Tag Archives: Texas Gulf Coast

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No, Mr. Mayor … mountains are no obstacle

royal-gorge-bridge

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.

ROYAL GORGE, Colo. — A fellow I once knew, Malcolm Clark — who at the time I knew him was mayor of Port Arthur, Texas — once took a vacation to Wyoming and Montana.

When he returned, we visited briefly and I asked him: “How did you like all that splendor?”

“It was OK,” he said, “but all those damn mountains kept getting in the way of the sunrises and sunsets.”

If you’ve been to the Texas Gulf Coast, then you know how flat it is. Thus, Mayor Clark was used to seeing the sun settle all way to the horizon.

I thought of Hizzoner when my wife and I arrived at Royal Gorge, about 45 miles southwest of Colorado Springs. The mountains in the distance loom large and majestic. They make a spectacular sight.

Did I think of them as an annoyance? Not for a second.

Our travels have taken us to some amazing places already as we’ve loaded up our fifth wheel, fueled up our pickup we’ve named Big Jake and headed out to explore this wonderful continent of ours.

Royal Gorge is just one more stop on our retirement journey.

The place truly is breathtaking: a bridge spans the chasm more than 1,000 feet above the Arkansas River.

I could get mighty used to looking at those peaks.

Sure, the sunrises and sunsets on the Texas High Plains are equally breathtaking. I’ve noted before that whoever called Montana the Big Sky Country never laid eyes on the Texas Panhandle.

But … more travels await us. More mountain peaks will entice us.

They’ll never annoy either of us the way they  seemed to annoy Malcolm Clark.

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Preparing for the next big adventure

emma

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.

Take a look at this little girl. Her name is Emma. She is our 3-year-old granddaughter. She makes our hearts sing.

Emma accompanied her father, the younger of our two sons, to Amarillo this weekend. She spent plenty of time playing with Grandma.

We are preparing to commence to get ready for the next big chapter in our life. It involves a big change for us. We’re going to relocate from Amarillo to somewhere near where this little girl lives with her parents and her two brothers.

That event will occur about the time I declare myself to be retired fully from the working world. I’m not there just yet.

My myriad part-time jobs have been winnowed down to just two. I like it that way.

Some time back I reported to you on this blog that my wife and I have made the emotional commitment to move.

Now, before we start getting the bum’s rush to scram from the High Plains, I want to stipulate that our move isn’t going to happen any time soon. That is, we aren’t yet ready to sell the home we built 20-plus years ago. We’ll get there … eventually.

We hope it will be sooner rather than later.

You see, our attachment to this little girl is getting stronger each time we see her, which we admit isn’t nearly as often as we would like.

I realized something about myself in 1984 when we moved from the Pacific Northwest to the Texas Gulf Coast to open another major chapter in our life story: It was that I am far more adaptable than I thought I would be. We made the move and we settled in nicely in Beaumont. Our sons came of age, grew up, went off to pursue their higher education and they have become fine men.

We went through a lesser — but still significant — change when we moved from Beaumont to Amarillo more than two decades ago. Again, we adapted easily to our new life on the High Plains.

My adaptability went through another stern test four years ago when my daily print journalism career came to a sudden conclusion.

But hey, no worries. The shock of that event wore off quickly, I should add. We’ve enjoyed ourselves immensely ever since.

Well, the next big chapter awaits. It involves the little girl in the picture.

Retirement will be a very good thing.

local news, State news

Heat: It’s all relative

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The dog days of summer have arrived a bit earlier than usual on the Texas High Plains.

We’ve been simmering in 100 or near-100-degree weather for several days now. How’s it going with my fellow Panhandle residents? Not too well, based on some of the social media postings I have been reading of late.

Pardon me for snickering … just a bit. I promise I’ll be discreet. I won’t guffaw out loud.

Still, I must remind my many friends here just how bad it could be during this time of year. We could be living on the Texas Gulf Coast, where my family and I lived for nearly 11 years before my wife and I skedaddled to the High Plains in January 1995. Our sons were in college and were on their own.

I now shall inflict a brief version of a story I’ve told many times about life in what I call The Swamp.

It was around 1989. I was working in my yard. The temperature outside that summer day was just this side of 100 degrees.

The humidity? About the same. High 90s. I’m telling you, there’s nothing quite like the Gulf Coast heat/humidity combo that makes one appreciate cooler places and cooler times of the year. Our many friends who live between Beaumont and Corpus Christi know of which I speak.

I stopped working in my yard and went inside the house. I announced to my wife, “We’re going to the beach!” So, we gathered up our beach gear, threw it into our Honda Civic and peeled out for the coast.

We raced through Mid-Jefferson County then turned east, across the Sabine River that borders Texas and Louisiana and headed for our favorite spot on the coast.

Holly Beach, La., beckoned us. Hurricane Katrina and later Hurricane Rita in 2005 wiped out what passed for the “resort” there. On this day, though, it awaited us.

We drove our Honda onto the beach, we got out and raced to the water.

