Years ago, after a bloody crash in Arlington's Village Creek Natural Historical Area, I gave up roller blading.
That bloody crash was bad. Half the skin off half the left side of my buttocks region was scraped off by sudden contact with cement.
After that bloody crash, I eventually got myself back vertical, slowly making my way back to my vehicular transport.
Dripping blood as I slowly rolled along.
I recollect hobbling into Walmart seeking bandage material, where I discovered a liquid bandage product.
The liquid bandage product worked, stopping the bleeding. Healing soon followed. Within a couple months the bruising subsided and my buttocks region was restored to its pre-crash pristine state.
But, I swore off roller blading. Did not want to go through that type trauma again.
Til this week.
I re-installed my roller blades and had myself a mighty fine time rolling the paved trail around Sikes Lake at Midwestern State University.
Roller blading came back to me like an easily recovered lost memory. That sort of surprised me. I guess it is like riding a bike. Once one masters that skill it stays with one forever.....
I saw that which you see here this morning on the front page of the online version of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
My instant reaction to seeing this was to think how bizarre.
That this seemed to be a perverse iteration of the Star-Telegram's long discredited, embarrassing Green With Envy verbiage, which I came to be appalled by soon after my initial exposure to the Star-Telegram and its extreme small town way of covering news in a big city.
Is it really newsworthy that one of the police officers murdered in the Dallas tragedy had some connection to the town 30 miles west of Dallas?
Of all the myriad aspects of the Dallas tragedy that the Star-Telegram might cover I find a story headlined "One of officers killed in Dallas ambush had Fort Worth roots" to be so pointlessly shallow.
I saw that which you see here last night on Facebook via Fort Worth connoisseur and cultural icon, Bud Kennedy.
My initial reaction upon seeing this was that it was someone's idea of a prank, making fun of America's Biggest Boondoggle's bizarre floating beer party music events in the polluted Trinity River.
By morning I saw no further mention of this latest Fort Worth Sick City embarrassment. Facebook this morning was dominated by the horrific terrorist attack in Dallas.
So, if what Bud Kennedy posted is to be believed the Trinity River water is now being regularly tested, one would assume daily, or more than once daily, with those tests quickly processed and the results posted on a Panther Island Pavilion Water Activity Flag Key, where there is no island or pavilion.
This morning's Fort Worth Star-Telegram made no mention of this new Water Key thing, but the front page did make note of the fact that Trinity water quality has once again canceled tubing in the polluted river.
According to the Water Key there are three levels of water activity, Green, Yellow and Red.
Methinks more appropriate coloring would have been Blue, Yellow and Brown.
According to the Water Activity Key when the Trinity is at Level Green the permitted activities are "Wading by children and adults, swimming, water skiing by permit, diving, tubing, surfing, kayaking, canoeing, stand-up paddle boarding, catch and release fishing, and handfishing as defined by Texas Parks & Wildlife Code. #66.115."
Water skiing? Diving? Surfing? Handfishing? How utterly bizarre.
According to the Water Activity Key when the Trinity is at Level Yellow the permitted activities are "Wading by adults, kayaking, canoeing, stand-up paddle boarding, & catch and release fishing."
Okay, we hit Yellow and kids can no longer wade. Along with No Tubing. No Diving, No Surfing. No swimming. And, of course, No Handfishing. Again, how utterly bizarre.
And then when the Water Activity Key goes to Level Red the permitted activities are "NONE. Due to water velocity creating turbid conditions and floating debris, the river and riverbanks are closed for public safety. TURN AROUND. DON'T DROWN. OR TURN BROWN."
Oh, I see, The water testing discovers the water is moving too fast, and thus too turbid, along with too much stuff floating in the river. Apparently the testing does not test for things like too much e.coli or other pathogens.
I was not long in Wichita Falls before I began noticing horses of many colors at locations all over town.
I soon learned this was a citywide public art project called The Mane Event.
The Mane Event has a website where one can find a map of the location of all the horses of many colors.
I soon also learned that the horses were Mustangs and that the Mustang is the mascot of Midwestern State University, a school a short distance from my abode.
Today I traveled that short distance from my abode to walk around Sikes Lake at Midwestern State University.
During that walk around Sikes Lake one comes to the Mane Event Mustangs you see here. A mama Mustang and her baby.
This Mane Mustang is very close to the Wichita Falls Museum of Art. So, it is fitting that this particular Mane Mustang is covered with famous works of art by famous painters.
Including Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Leonardo Da Vinci, Andy Warhol, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gaugin, Johannes Vermeer, Michelangelo and Grant Wood.
Take a virtual tour around this Mane Mustang and see how many of the famous painters and their works of art you can identify. I would hazard to guess most will be able to identify the works of Grant Wood, Andy Warhol, Leonardo Da Vinci, Picasso and maybe Vincent Van Gogh.
Last night I made a comment on a Brook Bailey Facebook post.
My comment included the link to my blogging about Sick City.
Brook Bailey then tried to send that Sick City link to another Facebooker, telling the Facebooker that "I think you'd enjoy reading Durango Jones blog."
Facebook then told Brook Bailey that her attempt to share the Sick City link was deemed abusive or that it was otherwise disallowed.
Brook Bailey was then advised that to keep from getting blocked again she needed to make sure she read and understood Facebook's Community Standards.
I saw that which you see here this morning on the front page, online, of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and found what which I saw to be amusing.
Amusing for a couple reasons.
Toy store headed to Sundance Square? With an illustrative photo of the former parking lot re-purposed as Sundance Square Plaza.
Have the goofballs who run downtown Fort Worth decided to drop "Plaza" from the name of the re-purposed parking lot?
