Fall's First Kiss

Outside of holidays, birthdays and other special occasions, there is no point in the year I look forward to more than the first cool front before fall really kicks in.
Something about that light touch of coolness gives me a sense of relief, lifting that gawdawful hot, wet towel of Southeast Texas summer off the shoulders.
This morning, all stretched up and ready for a pre-dawn run, I stepped outside and felt the weight of 100,000 sweat drops alight my soul. I estimated the temperature to be in the high 50s.
Not bad for late August. In fact, I can't remember the last time the season's first cool front came this early. I wonder what it means for winter, whether it will arrive early and be colder than usual. That would be groovy.
Being of Scandinavian descent, my personal biology likes the cold, although I'd rather live down here and play golf during the winter than live up north and shovel snow.
Last year, that first fall preview came cruelly later than usual. Hurricane Rita had passed, and the electricity remained off. The days were hot, humid and miserable. I lost about 20 pounds in no time, despite eating more than usual, just out of pure stress and sometimes boredom.
The first cold front reportedly was on its way. We waited and waited. COME ON! WHERE ARE YOU?
I found myself more annoyed with its tardiness than I did the whole Rita mess. Finally, it arrived and breathed new life into our daily toils.
This year, I had no idea the cool front was coming. Wednesday seemed drier and cooler than normal, so I figured something had blown through.
The morning run confirmed it. I wear a headlamp when I run, thanks to the venomous snakes slithering about. (I narrowly avoided a water moccasin on the road last week.) This morning, I could see my breath in the headlamp light.
Soon, my favorite month, October, will be here. I envision backyard fires and barbecues, raking leaves and drinking dark German beer. Brisket and my homemade chili. Running in the cool air. Maybe training for another marathon.
And last but not least: FOOTBALL!
Sure, the cool temperatures will come and go for the next few months before the north defeats the south in the Gulf Coast climatology war.
But it won't matter, because the first cool front has arrived, kicking my head irreversibly into the fall.
Aaaaaaaaahhh.

Groceries Gone Wild

You can almost feel the panic in Beaumont grocery stores as the gleaming, mammoth H.E.B. on Dowlen Road inches closer to completion.
The guts of the existing Kroger down Dowlen from where the H.E.B. is going up have been rearranged and gussied up. A sushi bar, olive bar and a Starbucks have been added, and much of the store has been remodeled. The magazine and book racks have been placed in the middle, accented by fancy-looking wood. The wine department has been rearranged, although I haven't been able to tell yet whether the stock has been expanded. It certainly looks bigger.
Meanwhile, similar work has taken place at the Market Basket near the intersection of Texas 105 and U.S. 69. The produce and medicine areas certainly look a lot bigger. Wooden floors have been added. The store looks more modern, casting off its mom-and-pop image.
And, of course, the wine section has been spruced up. I suppose a fancy-pants wine section creates a sense of sophistication for the entire store.
The new 125,000-square-foot H.E.B., whose bells and whistles will include a seafood department, organic food section, tortilleria, sushi bar and, of course, a big ol- wine department (reported 2,000 varieties), will open next month.
On one hand, I'm concerned that the new H.E.B. might run other grocery stores out of business or perhaps put them in the position of having to downsize, scrimp and cutback because they couldn't compete.
On the other hand, the competition certainly will benefit customers, giving them more choices as well as better prices.
Maybe there's plenty of room in Beaumont for more groceries.
The game of grocery one-upsmanship reminds me of the mall wars of the 1980s.
Growing up on Houston's west side, we had Memorial City Mall. Between us and the mall was an area known as Town and Country Village, which had unconnected businesses such as a grocery store, a pizza place, an Oshman's, a Joske's, a farmers market and a few other places.
One day, much of that was razed, and the gleaming, fancy Town and Country Mall was built, nearly sucking the life out of the good ol' Memorial City Mall.
Town and Country was the quintessential 1980s mall. It looked modern and had all those superduper stores.
But the scrappy Memorial City Mall didn't give up. Over the years, it hung in there, remodeled, picked its market fights, scored some essential anchor stores, added a killer merry-go-round and children's play areas, enlarged the food court and survived.
Today, the long-gone Town and Country Mall is just a greasy spot, replaced by a mostly unconnected collection of restaurants, retail stores, offices and other businesses. In effect, the area kind of went back to the way it was before the mall craziness began.
Meanwhile, the Memorial City Mall is bigger and better than ever.
The new H.E.B. surely will siphon customers away from the competitors, but with the way things are going and growing in Beaumont these days, it could be a good thing in the short and long runs.

