Editors note: I apologize for my lack of published new material.  I still need to finish my Philippines reports, but I have been having so much fun in the Philippines over the last months I just haven't taken time to write.  I will try and change that in the near future.

In the meantime another story abut the Peppermint Lounge in Pampa, Texas came in from a classmate of mine from the Pampa High School Class of 1969.  I hope you enjoy this tale of days gone by by Tommy Davis as much as I did.

The Peppermint Lounge

by Tommy Davis

I don't think I am saying anything new to you when I say, "Oh, the trouble youth can find...".

It was the summer just before Rick Heckman's and my senior senior year at good 'ol PHS. He worked at one of the petroleum related industries located on Price Road.

Our Peppermint Lounge Connection

Rick worked with a man named Jesse Fuller, who was from "the flats."

Jesse was the singer of a band that regularly performed at the Peppermint Lounge. (As I understand it, he went on to Detroit under a contract with MoTown records.) Jesse was one huge man!

Not many days prior to the crux of my story, I met him at Rick's work place. He was loading a couple of 30 gallon drums of hydraulic fluid on to the back of a truck - by hand and by himself!

He squatted, wrapped his arms around the barrel, stood up straight, and with a low grunt thrust his body upward and forward enough to place them on the truck bed. No handles. No straps. No hoists. Just his bare arms.

Jesse had offered to Rick that if we stopped by to see him on this particular Friday evening, he would supply us with a case of beer. He had told Rick that we would either find him at his home or the Peppermint Lounge

Cruising the Peppermint Lounge

We had a hard time finding his home, so we just drove around - periodically passing the Lounge, looking for signs of his presence. At each pass, the eyes of some male local residents grew more stern and un-welcoming.

It was about the fifth pass around this particular corner that these four men - all good sized - stepped in front of my '56 chevy and waved us down. One stayed in front of the car. Two went to Rick's side. And the remaining one - the biggest - came to my door. It was hot. The windows were down.

One of the men on Rick's side asked, "Now just what are you boys doing here?" Rick started his answer, but before he could get it out, the man on my side - it seemed his whole head filled the window - spoke to me. All conversation on the other side of the car ceased.

I remember to this day those eyes. They had no whites. What should have been white was mahogany - a deep dark mahogany. And they were only six inches from mine. His breath - well his breath almost made me drunk. He said in a deep and serious voice, "Zzz rubv blu blu?" I put the question mark here, because I could at least tell by the inflection that he was asking a question.

Failure to Communicate at the Peppermint Lounge

I looked at him - nervously out the front window - then back at him and said, "I'm sorry - what did you say?"

After a rumbling, grunting, impatient exhale, "Zzz —- rubv —- blu blu?"

I looked over to Rick just long enough to see if he was going to offer any help. I certainly did not want the back of my head exposed for too long. Assistance would not be forthcoming.

Still confused, and having no clue of the "safe" response - but being confident that to ask for one more repeat would mean my certain death, I said, in my frantic analysis that he must be asking me if we wanted trouble, "Uh - no. We aren't looking for trouble."

The Color of Blood at the Peppermint Lounge

That wasn't the question.

He growled like an angry bear and with both hands firmly gripping my door, began shaking and rocking my car like it was one of those kiddy-ride cars. Then one of the men on the other side, lunged through the window with one hand pushing Rick against the seat and the other turning my car off.

With his face now also within inches said, "He asked you if your blood was red."

"Yes - yes - its red - its red", I exclaimed.

Then Rick blurted out, "We're just lookin' for Jesse Fuller."

Dropping Names at the Peppermint Lounge

All bodies that were not white were suddenly outside the car. The one that had kindly done the translating for me, now standing about two feet from the car, cocked his head and said, "You mean Jesse Ray Fuller?"

Rick said, "Yeah... yeah... Jesse Ray. He's my friend. I work with him."

"Hey man - I didn't realize you were friends of Jesse's. We don't know where he is - but when you see him, please don't tell him anything about this. Please don't."

And when we found Jesse a little while later, we said nothing about what had previously happened at the Peppermint Lounge

In the late 1960’s when David Schaub was living there, Pampa had a population which consisted of primarily whites with barely a thousand or so blacks. As it had always been up to that time, virtually all of the blacks lived in an area called the Flats.

