All jacked up
Wow. I haven't blogged in a LONG TIME. That's... not good! I will now attempt to remedy that. So! Things that have happened...
All jacked up
Don't believe I've ever had this much
One thing I've learned when you get tore up
Don't drive your truck when you're all jacked up
I got sick... or rather realized I was sick right after I blogged the last time. The flu decided to plow through our whooole family and make us miserable for almost two weeks. I got over it and back to work on Wednesday (still had sinus headaches and stuff). Had a not-too-interesting rest of the week... I don't think... I don't remember. ;-P
I spent the night at Paige's on Wednesday, and then Thursday I go to work, walk into my classroom and I'm immediately plunged into complete and total havoc. It was Spring Break week in Tomball, so my kids had been at daycare all day every day for four days... and the teacher they had in there Thursday before my shift had basically let them rain destruction upon the classroom and go wild. The room was a wreck, the closet door was locked from the inside with no key to open it, the bleach had disappeared, the snack was half-eaten already, and the computer was dead. Worse, the director, Ms. Pat, and her assistant, Ms. Alice, were in the room helping clean up. I basically got blamed for the WHOLE ordeal - because I didn't use the curriculum to assign activities for the days. What. The. Heck. First of all, I'm the AFTERNOON teacher. My shift is 3 to 6. I have nothing to do with the mornings, at all - the curriculum is in the closet, let the morning teacher figure it out! For the rest of that day, I was also basically not allowed to send the TERRORS in my classroom to the office when they cussed out the other kids, threw chairs around the room and ripped work papers apart. I can't keep the classroom under control when I have two or three horrible little kids ruining everything I try to do with the eight good kids. And I've been told that no other teacher has been able to do any better than me, either - so if the director has a problem with how that class is behaving, she needs to kick the trouble makers out. Or figure out a different discipline system - because timeouts don't work when the child refuses to sit down, and that's about the only thing we're legally allowed to do.
So, um, I got very frustrated. I came home crying and screaming four days in a row. And then I quit. O:-) Daycare just does noooot fit my personality, at ALL... and now I get to go through the delightful process of finding a job. Again. :-P
This last weekend, we went to see She's The Man with the youth group (it was... eh... pretty good, for a teen movie) on Friday night, and then Saturday we had a golf tournament as a fundraiser for The Feast. I haven't heard the official total yet, but from all indications, we made out like bandits and have almost the whole trip paid for. Yay! I ended up staying in Conroe afterwards with Cecily (our youth group president, she's awesome) - we went with Jason, Mark and Ashley from St. Mark to pick up some pizza and watch Saw II at the church. I ended up thinking the movie wasn't so bad. ;-) Sunday evening we did Compline as a sort of choral service thing... which was gorgeous. Lots of choir activity, but it was worth it.
This week isn't much... Friday my Na Na and aunt are coming over, Saturday I'm probably going out with a bunch of people in Conroe and Sunday is church and a youth meeting. NEXT weekend, the youth group is cleaning the church in the morning and playing softball with three other area churches in the evening, and then Sunday is Palm Sunday and the installation of our new associate pastor, Pastor Charles Mallie! :-D Which we're all VERY VERY excited about!! *bounces around*
That's about it, amazingly enough. OH. If you're a college student and you live in or around Texas (like, New Mexico, Louisiana, Oklahoma or Arkansas), then YOU MUST COME to the Lutherans in God's Word/Christ on Campus retreat in June!! Go here and download the PDF file and register. Now. Because I said so. ;-)
And THAT'S it. Y'all have a good one!
Dear Friends,
Last year, I wrote a small piece about what it means to me to be a Texan. My friends know it means about damned near everything. Anyway, this fella’ asked me to reprint what I'd wrote and I didn't have it. So I set out to think about rewriting something. I considered writing about all the great things I love about Texas. There are way too many things to list. I can't even begin to do it justice. Lemme’ let you in on my short list.
It starts with The Window at Big Bend, which in and of itself is proof of God. It goes to Lake Sam Rayburn where my Granddad taught me more about life than fishin’, and enough about fishin’ to last a lifetime. I can talk about Tyler, and Longview, and Odessa and Cisco, and Abilene and Poteet and every place in between. Every little part of Texas feels special. Every person who ever flew over the Lone Star thinks of Bandera or Victoria or Manor or wherever they call "home" as the best little part of the best state.
So I got to thinking about it, and here's what I really want to say. Last year, I talked about all the great places and great heroes who make Texas what it is. I talked about Willie and Waylon and Michael Dell and Michael DeBakey and my Dad and LBJ and Denton Cooley. I talked about everybody that came to mind. It took me sitting here tonight reading this stack of emails and thinkin' about where I've been and what I've done since the last time I wrote on this occasion to remind me what it is about Texas that is really great.
