The Solstice of my heart

The world's darkening slide toward the Winter Solstice perfectly matches the earthscape of my heart. 

The slide into this particular dark day, this anniversary of the day my world quietly broke apart in unison with my heart, occupies the whole first part of December no matter how hard I try to remain focused on the joy and excitement of the children, the quiet anticipation of Advent, the lovely decorations, the gift of the Christ Child.

Because it's been seven years.

Seven years. Today. This morning. Another sad anniversary.

How can you be gone for seven years? 

Sometimes it feels like you have been gone decades, other times, five minutes.

Know this, my love, however long it's been, you have been missed for every damn second of it. Your smile, your laughter, your kindnesses, your messiness- yes, I even miss your messiness. 

I miss our conversations that could range over subjects from history to philosophy to theology to puns to space travel to comic strips to politics to...well, you name it. We talked about everything, argued about some things, and managed to keep up with one another when we changed the subject without signaling.

We were always pausing television shows to discuss whether they got the history right. We would pause them to look at the artwork in the background of scenes or to look carefully and lustfully at all the incredible gardens in our British murder mysteries and yearn for English cool rainy weather.

Oh, babe.  It was never boring with you. I miss your mind. I miss your humor. I miss your touch. I miss being held by my very tall person. 

I miss you. I love you. I always will. 

The Philadelpha Eleven: Prophets of change, bringers of hope

 Today is the 50th Anniversary of the ordinations to the priesthood of 11 women deacons in The Episcopal Church. These ordinations happened in 1974, two years before The Episcopal Church officially approved the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopacy (bishops).

This is a story important in the history of The Episcopal Church, but it's also a story of events that deeply affected me personally -- and I wasn't even an Episcopalian at the time.

But I was a reporter following the news of this church that had such amazing brave women in it.

Photo courtesy The Philadelphia Eleven film

I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church, and educated by nuns in a Catholic boarding school for two very formative years in my life.

I already had begun to distance myself from the Catholic Church, bothered by the inconsistencies of teaching we were all made in the image of God, but somehow, female children of God were less worthy than males. Girls couldn't be altar servers, women couldn't be ordained, and the leadership roles open to women were extremely limited.

So when I read the news and saw the coverage of the ordination of these 11 women, I was mesmerized.

It was a prophetic act, an act of courageous defiance of the patriarchy. And the patriarchy came roaring back at them, as pissed off mostly white male bishops went after the bishops who ordained them and any priests who allowed them to lead worship in their parishes. They limited their attacks on the 11 mostly to forbidding them to preside at Eucharist, a Communion service. But the rhetoric about them often was vicious, and often the viciousness was physical. One man etched deep scratches into Carter Heyward's hand when she gave him Communion.

And on September 7, 1975, four more women deacons were ordained in Washington, raising the temperature of the debate even more. These women became known as the Washington Four.

The Eleven were very aware that they all were white, and they talk about that in the documentary "The Philadelphia Eleven", a film by Margo Guernsey and Nikki Bramley that was released last year.
https://www.philadelphiaelevenfilm.com/

                   The Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, the Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward, and the Rt Rev. 

                    Mary Glasspool.                                                                  Photo courtesy of EDS

On December 9, 2023, a panel sponsored by Episcopal Divinity School that was moderated by EDS Interim President the Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, and featured the Rt. Rev. Mary Glasspool, Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of New York, and the Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward, one of the 1974 women deacons and Philadelphia Eleven, "reflected on the untold ways in which Black Episcopalians and Black activists more broadly supported women’s ordination.

"Rev. Douglas noted that the Philadelphia Eleven were ordained at the historically Black Church of the Advocate where Rev. Paul Washington was rector and Barbara Harris, later to become Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts, as a lay member of the congregation, served as crucifer for the service. Rev. Douglas further pointed out that the local Black Panthers chapter help to provide security for the service."

                               Bishop Barbara Harris, flanked by the Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward
                               and the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, celebrates the Eucharist at
                               her Ordination and Consecration to the Episcopate.
                                                                                              Photo courtesy of the AP.

Barbara Harris' election as Bishop Suffragan in Massachusetts made her the first woman bishop in the Worldwide Anglican Communion. A Black woman. Fort Worth Bishop Clarence Pope promptly declared her the church's "Final Crisis," a phrase that made Harris laugh every time she heard it.

