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Life at the red light, simply freaking amazing

Check this out.

I am driving east on Calder today and stopped for the light at Lucas. I engaged my signal for a right turn, ready to make a right on red. This, Yuppie, for lack of a better description, stopped in the southbound lane on Lucas. He made about a half turn into the westbound lane on Lucas, adjacent to me, then straightened up and drove south, passing in front of me. Doesn’t sound too bad, right?

The driver — in an SUV — didn’t signal when he was about to turn left. I mouthed some words like “WTF” with a look of puzzlement on my face because he narrowly missed hitting my work car. The guy couldn’t have heard me, of course, since our windows were up. More importantly, he couldn’t  hear me because HE WAS TALKING ON HIS FREAKING CELL PHONE!

Adding insult with no physical injury, the guy FLIPPED ME OFF!

Talk about your gall. There it was. As the departed Richard Pryor might have said: “All unmitigated and s**t.”

Think about this.

The guy was talking on his cell phone and shoots me the finger with the hand that was on the steering wheel. How is that for driver agility?

I didn’t do anything wrong except staying put as one obeying traffic laws might do.

It isn’t like I flipped him off. I just kept my comments to myself.

Yet, Mr. Big Shot unleashes his anger toward me.

It leaves me stunned, astonished, dumbfounded, dumbstruck, flabbergasted, stupefied and so forth.

WTF?

 

 

 

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Remembering Great Lakes Recruit Training Center

A classmate in high school said via Facebook that her son would be reporting shortly to Navy boot camp at Great Lakes, Illinois. That got me thinking about my days at Great Lakes and wondering the sort of experience her son would have there in today’s 21 century Navy. After all, I served during the last century. That makes me feel like an ol’ salt!

I reported to AFEES, that’s for Armed Forces Entrance and Examination Station, Houston, in July 1974. The Defense Department renamed such centers Military Entrance Processing Stations, MEPS, in the early ’80s. The Navy had some kind of program that let you enter early. I forget why. I think the only difference made was in figuring your time in service so I enlisted a couple of weeks early. Back then, enlistments were for a total of six years with different active and reserve configurations.

Most people, such as myself joined for four years active and two years inactive reserve, the inactive being the IRR, or Inactive Ready Reserve. Back in the days in which I joined — this being as the major hostilities were winding down in Vietnam — little thought was given to time served in the IRR. In fact, the thought of being called up from IRR was something which would only happen with the likes of a world war. That all changed with Iraq.

I read the other day about some a–hole wanting to bring charges against an Iraq War vet in the IRR who wore his uniform to an Occupy Wall Street protest. Yeah, I know you aren’t supposed to wear your uniform when you are separated. Even wearing parts of the uniform is not allowed. But if someone was to have taken my Seabee foul weather jacket away from me during my inactive reserve years after the service that I wore it, they would have to tear it from my dead and very cold hands!

Some time along the line, the enlistment period also changed. A total of eight years service is now required.

There used to be, sort of, a choice of where to go to boot camp. San Diego, Orlando and Great Lakes were all available for male enlistees when I joined. The only choice at the time for female boots back in the mid-70s was Orlando, if my memory serves me. I chose Great Lakes because of the weather. Two of my brothers enlisted before me. One went to Great Lakes, the other San Diego. I think all three of us joined around the same months, though in different years. I figured San Diego and Orlando would both be pretty warm during the summer months. It could get hot at Great Lakes, just north of Chicago, but it could get really freaking cold in the winter. That reminds me of a photo caption that was in my boot camp “cruise book.” That’s kind of like a school yearbook. There were pictures of our boot “company” and the rest were stock photos taken at various times in boot camp. This one picture was taken during the winter. Shown was a sign saying “Keep Off the Grass.” A snow drift was about halfway up the sign post. The caption read: “Aye, aye sir!”

My friend’s son will be going to Great Lakes during the winter, so that will be one obstacle to overcome. I may be wrong, but from what I have heard of and read, boot camp today will not be as difficult in some respects as it was when I joined.

