Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Trivia

My birthday was once New Year's Day, but Julius Caesar changed it when he added a couple weeks to the calendar. Don't ask me why.



When Texas was still a Republic and Sam Houston was president Mexico tried to take back a port near Corpus Christi.  So, A bunch of Mexican soldiers sent some supplies north to an area of vast grazing land and wildlife and sand dunes on the beach on an area near an intracoastal lagoon. Houston sent volunteer soldiers south to kick the Mexicans out of the Republic but by the time they got there the Mexicans had already left, abandoning their supplies and part of a steam engine. I figure it was the heat and wind that drove them away.
So, the Texas soldiers sorted through the supplies and all they found was barrels of flour, probably for tortillas. I like flour tortillas but when you get Carne Asada or Puerco Al Pastor on two corn tortillas you really can't beat it. Anyway, the soldiers took the flour and then decided to call the area of land where they found it "Flour Bluff"
That's the town I work in now and the trailer park is on the north end near the NAS-CC, (Naval Air Station) which was the original Top Gun fighter pilot academy before Miramar in San Diego came along in 1969. In one of those quirks of history, the NAS here on Flour Bluff graduated the first pilots, including George Bush Sr. and John Glenn a few weeks before Pearl Harbor. Someone anticipated the demand and the timing was perfect. Otherwise the next piece of trivia might never have happened.

German POWs from WWII were sent to Flour Bluff in 1944 and they stayed through 1946 in POW camps they built. They were paid 8 cents an hour for their labor but most of it was withheld until they were sent overseas. They worked 48 hours a week for two years repairing the airfield and creating a golf course. The POWs then went to England where they were farm laborers for 2 more years. So, sometime around 1948 or 1949 a bunch of German soldiers who were probably captured in 1943 finally got back to Germany and by that time it had been split in two and was in shambles. AND THEY WERE THE LUCKY SURVIVORS OF THE WAR. So, don't give me your tired complaints about hard times.
Much more trivial is the fact that the movie The Legend of Billy Jean from 1985 has a scene that was filmed in a run down classic 1980s mall in Corpus Christi. I don't have pictures but there's a scene where the star is running around the mall. Well, that mall still exists and it's a museum of nostalgia. I have to admit I only watched that movie because the star was cute and blonde and dressed provocatively (and had a boyish hair cut that reminded me of Darcy Devins who was my biggest crush in 1988) so I don't recall the scene in the mall. I went there with a buddy's family to watch The Hunger Games. It is at the Dollar Cinema and since it was a matinee we only paid 75 cents. That was about what that movie is worth. Legend of Billy Jean should be required to play at that movie theater all day every day.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I couldnt' figure out who this Darcy was, did she have blond curly hair?
http://workedtodeath.blogspot.com/2007_03_30_archive.html

Rozi

Anonymous said...

Corn tortillas rock, You should buy some Maseca and make your own, water, maseca, salt. The best tortillas you have ever had and cheap as dirt.
rozi

Oggy Bleacher said...

Darcy clues can be found in my Memorabilia book...Here's a short story I found about her...

Natural Science

Darcy Devins had lunch period after mine. So I would eat my lunch of pizza and french fries and an ice cream sandwich, sitting with Christo and Kodiak and talking about arcade games, and then the bell would ring and I had to go to Natural Science class. Natural Science taught stuff about clouds and general geology terms and photosynthesis. To me, it offered nothing but the ability to later fill in some crossword puzzle blocks.
But Darcy Devins was going to eat lunch after me so the only thing I could do was skip Natural Science and try to see Darcy instead.
She always wore the tightest denim pants or sometimes spandex tights with a denim skirt over them. When Def Leppard played in Boston she showed up with a Hysteria t-shirt. I would imagine playing with her tits under the t-shirt. Then I would get a hard on and rub it through my chess king pants. It felt so good.
At night I would listen to the radio and play with myself while pretending I was talking to Darcy.
"You want me to rub your feet?" I would ask.
And I would hump my pillow and think Darcy was missing out on a good thing.

So one day the bell rang and Christo and Kodiak went to their classes and I pretended to leave and then I went back and looked around for Darcy. She was outside with a burnout called Jamie Rollins. Jamie beat me up once in third grade because he said I smelled bad.
Jamie and Darcy were arguing about something. I could hear them because I was hovering around the soda machine, pretending to be deciding between Hires Root Beer or Tab.
"Where were you?" Asked Darcy, her voice was pure porn.
"Whatevah! Went to a wicked pissah pahty."
"You suck. You fuckin' suck, Jamie."
"Whatevah."

I was suddenly filled with rage. I couldn't believe Jamie could look at Darcy in her hot pink spandex and frilly white skirt and be so disrespectful. This was a princess, my princess, and she had to be honored. I had smuggled a paring knife from home just for these scenarios. I took the knife out of my pocket and turned around. Jamie was going to die.

As I took a step forward the Assistant Principal, Ms Maelstrom, stood in front of me.
"Where do you think you're going?" she asked.
I quickly hid the knife.
"Science class," I said.
"That started twenty minutes ago."
"I know. I got wicked thahsty."
"You can tell me about it in detention. After school."
"What a fucking pissah cunt!" I said under my breath.
The principal grabbed my arm, bruised it, and yelled in my face.
"Filthy little prick. Get out of my sight."
I thought about running at Jamie, stabbing him over and over again in the heart and throat. I'd cut his heart out and throw it at the principal. That would be fucking awesome!
Then Darcy turned to look at me as the Principal dragged me away.
"What a fahking loser." she said and Jamie laughed with her.
I loved her for that because she must have been talking about the Principal. I loved her and went quietly to detention dreaming of her heroic defense of my honor.

Mrs. Ramone took pity on me and gave me a D for Natural Science. I didn't have to take it again.


But the funniest story about Darcy is here:
http://workedtodeath.blogspot.com/2007/09/chapter-xv-leather-and-lace.html
I can not believe that I wrote that piece and still am not a millionaire.
Just that one chapter of that book should've been enough to earn me a fortune. I can't believe the wimpy kid diary author is famous and I live in a van. There's no justice. Darcy's real identity makes no difference anymore.

Oggy Bleacher said...

Darcy had straight blond hair but it was cut short.
I stole a HS yearbook pic of her but lost track of it.

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Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.