Figured I would write this next tale given the very unique, dynamic, roller-coaster of a situation that we all are in. Needless to say, the Coronavirus has left its mark on the world.

“Let those who have been laid to eternal peace be praised for the life they lived and those who are suffering be given the strength of the masses”

Now to the tale…

This next tale will be up to you to write. Will you write it through despair? Will you write it through fear? Will you write it through anger? Or will you write it through the penmanship as a friend, a father, a son, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a brother, a neighbor?

During times of crisis that are entrained with fear, always remember who you are. Always fight to do the right thing. Always write your next tale of life through the penmanship of the Lord above.

It is through my families’ Prayers that y’all remain at peace through helping one another, loving one another and caring for one another while you strive to conquer the fears that you will face throughout life.

“May the winds of life always be at your backs with nothing but sunshine as your first sight ahead”

May God forever bless y’all,

The McDaniels
(Andrew, Elizabeth, Alison, Margaret, Sean and Mary)

This is the story of survival and adventure for one brown pelican.
In February, 2018, Gulf Coast Wildlife Rescue (GCWR), in Angleton, TX received a brown pelican that had ingested oil and had frostbitten feet.  Poor thing.  But GCWR does incredible work to rehabilitate injured animals, and they went to work doing their magic on this bird.  It took some time, but the pelican recovered nicely.  It was healthy and ready to return to the beach.
Before releasing the bird, GCWR allowed us to place a leg band on the bird.  The leg band is a metal band which the bird wears for the rest of its life.  Each band has a unique number on it which allows for individual identification of birds – something like your social security number.  The leg band also has the Bird Banding Lab (BBL) reporting website imprinted on it, where the band number can be submitted if the bird is ever encountered by another person.

The release of the pelican was picture perfect.  It was transported to the beach near Freeport, TX in a kennel.  When the kennel door was opened, the pelican hopped out and then took a couple steps. It gave a couple mighty flaps of its powerful wings and flew off over the waves, joining up with other pelicans in the area.

Usually, that’s the last we hear about any of the birds we band.  However, this bird did not follow the normal script.
Fast forward to January, 2019, to the small town of Tela, on the coast of Honduras.  A group of people were feeding fish to a pelican on the dock in the bay.  They noticed the bird had a leg band, and it seemed to be unafraid of them.  After a while, they were able to approach closer to the bird.  In time, they were able to catch the pelican by hand.  They read and recorded the band number, along with the reporting website from the band, then released the bird unharmed.  And they eventually reported it to the BBL, who in turn notified us of the encounter.  Remarkably, this is the same bird that GCWR released nearly a year earlier.  How do we know?

The band number proves it.

Why is this remarkable?  Well, Tela is over 1000 miles away from Freeport – straight line.  But we know pelicans don’t fly in straight lines, instead they tend to stick pretty close to the coast.  This bird likely flew around the Gulf of Mexico, around Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, then along the western shoreline of the Caribbean Sea to arrive at the dock in Tela, Honduras.  This route is over 2000 miles long, and the pelican completed the trip in less than a year!

Without the leg band number, there is no possible way to know the history and travels of this pelican.  It shows that rehabilitated birds can survive in the wild just fine on their own.  It also indicates that brown pelicans can travel long distances.  However, it raises many more questions.  Why did this pelican travel so far away from Freeport?  Will it come back to Freeport, or will it stay in Honduras, or will it continue to wander?  Why do some pelicans fly so far afield, while others apparently do not?

In any case, it is gratifying to know that this pelican survived for nearly a year after it was released.  It has had quite a journey.

Kay Lookingbill is a volunteer and advisory board member at the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory, who also bands birds. The GCBO is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving the birds and their habitats along the entire Gulf Coast, and beyond into their Central and South America wintering grounds.

POC Dollar General Has A Request

As you know, from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. daily is senior shopping hour.

Since we have been out of the essential items for days, I have an idea. Please share!

In order to continue to help our most precious, fragile young at heart, we would like to make Thursday morning (the day after truck) a special POC Rocks Senior Shopping Hour.

I don’t want any of our seniors to have to worry about coming out Wednesday just because they are afraid nothing will be left.

Wednesday I am going to put aside some of each of the essential products for our special Thursday Morning Senior Shopping Trip. I just need everyone to understand that I have no way of knowing how much I am getting or how many seniors will come Thursday morning, so I may still run out! Since we all have seen the power of Port O’Connor, I challenge anyone reading this to join me on Thursday and help someone!

If anyone wants to purchase and donate any items on Wednesday I would be glad to hand them out on Thursday morning!

There are so many ways you can help!

1. Offer to bring someone to the store

2. Shop for someone that can’t get out.

3. Give one of your extra toilet paper, paper towels, soap, water etc. to someone in need.

4. Ask someone if they need something done for them. You get the idea!

Stacy

“Virus Hits Home”

Wash your hands, use plenty of soap. Stay away from crowds. Old people are in danger. They can not fight off the virus and could die.

Seadrift Church leaders hope to bring people together.

