The Muse is Loose

Reports keep coming in that are extremely encouraging! All local stations have predicted winter "precipitation that could include snow". The Corpus paper has joined them. Now I find it on "The Weather Channel".! It is 100% predicted by the great weather minds. That is a lead pipe cinch it WILL NOT SNOW! When all those wizards agree on such a big issue it simply means it ain't going to happen.

The bad news, though meaningless at this point, is that my devoted wife of fifty-three years has absolutely refused to fill in for me should I be gone pedaling my grapefruit. I have about seventy-five right now. Thanks to Fred Beeler the 2010 crop is in, except for three sky-high ones who will get mighty cold the next few hours. Some plants are wrapped a little bit. My exposed pipes are covered. We are ready for anything.....except snow.

It is a bit chilly at 5:45 Wednesday morning. Twenty-four degrees at Maritime Museum. This sustained cold will do major damage to plants and even fruit trees. My lemon tree was just beginning to burst into bloom. With help from Fred Beeler I harvested the grapefruit yesterday afternoon.

The forecast for Thursday is "a chance of precipitation". Friday there is a fifty-percent chance it will not snow. They put it a little differently from that. By Saturday we will be back to normal. On Super Bowl Sunday one can go to the beach. I think church would be a better option. If you think your church is cold, then try the beach!

Isn't it amazing in our computerized, sophisticated, intellectual, self-reliant, age.......we can be reduced, across the country, to shivering, warmth-seeking mortals, seeking the basics of food, warm clothing, and a protected shelter. Mother Nature can do that! I had rather say Father God. He is still in charge of the wind and waves, snow and ice, cold and warmth, clouds and clear , night and day and life and death. "He's got the whole world in His hands.". It is like, in these days, God is telling us to look to the skies, not for signs of snow or sleet, but for guidance and warmth and love from our Creator!

It,s no big deal about the snow and swimsuit, if an accumulation of the white stuff occurs.( I still do not think it will happen.) It has never happened in February....but if it does, yours truly will be up for a place in the Guiness Book as "The first man, over seventy, EVER to lie down in snow in the month of February and make a rather large snow angel in a yard in the coastal city of Rockport, Texas". (The way it may appear in the record book)

Think of it! Overshadowing even the super bowl being in Texas Sunday! First I will make all the big talk shows such as Oprah and Regis. I will then be whisked off to ABC,CBS,NBC for a quick interview. Radio shows will be booking me as I describe the entire event. Finally, I will be approached by Hollywood.....they want to do a movie called " The Oldest Snow Angel" or maybe "The Abominable Snowman". After the movie's success there will come the Saturday morning kiddies show to replace "Sponge Bob and Square Pants". it will probably be named something like "Paw Paw And The Snow Bunnies". My thirty minutes of fame, plus, lurks just over the sage brush and cactii toward Mexico. If the snow comes I am in the chips! If it doesn't come I will become famous as the weather guru who challenged the big guys during "snowfest eleven"...... and won!

But fame, like beauty, is fleeting. A year from now no one will remember. The show will get cancelled in August. Who cares about snow then? Regis will be off to a senior citizen home. Ophra will be trying to save her new TV channel. Bill and Dale will be headed for larger jobs in Chicago where predicting snow is never in doubt.I will be roaming about in Wal Mart, hoping someone will remember and want a picture with me.

I am already wishing for life as it once was. I am already tired of the celebrity world and all that easy money. Maids and yardmen and Mercedes cars are not what I thought they would be. But....we can't go back again. Ever.

It sounds like the next twelve hours will reveal the truth...snow or no snow.... already freezing drizzle is being reported in Corpus. Freezing drizzle is NOT snow. Freezing rain is not SNOW. Sleet is NOT snow. Only a covering of snow will cause me to be led to public humiliation and perhaps pneumonia. I still am not worried. It is 6:46 PM and I am happy to report NO SNOW in Rockport, Texas!

There's no business like snow business.

You had to get up early
To see a tiny flurry.
You only had a minute
To run and play out in it

To see white on the ground
You've got to leave our town.
We've only ice...and cold
May I be so bold?

I said it all a-long
It came to be my song.
NO SNOW!!! Tee Hee!

