Category Archives: local news

local news

Mission: to see downtown for myself

PORTLAND, Ore. — I came here to visit a family member, to see some dear friends … and to take a gander for myself at the condition of the resurgent downtown district in the city of birth.

I keep hearing from visitors and even from those who’ve never been to Portland that downtown has become ravaged by the homeless crisis and by the riots that ensued after George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police.

Businesses are fleeing downtown Portland, the chatter has revealed. The once vibrant downtown entertainment district is a mere imitation of what it used to embody, many have told me. Indeed, Portland has become a model for urban renewal and revitalization.

I tend to withhold judgment on these matters until I can lay own set of eyes on them. I am staying with my sis in La Center, about 12 miles north of Vancouver, Wash. I am hoping to venture downtown to take a peek at what is happening there. I’ll report back on what I see … if I am able to see it.

My hope is that the reports are overcooked. My fear is that they might be selling it all far too short.

I’ll get back to you.

local news

Pet relief centers?

PORTLAND, Ore — I need to get out more, but I have known that for a long time as it is.

I arrived this afternoon at Portland International Airport, a newly redesigned, expanded and vastly improved airport, I should add.

On my way from the jetliner to where I would pick up my rental car, I noticed signs I hadn’t seen before. They pointed passengers to “pet relief stations.”

I have been noticing more air travelers boarding jetliners with dogs and cats. Mostly dogs, however. What I had never seen before today were these stations where Fido can “relieve himself or herself” after spending hours on a jetliner.

Wow! Have we come a long way in this country to elevating the status of our pets … or what?

Hey, I am totally OK with it … given that I consider my new puppy, Sabol, to be part of my family.

local news

Progress comes with price

Progress, I am learning in real time, almost always comes with a price.

That price is particularly evident in fast-growing communities such as the one where I have lived for the past nearly six years.

Princeton is a city on the move. The city council recently enacted a building moratorium on new home construction. It’s a four-month ban that likely will need to be extended. The council’s decision was based on lack of infrastructure to accommodate the thousands of new residents who have moved here since the 2020 Census.

Get this: The 2020 Census pegged Princeton’s population at 17,027. This year, the population is estimated to be more than 28,000 residents. It continues to skyrocket.

The needs greater water capacity, more emergency services personnel — such as police officers and firefighters. Princeton won’t get all that done in four months.

In addition, Collin County recently closed County Road 398 just south of my house all the way to FM 546. CR 398 has been serving as an alternate route to take motorists off of U.S. Highway 380, the main drag that runs through a number of Collin County cities. My GPS system does guide me a bit farther south to CR 447, which then loops around to pick up FM 546. CR 398 needs lots of work, as it is full of dips and crevices for the mile between Beauchamp Boulevard and FM 546.

Oh, one more thing. The Texas Department of Transportation has finalized the findings of the environmental impact study it has conducted that precedes a major highway development project designed to bypass traffic around Princeton and other cities along U.S. 380. I might not live long enough to see that project finished, but it’s going to be huge.

Yes, we are paying the progress of being such a desirable place for folks to live, to work and to raise families. I welcome them.

But the price we’re all paying is going to become a major pain in the rear … until it gets finished.

local news

Holiday gives me the willies

Why in the name of cheap-seat punditry have I gotten so queasy about skewering Donald J. Trump during this holiday season?

I mean, it’s not as if I have found anything at all to respect or admire about him. I still detest the notion of this fraud and con man returning to the White House. I am trying to imagine how in the world this clown is going to deliver anything resembling a heartfelt holiday greeting to the nation that doesn’t include something gratuitously self-serving or contains attack verbiage on the “fake news” or against all of those who feel as I do about him.

Maybe I am being overtaken by a universal sense of good cheer. It might be filling me with a touch of guilt about saying something negative when we’re supposed to be honoring a uniquely American holiday such as Thanksgiving. We’re giving thanks these days, right? I am for sure. I give thanks I live in a country that allows me to vent openly and even angrily about my government and those who run it.

Christmas is coming up. So is Hannukah. They are joyful holidays.

I have said so much about Trump during his nearly a decade in political life that I start repeating myself. I don’t want to do that. You don’t want to read it, either.

