Alpine Daily Planet

Beautiful country in the northwest but hate riding in the rain

Editor’s note: One of the nice things about running your own newspaper is that you can publish stuff that simply interests you. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about your region of the country, although it helps to have a local tie-in. Today, we give you the second of what should three or four pieces from South County residents Paul and Voni Glaves, who are making a grand tour on their bikes (the motorized versions) this summer. Interesting stuff and nicely written.

By Paul Glaves, Daily Planet associate travel editor

We last reported from Kamiah, Idaho, just downhill from Lolo Pass on US 12.  We were headed towards Lacey, Washington for a brief visit with Voni's Aunt Gen.  As we approached the metropolitan area we encountered at least hundreds of motorcyclists.  Groups of Harleys plodding along with traffic stuck behind them; groups of sports bikes buzzing through traffic; occasional touring riders in ones and twos and threes.  It was cold at White Pass but otherwise the riding on US 12 and north on 7 was perfectly glorious!

Of course:  it was Saturday, and sunny with moderate temperatures.  An event that seemingly brings out every motorcyclist because such convergences of day and weather are rare.  I truly admire motorcycle riders who live in the Pacific Northwest.  I have to confess that if I lived there I would not own a motorcycle. I live in the desert for a reason. I hate riding in the rain. Traction is impaired. Visibility is impaired.  Enjoyment is impaired.

The forecast Saturday evening was for rain to start mid-day on Monday. We planned to depart to the north on Monday morning.  They blew the forecast by about 36 hours as the rain started before dawn Sunday.  And of course was predicted to continue until Wednesday, or maybe Thursday.
Now ducking for a day to avoid bad weather is one thing.  But a delay for the better part of a week is less practical.  So on Monday morning off we headed toward the Canadian border.  After precisely 300 feet Voni's high beam headlight burned out.  OK - use low beam, I'll change it when it isn't raining.  After precisely 2.8 miles my speedometer and odometer both quit.  They will be fine later once things dry out.  I-5 traffic amidst throngs of drivers who have already had about two too many cups of expresso and show it, was not in the plan.  We slipped west of the sound and north to the ferry at Port Townsend.  It started akin to riding in a bowl of milk.  Foggy.  Fogged glasses and fogged face shield. Once we turned north there might have actually been scenery except for the fog, and the walls of green trees.

As mentioned, I hate riding in the rain.  I was annoyed.  So when we stopped for gas, Voni pointedly made sure I noticed the cheeky inspirational message on the screen on the gas pump right after I poked it to signify I didn't want a car wash.  It said, "A bad attitude is like a flat tire.  You can't go anywhere until you change it."  Voni's glee in pointing this out to me actually cheered me up for a little while.

By the time we reached Port Townsend the rain had reduced itself to annoying instead of infuriating.  The ferry crossing was routine except they told us to stay with the bikes on the cold, damp, and breezy car deck instead of going to the nice warm lounge because of the winds and the waves which might cause our bikes to take a tumble.  So we did.
Whidbey Island was mostly drier - sprinkles instead of rain - but the winds were roaring across the water and lowlands at a brisk pace.  We rode as far as Burlington, Washington, not Canada, a whopping 155 miles.  We knew it will probably be raining again in the morning but I'd almost always rather ride in the rain some other day than the day at hand. During a brief moment when it actually wasn't raining I changed Voni's high beam headlight bulb.

It was not a surprise when Tuesday dawned almost, but not quite as damp as did Monday. We rode north.  By the time we reached the border with Canada we could actually see the sky.  It wasn't blue but at least we could tell there was a sky.  And by the time we reached Hope, BC the sky was a combination of blue, and fluffy white clouds.  The Canadian border official we met seemed to be having a bad day. He first had us roll our bikes way forward so he could read the license plate and then made us push them backward so he could continue to ask questions.  Apparently his high-tech camera and computer link was broken.  He didn't really hassle us but was just surly.

Voni said she asked him if he was tired or what.  I figured either his wife was leaving him or his teenage daughter just told him she was pregnant.  I just shut up and only answered questions.
Carefully adhering to planned stops (finally) we quit for the day at Cache Creek. My speedometer and odometer started working again 51 miles south of Cache Creek.  So everything works again.

It had only dipped to 50 degrees overnight so we got a fairly early start today.  We awoke to some scurrying around a pickup parked a couple of doors down in the motel lot.  Much to our amazement we spied a man cleaning the engine and other under-hood areas with a feather duster. We'll never know ... and were afraid to ask.  We paused at a rest area for some coffee.  There was one pickup truck over on the other side of the area.  Soon we heard music.  Looking over we saw a couple - he with a trumpet and she with a french horn, standing on a picnic table and playing their instruments.  Whether they were just exuberant or a BC welcoming committee we don't know.  We stopped briefly for resupply (snacks, chain lube, Camp Dry spray, etc.) at Quesnel, and breezed through Prince George.  As we turned west on the Yellowhead Highway storm clouds appeared ahead.  We were aiming toward Vanderhoof, about 50 miles away.  Paul kept telling himself, "I won't have to ride in more than 45 miles of rain ... 35 miles ... 25 miles ... 10 miles ... zero miles."

We stopped for the night at Vanderhoof.  The Sun came out as we arrived.  We are now two short days or one longer day from Hyder, Alaska.

Carlton Leatherwood’s Big Bend people: Scott Watkins in search of cat ranching and other strange tales (or is it tails?)

Scott Watkins, editor, writer, actor, etc.

Editor’s note: Carlton Leatherwood writes about the extraordinary people of the Big Bend region for the Daily Planet.

By Carlton Leatherwood

It appears in the index of a new Big Bend book, "Paisanos Past," and is the devilish work of Scott Watkins, editor.

The entry refers to one paragraph in a story about the history of ranchers. "There is a tale about Harve Dodson, who supposedly tried cat ranching out in Terlingua," the editor said. "He thought he could raise cats and sell the fur for coats. Apparently, it wasn't successful." Watkins did a little bit of research, "but not a whole lot," and so far he hasn't found anything to back that story up.

"Somehow it has made it into historical record," he said. "I did especially enjoy putting cat ranching in the index."

The book includes selections from the interpretive newspaper of Big Bend National Park, and what could have been a dry-as-drought undertaking, has turned into a fascinating and informative read.

The wisp of a creative devil in Watkins surely helped. He also chose to include a clever "interview" with a bat, written by Mary Kay Manning. Many facts about bats, such as the 19 species in the park, surface in the piece, the last in the book.

The book is a test project in self publishing, print on demand, by Big Bend Natural History Association (BBNHA). "I think we will get into publishing more," the editor said.

There are ongoing stories in the new publication. Like the cottonwood trees which once lined Terlingua Creek. "What happened to the creeks and the cottonwoods was, of course, the heavy hand of man," Sarah Bourbon, who once worked for BBNHA, wrote in an article. "In the early part of the century miners cut the trees to fuel the furnaces that cooked mercury out of quicksilver ore." Bourbon oversaw replanting of the trees. But the project ultimately failed.

However, Barbara Hines, store manager for BBNHA, is interested in retrying the planting of the cottonwoods, Watkins  said. "This is something that actually just developed in the last week or two.

"Barbara was reading a book about champion trees that inspired her to think about doing that again," he said. "So it's still very early, but I think that there is a good possibility that BBNHA will once again try to reestablish some of those cottonwoods."

One of the longer articles is titled "In Spring Skies - A River of Birds." Mark Flippo, recently retired, wrote: "If, like Audubon, you enjoy the morning songs of birds awakening to a new day and find pleasure in seeking them out at their hidden perches, then Big Bend in the spring is the right place to be . . . ."

And there are the ongoing stories of air quality "and the black bears coming back and reinhabiting up in the mountains," Watkins said.

"I think all along the idea was that it would be a book to browse," he said. "It is not something that you are going to sit down and start and read cover to cover.

"You can have it around and open it up and say I haven't read this yet," he continued, "and read 10 to 15 pages and hopefully learn something."

Where an article begged for later information, such as the one about an electric line to Boquillas, Watkins wrote a footnote. "The park itself is a living thing," he said. "It changes over time."

Watkins lives in Terlingua. He directed the Last Minute Low Budget Production of "True West" and is a known talent in that troupe.

 

From South County to a grand tour of the great American Northwest and beyond

Paul and Voni at Lolo Pass

Editor’s note: One of the nice things about running your own newspaper is that you can publish stuff that simply interests you. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about your region of the country, although it helps to have a local tie-in. Today, we give you the first of what should three or four pieces from South County residents Paul and Voni Glaves, who are making a grand tour on their bikes (the motorized versions) this summer. Interesting stuff and nicely written. Maybe we should name Paul and Voni travel editors of the Planet. I certainly envy their trip.

By Paul Glaves, Special to the Daily Planet

When last we reported we were headed to our son's in Kansas and then our grandson's school track and field day, and a few days at Ankeny, Iowa.

We survived track and field day and are now headed west and north towards Hyder, Alaska.  But first we will spend a couple of days visiting Voni's Aunt Genevieve in Lacey, Washington. And Doug Crow has invited us for a BBQ. We made overnight stops in beautiful Valentine, Nebraska, Buffalo, Wyoming, Gardiner, Montana, and Kamiah, Idaho.  Now we are in Sunnyside, WA poised for the final rush to Lacey.

We have ridden some of the truly great motorcycle roads, but not between Ankeny and Valentine for sure.  We did ride US 16 through Ten Sleep Canyon and the Bighorn Mountains.  We rode the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway from Cody, WY to Cooke, City, MT.  Yellowstone was delightfully free of traffic and full of animal sightings, including a grizzly. We road US 12 over Lolo Pass and then along the Lochsa and Clearwater rivers to Kamiah.

Alpine's Rodriguez does well at state accounting contest

Jarrod Rodriguez, a junior at Alpine High School, competed in the State Accounting Contest at the University of Texas-Austin on Tuesday and placed 15th out of 24 contestants among Class 2A schools.. "Being a first-year accounting student and competitor, I believe this was a good showing," said his AHS instructor, Dru Heinatz. "He will be able to compete in accounting again next year."

Notes on a wild baseball weekend

By Mike Perry, Alpine Daily Planet

Notes and stuff while sitting at the Cracker Barrel in Midland waiting for breakfast, and waiting for the Bucks-Abernathy game:

Idle question

I wonder when was the last time that the Bucks, Lady Bucks and Cowboys all won on the same day? Ever? Great day to be an Alpine fan.

Thanks, Barry

Rev. Barry Zavah jumped in and covered the Alpine o6 Cowboys for us last night. You can find his blow-by-blow description of a great opening night elsewhere on this page. Nice work under deadline pressure, Rev. Or should I call you Scoop. I hope Barry can do a lot more writing about some of the individual Cowboys – and their life stories – as the season progresses.

Thanks, Roy

With the Bucks and Lady Bucks playing at the same time, I was simply unable to be in two places at once. But Roy Ivey, who worked with me several decades ago at the San Angelo Standard-Times, was gracious enough to volunteer to cover the Lady Bucks for us. Roy and I are old, old friends and had many adventures together when we were younger. Roy’s also one of the world’s truly nice guys.

New hire

I just hired a new ace reporter and photographer – the lovely and talented Cindy Perry, late of the Alpine Avalanche, Dallas Morning News and Dallas Times Herald.

She takes great photos, writes great stories and works cheap. She also sleeps with the editor (well, just this editor).

I am very, very pumped to have Cindy joining our little enterprise. Together, we hope to continue to grow the Planet’s niche in the broad scheme of Big Bend media.

We do not really consider ourselves in competition with the other newspapers in the area. Rather, we’re just one more piece of the local media puzzle – a puzzle that, in my humble opinion, keeps Big Bend residents extremely well informed.

With the Planet, the Avalanche, the Sentinel, the Gazette and the Jeff Davis Dispatch, plus Marfa Public Radio and KTRS/KALP, I believe our unique part of the Earth is better served than just about any place I’ve ever lived.

General manager’s report

Alpine Cowboys General Manager Kristin Cavness had several good things to say about the Cowboys opening night. “We had a great opening night last night. The opening ceremonies were perfect. The kids (local youth baseball kids were honored) had a blast and Border Patrol did a great job presenting the colors, and the Fighting Buck Band quartet played the National Anthem which brought tears to my eyes.”

“Our boys played very well; great job Coach Stevens,” she said. “And our new announcer Daniel (he is a SRSU student and announces all Lobo Baseball games ) was great. He was able to announce a great game and mention all of our banner sponsors at least twice last night. Our opening night game night sponsor, GSM Insurors, had the best time and for sure felt like they got great coverage for their business.

“For some of you who may not know,” Cavness added, “SRSU is letting us use the field free of charge as long as Ryan maintains it and we keep it very clean. I know Ryan has a lot on his plate and we thank him and Matt and the team for taking on the project even though they don’t get paid for it.”

Cavness said the Cowboys still need volunteers at every game to "help clean and maybe take tickets or something.”

The Cowboys team is owned by the Big Bend community, organized as a nonprofit corporation, which relies on volunteer help to do almost everything. If you want to volunteer or help in any way – or want to purchase seats or hold a special promotion – please contact Cavness (the hardest working woman in Alpine) at 432-837-5801 or Kristin@ellysonabstract.com.

My sometimes weekly column: For my roommate, for Zach and Nick, for trains, for drought, for Amtrak and for retirees

By Mike Perry, Alpine Daily Planet

Sifting through my email and notes while trying to catch up after a weekend of following the Bucks and Lady Bucks around half of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico:

First, the most important stuff

My roommate, the lovely and talented Cindy Perry, is retiring from the Alpine Avalanche at the end of this week. Let me give you the oh-so-brief life story of this remarkable woman.

First and foremost, she is a West Texas girl to the core. She grew up in Comstock and Barnhart, where she played basketball. Her Dad (who was born in Valentine) told me she had the sharpest elbows on the team and she was mean little girl on the basketball court. She played that old half-court stuff, back when the guys who ran everything decided that women were too frail to play full-court. As she says, “What a load of ….”

Later she graduated from Angelo State University, attending on a Cope scholarship.

This extraordinary woman, who is also the love of my life, has been a working journalist for 45 years.

She started at the San Angelo Standard-Times while still enrolled at Angelo State. That’s where I met her – in 1968. Well, actually, I couldn’t work up the courage to ask her out on a date until 1971 (took her out for some very good, very cheap barbecue). Six months after that first date we were married.

We worked together at the San Angelo Standard-Times until the late ‘70s, when we moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth metroglob. We both wanted to see if we could make the so-called big time.

Cindy went to work for the Dallas Times Herald at a time when the Times Herald was changing the face of journalism in Texas – for the better. In her last years at the Times Herald, she was the copy chief for the paper’s afternoon edition. Later, when the Times Herald died (because of some ludicrous mismanagement), she became a copy editor at the Dallas Morning News. She was part of the wild bunch that made the Morning News one of the three or four best newspapers in the nation, from the mid ‘80s through at least the mid ‘90s.

I have a couple of friends, both hard-ass, super-award-winning reporter/writers who worked at the Times Herald back then, and both of them told me that Cindy was the best damned copy editor they ever had. Didn’t surprise me a bit.

After that, she followed me around the country, first to California, then to Utah, then to Alabama, then to College Station (yeah, an Orangeblood living in Aggieland; strange but actually pretty cool) and finally to Alpine.

Funny thing about that move to Alpine: Both of us had always wanted to live here. I can remember a camping trip the two of us took out here in 1972. We decided then and there that we’d find a way to move to Alpine someday. Took us 35 years, but by God we did it.

Anyway, I’m glad Cindy’s joining me in retirement. I think, like most people, we can put an asterisk by that “retirement” word. She’s going to help me with the Daily Planet and she’s going to do a lot of volunteer work. And I hope she finally finds the time to take those art classes that she’s always wanted to take.

Oh, one other thing. One great thing about owning your own newspaper, even a little one like the Planet with its 2,000 daily readers (a far cry from the half a million she catered to in Dallas), is you can say whatever you want. For instance, I can say: I love you Cindy Perry, more than life itself. For 40 years, you have been my reason for living. God only knows what the next 40 will bring.

More family

OK, I’m going to talk for a few more paragraphs about my family, mainly because I’m so proud of my two youngest nephews that I’m just about to bust.

We found out today that Zach Perry, the middle son of youngest brother Phil, has been accepted to the Air Force Academy. He’s had his sights set on this goal since, well, I’m not sure, but I know he decided early in high school, maybe even junior high, that he was going to go to the Air Force Academy. Didn’t matter how hard he had to work, he was going to make the grade.

And he did.

Congratulations, Zach. I’m so proud to call you my nephew.

A couple of weeks ago, we found out that my youngest nephew, Phil’s youngest son Nick, has been accepted by Texas A&M. Hey, I’m an Orangeblood, but I know that A&M is one helluva school. Nick’s planning to study computer engineering, and I feel fairly confident that most of us will be working for him someday. He’s that smart.

By the way, the truly cool thing about these two kids (I’m probably should quit calling them kids) is this: They are both good, decent people. I guess you can blame my brother Phil and his wife, Neleatha, for that.

Amtrak note

Glenn Ramsdale, who notified me last week about potential changes in Amtrak’s Alpine schedule, found confirmation that the schedule will change soon.

“AMTRAK now has their schedule posted on the web, effective May 7,” Glenn wrote. On that date, the stops in Alpine were scheduled to be switched to: 

Westbound, Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday at 10:38 a.m.

Eastbound, Monday-Thursday-Saturday at 8:45 p.m.

Glenn added, “But then of course there is nothing posted at the station nor are schedules available.”

According to Train magazine and a couple of other sources, Glenn said, the time changes were made to get rid of the nine-hour delay in San Antonio. They will also make boarding times better in Houston. Plus it will save some $1.3 billion in operating costs.

And at the voting booth 

In the same email, Ramsdale, who has volunteered as an election judge for many years, had this observation on the city/school elections just completed:

“I was amazed at the number of folks that did not have or do not bring the latest voting cards (yellow) and those that did [but] cut them in half, thus losing much of the info needed by election offices … and a lack of understanding about the numbering system for wards, schools, hospitals, etc., generating many questions about why and where they can/can't vote.”

Thanks for the info and the insights, Glenn.

Cost of drought 

Dallas Morning News reporter Robert T. Garrett reports that “the drought and associated wildfires cost state government and state universities and colleges $253.1 million in the budget year that ended Aug. 31. And that doesn't even count expenses from the Bastrop County inferno that erupted Labor Day weekend, blackening more than 34,000 acres and destroying 1,691 homes, not to mention much of Bastrop State Park.”

Garrett makes a good point when he adds that the state's costs (as reported by the Legislative Budget Board) are a pittance compared with the record-setting $7.6 billion in overall economic losses that Texas suffered in calendar 2011. Some $3.2 billion of the hit came from damage to the state's livestock industry, and $2.2 billion to cotton farmers. The Legislative Budget Board broke down the state’s costs this way:

Wildfire fighting costs: $208 million

• Infrastructure costs (cracked roadways, dead tree and shrub removal): $34.1 million
• Agriculture costs (including $4 million of lost fresh produce for prison inmates): $4.3 million
• Groundskeeping costs at 16 higher education campuses: $1.4 million
• Miscellaneous costs (such as ag-extension work and extra brucellosis tests): $5.5 million

Love my Marfa Public Radio

I drove up to Odessa and back on Tuesday. And, amazingly, I was able to listen to Marfa Public Radio, KRTS, 93.5, almost the entire way. I received a strong signal from KRTS all the way to just east of Monahans on Interstate 20.

That’s phenomenal. And so, so welcome. Kudos to Tom Michael and his bunch at that little giant of a station in Marfa.

Rather than have to settle for the satellite pablum generated by most of the local stations on my route to Odessa (Fort Stockton, Pecos and Monahans stations that really are not local in nature), I had highly entertaining news, talk and music to listen to.

Plus, just as KRTS dropped off the radio, I was able to start picking up KXWT (91.3), which is the Odessa public radio station, formerly owned by Odessa College and now owned and operated by Marfa Public Radio.

I loved it.

Actually, because of the quality of Marfa Public Radio and the local news value of our locally owned Alpine for-profit station – Ray Hendryx and his crew at KALP (92.7 FM) and KVLF (1240 AM), we’ve been able to drop our subscription to Sirius Satellite Radio.

We are very fortunate in the Big Bend to have public and private radio of such high quality. The coverage and offerings are, to my mind, far superior to what you would find in most larger cities and metropolitan areas. And the local stations – again, both private and public – are locally owned, locally supported and locally slanted.  

Hope for the future

Earlier on this site you’ll find a story reprinted from cbsnews.com about the rocket kids of Presidio High School. I urge each and every one of you to read this piece.

I love this story. It gives me hope and makes me smile and cry at the same time. I remember that we published photos a month or so ago of the kids and President Obama having a group hug. That was when the rocket kids went to the White House for an award. I remember the cool thing about the Obama visit was that the group hug was totally spontaneous, started by one of the Presidio students. 

Lately, probably because of my advancing age (that’s a kind way to put it), a lot of things have made me more than a bit pessimistic, but stories like this renew my optimism that maybe we can figure out how to save this old world.

Kudos to Kip

We have a story today that Kip Sullivan, a professor of education at Sul Ross, is retiring at the end of this month.

Kip’s one of the nicest, most genuine people I know. And from what I’ve heard, he’s one helluva of a professor.

He will be missed at Sul Ross, but thankfully, he and his wife are staying in Alpine. I am sure he will continue to be a prominent volunteer in our community.

---

Paid political advertisement

Carlton Leatherwood's Big Bend people: Tom Ramsay's path to happiness

Tom Ramsay

Editor’s note: Carlton Leatherwood writes weekly for the Daily Planet about the people of the Big Bend.

By Carlton Leatherwood

The interview with Tom Ramsay, 75, which we began here last week with his radicalization, was a compelling one and called for another part, a still-too-brief look at his religion, and his seasoned outlook on life.

He said at his Terlingua Ranch home that Buddhism is not a religion cast in Christain terms, that basically it is about becoming enlightened, or about how you become happy. At the center of Buddhist practice is compassion, he said.

