Category Archives: local news

local news, medical news

Recalling the ‘worst day’

It’s been a minute or two since I last wrote about the emotional journey I have undertaken since the worst day of my life came and went just shy of three years ago.

I believe my most recent post on High Plains Blogger mentioned that my journey was for all intents complete. That I had turned an important emotional corner since Feb. 3, 2023 when my bride, Kathy Anne, drew her final breath.

Indeed, my suffering is far less intense today than it was three years ago. I can smile, laugh at bawdy jokes and carry on as I used to do with my wife of 51 years. I have redefined “good” as it applies to my personal well-being and I am comfortable with saying I am “good” now. That’s an important thing for me.

I am also going to reveal on this blog a bit of news for you, which is that I am in a relationship with a woman who understands the journey I am still traveling. I won’t go into detail about her, other than to say we enjoy each other’s company.

My journey also has put me in touch with fellow brothers in grief. Many of them have lost their wives even more recently than I lost my bride to glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. The question comes from them: I can’t stop crying when I think of her. When will it stop? My answer? It won’t ever stop. Do not try to make it stop, because human emotion can be like a runaway freight train. You can manage it. I know that to be true, because I am able to manage my own emotions.

I had a moment today at lunch with one of my sons. He and I were talking about the upcoming date of commemoration and he recalled having dinner with his Mom and me. During our time together, Kathy Anne announced to my sons, our daughter-in-law, our granddaughter and me that in five years we were going to throw a huge party to salute her being “cancer free.” She was recovering nicely from the brain surgery she had to remove part of the tumor. We weren’t able to have that party, as just a few days later, Kathy Anne suffered a grand mal seizure … from which she didn’t recover.

My son’s recalling that statement from his Mom, however, filled me with sadness. My eyes got wet. I wanted to cry out loud. I held back.

These are the kinds of events that continue to tug at my ticker. But I am able to manage my emotions.

I don’t know what will occur a couple of days from now. I don’t expect the day will overwhelm me. I’ll have to run a couple of errands that will take me away from the house for most of the morning. I’ll drive to Bonham to see the Veterans Administration medics who take good care of me.

Feb. 3 always will be a day I will never forget. Not ever! It comemmorates the worst day I hope to ever experience during my time on this good Earth.

I’ll just add this. Kathy Anne instructed me to be happy if that day ever arrived and like most dutiful husbands I know, I always do what I am told.

local news, media news, Uncategorized

If I had a dollar …

You’ve heard others say it, or perhaps you have said it yourself, that “if I had a dollar for every time … blah, blah, blah.“

I am an old-school media guy. I grew up reading the newspaper that was delivered to our home from front to back. I did so each day. Every day!

My love of newspapers didn’t end when I left home when I was in my quite early 20s. I got married at 21 to a young woman who was 19. We built a nice life together and it involved newspapers. I worked for four of them over the course of nearly 40 years. Two in Oregon. Two in Texas.

My full time career ended in August 2012. The media world was in the midst of a huge change. It’s still underway.

Americans aren’t ready newspapers the way we all once did. So, when someone tells me they still “prefer to read an actual newspaper” that blackens their fingers with printer’s ink, all I can do is chuckle.

Why? Because if I had a dollar for every person who said such a thing to me I’d be a gazillionaire.

I hang out, I reckon, with too many old timers like me, folks who grew up as I did reading newspapers. That includes the advice columns and the horoscopes, man.

I’m all but absolutely certain that were I to hang with younger folks that I would see a much different world than the one I have left behind. Which I suppose brings me to my point. The media are looking for ways to appeal to the younger among us. They are the future. People like me are part of the fading past.

I get it. Totally and completely.

I want to wish the media companies well in their quest for new readership audiences. I also want to wish the younger Americans out there looking for sources to inform them of the events of the day. They’re out there. You just have to look carefully and decide who among those sources are giving it you straight and which of them are foisting their own world view on a gullible ocean of empty skulls.

local news

Life with puppies …

Today I want to regale you with a brief tale I am living as I sit at home in North Texas trapped indoors by the bitter cold that has swept in as announced.

