Totally Texas -- Prost! It’s Oktoberfest in Addison

The question posed to the group of friends at the Addison, Texas, Oktoberfest was, why is it called Oktoberfest when it’s in September?

The smart guy who’s lived in Germany mentioned some royal wedding hundreds of years ago that happened in October and gave everybody an excuse to drink lots and lots of beer. Not, I suspect, that anybody really needed an excuse for that. But why September? Because, mister know it all said, weather in the German Alps gets significantly colder come October, seriously cutting into the time people want to be outside, even outside drinking beer.

But as all Texans know, the real reason Oktoberfest is in September is to keep it from interfering with the State Fair, when Texans stay outside drinking lots and lots of beer. Not that we need an excuse for that.

And the reason I’m blogging about the Addison Oktoberfest the week before it starts is so you can get a free head start on all the fun. Oktoberfest in Addison begins next Thursday, September 18, at 6 p.m. And the first day is totally free. For the rest of the festival’s run, September 19-21, tickets for adults are $10, for children ages 4-12, $5.

You’ll still need coupons ($1 each) to buy food and beverages. And there’s plenty of food, schnitzel, strudel, pretzels, and lots and lots of sausage. You can eat at tables under air-conditioned tents (because September in Texas can be seriously warm), or at tables in the biergarten in the park, or as you stroll, visiting the vendors whose booths cover Addison’s Circle Park, between Addison Road and Quorum Drive.

Expect lots of music and dancing as well. My grandsons uninhibitedly hit the dance floor with a crowd of other kids. Once we dragged them away, they raced off to the miniature carnival rides and games on the south side of the park, leaving the grownups to stroll off their sausages and beer.

Need more to do? There’s a yodeling competition, a German spelling bee, a dachshund
race and and not only beer barrel rolling but beer barrel bowling. Advance tickets to Addison Oktoberfest are sold out, but day tickets are available at main ticket gate (where you can also buy food and beverage coupons). See www.addisontexas.net/events/Oktoberfest for details.

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Must imbibe this weekend? Try Grapefest in Grapevine, now through Sunday, September 14. Stomp the grapes, taste the wine, listen to music, stroll Grapevine’s charming historic downtown. See www.grapevinetexasusa.com/.

Totally Texas -- Last minute vacation destination: Fort Worth

My daughter and her husband waked up one hot August morning and realized eek!, they hadn’t taken a family vacation this summer. What was quick and within their budget? Neighboring Fort Worth! It’s only a forty-five minute drive from Dallas, but there’s way too much to do in a day. Checking into a hotel for a couple of weekday nights made it a real but unrushed and budget-friendly vacation.

I’d tried to talk them into visiting what must have seemed like a totally weird spot for family fun¾ a government organization complete with double, barbed-wire topped fences and bullet-proof vested security guards. Sound like not so fun? Amazingly, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Fort Worth was well worth a visit.

Confession: I worked for years for a Department of the Treasury agency without ever getting to see where we make the money. Millions and millions of dollars practically within reach! What’s not to like? And the tours are free, although I splurged on a couple of vials of shredded currency ¾ cost $3.50 each¾ for the grandkids at the BEP’s onsite gift shop.

BEP’s site at 9000 Blue Mound Road on Fort Worth’s far north side is only one of two currency printing sites in the United States. (The other is in Washington, D.C.) It offers an enclosed catwalk view of the entire printing process (yes, that’s real money you’re looking at!) and interactive exhibits of the current engraving and printing process as well as historical exhibits. (Did you know the U.S. once printed $100,000 notes? That a $100 bill has a life expectancy of 15 years? That the Currency Redemption Center once refunded a farmer $600 for cash eaten by his cow?)

The Fort Worth Bureau of Engraving and Printing runs three shifts 24 hours daily churning out its half of the 6.048 million notes the Federal Reserve orders for 2014. However, the Tour and Visitor Center is only open Tuesday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with last tour starting at 4:30 p.m. Best for kids with at least some reading ability and possibly some appreciation of money. For more information, see www.moneyfactory.gov.

My daughter and her husband, as artists, would have appreciated the BEP’s information about design and engraving. However, with young kids, they settled for tours of the Fort Worth Zoo (kids’ favorite animals: salt water crocodiles and Malaysian tigers), the Kimbell Art Museum with its current exhibition of samurai arms and armor, and the Stockyards.

Her eight-year-old twins are connoisseurs of zoos, but my daughter’s estimation is that the Fort Worth Zoo still equals if not exceeds the Dallas Zoo. They lucked out by getting half-price admission for their Wednesday admission. For information and discounts, see www.fortworthzoo.com .

At the Kimbell, they got half-price tickets Tuesday to admire the special exhibit, Samurai: Armor from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Collection. (Admission is always free to the Kimbell’s regular collection.) For information and discounts, see www.kimbellart.org/. From the Kimbell’s wonderful gift shop, they picked up a couple of children’s books on the artists Degas and Renoir that their new dogs are named for.

