Hale: An undeveloped talent | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Leon Hale has a story from his childhood that tells it like it was in rural Texas. It starts like this...

When the family gets together we sometimes retell the story of Uncle Billy Crockett's camera and the famous pictures he took.

The story has been retold so often that Uncle Billy himself might not recognize it. But this is a harmless story that means well, and it's part of my folks' history.

One of his nieces gave Uncle Billy the camera for his birthday. This was back when almost all cameras were Kodaks. You didn't hear the word camera much.

Take a few minutes and go read the rest of the story, it's worth the time.

Source: Hale: An undeveloped talent | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Friday Morning Coffee Muse

I see from my email forecast that we can expect a second day of sunshine before we go back to trying to live up to Seattle's weather rep. It has rained (or so it seems from this side of memory) for the majority of the days in January. I guess we are making up for all of those beautiful blue skies in November and December. I have water standing right now in places in my yard I don't ever recall seeing water stand before. Luckily, the rain has come down more as a steady light misting with occasionally heavier showers for most of the past month...The temperatures have also moderated back to normal for this time of the year in SE Texas. I am starting the day here at 6am with a balmy 39 and the forecast calls for a toasty 61 by 1pm. So all you folks in the Blue Ridges throw another log on the fire and stay warm.

For those of you who didn't notice, the Senate yesterday tried to end the Federal Minimum Wage. An amendment was placed on a bill that would make minimum wages a state issue. Twenty-eight Senators voted for the amendment. You might want to check the list of names. I found it interesting that one of the two Republican Senators from the state of Texas voted "yea". But I really wouldn't have expected anything less from John Cornyn. I would like to thank our other Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchinson for having a conscience. The surprising name on the list to me was John McCain, I really find it hard to believe a Presidential contender would want to associate with killing the minimum wage...The representatives of ten states voted as a block to end the minimum wage, go take a look at the list, it makes for interesting reading.

You can tell I am still a newbie at blogging (with a low readership to boot) cause I still get a kick out of checking my logs at sitemeter. Mostly I look to see where the visitors are from. I also check where they are visiting from. Interesting reading for me at least. This weeks visitor counts at 39, not a high count but pretty much average for here.

This from "Eknath Easwaran's Thought for the Day"...

A favorite expression of my granny’s was, “Life cannot make a selfish person happy.” It has taken me half a lifetime to understand the profundity of her simple words, warning that happiness cannot come from possessing another person, or from any selfish attachment. But she would also always add, “Life cannot help but make a selfless person happy.” Like spiritual teachers of all the world’s religions, she taught that happiness is to be found in learning how to love others more than I love myself.

Well, the clock on the shelf tells me I better get a move on...catch you later.

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