It wasn’t such a long time before I enlisted that a chief might just take you out behind the barracks and give you a little physical “extra  military instruction,” if you know what I mean. That type of thing had been outlawed by the time I joined. Still, there were instances in which a sailor who was far off the right path could face near or actual brutality. Some levels of punishment when I was in boot camp were pretty mindless. I have mentioned “Happy Hour” here before. I only went once, when I failed an inspection for not folding my skivvies the correct way. The happy hour was an hour of intense physical exertion. Running laps upon laps around the drill hall with my rifle at port arms. Exercises with my rifle, a 9.5-pound, M-1 Garand, — the U.S. battle rifle from pre-World War II-to just prior to Vietnam — included holding the “piece” out in front of you until being told to stop. It felt like your arms were going to just collapse. Real screw-ups might find themselves in the brig, facing some “fun” with the Marines. Fortunately, Happy Hour was the pinnacle of my punishment.

On the other hand, there are some rules in today’s Navy boot camp that would have made many of our lives’ difficult in recruit training. For one thing, you can’t smoke in boot camp. You can’t smoke in a car. If your parents come to see you, even they can’t smoke. You also can’t drink alcohol while on liberty. The Navy has really gone to the extreme on drinking. Not in boot camp but at my duty station could we buy beer from a barracks vending machine. I suppose this Prohibition-like fervor is good for getting sailors in shape for wars in the Muslim world where alcohol is prohibited.

Navy boot camp wasn’t terribly difficult for me, looking back. It made me reach inside and pull out some things. It helps you adjust in making a transition from the civilian world to the military one, that can be difficult for some. My friend’s son, I would think, is in his early 30s. That transition might be a bit more difficult for him — having been out in the adult world for awhile now — or it might not.

As I told my friend, Patti, I think my decision to join the Navy is one of the best I made in my life, and, man, have I made some decisions. I hope her son will be able to look back 30 years from now and say the same.

 

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Boom goes the thunder. Enter a brave new world of Houston football!

A clap of thunder about 2 o’clock this morning sharply transferred me from Dream Land into the here and now.

I immediately rose and went to the window, as I always do, to see the rain coming down in buckets. It’s called “drought behavior.” Shortly after listening to the torrential rain and various booms of thunder, the electricity flashed momentarily. It wasn’t enough to stop the alarm clock but a “beep” did warn me that my sleep apnea CPAP machine had stopped. Pushing the button to restart Mr. CPAP, I momentarily wondered whether I should get up and set the alarm on my cell phone as a hedge against a longer lasting lapse of electric power. I said: “ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz … ”

No matter how crappy my day was otherwise, I eventually and fully woke this morning to a new world. The world into which I had awakened had never before came forth with a Houston Texans playoff win. But lo and behold, Bevis and Butt-Head, here we were.

Although I half-assed picked them to win during a post last week I was really kind of doubtful as to the reality of such a feat. Sure enough, the Texans beat the Cincinnati Bengals 31-10 with air connections, ground-pounding  and defensive moves combining the two.

Andre Johnson rightly — as he is greatness and has been with the Texans for a long while — scored on a 40-yard pass play in which he made Bengals DB Adam “Pacman” Jones look like “Old Man” Jones. Pacman showed his great sportsmanship by storming off the field and shoving his defensive coach when the latter tried to say something to him. What a class act, that Pacman. Maybe it’s time for him to get serious about that hip-hop career.

Tailback Arian Foster, as was superbly described by CultureMap Houston’s Chris Baldwin, had the “Texans’ logo shaved into his head like a high school kid getting pumped up for the big homecoming game. It’s a move that delights his teammates, bringing a bunch of pros back to when they played the game for fun.” Foster infected the fans with that fun by scoring twice including a beautiful 42-yard run that brought a flashback of big man Earl Campbell from the “Luv Ya Blue” days.

