El distrito de pollo

 Do you know how some large cities have districts that are dedicated to a specific industry / culture / etc.?

Like the Garment District in New York?  Or various Chinatowns, Little Italies, Irish Springs, and the like?

My three examples in Houston:  there is a full-blown Chinatown out southwest and a second, smaller Chinatown downtown.  The only thing I remember about the smaller one is that there is a restaurant named Fu Kim, which makes my inner teenage boy giggle to this day.  There is also a Flower District, with multiuple wholesale flower markets.  We saved money for our wedding by buying directly from the flower district.  Houston also has the Harwin district, AKA the "Cheap, plastic Chinese Crap" district.

I haven't been up to Dallas enough to know the various areas, but our administrative office is smack in the middle of the world famous Chicken District.  It spans the intersection of Abrams Avenue  and Forest Drive ("chicken, Forrest, chicken!).  In about a half-mile square area, there are the following: KFC, Church's, Popeye's, Chik-Fil-A, Williams Chicken, Regio Roasted Chicken, and El Pollo Loco.  In this strip is also a Hustler Hollywood store, which, while technically not a chicken restaurant, is included here because of the breasts (and the porn).  There's also a McDonald's, who serves something that may be considered chicken-adjacent.  I even think they are building a new "Gus Fring's Los Pollos Hermanos" on the strip.

I am ussure why this north Dallas intersection has drawn this much chicken business.  There's not like a wild chicken flock living under the bridges of I-635.  

The only thing even remotely similar that I have found is the three breakfast joints in one neighborhood in Plano.  Or possibly it was in Flower Mound, Denton, White Settlement (an actual real town), Arlington, Frisco, Garland, Grapevine or Coppell. By the way, DFW, at last count, has 193 distinct cities.  Wherever the breakfast district is (could have been Euless, Richardson, Irving, Highland Village, Little Elm, McKinney, or even Allen), they each have a full menu of omelettes, frittatas, benedicts, and other egg-centric meals.

I know your next question.  I do NOT know which district came first.

Vegas, baby! Until the Rapture

 A few weeks ago, I took a trip with three high school friends to Las Vegas.  Check your imagination right there.  Consider it this way - it was 223 years of old white guys visiting Sin City.  You know we were asleep every night by midnight.  Except me, story to follow.

And building on the cumultive oldness - there was a restaurant called the Heart Attack Cafe, where they have a scale outside, and if you weigh 350 pounds or more, you eat free.  I am happy to report that 223 years of old white guys weighs 702 pounds.  Or two free meals, though it didn't work that way.  Put another way, we weighed 3.147982062780269 per white guy year.  I'm pretty sure that number is pi, which I think would have been included in the free meal if we had qualified individually.

Being old white guys, we stayed in an AirBnB instead of a hotel.  Quieter, cheaper, and almost impossible to get anywhere.  But we had four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a coffee maker and a foosball table, which sadly never got used.

We ate, drank, gambled, and had a fun time.  Two of us won some money, one broke even, and one lost, so I think in the grand battle of the Old Men and the Vegas, we'll call it a draw.

These are my friends Scott, Chris and Kenneth.  The one who still has a baby face is only 55, while the rest of us have breached the "over 55" barrier.

We did drink in some festive places.  This place had tequila and mescal drinks, and we came here after visiting the place that had $5 "Fuck Putin"shots.

Scott and Kenneth doing - God knows what - to what I can only assume are idols of Egyptian deities.  Vegas!!

Scott in the AirBnB before we called in the domestic violence unit.

Of course, this was what preceded the call to the police.

Leaving Las Vegas (by plane, not the Nick Cage way), I saw this billboard and found my next cause.  I am gathering my Jewish brothers into a class-action lawsuit against the rabbis who scarred and tormented us.  ANd no, I didn't visit the website.  That would absolutely be part of any future Dateline I am in.

We spent a couple of nights hanging out in the Fairview area, what used to be called Downtown.  Vegas used to be a city for gamblers, then it became Disney Land.  Now, it's more like Times Square, with fewer skanky Elmos and more guys with ass chaps.  If the video uploads, this is exactly the feel of the area.

My friends on Saturday night were gambling in one particular casino. I wanted to wander a bit.  I had been winning moderate amounts in every place we went, and I knew if I stayed in one place, I would give it all back.  So, around 11 I started wandering a bit, going into different casinos and shops, and people watching.  Every 20 minutes or so, I'd head back to the Golden Gate (where the boys were), and made sure they were still there.  

At midnight, I was just across the street and decided I should check in.  Couldn't find them.  I texted.  No response.  I texted again and got this response: "we are almost back to the house."  

"Um, what?"

"We left a bit ago."

Checking my texts, there were in fact a string of "we are leaving soon", "where are you?" and "we'll meet you by the taxi stand" over the course of six or seven minutes.

Well, damn.  My friends had been Raptured and I seem to be Kirk Cameron in this scenario.

So, I head back out of the casino and see a bunch of cop cars and police closing down all the streets.  That cannot be good.  Fortunately, it wasn't a massive police sting, just them closing off every street for the 5k race in the morning.  Right.  I seem to remember hearing something about that in between shots earlier.

I go to the taxi stand and tell the first taxi driver where I am going.

"No way I can get you there.  All the streets are closed between here and there."

Oh, double damn.

"Looks like it's about 2 1/2 miles away, your best bet is to walk."

Now, Vegas is not really a walkable city, apart from up and down the strip.  My google map confirms it's only 2 1/2 miles, but gives me a walking route that avoid crossing the freeways, and will only take 68 minutes.  Walking across Vegas sounds a bit sketchy, but better then trying to run across the freeways.  So I set out.  ETA somewhere near 3 in the morning.

