Jumping Horny Toads am I looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have been looking forward to this meal since Christmas. There is nothing like good turkey and dressing, with giblet gravy and hot rolls, man, what a country we live in. Don't say anything to her, but my mother-in-law makes the best dressing you have ever tasted. Just don't want to give her the big head or something.

Well, back to work. With the holiday seasons, comes numerous concerns for law enforcement and none greater than traffic. We want to remind everyone to plan ahead and not rush this holiday season. We see it every year and it is very sad, an accident that could have been avoided by just slowing down and/or planning ahead. Plan your route, have the necessary items that you might need in an emergency, have your phone charger and make sure you have a good map. Check with your loved ones at your destination and make sure you are aware of any new road construction in that area. Things like this can cut back on the stress of the trip. We also want to ask your help to watch for reckless drivers. We all know the ones I am referring to, the ones passing three or four cars at a high rate of speed, passing on the shoulder and/or passing in no passing zones with no regard for the safety of others. We also want your help as well to locate and take down suspected intoxicated drivers. We will be out in force, so please call 911 if you see anything dangerous occurring in our county or anywhere for that matter. One more note on the intoxicated drivers subject. We all know where we stand on this issue; please if you are going to drink then don't drive! I would love to see us make it through the weekend without any arrests for DWI, but we are prepared for them if need be.

The other issue is the safety of our property. Please contact us and let us know your travel plans and we will do our best to check on your property. Call the jail and leave us your address and a good contact number in case of emergencies. You never know when you might have a busted water pipe or an alarm go off and we can't get in touch with you. We will do our best to keep patrols out but it sure helps if we know you are gone and we put you on the contact list. You can also do some things to make it look like you are home while you are gone. Have a neighbor pick up your mail or have the post office hold it. Leave a lamp on in a spot in the house where it can be seen and one that you normally use. The small things can sometimes mean the difference between a break in and a crook passing your house by.

The other safety issue is fire. With the holidays comes lots of cooking, fires in the fire place and outdoor cooking over a pit. This time of year we see lots of fire calls and a lot of them could have been prevented. In your home, check or put up smoke detectors. If you don't have them, then check with the San Saba Fire Department, because they do. While there, pick up some stickers for your children's windows at home to alert us as to where your child sleeps in case of fire. If you own one, then check your fire extinguisher and make sure it is good. Now, if you don't, then this is the perfect time to get one and make sure it's the right one. If you have any questions then you can contact a local fireman or Mr. Cox with Cox's Fire Service and any of them will help you. Let's take a look at and clean those vent-a-hoods, I bet they all need some work. How about the chimney? You can get on the internet and it will tell you exactly what maintenance you need to keep your chimney from burning down your home. Well, it's just some simple thoughts. Now on the issue of outside cooking and/or burning, well burning is off due to the extreme fire danger but cooking is allowed. Yet, please use extreme caution this year. We have had little and/or no rain in our area and no one wants to spend their holiday fighting a grass fire.

One last safety tip and it concerns our children again. We need to all have that talk with our children about strangers again. We need to take the time and sit down with them and put a safety plan into place. You need a plan that works for, not only the children, but for you, the parent as well. We need to define what a stranger is and how to react to a stranger. We need a safe place to go if we are not around or if the child is taken and escapes. We need to let them know when it's ok to tell an adult "NO" and when it's ok to fight back and how to fight back. I believe that sometimes we live in our own safe little community and we get very complacent in our thoughts when it comes to safety. I will be running a series of articles on safety in our homes and protecting our families and hope that if you would like to weigh in on this subject and/or help, that you would contact me. Working as your Sheriff, I feel that it is one of my biggest responsibilities to do my best to provide you with current information concerning the safety of our communities and our families.

Well, on a final thought, let's all take a moment to be thankful for all that God has provided us this year. We are all so very privileged and we need to look around and find just one person who is having a hard time or maybe not as blessed as we are. Take a moment and share a blessing with that person. We must look to our senior citizens and make sure that someone is taking care of them. How many are alone and no one checks on them or maybe they have no family. Take a moment and bless another with a word of kindness and then feel the warmth of the season truly come over you.

We are always waiting for your call and as always you can call 325-372-5551 or 5432 or it's an emergency then call 911. Have a safe and blessed holiday season and thank you for all your prayers and support.