Making the World Greener - One Tree at a Time

For more than four decades, the Nebraska City-based Arbor Day Foundation has planted and distributed more than 10 million trees annually.

Why? Because trees cool cities, buffer rivers and streams, serve as windbreaks, and help control erosion and pollution. And they provide nesting sites for our feathered friends. This non-profit conservation and education organization has one mission: To inspire people to plant, nurture and celebrate trees. It grew out of the 19th century work of J. Sterling Morton. A visionary and conservationist, Morton encountered a nearly treeless prairie when he moved with his bride from Michigan to Nebraska in 1854. Staking a claim in Nebraska City, the newspaper editor began importing and experimenting with trees. He gave away saplings, many to pioneers heading west. In 1872, Morton initiated Arbor Day to spread his passion. That year, Nebraskans planted one million trees.

My own mother did her part. Living in dry West Texas, she was thrilled to discover that a cottonwood tree had come up in our arid, hard-as-rock back yard. From then on, she faithfully carried buckets of rinse water from the laundry and carefully poured every drop on the tree. By the time I was a teenager, that sole tree could be seen from miles away.

The Foundation and its partners, Tree Cities, USA, work to preserve forests across the globe, restore habitat and forest ecosystems, encourage and maintain urban forests, replace trees in areas hit by natural disasters, and design playgrounds that connect children with nature. America’s forests are national treasures. They provide wood for our homes, habitat for wild life, clean air and drinking water for millions.

Our forests are our future.

Moving

When your whole life is in a new place, you need familiar tasks and belongings to help calm the chaos.

It’s 7:00 a.m. Do you know where your toothbrush is? If you do and you can also find your phone charger, put your hands on a clean towel and have all you need to make a cup of coffee, be grateful.

During my first year of marriage, we moved four times. Moving wasn’t a hardship at that time. Our primary housekeeping belongings were a radio and a coffee pot. We did have a few extras such as bedding, table cloths and pictures for the walls. And we had all those lovely wedding shower gifts. We just stowed everything in the back seat and trunk of the car and towed a piled-up trailer. The only stressful event on that first move was discovering that my pillow never survived the trip.

After the Korean “police action” ended and my soldier husband came home, we settled down in one place for 28 years. Let me assure you that the next move took years off my life. That relocation was hard on my fingernails and made me pop Advil like jelly beans. I even considered sitting on the curb by the garbage cans swilling Jack Daniel. But there was no time for that.

The physical aspect of a move - the packing, loading, unloading and unpacking, is hard. But the hardest part is mental – making tough choices regarding what to discard, what to keep and how to move it is almost too much. Then there are the thousands of small interconnected decisions in short order about where to put everything.

That move was eye-opening and educational. I learned to live more efficiently. I carefully considered each of our acts of daily living and streamlined them. Now the hair brushes and combs were with the hair appliances. The can opener was with the canned goods. Toothbrushes, toothpaste and floss were together in the same, narrow drawer. All you have to do is think about what you do, when, where and with what and pull it all together.

Twenty-five years later when faced with the empty-nest syndrome and an urgent need for down-sizing, I was ready. In touching distance at all times was my clip board of lists, room dimensions, paint swatches and moving company phone numbers. It was a piece of cake!

Living well is a lot less about where we live and far more about how we live.

Failure is an Option

Sometimes focusing on perfection is beside the point.

In his book, Little Failure, Gary Shteyngart explains that eventual success is often the result of failures.
Those who raise organic vegetables for a living, or bake cheesecake or paint burlap table runners, are pursuing a “New American Dream.” If you read between the lines, you may see signs of failure.

As more of us quit our day jobs and become free agents, ultimate success belongs not to the most talented or the hardest working, but to those who recover best from bad luck and their own mistakes. In some fields, failing is a necessity. Body builders lift to failure, pumping iron until they can’t do one more rep. Judo beginners learn the art of falling. Engineers push devices until they break, to measure the margin of safety. Many successful people proudly describe their flops and recoveries. Failing is a skill that everyone should learn at an early age.

Take writing for example. Instead of instructing students to create a great first draft, we should show them how to rewrite a lousy one.

So, fellow strivers, go out there, do your best, and fail! While the meek shall inherit the earth, the resilient will earn it the hard way.