Aftermath-" A result or effect, especially a bad one." This is an appropriate word for what much of our nation is looking at now and in days ahead. This history-making ice and snow storm has affected millions and missed only a few. Schools, churches, government offices, airports, eateries, factories, department stores, malls, highways......and on and on the list goes....have been hit by closures. Now we face the aftermath of it all.

Our damage is very small compared to many others, but it is there in our yard we have groomed for years. A grapefruit tree I planted after we moved here produced a bumper crop of Rio Red. Not only did the fruit get picked earlier than I wished, the tree is at jeopardy. Our lemon tree was just beginning to produce blooms for the new year. We had many plants that were tropical, knowing some season a storm like this would occur. It did. The aftermath will show up day after day in weeks ahead.

We in South Texas know another aftermath will occur.....it will be the one following a long overdue hurricane when it roars through here at a future date. Those in other areas deal with tornadoes that give little or no warning but leave little behind but torn trees and lives. Drought has a slower affect. It is the silent killer of soil and crops. In the thirties dust storms swept across parts of the country in frightening black clouds. Folks could not breathe. Cattle died. Then, there are mountains that sleep now, but deep within, fire and brimstone await the right moment to spew ashes and searing heat like Mt. St. Helen's did years ago.

Doom and gloom? Perhaps. Add to this scenario wars and recessions; stock market crashes
and overthrown governments. Mix in a constant threat of nuclear war that could destroy beyond belief. Enough? I think so.

What can we do about it all? Very little, really. What can we do about US is the more important question. Jesus promised we would have all these things happening along the way. Sin and Satan has destroyed or captured much of the once-perfect world God looked at and said, "that's good". He had to give up his Son from Heaven for awhile to come live among disturbed, sinful, mean people. They killed Him.....but in that evil act they released the blood that became a sacrifice for sin for each one who trusts and follows Him. It all makes possible for Believers to plod on through the AFTERMATH of life's difficulties with Faith and Hope and Assurance!

Hey, that tree might just make it!

You thought I would write about the Super Bowl. Everyone else will take care of that...if you even care. I picked Green Bay by FOUR and announced it at the close of church yesterday. Ho Hum.

No, let me tell you about something you most likely have not read about....may not care about it either.

Saturday, Bob and Jimmie Box, Ann and I, thought we would give a try at seeing a "rare" bird reported at Goose island State Park. Goose Island Park is just across a causeway leading out of Rockport. It is less than thirty minutes from the house. As we went through the gate a park person told us where we might find it. There was only ONE. This bird is commonly called a Yellow Faced Grassquit. It is a member of the Emberizidae family, "little brown jobs" of the sparrow birds.

How do you find a single little brown bird in a rather large park of woods, grasses, and water? You look, not for the bird, but for birders! They were easily found, closely grouped together with their varied field glasses pointing ground-ward at the edge of a clearing. There were also a couple of telescopes that surely must have come from Mount Palomar. It is best to open and close vehicle doors quietly, and like a jackal moving in on a lion's kill, step carefully and with whispers. Birders are usually friendly folks, if treated with courtesy. They can turn on you like an angry lion if you crowd them too much. We didn't have to push and shove. I saw the grassquit easily from a park bench. It was a "lifer".( That is a first-time ever bird.) We all had beautiful looks at a bird called "accidental" in Texas. An "accidental" is a bird seen five times or less in the last THIRTY YEARS! You see, this was a RARE bird.

Where was this Yellow-Faced Grassquit from? It had ended up here from Mexico or South America. It's first cousin, the Black-Faced Grassquit, is a rare bird sometimes seen in Southern Florida.(seven times) It finds home in the West Indies.

Whether you are "in" to birds or not you can easily see how unusual a sighting this was. About like seeing a panther or jaguar! (Not the car). Earlier Saturday we had seen THREE whooping cranes up close along the St Charles Bay in Lamar. They decided to relocate and flew almost over our car at low, low height. These gigantic, endangered birds with wing span of seven feet are something to see. Nice Saturday of birding.

The game was pretty good. Not the greatest ever, but pretty good. The rest of this affair.......well.....stunk.

