Texas Mensch Stories

​

I always liked to tell stories, even as a kid. Nowadays, my friends and family like to listen to my stories, most of the time, I would like to think that. My wife and I like to explore some unusual places, those that are off the beaten path. We have traveled a lot and as we would come back, I would always like to tell stories about our adventures.
I wasn't born in America, but I actually came here as soon as I could, and a lot of my stories are just about that. About our personal Exodus. Most of my stories are happy, but some are sad, actually. When my stories are a little sad, I always try to make my listeners smile, even if I see as their eyes become a bit watery already.
I always try to make my stories interesting and exciting. Way back when, somebody said, that even a story about me buying a 10lbs. bag of potatoes in the supermarket would be interesting because I would be telling it.
I put some stories on my Facebook page, but FB isn't really for the stories. Most of my FB friends are always busy and hardly have the time to read, while on-site, just to glimpse through the FB pictures, that’s all. My sons advised me to start a blog. I instantly agreed but hesitated. They came up with the catchy name for it - The Texas Mensch.

They remember it was Grandpa's favorite praise in Yiddish - tsu zai a mensch! ...
It's a really big name. Texas is the big state, and the Mensch is even the bigger word. In Yiddish, that word would describe someone who did something good with his life. In English, it would be something like a stand-up guy. I do stand up all right, but not always as well as I would like.
So to me, it is a big undertaking, a big honor, and a responsibility to run some stories under that name. I hope I will be able to make it.
You, my readers, and I certainly hope I would have some, would have an opportunity to tell me if my stories are any good.
If anything, I'll try to be entertaining.
I am very respectful of other people's privacy, and some of the names in my stories would be changed. But the stories are true, unbelievable sometimes, but really true, most of the time. My stories are often metaphorical. Please read "between the lines" if you can. I think that to open everything to the reader at once would be stealing from the reader's intelligence.
To tell a story is one thing, to put it on paper is totally different. One should know how to spell, and English isn't my first or even second language. So don't judge me too harshly for my grammar, I'll try my best.
And to my readers in Russian, - Давайте вместе поучаствуем в этом моем эксперименте. Я вовсе не претендую в писатели. Я просто рассказываю и учусь…вы можете нажать кнопку перевода EN в правом верхнем углу и прочитать этот текст по-русски.