Correspondence

I know it shouldn’t hurt me so much because its my loss that makes all of me ball up in my throat and tears come running and my body shudder with emotion.

All I see is Johnny getting out of his pickup truck, with the ever present horse trailer and no horse, as he comes ambling across the street toward the Post Office – and I smile.

I was always glad to see Johnny, no matter.

Johnny Surratt has always been the picture that comes to my mind when the word cowboy turns up. He was rugged as hell but gentle as Heaven. He had a little smile that looked like it couldn’t hardly get out of his mouth but you could see it clearly in his face.

He wasn’t all that tall but seemed to me some of his shrunk came from his bowlegs.  Johnny Surratt was a rancher.

Johnny died last night at what seemed to me a very early age.

I can’t hardly take it in – I can’t take it in.

So, frankly Scarlett, this is a big, big test of my faith.

I went to a Memorial Service just yesterday for a friend who was an Episcopal Priest up in Ft Stockton.  The Service was held in a little bitty beautiful church that was crunched and overflowing with people come to attend.

The Bishop of the Rio Grande Diocese conducted the service and some of the things he said are spiritually how I feel and soon as I get myself under control, will help me deal with the loss of Johnny.

I consider myself a spiritual person more so than a religious person – whatever that means. I do know there are infinitely more things I don’t know than I do.  So, as the Bishop said in his way, you have to make some choices. That made me feel good at the time because that is near exactly how I believe. I make my choices on the basis of faith.

At the time, I settled in on the belief that while The Reverend Punkie Denis was no longer among us, she is now in one of God’s many mansions so the Bible says.

Punkie was a Shepherd of God’s people and Johnny was a Shepherd of God’s cows. Not much difference as far as I can see since I believe that all of God’s creatures are equal in His eyes.

And both of these people did their jobs very well. Both were very  good Shepherds.

I believe that God will have mercy on their souls and it is up to me – with God’s help – to get me under control and keep on until I get the call.

And this says nothing of all the others we have lost from our life on this earth in recent weeks.  It’s at times like this that I find it so very hard to live in a little town.

I will miss them all and I pray that ‘we shall (all) gather at the river’ again someday.

Johnny has gone on and left us to grieve and get over – especially his wife, Tana.

Ken Whitley

Marfa

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Last Friday, June 29, a very capable crew from the City of Alpine did an extraordinarily fine job of resolving a leak problem we were having with our natural gas line. It was a big task and was done expeditiously, effectively, and efficiently for which I thank them.

It appears to me that the new arrangement is working just fine.

Dale Christophersen

Alpine

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Obamacare means higher and higher insurance premiums, cutbacks in Medicare benefits for the elderly, loss of a very important personal freedom of choice, more and more intrusion of government control into your personal religious beliefs, as separation of church and state becomes a more and more foggy concept, higher and higher taxes in all aspects of your life now in order to accommodate the millions more people who will be added to Medicaid welfare rolls for the American taxpayer to pick up the bill, quality of healthcare going down and down as government regulation and inefficiency choke down the efforts and abilities and tie the hands of good doctors and health providers in general.

This isn’t really about the government caring anything at all about your quality of health care or trying to help the uninsured. This is about power and control over you, your money and your destiny, for the purpose of expansion of government and more spending.  It is a force at work in many different aspects of our lives now, whether we realize it or not – not just in health care either.

The effects of this Obama mandate are far-reaching and endless. The cost of it will be crippling to the average American taxpayer who is already laboring under all kinds of high cost issues.

Nancy Wood

Marfa

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You know, someone in the White House with top secret clearance, leaked info about a double agent, who will probably be killed, leaked the doctors name who helped Obama get Bin Laden, and Obama helped the doctor get 33 years in a Pakistan prison, which is almost surely a death sentence.

Then, it was leaked that we, the President, of the United States, started a cyber war on Iran that other countries could and probably will turn around and use on us. To top it off, the person who planted the virus will be found out and killed. So, the ‘Leaker’ gave them a death sentence too.

But that Fast & Furious debacle is all of a sudden the most top secret project in America, or at least the cover up is top secret. Do you think it’s a cover up and they don’t want the public to know, or the families of Brian Terry, the Border Patrol Agent and the ICE Agent, Jamie Zapata, or the families of over 200 Mexican citizens, police and politicians that have been killed? Do you think they want to cover up who got them all killed?

