LETTERS

We want to hear from our readers. Send letters to: Editor, Texas Co-op Power, 1122 Colorado, 24th Floor, Austin, TX 78701, or e-mail us at letters@texas-ec.org. Please include the name of your town and electric co-op. Letters may be edited for clarity and length and will appear in the magazine as space allows.

JUNE 2010

Aquarena Memories

Your article “Exploring the Depths” (April 2010, about the former Aquarena Springs theme park and current Aquarena Center) brought back some wonderful childhood memories. Our family vacationed in the Texas Hill Country one summer during the early ’60s and spent a day at Aquarena Springs. We attended the show in the submersible theater and went on the glass-bottom boat. Being a young child, I was amazed at all the fish we could see swimming below and found it incredible that a person could drink soda pop while underwater.

Thanks for renewing a pleasant childhood experience. We always enjoy reading Texas Co-op Power.

Martha E. Gideon
Rhome, CoServ Electric

Editor’s note: Martha was kind enough to send photos from her visit, including one showing an underwater clown (“… can’t recall if the clown was Glurpo, Bublio or Scrublio after 46 years,” she wrote). See the photos and longer versions of letters online at www.texascooppower.com.

I really enjoyed the article on Aquarena! My dad, Morris Smith, worked at Aquarena when I was a child (1956-58 and 1961-62). He died recently at age 78, just a few months before the Aquarena reunion mentioned in your article. Morris did everything: underwater clown, master of ceremonies for the underwater show, pilot of glass-bottom boats, etc.

I remember it was an incredibly beautiful place. My dad once tried to teach me to breathe using the breathing tube underwater. The air coming through the tube made it seem like a water hose at full blast in your mouth. I was 5 years old at the time, and I guess if I had figured out how to do it I might have been part of the underwater show!

I have lots of great memories of this unique and beautiful place, and I am very glad the public will continue to have access to it.

Terri Chesney
Waco, Hilco Electric Cooperative

Battery Disposal Locations

In reference to the article “Bigger, Better Batteries” (April 2010), where can one dispose of nickel-cadmium batteries? I don’t need companies that sell information on government regulations for disposal, just an approved disposal site in the Wood County vicinity.

Charles H. Price
Winnsboro, Wood County Electric Cooperative

Editor’s note: The Upper Sabine Valley Solid Waste Management District in Quitman will accept nickel cadmium batteries; call (903) 763-2123 for more information. To find a listing of other battery recycle drop-off locations, go to www.call2recycle.org and enter your zip code. The free service is offered by the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation, a nonprofit sponsoring 30,000 drop-off locations to recycle rechargeable batteries and cell phones.

Go Online for Recipe Archives

In the March 2010 issue, a customer requested recipes be printed on one side only. I couldn’t agree more, but I also realize that this is not always possible. Fortunately, the solution is simple: Go to the magazine’s website, www.texascooppower.com. For recipes in the current issue, click on “See the Table of Contents” and then “Recipes.” For recipes in previous issues, click on “Visit our Recipes Archive.” Once you have made your selection, find the recipe you would like to keep, then copy and paste into your favorite word processor for printing and saving.

Thank you for a great magazine and keep up the good work.
 
John C. Simkins
Woodville, Sam Houston Electric Cooperative

Looking Forward to Next Issue

We really enjoy our publication each month. There is always interesting information on various topics, sights to see and recipes to explore. Thank you for a well-informed magazine, one we look forward to each month.

Kirby and Kaaren Barker
Corpus Christi, Nueces Electric Cooperative

MAY 2010

Melding the Vintage and the Modern

The March 2010 edition of Texas Co-op Power, which featured the cover story “Seeds of Change: Farmer Finds Niche,” was especially meaningful to me. A Texas farmer with soil on his hands wearing jeans, a denim shirt, a gimme cap ... and a cell phone. Just like with electrification in the ’30s, there is always a way to meld the modern world and the land, and the electric co-op does it every day!

