Official site of Tribune News serving Tomball, Magnolia and Waller

"Clifford, come here! Clifford, can you hear me boy, I said get in here!"
"Sir", I said as I entered the unfinished kitchen. 
"Look at this, every one of these styles are a sixty-fourth too short or long."
"What's a style Uncle Speedy and how short did you say they were?"
"I said they were each a sixty-fourth too short or two long and a style is the divide between each door on these cabinets!"
"Ok, but Uncle Speedy, what's a sixty fourth?" I asked.
"Clifford how long have you been working on cabinets?"
"Well Uncle Speedy I've only done this a couple of times before, but I still don't understand what a sixty fourth is!"
"Come here and look at this ruler. Do you see each of these little marks between the inch marks? That's a sixty fourth!"
"Do you mean those little, bitsy, teeny, tiny marks?"
"Yes Clifford, each one of those marks represent one sixty fourth of an inch!"
"But Uncle Speedy what difference does one sixty fourth make? I can't even see it much less cut it any closer!"
"Look at it this way son. If you had a cabinet sixty four feet long and you cut every style one sixty fourth shorter than the one before, how short would your cabinets be?"
Now even though I had to go through Mrs. Beards remedial math course three times to get through high school, I was still able to calculate the answer when I finally confessed to him it would be an inch out of whack! That's a lot when you're working on cabinets and they hadn't invented one-inch caulk yet.
This was one of my first lessons in cabinet making from Uncle Speedy Bogs. Now Uncle Speedy really wasn't my uncle but because all the Mueller Boy's called him Uncle Speedy I called him Uncle Speedy too!
I had often asked my dad how Speedy got his name. He confessed to me that it was a nickname given him by all his boyhood friends. He had one crippled foot and they always had to wait on him when they were running anywhere so they just nicknamed him Speedy! The name stuck, even in light of its original connotation that sounds cruel to some, but was really a sign of friendship between boys. We men are like that you know. We take the worst things about a guy and poke fun at them and as we get older we soon realize the nicknames given each one of us are really a true bonding of friendship. Many men carry nicknames from childhood. Moose, Goose, Unk, Speedy, Shorty, Fat Albert, Dog, Bimbo, Cotton, Squi-rrel, Hoss, Peg, Runt, Blackie, Whitie, Stick, Stinky, Blue, Suds, Shine, Hair, Monkey, Smitty, Rubber Butt and Popeye are just a few of the nicknames that have stuck with men that I have known for their entire lives. Mine was Popeye, because as a child I wore a Popeye outfit at Halloween with a can of spinach stuffed down my shirt. The problem was however the can kept falling down the front of my shirt, past my skinny ribs and wound up either falling on the floor or into my pants which really made a sight for wonderment.
When the name is first anointed on them it is usually at a young age. It is initially intended to poke fun at each other but as we grow older we soon realize the name is no longer intended in harming or poking fun at you, it's simply a way of being accepted by other men with common problems, likes and ideas. I don't expect my female readers to understand the bonding two men have when their nickname is used as an everyday, common expression of friendship and acknowledgement.
Well, now I've got a new name to add. It's Pink Sugar. Pink Sugar works at a Panera Bread location down at Spring Cypress and Tomball Parkway. If the place doesn't advertise in this paper they need to because I will tell you that Pink Sugar has been added to my list of good food and faster service. Just for kicks I have started timing Pink Sugar and the crew that produces my lunch sometimes just for fun.
I will tell you that I recently received a bowl of soup and a handmade half a sandwich in twenty three seconds! Now someone will misunderstand that a sandwich made in twenty three seconds can't be any good, but no joke, it is a regular sandwich that Pink Sugar can put together in a flash!  I am a connoisseur of good food and I have eaten at just about every restaurant in this area and fast is not always good but in this case, it really is. What's bothering me now, however, is how does a guy get a nickname like Pink Sugar? What if Pink Sugar wanted to join a motorcycle gang? Can you see him going up against names like Lug Nuts, Flywheel and Jack Hammer? HA!
"What's your name boy?" "
Ahhh, its Pink Sugar"
It makes me think of cotton candy ….hmmm.

Clifford

Last week I started sharing with you the fact that I have fine print in my contract to no longer do volunteer handyman work for many people including working around church. It has also come to my knowledge that many people do not understand why. Even though I have ran this story before, many people forget.

I'm a hard worker, I provide for my family, I love my wife and kids, I love God, Country and Apple Pie but for some reason people tend to love me but they do everything they can to avoid letting me do things with my hands. It's really difficult for me to understand why?