Folks paid $200.00 to sit and watch it on TV. Five thousand did that. Many more bought seats that weren't finished or didn't exist. The traffic was horrible. All of that took a back seat to the worse to come. I have heard our National Anthem mistreated before, but Christina takes the cake for awful renditions. She didn't know the words, but the few words she knew were over sung with sounds more like a bawling cow giving birth. Nothing was being born, however. Something was dying. The half-time lights and sound fiasco told America, and the world, what has happened to our music. It is in a depression like the thirties.

Then there were the guests: In the middle of the field they introduced the new pro hall of fame entrants. Dione Sanders didn't do a dance. He should have. That, and his mouth, got him there.

What really pained me was seeing the Medal of Honor winner half introduced from the outskirts of the end zone. Come on! Can't you put a convertible in that monstrosity of a building and drive him around like the true hero he is.

I got a chuckle as I saw just how mixed up we are. On "America The Beautiful", which was nice, people were holding their hands over their hearts. I guess they thought we had changed national anthems. Might not be a bad idea.

What would have been nice and fitting: The combined choirs from our academies singing "The National Anthem" and the Aggie Band marching at half-time. How about that for something that would touch one's patriotic nerves? Glad I stayed at home. By the way, I went back and checked my writing in our Sunday church bulletin.....I picked Green Bay by SIX!

It made page three in the sports section of Caller-Times. Seems worthy of a better place than that. The baseball coach at Wake Forest gave a kidney to a freshman player who happens to be black. Coaches have to be careful of things they give to players. It can bring suspensions and firings. Surely NOT in this case.

Tom Walter is forty-two. He found out January 28 he was a match for a kidney transplant for Kevin Jordan. None of Kevin Jordan's family was. After some soul-searching Coach Walter consented. He told the Winston Salem Journal: "When we recruit our guys, we talk about family, and we talk about making sacrifices for one another, for our teammates. That's something we take very seriously, and I think this is something that anybody would do for a family member." Monday of this week both of them, coach and player, entered Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Doctors expect both to recover fully.

This story is not about winning. It is about giving. It is a one-time gift from Tom Walter. We only have two kidneys and they don't grow back. Kevin Jordan may never play another game at Wake Forest, but if all goes well he will have a new chance at life. He had been on daily dialysis and his kidney function was down to 8%. He was diagnosed with ANCA vasculitis, a type of auto immune disorder.

Tom Walter may never take a team to the college World Series at Omaha, but he is a winner for sure.

Jesus spoke of love and sacrifice in John 15. "This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's
life for his friends."

Coach Walter laid his life down for a college freshman because he preached sacrifice to his players. He didn't lose his life.....only a kidney (only?)....but he laid it down Monday. I doubt he will ever have to explain sacrifice to his team. He only has to show his scar.

As a Country here on the Mainland (Hawaii hasn't had a snowstorm) there are signs of cabin fever. It can be read in the paper and heard on the news. It can be seen on our computers. It can be felt in erratic actions and comments. We are suffering from cabin fever! The temperature is irrelevant. Here in South Texas we are suffering through mornings slightly below freezing. Others are suffering through way below ZERO. Some down here in South Texas are splashing through a little rain. Others are deluged in mountains of snow and ice. We can still see the waters of our bays, though the tide is extremely low. Others can hardly see down their streets. Our sub-tropical flowers and plants are as droopy as we are. It will be a great spring for the plant peddlers and nurseries, if they have anything to sell. Cabin fever! It is well known in Alaska and some western states. We are not prepared for it here. Most wardrobes of ours have more walking shorts and T-shirts than gloves and parkas. That is the way it is in South Texas.

How does one shake cabin fever? Well you don't take two aspirin and go to bed. You get out! The backyard is a starting place. If roads will allow, find a Mall or favorite store. Go drive a country road and look for a coyote or bear or bald eagle. Go ice fishing. Water ski. Do something, and you will feel the change from cabin fever. It may be another fever related to the onset of pneumonia, but at least you will be rid of cabin fever. You're welcome. Doctor Pogue

I know there are times when it is difficult to count. Serious illness or accidents, or family relationships deteriorate. We have a difficult time seeing blessings at those times. I understand that.

