Heart ⭐ ⭐, Volume III: Wide and High Prairie Sky ⭐ ⭐ ⭐, and Volume IV: Purple Sage in Bloom ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐, © (2031), which was made available for presale on Thursday, November 28, 2030, beginning at intermission to watch guests eat as I sat by table watching after having been brought down from attic between Miami versus Detroit final score Dolphins 24 Lions 21 New Orleans versus Dallas, score Saints 37 Cowboys 37 regular season tie with overtime football games on Thanksgiving Day but only in commemorative dust jacket hard cover first edition available wherever fine books were sold, though each copy purchased was signed with personal inscripted cursive hand written note inside front cover of beginning of book with signature as autograph to each buyer by author or writer or whatever he is with specific excerpts, copious disordered notes full of thought, information, or matter following here now.

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Bonham Acres Grounds and the old Maxey house near Travis Draw a ways from just south outside Fulshear north of the Brazos* refers to the settlement community on the Brazos River named after James Bonham (February 20, 1807 – March 6, 1836), a Texan soldier who died during the Texas Revolution, I will tell you that three times before you betray me before the rooster crows today, then you will disown me three times, as a messenger of the Battle of the Alamo, a second cousin of William Barret Buck Travis (August 1, 1809–March 6, 1836), a teacher, lawyer, and soldier who was in command of the Texan forces at the Alamo, sent by Travis to obtain aid for the garrison at Bexar on about February 16, 1836, who visited Goliad, but the commander of the forces there, James Walker Fannin, Jr. (June 9, 1805 – March 27, 1836), a military figure and slave trader in the Texas Army and leader during the revolution, who after being beaten, bloodied, battered, but unbowed, now even more focused, though outnumbered, outgunned, but never outfought, with nothing more to lose, surrendered to Mexican forces at the Battle of Coleto Creek, and was executed after a brief time of delay with nearly all of his 344 men at Goliad, Texas, was unable to provide assistance, traces its origins to the arrival of Churchill Fulshear, one of Stephen F. Austin’s original Old Three Hundred who moved from Tennessee to Texas in the summer of 1824 with his wife, Betsy Summers, daughter, Mary, and three sons, Benjamin, Graves, and Churchill Fulshear, Jr. As a man with considerable wealth, taste, good sense, property, and flair for the dramatic, Churchill Fulshear Sr. obtained a land grant from the Mexican government via Stephen F. Austin (November 3, 1793 – December 27, 1836), the Father of Texas, in 1824 that allowed him and his family to settle in Austin’s colony in what was known as Pecan Grove Hills, and established a slave plantation that raised cotton, corn, rice, pecans, and livestock, Fulshear Sr. dying on those hills on January 18, 1831, with the plantation ownership passing onto his youngest son, Churchill Jr., who added a cotton gin, flour mill, whiskey distillery, sugar cane demesne, and slaughterhouse which flourished well into the late 1880s, and during the Texas Revolution, Churchill Jr. and his two brothers, Graves and Benjamin, serving as scouts for the Texan army as the Mexican army pursued Sam Houston’s army and civilians who fled after Santa Anna’s victory at the Alamo. The Greater Fulshear and Pecan Grove Hills metroplex of today were on the route, named Camino de los Dragones y Serpientes Ardientes, of both the chasing Mexicans and the fleeing Texian soldiers. Churchill and his two brothers scouted Santa Anna’s army which was racing behind them, according to Mexican Teniente Coronel Martín Perfecto de Cos (February 19, 1800– July 8, 1854) in ...persecución encarnizada del tipo más urgente y tal vez solo cinco horas atrás..., ...hot pursuit of the most urgent kind in and perhaps only five hours behind... army as Churchill, Jr. wrote it was to our misfortune, the swollen waters had blotted out all traces of a ford and required mighty effort on our part as we worked up to our mouths, noses just above waters struggling against the strong current as some men, including Hooper, Henderson, and Hargrove, among a few others, drowned, forced under by the great flow, and two others were devoured by alligators, Howard and Hays, a gruesome sight all within eyeshot of women and children, though we crossed the Rio Brazos on a raft pontoon bridge improvised boat we had miraculously quickly, in a matter of two or three hours, made of mud, straw, pine branches and twigs...and slats from the abandoned villa and smokehouse nearby...tied together...and completed with the help of every man, woman, and child no matter their age or health and by the grace of Almighty God as men on both banks ferried horses and carts across by rope, which we set afire to burn and demolish in our wake to prevent forging by the trundling Mesicans (sic) somewhere back behind to the west of us in our wake, climbing up the slithery mucky eastern bank on the trail we were now to travel, all of us knowing when things go wrong, would stay all uphill for two or three minutes, two or three hours, what does it matter now, in this life of ours, which not only delayed the Mesicans by two days, it made the river unnavigable as the Mesicans had to cross further down the river hopping sand bars....black cloud rumblings during low ebbs near just south of Sugar Land, not at all knowing the now dismayed, drenched, tired, and hungry Mexicans shook, stuck, diverted, and delayed were stopped for a time behind, Mexicanos consternados, empapados, cansados y hambrientos sacudidos, atascados, desviados y demorados fueron detenidos por un tiempo atrás, as written by Cos, and reported and delivered by hand by the courier, trapper, cartoon tattoo artist, and explorer José María Ciervo Domínguez (July 11, 1812 - April 20, 1836), along with fusilero Raul Perez Roy Benavidez (June 19, 1808 – April 20, 1836), who was along to provide security, but was really there in fact to only monitor the situation as an observer, both of whom would soon be emboscados, capturados y asesinados degollados y decapitados que luego fueron pateados en broma por los astutos tejanos en Anáhuac, cerca de San Jacinto, a ‘.. un desprevenido y conmocionado’, ambushed, captured, and slaughtered by having their throats slashed and heads cut off which were then kicked around in fun by the sneaky Texans in Anáhuac, near San Jacinto, to ‘...an unawares and shocked’ General José Cosme de Urrea y Elías González (March 19, 1797 – August 1, 1849), called by Santa Anna as only Urrea and never General, Estamos bloqueados después de haber llegado a un puente destruido que arde sin llama tarde en el día al atardecer después de la puesta del sol en un prado de árboles de pacana y un bosque de robles y cipreses inactivos y tener que esperar hasta el amanecer de la mañana siguiente para determinar un plan de avance basado en el paisaje, la marea y el clima en cuanto a cuál es el mejor lugar para cruzar el río de manera segura sabiendo que lo más probable es que los tejanos nos hayan eludido en nuestra búsqueda, We are stymied having arrived at a smoldering destroyed bridge late in the day at twilight after sunset in a meadow of pecan trees and a forest of idlewood oaks and cypresses having to wait until dawn the next morning to determine a go forward plan based on the landscape, tide, and weather as to where best to safely cross the river knowing the Texians most likely having eluded us in our pursuit, on the site of what became the Idlewood Arch & Aqueduct, El Magnifico Puente a la Gloria, The Magnificent Bridge to Glory, the scene slowly shifting now and battle lines being drawn nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong what a field day for the heat a thousand people barbequeing meat mired in muddy peat, to San Jacinto nearly fifty miles to the east.

