February Thoughts

Some random thoughts while thinking about voting for the first candidate that outlaws political signs. I’m ready for wildflowers to be the most colorful things on our roadsides ...

• I was saddened to hear do the death of longtime La Grange elementary teacher Sandra Ellison this week. She was a teacher for two of our kids, and she was a great one. She was also a Boy Scout leader when one of our boys was in scouts and we shared funs trips together to campouts at Space Center Houston and the Battleship Lexington. She had such great energy and enthusiasm about life. I know she guided so many local kids on so many great adventures all over the country through scouting. She was also really active in the Camp Invention program at LGISD, and an important mentor to younger teachers at the school. She leaves behind a tremendous legacy of education in so many forms.

• Robert Svrcek is still keeping people fed.

The longtime La Grange HEB store director has been retired from the store for years, but still volunteers at the AMEN food pantry. Recently he brought me some homemade dried deer and pork sausage he made, that had hung in his smokehouse for three weeks. It was amazing.

He was my old boss at HEB here when I worked there in high school and junior college. He was the best kind of boss – demanding but fair. And what an eye for detail! Whether I was spot mopping the floor or straightening the cans on the shelves, he’d notice when you did the job right – or not.

• Loved the Super Bowl and the halftime show. But so many commercials about crypto-currency and electric cars – two things I don’t know much about, but I suppose to need to familiarize myself with.

Lost two different wagers betting on the Bengals in the game (one, a soda, to a co-worker, and one to my son that cancelled out his still-outstanding IOU to wash my truck dating back to the college national title game). But I’m not out nearly as much at Houston’s Mattress Mac, who bet, and lost, $9.5 million when Cincinnati lost the game. My family and I actually saw Mattress Mac just a few weeks ago. We were in Houston on a Saturday and decided to stroll around the Gallery Furniture on I-45 – the site where we picked out the best couch we ever purchased about 17 years ago.

Mac was at the front desk of the entrance, saying “hi” to people and answering the phone.

When my wife walked by later she said he looked like he was intently organizing a bunch of pens. That guy is truly an original.

• If you are not watching the Winter Olympics you really are missing out – snowboard cross and curling have replaced the alpine skiing events as my new favorites to watch.

• If you haven’t voted early yet, don’t go to the courthouse. The elections office has moved to the Meadows Building at 275 Ellinger Rd. They moved because they needed more space, but that move bothers me.

My mom tells stories of how people used to bring chairs and blankets and sit on the courthouse lawn of election nights of old and wait to hear vote totals during heated races. The Fayette County courthouse is one of the most beautiful and historic places in the county.

But going to vote early is one of the only reasons most people go to the courthouse. The other reason is to get your vehicle registration renewed. And soon that office is going to move to the under renovation Pioneer Bank building. Plus three of the four entrances to the courthouse are still closed – not sure if that was security-related or COVID-related. I wonder if that will ever change. I remember as a kid walking into the courthouse for one reason or another with my folks and marveling at the way the stone of the doorway was worn into a concave shape by the footsteps of so many people for so many years.

But it’s not the public place it used to be, I guess.

And that’s a shame.