Rookie J.J. Watt — an associate of Buckingham U. Badger during his college days at Wisconsin — looked as graceful as a ballerina when the defensive end leaped for an interception from Bengals QB Andy Dalton and ran the 29 yards for a game-changing touchdown.

It brought me a little happiness to see the Texans, who were battered, bruised and beat-up this year, pull off this impressive win. But I suppose that is just my fan-dom showing. Oh what the hell.

The Oilers Texans have their work cut out for them in the next go-round with the Ravens in Baltimore. The Birds beat them up pretty good when they last met, which was in Houston. As seemed to be the case last week, a lot of the sports talk people I sometimes hear on the radio have already written off the Texans. Yet it really doesn’t matter because even if they were somehow to pull off a conference championship or, God forbid, a Super Bowl win, they won’t get the respect they deserve. That’s just the way it goes if your radio or TV market isn’t named New York, or Dallas. Or if you are trying to be the “anti-homer” station.

It is wishful thinking but I pick Houston 20 Baltimore 19.

My other picks:

Denver 28

New England 21

LBJ has one last miracle in him.

Green Bay 35

New York Giants 20

Looks like a Manning won’t be going to the Super Bowl this year.

New Orleans 35

San Francisco 10

As long as Drew Brees ain’t hopped up on that cough medicine he advertises, the Saints look good. Just kidding about the cough medicine.

 

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Suicide by cop in our town: Just life in the city?

This is a heck of a way to end the week.

A man was shot and killed by police here in Beaumont (Texas) this morning after what appears to be some form of “suicide by cop.” Lee Adam Dixon, 37, of Beaumont, was shot multiple times by police after he began firing at officers following a standoff, according to a Beaumont Police Department press release.

Officers responded to a call of a “suspicious person” shortly before 8 a.m. in the 1500 block of Elgie Street in the South Park section of Beaumont. Dixon was sitting, dressed in all black, at the end of a cul-de-sac with his hands in the pocket of a heavy jacket. The temperature this morning was in the 50s. It certainly wasn’t cold enough for a heavy jacket.

Beaumont police shot and killed Lee Adam Dixon, 37, after a stand-off in which he said "I'm going to die today!"

 “He was asked to remove his hands from his pocket but he refused to comply, said the release, posted by Beaumont PD Sgt. Rob Flores. “Because of the subject’s failure to comply with the officer’s instructions, they feared that he was armed.  They continued to tell him to remove his hands from his pocket but he refused.  The man then stood up and began to walk away.

“As Officers followed, the man pulled a revolver from his pocket.  Officers attempted to contain the subject who continued to walk away as he was heard saying, “I’m going to die today!”  Officers followed the subject who continued to walk away with the gun now back in his pocket.  The man walked two blocks west and north of his original location and ended up in front of a residence located in the 1700 block of Harriot Street.  Officers were able to contain the man at that location and Crisis Negotiators were on scene to attempt to persuade him to surrender peacefully.”

Unfortunately, that peaceful ending didn’t happen. Negotiators talked to Dixon over a patrol car loudspeaker, but the man only mumbled unintelligibly, said police. At one point Dixon got down on his hands and knees and began walking back and forth on them in the yard, his hands remaining in his pockets. Dixon then pulled the gun from his pocket and began shooting multiple rounds at the officer. That is when police officers fatally shot Dixon.

“The officers, fearing for their lives as well as the lives of innocent neighbors in adjoining houses, had no alternative but to return fire,” said the statement posted by Flores.

After the scene was deemed safe, paramedics began treating Dixon at the scene although he was pronounced dead on arrival at Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital emergency room.

It is hard to know all the specifics from the press release, as well-written and informative as it was. For instance, was there any opportunity for the officers to use non-lethal force such as Tasers? It must be a very difficult call to make, however. Once someone aims and begins shooting at the police things are pretty much over. You might realize the guy has a revolver and has only so many rounds in the gun. But then does he have a speed-loader or an automatic or even a hand grenade in the other pocket?