This morning as I walked the 322 steps to Taqueria Puerto Vallarta, from our front door, and there was greeted warmly by a young Hispanic waitress bearing my coffee and smiling as I gave my usual order for juevos rancheros with flour tortillos, I thought that all is not bleak in my little world.

I am not fighting in Afghanistan, and now being flown home to Aransas Pass for final rites, as one young soldier is today. I am not lost in those dangerous mountains and caves searching for an enemy with all the advantage, as another young friend of mine, a navy seal, is surely facing.

I am not scheduled to speak on a high school campus, holding the cell phone of my deceased daughter, who died while texting; as the wreckage of her truck sits outside for all to see. One local couple had to do that yesterday. It was a hard lesson for those kids, but one they will remember.

I will not have to march out into an Egyptian square and join others shouting for their ruler to step down, not knowing if or when their own army will decide to defend their stubborn leader and gun me down with hundreds of my fellow seekers of a change. I won't have to be there.

I will not be required to use a shovel or snowplow to move through massive stacks of snow in order to go to work or school.

No, I am counting my blessings, even as I look at my rather wilted and beaten fruit trees, wondering if they had the heart to withstand a few hours of bitter cold.

I am counting my blessings as I see a buff-bellied hummingbird and a rufous make their way to the sugary water and drink up like it is their first java of the day. I am grateful as I watch a cardinal, titmouse, four kinds of dove, pine warblers, goldfinches, sparrows and bushy tails find and fight for their portion of seed. Each will get some. None will get it all.

"Count your many blessings. Name them one by one. And it will surprise you what the Lord has done."

We can't help but rejoice with a people who has seen a virtual dictator in Egypt fall from power. Mubarak was similar to Castro in that he did not want to lose his long-held control.

The question is....".what do we do now?", or better said, "what will they do now?" "They" is the powerful army of Egypt we helped them build. The head of their army is now the head of state. Into that mix goes the fact that 90% are Muslim. How many extremists only time will tell. Be assured they will make a move to capture this new-found freedom.

Egypt is estimated at 10% Christian. That would include all brands and sizes. Surely among that number are sincere Christ-loving Believers. We should have concern for them that a limited freedom they have might be allowed to grow.

It is rather sad to me, but not surprising, that our major voice of concern is about the Suez and whether or not our usual allotments of oil will flow through. We are still wrapped around the fingers of Middle East oil. Surely there is a better way.

These are Saturday morning musings. Since I have absolutely no power or voice in the matter I will go about estimating the damages from freeze and frost.

It isn't fair to be a critic when you only watched less than ten minutes of a an eternally long production but I will anyway! The "Grammy Awards" gave a perfect picture of where music and entertainment is today. What little I saw should have been rated NSFP. (Not suitable for people)

Following that Star Fumbled Banner of the Superbowl I am made to wonder what is next in the pop music field. I knew when the Rock guys stole Country and Western we were in trouble. Then another bunch came along to steal our religious music of tradition, beauty, and depth. Surely the only thing left are the kiddie songs. That will happen too.

Rock a bye,bye,bye....babee!!!!!!!
Why are you up in that tree, tree, tree? (Sha, Na, Na)
You gonna' rock, baby, when that cold wind blows.
You gonna' tumble down on your big fat nose.

Down, down, down, you gonna fall (Woo woo woo)
That fiberglass cradle will hurt some, too!

Rock a bye, bye, bye......babeeee!
Get out of that tree, tree, tree. (O me) (Repeat eight times)

Have a Happy Saint Valentine's Day!!! (Yes, this is a religious holiday, but don't use the word "Saint" and it will be okay to wish it for someone...even in school.)

We were sitting in our kitchen watching American Goldfinches as they fatten up on seed. Mixed in are some sparrows, dove, and a yellow-throated warbler who has lived here all winter. A lone squirrel was foraging about. It was a peaceful mid-February scene.

Suddenly pandemonium broke loose! An unidentified, but hungry hawk, roared into that scene of tranquility and sent birds and squirrel scrambling for their lives. He zeroed in on a single bird. The two made a complete circle of the back yard, through tree limbs, plants or whatever. It was an amazing, two-second aerial dogfight. We don't know who won. The battle moved outside our fence.

