Jason's Jottings

Wonderful words

2006-02-05T07:38:00.000-08:00

Speaking of wonderful words, here's a column from my wonderful sister - a wordsmith of the first order.

2006-01-11T08:07:00.000-08:00

Fountain of Fire

2006-01-10T10:09:00.000-08:00

Me at the daily grind.

A Deer's Derring-Do

2006-01-05T08:44:00.000-08:00

It's Monday night. Mom's at choir practice and dad's working math puzzles and watching football. I figure it's a fine time to step out for a smoke. Nasty habit, but it offers occasional rewards.But then it would.I trod out the kitchen door to light up. Dark has settled over the hill. The only light right now is a ghostly, orange glow from the street light some 10 yards up the road. The evening breeze is rattling the apricot tree leaves. They sound like sheets of crinkly, old paper, parchment maybe, tapping together like a thousand small hands applauding the night's arrival. Up the hill, the cedar trees, with their yard-bound pine and pinon cousins, needle the gusts. The wind sighs, whether with pain or pleasure I don't know.I think pleasure.But then I would.Through the sodium glow of the streetlight wanders a doe.A deer.A female deer.My brother's dog, Bo, grumbles his displeasure at being disturbed at the onset of his evening's slumber."Grumpy old mut," I think. "I've been here over a week and fed you the stinking road-kill-in-a-can you seem actually to enjoy."But then you would.The doe trots across the road, skittish, discomfited at the mutt's mutterings and the acrid smoke I'm huffing into the night.But then she would.Then she disappears into the gloom across the street, behind the vacant trailer that has been let run to ruin.Mom's home. Time to close the gate. That old doe did a number on mom's petunias last week.The doe trots. The dog complains. I snuff out my smoke and lumber inside with a smile.But then ...

Bucker's Dozen

2006-01-05T08:42:00.000-08:00

The hunters' don't know what they missed. With any luck, they never will.Rolled out of bed at 6 a.m., just a couple minutes after I heard mom get up and start coffee. Stumbled into the living room to turn on a light and heard mom whisper "Jason, come here" from the kitchen.There were a couple of doe in the front part of the yard, near the carport. One had a little yearling with her. We figured they were the same crew that had been coming around in the evenings, part of the water tank herd from up on the hill. Then a buck, a nice buck - eight or 10 points and very healthy - came trotting up the driveway to corral one of the does and a yearling then herded them back up the hill.Although it's not rutting season, he seemed particularly interested in that doe.We named him "Lucky."Their path took them right through the carport. Mom drew a quick breath at the possibility of them hitting one of the vehicles.Now wouldn't that be an interesting call to the claims adjustor?Me: "A deer hit my car."Adjustor: "You mean you hit a deer."M: "No. The deer hit my car. It was parked. Under the carport."A: (Disbelief in voice) "So the deer hit your parked car. Any witnesses?"M: "Yes. My mother was watching. And there were a bunch of other deer that saw it happen. The dog, Bo, can be a character witness."A: "And just what had you and your mother been drinking at 6 in the morning?"But the cars escaped without injury. Then we were watching the other doe for a couple minutes when mom spotted another group farther back in the yard, including another big buck - 10 pointer, easy. There was a doe hunkered down under the pine in the back yard and another group on around back grazing and lazing about as the sun peaked over the hill.Then Bo woke up, shook off his night's sleep and started grumping at the deer. They were not all that impressed. They did eyeball the dog, who earnestly tried to scare them off, or start up a conversation, hard to tell. The big doe got out front of another yearling and postured a little for the dog, then they all looked around and decided discretion was, indeed, the better part of valor, at least for this situation. As Corona is surrounded by scores of hunters this weekend, good advice.They were probably full anyway. Word must have spread about the "buffet" at the bottom of the hill since we're leaving the front gate open these nights. The freeze has finally snapped the foliage and the deer are helping clean up the leaves.So they jumped over the fence into the neighbor's yard and moved on. The buck cleared the fence without even coming close to scraping the top, just bounded over and continued on his merry way. We named him "Bouncer."The straggler was one of the yearlings, who appeared unsure about that leap of faith. But he made it in the end.After about 25 minutes of deer-watching, we figured the show was over, poured coffee and settled in to watch the news.Then I caught movement in the corner of my eye. A late-coming spike was standing under one of the pine trees, nibbling and using the lower branches to get a good scratch on the top of his little, pointed head. He shouldn't have been shedding the spikes at this time of year, and certainly wasn't in velvet.Mom said he's just being a typical juvinile delinquet. We named him "Vandal."In all, two apparent yearlings, two obvious bucks, one spike, and six full-grown doe. Since deer are shy anyway, I guess one shy of 12 in the herd makes a buck-er's dozen.

