Monthly Archives: November 2023

local news

Full of gratitude …

My heart is brimming this morning … with gratitude, thanks and love.

You know already about the very difficult my family and I have endured. Feb. 3, 2023 arrived with my bride, Kathy Anne, desperately ill with glioblastoma — that rare form of brain cancer. It ended later that day with her passing away.

My journey since that horrible time has taken me to both coasts of this great land. It has exposed me, moreover, to love from family, friends and even on occasion from people I do not know but who somehow have learned of my heartache and extended a “sorry for your loss” greeting.

My life, though, has gone on. Kathy Anne reminded me years ago that “life is for the living” and she insisted I find happiness quickly were she to leave this world before I did. I am glad to report that I am a happy man this morning as I prepare to start my day and enjoy a holiday meal with my sons, my daughter-in-law and my precious granddaughter.

It’s been at times a difficult journey. I expect to shed a tear or two today as soon as it dawns on me that the woman who made me whole for nearly 52 years is not at our dinner table. My sadness will pass.

I will smile when I recall the happiness and all the thrilling moments we shared. I also will smile when I realize that I am filled with gratitude for the love we have received as my family and I have traveled this journey together.

International news

Hamas must give up its fight

Nearly 15 years ago I was preparing to leave for Israel on a month-long Rotary International journey that would take us through the entire length of the country.

Then came a barrage of rockets from Gaza into Israel launched by the Hamas terrorists. Israeli Defense Forces launched a counterattack; the entire venture put our trip into jeopardy. RI, though, was in contact with the brand new State Department formed by newly elected Barack Obama and eventually, the IDF was able to put down the Hamas rebellion. We were good to go.

And so we went.

We learned immediately about the fear under which most Israelis live. They fear that their Muslim neighbors will attack them without warning. Yes, they have peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt. However, when the shooting starts, would they remain loyal to the treaty they signed with Israel or would they side with their Muslim brethren?

The Israeli fear of attack is real. Which is why I continue to support the Israelis’ effort to eradicate Hamas from Earth’s face. I get that the civilian casualties inflicted on Palestinians are unacceptable, but I also believe the Israelis’ assertion that they are not targeting civilians … not in the way Hamas does by (a) firing rockets into Israeli neighborhoods and (b) hiding among civilians in Gaza.

Hamas started this war with Israel. It now falls on the Israelis to finish it, either by wiping out the terrorists or by asserting enough military pressure on them to force Hamas to seek peace — finally! — with their sworn enemy.

Israel is surrounded by people who want all Jews eradicated. That, by itself, is unacceptable.

They have stopped fighting for a few days to enable an exchange of hostages. I certainly welcome that. What happens next must depend on what the terrorists will do.

International news

Can the fighting now end?

Israel and Hamas have declared a four-day ceasefire while they exchange the release of hostages.

Four days? That’s all the time they are buying. I am now wondering if it is humanly possible that Hamas — the terrorists who started this war — will realize that life is better for them if they can continue to exhibit some level of human decency. Or will they return to their bloodthirsty way once the four days are up and Israel will continue its military campaign to destroy the organization that vows to do the same to Israel?
education news, local news, State news

Give up voucher fight

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says he is “in it to win it” as he fights to gut the state’s public education system in search of a voucher program that would bolster private schools.

I presume that’s his way of saying he intends to call a fifth special session of the Legislature if it fails to produce a plan he wants, which would be to enable parents to use taxpayer funds to send their children to private schools.

The Legislature approved an amendment this past week that tossed the voucher notion aside. Democrats oppose the voucher program. Legislative Republicans who represent rural House districts don’t like it either and they joined their Democratic colleagues in scuttling the notion.

I happen to be a strong supporter of public education, so I will use this forum to implore the governor to give up the fight to gut our state’s public school system.

The rural Texas Republicans understand the place that public education has in the communities they represent. In many instances — even if you discount the “Friday Night Lights” aspect — public schools are the heart and soul of these communities.