I’ve turned the TV off because I am sickened by the news created by the monsters disguised as immigration cops.

So, I will talk briefly about my life with two dogs. They are — to put it mildly — a serious hoot and a scream.

Sabol is the older of them. She is a Chihuaha mix. She’s about 7 years old. She joined my family about 18 months ago. She loves attention. She cannot lick you enough. She’s a little pudgy but she gets around just fine. She runs around in the back yard and she likes the sound of her own voice … if you get my drift.

Then there’s Endo. She joined me almost a year ago. Endo is a 4-year-old black-mouth cur mix. She and Sabol are BFFs. They established their lasting friendship the moment Endo walked into the house. Sabol had to sniff up and down. She gave Endo the once over and conveyed the message I understood completely, which is that “this one is good, Dad.”

I had been a bit fearful that Sabol might not like another fur baby joining the family, as this is her house. She’s the boss.

Hey, no worries.

Well, we’re all kinda trapped inside for next little bit of time. We’re all waiting for the deep freeze to lift.

Normally, I keep the back door open to the back yard. Our doggie door allows them to move in and out at will. With the temperature hovering at around 20 degrees, I am keeping the door closed. The puppies let me know when they want to go outside.

Endo usually sends the message by jumping up and down in front of me. I ask her, “Do you want to go outside?” She responds by bolting for the door. Sabol joins her there and they sort of “play growl” at each other. I open the door and they blast through the doggie door.

Then Endo launches into a three- or four-lap sprint around the back yard. Full tilt! Flaps up!

Only this morning, when she went out she couldn’t keep her footing when she wanted to reverse direction. The ice covered the lawn and made it treacherous for her. She made less than two laps today before bolting back inside. Endo is a short-hair pooch, as is Sabol. Neither of them is comfortable with the cold weather.

I am happy to report that life around my house is a bit quieter than normal. I am even happier to report that I hit home runs when I acquired these two pups. I’ll be clear on this final point, which is that I don’t do cold weather well. I am ready to let Sabol and Endo enjoy the great outdoors.

environmental news, local news

Reporting the weather takes on new urgency

My fellow North Texas residents I am sure have noticed the extra urgency in the tone of voice used by the broadcast TV weather forecasters as they tell us about the winter storm that is bearing down on much of the country.

I get why they sound so, um, excited.

The last one of these “major” winter weather events turned into a catstrophe. It was February 2021. Snow and ice blanketed the entire state. Hundreds of Texans died in the blast of cold. One U.S. senator, Republican Ted Cruz, infamously jetted off to Cancun while the state was freezing to death. He hurried back when the media exposed his getaway.

ERCOT, the agency that overseas energy production and distribution, acknowledged system failure. Legislators pledge to fix it. Now we’re on the verge of getting another big-time blast.

ERCOT is telling us the system will hold up. The media are reporting ERCOT’s assurances dutifully, as they should.

This kind of reporting has become a regular staple now when we hear about winter storms. Will the system hold up? Has ERCOT winterized the natural gas heating pumps sufficiently? Are local governments setting up enough warming shelters to give residents a place to go in case of power failure?

The 2021 storm did not affect my wife and me as it did many other families. We lost power for a couple of days, water for a couple of hours.We powered through it. To be honest, we did not expect to be without either power or water.

This time I am prepared for the worst. Got flashlights standing by. I even have a lithium battery-powered lantern I can deploy if I need extra light. Plenty of water on hand. Food in the cupboards.

I have been advised by the weather hounds of what to do.

Experience has taught us a bitter lesson to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

local news

Two cities now in the hunt for new managers

So … just like we have two neighboring North Texas cities looking for the right person to lead municipal staffs and guide their cities toward the future.

Ben White, who had served as Farmersville city manager for 15 years, resigned suddenly the other evening. I called him the day after to wish him well, but he said he couldn’t discuss the details of his departure, telling me he had agreed to a clause that keeps him quiet. I get it.

Mike Mashburn had quit the Princeton city manager’s position a few days earlier after serving just shy of two years. I didn’t know Mashburn well enough to call him and I doubt he would have taken my call. His departure has the scent of a forced resignation, although the city council noted specifically he had resigned “voluntarily.”

