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Local football game will be interesting for wrong reasons

Tonight one of the most interesting high school football games in the country will be played literally down the road — about two miles — from me. Unfortunately, it will not be interesting in a positive way.

You see, one of the top teams in its class in Texas will play arguably one of the worst, in a playoff match. The team that makes it, sadly, interesting is 0-10. That’s right. It has a 0-10 record this season and makes the playoffs. That is because there are only four teams in its district and the school’s classification allows for four playoff spots per district. And it just gets worse. The Spartans of Houston Scarborough High School also have an unenviable 57-game losing streak.

The Goliath to the Spartans’ David is West Orange-Stark. It is a “football powerhouse” — to put it in trite sports-speak — for its division. This is despite the Mustangs have twice been beaten in non-district games.

The WO-S losses came from a school in a larger division and another from a smaller division, the latter is my high school alma mater as a matter of fact. Both teams are ranked in their respective Top 10 in the same year-end poll.

That the Spartans are playing West Orange-Stark at the neutral site just two miles away from me has nothing to do with the hubbub that has landed Scarborough in nationwide media outlets this week. That the Spartans are meeting the Mustangs or any team at all, “that’s the ticket,” as long ago Saturday Night Live  Jon Lovitz character Tommy Flanagan “the Pathological Liar,” would say.

Such a scenario as that for the Spartans stirs up the hard-core fans who listen to sports talk radio and who despise that whole “Every kid gets a trophy” mindset. What really is behind the changes that added playoff spots at the same time divisions based upon school enrollment were reconfigured? One stated reason by the University Interscholastic League — the University of Texas System-run entity which governs public school athletic and academic competition — is the addition of divisions and added playoff spots will create a “perfect storm” of football that will let all championships take place on the same weekend. Well, kind of. The two Division 1A, or six-man football team championships, will happen the weekend before.

All 12, yes 12, playoff games will occur at the Jerry Jones palace to football, a.k.a. AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

 “Having all football championship games in one location truly makes for an amazing experience for the coaches, athletes and fans, and last year it lead to a Texas high school football attendance record,” said UIL Executive Director Dr. Charles Breithaupt, in a press release. “We are excited to return to AT&T Stadium and continue to improve on a world class event in the state of Texas.”

And I am sure that all the games on the Dallas Cowboys’ turf will make for one big Jerry-load of money to be spread around — likely from the UIL, the schools, TV, and not to mention Jerry Jones.

Some coaches argue that allowing more teams a playoff spot can be good for the team and the fans, that the kids can actually get better by competing in a playoff game. Maybe so.

Or, it could mean that teams such as Scarborough will add needlessly to its long string of defeats and be blown out of the water by ridiculous scoring margins.

I have kind of mixed feelings over the “every kid gets a trophy.” I won’t elaborate due to the complexity of my sentiments. But I think, regardless of the outcome of WO-S versus Scarborough tonight just down the street, the pitfalls can be many with four playoff spots in a district that ranges from four to seven or so. The quality of the game can change where lopsided scores are the norm and the confidence of young players sink instead of rises.

Lots of luck to the Mustangs and Spartans tonight. The wind chill right now is 37 F, pretty cold for late fall here in Southeast Texas. Dress warm!

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Flying the skies for better times

This year is about in the books. Were it not for turning 60 next year, I’d say: “Yeah, get it on!” But I think I will need the almost 10 months before hitting that mark to prepare. You know, I’ve been saying: “You’re getting old” for some time. Damned if it isn’t really happening now.

I ruminate over this subject, not in the cud-chewing sense, because this year wasn’t one of the best. Like other years it has had its good parts and bad ones. But these type of things usually balance out. Not so much this year. Up until 2014, for the past nine years, I have pretty well written on this blog something at least once per day on weekdays. That hasn’t been the case this year.

