Simonton Texas

Archive for the ‘Opinion’ Category

I’ll admit it, this article has less to do with news or opinion and more to do with one of my favorite songs when I was a kid.

I recently discovered that Dobie Gray claims Simonton as his birth place.  If you remember, in 1973, Dobie recorded one of the most memorable songs of the Seventies: “Drift Away”.  His career has spanned almost 5 decades since 1963 and he has written many top 40 hits featured in 22 albums.

I get daily news alerts for Simonton and one day recently, I got one with a news reference to Dobie Gray.  It mentioned Simonton was his home town.  Who’d of thought.  Someone famous could come from Simonton.  Well, the fact is that he’s not the only one (anyone heard of Tom DeLay?, yeah he lived in Valley Lodge many moons ago).  Anyway, Dobie claiming Simonton as his birthplace was a story that I personally found most interesting.

My curiosity was piqued and I started my google search.  I found enough history on Dobie Gray to keep me busy for a while. 

Here’s a snapshot of what I learned:

• Dobie was born into a sharecropping family.
• He was the son of  the grandson of a Baptist minister.
• It turns out that Dobie Gray has apparantly used several other stage names in his career: Leonard Ainsworth, Larry Curtis, and Larry Dennis.
• According to one website I found, it looks like Dobie Gray may have gone by two “real names”: Leonard Victor Ainsworth or Laurence Darrow Brown.  Go figure?

By the way, if anyone in town knows if he still has family in the area, I’d love to learn more about him.

Anyway, if you’re interested in learning more about your Simonton roots and one of it’s more noteable personalities, take a minute and learn about Simonton’s own Dobie Gray.  Why not buy one of his autographed photos available on his web site.  It’s a great way to remind yourself that Simonton is a great place to be from.

Learn more about Simonton’s own Dobie Gray

• From Dobie’s Promotional Website:  http://www.dobiegray.com/biography.html
• From Answers.com: http://www.answers.com/topic/dobie-gray
• From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobie_Gray

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul’s ally forged in the refinery of adversity. Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem. You can’t tell a vet just by looking.

What is a vet……..?

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel.

He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.

She or he is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.

He is the POW who went away one person and came back another ………..or didn’t come back AT ALL.

He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat, but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other’s backs.

He is the parade riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb of the Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean’s sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket (palsied now and aggravatingly slow) who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being, a person who offered some of his life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say “THANK YOU.”

That’s all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded ……or were awarded.

Two little words mean a lot, …………….”THANK YOU.”

Please Remember…….:

“It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.”

God Bless our veterans and soldiers on this Veterans Day.

Historians and politicians – Republicans and Democrats - universally agree that Ronald Reagan was perhaps the most effective and influential President the United States has had in the past 100 years.  Guided by patriotism, a sense of public service, unquestionable moral character, and deeply held Christian values, he lead our country through some of the toughest economic and geo-political times our nation has faced. 

Here are 16 quotes from Ronald Regan

1. “Here’s my strategy on the Cold War:  We win, they lose.” – Ronald Reagan
2. “There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.” – Ronald Reagan
3. “Some people wonder all their lives if they’ve made a difference. The Marines don’t have that problem.” – Ronald Reagan
4. “There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits to the human capacity for intelligence, imagination, and wonder.” – Ronald Reagan
5. “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” – Ronald Reagan
6. “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.” – Ronald Reagan
7. “Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.” – Ronald Reagan
8. “I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress.” – Ronald Reagan
9. “The taxpayer: That’s someone who works for the federal government but doesn’t have to take the civil service examination.” – Ronald Reagan
10. “Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.” – Ronald Reagan
11. “The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.” – Ronald Reagan
12. “It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.” – Ronald Reagan
13. “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it.. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” – Ronald Reagan
14. “Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book.” – Ronald Reagan
15. “No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.” – Ronald Reagan
16. “If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.” – Ronald Reagan 

This is the kind of President we need lead our nation.