Wichita Falls Responds To Orlando Mass Murder With Lucy Park Candlelight Vigil

Via today's Wichita Falls Times Record News, my new town's newspaper of record, I learned a thing or two I did not know before about Wichita Falls.

One being that apparently there is an alternative spelling to Wichita.

Wichtia.

I assumed Wichtia/Wichita Falls had a LGBT community due to the fact that pretty much the entire world has a LGBT community, although some locations on the planet don't recognize this particular reality.

I'll copy four paragraphs from the Times Record News Wichtia Falls’ LGBT community responds to Orlando tragedy article in which you will read a new thing I learned about Wichita Falls....

Mel Martinez is doing something some might see as unexpected following the deadliest mass shooting in the United States.

She is inviting the Islamic Society of Wichita Falls to her church to join its members in praying for the victims of the tragedy that unfolded early Sunday morning, when gunman Omar Mateen killed at least 49 people and injured 53 others, some critically, at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Mateen claimed allegiance to the Islamic State and expressed support for the Tsarnaev brothers, who orchestrated the Boston Marathon shooting.

"I've been reminding folks we have to be willing to reach out to one another and learn from each other. ... We need to be proud of the diversity in town," said "Pastor Mel," as she's more popularly known to the congregation of Wichita Falls' Metropolitan Community Church, which she helms. The church, while it is open to everyone, serves the city's gay community.

Does my old home zone in Washington now have an Islamic Society of  Mount Vernon or Burlington or Skagit  County? I have no idea. I do not recollect any Muslim presence of any sort when I lived there.

In addition to inviting the Wichita Falls Islamic Society to her church Pastor Mel has organized a Candlelight Vigil taking place today, at 6:30 pm in Lucy Park. No mention was made of where in Lucy Park the Vigil will take place. It ought not be too difficult to find the spot where people are gathering.

Another Day Another Wichita Falls Thunderstorm Downpour

Just like yesterday, today when I left my abode I soon saw that the sky was looking a lot more menacing than the sky looked looking out any of my window views on the outer world.

My intention today was to jog around my friendly neighborhood fish pond prior to going to Walmart to get a toaster oven.

It takes about a minute to get from my abode to the fish pond. I arrived to see a couple groups of fisher people. A strong wind was blowing. But no precipitation was precipitating.

I did my jogging thing and then sat at one of the knoll top gazebo benches to take the stormy picture you see here.

Soon I was back on the road, heading east towards Walmart. That takes about another minute. I began seeing streaks of lightning not too far away. Rain began pelting by the time I got to the Walmart parking lot. Inside Walmart I began hearing thunder booming.

My time in Walmart lasted about ten minutes. I'd parked fairly close to the entry, so I did not get too wet getting to my vehicle.

On the short drive back to my abode lightning was striking to the left of me, the right of me and behind me. One strike was simultaneous with the thunder and shook the vehicle like an earthquake.

I sped up.

Soon I was under the protection of my covered parking. The rain was not downpouring as hard as yesterday's flash flooding level of downpouring. I made a run for it and got to cover without getting too wet.

This is now three days in a row of this Wichita Falls inclement weather nonsense.

I have yet to hear the tornado sirens blaring in Wichita Falls. Do they not do a weekly test like they do in Fort Worth on Wednesdays at noon?

Anonymous Wichita Falls Facebooked Texas History Solved The Lucy Park Name Mystery

Yesterday someone named Anonymous solved, for me, the mystery as to how the Wichita Falls park known as Lucy Park came to be named such.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Wichita Falls Creatively Covers Traffic Signal Box While Fort Worth Creatively Clutters":  

Frances Ann Dickinson donated Lucy Park to Wichita Falls in memory of her mother, Lucy O'Neill Saunders. Lucy Park opened in 1974.

Scroll down the following Facebook page link and you'll see a photo of a plaque in Lucy Park.