Gallows Humor In The Face of Terrorism

Somewhere along the path of human evolution, we picked up the ability to find humor amid the rubble of profound tragedy.
Journalists often can be among the worst at this, because they typically see more horror, tragedy and turmoil than everyday people do. We see mangled bodies at accident scenes, charred corpses outside burning houses, war, disease, death, destruction, despair, etc.
Sick humor often helps us cope with life's bigger speed bumps.
I'm not advocating bringing a comedian into funerals, I suppose, but we shouldn't be ashamed at having a little gallows humor in us.
Take this little Sept. 11-related gem off the Internet (There is some naughty language in there, so beware):
www.houstonjusticenotwar.org/humour/terrorist_attack/index.asp
Someone has found the lighter side of terrorism preparedness and done a fine job of lampooning it.
Perhaps the best-known gallows-humor lampoonists work at a funny newspaper called The Onion, which calls itself "America's Finest New Source."
The Onion - which can be found online at http://www.theonion.com - is the most consistently funny thing on the planet, albeit with plenty of the aforementioned naughty language.
The Onion's wickedly funny writers are not afraid to attack anything, from Sept. 11 to the Challenger space shuttle explosion and Kennedy assassination. These guys are the masters of gallows humor.
During those times when we're up to our asses in alligators and forgetting the swamp-draining objective, maybe sitting back and having a little laugh is the best medicine, as long as it doesn't go too far, of course.