Airlines Give Flowers Wings

Miami International Airport is the entry point for 85 percent of flowers, including Mother’s Day bouquets.

Most airline passengers focus on legroom and the space in the overhead bins. Few think about what’s beneath the cabin floor. Roses, carnations, hydrangeas, sunflowers and other varieties arrive in the United States in the bellies of passenger planes. They are rushed by forklift from planes to chilled warehouses and then onto refrigerated trucks or other planes. Eventually, they’re delivered to florists, gas stations and grocery stores across the country.

Airplane cargo can include fresh Alaskan salmon, this year’s latest luxury clothing from Milan and Peruvian asparagus heading to London. Then there are the more unusual items like human corneas, the occasional live cheetah or lion, and large shipments of gold and diamonds. Cargo is an increasingly important part of the business for U.S. passenger airlines. New jets are built with more freight space. And airlines are adding new nonstop international routes popular with shippers. That provides plenty of room for flowers. Thousands of flowers are needed every Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day – the two dates when the most flowers are sold.

If this year’s severe weather continues through May 11, the biggest problem this Mother’s Day might be the final few miles of the journey. Cold fronts, high winds, mud slides and tornados may make suburban roads difficult for local delivery drivers.

Pass the Pigskin

Recently at a family gathering, I mentioned that the Dallas Cowboys are my favorite NFL team.

When the laughter abated, the ridicule began. Finally, we all agreed that even though we cheered for different teams, we were united in love for the game.

Perhaps part of that appreciation is due to the dedication of Paul Cunningham of Leather Head Sports in Glen Rock, NJ. Using a utility knife and a steel template, Cunningham cuts four identical panels, which he’ll stitch together to create what he considers the perfect football - blending both function and art.
“Symmetry is vital so the ball doesn’t wobble,” he says. “Ultimately, I want a ball that has a lot of sensory appeal. It should look beautiful, feel supple and have a warm, enticing leather aroma.”

Passionate about both sports and leather craftsmanship, Cunningham creates custom-made baseballs, basketballs, footballs, rugby balls and medicine balls for people who appreciate ruggedly beautiful sports equipment. Footballs, however, are his top-sellers, and he sells thousands of them each year.

It takes Cunningham about 35 minutes to create a Leather Head football – from cutting and stitching together the leather panels and pumping air into the internal rubber bladder that gives the ball its shape.

“Paul’s sport balls are like museum pieces, but you can play with them,” says one retailer. “You do pay extra, but the craftsmanship is excellent.”

Bridging the Generation Gap

Today 10,000 baby boomers turned 65.

Another 10,000 will cross that threshold tomorrow. This will keep happening every single day between now and 2030.

No one knows what old age holds for anyone individually, but demographers and economists say the gray tsunami may overwhelm our country. By the time every boomer is collecting Social Security and Medicare, those two programs are projected to use up about half our entire federal budget-- and the trust funds for both will be broke. That’s because the ratio of taxpayers to retirees will have fallen to its lowest level ever, about 2 to 1. When Social Security first went into effect, the ratio was 20 to 1.
But renegotiating the contract between the generations will be a tall order. Today young and old in America don’t look alike, act alike or vote alike. The BOOMERS were born in 1946 to 1964. They now total 76 million and are age 49 to 67. The boomers biggest obsession isn’t sex, drugs or rock and roll – it’s having enough money for their golden years.

The MILLENNIALS are our most diverse generation ever. They were born 1981 to ? and total about 80 million. Their age range is 18 to 32. More than four in ten are nonwhites. Many are the children of the great wave of Hispanics and Asians who flooded the country a half century ago. Compared with their elders, millennials are political liberals, digital wizards, slow to marry and have children, and they’re broke.

Economic insecurity binds these two massive generations. Many boomers haven’t saved enough for retirement. They’re at risk of being the first generation in modern American history to have a lower standard of living than their parents enjoyed. The two generations are generally congenial and get along just fine. They often live interdependently. Hopefully, the good vibrations will help with the hard political bargaining ahead. As Americans, we’re all in this together. Social Security and Medicare must be brought into sync with the new demographics of the 21st century, and that means some combination of benefit cuts and tax increases.

Every generation will have to share in the pain.

