Tag Archives: Dallas

What Would Sam Rayburn Do?

Posted on February 13, 2015 | 1 comment

Yes, former Speaker of the House. There is a museum and roads named after him in NE Texas but anyone who remembers knows Sam Rayburn.

Frustrated that it took so much time to get back to his House duties in our nation’s capital, he devised and had taxpayers fund a highway to Dallas, TX. It’s still there.

He was a visionary. Now Dallas is creeping, seeping, arrogantly claiming NE Texas as its own by taking over cow country and flooding bottom lands in order to build reservoirs to provide itself water. Our family is being kicked off of 500 acres of land that will be a reservoir, and not a pretty one where folks vacation, in a few years just so a Dallas “metroplex” family can get a glass of water.

Sam Rayburn opened the roads for his home town and its residents, and doomed them at the same time. The train stopped its route there because of the highway. Trucks stopped because of the Interstate highways. His home town has become more of a ghost town. But I’ll bet your bottom dollar he got the funds to build the VA Hospital there. Looks like the era. I know because my husband’s mother works there as a nurse.

Of course my husband’s family is there and we join a large group every  year for Thanksgiving. Every once in a while, I drive by the Sam Rayburn Museum en route to DFW and think I’d like to visit one day.

My point of this tale is to say “pave your own path.” If it is golden bricks to the Emerald City, or creating a light bulb, do it. That’s what Sam Rayburn would have done. Cheers! Dee

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Mr. Hill’s Four Days

Posted on November 23, 2010 | 3 comments

Mr. Clint Hill had an editorial in the NYTimes today about November 22, 1963 and his part in trying to keep the First Lady and President safe. These memories have haunted him for nearly fifty years, but in a much closer and sadder way than it has affected most Americans.

Four Days is a book my parents bought me because I obsessed, at age five, over the death of our President. The first time my mother turned on the television during the day was for us to watch the funeral. It was something we of a certain age grew up with and still remember, but not like Mr. Hill. He was there, and simply by saying there was more than one shot there goes the Warren Commission report.

Now we’re in a recession, wars, joblessness, and I fear little hope of recovery given the current system. It was never really “Camelot” under JFK’s 1,000 day reign but even with the Cuban Missile crisis after he was gone, it seemed like it. Now we look back and miss Jackie, Jack, Bobby and now Teddy. Even though they weren’t championed like the boys, the Kennedy gals made a difference in this world.

Mr. Hill’s task that fateful day and every day was to protect Jackie Kennedy. He did that, and went on to protect others. He would have given his life that day and must be remembered for his service to our nation. Thank you, Mr. Hill. Respectfully, Dee

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