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Bandera County Courier is published weekly by Gail S. Joiner, 1210 Hackberry St., Bandera, TX 78003. Subscription price $26 per year in Bandera County, TX; $36 per year for other Texas counties; $40 per year out of Texas. POSTMASTER: send address changes to Bandera County Courier, P.O. Box 1704, Bandera, TX 78003. Periodicals Postage pending in Bandera, Texas.

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Rocktalk columns available in the on-line edition of the Courier:

April 3, 2008 March 27, 2008 March 20, 2008 March 13, 2008 March 6, 2008 Feb. 28, 2008 Feb. 21, 2008 Feb. 14, 2008 Jan. 14, 2008 Jan. 24, 2008 Jan. 17, 2008 Jan. 10, 2008 Dec. 13, 2007 Dec. 6, 2007 Nov. 29, 2007 Oct. 11, 2007 Oct. 4, 2007	Sept. 27, 2007 Sept. 20, 2007 Sept. 13, 2007 Sept. 6, 2007 Aug. 30, 2007 Aug. 23, 2007 Aug. 16, 2007 Aug. 9, 2007 Aug. 2, 2007 July 26, 2007 July 19, 2007 July 12, 2007 July 5, 2007
Columns from the second half of 2007	Columns from the first half of 2007
2006 columns	2005 columns

Rock Talk by Stephanie Parker Published April 3, 2008 Other columns can be accessed in date order from the table of contents.    So many people I know in Bandera rave about Cloudcroft, New Mexico, that I eagerly anticipated my recent visit to that location. The home folks were right. Cloudcroft is a small peaceful tourist-driven village. The postcard-perfect mountain and evergreen views encourage hiking and bike riding to ensure perfect enjoyment. The sunset I was privileged to watch flaunted all the colors of the rainbow–even green. It was a marvelous sight, painted with the perfection that only God’s broad strokes can achieve. However, it is not necessary to leave Texas for adventure.     When one crosses the state line into Texas, Texas flags are evident everywhere. It was hard to find a state flag while in New Mexico, Arkansas and Missouri. Guess those folks just don't have as much to be proud of as the folks in the Lone Star State do. Bandera County folks paint the Lone Star Flag on roofs and the sides of buildings. They paint it on corrugated roofing, frame it and hang it on the walls of their homes. They buy Texas shower curtains for their bathrooms, then search stores for towels and bath mats to match. Even outside Bandera County, the Texas flag flies high and proud and is duplicated in treasured decor in people's homes. Why?     I think it’s because you don’t have to leave Texas to go somewhere. Besides the obvious border-to-border choices of beach sand at the coast to flat plains, desert, mountains and pine tree forests, Texas has unique places to visit. Without ever leaving the state, for example, you can go to Earth or even to Erath. You can visit Colorado City without going to snow country Colorado. It is unnecessary to possess a passport if one lives in Texas because Texas is indeed a “whole other country.”     When the truck broke down near Frogville, Oklahoma, traveling while repairs were being made seemed like a winning idea. Who wants to be stuck in a place called Frogville? So, since I had already left Texas behind on a business trip, I took advantage of the down time to visit places I had only heard and read about– much like the afore mentioned Cloudcroft. Paris was in bloom. I enjoyed every yellow daffodil, every white frothing pear tree, every pink-cupped tulip tree. Then on to Athens and Rome. It was a great experience, much better I'm sure than sitting around Frogville waiting for the completion of the truck repairs.     So with God’s glorious springtime stealing across the globe, I visited those romantic, alluring places–Athens, Rome, Paris. My favorite was Paris in the springtime, a city for lovers and others. The giant red cowboy hat on the top of the Eiffel Tower was a winning touch.     Yes, cowboy hat. It’s not the Cowboy Capital of the World like Bandera, but Paris, Texas, can claim cowboy pride, too.