It shows. His compassion during seven years as a prison volunteer stands out – his practice with men convicted of murder, his hundreds of letters to inmates and now, his strong opinions of the prison system.

"First and foremost, we ought to get rid of the idea that we should put people in jail because of drugs," he said. "I just can't understand it; I don't understand what purpose it serves other than to turn a lot of people into criminals."

“Most Buddhist practitioners don't use intoxicants because when you become intoxicated you are not aware, you are not alive,” he said. “But it is incomprehensible to me that America would invest the kind of money that we invest to lock a bunch of people up who need help as opposed to punishment.”

"There are just terrible deficiencies in America's prison system," he said. "I focus on the drugs because of the possibility that we might get out of it."

Were the prisoners converts to Buddhism? "That is a word that Buhhdists don't use," he explained. "It is a practice and some people decide that they are converts. Me, for instance. I will say that I am a Buddhist. Many people will say that they are meditators, and that is what we do, and you have a meditation practice, which hopefully brings you to becoming a better person and a happier person. People who practice somewhat the way I do tend to affiliate with Buddhist temples."

He said the major teachings boil down to learning more and more, and becoming compassionate.

Ramsay writes a religious blog almost every day, called Communitas. It is Buddhist oriented though not completely or specifically Buddhist.

After working 20 years for the Service Employees International Union in Los Angeles, Ramsay became sick and disabled. He and his wife moved to Milwaukee. He got up one morning when it was 22 below and said, “My love, there is no reason two retired people should live in a climate like this.” They found a volunteer opening in Big Bend National Park, and they filled it for seven winters. They fell in love with the area and built a large one-room house on 40 acres.

At his age especially, he is introspective:

"I think my favorite quote is by the Dalai Lama, who when asked what his policy was, said 'kindness.' I try to be that with people. I have a long way to go."

"I want to be as gentle a person as I can and give as much joy to others as I can."

"Someone said, 'My job is to comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable.' That's what I thought of myself doing in my political life for my whole life."

"I think I would support what the Occupy folks are doing. I think they are going to make stupid mistakes and have. I can see them getting away from the idea that they have got to hold a park in order to do their thing. But America has some changes we have to make if we are going to survive as a nation."

"... There were times in the past ... The Civil Rights Movement was one of those, and we got a black president. I have to admit that back in the '60s, I thought it was another 100 or 200 years before that would happen in America."

"I'm not a pessimist, but I think mankind is in for some difficult times."

"From my viewpoint, what this country needs most of all is to care for each other. I don't see that the Republicans are interested in promoting that."

An active birder in California and a seeker of happiness, he wants to get up in the morning and listen to the pretty call of the Brown-headed Cowbird, and say, "Wow! look what I've got ahead of me today."

 

Roxann Chavez's weekly column: A time to embrace your talents

Editor's note: Alpine community activist Roxann Chavez writes a column for the Daily Planet.

By Roxann Chavez

Is it your time? Time to shine, time to sing, time to be glad or time to move on. Life carries on and somehow I feel like I stayed behind with my thoughts and emotions for my grandmother who passed away in March. I know that she is gone but not too far from my heart.

As a little girl I remember standing on the tallest part of my house with my arms stretched out to the sky hoping to feel God’s hug. My sister would run outside and ask me what I was doing and I would say, “nothing” because I didn’t want her to ruin my special time with God.

As life carried on, with it came hard times, rudeness, hatred and coldness, which made me, question why didn’t God just break in. I was always told that you needed to ask God into your heart but why doesn’t he just break in. I wish he would pull a Chuck Norris and bust into our hearts when we need him the most.

When I would get into trouble with my mom, school or friends I would run to my spot and climb to the highest part of the house and stretch my hands in the air hoping for God’s hug. I ran to him for comfort and protection. I still do this once in a while when I’m feeling lonely or sad. I’ll sit in my room and reach my hands into the air like a baby reaching for their parent.

It’s comforting to know that God can hold you at any age. I sit quietly and say to myself, “Here I am.” I believe that God puts us on this earth to help one another and be one another’s angels.

What is our automatic reaction to something exciting or devastating? We reach out our arms to embrace someone just like Shiloh Savas who embraced her daughter and all the kids on the Special Olympics team. Shiloh is the reason behind Alpine’s first Special Olympics team.

We need to reach out to someone who has a drug problem not talk about him or her. We need to hold someone’s hand when they’ve lost someone, not spread rumors about that person’s behavior. We need to embrace our elderly not stash them away in a room. We need to smile at someone and welcome him or her into the church not question his or her faith.

We are not perfect but the most perfect thing we can do is love one another and be kind. You’ll be surprised how far that will take us.

When is comes down to it. I miss my grandmother’s embrace but I remember it and will treasure every moment of her love with those I meet and those I love. She passed down God’s embrace and so I will continue to pass it down to my children.

I stopped questioning why things were the way they were and started living. I put everything aside and continued to embrace life and make the most of all the talents God gave me. Be good to each other, Alpine and embrace your talents.

Jon Will's gift

Editor’s note: My email buddy Tom Ramsay down in Terlingua sent this to me. I have to say, if you don’t tear up at least once while reading this beautifully written column (penned with a tremendous amount of love), well, you ain’t human. Another thing became obvious to me while reading Will’s thoughtful and inspirational words: While Will and I are often at opposite extremes of the political spectrum, we both believe our membership in the human condition is based on simple human decency.

By George F. Will, the Washington Post

When Jonathan Frederick Will was born 40 years ago — on May 4, 1972, his father’s 31st birthday — the life expectancy for people with Down syndrome was about 20 years. That is understandable.

The day after Jon was born, a doctor told Jon’s parents that the first question for them was whether they intended to take Jon home from the hospital. Nonplussed, they said they thought that is what parents do with newborns. Not doing so was, however, still considered an acceptable choice for parents who might prefer to institutionalize or put up for adoption children thought to have necessarily bleak futures. Whether warehoused or just allowed to languish from lack of stimulation and attention, people with Down syndrome, not given early and continuing interventions, were generally thought to be incapable of living well, and hence usually did not live as long as they could have.

Down syndrome is a congenital condition resulting from a chromosomal defect — an extra 21st chromosome. It causes varying degrees of mental retardation and some physical abnormalities, including small stature, a single crease across the center of the palms, flatness of the back of the head, a configuration of the tongue that impedes articulation, and a slight upward slant of the eyes. In 1972, people with Down syndrome were still commonly called Mongoloids.

Now they are called American citizens, about 400,000 of them, and their life expectancy is 60. Much has improved. There has, however, been moral regression as well. Jon was born just 19 years after James Watson and Francis Crick published their discoveries concerning the structure of DNA, discoveries that would enhance understanding of the structure of Jon, whose every cell is imprinted with Down syndrome.

Jon was born just as prenatal genetic testing, which can detect Down syndrome, was becoming common. And Jon was born eight months before Roe v. Wade inaugurated this era of the casual destruction of pre-born babies.

This era has coincided, not just coincidentally, with the full, garish flowering of the baby boomers’ vast sense of entitlement, which encompasses an entitlement to exemption from nature’s mishaps, and to a perfect baby. So today science enables what the ethos ratifies, the choice of killing children with Down syndrome before birth. That is what happens to 90 percent of those whose parents receive a Down syndrome diagnosis through prenatal testing.

Which is unfortunate, and not just for them. Judging by Jon, the world would be improved by more people with Down syndrome, who are quite nice, as humans go. It is said we are all born brave, trusting and greedy, and remain greedy. People with Down syndrome must remain brave in order to navigate society’s complexities. They have no choice but to be trusting because, with limited understanding, and limited abilities to communicate misunderstanding, they, like Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” always depend on the kindness of strangers. Judging by Jon’s experience, they almost always receive it.

Two things that have enhanced Jon’s life are the Washington subway system, which opened in 1976, and the Washington Nationals baseball team, which arrived in 2005. He navigates the subway expertly, riding it to the Nationals ballpark, where he enters the clubhouse a few hours before game time and does a chore or two. The players, who have climbed to the pinnacle of a steep athletic pyramid, know that although hard work got them there, they have extraordinary aptitudes because they are winners of life’s lottery. Major leaguers, all of whom understand what it is to be gifted, have been uniformly and extraordinarily welcoming to Jon, who is not.

Except he is, in a way. He has the gift of serenity, in this sense:

The eldest of four siblings, he has seen two brothers and a sister surpass him in size, and acquire cars and college educations. He, however, with an underdeveloped entitlement mentality, has been equable about life’s sometimes careless allocation of equity. Perhaps this is partly because, given the nature of Down syndrome, neither he nor his parents have any tormenting sense of what might have been. Down syndrome did not alter the trajectory of his life; Jon was Jon from conception on.

This year Jon will spend his birthday where every year he spends 81 spring, summer and autumn days and evenings, at Nationals Park, in his seat behind the home team’s dugout. The Phillies will be in town, and Jon will be wishing them ruination, just another man, beer in hand, among equals in the republic of baseball.

Carlton Leatherwood's Big Bend people: Tom Ramsay sees big answers in the small community of Terlingua

Tom Ramsay of Terlingua

Editor’s note: Veteran Texas journalist and writer Carlton Leatherwood writes about the people of the Big Bend for the Daily Planet. Today’s piece on Tom Ramsay is the first of two parts.

By Carlton Leatherwood

This is the last time. Promise.

I have tried to define the essence of Terlingua in a book and at the WordOff, a literary event, for six years. But now a resident of Terlingua Ranch, which sprawls in and about the little town with ill-defined borders, has spoken the ultimate word. He says, in effect, the community is a microcosm of what America should become to stave off its downfall.

You should meet this gentleman. If I tell you his life story immediately, you may spurn him because of a distinction he considers honorable – and you may not – and a religion you may know nothing about. Such is the tragedy in our fractured nation.

This introduction, however, should at least bring a modicum of respectability to anyone. He is the most gentle, most soft-spoken, most contemplative soul that I have ever interviewed. What else explains my voice activated recorder pausing so often, being reduced to useless technology?

The person in reference is Tom Ramsay. He was radicalized during his college days in San Francisco and still considers himself a radical. That means to him getting to the roots of something, ferreting out the truth. So brush aside those images of a wild-eyed political extremist.

Actually, he did participate in acts in the '60s and early '70s that some considered extreme at the time, but are better judged today as leavened with courage and devotion to the citizenry.

He advanced the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi, campaigning for the first African American to win an election there since post Civil War. He successfully fought a freeway routing. He led the placement of 700 volunteers in a tutorial program in the ghettos of San Francisco. Later, he helped lead 7,000 protestors to Madison, Wis., to object to the escalator clauses in bank loans, which he says today are one of the main causes of the housing collapse.

When he started college at San Francisco State University in the mid-1950s, Ramsay was disillusioned. "I thought it was a place where people were going to be thinking," he said, "and instead it was a place where people were pursuing a license." So he dropped out and joined the Army as a paratrooper. After the service, he returned to SFSU.

This was a turning point in his life. "I started going to a county park across the Golden Gate Bridge," he said, "and ran into all these old leftists, who had to leave Europe in World War II – a bunch of communists, socialists, anarchists and libertarians."

There were about 50 of them, and he would sit on the edge of a campfire on weekends and listen to them talk about the '30s in Europe. "I got radicalized as the result of that," he said.

About that time, the student movement began to develop. He involved himself in student politics and ran as a socialist for student body president, which he won.

After participation in radical projects in Wisconsin, he returned to California to work for the Service Employees  International Union in Los Angeles for 20 years. It was a high-stress job where most of his time was devoted to hospital workers.

A friend of his was a meditator in the Buddhist religion. Ramsay was advised to take up meditation to relieve the stress. For a couple of years, he meditated on his own and then sought training. He ended up at the International Buddhist Meditation Center in Los Angeles. Associated with the center for nine years, he was ordained as a Buddhist teacher.

"Meditation is fairly simple," he said. "It's just being quiet, being still and emptying your mind. It sounds foolish, but it is powerful."

A Scott's Oriole, that beautiful black and yellow bird, caught his attention, but I missed seeing its flight.

Slowly, he had reached reflection on the later road to age 75. In religious meaning, in volunteerism in the prison system and Big Bend National Park, in our country's politics and in birding. It is the most interesting segment of this interview.

Nor is Terlingua forgotten.

. . . "We (the U.S.) have got to learn we are a community," he cautioned. "I think we are about at the edge where we become so fractured that we won't survive as a nation . . .

". . . I think Terlingua is closer to what I would like to see America be, is the way I would talk about it. There is a tremendous diversity, but it's a community, and folks tend not to exclude other folks. Just because you are different than me or I disagree with you does not mean you are not a part of this community, and I think that is really wholesome."

The remainder of the interview will appear next week. 

Carlton Leatherwood's Big Bend people: Chris Calvin finds a piece of hardscrabble heaven north of Terlingua

Chris Calvin at his non-alcoholic saloon

Editor’s note: Veteran writer and editor Carlton Leatherwood writes weekly for the Daily Planet about the people of the Big Bend.

By Carlton Leatherwood

The Cowhead Ranch has always butted a hardscrabble environment, and the drought this year brought no exception.

As hay costs skyrocketed, the animal population at the unusual guest ranch (25 miles north of Terlingua on Highway 118) was peeled away. "I gave away three horses," Chris Calvin, the ranch owner, said. "I just couldn't afford to feed them."

He posted a sign at Cottonwood General Store asking for a new home for some goats and pigs, too. "It was not long before they were all gone," he said. "Everybody got a good home."

He kept two horses and some good laying hens. He usually gets about 10 dozen eggs every week and sells those to the Cottonwood on Sunday mornings.

The ranch was started seven years ago on a piece of land as plain as a nearby greasewood hill. Cowboy Chris, as he is sometimes called, didn't have a plan, and he only worked with a pick ax and a couple of other hand tools. He built one building at a time.

"I tore down old barns," he said. "I tore down the old Baptist church in Terlingua. People would call and offer a little shed to tear down. These buildings are made out of whatever I could drag up."

Over the years, he has erected enough sleeping units for 20 people, the Nine Point Social Club, where people gather for breakfast around a wood stove, and a saloon, which doesn't serve alcohol, among other buildings. "The church came from right on the other side of neighbor Charles Jenkins," he said. "I put some 20-foot posts under it and pulled it here with a tractor."

If a building isn't square, not exactly right, guests just like it more, he said.

Calvin was raised on a dairy farm in Northeast Texas and had one of his own. He became a champion cattle auctioneer.After 15 years, he rambled a bit, ending up at the Alamo movie set near Brackettville, where he played guitar and staged shootouts in the streets. Then he and a fellow named Doug Davis got in his pickup with $150 between them and headed for Terlingua.

After wrangling for Linda Walker's Big Bend Stables for five years, the dream of a guest ranch was born.

"This is where the Lord dropped me, right here," he said. "He said, this is where you belong. I had a chance to be something totally different."

“People love it, and I love this old country,” he said. “I don't charge very much. I get a lot of young couples with three or four kids, and I know they are strapped. If they have any money, good. If they don't have any money, I tell them to enjoy the Big Bend.”

He has had guests from Belgium, Germany and Switzerland, among many other places. They leave their signatures on the walls of the Social Club. "I've built up a pretty good clientele," he said. "Quite a few motorcyclists stop by now" to enjoy such things as the cowboy shower tub.

Some mornings he sits out at the saloon with a cup of coffee, ready to enjoy his creation himself, looks around and thinks, how did I build all this by myself?

And he misses auctioneering some. He can still belt it out and does for benefits, raising money with such items as pies and homemade quilts in Terlingua.

 

Carlton Leatherwood's Big Bend people: Martha Stafford brings life and context to ALL the stories at the foundation of literature

Daily Planet editor’s note: Carlton Leatherwood, a veteran Texas editor and writer, writes a weekly column about Big Bend people for the Daily Planet.

By Carlton Leatherwood

Pardon me, but I thought until today that every drop of religious water or wine had been wrung out of our schools. It is revelation to find that is not so.

Pardon me, if my blame of misunderstanding is heaped on the extreme right or those who speak that political wing's language. Maybe, just maybe, those who speak out are an uncontrolled fringe.

But I have not been in a classroom for 50 years, and so as those years rolled by I perceived that God was dead to young ears. That was the uproar I heard.

Then along came Martha Stafford, an English teacher for all four grades of high school in Terlingua Common School District's small education halls. She had played the lead, Miss Amelia Evans, in "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe" a few years back, and I had a small part in that Last Minute Low Budget Production. Our paths rarely crossed after that.

I was pleased to see her helping out at the altar for the Episcopalian Christmas Eve service in the Lajitas chapel. And I knew from her invitation to a Sarah Palin white trash party that she had an outspoken political side.

However, it was only a few days ago that she landed on all fours on the back of a social media zealot.

"If teachers can't teach anything related to the Bible," she responded to him, "how can they teach Beowulf, King Arthur, William Blake, Grendel, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson ... (way too many to list here)."

Well, I wanted to know more about the modern classroom, and she said she would love to visit. So a meeting was arranged for Easter afternoon. Again she had helped at the altar for what she called a High Church service, which she said they didn't normally do. Father Mel, a retired minister from Redford, "had me ringing bells which I rang at the wrong time, and we had the wrong lesson to read, and so there was a lot of stopping and starting and Father Mel whispering instructions ... a very patient man."

That sounded like a refreshing effort akin to students giving their all to a one-act play, which she also directs. And did I forget to say she is librarian at the school and is coordinator of academic contests in the University Interscholastic League.

Enough background? Here's the serious part of this discussion, the age of enlightenment in my later years.

"So much of literature is biblical allegories," Stafford said. "With Beowulf the monster is Grendel. Well, he's a descendant of Cain. If the kids don't know Cain and Abel, then they don't understand he has been an outcast his entire life.

"It goes on throughout literature, and when I first started teaching in 1985, you just had to say Cain and Abel, or the Great Flood, and all the kids knew it. A lot of that I think was growing up in small towns where everybody went to church every Sunday.

"Now that has changed; kids don't go to church. And so they don't have these basic stories, and so as a teacher you have to give them the background, and nine times out of ten, it's biblical. Otherwise, they are not going to understand the importance of 12 men with Beowulf, and one betrayed him, and these type of things.

"You have to explain it all to kids. and so when people talk about you don't mention God or Christianity or any of that sort of thing in school, they're wrong. They are just flat out wrong."

She added that, of course, there is a lot of literature without any kind of biblical reference.

My faith and spirituality have grown in great bounds, she said, but I don't bring my personal belief system into the classroom. Society has changed.

"I don't think it means that we've become godless at all," she said. "I don't think parents put the emphasis on biblical stories that they used to. Maybe we are a more literate society so that there are other examples to draw from than just the Bible. That's way beyond what I know."

There is a saying among teachers, she said: As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in school.

Stafford has stayed close to home, except for a sojourn to Montana. She is a Marfa native and went to Sul Ross State University.

There were a couple of quick questions left, and short answers.

Is there a Bible in the library?

"Yes, there is, in the religion section, the 200s."

Is there a Koran?

"I do believe we have a Koran."

Roxann Chavez's weekly column: Sharing our losses helps us cope, makes us stronger

Editor’s note: Alpine community leader and activist writes a weekly column for the Daily Planet

By Roxann Chavez

Getting organized is quite a job. I am on the Cinco de Mayo Association committee and we have been meeting regularly trying to get things in order for the people of Alpine and the surrounding area but we are a small group of six people.  We are going to make mistakes and we are going to forget things because we are human and it is in our nature to not be perfect.

\ We are only human after all and speaking of being human we meet at Mary Ann Lujan’s daycare try to brainstorm, make decisions and create an event for all.

It was a week after I lost my grandmother and I walked into the daycare and saw my friends sitting in those little chairs and the first words were, “I’m sorry about your grandmother.” Letty Gonzales gets up and hands me a card from the committee and gives me a kiss on the cheek and hugs me like there is no tomorrow. Alpine, that’s love.   There were no words to describe the feeling of comfort they gave me and it gave me strength I needed to face each day.

Unfortunately, we are now facing the same situation with the loss of Letty’s sister Carmen Gonzales.  We sat at the table again and wondered how our friend Letty was doing and preparing to help in anyway possible with the funeral.  We gradually started opening up about losing someone.

Mary Ann Lujan told us about losing her mom at the age of four and how hard that has been for her through her life. When I see Mary Ann she is always a cheerful and lively person but that night I saw her in a different light as she told me her story and sitting by her side was her grandson Malik who listened to her stories too and gave her smiles in return to comfort her.

Frankie Betancourt told me the loss he endured when losing his mom and dad.  He explained how hard it was for him and losing his parents was a changing life experience for him. It made him a stronger person and if you know Frankie he is hilarious and always laughing and enjoying life but he too has faced loss. He shared with me pictures of his parents and told me little things about his parents that were special to him because after all we are human and it’s the little things we hold on to.

Chris Muniz explained to me having to care for her niece and at times it becomes scary and frightening when things go wrong but we as humans always seem to know what to do without really knowing what to do.  She showed me that the human race is remarkable when it comes to hardship.  We face things and handle things even during loss.

We will all face something hard in our life regardless if we are prepared or not.  It’s a hard thing to do but we must do it and we will all do it in our own way because after all we are human and unpredictable.  Enjoy life and tell those around you that you care and appreciate them because one day things may be different. But know that you have someone around you who has faced it too and you don’t have to be alone.

Carlton Leatherwood's Big Bend people: Dwight Deal brings to life the unique geology of the Big Bend

Editor's note: Carlton Leatherwood, a veteran Texas writer and editor, writes weekly for the Daily Planet on the people of the Big Bend.

By Carlton Leatherwood

Sit and talk with Dwight Deal and one wishes he weren't retired from the classroom. He makes geology – the science that deals with the history of the earth and its life – come alive. That helps immensely in understanding the complicated piece of planet we call home, where ancient volcanoes erupted and 30-foot lizards swam.

Yet he consoles you if you find difficult these subjects embracing millions of years.