Some People Don't Deserve to be Dog Owners

The words I almost always hear as a dog rushes out and starts growling, barking and nipping at my feet are: "Aw, he won't bite."
Twice, I've heard these words just seconds before the dog sank his fangs into my leg. One time, I almost got into a fistfight over a particularly vicious dog that was trying to attack a child I was pushing in a baby jogger.
Few things in this world make me more angry than irresponsible dog owners, the kind of people who see nothing wrong with their animal tearing ass down the driveway and out into the street to accost a passerby. Or the kind of people who abuse dogs or use them for fighting.
Sick.
Two days ago, while I was out on a run, two large mutts scooted out from a house, surrounded me and barked and growled as if they meant business. Meanwhile, the owner stood up by his garage and just watched.
"You gonna call off your dogs, mister?" I barked from the street.
"Aw, they won't bite," the dude said.
"That's what they all say, man!" I said.
I began to run again, and the dogs didn't follow. The owner mumbled the last word from his driveway, but I didn't hear what he said.
My ears were burning, and the anger gave me energy to pick up the pace of my run.
Still, I don't get people like this. It seems that a dog owner will almost always just stand there silently while his dogs terrorize a passerby in the street.
I can usually tell from afar if a dog is friendly and just wants to say "Hello!" I'm not sure whether it's the way they're carrying themselves or the tone of their bark, but I always seem to know.
I get annoyed with the friendly ones that come out, block my path, make me stop and then slobber on me. However, if I'm running the same route over and over, these guys usually get used to me and don't bother to even come out anymore.
Years ago, while pushing a friend's child in a baby jogger, a big golden retriever that meant business came out and snarled at us. I could tell this dog was mean and just seconds way from attacking.
Meanwhile, the owner just stood slack-jawed in his driveway while the retriever snapped, snarled and barked at us. I asked him twice to come get his dog, and he just stood there. The third time I called out, I said, "Come get your damn dog or I'm going to kick his head in."
My rule of thumb is that if a dog is within kicking distance, it intends to bite, so I'm going to kick him. The retriever was definitely encroaching my safety zone.
The owner then charged out into the street and threatened to whip me. I was William Wallace battle crazy at that point, so I put up my fists and said, "Let's go. Right now. Come on."
Apparently, the look in my eye took the fight out of the guy, and he grabbed his dog by the collar and dragged him back to the house.
I called the animal control department on him, and the next time I ran by his house, the retriever was chained up - as it should be.
I've never understood why dog owners think they can just let their animals run loose. It's irresponsible, a nuisance and a potential danger for people who have a right to use a public street without being pestered by a dog.
Recently, a guy in Cleveland, Texas, was shot to death in what was something believed to be related to a pit bull fighting operation. Hundreds of dogs were seized from his property.
The incident underscored just how big a problem this is in Southeast Texas.
On my old Beaumont running route, which I used for five years, I quite often found dead pit bulls in drainage ditches. I'm talking about once every two months. I'm confident that these were the losers of a late-night pit bull matchup.
There also are a lot of loose pit bulls running around out there in the country. Three times on the old route, I had one follow me home. Nothing quite matches the feeling of running down a country road five miles from home and hearing a sudden clickity-clickity-clickity coming from behind, only to turn and see a pit bull running up at full speed.
Luckily, these guys were very friendly, so much so that a neighbor adopted one that followed me home.
Still, pit bulls are scary. Sure, the pit bull lovers say they're harmless, but these dogs are powerful, can bite like sharks and seem to be bipolar, meaning they can suddenly change moods and seriously injure or kill someone.
One of my most frightening running experiences involved a pit bull. It was early morning and dark outside, and a pit bull loose in a front yard ferociously charged me. The owner, thank goodness, was on the ball and managed to keep the dog from attacking, but not until after grabbing it by the collar and dragging it into the house.
What if that had been one of my kids out there, walking to school?
I was so shaken by the incident that I never ran down that street again. Also, I've written or edited too many stories about brutal pit bull attacks on children and adults.
Pit bulls are the automatic weapon of the dog world, in my opinion. They should be outlawed, or perhaps their prospective owners screened.
I've had all sorts of dogs come out to confront me, including chows, Dobermans, Labradors, Schnauzers, Airedales, basset hounds, poodles and even chihuahuas, which can be particularly nasty for some reason, although I just outrun them.
But the meanest dogs of them all for runners, I'm embarrassed to say, are those dreaded wiener dogs.
Yes, my friends, if a Daschund charges out from a house, there is no passing "Go" and collecting $200. The wiener dog will run out and bite without hesitation.
Both of my bites while on runs came from wiener dogs. On my old route, there was a big pack of them that came running out from a farm.
If I didn't stop, I had no doubt that they would attack me. Luckily, all they wanted was for me to stop and give them a pet, which I dutifully did every Saturday morning for years.
Sure, I could probably outrun them, but I can't imagine a more comical sight than some panicked runner galloping down the street with an angry pack of wiener dogs on his tail.
I'd rather stop and get bitten than subject myself to that.

