Opinion

The annual Fourth of July parade through our town began this year with a mystery. You see, a couple of the boys cornered Jimmy Angles yesterday down by Lewis Creek and hit him in the mouth. On purpose. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t have made headlines in the Valley Weekly Miracle, or even the New York Post, but Jimmy played first trumpet in the band.

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde, has sued the Texas Department of Public Safety over records relating to the Uvalde school shooting that have been withheld.

Another lifetime ago, back when I was still motivated to run even if something wasn’t chasing me, I coached junior high volleyball. These days carrying the laundry basket up the steps counts as exercise, and if I am running that means y’all better run too because it means something deadly is chasing me, but back then I spent hours and hours in the gym with my teams. I coached one particular team from fifth grade through eighth grade and I became particularly close to those ten girls and their families. I still keep in touch with many of them (one of the few good things about social media.)

When you read your community newspaper, you’re opening a treasure trove of local information, nuggets of pure gold you won’t find anywhere else and certainly not all in one convenient place. Who else is going to provide you with objective and unbiased news about the winning touchdown, the new auto dealer in town, the street-repair budget passed by city council and how the police are curbing crime? Only your community newspaper does that, and most readers gladly pay a nominal subscription to keep informed, educated and entertained.

This weekend we will celebrate the Fourth of July, America’s 246th birthday, Independence Day. From big cities to small towns across the nation there will be parades, cook-outs, baseball games, ice cream, and fireworks. There will be age-old traditions celebrated and folks who create new traditions. And every little bit of it will be beautiful.

I was packing for our recent trip to Mexico when I found the old tube of V05. “Do I still have this?” Apparently, I did.

Remember going to the library in the summer? After days of ripping and running with the neighbor kids, sweaty and grimy from playing outside from sun up to sun down and screaming at the top of our lungs as we rode our bikes down the “big hill” or at the baseball field, walking into the orderly, quiet, cool library almost felt wrong. With our skinned knees and sunburnt noses, wearing cut off jean shorts made from last year’s school pants, we looked as if we didn’t belong among such peacefulness.

Last month I wrote about a rumor that the Brandt building was changing hands. The stand-alone building on the corner of first street with the Coca-Cola sign painted on the side.