Texas Two (or three) step

2006-01-04T23:38:00.000-08:00

Curtain rising on state debate over schools, roads
By Jason Gibbs (publication date Saturday, January 8, 2005, El Campo Leader-News)
Ladies, gentlemen and children of all political parties - the greatest show in the Lone Star State is about to begin.
Welcome to the bi-annual Austin show many describe as a circus.
In the main ring, balancing the budget is the burning issue legislators must juggle during the coming session. And there will be plenty of other topics to toss around before the session's end.
In the second ring, legislators will wrestle with school finance reform.
Along the midway, local opponents of the Trans Texas Corridor will try to peer into the hazy vision of Gov. Rick Perry's multi-billion dollar transportation plan many have dismissed as smoke and mirrors funding.
And for the aquatic portion of the program, the 100-year-old right of capture standard for taking underground and surface water is likely to swim to the top of this session as well.
Come one. Come all. The 79th legislative session begins Tuesday, boasting a 140-day run of elected officials conducting the people's business and figuring out how much taxpayers will have to pay to purchase their ticket.
Budget
Some legislative leaders have predicted a deficit of $1 billion to $2 billion for the two-year budget cycle - although exact numbers won't be known until state Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn makes an official estimate Monday.
The state faced a nearly $10 billion shortfall during the last regular session in 2003.
And balancing any budget will likely be an even greater task, given the public outcry demanding school finance reform. One proposal to juggle the two needs has involved some form of legalized gambling - that would require an amendment to the state's constitution.
Add to that the growing call to reduce the property tax burden throughout the state, and the juggling act suddenly involves knives and torches.
And they don't have a choice - a budget is the one bill they must pass..
Sen. Ken Armbrister, the Victoria Democrat who represents Wharton County, said it may be difficult, but the budget number will tally by session's end, according to his spokesman, Mike Sizemore.
"This will be another difficult year on balancing the budget," Sizemore said. "But we will have a balanced budget."
He said the senator credits the state's founding fathers for keeping government spending within the state's means.
"We can be thankful that our forefathers who wrote the original state constitution put in the balanced budget provision," he said. "We have always had a balanced budget in Texas and this year will be no different."
Wharton County's second-term representative agreed.
"We've got to have a balanced budget, with no debt," said Rep. Glenn Hegar, a Katy Republican. "We're starting out with a debt."
But it's a task Hegar thinks legislators can surmount.
"Balancing any kind of budget is always a tough task for the chores at hand," he said. "We will be more than adequately able to get through this."
School Finance
Since a special session was called last spring, legislators have lamented the fact no alternative to the state's "Robin Hood" school funding formula has been found.
The session ended in May, with ideas put forward but none adopted. The plans centered around the governor's hopes to slash 50 to 75 cents off the $1.50 per $100 maximum school tax levy.
To make up for the loss, his plan called for legalizing video lottery, a $1 sin tax on cigarettes and liquor and a $5 viewing fee at adult shows which had everyone from the state comptroller to religious groups up in arms over the idea of sex shows funding student education.
The plans fell flat and the legislature recessed.
