On Hot Chocolate and Cold Weather. To Meg.

One of the joys of being raised in the colder climes was snow.

What is to accomplishment-minded adults a nuisance, and to skiers a medium of thrill, is to children, well, instant Magic Kingdom.

First, God in his most infinite wisdom put the snow season and the school season at the same time of year. So, not only was I playing outside all day, but I was playing outside all day on a day I would have otherwise been sitting in a school classroom. The choice between watching the red, second-hand move ever-so-slowly on the classroom clock or playing in the snow was not a difficult one. The ultimate in good fortune was the winter hat-trick: a big snow one day prior to the Christmas holiday, resulting in one extra day off, plus no homework for 2 weeks, and Christmas right in the middle. Wow. Talk about Peace on Earth.

Another beauty of snow for a child is that it is like playing in dirt without getting dirty. The possibilities of engagement are endless. Snowmen, snowballs, sledding, toboganning, igloo forts, and for the industrious there's even shoveling the neighbors' driveways for a few bucks.

Speaking of neighbors, our gathering place on snow days was the hedge row in Mr. Sincock's yard, strategically situated about 6 feet from Sandra Road. It was there we could crouch down, wait for a snow-slowed cars to roll by, and then bombard the car with snowballs as it passed. If the car stopped for the driver to get out and yell at us, or even better, to get out and chase us, we could, like little field mice, make our escape across Mr. Grady's backyard and then into the endless maze of backyards, secret passageways, and fences. It was never a contest between chaser and chased but the running escape was a thrill.

My sister (Meg) reminded me the other day about my mother's hot chocolate at the end of a day in the snow, and that is what I started to write about, but the snow, I guess it was something I hadn't thought about in a long while. So,

Tomorrow: my mother's homemade, real-milk, hot chocolate at the end of a snow day, and what I did to make it even better.

Honky Tonks & Dance Halls

I happen to like words.

Put a few of them together and you get a phrase, a clause, or even a sentence, the yeoman of language because it is a complete idea with a subject and an action, as in, "Jesus wept." String together related sentences and you enlarge the idea into the form of a paragraph. Relate enough words in sentences and paragraphs and you can write a whole book. Amazing.

All that to say that the lowly word is important. That's preface 1.

Preface 2.
One of the things you learn when you write a weblog is that your readers know more than you do, and if you "wing it" with your words, as I do, you will get caught.

Such was the case in the Gruene Hall post.

Now The Point (I try to have one):
I referred to Gruene Hall as a honky tonk and was informed by reader pkparks that it was a dance hall. And that there is a difference. My mistake. Gruene Hall does bill itself as the oldest Dance Hall in Texas, not Honky tonk. In my defense, Wikipedia defines a honky tonk as "a type of bar with musical entertainment common in the Southwestern and Southern United States." and if you do a search of "dance halls" on Google, the first website on the list is "Honky-Tonk Directory."

That aside, I enjoy these kinds of distinctions and I want to know the difference. If someone can enlighten me, I would be most appreciative.

Pkparks also referred us to the website dedicated to preserving Texas dance halls, here it is, http://www.texasdancehall.org.

Water From The Rock

FFW has made an occasional feature a regular feature, to wit: Sundays we highlight a work of art and attempt to relate the work to the liturgical calendar. Monday's we return to the normal food, news, events and bad, dad jokes.
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3rd Sunday of Lent
First Reading: Exodus 17:5

The LORD answered Moses,
“Go over there in front of the people,
along with some of the elders of Israel,
holding in your hand, as you go,
the staff with which you struck the river.
I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb.
Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it
for the people to drink.”
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Moses Gets Water Out if the Rock / J. H. Steen / 1650
Philadelphia Museum of Art




















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Gospel Reading
The Gospel of St John chapter 4.

“Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty
or have to keep coming here to draw water.

Christ and the Samaritan Woman / Bernard Strozzi / 1630