According to another account, and this is key, recorded by Texan Major Martin C. Luchenbach (April 3, 1790 - April 21, 1836), a German nobleman, and father of Jakob Luckenbach (September 11, 1817– February 9, 1911), the younger Luckenbach helping settle the Texas Hill Country in 1845 and founding the town of Luckenbach (Population 3, 2020 U.S. Census) and is known as a venue for country music and for its German-Texan heritage, who was in charge as an aide-de-camp and sometime chargé d’affaires to General Houston, and was for the most part tasked primarily with reconnaissance, recognition, and reporting of the enemy movements led by Santa Anna...whose army was now headed east en masse...our Texan army tried to prevent Santa Anna and the Mexican army from crossing the Brazos 12 April camped near Fulshear’s plantation. Our army first retreated, circled north, then again continued east, after having learned that a thousand five hundred or so Mexican soldiers had tried to cross unsuccessfully nearby to Thompson’s Ferry, their chase slowed, and crossing stopped ahead of Santa Anna at the Brazos before nightfall at an undetermined point, a mile to the south. Point of Reference: Randolph Foster is one of the old three hundred settlers whose plantation was in the John Foster land grant that lay just south of Fulshear and is a most trustworthy member of Martin’s Company and, from the account of William Wharton, who reported to me a half hour before this Noon, we ascertained that the Mexicans ‘camped on the night at Churchill Fulshear’s plantation which lay...on the north side of the Brazos’.

Thompson’s Ferry, located on the Brazos River between San Felipe and Fort Bend, was operated from 1828 to 1834 by Jesse Thompson. As the Texan army headed toward a dry spring run between Fulshear and the Jared E. Groce’s plantations, rear guard contingents under Moseley Baker at San Felipe and Wyly Martin at Fort Bend sought to prevent the Mexicans from crossing the Brazos River. On April 9, 1836, Santa Anna, not wishing to be delayed at San Felipe, led a column downriver toward Thompson’s Ferry, the Mexicans arriving at the crossing on the morning of April 12 and spying a negro ferryman on the east bank of the Brazos. Col. Juan N. Terencio Almonte, who spoke English well, hailed the ferryman, having thought that he was a countryman who had been left behind during the Texan retreat. The ferryman, later determined to be an escaped slave from Mississippi, James Jim Hill, whose birthdate is unknown, possibly between 1805 – 1815, who is thought to have died in 1888, it was said at the age of between 73 and 83 during the Big Die Off near Medora, North Dakota, having frozen to death attempting to save stranded starving snowed in cattle after riding as a drover leading at point, trailing in rear, and riding flank to take a herd of 3,000 longhorn cattle and mavericks from near the King Ranch in south Texas on the Chisolm Trail through Ft. Worth up to Ogallala, Nebraska for train shipment on the Union Pacific Railroad through Omaha and on to Chicago for slaughter, and whose wages of $621.73 for three months were left in an envelope with the Green Blood Bull & Badger saloon bar tender, Joe Clayton J.C. Giggerton, Hill telling him ...in the event I do not return Joe, you may have this and keep to do with it what you like, and then suddenly began singing sadly somberly Eh bien c’est comme ça que ça se passe et Joe, je sais que tu es assez anxieux de fermer, alors, merci pour la joie j’espère que ça ne t’a pas dérangé que je tienne l’oreille cette torche que j’ai trouvée doit être noyé ou il pourrait bientôt exploser alors, fais-en un pour mon bébé et un de plus pour la route...c…ce long, long chemin, to wit a shocked, surprised, and stunned Joe quickly replied simply because he also spoke French Dis que ce n’est pas le cas, Joe!, a fortunate coincidence during a difficult time in which nearly everyone in town respected Jim Hill’s privacy, after his loss of new found friend, school marm, dress shop owner, and lead church soprano Annette Carson Phelps, from Center City in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who died in a bathtub 🛀 accident, just a big town girl livin’ in a lonely world they took took a midnight train going somewhere just a country boy born in Mississippi and raised in south Texas they took a midnight train going over there after their brief affair was cut short tragically after a three day fling that included picnics in a pear orchard, dances around the piano in the parlor, back and forth knock knock jokes, multiplication problem solvings, and tantric frantic panic manic sex under the stars while gazing at the Belt of Orion on the roof of The Buffalo and Longhorn Hotel & Resort, Racetrack, & Casino, now called the Arapaho & Cheyenne Croquet, Badminton, & Squash Club, at the confluence of the North Platte, South Platte, and Platte Rivers near the city of North Platte, Nebraska, Hill blaming himself the rest of his days, of which there were few, in so many ways haunting himself with thoughts all through his head If only I had not gone downstairs for more ice and champagne some clean glasses ...Annette would not have drowned because I would have been there for her, after Hill downing three shots of Four Compass Rose 🌹 bourbon in a minute slammed his Polish crystal blown shot glass down on the bar, and stood up and exclaimed Yeeeeeowww! Touch tone hum! Whooooooo! I am out of here. See ya!, made from the distillery of Rufus M. Rose, whose Victorian house still stands on Peachtree Street 🍑 in the SoNo district of Atlanta where, on July 21, 1910, a policeman knew his name and said You can go sleep at home tonight, if you can get up and walk away, he staggered back to the underground and the breeze blew back his hair he remembers throwin’ punches around and preachin’ from The Chair ,