Their elected lawmakers know it. It’s a shame the governor does not grasp this obvious fact of everyday life in small-town Texas.

national news, political news

Sticking with Biden

Just so you know, I am standing firmly behind President Biden’s effort to win re-election to a second term in office.

Yes, I have read the polling data. I have heard the talking heads worrying their little noggins out over the polls that show the president trailing his Republican opponents. I have heard the concerns about his age.

I acknowledge fully the age issue is a serious one to be sure. He is about to turn 81. Life can go south in a hurry at that age. Believe me when I say that I have felt the crushing pain of watching a loved gone o from healthy to seriously unhealthy virtually overnight … and she was in her early 70s when we lost her.

However, I am not going to accept any arguments about mental acuity or loss of intellectual capacity in the president.

Joe Biden is fit for the job. I want him to stay at his post.

local news

Ol’ Sam still stands tall

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — They call the statue you see with this blog post the “largest statue of an American hero in the world.”

Indeed, the man portrayed in this 67-foot steel and granite masterpiece could be made even larger and it still might not adequately represent what he means to Texans.

Sam Houston was the first president of the Republic of Texas and seventh governor of the state after it was admitted to the Union in 1845.

We first saw this towering tribute on one of our trips to the university in Huntsville that bears his name. Our son was attending Sam Houston State University when they dedicated the statue in 1994. Our son, majoring in criminal justice, graduated the following year and left the area to join his mother and me in Amarillo.

But Gen./President Houston’s image has kept his watch on traffic rocketing past along Interstate 45.

I need to mention that it was Gen. Houston, commanding the Texian army, that forced Mexico’s Gen. Santa Anna to surrender at San Jacinto in 1836, ending the revolution that resulted in Texas’s independence from Mexico. We still celebrate Texas Independence Day every March.

I stopped this morning en route to the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex after spending some time in Houston catching up with dear friends and former colleagues. I wanted to take an up-close gander at the great man’s image.

It remains an impressive tribute.

local news, media news

The party? It was worth it!

HOUSTON — Thomas Wolfe once wrote that “You can never go home again,” and I suppose you can’t.

However, you can reunite with those with whom you once formed relationships that went far beyond your professional environment.

I came back to this city which is close to where I jump-started my journalism career in Texas. I returned to pay my respects to a former colleague who passed away earlier this year from symptoms of a devastating stroke she suffered.

I also returned to see old friends and colleagues with whom I became acquainted as a fellow journalist seeking to make an impact on the Golden Triangle community we all served while working for the Beaumont Enterprise.

I gotta tell ya, the return was every bit worth the effort I put into coming back to The Bayou. I saw many of my friends. We hugged. They all knew about the tragedy that struck my family and me earlier this year and to a person they all showered me with love.

To be clear, I didn’t come here because I needed the love I received. I have gotten plenty of it already from my immediate family, my extended family and the many friends Kathy Anne and I made in the Golden Triangle and in the Texas Panhandle, where we lived for23 years before moving to the Dallas/Fort Worth area in late 2018.

But, damn … it was so good to see these men and women who welcomed my family and me to our new surroundings in 1984 and who have remained close to my heart in the decades that have passed.

I have long believed that true friendships last no matter how often you see someone. I don’t see these folks often, but I want them to know how much I love them.

education news, local news, State news

Vouchers torpedoed by GOP lawmakers

How ’bout them rural Republican Texas legislators for standing up for their public school systems?

They have helped torpedo a plan to allow public school money to be funneled away to enable parents to enroll their children in private schools. According to the Texas Tribune: The House voted 84-63 in favor of an amendment offered by Rep. John Raney, R-College Station, which removed the provision of the bill allowing some parents to use tax dollars to send their children to private and religious schools. Twenty-one Republicans, most of whom represent rural districts, joined all Democrats in support.

Texas House votes to remove school vouchers from massive education bill | The Texas Tribune

Is this a major embarrassment to Gov. Greg Abbott, who keeps calling legislators back into special session to enact his top priority? You bet it is.

My hope is that Abbott will surrender on this approach that he deems so vital.