I cross many of the closed streets and see another taxi.  I go up to him and show him the address.

"Yes I can get you there."

"Fantastic."

"But I need to turn in my taxi now, so I can't help you."

"So you can, but you won't.  Is it because I was left behind?  Don't you recognize me from Growing Pains?"

Alas, he didn't.  So I start walking again.

A few blocks later I see one final cab coming up the street.  He was nice enough not to run me over when I laid down in the middle of the street.

I told him where I was going.

"Yes, no problem."

"Fantastic, I say, waiting for the "...but..."

"Hop in."

He got me there in five minutes.  Didn't even have time to turn on the meter.  I think I gave him $50, and was happy to do it.

The boys were asleep.  Didn't seem surprised to see me in the morning, but were strangely uninterested in how I got there.  And why I was wearing the 5k t-shirt.

But, all in all, a fun trip.

Yes, there was a holiday letter.

 The Smith holiday letter 2021 had a much smaller distribution list, as you will understand below.  As it's now several (or 3) months later, herein is the hertofore embargoed letter:

December 2021

The Lost Biblical Book of Russell (Job’s fourth cousin, thrice removed.  Twice for cause, and once for a misunderstanding over an ox).

And the Lord said unto his personal assistant Jim, “Jim, it doth been many centuries since I have tested a believer’s faith in me.  Bring unto me the name of someone I can fucketh with, as a test of his faith.”

And Jim said unto the Lord, “Have I got the guy for you!  Lo, his name is Russell.”

And the Lord asketh, “Is he a good Christian man?”

Jim respondeth,” Um, no.  He seems to be Jewish.  Possibly also Unitarian.  And may even be an atheist.  I found all of this on the internet.  And, by the way, THAT was an amazing invention, big guy!””

And the Lord commanded “Hit him with my best wrath.”

And so begins the trials of Russell.  Which technically started in 2019 with a brain tumor, continuing into 2020 with the end of Chemo and the global pandemic.

“Jim?”

“Yes, big guy?”

“What should we start with?”

“Let’s give him a second form of cancer, something in his plumbing.”

And thus did the holy colonoscopy reveal colon cancer in March.  Leading to surgery in April.  Which removed the colon cancer.

“Well, that didn’t do much, Jim.  What else you got?”

“Well, sir, he’s vaccinated, but I could give him a breakthrough CoVid case.”

“Bring it.”

And thus did Russell get a breakthrough CoVid case, with a bonus sinus infection.  But both cleared quickly.

“Jim, looks like he is still standing.”

“Sir, just wait.  I’m not done.”

And thus did the stone manifest itself in his kidney to causeth pain and discomfort.  But this too, passed.

“Jim, are you sure you are up for this?”

“I was considering scurvy next.  But he drinks a lot of margaritas.  I doubt scurvy would stick.”

“Jim, do NOT incur my wrath.”

“I have one more thing.  We could break up his 25-year marriage.”

“Well, that sounds better than smiting someone or something.  Unless he has cattle.  Does he have cattle I could smite?”

“No sir.  He did have a lovely cattle dog named Blossom.  But she died a few years back.”

“Oh, I remember Blossom.  She was a good dog.  No way I smite any creature that amazing.  So, smiting is out.”

“He still has difficult cats.”

“But wouldn’t smiting them help him?”

“Fair point, sir.  Guess we’ll have to go with the marriage thing.”

And thus did Jill and Russell agree-eth to part ways in 2022.

“And make him keep one of the cats.”

“Sir, haven’t we done enough to him?”

“OK, we can end here.”

And here endeth the Book of Russell, 2021. 

 

The children he begat had good years.  Kaileigh, the eldest, moved from projects with raccoons and opossums in South Carolina to bears in the Everglades, and finally back to raccoons and opossums as she explores graduate school options.

Twin A (or Alex, as she is now called), is finishing up year 3 of college at Loyola in New Orleans.  She has enough credits that she graduates in May 2022, and is considering next life steps. She moveth the crazy orange cat Leo to New Orleans, where he is leading his best cat life.  He even got to travel the south with New Orleans evacuees escaping hurricane Ida, becoming for a handful of weeks “Florida cat.”

Twin B (Abby) is also is her third year of college at Trinity in San Antonio, but will go all four years before moving on.  She has moved from Chemistry to Physics to Quantum Physics and is presenting at conferences and continues to dance and sew.

Russell is still leading Refugee Services of Texas, and he and his organization are neck deep with Afghans these days.  After the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, tens of thousands of Afghans were displaced and in need of a new home.  After four years of low resettlement under Cheeto Voldemort, his agency is growing and expanding at a rapid pace.  He taught one class at UT this year, and was excited to be back in the classroom. He joined the board of Regarding Cancer, a small, young non-profit in Austin who provide peer support to people getting cancer diagnoses and their family members.  Something he can relate to.

He is heading to Hawaii after Christmas with his brother, his brother’s family and their friends.  He will be spending his 25^th anniversary there.  Ironically, at 25, the gifts start back over.  So, like the first anniversary, 25 is “paper.”  Sadly though, it’s “Papers served.”

I guess I can switch to first person here, after the divine narrator and third person.  I am unsure what the future brings, with my health and now, pretty much everything else.  Lots of things will be different, even though Jill and I will continue to be close, and continue to have amazing kids.  But, for at least now, I wanted to continue to have a holiday letter, if only to my peeps, and even if it is the last one.  I wish all happy holidays and a great 2022.  I certainly need a great 2022.  2021, much like its predecessor, kinda totally sucked.

Love,

 

Russell

8106 Greenwich Meridian, Austin, Texas 78759

Russell:  russasmith@aol.com; 512-627-8699

Russell’s blog:  http://cornerpieces2.blogspot.com/