Several days in a different part of the same country.

On a recent trip to small town TX (Wharton, population 9000ish near Houston), I noticed things you don't see back home in Colorado.  

The small things most people might not notice are those things I cultivate.  IF you are a writer, you know how that goes.  Here is a pictorial representation of things that speak of TX to me!  As weird as it sounds, one of my favorite things to do when I travel is to go to the local grocery store.  It is a place where the cultural and regional differences are displayed in a relatively small space and gives a tiny window into the things people in that area "take for granted" but seem a bit foreign to those outside! 

In TX the Mexican food is authentic and great, the BBQ is unmatched and great, the watermelons grow large and juicy and the cotton spreads out for miles in every direction.  The land is ironing board flat and the trees grow wildly. 

The accents are as thick as the humid air.  The people are very warm and friendly.  The frogs croak in a beautiful evening chorus and every so often a cooling breeze makes the evening charming.  

The buckle of the bible belt allows for free prayer (twice) at a graduation ceremony and NO ONE gets offended!  BIG POINTS FOR TX in this guy's opinion!

Humidity and heat out of this world in early June, cotton is high and that is why! Humidity and heat need one more ingredient to be awesome and that is OCEAN! 

I LOVE ZAPPS and have ordered them by
the case because they are not distributed in COLO.
In TX they are on the shelf.

     SO glad we don't need this in COLO!

 

Tortilla chips shaped like the LONE STAR STATE and a woman taking pictures of those chips...  Seems I'm not the only one who finds these local things interesting! ALL chips strips are shaped like Colorado!

Grits as common as any other regular hot cereal. One point for TX! Truth is they might be available at my local store... haven't checked lately.

 Monkey Brains????????????????????????????? Haven't had them, don't know what they are.

These coconut candies are good and so are the Mrs. Annie's Peanut Patches!

Fried Pork rinds in numerous kinds, great road trip grub, but it is negated by the lollipops that are layers of picante, salsa and other hot seasonings for nachos.  NOT how I want my suckers!

Weird candied fruit and cactus for your salad.  The tomatillo salsa at the restaurant we went to was OUTSTANDING!

Everything IS bigger in TX!  Check out that moth! 

Imagine hundreds, no thousands of those doing what miller moths do to your front porch light. 

My beautiful blond and our friends at the awesome local BBQ joint! One point for TX! TALLEY one for the friends and they are also from Colorado!

In the BBQ place, in a corner there is a turkey on a sewing machine base with a plastic fern and an American flag? Uh, WHAT?

My beauty playing an OLD pinball machine.

The merengue on these pies at the BBQ joint are as high as a Texas woman's hair.  

Strange greeter for a BBQ joint! The foods so good he's stuffed!

A guy wins the lottery and spends it to renovate the coolest motel in Wharton, TX. 

Some of the ladies trying the local CHICARONES (fried pork skin).

 An AWESOME young lady from up north gets her first shot at shooting a real life gun AND hits the target with most!

 So much fun!
 Old West style gun, kicks hard!

 That dude smoked the target!  Note our instructor, what a great guy to share his arsenal!

 My Clint Eastwood pose, gotta do it since we were shooting revolvers and saying... "Right now you're wondering did I shoot five bullets or six..."

 Michael poses for his Old West double barrel shot!

Spending time with good friends in TX makes it a great place to VISIT!  A howling coyote taking us to Colorado from TX and arriving in the evening with the cool air, humidity free Colorado!


Having friends for decades is the best part of the trip.  Michael, Donna, Stephanie, Heather and Smokey (you just go ahead and stay right there) WE love you and were so glad to be a part of your celebration as Stephanie graduated! 

Talley's it was awesome to get to know you better! So sorry Laurie has lost some of her senses, but you can overcome it!


Walter and Rae and Lira, always good to see you!  

Denver Chalk Art Festival

It rained on Saturday, but that didn't bother most of the chalk artists in downtown Denver. They went back at it to reconstruct their "temporary" works of art.  A hazard of this type of endeavor, to be sure.  

http://www.denverchalkart.org/festival_info/index.php

 

It was fun to see the original artwork on an 8 x 12 piece of paper being transformed into a much larger piece that brought smiles, curious looks and general fun to the crowd gathered on Market Street.  From the classic portrait style that you might otherwise find in an art gallery to sublime pieces  nods to Star Trek, the Avengers and much more.

 

 I've stood in the Louvre looking at the original, but this version put a bigger smile on my face and was a lot bigger than the famous Mona Lisa!

    More than any other, we wanted to see the finished piece, after all it was Where's Waldo and they hadn't put him in when we were there.   

 

 

 This was my favorite.  I got the artist's card after she told me illustrating children's books is her dream.  She went on to tell me "words don't matter, it is the images"... careful now... if we end up working together we might have to happily disagree.

Some seemed to have simply walked away, leaving smeared squares of chalk, but many were at work in the evening bringing their previous day's work back to life.  


Others covered it up to ensure the hours and hours and hours of work were protected and the detail in this one was literally spectacular.  I wanted to talk to her, but the line was too long.  Simply artistic genius!

My party agreed this wonderful blue fox was an overall favorite. 

     I really wanted to stary to see how this would turn out.  The use  of black and white was awesome!

         

Mother Mary 

holding baby John Elway? 

    

I was disappointed to have missed seeing the Gargoyle my latest novel is based on washed out.  I'd really like to see what he looked like before the rain took him. 

     Best story of the night.  This man was recreating a picture of his grandfather during WW1, with his head coming out of the airplane he flew in the war.  A picture was found in an attic that told the story he grandfather never spoke of.  A true American hero.  The artist bragged, "His friends called him Curly. I have his curly hair!"  A huge smile crossed his face and ours too!.  Thank you for your service Curly!