I have worked in both communities for the past few years as a freelance reporter for weekly newspapers that serve the communities. I know Farmersville a good bit better than Princeton, where I live.

My sense is that Farmersville’s council thought it was time for White to call it a career. I believe the city is well run and lacks much of the turmoil that bedevils Princeton.

I now shall reissue my call to both city councils as they begin their search for a new chief administrator, which is to insist they do so in the open. Do not spring anyone on the community without first giving us a chance to give them the once-over. Mashburn took the reins in Princeton without any prior exposure to the public. That was a bad call.

Ben White has been a dependable hand, but Farmersville does have nagging issues with which it must deal.

Streets! They are in terrible condition. Gotta get ’em fixed and made passable.

So, change is afoot in these two communities. I wish the city councils well as they embark on the search to find a new person. Just don’t mess up the process.

crime news, legal news, local news, national news

Impeachment coming? Sure, bring it!

Let’s assume for a moment that the political smart money is telling us the truth, that the next Congress is going to flip to Democratic control and that the House of Reps is going to launch an impeachment against Donald Trump.

We all have heard that Democrats might gain 30 seats on the Republicans who now control Congress. I can’t say whether the pundits think the 30-seat gain is at the top of their projection, at the bottom … or somewhere in the middle. If Trump continues on his slap-dash course it well could exceed the 30-seat turnover by a significant margin.

Is an impeachment necessary? I will allow my bias to peek through the haze and declare: Damn right it’s necessary! I will offer this caveat: I want Democrats to assure us that they can more than one thing at a time, that they can proceed with impeaching Trump and resume their constitutional role of making laws.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York is likely to be elected speaker and he ought to take a page from the book followed in Texas by then-Speaker Pete Laney. The West Texas cotton farmer said he always simply allowed “the will of the House” to have its way. And so it went during the years that Laney served as the Man of the House.

The will of the U.S. House should be allowed to play the hand it is dealt. If most members believe — as I do — that Trump has committed an impeachable offense or three, then it should act. It also should not allow the legislative process to get caught in a political vise that will clamp down around the White House.

We’ve all heard them say that lawmakers can “do more than one thing at a time.” Impeaching a president is serious business. So is legislating.

local news

Frozen in time at museum

My friend and I today toured the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum, which is within a chip shot of Dealey Plaza in the city’s downtown district.

We got near the end of our tour when suddenly I froze, transfixed by the images being shown and by the voice attributed to one of the death camp survivors who had been freed by Allied soldiers near the end of World War II.

My friend asked if I was OK. I shook my head “no.” Did I want to leave. Again, I said “no.” I wanted to stay and listen to the voice tell me of the unimaginable deprivation inflicted on millions of Jews. My reaction to it all caught me by surprise.

Yes, I know all about the Holocaust. I know all about the extermination of 6 million human beings who happened to be Jewish. I had toured Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam with my bride in 2016 and knew of the suffering she endured after being turned over to the Nazis by her fellow Dutch citizens. In 2009, I had the high honor of visiting the famed Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem. So, none of what I learned today was a surprise.

Maybe it all just caught me in a moment of weakness. The exhibit reminded me of the depths that the human heart can plunge. And it surely plunged beyond what anyone could predict when Adolf Hitler seized power in Germany in 1933. He formed the Third Reich, which he said would last 1,000 years.

In April 1945, Hitler married his mistress Evan Braun and on their wedding night they committed suicide … ending the Third Reich after 12 of the most miserable years possible.

The museum in downtown Dallas reminded me of why the world must hold fast to its solemn pledge: Never again.

local news, media news

Explaining changes in the media climate

In just a few weeks, I will receive an opportunity to do something I haven’t given much thought about doing … which is to tell a group of friends, associates and maybe even a stranger or two about why the media climate has changed so dramatically in the United States of America.

I will speak to the Farmersville Rotary Club, of which I have been a member for the past few years.

I told our club president this week that I have come up with a concept of the talk I intend to deliver. My task now is to organize it into a document that spells out what I have witnessed and what I have experienced.

