World War II Remberances

Agnes Belle Pendergrass Crosier passed away and had a very nice Military funeral Thursday, March 9, 2017, at the Chapel in the Seadrift Cemetery.

She was a Navy nurse on the hospital ship, the USS Rescue, in World War II. Sharing memories with her family at the cemetery, I did remember she was at Okinawa, Japan during World War II at the same time as my husband Dennis Andrew Wilson was in the Navy also. He was on the USS Brazos. He was injured when a Japanese suicide plane dove at his ship and was knocked unconscious on the deck by shrapnel.He was put on the USS Hope, a hospital ship and did receive a Purple Heart for it.

Agnes and Dennis found out about this years later when she moved to Seadrift. Agnes did see many burials at sea when on this ship.

Dorothy Geraldine Wilson
Seadrift

Sambar Deer
Has anyone else noticed that our gracious and exotic SAMBAR deer population is dwindling?

I no longer see Sambar grazing in the pastures on the way to and from Port Lavaca.

I can remember just a few years ago that you would see many with their elegant horns shining in the sun. It was always a treat to see them and made the drive something to look forward to.

I know there have been many killed by careless drivers on the stretch from Cathy’s to Speedy Stop by boaters in a rush in the mornings to launch their boats but I do not think this is the reason for the decline in population.

Since Texas Parks and Wildlife have taken over the Powder Horn Ranch there seem to be fewer and fewer.

I have heard and don’t know if it is true, that the Texas Parks and Wildlife only want native deer on the Powder Horn. This means there will no longer be Axis or Sambar and they must eliminate them.

I looked online and have found Sambar Hunts on the Powder Horn with YouTube so this makes me think they are being eliminated.

The Sambar have been here a much longer time than Texas Parks and Wildlife took over the property and I sure hate to see them disappear. I can remember seeing them back in the early 80’s when I first started coming to POC but have been told by folks that have lived here much longer, they were here much earlier than that.

To me, they are part of Port O Connor just like the fishing, the sand and the front beach. You never knew when you might see one of these big deer as I have even had them run through my yard. I’m sure they were bothersome to some but again I hate the fact that they will be eliminated and no longer roam this area.

I don’t know if it would help to call Texas Parks and Wildlife to complain but just wanted to bring to everyone’s attention that if you are fortunate enough to see one in the near future, enjoy it as it may be you last time to see this type of deer.

Maybe someone from Texas Parks and Wildlife will read this and give an explanation on if this is true?

Concerned, Name Withheld

Thank You

We would like to thank our community. Thank them for the tremendous turn out Saturday the 18th, at the front beach for the Paige Satterfield benefit. The only thing more awesome than the weather, was the support of a community when someone needed it most.

I would also like to acknowledge Debbie and Dawn for organizing such a great day, Willie, Gary, & the guys who cooked the amazing BBQ, Pam, Margaret, Brandi, Colette & anyone else that helped put together said BBQ, Ms Maryann, Amber B & everyone that helped sell raffle tickets, the Bourg family for helping me with last minute hurdles, and the Man Upstairs for giving us a beautiful day to hold it!

The Satterfield family is forever grateful for the outstanding support of their community!

Paige, Jerry, Melissa, Bill

Paige Satterfield

Dear Dolphin Talk;

I have never written to the paper, but I decided to write this time. The Service Club Garage Sale has been a community event around here for a long time. They use the money in our town. They help people who need it too. Last weekend, several things were taken from the garage sale tables overnight when someone came in after the workers went home. POC is not the kind of town where that should happen.

This group helps people all the time. If you genuinely need something, they would help you. You do not have to steal it. Tell them you need help and they will give it. And, if it was just greediness and not need, then ‘Shame on you for taking what is intended to help others.’

The Service Club does good for POC. Do not do this in our town.