The reasoning is a combination of all the crap that was heaped upon my life, and death. The latter being the double whammy of losing two brothers within two months of each other. A knee injury and the workers compensation system I faced caused an extended length of time in pain waiting for surgery then physical therapy. I still have mobility issues with the knee. I went through the hassle today of attempting to locate a place to tie my shoelace because the knee doesn’t work properly. I also started a steady schedule in my part-time job that is 32 hours per week. That’s almost a real job. Combined with my duties as a regional vice president for my Union local, it actually is more than a full-time job at times.

And on and on. You don’t want to hear my tales of woe and I don’t particularly care to relive them. But this is just my way of saying I want to do more on the blog. Maybe overhaul it a bit. I haven’t added or taken away a bookmark in quite awhile. That changes today.

I am including on my list of bookmarks a link to a site called GlobalAir.com. It is not a political site nor humor nor any of the categories I generally seek out for a read. GlobalAir is a reference site for the aviation world. Why do I care about that? First of all, I find this a site of great potential to search when I need information about aircraft and pilots. I am not a pilot, by the way. I once was a nervous flyer. But during one time during my full-time career as a reporter I was tasked to write about transportation. It happened to be a rich environment because one of our “neighbors” in my newspaper’s area happened to be George W. Bush.

I found myself writing many times about “TFRs,” for Temporary Flight Restrictions, which were least restricted when the President was in Washington and increased to the point that at least two general aviation airports were shut down whenever some high-powered leader came to see “W” at the Crawford ranch. I might just have enough information to write a book of potential pitfalls when a President decides to live in your town or decides to become President while he lives in your town. It’s not exactly a cakewalk.

So, a gentleman from GlobalAir.com introduced me to the site and asked if I would be interested in linking my blog to it. GlobalAir.com appears as if it has a load of useful information for me as a journalist and I can only imagine how helpful the site could be for one who’s livelihood is in aviation.

We are almost to a new year and I’m not 60 until next October. So I am getting an early start to 2015 with hopes of making it much better than the last year. I can’t say adding a link about aviation will do it, but it is is a place to take off.

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There’s hope for the VA this Veterans Day

Yesterday, during my monthly visit to the VA clinic for a methadone refill, I stopped to think of just how drastically the patient population at the facility had changed over the years.

There are still grayed and sometimes feeble veterans of World War II although that population is shrinking rapidly through attrition by time. The same is happening with Korean War veterans. And my generation, those vets of the Vietnam War and that era, are still in great number even though we too are getting gray and sometimes moving about much slower.

What struck me as I waited on a visit to my PA was the number of women who were getting called into the primary care practitioners’ offices, and they weren’t just those accompanying their veteran husbands. Likewise the faces of men seem younger and younger. Some may have lost limbs from roadside bombs although those disabilities are getting more difficult to spot because of better prosthesis and post-battlefield care. Sadly, there too are the growing numbers of young men and women who carry the burden of post traumatic stress disorder, the silent and sometimes crippling mental wound.

Much has been written lately about the significant failures discovered in the Department of Veterans Affairs. As one who has written professionally about the VA over the years and my status as a veteran who uses VA for health care, such problems are not so shocking. I had hoped when the President appointed former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki that the twice-wounded and one-time commander of the 1st Cavalry Division would set the VA straight on its shortcomings. I include both the benefits administration and well the health administration.

Sadly, that didn’t happen. Shinseki wasn’t responsible for all the problems about which employees blew whistles to the media. Still, the general failed his assignment.

I hope, as I do whenever a new VA secretary is chosen, that Bob McDonald will cause marked improvements to the VA. The West Point grad and retired head of Proctor and Gamble is talking a good game. Although, many leaders of troubled organizations often do that.

McDonald has laid out some explicit changes for the VA. Among these are: “Establishing a single regional framework that will simplify internal coordination, facilitate partnering and enhance customer service. This will allow Veterans to more easily navigate VA without having to understand our inner structure,” says a VA blog post on its Website.

That might mean little to those without a great knowledge of the VA organization. However, if this change is made — once all the corporate-speak is overlooked — this could make for a significant transformation in how the VA does business.