This much later around time I rode General train as best I recall having gone back on midnight train to Georgia by mistake during transit briefly from Hiram Plough, Leann’s, house after start of Spanish American War long before Great War John went to with me or Civil War I witnessed personally,

The Lowenjacks began walking across the shiny marble floor toward The General. Western & Atlantic Railroad #3 The General is a 4-4-0 American type steam locomotive built 1855 by the Rogers Ketchum & Grosvenor Co., of Paterson, New Jersey, for the Western & Atlantic Railroad, best known as the engine stolen by Union spies in the Great Locomotive Chase, an attempt to cripple the Confederate rail network during the Civil War. For a while, The General was located and relocated at various train stations in the North, and was displayed in Chicago from 1962-1967. Today, the locomotive is preserved at the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History in Kennesaw, Georgia, where it was hijacked in 1862 by the Yankees, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The General is a famous train, Mona told the boys.

It is also the subject of a 1926 American silent comedy film ‘The General’ © released by United Artists, inspired by the Great Locomotive Chase, a true story of an event that occurred during the Civil War. The movie stars Buster Keaton. The story was adapted from the memoir The Great Locomotive Chase by William Pittenger. It was also a Walt Disney 1956 adventure film also based on the Great Locomotive Chase in 1862, the film starring Fess Parker, who portrayed later both Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, you know, those coonskin hats you all got, well, you remember both Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone both in the theater and on television, as James J. Andrews, the leader of a group of Union soldiers from various Ohio regiments who volunteered to go behind Confederate lines in civilian clothes, steal a Confederate train north of Atlanta, and drive it back to Union lines in Tennessee, tearing up railroad tracks and destroying bridges and telegraph lines along the way. The 1926 Keaton version, although extraordinary and one of the greatests movies of all time, has the story backasswards, with Keaton a rebel taking the train back from Yankees and being pursued by them.

Yes, Buster has it backwards.

The General provided freight and passenger service between Atlanta, Georgia and Chattanooga, Tennessee, before the Civil War on the Western and Atlantic Railroad of the State of Georgia and later, the Western and Atlantic Railroad Company. During the Civil War on April 12, 1862, The General was commandeered by Northerners led by James J. Andrews at Big Shanty, now Kennesaw, Georgia, and abandoned north of Ringgold, after being pursued by William Allen Fuller and the Texas train. Low on water and wood, the General eventually lost steam pressure and speed, and slowed to a halt two miles north of Ringgold, where Andrews and his raiders abandoned the locomotive and tried to flee. In 1864, the Battle of Atlanta had forced the withdrawal of General John Bell Hood’s forces from the city. Hood ordered the ordinance depot destroyed as he left Atlanta on September 1, 1864. To this end, the General was severely damaged by being run into boxcars of ammunition and a Missouri locomotive. This was done deliberately so as to render the engine unusable for the approaching Union forces. After reading the plaque and some of the display information, Mona said That must have been a wild ride."

Yes, it was. It most certainly was. I got to New Rumley miraculously, although as Jerry Glanville after being fired by Houston Oilers getting then hired by Atlanta Falcons as their head football coach said If you’re not in Atlanta, you’re just camping out.