A concerned POC citizen and Service Club Member

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 (with exceptions 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
P.O. Box 777 Port O’Connor, TX 77982 dolphin1@tisd.net

I have the best Mother! No, really, I do. I call her Momma, and she is the first, last and greatest teacher, example and standard to strive for that I could ever have. When I was a little girl, she sewed countless doll clothes, sang songs, read stories and bandaged boo-boos for four little girls with creativity and love that encouraged us to learn and explore and question.

All I know about being filled with childlike curiosity, I learned from my Momma. When I fought with or got mad at my sisters, Momma would negotiate, referee and problem solve with love and compassion, never crushing our individuality or limiting our originality. When we made friends, lost friends, brought home new and old friends, Momma would make them feel special and welcome.

She taught us to be accepting and tolerant and to believe that different is not wrong, just different. She taught us to be a collector of beloveds. Everything I know about making friends and treasuring relationships, I learned from my Momma. When I had my first crush, my first date, my first love, my first broken heart and when I got stood up or dumped, she taught me that I am enough, okay as I am, and could only love someone fully if I loved and accepted myself.

I watched her love my Daddy with complete abandon, disagree with him without demeaning, argue without accusing and correct without censure. I watched her live out what ‘forever and ever no matter what’ really meant. What I know about true romance love I learned from my Momma. A full-time wife of a busy young preacher, mom of four, part time employee in public relations; she kept herself, her family, her house, her life in balance and in order. Her priorities were those things that last. Things like relationships and experiences mattered more than dusty furniture or unmade beds that sometimes happened. The process of learning took higher precedence than the perfect outcome. She was good at finding the best in a sea of good and the important in a pool of the pressing.

Everything that I know about balance and tranquility I learned from my Momma. When I made what seemed monstrous mistakes and enormous errors, she separated me from the mess. She loved and affirmed me while correcting and fixing the problems. She did not equate me with failure or give me a sense of doom no matter the issue. Most that I learned about unconditional love and affirmation, I learned from my Momma. When life dealt her health a blow and she went through intense cancer treatment more than once, she stayed positive, full of faith and focused on the progress not the struggle.

All I learned about fighting through the hard stuff and staying strong and upbeat I learned from my Momma. After loving my Daddy for more years than I have been alive, I watched her support and help him through death. As her heart broke and her life changed forever, I saw her seek good, find the beauty, trust God and chose life.

Much of what I have learned about life lived abundantly I learned from my Momma. She taught me to be, to live, to challenge and conform, to test and trust, to love and lean. How to be a girl, a teen, a grown up; how to be a daughter, a sister, a mother, a wife; how to work and how to play, how to spend and how to save, how to risk and reserve… all this I learned from my Momma!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mothers out there whose overwhelming, unmanageable, never ending job of being Mother never ends. And yet, you teach your children just by being who you are… Mother.

Roseate spoonbills with great egrets and snowy egrets and a pair of ducks on the road just outside of Port Lavaca on the way to Port O’Connor.
-Photo by R. Patrick Wood

The Texas pink flamingos. Those big pink birds. Huge, bright, long legged birds with that weird big spoon shaped bill. For ages people living on the coast or visiting for the weekend have claimed to see flamingos up and down our Texas coast. They are big and bright alright. Definitely pink, but they are not flamingos. Our pink birds are Roseate Spoonbills. They are in the large group of birds we call wading birds. They live along the entire Texas coast, and at times wander a few miles inland using freshwater ponds. You will normally find them feeding along shallow coastal wetlands or along bay shorelines.

The Roseate Spoonbill’s spatulate-shaped bill is specially adopted to feed in shallow waters, moving their head and bill in sweeping motions side to side. As the bill moves it is detecting small prey by feel, and strains any food items out of the water. Their diet consists of mostly small fish and aquatic invertebrates, such as minnows and killifish, but also shrimp, crayfish, crabs, aquatic insects, mollusks, and some slugs. They may also at times forage on some plant material, including roots and stems of the common sedges. The bright pink plumage color comes from the carotene found in their prey items such as shrimp.