Rock Talk by Stephanie Parker Published March 27, 2008 Other columns can be accessed in date order from the table of contents.    Easter came the earliest this year that it is possible for it to arrive on the calendar. Wasn't fast enough for me because of chocolate –- rather -- lack of chocolate.     To explain, I am not Catholic and have never attended any church with roots that touch the Catholic faith. I had heard of Lent and Ash Wednesday, but I had no clue as to what those terms meant. Until this year. Until the chocolate.     To support a friend who is Catholic, I vowed to give up chocolate during Lent. A few days without chocolate, no big deal. Right? Then I found out to my shock that Lent lasts 40 days!     Giving up chocolate for 40 days would not be a sacrifice for some people. Me? I eat chocolate yogurt and drink chocolate milk for breakfast. I have eaten an entire chocolate pecan pie in one day--by myself. Along with running, I have a secret that keeps me from growing up into a 400-pound individual: if it is a sweet, I simply don't eat it unless it is chocolate. As American as apple pie? I don't like apple pie. Donuts for breakfast -- not unless they are Snowflake donuts from Bandera and best if drenched in chocolate.     All my life, I have eschewed non-chocolate treats. Even as a child, I was moved to tears when my mother arrived home with what she considered treats -- vanilla wafers. I picked up empty soft drink bottles from the side of the road and walked nearly two miles to redeem them for real treats -- chocolate candy bars. I'm virtually sure that since leaving home as an adult I have never gone even one week—rarely one day -- without chocolate.     Still, I had made a vow before the Lord. While I realized that I would not loose my salvation if I ate chocolate during Lent, I also realized that God is a covenant God. That's why marriage and keeping marriage vows is so important to Him. So...I went without chocolate for 40 days. To my amazement, it was easy. God's Word promises that God will either give us the strength to overcome a temptation or else provide a way in which to escape from any temptation that is too powerful for us to handle on our own. God made it easy for me to forget about chocolate and concentrate instead on how much Jesus had done for me: He died on the cross for my sins so that I, an undeserving person, could enter the kingdom of God. Amazing love. He loved me enough to die in my place.     Realizing that God had sacrificed His life for me made it easy for me to give up chocolate for 40 days. And that, I realized, was the purpose of human-made church events like Lent. God’s people need to remember what God did for them.     No, I'm still not Catholic. Nor am I a saint. Surviving this Lent thing called for celebrating with a huge chocolate-on-chocolate milkshake. Perhaps even a chocolate pecan pie and chocolate milk for breakfast...     Next year, perhaps I'll give up Diet Cokes. Then, again, probably not. After all, now I know that I'm looking at 40 days....

Rock Talk by Stephanie Parker Published March 20, 2008 Other columns can be accessed in date order from the table of contents.    Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name—only that this is a true story. The 85-year-old man had a rickety heart and suffered from constant pain. He wanted to die. He was afraid to kill himself for fear that he wouldn’t make it to heaven, so he devised a plan: run around the neighborhood. With his bad heart, he was bound to die. After 100 yards, he did pass out and fall down. When he revived, he saw trees and sky and was devastated that he was still alive on planet earth, not dead to the earth and alive in heaven. So when he got home, he threw out his heart medicine. The next day, he ran again. He made it 300 yards. Again he passed out and fell down. Again, he woke up—but not in heaven. Before long, he was running six miles. Now at age 90, he runs marathons.     Our pastor’s point in relating this story was that, as Christians, we need to pray. Then we need to get up and go do our part.     Our pastor related something else that same Sunday. It was a clear, warm, beautiful day. Church leaders visiting from other cities had commented to our pastor that spring had finally sprung in Texas. “Don’t count on it,” he told the visitors, “it will probably snow tomorrow.”     It did.     Hating cold weather the way I do, the late snow was a sore trial to me. However, the snow stayed on the ground and then melted slowly, just what the dried, brown winter grass needed.     Even now, the world is turning a bit more green and hopeful looking.     The power of life and death are in God’s hands. The marathon runner thought he was running to die when he was really running to live.     The seasons are in God’s hands. He made summer and winter. Thankfully, he made spring too. Spring is beautiful all over the world. No place can be more lovely in the spring, however, than the Texas Hill Country with its riot of wild flowers and the greening live oak trees that throw patches of shade down in welcome. The hills turn smoky-blue in the distance and give the sky a background to flaunt its pure colors, be it blue, stormy or sunburst dawn and evening.     What a perfect time of the year for Easter. The renewal of the earth in spring is an awesome backdrop for the shadow of the cross. Because Jesus died on the cross and rose again, He lives. Because He lives, we live and move and have our being.     And because spring does come again—even after a late snow in Texas—rebirth comes to the land and gladness comes to my heart. Hope to your heart, too.     Never forget that God is in control.