The revered Pauli Murray, Black lawyer, activist, and scholar, was first in her class at Howard University Law school and the only woman. She is the first African American to earn a J.S.D. from Yale Law School and a co-founder of the National Organization for Women. in 1966. Murray had reservations about the 1974 event and did not participate. But she supported those women who did.

And on January 8, 1977, after The Episcopal Church approved the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate in 1976, she was ordained in the National Cathedral, making her the first Black woman priest in The Episcopal Church.

A Very Personal Perspective

In the time between the 1974 ordinations and the 1976 General Convention in Minneapolis where the ordination of women was approved, Carter Heyward was invited to speak at TCU's Canterbury House by its Episcopal chaplain, the Rev. Gayland Pool.

I went to report on this encounter between one of the Eleven and local Episcopal priests. While Pool was courteous and friendly to her, I was shocked by the outright rudeness and vicious rhetoric that came from so many of the Fort Worth clergy. Carter handled it all with grace and patience, which appeared to make them even angrier.

(if you know me, you know that many years later, Gayland Pool and I reconnected and got married. But that's a WHOLE OTHER story)

As I was leaving the meeting to go write my story, I was stopped by a TCU student who quietly told me Carter would be presiding at Eucharist that evening at her house, and I was invited.

So I went, fully in my reporter mode. The small house was crammed full. Carter was at a small coffee table. Before the service she played her guitar and sang "Sometimes I wish my eyes hadn't been open." And then Mass started.

This is a liturgical event I had witnessed thousands of times, daily when I was at a Catholic school. But I was totally unprepared for what happened.

When Carter held up the bread and said, "This is my body," for the first time in my life I heard this phrase said by a woman. By. A. Woman.

The spiritual impact literally staggered me.

For the first time in my life I realized that I WAS PART OF THE BODY Of CHRIST. Me. A woman. I too was included, loved, cherished.

Waves of grief and joy and anger and amazement flooded through me. Grief for all the women denied ordination, all the lay women denigrated and held to be less than men; joy at the sense of being loved and valued, anger at the centuries of exclusion, amazement at the power of a woman holding bread and wine and proclaiming them the Body and Blood of Christ.

When I looked around, I saw that everyone in the room was weeping. I knew down to my bones that something holy had just happened.

So I followed closely the story of The Episcopal Church and its struggle and hard work as it tried to figure out "what to do with these women."

What To Do With These Women

The Episcopal Church from the very beginning viewed the ordination of women as a problem to be solved, not a gift to be celebrated. This approach rooted in fear and misogyny gave way too much room for the patriarchy to do its usual thing of making sure men were comfortable while naming those who were making them uncomfortable the problem. Sadly, this approach has also been that taken while dealing with LGBTQI+ issues -- and all issues related to race.

The church also was in the process of revising the Book of Common Prayer, one part of which was moving Baptism and the Baptismal Covenant into a more central place in life and worship of the Church. Conservatives declared such a move would "change the Church forever." They had no idea how right they were.

The Baptismal Covenant is on Page 304 of the Book of Common Prayer. https://bit.ly/3A0Fudk

One very important thing to know is that the whole congregation joins the person being baptized in making these promises. So these promises are made by all Episcopalians present every time there's a baptism as they "join with those who are committing themselves to Christ and renew our own baptismal covenant."

The Covenant begins with the one being baptized -- and the whole congregation -- affirming belief in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And then it gets pretty specific about what that means for a baptized person.

Celebrant - Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers ?

People - I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant - Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?

People I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant - Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?

People - I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant - Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

People - I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant - Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

People - I will, with God’s help.

Pretty heavy duty promises. Following the baptism the person just baptized is anointed with oil: "Then the Bishop or Priest places a hand on the person’s head, marking on the forehead the sign of the cross [using Chrism if desired] and saying to each one N., you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever. Amen."

You are marked as Christ's own for ever.

Sealed with a cross. Not an asterisk. A cross. You are Christ's own forever whether you are woman, a man, a trans person, a queer person -- no matter what, you are Christ's own forever.

People took this very seriously. People historically on the margins in The Episcopal Church began to ask how the Church itself was living into the Baptismal Covenant. Black Episcopalians, Brown and Asian Episcopalians, women, LGBT+ folk -- they began to organize.

