thetexastart.org

During the 2000 Bush/Gore election, I was on the editorial board of a small Texas newspaper. I also was the government reporter, covering local, state and national news and every election. Near November the editorial board met to choose political endorsements. We had endorsed in races from the county to U.S. legislators and this year had to decide between George W. Bush or Vice President Al Gore for U.S. President. We knew Bush as our Texas governor for a few years. I had covered the state long enough to know that every one of his four campaign goals was already set in motion whether he won or lost to Gov. Ann Richards. Bush even came to town where I was a reporter. The personal visit was a big plus when papers decided on endorsing a candidate, especially if he or she sat down with the editorial board. Bush popped in to talk to the newspaper editor and publisher. That day we workers were told to stay at our desks and not get up until the Governor and Presidential candidate left the building. He walked in at the appointed time and waved at us in the newsroom. I smiled and waved back. I’d interviewed Gov. Bush several times.

Who would the editorial board choose: Bush or Gore? The editorial board consisted of five members. Two were Republican, and three of us were Democrats. So knowing everything there was to know at that time about Bush and Gore, we voted, and Gore would be endorsed by the newspaper.

But the next day, the publisher decided the newspaper should endorse Bush. He had been our governor after all. He was like family. The publisher had called newspapers across the state and found all were endorsing Bush. Perhaps he worried we’d be on 60 Minutes having to explain why we were the only Texas newspaper not endorsing Bush for President. We didn’t have a reason other than the majority of us on the editorial board were Democrats. But the three of us were in the news biz and could think for ourselves. Bush was friendly and all but never seemed to fit the big boots of Governor of Texas. We who were Democrats disagreed with his business, social and environmental policies at the expense of millions of disenfranchised Texas families. We came to that conclusion from working the state to local angles of new policies, from which we developed our opinion and endorsement.

The editor talked to the other two Democrats on the editorial board, which included yours truly. He refused to write an editorial supporting Bush. So did the other Democrat. I had no problem writing up a glowing endorsement of Bush. I’m a writer. I can write any angle whether I believe it or not. Covered many stories about issues I personally do not support. So I used my first-hand knowledge of Bush plus his campaign brochures and got to writing. No one would ever know I was the one who wrote the Bush editorial endorsement.

A quarter century later, our nation—which enshrined freedom of the Press into our Constitution—not only has significantly fewer newspapers but this year even fewer that will endorse for U.S. President, evading altogether to choose either Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump.

News you used to use

The news biz is not what it used to be and is visibly unsure of its future existence and present purpose or relevancy. ‘Who’s reading?’ is the question, always been. Now people prefer news sources that promote their political beliefs whether Left or Right. And the news business has evolved into commentary-heavy instead of predominantly news, which it should be. Broadcast news channels are 95 percent commentary and five percent news.

See, the public thinks news people constantly talking about politics is arrogant.

Even during my years in newspapers, starting in the 1980s, I always sensed a doom-and-gloom built into the once proud and illustrious newspaper industry. Still, I persevered. Some of us reporters were natural writers. Writers are always observing everything, asking questions, and then writing about it. Journalists, however, are supposed to report news. We investigated, researched and studied our story ideas so that what we wrote, what was printed and published, was accurate sans bias.

I object to the assumption that journalists can never report on people who’ve experienced ordeals they haven’t. A writer can do it and does it all the time and has throughout history. Have you read classic novels or a play or watched a good movie?

Fear is the reason newspapers like The Washington Post and LA Times shamefully shirked their expected duty to endorse a Presidential candidate. They fear hostility by millions of Americans not to forget the well-known contempt of the media by one of the Presidential candidates. When it came to endorsing Harris and Trump, these papers figured rightly “Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t.” But the decision to avoid a Presidential endorsement altogether was chicken. Reporters quit over it.

NEWSpapers should have endorsed one presidential candidate over the other. It’s not arrogance but an informed opinion for the record and posterity that the public should know whether they care or not—and future generations should know about Presidential endorsements, too. The media has access to candidates and vice versa. Citizens do not.

Arrogance is the perception the public has of the media, newspapers and reporters. I disagree but as a reporter interviewed enough folks to understand where they’re coming from—lives with many hardships, few options or paths for improvement, feeling powerless as if their lives don’t matter—then I’d write about it.

