Summer of 1969
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See what’s June 15, 2021 coming to the Our 27th Year of Publishing FREE Clarion at BC (979) 849-5407 PLEASE Weekly © 2021 Bulletin SEE PAGE 16 mybulletinnewspaper.com TAKE ONE LAKE JACKSON • CLUTE • RICHWOOD • FREEPORT • OYSTER CREEK • JONES CREEK • ANGLETON • DANBURY • ALVIN • WEST COLUMBIA • BRAZORIA • SWEENY I wrote my cat’s Summer of 1969 obituary, and then Mother, son take this happened American-style vacation in Catskills By Ernie Williamson The Bulletin By John Toth We lived in a two-story house with The Bulletin no downstairs bedrooms when I Hello summer. learned I would probably never walk It’s my favorite time of the year. I again. can’t get enough of it. I can smell it, Since I could no longer use the feel it and taste summer. I can stand stairs, we rented a hospital bed and outside on a hot summer day and converted the living room into my take it all in as the warm wind brush bedroom. across my skin. I don’t care if it’s It was there that I would spend humid or dry, hot or very hot. long, sleepless nights wonder- Because it brings back good ing about the future. What if the memories of my first real vacation. It was the summer of 1969, and The View from My Seat my mother and I decided that we doctors were right, and I wouldn’t walk again? Would I be able return Ramblings to work? Could I afford to retire if I couldn’t? were going to take a real summer I was scared and alone with my vacation together, something we thoughts. had never done. Or, almost alone. My mother was too busy with Every night a calico cat would WWII, a revolution in Hungary, cozy up to me on that hospital bed. raising me behind the Iron Curtain Her presence provided a calming and then finally escaping with me to distraction. For a few moments, my the West. anxieties would vanish. Grandpa Ruffo discovers electricity; but what’s that smell? Now that we were settled in the The cat had a difficult start in life. By Roy Edwards If you smell that awful rotten egg I got a job as a dock hand with J.H. United States and the pressure of We found her and three litter mates The Bulletin odor, get out of the house because Rose Trucking. hopping from country to country covered with ants under a bush in PART 3 OF 3 that means there is a gas leak. At that time, Rose was the largest was gone, we decided that we were front of our Clear Lake home. After the New London School Without that chemical, natural gas non-union truck line in the U.S.A. going to become Americanized Friends adopted two of the kittens, tragedy, the state cracked down has no smell. They specialized in transporting oil some more and treat ourselves to but nobody wanted this calico or her on tapping into natural gas lines to I had applied for and been field equipment and supplies. One an American-style vacation. brother. We kept them. heat or illuminate homes and build- accepted to Baylor University, but I day, Red Rose, the dock foreman, The only problem we had was Kelly, my wife, is a bit of a cat ings, so Grandpa Ruffo needed knew that I had to fund most of my gave me a list of pick-ups and told money. So my mother went to our whisperer. She saw something in the another source of energy. college expenses. The summer of me to get the yard bob-tail truck and church and borrowed it - all $500 of it. The church loaned money to calico that others didn’t. She named But before we get to that part, 1959, after graduating high school, (See RUFFO on Page 5) the calico Sweetie. a short story about me and ethyl members who didn’t have a check- My veterinarian is leery of cats mercaptan, the chemical that gives ing account. At the time, we didn’t (See SWEETIE on Page 7) natural gas its odor. know what that was. I walk a mile in my shoe – and more We had the money and were set By Greg Schwem I’m not actually sure the art of to go to the Catskill Mountains to INSIDE THIS ISSUE Tribune Content Agency moving one foot in front of the a little town called Fleishman. We If you are struggling to find some- other was ever on the decline, but couldn’t afford the hotel with the BASF celebrates Angleton rec thing, anything, positive about a I’m sure seeing a lot more of it. pool and restaurant. We needed year spent being cooped up inside, Beginning in March 2020, when the more than $500 for that, plus we still a year of