First, geologic time. "I think that geologic time is something that is very, very difficult for most people to grasp," Deal said in an interview at his spring home in Terlingua. "We have a hard time realizing when we are in our 60s and 70s how much has passed in our lifetime, and those are just years.

"Start talking about hundreds of years, thousands of years, tens of thousands of years," he continued, "and by the time you get there, you have lost all sense of proportion."

Second, a good "textbook." "I see you've got the little green geological guide to Big Bend Ranch State Park that Christopher Henry wrote," he said. "If you take that and read it carefully, you will find that is a complete undergraduate education in physical geology. It is a well-done work, but it is complicated even for geologists."

Deal, 74 this month, lived in Alpine for 18 years back in the '60s and '70s. He says that the area is one of the most complicated pieces of the earth as far as geology is concerned.

"It's a wonderful place to teach geology," he said. He came here in 1967 as a young college professor to teach at Sul Ross State University. "Nearly every major geological feature except wave cut shorelines is within 90 miles of Alpine."

He later was associated with other colleges and universities, including the University of Texas, Austin.

He was one of the founders of the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute at Fort Davis because, he said, "this was the last big piece of North America we didn't understand very well."

Today, he leads geologic tours to the great cave areas of China and Southeast Asia. "One of my specialty interests over the years," Deal said, "has been the geology and hydrology and human interaction with what are called karst landscapes."

Karst refers to a landscape where the water has dissolved rocks beneath the earth's surface. In the United States, Carlsbad Caverns and the Mammoth Cave area can be termed karst landscapes. How groundwater behaves in cavernous rocks is different than how it behaves otherwise.

"In Texas, we have a lot of karst aquifers," he said. "Our water here in Terlingua probably comes from a karst aquifer."

Deal's wife, Mary, also leads international tours, which are focused on fiber art, needle work and weaving. They make their home in Denver the rest of the year.

But here is some of what Dwight said about volcanoes and life in the Big Bend:

The volcanism that we find in the Big Bend and in adjacent Mexico is not directly equivalent to the great string of active volcanoes that we have up the Pacific Coast and Alaska and down through Japan and the Philippines. That is known as the Ring of Fire, and it surrounds the Pacific Ocean plate.

We're out in a different geologic setting. But certainly volcanoes have played a major role in the landscape that we see in Big Bend National Park and in the state park. What we see here are the roots of a volcanic area. There's been many thousands of feet of rock removed by erosion since these volcanoes were active.

This is not an area in which you see the shape of volcanic mountains. What you see are the deposits left behind, ash deposits and lava flows that came out of these old volcanoes. So there are ancient features.

There were major, major eruptions south and west of Lajitas, above Alpine and north of Presidio. There were active volcanoes 20- to 40-million years in the past. They are much, much older than the ones in the Pacific Northwest, and there is not likely to be any volcanic activity here in the near future.

The limestone that this cabin sits on is 65 million years old, and it was the time of the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs were on the land, and this was the edge of a shallow sea that went up through the center of North America.

Out in the sea were critters called mosasaur that local resident Ken Barnes is an expert on. The critter was 30 feet long and could take a good bite of a Volkswagen Beetle. Barnes and his students dug a skull out near the cabin. You could throw a rock and hit the quarry site.

And in the air, you had the big flying quetzalcoatlus, and you can see from here where one was dug out on the edge of the national park.

As Dwight and I adjourned to Mary's sun room for her freshly made scones, the geologist looked out on the desert with a different awareness of the immensity of time that has been working on the face of this earth. He reckoned that this desert landscape, developing over 10- to 15 million years, is probably the oldest in North America, if not the world.

 

Mike Perry's sometimes daily or weekly column, filed April 6

He knew him when

I suspect a lot of people are surprised at how much interest Texas A&M quarterback Ryan Tannehill is receiving in the build-up to the National Football League draft.

It now appears that he will be one of the Top 10 players selected for the draft.

Not bad for a guy who was an average wide receiver for the Aggies just two years ago.

One person who’s not surprised at the interest in Tannehill is Alpine head football coach Stacey Martin.

“I coached him in junior high” in Big Spring, Martin said. And, yes, he knew even then that Tannehill would be something special.

Tannehill was a quarterback all through his days at Big Spring but was not widely recruited (witness the fact that the Aggies had him at wide receiver for two years). From talking to Martin, one of the main reasons Tannehill didn’t attract much attention as a quarterback coming out of Big Spring High was the fact that the Steers – at that time – were using a run-oriented offense that did not take advantage of Tannehill’s very obvious passing skills – skills which NFL scouts are truly drooling over.

By the way, Martin, in addition to starting his coaching career at Big Spring (after playing and graduating from Sul Ross), was a stand-out high school player at Big Spring.

These teams are good, very, very good

The Alpine High softball and baseball teams are good this year, very, very good.

At the risk of jinxing them, I have to tell you that both are capable of making a run at the state tournament in Austin.

I’m not saying that they’ll both make the state tournament. When you get to a certain level of excellence – and both these teams have reached that level – it all comes down to the little things, such as who’s hot at what moment and, to be quite frank, who’s lucky at the right moment.

Fact is, though, these teams are worth watching and enjoying. You can tell that they both love playing the game – and they both do it with assurance and confidence.

If you like softball or baseball, if you appreciate excellence, then check out the schedules and get your butt out to one of their games.

Prospects for Kokernot

I’m excited about the prospect of the Alpine Independent School District, the Alpine o6 Cowboys and Sul Ross finally getting down to the nuts-and-bolts of developing a plan to clean up and repair Kokernot Field.

That marvelous old ball yard has some significant infrastructure needs – from concessions to restrooms to dressing rooms to seating to the scoreboard.

I firmly believe that the three groups, working together, can figure out how to return the old yard to its former glory.

The field’s in good shape, but the infrastructure needs work.

A new softball field

I almost hesitate to bring this up, but I sincerely hope that the AISD is able to find a way in the next two or so years to build a new softball field or reconstruct the city’s Manuel Payne Field.

This is a great softball town, and I’m not just talking about the organized teams at the high school and middle school. Softball is a huge sport for our youth, particularly girls, and is a superb way to introduce them to the world of physical education and competition.

We have a high school softball team that’s been state ranked for the past two years. Actually, I think our high school softball program is the best in West Texas – and I’m including Class 5A, 4A and 3A schools when I say that.

(By the way, I think every member of the varsity softball team is also on the high school honor roll. I point that out because I want people to understand that Alpine is doing athletics the right way. Academics are first at AHS, as they should be; that said, a solid grounding in physical education is so very important to the future lifestyle and health of every student who goes through the AISD system.)

OK, all that said, we have what just might be the worst softball field in West Texas. The field is so bad that Alpine coaches have been seriously worried on occasion that they would have to forfeit games because an opposing coach might object to playing on the gopher-hole-infested playing surface.

I’m not saying it’s a crisis, but it’s pretty bad. So, hopefully, we can fix the problem in future years.

While we’re at it, I hope we can also address the city’s complete lack of soccer fields. We have some vacant lots that pass as soccer fields but, really, that’s not what they are.

OK, enough of that rant.

Kudos to old friends

Congratulations to a few old friends who picked up awards this past week at the annual Texas Associated Press Managing Editors competition:

Robert Cessna, sports editor at the Bryan-College Station Eagle, for a third place in “best blog” category.

William Kerns, critic and arts writer at the Lubbock Avalanche Journal, for a third place in “best criticism.”

Tim Madigan, writer/reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, for honorable mention in “star reporter of the year” category.

Paul Moseley, photographer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and bicyclist extraordinaire, for third place in “star photojournalist of the year” category.

Frank Christlieb, Dallas Morning News, for an honorable mention in feature writing.

Carlton Leatherwood's Big Bend people: Cindy Burns finds inspiration on the trail

Cindy Burns has hiked over much of the Big Bend ... and the Grand Canyon

Editor’s note: Veteran Texas writer and editor Carlton Leatherwood, formerly of Houston, now of Terlingua, writes weekly for the Daily Planet about the people of the Big Bend.

By Carlton Leatherwood

Each year for 36 years, Cindy Burns has hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. She lives and works out in the Big Bend, but that great chasm carved over millennia through the rocks of the Colorado Plateau was a life-changing place for her.

"That first hike in 1976 was rather awesome," she said. "I moved there when I was 25, and I've never been the same. ... When you hike down into it, you do go to a different time and a different world. You do feel vibrations off those rocks – at least, I do."

She made the trek March 10 this year, the anniversary of the first. It was bittersweet, she said, because one of the women who planned to join her died suddenly three weeks before the outing.

The pilgrimages to one of the official eight natural wonders of the world and national park began when she hiked from the Arizona rim to a job at Phantom Ranch. The ranch, reached only by foot, mule or rafting, is tucked in beside Bright Angel Creek on the north side of the Colorado River, and is the only lodging below the canyon rim. Among the five members of this year's trek were two women Burns had worked with at the ranch, where she lived for a year.

From the rim down to Phantom, one goes through five climate zones, she said. That indicates how steep the incline you are descending in a very short time. A friend said, "You feel like you have fallen 5,000 feet, a foot at a time."

She now chooses to hike in and out on the 7.3-mile South Kaibab Trail because it is three miles shorter than the Bright Angel Trail. Most of the latter's climb is in that last three miles, although it has water and shade. "I choose to get up and out quicker on the Kaibab," she said.

In earlier days on the way down, she would get an ice cream cone at Bright Angel Lodge at the top of that trail. People coming up would see her cone and wonder if it were a mirage.

Sometimes it is like summer here in Terlingua, she said.

"It's heat-stroke hot. Even on this last trip, there were people coming in very red-faced. They weren't stopping enough, not rehydrating and not eating. Researchers have found that dehydration is not only caused by water deprivation, it's also caused by lack of food.

"You need to stop and eat and cool yourself – putting your feet up, changing your socks, changing your shoes, which I did this time, about 2 1/2 miles from the bottom."

Because of ill-fitting socks, she finished up wearing sandals. "Going down beats you up," she said.

Although she admits to being weak in geology, she said that the chasm's rocks are very old, metamorphic. On the rim, there is an exhibit for walking through time.

"Every step is like a million years, and the trail is over a mile long with rock specimens. Contrary to what the creationists think – my brother (who was on the trip) says 40 percent of Americans believe the world was created some 6,000 years ago. Oh, that's got to be too high, she panned, "please tell me that is not so ... they need a trip to the Grand Canyon; there is no way."

For her canyon excursions, Big Bend National Park is good training, Burns said. "Absolutely! This year I didn't get to it, but I usually like to go up Pinnacles Trail because it is three miles straight up, and if you add on Emory Peak. ... The only thing I did this year was hike the Mesa de Anguila up to the saddle view of the river, and that is a steep uphill, too."

She walks at least a mile or two a day, five or six days a week, although in the heat last summer she got off that. When she is in the high country of New Mexico, where she cooks for a hunting outfitter in the fall, she hikes a lot.

Burns has her favorite trails in Big Bend. "Santa Elena Trail – you get into that trail, and you feel what the attraction and magic is. All the short ones near Castolon. I'm a big fan of the South Rim day hike. The hot springs, of course."

So the trails don't have to be long?

"Oh no, oh no, they don't have to be long," Burns exclaimed. "It's not as much about the destination as it is the journey. Truly that's true. When you go a step at a time, going up or down, every step you should stop and look around, especially in the Grand Canyon, or out to the South Rim, or up the Mesa de Anguila, or wherever you are. It's about slowing down and realizing how insignificant we all are."

(In line with Burns' thoughts about short hikes, Big Bend National Park has a new trail, only 1/2 mile round trip. It is rated easy to moderate.

"The Dorgan Sublett Trail is interesting for several reasons," David Elkowitz, chief of interpretation for the park, said. "It includes the site of the Grand Canyon Farms, which was an innovative partnership of Dorgan and Sublett about 1918. It was an irrigated farming effort.

"Additionally, the cultural remains of the houses are visible. The view – the farm land below the bluff, Santa Elena Canyon – is quite scenic.

"Lastly, we wanted to add to the hiking opportunities in the west section of the park."

The addition of the trail has prompted a facelift of the 33-year-old "Hiker's Guide," although the trail is listed as Dorgan House Trail in the guide. The Big Bend Natural History Association "decided to go with full color and change to a larger format," Barbara Hines, store manager, said.

Burns concluded our interview with a word of warning: Digital camera-related incidents and accidents are on the rise. People walking and trying to get a picture, they are going to fall flat or off the edge. Stop to take your pictures.

Meanwhile, Burns keeps in touch with the Phantom employees and gifted them with a couple of collapsible hula hoops this year.   

---

---

Paid advertisements

Roxann Chavez's weekly column: A flood of memories about a son who will soon be leaving

By Roxann Chavez

What defines hard? Is it losing your job and not being able to provide for your family? Is it not having enough money to go to college? Is it losing a family member? Or is it sending your son off to college? I think all of these are hard.

I have come across a lot of hard things lately. I find it hard to smile or get involved in things. It’s hard to carry on when you’ve lost someone you love even though you know they are in a better place.

It’s hard to send your son off to college when you’ve had him next to you every day for years. It’s going to be hard but I know it’s a part of life. It’s our life song.

Joey, all I can say to you is let my life song sing to you. My Buela sang her life song to me and I carried it in my heart and I made it, so I know you will sing your song and find your path.

Senior parents, we are standing at the corner, and I am sure I am not the only parent hesitating to walk around that corner. Our seniors, on the other hand, are ready to bolt out of Alpine High School. Who can blame them; they have only waited 12 years to get out of school. Most of them will head to college, military or step right into the workforce. 

Joey Chavez is my son and he will be graduating this year. What memory can I take with me when he walks across that stage? Well, there will be many but it will definitely be when he was a little boy around two or three. He always sat in my lap and curled his hands in my hair to fall asleep. I was his security blanket. 

Ricky’s memory is when he would come home from work and Joey would run to him with his hands in the air yelling, “Daddy” and Ricky would pick him up and swing him around. We haven’t had those moments in so many years, but how funny that they are so fresh in our minds. Now, Joey creeps in my room to sit down to talk on my bed or sit in the living room with his dad watching him play games. I don’t care how many times Joey has a birthday, because in my eyes he will always be that little boy who had to curl up with me and run his little hands in my hair.

Steve Lang’s column: Remembering Davy Crockett and the Alamo

By Steve Lang, somewhat special to the Alpine Daily Planet

“You gentlemen can go to hell. I’m going to Texas.” – Davy Crockett

My mom, sister and brother-in-law trekked from Florida’s Left/West Coast to West Texas a couple of weeks ago.

As a reward for good behavior, sister Mary promised Mom a stop at the Alamo on the trip home, “because she (Mom) remembers it.”

Even at 90, Mom remembers most things, including a dozen or so kids assembled on our living room floor watching the Walt Disney version of “Davy Crockett at the Alamo” in the mid-1950s. The Lang family purchased one of the first TV sets in Erdahl, and on that day, the forces of nature presumably cooperated to bring the one available channel into focus.

Davy Crockett, starring Fess Parker, aired when I was a first grader, but the coonskin cap tickled my nose for at least another year. My birthday and Christmas gifts were easy selections for my parents.

One year, it was the Davy coonskin cap and a toy powder horn that one could blow into, creating a cacophony of sounds not unlike a bicycle run through a metal shredder.

On another birthday, a fringed Davy Crockett (fake) buckskin frontier suit was the gift. Later, I received a Davy Crockett guitar which, when cranked, played the Davy Crockett theme song. Within a short time, I learned that I could vary the speed of the song, ranging from a funeral dirge to the equivalent of the “Minute Waltz” played in 44 seconds.

Cranked backwards, the lyrics would sound something like this:

“Reitnorf dliw eht fo gnik, ttekcorc yvad, yvad.”           

In between special days, for a nickel, one could forgo baseball cards and buy a pack of Topps Davy Crockett action cards. Held to a mirror, the captions would read:

“ttekcorc, evom t’nod” or “yrotciv s’yvad.”

Like some of my other cardboard purchases, Davy at the Alamo and elsewhere probably ended up on bicycle spokes.

At least one storybook was also tossed into the all things Davy Crockett collection.

I finally reached the Alamo about nine years ago, then visited it again in 2009. History vs. Disney offered more than a few contrasts.

By the time Mom got there, Ozzy Osbourne’s nefarious action was 30 years past, and the rocker’s decade-long banishment from San Antonio had been lifted. Fess Parker, meanwhile, was long retired from the screen and had started a vineyard in California.

Fess Parker Winery kept the coonskin cap on the label. Parker, who died in 2010, further retained his class by passing on producing some easily-marketable vintages later rumored to pique Wal-Mart’s interest:

Whitetrashfindel and Nascardonnay, the latter becoming the official repast of the racing circuit.

The Davy Crockett cards Steve Lang remembers now cost up to $675 for the 80-card set.

Texas has had 'death panels' since 1999

Editor's note: I had the privilege of working beside my old friend Bud Kennedy for almost 15 years at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Because he's able to find and write in a clear, concise way about things that truly affect all of us, I consider Bud one of the five best working journalists in the state. Bud is always interesting, pertinent and, yes, even entertaining. Sometimes, like in this column, he's downright scary.

By Bud Kennedy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

If all you know about healthcare "death panels" is what you heard on a talk show, then you must think the feds will pull the plug on patients.

News bulletin: Texas already has death panels.

A Houston man's life was ended last week.

A leukemia patient identified only as Willie was denied nourishment and died, according to Texas Right to Life.

Since 1999, Texas has given hospital "ethics panels" the authority to end care even if the patient or family wants to continue.

It's called the Texas Futile Care Law. The Texas Senate bill passed in 1999.

Carlton Leatherwood's Big Bend people: River guide John Parker digs out a slice of heaven

John Parker has magnificent vistas at his doorstep

Editor’s note: Veteran Texas writer and editor Carlton Leatherwood writes about Big Bend people for the Daily Planet.

By Carlton Leatherwood, Special to the Daily Planet

A river guide in Terlingua's key rafting industry living in about 500 square feet burrowed into a cliff. That probably would be clue enough to strengthen Texas Monthly's belief that "for years the dusty outpost of Terlingua has been a magnet for renegades and loners looking for a haven from the modern world."

Bunk.

My mission was to interview the guide, a former neighbor, if you will consider homes spaced a mile or more apart neighborliness. So, this mild March day I drove to his cliff house, all the roads in that neck of the cacti being dirt, but reaching out from them a vast ocotillo forest with brilliant red blooms. I was later told the forest stretched many miles to Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive in Big Bend National Park.

The guide, John Parker, met me and offered a choice of coffee, teas and juice and directed me to two chairs that rocked toward a spectacular vista. The house was to the rear and would wait a proper tour. The loner stigma was fading.

During our visit, the homesteader told in a most revealing nature, that he really liked tourists: "It's one of the best parts of my job, interacting with people from around the world," he said. "Of the thousands of people I've taken down the river, there was only one I didn't like. That's rather good odds.

"A lot I don't get to know," he continued. "But without television, I'm kind of dependent on other people to tell me what it is like living in Russia or Paris or places I'll never go. It's part of my education."

Parker's vista encompassed a long draw, several mountains in all directions – Indian Head, Maverick, Sierra Ponce, Bee – and a yawning Santa Elena Canyon mouth. Texas Monthly should edit in heaven instead of haven.

As I said, the living quarters were behind me, dug five feet into the ground. He had done this work with a shovel. The dirt removed was used for the patio. Was a shovel stroke the same as a paddle stroke? "Mixing adobe uses a lot of the same muscles as paddling," he said. "But digging, definitely not."

The walls below ground are concrete and above adobe, and then a 22 ft x 26 ft roof. The hole is a circle. The roof is square to accommodate guttering for water catchment. "Half the material in the building is recycled, the lumber and tin," he said.

The building design is called a jacal, common architecture in the desert, he said. In the one room he has living quarters and a sleeping loft. Cooking is done outside. "Those four days of extreme cold last year, the water wouldn't heat," he said.

He had showered outside for years, the wind blowing steam clouds off his body, but now he has a separate bathroom. A flush toilet has replaced the composting one, there's a hot shower, and there's stereo.

And what's this? Over my right shoulder was a freshly dug, significantly larger room with a roof. The hole was six feet deep, dug by a backhoe, and the upper adobe walls not yet in place. Parker hadn't done all the math on the room, but its purpose was decided: an efficiency apartment for guests as well as for his daily use. The apartment will contain an indoor kitchen, living area and bedroom, although he likes where he sleeps now.

Parker came to Big Bend by unusual means. All that was left from one of those big fires in California was his car and a book in its trunk, "Hot Springs and Hot Tubs in the West and Southwest." He decided it was time to leave the California scene. He journeyed to New Mexico then Texas, his destination the popular hot springs in Big Bend National Park. Obviously, he liked what he found, and stayed.

His linkup as a river guide here was his first job working with the public. For someone very shy, it was good therapy. Other activities include theater lighting for Last Minute Low Budget Productions in Terlingua, search and rescue for the fire department, and his social life. "I was out until midnight last night," he said light-heartedly. "I will probably go to open mic at La Kiva tonight."

What about the Rio Grande and guided trips? Are there any despite the drought?

"We're doing Dark Canyon inside Big Bend Ranch State Park," Parker, who guides for Big Bend River Tours, said. "It's a half day canoe trip that we didn't do before. We put in the other side of Big Hill, and it is an amazing trip because of that beautiful canyon."

There's a one-day canoe trip in Hot Springs Canyon in the national park. It is possible because of the springs flowing into the river. The canyon walls are not as high as in other canyons, but the veteran guide, who estimates he has taken guests on a 1,000 trips, says it is spectacular, plus participants soak in the springs before taking out at Rio Grande Village.

Parker prefers day trips so he can go home, shower and sleep in his own bed, but others are leading overnight trips to Temple Canyon, part of the Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River,  with a put-in at La Linda east of the national park.

He does not follow the migratory path of other guides, staying here year-round. His residence in the ground stays "cool enough" in summer, and there is work to do on it. He quotes a Chinese proverb: "Man who finish house dies."

