Eric Wilder's Blog, page 14

Merry Christmas

Ate too much! Drank too much! Too much fun! Merry Christmas everyone!

Mayans, Doomsday, and the Black Cup of Oklahoma

Sun Sign Black Cup
 
Ancient Mayans seemed to think the world—at least as we know it—would end on December 21, 2012. The time for the predicted disaster has come and gone. The Mayans, like many of the ancients, were accomplished astronomers. Perhaps a slight adjustment in the universe occurred since the prediction. Maybe we’ll never know.
A similar civilization existed in the Midwestern part of the United States, from settlements near the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. These early Americans built large villages along the main rivers beginning around 800 A.D., though there were humans in the area as long as 8000 years ago. The Spiro Mounds in eastern Oklahoma is but one of these settlements.
Thousands of artifacts have been collected at the Spiro Mounds, including intricately engraved seashells. Anthropologists call the early Americans that populated these settlements Mississippians. One of the artifacts found at Spiro, and at other Mississippian settlements, was the black cup. During rituals, Mississippians would drink strong, highly caffeinated teas from the black cup until they vomited, ridding their bodies of evil and facilitating the ability to predict the future.
In my book,  Morning Mist of Blood, gumshoe detective Buck McDivit meets Esme, a mystic, healer, and possibly the last of the Mississippians. With her assistance, he takes a dream walk, visiting the Great Spirit in his cabin. Together, they puff a cloud blower and drink from the black cup until Buck gains insight into the mystery he is trying to solve.
It’s December 21, 2012, and the world hasn’t ended. It doesn’t mean the ancient Mayans, Incas and Mississippians didn’t have considerable knowledge about the world as we know it. It simply means the asteroids, or whatever celestial objects were supposed to collide with our planet became somehow shunted by a millisecond or so.
Many of the heavenly secrets discovered by the ancients are lost to us forever. I’m planning a trip to Spiro during the spring equinox to communicate with the spirits and try to solve a few mysteries. Meanwhile, I’ll take a puff from my cloud blower and slug another shot of strong coffee from my black cup. Maybe by midnight, I'll have a few predictions of my own, to make.Eric'sWeb


 


The Infamous Though Largely Forgotten Penn Square Bank Tower

Penn Square TowerHere is a pic of the Penn Square Tower in Oklahoma City, built toward the end of the 80s oil boom, and a symbol of what brought the industry down.

Eric'sWeb

Aunt Carmol's Southern Tomato Soup - a weekend recipe

I visited New Orleans for the first time in the fifties. My Aunt Carmol was a school teacher and gave brother Jack and me daily guided tours of the city while we were there. Aunt Carmol was also a wonderful cook, and especially liked preparing and serving authentic Creole dishes. Jack and I loved Aunt Carmol’s Southern Tomato Soup. Try it. I’ll bet you will too.

Ingredients

• 2 quarts tomatoes
• 1 cucumber, peeled and cut small
• 1 onion, large, sliced
• 1 dozen okra, sliced
• 1 ham bone, large
• 1 Tbsp flour
• Salt to taste
• Cayenne to taste
• 3 pats butter

Directions

Cook tomatoes in three pints of water for 10 minutes. Drain and save the water. Press tomatoes through a sieve. Add cucumber, onion, okra, hambone, and the saved water to the tomatoes. Simmer for 3 hours. Combine flour with cold water to form a paste. Add to soup before serving, along with salt, cayenne, and butter.

Eric'sWeb

A Chinook Christmas

The approach of every holiday seems to evoke memories for me, more so now than before. This approaching Christmas caused me to remember an event that happened many years ago when I was a grunt in Vietnam.

My MOS, or Military Occupational Specialty (at least I think this is what it stands for) was 11-C - infantry mortar man. When we changed areas of operation from the highlands to the flat plains, we got rid of our 81 mm mortar because it was too heavy to hump. Since I was already used to carrying a twenty-three pound base plate our platoon sergeant chose me to carry the twenty-six pound M-60 machinegun. The gun was a weapon that I had never even held in my hands, much less shot.

We were in a hot AO (area of operation) and everyone expected contact. In a clearing, waiting for resupply, I extended the bipod of the gun and pointed it toward the tree line. I was admiring my handiwork when a voice from behind disturbed my thoughts.

“Better lower the bipod. If bullets start flying, you want to be as low to the ground as you can get.”

