Handicap Accessible Frustrations

Everytime I hang out with my friend who is in a wheelchair I come away so frustrated and SAD.  As if it isn't hard enough for her -- The Public is so "Glib" when it comes to "Handicap Accessible."

We drive around a parking lot until we find a handicap parking place large enough for her van and the ramp.   There are few places that give you enough space for a Van.  They are usually marked "Van Accessable".  The stripped area beside these parking places give you plenty of room to let the ramp down and roll down safely.  

If the driver parks over the diagonal stripes -- there is not enough room for the van ramp to fold out and for the wheelchair to get back into the van.

Parking on diagonal stripes

 We have stood in the parking lot waiting for the other driver to return -- we have gone back into the store and reported the problem -- the manager has requested that the driver of Ford Truck License #blablabla to please move their vehicle.  Recently our groceries were melting in the Texas heat while we waited  and when the Truck owner finally showed up they were just "rude" and uncaring about the problem that they had caused.

Resturants who have handicap parking places do not maintain their lot and the ramps.  While traveling last year the resturant did have a handicap space,

however, there was a pot hole at the entrance of the ramp.  Is there someone who inspects these ramps for needed repairs?  Have Called 311 ADA.

Another parking lot had a handicap space but the ramp left the wheelchair into gravel which can be a big problem.  What in the world do people think -- or do they just NOT Think?

This Post will be on-going.  I will update when I hear back from ADA.

The Great Hanging 1862

Keeping you up to date  -- Forgot to publish this post???  

October 10th.  I drove to Gainesville and spent time with my friend June. We enjoyed a good visit and the Depot Day Celebration.  It was a beautiful weekend.      We also attended a Theatrical Reading of "Tainted Breeze"  At the North Central Texas College in Gainesville, Tx.   After this reading we gathered at the Great Hanging Memorial to pay tribute to the 40 people who were hanged in 1862.    My second cousin also wrote a book about this Civil War Event and our anscestor, Nathaniel Miles Clark, that was hanged there.  

The memorial was held in the Pecan Park -- this is the new Memorial Monument. 

Tainted Breeze: The Great Hanging at Gainesville, Texas, 1862

In the early morning hours of October 1, 1862, state militia arrested more than two hundred alleged Unionists from five northern Texas counties and brought them to Gainesville, the seat of Cooke County. 

In the ensuing days at least forty-four prisoners were hanged, and several other men were lynched in neighboring communities. This event proved to be the grisly climax of a tradition of violence and vigilantism in North Texas that began before the Civil War and lasted long afterward. For this first full-scale history of the Great Hanging, Richard B. McCaslin has consulted a vast array of manuscript collections and government archives, assembling a trove of information on a remote corner of the Confederacy. He offers an account that is both rich in detail and illuminating of the broader contexts of this dramatic event. The irony of the Great Hanging, McCaslin maintains, is that the vigilantes and their victims shared a concern for order and security. When perennial fears of slave insurrection and hostile Indian attacks in North Texas were exacerbated by the turmoil of the Civil War, those residents who saw a return to Federal rule as the way to restore stability were branded as sowers of discord by those who remained loyal to the Confederacy, the manifest symbol of order through legal authority. McCaslin follows the course of mounting tensions and violence that erupted into the massive, hysterical roundup of suspected Union sympathizers. He provides a virtual day-by-day report of the deliberations of the "Citizens Court", a body that became in effect an instrument for mob violence, which spread far beyond Gainesville. In Tainted Breeze, McCaslin moves past the details of why individualparticipants acted as they did in the Great Hanging and examines the influence of such factors as economic conditions and family relationships. He explores not only the deep division the incident caused in the immediate community but also the reactions of northerners (who were generally appalled) and other southerners (who tended to applaud the lynchings). McCaslin also describes how the policies of Presidential Reconstruction stymied attempts to prosecute those responsible for atrocities like the Great Hanging, and how renewed violence in North Texas in fact contributed to the imposition of Radical Reconstruction. Until relatively recently, a tradition of silence regarding the Great Hanging has restricted historical writing on the subject. Tainted Breeze offers the first systematic treatment of this important event. By placing his compelling tale in such a broad context, McCaslin provides a unique opportunity to study the tensions produced in southern society by the Civil War, the nature of disaffection in the Confederacy, and the American vigilante tradition.

