We took Wee Jamie on another road trip, this last weekend. My daughter and I have decided that we should dedicate one day a week to “Not Doing Work Stuff” – and have an outing of at least half a day, doing something … something diverting. This long weekend demanded a whole day of ‘Not Doing Work Stuff.’ My daughter suggested a road trip to Fredericksburg, and I thought that we should check out the Museum of the Pacific War, as it has been at least five years since I visited it. It was indisputably the last war which we won, after all. The first time I went to the War Museum was maybe in 1995 – when it was all still contained in the old Nimitz Hotel on Main Street, and an annex down the road – IIRC, a side-less pole barn. (And Fredericksburg was still a sleepy little town with an attractive Main Street, with local-oriented business situated in profitable commercial real estate, where they tended to close shop and roll up the sidewalks at about 5 PM. Well, that has come to a screeching halt, I assure you.)

We took the back way, to Fredericksburg, after stopping at a local restaurant for a breakfast which turned out to be more substantial than expected – a local outlet for the Maple Biscuit Company. The fresh-squeeze orange juice was fantastic, and yes, I would know about all that, having grown up with orange trees in the back yard. The biscuits and sausage gravy were so generous and so good that we were resolved to split an order next time. (This was the last place I saw anyone wearing a mask, BTW. The staff were all masked-up.) The back way to Fredericksburg meant driving up 281 to Johnson City, passing memories all the way; Blanco, where we had done market events at the Old Courthouse, and where once we scored some amazing deals at an estate sale at an old house just off the highway. Johnson City, where we had a wonderfully fun three-day long market one year, for the lighting of the Courthouse, the weekend after Thanksgiving. (We had to stay two nights for that in a cabin at the Miller Creek RV resort, which meant that we barely broke even.)

Johnson City, when I first went through in the late 1990s, was sad and depressing in comparison to Fredericksburg. It seemed to be hanging on based on the relation to LBJ, the Johnson ranch and various residences where LBJ’s family had lived. Now it is the beginning of the Texas Wine Road and has a new lease on tourist life. Some years ago, I had suggested that the Hill Country had all the components save castles, villas, and quaint hilltop towns to become the New Provence, since they produce such Frenchified specialty items as lavender, wine, olive oil, goat milk cheeses … and wine. Oh my gosh, have they gone into producing wine. Someone has even built a castle! The usual maps of the Texas Wine Road usually include only the top twelve or fifteen of the biggest and most well-established of the wineries along 290 – or at least, those with the flashiest central building. As we discovered, just about every commercial or retail business along that road was posted as a winery, and even a couple of places, like Wildseed Farms, which initially specialized in some other commodity – like peaches or wildflower seeds – had added on a wine tasting room. If you started at the two wineries just outside Johnson City to the south and stopped at every single winery or tasting room and had a single glass … your liver would be screaming for mercy when you got to Stonewall, and you’d be on the list for a liver transplant once you got beyond Fredericksburg itself.

Yes, it looks as if every ambitious vintner wants a piece of the Hill country – and it appeared they were all doing a land office business, judging by the number of cars in the parking lots, even on a Sunday. As for the wineries and tasting rooms in Fredericksburg itself – the sidewalks and businesses were jammed; families, with children and dogs. If there is a recession in our future, it certainly wasn’t in sight in Fredericksburg; shoppers were out in force, and it looked as if all the restaurants and specialty shops were crowded with shoppers, whole families with small children, babies in strollers and dogs on a leash. However, I must regretfully admit that inflation is clearly out in force. My very favorite vintage from the Fredericksburg Winery – the Fredericksburg & Northern Red, is about ten dollars more a bottle then it was, when I first started buying it. A couple of years ago, someone who studies this kind of thing noted that the Hill Country was where Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino were thirty and forty years ago, as far as wine production went.

