Super Bowl offers a lesson in loyalty

There is still plenty of time and space if you would like to join me on the Denver Broncos bandwagon for the Super Bowl.

The Orange and Blue Crew welcomes you. We’re United in Orange and Ready to Ride.

Omaha!

Unless you’re already a Broncos fan, you might not get some of the above-mentioned references. A native of Colorado, I’ve been a Bronco fan since the days when Old No. 7 led the Orange Crush to the Super Bowl. Not that No. 7, the first one – Craig Morton. The first football game I ever watched was Super Bowl XII on Jan. 15, 1978.

The hype leading up to and through that game helped mold the loyalty trait in me that would so vitally shape the rest of my life. That day I learned to love the sport of football and the Denver Broncos above all other sports teams. I also learned to “hate” the Oakland Raiders and the Dallas Cowboys.

I use the word hate lightly here. I don’t hate anyone. I hate these teams in a friendly rivalry sort of way. I will almost always root for their opponents unless doing so is detrimental to advancing the Broncos to the playoffs.  

Loyalty to my second, third, and fourth favorite teams has been far less consistent. At times I have been a fan of the Seattle Seahawks, San Francisco 49ers, Minnesota Vikings, Miami Dolphins, and Carolina Panthers. For the past 12 years my No. 2 team has been the Houston Texans. They’re a closer No. 2 than any other team has been, but still a distant second to the Broncos.

Over the years I have come to “hate” each team that beat Denver in the Super Bowl. My respect for Joe Montana and his 49ers suffered greatly when his team trounced Denver 55-10 in Super Bowl XXIV. That loss put me in a funk that took months to pull out of.

My ex-wife – a huge Dolphins fan – killed any passion I had for that team when she divorced me. I learned to like the Vikings when I lived there in 1987-89. I lived in North Carolina when the Panthers came into the league and I closely followed their development and early years. Time and distance from those two teams have weakened my passion for them, but not my fandom.

I was instantly a fan of the Texans when Houston came out of nowhere with a franchise bid that upset Los Angeles – the presumed winner of the bid for a new NFL team.

When former Broncos players, coaches and front office staff made the move to Houston, it made it that much easier to follow the team. Now that I’ve lived in Texas for eight years and five of these in the Houston metro area, it has been easy to support the team.

That brings me to the Seahawks. They were always the loveable losers, especially in the Jim Zorn years. With my father and former father-in-law before him having season tickets to the Broncos, I could usually count on getting tickets to one of the division rival games. It was most often Seattle because it was a throwaway game. They were pitiful and had few big name stars to watch.

When the Texans entered the league, Seattle switched conferences and is now Denver’s opponent in Super Bowl XLVIII. Unless the unexpected happens and the Seahawks just skunk the Broncos I will continue to have a fondness for them as a third or fourth favorite team.

In the meantime, the Orange and Blue bandwagon is rolling into its seventh Super Bowl (and hopefully third victory). Y’all are welcome aboard, even for a couple of weeks. You can still root for the Texans when next season comes around. It’s allowed. I will, but it will be under the glow of the bright orange aura called Broncomania.

Why can’t my jobs and cars learn to get along together?

 Who knew that changing jobs would be so hard on my cars. Given how absurd and statistically unlikely these coincidences are, I must conclude there is something sinister plotting against my upward mobility.

For 26 years this dark, unseen entity has been lurking under the hoods of my various vehicles. I never noticed the pattern until recently. Now it unfolds like a badly written detective novel.

The first attack was innocent enough. As a newlywed just starting my career, I traded my beloved 1977 candy apple red Camaro in on a brand new 1987 Nissan Pulsar. I did so because I had a new job and could afford it, but also because the Camaro was nickel-and-diming me to death.

My bride instantly laid claim to the sports car and unceremoniously dumped her aging but dependable Ford Escort on me. Score: One job, one car.

After two miserably cold years in Minnesota, I took a job in North Carolina. The night before we left, a deer sideswiped the Pulsar and took out the driver side mirror. Two months after starting in North Carolina, a truck pulled out in front of me on a highway and crunched the Escort. Score: Two jobs, 2.25 cars.

