L Eckert-A Tribute to Texas

Could Solar Flares Improve the Sealy News?

I wonder if the current solar flare will have any impact on the Sealy News. Just imagine what could happen if the paper suddenly developed an alternate mission: responsible timely reporting, details about local criminals, trial updates, and feature stories.

What if the Sealy News actually stopped catering to a select few, and demanded accountability from civic leaders? Would we notice a positive change?

After all, the paper does belong to the community; why can't we read the stuff we have a right to know?

Simply put, I am no mathematician; but, even I have noticed an odd trend within the Sealy News. Reports seldom have a follow up…someone is controlling the content. Victims are pushed aside, (Katherine and Kendall Addison) while the actions of certain well connected perpetrators are only glumly visited, but never elaborated upon.

Let's take a look at that embarrassing public spectacle, accused child porn king, Stephen Wayne Sudduth. No one has closer ties to the community: brought up in Sealy, attended Sealy public schools, former Texas educator, with close relatives living in town.

Since his arrest on October, 29, 2009, he seemingly has vanished into thin air. Even though his trial has taken a myriad of interesting twists and turns, no one at the Sealy News has bothered to cover this important, and very interesting, story.

The Sealy News is counting on the recent solar flare to wipe all of our memories clean. Soon, curious local citizens will stop whispering over Tony's coffee, and everything will be perfect and positive in SealyLand.

Obviously the mission of those who control the Sealy Paper is to bathe some figures in as positive of a light as possible, while fabricating a false "good ole boy down home country" atmosphere out of pure, thick, brown, dog scat. YEEHAW!!!

The problem with this is that people have noticed.

Never mind me, I doubt if the active solar flare, and its plasma burst of radiated protons, will relieve the citizens from this ridiculous grip on its community paper.

But, wouldn't it be nice if the Sealy paper was truly an unbiased record of important events? When our descendants check the archives they will note these obvious lapses, the people left out. Our descendants, in a search for the truth, will find the Sealy News lacking.

So whilst the boiling sun rains down its radioactive particles onto the surface of planet Earth, shifting reality, and filling us all with uncertainty, we can still bank on the Sealy News to remain dim, muted, simply a silhouette framed against the plasmatic solar glare, then blowing away like dried up meaningless dog dung. As it should.

 

No Mention of Fatal Wreck in Sealy News

The Sealy News has not reported on the deaths of mom, Katherin Addison, and her young son, Kendall, even though the men who caused their fatalities live in Sealy, and the accident was a mere 7 miles away. There is no mention in the online Breaking News section. This fatal wreck happened Thursday morning and it is now Sunday. The Sealy News is instead still featuring a story about a San Felipe woman being murdered in her Houston apartment. However, we know the online edition was updated Thursday. If you look at the obituaries, they were updated on Friday the 13th announcing the death of Donald L. Chilton of Sealy.

Other small papers in the area are carrying this story, and the Sealy News could have updated their online edition. As most of us know, the Houston Chronicle, along with the major networks, have followed the story up to Cody Parchman's firing from the Katy Police Department.

My personal condolences to all of the families and friends of Katherin and Kendall. On the morning of this accident, I was heading into Katy before the sunrise. The crash investigators had erected a light over the site, and I could see the white pickup the two Sealy men had been driving. The entire front end of this pickup was completely bashed in. That afternoon when I returned to Sealy, I saw the burned area alongside the concrete barricade. This made me cry.

Because I am an older mom with a son the same age as Kendall, and because my Vince and I have found ourselves in dangerous predicaments, I truly grieve for this unnecessary loss of life. Kendall, by all accounts, was a sweet and fairminded young man with unlimited potential. Because the night was cold, and they were alone in the car against the traffic barricade, Katherin probably did not order him to wait in the ditch. If she was in a  panic, it may never have occurred to her that someone would come along and bash into their vehicle.

 Please get out of your vehicle if you are stranded alongside of the road. Do not try to change a tire on the white line.

 In typical fashion, the Sealy News has chosen to look the other way. Whenever one of Sealy's better citizens are caught with the proverbial pants around the knees, the Sealy paper becomes muted, foggy, and uninformative on the subject. However, if it were me drunken and flying down I-10, and if it were me who had killed a devoted mother and her son, then it would have been online the next morning.