Wendy Davis of Fort Worth is a GOP target because of her support for education

Alpine Daily Planet editor's note: My good friend Bud Kennedy wrote the following column for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I'm reprinting the column for a couple of reasons: (a) Fort Worth state Sen. Wendy Davis is one of the few members of the Texas Legislature (our very own Pete Gallego is another) who actually care about improving the quality of education of Texas kids, which currently ranks 49th among the nation's 50 states (as it should say on the Texas state seal: Thank God for Mississippi); and (b) I trust and admire Bud's writing and reporting. No one works harder than Bud at figuring out what Texans are thinking ... and why. I might add that no one loves Texas as much or knows its weaknesses as well as Bud.

By Bud Kennedy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Local Republican campaigns have two new dirty words.

Not Barack Obama.

Wendy Davis.

The state Senate Democrat from Fort Worth has suddenly become the Evil One in local campaigns, apparently for thinking Texas should rank higher than 49th in funding public schools.

When Republican candidates for the Texas House and Senate spoke Thursday in Arlington, they slung mud at absent opponents by tying their names to Davis'.

North Richland Hills chemical executive Kelly Hancock, running for an open state Senate seat, might have won some sort of triple-word score by wedging Davis' name into the same sentence with that of opponent Todd Smith and the wordtax.

For most of Smith's Texas House career, the Euless Republican has argued that instead of charging Northeast Tarrant County drivers new tolls, the state should finance highways statewide by adjusting the 22-year-old gas tax a few cents.

Hancock, trailing Smith in local endorsements, said that he's against any gas tax increase and that "the only person who agrees with [Smith] is Wendy Davis."

That was the third mention of Davis at the forum, each time to a growing chorus of growls and a few boos.

Then, a club official brought cheers when she said Republican women's goal this fall is to "knock Wendy Davis right out of Austin."

Considering that Arlington children are worth $2 a day less than the average Texas schoolchild under the current formula, and $5 a day less than Austin children, the club should be knocking sense into its own Republicans in the Texas Legislature.

Davis' Republican challenger, Fort Worth pediatric specialist and state Rep. Mark Shelton, got off to a rough start.

His table card spelled his name Shleton.

But he was cheered when he said he was running against Davis and "proud to be in my hometown, Arlington, Texas."

Shelton grew up in Arlington and was a drum major in the Lamar Vikings band. He's on the Public Education Committee.

He called Davis a "liberal who does not reflect our values."

Even incumbent Arlington state Rep. Bill Zedler got in on the name-dropping, aligning Davis with his absent opponent, Mansfield Republican and school district Police Chief Mike Leyman.

"Both my opponent and Wendy Davis believe we should be showering more money into public education," Zedler said.

He made it sound bad.

Roxann Chavez's weekly column: A bittersweet time to remember those who came before

Editor's note: Roxann Chavez and her family have been dealing for quite some time with the illness of her grandmother. It's a bittersweet time. In this column, Roxann looks back and offers glimpses into the people and the times that make our part of the world what it is today.

By Roxann Chavez

I’ve been keeping busy these last few weeks with taking pictures, traveling, working and writing but mainly I’ve been keeping busy because I’ve had to face the reality of losing my grandmother and its hard to accept.

I’ve known that my Buela has been sick and I’ve known for some time now that she is not getting better but when I was told that she only has a few days to live my initial reaction was anger.  I got so angry.  I don’t know why but I was angry and tears were flowing from my eyes.  I was driving and I was gripping the wheel in anger.  How could Buela leave us?  When I got home Ricky was talking and helping me put the groceries up and never once did he stop to look at me and I lost it.  I couldn’t catch my breath and I gripped my chest in pain.  I was hurting.  This is what it felt like to cry from your heart. No words, no sound and no reaction just a feeling of my heart hurting.  My heart was breaking at the thought of losing my Abuela.

I traveled to be with my family and not once did I cry or give in to sadness because I wanted to be strong for them.  I need to allow them to cry and so I did what I had to do to lesson the load for them.  I helped shop, get food, took the night shift watching Buela and even helped lift Buela up from bed but not once did I break down.  I don’t know why but when I got that phone call at the grocery store reality set in and my world came tumbling down.

When I sat up watching my grandmother.  It was just me and her and I kept thinking that she must be missing sitting in her chair and listening to the birds outside.  I wanted so much to say to her, “It’s going to be alright.” I closed my eyes and remember her standing at the door waiting for me after school.  I remember her combing my hair and calling me her chachita.  When I was there she just kept calling me nina and she couldn’t see me but she knew I was there.

My life has been a blessing because of such a wonderful woman who taught me how to be a strong woman and to learn from my trials in life but most importantly to always put God first.  Here is a little tribute to my Buela.

Filomena Carrasco Ramirez is a long-time resident of Pecos. Here is a brief history and stories that she relates to her family of how life was in the past.

In the early 1800′s, Herculano Carrasco Sr. was born near the Aztec city of Cuauhtemoc, which was south west of Chihuahua, Mexico, and about 900 miles from Texas.  his wife was named Panfila. 

One of his sons, Herculano Jr., married Pilar Gonzales in 1868 in Camargo, Chihuahua, and migrated into Texas in the late 1800s. They had three boys, Simon, Macario and Jesus and four daughters, Maria, Pomposa, Salome and Celestina. Marcelino lived and died in Mexico and never had children. Jesus married Josefa Sanchez from Amosco, Mexico, and lived in Presidio County until he settled in Loving, New Mexico, where they are buried. Their offspring were Guillermo, Domingo, Tomas, Juanita, Ladislado, Gregoria, Vidala, and Filomena.                           

Jesus and Josefa’s older children were born in northern Mexico but the younger ones were born in a ranch which was located about 25 miles north of Presidio.  Although the Carrasco family settled in the Smith Ranch in 1912, they later moved to the Spencer Ranch, which was about 5 miles north of Presidio.

Presidio was an isolated village on the Rio Grande. The town grew from early Spanish settlements and was protected by a presidio (fort) about the year 1900. Later, it became an army outpost in 1915 to protect villagers against Pancho Villa’s raids.

Their homes had dirt floors but were roofed with cottonwood beams (vigas) and (rajas) split cottonwood.  The family lived in a two-room house that was divided for sleeping quarters.  The men slept in one room and the women slept in the other room, which included the kitchen. Since the floors were dirt they would lay on quilts or tarps on the floor.  On cold days the men would light mesquite branches/stumps for firewood in big tin containers.  as soon as the smoke would clear and the wood became flaming red coals, the men would move the coals into the house in buckets.  This would heat up the house until the very early hours of the morning.

As young as six or seven years of age, everyone went to work in the fields. A typical day for the men was irrigating the long stretch furroughs, picking cotton, etc. The women would also work in the fields or at least take lunch to the men, which required a walk of 2-3 miles.  Perhaps, the most irritating job was cutting sorghum or wheat.  Not only was it hot and dirty but it required to bend over and cut the stems which would shake and dispense enormous amounts of pollen. This pollen would irritate the nose, eyes, and throat as well as the skin around the neck and arms.

The entire family moved northward past the mountains of Big Bend into McCamey and Grandfalls. The migration was primarily for better farming climate and job opportunities.  The Carrasco family settled in Pecos with his family of seven but later moved to Loving, New Mexico, with a son and two daughters. Only Domingo and Tomas Carrasco along with Filomena and Vidala (Contreras) settled in Pecos. 

Filomena married Antonio S. Ramirez, a young man from Alpine, on Nov. 24, 1940.  His ancestors were from the Big Bend area and northern Mexico. Antonio was born in 1919 to Juan Ramirez and Juana Sosa.  His grandfather was Epifiano Ramirez and his maternal grandparents were Juan Sosa and Gavina tercero.  Antonio and Filomena lived in the Spencer ranch in a rock home for three years.  Their first born, Jesus Ramirez was born on Oct. 7, 1943, and was only three months old when they moved to Pecos.

After finding employment in a garage as a mechanic Antonio rented a humble house where their first daughter, Elfida was born on Oct., 27, 1945.   A couple of years later they bought a one room house at 1001 South Ash, which still stands as a storage room.  This small and humble frame reminds the siblings of their past and the great struggle of a mother’s love to feed, cloth, and bring up her children in spite of the odds of poverty and illiteracy.  The house also is a reminder of childhood experiences such as their mother instilling them the desire to become responsible and respectable.

Three other children were born in that one room house.  Josefina was born on Jan. 22, 1947, Tony was born March 30, 1949 and Ruben was born Dec. 23, 1955. Ernestina was born at the hospital on June 2, 1951.  the house was 21′ x 13′ and everyone slept on the floor or under the kitchen table. 

In 1957, another two-room house was placed alongside the old one and served as the girls’ bedroom.  The one-room house included the kitchen and a roll-away cot.  In one occasion the refrigerator and cupboard caught fire because Filomena was soaking/washing her husband’s garage-greased clothes with gasoline in a wash tub.

The children had a lot of room to play in the long corner block filled with caliche dirt, dusty streets and slept outside in cots during the cool summer nights. The streets were not paved until the 1960s. Everyone started first grade without knowing any English, but at least the younger ones learned from the older ones.  The dividing line for segregation was our street.  therefore, we went to the “anglo” school until we moved to junior high school, which was segregated for Hispanics. It is ironic that everyone was segregated until they reached high school. Whatever people were trying to avoid was not evident in high school because racism was very rare. The children walked about ten blocks to the elementary school and came home for lunch. They also walked six blocks to the junior high school and about 1-1/2 miles to the high school. Filomena prepared lunch early in the morning before she went to work. The children couldn’t afford the school lunch except for once in a while. After school, the children helped with daily chores and listened to English or Spanish radio on a transistor radio.

Her family was low income, but she instilled values to prepare her children awaiting opportunities. A favorite advice was: “the have nots don’t have anything because they do not take care of what they have.”  Her favorite was: “heaven is won with patience.”  This was one virtue, and perseverance was definitely in her character.  In 1951, she divorced and began to work to support her children. She cleaned homes for other people just to make ends meet, since there wasn’t any child support nor welfare. Other jobs included picking cotton and summer field jobs.  There was no any day care nor after-school programs so the children would walk about two miles to the cotton fields after school to help her pick up piles of cotton that she would leave in the furroughs.  At times her fingers would be cut with the cotton bulbs and she would put band aids around her cuticles to contain the pain.  She would drag that 60- to 80-pound sack to the “roman” scale to weigh it and receive her wages per pound. Later, she acquired a steady job at the Bell Motel in 1960 in the cleaning services.  Then in 1964 she worked at the Pecos Laundry until 1967 when she was stricken with arthritis. 

By this time, Jesus, the eldest had dropped out of school to help her. In 1959, he helped Filomena acquire another two-room house that was moved next to the old one. This became the girls and mom’s bedrooms. They had at least one “good” Christmas when Jesus, the eldest, bought gifts for everyone.  Jesus died on March 30, 1997. He financed a Jim Walter home that was completed in 1966.  This was a real home because it had indoor plumbing, three bedrooms, a kitchen and even a front porch. That home still stands and serves a memories for all the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. 

Many birthdays have been celebrated in that small frame house and it is full with fond memories and many stories by Filomena. Through her stories her children have opened that window to see into the past and gain understanding of life in those times.

 

Steve Lang’s column: Just Alexis and her dad

By Steve Lang, Special to the Daily Planet

Summing up a 29-year relationship in a few hundred words definitely describes literature in a hurry.

On St. Patrick's Day, I will give my daughter's hand in marriage to Misha Vogel, an impending reality that has yet to settle in. Alexis and Misha planned their ceremony and reception with simple instructions for me: just show up. With the exception of choosing the right tie, I'm ready to go.

Over the years, Alexis and I traveled a fair share of this country together, along with a trek to Scandinavia. Bitten by the travel bug, she visited another 20-plus nations on her own, including Taiwan, Japan, Russia, Germany, Costa Rica, the British Isles, France and Italy.
She spent one summer teaching English to young children in Taiwan and part of another studying French at the Sorbonne. While there, she watched the end of the Tour de France and took part of another day to hike across Luxembourg.

When she graduated from the University of Minnesota-Morris, Alexis became the third generation of our family to earn a UMM degree. She followed the traditional route, though, completing her degree in four years. Her grandmother's college career was interrupted by teaching, parenthood and more teaching, encompassing 29 years. Her father's adventures in pursuit of a bachelor's degree totaled 22 years, interrupted by the fundamental but erroneous belief that college interfered with his education.

Alexis and her brother Zeb traveled from different parts of the country to see me receive a master's degree from Sul Ross in 2005. About a year and a half later, she called and asked if I had a spare room available.

"I'd like to work, pay off some college bills and make enough to move on to the next adventure," she said.

Apparently, Big Bend Country took her by the arm, showed her around and kept a firm grip. She found work at the Davis Mountains Education Center, later at a local bank, and for the past two years, teaching music and language arts at Marfa Elementary School.

And she met Misha.

As she grew, Alexis and I enjoyed a host of special moments, and on my 60th birthday, she presented me with a memorable gift: a plaque containing photos of us, ranging in time from the day she was born to a Big Bend visit as a teenager. In the middle was a book I had read to her as a pre-schooler: "Just Me and My Dad," regaling the adventures of camping by a little girl and her father.

This coming Saturday, at least for a few moments, it will just be Alexis and her dad again as we walk down the aisle.

But no, I won't be losing a daughter - and thanks to some exercise - I won't be gaining a ton.

Carlton Leatherwood's Big Bend people: Sandi Turvan can teach us all about melding happiness and work

Sandi Turvan at her Wigs and Hoops party

Editor’s note: Veteran Texas editor and writer Carlton Leatherwood, who lives in Terlingua, writes weekly for the Daily Planet about the people and places of the Big Bend.

By Carlton Leatherwood

Seemingly, the party never ends.

When the cold wind blew in, it only messed up the hair at the Wigs and Hoops birthday party for Sandi Turvan. The bash, celebrating her 38th, went on and on. And that is how life treats the Terlingua resident these days.

The thing unusual about her looks at the party Thursday was her lack of a hat. It would have covered up the wig's curls. Figuratively, too, she wears a lot of hats. For her agenda of circus-like performances alone, she spins fire, dances in mid-air, pedals butterfly bikes and parties with hoops.

I was curious about all this and asked, "Have you thought about running away to the circus?"

"Yes," she said emphatically.

When you were young? "No, more recently," she laughed.

 "Just like anyone's life, it has been a progression," she said. "After college I worked as an editor for an internet company, 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, for a couple of years. When I got  laid off, I took to traveling, which is what I always wanted to do with my life."

 

Along the way she became a mountain biking guide at a kids' camp. She enjoyed that life so much that she explored the possibilities and traveled to Alaska the next summer to work as a river guide. That was the beginning of her river-guiding career. Ever since she has lived migratorily where she travels north in the summer and south in the winter.

 

 (A friend of mine on a Santa Elena river trip with her was awed by her hard work and long hours. With not much of a Rio Grande to guide on this year because of the drought, Turvan currently is employed by Starlight Theatre and Expresso y Poco Mas. This interview took place in the theatre's secret garden, the left wing from which she enters the stage for her fire presentations.)

Through work as a river guide, Turvan got into yoga, and through yoga more into acrobatics.

"Acrobatic yoga makes my heart happy," she said.

Aerial silk, the mid-air dancing, then took hold, and she really bonds with being physical, being upside down. The first time she saw Cirque du Soleil, she thought, I want to do that. "I don't see that being in my future necessarily," she said.    

If you think this is somebody flighty, think again. Listen to a person with inspiration and purpose who knows where she is going. She's a chapter right out of progressive populist Jim Hightower's book, "Swim Against the Current."

Turvan experienced an epiphany, the game-changer, on the Pacific Coast of Washington State.

"In that transition period after I had been laid off, I drove over to Olympic National Park," she said. "We backpacked out to the beach, the Third Beach, and spent the night out there, and it was on that beach on that night that I could see the full Milky Way reaching down and touching the ocean, and its reflection in the ocean.

"It was one of the most magical times of my life," she said. "It was really amazing. From that moment, it was the beginning of a new life for me. And it has continued to get better and better."

She even got a tattoo of the Milky Way in that moment's honor. "Every time I see the tattoo (on her lower right leg), it is representation of me living the life that I want to live instead of the life that someone else thinks that I should live or that I am supposed to live. I do what makes me happy."  

There's intercontinental travel, reaching out. "I like to travel, I like to learn, I like to experience," Turvan said. "I like to eat different foods, learn different languages and customs. It goes back to my anthropological degree." When she was in India, she lived with a family. It was cultural anthropology, learning how they live instead of just being a tourist. When she was in Thailand, same thing.

But she calls Terlingua home. "It is one of my many homes, but I say it is my home base, even more so," she said. "I have lived in lots of beautiful places, and there are many beautiful places in the world. But Terlingua has the people. It is the community that draws me back here year after year. We all take care of each other. We all love each other. We support each other unlike any other place I have ever experienced in the world, and I'm honored and blessed to be a part of that community."

Turvan was invited to the area on a camping trip when she was in college. Among the many attractions -- it rained -- she found hot springs. "I love hot springs," she said, "thank you Mother Nature."

She began traveling with family growing up. The first time she was in a plane was in her grandfather's private jet. (He worked for a shipping company; he built big ships.)

More recently, roads have led from Austin. She participated with the Austin Bike Zoo on its heralded visits to the Big Bend, riding butterfly bikes, and has performed poi, the fire dance or spin, not only at the Starlight but for hire. Her poi thrills originated in Austin 12 years ago, and she has amassed a collection of toys for that arena.

"Now I have poi snakes, a fire hula hoop, a fire jump rope, a staff, a wane, fans," she said, laughing. "I have a lot of fire toys."  

Steve Lang’s column: From Shakespeare to present, baseball is a literary favorite

By Steve Lang, Special to the Daily Planet

Baseball season is here, and its storied history continues through another century.

In the mid-1800s, poet Walt Whitman said, “I see great things in baseball; it’s our game, it’s America’s game.”

American tradition aside, it should be noted that William Shakespeare beat Walt to the bag by over two centuries.

Among his many works is “The Comedy Errors,” a work some critics maintain foretold the fortunes of the 1962 New York Mets.

As spring training heats up, Old Will’s observations on diamond matters remain as vivid as those of modern-day journalists.

            “Make you ready your stiff bats and clubs,” said the Citizen of Antium in “Coriolanus.”           

Pericles, an ancient manager, noted his impatience while waiting for equipment to be installed, enabling him to teach some running skills:

“I am yet unprovided of a pair of bases.”

Base stealing is encouraged, but not running recklessly on the paths. According to Slender in “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” who eluded the tag, he “slid, but ‘tis venturing” for that extra base.

Good hitting is a prerequisite for reaching base consistently, and extra-base power is always treasured. Venus of “Venus and Adonis” noted the skill of one such slugger, saying, “He cranks...a thousand doubles.”

Added “Cymbeline’s” Pisanio, “and doubling that,” caused the Duke of “Measure for Measure” to exclaim, “I am near at home.”

Of course, hitting for a high average always ensures a place in the lineup, too, as Richard in “Henry VI-Part 3" notes, “I have singled....”

Good defense can keep a sub-par hitter in the lineup, but too many mistakes may earn a demotion to the minor leagues. If, for example, “Troilus and Cressida’s” Agamemnon’s throws prove “errant from his course...,” the manager will “book both...willfulness and errors down.” (Sonnet 117)

Pitching, though, remains the chief concern of most teams and managers, as Shakespeare accurately predicted. Adequate hurling generally wins pennants, insufficient pitching loses them. Few teams, if any, consider themselves too well-armed. Pitching, both starting and relieving, is a valued commodity.

“Here pitch our battle,” stated Oxford in Henry VI-3. However, if the starter, “pitched in the ground confusedly,” as the Messenger of Henry VI-1 noted, the reliever/closer will enter the contest:

“He closes...in this consequence,” said Polonius in “Hamlet.”

“And sav’d the treacherous labor,” added the Prince in “Henry IV-1.”

Every so often, a flame-thrower appears on the radar, “a swifter mean (that) shall outstrike thought,” according to Enobarbus of “Antony and Cleopatra.”

Indeed, “many worthy fellows that were out,” via the slants of Nolan Ryan, Sandy Koufax, and Stephen Strasburg, as Rosse of “Macbeth” would decree.

Baseball, Shakespeare concluded, was bound to become a popular pastime as settlement in the new world progressed. Will predicted the roar of the crowd with the crack of the bat and flight of the ball. According to Parolles of “All’s Well That Ends Well”:

“Why, these balls bound, there’s noise in it.”

Alpine’s Steve Lang notes that the “...kind umpire of men’s miseries...doth dismiss me.”

Mike Perry's sometimes daily or weekly column, filed March 1

By Mike Perry, Alpine Daily Planet

Should Presidio pull out of Big Bend Hospital District?

Big Bend Regional Hospital District director Don Culbertson wants Presidio County to pull out of the Big Bend Hospital District and form its own district, according to a story by the Big Bend Sentinel’s Alberto Tomás Halpern.

Culbertson made his views known at Tuesday’s Presidio County commissioners meeting. And the reaction from commissioners seemed, from reading Halpern’s story, to be quite enthusiastic about the idea.

I can’t say I’m surprised; in my opinion (and I could be wrong), Culbertson has been unhappy with the operation of the board and its dealings with Big Bend Regional Medical Center for quite some time.

By the way, Culbertson was conspicuously absent from last Friday’s meeting of the hospital district board.

I’m honestly not prepared to say whether I think Culbertson’s idea is a good one. In my limited dealings with him, he’s come across as thoughtful, analytical and quite serious about representing Presidio County.

I am troubled by what I consider to be rather harsh accusations leveled at fellow board members, accusing them of favoring Alpine and Brewster County over Presidio County. My gut reaction is to disagree with him on that point, although I’m certainly willing to listen to his arguments.

I’ll also add that I’ve been impressed with the integrity and work ethic of all members of the board.

Of one thing I’m sure: There’s a lot more to this story than what is floating on the surface.

