Happy Birthday Tony!

The haze was high obscuring the blue. The heat wasn't truly present yet, but it felt like it had never left. This was the hike. They call it the Blue Goose Nature Area at Lake Calcasieu, one of the bodies of water attached to the Gulf of Mexico in Cajun Country--western Louisiana.

One of the roads was being overtaken by swamp. The reeds swayed lazily. The asphalt strip was put down over millennia of crushed oyster shells. Tall grasses made it appear that the distant oil tankers glided through meadows.

Memories having been blotted by evening's activities that night, fading like the sports-talk radio show I listened to driving back to Central Texas. Monopolizing the airwaves that fading day---the end of a Thirty-Five Hour trip to Louisiana---was the new sexual assault allegations levied at the quarterback from Pittsburgh.

Two Caliboys roaming the warm nights of the South, two pals, both Ares, both representing Northern California, fueled by some of Tennessee's finest. Of course the Mystery Mud was the result.

The heady days of trying to make sense of the absurdity of the deep South...

Happy Birthday, my Maltese brother.