Get Your Flu Shot, Governor Says

While scientists race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is urging everyone to get a flu shot.

Texans need to do their part to keep moving forward the state’s recovery from the pandemic, the governor said. Last week, he also eased restrictions placed on businesses in most of Texas.

In a new public service announcement, Abbott reminded Texans that flu season already has arrived. Getting a flu shot is especially important this season to help keep hospitalizations down during the state’s ongoing response to COVID-19, he said.

“I got mine today,” Abbot said. “I can tell you it is the best way to reduce your chances of contracting and spreading the flu. So protect yourself and loved ones this flu season and get a flu shot today.”

Open your heart to music

As Hispanic Heritage Month events happen across Texas, a new book encourages people to celebrate in song.

“Corazón Abierto: Mexican American Voices in Texas Music,” is set to be published Nov. 15 by Texas A&M University Press. The author is Kathleen Hudson, founding director of the Texas Music Heritage Foundation in Kerrville.

“By sharing the artists’ accounts of their influences, their experiences, their family stories, and their musical and cultural journeys, ‘Corazón Abierto’ reminds us that borders can be gateways, that differences enrich, rather than isolate,” Texas A&M notes in promotional material for “Corazón Abierto,” which translates in English as “open heart.”

Another Texas A&M book might be of interest to those who correctly guessed last week’s question about which celebrity appeared in the first “Don’t mess with Texas” commercial in 1986. Legendary Texas blues guitarist Stevie Ray

Vaughan played “The Eyes of Texas” in a memorable start to the campaign. Vaughan, who died in a helicopter crash four years later, is remembered in a Texas A&M book released earlier this year, “Seeing Stevie Ray,” by photographer Tracy Ann Hart.

The “Pride and Joy” of Dallas, Austin and blues music lovers everywhere, Vaughan was correctly identified by “Capital Highlights” readers Lew Cohn, of Highland Lakes Newspapers; Maria Whitsett, of the Burnet Bulletin; Colleen Bailey, of The Gladewater Mirror; Michael Flores, of the Bay City Tribune; Nancy Wilson, of the Marlin Democrat; Terry Fender, of the Bowie News; and Andrea Schutter Riebeling, of the Fayette County Record.

Riebeling, a real estate agent, added she had the good fortune of seeing Stevie Ray when she was about 20 years old. “I was just standing an arm’s length away from him at the concert hall in Austin, so he really touches my heart!”