Nacogdoches is where I learned to appreciate old houses, really old houses from 19^th century Victorian to Queen Anne: large covered porches furnished for sitting outside rain or shine, a foyer with a second entry door so the interior of the house stays warm during cold weather, squeaky wood floors and fireplaces with grand or rustic mantels, large rooms with tall ceilings, steep stairs and dark corners, cedar chests and antiques used by modern families in the 1980s. Fresh from a childhood within a suburban concrete jungle and urban sprawl, from the 1970s when as a know-nothing kid I assumed ‘new and improved’ and ‘bigger is better,’ I grew into a young adult who learned to respect old things like antiques and old houses. Always wanted a Tudor design with rounded doors or a cozy cottage—most significantly: built before World War II. The quality is visible with every detail such as molding and craftsmanship. All I knew before venturing into the Piney Woods was cramped cookie-cutter houses, laid out almost bureaucratically in dozens of rows as far as the eye could see. They were built practically overnight when the men came home from the war (and started making the Baby Boomers).

In 2003 I started looking for my first house, my own piece of Texas. It took a year, but I finally decided on a prairie-style brick home, pier-and-beam, with front porch pillars, built in 1946. Close enough. Wood floors throughout and the original windows, with ropes, that can hardly open without a few knocks on the frame. It was modernized with central heat and AC, utility ‘mud room,’ converted two-car garage to spacious carpeted bedroom with bath, and a new amp box with more than sufficient power as we use a lot more electricity than families in mid-20^th century.

A very, very, very old house

When my husband and I first moved from apartment life into our first house, we stayed in the back bedroom, the one that had been the two-car garage in the ’50s. I think it was because the cable wasn’t connected in the living room for a couple of weeks. But the truth is we didn’t know how to spread out and LIVE in our very own house. Soon he started gardening, planting all sorts of flowers and vegetables and grape vines, and laying down grass to grow in the backyard. The front yard was already covered in clover with two huge oak trees! I love it.

The first thing I did once officially moved into the house, with a good-size wood-fenced backyard, was visit the animal shelter for a dog. I brought home the smallest they had, a 19-pound black and tan dachshund mix named Susie. She was one year old and big for a dachshund. I thought a dog and an alarm system would ensure security. Our former apartment was broken into a year prior, and all the important things were stolen.

When I move into a new place, I stay up late at night and play some of my favorite music while decorating my new home. Here I strategically placed above the fireplace a Picasso print, The Three Musicians. It goes well there, the Harlequin’s outfit in the painting matches perfectly the tile décor around the fireplace.

When my parents drove down for Thanksgiving in our new home in 2004, I rushed to Walmart to buy whatever curtains would go with the house, choosing an off-white plain curtain underneath a sheer tan material decorated with leaves and vines. An aunt who traveled with my parents complained my old house was too drafty. I gave her a blanket to wrap around her shoulders and tried to move her away from the window. I’ve learned to live quite comfortably in my old house. The AC and heating system work fine. Just wear more clothes in the winter and less in the summer.

That first year, whenever it rained, we had to place lots of big buckets and cook pots in the fireplace and other areas wherever a new roof leak occurred. Spent years getting roofers to patch the roof. Got the chimney sealed too to prevent water from pouring into the fireplace.

When our house turned 60 in 2006, we threw a big party. I played music from each decade: starting with the Big Bands then country swing, early rock n roll, Texas garage bands from the ’60s, then disco and the latest pop and country. A long-time elderly neighbor from across the street stopped by to see what was going on in our house. She was 90 and when she saw it was a party for the house, she returned with a big pot of home-made beans she’d been cooking all day. When she passed away a few years later, I picked up her American flag from the estate sale. We installed it on the front porch for patriotic celebrations even though it was tattered.

During those early years of home ownership, I shopped for items needed like floor lamps, shelves and a leather chair and sofa. I was keen on furniture that fit the age of the house. My parents, who also appreciate old houses, gave me a couple of antiques that fit this house perfectly: a cherry wood buffet and a blond wood vanity. Both feature a curved mirror.

I’ve hung pictures from our various world travels, presenting them in the dining area—which we never really used unless for company. A good twenty years of apartment life runs deep; we never did stop sitting in front of the living room TV while eating our food on separate standing trays.

Old house, take a look at my life

As homeowners we were responsible for all maintenance and repairs. That first night in our new house, we had to call an electrician because the power suddenly went out. He crawled underneath the house and fixed something that got disconnected. A couple years later, I had the house thoroughly inspected and was told it was in pretty good shape for a house built in 1946. The home inspector enjoyed going through this old house. He understood why it was built the way it was. The history of the house is a physician had it built and lived here for decades until death. Then his daughter kept the house for rental property. In the early 2000s, a renovator bought it then flipped it to us. I loved the textured olive walls of the living and dining areas. 

