On the Rode Again, Movie Review, Book Review

For the past 45 years I have been traveling the highways of Texas by automobile and there is very little of the state’s 261,797 square miles of land mass that I haven’t seen. To illustrate how much land mass that is, Rhode Island has a grand total of 1,045 square miles and you can fit it in the Houston ship channel if you wanted to. It is so small you can burp on one side of it and here it on the other side of the state. In my atlas that I carry with me on road trips and is always in my brief case pages 12-13 have three states, Connecticut/Massachusetts/Rhode Island on it and between them there is a grand whopping total of 13,730 square miles. So, bottom line here is that Texas is one big piece of geography and if you expect to drive in it any time soon you must get ready for some long open roads and lots of road kill. One time my son and I drove a cotton module truck from Lubbock to the lower valley of Texas, over 700 miles and we still talk about that trip. When we drive to Florida or Alabama we find that it takes us longer to get through and out of Texas than it does to cross 3 states, so lots of real estate is involved in driving the Lone Star state. My suggestion is that if anyone is going to driving in this state any time soon they should have some good entertainment electronics in their automobile. I have never been too big on that and have always enjoyed my am/fm radio and that has gotten me by over the years. I also like to spend about the first 200 miles of the trip in total silence except for the bumping of road kill, rain, or trucks honking their air horns. But for the past 3 years I have been subscribing to the Sirus satellite radio and have found it to be very entertaining while I drive. It has nearly 200 stations, but I have found I really only listen to one(Country & Western music, Channel 61) most of the time and then possibly “The Boss” on Channel 10, or Channel 110POTUS(politics of the people for the people). It has a bunch of nasty channels like the Playboy, Stern channels etc., but I have found them to be totally stupid and worthless. Due to the bad weather the past few weeks and many flights being canceled I found myself traveling to San Antonio from Lubbock, a 6 hr 20 min drive, so I made sure my Channel 61 was warmed up and ready to put out those true life stories that only C & W music can give you. Toby Keith started with his record where he confesses, “I may not be as good as I once was, but I am good once as I ever was!!!” and then it really got even better after that. Fact is I had to be really inspired with the wisdom that he passed on to me in good C & W tradition. Then as I pulled into that little town to the South called Colorado City the song “Sexy Tractor” played in harmony with the farmer ahead of me as he blocked the road with his green and yellow John Deere tractor. He just happened to have a straw hat on, overalls and was picking his teeth with an oversized tooth pick. To play out this highway drama I also had a pickup doing the ride my bumper gig, as we tried to work our way around this sexy tractor and of all things “Pick Up Man” started playing on Channel 61. Man was I relieved when this guy passed me and I swear his was lip synching the words to “Pick Up Man” and was chewing a big wad of tobacco. Funny thing though is being a pick up man with a big wad in his mouth, didn’t keep him from having a blonde babe with nice cleavage, sitting real close to him and of all things she was lip synching “Get Her Man” to the next tune on the voice box. Now as I am tooling on down the road after getting by these little moving road blocks what comes on the box but, yep you guessed it, “Blame It On Texas!!!” Wow what classics to keep my mind on the road and hearing this great C & W stuff. I even did a little lip synching myself, especially to the Toby Keith master piece. As I listen to this music it passes the time away and I can also practice my two stepping of the mind. On my return trip I also enjoyed more of the same and look forward to the 4 hour trip up North into the Texas Panhandle on Monday morning. Guess I’ll be lip synching “Amarillo By Morning” as I pass through Happy, Texas(the town without a frown). Hope to see all my readers “On the Road Again!!!”

Movie Review: “I Am Number Four”, ***, This is a good sci-fi flick with real human beings in it, so kind of has some human interest so to speak. The actors are young, fresh and relatively unknown but do a great job. Alex Pettyfer, plays an alien fugitive with many supper powers, on the run from enemies sent from another planet to destroy him. Changing his identity and trying to be as normal as possible, he moves from town to town with his guardian(Timothy Olyphant) and masks his true identity to pass as a typical student. Three like him have already been killed and he is guess what, yep you got it, number four or next to be killed. But after moving to a small town in Ohio the fugitive falls in love(they all do this) and wants to stop running. Hard to do when these monster type guys with super powers are determined to kill their prey. Lots of action and not a bad movie. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and for brief language.

Book Review: “Extraordinary Relationships”, Roberta M. Gilbert, M.D., *, This book was recommended to me by a friend and was really done so to make me aware of the theory originated and taught by Murray Bowen, M.D., called the “Bowen theory” concerning human behavior or the family systems theory. All of his champions felt that his theories had the potential to replace most of Freudian theories concerning the same and would alter the way treatment approaches through out all medical practices. He had an idea that the basic unit of emotional functioning might not be the individual, as previously thought, but the nuclear family. My thoughts: Not to be overly critical of this theory my common sense had always told me that if a person came from a traditional family group the whole group would have to be considered part of the emotional expressions or actions of all in the group. While one family member might have more influence over another all of the emotions expressed in a given family will have an affect on everyone concerned. So, excuse me loyal followers of Dr. Bowen, the Bowen theory is not news to me. Also, in the case of the non-traditional family, whatever that make up might be, all involved will have an affect on the other. This is the sum total jest of this book so please don’t waste your money on it.

For today, EA, SH,....and.....:)

greerman