Once again, this is the kind of incident most of us don’t think much of if it happens in the really large cities. But, thankfully, it doesn’t happen all that often in this city of about 115,000.

Right now we seem to have a couple of armed robberies — both of businesses and individuals — every day. It’s just life in the big city, right? Yeah, in the big city, not here.

Yes, I will bitch about things the police do when they are wrong. But I have to give them the benefit of the doubt here. I have covered incidents such as this as a reporter. Fortunately, each time the cops used extreme restraint just as they appeared to do here. But sometimes there is nothing someone can do when an individual wants to die.

Go Texans.

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Complexities of the coast, fog, smoke and all that jazz

Today I ended up doing squat. That kind of made me feel bad since I had intended to do more than squat. I even thought about going to the beach but I was concerned about smoke.

A massive – or so I was led to believe — wildfire had been burning in the area of the McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge. The beach I go to is McFaddin Beach, a part of this U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service area. I stuck my head out the door last night to check the temperature and I detected the rich, though not totally unpleasant, odor of smoke from burnt organic material. How do I know all that? Well, for one thing I grew up in the Pineywoods of East Texas where one could tell the smell of lingering woods fires from all else. Secondly, I’ve now lived here in Beaumont, about 45 miles from the uppermost Texas Coast, for awhile now and likewise recognize the distinct smell of burning coastal prairie.

This morning I woke up to a story that had gone, well, worldwide from what I’ve seen. A more than massive car pileup occurred near Port Arthur that was purportedly caused by a mixture of smoke and fog. The mess involved between 50 and 200 cars. That particular area is probably 20 miles South of where I live and about an equal distance from near where the marsh fire has been burning. It was pretty much a mess with 54 people injured, four critically. Helicopters, ambulances and buses took the injured to, I suppose, all the area hospitals.

I was kind of confused this afternoon when I read an article on the AP wire, quoting our county’s emergency management director saying the large marsh fire which I had heard so much about, was now out. I sent the EM coordinator an e-mail, asking how long these fires continue to smolder, because I took it that the smoke involved in the pileup was from the large fire I had been reading about. So far, I’ve not heard from him. I would be surprised if he does write me back.

The marshes abutting the beaches and extending for varied distances in all directions except South are part of the 1 percent of southeastern Texas-southwestern Louisiana tall-grass coastal prairie remaining from the some 7 million acres in pre-settlement days. I grew up looking at stately trees and gradual hills, saw a little of the world here and there and for the longest it took me a while to find the marshes attractive. But yes, I do find those marshes pretty and even more so because I know they are all that is what is left of ancient land in our particular environs.

A spark from welding was what was said to have caused the marsh fire which burned, according to at least one story, 10 acres. I think I’ve seen other stories indicating more acreage than that have been charred. But sometimes the fires on the wildlife refuge in Southeast Texas and as well in the federal area across Sabine Lake in Cameron Parish, La., are set in so-called “prescribed burns.” This is how it works, the US F&WS says:

 “Burning, if done at the right time of the year, will reduce the amount of dead marsh hay present and allow other species to grow. If fire is suppressed, several years of dense marsh vegetation will shade the surface, preventing other seeds from germinating or surviving. A productive burn removes vegetation that is just above ground and is usually conducted while there is still some surface water. Water acts as a barrier for the soil, preventing it from getting “cooked” while removing the vegetation. After a fire, most vegetation sprouts from the roots and the marsh is quickly covered with new growth. In addition, many other species of plants will sprout from seed as the sunlight warms the soil. “

Okay, well we’re getting out past the oil platforms. I talked to a nice lady at Sea Rim State Park, next door to McFaddin Beach, this afternoon and they reported no smoke at all. As a matter, she didn’t even see any fog coming to work this morning. However, she said perhaps several other marsh fires had also been burning in addition to the larger one.

I suppose that is the spotty nature of coastal weather and marsh fires. If I get my butt in gear and try to actually do something, such as go to the beach, I will make sure the fog is sufficiently “burned off” (no pun intended — at all.)