Rita your no Carla

Hurricane Rita didn't live up to it's fearsome reputation, it only delivered a wallop to a limited area and a somewhat small population. The possibility of a catastrophic hit on Houston was almost too hard to think about. People in Houston took the forecast of dark gathering clouds very serious and 2.5 million people evacuated the area. Once again my home town was in the path of the massive evacuation just as it was 44 years ago durning the evacuation for Hurricane Carla. People fleeing Rita were housed in the same building that they were housed durning the Carla hurricane. In 1961 the building was a National Guard Headquarters, now it is a City Civic Center.
The respect I have for hurricanes was formed in 1961. Hurricane Carla struck the lower Texas coast on September 11, 1961 and was one of the most powerfully storms ever to hit Texas. Carla was a true category 5 storm with winds exceeding 175 mph upon land fall and tide of 18.5 ft above normal high tide. Rita was a spit in the wind compared to Carla. Rita's winds were 115 mph with tide of 8 ft, it was barely a category 3 storm.
On September 11, 1961 I was living some 385 miles from Carla's land fall. My small town got thousands of people trying to out run the large and furious storm, just as people were trying to do last week with Rita barreling down on Houston. On that September day in 1961 the leaders of my small home town put out a cry for help. All people able to take evacues into their home were to go to the National Guard building and gather as many people as they could shelter. Dad brought a couple home and they stayed with us a couple of days. Last week my brother helped out a large family who were stranded in the evacuation by giving them a place to clean up and rest before they continued on their evacuation process.
Forecasters are always so ominous in their prediction of a catastrophic storm each time a hurricane approaches land. Too many people view the warnings as a false alarm, that it will not be as bad as officials and media predict. Rita could have been one of the worst storms to ever hit the Texas coast but it changed course and somewhat fizzled out soon after it hit land just as many storms do. Rita's only legacy will be the massive traffic jams caused by all the evacues leaving Houston and the lack of gasoline along the evacuation route.
Will so many people flee a storm ever again? I really do not know! If you were to ask God what he would do he would say "Evacuate stupid". Some people said "Rather have a Margi-Rita" and rode out the storm, never thinking of evacuating. I know what I would have done. I would have packed a bag as fast as I could as left a note on the door with a quote from Red Buttler "Frankly my dear I don't give a damn" Gone with the Rita wind.

Good medicine always taste bad

With gasoline prices around $3 a gallon, I am searching for relief just like everyone else. I have noticed that I am not the only one driving 60 mph. Now I see at least half of the cars on my commute driving 60 mph instead of 70 mph. When gas topped $2.25 a gallon I slowed to 60 mph but it was not until gas rose to $3 a gallon did I see 50% of the other drivers doing the same. By staying home on my off days, combining my trips and driving 60 mph I have cut the amount of gasoline I buy each month by 25% to 30%.
This may sound crazy but maybe gasoline prices should stay at $3 a gallon. It will reduce what consumers buy elsewhere, undercut growth and face people to think twice before driving. The best medicine would be a gasoline tax increase but that ideal is considered political suicide. A flexible tax keeping the price of gasoline at $3 would not be so bad. Taxes can change long term behavior as long as tax payers believe the levies are here to stay. A gasoline tax increase now would be well timed. The economy is still expanding and consumers already have confronted the shock of $3 a gallon gasoline. The real purpose of such medicine is to make the US economy less dependent on energy and therefore less sensitive to spikes in energy prices. This medicine would taste bad. It is not as simple as take two aspirin and call me in the morning. I can just hear my mother say " Here take this medicine, now swallow this ". I would shake my head from side to side but finally open up my mouth and down the hatch the medicine would go. I would always ask her " How long do I have to keep taking this stuff, it taste bad " Her answer was always the same " Till you get better".

Tale of two cities

The scenes of suffering witnessed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are not only the result of the failure of Lake Ponchartrain's levees but the lack of our nation's anti-poverty efforts. New Orleans is indeed two cities. One showy middle class and white and the other poor downtrodden and largely low-income black. It is a city that did not wait for a disaster to happen, the poverty and neglect had already wreaked that disaster on thousands, Katrina only added to the misery.
There are many lessons to be learned from this tragedy. The biggest lesson is the immediate evidence of the different treatment of rich and poor, white and black and the fact that we continue to tolerate such differences in this country. Everytime we cut taxes for the rich, everytime we do nothing to raise the wages for the poor, everytime a child grows up with out a decent education, we only add fuel to the divided society.
Fingers can be pointed in many directions, we need only look in the mirror to cast responsibility. The answers don't lie in a government that failed to play it's role. The answers are in the fault lines of class and race. Those fault lines were there long before Katrina. America needs to be brutally honest and say the problem is not just FEMA and government policy. The problem is much deeper than the flood waters that engulfed New Orleans, it is in what we do and don't do everyday.
We need to go beyond charitable relief and use our wisdom to set policies and programs that help the poorest become self sufficient, that is the best protection from natural disaster. Nature's power will remain beyond our control but we can control the path of mercy. That is a choice we must make.

Walkers Creek Reunion 2005

There are always several generations attending the reunion each year. In the picture my uncle has his granddaughter in his lap. I was about her age when I began forming memories of this event. Over the last 50 years there have been few years I have missed going to the reunion. I look forward to Sept 1 every year not only because it is my birthday, it is also the week of the Walkers Creek reunion. You can read about my memories of this event in Walkers Creek One Room School

My Birthday