Eventually advocacy groups such as Integrity, which advocated for LGBT folk; the Episcopal Women's Caucus, the Episcopal Urban Caucus, the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, Trans Episcopal, The Episcopal Network for Economic Justice, and Partners for Baptismal Living came together in an organization of organizations called The Consultation to collaborate on change.

And sure enough, as the Church explored what it really meant to seal someone as Christ's own forever, no matter if they were Black, Brown, Asian, gay, straight, trans. .. it began to change. Inclusive and expansive language began to be discussed. The systemic racism of the church began to be openly talked about. The implicit misogyny of patriarchy began to be talked about. Heterosexism was named and talked about.

That change is still happening. I think it's for the good. Others feel otherwise. Just read the history of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth -- which left The Episcopal Church over the full inclusion of women and gay people in the life and worship of the church. They claimed more than $500 million in Episcopal Church property, which the Texas Supreme Court gave to them in 2021.

The work to make these changes was going on before the Philadelphia Eleven were ordained -- but that change was given a huge boost by their actions. Hope blossomed in weary hearts and resolve was strengthened.

ENS reports that "Fifty years later, there are 7,166 women clergy in The Episcopal Church, either active or retired, Curt Ritter, senior vice president and head of content & creative services for Church Pension Group, told Episcopal News Service, "That includes 2.075 deacons, 5,039 priests and 52 bishops.""

Today the House of Bishops looks VERY different than it did then. In addition to the 52 women bishops there are at least 53 people of color and six gay and lesbian bishops.

I celebrate that diversity.

So today, let us honor those 11 women, and all women who came before them and all those coming along now. They have indeed changed the church forever.

---------------

The women ordained as priests in 1974 and 1975

Merrill Bittner

Alla Renée Bozarth

Alison Cheek

Marie Moorefield Fleischer

Emily Hewitt

Suzanne Hiatt

Carter Heyward

Lee McGee Street

Alison Palmer

Jeannette Piccard

Betty Powell

Betty Bone Schiess

Katrina Swanson

Diane Tickell

Nancy Wittig

Happy birthday, Fort Worth. I love you. Do better.

Yesterday was Fort Worth’s demisemiseptcentennial. Don't you love that word? Happy 175th, Fort Worth.

A lot has changed since that fort named after General William Jenkins Worth (who fought in the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War and was a slaveholder) was built on the bluff above the Trinity River. The fort was located there by the U.S. Army to protect the white folks from the Comanches.

Sometimes it feels like the only thing that has changed are the people white folks need to be protected from. It was Comanches then. In the post-Civil War era and on into Jim Crow, it was Black people. Still is. Then add in "illegal immigrants," a sweeping phrase meaning all brown people from south of our border. Or South Texas. Then toss in LGBTQIA+, especially trans children. Oh, and drag queens. And uppity women. Don't forget them. Any woman not a trad wife is suspect.

Funky Town has indeed grown, but I'm not sure it's grown up.

The deep racism of my city has grown less overt, but is still very present -- as it is in ALL Texas cities. The gulf between rich and poor widens every year that Republicans run the state, and as our voucher-obsessed governor greedily eyes school tax dollars for private Christian schools, the starving of our public schools is bearing the predicable fruit.

Our city takes up a big chunk of Tarrant County, named after General Edward H. Tarrant (commander of militia forces of the Republic of Texas and owner of the largest number of slaves in Tarrant County at the time).

Tarrant County leadership is now dominated by a QAnon devotee and other Far Right politicians. The Republican sheriff spends his time trying to get on Fox News while at least 65 prisoners have died in the Tarrant County Jail since the sheriff took office in 2017.

The jail is short more than 200 staffers, according to news reports. The county signed a $18 million contract in September 2023 to move 432 inmates to a private prison in Post, Texas, because of staffing shortages. Detention officers make up about 80% of the sheriff’s office workforce, according to news reports.

To fix this, the county wants to build the sheriff a fancy new very expensive law enforcement training center. Never mind that there are three existing law enforcement centers within 20 miles of the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office that train about 5,700 officers each year. According to news reports, Tarrant County taxpayers have spent at least $123 million on building new public safety training centers in Fort Worth and at Tarrant County College since the early 2000s. The reason given for a shiny new "world class" training facility is that it would help with recruiting and retention of officers.