well, who are you?, who are you?, who, who, who, who?, the brand’s distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, was built in 1810 with Arquitectura estilo Misión española which was influenced by the twenty one (21) Franciscan Acerca de California (Über California) missions established during the period of 1769–1823, including their chapels, onion fields, orange groves, cemeteries, and youth ball sport courts in basements of separate meeting halls, structures, of clearly defined definitive design characteristics, though not impacted to any measurable discernible attainable real or imagined extent by the soundings of Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Jan Dismas Zelenka, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Francesca Caccini, or even Spain’s own Father Mateo Antonio Pérez de Albéniz, who was known as El Padre que Toca el Piano, who composed masses, hymns, folk songs, and motets of which he later said no debían celebrarse en presencia de la gente común, porque los pecadores sucios no notan su sutileza, variedad o piedad, ni se complacen en oírla y mucho menos en usarla o rasgarla, sino en presencia solamente de los bienaventurados sagrado santurrón santo más que tú contribuyentes de grandes fondos para la parroquia, y, por supuesto, aquellos activistas educados en formas perversas, y de aquellos que están buscando sutilezas en las artes y aquellos de un informe amarillo inclinado, trent y fent, pero solo durante la Cuaresma, quienes a menudo estallaban repentinamente con la noticia de un caso grave de amar a Jesús, aunque en su mayoría querían sentarse en los bancos delanteros y subir a la torre para tirar de una polea para tocar la campana en la Misa de medianoche en Nochebuena, antes les dijeron que se fueran, si eso puedes creer, y por ellos me duele, were not to be celebrated in the presence of common folk, because the unwashed sinners do not notice its subtlety, variety, or piety, nor are they delighted in hearing it let alone wearing or tearing it, but in the presence only of the blessed sacred sanctimonious holier than thou contributors of great funds to the parish, and, of course, those activitsts educated in wicked ways, and of those who are seeking out subtleties in the arts and those of a reporting amarillo bent, trent, and fent, but only during Lent, who would often break out suddenly with the news of a bad case of loving Jesus though they mostly wanted to sit in the front pews and climb the tower to pull a sheave to ring the bell at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, before they were told to leave, if that you can believe, and for them I grieve, voiced vigourous vespers, prayered midweek novenas, hand beaded rosaries, heard true confessions, issued harsh penances, witnessed repentances, managed tithing collections, counseled married couples, baptized babies, lit red and blue candles, and after all that giving himself a good talking to while walking in the park singing dirges in the dark the day the music died, but was amazingly never published, though a book of archaic prim prosed poetic Solfeggi, published at Donostia–San Sebastián, Spain in the Basque region which lies on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, just a few miles from the France-Spain border, in 1803, was also written separate but in parallel for harpsichord, harmonica, Jew’s harp, hurdy-gurdy, player piano, piccolo, paigu, pandeireta, triangle, trumpet, trombone, and tuba, and accordion, the work for which he is best known today being Sonata in D Major, but not a word was spoken, the church bells all were broken, playing only the train Monopoly token, and was often played on a wing and a prayer and taken with care later played on a dare from Rod Stewart, by Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix during their impromptu unplugged guitar 🎸 jam session concert as they drank piña coladas 🍹after getting out of the rain ☂️ inside at the bar at Trader Vic’s in London at the Hilton Park Lane Hotel in Mayfair on October 30, 1969 which was recorded only by Tom Jones on a TEAC 1200 reel to reel tape recorder, the Tiger 🐅 from Wales 🐉, Sir Tom, having been known to sneak in and catch lightining in a bottle at various taverns, pubs, and bistros all over the world of the improvised music made by many of his favorite artists, which became the bootleg orange vinyl pressed album Shotgun Sugar Shack Solfeggi, of which reportedly only two thousand or so album copies were produced in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico at El Estudio de Grabación Bota Pierna, La Plaza y El Balcón, which was owned by blind 🕶️ musical sensation, classical flamenco 💃 and acid 💊 rock guitarist 🎸, singer 🎤, and bandstand leader 🎼 José Feliciano, but sponsored surreptitiously by RCA Victor ®, never being copyrighted, most of them bought at various pirate record shops on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, these commonalities arising because the Franciscan missionaries all came from mostly the same places, with a few exceptions, of previous service in Spain and colonial Mexico City in the New Spain, these buildings forged by founding Franciscans saw and emulated were of the Spanish colonial renowned style for settlement design, with visible connected and complementary aspects of cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, and really, come to think of it, nearly all towns in California that begin with the word San, which translated to English means Saint, but you already knew that, right, at least I hoped you did, which in turn was derived from Renaissance and Baroque examples in Spain, the limited availability and variety of building materials besides adobe near mission sites or imported to Alta California limiting design options as the missionaries and the interesantes indígenas californianos introvertidas had no training, with minimal self taught ad hoc construction skills, and absolutely no experience or even nominal understanding of European design, architecture, and engineering, most padres sent to the New World from Spain’s mindset overwhelmingly reflective and sympathetic and in alliance with the same thoughts reflective of the tersely worded rudiments, sentiments, crudiments, and testaments of Father Bernardino de Sahagún, from the sister cities of Castille and León in the Leonese part of the Tierra de Campos, Spain, who stood up during dawn Easter services outside on a sand dune while giving the sermon said I am not a carpenter, I am in the business of saving souls. It’s so hard to be a saint in the sand!, and after immediately being told to Sit down! and dragged off of a big rock he was standing on while shouting He is risen!...He is risen!...He is risen! by the assembled congregation which had a reservation for the resurrection as the sun appeared rising in the east, was reassigned by the southwest North American regional officio pontiff-in-charge Archbishop Gustavo Gomez García-Siller, who was in town para dar la apariencia de eminencia to give the appearance of eminence, and el día anterior supervisó una búsqueda de huevos de Pascua para todos los niños pequeños que Jesús amaba, un Desfile de Pascua con cierta inclusión de varios diseñadores de carrozas y un concurso de Gorro de Pascua para mujeres locales, the day before oversaw an Easter Egg hunt for all the little children Jesus loved, Easter Parade of some inclusivity of various float designers, and Easter Bonnet contest for local womenfolk, to Misión San Antonio de Valero, a small mission in San Antonio, for some mandatory reposición del alma, reprogramación dura, reflexión profunda, remisión del pecado, descanso y relajación, soulful replenishment, harsh reprogramming, deep reflection, sin remission, and rest and relaxation, instead ran off in the quick of the night leading a caravan of rabid followers, wild sycophants, and admiring adherents, taking stolen horses, a dozen or so heads of cattle, some dumb oxen, a few asses, with confiscated army wagons in tow eastbound and down with much of the wine produced in Hopsland, California, all of the gold, a little silver, and a few worthless faux Roman religious relics from the Mission San Juan Capistrano and took off for somewheres around the Grand Canyon leaving only a note in a small tequila stained envelope, la tinta china índigo enfatizada de una pluma de gallina on the note being blurred by a El Capricho val Paixariñas Spanish 🍷 Rosé and too many tears for one heart to cry