That's likely to be a hot button item during the coming legislature. It may even become the primary task before the lawmakers, Hegar said.
"I'm not sure whether it will be a special item, the first issue we take up," he said. "But it needs to be so we can get this behind us. With school finance reform, you have to make sure there are adequate dollars in the system to educate all the students who are moving to the state. We have to ensure those kids are able to have an education."
And balancing the need for more funding with a desire among property owners for less taxes will be the primary challenge, he added.
"High property taxes have a lot of people strapped," Hegar said. "We have to find a better system of funding school education that works in today's economy."
Armbrister's office said school finance will be the "big issue."
"We want to lower property taxes and find a better way to finance the education of our students," the senator's spokesman said. "It will take multiple funding options. During the interim, we've had discussions on several plans. But as of yet, there is no real consensus.
"This legislative session will give us the opportunity to lower local school property tax and find a more equitable method of funding our schools," Sizemore added.
Trans Texas Corridor
During the summer months, the Trans Texas Corridor raced into reality. But by July, it was meeting with strong resistance from local farmers, economic developers and city and county governments.
It creates a corridor spanning the Lone Star State, including up to six lanes of car traffic, four more lanes for 18-wheelers, half a dozen rail lines for goods and passenger traffic and a utility zone for pipelines and wire connections. The projected cost of the 50-year plan is in excess of $183 billion - more than the original cost of the entire United States Interstate Highway system.
The plan, called "visionary" by some and a "boondoggle" by others, passed the legislature with very little review.
Hegar has vowed further examination of the plan during the coming legislative session and has pledged to ensure the Texas Department of Transportation holds well-publicized meetings before any more steps are taken.
"There are going to be a lot of people looking at it to make sure we don't enter a contract to build some needless road we can never pay for and a private contractor can't pay for," Hegar said. "You aren't going to see an outright repeal (of the plan). It deals with so many issues it would be impossible to repeal."
But modifications are likely, he added.
"Senator Armbrister does not support the Trans Texas Corridor and will fight for rural Texas in Austin," Sizemore said.
Water
For a century, the right of capture law in Texas has supported the belief that any water taken from under a landowner's property is his to do with as he pleases.
This year, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson took that literally. He tried to work a deal to sell water from underneath state owned property. That raised a few red flags about aquifer health, stream flow and sufficient fresh water entering fishing estuaries.
To get a better handle on the situation, Armbrister, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Natural Resources, held a series of public meetings during the summer to address the issue.
No solutions were readily apparent, but plans to move water from one part of the state to another were sufficiently disturbing that studies have been ordered and the issue of water rights will likely rise to the top during the coming session.
"Water is a very important issue and it will continue to be that way for the next 20 to 30 years," Hegar said. "Being a farmer myself, I understand the importance of that. There are conservation issues that people in the metropolitan areas just don't get."