KERA reported, however, “'There is no research saying that, if you build a brand-spanking new facility with all the bells and whistles, that is going to drive people to apply and become officers or sheriff’s deputies for that department,' said Dic Donohue, a policy researcher with the RAND corporation, focused on law enforcement training and recruitment/retention.

"There are a number of other factors that appear to reliably boost recruitment though, including pay increases, wellness programs and, controversially, relaxing some hiring standards.

'Facilities tend not to not to be high on that list,' Donohue said."

But when you are constantly drumming up fear about "illegals" and drag queens, the solution is clearly more officers, right? To protect white people.

And then there's our mayor.

Fort Worth's Mayor Mattie Parker removed a Pride badge from the city’s summer reading challenge last year after eight parents wrote nearly identical letters decrying the badge. Parker threw a fit and ordered the badge removed from the program. Then when more than 2,000 people signed a petition to have the badge reinstated, she said she had been out of the country and didn't know about the uproar.

“I would never want anybody to feel unwelcome or unseen,” Parker told WFAA in July 2023. “I think my decision was well-founded and, again, it was not meant to hurt anybody’s feelings.”

But this is not about hurt feelings. This is about life and death for some of the most marginalized people in our society -- the youngest of which are at high risk of suicide because our society tells them they are sinful and worthless.

Read more about how this unfolded at https://bit.ly/3VwUnMK

But wait, there's more. Most recently the mayor used her clout to have the city give permission for LUCA (Latinos United for Conservative Action) to host a program focused on “the impact of LGBT ideology, the social contagion of transgenderism, and the dangers of pornography” at the city-owned Fire Station Community Center this month.

The Justice Network of Tarrant County said this is “nothing more than a blatant attempt to heighten fear and spew inaccurate and dangerous information about the transgender community. This can only put the lives of transgender folks, whose safety and security are constantly at risk, in more imminent danger.”

The Justice Network is an interfaith collection of more than 20 organizations and 350 faith leaders and individuals.

Fort Worth Park and Recreation Department’s Community Center Policies & Procedures handbook says, “Use of community centers shall not be permitted to groups which practice, profess, or have as their policy (official or unofficial) discrimination against persons on the basis of sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, color, or national origin,” the policy reads. “Nor shall access be permitted to groups affiliated with organizations which practice, profess, or have a policy of such discrimination.”

That seems really clear.

Parker clearly knows the dangers trans kids face. In a March 2022 interview with the Texas Tribune, ""Parker came to the defense of transgender children and their families amid the state’s push to label some parents of transgender youth as child abusers. Gov. Greg Abbott, who endorsed Parker when she ran for mayor in 2021, recently directed the state’s child welfare agency to investigate parents who let their trans children access gender-affirming care.

"Parker said policymakers should instead focus on providing mental health resources for teenagers and improving conditions for children in the state foster care system. She also cited figures showing transgender teens are much more likely to attempt suicide than their cisgender peers.

“ 'I'm worried right now that you're targeting families that are already incredibly vulnerable and in a really difficult circumstance, when there are so many other hundreds of thousands of kids and families that are in dangerous positions with no regard for the subject of transgender,' Parker said.

“'I could not run in a Republican primary because I just couldn't look myself in the mirror and do it,” Parker said during the event with Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith.

Read it all at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/28/mattie-parker-fort-worth-mayor/

So what happened? What happened, I suspect, is some Republican donors with big bucks.

And I haven't even touched on the Fort Worth Police Department and its stuttering moves toward "rebuilding trust" in the wake of the Jacqueline Craig and Atatiana Jefferson.

So whither Fort Worth? We are among the fastest-growing cities in the nation, not all those newcomers are conservatives. Hence the Republican cry, "Don't California my Texas."

But it doesn't take being from California to want a level playing field, to want the state to stay out of people's medical decisions both those of trans people and of women and girls. Texas women risk death if they have a miscarriage because our abortion laws have terrorized physicians and hospitals. (Of course these laws are supported by the same people chanting, "My body, my choice" to protest mask mandates during the height of the pandemic.)

And here's the crux of the matter.