The GOP lawmakers understand something fundamental about the role that public school systems play in their district. Which is that the schools are the heart and soul of their districts. Why damage or destroy them by taking money away? They won’t go there. Nor should they!

Pete Laney of Hale Center is the most recent Democrat to serve as speaker of the House. Laney always said that he wanted to let “the will of the House” determine the flow of legislation. One of his successors, Republican Speaker Dade Phelan of Beaumont, is following that lead.

The will of the House has spoken on behalf of our public education system.

local news, media news

Celebrating an amazing life

HOUSTON — I have returned to a city near where I got my introduction to Texas nearly 40 years ago.

You see, Houston lies only about 80 miles west of Beaumont, where I started working as an editorial writer for the Beaumont Enterprise. One of my colleagues at the newspaper was a woman whose life I have returned to celebrate.

Her name was Carol. She lived large. She lived as if there was no tomorrow. She was a dynamo and a writer without equal among those I have met in my many years as a print journalist. She passed away a few weeks ago after suffering a debilitating stroke that rendered her helpless. Her husband, Pat, cared lovingly for her. Then she died.

I came to celebrate her life and the amazing journey she took along the way. In truth, though, I also came to see friends I made when I ventured to Beaumont after spending virtually my entire life in Oregon. I came at the behest of the Enterprise editor, who thought I would be a good fit working in what he called at the time “a great news town.” He was right.

The last time I saw Carol probably was in the late 1980s when she left Beaumont and gravitated to Houston to work for the much larger Houston Chronicle. She was full of life and — if you’ll pardon the expression — also full of piss and vinegar. That’s how she rolled.

Her celebration will occur tomorrow afternoon at a Cajun joint in Houston called the Big Easy Social and Pleasure Club. If you knew Carol and Pat, it is precisely the kind of place where she would want her friends to remember her.

I expect to see many friends I made when I arrived in the spring of 1984. And many of those friends I grew to love as family. I came here ahead of my wife and still-young sons. Kathy Anne stayed behind to sell our house in suburban Portland. She moved with the boys to Beaumont in August 1984, just in time for them to start school.

Kathy Anne learned right away about the friendships I made in her absence. She fell in love with many of them as well. And they did with her.

What I had told her was how many of these young people went out of their way to include me in their after-hours social gatherings. They included my bride in their frivolity once she and our sons settled into our new digs in Beaumont.

So … there you have it. I look forward to seeing dear friends, and celebrating the life of a force of nature.

It ought to be a hell of a party. Carol would have it no other way.

local news

Blog keeps me active

The most prideful thing about writing this blog rests in a single statistic: the consecutive days I post something that is distributed into cyberspace … and beyond.

As this item is posted, it will mark the 783rd consecutive day in which I have had something to say about anything in this good ol’ world of ours.

The blog, though, has another benefit that I cannot measure with mere statistics.

It keeps my brain functioning. That’s an important matter to consider, given that my dear mother passed away at the age of 61 from complications related to Alzheimer’s disease. I have read that there is a certain hereditary aspect to this killer disease, so the longer I can keep my brain active, functioning and alert to the news of the day the better, I figure, are my chances of hanging on for a good while longer.

I soon will turn 74, which means I will have outlived my parents by a good bit; Dad died in a boat wreck at the age of 59.

My consecutive-day streak never has been in danger. I can find something to write about any day of the week. The only change one can see in this blog is the number of entries I have been posting each day in recent months. They have dwindled partly because I have had a bit of trouble focusing on the day’s news in the wake of the passing of the first true love of my life, my dear bride Kathy Anne.

Glioblastoma — an aggressive form of brain cancer — struck my bride with sudden savagery in late 2022. She received her diagnosis on Dec. 26, 2022, and was gone the evening of Feb. 3, 2023. The resulting journey I have undertaken since that terrible moment has restricted my blog activity.

The blog, though, in many ways has been a life-saver for me. It has enabled me to share portions of my journey with you. The love and support I have received along the way have sustained me.

And it has enabled me to keep my streak alive!

The streak will continue for as long as I am able to string sentences together. As will my journey.