Dr. Doug's Mental Health Clinic
Guided Group Therapy on the Terlingua Ghost Town Porch
See ya' on the porch...
Welcome to my Wide Open Mental Health Clinic here on the porch! Just go through that door over there and the nurse will provide your favorite ice-cold medicine for a small fee.
Come back here with your medicine and find a place on one of those benches. I'll guide you through this group therapy session, and I guarantee you will feel better very soon.Now tell me... What do you think of the view from this porch... Did you know Terlingua is the world's largest open air asylum? Do you love your mother? Is there something bothering you? How does that make you feel? I may be able to help you.My advice is... Live free, take your medicine, and be very, very happy.Hey, look over there... What a babe! "I call my home "Ice Station Zebra". It's cold as hell in the winter, and hot as hell in the summer, but we survive down here..."
Borderline Mental Therapist
Dr. Doug
You are visitor number:
Don't worry,
be very, very happy.
Only a fool tries to predict Terlingua weather. So here goes: The next few days will be good and extreme!
Please sign in and leave me a message... Or not.
I realize some of my patients perfer anonymity.
This page was last updated: January 5, 2010
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Thirty-three years ago I visited Terlingua with my brother, fell in love with this rugged, scarce, hardscrabble, merciless land, and decided to live here for the rest of my life. With no money, no car, no house and no job, it was difficult to even find water. I stayed wherever I could, in caves, in abandoned buildings, in a bus...
I survived most of the time with no steady job as a free man, lots of times that meant sleeping under the stars. I learned to enjoy my freedom, take my medicine like a man, and to be very, very happy.
I work at the Family Crisis Center (also known as El Centro de La Cultura) and the Terlingua Trading Company in downtown Terlingua Ghost Town.
This is where you will find me, at the Family Crisis Center or on the Terlingua Trading Company Porch where I conduct my world famous Open Air Guided Group Therapy Sessions with the many needy patients we find in the Big Bend Area.
Want to watch a Movie?
Dr. Doug would like to invite you to the movies. Click on the link to watch
Charlie's Angels 1978-79 Dr. Doug's Review: Three BABEs at once!
La Femme Nikita Dr. Doug's Review: What a BABE!
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Dr. Doug's History Lesson
In the 1500's most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water.The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying: "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."
Houses had thatched roofs -thick straw- piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof, When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying: "It's raining cats and dogs."
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.
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The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying: "a thresh hold."
In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."
Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the "upper crust."
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.
England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a..."dead ringer."
And that's the truth. Now, whoever said History was boring!
In Terlingua
4th of July Parade
At this time of the year it's real hot... So to enjoy the 4th everybody is bearing arms (water guns) and we know how to use them. There are a lot of water fights.
In the evening there are spectacular fire works displays. Its a lot of fun. Oh! BBQ's and picnics too.iViva
Terlingua!
Photos by Terry Anderson
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Dr. Doug's World Famous
Open Air Guided Group Therapy Sessions
on the Terlingua Trading Company Porch
Click on picture to enlarge
Esc brings you back
Photos by Kristinna Blanchard
A TALE WORTH REMEMBERING
His name was Fleming and he was a poor Scottish farmer. One day, while trying to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He dropped his tools and ran to the bog. There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself. Thinking and acting quickly, farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.
The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman's sparse surroundings. An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy Fleming had saved.
"I want to repay you," said the nobleman. "You saved my son's life."
"No, I can't accept payment for what I did," the farmer replied, waving off the offer. At that moment, the farmer's own son came to the door of the family hovel.
"Is that your son?" the nobleman asked.
"Yes," the farmer replied proudly.
"I'll make you a deal. Let me take him and give him a good education. If the lad is anything like his father, he'll grow to a man you can be proud of."
And that is what he did. In time, Farmer Fleming's son graduated from St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London and went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin.
Years afterward, the nobleman's son was stricken with pneumonia. What saved him? Penicillin. The name of the nobleman? Lord Randolph Churchill. His son's name: Winston Churchill.
Terlingua Moon is the area's weekly newspaper. Click on the Moon to see the latest issue:
Excuse me, are you alright? You look a little queasy. How many fingers do you see? Yes, four is correct.
Perhaps you got a little hot. Just sit back on that bench, I'll be right back with some ice cold medicine, and we can talk about it.
I'm Dr. Doug, and I specialize in making people happy. See, you're feeling better already. Come along then, I'll show you around Terlingua, and I guarantee you will soon be much happier...
© 2009 Douglas Blackmon, all rights reserved
Photo by Kristinna
Dr. Doug presides over another Group Therapy Session on the Porch. Notice the musical accompaniment and the lively conversation sparked by liberal doses of medicine, Dr. Doug's lively and magnetic personality, and the magic of the Chisos.
There is not an unhappy face in the crowd.
Photo by Kristinna
This cowboy will be back.
He may have left his rock collection, boots, medicine and smokes, but he would never abandon his dog.
Eagle Webula
Locally Cosmic Connections
Dr. Doug sez:
This is my theme music, and this special video requires you to take a full serving of medicine, get very, very comfortable, double click on this video and resize it to full screen, then play for effect!
Salvage Yard Ranch
Fort Cinco Cieto Terra Incognito Terlingua Texas off grid hide out Big Bend Country
Kristina's Farewell Party
Kristina Blanchard has been miraculously cured of terminal unhappiness and has been released from Dr. Doug's Mental Health Clinic, the world's largest mental asylum, to return to her home in upper state New York.
You'd have to slap her to knock that smile off her face, but Dr. Doug does not advise such action. Part of her prescribed therapy was to let out her aggressions using a bullwhip. In the accompanying video she is seen practicing as Dr. Doug supervises the therapy session. At the end of the video, do we witness a classical case of Freudian aggression towards the Doctor? His intuitive cane based defensive posture demonstrates strong Kung Fu.Dr. Doug and all the other patients love her and will miss her very much. Farewell Kristina. Dr. Doug is already misty eyed.This is his great quandry. His miraculous successes return to productive society, his harder cases stay longer and sometimes become locals. But we survive out here. iViva Terlingua!
Terlingua Stingers
Dr. Doug's email is: dr.black7@yahoo.com
