Columns

C APITAL Highlights Residents in Central and Northeast Texas are still cleaning up after a winter storm last week snapped power lines and tree limbs, causing widespread power outages, canceled flights and damage to homes and vehicles. At its peak, nearly 400,000 Texas households were without power, according to poweroutage.

I was about six years old at the time of this incident. I didn’t chop down a cherry tree like George Washington, but I did tackle three small pine trees. My dad had planted three small pine trees in our enclosed front yard. The only shade trees we had around the house were located outside of the picket fence. He planted these three pine trees on the east side of the house in hopes of them growing up and casting their shade on the porch of his house. He watered and nurtured them and they grew to be about 10-12 feet tall. That’s about the time I decided to go on the “attack.” Before he became a house mover in 1945 he was a carpenter. He kept his tools in a large trunk or tool chest. This chest was housed on our enclosed porch where I played. One day out of curiosity I managed to open the lid to this heavy chest and found myself a nice looking hatchet that fit my hand just right. Well after looking around in my play area, I couldn’t find anything to chop so I ventured outside. As I looked around the bare yard I saw nothing but three tall pine trees. Well, pretending I was a great lumber jack, I proceeded to chop around on not just one but all three of the young trees. After I tired of this I figured I better put that hatchet back into the chest before dad came home and found out.

T EXAS History An expectant hush fell over the Fort Worth courtroom, as the defendant in the most sensational Texas murder trial in generations took the witness stand on Feb. 14, 1912.

As St. Valentine’s Day approaches, we are all reminded to buy flowers or chocolates (or even diamond jewelry); to cook a special dinner; or plan a really special evening otherwise with a spouse or loved one. I wonder if St. Valentine would have approved of all this hoopla, so focused on romantic love (eros), rather than any of the other types of love named by the Greeks: agape (unconditional, even sacrificial love), storge (parental/ familial devotion), and philia (friendship).

My heart pounded, hoping yet fearful. Would he? I waited, my eyes searching his face in the dim light of night.

To the Editor: Fayette County’s and Texas’ voters should clearly understand this: The Trumpist Republicans who planned, paid for, and pardoned the attempted overthrow of our government now control the House of Representatives thanks to Texas’ and other states’ gerrymandered maps and anti-voter laws that enabled state legislatures to pick which voters to heed and which to silence. Predictably, they have delivered a chaotic spectacle that demonstrates just how thoroughly they want to seize power not in order to govern but instead to dismantle government and take away our freedoms.

To the Editor: Thank you for printing Cindy Rodibaugh’s letter Jan. 20, concerning gender confused students and restrooms.

Looking down on snow covered northwestern Texas from a private plane on Feb. 4, 1956, a photographer for the Associated Press likened the “gigantic, white no-man’s land” to “a huge white sheet thrown over a world-sized bed (with) no sign of roads or people.”

Our garden looks pretty bare this time of year. Kale and cabbage are the only crops still producing.

Have you met or known anyone that is a constant complainer? First of all, you try to be nice and listen intently on what the person is complaining about but after a few minutes, you begin to wonder if the person has anything nice to say about anything. You begin to wonder if they complain because they don’t want to change their own lives.