I wanted to see if the War Museum had ever managed to put all the relics of that war which they had in the archives on display. One of my favorite displays in the ‘liberated POW division’ was a pair of panties and a bra crocheted out of cotton string, made by one of the military nurses during her time of incarceration at the Santo Tomas internment camp. Alas, that still wasn’t an item on display, among several other clothing relics of civilian internment. When they first put up the main building for the museum, it was essentially a bare warehouse with some vehicles and aircraft parked in it, then a series of full-size dioramas, and then … well, more and more and more. It is now a tightly organized maze of displays, with arrows on the floors, and all kinds of interactive displays and videos. They have a whole B-24 on display to memorialize the Dolittle Raid, and an entire Japanese mini-sub (found adrift shortly after the raid) for the Pearl Harbor section. Models of ships, galore – I was interested to see one of the Lanakai, which had an amazing escape from the Philippines early in 1942. The Lanakai was an old sailing yacht with a diesel engine, which bounced around among various missions, owners, and nations, including being a movie prop ship, converted to military purposes as circumstances dictated. The escape of the ship and crew from the Philippines would make an amazing adventure movie – but never mind. I was glad to see that note was made of the fall of Singapore, since that features so heavily in my own last historical novel. There was not much mention made of campaigns in New Guinea and Malaya; of intense interest to Australians and Brits … but I guess there is only so much room in a museum like this, where the initial focus was on Admiral Chester Nimitz and the American campaigns.

It was so refreshing, all this crowded, happy normality – people having fun, crowding the shops and restaurants, spending money, enjoying themselves. Wee Jamie charmed everyone, and was incredibly well-behaved through the whole day, even if it was a considerable break from his routine. A woman standing next to me in the Fischer & Wieser outlet commented to her friend that she had never seen so many so many cute children and darling, friendly dogs in one single day. And I said, “Well, of course – we breed both in Texas!”

Richard is taking his parents around Town Square on the 4th of July, introducing them to all of his friends and associates. With luck, Luna City 11 will be available in another couple of months. Cross my heart …)

“Everything happens in the park, or around the edges of Town Square,” he explained, as the ever-popular miniature train ride trundled slowly past – a train of recycled oil-drums set on their side on wheels to make the carriages, and an engine also cobbled out of oil drums and powered by a motor which once had powered a ride-along mower. Clem Bodie of the Bodie Feed Mill had constructed the miniature train some fifteen years ago, for fun and to exercise his welding talents – and also to dispose of a number of items of metal scrap and put them to good civic use. All the streets which fed into Town Square had been blocked to vehicle traffic, for the convenience of the little train, the parade at noon, and for the drifting of pedestrians back and forth, like the gentle washing of a wind-blown tide at a mountain lake shore.

“The heart of the community,” Dottie Astor Hall remarked, with unexpected sagacity. “I do like this little town, Richard … oh, look at the little dogs! How charming, and how clever! Do you know their owner?”

“I do, as a matter of fact,” Richard confessed, as they crossed the street in front of the Café, where the Hanging Oak (less the one decaying branch from which Charley Mills had nearly been lynched in 1926) brooded over the sidewalk. “Anita Blake-Silva, with Oscar and Felix – the dachshunds,” he added, as the dogs greeted him with a chorus of barking. “Good morning, Judge – I see that you have entered the dogs in the patriotic costume contest.”

“I have, if they can keep from ruining their wigs before judging time,” Judge Anita Blake-Silva replied, and Richard performed introductions.

“My parents, Alfred and Dorothy Astor-Hall – this is Anita Blake-Silva, one of the county magistrates, and Oscar and Felix.”

“How very pleasant to make your acquaintance!” Dottie exclaimed, as the one of the dachshunds laid his nose on her right shoe and looked up adoringly. “And the costumes are so very clever – did you make them yourself?”

“I did,” Anita Blake-Silva confessed. “With the help of a niece who is a costume designer, and she is very fond of the boys…”

“Who obviously don’t mind cross-dressing,” Richard commented; as one dachshund was dressed in a blue coat with buff facings over a buff weskit and lace cravat, a tricorn hat (over a white curled wig) and a small sword-belt, and the other gazing up at his mother so worshipfully was gotten up in an elaborate dress with panniers, a mobcap, and a white wig.

“Well, you see,” confessed Judge Anita-Blake Silva, “They are representing General and Mrs. Washington. Total hams, both of them, and they don’t really mind at all, as long as everyone pays attention to them.”

“Good thing,” Alfred commented, as soon as they had moved on, past the Judge and her excitable duo. “If I were a dog, dressed up in a ridiculous costume, I’d want to bite the next person who held down a hand.”