Kelley Stalder
Farmers Electric Cooperative

Keep the History Coming

I always enjoy reading Texas Co-op Power, but the March 2010 issue was my favorite. Moses Rose by Clay Coppedge (Footnotes in Texas History, “Moses Rose Didn’t Budge”) was great! Texas has so much history and myth, it was nice to hear this story. I need more!

David Townsend
Mid-South Synergy

Praise the Lord, and Pass the Pimento Cheese!
I smiled when I read the “Spread the News” pimento cheese article by Juddi Morris in the March 2010 issue. In the South, it’s like having the family Bible on the coffee table. My pimento cheese is in the refrigerator with a jar of green olives in front. We put pimento cheese smack-dab in the middle of every celery stick. Praise the Lord, pass the pimento cheese celery sticks, please, and God bless Texas!

Kim Cordes
Little Elm

This story did not appear in all editions of Texas Co-op Power. It is available on the website, www.texascooppower.com.



Don’t Rely on Government

Your March 2010 article “Count Me In!” about the 2010 census illustrates all that has become wrong with this country. Its main focus is using the census to extract money from the federal government. Hardin County residents should have bought their own private insurance policies (for hurricane damage). Instead, they received federal disaster aid—in essence making the rest of us pay their claims. If signing the census makes me a parasite, count me out.

James Van Dyke
Pedernales Electric Cooperative

I Was a Mighty Mite

Thank you for printing the article covering the Masonic Widows and Orphans Home Mighty Mites (“The Mighty Mites: The Orphans Who Could,” December 2009). It struck me especially hard because I entered the home in March 1939, and I remember all of those pictured or mentioned in the article. I, along with all Masonic Home boys, was immediately immersed in the football culture. Upon advancing to high school age, we were then dubbed “Mighty Mites.” We did our best to deserve that title. Thanks also to the people at United Cooperative Services who located a few extra copies of the magazine for me, which I sent to ex-students throughout the state.

Richard W. Opperman
United Cooperative Services

Controversy is OK

A number of readers responded to a letter to the editor in the March 2010 issue taking us to task for printing the December 2009 story “Borderline” about the fence being built along the Texas/Mexico border:

It was very disturbing to read the criticism of printing the border fence article. If a reader wants to avoid controversy, he or she can always skip to the next article, having been forewarned by the first word of the piece. I seem to remember reading about some level of controversy surrounding the Rural Electrification Act that made our present-day electric co-ops possible.

As far as the article being one-sided, it looked to me like the author was factual. Those facts indicate that OUR government implemented a reactionary, simplistic and terribly expensive solution to a very complex set of circumstances that have been in the making for over 100 years. This “quick fix” approach has had negative effects on many of OUR friends and neighbors and on the landscape and economy of OUR state without making very much progress toward the intended goal of improving border security.
I applaud your occasional publication of any article outside the “feel good” realm that might make us more aware of the realities that affect OUR daily lives—keep up the good work!

Bob Free
Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative

Regarding the letter that advised Texas Co-op Power to stay away from controversy, I say, “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.” I have raised four college graduates. I inculcated this premise as they grew. They are all hardworking, red-blooded Americans who have earned the right to stand up against “political correctness” and protect our land.

Les Bailey, SGM, U.S. Army (R)
Bartlett Electric Cooperative

No known terrorists have crossed the Texas/Mexico border to date. According to a report commissioned by Congress, the border wall—a double layer of concrete and iron 18 feet high in places—has had no impact on the number of immigrants who are in the United States illegally.
Texas and Mexico have shared history, culture and environment for centuries, but now universities are being cut in two, as are wildlife and nature refuges and preserves. Ancient wildlife corridors have been severed. U.S. citizens have found their property walled out of their own country. The Texas/Mexico border wall is a multibillion-dollar monument to xenophobia.

Hope Phillips
Pedernales Electric Cooperative

I would like to defend Texas Co-op Power for publishing the pictures of the fence installed along the Rio Grande. The fence is useless. It was put in by taking part of the property of those along the river. They had no rights. The fence was built to keep Mexicans from coming to the United States. What a joke. All they have to do is climb the fence, dig under it, cut a hole in it and come on in.

