Contrasting Lottery Winners...Your Texas Tax Dollars at work...the Ugly Season...
Category: Kitchen Sink...
Posted Saturday, January 04, 2003 at 05:51 PM [GMT-6]

I couldn't help noting the contrast between the reactions of two recent lottery winners.

Everybody now knows the account of Jack Whittaker of West Virginia, who claimed the $300M+ Powerball prize a week or so ago. Already a self-proclaimed - albeit humble - millionaire business owner, Whittaker immediately announced his intention to donate $17M to three local churches. He was quite matter-of-fact about the reason for this generosity. This amount represents a cool 10% of his winnings (he elected to take the upfront cash payment option)...and that's the scriptural tithe. Now, I know a lot of people who are regular tithers (well, they say they are, and I have no reason to doubt them), but I wonder how many of them tithe on their gross income, before FIT? Ignoring the arguments on both sides of the "before taxes, after taxes" debate, I have to say that Jack's example is bound to challenge many who take seriously the Judeo-Christian tradition of giving a tithe to God, but who have struggled to figure out just exactly what that means.

In any event, compare Whitaker's reaction to that of yet another lottery winner, announced almost simultaneously but completely overshadowed by the magnitude of the Powerball payoff. This lady, a New Mexico resident who shall remain nameless, won $100K. A self-proclaimed welfare mom - during the TV interview she admitted that her paperwork at the welfare office was "this thick," accompanied by a inch or two gap between thumb and forefinger - she believed that this windfall would turn her life around. Among other things, she could now pay off her creditors, maybe buy a house, and her son could finally afford...

Afford what? To get that operation he has so desperately needed since infancy? To go to college? To replace the ragged clothes that made him the butt of jokes at school? We hung on every word, waiting to hear to what glorious pinnacle this money would catapult him.

...to get a necklace that didn't come from Wal-Mar...umm...(she apparently realized her faux pas: better not knock Wal-Mart, at least not on camera)...the Dollar General Store.

Well, you got to have your priorities, you know?

Today's weather was absolutely gorgeous: temps in the 60s, almost no wind, clear skies with the blue extending down almost to the horizon, perhaps indicating an abnormally low amount of atmospheric particulate matter. We went for a tandem ride, doing our usual 20 mile out-and-back route which takes us on the Hwy 191 service road to Hwy 1788. Apart from the shrew in the Dodge Ram dually who noisely made known her outrage over our presence in the right lane of the road, the ride was perfect.

We were taken aback, however, at the half dozen tractor-pulled mowers moving down the 191 medians. I mean, did anyone actually look at the vegetative state of those medians before order a full mowing crew to go to work on a Saturday? I've seen lawns in my neighborhood - which is a very nice neighborhood, generally speaking - needing mowing more than those medians. OK, I'll admit that where the rare rainfall puddled, there were a few forlorn patches of weeds pushing 6" in height, but that's all.

I suppose the company's contract with TX-DOT requires a scalping every x months, without specifying that there should be any judgment as to whether the service is needed or not. That flushing sound you hear in the background is simple your money moving from the public sector into the private sector. That's got to be good, right? For someone? Anyone?

But the piece de resistance was served up as we approached the 191/158 overpass on our way back in, and there on either side of the service road were two guys industriously operating weedeaters - WEEDEATERS! - around the various signs, reflector poles and who knows what else might be protruding from the medians. Well, it's nice to know that even though our schools may be falling apart, our bar ditches are by gum going to be squared away!

From the back of the bike, my wife commented, "you'd think they'd be doing a far better service by spending that time picking up trash." Which brings us to...

This is the ugly season in Midland County. The weather in this young year may have been nice, but the view certainly ain't. Drive west on 191 and you'll see what I mean. The denuded mesquite as far as the eye can see is adorned with plastic bags. Trash from church construction site is plastered against the south fence, courtesy of the big New Year's Day windstorm. The rednek populace has been busy sowing its seed in the form of bottles and cans (I spied one next to the road with the incongruous word "Natural" emblazoned across it in red). A big Telemundo sign blew in from somewhere and came to rest upright against a shrub, looking like a midget billboard. I think we'd have been better off, aesthetically anyway, not getting the good fall rains, as the trash shows up much better against the green winter weeds that sprang up as a result.

It's enough to make a singing cowboy cry:

Oh, spare me the home
Where the Wal-Mart bags roam
Where the cans and the bottles do lay.
Where never is found
A patch of junk- and trash-free ground
And mesquite are re-decorated each day.

Trash, trash on the range
Where the cans, bags and bottles do lay.
Where the roadrunner can't run
And the coyote has no fun
'Cause the trash is thick and here to stay.