Then it was on to the Fort Worth Stockyards for rides on a mechanical bull (only the boys were brave enough for this one), the twice-daily mosey of longhorns down the street, and a visit to the Coliseum where the rodeos are held. For more about the Stockyards, see www.fortworthstockyards.org/.

(Next Friday -- say it’s not so¾ the last weekend before school starts!)

Adventure classics -- When the devil gets unchained

The Brave Bulls

by Tom Lea

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Our parents took their kids to bullfights. It was during the few years our family lived in El Paso while my sister and I were children. And although we’d been back and forth across the Rio Grande into El Paso’s sister city, Cuidad Juarez, more times than I can remember in the days before Juarez was something resembling a battle zone, we’d only been to a bullfight once. My sister and I were aged about eight and ten and had never met an animal we didn’t like. We spent most of the afternoon at the corrida de toros crying and probably embarrassing our parents nearly to death.

So when I found El Paso author/illustrator Tom Lea’s 1949 bestselling novel about bullfighting, The Brave Bulls, I wavered. Would I even be able to stand reading about this strange practice? A few pages in, and I was fascinated.

Not fascinated at first by Lea’s writing style, which like that of all too many mid-century writers reads like Hemingway on an off day. Not even by the main character, Luis Bello, whose rise from poverty to wealth and fame has been copied in a slew of other sports books and movies. But fascinated by the bulls.

The book opens with the preparation for a bullfight, full of the details Lea drew on from his experience at the same arena in Juarez where my sister and I were introduced to the bulls. “Over to the left there’s a big-bolted red door marked TORILES. Bullfighters call it the Gate of the Fright. It’s where the bulls come out.”

And out of that gate, Luis Bello and an ugly bobtailed bull named Brujo will meet.

The shadow of death has already fallen over Bello. He returns home between fights for
the funeral of the uncle who cared for the orphaned Bello and his brothers and sisters. Soon Bello’s friend, canny old bullfighter Juan “Skinny” Salazar, will meet death as he works the last bull of an otherwise uneventful afternoon. on an otherwise uneventful afternoon has just died. The deaths of Bello’s agent and his beautiful lover soon follow, the last two made still more horrifying by the revelation that these people Bello trusted most were betraying him. Is it any wonder his nerve is slipping?

But even more than a novel about a bullfighter, The Brave Bulls is about the bulls themselves--their history, their psychology, their breeding and testing--and the people who revere them, live by them, kill them and sometimes die by them.

Is this ancient game between human beings and bulls art? Is it sport? “It is a form of drama as certainly as the works of Sophocles,” one member of Lea’s Greek chorus of barroom pundits intones, while another (and perhaps more truthful) voice declares, “I like to see a freight train come out of the door and scare the Sainted Jesus out of those frilling dolls waving their pretty rags! I like to whistle when the devil gets unchained.”

A couple of weeks ago I complained that Texans seldom revere those from their own state. Lea might have been the exception. Born in El Paso, Lea spent part of his early life under guard from threats against his father (then mayor of El Paso) by Mexican bandit and revolutionary Pancho Villa. (In a chapter in The Brave Bulls, the owner of a fighting bull ranch details his own skirmishes with the revolutionaries and how he saved his bulls.)

Lea became a well-known muralist in the 1930’s, painting, among other commissions, murals at the Hall of State in Dallas Fair Park. He later worked as an illustrator, then as an embedded reporter with the U.S. Marine Corps in World War II. Along the way, he became fascinated with bullfighting.

“I went back to El Paso,” he said in an interview, “and the first thing I did was to go across the river and make myself known to Roberto Gonzalez, who was the impresario there in the bullring in Juarez. . . I got to meet some of these young, want-to-be bullfighters and it just enchanted me, the whole thing.” A thing he describes with an artist’s precision.

For more about Lea’s work and life, see
www.tomlea.net/biography/brave_bulls.htm/. I’d hoped to use some of his drawings for The Brave Bulls to illustrate this post, but because he lived until 2001, they’re still copyrighted. So I’ll show you my father’s picture of the Juarez bullring instead.

(Next Wednesday, Adventure classics begins a July of science fiction with Lois McMaster Bujold’s Shards of Honor.)

Totally Texas -- Get wild at Wildflower!

Wildflower! Arts & Music Festival

Galatyn Park, 2351 Performance Dr.

Richardson, Texas

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Every year the first birthday of my twin grandsons, my gift to my daughter and son-in-law for their spring wedding anniversary has been an overnight getaway from their kids. The first thing they look at before deciding on a night and venue for their overnighter is the music lineup at Richardson’s Wildflower! Arts & Music Festival, today through Sunday, May 16-18.