Texas has long been plagued with low voter turnout, especially in municipal and county elections.

"Of the nearly 1.3 million people registered to vote in Tarrant County, only 6.52%, or 83,161 people, voted in the May 4 election, according to election results reported by KERA on May 4, 2024."

This in an election that included "a number of ballot items, including elections of appraisal district board members, municipal government representatives and school board trustees."

Almost 50,000 voters cast their ballots in-person during the early voting period, and 6,434 people voted by mail, according to unofficial results from the county’s elections department," KERA reported.

Only 6.52% of eligible voters -- Fort Worth, you should be ashamed. Way too many of you can't be bothered to exercise the most basic right of all, the bedrock of our Republic -- the right to vote.

I love Fort Worth. I love its museums and parks. My daughter and grandchildren went through the FWISD. Fort Worth people are generous and kind in a thousand ways a day. People are working their butts off helping the homeless, feeding the hungry, loving the unlovable, caring for children, helping neighbors.

But the only way all that goodness can manifest itself in our city, county, state, and national government is if all those good people vote. Otherwise, we will continue to be governed by those elected by a tiny smidgen of the people.

So come on Fort Worth. You are so much better than this.

My Taurus love

Today is Gayland's birthday. Somewhere there's a party going on in heaven with lots of great food and drink and EVERYBODY'S invited! And I mean everybody. 

Gayland loves a party. One of his greatest joys is gathering up all the people he can and loving on them by playing host. I can't tell you how many times I got home from Channel 13 only to be informed that 10 people were coming over for dinner, and should we eat inside or outside?

He would cook for everyone while I hurriedly set the table and tidied up. Gayland always reassured me that the house looked fine, but of course Mr. Untidy himself wouldn't know a tidy house if he lived in one.

I finally made peace with it, figuring that anyone who was coming to judge my housekeeping skills was missing the point of the gathering. 

Gayland was a Taurus (April 20-May 20), described this way: "No one will expose you to the finer things in life quite like a Taurus. This fixed earth sign has impeccable taste and loves to indulge."

No matter what you think of astrological signs, this one is spot on. 

With Gayland, the finer things in life didn't mean just food and art and music, although those were definitely part of it all. For him, though, the finer things in life mean sitting on the floor with a child, having a serious talk about bunnies. Or walking in the park with an unhoused person, learning their story. Or helping a man dying much too young from AIDS realize he was beloved of God, and certainly loved by Gayland. 

Or, in Israel, spending one day with an Israeli friend and another with a Palestinian friend. Or listening for the 1000th time to a person grieving for a lost child, and being fully present and caring. Or marveling at his two grandsons, who were the most amazing boys ever born. (He was absolutely correct.)

Or driving people to the polls to vote. Or writing his stream-of-consciousness newsletter to his various congregations, who got used to his idiosyncratic punctuation. Or quietly helping someone pay their rent, or make a car payment.

Gayland also was a champion appreciator. He appreciated beautiful gardens, although he never worked one day to grow one. He appreciated people who tried hard to make things around them beautiful, no matter how big or small the effort. He appreciated good cooking, and loved me even though cooking is NOT one of my skills.

Most of all, he appreciated LIFE and all it threw at him. He weathered is all because his faith in a loving God never wavered. 

Not that there weren't things he thought God could do better -- and I am sure he has informed God of his entire list. 

And I am sure God is at Gayland's party, lifting Their glasses in a toast to the Birthday Boy.

Happy birthday my love. I miss you every day.

The highways and byways of sorrow

One of the realities of living into your 70s is that you begin to lose people -- beloved family members, friends, and acquaintances that you cherished.

On an intellectual level I knew this, but I was unprepared for the emotional impact. Because each of these lost beloveds have a geography attached to them, places that we shared, places we had fun, places we faced adversity together, places we worshiped together, places we ate regularly, places where we helped one another and others.

The landscape of your life becomes marked by invisible signs that say, "[Your beloved] isn't here any more," bringing with it a fresh rush of grief, however brief, that takes your breath away for a moment. 

For instance, heading east on I-30 off to my right over the hill is Bruce's house, where if I took the Beach exit instead of my Oakland exit I could swing by and see if he's out in the yard and we'd chat.