Even the little things in life people try to steer me away from. As an example I spent a weekend with my cousins, The Osgood Clan and their kids at our ranch and they wouldn't even let me make coffee! I like my coffee real strong and when we ran out of a pound of coffee after only two pots they made me stop making it! I kept wondering why I caught Uncle Marvin stuck to the ceiling the next morning. He blamed it on my coffee and said it was too strong. It probably gives him gas. Anybody that I have made coffee for has never wanted a second cup.

One Christmas I received a brand new set of carpenter tools from my Mom and Dad for Christmas. I was proud of my tools and I built a brand new tool box as my first project. I was about sixteen and I had already begun my working career as an auto mechanic. I worked for Clement Patzke in Hufsmith and I then went to work for Johnny Reeves on Kuykendahl. Johnny had a lady friend who needed some doors cut off at the bottom as she had bought new carpet for her home.

I informed Johnny I would be glad to do this carpenter work as I had a new set of tools I wanted to try out.

I arrived at the ladies home and promptly removed the door and took it outside carefully cutting off a quarter of an inch. I re-hung the door and noticed it was still dragging. The door was an entry door to her bathroom and was connected to a hallway which made for close working quarters.

I took the door down again and carefully marked and removed another quarter of an inch. I re-hung the door and it still dragged the carpet!

I removed the door again and knowing I had plenty of room for cutting, I then removed one inch. I carried the door back into the house and once again the door still dragged the floor!

The television show Candid Camera was real popular and I really began to wonder about this door and I slowly looked around several corners for a possible camera. I even considered the possibility of the home having a cracked foundation and was settling quite quickly.

Once again I removed the door and promptly removed two inches knowing full well this had to be enough regardless of how fast this home may be settling!

Carrying the door back in, I hung it in place and, well, you guessed it, it was still dragging!!!!

Falling against the wall in frustration I rested my back and head against the sheetrock as my eyes scanned the three plus inches of sunlight shining across the top of the door......  

 The lady was real kind to me. As she tried to keep from laughing her comment was, "I always wanted to look out the top of my door while in the bathroom!!!"

I picked up my tools and politely dismissed myself from her home.

Clifford

“Throw it!” Throw it!” my Aunt Brenda yelled to my wife. Throw it! Throw it”! She yelled as my wife hollered back, “Where? “Up there, throw it up there under the bridge! Hook the bridge” Aunt Brenda yelled back, as my wife became more and more confused.

For some strange reason my wife decided to go fishing with our Aunt Brenda a few years ago and my wife does not fish! In fact, I really can’t remember the last time, if ever, that I saw her with a fishing pole or rod. My wife does target shoot with me every once in a while but I really can’t remember ever seeing her fish. For whatever reason these two women decided to go fishing on a "no men, two women" fishing trip to an East Texas lake.

You have to understand all of the “first” that have occurred on this weekend for my wife and Aunt Brenda. It was the first time to my memory that my wife drove alone, away from home on more than a one-hour trip. It was the first time that either one of these ladies backed a boat trailer into the water. It was the first time they ever unloaded a boat by themselves, cranked a boat by themselves and drove a boat by themselves. I was really, really worried about them and couldn’t for the life of me figure out why these two grown women decided to take this trip by themselves.

It seems though we men in their lives have been getting on their nerves and they wanted to get away for a woman’s outing. I just wish they would have gone shopping or something. I kept feeling like a mom feels when her kids are out late at night. Are they OK? Did they hurt themselves unloading the boat? What if they get stranded on the lake? What if a storm comes along and they don’t get into shore in time. What if they catch a fish! Who’s gonna take it off the line?

All of these things ran through my mind. I was a bit relieved though when the first call back message I heard on our voice mail was from my wife. “We’re in Wal-Mart and everything is OK!” Wal-Mart! What in the world does Wal-Mart have to do with fishing! Wal-Mart! Can’t they stay at home and go to Wal-Mart instead of traveling to East Texas just to go to a Wal-Mart! Oh well at least they are having a good time shopping I thought.

After hearing their story when they got home I could do nothing but be relieved and laugh at their weekend. The first occurrence was when Aunt Brenda failed to yield to an ambulance! It seems my wife and her have a bad habit of not using all of the mirrors of a car for driving. As my Aunt Brenda was sitting in a traffic jam, an ambulance with sirens blaring came up behind her and needed her to move over to clear the road. Brenda heard the sirens and kept looking from side to side trying to find the ambulance when it was actually right on the tail end of her car and she didn’t see it because she didn’t look in the rear view mirror. The next occurrence was the loading and unloading of the gas tank for the boat. It took both of them to carry it and then they had to figure out how to hook it up! Then they had to unload the boat and finally after figuring out how to crank it they were off for a trial run at fishing.