Wichita Falls History

During the course of my Googling and Binging trying to find out how Lucy Park came to be named I came across a good description of this particular park.....

Lucy Park is a 178 acre regional park located in the center of the city. The park is in a bend of the Wichita River which gives it a natural setting with huge pecans, cottonwoods, and numerous other species of native and introduced trees. For hiking and biking enthusiasts, there is a 1.7 mile concrete trail that circles the park. This is the west starting point for the Wichita River Trail System. A large pond area is dedicated to waterfowl, and ducks and geese can be found there year round. There are 2 large picnic shelters that can be reserved at no charge. The main shelter has 20 picnic tables and will seat approximately 120 people. The Lucyland shelter has 15 tables and will seat approximately 90 people. The park has a Log Cabin that can be reserved for parties and will accommodate 55 people. The park has 2 public restrooms, a large swimming pool, basketball goals, 18 hole disc golf course, 3 modular playgrounds, 2 sand volleyball courts and 1 concrete volleyball court. There are 5 smaller picnic shelters, 30 individual picnic tables, 34 barbeque grills, 4 drinking fountains, and 86 benches. The River Bend Nature Center utilizes 15 acres of the park along 3rd St. Other Lucy Park attractions include a swinging bridge across the Big Wichita River, and a scenic walk along the trail that leads to the Falls. The park is also host to the annual Falls Fest event the last weekend of September.

Any residents of Wichita Falls nearest big city neighbor reading this, how many things can you see in the Lucy Park description that you can't find in a Fort Worth city park? Does not such make you wonder why? As in why are the residents of Fort Worth so ill-served, park-wise? 

Beautiful Texas Sunday Trapped Undercover With Flash Flooding All Around Me

What you are looking at here is me expressing my help me I am trapped expression. My help me I am trapped expression does not much differ from my I don't need help because I am not trapped expression.

When I left my abode today to drive to ALDI to get jicama among other items the sunglasses were needed.

A couple days ago the North Texas weather predictors were predicting day after day of sunny blue sky at my location, with a possible thunderstorm several days, maybe a week, in the future.

Well, late yesterday afternoon, on a Saturday that was supposed to be sunny, suddenly turned very dark. Soon thunder was booming and rain was downpouring.

Today, on this second Sunday of June, by the time I arrived at ALDI, the sky had again turned dark, with what looked like an enormous gray cloud hovering over Wichita Falls. A strong wind was gusting as I made my way into ALDI.

Exiting ALDI a few minutes later the sky still looked threatening, but nothing was dripping or booming.

About a minute later large drips started dropping on my windshield. As I drove south on Rhea Avenue, heading towards Southwest Boulevard, the rain increased a bit in intensity, but nowhere near downpour mode.

Reaching Southwest Boulevard I headed east the short distance to Taft Boulevard, where I turn left to get to my abode. As I sat waiting a long time for the light to change I saw heavy duty wetness advancing towards me from the east. I don't recollect seeing this before, watching a road go from semi-dry to drenched, with the drenching relentlessly marching towards me.

The light seemed stuck on red.

When the downpour reached me it quickly became apparent hail was in the mix. Just as I was considering running the redlight, and making a dash for cover, the light changed to green.

A couple hundred feet later I was undercover, safe from vehicular hail damage. But, by then the downpour had turned into one of the most torrential I'd ever seen. Extremely noisy, pounding the parking cover roof. And then the thunder started up. Soon mini-flash flooding was happening all around me, with rain blowing in on me.

I began to consider making a run for it.

After about ten minutes of the making a run for it consideration I grabbed my two ALDI bags and took off running. By the time I reached my entry door I was totally drenched.

And now, a couple hours later blue sky has returned, overhead, but I see big, fluffy white clouds in the distance.

Thunderstorms are back on the forecast menu.....

Wichita Falls Creatively Covers Traffic Signal Boxes While Fort Worth Creatively Clutters

I had not driven many miles in Wichita Falls before noticing pagoda like structures at various stop lighted intersections.