Rock Talk by Stephanie Parker Published March 13, 2008 Other columns can be accessed in date order from the table of contents.    Coming home to Bandera recently for a short visit was a blessed event in my life. True, the bluebonnets were not yet in bloom and it was too early to discard my coat, but the warmth of the home folks made up for the cool weather and their smiles dressed up the landscape of my heart.     One highlight—of many—was the Arkey Blue special at the OST. I ate it for breakfast, but it’s a great meal combo for any time of the day. (Enchiladas with an egg and jalapeños on top, served with tortillas.) Another highlight was going back to simplicity.     Let me explain. I can mess up anything. When someone giving directions tells me, "you can’t miss it," count on the fact that I’m already lost—perhaps even in the wrong town! When I add figures with a calculator, I add four times and take the average of all my answers. If it has to be accurate to the penny, I find someone better equipped to handle the problem. I can loose the top to the toothpaste tube while I am standing still in one place. Yes, I know that God loves me just the way I am, but I live among humans and I can drive them crazy just by being myself.     For example, city people. They scorn simplicity. The more automated their lives are, the more esteemed they feel. A sign on the back of a stall in one of the city’s fully automated bathrooms handed me the ammunition I had long needed for coping with bathroom emergencies like toilets that don’t flush when there is no handle jiggle and no top to remove to reach down inside and pull up the plunger. The sign read, "Sensor is out of order. Please push the black button."     After reading this, I was elated. I had never noticed that those newfangled toilets had black buttons, but now I finally knew the secret that would forever eliminate the embarrassment of leaving a stall in a city restroom looking every bit as much of a hick as I am because the stupid thing wouldn’t flush.     So when I entered a restroom a few days later and saw a woman standing outside a stall looking as frazzled as if the automated soap dispenser had filled up her purse and a seven-year-old had accused her of stealing soap—I felt confident to handle the emergency. No doubt the sensor was out of order and she—like the old simplistic me—did not know about the black button.     Confidently, I opened the door to the stall. The toilet flushed. I turned around to close the door. The toilet flushed. I backed up to the toilet. It flushed again. These were no ordinary flushes, but rather deep, rumbling roars that sent water careening around in the bowl and up over the seat. Suffice it to say that by the time I emerged again—wet and deafened from the repeated flushing—I understood the look on that poor woman’s face. There was no sign for what to do when the toilet sensor had become a power-hungry monster seeking to humiliate and devour. But I came up with a plan. It’s called duct tape. Now that I know where the little black buttons are, I’m going to find those sensor things.     Folks from Bantucky don’t have to worry about city frustrations yet. Like so many that deplore growth, I hope they never do. Isn’t it wonderful to have a warm friendly world inside a world to go home to when life becomes too rushed, hurried, hassled and convoluted?     Meanwhile, God is painting the dry winter grass green and glad. A new spring, a new day, a new promise. Life is good, even in The City.

Rock Talk by Stephanie Parker Published March 6, 2008 Other columns can be accessed in date order from the table of contents.    Some folks with problems in their lives pay doctors with shiny shoes big bucks to put them through therapy and help them get well.     God provides free therapy for those troubled in mind and spirit. Birds. There are 10,000 species of birds. They live in every eco system in the world from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Just watch the birds in your own eco-space.     Perhaps it is a compliment to be called a "bird brain." Birds wing their way unfailingly across the wide expanse of sky, unlike humans, never getting lost. Some birds make and use tools.     Ravens in the Great Basin Desert of northern Nevada like to stash their nests under the sheltered rocky roofs of abandoned gold mines. When their nests are threatened by an intruder, these wily birds pluck rocks from the mountain and drop them on the marauder's head. pretty smart for a mere "bird brain!"     Sparrows are the most plentiful bird species in the world. One can always find sparrows to watch. Watch them sidways-skipping through the grass finding seeds to eat or clinging unafraid to the pointy-prickly tips of Spanish daggers. Sparrows, regardless of the weather and the fierceness of the wind, remain unworried, unafraid.     Humans have a tendency to make problems for themselves, then worry about the problems. Worry spawns fear. It is a human-created condition that rolls, like a ball, picking up extra debris along the way until the ball grows into a mountain that is too heavy to push out of the way and too steep to climb.     Not so with birds. They scratch and eat and peep and cheep to raise their young and teach them to wing through the sky. It ís almost as if they have read the verses in the Bible where God promises to feed and clothe them; where God has promised that not even one sparrow will fall to the ground without His knowledge. God reminds us that if He takes such good care of seemingly insignificant sparrows, He will lavish even more care on his human creations-even when His human creations have caused their own problems and misery by rejecting His will and direction for their lives. With our words, our actions and our lifestyles, we create problems too big for us to solve alone. God, however, always has the answer.     So next time someone says, "that's for the birds," don't dismiss it too quickly. Birds are good therapy.