Water Floats Texas' Future

By 2060, water shortages on the current level would result in severe consequences state wide:

Loss of about $115.7 billion annually in income.
Loss of 1.1 million jobs.
$9.8 billion loss in state and local business taxes.
Homes, businesses, and agri-industry will need 8.3 million acre-feet of additional water.

Texas population grew from 20.8 million in 2000 to 26.4 million in 2012. It’s expected to top 46 million in 2060. Such explosive growth and success create an urgent need for adequate water supplies to serve a wide range of demands from homes to business and industry, schools and numerous other sectors.

At the heart of all concerns is increased water conservation. One primary issue is Texas power plants’ water-supply role. Power plants consume only about three percent of Texas’ water. Most of the water is returned to lakes and rivers after plant use, but that does not reduce power plants’ water supply needs which total about 43 percent of all water withdrawals in the state. Currently Texas has 250 large power plants which require steady supplies of water for cooling, mainly from lakes and rivers.

There is one strong beam of light – a constitutional amendment known as Proposition Six passed in November, 2013. This amendment will supply about $2 billion from the Texas Economic Stabilization Fund to the Texas Water Development Board to lend to local entities for completion of water projects.
Adequate water supply is Texas’ most basic need as it works to realize its potential in economic strength and quality of life for Texans.

Much of Texas’ future rests on the advantages offered through Proposition Six.

Dollars and Sense

Money guru Dave Ramsey’s passion is educating people about money. 

At the lowest point in his life, Ramsey struggled to advise even himself. He’d lost everything he’d built in real estate to a market downturn and had to declare bankruptcy.

That twist of fate led him to his calling of helping people understand money and manage their finances. He rebuilt his company into a 400-employee media franchise in Franklin, TN that incorporates a successful radio show, several best-selling books, and money-management events.

Ramsey believes the time to teach people to understand money is when they are children. His children were never given money – they had to earn it. At age 15, they got their own checking accounts and had to budget them. If they had an overdraft, they had to go to the bank and apologize. Ramsey believes in teaching “contentment”- keeping your child’s desires and expectations realistically in check.

“You can’t teach your kid to save if you don’t save, or give if you don’t give, and they have to see you doing it and know why.”

Money is a stress point for many people of all ages. But a parent giving their child the gift of how to interact with money in life is a real blessing.

Love That Twang!

Nothing else sounds quite like a Deering banjo.

When Greg Deering was 12, The Kingston Trio inspired him to save his paper route money and buy a banjo. He wanted to play along with “Tom Dooley.” Half a century later, Deering and his crew of craftsman in Spring Valley, CA have built more than 100,000 of the stringed instruments. Artists such as Bela Fleck, Taylor Swift and Keith Urban strum Deerings.

Deering, who launched his company in 1975, is the largest manufacturer of banjos in the nation. He produced 10,000 of this musical instrument in 2013. In his 18,000-square-foot factory, banjos begin as pieces of hardwood, which are cut into long, tapered necks and rounded triple-ply rims. The craftsmen sand and stain the necks before affixing frets and inserting decorative inlays. The rim is covered with a synthetic “skin” and attached to metal rings, which give the banjo its unique tone and twang.

After the neck and body are joined, the instruments are fitted with bridges, tuning pegs and other hardware prior to stringing and tuning. Viola! A unique banjo is born.

Moral to the story: Find something you love and excel at, then follow your dream. The sky’s the limit!

No Swimming, No Fishing, No Water

Twenty miles from my home, in a town of about 17,000 people including two of my great- grandchildren, there is enough water for 300 days.

Mineral Wells, Texas, once famous for its beneficial hot mineral water, implemented strict use restrictions, but the city’s main water source is almost dry. Palo Pinto Lake, serving 31,000 users in Mineral Wells and the surrounding small towns, is less than 25% full.

One solution is to temporarily acquire rights to Brazos River water. However, the Brazos River Authority just mailed notices asking customers for a 10 percent reduction in water consumption. The three major lakes in this system are at an all-time low.

The long-term solution is building the $70 million Turkey Creek Reservoir just downstream from Palo Pinto Lake. This would double the city’s water supply. Turkey Creek is still in the application process with the Army Corp of Engineers and the state environmental agency. If a permit is granted within one or two years, construction would start in 2018 and be completed in 2020. Then a lot of rain would be needed to fill it. Six years is a long time to wait for a bath.

