Newton County News (Newton, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 33, Ed. 1 Wednesday, March 2, 2005 Page: 2 of 10
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Page 2 Newton ('minty News. Wednesday, March 2, 2005
TEXAS PRESS ASSOCIATION
HIGHLIGHTS
By Mike Cox
By Mike Cox
Legislators roll dice with casi-
no gambling bills
AUSTIN - If the prospect of
legalized casino gambling in
Texas amounted to a poker
game, no one’s shuffled the
cards yet, but the seal’s been
broken on a new deck and the
ante’s on the table.
That happened Feb. 24 when
a Republican house member
and a Democratic senator filed
legislation calling for a vote on a
constitutional amendment that
would allow up to a dozen casi-
nos in Texas.
As many as seven casinos
could be located in major metro-
politan areas, two on the coast
and three wherever they had the
best opportunity of improving the
community’s economy.
Measures filed by Rep.
Charlie Green of Fort Worth and
Sen Rodney Ellis of Houston
will need a two-thirds vote in
both chambers and the gover-
nor's signature, but if that hap-
pens, Texans will get to vote on
Nov 8 to create a Texas Gaming
Commission that would license
and regulate casinos.
Even if voters approve a con-
stitutional amendment, final
authority to open a casino would
rest on a local option election.
In announcing their resolu-
tions, the two lawmakers said
casino gambling would bring in
some $2.1 billion a year for the
state and another $730 million
for local governments. Neither
legislator offered odds, but both
said they think they have a shot
at getting the amendment on the
ballot.
Rep. Kino Flores (D-Mission)
earlier filed a bill that would allow
24 casinos in the state, still con-
tingent on approval of a constitu-
tional amendment.
End of line for Railroad
Commission?
The Texas Railroad
Commission had its start in 1891
during the administration of Gov.
James Hogg. One hundred four-
teen years later, a name change
could be coming down the track.
Rep. Corbin Van Arsalde (R-
Houston) has filed House Joint
Resolution 42, a measure that
would put a constitutional
amendment on the ballot to
rename the regulatory agency
the Texas Energy Commission.
Rep. Buddy West (R-Odessa)
has filed a similar piece of legis-
lation, House Bill 1078. The two
lawmakers would like to see the
agency renamed because it
doesn’t have much at all to do
with railroads these days.
It did when it was created, but
oil and gas regulation long ago
eclipsed the RRC’s role with rail-
roads.
Traffic program hits red light
Garland city officials say
using cameras at intersections
to discourage drivers from run-
ning red lights has resulted in a
20 percent decrease in the dan-
gerous offense.
But the House on Feb. 24
passed on first reading House
Bill 1347, a measure by Rep.
Gary Elkins (R-Houston) that
wouid make the red light
enforcement tool illegal in Texas.
Elkins argues that the pres-
ence of the cameras, which pho-
tograph the license plates of
vehicles going through an inter-
section after a light has
changed, increases rear-end
crashes and has more to do with
municipal revenue-generation
than safety.
The House member from
Garland, fellow Republican Joe
Driver, says using the cameras
iowers the number of collisions
and saves lives. The House will
have to vote on the bill one more
time before it goes to the
Senate.
If
f .V " //•’A "
Sabine - Neches
lilriters Guild
This Week Featuring
Louise Jetton
Louise Jetton is a retired
teacher who writes deeply mov-
ing stories about growing up in
the Old Salem Community of
Newton County during the years
of the Great Depression.
What’s for Breakfast?
Some of my earliest recollec-
tions as a young child were won-
dering what there was to eat and
if there would be enough to go
around. We lived in the Sabine
River Bottom in a two room
shack; Moma, Daddy, and four
children. The entire country was
in the grips of the Great
Depression, but I do believe it
squeezed my family a little hard-
er than most.
Daddy walked 10 miles each
day to work for 50 cents. My
mother had an old mule and a
turning plow. She tried to grow
corn peas, and potatoes but
when it failed to rain for such a
long time, the seed would not
sprout. She, at times, would
wonder whether to boil the seed
for food or risk planting and fail-
ure to grow.
For a while the surrounding
woods had plenty of deer, squir-
rels, rabbits, raccoons, opos-
sums, and armadillos. Mom was
an excellent shot and shells
were precious; they cost money.
She always made each shot
count.