While it may seem apples to oranges when thinking about the VA shortfalls such as long waits for doctors this could translate to better and faster care down at the patient level. Think about it. Remove a whole extra, unneeded level and who knows what possible good might come.

I may be wrong. I have been many times before. But on this day of remembering veterans I think the VA could be on the course for better service in its health care, benefits and, yes, even in its cemeteries the VA maintains. That is my hope, at least. Those who fought and served before me gave us all the opportunity to hope. So why not take that chance?

Happy Veterans Day.

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Accidents, believe it or not, do happen

There are no accidents.

I am not saying that sentence in the sense that everything happens for a reason. I do not know whether that is true or not true. No, I say there are no accidents, anymore. Once that was the case.

My body has scars that have been with me through much of my life.

Weird little first-finger top? It was an accident. Believe me!
Weird little first-finger tip? It was an accident. Believe me!

Take a look at this finger picture.

It’s my finger. And I’ll cry if I want to, cry if I want to, cry if I want to. You would cry too if it happened to you.

Well, if you were a 5-year-old inquisitive kid who just HAD to see if he could make the belt stop on my Father’s Shop Smith table saw. You might cry. Or maybe not. All I remember is all that freaking blood coming from the top of my finger.

 

And, naturally, I wasn’t supervised. Well, I was “supervised” by my older brother. He was 13 or 14 then. He was using a buffer-type attachment to the saw to buff his shoes. And what a pretty shine his shoes had. I guess. He was, after all, cutting the table saw off! I don’t think I got any blood on his shoes. Jeez, what a mess. My brother Robert passed away last April he was the one buffing his shoes. My brother John died about two months later. He was the one who, while visiting a cousin picked a shotgun from up off a rack and decided to do some remodeling of our cousin’s home. He missed me, the child standing on the other side of the wall, by not very much. Of course, my brothers’ recent deaths had nothing to do with what child safety advocates today would be doing flips over. Take it easy everyone! These were accidents. Nothing but accidents. Parents with five boys cannot be five places at once! “Lib, you take those two and I’ll take these three,” I could hardly imagine my Pop saying to my Momma. “We’ll put a rope around them all.”

No they couldn’t do that. If it was today they’d end up on the 6 o’clock news for ropin’ the kids. But Holy Moses Lincoln-Mercury! Whatever happened to accidents?

An interesting aside. The belt almost severed the top of my finger. It was just hanging by very thin skin. My doctor cleaned it thoroughly. Then he put the top of my finger back on my index where it belonged. Nary a stitch was used. And my finger grew back, rather ugly. But it grew back. I can still smell the hydrogen peroxide the doctor flooded my finger with that Sunday afternoon.

Up in the East Texas Pineywoods near the place where I grew up, a man driving a tractor-trailer the other day ran into the back of a stopped school bus. The 72-year-old Louisiana man who was driving the pickup reportedly dozed off for a split second and struck the Kirbyville school bus. Maybe a half-dozen students were taken to the hospital though none were seriously hurt. It was said the gentleman driving the truck went to the hospital to check on the kids. One of those commenting on the story on local media said one of the kids the man went to check on was his daughter and the father had a lot of empathy for the driver, who reportedly was told to leave.

A number of people were apparently outraged that state troopers filed felony injury to a child charges on the driver. A felony charge! The 72-year-old could be sent away for up to two years in prison if convicted. And why was this? Was the driver drinking? No, said the troopers. Was he on druuuggggssss? No. No. The man nodded off. Has that ever happened to anyone before?

There’s a meme that has gone around Facebook asking mostly us Boomers how on Earth did we ever survive as children? Our parents let us stand up in the seat with no seat belts and car seats were as foreign as tofu back then. Why my parents, let us boys ride in the back of our pickup truck all the way from East Texas to Houston and back one time. How dare they? And we just loved it! And we loved them.