Comeback Kiddo

2006-01-04T23:29:00.000-08:00

Back in the saddle again
By Jason Gibbs (publication date Saturday, August 3, 2002, El Campo Leader-News)
She won her first buckle at the age of four.
At the age of 15, doctors wondered if she would live - if she could survive a tragic riding accident that, for the past year, has made her life a physical and emotional struggle.
But Morgan Montello is sitting tall in the saddle again, wearing her trademark black hat, white shirt and silver and turquoise jewelry. The fair-haired girl with a sparkling smile is defying the odds and recovering from the accident that broke her shoulder, back, arm, pelvis and thumb. Her comeback, her father said, is a testament to her character and determination.
To see her today, to hear her teenage laughter when she's surrounded by her beloved horses, it's hard to imagine she spent the better part of a month in the hospital and countless days since in taxing physical therapy.
The accident happened July 18, 2001 in Seguin. She had just completed a barrel run - one of four rodeo events the El Campo girl participates in. The alley behind the arena was dark. A quick turn by her horse when she wasn't expecting it propelled her headling into the cold steel of a bucking chute.
The paramedics estimated the force of the impact to be equivalent to hurtling into a wall at 35 miles per hour.
"They thought I was pretty much dead," she said on a recent afternoon as she and her father sas in her family's ranch house south of town. "The only thing that saved me was I ducked my head. I couldn't feel my legs, that really scared me."
Her father, El Campo Middle School Principal Rodney Montello, was about 20 yards away from his daughter when the accident occurred. Because the bucking chute was in the way, her impact was hidden from view.
"I couldn't see her hit, but I certainly heard it," he recalls. "I ran to her, it probably took one or two seconds but it was the longest run of my life.
"I really didn't know what I'd find on the other side of the bucking chute."
Pushing Back
What followed was a harrowing three weeks, during which the young girl was brought back from the brink and began the monumental task of learning to walk again.
She missed two weeks of school while she was in therapy, then returned, in a wheel chair, for half days for a while.
By October, though, Morgan's determination, drive and spirit had played their part, along with the physical therapy. She attended her first rodeo that month.
"But that was pushing it," she said.
She continued to push it. And her remarkable recovery gained the attention of therapists at Gulf Coast Medical Center in Wharton. In fact, when marketers came around asking for athletes who had been injured that were making a comeback, the therapists didn't hesitate. They said go to Morgan.
That's why you may have seen her face in newspaper ads, on billboards and cards around town this summer - part of the hospital advertising campaign. She was out of town when the billboards went up - at a rodeo of course. But her friends called to tell her.
"I really haven't seen it that much because I've been gone," she said of the ads. "But my friends thought it was pretty neat."
A New Light
With a contented pet cat circling her feet in her family's living room - one wall of which displays some of her 54 prize saddles and another decorated with row upon row of her more than 300 buckles - she seems unaffected by the publicity.
That just goes with the territory for the Texas High School Rodeo Association's 2001 pole bending champion and All-Around Champion Rookie of the Year. She said the accident has made her more appreciative of the blessings in her life, her family and the plight of handicapped children.
In fact, at the high school finals in Abilene this year, she devoted extra time during the special kids rodeo to visit with those children - signing autographs, talking, sharing her experience with people she now sees in a new light. A light sparked from pain and determination. A light that now shines in her bright eyes onto everyone around her.
"It was a testament to her character," her father said. "I always knew she had character, but to see her with those kids, taking the time to learn their name and putting in on posters when she signed autographs for them, that was special," he said.
Then his voice trailed off as he glanced toward his daughter. Where her eyes glisten with the spark of determined youth, his brim with a father's pride.
It's no wonder Morgan, now 16, was unrelenting in her battle to return to rodeo. Dad's always been a horseman. In fact, a few years ago he combined his work and hobby when he tracked down two truant students atop a horse.
"I rode up and said, 'Boys, it's time we go back now,'" Montello recalls with a grin.
And mom, Nancy Montello, was a champion rider in 1972 - 73. They may be the only mother-daughter paring to hold the titles, Montello believes.
Hard Lessons Learned
For Morgan, dealing with the pain was hard. Dealing with the uncertainty of returning to her chosen sport was harder.
"There was a point I thought I wouldn't be able to get up and do what I'd done," she said. "I guess I feel lucky just to be there."
Her left arm still isn't at 100 percent. Her back hurts when she sits in bleachers. Making 15 or 16 runs a day quickly wears her out.
But she's still going to physical therapy. She's working out every day. She's got a steel drive to fully recover.
She bought a new horse - a more gentle mount she can easily handle. Okie, her new roping horse, came off of a ranch where he was mistreated and neglected.
"You'd give him water and he'd drink it all," Morgan said. "You could tell where he'd been in the pasture because it would be bare."
But restoring the horse as she recovered her health has created a bond between the two. When she walks into the barn, he knickers and tosses his well-groomed mane, waiting for the lead and saddle so they can ride together.
Like Morgan, Okie is strong and loves to ride.
Like Okie, Morgan is loyal and gentle.
They are a winning pair, as the hand-worked saddles and countless buckles wrought of silver and gold can attest.
They are learning to work as a team. And Morgan says she has learned a lesson or two as she traveled the long, rough road to recovery. Her message, simple and wise, is one she says she will always carry.
"I've learned to be thankful for everything I have," she said. "Be thankful for your health and everyone around you who you love."