Obama had never used Executive Privilege before. Why, after 18 months, did this suddenly come up? Can you say Cover Up? But now, Fast & Furious is the most important problem in America. That really should make you stop and think. Don’t lie to yourself. Executive Privilege? I wonder how Brian Terry’s family feels now? I wonder how they will vote? Real top secrets were leaked, but this one has to be protected (covered up) ‘At All Costs’.

Ask ex-President Richard Nixon how that Executive Privilege ‘Trump Card’ worked out! And, he didn’t get anyone killed!

Oh yeah! Congratulations, Obama, on your 100th game of golf while in office, and, I hope you and Michelle enjoyed the now, $16,000,000 of tax payer’s money your family has spent on great expensive vacations. Congratulations! I hope after Jan. 20, 2013, you have to spend your own money on the next vacations and your 200 rounds of golf. Help the United States make this happen. VOTE!

When was the last time you went on a nice vacation, bought a new car, new clothes for the family or went out to eat? How many have had your kids move back in with you and/or find yourselves having to help them, more than you use to? Think about this and be sure to vote.

Fast and Furious! Two U. S. Agents dead. Over 200 Mexicans dead. No one has fired, much less held responsible and punished. The Democratic White House and Eric Holder? No one knows ‘ANYTHING’! After 18 months of investigation?! Weird isn’t it?

And, the White House has the Gall to say Americans don’t care about Fast and Furious and that an American Border Patrol agent and an ICE agent was killed with guns from our government? Not to mention 200 to 300 Mexican people. Plus, the sordid ‘Gun Walking Cover Up’ and LIES told to Congress by Eric Holder. If you don’t care I feel sorry for you. I would begin to wonder what else they will do or cover up and lie about.

Janice & John Jones

Fort Davis

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A House committee heard pleas to ban corporal punishment in Texas schools, with critics denouncing the disciplinary tool as a legalized form of child abuse that leaves lasting emotional scars. The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended that corporal punishment be abolished in all schools by law because “it may affect adversely a student’s self-image and school achievement and … it may contribute to disruptive and violent student behavior.

Many of these law used to discipline children today were used in an earlier era to keep parents from taking their children out of school to work in the fields of their share cropper parents or to keep children from being hired in factories to do a man’s work at a much smaller wage. Many of these laws were put aside when he tractor took over the plowing, planting and harvesting of the crops, and child labor laws were past. Since 1995, many   laws have been past to reinstate many of these very harmful laws. Our kids are treated worse than hardened criminals.  As a matter of fact our kids end up with criminal records that will follow them all their lives.  If this concerns you and yours please call your state representative to complain about it. Please put pressure on them to remove these rules and the harsh punishment that encourages criminal behavior.  To learn more about Texas cruel and unfair punishment for minor infractions please Google ‘Harsh Treatment for Misbehavior in Texas Schools.’

The Massachusetts health care insurance reform law enacted in 2006 during Mitt Romney’s term as governor mandates that nearly every resident of Massachusetts obtain a state-government-regulated minimum level of healthcare insurance coverage and provides free health care insurance for residents earning less than 150% of the federal poverty level (FPL). The law was amended significantly in 2008 and twice in 2010 and major revisions related to health care industry price control were introduced in the Massachusetts legislature in May 2012 with expectation that some version of these controls will pass by July 2012.

The people of Massachusetts like their healthcare and if it works in Massachusetts why won’t it work in the entire country. Romney claims against Obamacare is a great big exaggeration. Check out ‘Factcheck.org/Romney’s gross exaggeration on Obamacare.’

The GOP diatribe tends to combine the mostly bogus “job-killing” claim with their well-worn slogan calling the law a government takeover of health care, which isn’t true. The law expands the government’s Medicaid system to cover some who are not currently insured, but it also greatly expands private insurance. After the law takes effect, the government’s share of all spending on health care will still remain well under half, rising less than 4 percentage points, according to official projections.   The Obama Healthcare Bill is very complicated; it will take 10 years to be fully enforced and the cost will break even.

Thank you,

Joyce Wright

Alpine