They can check into a hotel sans kids at the Galatyn Park venue and party night and day away with music on multiple indoor and outdoor stages from 6:15 tonight until whenever. Or eat, drink, shop, watch street performances by local dance and entertainment troupes such as the dance group whose photo illustrates this post.

Or they can admire--even bid for--the elaborately decorated art guitars whose sale benefits local charities and fine arts programs in the Richardson school district.

As young parents, they also love the discounted tickets Richardson offers its residents. For nonresidents, adults single day tickets are $20, a three-day pass $30, kids’ passes $3, and free entry for children age four and younger. But present a military ID Saturday, May 17, and get half-off admission for the military member and one guest. Or party residents with half-price tickets Sunday for adults, and free admission for children up to age 12, with paying adults.

Most likely, the boys and I will join their mom and dad at Wildflower’s Kidz Korner, with sweet little animals to pet, kid-friendly crafts and entertainment, a butterfly house and more. Plus the synchronized to music fountain at the park that’s one of the boys’ favorite water features.

Wildflower! is located at Galatyn Park, just north of U.S. 75 and Galatyn Parkway. Or take DART’s Red Line to Galatyn Park Station.

For complete music lineup and ticket locations, see www.wildflowerfestival.com/.

(Next Friday -- Summer vacation’s nearly here, and I’ve got suggestions for free--or nearly--fun stuff for kids.)

Totally Texas -- Drop everything to shop at Canton

The first time I went to the First Monday Trade Days in Canton, Texas, on my own, I was very young. I got there on a Monday. Everybody had packed up and left. Of course, that was also in the dark ages before the Internet. So unlike you, dear reader, I had no idea that First Mondays weren’t on Mondays at all but actually the Thursday through Sunday before the first Monday of each month. In this case, April 3-6.

And although it’s a little early, your best, that is, least harried shopping day is Thursday. Which is why I don’t want to wait until next Friday to remind you that you’re running out of that time of perfectly good shopping weather between ice storms and summer’s broiling heat.

The Weather Channel’s forecast for the next Trades Days looks great, with highs in the 60’s to 70’s. Perfect weather for an excursion to Canton and its more than a hundred acres of flea market-style shopping.

About an hour east of Dallas on I-20, you’ll start seeing exit signs for Canton. The Highway 19 exit will take you directly past the flea market’s entry, fronted by fields turned into parking lots. Entry to the flea market grounds is free. Parking usually runs $5 per car, although more remote lots sometimes offer bargains. I personally prefer to take the slightly earlier Highway 64 exit, which goes past the town’s picturesque nineteenth century courthouse square. And past a lot more parking places. Wherever you park, be prepared to walk. (The market’s site, http://firstmondaycanton.com/, recommends against wearing flip-flops. You’ll soon understand why.)

Or, be prepared to scoot. Canton does not want shoppers to be discouraged by mobility issues or sore feet. Motorized scooters and carts are available for rental inside each of the ground’s major entrances. Reservations recommended, by calling the vendors listed at the website.

Several locations also offer shopping carts. Or bring your own. I favor a child’s red wagon found at a yard sale, that folds into the trunk of my car.

Canton has been duded up a lot since I first learned how to get there. Now there are covered pavilions near the entrances, ATMs, and plenty of food and drink. The offerings in the pavilions tend to be newer merchandise and crafts. I look, but often the best deals are to be found in the farthest reaches of the flea market. I always have particular items in mind (garden-related, used books, pottery), and usually a tape measure in my pocket. But I also keep an eye open for that unknown item I suddenly can’t live without.

Vendors in the pavilions generally can accept credit or debit cards. And with smart phones, paying with plastic is becoming increasingly easy. However, you should also bring some cash, preferably in smallish bills, for smaller vendors and parking.

Canton’s official website says it’s open “dawn to dusk,” but be warned: opening hours are really up to individual vendors--some earlier, some later. The site
http://findthatvendor.com/ is also helpful, but it couldn’t locate that wonderfully weird taxidermy shop I was looking for. If I ever find it again. . . .

Totally Texas -- Berries blue and beautiful

Blueberry Hill Farms, Inc.

10268 FM 314

Edom, Texas

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The boys were amazed blueberries came in so many colors. But just pick the blue ones, we cautioned. The pink and green ones, although lovely to look at, aren’t ripe. It was my first experience picking blueberries -- their first picking berries of any kind -- and I was glad to find the beautiful blues, unlike the blackberries I was familiar with, don’t have thorns.

And it was so easy. The bushes were in the three to four-foot range -- easily accessible to children’s hands. Blueberry Hill owner Chuck Arena, by himself in the farm store on a Wednesday afternoon, told us the biggest berries were in the center of the bushes. I found the twiggy growth in the center made the berries there a little less easy to reach, but worth the effort. The boys picked happily from the tops and bottoms.

