Out My Window

I was introduced to Brautigan back in the 60's. At the time, he didn't make sense but I picked up some of his books just to impress some of the hippy girls.
Once I started reading them I had to have more.
His writings are hard to explain. You just have to try it out for yourself. Even at this juncture in my life I still like to reminisce about how life was back then.

Yes, the Fish Music

A trout-colored wind blows
through my eyes, through my fingers,
and I remember how the trout
used to hide from the dinosaurs
when they came to drink at the river.
The trout hid in subways, castles,
and automobiles. They waited patiently for the dinosaurs to go away.

I may not agree with a lot of the things that Obama has been doing but I must say that he does have his endearing moments.
To hear him comment on on something like the MTV Awards makes him more like a real person.

Reporter: Were your girls as mad as mine were that Kanye gave Taylor Swift the Joe Wilson treatment?
Barack Obama: I thought that was really inappropriate. You know I mean it’s like she’s getting an award what are you butting in? I hear you, I agree with you.
Reporter: Does that count as the first question?
Barack Obama: The young lady seems like a perfectly nice person, she’s getting her award, what is he doing up there? He’s a jackass. No all this stuff…I’m assuming all this stuff…where’s the pool? Come on guys cut the President some slack I got a lot of other stuff on my plate. ‘Cause I remember last time there was the fly thing that was the highlight…
Report: That worked out well for you, you were a ninja.
Barack Obama: Not really, except PITA.
Reporter: You got the chopsticks this time?
Barack Obama: Yeah right.

Jackass? JACKASS!!!!
Yeah, he said jackass.
Well, finally something we can agree on.

Roger Stephens, 61, was just having a routine shopping experience until a two year old ruined it by screaming.
Stephens politely ask the mother, Sonya Mathews, to "shut that kid up or I will shut her up for you," according to the police report.

A few moments later, in another aisle, Stephens grabbed the 2-year-old and slapped her across the face four or five times,
Stephens then told Mathews, “See, I told you I would shut her up,” according to the report.

Mathews was detained by a bystander until police arrived. When questioned, the 61-year-old man explained that while he had indeed slapped a strange baby across the face, he apologized to her mother afterwards. Although he was ever so polite, he was arrested anyway for felony cruelty to children.

It was July, 18, 1969. Ted Kennedy was having a party with some friends in Chappaquidick, Mass. Six young, "Boiler Room Girls" and six gentlemen. It seems the wives were never invited to this party.

According to his later testimony, Ted Kennedy chose to not drink that night, and when Mary Jo Kopechne (a 28-year-old political worker) said "that she was desirous of leaving, if I would be kind enough to drop her back at her hotel". Ted, although his driver was present at the party, took the keys from him and offered to drive her. Kopechne told no one that she was leaving with Kennedy, and left her purse and hotel key at the party.

Even though Ted Kennedy hadn't had a drop of alcohol, he became lost. Kennedy's 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 was spotted where he pulled off on a cemetery road and a police officer approached the car to ask if needed help. But Kennedy chose to speed away from the officer in a cloud of dust.

Kennedy made a wrong turn onto Dike Road, an unlit dirt road that led to Dike Bridge. Dike Road was unpaved, but Kennedy, driving at "approximately twenty miles an hour", took "no particular notice" of this fact, and did not realize that he was no longer headed towards the ferry landing. -- until he plunged off the side of Dike Bridge. The car sunk in the water, and Ted swam to shore.

He was tired, so he rested about fifteen minets and walked back to the party. Kennedy denied seeing any house with a light on during his journey back to Lawrence Cottage. His route back to the cottage would have taken him past four houses from which he could have telephoned and summoned help; however, he did not do so.

He returned to the scene of the accident with his cousin and a friend that later became the Attorney General, with the hope of rescuing Mary Jo. Kennedy said he was worried for the others ssfety, so he didn't bother telling them about Mary Jo Kopechne. The guys tried to free her body from the car for a while, his friends drove him to the ferry where he swam to the other side and went back to his hotel room.

"I almost tossed and turned and walked around that room ... I had not given up hope all night long that, by some miracle, Mary Jo would have escaped from the car."

Kennedy complained at 2:55 am to the hotel owner that he had been awoken by a noisy party. By 7:30 am the next morning he was talking "casually" to the winner of the previous day's sailing race, with no indication that anything was amiss. At 8 a.m., Gargan and Markham joined Kennedy at his hotel where they had a "heated conversation." According to Kennedy's testimony, the two men asked why he hadn't reported the accident.

Earlier that morning, two amateur fishermen had seen the overturned car in the water and notified the inhabitants of the nearest cottage to the pond, who called the authorities at around 8:20 am. A diver was sent down and discovered Kopechne's body at around 8:45 am. The diver, John Farrar, later testified at the inquest that Kopechne's body was pressed up in the car in the spot where an air bubble would have formed. He interpreted this to mean that Kopechne had survived for a while after the initial accident in the air bubble, and concluded that

Had I received a call within five to ten minutes of the accident occurring, and was able, as I was the following morning, to be at the victim's side within twenty-five minutes of receiving the call, in such event there is a strong possibility that she would have been alive on removal from the submerged car.

When Kennedy, still at the pay phone by the ferry crossing where he was calling friends, saw that the body had been discovered, he crossed back to Edgartown and went to the police station; Gargan simultaneously went to the hotel where the Boiler Room Girls were staying to inform them about the incident.

Rest in Peace, Ted.

Tracy Lynn Bellard didn't show up for work Friday. Her family owned and operated a local steakhouse that we featured as a great place to eat, Mimi G's. They are successful because each and everyone of her family are so nice to the people they serve. Tracy waited on us the last time we were there with our grand daughter.

Joseph Dewayne Douglas was charged Monday with murdering Tracy Lynn Bellard at her McDade home while her daughter watched.

Tracy had previously filed a complaint with police saying Douglas had established a relationship with her underage daughter. He was subsequently charged with indecency with a child, harboring a runaway and criminal trespass and was released on bail.

Douglas' arrest affidavit states that his 13-year-old brother brought a .22-caliber rifle to Douglas at Bellard's home. Police did not say where the boy got the gun. The 13-year-old told police he saw Douglas shoot and kill Bellard in the presence of Bellard's daughter, the affidavit states.

The girl told investigators that she was present when Douglas shot her mother, the affidavit said. She said Douglas left her home in her mother's car. She said Douglas told her later that he had disposed of the body, the affidavit states.

In Texas, if three or more people see you commit a murder, you go straight to death row. Too bad one more person wasn't there.
Douglas took Tracy's body to his grandparents house, where he lived, and burned it. How did we guess this loser didn't have a place of his own?

Update:
There has been another twist in a shocking homicide in Bastrop County.
When investigators charged Joseph Douglas, 18, with murder in the death of the mother of his 14-year-old girlfriend, it didn't take long to realize that Douglas' troubled past goes back at least five years to a camp for emotionally disturbed boys known as Woodside Trails.

Jack Reynolds is now 41. Five years ago, he served as a camp counselor at Woodside Trails.

"We dealt with severely emotionally disturbed juvenile sex offenders out at Woodside trails," Reynolds said.

One of those kids was Douglas -- now 18 and accused of killing Tracy Lynn Bellard and burning her remains on his grandparents property in Bastrop County.

Five years ago, when Douglas was 13, he accused his in camp counselor of sexual abuse. That counselor was Reynolds, who learned on Tuesday that Douglas had been arrested and charged with murder.

Reynolds and the camp were cleared of all charges. Douglas had a history of making the same allegations about family members.