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