2016 Fort Worth Stock Show Parade Possibly With Snowflakes

That which you see here I saw this morning on the front page of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram online edition.

This would make this the opposite of my usual bloggings about things I read in west coast online news sources which I would not expect to be reading in a Texas online news source about something happening in Texas.

As in, I doubt today any west coast town has a Stock Show county fair event in the dead of winter with a big parade to start off the fair.

With snowflakes.

The 2016 Fort Worth Stock Show Parade starts rolling in about an hour. So far I have seen no snowflakes falling from a gray cloudy sky.

Currently the temperature is a relatively balmy 45 degrees, so it would seem unlikely that snowflakes will be falling soon, unless we experience a sudden precipitous temperature drop.

Which can happen at this location on the planet.

I don't think I will be making my way to downtown Fort Worth today to watch the world's biggest non-mechanized parade. Going to downtown Fort Worth and finding parking used to be so easy, before the Radio Shack Corporate Headquarters boondoggle debacle destroyed acres of parking lots and the world's shortest subway.

I may make it to the 2016 edition of the Fort Worth Stock Show. I have a couple weeks before that opportunity passes for another year.....

I Will Not Ride A Horse With My Cowboy Nephew David

In the picture you are looking at my nephew, Cowboy David, in the saddle on his horse, White Socks.

I will likely be seeing Cowboy David and his siblings, the twins, Theo John and Ruby Jean, in December, in Arizona.

I am almost 100% certain David will not be riding White Socks to Arizona.

David is mastering his horse riding skills prior to taking a trip to Texas, in January, to visit his favorite Texas uncle.

While in Texas Cowboy David will be going to the Fort Worth Stock Show to go to the rodeo in the decrepit, ancient Will Rogers Coliseum.

Prior to going to the Stock Show, David will be riding White Socks in the world's biggest non-mechanized parade, that being the Fort Worth Stock Show Parade.

I am hoping Cowboy David is not expecting his favorite uncle to ride a horse with him. Nothing good ever happens when Cowboy David's favorite uncle gets on a horse.

The last time Cowboy David's favorite uncle was on a horse was on the 4th of July, 2000, a date which lives on in infamy. The horse went crazy and tried to kill me whilst trying to get to a carrot that the beast knew was in the barn.

That is the short version. Suffice to say it left me traumatized, with recurring related nightmares which recur to the present.

Read All About It In The Fort Worth Star-Telegram How Parents At Fort Worth Stock Show Use Many Ways To Transport Children

Last night I blogged about how appalled I am regarding the embarrassingly bad state of Fort Worth sidewalks, with this sad sidewalk situation not being worthy of a World Class City that makes the rest of the World Green With Envy.

Fort Worth does not have what most city's in America have, that being a major newspaper of record that acts as the community's watchdog.

What Fort Worth has is this pseudo newspaper that calls itself the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, but should more accurately be called the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce Pravda-Like Star-Telegram.

This morning Elsie Hotpepper sent me a link to an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about parents pushing their kids, in strollers, around the Fort Worth Stock Show.

For those of you not in Fort Worth, who don't know what the Fort Worth Stock Show is, it is basically a county fair held in the middle of winter.

My blogging about Fort Worth's sidewalks, yesterday, was prompted due to having seen a mom struggling to push a stroller up a Fort Worth hill, alongside a road with no sidewalks.

You will read not a word in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about the sad state of Fort Worth's sidewalks, but you can read the following article from this morning's Star-Telegram, which is clearly illustrative of how ridiculous this sad excuse for a newspaper is....

Parents at Fort Worth Stock Show use many ways to transport children

Look around the Stock Show, and you are likely to see a stroller. Or a hundred.

For most parents, the stroller reigns supreme as the best way to move kiddos.

Val McCorkle wondered Saturday whether she could squeeze her family's double stroller between a stall and a man shearing a sheep. Her children, 3 and 18 months, seemed oblivious. "We take this pretty much everywhere," McCorkle said while holding the hand of her third child, 4. "The walking would be too much for the kids."

Other parents appear to have ditched strollers for wagons, leashes, slings and carriers. Amber Topley carried her 7-month-old daughter in a moss green Moby wrap.

"With a stroller, you have to be so careful maneuvering," Topley said. "With the sling, she's attached to me. It's much easier."

Topley's other two children, 3 and 5, rested on a bench, tired from using the most old-fashioned means of movement: their legs.

-- Sarah Bahari

The Dawn Of Martin Luther King Day In Texas Thinking About Going To Fort Worth's Stock Show

I went to bed early Sunday night and yet still somehow managed to sleep in late after a long night of very strange nightmares which I will not go into detail about because my memory of the nightmares is sketchy.

My chicken football fajitas turned out good yesterday. Much better than the football game. I erroneously thought the Seahawks were scheduled to start getting beat by the Chicago Bears around 1 in the afternoon.

I did not get back to my TV until a bit after 1 in the afternoon yesterday. By then Seattle was behind by 3 touchdowns and the second half was under way. By the time the 4th quarter was ready so were my fajitas.

