Thursday, May 30, 2019
Thursday, May 23, 2019
Baytown Texas Takes on the #TrashTag Challenge
This is SH-146 at Tabb's Bay in 1974. We were a dirty and smelly Tri-city town with a lot of growth in our future. |
We used to be viewed as just another stinky oil town. That is no longer the case. Baytown is actually cleaner than many cities surrounding Houston, but we can do better by educating the masses and actually going outside and removing debris from our town.
I've started a grass-root
effort here on Facebook to address educating the public AND getting them
involved in litter abatement and I am going to pursue this over the next year
with great passion.
We already have over 100
like-minded members and it is a vision where all members are accountable to
contribute effort to remove litter on a daily basis.
Possibly quarterly we will
tackle a large project and have a potluck meal afterward. There will be no
galas, no scholarships awarded, just people actually working to make our city
very clean. There will also be no kings, or queens and no $65 a plate to raise
money at this event... just people working.
It is the goal for this group
of volunteers to be heavily represented by the Baytown Sun and any TV news station we can
entice to cover it. I want Baytown
to shine and I do believe it will have an almost magical effect on our perception of the city.
It is important that we
document through photography and placing the photos on our individual pages to
encourage others to help. There is also an opportunity to shame litterers into
stopping. People who litter look just like us, our family, and our friends.
They need to be educated to stop throwing trash out the window of their cars
and truck.
Here is today’s photo of
#TrashTag (add this to your photo when you post it to FB) and the difference
ONE person can make:
The idea is each person works every day to remove litter. Small amounts add up quickly. |
The #TrashTag movement is an international effort for the average person to make a positive impact on the litter problem.
.
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Is Keep Baytown Beautiful really doing anything?
BB's take: Keep Baytown Beautiful just had a great big
"Gala" and handed out awards all over the place, with lots of high
fives and back-slapping celebrating all kinds of accomplishments unrelated to
making Baytown
beautiful. "The Baytown
Sun was awarded as Media of the year." Boy, I feel our city is more
beautiful than ever and that award exemplifies making Baytown more beautiful, now doesn't it?
It was
a major success according to the fact-based Baytown Sun. Baytown is surely
cleaner and nicer than it was last year, right?
I went
to their website, but it is down. You mean they had a great big event and their
web site ain't workin'? I was looking for a great big list of all their
projects and accomplishments (as they are not listed in the newspaper column)
so I could applaud the organization.
I'll
have to wait until an expert fixes the website to see what they have done,
because frankly, I'm not really feeling it. Sure, I participate in the yearly
Keep Texas Trash-off like many, but we need a monthly clean-up event that involves the whole city, like #TrashTag efforts going on across the planet.
One
productive year from now at the next gala, they first need to interview 10
random people off the street and ask them in front of everyone in attendance to
explain how Baytown
is more beautiful than it was last year. If the average denizen of Baytown does not perceive
that improvements have been made, this organization has not done their job.
It is
what it is folks. Boots on the ground is what this city needs. It needs the
average citizen educated and involved. It will take an entire city to shift
their perception and become proactive. To John and Joan Q. Smith, hosting big shindigs with lots of awards is just more bureaucrats awarding each other and passing smoke for real work. When I
see EVIDENCE of KBB's efforts on a regular basis, then and only then will I
think the organization’s leadership is paying more than lip service to the
community. #KeepBaytownBeautiful
Wednesday, May 08, 2019
Reminicing the Vietnam War
I arrived in a C-130 out of Clark AFB in July 1972 and left in May 1974. I was the lone human passenger and an E-3. I came from Malmstrom AFB and was a tool issue supply clerk with supply point experience in Minuteman Missiles (SAC). It was so cold in that plane I liked to have froze solid in my 1505 short-sleeved tropical uniform and the crew chief neglected me.
To this day I would like to kick his arse. Especially when by the time we actually landed, it was about a hundred degrees inside the cargo compartment of the plane.
Tent city was still going strong and I elected to move into a hootch from the open bay barrack that I stayed in the 1st week. That was awful with no fan and lizards all over the walls and ceilings combined with the National Geographic/Vietnam War in full swing with aircraft blasting the skies on afterburner. We had F-4 Phantom jets and when they took off in pairs it was so loud my ears would ring and all conversation would stop until it was over.
The point is I came when the base reopened and it was wild and woolly in the extreme. 19 bars opened up on the strip and a good number that were off limits. My buddy and roommate Tim Wheeler told me that in all the years he was in the AF, he remembers this time as the best.
There is a tale to be told in the middle and we all have them, but I was also there when most of the G.I’s and working girls left and many of the bars and stores closed and it was a quiet and very sad time. Takhli AFB and Bahn Takhli will always be a major part of my coming of age experience and like many, I cherish the memory and forget how many long hours I worked.
Just like when I arrived, I caught the freedom jet and I was the lone passenger leaving Takhli. I think this is one of the reasons so many airmen didn’t experience the “spitting” and derogatory remarks of protestors. Many of us came back one at a time and we made very small imprints on agitators. I have always claimed and believe I would have knocked the teeth out of anyone who spit on me because I was in uniform.
I would be interested in your initial response when you arrived. I remember the jungle humid mildew smell when the door opened on that C-130 and the thought that I would have to spend a year in this jungle hell-hole. So my initial thought was very sad and very negative. it changed very shortly when the world class adventure began.
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