I plunged into the surf — and came up immediately and ran back out onto the sand! Why? The water was as stinkin’ hot as the ambient air. That’s why!

There was no refreshment to be found in the Gulf of Mexico that day.

OK, we stayed for the rest of the day. We rented inner tubes and lolled around in the surf. Why go back home when we’d made the effort to find some comfort in that oppressive heat?

The moral of the story?

Suck it up, my Panhandle neighbors and remember: It’s a dry heat.

local news, State news

Do these guys represent the state … or not?

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Hurricane protection is a real big deal if you live along the Texas coast.

My family and I lived there for nearly 11 years before high-tailing it to the High Plains more than two decades ago. We still have dear friends there who face the threat of being wiped out by killer hurricanes that blow in from the Gulf of Mexico.

The Texas Tribune reports that many of the state’s congressional delegation, including some House representatives from the imperiled region, aren’t yet willing to commit to spending what it takes to protect coastal cities from potential destruction.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/04/17/congress-mostly-silent-hurricane-protection-texas/

What’s up with that?

They don’t want to spend the money it will take, for example, to buttress the seawall protecting the Houston-Galveston region. It’s not politically prudent, apparently, in this age of penny-pinching for the sake of penny-pinching.

“While state officials say the project enjoys the full support of Texans in Congress, almost every member has been silent on the issue, including those who hold the most sway,” the Tribune reports.

Don’t these individuals represent the state that sends them to Washington to certain things for us, such as argue for legislation that benefits the state?

Sen. John Cornyn, the senior man from Texas, isn’t weighing in on the coastal protection plan. Texas’ other senator, Ted Cruz, is too busy running for president to give much careful thought to the needs of the home folks … or so it seems.

The Tribune reports that Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush has placed coastal protection at the top of his own agenda. Bush hopes Cornyn will climb aboard the protection bandwagon. If he does, he figures to bring considerable political clout to the battle, which matters a lot, given that Cornyn is a key member of the Senate Republican leadership team.

The issue is money. As the Tribune reports: “But with a price tag sure to reach into the billions, the spine will almost certainly require a massive infusion of federal money, state officials agree. Whether Texas’ congressional delegation has the political backbone to deliver the cash remains to be seen.”

I’m trying to imagine an earlier generation of Texas pols — guys like Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn — sitting on their hands.

business news, national news, political news, State news

Keystone decision makes sense

Keystone-Pipeline

Politicians’ positions can “evolve,” yes?

That means bloggers can change their mind, too, I reckon.

So it has happened with the Keystone XL pipeline. I once blogged in support of the notion of running the pipeline from Canada, through the heart of the Great Plains to the Texas coast.

The price of gasoline was skyrocketing. We needed some way to put more fossil fuel into the international market, I said back then.

What has happened? Jobs came back. Oil prices fell sharply. So did the price of gasoline.

The need for the pipeline? Well, it’s no longer compelling.

President Obama said “no” to the pipeline this week. The fallout has been reduced significantly because of economic and environmental factors that have turned in our nation’s favor.

I now believe the president’s rejection of Keystone makes sense.

The president nixed Keystone because it wouldn’t help the U.S. consumer market, given that the oil would be refined here and then shipped offshore to … wherever.

Plus, there is that environmental concern about possible spillage and leaks from a pipeline that would coarse through nearly 2,000 miles of U.S. territory. Those things do happen, you know. The damage is significant.

Oh, and the jobs it would create? They now appear to have been minimized because private-sector job creation has been heating up nicely over the course of the past half-dozen years.

So, good bye to Keystone.

Sure, our Canadian friends are unhappy. So are some refiners on the Texas Gulf Coast.

The rest of us? Well, I think we’ll be all right without building the Keystone XL.

 

environmental news, International news, national news

Keystone veto will stick, for now

President Obama has vetoed the Keystone XL pipeline.

However, his reason seems a bit nit-picky.

The White House said Obama doesn’t necessarily oppose the pipeline, but he opposes the process that delivered the bill to his desk.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/obama-vetoes-republican-attempt-to-force-keystone-approval/ar-BBhVCrd

The pipeline is supposed to ship oil produced from Canadian tar sands through the middle of the United States, ending up in ports along the Texas Gulf Coast. It then will be shipped overseas. Proponents of the bill say it will create jobs and will help ensure that the world’s supply of oil remains high, thus helping ensue cheaper prices for the oil around the world.

Although I do support the pipeline, the president’s veto makes a modicum of sense.

He thinks an environmental study process should have been allowed to run its course. Congress short-circuited that process — which includes a complete review by the State Department.

“Through this bill, the United States Congress attempts to circumvent longstanding and proven processes for determining whether or not building and operating a cross-border pipeline serves the national interest,” the veto message said.

As Bloomberg News reported: “White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Obama’s rejection was strictly about the legislation and not the project. It’s ‘certainly possible’ that Obama would eventually approve the pipeline once a State Department review is completed, he said, without giving a timetable.

“’The president will keep an open mind,’ Earnest said, repeating past administration language.”