I tend to think – today – that keeping the hospital district in its present form is the proper avenue to take, particularly given the economic climate we’re dealing with. On the other hand, though, after living here only five years, I must admit to doubts as to whether the two counties can really work effectively together. I’ve run into too much paranoia, mistrust and rivalries that go back for decades. In the face of that kind of environment, it’s hard to be optimistic about the eventual outcome of anything that involves mutual cooperation between the two counties.

Hopefully, I’m completely wrong and totally off base in that assumption.

Teachers are not the problem

I love teachers. And, yes, I admit to a certain bias: My Mother was a teacher, one of my brothers is a teacher and two of my three sisters-in-law are teachers.

I revere teachers. In fact, I put them – as far as status – in the same category as the finest doctors and scientists. Teaching, to me, is the ultimate profession for someone who wants to make a difference in the world.

I think, until the past couple of decades, most Americans felt the same way.

Now, it seems, we (the citizens of the United States) feel compelled to blame all the world’s ills on our teachers.

In a fit of being overly simplistic, I fault our all-consuming obsession with testing for the fact that our nation’s teachers have been placed squarely in the crosshairs of every two-bit politician who thinks he or she has the answer to “what’s wrong with American education.”

We test and we test and then we test some more. With all this testing, when do we have time to teach? And now, the demagogues are saying that teachers will be kicked out of their profession if their students don’t pass certain completely arbitrary, ill-conceived tests.

That’s not right and, I dare say that it’s exactly the opposite approach we should be taking. Rather than allowing teachers to actually teach, we are forcing them to train kids like dogs or cats – see Dick fetch, see Jane roll over. Jeez, what a mess.

I’ve posted – just before this column – a lengthy piece from the New York Review of Books. The article, the first of two parts, deals at length with Finland’s method of teaching – and, more importantly, preparing teachers.

I commend the article to each and every one of you. It’s one of the more thought-provoking stories I’ve read and its importance cannot be minimized.

The teachers of America are one of our most compelling strengths; we need to build on that strength, not tear it down.

Stat of the day

Ratio of hourly wage of college grad to HS grad in 1979: 1.5. In 2009, 1.95.

Continue to Occupy but beware the demagogues

My thoughts today are that the Occupy movement is the best thing that’s happened in the nation since the Civil Rights War of the 1950s and ‘60s.

Where it will take us? Don’t know.

Can it sustain itself? Don’t know.

Can it do harm? Probably.

However, no matter where it takes us, it’s about time working men and women took back the power mechanisms that run our economic and cultural engines.

A friend send me this URL. If you’re serious about change, it’s worth checking out:

http://www.the99declaration.org

I have only one word of caution for the Occupy movement: Beware the demagogues.

Idle question

So, do you think we’d still have troops fighting a war we can’t win in Afghanistan if we had mandatory military service (and something like the Peace Corps for conscientious objectors) instead of a professional army? When I say “mandatory,” I also mean no exceptions. No college deferment, no marriage deferment, etc., etc.

You know, I’m just enough of a cynic to think that our views on “policing the world” would change dramatically if we knew it was our sons and daughters (or ourselves) doing the fighting rather than men and women who have been enticed into a professional army.

To our shame, those professionals never seem to enter our mind.

I mean, think about it. How many of you really ponder the fact during the course of a day or a week or a month that we literally have hundreds of thousands of Americans at risk, fighting wars that have certainly not been properly and publicly debated.

Still a mess

Well, the court has handed down slightly redrawn redistricting maps for Texas’s congressional and state offices. Bottom line: Latinos, African Americans and anyone who’s not an old white man got screwed.

As a totally biased observer, it seems to me that the all-consuming goals of the GOP side of the current redistricting debacle were to ensure that (1) U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett is disappeared; (2) the Latino population gains are minimized and don’t translate into more representation for the Latino voter; (3) the progressive and liberal strongholds in Austin and South San Antonio are split into harmless pieces; and (4) inept congressmen such as Francisco “Quickie” Canseco are re-elected by a stacked deck of voters.

Simple as that. And mission accomplished – except, I hope, in the case of Canseco, who I still think will lose to State Rep. Pete Gallego of Alpine in the November election. It is, however, going to be more difficult for Gallego because of the way the huge Latino vote in San Antonio was diluted.

Doggett, to my mind one of the finest congressmen to ever represent this state, has been a thorn in the side of the Serious Men of the Republican Party for years. They were determined, no matter how much they perverted the system, to carve up Doggett’s old Austin district into as many slices as possible. The ultimate goal was to make sure that Austin does not have a solidified voice in this decade’s elections. The latest plan from the GOP, er, I mean, the federal judges, has Doggett’s Austin-centric district sliced up into five pieces with each small piece tagged onto a heavily Republican suburban constituency.

Ah, the American form of democracy. You know, “Bought and Paid For” should replace “In God We Trust” as the national motto. Actually, I kinda favor the unofficial national motto: e pluribus unum, or “out of many, one,” but I’m a stark-raving progressive who has actually read the history books, so what do I know.  

Alpine's Steve Lang remembers Davy Jones: A Monkee and Monkee business

“...You’d better get ready/we may be coming to your town.” – from The Monkees theme song

 

Davy Jones, actor, jockey, singer and best known as one of the Monkees, died of a heart attack on Leap Day at 66 going on 23.

During a recent short-lived reunion tour with two of his mates, Davy still looked and acted like a rambunctious kid, despite being nearly 45 years removed from the TV series.

His passing dates me. I was a high school senior when the Monkees debuted on television. The weekly slapstick comedy show featured sophomoric humor and some music, most of which reached the top of the charts. The series also starred drummer Micky Dolenz and guitarists Peter Tork and Mike Nesmith.

Monkees music was a staple that year, and if I dig in Mom’s closet, I will probably still find my Monkees album and one or two singles, with original jackets.

Music at the time for me lived on vinyl, jukeboxes or the radio. Attending a Monkees concert in the late 1960s was as distant and obscure an idea as riding the Starship Enterprise and orbiting a parallel universe. Monday night TV was our alternative, from 1966 through early 1968. Both the Monkees and Star Trek eventually retreated, but in truth, have never left entirely.

Like Little Debbies and radioactive waste, old TV series have a nearly-infinite shelf life. Watching a clip of Davy, Micky and Peter in a 2011 concert brought my senior year back into as clear focus as selective memory permits.

Forty-five years ago, I left school every day at 1:45 p.m. to complete the work portion of a Diversified Occupations class. This three-to-five-hour stint at the local newspaper followed a less-than-rigorous daily schedule of English, Social Studies, choir, physical education and the classroom portion of the afore-mentioned D.O.

In short, as one teacher wryly remarked one day as I departed for the newspaper, “you’re getting paid to go to school.”

And, with no car payments, rent or other heavy expenditures, I enjoyed more money on a 95-cent per-hour salary than could be imagined.

Most every Monday night, I managed to get home in time to catch The Monkees TV show. Following the theme song, four usually-unemployed musicians comically depicted their weekly plight – interspersed with music video – attempting to meet the rent payment and by hitting the big- or even-lowerlighted music scene.

About every third episode, a young lady would be totally smitten with Davy, who would dash away and wander the beach to the tune of “I Want to be Free.” The rest of the time, Peter, Micky and Mike would attempt to hold a spot on the “Last Train to Clarksville” as the group attempted to escape “Auntie Grzelda” or lament other grief with “This Just Doesn’t Seem to be My Day.”

Davy and his mates successfully conned Sven Hellstrom and the Rhythm Kings into leaving a young lady’s 16-year-old birthday party by a false call to arms from the Swedish Embassy, then finished the gig in their place. In another episode, their efforts to teach a Frankenstein-like creation to play bass guitar went for nought. Not another “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” to be sure.

And, definitely not reality nor comedy TV as we know it today, but The Monkees series and revival tours offered several realities that have shoved their way into the next century:

• Actors have been elected governors, Senators, Congressmen and even President. This proves once again that the biggest division between entertainment and politics are a few letters of the alphabet, with words like “hysterical” and “mind-numbing” in between.
• Baby Boomers – as well as rock ‘n’ roll – never forget and feed on nostalgia.

I still have no rhythm, despite the availability of beer, which has helped some men dance since 1845.

            Steve Lang notes that Mike Nesmith’s mom invented Liquid Paper while his mom invented reasons to be home early.  

Steve Lang's column: Once again, truth hilariously trumps fiction

By Steve Lang

“The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.” – Albert Einstein

Years ago, I heard some improbable true stories of pure idiocy, although none rival those listed below.

One came close; that of an area man arrested for making obscene phone calls. It seemed one of the recipients was his own wife.

Thanks to a good friend, I offer the following tales of folks who apparently struck their heads diving into the shallow end of the gene pool.

• A medical student doing a rotation in toxicology at the poison control center received a call. A woman called in very upset because she caught her little daughter eating ants. The student reassured her that the ants are not harmful and there would be no need to bring her daughter into the hospital. She calmed down and at the end of the conversation happened to mention that she gave her daughter some ant poison to eat in order to kill the ants. The student told her that she better bring her daughter in to the emergency room right away.
• A man, wanting to rob a downtown Bank of America, walked into the branch office and wrote this, “Put all your muny in this bag.” While standing in line, waiting to give his note to the teller, he began to worry that someone had seen him write the note and might call the police before he reached the teller's window. So he left the Bank of America and crossed the street to the Wells Fargo Bank. After waiting a few minutes in line, he handed his note to the Wells Fargo teller. She read it and, surmising from his spelling errors that he wasn’t the brightest light in the harbor, told him that she could not accept his stickup note because it was written on a Bank of America deposit slip and that he would either have to fill out a Wells Fargo deposit slip or go back to Bank of America.
 Looking somewhat defeated, the man said, “O.K.” and left. He was arrested a few minutes later, as he was waiting in line back at Bank of America.
• A motorist was unknowingly caught in an automated speed trap that; measured his speed using radar and photographed his car. He later received in the mail a ticket for $40 and a photo of his car. Instead of payment, he sent the police department a photograph of $40. Several days later, he received a letter from the police that contained another picture, this time of handcuffs. He immediately mailed in his $40.
• A guy walked into a little corner store with a shotgun and demanded all of the cash from the cash drawer. After the cashier put the cash in a bag, the robber saw a bottle of Scotch that he wanted behind the counter on the shelf. He told the cashier to put it in the bag as well, but the cashier refused and said, “Because I don't believe you are over 21.” The robber said he was, but the clerk still refused to give it to him because she didn't believe him. At this point, the robber took his driver's license out of his wallet and gave it to the clerk.
 The clerk looked it over and agreed that the man was in fact over 21 and she put the Scotch in the bag. The robber then ran from the store with his loot. The cashier promptly called the police and gave the name and address of the robber that he got off the license. They arrested the robber two hours later.
• A pair of Michigan robbers entered a record shop nervously waving revolvers. The first one shouted, “Nobody move!” When his partner moved, the startled first bandit shot him.
• Seems this guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back knocking him unconscious.
It seems the liquor store window was made of Plexi-Glas. The whole event was caught on videotape.
• A new resident in rural Wisconsin called the local township administrative office to request the removal of the Deer Crossing sign on his road. The reason: “Too many deer are being hit by cars out here! I don't think this is a good place for them to be crossing anymore.”

Alpine's Steve Lang has been accused of being a sandwich short of a good lunch.

Moochers against welfare

By Paul Krugman

Modern Republicans are very, very conservative; you might even (if you were Mitt Romney) say, severely conservative. Political scientists who use Congressional votes to measure such things find that the current G.O.P. majority is the most conservative since 1879, which is as far back as their estimates go.

And what these severe conservatives hate, above all, is reliance on government programs. Rick Santorum declares that President Obama is getting America hooked on “the narcotic of dependency.” Romney warns that government programs “foster passivity and sloth.” Representative Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, requires that staffers read Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged,” in which heroic capitalists struggle against the “moochers” trying to steal their totally deserved wealth, a struggle the heroes win by withdrawing their productive effort and giving interminable speeches.

Many readers of The Times were, therefore, surprised to learn, from an excellent article published last weekend, that the regions of America most hooked on Santorum’s narcotic — the regions in which government programs account for the largest share of personal income — are precisely the regions electing those severe conservatives. Wasn’t Red America supposed to be the land of traditional values, where people don’t eat Thai food and don’t rely on handouts?

The article made its case with maps showing the distribution of dependency, but you get the same story from a more formal comparison. Aaron Carroll of Indiana University tells us that in 2010, residents of the 10 states Gallup ranks as “most conservative” received 21.2 percent of their income in government transfers, while the number for the 10 most liberal states was only 17.1 percent.

Now, there’s no mystery about red-state reliance on government programs. These states are relatively poor, which means both that people have fewer sources of income other than safety-net programs and that more of them qualify for “means-tested” programs such as Medicaid.

By the way, the same logic explains why there has been a jump in dependency since 2008. Contrary to what Santorum and Romney suggest, Mr. Obama has not radically expanded the safety net. Rather, the dire state of the economy has reduced incomes and made more people eligible for benefits, especially unemployment benefits. Basically, the safety net is the same, but more people are falling into it.

Steve Lang ponders road scholars: Education gained from hitch-hikers

By Steve Lang, Daily Planet columnist

 “You may call him a tramp, but I know it goes a little deeper than that. He’s a – highway chile.” – Jimi Hendrix

“You built that highway, and they can put you in jail for thumbing a ride on it.” – Woody Guthrie

Time was, as Tony Hillerman once noted, that not stopping for a hitch-hiker was antisocial.

Maybe it still is.

Time, protective parenthood and paying too much attention to media hysteria made picking up hitch-hikers a no-no for me.

But 35 to 40 years ago, stopping for a thumber was a matter of course.

In the interim, despite earning a couple of degrees, I think my education suffered.

Every so often, I see a hitch-hiker resting outside a convenience store off an interstate exit, and wonder, “what’s your story?”

However, I’m always in too much of a hurry to ask the question.

Shame on me.

I mean, I could run into someone as free-spirited as my late aunt, who in the 1930s thumbed her way across the country to California.

Just cruising down one stretch of Minnesota in the early 1970s brought me plenty of insight from road scholars.

Of course, people have changed a lot since then, critics may argue.

Not really. They still, for the most part, have two feet and two thumbs. Political philosophy remains as mixed, although social media announces the insanity/inanity much quicker and more prominently…from the non-hikers, at least.

Forty years ago, I picked up a young man headed east on a Minnesota interstate.

He quickly climbed into my 1966 Pontiac and tossed his duffel in the back seat.

“Where are you headed?” I asked.

“Is there a military base around here?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“Good. I’m AWOL (Absent Without Leave).”

Sometime later, while driving north in the same general area, I was waved down by a white-haired, white-bearded, white-clad gentleman with a mechanical larynx and a carved walking stick he called “Walking Charlie.”

He seemed interesting enough, showed me a newspaper clipping with a photo of him taken near a statue of horses in Austin, as well as one of his poems.

Then, he launched into an evangelistic spiel that included things about sex I didn’t want to know.

While on a western trip a couple of years later, my friend Dave and I were rolling through Colorado ski country when two skiers cruised down a slope and promptly stuck out their thumbs. We somehow jammed skis and poles into a crowded trunk and skiers into the back seat.

In gratitude, one skier reached into his pocket and produced a china pipe.

“Anybody want to share a bowl?” he asked.

It seemed, to me, to be a rather small container for soup.

Among other strange highway encounters was the night I stopped to assist a stranded motorist and spied an old college acquaintance striding down the interstate in the opposite direction.

“Name’s Tim Jenkins,” he said, after he crossed the median to join me in the customary-but-fruitless-serious-look-under-the-hood.

“Saturday morning basketball at UMM, about five years ago” I said, giving him my name.

He nodded and smiled in recognition.

I ended up turning around at the next exit, driving the motorist to a motel to call her parents, and Tim rode along.

As we headed back in my original direction, it dawned on me that Tim was going opposite his.

“Just drop me off anywhere, I’ll get there eventually,” he said.

Me, too…that is, if I can remember what direction I was pointed.

Steve Lang still cannot get there from here.

 

The Roxann Chavez column: Where to begin?

Editor's note: Roxann Chavez writes a weekly column for the Daily Planet about life in Alpine and the Big Bend.

By Roxann Chavez

I don’t know where to begin.  I’ve been away with family and with my 94-year-old grandmother.  She fell ill last Thursday in Pecos and was flown out to Medical Center Hospital in Odessa. 

I remember my sister calling me and explaining to me what was wrong and she was explaining this to me like she was a robot.  I stopped to ask her how she was doing and she broke down on the phone.  I knew this must have been crushing her heart because my sister has taken care of my grandmother for about 30 years. 

I told her that I would be right there but I had to take a moment to fall apart before I could be strong for her.  I was at work and sitting on the stairs and all I remember is curling up on the stairs and crying hoping no one would walk in on me. But I wiped the tears and put my game face on and drove to Pecos. 

I arrived at the hospital and my mom walked me to my grandmother’s room and she looked so fragile, but I know my grandma, she’s tough.  She’s 94 but her mind is sharp like a tack and it was quite for a moment and I looked over at my sister and she was standing at my grandmother’s side fixing her hair and gown. 

My sister Velma Hendricks is my hero.  She has always been at my grandmother’s side with a gentle touch and loving heart.  I realized this picture was rare and I found myself crying.  I quickly turned around and walked out and told myself that I needed to be strong for my sister. 

Well, the time came for my grandmother to be transferred and the pilot came in the room and looked at me asking what my weight was. I asked him why and he said he needed to know so I could fly with her.  I stepped back and said, “Oh no, you need my mom’s weight and my mom just stood there in shock and answered the pilot in a scowling voice.  The pilot just put his head down and said, “Yes, ma’ma.”

I hugged my mom and told her to be strong for grandma because flying is not my mom’s thing.  I watched them fly away and we eventually made our way to Odessa and the waiting was a long, drawn-out process. She scared us there for a while, but like I said, she’s a tough woman and she’s doing a lot better. 

I went days crying myself to sleep and waking up crying. Even when I was putting on my make up, I would have to start over several times because my eyes would water up and I noticed that my body was aching and I was exhausted so I could only imagine how my mom, aunts and uncles, who were there with my grandmother day and night without sleep, were feeling.

I went to Crane to watch the Bucks play and I walked in carrying my camera bag and a bag of popcorn.  I cheered and visited with everyone around me and then I ran to the bathroom right after the game and looked in the mirror and I just stood there and did not recognize the person staring back at me.  My make up was running and my face looked tired and my hair was a disaster. 

I put my head down and realized that’s what stress looks like so I’ve tried really hard to slowly let go and not stress too much about my grandmother.  I have to realize she is in good hands and around people who love and care for her. 

Oh, don’t think I let my husband off the hook when I walked out of the restroom. I asked him, “Why didn’t you tell me I look horrible?”  Before he could answer Zerelda Ybarra and Melissa Deleon started laughing and said, “Yeah, you think he would of told you the truth.”  I answered by saying, “yes.”  No comment from Ricky, which says a lot.

Anyway, I wanted to emphasize to you this week that we all have stresses in our lives and no matter how much we try to avoid them, they will find us and seek to destroy us.  So, face them and you will find that you have so many stress zappers within your reach to help you fight them off.  Keep healthy and don’t lose focus of what’s important.

 

Steve Lang’s column: Learning the affairs of (your) state

Since I ...

 

... A) work for an educational institution; B) am not from here but after 14 years am still trying to become acclimated; C) believe in lifelong learning; or D) do not look as dumb as I am, I occasionally seek to bring enlightenment to my reader(s), although that individual (or maybe individuals) would prefer to be engaged in matters of equal creativity, including dropping bowling balls on tin roofs.

 

Gaining a true knowledge of one’s surroundings is too often neglected in an environment being overtaken by electronic communication, fast foods and high technology. Cyberspace threatens to crowd out a sense of place.

Therefore, perhaps despite public outcry, I offer a multiple-choice quiz on aspects of Texas, including symbols, slogans, word definitions and notable persons.

• Animal: A) (Small) Goat, (Large) Mule Deer; B) Armadillo, Longhorn; C) Sidehill Gouger, Three-toed Swamp Grizzle; D) Possum, Desert Fox on Steroids
• Bird: A) Mockingbird; B) Roadrunner; C) Middle Digit; D) Whooping Crane
• Flag: A) Checkered; B) Lone Star; C) any one of six; D) Markin (American)
• Flower: A) Prickly Pear; B) Yellow Rose; C) Bluebonnet; D) Gold Medal
• Insect: A) Dragonfly; B) Yellow jacket; C) Monarch Butterfly; D) Black critter with orange-tipped wings that hovers around the front porch
• Motto: A) “I’ll Be Your Huckleberry; B) “You Can Have My Gun When You Pry It From My Cold Dead Fingers; C)  “Friendship”; D) “Don’t Mess With Texas”
• Nicknames: A) Baja Oklahoma; B) Lone Star State; C) Rollin’ in Petroleum; D) This is Not Nebraska
• Song: A) “Texas, Our Texas”; B) “Yellow Rose of Texas”; C) “All My Exes Live in Texas: D) “Deep in the Heart of Texas”
• State Seal A) Harp Seal; B) a star of five points, encircled by olive and live oak branches, and the words, “The State of Texas”; C) Ribbon Seal; D) Sea Lion
• Tree: A) Pecan; B) Live Oak; C) Mesquite D) Leaning
• Larry: A) The Cable Guy; B) Wary, suspicious; C) had two siblings, Darryl and his other brother Darryl; D) McMurtry
• Yawl: A) A small yacht; B) “...come to see us now and then”; C) the pronoun of the second person plural; D) An exclamation emitted after squatting with spurs or standing in a next of fire arts
• Heidi: A) A fictional girl in Switzerland; B) A genuine Texas greeting: C) A TV movie famous for interrupting the waning moments of an NFL football game; D) A cross-eyed possum from Germany
• Kinky Friedman, Willie Nelson, Robert Earl Keen, Kris Kristofferson: A) One of them ran for Governor; B) Three of them visited Sul Ross; C) One taught literature at West Point; D) One rode a horse up hotel stairs in Lajitas
• Far: A) A city in Texas (sp); B) To discharge a firearm; C) A considerable distance; D) Consumed millions of acres in 2011

Winners will be eligible for a drawing, with the lucky recipient to receive a 2014 West Texas evening weather forecast.