El hombre se funde con el universo

El universo se funde en la voz tranquilo

El sonido se funde en la luz que todo brilla

Y la luz entra en el seno de la alegría infinita

The man merges with the universe

The universe melts into the quiet voice

The sound melts into the light that everything shines

And the light enters the bosom of infinite joy

, and after setting up a trailside Navajo trinket shop, souvenir stand, kayaking pier, healing herb store, ice skating rink, donkey stable, and watering serai north of Flagstaff near the Grand Canyon, at a point in the middle of a linear intersection of of circle comprised of the perimeter towns of Tusayan, Williams, Kingman, and Page Arizona, not too far from and fairly close to Route 66, transformed himself with only the assistance of fellow fleeing fathers Raymundo Garduño Cruz and Juan Francisco González Aguilar, whose descendants today are the governor of New Mexico and the Hall of Fame baseball relief pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres, St. Louis Cardinals, and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Azusa and Cuuuucamonga on Track 5, Rey Adopho Cruz and Juan Aguilar VI, Cruz running unsuccessfully as a vice presidential candidate and running mate for Republican party presidential nominee Mary Jane Karen Netolicki of Iowa in 2036, and Aguilar VI selecting a Padres logo cap for his bronze enshrinement plaque in Cooperstown, New York in 2037, of which he said later through his career and in game on mound translator and interpreter, Oliver Pérez Isidro Márquez, who also gave his induction speech alternating paragraphs speaking in both Spanish and English and providing sign language simultaneously in Japanese, Jesucristo, mira esa cosa. Me parezco al maldito Bert Blyleven. ¡Necesitan rehacerlo!, Jesus Christ, look at that thing. I look like fucking Bert Blyleven. They need to redo it!, though they never did, because they never do, respectively, into a warlord, surveyor, tour guide, wind song chimes maker, supply chain manager, and Holy Man focused on realization, creativity, reasoning, and awareness for the Diné, who believe there are two classes of beings, the Earth People and the Holy People, the Holy People believed to have the power to aid or harm the Earth People, since Earth People of the Diné are a vital mystical crystal integral operational cog in the eternal machinery of the universe, they must do everything they can to maintain harmony or balance on Earth or Mother Earth will swallow them, laying their body down, they are spirits in the ethereal shining light and delicate aromatic World, Dan K. Joyner a railroad official of some major importance in Houston, Texas, later saying Either You Is Or You Ain’t, becoming then one of the many mantras of the Diné, which is today seen displayed on bumper stickers on cars all across the Great Western U.S. and parts of the Great American South, Giggerton turning over Hill’s cash and coin amount to H.P. Haupmann, the former converted ranch land owner, Indian activist, and real estate agent and recently converted cattle trail boss, who was drinking Michter’s, made at the Bomberger’s Distillery, which was, at the end of the twentieth century, believed to be the oldest remaining such building in America, though the more recently introduced products have no direct connection to the old distillery, the complex located near Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania representing the transformation of whiskey distilling at the beginning of a new dawn in spirits, from an agricultural enterprise into a large scale factory industry run by an Eastern syndicate of businessmen, gamblers, and weather forecasters, the surviving still house, warehouse, and jug house dating from about 1840, but the site having a documented history of spirit production since 1753, whiskey and rye like good ole boys with his inner circle and command staff at the other end of the bar, after being told of Hill’s hasty and unannounced exit, immediately gathered his gang of smiling drunk cow punchers who saddled up and headed out to give chase to Hill and a few others who were headed on horseback north but to no avail never catching up to them after a three hour ride before sunset as the temperature dropped, the wind howled, and it began to snow, knowing for sure now that Hill and them other fellers faced certain doom as an early winter in the middle of autumn was now here, ...a damn blizzard now upon us, let’s head back to town boys Haupmann telling his men and after pondering for a moment how and whether to even to find the closest relatives of Hill to return them the money, but knowing it was unlikely he would be able to do so, a week later invested part of the money in Hill’s name in the new University of Nebraska school in Lincoln in an three way split towards the creation of a grain futures endowment, railroad acreage realty, and perpetual grant which to this day creates opportunities for students from all walks of life to reach their full potential, but who at that earlier time in April of 1836 was a pecan picker, grove tender, pig stucker, whiskey grainer, wheel wrighter, magnolia flowerer, and horse whisperer on the Fulshear tract, meandered his bamboo ferry raft slowly using a his boatman’s pole to wind and steer across to the west bank, Santa Anna and his staff, who had been hiding in nearby bushes, springing out and capturing the ferry surprising Hill who dove off the raft swimming underwater dodging fire from English made Brown Bess muskets, smoothbore guns with a range of about seventy yards, before rising and gasping for air and then submerging again arising three quarters of a mile or so downstream where he ran up the east bank to see the ferry raft which he had sabotaged by loosening the square lashed ties and poking small holes in the wood below deck causing it to slowly leak, as the raft fell apart he watched gleefully as the Mexican men and their caballos of the front ranks scream and fall, flail, and fuss somethin’ fierce in the brown water, and ran into the woods, thereby escaping capture, certain inquisition, and likely a tortuous death, Hill hailed by General Sam Houston himself (March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863), for his daring ploy and heroic act in deceiving the Mexicans, his ruse significant in delaying their arrival at San Jacinto, years later finding his way east to become a conductor on the underground railway before and through the Civil War who personally enabled Frederick Douglass to escape slavery, though still a slave himself until the announcement of General Order No. 3 by Union Army General Gordon Granger (November 6, 1821 – January 10, 1876), best remembered for his part in the Battle of Chicagmauga, the Battle of Chattanooga, and the Siege of Matagorda, but who, on June 19, 1865, proclaimed freedom for enslaved people in Texas, Hill then becoming a stevedore at the Galveston Wharf and Cotton Press Company, bartender, busboy, and bellman at the Hôtel Jean Lafitte on the seawall, and pier arcade barker, duck pins setter, cotton candy whipper, ice cream dipper, painted picture postcard purveyor, and pretty perfumed prissys pimp on the boardwalk jutting out over the Gulf of Mexico, for whom a silver statue was constructed in his honor in 2017 depicting him diving off of his raft into the Brazos River, and stands across the park at Old Central from the bronze sculpture of John Arthur Jack Johnson, the Galveston Giant, the world’s first black heavyweight boxing champion (March 31, 1878 – June 10, 1946), in which Johnson is posed as if about to throw a knockout punch, along with a copper statue of Hill at the University of Nebraska outside of the Cornhusker’s football Memorial Stadium to stand along with the Bob Devaney, Tom Osborne, Brooks Berringer, and Bugeater statues, and of course, the monument on the west bank of the Idlewood Arch & Aqueduct with a plaque on which reads:

