It’s getting pretty hard to keep plants alive with hundredplus degree heat. It’s even harder when a plague of grasshoppers invades your land.

To The Editor: A brief comment in the national news tonight called my attention to a current article by Mitt Romney in The Atlantic magazine. Rather than pen a festive, America-loving message for Independence Day, the GOP Senator and former presidential nominee chose to write a dark, sad opinion piece.

To The Editor: “The truth shall set you free.” What an interesting statement by someone who has labeled a movie as a “big lie.” If you have not watched the movie then you do not have the insight to determine if it is a “big lie.” Are you afraid you will not be able to disprove the data provided in the movie? You can “talk the talk” but can you “walk the walk?” I challenge you to watch the movie and find inaccuracies. Or, are you afraid to be set free? Lynnette Maddux Columbus.

To The Editor: The request by the LCRA to reduce the water runoff monitoring requirements should not be taken lightly. Monitoring cost are minimal, not even rounding error as a percentage of total operating cost.

To The Editor: I would like to respond to another letter to the editor printed in the July 1 edition, titled “Turn Your Clocks Back Fifty Years.” The first thing I would like to address is that the writer incorrectly declared that most Americans wanted to keep Roe as the law of the land. One poll stated that 64% of Americans did not want Roe overturned (a number closer to half than most.) A Gallup poll stated that only 47% of Americans think abortion is morally acceptable (again closer to half than most).

I’m attempting to understand what happens as we grow older. Actually, what I’m really trying to figure out is why I forget so darn much.

To The Editor: Attention fellow citizens of La Grange: I am writing this letter to inform you of my actions regarding the drainage issue we are facing in our homes. I have attended every city council meeting in 2022, however, I was unable to attend the last meeting (6/27), due to the exact problem at hand.

To The Editor: My head is spinning, my heart is broken for all the marginalized folks who are left out, not taken seriously, experience no understanding or compassion, who are blamed and bullied for circumstances beyond their control. There are those who want to take us back to the dark ages.

Buried in the back pages of a Houston newspaper in July 1942 was a brief account of the sinking on the fifth of the month of a cargo ship “somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico.” German U-boats were on the prowl off the coast of Texas, but there was no reason to get folks all riled up about it! Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, seashore inhabitants of the Lone Star State had a bad case of the jitters for the first time since the Civil War. The United States was at war for exactly a month, when Galveston staged a blackout and ordered total darkness for the duration in a three-block strip along the beach.

Dear Boss, Please let me explain why I don’t have a column today, although I have struggled mightily to produce one. I blame it on the tomato.