In the spring, Mom would
gather poke greens, which grew
wild, to cook for us. Mayhaws,
dewberries, blackberries, and
huckleberries were gathered
and provided some variety to our
diet. Later, there were musca-
dine grapes and possum grapes.
In the fall, we would gather
hickory nuts, black walnuts, and
chinquapins.
Many mornings would find
Mom standing on the porch with
the gun, watching several squir-
rels in a large hickory tree on the
stomp. They would be eating
hickory nuts. She would decide
how many she would need to
cook for breakfast, get a bead on
a couple, and pull the trigger. It
was not unusual at all for her to
bring down two squirrels with
one shot. She never killed more
than what was needed at that
time. I can still taste her fried
squirrel, brown gravy, and bis-
cuits.
The time came when all the
game seemed to disappear;
Moma said it was due to the
severe drought. The meals
became more skimpy each day
and she said it showed on our
faces and in our eyes.
Finally, one morning there
was nothing to cook; not a scrap
of food to be had! I remember
the gnawing, aching feeling in
my stomach. I asked Moma what
we wouid eat for breakfast. She
had tears in her eyes and told
me that God would provide.
I looked around and certainly
didn’t see anything to eat. She
knelt by a chair and began pray-
ing; telling God that her children
were hungry.
At this time, my brothers were
standing on the porch and all of
a sudden, they both began hol-
lering, “Moma, come out here!
Hurry! There’s something big
crawling this way. It looks like a
great big old turtle!”
Sure enough, there he came;
he was taking his sweet time,
and seemed to know his mis-
sion. On he came, straight for
our front gate! Moma didn’t
seem surprised in the least. She
said she had never dressed out
a turtle but that she was about to
learn. He turned out to be a soft
shelled turtle and according to
Daddy’s cotton scales, he
weighed 56 pounds.
Moma took the axe to him, to
save a bullet, and soon had him
dressed out. Turtle for breakfast,
plenty to go around, and lots left
for several more meals. It was
delicious; tasted sort of like
chicken.
We later learned how the tur-
tle came to be there. An old fel-
low had set some trot lines in the
river below our field. He had a
huge turtle and three large
Buffalo fish on the back of his old
jalopy. Apparently, he hit one of
the many deep holes in the road
and off came his turtle.
Now, why didn’t Mr. Turtle
head back for his home in the
river? Did he think our place was
a short cut? To this day some of
us do believe it was divine inter-
vention!
The Sabine Neches Writers
Guild is made up of writers from
throughout this area.
Membership is free and open to
all. The guild meets the second
Thursday of each month. For
more information, call Ben
Stover at 409-384-4053 days or
384-6552 evenings.
Davis Cemetery Association Seeks Donations
If you would like to donate to the Davis Cemetery Fund in lieu of flowers you can mail to Davis
Cemetery Fund, c/o Thomas Hall, Rt. 1 Box 101, Bon Wier, Texas 75928 or deposit into the account at
First National Bank in Newton.
Newton City Cemetery Association Asks Donations
Those who do not wish to send flowers to a funeral, but want to do something to honor the deceased
are asked to contribute to the Newton Cemetery Association in lieu of flowers. Donations may be mailed
to Newton Cemetery Association, Rt. 1, Box 173-B, Newton, Texas 75966.
House of Prayer Services Thursday, Fourth Saturdays
Worship services at Newton’s House of Prayer are conducted Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. and on the
fourth Saturday of each month at 11 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Gloria Anderson is church pastor.
Singles Group Meets Sundays
The Cathedral in the Pines Singles Christian Connection group meets every Sunday at 8:45 a.m. until
10 a.m. at the Holiday Inn, North 11th Street in Beaumont. Classes are designed for emotional healing
and are taught by therapist Marty Goldbeck
Check Out The Newton County News
Website at:
www.newtonnews.com
Heroes Among Us
j
1
S2
“And an old buffer was
pleased to describe us as
young heroes.”
By Mack Hall
Last week I attended the wed-
ding of a couple of former stu-
dents. The bride was gorgeous
in a long, ivory-colored gown,
and the groom was wonderfully
handsome in his Marine dress
blues.
At the reception I was with my
aging eyes able to perceive that
one of the bits of ribbon on the
bridegroom’s tunic was colored
purple. I asked the bride’s uncle
what that was about.