JIM HILL

ON THE WATERS BELOW THE IDLEWOOD ARCH AND AQUEDUCT, EL MAGNIFICO PUENTE A LA GLORIA, THE MAGNIFICENT BRIDGE TO GLORY, HERE ON THE WEST BANK OF THE RIO BRAZOS ON APRIL 11-12, 1836, MISSISSIPPI AND TEXAS SLAVE JIM HILL OF NEARBY FULSHEAR’S FARM ALONE DELAYED FOR A DAY AND A HALF THE MEXICAN ARMY WHICH WAS IN PURSUIT OF DESPERATE TEXAS TROOPS RACING EAST BY BOLDLY DECEIVING GENERAL LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA AND HIS RECENTLY VICTORIOUS TROOPS AT THE SIEGE OF THE ALAMO IN SAN ANTONIO EARLIER ON MARCH 6, 1836, WHICH ALLOWED THE FLEEING TEXANS TIME TO RENDEZVOUS WITH TEXAS GENERAL SAM HOUSTON AND READY HIS ARMY FOR THE INEVITABLE FINAL TITANIC CLASH AT SAN JACINTO, THE DECISIVE BATTLE OF THE TEXAS REVOLUTION ON APRIL 25, 1836.

As a dry swirling breeze from the southwest blew whistling low along the ground through the trees out of the clear blue sky with a series of violent bursts, time interspersed inexplicable interconnected deaths slowly began to spread across the country of the Brazos. The cause of the terrifying phenomenon remains unknown, prompting the Mexicans to tenga cuidado de tratar de eludir al escurridizo asesino invisible ahora vientos en las tierras bajas de Brazos, aunque estaba claro que nadie estaba a salvo ya que la histeria colectiva, la euforia general y la santa gloria se insertaron insidiosamente y de manera loca, y desfilaron, pervirtieron e invadieron el escena, take heed to try and elude the elusive now invisible winds killer in the Brazos bottomland, though it was clear that no one was safe as mass hysteria, general euphoria, and holy gloria was insidiously insanely inserted, and paraded, perverted, and pervaded the scene. Both the Texans and Mexicans would take el extraño viento de los jardines, the strange wind of the grounds as an omen, a portent of what may lie ahead east of them to decide this war, though many always find something as an omen or portent, such as a dead squirrel, an orange, a horseshoe, a mucky duck, a shooting star, most of them knowing for the most part that My omen is your portent, Mi presagio es tu portento, the Mexican camp that night, some, mostly officers, looking for the Belt of Orion, which was not visible, or for a sign that Jesus would come down from Heaven and bless them, keep them, and grant them ultimate victory, though many just sat around their campfires at the remains of the day only staring into the sky trying to see the mostly visible planets with the naked eye though that really don’t happen that way at all, dropping off to sleep one by one, while the Texans after earlier discussing their route further heading farther on down the road and safely away, though both opposing armies in all the excitement thought about the meaning of war, even though they had little time to do so, each soldier keeping a positive thought.

Wars I have seen them come seen them go armed conflict between peoples states tribes factions governments all types of societies in disagreement over water, land, money, fame between military groups with extreme prejudice, violence, aggression, destruction, death not rained down only on military targets but places of people not fighting or even of aware such war is happening causing shock, suffering, sadness.

A code originally devised by Texan Captain Thomas C. Marsh (August 31, 1814 – July 3, 1863), a Pennsylvanian from Pittsburgh recently arrived in the new Liberty town and settlement on the Trinity River, Villa de la Santísima Trinidad de la Libertad, having purchased a land grant there from Mexico, and later as a cavalry major of volunteers and townspeople in an ancillary autonomous auxiliary in his home state’s 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regulars, Company E, of the Flying Lancers Brigade, commanded by Appointed Colonel Richard Rush (January 25, 1825 – October 17, 1893), who died at the Battle of Gettysburg and was posthumously awarded, per Col. Rush’s, and the other officers present who observed the event, recommendations, having witnessed the entire glorious matter, the Medal of Honor after having Voluntarily rolled two cannons and carried a box of ammunition down a hill and across an open space swept by the enemy’s fire to the relief of an outpost whose ammunition had become almost exhausted, but which was thus enabled to hold its important position by firing at will and obliterating the oncoming rebel swarm, during part of General Wesley Merritt’s Cavalry Charge across the Houghtelin Farm, now Battlefield Bed & Breakfast, the action taking place at the same time as Pickett’s Charge, though the cavalry was not successful in breaking through the Confederate infantry line, it did succeed in holding the attention of the infantry to prevent them from joining the center of the infantry charge further north on the Emmitsburg Road, during the revolution for use by General Houston, was created and implemented which in part focused on the use of the word idlewood, each of the consecutive letters of the word representing sections, eight in all, of the Texas territory outlined, rounded, and squared...from the Red River, Rio Grande, Rio de Sabinas along up and through points on and west of the Rio Brazos maps created by Houston and his staff, primarily commando cartographer Captain David Huffman (February 22, 1799 – May 25, 1870) who assembled, enhanced, and illustrated the original margin notes, diary entries, and yonder reports used in dreaming up the concept of a silent secret signal code in its infancy recorded and passed to him by Marsh during a javelina, wiener, and catfish luau, marshmallow roast, sing along, charades, river dance, star gazing, and spooky stories telling event which was mandatory for all officers and enlisted men, Houston ‘mostly standing on ceremony rather than sentiment’, at Channelview the day after the Alamo had finally fallen, Houston’s idea for the hastily organized instant party being to allow the men to blow off some steam, do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight, whoo, get down tonight with some Mexican girls who were just dying to meet them, all never keeping a dollar past sunset, always burning holes in their pants, never making a real girl sappy, never getting a second chance, who needed love to keep them happy, always stealing money from rangers, did not want them in water to wade, never wanting to be a coward, fighting in this war every night and day, a poorly planned party is better than no party at all, Huffman having earlier brought his bride, parents, and brothers and sisters with him from Opelousas, Louisiana to east Texas, the family originating from Germany where their name was spelled Hoffman, changing the name to Huffman when they migrated to America, looking for a place that provided water, timber and farmland, an area most befitting as it is near the San Jacinto River and there was also an artesian well near Crosby nine miles to the south, and who would found the town that bears his last name in 1837, created a lettering sequencing alpha numeric code comprised of Latin letters and Arabic digits, an identifier made of alphanumeric characters, which often had punctuation and mathematical symbols included, but not always. As an example, the NOSIXbT/D and the PERSIiQ/M locales, to cite only two (2) examples here, there are 36 A-Z and 0-9, case insensitive, and 72 A-Z, a-z and 0-9, case sensitive alphanumeric characters. The basic Huffman Code is shown as follows:

