Reddick Family Web

Nobility, Humility, Loyalty

About Eldorado

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An explanation of the “Eldorado” category on this site …

As with some other terms in literature and scripture the term “Eldorado” as used in the Reddick Family Web has many layers of meaning.

“Eldorado” may refer to a king, a kingdom, a legendary city of gold that inspired the quests of explorers who mapped out portions of the New World. It may refer to any number of real cities formed in Texas or other states. It may refer to an automobile designed by Cadillac in the 1950s to be an expression of the ultimate luxury car. It may refer to the quest itself for the legendary city. In that company, it may be emblematic of a great quest or of an impossible dream. To us, it is all these things.

As Walt Whitman said, “Do I contradict myself? All right, then I contradict myself!”

This category of postings in the Reddick Family Web is Grandpa R’s exclusive place for posting meditations on the verities of life. It is a collection of truths about happiness garnered from more than seven decades of tilting at windmills, seeking Eldorado, collecting sunrises, setting the perfect sail, and chasing the Big Wave.

Blizzard of ’15

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So consistent and ominous were the forecasts before the storm arrived that local wags were calling the event “Snow-mageddon” and “Snow-pocalypse” in the hours leading up to its arrival.

Grandma’s car Monday

The blizzard of ’15 lived up to its advance billing, and in the days after it hobbled the South Plains, local old-timers compared the event to another storm in 1983. Weather trackers said that in terms of “official” snowfall, the storm was the third heaviest on record. They were quick to add that what made the blizzard of  ’15 unique were the winds that accompanied it. We had whiteouts Sunday, Dec. 27, that obscured houses even across the street. Official accounts placed the snowfall at something like 14 inches, but  local television newscasts were replete with images of drifts burying windward sides of homes.

Remarkable was the city’s lack of response – for five days.

The storm moved in Saturday night (Dec. 26), abated somewhat Sunday morning, and then came with fury from the north on Sunday afternoon. Monday morning was quiet, peaceful, and beautiful. During the storm, media outlets had admonished residents to hunker down in their homes and go nowhere. Following the predictable run on the markets, most people did just hunker down.  There seemed to be a collective sense that Monday, after the storm had passed, life would get back to normal.

That did not happen. Monday came, and most of the traffic was confined to members of a four-wheeler club rescuing those who had become stranded in the snow. On Wednesday, the mayor finally asked the state to help, and in a matter of just a few hours, the major streets were clear.

Reuben’s temptation

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You’re trying to count calories, but the concierge highly recommends a delicatessen less than two blocks from the hotel. The deli’s name is “Reuben’s” and they claim to be the originator of a sandwich that bears their name. Oh, my. The menu speaks of “the original” sandwich and Reuben’s secret sauce.

Downtown Montreal
Boulevard Rene Levesque, Le Centre Montreal

Resistance is futile.

Well, the sandwich itself is stacked about as high as Art’s sandwiches (Studio City), but the bread slices are not quite as large. The sauce is lightly applied, and overall the sandwich is great. They also heap french fries on the plate as though they were feeding an entire hockey team. That was Thursday.

Still in Lubbock Tuesday  on the way to Montreal and the annual AEJMC conference I mused that once again I would be away on our wedding anniversary.  I thought of my bride. I was missing my family, and I was missing people in the Heritage Ward. I was more mindful of people than the task ahead.

Invading this airport reverie, the voice of Dr. Weiwu Zhang spread cheer upon the moment. It seemed we had the same itinerary. And what was more, we wound up sitting across from each other on both flights. We agreed we would share the cost of a cab from the airport to our respective hotels.

That turned out to be more wishful thinking than reality. After retrieving Dr. Zhang’s luggage, we proceeded together until the final step of customs and immigration, where an officer decided to separate the two of us. I went one way, Dr. Zhang another, and we did not meet again until the next day.

Once at the conference hotel, I began meeting old friends and colleagues, the day seemed better, and I had a some time to prepare for my paper presentation.

Broken main equals opportunity

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Jake builds a dam
Jake builds a dam at our driveway to capture water flow from broken main on our street

When do you encourage floodwaters to swamp your property? Ask Jake.

water_deptIt must be the Scottish blood. We’re in one of the most severe and prolonged droughts in West Texas history. So when a broken main at the end of the block turned our street into a pair of respectable rivers, Jake saw  an opportunity.

“Get some buckets,” he shouted. “We can’t let this water go to waste.” We started rounding up buckets, and he got the wagon out of the side yard. We scooped water into buckets and tubs and emptied them onto the lawn and various parts of the yard. That wasn’t efficient enough.

Soon Jake had another idea. He rounded up bricks and sheets of plywood, and anything else he thought would help him – to make a dam. And so there it was, a diversion dam that backed water up at our driveway with the intent of sending it down the sidewalk and into our yard.

Thank goodness that didn’t work. If there were a real flood (in this deseret?), we’d like to have that buffer of elevation between us and the street. So the dam served to give us a pretty healthy pool from which to scoop water into tubs and then transport to the lawn and garden.

Broken water main
Water surges up through break in pavement on 42nd Street

A paean to the marvels of creation

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Wind racing through bare trees late Sunday afternoon insisted on being heard. The chorus made for an absolutely glorious backyard  evening. Whoosh and whisper suggested passages from great American literature. There was Huckleberry Finn reveling in a thunderstorm over the Mississippi. “Whirr” said one chorus and I remembered the  Emperor Yuan in Ray Bradbury’s “The Flying Machine” as he marveled  at the miracle of a sunrise from his garden close against the Great Wall.

I had entered the back yard on an errand from Grandma Nancy. She wanted some hedges planted and had set her potted prayers at strategic intervals along the fence. And so as I dug holes, stacatto of the shovel’s steel biting the earth below seemed like brass punctuating  murmurs from the  wind section above. I paused to listen. And to feel. Like Ishmael atop the Pequod’s mast, I felt “surely, all this is not without meaning ….”

The first of a series of predicted weather fronts had arrived right on schedule and threatened to fulfill a most incredible prophecy: Those who monitor such things had broadcast warnings of impending blizzards. Blizzards? But was it not a lovely evening? Did I not till the earth in my shirtsleeves?

“Surely, all this is not without meaning,” Ishmael had mused, and I smiled as the latest whoosh seemed to pack a little chill. “Blizzard, really?” I thought. “Wouldn’t that be fun?” And so I dug holes and planted shrubs until my bruised ribs stabbed hard enough to make breathing painful.

The forecast blizzard was still hours away when I took tools for unclogging drains over to Jake’s house, but the temperature had fallen to 42 on its way to 25. Weather people continued to insist the snow and blowing snow would arrive sometime after midnight, and we went to bed wondering if that was really thunder we were hearing off in the distance.

We awakened Monday to telephone alerts from the university saying the campus would remain closed all day; there would be no classes on the 25th. A quick look out the front of the house revealed a blanked of snow thick enough to cover everything in sight. All schools were closed. Early morning Seminary was cancelled. Then right on schedule at 6 o’clock, the next wave of snow and wind arrived.

What a glorious setting for singing praises to the Lord of all creation!