We’ve come to a point in the road where the concept of “an accident” has gone the way of riding our bikes all over town as kids and coming home on hot summer nights when it turned dark. There is nothing wrong with safety and saneness and all of those “s” words. But having an ogre in every story seems as if it is a coping mechanism for the insecure. No we shouldn’t tear down our fences and let the whole world’s kids play in our swimming pools unattended. Yes, we have car seats and seat and lap belts. And we should use them.

We also need to realize that someone might be to blame when something bad happens and some folks may not. We have to realize that there are accidents. And that they happen and sometimes we just can’t do anything about it.

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Republicans won Tuesday night. At least some did, while others lost big.

The national media has seemingly examined this mid-term General Election ad nauseum. Some say it is a referendum on President Obama while others believe that it was simply a matter of the turnout being limited to old white guys. Hey, I resemble that remark, since I just turned 59!

Whatever the reasoning for more “reds” than “blue,” the elections on specific issues and issue-oriented candidacy seem more difficult to grasp when one puts aside the Republican congressional majority and my entire state of Texas once again electing GOP candidates. Oil and gas did not fare particularly well, for instance.

Voters in the San Francisco Bay-area city of Richmond rejected the council candidates on which oil giant Chevron spent millions to elect. Mayoral hopeful Tom Butts whipped Chevron candidate Nat Bates by a 16-percent margin. Chevron, the city’s largest employer, is facing a lawsuit filed by Richmond over a 2012 fire — one of three in recent years — that sent about 15,000 people to local hospitals for treatment. Chevron had sought candidates who would push for a favorable outcome for the oil and gas company. The company, through PACs spent millions on billboards and mailers for Tuesday’s elections. This led one professor to tell NPR that a favorable outcome should not be expected throwing money at a “no” election.

The issue of hydraulic fracturing — at least within the city limit of Denton, Texas — was also nixed. Here, some 58.6 percent of voters in this North Central Texas north of Fort Worth chose to keep so-called “fracking” out of the city. The oil and gas industry outspent opponents by more than a half-million dollars. The city, a college town that is home to the University of North Texas, sits within the 5,000-square-mile Barnett Shale, one of the nation’s largest natural gas fields.

This election in Denton is not the last word, at least when it comes to the powerful oil and gas industry in Texas. The state’s largest petroleum-related lobby and the Texas General Land Office — headed by Republican stalwart Jerry Patterson — have filed lawsuits against the city of Denton over the election results.

Republican State Rep. Phil King of Weatherford says he also plans to introduce legislation that would prohibit such bans as the one voters enacted in Denton.

Perhaps those oil and gas interests who found themselves beat in Richmond and Denton are just a single part of the Red State folks who were not as lucky as the candidates winning Tuesday evening. Outgoing Land Commissioner Patterson, himself defeated in the Republican primary as a lieutenant governor candidate, will turn his office over to a young Hispanic fellow named George P. Bush. This Bush is the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and is grandson of President George H.W. Bush and nephew of President George W. Bush. Figure out what all that means. Or maybe, one should read it and weep.

Although one might get the idea that this writer is anti-oil and gas, such an assertion would prove wrong. I own minerals that I would love someone to drill or, even to just lease. The latter usually brings me more money than the former since I do not own vast minerals. I don’t agree large petrochemical companies such as Chevron who perhaps derives more income from overseas interests, should push around cities with their money. If they have that much freaking money, send some of it my way.

As for fracturing, there is the distinct possibility that it is causing earth tremors, particularly in areas of East Texas. That cannot be good. Neither is it good some of the unknown about what fracturing can do to underground resources such as our water. The industry needs to give a s**t first about quality of life instead of the immediate petro dollars it will receive from buyers around the world.

Perhaps I am preaching to the choir. But the distinction is that this choir members makes a little, very, very little, off oil and gas. And though my opinion means nothing to those operators who drill in my tiny mineral interests, my voice along with those in Richmond and Denton can mean a lot when we get together. It is something the oil and gas industry needs to think about. Although that is probably just a pipe dream. When industries spend millions to influence a local election outcome, that spells greed and associated with it is tank trucks full of arrogance.