It was a harsh reminder of the balance of life God has created. Hawks keep us from being over-run by birds, mice, snakes, and other critters. They kill, not for sport, but for food. There are few scraps left after one makes a kill. What is left is then food for cats, buzzards, and even ants. The only inedible is feathers.

As I look to the front yard and four sacks of refuse waiting for the garbage men I wish that we might learn from the hawk, and others of God's creative hand, as they eat well without making mounds of garbage. You know Jesus said, "Look to the birds...". Maybe that is one of the things we might learn from our feathered friends.

How terribly uninspiring it is to be void of inspiration. I have NONE for a BLOG today. I will not attempt to fake it and give someone else's inspiration. If I ain't got it you don't get it.

Get it?

As a boy in a very small country school with twelve grades in the same building; to be called "a yellow-bellied coward" was fightin' words, (or perhaps running, if that was an option). You knew when you heard THAT, it meant big trouble. One had to defend his perceived yellowness....or prove it forever to a circle of guys waiting to see the action.

In the avian word it is a designation proudly flaunted by numerous birds. The yellow warbler, who is easily and wrongly called a wild canary. Common Yellowthroat, who looks to me like a tiny masked bandit or "lone ranger". Yellow Bellied Sapsucker, who carries red , white, and black, as well. Yellow-rumped Warbler, who spends the winter here in Rockport. When you see it you know why the name. Some have crude nicknames for this active little guy.

There are many more of our birds bearing "yellow" in their names or plumage. My favorite is one not often seen down here. They only pass through. It is the Yellow-headed Blackbird. It is black, yellow, and has a touch of white on the wings. There is something special about seeing this large blackbird with the bright yellow head. I saw it one spring while birding a street on North Padre Island. I was SO excited! A man drove slowly by in his car with his binoculars on the ready. I said, "I just saw a yellow-headed blackbird!!!!". I waited for him to say, "Where?",so I could point at the tree where it had been. He calmly answered with something like this. "I really do like the bird. It is one of my favorites. In fact I chose it to be on the cover of my book about Yellowstone." Suddenly I felt the blacktop opening up and swallowing me. The humble pie I ate had no ice cream on top! Later in that same summer we were in Yellowstone. I had thought about the comment a hundred times. Maybe he was just pulling my leg. I will see. I found a collection of books for sale in one of the fine stores there. I saw it immediately, this really big, slick volume. On the cover in brightest colors was.... Yellow-headed Blackbird!

Birders here in Rockport were amazed a couple of days ago to see about SEVENTY Great Blue Herons in the water at the same time. Some were eating and others were fighting. Great Blues are normally loners. They fish alone and run off intruders. To see them gather in such a large group is interesting.

A call from my friend Homer Hanna, who lives up near Beeville, reporting about thirty Cardinals at his feeders almost at the same time. Usually they eat singly and come in pairs! He also gave a report of a large number of Green Jays together and feeding. Over at Lamar reports came of spotting almost a dozen Whooping Cranes. This was an area out of their usual haunts. Ann and I saw four Saturday.

There are huge flocks of White Pelicans in various places. Last week we saw SEVEN loons in one harbor at Aransas Pass. One was a Pacific Loon.

Are they up to something? I think so. Many of them are looking for new mates or trying to keep the one they had. It is like show and tell. Strut and preen. Prance and dance. Out of all this will come the happy couples, and they will disappear into their nesting haunts. They sense the coming of Spring. I really hope they are right on more than the days.

The congress in session in 1968 gave us this uninspired Presidents Day as a single three-day national holiday. It was a combination Lincoln's/Washington's Birthday. Now it is a generic holiday focusing on all the men who have been in office. Forgotten are two really great Presidents who have birthdays in February. Abraham Lincoln's birthday is still on my calendar. This year February 12 whisked silently by as we focused on hearts and flowers on Valentine's. Some long ago "saint" gets more attention than honest Abe.

Tomorrow is George Washington's birthday. What this man did in sacrificial service to help us gain freedom is amazing. He was a warrior. Not the greatest, but he was a leader. He was not a politician, but a statesman. He reluctantly allowed himself to be chosen. He may or may not have chopped down the cherry tree, but you can be assured he didn't lie about it as he gave a "v" sign to his father.

