Getting Loose

Deborah Sue Thomason

Oh, she was w-a-a-a-a-a-y out of my league. But I had always admired her from afar. She was a cheerleader at Beaumont High. She went to the church I grew up in— Trinity UMC. She sang in our youth choir. For a period of time she was in MYF when Patsy Quested was there and Al Frost and others. She would volunteer as a junior high kid to work with the Vacation Bible School kids in the summer. In 1967 she was the Neches River Festival Queen. But I just found out last night that Debbie Thomason has died.

I do not know all of her claims to fame. What I remember was that she played the part of the girl, Luisa, in the Beaumont Community Players rendition of the Fanastaicks, back in the ‘60's. Until she landed that role, I did not really know that that troupe even existed. It shows you how sheltered I was. The reviews she got were raving. The first play I was in, For Heaven’s Sake, she was in as well.

I can’t get over that she has died.

She was one of Dean Martin’s Golddiggers and toured with USO. She was a charmer to be very, very sure.

I remember her parents, M. V. and Clarice. They seemed older to me as a child, and perhaps they had her later in life. I never really knew. What I did know was that she was larger than life—energetic, infectious, mesmerizing, coltish, stunning, beautiful, alluring.

I just can’t believe that she is gone.

Good bye, Debbie. I’ll see you down the road.

Ike Strike--12

Well, the rain has finally hit. We lost our tv signal for a while, but at least as of a moment ago, it was back up.

We are also getting some pretty significant gusts. You can occasionally hear the wind blowing through the trees. The intensity is definitely beginning to pick up where I am.

Our temperature is 78. That’s probably as high or as low as it will get for a while. We probably have some gusts in the 50 mph range. From inside you can definitely hear the wind gusts from time to time.  They are now saying that the wind gusts will be in the 77 mph range.

I don’t know how many more of these I’ll be doing tonight.  And we’ll see if the power holds out.

Vaya con Dios.

Ike Strike--11

Well, we now have a 90% probability of experiencing a hurricane. It’s about 1½ hours out of Galveston and appears to be roaring toward that town. According to The Wall Street Journal the eye of Ike will go north, to the east of me, about 20 miles away. That means that I am not on the "dirty" side of the hurricane. I expect I will experience hurricane force wind gusts of 81 mph.

There is hardly any traffic outside. Neighbors are out walking their dogs. River Oaks, one of the priciest sections of real estate in the United States, to the ESE of me, has already lost power. We have two bathtubs full of water.

I expect no flooding where we live.

It is really fairly quiet here. We get gusts of about 45 mph from time to time, but that is about it. Still no rain.

Of course the news media is covering this like the plague. They have people stationed everywhere.

The things that amazes me the most is the surge way to the east of us in Louisiana. I would not have guessed that. Galveston is probably flooded everywhere by now.

Ike Strike--9

This sort of reminds me of that section in the movie the 10 Commandments where everyone is waiting for the Spirit of the Lord to pass over and kill all the first born.  In the movie, you hear these men chanting psalms in a low, mournful tone of voice. 

I read on MSN that it's now time for prayers.  The book of Psalms is the prayer book of the Bible, after all.

Ike Strike--8

You know what is sad?  I see I have Twitter on this site, and it has been over 100 days ago since I used it.  I'm not even sure how to access it.  That would really be a better way of doing all of this, than what I am doing on this blog!

Well, we now have about 100% chance of getting tropical force winds (39+ m.p.h.), about an 80% chance of getting 50-knot winds, and a 40 % chance of getting hurricane force winds.

It is now breezy, and we are getting gusts up to 28 m.p.h.

The big blow is a coming.

Nick Chopper

Well, Oz never did give nothing to the Tinman that he didn’t, didn't already have. Probably true. But we all feel at times as though there is something essential that we lack, and spend a lifetime looking for completeness in this or that activity, desiring this or that relationship.

My church in one of the Villages of Houston is putting on The Wizard of Oz, and I play a character whose first name was Nick, but you’d never know it from the play, because he goes by the name of Tinman. There are a lot of lines to learn, and one of these days I’m going to get them under my belt.

I’ve got a really neat costume and people will love it when they see me in it—axe and all. It will appear the last weekend of September and the first weekend of October.

Pray for me!