Lady In Turquoise Talks Trash To Me At Sikes Lake

I was only a few steps into today's walk around Sikes Lake when the lady you see here in the turquoise dress smiled sweetly at me and asked if she could ask me a question.

Sure, said I, what do you want to know.

Do you walk here often, she asked.

Uh, thought I, is this sweet young thing using some sorta cliche pickup line on me?

No, I was not so lucky.

She asked me if I ever help pick up litter at Sikes Lake. I told her I never see litter at Sikes Lake, and that this past weekend there was a Sikes Lake litter cleanup which made no sense to me, because when I learned of the pickup I thought to myself it would take one person twenty minutes to walk around the lake and realize there was no litter to pick up.

She then told me people on local social media were complaining about litter floating on Sikes Lake. I asked if she was talking about the Wichita Falls Rants & Raves Facebook page where I'd seen a post which made no sense, with a photo of litter alleged to be floating at the north end of the lake.

The lady in turquoise confirmed the Facebook page was the source of the litter complaint. She and her team of photographers had been assigned the task of looking into this. I assume for the MSU school paper, or the Wichita Falls News Record.

She asked if it is true a creek runs into the lake. I pointed towards the southwest end of the lake and confirmed that is where a creek enters the lake. Apparently it had been speculated that litter was flowing into the lake after getting flushed into the creek by the storms of the past 24  hours, such as what happens to an astonishing level to the Trinity River anytime copious amounts of rain falls.

So, imagine my surprise when a few minutes later I was at the aforementioned southwest end of the lake and saw that which you see below.

Litter in floating flotsam mode. I saw multiple instances of litter in the lake, at the southwest end, something I had not seen during any previous walk around Sikes Lake.

Litter floating from the creek into Sikes Lake could not make it to the area pictured littered in the Wichita Falls Rants & Raves Facebook page. Litter would flow towards the dam spillway, not to the north end of the lake, where there is a barrier clear across the lake, impeding the flow into the area that sparked the concern on social media.

Above is the aforementioned dam spillway, today spilling a lot of overflow, due to the multiple inches of rain of the past 24 hours.

I saw no litter spilling over the spillway during the short time I enjoyed the roar of the falling water.

Changing the subject to something else.

A few days ago I mentioned that tomorrow, Saturday, I was going to the Texoma Fair at the MPEC. At the time I thought that I did not realize that tomorrow is the Sheppard Air Force Base 75th annual open house and air show.

Unless bad weather intervenes I will be going to the air show tomorrow. Sheppard AFB is the training air base for America's NATO partners and other allies.

This is why I can be in the local ALDI and hear German women speaking German.

Such as what happened yesterday. I overheard a pair of women conversing in what sounded to me to be German. I politely interrupted and asked if they were speaking German. Ya was the reply. Cool, said I, just like being in an ALDI in Germany. The pair gave me a courtesy laugh and continued with their German gibberish.

Wichita Falls is a very cosmopolitan sort of town....