The situation at Palo Pinto Lake is an example of conditions all across Texas as the widespread drought continues. My own hometown is purchasing water from a nearby city currently able to share.

In the meantime, every man, woman and child is encouraged to pray for rain.

Where Has All The Water Gone?

We know where 8.5 billion gallons went in 2011.

A new study by the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin, reports that amount was used for drilling and hydraulic fracturing in the Barnett Shell region of Texas. The Barnett covers 10,000 square miles in fifteen counties, including the one where I live. Some 55 billion gallons of water were used in the area from 1981, when natural gas production began in the region, through 2011.

One Barnett researcher says this should cause less concern than the surface impact of drilling such as chemical spills. Many folks disagree – especially ranchers who had to sell entire cattle herds accumulated over a lifetime, because there was no water for them.

The waste water from hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is injected back into the earth through disposal wells. The U. T. study found that although some injected water flows, only five percent has been recycled for reuse.

The water situation is serious, folks. With fracking using thousands of gallons, with water from lawn sprinklers running in rivers along curbs, with households making no effort to conserve or recycle, and with the continued drought, we may become like Wichita Falls, Texas and find treated effluent waste water in our pipes.

London Bridge is Falling Down

It is if it’s in the U.S.A.

Recently a bridge fell down in Skagit County, Washington. There were no fatalities, unlike the 13 lives lost when a Minnesota bridge collapsed in 2007. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that one in nine bridges in the U.S. are structurally deficient. Water mains burst on average 250,000 times a year. Poor air quality in our aging schools has an adverse impact on student’ and teachers’ health.

With government borrowing rates low, courtesy of the Fed, and so many construction workers eager for work, shouldn’t the federal government launch major infrastructure programs? Lots of sensible people, including those at the New American Foundation, a leading centrist think-tank, have proposed the creation of a National Infrastructure Bank. The bank would only support projects approved by a team of engineers. The projects would be paid for over time with user fees or revenues like energy taxes. This proposal deserves serious consideration from Congress.

If we keep letting our roads, bridges, airports and schools deteriorate, we won’t have to worry about immigration. No one will want to live here.

Gas from Garbage

Trash isn’t worthless. When it decomposes, it produces methane, which can be converted into electricity.

As the U.S. population has grown, so too has its collective output of waste – last year’s quantity exceeded 250 million tons. At modern landfills, waste managers compress and sculpt rising heaps of garbage in order to maximize capacity.

With the dirty work comes an opportunity. As garbage breaks down, the organic material produces carbon dioxide and methane, a potent gas that can be burned to produce large amounts of energy. At existing landfill plants, that method has been used to create almost 15 billion kilowatt-hours, enough to power about one million homes for a year. More than 600 energy projects at landfills pipe the gases to the surface in every U.S. state except Alaska and Hawaii.

Michael Stone, a magazine journalist, says that some states and private companies have invested in technologies to turn garbage into other valuable substances, like crude oil or ethanol. Their goal is to extract the maximum value from everything that passes through their facilities. Other countries are testing similar strategies. Belgium plans to harness gases from a landfill dating from the 1960s. Proving that garbage can be valuable, Sweden has begun importing waste from Norway to meet a growing demand for energy.

For many years I’ve exhorted my college-age children and grandchildren to major in either trash or water. This blog entry emphasizes the need for knowledge of garbage. An entry will follow soon regarding the even greater need for a dependable water source.

The Red, White and Blue Ladies

Founded in 1890, the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution promotes patriotism, preserves American history and supports better education for our nation’s children. 

The members of DAR are descended from the patriots who won American independence during the Revolutionary War. They present programs to school children and adults emphasizing upholding and understanding the Constitution.

More than 175,000 members in approximately 3,000 chapters worldwide, the DAR is one of the world’s largest and most active service organizations. In addition to its educational programs, scholarships are offered to qualifying college students.

The Texas Society Daughters of the American Revolution is the DAR’s largest group with over 17,000 members. Since its founding in 1894, Texas daughters have been energetic advocates of the objectives of the national society. The chapter in the town where I live was the 8th chapter founded in Texas. In 2013 it celebrated its 110th anniversary.

Ever working for God, home and country, these career women, homemakers, volunteers and civic leaders all represent today’s DAR.