The difference a
haircut makes is amazing. This morning, it was still chilly although sunny, and
I was in a bit of a funk, reluctant to get started on a long day of work broken
only by a two o’clock haircut and dinner with a friend. But then Rosa, the
wonderful lady who keeps me from looking shaggy, called to say she could come
by around nine instead of two. I managed to get my hair washed but she found me
lazy otherwise—bed unmade, dishes in the sink. But that haircut turned my
attitude around, and the whole day was better than I expected.
Sophie got a
haircut a week or so ago. She had been having terrible allergies, and I could
hear her wheeze and that wet breathing that scares you when you hear it in a
child and worried me for my dog. She was also sleeping a lot. But after the
haircut, she is a new dog—lively, allergy-free. I truly believe she was
carrying around dust and pollen in that shaggy coat.
So in my next life
I’m either going to be a hair stylist or a dog groomer. Such a good service
they do for us.
Something
appalling that I read this morning: there are only 3,000 tigers in the wild,
while there are 5,000 in captivity. No, most of them are not in zoos and
wildlife preserves. They are in people’s back yards. Estimate is that 2,000 are
in Texas yards. Sorry, folks, but that’s an atrocity. Those magnificent creatures
deserve to run free and should not live their lives in cages in back yards.
Thank goodness, zoos are doing a better job these days of keeping animals in a
so-called natural environment, but even that is less than ideal. The virtue of
zoos is their breeding programs, which save many animals from extinction. I can’t
begin to understand why someone would want a tiger in a cage in their backyard.
Probably people who think life isn’t complete without an AR15.
Today is the 183rd
anniversary of the fall of the Alamo, which means, among many other more
significant things, my book about the Alamo should be out by this time next
year. I’ve seen several posts about this anniversary, and they all show pictures
of the chapel. But that is not where the battle was. It took place in a
building, now restored, adjacent to the chapel, called the long barracks. In
the public mind, though, Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie swung their rifles in
hand-to-hand combat on the roof of the chapel. Truth is, the chapel was in such
disrepair at the time of the siege that it had no roof. When the U.S. Army
occupied the building as a storage depot, in 1847, they put in the roof and added
the familiar rounded arch or hip at the center.
Today I read an
article that demonstrated how popular that style is in commercial and
residential properties in Fort Worth, many dating back a century but probably few
if any pre-dating the Alamo roof. So the assumption is that loyal Texans copied
that feature, probably as a tribute or way or honoring the history. If you’re
in Fort Worth, take a look, for instance at the Livestock Exchange. I suppose
the same imitative style can be found in other Texas cities.
Take a minute too
to think of the men who died defending the Alamo. As I’ve found out in my
recent research, it’s not the simple heroic story most assume it is, and its
ramifications are felt, good and bad, in Texas to this day. History lives on.
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