We remembered these birthdays in my early school days. The day was not a holiday for President's Day sales, but it was a fun day at school. Honest Abe was planted in our hearts and lives as a dedicated servant who died in service of his country in the most critical time we had faced since the American Revolution. George Washington was remembered as "the father of our country". How special it was to learn about these two imperfect heroes.

So be it. Let's all give a cheer for Millard Fillmore, Tricky Dick, and Slick Willie. Next we could have an "Almost Presidents Day" and honor those great men who didn't get elected. That is a motley crew for sure.

The man who would be called "the father of our country" was born February 22, 1732 to Gus and Mary Washington. Gus was a widower with three children. When Mary Ball Washington was pregnant with George, a violent summer storm hit their home. It was a Sunday afternoon, and they had guests for dinner after church. A lightning bolt hit their house, traveling down the chimney. It fused the knife and fork together a young guest was eating with. She died instantly. Mary Washington was only a few feet away. She never seemed to be the same after that event.

Mary rarely traveled any further than church after that. She discouraged her sons from taking any risks. It created a number of conflicts in their home. George could hardly wait to be old enough to leave and be on his own. When he was eleven word came his father had died. He had been on a trip to England.

He survived several illnesses that could have taken his life. He had mumps, smallpox, four events of malaria, TB, typhoid fever, staph infection, and two bouts with influenza. He took so much quinine for malaria that he had a hearing loss and was nearly deaf when he left the presidency. It was felt that these skirmishes with death and dying made him a man of patience, self-control, courage and determination. War came almost as a relief to him. He could then SEE his enemy,

George Washington stood tall, literally. He was six feet four, slightly over 200 pounds. He was an excellent horseman and good athlete. He had a commanding presence. He married Martha Dandridge Custis Washington on Twelfth Night 1759. They had forty years together, an unusually long time in that day. She was a young widow with children from her marriage with Daniel Custis. She stood less than five feet tall! Her former husband had left her as the largest woman landowner in Virginia. George was an experienced soldier by this time.

The stories of this man's life and legends are many. The fact is that he was the man for that critical time in our nation's birth. His dominating mother never really forgave him for leaving "the crown", and leading in a battle for independence. She was a loyalist to England to the day she died. She never attended an inauguration of her son as president. Adversity and pain made George Washington a stronger person. It was as if that lightning bolt that struck before his birth gave him acknowledgment of the tasks laid out for his future. I breathe a prayer of thanks this morning that George Washington was there when our nation needed him for birthing.

I was reading a bit of Joseph's last days in the last chapter of Genesis. A statement I had read before reached out to grab me. Let me review the events:

Jacob had died. Joseph was still a powerful man in Egypt. An elaborate burial was planned. It took place at a cave near Mamre, land Abraham had purchased many years before for a burial place. Joseph and his brothers were there. Following the burial of their father, the brothers became worried for their own safety. "What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?". Still up to their old ways, they sent a message to Joseph they claimed was one their father had given them. It said: "I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly. Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your fathers.". Joseph cried when he got the message. I don't know if it was a serious one, but I know they made it appear that way. They even brought God into the picture. (You remember these were the same guys who threw him into a well to die!)

Here is the great truth involved in all this. In Joseph's answer he said, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."

Joseph believed God worked in the bad events that came His way to bring about good. He prepared a people for famine. Untold lives were saved because of his planning. Had he not been following the way of God, it would not have happened. Could he see all this as he went through the trials that came his way? I doubt it.

Can we see it in our own trials when they come? I doubt it. Trials can even defeat us and not allow God to work His purpose for us through them. Job had a significant statement on the matter......"Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him.". Does God have Divine intentions in some struggle life is giving you today? Perhaps. You will only know if you stay with Him through the struggle.

I couldn't resist that play on words as I read of California School of Technology's win over Occidental in their season finale basketball game. It was 46-45 and Caltech's first conference win in 310 games! Their last conference win was in 1985. They do not give athletic scholarships. One plays to simply enjoy playing.