If it had been me, or even one of my friends, who had been found in possession of some 57.000 pornographic images of children while working as a Texas educator, if it were me who stold money from the Clerk's office, if it were me....then the Sealy News would carefully follow the story, and carefully detail each twist and turn.

I can hardly wait for the next edition of the Sealy News. My money says they say absolutely nothing about this terrible wreck. If they do, then I still would not put them in line for any journalistic award. They have had numerous opportunities to report on the community in an accurate fashion. They consistently remain a biased, uninformative, and predictable rag.

 Katherin and Kendall have family in the Sealy community...yet, there is still nothing in the carefully controlled Sealy News on this very sad Sunday morning. No update to the online edition...nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

My Life is Beautiful

The Blab Sisters

She came home with a cold watermelon and sat it down on the back porch, her sisters were home. Being the prettiest of three, but divorced, Babs had quite a bit going for her. That's why when it came time to do something special she would dig down deep into her beaded coin purse to pay for family fun. It didn't make much sense, it was never appreciated, but Babs was a martyr of sorts, a whiner. She smoothed her rumpled, short, brown hair with one hand, and scratched under her arm with the other. The day was hot in Waller, Texas.

Petty theft was a problem with the Smith family. Almost all of them had been caught up in some kind of bookkeeping fraud involving the modification of a financial document. Since the latest mess had been featured in the local rag, Babs was now keeping a pretty low profile even though she wasn't the recently accused. She watched a roach run across the cabinets and thought about the problems she had caused for a neighbor down the street.

For the first time in her life Babs was beginning to regret some of her lies and gossip. Her sister Joe was about to spend some time in jail, and Babs was thinking more and more about karma, God, and the limitations of mundane verbality. She swatted a fly off of her sweaty arm and grabbed a knife from the drawer.

"Come on Joe, come on Carol, let's eat some of this watermelon out there at the table!"

Two very unattractive and not very intelligent women strolled into Babs cheaply furnished kitchen. The moment was sad, and a clock clanged noisily from the living room, while the three middle aged matrons stood apart looking at one another with worn eyes.

"Joe, why did you take the money?"

"I don't know Babs, I just had to have it to give to you. I don't even feel sorry about it, they owed me."

"Nobody owes you nothin' Joe."

The three Blab sisters sat down at the table together with their watermelon and nervously chewed its flesh and spitted seeds onto cheap ceramic plates.

The silence was heavy.

Today I Feel Sorry for....

Today I feel sorry for the unemployed and disenfranchised,

sitting at the television watching dreams they cannot join in.

The pitiful soldier returning home to nothing, lied to and used for the monetary gain

of the Neiman Marcus, Saks crowd, still believing his sacrifice was to protect Americans.

Working class men and women are now working much harder for less...they should be grateful

some greedy business owner can throw them a job, like throwing a dog a scrap from the table of

broken

dreams.

I feel for the ridiculous follly of the young and uneducated, wasting valuable time, having babies (want and ignorance) hiding in society's robes.

Unable to earn, they will simply soon take....what they have no right to possess. Or do they?

All around us, and in our own family, we look upon the self entitled twits of everyday judgement.

The curtain calls.

 

Waiving the Office Holiday Party

This year I believe I will waive the office holiday party joining ranks with the likes of Goldman Sachs. After all, I have made such an indecent amount of money, and my opportunities have been so abundant, it just isn't decent of me to flaunt all of this wealth. For once, I wasn't sold out like the proverbial step child for some petty amount of money, or ridiculous hollow favor. I was held in reserve like the finest of wine, my efforts and complete honesty appreciated by all.

My unwavering patience and fair dealing, was noticed and applauded, as well as my own requests for honesty and respect. I couldn't be luckier; the finest of people have supported my efforts.