brings back masked when venturing outside and quarantine upended our daily lives, had to get there. wondering if that sneeze is the first I noticed a lot more people engag- (See VACATION on Page 6) senior programs sign of a horrible disease, look no ing in the simplest form of travel. excellence further than your feet. Suddenly unemployed dads took facebook.com/ SEE PAGE 9 SEE PAGE 10 Walking is making a comeback. (See WALKING on Page 13) thebulletinbrazoriacounty/ Page 2 THE BULLETIN June 15, 2021 (979) 849-5407 www.mybulletinnewspaper.com Based in Demi-John Anthony’s Key & Lockout Service Oyster Creek (979) 977-0020 . (713) 501-5625 LICENSED Auto Home, Business lockout Service Lock Hardware Installed Locks Rekeyed to Different Key Car Keys Made, Copied Also, Jumpstart, Fuel Delivery, Tire Change JUNE 16 JUNE 17 JUNE 18 JUNE 19 JUNE 20 JUNE 21 JUNE 22 Weather facts that are not that ordinary June 15 1662 - A fast was held at Salem, MA with prayers for rain, and the Lord gave a speedy answer. 1896 - The temperature at Fort Mojave, CA, soared to 127 degrees, the hottest reading of record for June for the U.S. The low that day was 97 degrees. Morning lows of 100 degrees were reported on the 12th, 14th and 16th of the month. June 16 1806 - A total eclipse of the sun was viewed from southern California to Massachusetts. 1917 - The temperature soared to 124 degrees at Mecca, climaxing the most destructive heat wave of record in California history. June 19 2006 - Up to 11 inches of rain fell in the Houston, Texas, area, causing widespread flash flooding. The Hous- ton Fire Department rescued more than 500 people from flood waters, but no serious injuries or fatalities were reported. June 20 1928 - A farmer near Greensburg, KS., looked up into the heart of a tor- nado. He described its walls as rotat- ing clouds lit with constant flashes of lightning and a strong gassy odor with a screaming, hissing sound . June 21 1919 - Seven heavy coach cars of a moving train were picked up and thrown from the tracks by tornado winds. A baggage car was set down 30 feet away from the rest of the train. www.mybulletinnewspaper.com (979) 849-5407 June 15, 2021 THE BULLETIN Page 3 Strange but True By Bill Sones the magnet without harm. the armor in the few spots WITH NO and Rich Sones, Ph.D. To levitate the frog required a field BULLET HOLES. That’s where bul- Tricky levitation 100,000 times the Earth’s mag- lets hit the planes that didn’t make Q. Levitation - floating in netic field; a human would need a it back, says David S. Moore in midair as if by turning off gravity vast magnet and field many times “Statistics: Concepts and Controver- - sure looks like fun in magic stronger than an MRI scanner. And sies.” General statistical rule: After shows. Is it true a real frog has adds Sir Michael Berry, wizard of you plot your data, think!” been levitated? And if a frog, why quantum mechanics, since the body Dream colors not you? is not uniform--tissues, bones, etc. Q. Are dreams in color or black A. To the world’s amazement, have different magnetic properties - and white? One man reported researchers at the Nijmegen High we would feel pushings and pullings dreaming in vivid colors like the Field Magnet Laboratory in Hol- all over. movies, another said black and land did manage to suspend a frog “If the magnetic force on flesh white, a third likened his dreams in midair with a balancing force is greater than on bone, it would to paintings or tapestries. When of magnetism, as close perhaps be as though we were held up by did the three live? as we’ll get to a sci-fi anti-gravity our flesh, bones hanging down, a A. Black and white was a machine, they said. The key is bizarre reversal of the usual and common idea of the 1950s, the diamagnetism, a quantum phenom- possibly the basis for an expensive golden age of black and white enon by which it turns out every- type of face-lift.” movies and early TV, says John thing from wood to pizza to “frogs Still, concludes Berry, “I would Whitfield of Nature.Com. Surveys and even humans can be lifted by enthusiastically volunteer to be the of the era had people saying they a magnet - providing it is strong first human levitatee.” You, too? rarely if ever dreamed in color. But enough,” says Roger Highfield in Interpreting data before and since, most people have “The Science of Harry Potter: How Q.