One time the AC didn’t work. The repairman reported one of our dogs, Tommy, chewed through an important wire probably thinking it was a grass snake which he liked to catch in the backyard. Another time, a neighbor on a walk just happened to notice a constant water stream from the grassy median in front of our house. We called the city, thinking it was their problem to fix. We were wrong. The water bill was more than $1,000. We had to replace the front water line, with insurance paying a share, and I had to send the bill to the city to show we paid to repair/replace our water line before the bill would be reduced.

A few years later in the dead of winter, we had to replace the original sewer line. The clay pipe was stamped 1946. The front yard had to be dug out to install the modern pipe that supposedly will not crack or break from tree roots, the source of our problem. Well, what’cha gonna do? We’re not chopping down the oak trees. That would be a sin.

There was another winter we spent with racoons in the attic. We heard a racket every night at dusk, like a big party was going on right above our heads. I heard something above the bedroom ceiling and small footsteps walking across. We opened the attic, turned on the light, and were met with several pairs of eyes, two were babies. We couldn’t do anything about it. We called an animal removal business, and they came out and placed some humane cages with marshmallows because racoons love marshmallows. That night, we heard the family entering again and then the cage closed. We caught one. We called the service to remove it, but no one would venture out because it was February and all the roads were iced. It stayed that way for several days. Susie the dog went berserk, knowing a racoon was just a few feet above her in the living room. She took to climbing the walls with pained howling. We had to move a bookcase to keep her off the walls. We kept her out of the living room, too. Finally the captured racoon was removed, looking sad its party in our attic had come to an end. We were advised to keep the tree limbs trimmed and the house plugged up so that sort of thing won’t happen again.

A day before moving into this house, when I knew it belonged to me, I took some sage and set it afire till it smoked. Then I walked through every room and blessed it, all who enter and live here. Through the years with all the strange and unexpected things that have occurred in and around my house, I’ve slept well at night. My husband recuperated from cancer here as well as from other illnesses and surgeries. We both recuperated from Covid here. We’ve watched the children of our neighbors grow into adults. We bonded together during the pandemic and when our dogs grew to old age and needed a lot of assistance such as an IV drip for renal failure. One cold night close to Christmas, all us neighbors stood on my big front porch and somberly watched a house across the street burn while firefighters worked to put it out. Our fire station is only a minute or two away. Every year we were big supporters of Halloween and enjoyed handing out candy to all the little creatures who dared ring our doorbell. We were sad when another longtime neighbor, a recent widow and good friend, decided to sell her modest house across the street and move away from Dallas. Her home was worth an amount she never could have imagined when purchased three decades ago.

I have fought the tax appraisal board only once, and we agreed on a reduction. Property taxes remain a shocking surprise every year. I suppose the inspectors notice improvements like a new roof, storage shed, paint job, wood fence, AC unit, not to mention the new water and sewer lines buried beneath the yard and 21^st century water heater. I don’t know what they base the appraisal and tax figure on, but I’ve been told it’s not about the house or its condition but more about the property lot, one with two huge oak trees. I figure after selling this old house—where I installed an original iron Texas heritage marker at the front door—it may be razed and a similar yet modern house built in its place. I understand. Everything changes, and we live through many evolutions. So many improvements and necessities as we proceed in this century, an old home may not suffice. Still, living in my old house (granted, easier in summer than winter) has enriched my life as I knew it would. It’s been an honor calling this place my home for the past twenty years.

Our nation’s history is full of assassinated and wounded leaders by gunfire. We can list those killed by bullets: JFK, RFK, MLK, McKinley, Garfield, Lincoln.

Then there’s the lesser known yet much longer list of elected officials shot, some critically, but who survived an assassination attempt: from contemporaries like Gabby Giffords and Steve Scalise to further back in time Teddy Roosevelt and dozens more. Now joining that list is former President Donald Trump, shot while campaigning at a Republican rally in Pennsylvania.

In our supersonic social media age, supporters of Trump were quick to blame the Democrats, their presumed sworn enemy. More disconcerting, immediately after the shooting were their middle fingers shot at the mass media.

But no, the assassination attempt was not an enemy plot but just ‘the usual suspect’—spotted & killed almost as soon as the deadly shooting occurred—another troubled white young man, an American youth.

After bullets flew across the sky, killing one man in the crowd while critically injuring two others along with President Trump, the former President was quick to show a defiant fist and shout to his supporters “Fight! Fight! Fight!”—as if the assassination attempt was a long-awaited plot by his political foes to bring down our country.

