Yesterday a Facebook notification showed up notifying me that something had changed...
A Page you follow, Elect Mary Kelleher, changed its name to Mary Kelleher for FW City Council 5
This was new news to me. I am assuming Mary Kelleher's current term on the Tarrant Regional Water District Board is coming to an end, and thus, now, Mary Kelleher is running to become a Fort Worth city councilwoman.
Ironically, well, maybe it is not ironic, more coincidental, but the same day I learned Mary is likely going to become a councilwoman, a Microsoft OneDrive Memory showed up which also reminded me of Mary Kelleher.
That is me you see above, on my way to D/FW International Airport, picking up an ostrich egg from Mary Kelleher's mailbox, on the way.
Switching from ostrich eggs back to the previous subject.
If my memory is serving me correctly, I first learned of Mary Kelleher, decades ago, via an article in Fort Worth Weekly, about Mary's issues regarding the Trinity River regularly flooding in her area of Fort Worth.
Prior to that, the entity who goes by the name Layla Caraway, who some know as Elsie Hotpepper, had been in the news---local, state and national, due to her home in Haltom City teetering precariously above a flooding creek.
Fort Worth's Congresswoman, Kay Granger, visited the site of Elsie Hotpepper's teetering home, causing Elsie to have some hope that maybe that local politician might be of some help. A hope history would prove to be erroneous.
This was all happening early on during the first decade of what has become an embarrassing Boondoggle, which has been Boondoggling along now for three decades, with little to show for what was purported to be a vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme.
The fact that no attention was being paid to actual vitally needed flood control, both in the flooding creeks in Haltom City, and the Trinity River in East Fort Worth, motivated both Elsie Hotpepper and Mary Kelleher to become what are known as political activists.
After reading about Mary's flood woes in that FW Weekly article, Elsie Hotpepper met with Mary, and convinced her to run for the TRWD Board.
I remember I was on a bike ride on the Trinity Trail when I got a call from Elsie Hotpepper, telling me about the meeting with Mary, and the hope Mary would run and win.
Mary did so, she ran and won. By a landslide.
I recollect my first time meeting Mary was when I went to vote at the Handley/Ederville polling location, where Mary was outside the polling location, greeting voters. I introduced myself.
It is sort of hard to believe this was such a long time ago, and, all these years later, the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision has yet to come to any sort of useful visible fruition. That and nothing much has been done to mitigate flooding in Tarrant County areas actually prone to deadly, serious flooding.
If I remember correctly, and sometimes I do, the last time I saw Mary and Elsie, in person*, was back in early 2016. Mary took Elsie and me out to lunch at an Outback Steakhouse, I think that was the location.
And then after lunch we drove to Mary's farm where I met a large collection of animals, including an ostrich, one of whose eggs ended up getting picked up by me out of Mary's mailbox, a few days later.
Methinks it will greatly benefit Fort Worth having Mary Kelleher on the city council. And then, eventually, Fort Worth Mayor. Or Kay Granger's position. As a congresswoman...
*I was erroneous regarding Outback Steakhouse being the last time I have seen Elsie Hotpepper. I forgot about a year before COVID struck, I pedaled my bike to Sikes Lake to meet up with Elsie at a Sikes Lake gazebo.
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