Execution Observation

2006-01-04T23:25:00.000-08:00

Kitchens Executed - Drifter dies for killing Abilene woman in 1986.
By Jason Gibbs (publication date Wednesday, May 10, 2000, Abilene Reporter-News)
HUNTSVILLE - Flowers bloomed in their sidewalk beds along the pathway that led to the death chamber. Their bright color offered sharp contrast to the grim task about to take place inside the infamous "Walls" prison unit where, at 6:22 p.m. Tuesday, William Joseph Kitchens was pronounced dead.
Kitchens' execution comes just one week shy of the 14th anniversary of the violent crime for which he was sentenced to die.
In May 1986, Kitchens robbed, raped and murdered Patricia Leanne Webb. The wife of an Abilene firefighter, Webb befriended Kitchens at a nightclub where she was socializing with a group of friends and co-workers. He brutalized her after she offered him a ride to his hotel, a friendly gesture that was typical of her caring nature, family members said.
Webb's brother, Steve McNally, was the first to report her missing following her death. After witnessing Kitchens' execution, he said it marked the end of a 14-year ordeal. The healing, he said, had begun.
"It was not an act of retribution," McNally said. "But we can begin to heal. It starts now."
Webb's husband, James Webb Jr., added, "He accepted responsibility, said he was remorseful. Fourteen years is a long time. This severs a link between us and the criminal."
Webb went on to say forgiving Kitchens even after such a long time was hard.
"But I probably can," he added.
Tuesday evening, Kitchens was strapped to a steel gurney in a cold and antiseptic room that smelled of disinfectant.
After the needles were inserted into his tattooed arms and prison officials began to administer the first of three chemicals in the injection that ended his life, his family began to weep softly. First one, then the rest, comforted one another as tears welled in their eyes.
As Kitchens spoke his final words, two of his sisters, a sister-in-law and two friends wrapped their arms around one another in gestures of support. As the deadly mix of chemicals inexorably began to cloud his senses, Kitchens spoke first to James Webb.
"If there has ever been any doubt in your mind at all . . . I want you to know that Patty was always faithful to you - that I forced her," he said.
The social gathering that preceded Patricia Webb's death began as a typical Friday nightclub excursion. It ended in a field three miles west of Tye. There, Kitchens murdered Webb and fled in her car to his home in Blanchard, Okla., where he was arrested days later.
Webb's fully clothed and rain-soaked body was found later that same day. Kitchens gave Taylor County sheriff's deputies directions that led them to the body.
In a shaking voice after the execution, Webb's husband, a tall, lean firefighter, said Kitchens had a question about his wife's fidelity that he had never fully settled in his mind.
"He answered a question I thought I knew the answer to," the still-grieving husband said. "But it is comforting to know for sure."
Casting his eyes to the half-inch-thick glass and blue-green bars that separated the death chamber from the room in which Webb's family members stood, Kitchens offered an apology.
"I am sorry," he said. "I just want you to know that I am sorry for what I done. I can't change that. I can't replace your loss."
The execution chaplain rested his right hand on the dying murderer's leg, offering comfort as Kitchens turned his eyes and words to the members of his family who had traveled from Oklahoma to witness his death.
"I just want you to know that I love all of you," Kitchens said. "You all just keep on with life. It's going to be good. The Lord's going to be with us."
Kitchens then prayed for peace for the Webb family and for them to find it within themselves to forgive him.
Focusing his eyes on the white acoustic tiles overhead, Kitchens uttered his last words.
"I love you all. You all take care. I'm so sorry," he said before nodding to the warden.
With harsh fluorescent lights bearing down on his white face, the lethal ocmponents of the injection pured into his veins. WIth a sudden, chioked gasp, Kitchens drew his last breath. A slow gurgle and a low groan escaped his lips as he exhaled.
When the chemicals had taken full effect, a member of the prison medical staff entered the room.
He first held his hand above Kitchen's mouth and nose to see if he had stopped breathing. He then shined a penlight into Kitchens' eyes and checked for a pulse to determine if the injection had stopped the killer's heart.
Finally, the medical attendant slowly donned his stethoscope and warmed it before slipping it underneath Kitchens' freshly pressed blue shirt. After a moment, he withdrew his hand, smoothed the shirt and slowly drew a neatly folded, white terrycloth towell over the dead man's face.
"It's 6:22," he observed before raising the microphone that had amplified Kitchens' last words.
Kitchens' family began to whisper words of comfort as the shock began to fade.
"It's all right. He's home now," Kitchens' sisters told each other. Just 24 minutes after they entered the Walls unit, nichnamed for its ominous and towering red, brick walls, the family of Patricia Leanne Webb, then that of William Joseph Kitchens, walked back out the heavy steel doors and through the 6-foot chain link fence.
Neither group seemed to notice the flowers.