As was then typical in most of the South and Texas, it was located “across the tracks”. Segregated schools had only been abolished a couple of years before and the Flats had lost its binding feature—the schools. But one of the most famous places to many people who knew Pampa was the Peppermint Lounge, a black nightclub located in the Flats.

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In addition to the more than 92 million Philippines homeland population there is andadditional 10% estimated Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW).

Life as an OFW is very hard. Filipinos never know how their jobs are going to end with wars, conflicts and economic changes in their country of work. << MORE >>

Those of you who have been with me for awhile know that my editor, Bufford, is a lovable old basset hound and is a very important part of my life.  He has been very ill this week and the vet says he probably isn't going to make it.<< MORE >>

Since President Gloria Arroyo came to power in 2001, hundreds of people have disappeared. There are claims the military is targeting those viewed as a threat to the government. Some have called the Arroyo government similiar to the Marcos regime with it's martial law.<< MORE >>

We saw the street kids of Davao which is only one side of poverty. Often families unwittingly sell their Filipino children into slavery when they can not feed them thinking they are sending them into a better life. This shocking report looks at three families whose children end up in prostitution, working in a gold mine and working in a bleach factory.<< MORE >>

I would like to think whoever made this attack on our site did so for political reasons. This would make me think we were doing something right and perhaps making a difference in this world, but it is far more likely it was only a prankster wanting to demonstrate their skills.<< MORE >>

Few people in the Philippines have private automobiles. The main means of pubulic transportation is the Jeepney. Jeepneys are all custom fabricated from used parts on Jeep frames. Each one is unique and there are thousands of them in the Philippines. This process of custom fabrication has been going on since World War II and began with the process of using salvage jeeps partially destroyed in battles to build multi-passenger vehicles for public transportation.<< MORE >>

I had originally said I would be posting about Jeepneys today but I had forgotten today was Memorial day. In some ways there is a tie in there, but I won't try to make that connection. I want to visit the Wall and pay honor to two friends. One I knew and one I didn't. << MORE >>

In the next 30 years the population of the Philippines is set to double to 170 million. Contraceptives are frowned on and abortion is illegal. Every year more than half a million Filipina women are so desperate they undergo harrowing illegal abortions, despite the fact that at least 80,000 end up seriously ill in hospitals.<< MORE >>

The taxi driver I talked to seemed totally convinced the mayor's office was behind the killing of the street kids and whether it was true or not I could tell he believed it. I waited until I was back in the US before I started asking questions. Something told me a westerner asking questions about the death squads might draw attention I didn't want. I figured it was better to be safe. << MORE >>

As I was standing at the outside ATM a young girl approached me. She was perhaps 13 or 14 and wearing short shorts and a skimpy top, but still obviously a child. She smiled at me with these beautiful brown eyes and tilted her head downward and looked up at me in a questioning way and said "Boom Boom?"<< MORE >>

Today is a very important day to those of us who love the Internet and I could not let it go by without giving tribute to what happened 49 years ago on May 25, 1961. << MORE >>

The Philippines requires all of its children to go to school, however, it is a requirement that is impossible to enforce. With a geographic makeup of 7,007 islands the remoteness of many of those islands makes it impossible for many of the children to get an education.<< MORE >>

An absence of words has been noticeable in this blog for a little over two weeks. You may have formed your own conclusion that perhaps I had lost interest or been too busy to write. Neither of those things are true. A tragedy is at the heart of the absence.<< MORE >>

It's hard to put an age on John Jonas. He always has a smile on his face and his top priority in life, outside of his deep spiritual faith, is obviously his family. They are always together. They always appear to be having a good time and from what I can see as an outsider he is a man of tremendous patience. The patience has nothing to do with his family, but with the bombardment of questions and demands for his time coming from the group of aspiring outsourcers who had ...

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I left my home in Irene, Texas at 6:00am March 16 for a journey half way round the globe. It would be 30 hours before I would step foot on Philippine soil. I am not sure which was more difficult, the 14 hour non-stop flight from Dallas to Tokyo or the seven hour layover in the Tokyo airport.

