Cenizo Journal Summer 2017 | Page 7

C enizo N o t es by Carolyn Brown Zniewski, publisher and Danielle Gallo, editor F irst, just saying, the Cenizo Journal is still up for sale. I’ve had a few nibbles but there is nothing official as yet so if you are yearning to publish your own magazine, contact me at my email listed below. Now onward to our summer edition. July is always the height of summer for me. June 21 may be the first day according to the calendar, but for me and just about everyone else summer begins with Memorial Day. This is a time for picnics, barbecues and potlucks. Everything happens outside, so it is always the more the merrier. Every town in the Big Bend has a big cel- ebration for Independence Day. I hadn’t looked at the Declaration of Independence since American History in eighth grade, so I looked it up on Google. The writers and sign- ers were pretty radical folk for that age and time. Yet here we are 241 years later, still struggling along trying to make it work. As that line in a Grateful Dead song says, “Sometimes the light’s all shining on me/ other times I can barely see/lately it occurs to me, what a long strange trip it’s been.” So while you are out there picnicking, hiking, biking or on a road trip across Big Bend Park and along the Rio Grande; while you are watching a horny toad hunker down in the shade of a prickly pear; while you are drinking a cold beer and laughing with your buddies; while the kids are yelling and run- ning through the sprinkler or while you are lying on your back at night looking up at the stars, remember “We the People” are all in this great world together. Let’s keep on mak- ing it work. Have a great summer! O h sweet West Texas summer, in all your glory. The sun beats down and bakes the moisture from the hard yellow earth, building the rum- bling thunderheads drop by drop--a perfect metaphor for synergy, as the scant precious offerings of mist and sweat and the exhalations of withering cacti are returned tenfold to the earth, beating my poor nascent pomegranates from their bushes. Children chafe in the bonds of forced siestas, resenting so much “inside time” out of the sun, then run hog wild and splash in shallow pools through the endless evenings. I try to go to bed with the chickens, and find the chickens want to stay up later than I do. I have to stay up and wait for them to tuck themselves onto their roosts, because the foxes and skunks are out on the prowl. There is something so dear about the smell of the baking desert. There is no smell quite like it, ancient and severe, alive in spite of its mineral tang, with maybe just a whiff of long- extinct seas to tantalize the imagination. It enlivens the senses and excites a primal sense of urgency--we must complete these tasks before midday, because all desert creatures retreat to the shade until the evening. And while we’re all tucked away into our burrows, holding still out of the midday blaze, snacking on popsicles and ripe tomatoes, the Cenizo is the perfect companion to while away the hours of siesta. We hope you enjoy this issue, and maybe we’ll see you at the barbecue when the sun begins to set. Pet Grooming by Regina Since 2001 W HITE C RANE A CUPUNCTURE C LINIC Acupuncture • Herbs • Bodywork Pampered Care Exceptional Grooming Shanna Cowell, L.Ac. 1112 E Ave K, Alpine 303 E. Sul Ross • Alpine 432.837.3225 www.alpinetxpetgrooming.com 432.837.1737 N EW L OCATION : Mon. - Fri. by appointment La Tratt Pizzeria & Italian Restaurant 901 E Holland Ave 432-837-4338 Take-out available Tue - Sat 11-2, 5-9 • Sun 4-9 Published by Cenizo Journal LLC P.O. Box 2025, Alpine, Texas 79831 www.cenizojournal.com CE N IZ O J OU RN AL S TA F F PUBLISHER Carolyn Brown Zniewski EDITOR Danielle Gallo ADVERTISING Rani Birchfield [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] BUSINESS MANAGER Lou Pauls WEB MANAGER Maya Brown Zniewski DESIGN/PRODUCTION Wendy Lynn Wright [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Cenizo Third Quarter 2017 7