“A Thing of the Past”

The older I get, I have time to think of the past and compare it to today. My mind goes back to the days when a doctor made house calls.

There is no telling how many babies this doctor delivered at home. The nearest hospital was at Victoria, too far to go to have their babies and no money anyway.

This doctor came to our house and delivered all eight of Mama’s babies. I was the third born. Every time he came to our house, I would say to him, “Did you bring me a baby sister this time?”

“No, I am sorry, I brought you another baby brother.” This same happened five times.

I did have diptheria when I was three years old. Mama said this doctor came and sat by my bedside for three days and nights and watched over me. I think he must have been part angel. He did not know whether he would get paid or not.

Back in that day and time, he did get paid with fresh vegetables from the garden, chicken eggs, fresh milk and butter, etc.

Doc Ryon and wife are buried here in the Seadrift Cemetery. She had to be part angel herself.

Seadrift has been blessed to have two people like this living here in this “little city by the sea”
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Dorothy Wilson
Seadrift

Here is a hurricane awakening, our water and sewer directors are not up to the job of planning how to make sure that the people of Port OConnor have safe water and sewer as long as possible before the storm and as quickly as possible after the storm. Fact: both vacuum stations have back up generators, the sewer plant and water plant also have back up generators. They should have been maintained to be in good working order, they were not and the directors knew that. They did nothing it, there should have been a crew lined up for after the storm to take care of issues. The sewer system didn’t need to be shut down, it would have shut down when the electricity went off. The back up generator would have operated the system partly. The water didn’t need to be shut off until the last possible minute. But your El Presidente ordered it to be shut down when he left town early, leaving orders that nothing is to be done without his approval. They were told to “stand down”. There is so much done wrong in the way the district prepared for this storm and there is not enough space in a single letter to explain it.

One of the workers was working very hard, by himself, to get the sewer sysem up and running. One of the directors came up to him and told him to stop what he was doing and come fix his sewer. I guess they think they are better than the rest of the residents. He told the director he would be there later. I now understand that he may get a reprimand for this incident, that would not be a good move to make. That worker should get a praise for doing such a good job and without help. The directors didn’t bring in extra help, this employee worked alone doing his job.

Folks your utility system is going downhill fast. You have only one employee left from when this group of directors took over. The ones who weren’t fired because they didn’t jump fast enough quit because they couldn’t put up with all the BS.

Some people will say that I don’t know what I am talking about, but I was there when the first shovel of dirt was turned over to put this system in. After 22 years of working with the system and going to schools to learn all about it, I think I do know.

Teddy Hawes

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