News

As a columnist for a newspaper that chooses to concentrate on only uplifting news, I try and keep my offerings motivating, inspirational, or at least contemplative with a sprinkle of happy ending. You can get all the tragic news you want by the push of a television remote button or the tap of a finger on a phone or tablet. So, yeah, concentrating on the positive is sort of a modern-day Bing Crosby thing to do. Accentuate the positive. Eliminate the negative, et al. But, here I sit unable to think of anything except what everyone is talking about, those 19 babies and those 2 precious adults who didn’t get to see the sunrise this morning having seen the sun set on their very lives. And, I don’t know what to do about it. Here’s the only thing I do know. I have a quizzical, quirky, weird perspective on the entire thing. A morbid perspective, one could say. One that only someone whose child died, thankfully not from violence but from a bad heart, could have. I look at things differently. The same could be said of the other 50% of my personality, the one controlled by the experience from a serious fight with cancer. Things ring oddly with me. I don’t want to say that I’m not scared of death because who’s not scared of death? But, it definitely makes you feel like there’s no room in your life for all the frivolity, all of the hang ups, all of the predispositions toward things like fashion or fancy homes or certain types of trips, though all of those things are lovely. Once you’ve walked closer to a dark abyss, it’s hard to ever see a meadow or a field or a prairie with quite as much joy. What is the answer? I only know that some people think guns should be harder to get. Some people think that guns should be impossible to get. Some people think that’s all hogwash. Some would point out the Canadian mass murder tragedy that won’t show up on any gun violence Richter scale, the one where the man rented the moving truck in 2018 and plowed through a busy Canadian neighborhood one day, killing 11 and injuring 15. All the different opinions, the ones who think guns are the issue and the ones who think mental illness is the issue and the ones who think this is just the way it was supposed to be, prophesied in fact. They all think they’re right. Everyone else is wrong. I suppose therein lies the tragedy. It’s so very American of us, patronizing another’s opinion and elevating only our own to the top. I’m just here to say this. Do whatever it takes to keep the babies safe. We are creating a world, whether we feel we are playing a role in that creation process or not, where we aren’t safe anywhere. And, we’re turning inward. And, we’re turning inward. And, we’re turning inward. Shall we not greet each other in public anymore? Shall we not go to church, since that’s a dangerous place, too? Shall we also not grocery shop any longer? It’s like playing a Sims game inside of our own homes. Here, I’ll set this room up to be the restaurant. Look over here! I can convert this room into a library (#library – we still need one of those). You know I couldn’t resist that jab. Oh, look! Back here is the bedroom. We can pretend it’s the boutique hotel we wanted to stay at this summer. And, now, I’m tucked in nice and safe. But, am I really? When will the evil permeate the walls of our homes? These maybe/maybe not mentally ill people with their maybe/maybe not ok weapons, when do they go door to door? I don’t even want to think about that. I’m a gun owner. I don’t know if it was the Malibu State Park shootings a few years back, or all of the serial killers from the 70s & 80s who frequented our national park system, or just my obsession with true crime podcasts overall, but there’s no way my husband and I would have camped through the backwoods of Idaho without some sort of weapon. I read too much. I listen too much. I’m the person who remembers the details, the joyous ones and the horrific ones. But, I am 100% down for making a weapon the tiniest bit harder to obtain. I don’t mind the extra steps. If I suddenly wake up and decide to commit felonious deeds, I probably should not be allowed to obtain a weapon again. Don’t worry. I’m a scaredy cat. You’re safe from the likes of me. Perhaps we all must give the tiniest bit. You know, it’s for the children. If the latchkey kids became the helicopter parents, just imagine the generation we are currently creating. God bless us, everyone.

“God lets us sin because Adam sinned, so we will die,” says Ben, age 10. “If he didn’t sin, we would live forever. But Adam listened to Eve, so that’s it.”

Penning a weekly outdoors column is an endeavor I have enjoyed for the past 36 years but, at times, I find it a challenge to come up with a topic that I hope to be interesting and maybe even informative. Oh, those weeks when I am busy catching fish or hunting new places the words seem to just appear on my computer screen. But in real life, I’m not always catching big stripers or hunting; there are those weeks when I stick close to home and that’s when I have to ‘wait’ for a topic to hit me!

Last week we at FEF were proud to celebrate the hard work that our graduates have done for the last 13 years. But this week--the week between Memorial Day and D-Day- -it’s worth considering all those that came before us that made all of this possible. We at the Foundation remember those brave men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice against fascism. We hope to never be, as FDR said, “Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy [who] forget in time that men have died to win them.”

Posie Weatherall Graduates from Belhaven University

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently accepted the North Texas Municipal Water District’s (NTMWD) Bois d’Arc Lake Watershed Protection Plan (WPP) as meeting the agency’s guidelines for watershed-based plans. The Bois d’Arc Lake WPP outlines a strategy to implement management measures that will help improve and protect water quality in the watershed.

The North East Texas Regional Mobility Authority (NET RMA) presented one of its annual Linda Thomas Safe Driving Scholarships to Forney High School Senior Kennedy Wilcox. She is among 10 high school seniors in NET RMA counties throughout northeast Texas to receive $1,000 scholarships.

With Memorial Day and summertime quickly approaching, and Texans will be getting out on the water. Now more than ever, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) urges boaters and paddlers who enjoy water recreation this summer to do their part to fight back against aquatic invasive species that threaten Texas lakes.

Even though we have been very blessed over the last few weeks with intermittent showers, we are still behind our normal rain fall. Despite that, we should all be good stewards of our most precious natural resource - WATER! Use these water saving tips for lawn care during extended periods of heat and drought.

Many problems we have could be avoided or minimized if more people refused to follow the crowd. Group behavior often instills fear and panic as it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Regardless of reality, the crowd is led with false premises. They then behave as if what they are being told is true. As a result, their actions transform the alleged circumstances into reality.

A day spent in the great outdoors can expose people to unparalleled beauty and offer the ability to view wildlife not readily encountered elsewhere. The United States has dozens of federally recognized national parks, as well as many other historic sites, scenic trails, national seashores, and national recreation areas. Unique geological features, diverse ecosystems, amazing natural beauty, and refuges for wild animals are located across the United States. Yellowstone National Park was the first national park. A bill designated it as such as when signed into law in 1872 by President Ulysses S. Grant, followed by Mackinac National Park in 1875, which was later de commissioned. California (nine) and Alaska (eight) are home to the most national parks of any states. The newest national parks were added in 2021. They include Weir Farm National Historic Park in Connecticut, Homestead National Park in Nebraska and Jimmy Carter National Historic Park in Georgia. Exploring national parks across the nation can make for an exciting adventure and a relaxing retreat. Visit www.nps.gov for a full list of national parks.

Air conditioning is a welcome luxury come the dog days of summer. Few people can imagine getting through a hot summer afternoon without turning their AC on, and that can make July and August some of the more costly months on the calendar in regard to energy consumption.

As outdoor temperatures increase, so does the possibility of heat stress or even heat stroke. But there are ways to avoid getting “overheated” this summer, according to Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service experts.