I was exhausted when I arrived in Manila, but there was still an hours worth of hassle ahead claiming baggage, going through customs, immigration and getting ground transportation to the Herritage Hotel.

... << MORE >>

In retrospect the 1992 presidential elections may arguably have been one of the most important presidential elections in modern times. In February 1992 on the Larry King show a Texas millionaire named Ross Perot hinted he would run for President if he could get enough support to get him registered in all 50 states. He wanted to stop American jobs from going to foreign countries and a lot of Americans were out of work.

Nine months later the eyes of the world were focused on the University of Virginia in ...

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In order to understand the Philippines today you have to go back almost 38 years to September 21, 1972 when Ferdinand Marcos declared marshal law to control rising resistance to his government.. He had originally been elected in 1965, but the people were facing extreme economic hardship and Marcos, who was supposed to be making 300,000 Philippine Pesos per year as president (about $6,000 in today's US dollars) was later discovered to have been looting the government coffers while his people were starving to death. << MORE >>

In mid March I began a journey into the economic cardiovascular system of the world. I left the United States with an agenda to find the truth. As often happens the truth found me.

I took the truth and safely stored it away in my heart until I got home. However, when I would sit down to write the words that appeared on my screen were never acceptable to my heart. Truth would demand a do over and I would stop . . . and begin again the next day.
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Editors Note: The last four weeks have been an incredible experience for me. I am sure some of you have notice my unusual absence. I apologize for my unexplained disappearance. The explanation will soon be forth coming. I have been on a journey of over 17,000 miles physically. Spiritually I traveled to heaven and back. A part of me refused to return. I have many things to write about so the pages left empty during my absence will not remain empty.

Shortly before I left I received this story from David Schaub, a fellow classmate from ...

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I've always had a knack for asking smart people how to do things that I didn't know how to do and getting good responses. I think that all began about 30 years ago driving a taxi cab when I learned if you ask people will often tell you things for free they would charge a lot of money for professionally.

So it was a few months ago when I wrote a letter to one of the top internet marketers ... << MORE >>

Today is Valentines Day, a day synonamous with love. St. Valentine, who was a Roman Catholic priest the day is named after, literally lost his head on this day in 269 AD.

Roman Emperor Claudius II Gothicus reportedly had banned all marriages because he believed single men made better soldiers than married men. Saint Valentine was caught secretly still marrying couples and ordered beaten and then beheaded by Claudius. On the day he was beheaded it ... << MORE >>

Last week I gave you a sneak preview of some high quality free open source software. Today I am going to tell you where you can find over 230,000 different programs in one location. Some of them will rival programs that cost thousands of dollars if you purchase them.

SourceForge.net is the world's largest open source software development web site. They provide free services that help developers build cool stuff and share it with a global audience. As of February, 2009, more than 230,000 projects had been registered to use the services of SourceForge.net ...

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If W.C. Fields was alive today he would love the internet. It is a swindlers paradise and unless you know some simple ways to protect yourself from some very effective scams that are taking place on the internet today you can end up laying out cash needlessly and not even know you have done it. The scams are that slick. I am going to spends the next two, maybe even three articles on some simple technology tips that I promise will not only save you some money, but some grief if you will stay with me on what ... << MORE >>

Usually the last thing in the world I would ever write about is corporate America. I tend to lean a little more to the left than the average American and my dislike for corporations is pretty high.

This week I discovered something that really opened my eyes and made me realize it isn't corporate America that is totally to blame for the economic hardships our children are going to have to endure for a few years until the world finds a sense of economic balance. We envision outsourcing as something the big corporations ... << MORE >>

About ten years ago I was getting ready to see my oldest son for the first time in over five years. He had been serving in the Navy and had done a tour in the West Pacific serving on the USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear aircraft carrier and named in honor of the president who is credited with emancipating the slaves . . . although a nation went to civil war over that emancipation.

