Back in the Saddle...

Been away from home for a week - nothing overly glamorous just basic wandering really, a break from same ol'same ol'.

We began with a trip to Oklahoma City. One of husband's great-grand-daughters was taking part in a Modern Dance Arts Recital at the city's Performing Arts Center. We met up with various other family members and friends for lunch before the performance.

The recital included a variety of age groups, from teeny tinies to almost adults, all students of dance. Music for the dance performances, throughout, were all Grammy Award winning songs or musical pieces. The show was well-presented, entertaining, and obviously a lot of hard work and practice, practice, practice had been involved, especially for the wee ones. Husband had only a pocket camera with him in the theater, and we were sitting fairly far from the stage, so though there were some good opportunities for photographs, these sadly were not able to be taken. Below is, I think, great-grand-daughter in full Terpsichorean mode - blurry though! And from afterwards, husband's daughter, her son, and her grandson, who is of course, husband's great-grandson, wee Milo.

After the show we pressed on into deepest Oklahoma, and next day, through constant heavy rain, into north-western Arkansas. Arkansas does not receive all the credit it deserves for being a beautiful state - especially the northern areas. We drove on roadways, tree-lined, backed by many acres of National Forest that would rival similar roads in Colorado for scenic grandeur. We opted to stay in Rogers, but unknown to us we had picked dates on which a national convention of Walmart people (not sure if shareholders or staff, or what - but Walmartians of some ilk) was about to take place. Bentonville, a town next to, and more or less joined to Rogers, is I understand, the heart and home of Walmart. My 2007 post about Sam Walton, founder of the supermarket monstrous empire, is HERE by the way.

The first 3 hotels we tried in Rogers were booked and even, the clerks told us, "over-booked" for the next few nights. We eventually found a room, but only for one night, later to be extended to two after a Walmartian cancellation was received, and the clerk kindly informed us of this and extended our stay.

We headed back south and west before Walmartians arrived in full stampede mode, drove via one or two eastern Oklahoma towns, exploring any stray antique/vintage stores along the way.

Yes, yes, we were naughtily putting more CO2 into the atmosphere, and it's already overloaded with that stuff. My excuse, and I'm sticking to it, is that for my first 63 years on this earth, in the UK, my carbon footprint has to have been minuscule as compared to the average American's footprint during those years. I walked, cycled, rode the bus or train for 90% of the time. When we had a car it was an old Mini, and good for fairly short trips only - hardly ever used for more. I don't drive, by the way. So, I reckon that now, when I live in an area with no public transport whatsoever, and outside of walking distance for anything, our use of the car is necessity. Vacations are by car - and unless we become hermits in our house and yard, then we have to put CO2 into the atmosphere. Husband can blame me, I shall never feel guilty over this. I'm no virtue-signaller, there are more than enough of those around in the USA at present anyway. I'm a vice-signaller, I guess!

BANDITS! (Real and Imagined)

This weekend marks the anniversary of the death of a woman known, in the USA, as The Bandit Queen: Belle Starr. She was murdered in Oklahoma on 3 February 1889, two days before her birthday, 5 February. (Photograph of the Belle Starr statue in Woolaroc, north-eastern Oklahoma. Hat tip to The World Rebooted website)

From Texas Originals at Humanities Texas website

When Belle Starr was shot to death in 1889, a newspaper declared her to be "a most desperate woman." Her killer was never identified. Many suspected her son, whom Belle had recently beaten for mistreating her horse. Her unsolved murder was a fitting end to a life that was a whirlwind of violence, crime, and legend.

She was born Myra Maybelle Shirley in 1848, and at the age of sixteen moved to the North Texas town of Scyene. She kept company with notorious criminals, including Jesse James. She married three times to three different outlaws and even spent time in prison for stealing horses.

Though she was ruthless to her enemies, she had a great capacity to make friends, and she even mingled with the Dallas elite during the brief periods when her gunfights and thievery gave way to respectable living.

But it was only after her death, at age forty, that her legend grew. The National Police Gazette invented new stories about her, and her embellished reputation continued to inspire popular novels and western films long after her death.

Stories circulated depicting Belle as an elegantly dressed woman riding atop a black mare, in a feathered black sombrero, toting a Colt .45 pistol that she called "my baby."

Instead of being remembered as a desperate criminal, she became a romantic symbol of the disappearing American West, known as "Belle Starr, the Bandit Queen."

Her story, as briefly told, but in more detail at This Day in History. See also BELLE STARR The Bandit Queen by Maggie Van Ostrand at Texas Escapes. Hat-tip to that website for the photograph below: Belle Starr and notorious outlaw Blue Duck.

More photographs, including of one of Belle Starr's weddings can be seen at The Ellison Collection.

I see that Belle Starr was a quadruple Aquarius with Sun Mercury, Neptune and Moon (if born before 7 PM) all in Aquarius. Sun in Aquarius and Uranus (the rebel planet) in Aries were helpfully blended via a sextile aspect. Ms Starr presents a good advert for the textbook, rebelliously eccentric, type of Aquarius some astrologers and textbook authors love to peddle. Sun Aquarians like Belle, though, outside of textbooks come few and far between - for which we should be truly thankful!

Above was an example of the real - now for an example of the imagined, from the vintage photograph collection, pen and vivid imagination of my husband aka anyjazz:

Link to husband's Flickr page where this photograph and narrative appeared originally some 5 years ago.