Annie R. Clark
Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative

Agarita Jelly Is Worth the Trouble

I just got the March 2010 issue and saw the blurb on page 5 about “The Aggressive Agarita.” Did you know that the berries make a fantastic jelly? At least everyone who has tried what I make has expressed that thought.

Joyce D. Schaefer
Port Lavaca

P.S. Agarita is an evergreen shrub. It is a low-growing native plant that can reach 8 feet in height. The shrub has small yellow flowers in early spring (or late winter if you live in South Texas) and produces red fruit. Warning: Do not confuse with holly berries, which are poisonous.

Electric Vehicles Too Costly

I read with interest the article “This Yellow Bus Runs Green” in the February 2010 issue. There is no doubt that electric or hybrid cars run cleaner, and maybe we need that. However, I was recently shocked when I found out what it cost to replace the batteries in one of these cars. I have heard from $4,000 to $10,000. Nowhere in this article did it mention this, and I have not read it in any other publication or advertisement. This type of vehicle is OK for a very rich and green person, but not the general public or schools. The best thing we can do is have people buy smaller and more efficient cars, drive less and slow down to 60 mph or below.

Patrick O. Reardon
Central Texas Electric Cooperative

Editor’s note: These are early days for electric buses and autos, but we thought readers would be interested in one of our member’s experiments.

APRIL 2010

Turkey Feather Dance

On an occasion when I was playing and flopping (dancing with) turkey feathers, my mother inquired what I was representing. I pointed to a large (Texas Centennial) poster plastered on the side of the neighboring garage and replied “I am Sally Rand,” as there she was portrayed with all her beautiful feather fans (“Sally Rand: Barely There,” Footnotes in Texas History, February 2010.)

We received passes to attend the comedy/burlesque show. I never got to meet Sally Rand, fans or no fans. My best memory was meeting entertainer Kate Smith. After the show in her dressing room she taught me the ditty “The Little Spider” and sang other songs with us kids.

Nedrah S. Magnan
Burnet

Vietnamese Deserve Recognition

The February 2010 issue had a great article on the Vietnamese in Texas (“From Surviving to Thriving: Vietnamese Now Woven Into Texas’ Community Fabric”). We lived in Rockport several years and were always very impressed with the work ethic of these people. They had a difficult beginning but gradually earned the respect they deserved.

Ollie Winfrey Evinger
Meridian

No Need To Buy Seed

Thank you for the article regarding the work of J. David Bamberger and the staff of the Selah Bamberger Ranch Preserve (“Water from Stone,” February 2010). As a volunteer in the education programs there, I have great regard and respect for the vitally important work Mr. Bamberger has inspired, led and facilitated generously with his resources. However, there is one aspect of your article that is incorrect.

You raise the question about whether restoration and conservation of Hill Country—or other land— really is for everybody, given the $20,000 David Bamberger spent on native grass seed. When Bamberger tells this story, he notes that he now considers it “Bamberger’s Folly.” After scouring not just Texas but the nation for native grass seed and spending that sum, he discovered the money and effort had been an unnecessary waste. You see, that seed is already present in virtually all areas once covered by our native short grasses. Even on the ruined land that is today Selah, those seeds were in the soil, waiting for the sun and moisture that removal of juniper allows.

The moral of Bamberger’s story is this: A chain saw and a good pair of loppers are all a landowner needs—along with some favorable weather—to see the prairie flourish on his or her land, once again.
 
Dave Collins
Pedernales Electric Cooperative

Editor’s note: Bamberger did not mention to us journalists that he decided purchase of seeds was not necessary, but that’s good to know.

Call a Licensed Electrical Contractor

I have noticed that many of your articles about electrical safety tell people to get a “licensed” electrician. Many people in Texas don’t realize that just having a journeyman license does not give the license holder the right to perform work.