A lot can happen in five years and I was looking forward to seeing him. We had communicated some by ... << MORE >>

I have two really great stories to tell you about They inspired me so much this week. Both of them are about connections that were made because of this blog and how rewarding it makes me feel. One of them you can't miss if you have been reading the comments. On January 7 the sender of a comment that had been reading my posts was my 18 year old daughter who is a freshman at West Texas A & M. I didn't even know she knew about my writing. It is the only comment I have ever gotten that said "love you"

Because of things neither of us could control we haven't spent a lot of time with each other since she was five or six years old. It meant so much to get that "love you" and know she was reading my heart felt writings. << MORE >>

"Number One, Number One" Go Ahead and Play the Video! We are going to start this blog in reverse.

 I wish I had a microphone today. While writing is superior most of the time, there are those moments when a real laugh can actually be amplified more by sound than written words and I could ... << MORE >>

Good Morning and I hope everyone is having a great start to 2010.

I had hoped to introduce a new website this morning, but it turns out there is a lot more complexity to moving than originally thought. Go Daddy's proprietary program is not designed to make it easy to move away from (surprise, surprise) and while I can easily export all the entries I would lose the comments. Since the comments are more important to me than the entries that is not an option. I will have something figured out soon.
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For almost three years Sheila Echols had been my counterpart on the other side of the big glass window that seperated the control room from the newsroom. Every weekday morning from six until nine we put on our smiles and together we brought the sun up in Pampa, Tx at 1320 AM. Sheila was primarily responsible for news, but she provided a whole lot more than news. She was so much a part of our morning team that I could have done without the news, but I couldn't have done without her.

We ... << MORE >>

This morning around 7:00 AM I hit the publish button to place the story I had been working on where everyone cold see it. This story was different than any other I have published here because it had four videos embedded in it. I felt each one was necessary to tell the tale of Rick Nelson who was killed in a plane crash near Dallas 24 years ago Thursday.

When I tested the newly published story and hit the play button on video #1 all four videos responded at once which created mass ... << MORE >>

I had the best night sleep last night I have had in a week and  my post this morning will be a fairly short one while I prepare for tomorrow's post which which was inspired by the Christmas gift I was given yesterday.

The wondering star in me has always been a little hard to keep in check and writing has done wonders for that, but what I discovered yesterday in the conversation last night with Mario and David was a priceless gift that made me realize how important it is I ... << MORE >>

It is 3:30 AM as I sit down to write. Lately I find myself staying awake all night more and more. It is quiet. My dog, Buford, lays with his nose on my feet and waits with great anticipation for me to read back what I write. He will either nod with approval or tilt his head to the side and let me know it still needs a little more work. We have both become friendly with the night.  

Neither of us have really managed to get into the spirit ... << MORE >>

This story may seem a bit pointless . . . especially on Christmas Eve because it has nothing in it that even remotely pays homage to Jesus or Bethlehem or anything about Christmas. That will come tomorrow on Christmas Day, but what this story will do is reflect on a few of the people I got to know in my six months on the streets of Fort Worth. To say they were characters would be an understatement in most situations. To say they had character might be stretching it in a couple, but in others I would say ... << MORE >>

People who live in a city, especially those who live there 24 hours a day often refer to it as having a heartbeat. You can actually feel it and if you take it pulse you can tell if the city is doing well or not by the way it's heart is beating.

There are certain places where the cities pulse is exposed . . . the bus station . . . the hospital emergency room . . . main street . . . and the street where the vice plays cat ... << MORE >>

It was 1981 and only two weeks after Harry Chapin was killed. Since I received the news I had felt like my best friend passed away. I had been depressed and had to take some time off the cross country trucking job I had been working at non-stop for the last three years. When I got back into Springdale, Arkansas a few days before I turned my truck in and told them I didn't know when I would be back. I had to have some time off.

Inside I  think I knew I ... << MORE >>

137,000,000 stories today of a dream. Remember Susan Boyle who made world news in early 2009 with a shocking performance on "Britian's Got Talent?  Perhaps you have forgotten or maybe you missed it.

Over the weekend You Tube announced Susan Boyle's I Dreamed a Dream video of her audition was the most popular video of 2009. The short version (below) and the long version of this video combined have been played over 137,000,000 times. I placed it here so we can add a few more.

Additionally, her first album was released in the US earlier ...