I think, maybe, the first pagoda like structure I made note of was not at a lighted intersections, but was instead in Lucy Park.

I have yet to learn the purpose of the Lucy Park pagoda like structure, or why Lucy Park is so named.

I Googled and Binged Lucy Park last night seeking an answer to the Lucy mystery, to no avail. I did find there is a doctor in town named Lucy Tan, but I doubt Dr. Tan is the reason for the Lucy Park name.

Speaking of Lucy Park, the pagoda like structure you see below is at the intersection one takes a right or left on to make ones way to the Lucy Park entry. The pagoda like structure above is closer to downtown Wichita Falls, near an abandoned Arby's.

It was via a Facebook exchange with the renowned Odessan Master Surveyor, Andy Nold, I learned what the pagoda like structures were...

Andy Nold I find WF's creative traffic signal box covers to be pretty interesting. I spent ten years there one summer.

Like · Reply · May 11 at 4:15pm

Durango Jones Andy Nold Now I must find these creative traffic signal boxes of which you speak. I am a little concerned about the coming summer. I hope it does not seem like ten years....

Like · Reply · May 11 at 4:23pm

Andy Nold https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m6!1e1!3m4... Here's a clue to one. They're all over the city. Great way to camoflage what is otherwise visual clutter.

Wichita Falls

Wichita Falls, TX 76309

GOOGLE.COM

Like · Reply · Remove Preview · May 11 at 4:55pm

Durango Jones I have seen these pagoda like structures and wondered what they were. There is a tall pagoda like structure in Lucy Park with no explanation as to what it is.

Like · Reply · May 11 at 4:58pm

So, the pagoda like structures are camouflaging traffic signal box covers.

Well.

Yet one more thing about Wichita Falls that has impressed me.

Recently the town and county I lived in prior to moving to the Texas Panhandle Plains zone began a bizarre attempt to make prettier box covers at intersections.

From what I saw of the Fort Worth and surrounding Tarrant County box covers the effort seemed to create more visual clutter than it alleviated. Whoever came up with that bizarre way to waste money should have just kept with one innocuous design, like the wildflower longhorn cover I saw a couple instances of.

Instead I saw covers with John Wayne pointing a gun at me and other oddities which seemed like distracting visual litter.

I recollect blogging about the Fort Worth traffic box wraps, including one blogging with a photo of the one I saw most frequently, that being at the intersection of  Bridge and Bridgewood in far east Fort Worth.

I had trouble finding that particular post with that particular photo, but eventually I found Early Texas Voting At Fort Worth Library Thwarted Today Before Up Close Inspection Of New Art. Before I found that I found I'd first blogged about this "art" fiasco way back when I first heard about it in 2015, in a blogging titled Fort Worth Public Artfully Wraps Ugly Except For Outhouses.

In addition to creatively covering traffic signal boxes, unlike the town I previously resided in, Wichita Falls does an excellent job of landscaping its freeway exits and road intersections, like the two examples you see above.

Wichita Falls also does an excellent job with its Welcome to Wichita Falls installations one sees from the various freeways which enter this town.

The town I previously lived in has no Welcome to Fort Worth installations at any of the freeway entries to the town. Fort Worth does not even landscape the freeway exits to the town's only tourist attraction that has any sort of traction in the collective national consciousness, that being the Fort Worth Stockyards.

Maybe, if the I-35W upgrade is ever completed, part of that upgrade will be to landscape the two freeway exits to the Stockyards, replacing the weed covered littered mess that still greeted tourists when I last saw that location....

Playing With Lucy Park Tyrannosaurus Before Suspension Over Wichita River

After a month of being in what is known as the Texoma Zone it seems that Lucy Park has become my Saturday commune with nature Wichita Falls place to go.

And so it was to Lucy Park I went today.