“Well, come along, Father,” Richard urged him, “You and Mum wanted to meet everyone … now, this is Pryor’s Meats BBQ; their food truck, which they run for special events. They open the BBQ on weekends – honestly, the place has all the ambiance of an industrial warehouse, but no one really cares, and the meat processing during the week. They do the most amazing sausages and supply the Café as well as Mills Farm … to include the Crystal Room. I have always preferred to purchase locally sourced goods, and the Pryors can’t get much more local than this. Mrs. Pryor … she who looks most amazingly like the late Princess Di … is also the granddaughter and heir of Doc Wyler … whom, I should have noted before this, owns the largest ranch in Karnes County – and also just about anything else of value that isn’t already nailed down and owned by the Bodies of the Feed Mill, Don Jaimie of the original Spanish holding, and Mills Farm itself. If you have a hankering … sorry, I have been immersed in the local vernacular … if you have an urge to sample original Texas BBQ, you should taste it from here, before they run out.”

I actually had enough from clients wanting editing and formatting services over the last couple of months, that I could indulge in a new toy … a Paperwhite Kindle, to replace the ordinary basic Kindle that was a Christmas present from the Daughter Unit some ten or eleven years ago. Kindles were launched in 2007, to moderate acclaim from the author group that I belonged to at the time – and we were keen because Amazon opened up to indy authors, allowing us to post our books to the database, and make a bit of cash off having done so, since e-books obliviated the need for print, delivery and storage costs. And also, Amazon paid promptly for sales, at the end of the month following the month of the sale, unlike the regular print channels, who usually grudgingly dealt out a month after a fiscal quarter …

Well, anyway, I got my basic Kindle and loaded it up ever since with casual reading, and various novels that I wanted to read for the cost of a cup of coffee, but didn’t necessarily want to buy in print and then give hard-won shelf-space to … and being able to tuck the Kindle into my purse and take anywhere … a reader the size of a slim 6×9 paperback book, to read from a library – as long as the thing was fully-charged, of course. Well, the original basic Kindle eventually died the death that all electronic devices usually do, although since I got it at Christmas, 2012 and used it regularly ever since, I suppose that it gave good service. My original desktop computer carried on nobly for almost fifteen years, to the vast amusement of my computer tech friend Dave, who told me that most desktop units are good for seven to ten years, max. I guess that I am just easy on these devices. I lived in a house where the basic hot water heater carried on for thirty years, to the astonishment of the plumbing tech, when it finally did collapse entirely. Hot water heaters are generally good for ten years, so that one ought to have been deposited in a museum of plumbing somewhere.

Anyway, the basic Kindle first needed a replacement power cord, and carried on with that for a year or two, and then – just died. Wouldn’t turn on and power up … and I was sad, for a number of books on it which I enjoyed but could no longer access for pleasure reading, especially in the evenings. As soon as I could afford it, I intended to replace it with a newer one … and this morning I totted up the potential debits and the actual credits, and ordered a new Kindle Paperwhite … which most amazingly, was delivered late this afternoon by the specialty flying service. Possibly, this is a sort of neo-Victorian age, when there were two mail deliveries a day …

It’s a nice-looking unit, about the same size as the new one, and which I managed to connect and set up to my account without half the trouble that the old one demanded, on Christmas Day, 2012.  It has a touch screen, instead of buttons, which will take some getting used to, but the backlight can be adjusted, and all the books that I had on the old Kindle are ported over to the Paperwhite, Now, I wish that I had looked into decommissioning and returning the old Kindle to Amazon first, for I would have gotten a nice discount on the Paperwhite, instead of just a five-dollar credit. Oh, well – I’ve gotten enough discounted and free stuff from them – including a case for the Paperwhite, just for being a Vine reviewer.

(Richard, having welcomed his parents to town in time to celebrate the 4th of July, is escorting them around Town Square, introducing them to his vast assortment of local friends. Which includes most of the characters who have featured in the previous volumes.)

The door to the Stein’s Wild West Emporium chimed a musical herald to Alfred’s return, significantly with a wrapped package under his arm, and the three of them moved on, in the direction of the Café, with all the outside tables filled with customers.

