Recent Events

Well, recent history is more like it.  The two of you, your lifetimes in this world have included experiences that no one of my mother's or your grandparents generations had experienced.  I can mark history making events that coincided with each of your early years. 

Right before Bubba was born, we had President Reagan asking Mr. Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!"  Through a behind the scenes letter writing campaign, the Russian Government did tear down the wall.  And for the first time in mine & your daddy's lifetime German's enjoyed a whole Germany.  Then the Soviet Union broke up into separate states and for the first time any living American could remember, The USSR was not our scariest enemy.

Bubba I held you and nursed you as the protests in Tien An Men Square in China played out before our eyes on evening news broadcasts.  Young Chinese students standing down tanks and demanding their voices be heard in Communist China.  You don't know what this means in a country where the population is controlled by forced abortions.  Where they have had the ability to field an army the size of what the Bible speaks of at Armageddon since my teens.

Then came the first Gulf War.  We took part as the nation for the first time ever held hands all the way across the mainland of America to pray for our troops and God's deliverance.  We stood in front of First Baptist Church in Silsbee to do this.  Then the war was over immediately and it was our "technology" that got the praise for it, instead of our God. 

Hannah Bug was a toddler running around our little house under my feet as the news came pouring across the TV screen as the American Mainland was attacked in the 9/11 suicide missions.  Bubba was at school, daddy was at Uncle Tommy's building cabinets.  Nothing ever felt as good as all of us back together under one roof that evening!  That's when I became obsessed by the news for the longest. 

Then 2005 rolls around.  We all watched as New Orleans was swamped by a hurricane.  I was so fearful that the Superdome would turn into the world's largest swimming pool and drown the victims it was trying to protect. 

Hardly any time passed and there we were under the gun for Rita.  On the one hand, no one living in our area could ever remember being affected by a hurricane.  By the tornadoes one spawned on the "bad" side yes.  But not by the actual storm.  On the other hand, there was New Orleans as proof something could happen for the first time.  Being on the highest piece of ground in Hardin County and being too broke to go away and stay anywhere we made plans to ride it out at home. 

Yet my blood still ran cold as I read the last minute warnings coming from the hurricane center, saying as many as 1/3rd of the trees could come down with her winds.  We took every safeguard we could think of.  I did more than I ever would have if it hadn't of been for New Orleans recent devastation.  As it came in we all sang together.  Cuddled.  Watched and listened.  And prayed.

We came through it in one piece.  And every detail is recorded in my Storm Stories.  What struck me the most was how it effected people like Polk, Jr.  One of the Greatest Generation.  That won WWII and built America into the land flowing with milk and honey.  It seemed to shake him to his core.  He never seemed the same after Rita.

I mention some of these things because they are part of you.  Part of what you should carry forward in your lives.  Milestones for Texas, America and the world.