The correct thing for people to do if they suspect a problem is to call a licensed electrical contractor. A licensed contractor will have the company name as well as a TECL (Texas electrical contractor’s license) number on the side of company vehicles and any related ads or company letterhead. This protects the homeowner because if the contractor has these numbers, that means he or she is licensed by the state of Texas and has the insurance that the state requires contractors to carry. Check out www.license.state.tx.us/ELECTRICIANS/elec.htm for more information.

Lance Askew
Jasper-Newton Electric Cooperative

MARCH 2010

Inquiring Minds

The watermelon that farmer Shelby Johnson hoisted on the cover of the January 2010 issue weighed 135 pounds. The guys who hang out at a feed store in Bartlett Electric Cooperative territory were especially interested in its weight. We suspect there was some wagering going on.

—Kaye Northcott, Editor

Sold on Texas Co-op Power

We are fairly new residents in Austin County. We love your magazine. Guests in our home always pick it up and peruse it. Now we leave copies in the guest room for their reading enjoyment. Texas Monthly could learn something from you!

Terri Smith
San Bernard Electric Cooperative

Lineman to the Rescue

On December 24 at 11:30 a.m., my power went off. This was right in the middle of what the weatherman called a 50-year snowstorm. I called lineman Bryan McKee because the J-A-C Electric Cooperative office was closed for Christmas, and his number was listed as on call. I explained my problem and tried to get ready for a cold spell.

Thanks to great service, my electricity cut on again at 1:50 p.m. Then the phone rang. It was Bryan calling
to make sure I was back in power.

It was funny that on December 28 I got an ad from another electric company wanting me to change service. All I could think was NEVER, NEVER would I want another electric service.

Patrick Smith
J-A-C Electric Cooperative

Recipes Request 

Recently, my mom experienced some severe health issues resulting in her moving into my home for daily
living assistance. Along with my mom came her forwarded mail. Much to my surprise,
I discovered your magazine in her mail. The recipes are wonderful. I have tried several of them with each one being outstanding. They have renewed my joy of cooking again.

I would like to make one request of your publishers: It would be wonderful for the recipe pages to be printed on one side only. This would allow your readers to cut out the recipes for proper filing and future use.

Lu Daniel
Sam Houston Electric Cooperative

Editor’s note: We try not to print recipes on the reverse side of a page, but if there are three pages of recipes, this is not always possible.

Mighty Cute Mites

Reading the story about the Mighty Mites football team by Jim Dent in the December 2009 issue (“The Mighty Mites: The Orphans Who Could”) brought back many fine childhood memories. I grew up in the Poly area of Fort Worth, and my father, John Waddell, worked at the Masonic Orphans Home for a while. On many Sundays, my dad would go over to the home and pick up some of the boys, many of whom played football, and bring them over to our house for a meal. My mother usually made fried chicken and cherry cobbler.

This was in the late ’50s and early ’60s when my sister and I were entering our teen years, and we thought those guys were so handsome. I was especially smitten by one, Kermit Smith. I have often thought of those days, of Kermit and of where he is today. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Jane Waddell Rosamond
Bandera and Nueces electric cooperatives

Movie in Works
The article and cover photo on the Mighty Mites were wonderful. The story is currently in the process of being made into a movie (see www.12mightyorphans.com), and we are posting the latest news that
we can announce there. Stay tuned for the rest of the story.

Ann Morton
Director of Communications, 12 Productions

Stay Away from Controversy

I, and many folks I’ve spoken to, are extremely disappointed that you would publish such a one-sided article in the December 2009 issue on the Rio Grande border fence (“Borderline: When It Comes to the Texas/Mexico Wall, No One’s Sitting on the Fence”). OUR government has chosen to erect the border fence for OUR protection, both physical and economic. Although some disagree with parts or even all of it, it isn’t the mission of OUR magazine to blatantly attack or downgrade every aspect of this effort.  

Al Schwerman
Pedernales Electric Cooperative

JANUARY 2010

He Likes Us 

What a DY-NO-MITE publication. I eagerly await the arrival of each new one—more so than my paid subscriptions.