I have yet to learn why Lucy Park is so named. I am assuming it is not some sort of tribute to Lucille Ball.

What you are looking at in the first picture is what is part of what is known as Lucy Land in Lucy Park. I think this is supposed to represent the remains of a dinosaur. From the big head in the foreground I am guessing this dinosaur was a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

After playing for a few minutes in Lucy Land I headed northeast along the banks of the Wichita River, eventually coming to the Lucy Park suspension bridge suspended above the Wichita River.

Last week the flooding Wichita nearly touched the suspension bridge. This week, due to diminished deluging, the Wichita water level had fallen.

When I got to the bridge I saw a lady was slowly, gingerly pushing her bike across the bridge.

Of course I could not resist walking fast onto the bridge, quickly turning it into a Galloping Gertie.

I was a distance away, but I am fairly certain when she turned around the look on her face was not happy. However, she did not yell at me to cease with the rocking.

Does it surprise any of you not familiar with Texas to see that Wichita Falls, in the Texas Panhandle Plains Region, looks like a lush tropical jungle in some of these locations I am showing you?

No bug bites today. Either the heat has killed off the biters, or the Cutter bug repellent is working. Or maybe a little bit of both...

Something Fishy In My New Wichita Falls Neighborhood Not Found In Fort Worth

From around the age of 5 til I was around the age of 18 I lived across the street from a city park, that being Maiben Park in the little town of Burlington, Washington.

From around the age of 18 til about a month ago I did not live across the street from a city park.

Where I am currently aboding I don't even have to cross the street to be in a Wichita Falls city park known as Weeks Park.

An extremely short distance from my abode there is another park. I have seen this park referred to as being South Weeks Park. Or maybe South of Weeks Park. All I know for sure is this other park is not directly connected to Weeks Park.

One sees no signage naming this other nearby park when one is visiting that park. But, if one wanders around the park eventually one sees a big boulder with a plaque attached. Which is what you see above.

On the plaque one sees the closest thing to a park name that I have found.

KID FISHING & CASTING POND

This Fishing Pond is regularly stocked. During the warm time of the year the stocking is Channel Catfish. During the cold time of the year the stocking is Rainbow Trout.

This park was the first park I saw upon my arrival in Wichita Falls. It intrigued me the first time I drove by it, due to being surprised to see a large number of people fishing, including two of what appeared to be old ladies. This reminded me of my Grandma Vera, who loved to fish.

The day I took these pictures there were not too many people fishing. About a week prior, on my way to the nearby Walmart, I was surprised to see dozens of kids fishing. The next day I learned this was a regularly scheduled Wichita Falls city program.

Kids can fish without needing a license. People who are not kids require a license.

As you can see the Fishing Pond has a lot of that Wichita Falls requisite.

Benches.

This town must have more benches, per capita, that any other town in the world.

In the above picture, in the background, above the fountain, you can see a gazebo atop a grassy knoll.

The grassy knoll did not look to be much of a hill climb, but looks proved to be slightly deceiving.

The population of Wichita Falls is about eight times smaller than the town I lived in prior to moving here.

Why is it Fort Worth has no stocked pond for kids to fish in? Fosdick Lake in Fort Worth's Oakland Lake Park would make for a wonderful stocked fishing pond. Of course, the lake would need to be de-polluted so the Not Safe To Eat The Fish You Catch signs can be removed.

Fort Worth is sadly lacking in the parks department.

Literally.

I think I may have mentioned that lacking in the parks department thing before.

Above you are looking at yet one more thing you will find lacking in most Fort Worth city parks. A restroom facility with running water.

In this case a non-controversial uni-sex restroom.

The Shadow Of The Tandy Hills Thin Man Cannot Be Seen In Wichita Falls

No, that is not the Shadow of the Tandy Hills Thin Man you are looking at here.

It is highly likely I will never again see the Shadow of the Tandy Hills Thin Man.

What you are looking at here is the Shadow of the Mount Wichita Thin Man.