I   Innovative    1A

D Desirable     2B

L  Lazy     3C

E  Epic     4D

W    Warmth       5E

O    Outgoing      6F {X}

O    Obedient      7G {Y}

D Dreamy       8H

which later became a decoy coding model called the David Huffman Code, or simply the David Code, a modern updated and field mapping, artillery firing, and synchronous timekeeping deception method with nearly unlimited possibilities used to trap Axis fighters in the air, on the land, and on the sea, which was an ode to Leonardo Da Vinci, who created the statue David, and David Huffman of Texas Revolution import, combining elements of the Da Vinci Code, the idea that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children, leaving living descendents behind, the Catholic Church covering up this fact while a secret society called The Priory of Sion worked diligently to keep Jesus’ descendants safe, while using original and now additional elements of the Huffman Code, the two codes combining and separating as one as planned from the period of May 1 – June 30, 1944, which only made sense to the Allied Command staff officers and totally confused, as intended, Linienoffiziere des deutschen Militärs trying vainly to protect the beach they had fortified months earlier in France, its real confusion, and please pay attention here, coming from the fact that the statue David was made not by Da Vinci, but instead by Michelangelo, who gave credit to God alone in guiding his heart, mind, and hand, used between invading Allied ships flashing signal lights with shuttered fronts which could easily be opened and closed by simple handles in timed intervals and orders to send messages before and during the D-Day invasion devised by the Signal Service of the European Theater of Operations of the United States Army (ETOUSA) which was concerned primarily with matters of supply and administration for the U.S. Army in Europe, whereas the Signal Section of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) was responsible primarily for signal matters as they applied to the integration of British and American troops and to the tactical and strategic control of those forces, this distinction greatly oversimplifying what were actually very complex, confused, and contested areas of responsibility, and it does not take into account the numerous inordinate, subordinate, and coordinate organizations that existed in the theater or the loss or addition of functions from time to time, but nevertheless, with due allowance for such factors, the signal responsibilities of the theater did divide roughly into the two areas I just mentioned, the Huffman (David) Code used not only so as to throw off the German defenses on the beaches of Normandy, including Juno, Sword, Omaha, Utah, and Gold, but it was also put to good use by paratroop patrols between the hedges in drop zones in France during fighting in the middle of the night which preceded by six or seven hours the storming of beaches who used the code word terms Idle Wood, Leerlauf Holz, and Bois Inactif to integrate both shake, rattle, and roll and strike, drop, and cover evasive maneuvering, instigate shoot first ask questions later manipulating, and initiate a feeling of good will hunting in the woods, alternating the three uses of Idle Wood in the languages of nearly all combatants present from the U.S., England, Canada, along with France as they faced off against Germany, when considered appropriate, determined averous, and deemed applicable, all of which was termed acceptable.