Blueberry Hill’s website, www.blueberryhillfarms.com/ cautioned us to wear closed-toe shoes and bring sunglasses and a cooler for the berries. The shop provides picking baskets and bags the berries in freezer bags for customers to take home. A level-full basket holds a gallon of berries, selling for $14. For less than full baskets, you pay by weight. My family spent $4 for our pickings -- the boys’ enthusiasm exceeded their picking skill. Of course, we also bought glasses of blueberry-lemonade to refresh the pickers, and a pie, and jam from the farm store’s plentiful supplies.

Blueberry Hill is about seventy miles east of Dallas, where East Texas’ acidic soils support blueberry production. It’s open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, including Father’s Day and July 4^th. Arena estimated the farm has about three more weeks left of the berries’ six-week production period, with berries ripening earlier than usual this year because of the mild winter.

Hail storms pummeling the Dallas area during our visit but missed Edom, and this weekend’s forecast -- highs in the low 90’s, and only isolated chances for rain, also looks good for berry pickers.

The season for blackberries, the farm’s other pick-your-own fruit, is over, although there should be some blackberries in the store this weekend.

Since you’ll probably also want to visit the art and antique shops in Edom and possibly even in neighboring Ben Wheeler, remember many of them have limited hours, especially during the week. See
http://279artisanstrail.com/ for information about shops, dining and events.

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Closer to Dallas, Terrell’s Ham Orchards, reported its only pick-your-own fruit, blackberries, were also almost gone. But orchard’s specialty -- peaches -- were in abundant supply in its store. It’s open 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. daily, through August 15, at 11939 County Road 309 outside Terrell, if you want to drop by on your way to or from Blueberry Hill. See www.hamorchard.com/ for details.

Adventure classics -- Entry to the storytellers' guild

“Worms of the Earth”

by Robert E. Howard

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Every June, the small West Texas town of Cross Plains emerges from obscurity for a few days to celebrate the life -- ironically, on the anniversary of his death -- of its most famous resident, Robert E. Howard. And in honor of Howard, Texas’s best-known writer, June at Adventure classics is all-Howard, all-month.

Unlike more classically-Western writer Larry McMurtry, Howard isn’t invariably linked to Texas in many readers’ minds. His great fantasy land of Hyperborea isn’t on any maps, much less maps of Texas. (Although, as Herman Melville, another writer of adventure noted, “true places never are.”)

When I first scheduled a story about Robert E. Howard’s ancient Pictish hero, I only meant to feature a character who wasn’t Conan. Not until I realized the wonderful British writer of historical fiction, Rosemary Sutcliff was slotted for the previous month did the idea of juxtaposing two such very different writers’ takes on the ancient British Picts enter my mind.

One of Sutcliff’s glories is putting readers in the minds and bodies of her historical characters, making us feel the shifting of an ancient British war chariot -- a feeling apparently more like being tossed into a kayak running rapids than riding in anything approaching a modern vehicle.

Howard puts us into his characters’ nightmares.

In “The Barbarian at the Pantheon-Gates,” an appendix to volume 2 of The Best of Robert E. Howard, the late Steve Tompkins quotes the dictum of academician Brian Attebery: “The American writer must find some way of reentering the ancient storytelling guild: he must validate his claim to the archetypes that are the tools of the trade.”

Howard’s modus operandi, Tompkins writes, “involved straightforward breaking and entering, after which he helped himself to whatever archetypes he needed.”

So “Worms of the Earth” begins as disguised Pictish king Bran Mak Morn watches the gruesome but historically-accurate crucifixion of one his subjects and determines to seek revenge on the British-Roman magistrate who ordered the execution. Without the manpower or weaponry to challenge the Romans in conventional warfare, he seeks help from the near-mythical pre-Celtic peoples his Pictish ancestors drove into hiding as the Romans are doing to Bran Mak Morn’s own people.

To force their aid, Bran Mak Morn descends into an underworld peopled by creatures once almost-human, now worse than beasts. As Tompkins writes, “against the Conqueror Worm, Howard sets the worm-conqueror. . .” And however good Bran Mak Morn’s intentions, by story’s end he will learn “the myths had prepared him for horror in human aspect. . . But this was the horror of nightmare and the night.”

Read it if your inner claustrophobic dares. I like The Best of Robert E. Howard, available in two volumes at www.amazon.com.  But the story is widely anthologized. Bran Mak Morn got his own movie, Bran Mak Morn: The Last King, available at www.youtube.com/. The original stories are scarier. And for more about Steve Tompkins’ work and untimely death, see www.thecimmerian.com/.

(Next Wednesday -- Adventure classic looks at the Conan story, “People of the Black Circle,” which Stephen King says glows with a “fierce and eldritch light.”)