Richard said, in the manner of a tour guide, as he waved in the general direction of Araceli and her ever-present coffee carafe. “Now, here is another member of the keen reenactor fraternity…”

“I never would have guessed,” Alf Astor-Hall murmured, for Clovis Walcott was arrayed in all the splendor of 1830s martial glory; a high-collared blue jacket adorned with gold frogs, much braid, and epaulettes, over buff-colored trousers and knee-high cavalry boots. This tasteful ensemble was accessorized with a brace of (replica, or perhaps, knowing Clovis Walcott’s pocketbook and quest for authenticity, they were authentic antique) pistols tucked into a brilliant red silk sash, and a saber belt – with scabbarded saber – buckled over the sash which clanked resoundingly with every stride, which Richard knew well from previous encounters with Clovis in his 19th century persona.

“Colonel Walcott,” Richard replied, as they approached the range of tables and chairs set under an awning under a wide awning over the front of Luna Café and Coffee; an area comfortable only when the temperatures were mild, which in July meant for an hour or so around sunrise before a rising sun baked everything in Texas to a toasty brown. “Who is really a colonel – reserve and mostly retired from active service. He designs and builds things of extraordinary complexity; a refreshing change from his previous career of blowing them up. In is misspent youth, he played in a garage band, and he owns the ugliest MacMansion anywhere in the vicinity. His youngest son – God knows how the kid came to this – is currently working as sous-chef in the Café. I can only suppose that I taught the boy correctly, and that the good colonel doesn’t bear an abiding grudge over that development, proof positive of his generosity and good public spirit. Colonel Walcott is another of Luna City’s leading citizens, all of this, despite the temper of his missus, the fire cat Mrs. Sook Walcott, the tiger mother from hell … good morning, Colonel.”

“Good morning, Richard!” Colonel Walcott looked up from his fruit salad and croissant breakfast. “Ready for the Glorious Fourth – our celebration of the independence which is the rightful inheritance of every man and woman in this blessed land?”

“Yeah, verily and forsooth,” Richard replied, “May I present Colonel Clovis Walcott of the … something-or-othereth. A gentleman of the first water, My parents, Albert and Dorothy Astor Hall.”

Clovis Walcott chuckled. “The tongue and vocabulary of the old century does have that hold on you, doesn’t it?” He stood up and bowed in an exaggeratedly courtly manner over Dottie’s hand, raising it to his lips and kissing it in a way that made Richard’s mother almost simper. “This most handsome lady – hardly to be of a vintage to be your mother, Chef Richard? And the most gallant gentleman – I am most honored in making his acquaintance at long last!”

“How d’ye do,” Albert replied, with a stiff and most formal nod, in the best olde stiff-upper-lip manner. “Albert Astor-Hall, at your service, my good sir.”

“Charmed!” Clovis Walcott responded. “Charmed to make your acquaintance! Are you planning to take up residence in our Texas? I assure you, there are many opportunities for an entrepreneurious gentlemen such as yourself. I can introduce you to my good friend, Colonel Bowie, if you are so inclined as to take up a grant in our fair country.”

“I regret that I am already committed to a substantial property in another land, my good sir,” Albert replied, while Richard goggled at how readily his father fell into this kind of make-believe. He had never suspected his father of entertaining such theatrical leanings, let alone a facility for improvisation.

“Our loss, indeed, good sir,” Colonel Walcott rendered another formal bow, and went clanking off across the street to join his fellows at the reenactor camp, who had been gesturing him from across the pavement for him to get a move on and lend his theatricality to the festivities.

“Oooh, I do like him!” Dorothy sighed and fanned herself theatrically with her hand. “Such a gent!”

“He is, that,” Richard agreed glumly, and encouraged his parental units to move on. Miss Letty, Doc Wyler and Harry Vaughn sat at another table. Richard sighed, upon seeing that trio, for the two gentlemen were looking daggers at each other, while Miss Letty sat, prim and elegant in her shirtwaist dress, wide-brimmed summer hat, matching gloves and a handbag which matched the colors of the modestly flowered summer hat. (Which also matched her dress. Miss Letty had always been detail-oriented.) “Mum – these are some of the people I’ve told you about before: Doctor Stephen Wyler and Miss Letty McAllister; they jointly own the Café and hired me to run the kitchen when I first came here. The two of them are what passes for nobility around here – and what they don’t know about Luna City could be put into a thimble.”

“Know where all the bodies are buried, then?” Alfred grunted.