Or driving north on Eight Street, stopping at the light at Elizabeth Blvd. If I turned right, as I did for many decades, I'd go right by Joan's house, where I often went for strategy meetings or just to pick her up to go to lunch with our other co-conspirators.

Or driving on Camp Bowie, where, if I turn on Virginia Place I could stop by Bill's house, and visit with him and his fabulous wife. She grieves for him in that house, just as I still grieve for Gayland in mine.

Heading north on Montgomery, if I turn on Crestline, which I do a lot when I go to the bank, I drive past Richard's house, again, where his also fabulous wife still grieves his loss. 

Or in my own East Side, driving on Randol Mill, I glance up the hill and think of Deb now freshly grieving the loss of Sharon, and I grieve with her. 

And of course, there are the countless places that were meaningful for me and Gayland that still cause stabs of loss and grief every time I go past them.

Sometimes the weight of grief and loss seems too much to bear. But then I am reminded of a passage from Louise Erdrich’s 2005 novel The Painted Drum that I wrote down years ago:

"Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could."

So I go walk in the garden with the dogs where we rejoice that Mom's irises are beginning to bloom again and the wild buttercups are taking over their favorite flowerbed.

Life is bursting forth all around us with a force that pushes aside
grief, waving banners of hope and gratitude.

And I am reminded again that love abides. Always.

Can the Fourth of July be an occasion to celebrate, not dread?

In recent years, for way too many people, the Fourth of July has become an occasion of dread, not celebration.  That's a shame for the holiday that is meant to celebrate the best of this country's aspirations. The cause? Out-of-control fireworks and guns going off in residential neighborhoods and the seeming inability of the City to do anything about it.

The reigniting of the municipal fireworks in much of Texas and the nation was a result of celebrating the Bicentennial in 1976.  That national celebration reintroduced large scale fireworks to a nation who largely thought of them as fire crackers and bottle rockets.

Texas went big for the Bicentennial but with many local projects instead of one big state celebration. According to D Magazine, "In all there were 810 projects throughout the state. Among them were 102 new museums, 146 oral history projects, 387 tree-planting projects, 105 new parks, 14 medical facilities, 85 preservations, 227 restorations, 302 historical publications, 66 cookbooks, 195 flagpoles, 41 gazebos, and 90 time capsules."

The Bicentennial culminated on Sunday, July 4, 1976, with the 200th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

AN EXCITING TIME  

It was an exciting time in the United States. Women and African Americans were making visible strides toward full equality under the law.

Barbara Jordon became the first African American to keynote a national political convention at the Democratic National Convention and Clifford Alexander Jr. became the first African American to be Secretary of the U. S. Army. On July 6, the first class of women at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis is inducted. Barbara Walters hosted the final presidential debate.

In other news, Jimmy Carter defeated incumbent president Gerald Ford, and two new companies, Apple Computer and Microsoft, incorporated. In Gregg v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty is not inherently cruel or unusual and is a constitutionally acceptable form of punishment. A tiny 14-year-old Romanian named Nadia Comaneci scored a historic perfect 10 on the uneven bars at the Montreal Olympics and snagged three gold medals.

The Viking 1 landed successfully on Mars and began sending back color photos of the planet's surface, including the famous Face on Mars photo. 

                                                       THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1976

On the Fourth itself, the arrival of the Tall Ships in New York Harbor was all over television.

Fort Worth put on a parade in which the local chapter of the National Organization for Women had a float featuring women in American history. It was decorated with a huge head of Liberty carved by our own Nancy Lamb. I was State Representative Chris Miller on the float.

And that night, there was a huge fireworks show down by the Trinity River. Prior to this, big municipal fireworks shows weren't really a thing in Texas. People might set off a few fire crackers, but mostly the Fourth was family cookouts, trips to the lake, and swim parties.

But since 1976, municipal firework shows have become an annual event in Fort Worth and most other Texas cities.

AN UGLY COROLLARY  

However, a sad and ugly corollary has been the steady increase in individuals setting off fireworks in residential neighborhoods, which is illegal in Fort Worth and other cities. Last year, my East Side neighborhood sounded like a war zone for five nights in a row, with commercial grade fireworks being set off in the cul de sac behind my house. These explosions went on well into the early morning hours. The police were largely ineffective.