I'd not climbed to the summit of Mount Wichita since a horrific incident a week or two ago when I was assaulted by swarms of various biting insects.

Today there was not much bug biting danger due to two things.

One being that a strong flying insect grounding wind was blowing.

The second reason for reduced bug biting danger was I was covered by Cutter Flying Insect Repellent.

I only made it three times to the summit of Mount Wichita today. The mountain's trails were not in top shape due to mountain climbers climbing when the mountain was muddy from the recent deluges.

Four youngsters joined the Old Thin Man climbing Mount Wichita today. One of the youngsters was of the female type and was wearing what must have been mountain climbing flip flops.

When I was a youngster flip flops were called thongs, before that thong word got co-opted by skimpy swimwear.

Mountain climbing with flip flopping thongs as ones footwear did not seem like a good idea to me.

Anyway, I had myself such a mighty fine time seeing my thin mountain shadow today I may return tomorrow...

Visiting A Swinging Bench With Massive Mansions At Hamilton Park In Wichita Falls

Today my commune with nature took place at yet one more Wichita Falls city park that is less than a mile from my abode.

Hamilton Park.

I don't know if this park was named after the Founding Father Hamilton named Alexander, who was shot and killed by Aaron Burr, or a famous locally Hamilton.

What I do know is several of the mansions along Hamilton Road across the street from Hamilton Park appeared to be inspired by houses from the Colonial era, like Jefferson's Monticello. One of the mansions looked like the White House was the inspiration.

In my memory the only place I have been which looks like the Hamilton neighborhood is Beverly Hills in California. At some point in time a large number of people in Wichita Falls must have been making a large amount of money.

In the Dallas/Fort Worth metro mess zone the only location I ever came across remotely close to this Wichita Falls collection of old mansions with massive grounds was in Dallas around White Rock Lake.

I think I have already a mentioned a time or two that Wichita Falls has more park benches in more locations than I have ever witnessed in any other town.

Of all the Wichita Falls parks I have visited Hamilton Park had the most unique park bench I have seen yet. That of which I speak is that which you see above. This bench was a bench swing, which swung quite vigorously.

Mr. Galtex is a well known aficionado of benches, traveling all over the world looking for special places to sit. Methinks Mr. Galtex would really like this swinging Hamilton Park bench.

Also, in this picture, in the background you see something rarely seen in a Fort Worth city park, which I have seen in all the Wichita Falls city parks I have visited.

A modern restroom with running water.

Wichita Falls is a modern American city, unlike that Texas town I once lived in for far too long....

Spencer Jack And Grandma Cindy Trying To Make America Great Again

I really don't know what to make of this which showed up in my email this morning.

Spencer Jack in the grasp of his Grandma Cindy wearing a baseball cap with Donald Trump's demented "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" slogan.

Spencer Jack's dad, my Favorite Nephew Jason, is a progressive liberal sort. All the Joneses are liberal progressive sorts except for the Black Sheep Jones who barely made it out of high school. I think there are two, maybe three of those.

Spencer Jack's Grandma Cindy used to be married to one of the Jones boys.

I do not know if Grandma Cindy has somehow turned into a reactionary right wing racist bigoted who has turned Spencer Jack into a Trump-er.

I suspect not.

My best guess is that when Spencer Jack took his dad to the Trump Rally in Lynden, Washington, a month or two or three ago, that baseball cap was purchased from one of the bizarro vendors of Trump paraphernalia which sprout up like mold outside Trump Rallys.

And that Spencer Jack wearing that baseball cap is intended to be some sort of twisted irony.

I have no way of knowing if Grandma Cindy's use of the V sign is meant to be the Hippie Peace Sign version or the Churchillian Nixonian V for Victory version.

It just occurred to me that if America was not already sufficiently Great, that having a nation where all the kids were as Great as Spencer Jack, well, that would make America Great Again, eventually....