Columns/Opinions

Saying goodbye to Tebow

Often in the ups and downs of life, we have a tendency to focus on the negatives. At times it seems like there is nothing but negatives that happen, and sometimes there are just a string of negative things, one after another.  Something in the house breaks down, and the next thing we know the car isn’t running right. Then we have a flat tire.   We go to the store after that one ingredient we need as we are caught in the middle of fixing this dish and discover we don’t have something. Upon arriving at the store we head down the aisle where the item should be, and alas, they have run out of the item or no longer stock it.
We wake up with a sore throat that is the beginning of a cold and get up to go to the bathroom and stub our toe. Ever pick up something out of the refrigerator and suddenly the item, usually a gallon of milk, slips from your fingers and spashes all over the kitchen floor?  

Attention all drivers: The little kids will be back in school next Monday and we all need to be on high alert. It has been nice for the past few months not worrying about school zone speed limits, but that is soon to change.
Also, please consider this your friendly reminder: We are not to use our cell phones while driving in school zones, unless it is an extreme emergency and be prepared to prove it. That will be hard if you are chatting on the phone while driving and all at once you enter the school zone still talking. I am sure there will be friendly police handy to explain the error of your ways.
This will be the third full school year that cell phone talking or texting in a school zone is illegal. Be careful.

School will soon begin and there will be many children out on our streets this time of year. Be mindful when you drive and take extra precautions to keep all those little ones safe.
This is also the time when schools are gearing up for another nine months of teaching our children reading, writing, and arithmetic, among other projects such as science, agriculture, and sports. A teacher’s hands are full with getting the message across to the students.
Can you help? Every year in our schools volunteers are needed. Do you have an hour or two a day or just an hour a week that you can help? Would you be willing to contact your school district and offer your services, such as watching children on the playground or reading to a group of them? Or just mentoring one or two children by spending time with them one on one to help them read or with their math?

 I have said it in the past and I’ll be glad to say it again. If you want to clean up your neighborhood, pick up a trash sack and start walking. At least keep the streets in your end of town clean. That’s a small part but it’s a start. And it isn’t a very rewarding activity. Ask anyone who regularly picks up streets and highways.
It wasn’t that long ago, probably last year, a gentleman called me to tell me that he had filled more than a dozen trash sacks on the county road where he lives and it didn’t take but a day or two to see the roadsides full of trash again.

We all were glued to our televisions in amazement as the story broke in Ohio; three young women who were held for a decade escaped from their captor. The big news media went back to stories on others in the country who had been abducted and forced into sex, even having children by their abductors.  In most of the cases, people living next door to houses holding victims had no idea what was going on.

Maybe we are in a society where people do not pay attention anymore to things that we should. We are so busy in our lives with televisions, computers, game systems, and so on, time for sitting on the porch and chatting with neighbors has all but gone by the wayside for the most part. Many of us do not know the people who live next door to us, much less their names.

You really appreciate the Piney Woods and lakes of East Texas if you venture farther north and west of this area.  There is just mile after mile without much greenery or trees. I do appreciate trees, although I do not want a single one in my yard.  I have gone to too many homes and taken pictures of too many of them in houses to want any myself.  But I appreciate the ones that surround most of us.

In driving to north Texas, through Oklahoma and on into Colorado we discovered one city has a unique way of letting people know they are having yard sales. It wasn’t that big a town and on the main street we saw several cars parked that had signs on the back windows advertising yard sales.

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By Marlene Bohr

I don’t think a week at least can go by but what one of us doesn’t see a homeless pet somewhere in the cities and in the countryside. I think all of us at one time or another have swerved to avoid hitting one of these hapless strays that are tossed out like so much garbage after they are born, simply because no one wants them.

Even the guy on the Price is Right preaches constantly about spay and neuter your pet; he reminds us all when signing off each show for the day. Is anyone paying attention? Probably not.

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Dear Editor:

When I was a teenager in high school living in Daingerfield, I could not wait to leave this small town. I felt smothered, life seemed boring, and I had bigger dreams than this town could handle. But a funny thing happened.

I moved to Dallas to pursue a career as a flight attendant, and I loved it.

It gave me more cultural opportunities than I had ever been exposed to.

Traveling all over the world interacting with people from a variety of cities, states, countries, economic backgrounds and races. It was an interesting place to be. Life wasn’t boring anymore, and I had all of the opportunities in the world to learn and expand my horizons in preparation for a new career that I knew I would love.

So with all of the opportunities in a larger city, it was still a lonely place to be.