The White House said the review is part of an intricate longstanding process that’s been honored over many years. Congress’s decision to fast-track the pipeline didn’t allow a thorough review of the total impact of the project.

Perhaps the State Department can complete its review in relatively short order, deliver its findings to Capitol Hill and the White House — and then we can go through this legislative process all over again.

Let’s do it the right way.

national news

Keystone Pipeline to get a veto

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President Obama’s press spokesman said today the president is set to veto a bill authorizing the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast.

I’ve waffled and wavered a bit on this, but I remain (more or less) convinced that the pipeline is a positive thing to do.

Thus, the president’s veto pen should go back into the drawer. But it won’t.

It’s going to mark the first big confrontation between the Democratic president and the Republican-led Congress that just took its seat on Capitol Hill. Republicans control both legislative houses, but they don’t have enough votes to override and Obama veto.

So, what’s the problem with the pipeline?

Foes say it’s environmentally hazardous; they say the oil won’t benefit North American consumers; they’re dubious about the number of jobs it will produce.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president doesn’t want Congress to “circumvent” the studies that’s ongoing regarding the pipeline. That’s one reason for the veto.

I recall hearing from the State Department that the environmental impact of the pipeline would be minimal. Is that an invalid assessment?

As for the impact of the oil on prices that are still in free fall, I happen to believe that any production of oil that continues to flood the market and enables worldwide supply to outpace demand is ultimately good for consumers — such as me and you.

So what if it won’t end up in North American gasoline tanks? It’s going to add billions of gallons of fuel to the world market. Is that not a net plus for consumers?

Let’s watch this confrontation unfold. It’s going to be the first of many nasty fights set to ensue between the White House and the 114th Congress.

 

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This man's death really hurts

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Maybe you’ve known someone like this individual.

Really smart. Lots of what’s called “institutional knowledge” of a community. Great word skills. A historian who could recite in minute detail the unfolding of significant events.

Add to that a heart that seemed bigger than his body.

That’s how I am attempting to describe a longtime friend and colleague who, I have just learned, died early today. His name was Julian Galiano.

I worked with Julian for several years at the Beaumont Enterprise way down yonder on the Gulf Coast of Texas. We struck up an almost-immediate friendship.

We were both of Mediterranean descent — he was Italian, I am Greek — and he picked up on that right away. He’d greet me with common Greek sayings. I’d respond with the tiny bit of Italian I know. We laughed a lot about large and trivial things.

I was struck almost immediately at how much he knew about Beaumont and the surrounding area. He was dedicated deeply to Lamar University, where he earned his degree. He could recite facts about people and events related to Lamar.

It dawned on me early on that I needed to rely on this guy as a source for local knowledge. I was new to the region. Julian knew that and always made himself available to this new guy — me — whenever I needed to fill in some blanks to understand the full context of a story.

Not long after I learned what a valuable source he was, it occurred to me that the newspaper that employed us both was underutilizing this guy’s talent. He was a sports copy editor, which he loved doing. I concluded that he needed to be the city editor of the newspaper, the newsroom’s chief line editor, the guy who made assignments to reporters, told them where to look for leads, gave them tips on who to call, what to ask, where to go.

I told Julian all of that. He laughed. He wanted no part of it. He was happy doing the job to which he was assigned, which was to make reporters’ raw copy more suitable for publication.

Fair enough.

Julian and I stayed in touch for many years through social media — and through occasional phone calls — after I left Beaumont for the Texas Panhandle. And almost without fail, he would ask about my family: How’s Kathy doing? And how about Peter and Nathan?

I’m grateful that we never lost contact.

Now he’s gone. What a huge loss for those who called him colleague and friend.

This one hurts. A lot.

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Westboro loons at it again

The haters who comprise the Westboro Baptist “Church” are planning some kind of demonstration in my old haunts along the Gulf Coast.

A young soldier from Southeast Texas, Anthony Maddox, will be buried Saturday, but the Westboro fruitcakes plan to stage some kind of a prayer vigil or worship service at the same time.

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Westboro-Baptist-Church-says-it-will-attend-4700341.php

We all remember these clowns. They hail from Topeka, Kan. Their “church” members show up at funerals for warriors who’ve fallen in combat. Their protests are aimed, supposedly, at U.S. policy toward gays. Suffice to say that this “church” feels strongly that homosexuality is a sin that must be condemned at every turn. These folks protest against gay rights at funerals, causing disruptions, showing utter contempt for the pain of family members and generally making a profound spectacle of themselves. I should add that the sexual orientation of the warrior being interred is not a consideration.

These “church” members have shown their faces in the Panhandle on several occasions since the war against terror commenced after the 9/11 attacks.

What’s happened at Panhandle services, though, has been quite gratifying. Biker clubs show up to form a perimeter around the church service, keeping the Westboro “church” members at bay.

My hope is that similar steps will occur in the Beaumont area this weekend when the good folks there lay Anthony Maddox to rest.

God bless that young man’s soul.