Steve Lang suggests there are no wrong answers if enough questions are asked.

 

Paid advertisement

Mike Perry's sometimes weekly column: History, new pool?, Ely, kudos to Martha, treatment of employees, dealing with consequences, lost jobs

By Mike Perry, Alpine Daily Planet

The essential study of history 

One of my favorite events is coming up in less than two weeks.

The Big Bend Regional History Fair, part of the National History Day program, is a year-long education program that culminates in an annual state-level history fair for students in grades six through 12.

I’m an old history major, so the study of the past – the events, the people, the whims, the ebbs, the flows – is beyond simply interesting. To me, the study of history is also the study of today and tomorrow.

Let me put it another way: In any profession or endeavor – whether you’re an engineer, a cancer researcher, a policeman, a firefighter, a doctor, a lawyer, a plumber, a welder, etc. – it’s essential that you know (a) how and why things work the way they do, and (b) how to think, how to think through a problem or opportunity and arrive at the best possible conclusion.

I think the study of history is learning’s basic building block. Through the study of history, we learn how society and life work the way they do, we learn how our nation (and others) arrived at this moment in time in this particular set of circumstances, we learn how and why individuals made the decisions they did, we learn how to walk in the other person’s shoes, we learn how to think through our issues and plan for a better future.

I see a lot of energy – from the White House to the AISD Administration Building – being put into education these days as we grapple with the best way to teach our growing, diverse student population. I applaud all their efforts, particularly since our elected officials – bought and paid for by a greed-based, moneyed elite in a frenzy of uninformed bullying – have sliced our state’s education budgets beyond the breaking point.

I do, however, fear that not enough attention is focused on the social sciences – history, ethics, government. I am not quibbling over the fascination with math and the hard sciences, which, in all honesty, has been ongoing since Sputnik sent shivers of fear through our national psyche.

I believe – strongly – that students well-grounded in history and ethics are much more capable of taking on the responsibilities of life, family, citizenship and responsible leadership than those who are not. That means we need to do three things:

• Provide sincere emphasis on the study of history from elementary school through college
• Develop and reward extraordinary history teachers, such as Alpine High School’s Caroline Fox, who has brought the subject to life for hundreds of Alpine students
• Keep the politicians and special-interest groups – not the study of politicians – out of curriculum and textbook development.

Anyway, let’s get back to the Big Bend Regional History Fair, which provides an opportunity for students to develop their knowledge of history, critical thinking, analytical reading, writing, presentation, media design, and public performance skills through creative and original papers, performances, documentaries, web sites or exhibits.

The Big Bend Regional History Fair will be held on Monday, Feb.13, at the Sul Ross State University UC from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Awards presentatuon will be at 3:30. Schools attending the fair include Fort Davis, Valentine, Terrell County, Reagan County, Presidio, Terlingua, Big Bend, Crane and Alpine.

The History Fair is sponsored entirely by the Brewster County Historical Commission.  Sul Ross generously donates $500 scholarships to the overall outstanding senior project.  Students have chances to win other prize money as well for their outstanding projects.

First and second places advance to the state competition, Texas History Day in Austin on May 4-5, with hopes of advancing to National History Day in Washington, D.C. 

Kudos to Martha

I think we all owe special kudos to Martha Latta and all the volunteers who have made the annual Electronics Recycling Week such a resounding success.

It’s mind-boggling that they were able to collect two truckloads – 10 tons – of electronics gear this past month. Martha and her bunch of volunteers are making a difference, which, to my mind, is the highest compliment that any of us can aspire to.

Thanks, Martha, we appreciate what you do.

Do we need a new pool?

The Avalanche’s Amanda Tilley has a good story about the seemingly eternal problems with Alpine’s municipal swimming pool.

As Tilley points out, numerous problems have been found at the pool, and making the fixes could easily reach into six figures, money the city hasn’t budgeted for.

Tilley quotes city manager Chuy Garcia as saying: "Everything is just outdated; it's worn out and has been in the ground for over 40 years."

Obviously, we’re facing a second straight summer without a municipal pool.

Maybe it’s time to build a new pool. Call me old-school if you want, but I’m one of those who believes a municipal pool is a necessity in a city this size. City pools are one of the few legitimate – and safe – gathering places for youth in any rural American city. Plus, learning to swim is a rite of passage for any youngster. 

Ely can play anywhere

Ely Gallego, maybe the best athlete to come through Alpine High School in the past decade, is expected to sign a baseball scholarship offer from Cisco Junior College next week.

Gallego could easily play football or basketball in college. I’m seen him play both sports with extreme excellence and intensity. I think baseball is good choice.

Outrageous treatment of employees 

The treatment of Southwest Texas Municipal Gas Corp. employees has been despicable, in my humble opinion.

The company is being broken up, part going to Alpine, part going to Marfa. Why this has happened is still a bit of a mystery to me. I’m still convinced that two years ago, before the general manager was fired, we had a solid, well functioning, safe, in-the-black company. But, as Yogi might say, that was then and now it isn’t. There is, literally, no turning back.

That said, though, I can still express a bit of outrage about how the company’s employees are treated.

Best I can tell, those employees who remain with the dissolving company are still not sure where they stand. Granted, some – or maybe all – of the men still working for the company have been or will be offered jobs. But my take on recent Alpine City Council action leaves that assumption tenuous at best. And the women who work for the company have not been told anything.

Well, they have been told that they’ll not receive any kind of severance pay. I honestly wonder why any of them stay on the job. The only answer I can think of is that they want to live in Alpine and are hoping against hope that their jobs will be preserved.

An unsigned letter I received from an employee of the Alpine portion of the company said, “We have lost 4 service workers already and are in jeopardy of losing 3 more.” That’s a lot of experience that’s being flushed down the toilet.

By the way, losing experienced gas-company employees sparks thoughts of significant safety issues. Gas is a pretty volatile commodity even for the most experienced worker.

Bothered by the extremists who won’t deal with the consequences

The recent (and uncalled-for) criticism of Planned Parenthood brings to mind my overriding problem with anti-abortion/anti-choice hardliners.

Man, I know I’m going to catch it from those guys for even bringing up the topic, but so be it. For the record, I’m pro-choice. I’m not real hard-core on the topic, it’s not one of my Top 10 causes. But, yes, I do have an opinion. Plus, I honestly respect anti-abortion views – if they are presented in a sane and apolitical fashion.

Anyway, here’s where I have a problem. I would be much more willing to listen to anti-abortion rhetoric if – and this is an enormous if, simply gigantic – the anti-abortion forces would put up the money and time to properly raise the unwanted children that result from anti-abortion laws. This means they need to be prepared to properly feed, clothe, educate and nurture those children. I want their time and their money dedicated to taking care of these kids.

I also want them – the hardliners – to quit taking potshots at programs such as Planned Parenthood, programs that do much good in every corner of this nation, but particularly in rural America, where health care is stretched to its thinnest. (Planned Parenthood provides not only family planning services, it also performs cancer screenings, STD testing and treatment, and other health services.)

I also think anti-abortion militants are just another example of that most ironic of ironies – that is, the propensity for conservatives, who tout the rights of the individual, to constantly meddle in individual rights.

Well, that’s enough. I figure that few paragraphs should be good for at least a couple of death threats from the compassionate militants of the far, far right.

32,000 jobs lost and more to come; thanks, Rick

An estimated 32,000 Texas school employees, 12,000 of them teachers, already have lost their jobs because of $5.4 billion in education cuts the state Legislature imposed, a school advocacy group said Feb. 1. The group said more layoffs are likely on the way.

The Texas State Teachers Association wants Gov. Rick Perry to call a special legislative session to tap the state’s $7.3 billion rainy-day fund and fill education-funding gaps, something the GOP-dominated Legislature refused to do last summer. Shoot, anyone who watched Perry (no relation) in his aborted presidential campaign knows he can’t even call home, much less call a special session.

Perry opposes using the rainy-day fund. Proponents of the idea, however, say lawmakers could draw $2.5 billion from the fund just for education next year.

The issue involves much than just jobs. Moak, Casey & Associates, an Austin-based school finance consulting firm, estimates more than 8,200 elementary school classes in Texas now are larger than the 22-student maximum state law allows.

The Legislature cut $4 billion over the next two years in funding for school districts — the first decrease in per-student spending in Texas since World War II. Lawmakers also cut $1.4 billion in grants for education programs.

Yep, it’s the Texas Miracle at work. Thanks a lot, Rick.

Steve Lang’s column: Going platinum is all about brain scans, magnetic fields, radio waves and more

“X-rays of Dean’s skull reveal nothing.” – Headline after St. Louis pitcher Dizzy Dean was struck by a baseball in 1934 World Series

A few days ago, I cut a record...a CD, actually.

Possible titles include “I’m Not Wearing a Hat, So There’s Nothing on My Mind.”           

Yes, I had an M.R.I. scan of my skull, also known as Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

According to Wikipedia, “An MRI machine uses a powerful magnetic field to align the magnetization of some atomic nuclei in the body, and radio frequency fields to systematically alter the alignment of this magnetization.

“This causes the nuclei to produce a rotating magnetic field detectable by the scanner and this information is recorded to construct an image of the scanned area of the body. Magnetic field gradients cause nuclei at different locations to rotate at different speeds. By using gradients in different directions 2D images or 3D volumes can be obtained in any arbitrary orientation.”

If that means, keep your chin down, your head still, your eyes closed and listen to a bunch of loud sounds like “AAAANNNK!”, “ROOOONK!”, “BLAMMM!” and “ZINNNG, ZINNNG, ZINNG, ZINNNG, ZINK!”for roughly 25 minutes, I picked right up on the previous paragraph’s explanation.

I also received my own CD/album of the results. However, since I don’t know much about those radio frequency fields, I am unsure if the singles will air on a country western station or classic rock ‘n’ roll.

Based on my ever-increasing visits to clinical and hospital facilities, I maintain the greatest break-through to modern medicine is electricity. For example, where leeches were once applied to the body, diodes now perform the same function. In addition, the diodes are connected to computers that spit out diagnoses.

This is a vast improvement over leeches, since they have no written language and remain rather short on verbal communication as well.

If you’re thinking to yourselves, “what comparisons can be made about the blood-sucking aspects?,” look under medical costs.

Since I comprehended only a few words in the initial description, such as “magnetic field,” “radio frequency fields” and “atomic nuclei,” I am uncertain if my brain was launched into outer space and possibly a parallel universe, can be found on an oldies station or is attached to a refrigerator.

Reading farther, under “how it works,” I understood only that I consist of largely water and not another substance as has been often suggested. That being said, my brain could be riding the waves between my ears, instead of rolling about like a BB in a boxcar, as has also been mentioned.

Having learned that “this electromagnetic field has just the right frequency, known as the resonance frequency, to be absorbed and flip the spin of the protons in the magnetic field. After the electromagnetic field is turned off, the spins of the protons return to thermodynamic equilibrium and the bulk magnetization becomes re-aligned with the static magnetic field.”

Does this mean my brain will: A) be beamed up by a mother ship for UFO study; B) re-enter the earth’s atmosphere and crash like a cantaloupe; or C) slide off the refrigerator and be used as a soccer ball by the cats?

Further perusal of MRI explanation led to more confusion. Is my body actually a radio tower or a missile silo? Since references to radio signals persisted, I continued to hum various tunes from assorted music venues, ranging from rock to rap, classic to country. None seemed to relate to the previously-noted grating sounds inside the MRI chamber.

And where my brain activity is involved, Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” does not apply.

Whatever is going on upstairs probably ranks closer to The Who’s “Pinball Wizard,” but unlike the deaf, mute, blind youth who racks up replays at a record pace...

...I hover between “game over” and “tilt.”

Steve Lang, plugged or unplugged, definitely requires some fine tuning.

Roxann Chavez’s column: Following Evanescence to Arkansas

 

By Roxann Chavez, Special to the Daily Planet

I made it back from Arkansas where I had a chance to watch my favorite band, Evanescence. It was about a 24-hour-plus drive to and from Little Rock.

I missed the Texas tour, so one day, it was just like, “Hey, wanna go to Arkansas and see Evanescence?” The great thing about my husband is that if I mention something, he knows that means I want to go. So he got us tickets and we got in the Tahoe and drove like a bunch of teenagers.

We rocked all the way to Arkansas, laughed, joked, talked and even got pulled over but NO TICKET…. thank you super-cool state trooper. I loved that we got to see Evanescence and lead singer Amy Lee; her music is so inspirational. It moves you. I know people see her as a rock band, but, come on, man, how many bands these days sit down at a piano and play a soft song, then in two seconds incorporate it into this awesome piece of work with guitars and drums.

OK, I have to admit that Arkansas is a very beautiful state. It’s filled with so many trees, so much water. I got excited when we entered the state because it was different to me. The traffic is not like, say, Dallas or Arizona. It’s steady and pretty tolerable and not hard to get around … and the people were quite pleasant.

We arrived in Little Rock and stood outside in about 29-degree temperature waiting for the Verizon Center to open its doors. Finally, the time arrived. I’ve been to plenty of concerts to know the drill, so I prepared myself to get frisked and have someone run their hands through my hair checking for any sharp objects. I was surprised to find that I was lightly frisked and welcomed as I walked in. Wow!

We walked up, got our drinks and went to our seats, then we were able to watch and enjoy the two bands that were ahead of Evanescence. I noticed that the Verizon Center was not packed, which surprised me, because Amy Lee is from Little Rock.

Anyway, the time came for her to perform and her dad, who is an Arkansas disk jockey, introduced the band, which I thought, was way cool.

It was dark and then they started to play “What You Want.” The stage lights bulleted out colors of red and blue and I was standing up and yelling with my rock ‘n roll fist in the air, but than I noticed people slowly getting up as if to try it out. Then I got out my camera and started to shoot some video and take pictures. All of a sudden, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder and a man started screaming at me “No Video” and telling us to sit down. I looked at him like he was crazy, although I noticed that Ricky and I were the only ones standing up and acting like a normal human beings at a concert.

I sat down and Ricky looked at me like these people must be idiots. He proceeded to videotape and I started to take pictures and security visited us often; so, we stopped and enjoyed the music by singing along and standing and waving fists in the air. I looked down and noticed this guy in front of me a sleep. Yes, asleep. I than looked over to his right and the lady sitting next to him had earplugs on.

I started to scan the area and noticed that people were just talking, sitting down as if we were at a kids recital or something. Then I looked down in the pit and everyone was just standing there watching. No moshing, no fist in the air, no singing, no nothing.

I tried to make the best of it though it's hard to have a good time when you feel like the outsider. But I did have a good time and Amy rocked it. She has such a strong voice and the band is so talented. She did sing a few of my favorite songs like “Swimming Home,” “Weight of the World,” “Going Under” and “My Last Breath.” But she didn’t sing my all-time favorite, which is “Everybody’s Fool.”

So Arkansas you need to lighten up! Now I know why performers say, “It’s great to be back in Texas.” It’s because we know how to rock, party and have fun. We’re not afraid to get rowdy and express ourselves. Its true things are bigger and better in Texas.

Steve Lang’s column: Ice fishing is the mortal way to walk on water

Andrew Lang with his catch

By Steve Lang

“Fish at the same mentality of the fish.”  – Cleve T. Lang

I remain uncertain to this day if Minnesota ice fishing popularity stems from a true desire to catch fish or for mere mortals to prove they, too, can walk on water.

As a transplanted Minnesotan, I proudly admit that my own ice fishing experiences were not vicariously gleaned from the Walter Matthau-Jack Lemmon flick, “Grumpy Old Men.”

While living in West Texas, I have shared tales of Minnesota ice fishing with my neighbors, associates, friends and all seven loyal readers. On many of the state’s 10,000 lakes (the number is actually closer to 13,000) ice fishing for walleyes, northern pike, sunfish, crappies and bass produces whole other annual communities. These temporary sub-divisions of housing range from basic to opulent; some equipped for season-long dwelling with bunks, satellite TV and kitchens.

Ice fishing is such serious business that one prominent cartoonist depicted a community education class for ice fishing practice. The image showed men dressed in full winter gear seated on folding chairs and staring at a gymnasium floor.

Jokes run rampant, the most tragic saga dealing with Sven, who died when his fish house was struck by a passing freight train. He had moved his shelter on the tracks in an attempt to catch the Great Northern.

But as always, truth remains stranger than fiction. Despite the frigid references, at least one Minnesota ice fishing tournament has been postponed this winter because temps rose and ice either melted or became unsafe.

This unusual occurrence definitely flips the Gopher State’s eco-system off-balance. Minnesota traditionally has two seasons, winter and construction. When construction season ends, many seasonal laborers line up for unemployment benefits, then push their fish houses onto lakes.

When premature warm weather produces an early thaw and hasty dismantling of the ice shanty towns, a surplus of leisure time follows.

Unemployment compensation provides needed income for the tavern business during off-peak tourist times. Yet, a certain amount of absence makes hearts grow fonder. Without ice fishing to counter-balance tourist dwelling, familiarity may breed contempt.

But, I wax psychologically, and psychoanalysis has little to do with fishing. At least, I have never encountered a psychiatrist named Wall I. Pike. Fishing, simply stated, may be defined as a jerk at one end of the line awaiting a jerk on the other.

Ice fishing, as I fondly recall, was surrounded by an 8-by-8-foot plywood shanty with a fuel-oil stove, space to cut four holes in the ice and a few folding chairs and maybe a small table in the middle.

My brother, Andrew, spent an entire winter on the ice, catching so many fish that he often neglected to bring them home. He kept butter, bread, salt, pepper and a fry pan in the fish house, and numerous northerns and walleyes went directly from lake to the skillet.

He kept track of all snared fish weighing four pounds or more by carving notches in the wall studs.

After one successful three-day span where he snared three northern pike, averaging nine pounds, with the largest weighing an even dozen, Andrew grew weary of cleaning fish. The 12-pounder rested on our cool cellar floor for a couple of days before he tentatively offered his catch to a neighbor, then held his breath.

“Best fish we ever tasted!” was the response.

Over the decades black Labradors usually accompanied the Langs, all named Butch. One Butch was particularly skillful in bobber-watching and fish-sizing.

Butch would perch alongside me in the shack, resolutely watching the cork. When a fish pulled the bobber under the ice, I first dove off the chair to block Butch from diving after it, then grabbed the line.

Butch possessed both a keen ability to judge “keepers” and where to find them. Perch smaller than his snout were promptly eaten. He spared – and avidly sought – fish of suitable size.

One night, with action slow, Butch whined to be let outside. I heard his footsteps recede, then a few minutes later, heard him return, crunching his paws on the snowpack. His steps paused, followed by a clunk, then Butch scratched on the door to come inside.

I looked out the door and saw a two-pound walleye, nearly frozen. I grabbed the fish, congratulated my dog and waited to hear the upcoming commotion.

Sure enough, within minutes a door opened and a startled exclamation was followed by a loud, “Where’s my fish?”

Action was slow that night, and after a brief conversation, Butch and I decided to skip the hassle of cleaning just one fish, so we returned the walleye to its rightful owner.

Steve Lang notes the proverb, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a week; teach a man to fish, and he just sits around in a boat (or fish house) and drinks beer all day.”

Sometimes weekly or daily column: A feel-good story, taking care of details, and the sometimes-social network

By Mike Perry, Alpine Daily Planet

Amazing amigos

Some things just make feel good about the human condition. Here’s one:

On Saturday, Feb. 18, the Big Bend Down Syndrome Association is holding its Valentine’s Dinner/Dance at 6 p.m.

They’re calling it the Amazing Amigo Group Party and it will be held at St. James Episcopal Church.

The Amazing Amigos are a group of friends who support each other have a blast doing it. If you or someone you has a disability, please pass the word along. There will be a light dinner provided and music for dancing afterward. Rick Ruiz will provide the music.

Watch for info at www.acarecommunity.com

Take care of the details, folks

The Missionary Baptist Foundation of America still has its Alpine Valley Care Center web age up, including this intro: “Contact Alpine Valley Care Center for all your Alpine, Texas, nursing home needs.”

As most of you know, the company – which is not in any way affiliated with the Baptist church or any other church or denomination – is closing the nursing home.

Take care of the details, people.

Reacting to the reaction to the reaction to the comment 

On my personal Facebook page, I posted the following after I learned Newt “Can’t Keep It In His Pants” Gingrich had won the South Carolina primary:

“Newt Gingrich is a serial adulterer, a liar, a cheat and mean little man. He considers himself a student of history simply because he wrote an awful novel about the Civil War. At first blush, it boggles the mind that he won the South Carolina primary -- resoundingly. But remember, this is the same state that brought you the Civil War, which killed half a million soldiers and untold hundreds of thousands of civilians. It also had more lynchings per capita than any other state. Plus, it calls the athletic teams at its largest state university the 'Cocks. By the way, are the U. of South Carolina women called the Lady 'Cocks? That could explain Newt's infatuation with the state.”

Steve Lang’s column: Name recognition and other forms of infamy

By Steve Lang

Not surprisingly, this column originated from a practical joke...

...using my name.

Of course I’m flattered, especially after I looked up all the Stephen Langs and Steve Langs and read about their accomplishments. Heck, I’d settle for co-authoring one of the most stupid/funny song titles ever penned, but as the lyrics go, “She Got the Gold Mine and I Got the Shaft.”

Anyway, it started like this. Two long-time associates, who organize a western gear and art show each year, decided, tongue-in-cheek, to add a fictitious gearmaker to this year’s presenters. A certain western retail outlet offers custom-made cowboy caskets in its inventory, and on a whim, they decided to add this bit of creativity – and a creator – to the 2012 catalogue.

“And Steve Lang was the first name that crossed our minds,” I was told.