Civil War Recollections of James Lemuel Clark and the Great Hanging at Gainesville, Texas, in October 1862

Not all Texans agreed with the decision to secede from the Union in 1860, and many remained outspoken against the laws of the Confederacy. This is the story of one Texas family who suffered more at the hands of their own kind than of any warring enemy, told through the memoirs of James Lemuel Clark, the son of one of the 40 men hanged in 1862 for their Union sympathies. Civil War Recollections recounts the confusion of the Civil War years and events that shaped the lives of war survivors and influenced the reconstruction of Texas.

Hello from Cabo / I have a new home!!!

Hello from Cabo San Lucas,
This title could be very misleading...  No I am not moving to Cabo. :(

  I am enjoying my last two weeks at Playa Grande for 2015.  This may be my last time to visit Playa Grande but I will get into that story later. :)  Such a beautiful place and awesome view.  

Kicking back enjoying the View from Balcony

I get back to DFW on Friday night late.  It has been a great two weeks. My friend Connie came for a few days.  We shopped and walked around the Marina.  We had some great meals at several different resturants.  Most of them free -- more about that blessing later.  

It was nice to have company for a few days.  In recent years I have traveled alone for most of my weeks here in Cabo and it was nice to have company.  

December brings the Whales to Cabo. We didn't take a whale watching cruise as they are not really very large boats and there just isn't enough Draminine to keep me from being miserable.    We were able to see several whales from our balcony.  It was pretty exciting to see them spray into the sky and show out for all who would watch. 

OH, Yes!!  The most important information!!  I found an apartment.  I had been on a waiting list since August -- and am still on that list, with no estimated move in date in sight.  

While staying with Angela after her back surgery, I had an afternoon free and spent some time with my friend JeJuan who also lives in Duncanville.   She is planning a move in mid 2016 and while we had an afternoon, we drove into Dallas to look at a place she had seen last year.  Such a God plan -- it was a great place and they were going to have an apartment opening up before the end of the year.  I filled out the documents and the manager started the process.  

JeJuan is going to move in May and I will begin my MOVE IN on Monday Dec 14th.  It has been an interesting Adventure, staying with friends and traveling for the past 3 months, but it is going to be good to have my own place again.  

I will give you photos and more info about my new place next blog.  I haven't seen the apartment yet -- but the floor plan looks very liveable and the view from the 5th floor should be beautiful.  

A week in Nashville, TN

I was able to spend a week with my friends in Nashville, TN the week before Thanksgiving.  What a blessed trip.

The Elliotts live outside of Nashville in Whites Creek.  They have an awesome log home on top of a mountain.  The timing was Season perfect.  The leaves had turned and there were still a lot of them on the trees.  It was a beautiful week...
In so many ways.  I love the Elliott family.  We don't see each other often, but our friendship spands the absence.  We pickup just like there has been no time lost.  True friendships and relationships.  What a blessing!

It was a girls week as John was in Texas ministering at a meeting. Spending time with Carol and Olivia was so fun.  Olivia was 6 months old when I first met John and Carol.  She went to Israel with us in 1996.   She has grown into a beautiful young woman and talented artist.  We had a lot of artist things in common and it was a blessing to to hang out and get to know her.

Rained all day and then just at sunset the clouds parted and allowed God to paint the most beautiful sunset!!   We were just outside coffee shop.

We enjoyed way too much coffee and the roaring fireplace.  Thank You Lord for such a blessed week.  Please help me make another trip soon.