One Bad Night in Mexico: (But 100 Good Poems in the Usa)

By Xlibris US

Do you know what its Like to get shot?

Now, I turned to my left and just as I straightened out the Toyotas path, I heard some popping sounds, sort of like firecrackers exploding in the distance. In that our windows were up, the sounds were not very distinguishable. However, for some strange reason, I reacted so quickly that it certainly was not a conscious forethought. My head went down as I bent over forward and slightly to my right, just in time to avoid having a bullet hit the back of my head, as it passed through the back glass. Then, in a split second, I realized why I had unconsciously reacted that way and...

Poetry is, simply stated, just another modality of expression of ideas, feelings, opinions and visions. Like any other mode of expression, it can be useful, if produced by the mind of a skillful and perceptive person. However, the very best writers not only consult their mind, which is the lead part of the soul, but also are influenced by an enlivened human spirit. Some are endowed with a thin slice of divine creativity, that which can be used to produce a very good quality product and it will endure over time. It is my hope and desire that herein, there is some of the latter type, which is mentioned here. Professionally speaking, as an educator and psychologist, I hope that a degree of multifarious perceptions has been shown in the writings contained here in this book. Because, it is written with the intention of not only giving some degree of pleasure but, also for some degree of enlightenment. May the Good Lord bless all those who read this book. TS Bola

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499068382

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by TS Bola.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014915441

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4990-6839-9

                Softcover        978-1-4990-6840-5

                eBook             978-1-4990-6838-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 08/27/2014

Xlibris LLC

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CONTENTS

My Personal Story

Chapter ONE—On the Way Down

Chapter TWO—Arriving in Villa Hidalgo

Chapter THREE—The Set-Up

Chapter FOUR—The Hit (or The Sting?)

Chapter FIVE—The Rescue

Chapter SIX—The Recovery

Chapter SEVEN—Going On With My Life

Chapter EIGHT—The Readjustment

Introduction to Poetry One Hundred PoemsBy TS Bola

Epic Poem Of Villa Hidalgo

POEMS OF HUMOR

Man and Woman, Together?

Man Over Computer!

Not to Worry, Be Happy!

Retired

A Retiree’s Interview

Some Like It Hot!

The Bat, Bumblebee, Buzzard and People

The Coot

In My Mind

We Always Did It That Way!

Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?

An Ode To Unrelated Terms

Death And Taxes

POEMS OF SPIRITUAL NATURE

Two Trees

Dos Árboles

The Body of Christ

El Cuerpo de Cristo

The Spirit of Man

El espíritu del Hombre

The Lion and the Lamb

El León y el Cordero

The First Lucero (Lucifer)

El Primer Lucero

In The Last Days

En Los Últimos Días

The Eternal Intention of God

La Intención Eterna de Dios

The Justice Of God

La Justicia De Dios

The God-Men

Los Dios-Hombres

The Brothers

Los Hermanos

Our Mode of Being

Nuestra Manera de Ser

The Full Armor of God

Toda La Armadura De Dios

Three Wills In The Universe

Tres Voluntades En El Universo

Transcendence

Trascendencia

Many Are Called

Muchos Son Llamados

POEMS OF SOCIETY AND STRUGGLE

300 Million

An Ode to Common Sense

An Ode To Texans

An Ode to Wonderful Teachers

Are You Listening?

Political Spin

Social Classes

Success vs. Fame

The Angel of Goliad

The Cowboy

The Football Game In America

The Right To Be

The Ring Of Honor

The Tumbleweed

Waiting Is Past

What Is Doublespeak?

Who AM I?

The United Ocelli

What Shall It Be?

POEMS OF VARIETY

Curious Comments of Albert Einstein

Wisdom and Wit of Old Ben

More Wit and Wisdom of Old Ben

Even More Wit And Wisdom of Old Ben

Friendship Kit

For My Lovely Wife

For A Lovely Pearl

In Retrospect

Jack of All Trades

Learning How To Learn

Martha’s Booke of Cookery

My Wonderful Coffee

Nature’s Pharmacy

No Homework, No Tests, No Grades!

Searching For Creativity

The Amazing WD-40

The Big Three

Stories in Verse

The Mongoose

What a Doozy!

What About Rolls and Royce?

What Is Aging?

The Stream

¡Viva México and the USA!

The Armed Citizen

Other Roads Not Taken

Points To Be Made

About Presence and Absence

Losing Years or Gaining Life

The Happening

The Spirit of Love

POEMS OF TRIBUTE

Ode To A President

Ode to the Duke

Ode to Wyatt Earp

Ode To Kit Carson

The Other George W.

The School Away From School

MY PERSONAL

STORY

A Few Years Prelude

B efore we get into the main story, I thought it might be appropriate to give you readers a little self-introduction, with just a sketch of my biographical history. Then, as it is said, you will know from whence I am coming.

There may be some of you out there thinking that you had it pretty rough growing up, wherever you grew-up. And maybe some of you did. For my part in it, I had a fair upbringing, with both parents in the home, but it was a bit rough around the edges at times. I believe that my father was a bit too hard on me, but of course, that is a very subjective opinion. My father was born 28 June 1907, in Montgomery, Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana and he left home at age fourteen. He had an abusive father, which was the leading cause of his leaving home to go to Texas, at such an early age. He worked in the East Texas oilfields and West Texas oilfields for most of his life. He grew-up as one might say, somewhat a bit on the rough and crude side of the spectrum. However, that is not to say that he was ignorant. Although he had only a seventh grade formal education, he did study our set of encyclopedias frequently, informing himself on many subjects. But that did not placate his volatile temper.