“He was wounded when his
vehicle was blown up in Iraq.
Several of his friends were
killed.”
One day you’re telling a stu-
dent that he needs to go shave
to be in compliance with the
school’s dress code. The next
summer he’s a Marine. And the
next year he’s wounded while
helping keep the world safe from
a culture that considers murder-
ing civilians and strapping
bombs to babies a religious
practice.
Too many Americans have
short memories, and the military
is, oddly enough, a victim of its
own success. For four years our
young sailors, Marines, soldiers,
and airmen have fought an ideo-
logical malignancy (which we’re
never supposed to name,
because that would be insensi-
tive) all over the world, their
blood and their youth evaporat-
ing into desert sands so that we
at home can be safe from anoth-
er series of 9/11 attacks.
The young people in our mili-
tary have been so effective that
the New York - Los Angeles Axis
of Insipidity declares, over and
over, that there is no threat and
never was a threat.
The late-night comedians are
pleased to sneer at our soldiers
and our President, and com-
pletely ignore Saddamn Hussein
and Osama Bin Ladin’s death
camps, mass graves, torture
chambers, genocida! mania,
imperial ambitions, and the
mass murders of people all over
the world.
Hollywood has not gone to
war except, in a sort of self-
destructive schizophrenia,
against America. You will not see doing so while whitewashing the |
the modern equivalents of rape and looting committed by •;
Casablanca, Mrs. Miniver, In
Which We Serve, or The Mortal
Storm on television or at the cin-
ema, where it’s all Michael
Moore and game shows and
booty-shake and business as
usual.
When a gang of thugs in yet
another holy (harrumph) city
videotape themselves using a
knife to sever the head of some
poor guy begging for his life, the
anti-Americans in New York and
Los Angeles are apparently cool
with that. But if some superannu-
ated Guardsmen not up on his
Marquis of Queensberry rules
makes one of those thugs wear
his panties on his head or some-
thing, the panties of the white
wine and cheese set are twisted
in outrage.
The news is pleased to show,
over and over, the same unfortu-
nate snapshots of post-
Saddamn Abu Butt-Grab prison;
they never show us pictures
taken inside — and pictures
were taken —■ of thousands of
men being hanged, tortured,
starved, and beaten to death
under the Baathists.
Decades of mass murder as
opposed to a few stunts that
hardly qualify as fraternity haz-
ing — and the world focuses on
the hazing.
Saddamn Hussein even had
a special death camp for chil-
dren (“You have to be This High
UN peacekeepers (cough) in |
Africa. 1
For four years we have j
defended ourselves and the
world by sending 19-year-olds to j
the desert wars. Lately we have J
read of wounded soldiers being ~
billed for their medical care, or %
1
charged for their transportation |
from one medical unit to another, : j
or being put on report because |
they can’t account for some
equipment they last saw just
before the explosion that shat-1
tered their futures. *
1
Now we read of soldiers g
threatened with court martial for |
shooting first instead of dying 1
passively. ;
The ships and the planes and..
the technology are magnificent, ■
but in the end it is the Marine or;
soldier or sailor on the ground-
who must remedy the chaos in
the streets or wadis or sand- j
seas of Iraq and Afghanistan, j
and break the mullah-mobs of j
sucking eggs. j
We civilians at home have a I
duty to see to it that our young j
folks in the military are treated :
fairly by the career bureaucrats. \
We must somehow monitor i
every court-martial and every i
accusation, and do our best to
protect those who have protect-.]
ed us.
The young Marine I saw the J
other day seems well enough, |
■3
but a wound is forever. As he 4
to be shot”), and the world ages his body will pay a price for j
ignores the news.
When mass graves are dis-
covered in the desert, the world
reacts only to fault the U.S. for
not controlling the mourning rel-
atives.
When geeky tyrants with bad
haircuts and lifts in their shoes
and firing squads working over-
time accumulate the materials
and the renegade scientists to
make nuciear bombs, and flat-
out tel! us that they mean to use
those bombs on us and Israel,
the world tells us to negotiate
with these pathological weirdos
and not act like unsophisticated
clods by actually defending our-
selves.
When we try to build function-
al governments in Afghanistan
and Iraq, the UN faults us for
what happened, and the i
Veterans’ Administration had l
darned sure better be there for 3
him and the other guys, and stop j
being a closed loop of obstruc- j
tive bureaucrats.
