Flight Training

 

 

My next-door neighbor’s oldest son is home, having just completed his advanced  training in the USAF.  Ernest  is now an Airman First Class and a Crew Chief on a B-52 bomber; a plane we have been flying since before he was born.  There has been a steady stream of family and friends over there all weekend.

While that has been  going on, the hawks that nest in a pine tree between our homes have started a flight school of their own. 

All day Saturday, the pair flew a constant shuttle of food to the nest – more food and more often than ever before – then yesterday, instead of landing on the nest, they would fly to a spot a few feet away on one of the limbs that support the nest, attempting to lure junior out of his comfort zone.  There was a lot of discussion, squeaking squealing and squawking, but not much else going on.

Today – the shot above was taken just before sunrise – Mom and Pop are perched on a limb about ten feet above the nest.  I’m pretty sure that, if  they stick to their guns, we’ll see their young one today.

Lyttony

I may have created a contender for the annual Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest.  See what you think:

Like the underdog in some celestial bar-fight, the moon slowly, warily, circled the earth, dodging behind the wispy scudding clouds at every opportunity.  Unaffected by the events above him, Bart Sandoval, or Lizard Screamer as he was known to his Pascua Yaqui relatives due to an unfortunate incident when he was just a toddler, failed to notice anything but the roar of the engine, the squeaking, groaning complaints of the shock absorbers and springs and the throbbing ache in his groin as he piloted his ramshackle pickup down the rocky arroyo.

BATminton

 

Austin, TX - The fastest growing sport in Texas is Batminton (sic), a modification of badminton, the game originated in India under British rule. The primary difference being that instead of the traditional shuttlecock, or birdie, Austin area participants have substituted the Mexican Free-tailed Bat.

Equipment is inexpensive and often already at hand; a badminton or volleyball net/court, a badminton/squash/tennis racquet, a leather welding glove for the off hand, and, of course, a box full of bats, collected from under the Ann W. Richards Bridge on Congress Avenue. Optional equipment may include a high-frequency device, such as a dog whistle. While not yet illegal in this still evolving game, these are now considered to be an unsportsmanlike attempt to bewilder the already battered bats, and moves are underway to outlaw their use.

A group of Basque exchange students attempted to replace racquets with their cestas, the long curved baskets used in jai-alai, and achieved bat speeds nearing two hundred miles per hour -  speeds that bring to mind the phrase Bat out of Hell. The use of the cesta has not been accepted by the Batminton crowd in general, so the Basques have been reduced to playing with themselves.

Athletes’ dress varies greatly, depending on temperature and taste. Players may commonly be seen in warm-ups, tennis togs and, on hotter days,  in bikinis and  in tee shirts and cut-offs. Then there is that now famous game played entirely in the nude that took place last April across the street from Austin’s P.E.T.A. headquarters.

Answering criticisms from P.E.T.A. and other animal rights groups, Preston Harrigan, entertainment director for Sigma Rho Omega – the fun and frivolity fraternity – said, “What’s the big deal?  They’re BATS for God’s sake.  Ugly, noisy, nasty bats!  It ain’t like we’re out there smacking around the Bluebird of Happiness.”  SRO president, Francis (Pancho) Freyberg, pulled himself away from the beer bong long enough to add his support, “ Yeah,” agreed Freyberg, “what he said.”

Another Classmate Remembered

I learned yesterday that another of my high school classmates passed away a couple of years ago – no details, other than the fact that he was buried in Confederate Cemetery in Alvin, Texas. I don’t know how he died, but I hope he had a better life than I can envision for him.

Lewis Newell was born in 1942 at Houma, Louisiana, though he and his family moved to Texas when he was very young. He contracted poliomyelitis at the age of eight months, and never walked without the aid of braces and crutches. Because he was born in Louisiana, his family was able to take advantage of a level of state assistance that was not then available to Texans; the State of Louisiana picked up the tab for almost all of his medical care, his wheelchairs, braces, etc.

Lewis looked like a gargoyle. To be honest, he would have been ugly as sin even if he wasn’t a cripple, but he was a good guy who somehow managed to retain his sense of humor. He was fun to be around. The one (probably the only) advantage to his looks was that Lewis could buy anything at any liquor store or Seven-Eleven and nobody ever asked for i-d.

From the years of using his arms to propel himself through the world – on bad days he was not above running over people who got in his way in the halls – Lewis could out arm-wrestle anyone on the planet; the local jocks soon learned not to even try. We did pick up some spending money racing Lewis on his crutches against football players with sprained ankles, who were trying crutches for the first time. Even if they should have known better, their ego wouldn’t let them believe that a four-foot-tall gnome could beat them at anything. As a result, Monday after a football game was usually a lucrative day.

In 1961, in Hitchcock, Texas, I witnessed Lewis’s involvement in what might have been a minor miracle.

Lewis was in his wheel chair that night; too drunk to drive but certainly too drunk to walk. It didn’t take much; he had an extremely low tolerance for alcohol. We had been to a party and were headed down the street when Lewis put on a spontaneous burst of speed. He was still accelerating about a half block ahead of us when he and his chair suddenly veered off to the right into a deep drainage ditch.

A huge dog had been barking viciously at us from behind a front-yard fence. I’m not sure when I noticed, but the dog, which looked like a cross between a Doberman and Grizzly Bear, only had three legs; his right rear leg had been amputated. The monster dog jumped the fence and went right into the ditch after Lewis.