I turned to see a trooper named Denny. He was white, but had dark black hair and a drooping handlebar moustache. He was from Michigan, as were many of my fellow boonie rats. Denny was a veteran of the recent Cambodian campaign and had participated in many firefights with the elusive enemy.

I lowered the bipod and thanked Denny for his sage advice. Later that night, I could hear the moans of someone suffering horribly. It was Denny.

“He has malaria,” the First Sergeant told me. “The Medevac choppers won’t come get him till his temperature reaches a sustained one-oh-four.”

One-oh-four was a number someone in the rear had come up with to prevent troopers from faking illnesses. The problem was, when a sky trooper’s temperature reached a sustained one-oh-four, he was already almost dead.

The night chopper carried Denny away, and everyone tried to forget that we had ever known him. It was November, although it seemed more like summer in tropical Vietnam. Latter that month I left the jungle for good. I was a college graduate and got a job as a clerk-typist on Firebase Buttons in the rear. Seems they needed someone that could type more than they needed a soldier that could pull a trigger.

When Christmas neared, the Company Sergeant asked me if I wanted to see the Bob Hope Christmas show. The gig required spending a night on a forward firebase and none of my fellow clerks wanted to chance being that close to potential combat. Fresh out of the jungle anyway, I of course said yes.

The night on the forward firebase went without incident, except that a reporter for Newsweek reported that we violated the Christmas truce when everyone on the firebase opened fire for what we called the “mad minute.”

Next day we took a Chinook helicopter to the hospital in Bien Hoa where we would see Bob Hope. It was there that I saw Denny again. He was wandering around the grounds in pajamas and a robe. He did not recognize me.

Denny reminded me of Jack Nicholson in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest – after his full frontal lobotomy, that is.

I didn’t have a good seat and could not see much of the Bob Hope Christmas Show. It did not matter much because I was thinking of Denny and the masses of other brain and soul-damaged soldiers wandering like wraiths across the grounds of the sprawling hospital.

That Christmas night, I watched the sunset from the back of a departing Chinook, and considered my own mortality.

Eric'sWeb

Louisiana Tech Afraid to Play Old Rival

I graduated college many years ago. The school, at the time, was Northeast Louisiana State College. My first three years there, the football team never won a single game. My senior year, they tied a game. This year, my alma mater, now ULM was wonderful in football. The quarterback is phenomenal.
While I was at NLSU, we were in the Gulf South Conference, along with Louisiana Tech. Some of you might remember. That's where Terry Bradshaw played ball in college. Louisiana Tech was 30 miles away in Ruston. My four years at Northeast Louisiana there was a rivalry like no other.
My business partner graduated from La. Tech. Now, they've rejected an offer to play ULM in the Independence Bowl In Shreveport, LA. I'm blown away! I guess old memories never die. Louisiana Tech is afraid to play ULM in a bowl because they have so many bad memories of having their asses kicked, so many times.
If you are afraid to play ULM, then just say so. I can recognize a coward when I see one.

Eric'sWeb

Happy Thanksgiving from the Wilder Clan

 Kate, Marilyn & Shannon Shannon, Marilyn Scotty, Kate Kate, Scotty, Shannon, Eric Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Earthquake in Oklahoma

Though Oklahoma is known more for its tornados than its earthquakes, it has experienced more than its share of the latter lately. Here is a report from the Edmond Sun that describes today's Oklahoma County earthquake as sounding like a sonic boom. Though only a few miles away, I didn't feel it. During an earthquake last fall I thought my house was coming down.

Earthquake in Oklahoma

Eric'sWeb

The Rougarou in the Basement Freezer

Garden District  residents are unaware that one of their neighbors has kept a rougarou (Cajun werewolf) frozen in their basement freezer for forty years.   When a killer hurricane takes direct aim at New Orleans, Wyatt Thomas, the French Quarter’s favorite sleuth, is called into action.  Before the hurricane strikes, Wyatt and N.O.P.D. Homicide detective Tony Nicosia must deal with the thawing rougarou, and solve two heinous murders at a monastery in the secluded, south Louisiana wetlands. Primal Creatures, the third novel in the Wyatt Thomas French Quarter Mystery Series, is coming in December. Check it out!Eric'sWeb

Famous Fictional Detectives

If you like detective fiction (and who doesn't) here is an interesting and informative article from AbeBooks.

Fictional Detectives