(As written on my Facebook page HERE)
Ok, so I'm a writer, that means I'm always writing. On my page that I lost, which many of you were not on because Facebook recommended many of you as I was setting a new page up, I frequently just wrote. I write about my life and I've been doing that my entire life but in particular almost every single day since Christmas Eve in 1985. That's what my first 800 page book is about, it is just day by day for 20 years from 1985 to 2009. My second book, still in the works, is 2009 to now. So, when I wake up each morning I make a cup of coffee, sit in my lovely white leather real massage chair, have my 72 inch TV 8 feet in front of me (connected to my computer, Bible Hub, Facebook, my website, and my page to write on) and I have a routine. I write about my constant walk with God and the adventures he takes me on. That includes God's decision five years ago to introduce me to Bigfoot, lol. I call my stories "The Chapelgate Adventure Series," "Texas Tales from a Lone Star," and "Angel Creek." I am currently working on "The Harvest of Chapelgate."
So, here I am, this morning with my coffee, going back to my habits and was about to whip off one of my "window" stories about what happened last night. Then I remembered a bunch of you are new to my page, so I stopped to explain, because I do this a lot. Here goes, lol, ...
Andy: "I'm out here at the ranch, why don't you come out? Lexi has her camp set up back in the woods."
Angel: "It's 10:30 pm and it is dark. Why can't you just come over here?"
Andy: "I have my 18 foot long horse trailer hooked up to my truck."
Angel (remembering Werewolves are on that dark road to get to the Cowboy Camp) "Ok then. I'll be there in a minute." Also thinking: "If one starts running beside my van I'll just pretend I'm back in Arkansas that time I thought I was going to die. I'll just trust God and go to heaven."
Angel to Skye (my 30 year old daughter and mother of my 5 year old granddaughter, Laileigh): "I'm going out behind the airport to that ranch. Andy called." I think, "Do I want to take my guitar?" and decide I can just play his if I want to. I get dressed and go get in Swan. It's dark.
The long road to get to the Cowboy Camp is destitute of any life. It starts off as pavement but quickly turns into just a long, black, dirt road that my headlights don't light up enough. The Texas brush and trees line it, close to the edges, and I'm going 3 miles per hour, looking out for monsters to appear, believing it might actually happen. I fell asleep each night for 3 years listening to Dogman stories on my phone. I call them Werewolves. The first time I drove this road, in the day, a few weeks ago, I thought. "This is Werewolf country." I know. I learned from the hundreds of Bigfoot and Dogman true stories I absorbed like a sponge, ever since I figured out they existed on my off-grid land I bought sight unseen on the internet 5 years ago, in Arkansas. I go there sometimes. I have dozens of stories now. True stories. Anyway, it's dark. Driving.
When I pull into the ranch I stop and message a picture of the bunkhouse I know Andy is in to my daughter Skye. "I made it." I had kept my windows up the entire way. I usually have mine down. But I know Werewolves like to jump out and surprise you by looking into your window as you drive. So I kept it rolled up. I wonder why a thin pane of glass can somehow keep them out. I think it has to do with God's laws. I think they have to be invited in. Rolling my window down would have been an invitation. Andy told me, last week, that he saw two eyes looking at them when he was out there, eyes that were too big, in the dark. He hunts. He knows. I told him what I thought they were. Anyway, I made it. Maybe I'll just stay all night. I sleep in Swan sometimes. Maybe I'll just wait until day to go back home. I get out.
I lock Swan, double-lock Swan. I walk to the lit up bunkhouse. The moon is big and orange. It's pretty out here. Andy meets me, opens the door to the screened in long porch. He gets his guitar, sits down and starts playing. I start singing. I know all the words. I grew up in the Church of Christ. For 18 years I sang harmony in church. We believe in using only acappella music, no instruments. My voice softly and sweetly wraps harmonies around his loud Country sweet voice I've been singing to for years. He always plays his guitar. I know all his songs.
After a bit he says, "Let's go see what Lexi is doing." I'm game. He takes his guitar and we walk out into the darkness. He walks faster than me so I turn on my phone flashlight. Bigfoot love to hide in the woods as close as they can get without letting themselves be seen and watch people. They love watching music. For some reason I'm sure they must be here too, but they aren't on my mind so much. For some reason I know this is Werewolf territory. They watch too.
We walk, I say, "There's a pretty moon tonight, it's orange." We can't see it through the trees. I saw it when I was driving. A horse corral with Andy's new white horse emerges to my left. I'm just following him. We reach a long white horse trailer. "Hi, Lexi," I say. Lexi is Andy's new Cowboy type friend he's found to go on his newest Cowboy type adventures with. I mostly watch, and write. It's a picture. Lexi is in jeans, pony tail, and old Cowboy hat. She's sitting in the almost dark, in an old lawn chair. She has something in her lap she's working on. Andy sits down and gets ready to play. "There's another chair, there," they say. I sort of grope in the almost dark and sit down. I watch for awhile as Andy sings song after song.