Upon placing the fictitious addition of Steve Lang, Custom Cowboy Casket Crafter, to the gear and art catalog, three things were learned: 1. Gearmakers and western artists are pretty serious about their crafts and chuckles were few. 2. At least one asked, “is this the western artist Steve Lang from California?” 3. The California-dwelling western artist, Steve Lang, wrote to say that he did not craft caskets, but asked, “Would you want to take a look at my art?”

Since I knew at least one Stephen Lang who has excelled at his craft -- Stephen Lang the actor in “Gettysburg,” “Gods and Generals,” “Avatar” and more films -- I decided to investigate other namesakes who had amounted to something.

The longer I looked, the farther my occupation – ink-stained wretch – tumbled down the prominent rankings.

Hasty perusal found Stephen/Steve Langs from the nations of the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland and Facebook. Occupations included: oil and gas sales, including those in Kazakhstan; footballer; logistics manager with 17 years’ experience in supply-chain industry; actor; author of “The Accidental Terrorist”; owner of Mon Cheri bridal stores; partner in legal firm; legal researcher of violations of state and federal law by 24-Hour Fitness Inc.; former bass player for April Wine; photographer; director, automation tooling systems; channel partner manager; vice president; regional sales manager; executive vice president; legislative technical adviser; employed at Johnson & Johnson; State Farm representative; accountant; tennis pro; and extensive experience in capability management.

Incapable management? I can do that. In various settings, I manage to be as incapable as anyone.

I even located a Steve Lang who studied clarinet and piano at an early age, as I did, but unlike me, apparently conquered the intricacies of the notes and keys.

As far as custom-crafted cowpoke caskets (ie, Wrangler at Wrest) are concerned, one look at the cabinet-turned-doghouse I semi-composed four decades ago would complete the practical joke earlier mentioned, as well as prove carpentry’s regression in the wrong hands. Some fathers instruct their sons to “go out and build this.” Mine said, “don’t cut off your fingers.”

Not surprisingly, during my same-name search, I did not find a single Stephen Lang in the building trades.

Alpine’s Steve Lang’s words have often hammered him into a box.

Roxann Chavez's weekly column: 'Who are you?'

By Roxann Chavez, Special to the Daily Planet

“Who are you? I’ve never seen you before.” I’ve been asked that question a lot lately and I was baffled. I didn’t know how to answer that question. I just simply smiled and said, “Well, I’m me.”

 

What this individual didn’t know is that I am a mom, a wife, a columnist with the Big Bend Sentinel and Alpine Daily Planet, a photographer, a volunteer, an animal lover, an advocate, a school supporter, a music lover and lovable person. All, I could think to say was, “I’m me.” 

 

I was cornered at work by a salesperson the other day and he proceeded to try and sell me some advertising. He asked if I was the owner of the business and I said, “no.” He then started to fish for information and I smiled and knew his angle. He assumed because I had a badge that said store manager I knew nothing about sales. 

I quickly leaned in and informed him that I had eight years of advertising experience and I understood everything he was explaining to me but he wasn’t answering my questions, which made me wary of his honesty so he quickly changed his attitude and left conveniently. 

I had two friends in the store shopping that day and I asked them if I was that pushy when I sold advertisements and one of them laughed and said, “yes” and the other one said, “No, you were more like a friend and you never wore that much cologne.”

We all laughed, but it made me realize that we all have several talents, niches and experience ... which is a good thing, but we should really never judge someone because they are standing in one spot in their life. They may have been serving in Iraq a week before or just finished writing a book or saving a life.

In fact, get to know that person by asking just like that nice gentleman I met at the store. “Who are you?”

Roxann Chavez is an Alpine businesswoman and community activist.

 

Sometimes weekly, sometimes daily column: A reader's plan, price of natural gas, by the numbers, top quotes

By Mike Perry, Alpine Daily Planet

Yesterday, I printed a some excerpts from a healthy give-and-take discussion (not really sure I want to call it an argument) I had with Alan Slick, who, while he doesn’t live in the Big Bend, is definitely a Big Bend and Alpine aficionado.

I’d like to print the last comments Alan sent me, which I think are worth discussion, and I’d certainly welcome any readers to comment. By the way, I think I called Alan a “thoughtful conservative,” although from his emails, I think he’d be more comfortable with “thoughtful independent.” Here’s what Alan had to say:

“Last comments -- I promise. I enjoy this back and forth but I have to finish up some work as I suspect you do also.

“I agree that by definition you can't reason or compromise with the ultra conservative, or the ultra liberal.

“I think the current culture of hate and/or class warfare has been thrust on us by politicians of both sides, pandering to their bases. I can’t see any ethical differences between Republicans and Democrats. Most of the politicians historically are rich, white males so in that respect, your statement is true. My observation is that when blacks or females get elected and established in the political system they become the same way.

“I believe in a [social] safety net. Ideally we need one we can afford. If you believe what is written, both SS and Medicare are going broke on the current path and need to be changed in some way. I’m not at all defending the changes that have been made. This is a tough one for a lot of people, including me.

“Like a lot of people, I give a certain amount of time and money in the community over my tax burden. I could pay more taxes if need be, it’s just so frustrating when you see your tax money being wasted or stolen or given to cronies instead of used the way it’s supposed to be used. ‘Other people’s money’ always spends so easy. That concept -- waste of other people’s money, i.e. tax money, is what originally fuelled the tea party.

“The one thing I can suggest as a possible cure to many of our political problems is term limits. And I mean 1 (ONE) term. Take the word re-election out of the dictionary. Stop and think about that. No "bases" to appease, no re-election committees to finance, no special interests and their campaign contributions, no building lifetime power bases.

“The length of the term could be a little longer than a single term is now, say 6 or 8 years instead of 4, but the key is to make it 1 term. Crazy ? Good luck to any of us that want them to pass that, right? It seems like a "bipartisan" issue to me.”

Natural gas prices

Pete Smyke reports that the price of natural gas on the spot market, according to today’s NYMEX, closed at $2.77 mmbtu. An “mmbu” is close to the equivalent to an “mcf.”

As of today – and for the past few months – customers of Southwest Texas Municipal Gas Corp. are paying $17/mcf.

In an email I saw that quoted Pete, he also brings up – again – the possibility of local governments converting their motor-vehicle fleets to natural gas.

Geologists headed to Alpine

The annual meeting of the south-central section of the Geological Society of America will be held March 8-9 in Alpine.

In the society’s technical program during the meeting, the focus will be on Big Bend National Park and vincinity, with a title of “A Decade of Change.”

Sul Ross is hosting the event.           

Field trips and workshops will include:

• Quaternary geology and hydrogeology of the Big Bend: The Rio Grande/Rio Bravo. This will include a day trip to Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park
• Igneous Petrology of the Big Bend: A day-trip to Big Bend National Park
• Geology of Colorado Canyon, Big Bend Ranch State Park: Raft/canoe tour of Colorado Canyon
• Techniques in field hydrogeology and hydrology workshop
• Town hall meeting to discuss the Geological Society of America’s strategic plan

By the numbers

• 34 – Percent of Americans who think there are strong conflicts between the young and the old.
• 38 – Percent of Americans who think there are strong conflicts between blacks and whites.
• 62 – Percent of Americans who think there are strong conflicts between immigrants and native-born citizens.
• 66 – Percent of Americans who think there are strong conflicts between the rich and the poor and believe there’s some serious class warfare in this country.
• 64 – Percentage of those making less than $20,000 who perceive a class conflict
• 66 (again) – Percentage of those making between $20,000 and $40,000 who perceive a class conflict
• 71 – Percentage of those making between $40,000 and $75,000 who perceive a class conflict
• 67 – Percentage of those making more than $75,000 who perceive a class conflict.
• The class-war perception crosses political lines in significant numbers: 73 percent of Democrats, 68 percent of independents, and 55 percent of Republicans see strong conflicts between the rich and the poor.
• 46 – Percentage of Americans who said the rich are rich because they knew the right people and were born into the right families.
• 43 – Percentage who said the rich are rich due to their own hard work.
• 20 – The percentage of Americans detecting serious conflict between the rich and the poor has risen from 2009.

Quote of the day, No. 1, Blame Game

"Mitt Romney’s campaign would have you believe that every job lost over the past three years is President Barack Obama’s fault. That includes the 820,000 jobs lost in January 2009, even though Obama didn’t become president until the 20th of the month... . The Obama campaign isn’t much better. They want credit for every job created, but not for every job lost... . To buy much of this requires you to hold deeply ridiculous beliefs about the American economy. You must believe that Obama bears responsibility for events that predate his presidency and deserves applause for the demand created by aging cars and worn- down machinery. You must believe that Congress, which controls fiscal policy, and the Federal Reserve, which controls monetary policy, bear little or no responsibility for the economy, but that the president, who controls neither fiscal nor monetary policy, is the primary driver of job creation." Ezra Klein, author of daily Wonkbook on Washington Post’s web site

Quote of the day, No. 2, Moderate Republicans

“George H.W. Bush. Bob Dole. George W. Bush. John McCain. For all the talk about how Republicans are desperate for a conservative alternative to Mitt Romney -- and the audition process that elevated Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum in turn -- a look back at the men who’ve won the GOP nomination since Ronald Reagan left office suggests that maybe a majority of Republicans are happy to have a moderate as their nominee.... Perhaps the GOP always has been and always will be inclined to nominate relative moderates, and conservatives only break through if they manage an exceptional mix of principle and charisma, and come along at exactly the right moment. By those metrics and others, Goldwater and Reagan were candidates unusually well suited to the primaries in which they triumphed. This year Paul is the only Romney alternative who has managed to excite anyone for an extended period of time. And if that’s the choice, more Republicans than not will probably prefer the moderate." Conor Friedersdorf

Quote of the Day, No. 3: Teacher quality

"Suppose your child is about to enter the fourth grade and has been assigned to an excellent teacher. Then the teacher decides to quit. What should you do? The correct answer? Panic! Well, not exactly. But a landmark new research paper underscores that the difference between a strong teacher and a weak teacher lasts a lifetime. Having a good fourth-grade teacher makes a student 1.25 percent more likely to go to college, the research suggests, and 1.25 percent less likely to get pregnant as a teenager. Each of the students will go on as an adult to earn, on average, $25,000 more over a lifetime -- or about $700,000 in gains for an average size class -- all attributable to that ace teacher back in the fourth grade. That’s right: A great teacher is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to each year’s students, just in the extra income they will earn." Nicholas Kristof

Steve’s column: Metal chickens, cement chickens and KFC (Kentucky Fried Crazy) events

By Steve Lang, Alpine satirist, humorist and funny guy

A recent venture into the blogging world convinced me that twisted imaginations also come home to roost online...

...sometimes in the form of five-foot tall metal chickens.

According to a hilarious woman dubbed the Bloggess, the metal chicken rode home from a discount outlet store because her husband refused to allow her to buy any more bath towels.

Whatever.

The husband expressed his initial displeasure at a five-foot metal chicken ringing his doorbell, and I quote from the blog:

“Victor was surprisingly p-d that I’d ‘wasted money’ on an enormous chicken, because apparently he couldn’t appreciate the hysterical value of a five-foot chicken ringing the doorbell. 

“Then I said, ‘Well, at least it’s not towels,’ and apparently that was the wrong thing to say because that’s when Victor screamed and stormed off, but I knew he was locked in his office because I could hear him punching things in there.”

I do not possess one of these creations – yet – but Clarissa does own a two-foot tall concrete rooster, complete with chef’s hat and apron and dubbed “The Pampered Chick.” The Pampered Chick traveled to Alpine from Wayne, Nebraska, home of the annual Chicken Show celebration usually held the second weekend in July.

Recently, Wayne’s Chicken Show was named one of the nation’s 10 wackiest events/festivals. This, of course, prompted me to look up the entire list, which includes:

10: National Tom Sawyer Days, Hannibal, Miss. Now in its 55th year, this annual celebration of the works of Mark Twain takes place in the river-side town of Hannibal, where the novelist spent his childhood.             

9: World Championship Cardboard Boat Races, Heber Springs, Ark. Some 4,000 spectators gather to cheer on the competing corrugated cardboard crafts as they race to be first across the line of a 200-yard course.             

Roxann Chavez's weekly column: Weddings, music, crazy basketball moms and a couple of shout outs

Newlyweds Armida and Michael DiCicco ready to face the challenges of life

By Roxann Chavez

What’s your old school preference? I ask because I was at a dance celebrating the wedding of Armida and Michael DiCicco with Letty Gonzales, Natalia Hinojos and Dennis Martin. 

The music was awesome and D.J. Mikey did a great job.  Everyone knows Armida by her maiden name Gonzales. She is the daughter of Loretta Gonzales and a sister to Amy and Melissa Gonzales. The celebration took place at the American Legion Hall and the newly wed couple are both in the military so it was my pleasure and honor to be there to help them celebrate their marriage. 

As I was sitting in the corner in the dark I closed my eyes and used my hearing to see the moment. I could hear giggling, laughter and feel the presence of people passing me by and smelling cologne and perfume but I opened my eyes to a familiar song, September by Earth, Wind & Fire.  Letty reached over the table and slapped my hand out of excitement.  She said, “Let’s go dance.”  I didn’t hesitate one bit.  I stood right up and took off to the dance floor. 

It was so much fun. It’s funny how a song can trigger your inner spirit. I sometimes think that our inner spirit truly speaks for us when we have no words to express how we really feel. I love music it’s in my soul. 

Occasional weekly column: Libraries, hoops, musical wakes, football unis and other stuff

By Mike Perry, Alpine Daily Planet

New library is pretty awesome

The new Alpine Public Library is certainly going to be one of the city’s jewels.

I’ve walked through the place on a couple of occasions during the past week and the best I can tell, it will open for business within two weeks, maybe a bit longer, maybe not quite that long.

But it’s happening. The building is finished, an army of volunteers are stocking the shelves and taking care of a million major and minor details.

I’m one of those who believes a public library is the true heartbeat of a city. You can tell what kind of city you live in by taking a stroll through its library. It’s where we meet, where we learn, where we entertain ourselves, where we explore new worlds, where we find answers … and where we discover new questions.

Plus, a public library has no age, gender or ethnic bias, at least the ones that truly live up to the name – “public.” As I’ve said on several occasions, this place is for, by and of the public, of the people. The library – and, by definition, it’s staff – doesn’t care how old or young you are. It’s there to serve you. It couldn’t care less about your color. And it gives absolutely no thought to your sex or your sexual preference, your political persuasion or the thousands of other things that make each of us different from everyone else. It can, however, provide you with an endless number of words, opinions, facts, figures, profiles and case studies about all of the above.

One of the truly wonderful things about living in the Big Bend is the almost universal reverence for knowledge. The citizens of our extraordinary piece of the human condition have a love affair with libraries. In every corner of the Big Bend – Alpine, Fort Davis, Marfa, Valentine, Marathon, Terlingua and Sanderson – you will find libraries and enthusiastic readers.

The 20,000 or so of us who call the Big Bend home are an isolated bunch but we’re far from uneducated. In fact, I honestly think this is the most educated, thoughtful and analytical citizenry I’ve been around. Yeah, we have a few Neaderthalic jerks, but the area’s leash laws keep them fairly well contained.

One last thing: All of us need to be very, very thankful to the Alpine Library’s board and to the Friends of the Library. These people put it all on the line to get this job done.

We also need to give a special thanks to the city and county for their spirit of cooperation. And the county’s can-do attitude as the construction contractor cannot be overestimated.

Sometime in the near future, I’d love to publish a list of every person who contributed – with cash and/or labor – to this project. They all deserve special thanks.

Note from the wake

I got a note from Maria Moss, who’s with the Jon Hogan String Band, about the Townes Van Zandt wake. We intended to go but were forced to stay in town to take care of some personal business. Hate it when that happens.

Anyway, here’s what Maria had to day:

“Hi Mike. We're recovering from 14 gigs in 14 days, and headed to Marfa on Friday to play at Padre's. Hope you can come out and say hello. (We didn’t make it.) 

“The Townes wake, by all accounts, was magical; the Starlight was packed and they want to do it again next year. We had 17 artists in all, who in various combinations played 14 sets, including three short sets by the Jon Hogan String Band.
“Butch Hancock and his son Rory made a surprise appearance and delighted the crowd with a long set and moving, beautifully told stories about Butch's friendship with Townes. The wake was organized by [the Jon Hogan band]. It honored both Townes himself, on the 16th anniversary of his death, and his friend and bass player Wrecks Bell of Galveston's Old Quarter Acoustic Cafe, who has held a Townes wake every Jan. 1 since 1997. Thanks so much for you interest in this new West Texas tradition.”
Maria

Townes and Freddy made an awesome combo

I just listened to a version of Townes Van Zandt’s “Pancho and Lefty” with Townes and Freddy Fender. Awesome! This is one of those songs that’s open to so many interpretations … and one I never grow tired of.

A suggestion for my fellow Orangebloods

Many (most?) of my fellow Orangebloods are probably going to think I've finally lost my mind, but I think I'd like to see the Horns football team try some of the new uniform color schemes and configurations. I mean, I love tradition and UT is soaked with it. And the classic UT uniform -- burnt orange jersey, white pants, white helmet with the orange longhorn -- should never be discarded; in fact, it should still be the standard. But occasionally, I'd love to see the guys in something like what Oregon was wearing the other night, or what Oklahoma State wore when it beat OU.

Maybe a metallic black helmet with metallic grey/orange longhorns on the side? Or maybe a silver grey uniform with burnt orange numbers as accenting? Or maybe something a whole lot better (just make sure they do nothing that involves bright orange).

I watched my first UT-OU game in 1957 and I've seen a gazillion Longhorn games; believe me, I don't want to ever get away from the classic look (courtesy of Darrell K. Royal), but I would like to see some occasional special occasions.

By the way, the current UT look hasn’t been there forever. The burnt orange stuff with the white pants and the longhorn on the helmet mostly started with King Darrell. For instance, my great-uncle Pod Price played three years for the Longhorns, from 1950 to 1953. At that time, they wore pretty bright orange jerseys, sometimes with orange pants, sometimes with khaki pants. And the helmets were orange. I have the pictures.

I love Mack to death but I don’t think he’ll ever go for any kind of change, which is a shame. He’s into that “We are UT” mode, which, to be honest, gives me a pain in the ass. Mack, God bless ‘im, really needs to learn to set his hair on fire – I think it would mean a lot to the team.

One last comment, not uniform related: Isn't it about time that Deloss Dodds, the money-grubbing UT athletic director, rode off into the sunset. He has done an extraordinarily awful job of showing a complete lack of leadership during the ongoing disintegration of the Big 12, and his infatuation with ESPN’s money is going to come to haunt the Longhorns. Mack? We still need him. Deloss? I was tired of him after about two days -- too damned button-downed, plus he’s from Kansas State. Again, we need some guys who are willing to set their hair on fire.

Get out and see some hoops

It’s basketball season and there’s some pretty good hoops to watch in Alpine. Unfortunately, most of the fans at games I’ve attended – both at Alpine High and Sul Ross – have come dressed as empty seats.

That’s a shame. You’re missing some pretty intense action.

Here’s my take on what’s available:

1. The Alpine girls are young, young, young, sometimes putting three freshmen and two sophomores on the court. I don’t think they have a senior on the team. And, yes, they will probably wind up with a losing record, but they play with such passion … and they’re getting better and better each week. We need some people out at their games making some noise. It was embarrassing the other night at the Buck Dhome when Lake View had more people there than Alpine did.
2. Michael Valencia’s boys team at Alpine continues to encounter just about every kind of obstacle imaginable … and they keep pushing hard and improving. I still think this bunch can win its second straight district championship. There’s still a lot of adversity ahead, but stick with them; they’ll overcome.
3. The Sul Ross women’s basketball team will probably finish with five or so wins, but they are so much better than the past few years. They’ve been very competitive against every team I’ve seen them play. Jennifer Hayden, in her second year as head coach, is doing a solid job of rebuilding, recruiting and teaching.
4. Greg Wright’s Sul Ross men’s team can beat anyone in the American Southwest Conference. They’ve also proved that they can lose to anyone, but that’s not the point. This is a good team that plays with a ton of passion. And they play damned good basketball. Get off your butt and check ‘em out the next time they’re in town. I think you’ll like what you see. Man, I’d love to see a big crowd at the Gallego Center, making noise and getting just a little bit rowdy. Plus, I'd love to see the underclassmen on this team stay together; if they do, they could be a special team.

Shout outs

A couple of shout outs seem appropriate for some friends:

• Brian Shugart, my liberal in arms, celebrated his birthday at the Blues the other night. I think he hit one of those magic numbers in his 60s. I started to say comrade in arms, but I figured people would say we're Commies, which we aren't.
• Keri Artzt and John Blackman got married at their New Year’s Eve party. Couldn’t happen to a nicer couple of people. Now, talk about people who will set their hair on fire!
• Ed and Mary Walraven, two of our closest friends, celebrated their 39th annivesary last week. Ed and I and Cindy came up together as young, know-it-all kid journalists at the San Angelo Standard-Times. Ed's a Water Valley boy, Mary's a Throckmorton girl; now, Ed's a highly respected professor of journalism at Texas A&M, which to its discredit got rid of its journalism program back at the turn of the century (they kept their ag journalism department). I’ll never understand Aggies; they had the best journalism school in the southwest, far better than the one at UT and then they simply shut it down. Ed was a big reason the program was such a success. Mary’s the Parent Involvement Coordinator at the Bryan Independent School District. I was an usher at their wedding, on a stormy icy night that wound up stranding the entire wedding party for three days (or was it three years) in Throckmorton. It’s about a three-beer story, which I’ll be happy to regale you with at any time. Oh, and Ed and Mary are longtime fans of the Big Bend; they’ve been coming here every year since they got married.

The Borowitz Report: A letter from Kim Jong-un to the people of Iowa

By Andy Borowitz: Satirist or pundit?

PYONGYANG (The Borowitz Report) – The following is a letter from Kim Jong-un, Supreme Leader of North Korea, to the people of Iowa.