Now that is an awesome dude announcing my visit!

Reading specialist Reva Lobatos and son, Reva responsible for EVERYTHING you see on this blog, see below for a link to the last school I went to that Reva organized.  CLONE HER!

I wanted to say THANK YOU to ALL of the wonderful hosts this VERY busy Spring 2012 School Visit season.  I have been welcomed graciously and the excitement for reading, writing and anti-bullying was increased this year due to you wonderful educators who provide your students with an extra boost!  

My last school visit of the spring was a spectacular display of preparation, anticipation and excitement for students, staff and yours truly. 

I have always loved calling attention to excellence and so this blog is my hat off to one very special educator who simply goes WAY beyond the call of duty!  First of all, in these tight economic times a grant had to be written to provide this author visit.  The grant was turned down, but that didn't stop this 'steamroller of excellence'.  She went back to the grant committee and asked what needed to be done to modify her proposal to get approval.  They told her.  SHE DID IT, THAT DAY.  It was approved!  AWESOME STICK-TO-IT-NESS!

The walls were lined with covers, announcements.  

Fun assemblies and a very well attended family night at Henderson Elementary in Cheyenne, WY was a great way to close out the spring of 2012! 

Example of what it takes to get the kids pumped for an author visit!

So, here is my HUGE shout out to Reva Lobatos!  This is the second school and second school visit Reva has put together with me and this wonderful lady should be put in charge of the NATIONAL HOW TO DO IT RIGHT FOR KIDS committee!  

Representative Ken A. Esquibel, myself, Senator Floyd A. Esquibel, now that is some representation 
of Gov't in a school!

In attendance during the day was the Superintendent of schools, the school's district representative at the Capitol and a State Senator!  The most amazing thing to me is that this is just seems to be "standard procedure" for this excellent educator.  

I watched this cool dad reading with his son and talked to him about his involvement in his son's lives as it relates to reading.  He reads with his boys every night and it shows.  Talking to those young men was a true pleasure and hearing them talk about reading was music to my ears, WAY TO GO MR. LOBATOS!.  
No wonder those boys love a good story AND love to read!

CHECK OUT this link to an earlier blog entry I did to showcase what Reva did to prepare for my last visit.  http://justinmatott-snickers.blogspot.com/2008/12/books-are-door-to-head-and-heart.html  (By the way, not only did she provide her school with something different, fun and educational, she went home between the school day and the evening event and brought her own boys back to experience a night of storytelling, so not only an awesome educator, but an awesome mom.) 

There was no way ANYONE didn't know we had something special coming!

Talk about making a guy feel welcome!  Reva asked what my favorite things are and then filled a basket with them!  That is really going beyond the call, but SO appreciated!


I can't wait to see what she does next time!  Oh, there will be an next time!

http://www.readtomelv.com/current-books/when-i-was-a-girl-i-dreamed/

This is very cool.  Rising pop star; Jordan Pruitt reads When I Was A Girl... I Dreamed!

THERE ARE SOME THINGS WHICH REQUIRE NO ADDITIONAL WORDS.

THERE ARE SOME THINGS WHICH REQUIRE NO ADDITIONAL WORDS.

Sometimes you just have to find the right place to write.  On a sunny beach. In a remote Colorado lake.  

Anywhere that inspires and doesn't get cell service!  Where's YOUR place?

Sometimes we just need a little HELP!

This picture reminds me of what kind of a kid I was.  It seems apt because my post is relating to some of the building blocks of my personality that were brought back to me because of a great book and movie called THE HELP which brought out many feelings and sorrows and joys for me.  My hope is this is a reflection of something important and a reminder to go back to those touch points in our life that made you who you are today!

Having grown up in the sixties/seventies with an uncle who was African American myself, it was a real treat to observe inbred prejudice in my own neighborhood (sarcasm intended). Most kids were just extremely curious (some in the white bread neighborhood I grew up in) had simply never been up close with a person with dark skin and someone so "different". But I got into my first real fist fight when one of the boys called my uncle the N word and related a comment his parents had passed on about us "letting him stay in our house", WHAT IGNORANCE! When I won that fight I felt in some ways as though I had lost. My uncle pulled me aside and told me he was both very proud and very ashamed of me. He was raised in Alabama and saw too much fighting over racial issues, thus moved to Europe to a more tolerant atmosphere. I never raised a fist against racial prejudice afterwards, but I NEVER remained silent when someone was subject to racial bullying and never will.

The next summer however I got into another fist fight when one of the kids made fun of my VERY overweight auntie who was visiting. She was JUST PROUD of me.

Having been raised with "dark features" myself and having been an adopted child with little heritage to draw from, I was called names because of my very easily tanned skin.

I was very, very fortunate to be raised by parents who "loved all" regardless of color, political bent or even sexual orientation. I say even because in those days there was VERY little tolerance for this, but it was my mother who invited those college students into my childhood home and I am richer for having known so many different people.

I LOVE SKEETER and pray that I am just a tad bit like her. The Hilly's of the world are always going to be there, but if we each raise our children to simply "LOVE ALL GOD'S PEOPLE" the world will be better for it AND THAT INCLUDES the accepted prejudice against Muslims that so many are now embracing.

COME ON FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS, let's just get rid of the scapegoats and start to find our own security so we don't have to subject others to the PUSH DOWN that makes some feel bigger... temporarily.

How do reading and writing correlate?

So, where do you get the ideas for your books? An oft asked question always seems to turn the conversation to reading and writing and how they work together...

"A good writer is a great reader and a great writer is a VORACIOUS reader!" and you can quote me on that!