I say, "My picture brain sees this as a perfect picture but I won't take it." I gesture at the scene in front of me. It seems intrusive to photograph what I'm seeing. Andy has his guitar in his lap. His beautiful Country voice has natural vibrato in it. He's so handsome it's a sin to look at him. He doesn't notice, he just sings. He always sings. Lexi is polishing something in her lap. There are old rags and tins of something she's using. The picture I see is this... Big old white horse trailer I suspect she lives in. Dark, dark, dark Texas night in the deep woods. Orange moon. Uneasiness for whatever might be in the woods listening to our music. I'm singing harmony softly, song after song. Lexi is polishing horse gear. We passed a white horse in a corral already. Behind Lexi is another horse corral. It smells strong here. A brown horse, either hers' or Andy's is tied to a line running overhead behind Lexi so he can move as he eats. On the corral fence is what looks like a hundred belts or silvered leather horse lines of some kind or another. I think Lexi has patiently polished each one, one at a time. There are so many it fills up a five foot section of the corral rail. I want to take a picture SO badly. It seems intrusive. I sneak and test if my light will come on on my phone, with it on my lap pointed at the ground. I'm always on my phone. It does, it lights up. Bright. I decide not to try. I'll have to just use my words. But what a picture.
I'm singing too high and too low, but softly and beautiful, church you know. Andy's voice is right in my range where my voice doesn't seem to go. But I used to sing tenor and bass in church as a child when I'd get tired of singing alto and soprano. So I know how. It's so pretty. Andy's not used to someone harmonizing with him, even after all these years that I have been. So I sing soft as he sings loud so I don't throw him. It's so pretty. I look up the words to the songs I don't know on the phone in my lap. He's learning a new one by Tracy Lawrence, something about a Texas Tornado girl the guy loves. He sings one about a Mexican rooster and I have a hard time finding the lyrics because it is in sort of Spanish. I find it and take a screen shot so I can find it again later. In the loud heartfelt parts I just let him sing then come in on the chorus. We do that in church. I have a lifetime of doing just that. I think about just recording it. No.
We sing about Amarillo, we sing about the Brazos river, I'm waiting for his song about El Paso but it's his show song he sings when he's in a crowd of other Texas men singing and he skips that one. On Jamey Johnson's "In Color," I sing when he forgets the words and he catches up... "This one here was taken over seas, in the middle of hell in 1943, in the winter time. You can almost see my breath." I like to substitute "prayer" for breath when I sing it alone but I use the word I'm sure Andy is familiar with. He says somebody Green has his song but never did anything with it. I say, "who ?" and Lexi tells me. I google it. I find it. It has 5,000 views. I show him. He already knows. "Yeah, he never did anything with it." It's called "Crazy Wind." I love it, it's one of my favorites I've heard him sing for almost a decade now, now and then. He tells the story about Roger Creager and their song, "Fun All Wrong." I say out loud, just in case Lexi has missed this point, "Texas anthem." He talks about the woman the song is about. When I say "she did a number on you," he objects. So I clarify. "Enough to get a song out of it." Andy wrote the part about the bluebonnets, Canyon Lake, and the Texaco. He clarifies, as he retells the story I've heard enough times that I know, that he's actually never alone despite what the lyrics say. So I add, for Lexi's and my own benefit, "Yeah, we know." He just moves on to the next song, I move on to the harmony, Lexi holds the horse breast multiple layers of strap up to the light, she's done. "Texas jewelry," is Andy's comment.
Then we say bye and start walking back to the Cowboy bunk house where we started. I give him a hug and say goodnight and get in Swan. Before I go I say, "I have a new monster I know about. It looks like a naked man, down on all fours, skinny. It's called a Creeper or a Rake. Three of them can take down a Werewolf. I'm serious." I had listened to the story as I fell asleep the night before. Yes, I'm serious. But I don't think they are really here. They prefer caves. The story was somewhere out south of Albuquerque. Maybe I won't go to Mark's Stunt Workshop with Laileigh this year, after all. It's in Albuquerque. I get in Swan and double, triple-lock the locked doors. I drive off into the night, the dark, dirt road, through Werewolf country. "I'll just pretend it is like when I was in Arkansas," I remind myself. I had thought I was going to die, literally, that adventure. I remember what it felt like to feel like the end had come. I love God, my Father. We walk together, always. "I'll just go on to heaven," I comfort myself.
Copyright 2023 Angel Isaacs All Rights Reserved
Written September 22, 2023 at 9:45 am
The Cowboy bunkhouse I drove to in the story:
Andy Armendariz and Angel Isaacs performing:
Andy Armendariz singing his song he helped co-write, "Fun All Wrong":
Roger Creager singing "Fun All Wrong":
Andy Armendariz co-wrote the song, "Crazy Wind":
My short-story with photos of my conversion van, "Swan": HERE
My Documentary video introducing Andy and Lexi Farrar and his Cowboy Camps is HERE
The You Tube channel I watch about Dogmen, Bigfoot, Werewolves, etc: