June 19, 2013
Editorial
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LETTER FROM THE MANAGING EDITOR WRLW is like the Hotel California You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave
“It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. We’re all going to be thrown curve balls.” I was fed that kernel of wisdom my senior year at SMU while interviewing Cindy Brinker Simmons, founder of Wipe Out Kids’ Cancer, for a profile piece. I can honestly say that I have been fortunate – no, blessed. In my short 25 years, life has yet to throw me a curve ball that’s completely knocked me off balance. But sacrifices? I’ve had to make plenty o...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
You know you’re really old when you don’t even recognize the name, or purpose, of a “recreational” drug you hear about. Some kids in my son’s freshman Chinese class were busted this past week for “huffing” during class – during final exams! Seriously? Ninth graders? They aren’t even 16 years old yet. And five out of 12 in my son’s class were doing the huffing or puffing. They used some ballpoint pen-looking type of drug paraphernalia to suck...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR So much for summer fun!
Darn, if I wasn’t just trying to give my children a good time. I literally had to force them to go to Six Flags of Texas this past Sunday during Memorial Day weekend. Six Flags, mind you! As a kid, I would have jumped at the chance. Not my children. They were perfectly happy sleeping in and being lazy after spending a full Saturday at the DFW International Festival in the Centennial Building at Fair Park. My 89-year-old mother went, too, and ...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR The answer, my friend…
Is whistle while you work! My daughter could put Snow White’s seven dwarfs to shame. She whistles all the time. She whistles while doing her (home) work, while at play after school and darn near every night in her peaceful-to-watch sleep. She just seems incredibly happy most of the time, and that inner joy manifests into her constant whistling. I’m so blessed. But she hates thunderstorms. Me? I love them, unless I don’t have all my ducks (i.e....
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Curse you, Energizer Bunny
Snoopy, the quirky dog from Charles Shultz’s beloved comic strip “Peanuts,” despised the Red Baron. I feel the same way about the Energizer Bunny. I just want to shoot him down from my dog house. Why did I have to become one of those die hard (pun intended) recyclers? As a result, my pile of batteries to recycle just keeps growing and growing and growing. Batteries never last as long as they should and always die when you need them most. When ...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Traveling the road of life
My son got to go to India this past week. Not for real, though you’d think he had considering how exhausted he was after the ordeal. “If you’re old enough to learn to drive, you’re old enough to make your own service call,” I said to him with a determined sound in my voice. It’s time he REALLY begins to understand how the real world works. How to pay a bill; how to buy groceries; how to make money to pay for them. “But, Mom!” he pleaded to no ...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR An eye for an eye (so someone can see an “i”)
I love my new T-shirt. It reads “Organ Donor – See inside for details.” Get it? I did when I saw it and then rushed to buy it, all the while discouraging my children in tow (three) not to buy anything for themselves in the Perot Museum gift shop. I used to collect T-shirts back in the olden days when I didn’t realize one day I would have to store them all. I have my original Rolling Stones T-shirt, Boston, The Eagles, the Graceland Tour, you ...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
I am sick to my stomach. No, not with the flu, or some bug or food poisoning. I am sick to my stomach because of the Bush Presidential Center opening. If you’re reading this on Thursday morning, then send me good energy, because I’m going to be at the dedication ceremony. I feel very, very fortunate to have been given press credentials to the event. I guess the Center realizes that, once the world news agencies move on to the next story, they ...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR It's the little things we do together
“I just want to have my own life!” my daughter cried out to me as she stomped off to her bed on Monday night. I was trying, after a long school morning, busy workday, and activities-filled evening, to brush up a ponytail into her hair, as she had requested after completing her nightly reading. She had finally realized her much requested “long hair” was getting in the way of living a life that didn’t involve constant brushing and coiffing. “Le...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR And here I was blaming Baby Aspirin
“It’s a shame they don’t make chocolate cigarettes,” my son said jokingly as he served the family the chocolate cake he’d just made on Tuesday night. He knew, by the time the cake (and our hectic day) was done, all I wanted to do was go outside and smoke a real cigarette. I laughed out loud, knowing he didn’t realize “they” used to do that exact thing. I had just cooked a homemade spaghetti and meat sauce with broccoli on the side and Texas t...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Twinkle, twinkle
Do you think Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart started out playing “Twinkle, twinkle?” As I sat and listened to my daughter practice her piano lessons Monday night, I wondered. I wondered if she was going to become a world-renowned musical composer; if years, dare I write, centuries from now, she would be remembered for the music she is creating today. She loves to write her own compositions. Then I wondered if Mozart’s mother felt the same way. Music h...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Beep, beep!