Sometimes, late at night, he
will remember too much, and
suffer survivors’ guilt, which of
course is not guilt at all, but it
hurts even more. And that’s
when those who are close to him
will need to try to understand
things they can’t really under-
stand.
Yes, T- know -heroes---T onee^
bored ’em to tears with Macbeth
and sonnets and thesis state-
ments and iambic pentameter.
And then they went and saved
my life. And yours too. We owe
them everything.
ALL THINGS HISTORICAL
A LOOK AT EAST TEXAS HISTORY FROM
THE EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
The Air Ace
By Bob Bowman
Sixty years ago this year, an
East Texan perished in a small
plane crash in Ajgiers, bringing
an end to one of the most mem-
orable stories of World War II.
Born in Broaddus in San
Augustine County and reared at
Reklaw in Nacogdoches County,
Lance C. Wade spent most of
the war flying for the Royal Air
Force of Britain.
He learned to fly at the age of
17 in Arizona and, hoping to fol-
low in the footsteps of his father
who had flown with the Lafayette
Escadrille in World War 1, Wade
traveled to Canada with a close
friend, Sidney Muhart, and went
to England in 1941, where they
joined the RAF when the war
broke out.
Sometimes called World War
H’s greatest flying ace, Wade
was credied with 23 or 25 air vic-
tories, depending on how they
were tallied, by the time he was
27, making hirn the leading
American fighter ace to serve in
any foreign air force.
Wade made his first strikes
against British enemies in the
early 1940s, and when America
entered the war he was given an
opportunity to join the American
Air Force with a higher rank and
more pay.
“Thanks,” he said, “but I’d
rather string along with the guys
I’ve been with so long.”
Wade, whose East Texas
drawl set him apart from his fel-
low British pilots, was"clecorated
with the British Distinguished
Flying Cross and was honored
twice by the King of England.
He fought with the RAF
throughout the Middle East cam-
paign, becoming a wing com-
mander (the equivalent of lieu-
tenant colonel in the U.S.) and
served in Tunisia, Egypt, Sicily,
Italy and North Africa.
He was shot down twice and
once rescued after a 27-mile
hike across the desert.
And in November, before his
death, Wade and a fellow pilot
were patrolling forward positions
for the Eighth Army when they
found themselves surrounded by
20 German fighters. Wade dam-
aged three and his fellow pilot
destroyed one.
When Wade found himself *
damaging
planes.
several German!
Wade also saw his fellow*
American, Sidney Muhart, fatally|
burned to death when he was!
attacked behind enemy lines. 1
Wade’s own death came also!
behind ememy lines when a
small communications plane he!
was flying went into an unex-:
plained spin and plunged to
combat death was one of the sad 2
ironies of World War II. *
Wade was buried with full mil-:
itary honors in the British war *
cemetery in Italy and, at home in!
the forestlands of East Texas, he!
was remembered and missed.
(Distributed by the East Texas]
Historical Association. Bob \
Bowman is a member of the1
Texas Historical Commission *
and the author of more than 32 :
books about East Texas.) **
School’s In — Drive With Care!
■■■
TU
MEMBER
2005
TEXAS PRESS
ASSOCIATION
NEWTON COUNTY NEWS
is published weekely on Wednesdays by Glenn A. Mitchell at 211 Glover
Drive in Newton, Texas 75966. Subscription rates are $24 a year in
Newton County, Jasper, Kirbyville, Brookland, Merryville and Orange;
$27 a year elsewhere. Periodical postage paid at Newton, Texas.
Postmaster send address changes to: Newton County News, P.O. Box 65,
Newton, TX. 75966. Phone and fax number is: (409) 379-2416.
Publisher..........Glenn A. Mitchell Editor................Mary Collins
Advertising Sales Representative..............Sharon Storey
v
I
"•St
*
being chased by seven planes,;!
he dropped into a valley and i
used his skills to slip away from
his pursuers, but not before!
earth. Wade had only recently ?
retired from combat and his non—
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Collins, Mary. Newton County News (Newton, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 33, Ed. 1 Wednesday, March 2, 2005, newspaper, March 2, 2005; Newton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth635147/m1/2/?q=Lamar+University: accessed June 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Newton County Historical Commission.