I did not last long watching Seattle play football before the boredom syndrome kicked in. How do people keep watching these games through all those commercial breaks? I think I suffer from a bad case of FADD, Football Attention Deficit Disorder.

Changing the subject from football back to my dire existence in Texas. As you can see looking out my computer room window, it is yet one more gray sky winter morning. Currently nothing is precipitating from the sky. And it is again a balmy 13 degrees above freezing.

I have no idea what lies ahead for me on this Monday Martin Luther King Day. If it were warmer I might consider going to the Fort Worth Stock Show. I've only gone twice. It can be interesting. Saturday's Fort Worth Stock Show Parade drew a smaller number of parade watchers than what shows up when it is not cold. It has been several years in a row now that it has not been warm for that parade. If I remember right, ice cancelled the parade a couple years ago.

Well, it is time to go for my morning swim before it gets any later.

The Fort Worth Stock Show & All Western Parade

No, that is not the cavalry coming to the rescue to fight off the evil corporation that calls itself Chesapeake Energy, acting in cahoots with the corrupt city government of Fort Worth to terrorize and intimidate citizens who refuse to easily give up their property rights.

No, those guys on horses are riding in the world's biggest non-mechanized parade, that being the Fort Worth Stock Show's "All Western Parade" which is scheduled to start tomorrow, January 16, at 11am.

Around 100,000 people will likely show up to watch the parade. If I remember right, and I easily might not be remembering right, the parade was cancelled last year due to really bad weather. It appears, if the forecast for tomorrow holds, there should be no weather-related cancellation of tomorrow's parade.

There are a few things, well a couple, in Fort Worth that are among the best I've ever seen, anywhere. One of those things is the Stock Show Parade. It is really good. I've been to it twice. The only thing that vexes me about it is vehicles are not cleared from being parked along the parade route. I'd never seen a parade where vehicles were in the parking places along the road of a parade route.

Another thing that takes place in Fort Worth that is one of the best of its sort that I've ever seen is the Main Street Arts Festival.

The Stock Show Parade always takes place the first Saturday of the Fort Worth Stock Show. This year's Stock Show starts today, January 15 and runs through February 7.

Barbecue & Longhorns

I'm going to the Fort Worth Stockyards today. I think. It is very very cold out there, in the mid 20s now at 10am. Cold weather feels way colder in Texas than it used to feel up in Washington. The Stockyards should be well stocked with people today due to the Stock Show taking place in another part of town. I'm planning on taking video, hopefully of the Fort Worth Herd. The cows and cowboys should be on the move, even though it is cold.

It's been so cold I've been unwilling to go outside for any aerobic activity, so I'm starting to atrophy. And go stir crazy.

While at the Stockyards I had planned on going to Riscky's Barbecue for All You Can Eat ribs. Only $7.95 for the next 2 weeks. They are real messy, but you are supplied with a roll of paper towels. But Riscky's is fun only if you can Eat All You Can while sitting on a picnic table at their outside patio where you can watch herds of people, cows and horses walk by. By afternoon the prediction is a high of 45. I somehow don't think that will be a comfortable temperature for sitting outside eating messy barbecue ribs.

Yesterday's post about the Stephenville UFO has been getting a lot of kooks (Freudian slip, meant looks, not kooks) from all over the world. This morning someone from Hiroshima was looking at it. But it is the Russians, not the Japanese, who seem to be way too interested in the Texas UFO. Maybe it was a Russian military experiment gone awry.

Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo

Click here for 2009 Fort Worth Stock Show
Rodeo & Parade Info

The Fort Worth Stock Show is currently open for business. The Stock Show is pretty much like a state fair only it's held in the depths of winter. It started off on Saturday with the world's biggest non-mechanized parade. That means there are no motorized vehicles pulling anything and a lot of horses making messes. I've been to the Stock Show Parade twice. It's an entertaining parade except for one slightly jarring note. That being that the parade route is not cleared of vehicles parked on the side of the road. So in many places along the parade route you share space with a car while trying to get a good look at what is passing by.

I've been to the Stock Show & Rodeo twice also. The first time being barely after moving here. We had rodeo tickets. I'd not gotten over my aversion to country music by that point in time and so the rodeo was pretty much torture for me. It's held in an ancient colisseum called the Will Rogers Memorial Auditorium. The Stock Show used to take place in the Stockyards, but for some unfathomable reason it was moved to Fort Worth's Cultural District. Yes, Fort Worth has so much culture an entire district had to be built just to contain it. The Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo runs from Jan. 11 to Feb. 3.

I highly doubt I'll go to the Stock Show this year. Last year's Stock Show Parade was cancelled due to an ice storm. Here in Fort Worth they call this Stock Show weather.

I did go to the latest State Fair of Texas. It's in Dallas. I'd gone to the State Fair once before and enjoyed it a lot. The second time, not so much. By 5pm I was tired of it and bailed. This year's State Fair of Texas seemed like it'd been taken over by car dealerships. It was a major turnoff. But I did get some good video of the Midway. Midway is State Fair Speak for carnival.

Click the play button twice to start the
video of the State Fair of Texas