We were already running toward the scene of the accident - I thought Lewis might drown – but now I was afraid he was going to get mauled, killed, maybe eaten…

When we got to the ditch, we found Lewis drenched but unharmed, and considerably more sober. The huge dog was in the water, the back of Lewis’s shirt in his teeth, holding his head above the water.

After we got Lewis and his chair out of the ditch, I asked him if the dog scared him as much as it did me.

“Naw,” he said, “we cripples understand each other.”

Match That

The University of Texas newsletter this morning noted that, for the first time ever, matching gifts from Exxon/Mobil Corporation exceeded One Million dollars for the year. They had come close for the past several years, but this is the first year they have exceeded the one million mark.

Big bad Exxon is one of the few corporations that has offers a three-for-one matching program. Many major corporations offer some support for their employees charitable contributions, but most companies who have a matching gift program at all, offer a one-for-one program.

Amazed as I was with the three-for-one figure, I almost missed the fact that this means that, out of all their charitable contributions, Exxon/Mobil employees chose to support UT Austin to the tune of over a third of a million dollars. That is huge!

This is particularly significant to me because several years ago Honey and I, with help from her friends and family, established a Friends of Alec scholarship at UT in memory of our daughter. We would never have reached our goal without the one-for-one matching gift program at my employer, Ikon Office Solutions, or the generous contributions of my sister and brother-in-law, Karen and David Danburg.

It is a comfort, and a matter of pride, to know that there will be UT engineering students supported by the Shanna Leigh Couch Memorial Scholarship for as long as the Texas sunsets are burnt orange.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

I read this story in this morning’s news with mixed emotions:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Just like the police tell you to do, Abel Moreno called 911 when a man began assaulting his girlfriend. Before the end of the year, he could be deported to Mexico for his trouble.
Moreno, 29, of Charlotte made the call Dec. 29 because, he alleged, a Charlotte police officer was trying to fondle his girlfriend after a traffic stop.
The officer ordered Moreno to drop the call and arrested him and his girlfriend for resisting arrest.
Several things then happened. Five other women came forward to allege that the officer, identified as Marcus Jackson, now 26, had tried to molest them, too. Moreno was released after investigators debunked the resisting arrest
charge. So was his girlfriend.
Jackson was fired and faces 11 counts of sexual battery, extortion and interfering with emergency communication.

Police Chief Rodney Monroe admitted that Jackson should never have been hired in the first place because of previous charges related to a restraining order filed by an ex-girlfriend.
The local 911 system is under review because Moreno’s call wasn’t
acted upon.
And Abel Moreno now has a six-month deadline to show why he shouldn’t be deported, even though police acknowledge that his 911 call was crucial to their uncovering a dirty cop, and even though they agree that he shouldn’t have been arrested.
That’s because the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the county jail where Moreno was held, is one of 67 local law enforcement agencies in 24 states that have signed up under Section 287(g) of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows some local law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration laws during the course of their normal duties. While he was still in jail, Moreno was found to have been in the United States illegally for the past six years, working at a restaurant so he could send money back home to his mother and his five brothers and sisters in Acapulco.
Sixty-seven local agencies in 24 states take part in the 287(g)
program, allowing them to enforce federal immigration laws. (This list includes Harris County, Texas, but not the City of Houston.) Six other agencies are negotiating or awaiting approval.

A judge granted Moreno a six-month deferment on his deportation because he is a witness in the criminal investigation. But that reprieve runs out in November.
Moreno’s attorney, Rob Heroy, said he was confident Moreno would eventually be granted a so-called U visa, which allows illegal immigrants who are victims or witnesses in criminal investigations to stay in the country for up to four years. But only 10,000 such visas are available in any year, and while that process works its way through the system, Moreno remains in
limbo.
“Now I’m unemployed,” Moreno said, speaking in Spanish through an interpreter. “I don’t have any money, not even for rent, not even for my phone — anything. ... The truth is I’m scared.”
In many respects, Section 287(g), which has been around for 15 years, is similar to the law Arizona enacted last month obligating police to question people about their immigration status if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they are in the country illegally

Hummingbird Blues

Not talking about the song, but you're welcome to listen while you read:

Hummingbird Blues

After adding a couple more hummingbird feeders to foil the efforts of the infamous Red Baron.  We enjoyed several days watching the little critters.  Then the population dropped  from about a dozen to two or three, then only an occasional single bird.

Since we are first-timers, complete novices at hosting hummers, we immediately assumed that we were doing something wrong.   I was reassured when I read on Hummingbirds in Houston, a website by Houston Attorney Donald Burger, that 99% of the birds are gone by now, continuing their migration north.

My relief only lasted for about 24 hours; then Honey talked to Janet Winkler, our next-door neighbor, who has had feeders out for years.  She has dozens of birds at her place, less than 1/4 mile down the road, and she says they are there year-round.

OMG!  We are doing something wrong!

Yesterday, based on Janet’s advice and additional information from the internet and our local garden center, we acquired a bird bath and about a hundred dollars worth of flowering plants and bushes.  I installed the bird bath, and we set the plants – still in their pots – in the spots where I’ll plant them today.  Who knew that sitting back and watching the birds in your own back yard could be so labor-intensive and downright expensive?

We spent about a half hour watching at dusk yesterday and another half hour or so early this morning,  but so far no birds at all.  I guess the next step is to hide in a blind and make a noise like sugar-water.