Rock Talk by Stephanie Parker Published Feb. 28, 2008 Other columns can be accessed in date order from the table of contents.    To a country girl from Bandera, the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex is a confusing, convoluted calamity waiting to clam-on to the suspecting. The danger is not just traffic congestion outside on the roadways–it's also the newfangled "improvements" inside the stories-tall buildings.     Take the fully automated restrooms. Please take them!     First, the automated toilets. They flush every time the sitter moves, thus drenching the sitter and rendering even the best toilet paper worthless. Then when the sitter stands up, the toilets have already reached their quota of flushes per minute. The real action that needs action is left behind for all to behold-like an indictment of bad citizenship. Worse yet, there is no way to get rid of the incriminating evidence: no nice water tank from which to pry the lid, no handle to jiggle-just dirty looks from the person who has been standing in line waiting for a stall.     With a brave, bold "who cares" look, one sallies off to the automated sink-which unlike the toilet-remains dry. Again, there is no remedy: no handles to turn, no fixtures to tap encouragingly. One must just bypass cleanliness, earning looks of disdain from those who found a water source with which to wash their hands.     The automatic soap dispenser, however, does work. Having placed my purse on the counter while I tried without success to wring water from a water-less automated faucet, I heard the shrill childish voice of a girl of perhaps seven. "Mommy, why is that woman stealing soap in her purse? Is she too poor to buy soap, Mommy?"     With horror, I realized that I had unknowingly placed my purse next to an automated soap dispenser. Suds were rising out of the top and running over the sides. I would have noticed sooner except for the automated towel dispenser that kept reeling out paper towels each time my shoulder moved. My shoulder, alas, had moved constantly as I had vainly attempted to coax water out of the sink. The resulting long unbroken string of paper towels from the automated towel dispenser that had no doubt been installed in an effort to save paper waste had reached the floor and was earning horrified looks from the environmentalists staking out the restroom.     One of my best-or worst-character traits is indifference toward what people think about me. I figure I'm too old and too busy to worry about it and it is God's business to judge me anyway. However, I could still hear the shrill voice of the seven-year old as I eased out of the restroom, attempting not to fall or have anyone else fall on the soap bubbles spilling out of my purse. "Look, Mommy, that woman who stole the soap wasted a lot of paper towels!"     Well, I'm going to attempt to shrug off the disillusionment of life in a big city and remind myself that Easter is coming up. Easter reminds all of us to take time to love others as much as Jesus loves us-Jesus Who died for our sins. And how thankful I am that God loves me even when I am wrecking havoc on the well-ordered metroplex. Besides, God understands. I believe that He lives in the Texas Hill Country not far from Bandera!