No. Just another obscure white American man-child of 20. Essentially nothing is known about him as the FBI has interviewed not only his parents, relatives and neighbors but also his classmates from high school. He was a loner, never smiled, seemingly pathetic and friendless, neglected hygiene, no known mental illness or police record, didn’t leave a trail of rantings on social media or on paper but did have the makings of bombs in his home—a home with more than a dozen guns owned by his parent. A few hours before the Trump rally, this slim unassuming teen-age-looking male simply took one of his father’s AR-style rifles and lots of bullets. And because he knew nobody ever really noticed him, he was able to climb atop a nearby building, aim at Trump and took to shooting people.   

Why did he do it?

Isn’t it obvious? He was bullied all his life—like practically all the young white males in our country who foresee nothing but a grim future and believe shooting people, especially someone as famous as Donald Trump, will show up those who knew them. They’re not chicken. They’re men, damn it, and now everybody will know their names, maybe even respect them especially if they die in action.

The bullet that got away

Life is ironic sometimes. An assassin’s bullet that nicks an ear, totally missing the head and brain, brings thoughts if not assurances of ‘Someone up there’s watching out for me.’ Anyone who survived such a close call with death will often come to prayer or even start believing in a Supreme Being or Higher Power, maybe a higher purpose in their miraculously spared lives.

Then for others who count themselves in the lucky few, there’s the guilt of surviving such a deadly attempt when another died and others were severely injured with months of painful rehabilitation. Gunshot survivors will never be the same physically and emotionally. There’s a mass post traumatic stress disorder to cope with, too, when the shooting takes place in a crowd.

But a bullet to the ear is worth pondering. It’s as if Trump’s would-be assassin was trying to get through to someone who is known as a bully, someone who while serving as U.S. President was proud of coming across as a Tough Guy. Tough guys play on the weakness and politeness of everybody else in society, those who don’t speak up, those who don’t push back because it’s unbecoming.

That is likely what Trump’s would-be assassin learned from childhood that included lots of bullying as well as the tumultuous Trump presidency, if we’re being honest.

Someone that young, not even yet voting in a Presidential election, hasn’t lived long enough to decide his own politics. Apparently, he fell in line with everyone around him in his neck of the Pennsylvania woods and registered as a Republican. He just wanted to fit in, didn’t want to make waves, probably was never confrontational his entire life.

Yet he’ll go down in history as a murderer and attempted assassin of a former U.S. President.

This lone shooter, with no motive or political grudge against Trump or Republicans, got a gun and took to shooting people. Wonder if he gave a thought to the harm he would cause. Doubt it. Wonder if he thought he would really assassinate a former President. Perhaps. Wonder if he thought he’d live to tell why he did it, live the rest of his life in prison. Maybe. Did he think he’d be killed in the process? It happens all the time.

But … we and he know guns do a lot of damage in split seconds, death being the purpose of the weapon after all. Those, like President Trump, left with gunshot wounds and the surviving family of the man shot to death in the flurry of traveling bullets from a powerful rifle—where the shooter doesn’t really see his targets—along with all the rest of us Americans must deal with another sorry incident caused by a deeply troubled young man … who felt powerless … until holding a loaded gun.

Shootings are so common in America as to occur several times a day, causing more than 25,000 deaths a year by firearms and many more injuries. And … it’s never going to end, is it? It is the bold thick lengthy expanding red thread sewn into the tapestry of our nation’s history, tightly binding all us Americans together.

For years it seemed in my neck of the urban woods, only one beggar holding a sign for money stood at every major thoroughfare. ‘Clever-like-a-fox’ we drivers passing by would think, noting the beggars always choose the busiest intersections along highways. Lately, they’re accompanied by groomed and well-behaved dogs, usually pit bulls. It’s surprising how clean and calm those dogs are, given their days are spent breathing in auto exhaust fumes from millions of passing cars and hearing loud nerve-racking engines. Dogs I know would bark angrily at all that noise.

But since the pandemic I suppose, we’re seeing A LOT MORE homeless people who’ve taken to sleeping everywhere and anywhere along our busiest city streets. They hang quilts somehow beneath overpasses where they evidently live and certainly sleep. They roll all their stuff in shopping carts or suitcases, again along the busiest thoroughfares. So we’re bound to see them when driving to and from our work-a-day jobs. And now after the pandemic, the homeless population has EXPLODED along our city streets—witness all their stuff strewn for blocks.

My city is no different from other cities and even suburbs and rural towns across the U.S. Homelessness has multiplied and expanded into our country’s most perplexing, yet solvable, problem. And yes, Americans, we are the ones responsible for solving this problem.

King of the road?

Most Americans are a paycheck away from joining the homeless population. When driving past their clusters or solitary adults, we think the same thing: drugs and/or mental illness. And we’re accurate to a point. What kind of person would stand on a street corner begging for money? Their signs never say HELP! as much as NEED MONEY or just $. No amount of a month’s collection would cover rent. So the coins and bills must go for drugs and liquor, solace for addiction and street life.