Dan Branson
Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative

Solar Water Heating the Old Way

Re: “Solar Water Heating the Easy Way” in the October 2009 issue. I lived in Honolulu in
the early 1950s. Most of the houses had a link on the roof—galvanized pipe in a zigzaggy pattern with a glass cover. This was the hot water system. That was 50 years ago.

Ruth Davis
Central Texas Electric Cooperative

West Texas Tough

Elmer Kelton and I were in Crane Elementary together. Elmer rode a horse to school; I rode the school bus.

Our population in Crane County consisted of rattlesnakes, scorpions, centipedes, tarantulas, coyotes and huge jackrabbits. We survived two dust bowls, the Great Depression, the great oil boom and World War II. Our vegetation consisted of mesquite trees, prickly pears and tumbleweeds.

It is said, “If you aren’t tough when you go to West Texas, you are tough when you leave.”

Thanks, Elmer, for the legacy that you left for all who read your books about our West Texas heritage.

Harriette Gorman
Bandera Electric Cooperative

DECEMBER 2009

Paying Tribute to Elmer Kelton

Thanks for the tribute to author Elmer Kelton by Jeff Tietz in the October 2009 issue. One of the great thrills I have had as a freelance writer was having lunch one day in Boerne with Elmer and Ann Kelton. We talked about the beautiful Salzkammergut region of Austria, where Mrs. Kelton grew up and met her husband during World War II, and afterward how they lived in a little trailer while he studied journalism at the University of Texas. Mr. Kelton also mentioned that he worked at The Daily Texan there and remembered his own thrill of interviewing the popular country singer Eddy Arnold.

Apart from being an extraordinary writer, Elmer Kelton (who died on August 22 at the age of 83) was a gracious and unpretentious human being.

Ron Hunka
Pedernales Electric Cooperative

Nuts About Pecan Story

I loved the article about Texas pecans (“Pick of the Crop,” October 2009) and will never complain about the price of pecans again ... and the photo of pecan pie was just delicious!

The story brought back memories from the ’30s of a little girl sitting like a little bird at the feet of her grandpa, waiting, mouth watering, as he carefully carved each end of a pecan, slit it down the side and pulled out two perfect nuts—he gave me one and kept the other for himself. It was a wonderful communion between two souls as we savored our pecans.

My husband, Jack, and I love your magazine, especially the stories of olden times, and the recipes are great! We also appreciate our electricity from Magic Valley Electric Cooperative. We never lost power while we endured Hurricane Dolly last year in our home south of San Benito.

Oma Lee and Jack Van Heel
Magic Valley Electric Cooperative

Fighting the Flu

“The Forgotten Pandemic,” the article on the 1918 flu pandemic that ran in the August 2009 issue, was of special interest to our family. My mother, Ottie Lee Hargis Childs, was 10 years old in the fall of 1918. She lived in rural East Texas with her parents, Roy and Annie Hargis (who was pregnant) and her siblings, Ruby Mae (8), Joe Frank (6), Myrtie Louise (4) and William Lake (2). All of the family had the flu except Ottie Lee. Because of the fear of the disease, no one would come in to help, but the neighbors chopped wood and milked the cow, leaving food and wood on the porch for the family. Ottie Lee became the family’s nurse, laundress, cook and caretaker until everyone recovered. That experience was the foundation for the rest of her life of caring for her family and others, until her death in 1999 at the age of 91.

Note: Later, three more children were added to the family—Mary Serena, Annie Royce and Ross Wilton. Myrtie Louise Hargis Spence, the last of the children to survive the flu, is now 95 and lives in Hurst. Their youngest sister, Annie Royce Hargis Pittman, lives in College Station where she is a member of Bryan Texas Utilities.

Gloria Childs Johnson
Bryan Texas Utilities

NOVEMBER 2009

Phantoms Raid Your Electricity 

I noticed in your article “2 Good 2 Be True = False” (Power Connections, July 2009 issue) that you mentioned saving on electricity by unplugging devices that are not being used. I have heard this and wondered how true it is. Can you explain why and how it works and how much of your electricity bill you can expect to save? It seems that if your switches on your device work properly, unplugging the device should not be necessary.
 