As they approached the fishing spot under a highway bridge, it was my wife’s duty to hook the rope to the bridge to tie the boat into position. What she didn’t understand though was exactly where she was she supposed to tie the rope. When Aunt Brenda was hollering “throw it” my wife thought she was supposed to attempt to throw this large grappling hook over the side of the rails of the bridge while the cars were rushing by. She was afraid to throw it too hard thinking she might hit a car. What Aunt Brenda really meant was to simply reach up to the bottom side of the bridge and tie off to one of the braces under the bridge and not on top. If I could have been a fly on the wall! The funniest part of the trip however was the “big one” my wife latched on to. After Aunt Brenda had baited my wife’s hook (remember she doesn’t fish so she doesn’t bait her own hook!) my wife let her line over the edge of the boat. Soon she began to struggle with a heavy tugging on her line and they both began to get excited by the bend made in the rod. As my wife pulled and tugged while reeling in the big one, she soon surfaced with a large strap much like a seat belt! I have her trophy on my credenza in my office as a keepsake. Needless to say they both made it home the next day and all is well and yes they did catch a few fish! I just hope their next trip they go shopping!

Clifford

Joy to the World! Peace on Earth! Goodwill toward Men! Joy, Peace and Goodwill. These are three words that were penned in the Bible before shopping malls and mega super stores.

Ok, yes, I do understand that it is not Christmas and no, I am not falling victim to the crush of Christmas advertising that is about to begin. I was just in a good mood because I can once again smell fall coming on and fall brings winter and winter brings the various holidays. I told my wife about three weeks ago that I can smell fall coming on and she thought I was crazy because she can’t smell, but there are probably a few of you that know what I mean.

Many years ago I went to our local Walmart during the Christmas rush and saw an event that made me chuckle about those three words I mentioned above.

During the past several years I’m sure we can all attest to the fact that a lot of common courtesies have went by the wayside. It’s sad but true.

There was a time when real men removed their hats or caps before entering a building. There was a time when a man would open a door for a woman and in return the woman would politely say thank you. Men would give up their seat for a lady and most everybody would give up their seat for a pregnant woman. We would all say ma’am and sir to each other and the young people would always address their elders by Mr. or Mrs. until instructed to do otherwise. Thank you and you’re welcome were part of our every day vocabulary.  Some people call it southern hospitality and I personally still adhere to the old rules of etiquette. It’s sad however that in today’s society these things are missing because each time we lower our standards a little bit something else also tends to fall away and our standards get lower and lower. We are quickly becoming a low standards country.

Look at our driving habits! Have they improved? Our parking habits, our walking habits, our talking habits and many other things have moved further and further towards the lowered bar of living and I think a lot of it has to do with the “me first attitude.”

I was walking through this parking lot when I heard a man hollering something from his truck. His window was down and his arm was hanging out the window and he was thrashing and waving his hands, muttering something about the woman stopped in front of him. He was driving down the parking lot aisles and she was waiting on a parking spot. Problem was however that she had taken up both lanes and she didn’t have her blinker on to indicate her intentions. Now I know some of you think I’m being silly, but if people would just use the signal indicators (remember they are technically called indicators and not blinkers because they indicate your intentions of what you want to do with your car) then this guy may have had a little more patience.

After hearing his mutterings, I stopped to watch. For about thirty seconds he was hollering out the window “all I want to do is get out of this parking lot and she has it all tied up!” 

Common courtesy and common sense would tell me that if I were waiting for a parking spot I would be pulled over to the right hand side of the traffic lane so people could pass me on the left, but not this woman. Her car was stopped right in the middle of the center line and she was waiting on the people in a parked car, so she could take their spot. That’s fine and I know she was probably worried about some sorry dude coming in and jumping in front of her but she lacked the courtesy to think about the people behind her.

Thirty seconds turned to one minute and the traffic behind her had increased to six stopped cars. Six cars went to eight and then within another thirty seconds the people trying to get off the main road were blocked. It was becoming a dangerous situation and all the while the man in the truck was still yelling and hollering because he couldn’t pull around her to get off the lot.

Another woman walking toward her car saw the situation and she politely walked up to the ladies car that was blocking the traffic and gently tapped on her window, as the lady was looking at herself in her vanity mirror waiting for her parking spot. The lady explained to her she was making the traffic situation really bad and the woman in the car simply shrugged her shoulders as if she didn’t care and rolled up her window. She continued to wait, while not one time making any attempt to move over just two foot so everybody could pass her!

After watching this thing play out for about two minutes I was almost to the point of going over to this ladies car myself and asking her to move. She had no clue about the problems that she was causing and by now it seemed obvious to me she was part of the “me first generation.” She really didn’t care!  She finally got her parking space and the congestion was finally cleared without further incidence.