But during the pandemic of 2019-2021, thousands of jobs were cut, meaning tens of thousands of families had no choice but to leave their housing immediately and figure out where they are going to go and how they are going to live. It would explain why our nation’s public schools have lost tens of thousands of students with no way of finding them. They’re not enrolled in private schools, other public schools across the country or home schooled. Where’d everybody go?

We expect government social workers to find and help perpetual beggars. Yet, it’s always the same guys and occasional gals individually pan handling at street corners and more and more at convenience store entryways, store parking lots and during winter inside professional office buildings.

Why aren’t the cops clearing beggars from dangerous street corners? Surely the police don’t need citizens calling 911 every time we see a beggar. Yet day after day, the same faces are seen begging for money and maybe food. Street beggars nowadays usually carry a water bottle with them.

There’s a whole underground of homeless folks who’ve banned together and deal with their situation as intelligently as possible. One may pay for mobile phone plans they all share. Another pays a monthly health club membership for restroom and shower access. Another knows the best times to pick through restaurant garbage bins. There’s a way to survive on the streets, sort of. It’s clever and probably organized by our growing number of homeless veterans given our two 20-year wars. If anyone knows how to survive on nothing, it would be a person with firsthand war experience.

Who are the homeless? Years ago newspaper reporters got to know a few who were willing to share their hard-luck stories and provide access to their lifestyles. One couple raked in lotsa dough begging on the streets. Beats working for ‘the man,’ they’d say. There were addicts admittedly who, if you can believe it, had not reached rock bottom, still able to move and groove and pan handle on the streets.

Left unsaid about our nation’s homeless problem are the ‘burnt bridges.’ Perhaps quite a number of homeless individuals crashed on couches of family members who after a respectable amount of time kicked the relative freeloader to the streets. This happens all the time in many families. It’s called tough love.  

Speaking of love, why haven’t the mega churches mounted a campaign to go out and help the homeless and stop the crisis? If I were homeless and had absolutely no family to turn to, the places from which I’d first seek help are the largest, most impressive-looking churches. That’s where the money is. And when a beggar asks me for money, I advise him or her to ask a big church. Seek help there. But I can tell when the smile turns upside down, my sage suggestion goes in one ear and out the other. I ain’t gonna give them any money.

I used to, for years, until the city banned citizens from giving to pan handlers standing along the streets. When I was much younger and idealistic, I volunteered at a city homeless shelter, one that took in families with kids instead of individual adults. The kids were taken by bus to school every day. Most parents had jobs, even junk cars parked in an adjacent lot. But … the families could not afford rent, groceries and utilities on a low-income job or even two or three jobs. They were on waiting lists for low-income housing. They were allowed one month to stay at the homeless shelter, then they’d have to pack all their stuff in trash bags and go out to find another shelter with their kids in tow. The families would make the rounds and return within a year. Their plight never ended. Meanwhile, the kids are growing up.

The mean streets of America

People who don’t have a home due to whatever reason still have one thing: freedom. It’s why addicts stay away from family who love them. It’s also why people from dysfunctional families would rather live on the streets than return to live with parents and siblings they know well. Family abuse was a big reason women told me why they refused to move in with the families who raised them. Hurt, anger and hatred are so deep, emotional wounds so fresh, living on the streets and staying high is preferable.

The issue of mental illness prohibits most people from reaching out and personally helping the homeless. There’s a story about a homeless woman in NYC. A businessman walked past her every day for ten years. She yelled obscenities and smelled bad. One day she was gone, the man noticed. A year later, she spotted the businessman, the one who always saw her and ignored her. She had been taken to a hospital where she stayed until the right medication made it possible for her to live a normal life. She went up to the man and bawled him out, telling him if she had been bleeding from a physical wound, he would have called an ambulance and tried to help her. But because she was filthy and yelling, obviously mentally ill, he left her alone.

Americans could ban together and end homelessness, at least reduce it. People should never have to resort to living on the streets. And the homeless are first human beings, second dealing with major problems THAT CAN BE FIXED. Austin’s building tiny houses for their homeless folks, and LA’s giving some homeless people $1,000 a month—trying something instead of doing nothing. Habitat for Humanity has been a nonprofit solution where the recipient family must contribute ‘sweat equity’ in the building of their new simple house as the rest is installed by volunteer carpenters and electricians—usually all in one day. But it requires a city’s blessing and private landowners to donate property for the cause.

Until we admit there’s an undeniable crisis in America with homelessness, the rows of one-man tents, hanging quilts and strewn clothing will continue to stretch from sea to shining sea.