Seven years and two vehicle upgrades later, the marriage ended and I returned home to Colorado with one lemon of a Hyundai Sonata. It rolled over and died just as I was preparing to start a job as a ticket taker for the Colorado Rockies. On my first day I drove my mother’s car. After the game we got hit with a flash flood and I flooded the engine on the car. Score: Three jobs, four cars.

I then started working with my hometown newspaper and rewarded myself with a Toyota pickup truck. Score: Four jobs, five cars. A couple years later I married Sandy and we went through a few vehicle changes. Among them, the truck was sacrificed for a Ford Taurus wagon. Since that happened well into my job, I don’t count it as part of the auto conspiracy.  Score: Four jobs, four cars.

In 2005 I accepted a position with the Amarillo Globe-News. The Taurus stayed with me both years I was there. Score: Five jobs, four cars. I then took the editor’s job an hour away at the Hereford Brand. This long commute and the poor state of the Taurus required a change to something more efficient. Enter the 2003 Saturn Ion. Score: Six jobs, five cars.

Five years ago I accepted a position with Houston Community Newspapers to run their paper in Hempstead. Just before we made the move, my wife got rear-ended in Amarillo, totaling her van. Score: Six jobs, six cars.

Within a couple of months of my arrival down here, a tree – a co-conspirator to be sure – jumped out and bit the side of my car while I was driving home. Score: Seven jobs, 6.5 cars.

We fixed the Saturn and my wife bought her father’s old Ford Explorer to replace the van. We live in Rosenberg across the street from a Mexican restaurant and cantina and cattycorner to two bars. I think we counted five or six hit-and-run dings in the old Explorer during the first three years. Then came the biggie. The day before I started work in 2012 for Community Impact Newspaper, another hit-and-run artist smashed my Saturn into the back of the Explorer. The Saturn was a goner and the Explorer suffered yet more cosmetic damage.

We used the insurance settlement to buy me a 2001 Toyota Camry and we upgraded my wife to a newer Explorer. One week later the Camry took at hit-and-run shot that dented the back quarter panel. Score: Eight jobs, 8.25 cars.

That brings me to my job here in Sealy. Just over a week into the job and the Camry goes down with a bent rod. At the time of this writing we are attempting to replace the engine. Score: Nine jobs, 8.75 cars.

Changing jobs is like a bad omen for my car. To be certain there is some strange, unexplained phenomena at work. Something either doesn’t want me switching jobs or else my cars have an aversion to new employment.

Seeing how I like my job and my car I’m going to have to find a way to make them get along. They’re just going to have to learn to play nice with each other. And once I find the demon that is plaguing my cars I plan to banish it to my ex-wife. I still haven’t quite forgiven her for tricking me into trading in the Camaro and then sticking me with the Escort. That is, after all, where this whole mess began.

A look ahead at the new year

It’s 2014; do you know where your resolutions are? Mine are still waiting to be made. Maybe stopping procrastination should be one of them.

We’re only a couple weeks into the year and already there are some things we can say with absolute certainty: The Houston Texans will not be in the Super Bowl (and neither will the Dallas Cowboys, by the way), the Astros will not be in the World Series (OK, I don’t know that for a fact, but I’d be willing to take that bet), and the Rockets will be just an average NBA team.

All seriousness aside, there really is no way we can say what will happen in 2014. We can individually determine what we want to happen but it takes an authority higher than a human to know what will be accomplished.

My biggest goal for 2014 was reached on Jan. 2 when I had my return to journalism, particularly small town community journalism. I’ve done the big city stuff and it’s really not for me.  Maybe it’s just an ego thing, but I like rubbing elbows with the community movers and shakers and knowing that my congressman has me on speed dial (at least during elections).

Other things that will happen (good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise) on a personal note is the graduation of my oldest son Wesley from Brazos High School and my daughter fulfilling a lifelong dream to travel abroad when she attends a semester of school this spring in Florence, Italy. Heather is a junior at the University of Northern Colorado where she majors in art.