Will God keep you safe? Will you be with God’s people at these meetings on our beautiful San Antonio bay front?
My advice – God expects you to use “common sense”.

P.S. In the past, a virus like this did hit Seadrift and other places. Dr. Oscar Ryon was the doctor that treated ut, Mrs, Tom Dowda had it, then she helped Dr. Ryon to nurse the other very sick people.

People did die with it back then.

Dorothy Geraldine Wilson
“Old woman from Seadrift”

Thank You from Scouts

Seadrift Boy/Cub Scouts Pack 106 would like to thank everyone for their support and helping make our 41st Annual BBQ successful! Due to the large number of individuals who helped, it is impossible to name each one individually to thank them. Thank you for the outstanding brisket Pit Master Rudy Morales and family, wonderful beans Fred Mendez and family and Mark Daigle for being our auctioneer. We would like to thank the business owners and individuals who graciously donated to help our Scouts BBQ. Thank you to all the individuals who bought BBQ plates and bought auction items. We sold over 1,200 plates. There aren’t words to describe how thankful the Seadrift Scouts are for your generosity. The proceeds will provide the boys with opportunities to attend numerous campus, purchase items to give back to the community during service projects, and participate in various community service activities. The Boy Scout Hall will continue to have maintenance work done to ensure its upkeep. With our Troop/Pack growing each year, this past year the Seadrift Scouts were able to purchase a storage building to help store camping supplies, community project items, and scout materials. Seadrift Boy Scout Troop 106 is grateful for the amount of support from ours and the surrounding communities!

Leslie Shirhall for Seadrift Boy/Cub Scouts

Editor’s Note: We received a nice, long letter concerning “Where will be POC be in 5 to 10 years”. However, it was unsigned, so we can not print it.

The Dolphin welcomes letters from our readers on any subject that is of general interest to our audience. Letters should be 300 words or less (exception at the Dolphin’s discretion). Letters reflect the opinion of the writer, and not that of Dolphin Talk staff, and we retain the right to determine suitability for publication. It is the policy of this newspaper to promote area interests; therefore, complaints against local businesses should be directed elsewhere. Letters must be signed and include day and evening phone numbers, which will not be published. Your name will be withheld upon request, but anonymous material will not be considered for publication.
Letters to the Dolphin: Dolphin Talk, PO Box 777, Port O’Connor, TX 77982 dolphin1@tisd.net

March 24, 2020:
U.S. Senate Democrats just defeated (along party lines) an emergency relief bill.
Instead they are pushing a bill to do the following:
• Fund Planned Parenthood permanently
• Provide additional funds for research that uses aborted baby organs
• Force corporations to embrace LGBT leadership on their boards
• Force airlines to also include a union representative on their boards
• Nationalize elections, including same-day vote registration
• Fund expensive elements of the Green New Deal regarding carbon emissions and force taxpayers to buy old airplanes
• When millions of Americans are out of work, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pushing to automatically extend foreign work visas, limiting Americans’ ability to get back to work.

Port O’Connor, on State Highway 185 and Matagorda Bay in southern Calhoun County, was laid out in 1909 by the Calhoun Cattle Company on the 70,000-acre Alligator Head Ranch formerly owned by Thomas M. O’Connor. By 1911 the International-Great Northern Railroad had reached the community, which was named for O’Connor. By 1914 the town had become the summer resort terminus of the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway, with a hotel, a bathing and dance pavilion for tourists, and a population of 350.
That year the community also had three general stores, two churches, two fish and oyster plants, a bank, an ice plant, and a lumber company. At that time farmers in the area raised figs and citrus fruit and shipped their product to the town’s Fig Orchards Company for processing.

Port O’Connor grew from a population of 300 in the 1930s to 600 by the 1940s; during that period the number of businesses varied from eight to fifteen. The 1936 county highway map showed three churches and a school at the townsite. In 1939 the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway reached the community, linking New Orleans with Corpus Christi. Hurricanes in 1919, 1942, and 1945 damaged the town, but Hurricane Carla in 1961, which came ashore at Port O’Connor, leveled it, destroying the five-block downtown area.
Growth resumed after the disaster, however, because of the community’s proximity to Matagorda Air Force Base. The town’s population reached 1,010 in 1969.

From 1975 to 1988 it was reported as 810. The number of businesses reached a high of twenty-seven in 1981.
In the late 1980s the town was a fishing, tourist, and retirement center, and in 1990 it reported a population of 1,184 and twenty-two businesses.

The population remained the same in 2000, however, the number of businesses had increased to sixty-eight.

This winter as many as six adult whooping cranes visited Powderhorn WMA. The US Fish and Wildlife Service was able to place a GPS transmitter on one of the cranes. Once released, the crane moved to Matagorda Island for a few weeks and then came back to Powderhorn. The crane remained here for several weeks and recently started its trip to the breeding grounds in Canada. A map showed how far the crane traveled in one day (about 270 miles).

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is gathering data on daily movement, habitat use, migration route, and nesting location this season. We hope to see this crane return to Powderhorn next fall.