Rock Talk by Stephanie Parker Published Feb. 21, 2008 Other columns can be accessed in date order from the table of contents.    Valentine's Day in the Texas Hill Country was about the right time of the year to prune roses and plant potatoes and onions. With the last freeze typically around March 20, I usually rushed headlong to plant everything available, then replace what froze.     Here in Northwest Texas, it is not yet time to plant. It runs approximately 20 degrees colder here than it is around San Antonio. People around here are saying, "we didn't have much of a winter this year." They may not have had winter, but I did: weeks of freezing nights and near-freezing days. To me, that's winter.     However, I will quit complaining now about the cold and spend my energy instead praising God for my favorite time of the year, which starts now. The days begin to expand and darkness is held at bay for just a little longer each evening. Right now, the world is dry and brown. Even the native cactus-like plants look starved for water and sun. Soon, spring green will steal across the land and paint the vegetation, replacing the dry brittleness with supple, glowing green. Sunlight will restore warmth and lift human spirits-at least I know my spirits will lift! It will be time for planting flowers, mowing grass and building things with rocks. Who could possibly ask for more joy in life than those endeavors provide!     But, as always, God's Word speaks of the joys of spring more eloquently than any human writer could. Granted, the question of who will be running our country next is of upmost importance. But while human-crafted news flings out headlines and TV news blurbs about which candidates garner the most support for the November election, the Song of Solomon vibrates with a springly promise. "The winter is past...flowers appear on the earth: the time of the singing of birds has come and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land."     The voice of the turtle. What a soul-touching description of spring. So may your spring and mine be filled with singing: birds, the voice of the turtle-and most of all-the joy of the Lord.

Rock Talk by Stephanie Parker Published Feb. 14, 2008 Other columns can be accessed in date order from the table of contents.    Even churches plan their evening services around football's last big game of the season. Me, I plan outdoor activities because I can be alone.     My favorite pastime on that famous Sunday in Bandera County was getting a truckload of rocks. With virtually everyone else inside watching "The Game," I could load down the pickup truck to a squatting position and drive slowly home with a load of rocks without obstructing or slowing down the vehicles behind me–because of course, there were no vehicles behind me. Here in The City, it's a bit different. There are no rocks. Well, I mean, there are no unclaimed or loose rocks. However, Game Sunday was no different here. I took a long walk and found it possible to walk down the middle of the street for blocks with no traffic approaching from either direction. It was almost like being alone in the world.     Me, not being a football fan or even quite understanding exactly what happens in a football game, I was still a bit sad that New England lost. Winning would have been a perfect ending to a perfect season.     Fortunately, while humans–even human football teams–strive toward perfection and so often miss the mark–God is perfect. The Bible promises that God's perfect love casts out fear. That's a good verse for Valentine's Day and every day. The Bible is a love book. Song of Solomon contains a love song for all ages:     "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it."     "Set a seal upon thine heart, for love is strong as death."     "Thou hast ravished my heart."     First Corinthians 13 teaches us how to love, "Love suffers long and is kind...seeks not its own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil, rejoices in the truth...bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things–love never fails."     However, the real love message of the Bible that Jesus loved us so much that He died for us. "Greater love has no man than this, that a man would lay down his life for his friends."     Many magazines and newspapers run contests at Valentine's Day. Couples with the best love story come out with prizes. But the hands-down winner throughout time and history is Jesus who loved us so much that He died for our sins. God wrote the greatest love story of all time. It can never be equaled. Unlike a human football team–God is perfect.

