Corner of This Way and That

That’s a bird’s eye view of downtown Lake Jackson, Texas, a pleasant little town on Highway 288 just north of Freeport. 

Back in 1941, when Dow Chemical began building its huge plants in the Brazosport area, there was concern over where the thousands of plant employees would live.  Dr. A. P. Beutel, first General Manager of Dow’s Texas Division, suggested building a whole new town on the site of the old Lake Jackson plantation, and the city was designed and built from the ground up.  The first resident moved in to the town in January, 1943.

The town’s designers – led by Alden B. Dow, the son of Dow Chemical’s founder – showed a bit of humor in the naming of the town’s streets.The city appears to be a maze to the average stranger, but was in reality a simple system to the designers. The 'drives' go around the outskirts and are through-traffic highways; the streets end at either the 'drives' or the 'ways'; and all 'ways' lead to the downtown area. Center Way is located in the center of town. Circle Way circles the business district. And there are those unusual streets (This Way and That Way) which have caused so much comment over the years.

I notice that even Google Maps, the source of the picture above, could not help adding “Street” where it doesn’t belong at the end of  the names of the Ways.

The street sign below does not come from Lake Jackson, but it would certainly fit right in

Adding Insult to Injury

Fifty-something years ago, when I first started smoking, my brand of cigarettes (Chesterfield Kings) were 19¢ a pack.   Filtered brands were 21¢.  For those days when I was short on cash, the local 7-11 charged 6¢ for a sack of Bull Durham tobacco that came complete with rolling papers.

Today, prices vary quite a lot, but the average cost cost of a pack of smokes in Texas is about $6.00.  They’re cheaper in Louisiana and cost a whole lot more in states like California and New York

Of course, inflation plays a part, but the big difference is the amount of State and Federal tax that has been added over the years. The chart below, provided by a pro-smoking, anti-tax organization shows that taxes make up the majority of the price:

Most of this money grab has been justified by the idea that increasing the cost will force a decrease in consumers.  Folks like the Heart Association, the Lung Association and people who just don't like  smoke or smokers would love to see the taxes much higher. 

Although I’m living proof that this method of control is not effective – I complain more, but I do not smoke less – I can’t fault them for their good intentions.

What really ticks me off is not the outrageous tax, but the fact that when the retailer rings the cigarettes up, he charges state sales tax on the entire cost – including the tax I’ve already paid.  That, in my mind is obscene!

With 8.25% sales tax, a $6.00 pack of cigarettes now costs $6.50.  Even worse, it forces me to pay 38¢ in sales tax on the Federal and State taxes that I’m already paying!

Section 151.303 of the Texas Tax Code exempts from sales tax the purchase of previously taxed items.  It specifically lists things like oil, sulphur, motor fuels, alcoholic beverages served in bars and cement.  It even exempts natural gas when it is being used as motor fuel, but does it exempt tobacco products?  Hell no!

Forcing a consumer to pay tax on  a tax is an unconscionable process.  

It is immoral. 

It is evil. 

It ought to be against the law!

Fred’s Willard

78 year old comedic actor Fred Willard got arrested yesterday.  Police say he was masturbating while watching a pornographic movie at the Tiki Theater, a XXX movie house in Los Angeles.

The news has already led to his firing by PBS, but it looks like he may not have broken any laws.

In California, it's not automatically illegal to masturbate in a public place like a movie theater - it's ONLY illegal if the act occurs within sight of people who "might be offended." 

News reports say that there were only four  other movie-goers in the house when cops busted Willard -- 4 patrons in a dark theater, each of them  doing God knows what.  It's a pretty safe bet that none of them were particularly offended.

Zoo Suit

Want your toddler to enjoy some real interaction when you take him to the zoo?  Dress him in zebra stripes.

Here’s what happened when when Jack Baltzor of Bend, Oregon crawled up for a closer look at a lioness named Kya:

According to Jack’s mom, Heather, "It was Jack's first trip to the zoo. We didn't even realize he looked like a zebra until we got home, but a lot of the animals in the zoo -- the crocodiles and the jaguars -- apparently did. They would come up to the glass and look at him."