I admit it – I’m a honker. At least I know one handsome male who would love me for my instinctive honking abilities: his name is Wilbur Goose. And bless his sweet soul, he’s been missing for almost a year now. So go the men in my life! Last time I saw Wilbur, he was hugging his human BFF, David. The next day, he was gone. “Lake geese kidnapped,” our headline read that week. “Beep, beep,” I tap on my van’s horn. The lady in front of me is obvi...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR An apple a day, indeed!
I’m going to plant my own apple tree so I don’t have to ever go to the doctor again. Silly me. Recently, after being sick for two days over a miserable weekend, I made the mistake of finally breaking down and going to the doctor. I actually had to get a ride because I was too ill to hold my head up, much less drive. Unfortunately, my regular doctor, whom I adore, was booked, so I had to see one of his partners. After a thorough examination, h...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Catching some ZZZ’s and rays
Nothing warms my heart more than watching my children sleep (except for maybe 70 degree temperatures on a March Wednesday in Dallas). They seem so peaceful and comfortable when they’re snug in their beds at night. It’s quite a different picture in the morning when they don’t want to wake up and face the next school day. I’m the same way. I love to stay up late and then sleep in late. Alas, our normal school/work days do not follow the same pri...
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CITY COUNCIL ELECTIONS 2013 Residents asked to submit questions for candidates
Dallasites will soon find themselves in the midst of another election. This time it’s the Dallas City Council up for grabs on Saturday, May 11. The council consists of 14 districts, but of the six with footprints in our coverage area, four races are being contested by a total of 17 candidates, and only one of those people is an incumbent. That’s a whole lot of politicking, and not much time to get to know the contenders. That’s why we’re here....
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Some day, he’ll come along…
I’m gonna write about a man I love this week. And he’s back in my life! You just can’t know how tickled to death I was while driving back from dropping my son off for crew practice on Tuesday to find out that an old friend of mine is now living around the corner from my mother’s house. I’ve missed you so much! The mind is a funny thing. I can’t remember the name of my second grade teacher, but I can remember where I was when I heard that Elvi...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR It is not fun, or funny, anymore!
“ Some kids in our class just found some handgun ammo on the floor of the bathroom ,” my son texted me on Wednesday morning. “What?” I said to myself out loud as I fumbled to text him back. This, a day after the same school had been evacuated at 11 a.m. because a note was found containing a bomb threat . Enough already! This school violence, or threats of violence, has gone too far. I am so ready for the perpetrator(s) to be caught. What migh...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR You’re not wearing that, are you?!
There comes a time in every parent’s life when they catch themselves sounding like they never thought they would – just like their own parents. All she had to do was get in the car for the round trip ride to drop my son off at Boy Scouts Monday night. My daughter had done what every kid probably was or wanted to be doing on Monday for the official Presidents’ Day school holiday; she’d been watching TV in her pajamas all day. Such a life! All...
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Start me up!
Ah! There is no other better feeling than being in the middle of the perfect day, when things are actually going your way, and you’re ahead of whatever “game” you may be playing. But then, you jump in your car to tackle the next task, and the car doesn’t start. Not only does said vehicle not start, but, when you turn the key, it sounds like a hydraulic vacuum exploding under the hood of your car. “VVVvvvvrrrrrruuuueeee!” my dependable-as-all-g...
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OPINION Leave them alone – go start your own
Should the Boy Scouts of America change its policy on homosexuals? Wrong question. That is the question everyone is debating, but it is still the wrong question. Does a private organization have the Constitutional right to define its membership in accordance with its goals and values? Right question. The answer, according to the Supreme Court in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000,) is yes. Precedent was set in Roberts v. United States Jaycees...
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