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beautiful pink lava erupting in this dreamstate horizon
2004-12-05 9:36 p.m.

I got this to die for funny email from my Quicktime Guru penpal KKirkster this morning, and it made my day! I think it might make yours too!

Subject: Redneck Christmas Greetings from Texas
Date: December 5, 2004 11:36:10 AM PST

It's beginning to look like a Redneck Christmas.
What twists of fate have brought me to this hillbilly Texas town?
Let me tell you a little bit about Seadrift, Texas. It was founded by German immigrants right after the civil war. Ours, not theirs. A few hundred got together after an all night Oktoberfester and decided to move to the new area of Texas. The women thought is was a joke but came along anyway.
They stopped when the mosquitoes got so bad they couldn't walk any further and built a town. Since it was near the San Antonio Bay they decided on the name Sea Drift. The post office got it wrong when the first letter arrived so the town is now known as Seadrift.
The Germans had to move the town a few times. A few hurricanes later they had moved about 60 feet west of their original location to higher ground. Two feet of elevation can make a lot of difference when you live next to a bay.
They made their living shrimping and crabbing. Of course they discovered that the bay is quite shallow so they had to build special low draft boats. Without much of a keel these boats where hard to keep on course. And, during a North wind, many of the townspeople where never seen again. I suspect they landed in Argentina. Explains what happened after World War Two.
Fast forward to 2004. The Germans have pretty much moved on. Now the town is made up of Hispanics and Vietnamese. The Vietnamese where expatriated by the U.S. government during the Vietnam war. I doubt they wanted to settle here. They have continued the shrimping and crabbing traditions of the town founders.
Big arguments about "Farm" raised versus "natural" shrimp down here. The shrimp from the Bay should be called prawns. They are huge! Three make a meal. The shrimp farmers know how to make tasty shrimp. They sell them while they're still small. Back to the theme of this message. Christmas in Texas.
On my walk around town today, I noticed lots of lights and displays on many of the houses. Something ironic about a twelve foot Santa gyrating next to a rusted out pickup truck. I saw that all the used hot water heaters where also dolled up in foil paper and lights. Then I noticed the generators. Lots of generators.
It seems that, after years of trial and error, the locals learned that you can't plug all those new lights and dancing electronic reindeer into standard Seadrift electrical circuits. A local told a me a story from a few years back when a man threw the switch to his outdoor display and watched in dismay as his house burned down. He saved the Santa and five of the reindeer but his goldfish and TV were a goner.
The clerk at the Pic-Pac told me about the town Christmas parade. Next Sunday, through Christmas Eve, the town will be treated with a parade of lights. I told her about how the marina we kept our boat had an annual dress up of boats in lights. I had a mental picture of the towns shrimp boats all adorned with colorful lights. Man, you could make a neat display on all that rigging. Just remember the generators.
The clerk laughed - one of those toothless ones - and said our town parade was on land. I couldn't imagine a bunch of pickups going around the streets all lit up with tiny bulbs. She told me it was made up with lawn tractors.
Without laughing out loud, I paid for my supplies and began my walk back home. Only then did I notice, parked right next to the generators, the lawn tractors. Dozens of them. Maybe every one in the town had some kind of lights rigged up on it. I also noticed some lawn tractor carts with displays. All dressed up in paper and lights.
Now, since the grass is always growing in this locale, I've had the opportunity to hear some of these 15 horsepower wonders on wheels. Most don't have a working muffler. It'll be a very noisy parade.
Try your best now. Paint a mental picture of 60 to 80 lawn tractors pulling carts. All dressed up with fancy foil paper and tiny bulbs. Every third cart will be towing a generator to power the displays.
Now re-paint your picture to include Vietnamese, Hispanic and German men and women operating these tractors. Drinking beer through their toothless mouths while they drive through town. Add all the stray dogs that will be following the town drunks along the parade route.
The town just doesn't have any rules. Organizers may have had to get a parade permit but it will be issued by the power company. Imagine a town where they lock up the chickens in pens but let the dogs run free. When was the last time your kid was attacked by a stray Rhode Island Red?
Each house I pass on my walks has three things in common. Two different sized satellites to get some television. A rusted hot water heater in some part of their yard and a dog the size of Godzilla. I mean, how to they pay for the food to feed these behemoths? Ah. I think I know now. They feed them shrimp.
Redneck Christmas greetings from Seadrift, Texas.
If this didn't get you into the spirit of the season, I've got some "booster" for your eggnog. And two pairs of ear plugs.
Kirk