Today spoonbills are doing relatively ok, but are vulnerable to changes or destruction to their feeding and nesting habitats along the coast. The North American Waterbird Conservation Plan estimated a continental population of 20,500 breeding birds in 2014. Any changes to their breeding sites by human activity can easily affect population numbers. Climate change affecting sea water levels can also do the same. In the 1800’s spoonbills were almost wiped out in the United States by people hunting birds for feathers used in women’s hats and decorations. Entire nesting colonies were destroyed. The birds have since made a recovery thanks to decades of protection. Mother Nature is resilient if she is left alone!

These birds can have an average wingspan of 49” and weigh an average of 50 oz. They nest in large colonies in small trees or shrubs on coastal islands and shorelines, often sharing the colony grounds with other heron and egrets. The large numbers of birds offer some protection from predators. Their romantic courtship starts a bit on the aggressive side, but calms down and the birds will perch closely together, presenting a stick to each other, finally crossing their bills, and then one clasps the other’s bill.

On a related side note, there is actually one real flamingo flying around our coastal area. It escaped from a zoo some years ago and moves freely up and down our coast. It towers over the spoonbills that are half its size, and is normally only seen from boats out in the bays. Our biologists here at the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory have recently spotted it while out doing shorebird surveys. Keep your eye open for those big pink birds!

“The Way I See It” is an attempt by the columnist to enlighten readers on a subject as he views it, and does not necessarily reflect the views of this publication.

On Syria

The April 6 US Tomahawk missile attack on the Shayrat Syrian AF base where the poison gas bombing of Syrian rebels in Khan Sheikhoun originated, was a surprise to many. There was initially some doubt about who actually had the poison gas. Saddam Hussein sent his supply and the mobile laboratories to produce more to the fellow Baathist Assad regime in Syria before the US invasion. ISIS and possibly other anti-Assad militias had captured some, and there was good documentation that ISIS commanders had used some poison gas artillery shells against Assad forces in the past. Since Putin claimed to have gotten all of Assad’s, and had re-captured some, if not all, of the “missing” gas, Obama, Kerry, and Susan Rice had widely claimed the poison gas threat was over. (Hah! More Liberal fantasies for the Sheeple.)

Putin is the ‘Big Loser’ here. He claimed all was destroyed. Assad either lied to him and he was duped, or he is in cahoots with Assad. So any way you look at it, Putin is either gullible, incompetent, or an accessory to war crimes. So it appears that he has gone back to the Old Soviet Playbook – Deny, Cover-up, and Blame Others. (You can take the boy out of the KGB, but you can’t take the KGB out of the boy.)

The ‘Big Winner’ here is ISIS. Any break-down in cooperation between the US and Russia is greatly beneficial to them. In Iraq, ISIS only holds 7% of the country today, compared to 40% 3 years ago. And they have suffered several defeats and steady attrition in Syria.

It seemed incredibly stupid for Assad to pull such a bone-headed maneuver, and I suspected (and there were some reports) that some of the “rebel” poison gas was stored in caves near the town of Khan Sheikhoun, possibly with some of the lab equipment to make it, but that has been ‘mostly discredited’. “News Rumors” have it that a Russian drone was involved in observing effects of the attack and that Russian fighter-bombers intentionally bombed the hospital where the gas victims were being treated and the dead bodies stored. (See Old Soviet Playbook above.) If that proves true, it looks really bad for Vlad. Either he is trying to cover-up for Assad, or much worse – he was in on it all along. Assad had proven again that we should never underestimate the arrogance and stupidity of a Muslim dictator; and at best, Putin was duped by his “Best Buddy” in SandLand. We should hesitate to openly discuss the other possibilities until more evidence is forthcoming. Hopefully Putin will recognize the error of his ways and continue to cooperate in destroying ISIS. They are the major threat to us all. Perhaps with some strong combined diplomacy (and threats) by both Putin and Trump, Assad and his wife can be persuaded to return to London and he can resume his career as an optometrist. (Assad claimed in a 2011 interview, “he was attracted to studying eye surgery “because it’s very precise, it’s almost never an emergency, and there is very little blood.” )

Putin and Trump working together is the best, fastest, and cheapest hope for destroying ISIS. I certainly hope the “Warhawks” in “The Swamp” won’t be able to pressure Trump into getting us into another ground-war in the Middle East where we spend most of the blood and treasure. (Someone needs to gag John McCain and lock him in the coat closet until after the sensible adults sort this out. Lindsey Graham, too.)