Earlier, at the end of the beginning, the weary Bonham, a fast talkin’ cigar chompin’ tobacco spittin’ no shittin’ lawyer, a Carolinian of exulted family and a good friend of Travis, turned his mount named Heather, whom he nicknamed Purple Sage, an obvious reference back then to Mexican Heather, known as false heather, Cuphea hyssopifolia, a flowering insidious indigenous inalienable glorious gleaming glossy groundcover that produces masses of bright green leaves and lavender flowers throughout most of the year, though, let the word go forth, there was nothing false about Heather, ‘she was all mare’, around and rode her back toward San Antonio. Fannin told him ‘It is useless to throw away your life.’ Bonham answered back ‘Damn it, sir, Buck Travis deserves to know the answer to his appeals!’, spat upon the rain soggy soaked slick ground and splattering by accident Fannin’s rattlesnake boots, powder blue pleated pants, elegant black ribbon bolo western tie, white frilly cuffed blouse, and dark blue mack coat with tobacco, and immediately apologizing profusely, Fannin accepting Bonham’s ‘quick apology in its honest sincerity and holding no grudge’....and told Bonham to ‘ride with the wind but look out for tornadoes it being the start of the Spring season and all’, and galloped west into his own immortality. An so Bonham returned to the Alamo on March 3, breaking through the Mexican lines at a hurried pace with all dispatch, get out, gallop, gaunt, and sense of urgency on his vaunted Valvia Púrpura, carrying ten different messages...in urgent letters in code from Robert McAlpin Williamson (November 24, 1804 – December 22, 1859), familiar to many pre-revolution as The Artist Known as RMW, a tap dancer, early jazz improvisationist, timpanist who made a whole lot of noise playing everything from snares, kettledrums, triangles, cowbells, and gongs from tit to toe who composed the music and lyrics for the song Black Cloud © which was later recorded by the British rock band Trapeze on their second studio album recorded at Morgan Sound Studios, on High Road, Willesden in northwest London, England, which was originally owned by Barry Morgan (November 11, 1944 – November 1, 2007), drummer for Blue Mink, a British six piece boogie doo-wop bubble gum pop group that existed from 1969 to 1977, a period over which they had six (6) Top 20 hit singles in the U.K. Singles Chart, and released five (5) studio based albums who, according to AllMusic,have been immortalised on a series of compilation albums, each recounting the string of effervescent hits that established them among Britain’s best loved groups of the early 1970s, who are best known though in the annals of Rock ‘n Roll for providing the instrumental background music and accompanying vocals to the #1 ☝️ smash 💥 hit Lola © (1970) and for the entire album Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One by the Kinks ©, lead singer Ray Davies, who hired the group saying I felt that for Lola they added the needed bam pow wham wow blam behind the story and also added I liked the idea of the Minks and Kinks getting together, and although I learned after signing them that their band name was Mink, and not Minks, I still wanted to proceed with Blue Mink, who I mistakenly thought was known as The Blue Mink, and not simply Blue Mink, having admittedly been in a bit of confusion which I knew I would have to soon get sorted out before recording could begin, Black Cloud being produced by The Moody Blues bassist John Lodge and released in America on Thankgiving Day in November of 1970 by Threshold Records & Tapes ®, the album being preceded by the release of the single, rural philosopher, catfish groper, sleeping dog poker, card playing joker, and the originator of modern day Merengue music who was known to entertain people in shows on a a rat ship where, a vessel for sea goin’ snitches, on which they thought they were preparing those minnows for manhood all along the riverways from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, who came to San Felipe de Austin colony of Stephen F. Austin in 1827 and became acquainted and quite familiar with both Austin and Travis, who founded The Cotton Plant © in 1829 and became the 1st prosecuting attorney (TA) for the town of San Felipe during this time, and going on to publish the newspapers The Texas Gazette © and El Ciudadano Mexicano ©, The Mexican Citizen, his thought then being for motive of profits and wealth only ...to provide separate breaking news and instant information bi-weekly with different biases and editorial points of view for culturally clashing citizens, racially conflicted inflammatory types, and languaged differentiated peoples to make a lot of money. Same stories...different slants...same price...different day...same shit who was made the first Major of all the Rangers for the Texas Rangers in 1835 and fought at both the Battle of Gonzales and the Battle of San Jacinto in the 2nd Regiment J Cavalry of William H. Smith, (March 6, 1811– March 6, 1836), an Alamo defender and resident of Nacogdoches who served in the revolutionary army for six months before the siege of the Alamo, also taking part in the siege of Bexar and serving in the Alamo garrison as a member of the artillery company of Capt. William R. Carey (December 3, 1806 - March 6, 1836), the first Texas commander at the Alamo, who funded and supplied out of his own bank account The Invincibles garrison he led, who personally trumpeted all battle calls, and made a mean Chicken parmigiana, fought like the dickens, and sewed his new blue jeans, known also affectionately as the Hoobie Doobie Bugle Boy of Company G 🎺, because he sounded and trumpeted all warning, formation, and service calls, and who later became the inspiration for the Andrews Sisters’s Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company C © (1941) in the Abbott and Costello film, Buck Privates © that same year, the Decca © recording reaching #6 on the U.S. pop singles chart in the spring of 1941 when the film was released, eventually ranking No. 6 on Songs of the Century, the only song not ranked #1 on any music charts to be named to that hallowed list, the beige 100% Alabama cotton bond official Texas Army missive envelopes licked and sealed with a kiss and stamped with hot red wax and Williams’s initials pressed

RMW

in and on to all ten and carried in Bonham’s silver buckled small worn leather saddle carrying satchel, the reason being numerous coded messages, battle plans, and field orders taken along to fool the Mexicans if Bonham was captured and interrogated to throw them off the track, trail, and trace, along with other notes and postcards for those troops, families, friends, and acquaintances, and those lesser known of no renown in town, there in San Antonio assuring Travis that help was on its way and urging him to hold out. Bonham was killed in the battle of the Alamo on March 6, 1836, and is believed to have died manning one of the cannons in the interior of the Alamo chapel, his last words being Come and take it!™, a historic slogan, first used in 480 B.C. in the Battle of Thermoplylae as Μολών λαβέ! by Spartan King Leonidas I, as a defiant answer and last stand Σήκωσε το δικό σου!, Up yours! 🖕 to the surrender demanded by the Persian Army, the Battle of Heraclea in 280 B.C., the first of the Pyrrhic victories of King Pyrrhus of Epirus over Rome who used trebuchet catapults with beaucoup fireballs flung in Heraclea, the Romans flinging hot molten balls on their enemy while taunting them with shouts of Venite, et tollite eam!, during the Battle of Eddington in 865 A.D., Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, where at first Alfred seemed to be yet another victim of the Viking invaders, his forces having been decimated, and he himself was reduced to the status of an outlaw, who mounted a guerrilla war against the Vikings and while disguised as a miller grinding grist, Alfred took shelter in a peasant woman’s house, who asked him to look after a batch of bread she was baking, and then scolded the hapless king when he accidentally allowed them to burn, shouting at her "Come and take it! I am not going