Gene Shull
Wood County Electric Cooperative

Editor’s note: The usual suspect is “phantom” or “stand-by” power such as that used by televisions, computers and microwaves. They continue to consume small amounts of electricity when they are turned off. This is the power that allows a TV to come on instantly without warming up. Some estimates are that phantom electricity accounts for up to 10 percent of a household’s electricity budget.

Sweetwater Scouts Met Football Great

I remember meeting Sammy Baugh much the way Joe Holley did (“Slingin’ Sammy Baugh,” September 2009 issue), only it was my scoutmaster, not my father, who presented Mr. Baugh to me and my fellow Sweetwater Boy Scouts. We had gone out to Baugh’s ranch to climb some of those rocky hills that dot that area of Texas. Just as Mr. Holley, I had no idea who Baugh was. I do remember him as being very tall and slender and “old.” I now realize he was only in his 40s at the time and was probably coaching at Hardin-Simmons University. Of course, since that time I have read of his gridiron exploits at Texas Christian University and with the Washington Redskins. But until I read the article in Texas Co-op Power, I did not know that he began his athletic career in my hometown. Had my family not moved from Sweetwater to Irving the summer before I started junior high, I am sure I would have seen his name in the trophy case at Sweetwater High.

Stanley Statser
Wood County Electric Cooperative

Sammy Was Slingin’

You outdid yourself with the article on Sammy Baugh by Joe Holley. I got to accompany my uncle out to the Baugh ranch one day, and when we arrived, there was Slingin’ Sammy Baugh throwing a football through a swinging tire. I was impressed and have been to this day on the accomplishments of a great football star.

Carl Bailey
Comanche Electric Cooperative

Home Schooling Has Advantages

In his August 2009 letter, Roy Mitchell takes to task one of the Quebe sisters for her remark about being home-schooled “to get us away from the bad influences of public school.” Perhaps her comment, which appeared in a June 2009 Texas Co-op Power article about the Quebe Sisters Band, wasn’t as flippant as he believes.
 
Many Texas families choose to home-school for this very reason, believing that the risks of a public education clearly outweigh the benefits. Besides a generally better education (as evidenced by studies that compare home-school and public-school student scores on standardized tests), safe environment and learning to work with other students and adults of various ages, home-schooled children are monitored for their individual progress.
 
This is not to say that there are no benefits to public education, as Mitchell noted (for example, learning to work with people with different beliefs, ideas, cultures and ethnicities). However, it might be hard to defend Mitchell’s apparent proposition that there are no bad influences of public school. Otherwise, their reason for their school choice is as valid as any other.
 
Ben Debusk
Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative

Family Survives Pandemic

I read with much interest the article “The Forgotten Pandemic” (Footnotes in Texas History, August 2009). I know it was indeed the flu that took three of my mother’s siblings and her father in the space of one month from May to June 1918. My mother was born two months later and named Wesley after her father. Left pregnant with four remaining children, my grandmother, Anna Horn Johnson, had her faith as a devout Christian tested. She, like countless others, “survived” this tragedy and raised her family well. 

Catherine Hall-Womack
Pedernales Electric Cooperative

Come to Mesquite Show

I enjoyed your September 2009 article “The Much-Maligned Mesquite.” Since I retired nearly six years ago, I spend most of my time in my shop making useful items from mesquite on my wood lathe. The wood from the mesquite tree is ideal for wood lathe work.
 
As a member of the Texas Mesquite Association (www.texasmesquiteassn.org), I would like to invite everyone to the Texas Mesquite Art Festival in San Angelo, scheduled for April 16-18. You will find everything imaginable made from mesquite at the festival. There is even one man who makes kitchen sinks out of mesquite.

Terry Nance
Guadalupe Valley and Nueces electric cooperatives

Mesquite Serves As Cattle Feed

Your September 2009 article on mesquite was informative, but there is one very important and interesting facet of this wood that was not mentioned. You may suggest to the author, Clay Coppedge, that he investigate the nutritional value afforded to range cattle. I have personally saved my herd by feeding them mesquite beans during the tough times we face so often here in South Texas.

