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The other evening, my gentleman friend and I were discussing our country’s sad state of affairs with an acquaintance who is about 10 years younger than me. Trying to end the conversation on a positive note, he proposed that the one thing the three of us could be thankful for is that we grew up in some pretty good times. Looking back at my youth, I agree with him.
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Texas’ power grid reported record electricity use early last week. Both the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas are urging residents and businesses to voluntarily reduce electricity use as temperatures soar above100 degrees over much of the state. So far the grid, which administers 90% of the state’s power load, has been able to keep up with demand.
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Months ago my husband and I sat at the bar at Rail & Rye to have some drinks. Our bartender, Braxton Carnes, who then lived in Montgomery, was easy to talk to and made us feel welcome. We always enjoy a good bartender who chats with us as they’re working. David and I are both talkers over a good drink, and most times bartenders seem to have a creative honesty about them that we really enjoy. During our conversation he mentioned several things that interested me, and I went home wanting to know MORE about his story.
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The Sandbar, over the last several years, has related several atrocious Indian massacres among our early Texas settlers, particularly in the 1830s. They included the wellknown Parker massacre in May of 1836 in which Cynthia Ann Parker was captured to become the mother of Comanche Chief Quanah Parker. There was also the massacre about 1837 that left the Gilleland children parentless.
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Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick claimed last week that Gov. Greg Abbott is sabotaging the Senate’s work because of their ongoing feud over which approach to property tax reform is best, The Dallas Morning News reported. Abbott vetoed three bills by Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, who has been Patrick’s point senator on increasing homestead exemptions in order to provide tax cuts. As of Friday afternoon, he had vetoed 31 bills.
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The topic for today’s column was prompted by a story I read in The Texan leading up to the May 6 city and school elections. It was about sitting Palestine city council member/mayoral candidate Krissy Clark and her votes on the tax rate, city council salaries and expenses, but primarily the deferral of her property taxes.
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Dear readers, if you recall the decade of the 1980s with any sense of fondness, this is for you. Let’s start with the massive depth of music that came out during this time, but before we dive too deeply into that ocean of goodness, I would be remis to leave out the source by which young people were introduced to new music. Yes, I am talking about the one and only – the media vehicle that changed everything – MTV. On August 1, 1981, the world was introduced to something it had never seen before, music videos. (Side note: Ironically, “Video Killed The Radio Star” was the first video launched by MTV.) For me and my friends, we were in awe of how the song lyrics we knew so well came to life via this new format. I will concede that some of the videos were a bit weird, but we watched them anyway, sometimes all night long.
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For over a year now, I have consistently seen a young lady, who appeared to be a mom with a young daughter walking to her job. I admired her and was inquisitive to see what her story was. I loved how she was always dressed so nicely in her uniform and how the daughter looked so cute carrying her backpack as they held hands. My teacher heart strings were definitely pulled as I knew in that backpack was work for her to do while her mom was busy making a living for them.
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