He is present when our whole family sits down for Thanksgiving dinner.
He greets us “Devine”-ly every time we walk in the door.
We are not special; he lives with many people.
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The store-window-size tribute by photographer Al Rendon conveys how much respect Rick commanded from his fellow artists.
The walk-by cellphone photo of Rick’s photo in Al’s window should be a throw-away. But the layers quickly enveloped us.
Some of Rick’s last Facebook posts were of Day of the Dead, and particularly poignant was one of an aged woman.
The woman you can barely make out in this photo, the one hovering above my head as though reflecting our inevitable future, is seated by a grave. The Mister noted the death date carved in stone. Our birth year.
And then there are the reflections of the buildings across the street.
No one wandered this neighborhood more than Rick. We rarely set foot in Southtown without bumping into him. He loved his hood.
The streets seemed particularly empty this afternoon.
Weekend mornings are meant for slow starts. I like to take full advantage of that concept and ease into the day. This means I rarely make it to the farmers markets at Pearl or the Quarry, but Heather Hunter and David Lent actually have brought one to my neighborhood, the Southtown Farmers & Ranchers Market in the parking lot of Blue Star.
I realize early risers get the best picks at a market, and yesterday, as the hand on my watch ticked toward noon, it definitely was too late to ensure a chicken in my pot. Fresh non-GMO and soy-free eggs and whole chickens were all sold out. But there was still an ample supply of most other things remaining for the lazy.
The market’s website profiles the vendors, so hop on over there to get acquainted with the farmers setting up shop every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. But produce isn’t the only thing available.
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For humans, there are raw milk cheeses from Dos Lunas and luscious pastries from Bakery Lorraine; well-behaved dogs can get rewarded with healthy treats such as savory empanadas stuffed with grass-fed beef or “ginger bones” from Katie’s Jar. Gretchen Bee Ranch harvests honey from 100 hives in 10 apiaries located in Bexar and three neighboring counties, and the beeswax candles are beautiful. Lunch for us can be solved with falafel wraps from Señor Veggie or whole-wheat spinach-filled paratha from Nisha’s.
My favorite sampling yesterday was the spicy Aztec dark chocolate from Peggy Cloar’s High Street Chocolate of Comfort. She said she developed her intensely flavored chocolates to accompany red wine tastings at vineyards. No wine around, but they tasted fine without.
September 2, 2013, Update: John Griffin writes about those interesting striped Armenian cucumbers…
I put the pen down and asked him why he wanted to send a check to the Texas Highway Patrol Association.
“Because they called several times and told me I owe them money.”
“Owe them money?”
“They said I pledged it.”
“Did you?”
“I don’t know. Probably. I always send them money. A couple of times a year.”
I started explaining to him again how telemarketers generally are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Even the Texas Department of Public Safety posted warnings about this unrelated wart tarnishing its reputation.
“But what about the poor families? The wives and children whose husbands are killed in the line of duty.”
He was but one victim among many who fell prey to an extremely lucrative fundraising scheme. According to a 2012 story by John Tedesco in the San Antonio Express-News:
The operation generated nearly $12 million in revenue from 2004 to 2009. Tax records showed it gave only $65,300 to troopers and their families over the same period, or roughly one-half of 1 percent of its fundraising.
The scam was busted. The Texas Highway Patrol Museum in Southtown, the front for the fake “charity,” was shuttered. The building sitting prominently at the intersection of Alamo and St. Mary’s Streets was sold; although the sale of it was quite contentious.
No one in the neighborhood missed the “museum;” the only thing appealing about it was the outside signage. Soon, though, the storefront windows were covered with plywood. An affront to the ‘hood.
But photographer Sarah Brooke Lyons has helped the building save face by adding faces to disguise the plywood façade.
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The faces peopling the building represent a small portion of the 1,005 Sarah is capturing as part of her public art project, which received a boost earlier this summer from a $1,000 grant from The Awesome Foundation. Here is her description of the project:
The desire is to showcase the diversity of San Antonio through the faces and thoughts of our community, and in doing so provide a clear image of what our city really looks like. Promoting the movement of DreamWeek San Antonio, and moving away from cliche’s of Riverwalk and margaritas; San Antonio is a cosmopolitan, multicultural epicenter with eclectic people looking to create an awesome place to live and celebrate our talents and interests. 1005 faces is a collaborative art project as it can only be created by the coming together of friends and strangers to create the full scope, and fulfill the goal of photographing 1005 distinct faces.
These faces, particularly that of centenarian Bill Sinkin, make me feel much better than the man sitting at the museum reception desk twiddling his thumbs while telemarketers scammed the elderly to plump his payroll.
Postcards from Barton Springs 