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I think I must have been nine or ten so it must have been around 1961. This isn't an event I have vivid recall of so I am not going to have one of my tales where I try and take you there with me. This was just a memory that came to me Friday after I had written an passionate message on discrimination and how we as children were taught by our parents we were supposed to discriminate.

Afterwords I was thinking about the changes that began taking place which led to ... << MORE >>

I have received some very wonderful emails oer the as few days in response to my series of stories of stories on Phillip and me and discovered something in those emails our parents should be ashamed of.

It wasn't anything anyone intended for me to discover but it is difficult to ignore when virtually ever single one starts the same way . . .

David, I wanted you to know I enjoyed reading your stories, but I couldn't leave a comment publicly because "I wasn't" . . .
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I couldn't help but notice that it was 96 years ago today in Kitty Hawk NC when Orville and Wilbur Wright took turns piloting their new airplane and became the first men to fly. The flew their airplane four times with the longest flight lasting almost a minute and covering almost 900 feet.

Here is a neat website dedicate to the event with a lot of links.

http://www.countdowntokittyhawk.com/

You can easily spend an hour there. While you enjoy the latest on ... << MORE >>

For every dream that took me high there's been a dream that passed me by . . . I know that's so true. - Harry Chapin

It was the second day of May 1970. We were parked at Caldwell's and Phillip was in the back seat spreading his smile and charisma  through the car where LaWanda Frost, and I (and maybe Susan Smith . . . I can't remember) were all talking about LaWanda and me getting married  the next night. Phillip was my best man. All of us were members of the PHS ... << MORE >>

After I told Phillip what had happened we were both fairly certain our trip to Mexico factored in somehow, but where?  Everything appeared to be going so smooth.

On the day of the procedeing  I put on my blue uniform and polished my shoes. Phillip walked with me to the end of the Dormitory hall and we stood at the door and talked for a few minutes. I turned and started walking to the location where the Captain's Mast was being held . . . a full court gymnasium which struck me as ... << MORE >>

Perhaps it was because he was in such great physical condition, but Philip began recovering quickly and within a couple of days he is watching television at the dormitory while I am off to wax and buff floors. He razzes me about that in a "Phillip Long" kind of way that even makes me laugh. I am just glad he is getting up and around.

The one thing that isn't recovering is his spirit about the Navy. When we went in Phillip's attitude was a 10. When we were first called ... << MORE >>

I won't have an entry today. I need to catch my breath and prepare for the most difficult part of this narrative.

I plan on beginning the final chapters that will help you understand what Phillip was going through in the months prior to his death. You will learn why he was in Pampa, Tx on graduation night 1970 and not on board a ship headed to a port of call in a far off place.

It will probably take two, perhaps three chapters to bring this tale to ... << MORE >>

I sleep with one ear listening for Phillip to come through the door at any time. Saturday morning comes and not a word. With every passing hour I am more and more concerned.

There is not a word the entire day on Saturday and other than going for meals I had not left the room. I went to bed Saturday night nearly out of my mind between worry for Phillip and fear of the court martial coming if his body is found in Mexico somewhere. I just keep asking myself how I allowed myself ... << MORE >>

When I stepped into the street the city had transformed itself from when we had entered. It was now lit up in a sinister kind of way and only about a block down on the left was the brightest  building of all calling itself The Palace. "How could anyplace in this hell hole call itself a palace," I questioned. I looked at my watch. It was nearing 9:30 PM. Still early. I decided to check out this so called palace while I waited for Phillip to get over the romance he was having.

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We graduated from basic, returned home for 30 days leave where it was nice to not be called a maggot for four weeks. We had been assigned to radioman advanced training school and returned to NTC San Diego to begin training which would eventually place us on board a ship together in perhaps one of the best striking fields available.

Because of the top secret nature of working with radio communications it was a position that answered directly to a ship's commander and always knew everything that was going on. Where the next ... << MORE >>

The next chapter in this story is a very sensitive one.

In working on it for the last two days I have come to realize there is one person who may stumble across it that could be deeply hurt by what it reveals . . .a teenage jerk who never deserved the love a girl back home had for him. I hope it never happens, but when you post something on the internet you must be prepared for anyone to see it. I have considered everyone from my children up and I ... << MORE >>