The season will pass eventually. Then I can return to the normal flow of commentary on High Plains Blogger. It will remain a largely political forum. I intend to continue sprinkling it with human interest comment, It will be about me, my ongoing journey, my family and my puppy.

Hey, it’s the season!

local news

Changing perspective with age

This will come as no great flash to most — if not all — of you, but it is something I want to share anyway as the Thanksgiving holiday draws to a close.

It is that age allows us all to change our perspective on life, on living and on our surroundings.

When I was about 15 years or so of age, I once complained to Mom and Dad that I didn’t like being called “Johnny” by my relatives. I preferred “John,” I protested. “That’s what my friends call me,” I said. I don’t recall Mom and Dad’s response, other than they must have realized I was just a smart-ass teenager.

Sixty years later, on the eve of my 75th birthday, I know relish being called Johnny by those family members who are still around and who called me that name back in the old days. Now I realize why they did that. You see, I am my paternal grandfather’s namesake. I now realize my Papou was the original John Peter Kanelis and I was “Johnny” to avoid any confusion at family get-togethers.

Also around that time in my still-young life, I recall deciding that I didn’t want to live past the age of 55. I must have bought into the rock singers’ notion that “we shouldn’t trust anyone older than 30.”

Fifty-five seemed ancient to the 15-year-old who at the time didn’t realize he could still squeeze a lot of quality of life at that ripe old age. I barely remember 55 these days and, yes, I have enjoyed a fruitful life built on a family I helped produce with the woman I married when I was 21 and she was a 19-year-old hottie.

I have seen many wonderful places in my life, done some remarkable things in pursuit of the craft I enjoyed for nearly four decades as a print journalist.

Yes, age has brought it all home to me.

local news

Many reasons to give thanks

I have done this many times over the years I have been writing this blog.

I set aside some time to give thanks for the blessings with which I have been bestowed. This year, as in 2023, is different in one important way. I am celebrating my bride’s favorite time of the year without her.

During most of our married life, Kathy Anne was like the Looney Tunes character the Tasmanian Devil. whirling through the house, decorating it with secular and religious decorations to celebrate Christmas … and along the way she would throw in some Thanksgiving do-dads to commemorate this particular holiday. And all the while she would complain how she wasn’t “very good at decorating.” Which, of course, was nonsense.

I have tried my best to adorn my North Texas home with holiday decor. I fall far short. But … my heart is still full of thanks.

Thanksgiving Day will include some time with immediate family. My sons, my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter will be here to have dinner that — drum roll, please — I will have prepared! I will have some help from my precious daughter-in-law who is preparing a couple of side dishes and dessert.

So, for that I am thankful on this holiday.

We’ve all been through a trying and tempestuous election season. It didn’t turn out the way I wanted, but I learned long ago to accept decisions that go the “wrong way” simply by dealing with it.

We still live in the greatest nation on Earth. I am grateful for all that it gives me, such as the freedom it grants for me to vent, for instance, on our government. And I will do plenty of venting for sure in the years ahead.

Life is good and will continue to be good.

local news

No pairing of these words

High Plains Blogger readers likely know already of the word-pairing I announced long ago when I declared I never would write the words “President” and “Trump” consecutively … and please note that I avoided doing so in this sentence.

Here’s another pair of words you won’t see from me when referring to pets that are part of my family. They are “pet” and “owner.”

Here’s the deal. Pets, be the cats or dogs, become members of my family. Therefore, I don’t “own” them any more than I own my sons. My bride, Kathy Anne, and I brought two baby boys into this world in the 1970s and they have grown into the two finest men I know. I don’t own either of ’em.

Therefore, I don’t own Sabol, the pooch who joined my family when I returned from vacation in September. She is the second puppy who became a member of my family. I lost Toby the Puppy in December 2023 to illness. Then, Sabol came along and, oh brother, she is a fantastic addition to my household.

I have two grandpuppies, Ryder and Dak, and two grandkitties, Macy and Marlowe. Obviously, I don’t own the puppies, either, as they live with my son, my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter. Macy and Marlowe moved in with me when my other son arrived in the spring of 2023.