I can see one of them now...sitting in his shorts in the middle of the night with his fat arse hanging over the side of a cheap chair playing 'farms on Facebook' like a mindless meth sniffing idiot. Of course, taking this guy's business advice can be compared to eating raw chicken: risky. But if you are in the mood to gamble, then let me suggest you question him closely about the character of your employees. Even if he has never met an individual, or been witness to some incident concerning a person's integrity or technical skill, he is still a completely reliable source of information. He is, in fact, clairvoyant. His whole family has mental telepathy!

As for me, I don't really belong to an office anymore, I am just making this all up, the way people who love to write do. But if I did have a job, and I was invited to the holiday party, I would probably pass anyway. Even though my character playing Facebook games in the middle of the night isn't real, he is a symbol for a larger problem. Hollywood has made films, authors have written award winning books, and art has depicted the agonizing pain and misery caused by controlling adults with this type of personality disorder. They hate women, Jewish people, and anyone else who is not just exactly like them.

Sparsely talented, and financially vulnerable, it's possible the office party would offer me the highest form of entertainment available this dreary holiday season. I should count myself lucky to even get invited. But, no, I will stay home with the dogs and my child, and pray for better prospects next year.

He Looks Sweet! BUT HE'S NOT :-)

Trucking Soliloquy on All Souls

Today the children are studying The Outsiders, a novel written by prominent Oklahoma author S.E. Hinton. In chapter 5 the main characters hop a train, and the young imaginations around the room ponder the possible destinations as if they themselves were fleeing authority on a ride into the unknown.

A bit bored by the hour after hour repetition, my own mind begins a bit of independent wandering. I am thinking about my bad luck with people.

I would drive my truck all around the country then return home; sadly, my journeys were always more about the people and less about the places.

Bitterly jealous relatives without any understanding of human decency, busily judging my life, like squawking vultures perched upon my shoulder sharing my view of the highway constantly pick, pick, picking away.

I grew so tired of their ridiculous questions, unfloundering ignorance, and snide suspicions. Most of them possessing no knowledge at all of where their food and clothes hail from, the endless ports of call around the continent, our massive transportation hubs, distribution centers, or the miracles performed each day by hardworking truckers.

Our transportation system, the finest in the world, and completely misunderstood by the general public, is the only industry preventing us from slipping into third-world status.

I think about the parade of former supervisors. The one with the pistol in his desk, the dopey, the cheap fraud, the guy with the wall behind his desk covered with continuing education certificates for trivial things like air brake safety and log book training, several cowards, and especially the men who encouraged me, and now applaud my achievements. As I stand on the brink of success or failure, the people who care about me are merely amused by the two-faced liars clinging to their misguided beliefs.

Whatever becomes of me, my child, my home, my image—the dishonest collection of thieving, petty, jealous relatives, and meaningless acquaintances, will surely fade into the tracks of proverbial nothingness, forgotten by the world, like snow simply drifting from the road.

But I have done something first—not once, but twice. And later, after all of this, I will find something else. And, once again, I will do it first, and I will not be forgotten. For this, I will suffer the vitriol, for, it is basically worth it.

Stephen Wayne Sudduth Status Conference Hearing

This morning I called down to the Southern District Court to find out the latest on the Sudduth trial. All I was able to learn is that they had a "status conference hearing" yesterday. All of this information is public record. I could go to the Court today and view the documents myself. I have an important test tonight, but if I feel confident enough to kill a little time, I will head downtown.

I know all of you are interested in this important case.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

A Little Story about me and the Law

Tonight I want to tell you a little story about my experience in Oklahoma City in the mid 90's. As everyone knows, when I get tired of traveling, I like to do other types of work. The summer of 95 I had the great fortune to get a little part time job in a law office. The duties were easy and fun, and during my off hours I was able to work in my mother's little store. My employer's suite of offices was located on the main floor right on Hudson Street only a couple of blocks from the ill fated Murrah Building. He had several partners, and various hard working associates; I worked in the back as a proofreader and fax machine operator.

I always wanted to create a case file, but everyone said that kind of work had to be done by real paralegals. So I had to sit and watch the busy lawyers take their newly created cases to the nearby Court bumping and skipping on little rolling carts, while I watched the phone and sent the faxes.

I didn't mind at all. My job was the funnest on the corner—I faxed the lawsuits, and then I answered the phones.