You see, this last month or so I finally went to Europe for the first time. I hadn't ever been, and didn't too much want to. But you know all my damned friends are always talking about "the time they went to Europe." So, I finally went. It was a hell of a trip to be sure. All they did when they saw me was say the same thing, before they'd ever met me. "Hey cowboy, we love Texas." I guess the hat tipped ‘em off. But let me tell you what, they all came up with a smile on their faces. You know why? They knew for damned sure that I was gonna’ be nice to ‘em. They knew it ‘cause they knew I was from Texas. They knew something that hadn't even hit me. They knew Texans, even though they'd never met one.
That's when it occurred to me. Do you know what is great about Texas?
Do you know why when my friend Beverly and I were trekking across country to see 15 baseball games we got sick and had to come home after 8? Do you know why every time I cross the border I say, "Lord, please don't let me die in ______"?
Do you know why children in Japan can look at a picture of the great State and know exactly what it is about the same time they can tell a rhombus from a trapezoid? I can tell you that right quick. You. The same spirit that made 186 men cross that line in the sand in San Antonio damned near 165 years ago is still in you today. Why else would my friend send me William Barrett Travis' plea for help in an email just a week ago, or why would Charles Stenciled ask me to reprint a Texas Independence column from a year ago?
What would make my friend Elizabeth say, "I don't know if I can marry a man who doesn't love Texas like I do?" Why in the hell are 1,000 people coming to my house this weekend to celebrate a holiday for what used to be a nation that is now a state? Because the spirit that made that nation is the spirit that burned in every person who founded this great place we call Texas, and they passed it on through blood or sweat to every one of us.
You see, that spirit that made Texas what it is, is alive in all of us, even if we can't stand next to a cannon to prove it, and it's our responsibility to keep that fire burning. Every person who ever put a "Native Texan" or an "I wasn't born in Texas but I got here as fast as I could" sticker on his car understands. Anyone who ever hung a map of Texas on their wall or flew a Lone Star flag on their porch knows what I mean.
My Dad's buddy Bill has an old saying. He says that some people were forged of a hotter fire. Well, that's what it is to be Texan. To be forged of a hotter fire.
To know that part of Colorado was Texas. That part of New Mexico was Texas. That part of Oklahoma was Texas. Yep. Talk all you want. Part of what you got was what we gave you. To look at a picture of Idaho or Istanbul and say, "what the Hell is that?" when you know that anyone in Idaho or Istanbul who sees a picture of Texas knows damned good and well what it is. It isn't the shape, it isn't the state, it's the state of mind. You're what makes Texas.
The fact that you would take 15 minutes out of your day to read this, because that's what Texas means to you, that's what makes Texas what it is. The fact that when you see the guy in front of you litter you honk and think, "Sonofabitch. Littering on MY highway."
When was the last time you went to a person's house in New York and you saw a big map of New York on their wall? That was never. When did you ever drive through Oklahoma and see their flag waving on four businesses in a row? Can you even tell me what the flag in Louisiana looks like? I damned sure can't.
But I bet my ass you can't drive 20 minutes from your house and not see a business that has a big Texas flag as part of its logo. If you haven't done business with someone called All Tex something or Lone Star somebody or other, or Texas such and such, you hadn't lived here for too long.
When you ask a man from New York what he is, he'll say a stockbroker, or an accountant, or an ad exec. When you ask a woman from California what she is, she'll tell you her last name or her major. Hell either of ‘em might say "I'm a republican," or they might be a democrat. When you ask a Texan what they are, before they say, "I'm a Methodist," or "I'm a lawyer," or "I'm a Smith," they tell you they're a Texan. I got nothin' against all those other places, and Lord knows they've probably got some fine folks, but in your gut you know it just like I do, Texas is just a little different.
So tomorrow when you drive down the road and you see a person broken down on the side of the road, stop and help. When you are in a bar in California, buy a Californian a drink and tell him it's for Texas Independence Day. Remind the person in the cube next to you that he wouldn't be here enjoying this if it weren't for Sam Houston, and if he or she doesn't know the story, tell them.
When William Barrett Travis wrote in 1836 that he would never surrender and he would have Victory or Death, what he was really saying was that he and his men were forged of a hotter fire. They weren't your average everyday men.
Well, that is what it means to be a Texan. It meant it then, and that's why it means it today. It means just what all those people north of the Red River accuse us of thinking it means. It means there's no mountain that we can't climb. It means that we can swim the Gulf in the winter. It means that Earl Campbell ran harder and Houston is bigger and Dallas is richer and Alpine is hotter and Stevie Ray was smoother and God vacations in Texas.
It means that come Hell or high water, when the chips are down and the Good Lord is watching, we're Texans by damned, and just like in 1836, that counts for something. So for today at least, when your chance comes around, go out and prove it. It's true because we believe it's true. If you are sitting wondering what the Hell I'm talking about, this ain't for you.
But if the first thing you are going to do when the Good Lord calls your number is find the men who sat in that tiny mission in San Antonio and shake their hands, then you're the reason I wrote this tonight, and this is for you. So until next time you hear from me, God Bless and Happy Texas Independence Day.
May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings, slow to make enemies and quick to make friends. But rich or poor, quick or slow, may you know nothing but happiness from this day forward.
Bum Phillips