Bizarre Lost and Found

Everyone can relate to that sickening feeling when something goes inexplicably missing, such as the TV remove, car keys, tiny little screw that fell off the table, a cat, the mind, etc.
Most times, the item will reappear in a day or two.
Ah, here it is, between the couch cushions! Found it, right here under the car seat! Oops, here it is atop the fireplace shelf!
Last year, I lost my checkbook - and my mind - and could not find the dadblammed thing. The ensuing chaos, thanks to a bank error, eclipsed the agonizing checkbook loss.
When I realized that it has disappeared, I checked the usual places, became worried, dug deep into every conceivable nook and cranny, panicked, and then, sadly, dragged myself to the bank when I came to grips with the fact that this checkbook was GONE.
My investigative effort concluded that someone perhaps had stolen the checkbook out of my office, so therefore I had no choice but to cancel the rest of the booklet.
This turned out to be a huge disaster.
Rather than just cancel the remainder of the booklet (I just happened to remember the last check I wrote), the bank mistakenly canceled the entire box.
Bill mayhem ensued, with a dozen or so checks being returned. The city shut off my water. Nasty threatening letters were sent to me. MCI called every 0.00009 seconds to remind me that a bill was overdue.
Subsequently, I had to get an apology letter from the bank and send it around to everyone so that they could get their records fixed and clear my good name.
Anyway, the checkbook disappearance became quite the pain.
For the past year, I have occasionally wondered what the heck happened to that checkbook. No one tried to use the checks, so I decided that I had misplaced it, and it wasn't stolen after all.
Today, the family took a little ride in my wife's car (It gets way better gas mileage than mine does) to find the shortest route possible to take my son, Curt, to school starting Thursday.
We live in Pinewood, and we literally have to drive him all the way to China (population 1,100) to go to his preschool class. For some reason, the school district has decided that if we want to use the bus service, our son would be the first to get picked up in the morning and last to be dropped off in the afternoon, meaning that the poor 4-year-old would spend an estimated three hours of his day riding a bus.
No way.
So we're trying to find the best way to get from Pinewood to China, driving around all kinds of back-country roads, and my wife goes into the glove compartment to look for a map.
Bang, there's the old checkbook.
I scoured my wife's car in search of it, but for some reason, I didn't look in the glove compartment. Even stranger, I've been in that glove compartment during the past year and didn't see the checkbook. I have no idea how it ended up in there.
And what was the date of the last check - written on the day I lost the book?

Aug. 6.

That's TODAY, sports fans. Yep, we found that checkbook exactly a year ago from its disappearance.
Strangely, the checkbook's disappearanced marked the start of the most taxing, challenging and emotionally draining year of my life. Hurricane Katrina came and put our news team to the test, but then Rita took enduring hardship to a new level.
Other than for record-keeping purposes, the checkbook is useless, I suppose, although perhaps its discovery signals the end of the year's worth of white-knuckle craziness.
If nothing else, it is nice to have that gut-twisting, mind-befuddling mystery finally solved.

Chris Poops Out

The forecast for Tropical Storm Chris, barely a named storm today with 40 mph winds, looks favorable for now, at least for us.
Something out there is stomping the juice out of Chris (which I've learned is a boy, by the way) to the point where he might be demoted to a tropical depression as early as today.
That's much better than the growing threat with 65 mph winds, which is where Chris stood yesterday.
The storm is expected to bump along the northern Cuban coast and then enter the Gulf of Mexico on Monday.
Then, it might get interesting.
Right now, it's making a beeline for near Corpus Christi, but as we all know, these things typically take a northern swing, although storms such as Claudette a few years ago went against the norm. Claudette, a Category 1 storm, lumbered along east to west just under our nose before hitting the Texas coast, causing minimal damage.
So next week for Southeast Texans will either be a sigh of relief or a crazed rush to the store to stock up on supplies, possibly followed by another white-knuckle Texodus.
Or maybe Chris will come here with little more than a stiff breeze and some rain.
Who knows?

Tropical Storm Chris

By the time you read this, our friend Chris there in the Atlantic might be a hurricane, one alarmingly predicted to take the same early path as Hurricane Rita.
At this writing, Chris was located just east-southeast of Puerto Rico and packing 60 mph winds, a rapid escalation from earlier today, when it was barely a named storm. It is a named storm farther out than Rita was.
It's almost certain that Chris will enter the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps in the same spot that Rita came in as a tropical storm before growing to a Category 5 beast and then attacking Southeast Texas as a Category 3.
Of course, various and unpredictable meteorological factors will come into play by the time Chris hits the Gulf of Mexico, as it is predicted to do by Monday.
Nevertheless, Southeast Texans are probably already feeling a little gut burning over this.
I've yet to see one important question asked about Chris: is it a boy or a girl?
To keep up with Chris, look here: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/