Trump has gained praise and credibility by this “timely and measured response” to this heinous violation of International Law, but critics have pointed out it does not fit well with his “America First” foreign policy, or Congress’ power to declare war. The rapid and unexpected response is the reason for its success, and has plenty of precedents from previous Presidents. Reports of a highly emotional response from Ivanka to photos of dead and injured children are somewhat worrisome. Trump’s advisers need to be reminded – we elected ‘The Donald’, not Ivanka. Military decisions. and revenge in general. are “a dish best eaten cold”. Other positive results include China sending warnings to North Korea, including a threat to bomb their nuclear facilities if they continue to endanger the area, including northeastern China.

It is called “Leadership”. The days of “Big Talk, Do Nothing, Back-track, Appeasement, and Apology Tours” are over. 10% of Syrians were Christians in 2010, what happened to them all? Less than 1% of the “Syrian Refugees” are Christian (but about 70% are military age Muslem males?), so what happened to them? The Sunni ISIS kills them, as do the Iran-backed Shia, only the Kurds make any effort to protect them. We need to re-examine this.

UPDATE:– Deadline limited:As I originally suspected, reasonable intel is coming in that the gas released was not Sarin and probably a result of White Phosphorus munitions and chlorine.

Check the Website! I will update as info comes available and explain. But it is a good chance that the Shayrat Attack was based on bad info and bad advice.

This is a month for potpourri. To be sure here it will be meant as a jumble of thoughts for a month that is most important to me. April is, among other things, a most interesting month all in itself.

Over the centuries it has jumped around on the yearly calendar from first up to fifth and then our friend Julius Caesar settled it as the fourth month. It seems in the old days the order of months were not settled and folks just changed them. Personally, I am glad because it is hard enough to keep track of things like birthdays when they come at the same time of the year.

Which reminds me, for those of you who might remember, last month I was worried about renewing my driver’s license or possibly getting , worst case scenario, deported to Tahiti. I can tell you this is not being written in Tahiti.

However, sad to say, I no longer have a driver’s license. It seems when I was taking the vision test I couldn’t even find the little line that I was supposed to read. Neither my eye Dr. nor I were really surprised. I have been missing letters on his eye chart quite frequently.

The good news is that I now have a Texas ID card. This is the substitute for non-drivers who need to show identification. It even has a picture of me on it. The one on the driver’s license was better but then I am older. Actually, it is probably for the best for safety I stopped driving a couple of years ago.

But move on through the potpourris. One of the delightful things about April, other than my birthday, is that many other folks have the same birthday month. Did you know that in a random group of 23 there is a 50/50chance two will have the same birthday? In a group of 76 that jumps to almost a hundred percent chance. I have experienced that surprising phenomena in a group of 23.

Another thing about April is that we are not sure exactly why it is called April. The theory that seems the most popular is that it is a slight corruption of the Latin word that means to open. This is because here in the northern hemisphere it is Spring and flowers and trees start to open (bloom). In the southern hemisphere it marks the beginning of Autumn so I guess they think of pumpkins.

Another mystery is why the birthstone of April is a diamond. Now we all know that diamonds are a girl’s best friend and that it is the stone for weddings. Digging a little deeper we find that back in 1477 he Archduke of Austria started the diamond engagement ring thing. If Julius Caesar set up April back in BC, then the Archduke was not following the calendar thing for weddings. And by the time you read this I will be riding not driving into my 83rd year.