We did a few product liability cases that summer, sued a few drunk drivers, and even settled some business disputes via mediation.

But what I liked best was standing over that fax machine and waiting for those calls.

They always had the documents prepared to go late in the afternoon. This meant I started my faxing while everyone was already home, at the nearby cocktail lounge, in with a client, or still over at the Court.

It never took very long…I would run a lawsuit through the fax timed with its filing in Court, and sometimes in concert with a process server. The Defendant would always call me. They would call me just about everything you can imagine too! I had grown men begging and crying over the phone, drunk drivers cussing and swearing, I have heard every single threat known to man, and I was told by my employer to simply say "Thank you for the business."

The most valuable lesson I learned in that long ago law office was that we can make ourselves count…not just our dollars, but also as people.

My advice is to never think you are big for your britches…You might have some flashy red shorts, and a big pickup truck, a cool job, and you might be draining off the bucks in a big way…but you can be had. If you are not humble enough, then you will be.

My fictional hero is taking shape!

She couldn't believe he was gonna stick up for me. He met with her at noon over tacos, tea, and heavy iron lamps; the room was dark and romantic. She took advantage of the opportunity, flipping her hair, lying through her smile, and tarnishing what bit of integrity she had left. He never flinched, he simply said, "I don't believe it, and I don't care."

Not many real men are left, but he's a classic. He really couldn't care less, and the noisy din of gossip and lies fell on the deafest of bored ears; I was overwhelmed with pride, thankful, and in awe. So many times before people were prepared to believe the upmost in trash, they revelled in the smut, and enjoyed the wreckage their words brought into my life.

Now I have won something worth having.

My pen means a lot to me. I was able to tell my story in pages and pages of handwritten anecdotes, and I pushed them into his lap through his open window. "Take this, please, it's my story!" He was angry and tired, put off by my brash behavior, but he flung the huge stack of words into the seat beside him, and he said, "I don't really need this, my mind is made up!"

My lip quivered, my heart broke, I knew I had lost again to that terrible thing that has followed me for a lifetime, to her jealously, her hatred.

I was wrong!

Today I am sitting in my new chair, in my new room, and I am so happy. I think I have my hero!

The Quest for a Hero: Onward Ho!

Imagine a rudderless yacht pitching and yawing into the bleakest, darkest abyss, an empire without its noble champion, the meaningless monarch wandering into the mead hall hours after the Court has already assembled, exiting stage left before all of his other players, flapping his jacket like a goose poised for flight.

In my quest for a hero, I need not look here; yet, you know who you are.

No matter where she lived, her house always smelled like wet plaster. I sat in her overstuffed Lazy Boy recliner trying to appear painfully stupid, while some of the worst advice to ever pass tonsils flowed across the room into my seemingly ignorant ears.

"You should just use some White-Out on that document, photocopy it, and take it right up there to the tax office. No one will know there is a lien holder on that property."

Amused, and somewhat stunned, by the low-life assumption that I would falsify a document of any kind was rather maddening.

"I might think about it," I told her, "But I wouldn't want anyone to imagine I was trying to steal something."

"Well, you aren't really stealing," she replied. "You are simply owed the money, and you will be saving attorney fees."

I remember when my hero first made his presence obvious; she asked me, "Why would anyone of any stature care about you?" Her newer and larger chest heaved in anger, while she glared at my mother screaming, "Well, it's real to her!"

Anyone that purveys bad advice to you is not your friend.

Someone is pretending to lead the people, when instead he is simply enriching himself. However, over on the other side of the spectrum are people who actually sacrifice for their internal beliefs. Looking beyond the obvious and into the theme of the 'goose poised for flight' is an art I have mastered. Should we cook the goose, or let him remain? I believe even the most cowardly bird can be salvaged…..almost. It all really depends on how cheap the bird is, and whether or not he keeps a tawdry Court.

But in the quest for a fictional hero, one must usually 'cook the goose.' And in the case of an anti-hero, we often find our truest subject. As for me, I wouldn't want the purest of heroes, nor do I want Terry Eagleton's painfully honest interpretation of evil to dance across my pages. Or has it already done so?

Her rooms always smelled like wet plaster…hmm?