“Likely, they assisted in putting them there,” Richard acknowledged. “The scowling gentleman with the impressive mustache is Harry Vaughn, another old resident. It was he who insisted that I accompany him in a reckless venture on the river in flood, to rescue some luckless tourists, a couple of years ago.”

“Ah,” said Alfred. “The occasion when your school enthusiasm for rowing finally served a useful purpose.”

“Not quite how I thought of it, Father. All the county river rescue boats had already been called out. I was prevailed upon as a trainee member of the volunteer fire department, and my presumed familiarity with small boats. Harry Vaughn threatening to brutally belt me about the head and shoulders with an oar had nothing to do with it … good morning, Doc, Miss Letty … Mr. Vaughn.”

“Good morning, Chef,” Doc returned, looking over his glasses at them. “I heard that your folks came to town.”

“Indeed. The bush telegraph is as active as always.” Richard answered, and Doc Wyler and Harry Vaughn both grinned; Harry Vaughn a bit evilly, as befitted a former federal marshal, and Richard sighed. “My parents, Albert and Dorothy Astor Hall – Stephen Wyler, but most everyone calls him ‘Doc’, Miss Letty McAllister, and Mr. Henry Vaughn. Father and Mum are here, doing a tour of the wine country, such as it is, and meanwhile have come to observe the rituals of celebration.”

“Charmed, I’m sure!” Dottie trilled, as gentleman half-rose from where they were sitting, while Miss Letty only nodded regally.

“There will be merriment and dancing tonight, before the fireworks display,” Harry Vaughn rumbled, with a significant look at Dottie. “May I claim a dance with your charming mother?”

“Only if you don’t plan on seducing her, afterwards,” Richard replied, rather nettled, while Dottie giggled, and Harry Vaughn settled back in his seat, looking rather smug. Miss Letty frowned – levity regarding sex outside of the marriage contract was a matter of which she sternly disapproved. Meanwhile, Harry Vaughn grinned, under his magnificently drooping soup-strainer mustache, and Richard hurried his parents on. When they were out of earshot of the Café, Dottie remarked, artlessly.

“Oh, was that dear Moira’s gentleman friend? I had no idea!”

“My sister Moira has a finely developed sense of duty,” Albert replied. “I am certain that Mr. Vaughn held information necessary to completion of her mission,”

“No, Father – it was purely a naughty weekend,” Richard answered, and Dottie upheld him.

“Dear Moira is entitled to whatever romantic romps she can indulge – the places that she travels to, the intrigues she encounters – a nice relaxing weekend with a handsome gentleman who isn’t trying to plant a knife in her back! Well, that’s her chosen career, and I do not judge – do I, Albert?”

“No, you do not,” Albert replied, the very image of the austere Englishman. “Much is required of an intelligence operative in their line of duty.”

Richard thought he had better not follow that any further. It was perhaps the closest that his father had ever come to admitting that Aunt Moira was a kind of distaff 007, with an official license to kill, seduce, or subvert, as the specific mission required.

We watched a most perfect movie the other night, having given up on a detective series which just seemed to be tailing off into grimness and futility, and besides, had gone far astray from the book series which had originally attracted my interest. A League of Their Own is in my personal pantheon of ‘most perfect movies’ – joining A Christmas Story, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Adventures in Babysitting, among others. Those certain movies evoke a particular time and place, are tightly written, perfectly cast and performed. Yeah, I am stuck in the last century when it comes to movies.

So, even if Geena Davis, Jon Lovitz, Tom Hanks, Rosie O’Donnell, Madonna and Bill Pullman were basically playing themselves, their usual selves were suitable to the characters, and they were backed up by a peerless collection of skilled character actors and they all had priceless lines. Even now, my daughter and I chide Wee Jamie with “There is no crying in baseball!” which may scar him permanently. Possibly, League marks the last time that Rosie O’Donnell was legitimately funny, and Madonna still looked like a normal person, rather than the plastic countenance she wears now. (Single funniest and most apt line – “You think there are men in this country who ain’t seen your bosoms?”) I wonder how much Penny Marshall brought to the game, being a female with a background in comedy herself. The rivalry between two sisters, one who was good at baseball without really caring much about pursuing it and the other who was almost as good and cared so much that she could taste it … that was a very subtle, female thing.