The Intercoastal 4-H Club of Port O’Connor met for their first meeting of the school year, with a guest speaker, our Calhoun County Extension Agent, Charles Seely.

Our group leader, L’Roy Bell helped lead the discussion about our upcoming County Fair, which is October 17-21, 2012. All members will have animal projects to raise and show at the fair and some will enter other events.

We have 16 members and one new member. The officers are President: Justin Munsch: Vice-President, Thomas Hawes: Treasurer, Shelby Roberds: Secretary, Carly Rosenboom: and Reporter: Elizabeth Carey, that’s me.

Plan on coming out to the fair and having some fun.

Honoring the memory of our loved ones by placing flowers on their graves is a cherished custom and one worth keeping. More often today we find artificial flowers taking the place of the natural. Although these plastic and/or silk offerings are pretty and last a long time, they sometimes cause problems in maintaining the cemetery grounds. That is because these artificial flowers usually have wire stems. And if they are not really well secured, the wind blows them away. When that happens, they are no longer lovely tributes to the departed, but a nuisance, and even a danger to those who mow the grounds.

At Port O’Connor Cemetery it is customary for many to leave not only flowers, but trinkets of personal significance on their loved ones graves. These, too, are often displaced becoming obstacles to safe and efficient mowing.

Bob Allen and his helpers who maintain the cemetery grounds request that those putting out trinkets and flowers please attempt to secure these objects as much as possible so they will not be easily blown away and get entangled in their mower blades. Checking on the condition of these offerings periodically to insure their stability and replace or stabilize as needed might also be helpful, and would beautify the cemetery by making sure the artificial flowers are still in a nice condition, not faded or torn up.

Additionally, some people like to surround the grave with stones or other objects. If you do so, please do not leave space between the grave and the lawn. This makes for additional work weed-eating.

Bob and his crew have been maintaining the Port O’Connor Cemetery for many years, expecting no compensation. The Dolphin believes those of us with ties to the cemetery should show our appreciation by trying to make this big job a little easier. Thanks in advance for your cooperation.

We posed that question in our August 10th issue, and received responses from Petra Hockey and Brush Freeman telling us the “parrot” was actually a large Brown-Hooded parakeet, and where they had last seen him. What became of him was still a mystery.

It seems that Pam Williams has solved the mystery. Pam tells us that the “parrot” (Pam referred to him as “Jimmy”.) would come by her place regularly in the evenings to visit with her own parrot “Mandy”, albeit from a distance. Mandy, in her cage in the yard, and “Jimmy” in a nearby palm tree, would “converse” to the delight of Pam and her family and neighbors.

One evening, about six or seven years ago, Pam heard the most awful screaming and looked up to see “Jimmy” in the talons of a hawk. She watched in horror as the hawk flew around the yard with the parrot in his clutches. After a swoop around the palm tree in the far corner of Pam’s yard, the hawk reappeared empty-handed.

The on-lookers searched the base of the palm tree, and all around, finding nothing except a spot of blood. For several days afterward they looked and called for the parrot, to no avail. That was the unhappy end of Port O’Connor’s parrot.

We have been reminded of the ongoing space exploration recently when Neil Armstrong died. Some readers might wonder what an Astronaut from Ohio has to do with Calhoun County history. Well, here is the story:

Only some of us can remember or even know that we once had a pretty intimate involvement with space. The date September 9, 2012 slipped right by with little or no fanfare. However, thirty years before on September 9, 1982 and at 10:18 am the Conestoga with an over 1000 pound payload, actually just a tank of water, lifted off from Matagorda Island. It flew for 10.5 minutes and landed in the Gulf.

For sure that was a longer flight both time wise and length wise than the ones those other Ohio boys, the Wrights, flew at Kitty Hawk. Like the Wright brothers this was a privately financed deal. There was no government involvement. It was the culmination of the work of Toddy Lee Wynne and Space Services Inc of America (SSIA). That was a consortium of well to do folks who were interested in promoting private space.

Like the government they had some disappointments along the way. Their first space ship had exploded on the pad in 1981. They were Texans so they went back to work and designed and built a new one. That was the one that flew in 1982, Once again the private way moved faster.

So its main champion didn’t get to see his success. Toddie Lee died the same day. That same year things began to change drastically for Matagorda Island. By December of 1982 the first of the many steps that led to Matagorda Island becoming off limits for public use. Nowadays the Island is under the authority of the USFWS. It is managed as a part of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge Complex. One could say it’s for the birds.

However, when one gets a chance to go over there and explore the historical gravesites or the Lighthouse as you traverse the island you can see abundant wildlife of all kinds. It is also true that Texas Parks and Wildlife still has some jurisdiction on the north end of the Island for park type facilities. However, budget and other complications make it a difficult place to visit.
SSIA is still in business. Private space efforts are still underway in Texas. Jeff Bezos, of Amazon has a big area in Northwest Texas where work is ongoing. There is an effort under way around Brownsville. There are rumors of other efforts of a like kind.

What ever the results of these plans brings to fruition there can be little doubt that Calhoun County was where private space flight of significant capacity was in its early days. We are somewhat like Spain when they started Magellan and his ships on the trip around the world or Portugal sent Vasco De Gamma around Africa to India. Rest in Peace Neil we will carry on the banner here.