My bride and I considered ourselves to be more drawn to cats than dogs for many years. We had many cats in our home over the 51-year span of our marriage. We had two of them in Amarillo; we had a calico who joined us in Portland in 1982, then moved with us to Beaumont and then to Amarillo. We were parents to several kitties prior to the calico in Portland.

We tried parenting a couple of pooches during all those years, but they didn’t work out.

Am I being sappy with this blog message about how I use the English language? Sure, I am. So what? Just live with it.

Don’t ever expect to me say I “own” a furry family member.

local news, national news

Move over, Paul Revere!

A supporter of this blog has informed many of my critics that I am now traipsing through some mighty tall cotton.

I need offer a quick-and-clean thank you to this fellow, who I have known for nearly 30 years, dating to when I arrived in the Texas Panhandle to take over as editorial page editor of the Amarillo Globe-News.

My friend, a former Randall County judge, has been chiding a critic over the tone he takes in chastising my arguments opposing Donald J. Trump’s choices to join his newly elected administration. He told the critic that “John Kanelis is a modern-day Paul Revere,” while berating him as a “disgrace to our country as you aid and abet the unhinged fool known as Donald Trump.”

See what I mean about the tall cotton reference?

I am not going to accept the Paul Revere reference. That is my friend’s opinion, to which he — and my critic — are entitled. However, my friend is a lawyer, which means he knows the language quite well. He’s a smart guy. I do not know my critic beyond what he says frequently while commenting on my blog; I just know him as an ardent Trump supporter … meanwhile, I am not.

There you go. Step aside, Paul Revere. You have company … I suppose.

crime news, local news

Allen PD officer: hero in truest sense

It happens to me every time I drive by the highway exit in Allen, Texas: I think of the shooting that occurred in May 2023 at the Allen Outlet Premium Mall.

It was a hugely tragic event that ended when an Allen police officer, who happened to be at the mall answering an unrelated call shot the madman to death. However, the end came too late for nine victims who were gunned down by the shooter.

I am casting not a single stone at the police officer. He heard the shots and sprinted full speed toward the scene. He spotted the killer and fired his weapon.

What has happened since then is equally praiseworthy. The Allen officer has chosen to remain anonymous. Only his police department colleagues and his loved ones know the identity of this hero.

I have tried to wrap my noggin around that desire to keep his ID a secret. It might be easy for him to want the attention. He could cash in on his celebrity. This hero, though, has chosen another path. He has chosen instead to go about his work each day to serve and protect the public.

I went shopping at the mall a few weeks after the event and asked the clerk how she was getting along in the wake of the tragedy that unfolded not far from the store where she worked. “We’re doing OK,” she said with a hint of uncertainty about what “OK” really meant. I took her answer to mean “just OK. Not great, but we’re getting past it.”

And they will. Eventually. As for the police officer who still suits up each day, I am sure he will, too. None of us needs to know his name. All we need is assurance that heroes are among us and they answer the call to respond as only heroes can do.

local news

Sanity rules in Amarillo

Just when you think the world has gone mad and that the MAGA crowd is taking over our way of life … you hear about a Texas city where voters exercised their good judgment and put the brakes on the MAGA juggernaut.

Amarillo, where I once lived and worked, showed the nation how a community should react to zealots. The zealots in the Panhandle community weren’t going to let a city council decision to reject a proposed “sanctuary city for the unborn” ordinance stand. So they gathered enough signatures to put the issue on the Nov. 5 ballot.

Voters then echoed the city council’s decision and rejected the cockamamie idea with 59% of voters saying “no!”

The idea was to prohibit pregnant women from traveling on public streets to drive to a place where could obtain an abortion. It would have empowered people to squeal on individuals they knew were planning such a thing. It would have subjected women and their doctors to criminal prosecution. It was an intrusive measure that could have created untold repercussion throughout the city.

It is an idiotic and totally unenforceable effort to interject government into people’s most intensely personal matters.

I have many friends still in Amarillo, where my wife and I lived for 23 years before we moved to the Metroplex. I, of course, couldn’t vote on that measure. I am just thrilled, though, to know that common sense and compassion ruled the day.