He produced eight children by means of two marriages, with two daughters in the first marriage and in the second marriage, three sons and three daughters, of which I am the oldest. In that I was the big brother it appears to me that I had to be an appropriate example, at least, one according to my father’s ideas. That must have been the case, because he sure did make an example out of me! Maybe it was the time period, in combination with his explosive temper. That man had a lot of anger in him and I, later on in life, figured that it was likely due to the maltreatment from his old reprobate father.

Whatever the cause, I was the recipient of his anger much of the time. I recall that on a couple of occasions, he beat on me until the blood ran out of my back, and as I recall, for little cause. However, his treatment of me gradually made me into a rather stubborn and hardheaded youngster.

I did not know what was going on or why, until one day I got some understanding about the familial process when I was reading the Bible. In Exodus 34:7b it says, but He will by no means clear the guilty, but visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the grandchildren, to the third and fourth generations. Well, I figured that I was in the second or third generation and was getting the results of the iniquity of the fathers visited upon me regularly! But I think my father finally gave-up on meting-out physical punishment on me. However, there was one last incident.

I remember when I was nineteen years old and at home during the Christmas holidays from college, we had our last confrontation. I thought for a moment that we would come to fisticuffs, because I had already made-up my mind that I would no longer take abuse from anyone and I had the physical size to back-up that concept. Well, my father finally backed-off and went out back in a little one-room building we had at the back of our house, where my grandfather used to stay. It was December and cold, so he lit a fire in the little heater stove and in about thirty minutes, he came back in the house and told me to come with him. My thought was, Oh God, here we go. This will likely be the ‘final showdown’. However, when I entered the little house it was warm and on the quilt box sat two glasses, a Seven-Up soda and a bottle of whiskey. Wow, was I ever surprised? I knew that my father did some drinking, but I had never witnessed him doing so. He said, Pour us a drink, son. I thought, Very well, this is better than a fight. I poured us a drink and sat down and he began to talk to me in a way that he never had before then. He apologized for his angry behavior and we settled our differences. That was a very pleasant surprise for me. We never had any more confrontations after that. Now, let us go back to my beginning.

I was born in Texas, so they tell me, in the year of 1937. The USA was in the midst of the so-called, Great Depression. Times were somewhat hard for families and ours was no exception. However, we did not go into the migration mode, as the Joad family did in the Steinbeck book, The Grapes of Wrath. But one of the main reasons that we were in that kind of poor economical situation, was that my father was not very well formally educated, nor did he have any special training that would give us a better income. And my mother was a housewife taking care of several children at home. As such, it seems that we had some depression well into the 1950s. Even so, our family managed to get along without starving and I was totally involved in the sport of football. I had the pleasure and good fortune to have played on the only State Championship Football team that our little town has ever had. Fortunately, right after I graduated from high school, I got to work in the oilfield during the summers, because of the policy of the oil company, for which my father worked. They allowed sons of employees to work during the summer, if they were regularly attending a college. Also, I got a football scholarship for my freshman year. So, that was the way I started funding my college education, because there was no way my parents could pay for my education, with five other children at home.

My college education continued on through my sophomore year, as I worked on a degree leading to a B.S. in geology, but at that time I felt frustrated and somewhat disgusted with it. As such, I went back into the West Texas oilfield to work again that next summer. However, I asked the superintendent if I could work on through the winter semester, because I did not have enough money saved to sustain me for a year of college. Well, I worked on through the summer and into the winter. It was really very cold that winter, frequently with ice sickles hanging off the guy wires of the oilrigs. That was my first winter to work in the oilfield and I was sure that I did not want any more of that! So, in January of 1959 I quit that job and my high school buddy and I joined the US Army to get out of the cold oilfield and he out of college.

Well, unfortunately, I did not escape the cold, because the Army sent me up to Ft. Riley, Kansas for basic training, during February and March, while my friend was sent to Ft. Chaffee, Arkansas! Snow was at various times about knee-deep at Ft. Riley! West Texas was cold, but not with that freezing snow. Not only that, but after basic training, they sent me to Munich, Germany, where in the long winter time, the temperature gets down to twenty degrees below zero! Well, you have heard of the old saying, Jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. Well, I jumped out of the refrigerator into the FREEZER!

Oh well, I had some good experiences in Europe, in spite of the restrictions laid on me by the US Army Artillery. In retrospect, I must say that the disciplined routine in the Army was good for me and helped me to live a more orderly life. Fortunately, I did get to go traveling sometimes to various countries, like Switzerland, France, Spain, Austria, Italy and England, as well as various places in Germany. I got several benefits from being in the Army, not the least of which was the GI Bill for education, which helped me get a post graduate degree. I even had two nose surgeries while in Germany, to help correct the many blows it had suffered in my competitions of football and boxing. Speaking of sports competition, as a side note, I remember in high school in my freshman and sophomore years, we still had leather helmets and no face guards for my nose protection! Unfortunately, it got broken again after the two surgeries (I guess it to be the result of an aggressive personality!).

Anyway, when I finished my two years in Germany, I still had about eight months to finish my contract of three years and I was sent to Ft. Hood, Texas. At that time,