When it comes to more deeply personal things, I’d like to lose weight (60 pounds would be ideal, but I’d settle for 20 … or 10 … or just not gaining any more), write a book, get out of debt, and buy a home. They’re all achievable if I’m willing to commit to it and work hard. I guess that’s my biggest hang-up because these things have been on my list for years. It relates to my procrastination issue because once I commit to working on something I usually work pretty hard at it.

One thing I must not procrastinate on is my Wood Badge ticket. Wood Badge is an intense, six-day leadership course taught by the Boy Scouts. Adults learn all kinds of fun, inspiring leadership skills. They then develop a plan (called a ticket) to carry out within a year and a half of the course in order to complete the program and be awarded your Wood Badge beads.  (For any fellow Wood Badgers out there, I’m a Bobwhite. Yes, I was sorted into the House of Hufflepuff!)

Participants work their tickets, which includes five action plans that that improve their local Scouting unit. My ticket involves communications within our troop. Since our troop either lacks policies or has policies dating as far back as the 20^th century, I thought it would be a good idea to bring them up to date. Things like social media and texting didn’t exist the last time they were addressed.

Here in Sealy and Austin County, this new year will bring about some changes in the political scene. The biggest is that for the first time in 20 years, the county will elect a new judge. Carolyn Bilski is stepping down after two decades on the job and six Republican men are vying for the seat.

Having met these men, I can tell you that there are only a couple worthy of the position, but in the interest of neutrality, I’m not saying whom. That will be up to registered Republican voters to decide. If the Democrats want a say, they’ll need to put forth a candidate of their own, which they failed to do. (Perhaps they have procrastination problems, too.)

Anyway, to wrap this up, it looks like 2014 is a year filled with promise, possibilities, and change – unless you’re a Houston sports team. What that change looks like locally is up to each and every one of us.

No longer passing through

No longer passing through
For three years Sealy was the halfway point on my commute from my home in Rosenberg to my office in Hempstead where I worked at the Waller County News Citizen.
Most of the time I would commute the back roads through Fulshear and Brookshire. Quite often I would take the longer route along Highway 36. The way through Sealy afforded me not only a change of scenery but allowed me to avoid that den of corruption east of town. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m no fan of Brookshire, but that’s a story for another day.
The point is that I’ve always passed through Sealy (and Wallis, Bellville and other small towns). Other than the occasional stop at McDonalds or Wal-Mart, I never had a reason to get off the main drag. All that changed on Jan. 2 when Sealy became my destination. At the time of this writing, I’m just two days into my new job at The Sealy News. So far, I really like it.
It has been too cold to go out and wonder around much, but I did get a driving tour of town. I also got to attend the Republican candidates forum at the American Legion and had my hand shaken enough to burst a bottle of pop (or soda or Coke or whatever you like to call a carbonated soft drink). Ah politicians, you gotta love them!
So far, everyone I’ve met has been really friendly. I suspect that will change over time. It always does. It’s an occupational hazard.
One of the recurring themes from the candidates forum was the importance of economic development. For Sealy and Austin County to survive, there needs to be controlled growth.
For me, Sealy used to mean food and fuel. It’s probably the same for the millions of people who pass through along Interstate 10 each year.  Sealy and Austin County are not destination points. They could be, but I get a feeling that’s not what the locals want. Building a theme park or creating a national monument like the St. Louis Arch or Mount Rushmore is probably not in the county’s future.
The question remains, what is the future for Austin County? Growth is coming hard and fast from Houston. How that growth is handled can be decided by local government acting with forethought or in hindsight by developers and their high-dollar lawyers. I have learned through Sealy Mayor Nick Tirey that such a plan was formulated a few years ago and then promptly shelved. I found the report online and agree that it is a viable guideline for growth in the county. Its vision statement beautifully summarizes the 44-page report:
“To preserve and protect our County’s rich natural, historic, and cultural assets and maintain its predominantly agriculture-based economy while providing targeted opportunities for the expansion of population, employment, and recreation.”
Among its primary features, the report calls for an economic development plan. It outlines a determination to keep most of the county rural while developing eco-tourism and heritage tourism opportunities. It looks like a good plan and I will delve into it a little further to better understand the community and its vision for the future.
Perhaps this report holds the key that will bring people to town rather than have them pass through.  Only time and hard work will tell.