It was after several years of exposure to Fort Worth that I finally learned that Sundance Square was the name given to a multi-block downtown Fort Worth revitalization scheme. Why would such a name be chosen for such a scheme with no one realizing it was confusing to call something Sundance Square, where there was no square?
I saw that which you see here this morning in the Seattle Times and found it to be interesting.
Apparently the county I grew up in and lived in prior to moving to Texas is among the bluest counties in Washington, with there being nine such Washington counties, which was where the voters voted in sufficient numbers to put Washington in the win column for Obama, twice, legalized marijuana and same-sex marriage, prior to the Supreme Court making that the law of the land.
I suspect spending the majority of my existence on the planet in one of the liberal progressive parts of America may explain why I found myself appalled by much of what I saw in Texas upon arrival.
Eventually I got acclimated to Texas, sort of, and not as appalled as I was upon first exposure.
Though, having said that, I really never did quit being appalled by much of what I saw in the town I eventually came to call Sick City, that being the more backward part of the D/FW Metroplex, that being the FW part of D/FW.
Washington is split in two by the Cascade Mountains. The west side of the mountains is the more liberal, progressive, democrat part of the state. The east side of the mountains is more like Texas, in both topography and politically, with Eastern Washington being much redder that Western Washington. Eastern Washington is not as prosperous as Western Washington. Nor as well educated. Another similarity to Texas.
There does seem to be some correlation between how well educated a person is and their political leanings. Like college dropout, Rush Limbaugh, who flunked every class he took during his short time in college, yet became the cult leader of the right wing nut jobs.....
What you are looking at here is the view stormy view south from one of my kitchen windows on this post 4th of July first Tuesday of the month.
When I went into slumber mode last night, after fireworking, I did not know that a major storm was on the morning menu.
Lightning has been striking with thunder booming for hours now, along with periodic downpours.
And wind.
Even though the sun has been in town for over an hour the outer world is still quite dark.
Looking at my local weather information source I see the booming is scheduled to abate in a couple hours, followed by more thunderstorms in the noon time frame.
I suspect I will not be climbing to the summit of Mount Wichita today....
Texas towns are able to get their high schools to participate, with marching bands and cheerleaders. And the football team.
Today I attended the Wichita Falls 4th of July Parade. It was different than any other Texas town's parade I have attended. No marching bands, no local school participation.
Yet, the Wichita Falls 4th of July Parade, while short, was highly entertaining and amusing, with more kid participation than I have seen in other Texas parades. Such as the young Uncle Sam you see above.
And the shirtless kid cops you see below.
I have never seen so much candy thrown to so many kids as what I witnessed today. And it wasn't little measly pieces of candy. I saw Tootsie Rolls getting thrown. I have never seen Tootsie Rolls getting thrown to eager kids at a parade, til today. The kids came prepared, like it was Halloween, with bags to stick their candy haul in.
The kid floats were human powered, for the most part, with what appeared to be moms and dads doing the horse work.
There was plenty of adult participation in the Wichita Falls 4th of July Parade, such as what you see below.
The above "float" appeared to be a bunch of bums sitting at a picnic table which had been installed on some sort of motorized device. The 4th of July connection was not accessible to my feeble imagination.
What with it being the 4th of July one would think the American flag would be prominently displayed.
Above the Texas Lone Star flag blocks one from seeing the flag we later pledged allegiance to at the Kell House 4th of July Ceremony.
The Wichita Falls 4th of July Parade had a lot of motorbikes, such as you see above, and dozens of old cars, some of the Model T type vintage. Several of the old cars had rumble seats. Multiple parade watchers within my hearing distance seemed fascinated by the rumble seats. This had me wondering why these type seats were named rumble.
Sheppard Air Force Base was well represented.
The patriotic little girl you see on the right clapped the entire time the military personnel marched by.
The Wichita Falls 4th of July Parade ends at Kell House where a 4th of July Celebration Party takes place. You can watch video of a little of that celebrating below the below picture of the aforementioned Kell House.
At Kell House all the Air Force personnel who marched in the parade stood at attention. You can see some of them above, behind the cowboy on his mule, holding the flags of the various nations who have Air Force personnel being trained at Sheppard Air Force Base.
The video below gives you a little dose of a Wichita Falls 4th of July, at Kell House....
Why would any sane city have regularly scheduled events in water which requires regular testing to determine if the water is safe enough to get wet in?
The fact that Fort Worth has regularly scheduled floating beer parties in the Trinity River is just one among many reasons why I came to refer to this town as Sick City, after years of observing this Sick City up close.
And why do the people of Fort Worth go along with the ridiculous Panther Island labeling? There is no island. There never will be an island, not by any rational definition of that which constitutes an island.
Mislabeling is a Fort Worth forte. Sundance Square comes to mind. Where for decades the few tourists who toured downtown Fort Worth found themselves perplexed by signs pointing to Sundance Square, where there was no square.
If the City of Fort Worth is so determined to have a water venue for its people to float in that the town is willing to use a polluted river to do so, how about a civic effort to make an actual clean water venue for such events?
For instance, the pond which America's Biggest Boondoggle dug for the defunct Cowtown Wakepark. Could not such a pond be built with a filtering system keeping the water fit for humans to float in?
And is it not an indicator that Fort Worth is sadly lacking in outdoor activity opportunities if so many of the Sick City's citizens eagerly go floating with feces?
And another thing with this testing of the Trinity. Does it not seem logical that the level of e. coli ebbs up and down? As in a plume of extra polluted water flows on by, then a few minutes later a test sample gets taken, followed a few minutes later by another plume of extra polluted water?
Why would anyone in their right mind trust that the Trinity River is ever safe and free of pathogens?
