When I first went online and got an email address, right away, I began to make many friends in Nigeria who were eager to send me money.

I am sorry to tell you that this prompted me to change my email provider and choose the highest privacy options.  I suppose as a consequence of my initial rejection, I lost all future opportunities to enter into business transactions with the good people of Nigeria.

Until today!!

I received this:

_____________________________________________________

“Dear Friend,

I have been waiting for you since to come down here and
pick your consignment but i did not heard anything from you
since then, I have deposited the US$5,000,000.00 with the
ALINCO SECURITY COMPANY here in Nigeria, because I traveled
to Japan to see my boss and I will not come back till next
year ending.I have arranged with the ALINCO SECURITY
COMPANY to get your US$5,000,000.00 to you this month and
they will be coming to you with the fund inside black
portfolio, I would have deposited the fund with Bank for
transfer into your own account but the procedure of Bank is
too much and they will required enough fee.

I drop your delivery details with the ALINCO SECURITY
COMPANY but I will like you to re-confirm the information
to them again so that they will not be any mistake when
coming with the fund. Send the below information to the
ALINCO SECURITY COMPANY.

(1)Full name:

(2)Address:

(3)Tel:

I want you to know that you have all right to declare how
you want to receive your fund, I would have prefer the fund
to be transfer to you but I make some searches about the
Bank transfer and they told me that it will cost you the
sum of US$1500 to transfer the US$5,000,000.00 into your
account. But I have deposited the US$5,000,000.00 in cash
to the ALINCO SECURITY COMPANY, below is the ALINCO
SECURITY COMPANY contact.

Director: Mr. Paul Ego.
Mobile: +234-809-699-1748
Email: ( alinco135@yahoo.co.uk )

I have paid the delivery charges and insurance fee to the
ALINCO SECURITY COMPANY.The only Money that the ALINCO SECURITY COMPANY will require from you is $105 Dollars for demurrage, if you can pay the $105 Dollars to them, they will proceed and get the US$5,000,000.00 to you in your Country.Pls if you want to contact the ALINCO SECURITY COMPANY, you are to contact them with your portfolio code number which is (PPL111RSS) and your address where you want them to deliver the cash to.You are to pay the $105 to the ALINCO SECURITY COMPANY to enable them to proceed and get the cash to you, don’t fail to resend your information to them for your own good.

Regards,
Mr.Ray Ugo”

___________________________________________________

As I have no interest in this opportunity, I pass it on to you.  Just send Mr. Ugo the $150 he requests for “demurrage.”  I didn’t know what it meant either, so I looked it up — “Demurrage is the cost associated with owning or holding currency over a given period. It is sometimes referred to as a carrying cost of money.”

All I ask is, when you get your money, please send me your bank account numbers, passwords, social security number, and mother’s maiden name.

Finally!  Got myself a waterproof camera, with the help and advice of my new best friend Gabe down town at Shutterbug.  This is actually a camera for children, and it turns out to be a very good choice for me as well to hang around my neck and  point and shoot while paddling or when out in the rain. 

Here is an unedited shot of Fish Lake.  Not bad for a first shot.

And here is one using the zoom to get a shot of Dave patrolling the bank in search of tadpoles for his fish pond.

Recently had an on-line discussion with one of my old and dear pen pals regarding heroes.  Athletes are not. Everyone who walks around town in camouflage fatigues is not. Actually, it’s a word I almost never use, but here are a few pictures that illustrate my thinking on the subject.  Some of them have shown up here before.  Worth repeating.

There are terrible storms in Oklahoma today, so I decided it would be a good time to fly the flag of my home state in front of the house.  One of my sweet neighbors saw it and emailed me to say if it means I have family there she hopes they are safe.

I know what every image on it symbolizes.  I hope they still teach that in school as they did when I took state history in seventh grade.  The large Osage battle shield in the center is made of buffalo skin. Be brave. The sky-blue field is the color of the flag the Choctaw soldiers carried in the Civil War long before Indian Territory became a state in 1907.  Be strong. The calumet and olive branch, peace, of course.  Be safe.

There is a certain picture we have in our heads about Texas women, and there is some evidence to bear this out.

Here is a picture from the obituary of a woman who died last month in the West Texas town where my family lives.

This is a picture of Billie Sol Estes’s daughter.  Billie Sol died last week too.  He lived just down the street from us when I was in high school.

There is even some evidence, so I cannot deny it, that I was briefly involved in The Big Hair Movement as well.  (Kappa Kappa Gamma Spring Dance, Texas Tech, 1964)

As well, apparently, in a big-dress event. (Pecos High school, 1960)

For most Texas women, these pictures do not represent reality or truth.  Here are three women who do.

This is my mother who dropped out of college to have me and to raise me and my sister and to follow my father from the oil fields of Oklahoma to the cotton fields of West Texas.   She went back to work to help put me through college, and I was the first in her family to graduate.  She was the second.  As soon as I graduated, she returned to college to earn her degrees and began a long teaching career.  I know this expression on her face very well and I’m sure hundreds of her former students do as well.   It says, “I expect you to do your best.”  Mother will turn ninety this summer, and I still learn something from her nearly every time we talk (or email!).

And this is Coach Terri Morse who is retiring this year after developing a swimming program in a dusty West Texas town where — need I say it? —  football was the only sport that counted.  Against insurmountable odds, she led her swimmers to a combined 38 district championships and took swimmers to State every year.   Good job, Coach!

And this is my sister who is retiring this year too.  She has spent every year of her life in the classrooms of Pecos, Texas, except for the five years she was too young and the five years she was away earning her B.A. and M.A. and her teaching credentials.  I cannot think how many young minds she nurtured in thirty-four years of teaching government.  Her passion is the U.S. Constitution and the Supreme Court.  Here she is making a detour to the state capitol on a recent trip to the state swim meet in Austin, demonstrating to her students just how cool it is to live in the United States.

And here she is on Election Day, having made sure that all her eighteen-year-olds were registered to vote and signed up to volunteer at the polls.

After seventeen years in the classroom, she added a new field to her teaching career — coaching.  Having never been an athlete, she decided to become a part of Coach Morse’s swim program and went into training.  She became the assistant swim coach and head diving coach. She has had at least one diver qualify for the state meet in each of her years with the program.

So for the second half of her career, in addition to teaching a full-load (and never having a student who didn’t pass the state tests!),  she and Coach Morse worked to develop a program that begins with teaching toddlers to swim and includes teaching high-schoolers and adults in the community to lifeguard.  Coach Morse showed up at the pool early most mornings to oversee a water-fitness program for senior citizens while Coach Capshaw went early to her classroom to tutor students who were having a hard time making their grades.

This is real stuff.  These are women whose life work made a difference.

No stereotypes here, and no time for big hair.