Columns/Opinions

In the midst of decorating for Christmas, I discovered I was covered in glitter.

A lot of folks get sad at Christmas. People get stressed and angry and fed up and exhausted—at Christmas and the rest of the year, for that matter. I don’t get depressed during the holidays, but I understand how it could happen.

I was married for many years to a man who was grumpy a great deal. When Christmas came, efforts to keep his grumpiness under wraps were quickly exhausted and he became pretty much intolerable.

“Christmas!’ he exploded on one infamous occasion. “What a fiasco!”

To be fair, my ex-husband laughed when I later put a picture of Santa Claus on our refrigerator and drew a caption bubble over his head saying, “Christmas! What a fiasco!” But, in the moment, I’m sure he did think Christmas was a fiasco and I will tell you frankly, I found his attitude hard to handle.

‘Tis a puzzlement. Can anyone on the planet engage us to the degree that a 20th century icon did?

More specifically, can anyone “grab” us visually the way he did--that prolific author, painter and illustrator who reached Americans’innermost cockles with a paint brush and canvas?

That icon re-defined sentimentality with engaging covers on The Saturday Evening Post 321 times during the publication’s 66 years of weekly magazines. His name was Norman Rockwell. Some well-known critics refused to take his works seriously, even failing to call him an artist. Rockwell agreed, but still turned out more than 4,000 original works, capturing the hearts of a grateful nation, up to and including U.S. presidents….

“Have you seen Rockwell’s Post cover this week?” was a question heard often from border to border and from shore to shore. His covers sparked convivial conversation across backyard fences, in barber and beauty shops and thousands of other places across the land.

I get tired of hearing myself saying it, but where in the world is all the time going? I feel as if we just started November, and here it is December and the holiday rush has already swept me away. My gate decorations are not up, my house is bare, fall cleaning was missed, and the end of the first semester is lurking around the corner. I know time goes faster as you get older, but the kids are singing the same song. I can’t seem to find a way to slow it all down.

Our native woody plants (trees and shrubs) fall into two categories: evergreen and deciduous, the latter means they lose their leaves in the winter and then put on new growth on last year's stems. The majority of our woody species are in fact deciduous, but that doesn't mean they all behave the same.

The timing of leaf drop and of growing back new leaves varies from species to species, as well as with the length of daylight, temperature and moisture. Even within those conditions, there is some variation among individual plants. Some examples of species differences: Buckeyes (Texas and yellow) usually lose their leaves in August or early September. Walnuts start losing their leaves in September and are bare before most of our other trees begin to lose leaves. Then in the spring, elbowbush usually blooms in February and puts out leaves shortly after that, which is why it is also called Spring herald.

Still having some cool mornings, but up in the day it warms up, no rain. Have had several mornings of heavy frost.

People are gathering what pecan crop they have. It seems the pecans are not filled out as good as they could be. The pecan show is in the process; volunteers are busy shelling the pecans to put in the show.

Leon Eckhoff reported that he and Mebbie spent Thanksgiving in Hawley with son, Robbie, Amy and sons, Ethan and Ory. Leon and Robbie were in Kentucky last week attending the Rambouillet sheep show. Robbie is the secretary and has to attend all the shows.

Jane Clark reported on all of the Thanksgiving news of this past week.

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I have written before about the Earth's natural hydrologic cycle and energy transfer. Most folks know that water evaporates from the oceans, moves over land and rains, the rain either runs off the land into rivers and back to the ocean or soaks into the soil where it either cycles through vegetation or seeps into water tables and aquifers, but it eventually all returns to the oceans.

The Hill Country Chapter of the Texas Master Naturalist celebrated the graduation of 34 members of its 17th class this week. This class brings the total number of Master Naturalists trained by our chapter to 545!

The Master Naturalist program is a volunteer organization sponsored jointly by the Texas AgriLife Extension Service and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. It is modeled somewhat on the Master Gardener program. The mission statement describes very well what the program is all about: "To develop a corps of well-informed volunteers to provide education, outreach, and service dedicated to the beneficial management of natural resources and natural areas within their communities."

To become a Master Naturalist, one must first attend a class training program consisting of 12 half-day sessions, usually with three speakers on different nature-related topics, plus, typically, three field trips.

In 1940, novelist Thomas Wolfe’s best known work, published posthumously, made a strong claim in its title: You Can’t Go Home Again. During a 10-day November visit to Texas, now Kansan Ray Hildebrand proved him wrong.

In effect, the composer of “Hey, Paula”--the number one popular song in the United States and free world early in 1963--took up where he left off more than 55 years ago. That’s when fame beckoned his going one way, and his heart another. He followed his heart.

The 78-year-old sang and plunked his guitar for more than 1,100 folks at a halfdozen Texas “get-togethers.” In Cleburne--a stone’s throw from his birthplace in Joshua--an “Evening with Ray Hildebrand” was memorable….

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Rain came down once again around the Bend sometime Sunday night dropping a half inch of rain. The mornings have been crisp and cool making it seem more like Fall is upon us. It has been good for hunters as they have been bringing in a good amount of deer to be processed. The weather report Monday afternoon has reported a freeze warning for Tuesday.

A big thank you goes out to Bobbie Morris and to Jim Hicks who placed flags on the graves of soldiers buried in all the cemeteries around the Bend area. Bobbie and Jim have been doing this for many years.

The High Valley Baptist members have been busy filling boxes (shoe boxes) with fun toys, hygiene items and school supplies and a small new testament Bible for world wide distribution in more than 100 countries to share the Gospel and bless children. National collection week is November 13-20. Think about packing a shoe box to send to some child from age 2 to 14 years of age.

By Sue Ransom

Fuzzy is delighted that cool weather has arrived and he can cavort about in glee. I don’t feel that way at all. Many decades ago I left my home country of Canada to seek warmer climates.

Texas overdoes it during the summer, but the winters are pretty good.

Friday night’s game was just too uncomfortable for this imported lady. I didn’t bring my blanket and my poor little feet froze. I was glad to head over to the First Baptist Church, and stuff my face with delicious pulled pork sandwiches from Young’s Barbeque in San Saba.