Aside from the danger of setting houses on fire, the impact of all these explosions on veterans and pets is horrific. My dogs and cat hate it, and shutting us all the bedroom with music, the tv, and a white noise machine does little to mask to the noise. Add to the cacophony the idiots who shoot off guns all night and it's a wonder people aren't killed. I have a neighbor who is a veteran and he leaves the city every year to go to a friend's hunting cabin because all the explosions trigger his PTSD so badly that he can't function.

One result of the city allowing this to get so out of control has been the number of people who have begun to really really dislike fireworks. I know of so many who have moved from loving the excitement and the beauty of that show in 1976 to a deep dread of and dislike for the Fourth and all the accompanying uproar.

So this year, the City of Fort Worth raised the fine for illegal fireworks to $2000.00 and posted this information on signs throughout the city. It seems to have had a impact. While the police still didn't show up when we called them, and it still sounded like a war zone on the Fourth, the nights leading up to and after the Fourth were much quieter.

HOPE FOR QUIET BEAUTY

But there is hope that virtual light shows and drones might overtake fireworks in popularity.

In Seattle the New Year of 2021 was run in at the Space Needle with a stunning visual display developed by a Seattle entrepreneur.

And drone shows are amazingly lovely.

This new development of having shows put on using drones or virtual light shows offers hope for a new way to celebrate without the noise and the danger. Of course, for way too many people, the noise and the danger is part of the appeal of fireworks.

But one can still hope that the quiet beauty of the drones may win out over the bombastic fireworks. My hope is that the City of Fort Worth will adopt the drones or a virtual light show for the annual Fourth of July show and let the fireworks die in the dust.

Rural Texans, it's time to push back

Rural Texans, you have faithfully voted Republican for decades, buying into the Republicans' portrayal of Democrats as unChristian baby killers who want to turn your children gay, make them hate America by teaching them the true racist history of our country, give all your stuff to Black and brown people, inject you with micro chips via vaccine, and other fear mongering tactics that distract you from the fact that they don't give a flying flip about you.

Note how Gov. Greg Abbott's refusal to expand Medicaid has devastated rural hospitals. Does your small community even have a hospital any more? Most likely not, as rural hospitals in Texas have closed in droves.
Now comes the move on school vouchers - to take money away from your local schools so parents can send their kids to private schools at taxpayers expense.
Let's talk about schools in small towns in Texas.

They, along with your churches, are the heartbeat of your town, aren't they? I know, because I grew up in Iraan in Pecos County and went to high school at Odessa Permian. Go Mojo!

The principal and teachers are your neighbors and friends. The coaches are local heroes. The whole town turns out for Friday night football, for all the home basketball and baseball games and then everyone caravans to the away games, often trailing the school buses carrying the team. Certainly you are there at 1 am - and sometimes later in the vast expanses of West Texas -- when the buses return home with either very tired kids who are congratulated on their victory or very tired kids who need to be reminded that they played a great game, even if they didn't win.

(I remember once when the bus of one of Permian's fierce rivals broke down about ten miles outside town. Within an hour, Permian parents had organized to pick up all the kids and coaches, drive them all the 80 plus miles home, and then return to Odessa.)

Everyone in town supports the PTA bake sales, buying each other's cakes and competing good naturedly on the cake of the town's acknowledged Best Baker. Everyone supports the car washes, scrap metal drives, Christmas wrap sales, and candy sales of the various youth groups. Everyone supports the band and the choir and the pep squad. And of course the football teams. This IS Texas, after all.

You know your schools aren't failing. You know CRT is not being taught there. You know your teachers are trustworthy enough to pick out books for your kids.
And here's the thing - all this is true of the schools in Fort Worth and other Texas cities. Because I'm not the only small town product who has moved to a Texas city.
Texas. The word Tejas means "friends or allies," which is why "friendship" is our state motto.

What the Republicans are trying to do to your schools is not the act of a friend or ally.

So do what you've always done Stand up for your schools and your teachers and the kids. All the kids.

Don't let them take money from your schools and give it to parents wanting their kids in a private school. Push back.

You're Texans. I know the kindness, the heart for community, the generosity of which you are capable. It's time to remind Republicans that we don't scare easily, we don't appreciate being lied to, we love our kids, and we value fairness, friendship, and fidelity.

It's time to push back.