Rock Talk by Stephanie Parker Published Jan. 31, 2008 Other columns can be accessed in date order from the table of contents.    Ending the first month of New Year 2008, we’ve surely earned the right to ask, "why can’t life be simple?"     Take aspirin. Thanks be to God for good health, I rarely do. The point is that when I need an aspirin, I really need an aspirin. Since I so seldom swallow anything other than food, water, Diet Cokes and herbs, that usually means following the directions for cooking rabbit stew: "First, catch a rabbit." Here in The City, that translates into driving to the store which translates into dodging both the little old folks (first-time drivers who had to learn to drive after losing a spouse) who are bent over the steering wheel peering cautiously over the hood as they drive at 15 miles an hour and the university students who are late for class and are passing the old folks at racetrack speed.     Vehicle insurance rates here in The City are among the highest in the state for exactly that reason. However, getting safely to and from the store is the easy part of taking an aspirin. For once home again, the challenge begins as a person with a really severe headache attempts to open all three tamper-proof safety seals on the bottle – oh – and then line up the invisible clear arrow on the bottle with the barely visible arrow on the lid. I hope someone filmed this for America’s Funniest Videos!     If this does get on AFV, please note that I kept true to my Christian faith and never uttered a profane word. However, I did ask God, "Why can’t life be easy?" Actually, I complained. It went something like this. "Now, God, I realize that you made the entire universe and that couldn’t have been easy. But, look: you’re God and I’m not. So is it wrong to ask for a bit of a break here? I’m not as big or as smart or as patient or as much of anything else as You are. Why can’t my life be easy just once?"     Then I sat back and imagined what an easy life would be. A tropical beach with soft gentle waves and tasty fruits dripping off exotic trees – a wonderful place where one would never have to work, never have to worry, never get cold. Or perhaps a rock quarry in the Hill Country and plenty of money so that I could spend my days building raised flowerbeds and filling them with native plants. There’s just so much one can do with rocks!     So I complained again. "Look, Jesus, I know that You are the Rock of my salvation. You bled and died so that my sins could be forgiven and I could get to Heaven. No, let’s be honest – You were tortured. That was harder than anything that I’ve ever gone through in my life, but even so, couldn’t life just be simple at least in 2008?     Then I remembered what my mother always said when I complained. "Now, Honey, if everything in the world were chocolate, you would get sick of chocolate and not enjoy it any more." (My mother never really knew or understood her oldest child.) "If you lived in a place that was easy and perfect where everything was lovely and beautiful and you never experienced any difficulties, you would get bored."     Yeah, right Mom. And if you lived here, I would be dodging you on the way to the store! All I’m asking for is a bottle of aspirin that is not so over-protected that I can’t open it.     Just for a simple life in 2008 – for everyone connected with The Bandera County Courier as a reader, contributor or staff member.

Rock Talk by Stephanie Parker Published Jan. 24, 2008 Other columns can be accessed in date order from the table of contents.    To those who appreciate musicals, Rogers and Hammerstein is a household word. A 1933 novel by Philip Strong was made into a movie in 1933, then remade into a Rogers and Hammerstein musical, "State Fair," in 1945. The musical version won an Oscar for best original song, "It Might as Well be Spring," and was nominated for best scoring of a musical picture.     Then, in 1962, State Fair was remade–updated into a more modern version. For whatever reason, the remake was a flop even though it showcased popular stars Pat Boone and Ann-Margaret. Oscar Hammerstein had died in 1960. Richard Rogers wrote new songs for the updated version. The movie was filmed in Dallas and featured the Texas State Fair, a move from Iowa as the backdrop in the original State Fair musical.     To me, the remake lacked the innocent and heart-warming appeal that made the Rogers and Hammerstein effort a huge hit, still beloved by new generations. One might say the musical had an "Andy Griffith-Mayberry" feel to it that lightened the audience’s burdens and sent them out of the theater feeling good about themselves and their world. I’m not quite sure why the 1962 version fell short of that.     Personally, having spent nearly a year now touring North Texas from border to border, I have never heard the "Texas accent" used by the characters in the 1962 remake. But perhaps the biggest strike against it for a Texan is one of the new songs that was added.     The well-meaning Rogers was forced to eliminate the Iowa song since the musical was now set in Texas. So he replaced it with a song that proclaimed, "It’s the little things about Texas that I love"–a sure recipe for failure here in Texas where we are all born knowing that everything in Texas is bigger and better!     If the myth of global warming proves to be founded on truth, I fully expect Alaska to melt. Texas will regain its status as the biggest state. The 1962 version of State Fair has finally made it to Broadway. However, without the support of Texans, that too will flop. When we’re the biggest state again, they will need us to like the musical. Texans can’t be expected to like a musical that has a song in it stating that, "It’s the little things about Texas that I love!"     Isn’t it interesting that one movie has been made three times in an attempt to reach perfection. When God does something, He gets it right the first time!