Planning for an Epic: the Hero

Writing is so lonely, I wonder if I can do it. Putting these little blog posts up are so easy, instant gratification. Whenever I post a blog, I get readers right away. Sometimes I get comments, and sometimes I get hate mail. Whatever I get, it is all meaningful. But when you write 'fa real' then you write all alone… you write without critics, and you develop living and breathing characters from the life you have experienced.

I guess porno perverts are good fodder for late night writing, crime stories, and small town scandal; but, please, am I not worth more?

Maybe I could tell a story about the school superintendent who sits on his duff at home for most of the day…everyday. This is a complete epic: corruption, cronyism, drugs, theft, child abuse, and so on! Maybe I could talk about the woman who walks dogs for financial favor, or create a character that peddles in child porn and mingles with kids. My story could include the man from my past who watched me busily doodling with my pen at a pay phone…a mafia like character, shady and serious; he knew so much about my scattered life.

I could spice my vignettes with old ladies who have no class and never mind their own business.

I could make all of this stuff up, or I could just write what I know.

The only way to get rid of a set of hips like that is to get liposuction. That's exactly why after 10 years of never seeing that woman, I had to laugh. Her butt had always been bigger than the Titanic, and now it was skinnier than my own, dressed in a black pant suit, and her hand sported the ugliest and gaudiest diamond ring I had ever seen, definitely not purchased at Tiffany's.

"Just like a crow," I thought to myself.

She works in finance, calling herself an advisor; but, strangely, everyone in her immediate family was as poor as dirt. If that was how she wanted to advertise, well then, people should have been smarter.

How could I write what I know? What I actually know is not worth sharing: characters without any character, stealing and lying scum, better forgotten than remembered. Well, maybe I might include one.

The stories parade through my mind like acts in a play, all day long. So many places I want to go, yet, so many characters I am confused about. Who should I kick, and who should I keep?

To me the greatest hero is one who tosses his magic into the sea. After the strife, after the climax, after the conflict, he returns to his docile self, a man without balls. Just kidding.

To me the greatest hero is one who keeps his guns very close and his friends very far.

You know who you are.

Midland Texas Tonight: an open and prosperous town!

Lately, I have been a regular visitor to the Midland, Odessa, and San Angelo, Texas, area. Oilfield equipment trucks fill the roadways, people are busy and productive. There is lots of work here, and obvious prosperity. But the best thing about this area is the people. Everyone is friendly, hospitable, and helpful. I have yet to be treated rudely, or with suspicion.

In Midland you don't see any abandoned businesses, or vacant rundown houses. Places are open late, and the American dream is still alive.

It's just too bad that more Texas communities aren't more open and friendly. If you live in a place where ignorance and cronyism reign supreme, then you probably get the point.

 Do you live in a place where nosy women and men stare at you rudely, without shame (I was raised different)? Do you see lots of abandoned property and laid off workers? Are you constantly questioned about your personal life, and do you feel imposed upon?

If this is your life, then you are probably living in a community that strives against growth and prosperity...a place where being born there is more important than the contribution you can make to the community good.

This kind of territorialism is rather ethnocentric, however, it is usually just rooted in simple ignorance and a lack of grace.

Last night I laid over in San Angelo. I was treated with kindness and professionalism by the local people. I used several services in town, and I questioned some of the business owners and employees about their origins. One business owner was a proud atheist. I know a couple of places in Texas where you simply would not admit that fact to anyone. On the wall he had a picture of a gay male couple with a sign underneath that said, "P~~~~ off the world, one person at a time." I found that picture extremely funny since this place is a thriving business with ranchers, truckers, and travelers running through all day long. Only in an educated community could one expect such a level of tolerance and support from the population. I was impressed, because the people around San Angelo obviously know that only with love, and understanding, can a community truly thrive and prosper.

Compare this with suspicion and nosiness found in less educated and informed areas; the quality of life is lower for everyone. Places like that sort of die off...it is sad.

I am not an atheist, nor am I a gay person, but I love people from all walks of life. There is something to be learned, and something to enjoy, in every race, ethnic origin, and religious background. All of us are important; we all count to each other, and to God.