Abel Arredondo
Karnes Electric Cooperative

OCTOBER 2009

Paradise Found

My wife and I recently spent part of a day rummaging around Booked Up in Archer City, Larry McMurtry’s bookstore.

The 200,000-volume bookstore south of Wichita Falls would have been one of those best-kept secrets without Jeff Tietz’s article (“A Bookish Paradise,” August 2009 issue). The soft-spoken manager, a persistent purring black and white resident cat that welcomed us, an immediately recognizable musty smell of old books, row after row of really old and not so old one-of-a-kind books of all sorts, sizes and shapes was a unique and memorable event.

In addition, our Dairy Queen lunch, where one of the local pearl-buttoned cowboys showed my wife how spurs are fastened to cowboy boots, will be one of those moments never to be forgotten.
   
Mike and Deanne Silverstein
Farmers Electric Cooperative

Coupon Websites Save Dollars

In your August 2009 Recipe section (“Have a Plan Before You Go to the Store”), you gave information about cost-saving tips while grocery shopping. I have been clipping coupons for the past year using two websites that basically did all the pricing work for me. One site is www.thegrocerygame.com. There is a nominal charge for this site. The other is www.couponmom.com, a free site. These sites do all the homework for you, so no notebook or research is needed.

Just buy the Sunday paper and keep the coupon booklets in a folder, as sales are cyclical. Each website references the Sunday date of the coupon and from which flier it can be clipped. For products not listed with coupons, say meats and produce, the websites list all those items on sale that week and the percentage savings on those items. You’ll also discover there are some weeks when items with coupons are actually free!

Ginger Belsha
Houston

Bravo for Bandanas

“An Ode to the Bandana” by Kenneth L. Canion in the August 2009 issue was a great story. I've been a tomboy bandana user since I can remember. I still use them today. I once tied one to a calf’s tail out in the pasture because at the moment we didn’t have a way to mark it for special treatment later. When working, I like old, soft, worn-out ones and camouflaged colored for hunting and sharp-colored ones for dressing up. And add hunting face mask, trail marker, animal tag and fashion accessory (other than Western wear) to Canion’s list of uses.

Thank you for reminding folks of another simple thing that seems to be falling by the wayside. I can’t leave home without one!

Judy Bishop Jurek
Wharton County Electric Cooperative

Editor’s note: “An Ode to the Bandana” did not appear in all editions of Texas Co-op Power, but it can be found at www.texascooppower.com.

Pandemic Might Be Worse Today

I appreciated the article by Shannon Oelrich (“The Forgotten Pandemic,” August 2009 issue), which brought out many important facets about the 1918 pandemic. However, one important fact seems to have been omitted. As I understand, the virus actually began at Fort Riley, Kansas. When American soldiers went to Europe, they introduced the virus to the European continent. The virus then mutated into its most deadly form, and the returning soldiers brought back with them the more dangerous strain.

The lesson here is that the same critical result could apply to the H1N1 virus (swine flu). However, the world is much smaller today, and interaction between people around the world heightens the prospect of international exposure and the potential of a mutation may be greater than that of the 1918 virus.

Ramon C. Noches
Austin

Grandmother Survived 1918 Influenza

The article about “The Forgotten Pandemic” in the August 2009 issue reminded me of a story I heard my grandmother tell. She was born in 1904 and had “the influenza” as she called it, when she was 14, which would have been in 1918.
 
When Maggie Adeline (Hayes) Emerson had the influenza at 14, she was so ill that her parents took her to the hospital in Ada, Oklahoma. Maggie saw funerals every day from her room, but she remembered one day in particular when she watched six funeral processions go by in the same day. Thankfully she recovered, but came home to find that two of her friends had died.
 
Thank you for helping me to make a family connection to “The Forgotten Pandemic.”
 
Jan Greenlee Hayes
South Plains Electric Cooperative