The Notorious Butterfat Gang

This is the last known photograph of the notorious Butterfat Gang of Seven who terrorized the dairy industry in the mid 1930’s. Harlan Underln, standing, center, led the gang in raids on milk trucks and neighborhood Rubber Baby Buggy Ice Cream wagons throughout Iowa and County Cork

The Butterfat Gang of Seven, (actually there were five or so members, but none of them could count) all descended in some way from lineage of the infamous robber, Dennis Moore of the 17th century in England. Highwayman Moore was noted for lupin(e)s and doing something completely different.

The method of the Butterfat Gang was simple. They would stand in the road and stop dairy delivery trucks. Eight or nine of the gang members would circle the truck and stand lookout. Three or four other members would then insist the driver sell them what ever stock was carried on the truck. The driver would then be obligated to return to the dairy and restock for the morning deliveries. This certainly confounded dairy owners not to mention the trauma experienced by many cows.

Their last caper was said to be the carefully planned robbery of the 2:40 AM milk train. It went awry when most of the gang members overslept. No one knows how many actually showed up as none of them could actually count. The engineer refused to stop the train anyway.

Throughout their reign of confusion, none of the gang was ever caught. Actually no one ever looked for them either. They all lived well into their fifties and died overweight

Heppel Whitsig, (seated, with cigar) invented the combination creel and picnic basket and went on to a successful retirement in poverty. He never married. His twin brother, Wimpole, (also seated but no cigar) was either the youngest or the oldest in the gang, depending on which account of his birth was accurate. His mother could not seem to recall the event.

Fred (too tall) Herringbun was not on the Titanic when it tragically struck an iceberg. He married young and his wife dressed him funny.

Gable Snoot, seventh from left in this picture, worked briefly as a store window model for suspenders (or braces). He was spotted there by a Hollywood movie director who went into hiding and was never seen again.

The rest of the gang is pretty much unknown but perhaps someone will recognize a relative or a neighbor here.

These events rarely get a notation in history books although some say the gang activities accelerated the research leading to the invention of the milking machine.

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Note from your blogger: It's a real tragedy that the birth dates of the gang members remain unknown, for they would have greatly enhanced astrological data banks.....if the gang hadn't first held 'em up (the banks that is) and demanded a recount. None of the Butterfats ever got beyond that "one two button my shoe" business - "too high-falootin' for us country folk", they claimed.

My favourite gang members are Gable Snoot: hand on hip,at far right - or as anyjazz puts it "seventh from left" - Gable obviously had an inner urge to show-off - definite Leo-type; and Fred (too tall) Herringbun, far left was very obviously a docile and biddable lad married to a dominant fashionista: I'd guess Fred was a Pisces-type, except on Fridays.

Anniversary

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day himself and I married in 2004, back in the UK. The civil ceremony was held in an office at the Town Hall of the coastal town where I then lived, and was streamed over the internet. My husband's family members, in the USA, were able to watch the proceedings over breakfast at 8am, in the UK it was 2pm.

I chose and booked a wedding date, but later discovered it was the date of an eclipse! My choices were limited by the need to get my US visa application underway as quickly as possible. I quickly arranged an amended date, bringing the wedding forward to 30 April, which narrowly missed the eclipse. There was no dangerous void of course Moon nor retrograde Mercury, so it was the best I could manage in the circumstances. My clumsy astro-fix seems to have worked - all is well on the western front!

I found this among our archives. A silly, silent and rather blurry video clip we made after the wedding, displaying for posterity the marriage certificate which made us legal.




From Wikipedia's list of events for 30 April in history, I found a few quirky double acts to go with our own:

1483 - Orbital calculations suggest that on this day Pluto moved inside Neptune's orbit until July 23, 1503.

1803 - Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling – overnight – the size of the young nation.

1927 - Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford become the first celebrities to leave their footprints in concrete at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

1945 - Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide after being married for one day.

We'll be hitting the road later this morning, wandering eastward for a brief trip to mark the wedding anniversary. Maybe we'll get as far as Hot Springs, Arkansas, and on around the Ozarks.

Astrology blogging will probably resume at the weekend or early next week, but in the meantime I might scribble a few lines about our travels in a newly constructed blog cobbled together for non-astro thoughts : "THE REST OF IT". Much depends on whether we find motels with internet connection.

No end in sight, but a scenic horizon.

The saga of my application for US citizenship trundles on.....and on....and... Venus retrograde, Mercury retrograde periods have both come and gone, still no progress, now it's the turn of Mars!

My cheque sent on 26 July has still not been cashed, in common with those of many others who applied via the Texas Service Center around the same few weeks in July/August. Eventually, even after they've condescended to cash my cheque and enter my application into their systems, there'll still be a series of long waits, as frontlogs turn to backlogs. Compared to the obstacles and difficulties some people have to live with, this is very minor stuff - but frustrating nevertheless.

Transiting Jupiter is, as I type, conjoining my natal Venus in Sagittarius (bring on the wanderlust!)

Something nice is in order - as an antidote to frustration. We're taking ourselves off, right now (just for a couple of days), to see the fall foliage on Talimena Scenic Drive, which follows the tops of the Kiamichi Mountains in the Ouachita National Forest, between Oklahoma and Arkansas. The name Talimena Drive comes from the towns nearest each end of the 54-mile stretch of road. On the Oklahoma side is Talihina. On the Arkansas side is Mena, the purported hub of the Arkansas mafia’s drug flights, I'm told. (Arkansas has a mafia!!??)

Maybe I'll have a chance to upload posts from the road - maybe not. It'll depend on how civilised is the motel where we hole up.