I turned and walked away and began to hum the tune of Joy to the World! I chuckled out loud wondering how many people today are really joyful about the holidays.

As for me, I’ll probably be laboring this Labor Day.  

Clifford

During Easter of 2003, I had been taking care of a young Brahman heifer I had to bring back from the ranch. She had been injured by what appeared to be a swift kick in the shoulder by one of my donkeys. I couldn’t care for her at the ranch in Independence, so I loaded her up and placed her in a makeshift pen behind my house.

My family had a traditional Easter gathering at my mom’s house. I lived next door to her and I had to pen this heifer in the back yard between our houses to take care of her.

During our family gatherings we always had an Easter egg hunt and the older members in our family would hunt for a money egg instead of candy eggs. A few of the guys in our family are strapping young men who think they are ready to whup the world.    

As always, I like to make things a bit more interesting, so I was going to create a ten-dollar egg for them.  I thought it would be fun to place an Easter egg on the back of this heifer and let the boys try to capture the egg. This young heifer was in the three fifty to four hundred and fifty pound range and she was just the right size for this make-shift rodeo event, or so I thought.

When a person delivers cattle to an auction barn each animal is tagged with a special number. The tags they use are actually glued onto the animal’s back. They take a tube of glue and squirt some on the tag and then they actually throw the tag, glue side down, on the animals back, never touching the animal.  I went to my truck and pulled out the old trusty duct tape and grabbed one of those plastic eggs. I back wrapped the tape around the egg causing the sticky side of the duct tape to be exposed. I figured I could do the same thing with this egg. I simply wanted to throw the egg on the heifer’s back expecting it to stick.

By nature Brahmans are a nervous breed, skittish and sometimes wanting to fight. She had been in my direct care for the past four weeks and fortunately she had become very docile and she had not given me any trouble for the past couple of weeks. I climbed into the pen and with one toss I hit her on the back and when I did all kinds of chaos was started. In one single leap she jumped five foot high onto one of the cattle panels of her enclosure and tore it down like a stack of matches! She immediately bolted from the yard and stood straightway in the middle of Hufsmith Road, staring at the oncoming cars.

As soon as this heifer hit the fence my entire life flashed before me. For the past four weeks I had thought I had broken the life long curse I had carried with animals, because it never fails that if I bring an animal home from the ranch, they are going to get out and attempt to run away! There were only two days left before I was going to take her back to the ranch and this young heifer is about to possibly cause some serious injury or damage to someone. My mind was in a panic.

Some people that have moved into this area have no clue about how to drive near animals. I have seen too many people fly by horses and cattle on the road without giving it a second thought.

As soon my family saw what had happened the men of the family jumped into action. Les, Sonny Wayne, Code Man, Brandon, Justin and Nathan all took off chasing this calf down the road. My neighbor Larry and his wife saw what had happened and they hopped into their truck to give chase too! Cars were stopping and some continued to fly by. People, cars and one animal were all over the road.

The calf ran about two hundred yards east on Hufsmith Road and I jumped on my four wheeler trying to get in front of her and cut her off. I knew that if she ever got down as far as Burroughs Park we might never see her again. Some cars had stopped and people were all joining in trying to corral this calf.  It was a madhouse! 

We soon got her pushed into our neighbor’s horse farm. When the horses saw this strange animal and she saw them, panic once again erupted! These fine show horses started bucking and kicking and running crazy and all I could think of was the potential loss of monetary value to these horses if one of them were to have injured themselves!

She finally ran off the road and inside a fenced area.  I rushed back to the house to get my truck and trailer. We had her cornered around the neighbor’s barn and the guys were holding her at bay, when she suddenly found a gap in the fence and took off again! When I got back with my rig and saw the chaos once again, I seriously thought about putting this heifer down due to the potential hazard she was causing.

As we chased and corralled, ran and waved, hollered and pushed, we even resorted to making a human chain hand in hand, as we tried to corner her. Suddenly one of the ranch hands next door finally got a rope on her and the event was over. My son, Justin tried his hand at roping her too but he ropes like his dad -- not at all! I forgot to teach him you couldn’t stand on the end of your rope while throwing it.

We had no loading chute, but as I pulled from the front with the rope and Les and Justin lifted from the rear we finally got her loaded. She was taken back to the ranch in short order. She is doing fine, but not so for Uncle Les.

After taking an extended body dive at the volleyball earlier in the day he pulled his back a little while lifting the heifer into the trailer and I think he also cut his arm. Once we arrived back at the house with the truck and trailer he stepped off the trailer and twisted his ankle. Poor guy! I just hope he doesn’t abandon me next Easter as it seems this brother in law always gets everybody into some kind of mess.

Clifford