She also says that Jack was not at all traumatized by the experience. He even said, "Hi kitty, kitty," to the lioness and looks forward to his next zoo trip.

When It Rains….

Ever notice how you can rock along with everything just fine, and then, when one thing goes wrong, everything seems to go bad at once?  I’m sure you probably have -It’s common enough to be a corollary to Murphy’s Law.

That is no consolation when it’s happening to you, and it is happening at the Boggy Thicket right now.

We recently paid to  have our house re-leveled, and to have the floors repaired, and we are currently scheduling the contractors to come in and repair and repaint interior walls.

Our  5th wheel trailer is in the shop – mostly under warranty, but we have no idea what our portion of that bill is going to be yet, hopefully just a $50 deductable, but probably not. And…

Our old Avalon threw a check engine light just in time for its annual inspection.  It is running fine, but will not pass the required emissions testing as is, so I must either get it fixed this month ( $500 + or –) or give it back to my daughter who lives where emissions testing is not required.

As if that wasn’t enough…

I was working in the yard yesterday morning when I heard the air conditioner try and fail to start.  The fan on the condensing unit came on, but the compressor tried but did not start.  A few seconds later, it tried again, and again…and eventually did come on. 

I went in the house and told Honey that it sounded like we had a bad start capacitor, and that we had better get it fixed before the compressor burned up.  She said that she had heard that before; that it had been going on for several days.  So I picked up the phone and placed a service call.

The technician came yesterday evening.  He confirmed my theory that the capacitor was bad, and also said we needed a new contactor.  A contactor is just a relay – it has contacts and a coil like any electromechanical relay - AC and water well people call them contactors and charge outrageous prices for them.

Even though his company had installed our AC, he did not have an exact like-for-like replacement for the bad capacitor; he did have one that was “bigger and better and came with a five year warranty” for only $50 more.

Today, the AC is working, the house is cool, and I have a nice warm feeling knowing that I recognized a problem and averted a catastrophic failure. 

Is that warm feeling worth the $350 in unplanned expense?  Probably not.

The Nose Knows

Honey and I occasionally visit a chiropractic clinic in Crosby.  Without making this a commercial for the place, I can say that the chiropractor is one of the best we have ever encountered.  If you need details, contact me for a referral.

His bookkeeper recently completed her training and became a licensed massage therapist. She and Honey had already become friends, and Honey was one of her first customers.  When we were in recently, she was showing us her new massage room in the clinic, and as we left, she gave Honey a plastic baggie of therapeutic bath salts.

Honey dropped the bag in her purse and we headed for home.  Before we were halfway home, the salts were stinking up the whole truck.  As soon as we got home, Honey threw the bag away – she already knew  there was no way she was getting into a tub of water with that stuff.

I don’t know what was in the mixture – Epsom salts, eucalyptus, and God knows what else – but the odor was both pervasive and disgusting! 

She has been trying for a week to get the smell out of her purse.  She has tried spraying it with Febreze, and with Lysol and wiping it with a rag soaked in vinegar.  She tried turning the purse inside-out and setting it out in the sun – hard to do since it has rained almost every day since she got the stuff. 

So far, although the smell has diminished slightly, nothing has worked.  I’m pretty sure I see a new purse in the near future, but even that may not help.  Everything that was in the purse has picked up the smell.

Meanwhile, the baggie is in the garbage out in the garage.  Even though the big double garage doors stay open during daylight hours, the smell out there would gag a maggot. 

Thank goodness today is garbage day.

Honey’s Poem

I often download news stories, etc. from the web for use on my blog – things that I find sufficiently interesting to repost, either with or without comments. 

Today, the only stories I had saved are no longer topical. They would have been fine, and I probably would have posted them last week if I hadn’t had a couple days without internet access. 

I would have been literally at a loss for words today if Honey hadn’t told me a little poem she wrote last week.

I love it.  Hope you do, too:

I sat in the open for days and days,

Visualizing my future through all the haze.

The haze lifted and low and behold,

I saw my future – I’m getting old.