How can a school survive with such a poor athletic record? Easily when you are Caltech. This school was begun back in 1891 by Amos Throop. It set it's sights high in science and technology. Today they have an endowment of 1.55 billion dollars. There are 950 undergraduates and 2175 total students. First year students must live on campus. They have an honor code which allows faculty to ASSIGN take-home exams! The school opened to females in 1970. Today more than 40% are women.

Caltech is a world center for rocket science. Mount Palomar is associated with them. In 1930-1931 a professor named Albert Einstein was a visiting teacher. First-year graduates are employed at an average salary of $69,500.00. Get this: Among their alumni and faculty are THIRTY- ONE recipients of a NOBEL PRIZE!

All work and no play for Caltech students? Wrong. They are great for fun days such as Ditch Day planned by seniors; and the Halloween Pumpkin Drop. One year they changed that old sign saying " Hollywood" in Los Angeles to read "Caltech". Another earth-shaking event was at the 1961 Rose Bowl. It was popular back then to have card displays operated by hundreds of students. At given signals the cards gave out messages for their team. Somehow they managed to have the signs to read "Caltech" once during that game.

You could probably get together a group of guys from playground courts to beat Caltech at basketball, but don't challenge their women's ping-pong team. They are ranked 44 out of 200 collegiate teams playing that table sport.

So, Caltech finished their season with a conference win." Way to go, Orange and White!" It isn't how you win or lose, it's how you soar your rocket. Get ready for this: The school MOTTO is "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free". (Sound familiar?)

Friday morning paper tells us oil prices dropped yesterday for the first time in nine days. The companies in Libya had to idle between 500,000 and 750,000 barrels a day in production. That is less than 1% of global daily consumption. That was the bad news. The good news is that lost shipments from Libya can be made up quickly from large surpluses held by member companies, including the US. There is 1.6 billion barrels of emergency crude. That is enough for 145 days of oil without missing a lick.

In the meantime during this emergency, that was not an emergency, we gasoline buyers paid TWENTY CENTS a gallon or more at the pump. Let's say that during those nine days 100 million of us bought ten gallons of petrol. That would be 2.00 each more we paid. So we paid in 200 million dollars to the non-emergency, emergency fund. Surely then, rebate checks would be in order. Never happen. These are extremely low figures. It probably would reach to a billion dollars or more.

This is true in all businesses. Supply and demand affect what we pay. We have all seen big price increases at the grocery store because of the weather and related vegetable damages. Could there be some gouging taking place, as well? Sure could.

So what do we do as we await our rebate checks? The President says, "We think we'll be able to ride out the situation.". That's easy to say when one's transportation is a limousine with a full tank of gov gas. Some others may have to bicycle or walk out the situation.

Here in Texas massive cuts of personnel is in the crystal ball. From education to prisons folks are on the bubble. We have a 25 BILLION shortfall expected. This isn't enough to dig into our "rainy day" reserve fund. Appears to me we are having a hail-storm instead of a rainy day need.

You shouldn't gripe unless you have a solution. I have it. However, it is so simple it will never fly. We tack on another 10-20 cents a gallon tax for our gasoline as was done in the emergency non-emergency. We burn a lot of gas in Texas. Let the SUV's and DUALLIES and big trucks help us with the shortfall. Why wouldn't that work? Too simple!

It is usually reserved for the College Basketball scene, March Madness. It is a fun time to attempt to pick the eventual winner of the NCAA. This year, at least for the first week of March.....our madness will involve the Rockport Lady Pirates. These gals have fought and clawed their way to the State Meet in Austin. Their opponent is yet to be named. It really doesn't matter for they will be in a do or die semi-final game in Austin on Thursday. A win there will have them playing for the State 3-AAA championship.

They could have quit when they lost starting point guard Chandra Dixon who broke her leg earlier in the playoffs. They didn't. In fact, they became inspired to try to win it all for Chandra. They are two games away from being state champs.

In their game Saturday against Salado, they lost their senior post, Erika Williams to fouls with still five and a half minutes to go. They also lost their other starting post to fouls. They trailed by two points in the fourth quarter. Quit? They don't know that word! They closed by winning the game 69-59. It was an incredible win for these girls and for their school. The team is now 35-3 for the year with a nineteen-game win streak. Way to go girls!!!