Rock Talk by Stephanie Parker Published Jan. 17, 2008 Other columns can be accessed in date order from the table of contents.    My brief stint in California last year at approximately this same time of year convinced me of something that, as a native Texan, I have always known. Texas simply has everything. Find the best parts of any other state and Texas can match–and usually beat it. For example, geese.     Now perhaps geese flying overhead and honking is not common in Bandera, but northern California does not have a monopoly on geese. It's been an unexpected joy to awake every morning here in The City to the call of wild geese winging their way across the skies, following invisible trails that God has marked for them.     There are some geese in Bandera. I remember especially the two that showed up in Lakehills after a thunderstorm and staked their residence with us. The giant water-filled pothole in the driveway apparently reminded them of a pond and they were happy swimming and splashing in its muddy depths. Now picture three big dogs, one a collie and one a 100-pound sheepdog–the guardians of the Lakehills property. Well, make that former guardians. For all three dogs were terrified by the geese. The two geese stayed with us until the pothole dried up, then disappeared. The dogs, however, had good memories. They never again ventured down the hill toward the pothole alone. They demanded human protection in case the winged intruders had returned.     My memory is good, too. Due to his size and weight, there was nothing I could do about the sheepdog's fright. The slightly smaller dog could outrun the geese. The collie, however, was old and her hips were weak. So when the geese charged us, wings beating the air nosily and honks sounding a warning to us–the former owners of both the property and the mud hole–I picked up the 50-pound collie and followed the other two dogs–meaning, I ran away, too!     So with one bad experience concerning geese behind me, why do I thrill to the cry of geese in the early morning? I think because it reminds me so clearly of the great treasure trove called "Texas." God was surely smiling when He crafted Texas. From the Hill Country to the coast, Texas has it all. No need to travel to any other state. Just decide what you want and look for it in Texas.     The rolling pine tree-clad land of east Texas resemble southern states all the way across to Georgia, right down to red soil. West Texas echoes western states all the way across to the California coast. Hot in south Texas, milder in northern Texas. Simply any choice of climate and scenery and an equal choice of city or country. Thank God for the joy of living in Texas this New Year. And if you don't live in Texas and are reading this column from somewhere else, get to Texas as soon as you can! It's a blessed country.

Rock Talk by Stephanie Parker Published Jan. 3, 2008 Other columns can be accessed in date order from the table of contents.    Not being a football fan, and in fact knowing absolutely nothing about football, I was nonetheless glad when the New England Patriots finished their regular season with a perfect 16-0 season.     Don't get me wrong—the game meant nothing to me personally—I didn't even watch it. What I admired was the Patriots' quest for perfection. Perfection is not one of my natural abilities.     I can mess up something as simple as a peanut butter sandwich by dropping it. When teaching at a Christian preschool, it took me seven years to learn the right tune (I can't sing) to the school's version of the ABC song. Then, when the school changed teaching materials and switched me to kindergarten, I had to learn the meaning of new words right along with my class—not long, elaborate words, but short words—filch, tarn, kirk, kern.     Perhaps the lack of perfection keeps one humble. If so, I should be disgustingly humble. I have spelled words wrong on billboard-sized signs. I have showed up at the wrong meeting at the wrong time when working at newspapers. I have lost things the size of a pickup truck and been lost in virtually every US state that I have driven through.     When I first moved here to The City, I wrote down the names of three churches that I wanted to attend. I couldn't find even one of them. More recently, I became so frustrated with attempting to find my way around Wichita Falls that I finally parked at the one Wal-Mart that I did find (Wichita Falls has three) and simply walked everywhere. I never did find the library, so I just bought a few used books from a bookstore that I did find.     I would love to be perfect. Perfect people don't have to jog to keep their weight down. They never show up at a party and find that the fancy duds they donned (another kindergarten word) for the party have a ripped seam. Their hair stays in place and still looks beautiful after experiencing a March wind storm in West Texas. They never drop or lose things or get lost and they don't need to mark the little lines on a yardstick when measuring because they can actually read the little marks and compute them into words like "make that seven and three sixteenths."     Fortunately for people like me, winning football games and reading yardsticks is not God's measure of perfection. God expects us to please Him. That's even harder than taking hits in a football game or passing a college math exam because Jesus set the example: love our enemies, do good to them that hate us, forgive others and keep our bodies from sin. No human can meet Jesus' example of perfection, but that's okay. Jesus died to forgive us for our imperfections.     Still, the Patriots set a good example in their quest for perfection, an example that a Christian can find a Bible verse to support: to "press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Unlike the Patriots, we might not reach the mark, but our lives will be richer and more joyful for having attempted the feat.