I have told friends over the years that I was a victim of the changing media climate. Readers of this blog have read about my tale already. My daily newspaper career came crashing to a halt in August 2012. I have moved on and have rebuilt my life. I had hoped to retire gracefully from my job in Amarillo, but I was denied that opportunity when the publisher decided to hire someone else to do the job I had done there for 18 years. But, hey … that was then. As for the here and now, I am still writing for newspapers, as a freelancer who writes for a group of weeklies in Collin County. Therefore, I am not extinct!

I am not alone among journalists who have been shown the door in unceremonious fashion. Declining newspaper circulation provides plenty of testimony to what has happened to that medium.

Now I get to explain it all to my friends in Farmersville. Why write about this in my blog? I just want to share with you the opportunity I have received to put a little personal perspective on on a worldwide phenomenon.

The good news for me is that my talk will be brief. The difficulty might come in trying to condense it into a bite-sized tale that I believe will have a happy ending.

local news

Get busy, Princeton

Princeton, Texas, is hurtling head first into municipal adulthood … but it appears to have little vision of what it wants to become or how it intends to get there.

The city manager and his top assistant quit in December. The manager was on the job for less than two years. Now he’s gone on to pursue “other interests,” which is one way of saying he left without a clear idea of where he will end up.

A long-awaited and much-hyped commercial project on the corner of Beauchamp Boulevard and US Highway 380 has yet to show any signs of life. The city appears to be up to its armpits in litigation over the construction of apartment complexes and a new residential development along Longneck Road.

Ask anyone who lives near Princeton about my city and you get a curious look of befuddlement, amusement and even a bit of sorrow over what residents here are having to endure. City Hall is not a well-oiled, fully functional, machine that runs with all cylinders firing the way they’re supposed to.

My wife and I moved here in February 2019 hoping to be on the cutting edge of a population explosion that is destined to lead the city to greatness. Well, greatness remains a distant dream.

Eugene Escobar defeated Brianna Chacon for the mayor’s seat pledging a more “transparent” government. I think he’s trying. Chacon didn’t deliver much transparency when she engineered the hiring of the city manager who lasted a month short of two years on the job.

I am ready for the city to start showing signs of actual maturity. I am ready for City Hall to act as if the folks who run our local government can extinguish the last flames of confusion and get down to the task of providing services efficently for a city of 40,000 residents (give or take).

A new year has dawned. I welcome 2026. I am going to remain optimistic, but with an abundance of caution.

local news

Adapting to custom

For those of you who have forgotten — and that’s probably all of you — I once declared myself to be a surprisingly adaptable human being, given that I uprooted myself from my home in Oregon in the 1980s to move my family to Texas.

That was in 1984 and by and large we all learned how to change many of our thoughts about our new home and to adapt to many of the customs practiced here. It wasn’t until a young woman joined our family in March 2012 that I truly grasped what one of those customs means to the average Texas family.

Eating black-eyed peas to welcome the new year.

The newest family member married one of my sons. She is a Plano native and has lived in North Texas all her life. She prepares black-eyed peas each new year and persuaded us to join her in eating them to welcome good luck to our family. We have done so since. I am going to do so again this year. I likely will continue doing so for as long as I draw breath.

The good news is that I happen to like black-eyed peas. They make a wonderful soup dish. I suspect I’ll just heat ’em up and consume ’em right off the stove top. The good luck will be sure to follow, right?

This is a big deal for this transplanted Texan. We began our Texas journey in Beaumont, then moved way up yonder to Amarillo and finally settled in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. My family and I have called Texas home since the spring of 1984. That makes almost 42 years waking up under the Lone Star and beginning a new year.

The state has changed in many ways since we first arrived here. Politically? You bet! Texas used to be reliably Democratic. Now it’s reliably Republican. For that matter, Oregon — where I was born in 1949 — has gone from nominally Republican to hard-core Democratic in about the span of time as Texas’s re-generation. Who knew … ?

I did not grow up in a family that lived with tradition. We didn’t participate in activities based on family history, or state culture, or religion. I guess we lived more or less for the moment. Texas taught my family and me that some traditions are worth keeping alive.

Eating black-eyed peas to ring in the new year is one of them.

Happy New Year … and bon appetit.