Dear Voters of Iowa:

In December I became Supreme Leader of North Korea. Pretty amazing development for a twentysomething who at the time was still living at home and spending all day playing Angry Birds. But there I was, receiving the cheers of millions of North Koreans, who usually don’t get that excited unless they’ve caught sight of a pork sandwich. (LOL)

Here is why I am writing to you today: on Tuesday, you will go to your caucuses and choose from among a field of Republican presidential candidates. And let me tell you, the idea of any of these people getting nuclear weapons scares the shit out of me.

This is just one of many differences between your country and mine. In North Korea, we lock up the criminally insane. In America, you let them debate on TV. Right now you have people running for president I would not trust to take care of my plants.

So who do I recommend you vote for on Tuesday? In a word, me.

If you think about it, I am the most Republican candidate of all. In North Korea, we have no taxes. We have achieved that through a conservative policy of no jobs. Also, we have no wasteful “big government” programs providing food, shelter or safe drinking water. And am I pro-life? Well, try this on for size: I believe that life begins at conception and ends at starvation.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: I’m too young to be president, since I’m under 35. Well, who would you rather have running your country, someone who’s under 35, or someone whose IQ is under 35? (LOL)

I think when you look at all the facts, voters of Iowa, you’ll realize that Kim Jong-un is the Republican who most deserves your vote. And if you’re still not convinced, remember this: at least I’m not Mitt Romney.

Peace out yo,

Your Supreme Leader

Sometimes weekly column: Big Bend Telephone rules, Bucks football, Stupid West Texan, great presidents, great marriages

High-tech innovation in the Big Bend

I had an interesting conversation with Rusty Moore earlier in the week while trying to put together a story on the phone and Internet problems faced in the Big Bend region on Monday.

Moore, who is the chief technology officer at Big Bend Telephone, gave me a good rundown of the problems that his company’s customers did NOT encounter. Yes, that’s right, while those of us who are tied hand-and-foot to AT&T had massive frustrations, Big Bend Telephone customers were doing just fine, thank you very much.

Given what I do for a living, I rely on uninterrupted Internet service. If the Internet goes down, the Daily Planet’s readership is zero. Not a good number for a young business looking to expand.

As Moore assured me, none of Big Bend Telephone’s Internet customers were affected. I had known that Big Bend Telephone had expanded its Internet service into Alpine and Marfa (with plans for much greater expansion throughout West Texas). And I had given some thought to talking to them about changing to their service.

I’m now convinced that changing to the locally owned company is the only sane thing to do.

Sometime after the holidays, I’m going back to Moore and do a full-scale interview on what Big Bend Telephone is doing … and their plans for the future. That company is one of our state’s hidden jewels. It’s innovative, it’s cutting edge and it’s dedicated heart and soul to the Big Bend region. Maybe just as important, the people who own and operate Big Bend Telephone live here, love it here and plan to stay here. They are our neighbors. They know the people in the Big Bend, they know our needs and they’re savvy enough to provide (and invent) products to make our wonderfully rural lifestyle better and better.

And, you know, there’s something kinda cool about knowing that I can run into a company’s top management at the grocery store or at the ballgame. Sure can’t say that about AT&T.

For the high school football fans

I watched both of the Class 2A state championship games not long ago.

Melissa beat Hempstead, 28-15, for the Division I title, and Refugio defeated Cisco, 36-35, for the Division II championship. That Cisco-Refugio game, by the way, was one of the better high school games I’ve seen. Wish I’d actually been at the game, patrolling the sidelines. (Actually, there’s an Alpine tie-in to the Refugio team, but I’ll write about that tomorrow.)

Anyway, here’s the point I’m winding around to: It struck me while watching the Cisco-Refugio game that the Alpine Bucks could have stayed on the field in a very competitive manner with either team. And I don’t think I’m looking at things through rose-colored glasses. We had a special team at Alpine High this year, the kind of team we can have every year with this coaching staff.

There’s no reason Alpine’s football team can’t be just as good as any in the state. I think 99 percent of the battle is “believing” – players believing and fans and family believing. And then following through on that belief with total commitment.

I think we all saw “total commitment” on the part of this year’s seniors. If we can build on that, Alpine athletes and their fans will be playing a game in mid-December in Cowboy Stadium. I’m not kidding. It can happen.

Oh, and when I say “total commitment,” I don’t mean that the players have to forgo all the other great things about being high school kids. You really can commit totally to excellence on the athletic field and lead a well-rounded life, both socially and academically.

Stupid West Texan of the Week award

Last week, we were driving down Holland Avenue and turned onto Fourth Street to go to Front Street Books and then on to City Drug.

After taking care of business at both places, we got back in the car and headed up to the Fourth Street intersection with Avenue E. Before getting to the intersection, we were cut off by maybe the stupidest person I’ve encountered since living in the Big Bend.

Yep, this guy turned off of Avenue E right into our lane. Pretty stupid, huh? Well, you haven’t heard anything yet.

The guy was on a bicycle and he was talking on a cell phone.

Think about this: A guy on a bicycle turns into the wrong lane, riding a bicycle, without wearing a helmet and talking on a cell phone.

As a somewhat fanatical cyclist myself, I’m often willing to give men and women on bicycles every break (no pun intended) that I can. A cyclist, after all, is in a very exposed position: He/she doesn’t have large amounts of plastic and fake steel surrounding her/him, like someone driving a car does.

But, my gosh, there are limits.

Cyclists in Alpine – well, cyclists anywhere – need to remember a few things. First of all, they have the same rights as any other vehicle operator out on our public highways and streets. They also have the same responsibilities. It’s pretty simple stuff really: (1) You have a right to be in your proper lane; (2) You can basically go anywhere that any other vehicle can go. However, you have to follow the laws that all other drivers – car, truck, motorcycle – follow. That includes using the proper lane, proper signaling, proper starts and stops, proper lane changes. And don’t talk on a damned cell phone while you’re driving or cycling.

Jeez, I do some pretty stupid things but I can’t think of anything quite that stupid. Sounds like something Rick Perry (no relation) would do.

Teddy and environmentalism

I just started reading an extraordinary book about Theodore Roosevelt, who rates No. 2 on my very short list of great presidents. No. 1 is Abraham Lincoln. Odd that my two favorite presidents were Republicans. The other great presidents on my list are: No. 3, George Washington; No. 4, Franklin D. Roosevelt; No. 5. Thomas Jefferson.

Andrew Jackson almost made my list but what he did to the American Indian was inexcusable. And Dwight Eisenhower almost made the list based solely on his warning about the industrial/defense complex.

But back to the point, which is the book I’m reading: “The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America,” by Douglas Brinkley (who is my current favorite historian).

In this monumental biography, acclaimed historian Brinkley examines the life and achievements of Theodore Roosevelt, our "naturalist president," and his tireless crusade for the American wilderness — a legacy now more important than ever.

Yep, as most of you know, Roosevelt was world-class hunter, but he was also, ahem, a tree-hugger. The man loved nature and wildlife and did everything in his power to protect both.

"The movement for the conservation of wildlife and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method," Brinkley wrote of Roosevelt, known as the "naturalist President" for his efforts in protecting wildlife and wilderness, merging preservation and patriotism into a quintessential American ideal.

“The Wilderness Warrior,” Brinkley's massively readable new biography, explores the wilderness of influences (Audubon and Darwin), personal relationships (Muir and Pinchot), and frontier adventures (too many to mention) that shaped Roosevelt's proto-green views.

There has, literally, been a ton of good writing about Teddy, and I think I’ve read much of it, but I’m finding out all kinds of new things about this great and complex man. For instance, did you know that Theodore Roosevelt spent the day of July 1, 1908, the tenth anniversary of the Battle of San Juan Hill, creating 45 national forests.

In this biographical study of T.R.’s campaign to save hundreds of millions of acres of wilderness, Brinkley writes that “the forestry movement would be forced down his opponents’ throats.” Roosevelt’s intense love for nature was, Brinkley makes clear, a conqueror’s love — triumphal Darwinism — and included a “blood lust” in hunting the wildlife he championed. I can handle that, particularly given the alternatives we’re facing today.

If he were alive today, I’m sure Roosevelt would be a card-carrying member of the Sierra Club (an irritating member, but a member, nonetheless). I also think he’d support such things as the ACLU. Oh, and I think he would have thrown every single one of the “Too Big To Fail” serious men in jail, to rot until hell freezes over.

Anyway, I highly recommend this Roosevelt biography. It’s certainly the best-written I’ve read.

Ready for 40 more

I highly recommend a story on Page B3 of tomorrow's (Thursday's) Alpine Avalanche. It's the 40th anniversary story and photo in the upper left-hand corner. The headline says: "Perrys to Celebrate 40th anniversary." 

There's a 40-year-old photo with the story. Great photo of two kids, one of them 24, the other 25. Yep, that's my roommate and me. Man, I have been so, so lucky. I tell everyone that I fell in lust first and then quickly fell in love. She's still the prettiest woman I know and the everlasting love of my life. 

Cindy surprised me, by the way, by placing the anniversary story in the paper. I mean, I didn't forget our anniversary. It's Dec. 30 and I'm planning to take Cindy over to Padre's on New Year's Eve to celebrate -- and listen to two of our favorites, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock. But, yeah, I hadn't thought to put anything in the newspaper. Some newsman I am, huh?

By the way, I've included the photo with this column. I posted the photo once before, right after my brother David sent me a copy. I didn't even know the photo existed. David (or his wife, Rosie) took the photo while they were visiting us in San Angelo shortly after we got married. Man, to look at us, you'd figure we'd conquered the world. Well, we had. We worked at the daily newspaper, which both of us had always dreamed of, and between us we were clearing $92 a week. Granted, we could only afford a house in a neighborhood where it was best to be well armed when taking out the trash. But, shoot, we were young and immortal; we didn't mind.

I have to tell you, it was refreshing to see that photo and remember that I was once young. I got to looking at myself in the mirror the other day and discovered that over the last couple of years, I've become an old guy, which kinda depressed me until I considered the alternatives (and thought through all the extraordinary memories).

Now Cindy and I need to work on the second 40 years. Let's see, I'll be 105 and Cindy will still be a year younger, the chick. I just hope that I'm still covering the Bucks when I turn 105, and I hope Cindy's taking the photos. 

If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention: 5 major ways corporate elites are degrading America

Editor’s note: Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the new book, "Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow." (Wiley, March 2008) He publishes the monthly "Hightower Lowdown," co-edited by Phillip Frazer. Hightower is a former Texas secretary of agriculture and a former editor of the Texas Observer.

By Jim Hightower, The Hightower Lowdown

"We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

What a paragraph! This sparse, 52-word opening of our Constitution did not merely launch a fledgling nation -- but a bold experiment in democratic idealism. The rest of the document consists of details, but this carefully considered Preamble set forth our nation's purpose. It declares to all the world that the BIG goal of America -- its very reason for existing -- is to create a society that embraces and fosters such egalitarian values as justice, tranquility, common effort, the welfare of all, and liberty.

As Benjamin Franklin put it at the time, "America's destiny is not power, but light." The light is our historic commitment to the common good, shared prosperity, and a government of, by, and for the People.

Whatever happened to that audacious reach, that grand vision, that proud progressive purpose? We know, of course, that our nation has never attained the fullness of this ideal, but over the decades, generation after generation has at least strived to get closer to it -- and made impressive progress. But today, some 224 years after the penning of the Preamble, America's corporate-financial-political establishment is fleeing the light, insisting that it's no longer possible or even desirable to pursue those democratic ideals that make our country important -- and make it work.

What's happened is that, from Wall Street to Washington, we have too many five-watt bulbs sitting in 100-watt sockets. As a result of their dimness, America's uniting and constructive ethic of "We're all in this together" and "Together we can" is being supplanted by a shriveled, dispiriting ethic that exalts plutocratic selfishness and scorns the public interest as intrusive, wasteful, ideologically impure, and morally ruinous. They're pushing us toward a forbidding Kochian jungle in which there is no "we"--money rules, everyone's on their own, and such matters as justice, general welfare, tranquility, and posterity are none of society's damned business.

The nation of no-can-do

In recent years, acolytes of the far right have contrived yet another litmus test of ideological purity to divide "real Americans" (themselves) from those who obviously hate America (all who do not agree with them). "American exceptionalism," they call it.

America has most certainly been exceptional in many ways, thanks to the pluck and democratic determination of grassroots folks. But that's not glorious enough for these extreme nationalists, who insist that ours is a God-ordained exceptionalism. They preach that ours is both a Christian nation and one bathed in the blood of free enterprise, thus God has blessed us with a moral superiority that lifts the USofA ever-sparkling above all nations that ever existed.

Never mind that our national morality has a few conspicuous hickies on it (ask a Native American, for example), the believers believe ... and that makes it true. They're also demanding that others believe -- or be branded un-American. To get right with the rightists, such current seekers of the presidency as Mitt, Newt, Rick, the other Rick, and Michele have bowed to the exceptionalists and are blissfully spreading this new gospel through their campaign speeches and websites. (Really, friends, how credible is America's claim to exceptionalism with those six carrying the flag?)

Roxann Chavez's column: Of family and keepsakes

By Roxann Chavez

What is your family keepsake? I asked my friend Letty Gonzales and she explained to me that when she was in high school she wore jersey No. 22 when she played basketball and since then when her kids hit the basketball court they chose to wear jersey number 22, starting with the oldest Harvey and then Ruby Gonzales and now her youngest son Ernie Rivera. 
It’s just something done in families to keep them close but what do we do when we are away from the things we enjoyed doing. We find ourselves in the stands cheering them on.

We attended Josefina and Juan Iniguez annual Christmas party, which means lots of food like menudo, but I’m sure there were more drinks than food in the house. We all gathered and played bingo and visited, laughed and joked around. It was a time for family and friends to gather and share in one purpose, to fill Tia Nene’s house with love and laughter.  Josefina’s keepsake is her Christmas party and everyone who attends.  She has a sign in her house on her kitchen wall that says, “ My house is small but it’s filled with love.”

I woke up yesterday morning and realized that my boys are grown and I no longer have to plot hiding Christmas gifts and planning Christmas dinner because they have their own agenda’s. And Jacob’s list is no longer this long list that ran for miles. He listed three things and gave me a hug and walked off.

I miss hearing his little voice begging me to buy him a toy or get him his favorite game. I miss all the little notes Joey use to leave me explaining to me what he wanted for Christmas and I miss hearing Jordie sitting in the living room playing the guitar and asking when the food would be ready. I miss my little boys; they are my keepsakes. 

I have to remember that I now have young men and not little boys But once upon a time they filled my house with love and laughter and that’s what’s fueled me up to this day. 

I now embrace my young men and with that I begin a new chapter in my life.  A journey for all of us but a journey led by God.

I hope you find your keepsake and treasure it this Christmas.

Roxann Chavez is an Alpine businesswoman and community activitist.

A son remembers, 70 years after Pearl Harbor

By Rev. Barry Abraham Zavah

On August 13, 1943, the attack transport USS John Penn came under enemy fire by planes off Lunga Point, Guadalcanal.  A torpedo hit the ship in the dark of the night and it quickly went down, stern first.  An oar slipped under the shoulder of one of its 35 survivors and after an eternity in the water, rescued from all but survivor’s guilt, a couple days shy of his 27^th birthday. 

In combat, they had each other and prayer to live another day with hopes for a much better future.  After the War, many Vets obtained a college education and a lower interest rate on a home mortgage.  But nobody 'gave' them anything.  The GI Bill didn't guarantee results. They worked long, hard hours, common to that generation, in order to make a living and support their family.

My Baby Boomer generation’s well-being was paid-for, along with most everything else, by our parents’ experiences.  Having first endured the Great Depression and then, without skipping a beat, a date which will live in infamy, December 7, 1941, followed by 4-plus years of the horrors of war and then, peace morphing into an oft hot Cold War and threats of nuclear destruction, they just couldn’t catch a month’s worth of a hardship-free break from Black Thursday of October 24, 1929 on – that is, until all the kids finally moved out.    

The Greatest Generation’s motivation for their children; driving their entire post-war life, was: "that you not suffer the hardships we did."   If you didn't hear that more than once from one or both parents, you're not a Baby Boomer.  

 Instant gratification wasn’t a matter of genetics; rather our parents over-compensating for what they saw as their own childhood.  Did they do “too much” for us and cushion us from many of life’s hard blows?  Alright, I admit it: “We Boomers had it pretty good!” 

Where were you when they crucified my Lord?

Daily Planet editor’s note: Here's another powerful column from Chris Hedges, one of the three or four truly great reporter/writers working today. It's a brilliant piece of passionate writing that every man, woman and child of faith should read and contemplate. Hedges gave an abbreviated version of this talk Saturday morning in Liberty Square in New York City as part of an appeal to Trinity Church to turn over to the Occupy Wall Street movement an empty lot, known as Duarte Square, that the church owns at Canal Street and 6th Avenue. Occupy Wall Street protesters, following the call, began a hunger strike at the gates of the church-owned property. Three of the demonstrators were arrested Sunday on charges of trespassing, and three others took their places.

By Chris Hedges, truthdig.com

The Occupy movement is the force that will revitalize traditional Christianity in the United States or signal its moral, social and political irrelevance. The mainstream church, battered by declining numbers and a failure to defiantly condemn the crimes and cruelty of the corporate state, as well as a refusal to vigorously attack the charlatans of the Christian right, whose misuse of the Gospel to champion unfettered capitalism, bigotry and imperialism is heretical, has become a marginal force in the life of most Americans, especially the young. Outside the doors of churches, many of which have trouble filling a quarter of the pews on Sundays, struggles a movement, driven largely by young men and women, which has as its unofficial credo the Beatitudes:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons and daughters of God.
Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

It was the church in Latin America, especially in Central America and Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, which provided the physical space, moral support and direction for the opposition to dictatorship.

It was the church in East Germany that organized the peaceful opposition marches in Leipzig that would bring down the communist regime in that country. It was the church in Czechoslovakia, and its 90-year-old cardinal, that blessed and defended the Velvet Revolution.

It was the church, and especially the African-American church, that made possible the civil rights movements. And it is the church, especially Trinity Church in New York City with its open park space at Canal and 6th, which can make manifest its commitment to the Gospel and nonviolent social change by permitting the Occupy movement to use this empty space, just as churches in other cities that hold unused physical space have a moral imperative to turn them over to Occupy movements. If this nonviolent movement fails, it will eventually be replaced by one that will employ violence. And if it fails it will fail in part because good men and women, especially those in the church, did nothing.

Where is the church now? Where are the clergy? Why do so many church doors remain shut? Why do so many churches refuse to carry out the central mandate of the Christian Gospel and lift up the cross?

Some day they are going to have to answer the question: “Where were you when they crucified my Lord?”

Why Republicans Embrace Simpletons and How it Hurts America

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen, and philosophers and divines." – Ralph Waldo Emerson

By James Marshall, Forbes

Since I report on American education, including the intellectual lassitude of American voters, foreign observers routinely ask me: Why Do Republicans Gleefully Embrace Idiots as Presidential Candidates?

The question naturally begs a larger question: How can a country, with the world’s highest national GDP, and absurdly complex systems regulating everything from credit default swaps to nuclear missile safety, possibly allow onto its national stage men and women of such transparently inferior intellect?

The easy answer is that there has always been a long, pathetic history of anti-intellectual paranoia in American politics, as Richard Hofstadter documented in his book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963). It is like kudzu. You just can’t kill it. No matter how advanced the U.S. becomes in technology, biomedicine, and weaponry, it not only attracts, but promotes, under the rubric of equal opportunity, a confederacy of dunces as Presidential candidates.

To be fair, Democrats have had their share of dolts, including the tax-cheating, race-baiting, college dropout Reverend Al Sharpton (who gained fame not only because of his courageous civil rights protests, but because he claims to be “Keepin’ It Real”; read: not formally educated), as well as Democrat-turned-Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond (whose 1948 campaign slogan was “Segregation Forever”). Nevertheless, in 2011, the God-fearing Ossified Party has rolled out the greatest assortment of Know-Nothings in its history, most of whom share a singular misconception: because I can do one small thing well (e.g., run a pizza chain), I can handle the world’s most demanding job.

At first blush, one thinks this embrace of incompetence has something to do with the uniquely American idea that anyone from any background can become President. It’s an old saw told to almost every young person in the country. I believed it. I also believed that I would be an astronaut or a professional basketball player.

However, reason suggests, that when a clear-headed adult, with no experience in national politics, no reputable training in public policy  -- as opposed to a bastion of Christian zealotry like the former Oral Roberts School of Law, which Michelle Bachman attended -- and little understanding of countries outside U.S. borders, says that he or she is running for President, his or her reasonable adult compadres should rightly say, “You are suffering from delusions of grandeur.” After all, you need advanced degrees to properly practice medicine, law, and nuclear physics. Why would we expect the Leader of the Free World to have anything less than the precise qualifications for such an elevated job opening?

However, only in America is no training or knowledge required to perform a job that is not only more complicated and demanding than the above three fields, but one which regulates the above three occupations and all sorts of other complex and nuanced occupations around the globe (including undercover agents in foreign lands).

But that’s only the beginning. What's far more troubling is that you can attract a huge amount of support in this country precisely because you lack qualifications to be president. Such reasoning is, in effect, the raison d’etre of all so-called “outside-the-Beltway” campaigns of recent vintage. However, to fully grasp why inexperience, incompetence and outright stupidity has such an emotional hold on Republicans in particular, you have to understand a core principle of conservative  orthodoxy: intelligence equates with moral relativism.  Which is why, after twice-electing a genuine, but fatally corrupt, thinking person in Richard Nixon, the Republican Party moved away from its historically pragmatic moderation in search of morally doctrinaire ideologues. Naturally, this paved the way for conservative extremists, who, while short on smarts -- or perhaps because they were short on smarts -- stuck to “conservative principles” like maggots to rotting meat. As my late diehard conservative Republican mother told me when I asked how she could rabidly support such an obvious dullard as George W. Bush, "Because I don't trust the smart ones."