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Garner State Park and Concan in Uvalde County, Texas on the Frio River -
Garner State Park is named for Cactus Jack Garner (John Nance Garner IV), former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Vice President of the United States of America under FDR, member of the Texas House of Representatives, and County Judge for the Uvalde County in Texas. That is the county in Texas which determines who wins close state wide races as in LBJ’s senatorial election where he came to be known sarcastically as Landslide Johnson.
In his winning election for county judge John Garner was opposed by a woman—Mariette Rheiner, a rancher's daughter. Two years later, on 25 November 1895, the loser of the election married the winner of the election.
Cactus Jack Garner described the Vice-Presidency as being "not worth a bucket of warm piss". Garner was re-elected to the Seventy-third Congress on November 8, 1932, and on the same day was elected Vice President of the United States. He was the second man to serve as both Speaker of the House and President of the Senate at the same time.
Newsman Dan Rather was at his ranch the day JFK was assassinated. Cactus Jack is both famous and a little notorious in the political world of his day. His ranch had a constant stream of visitors. He was Will Rogers funny and witty.
Now, about the Frio River – It is a cold rushing, spring fed creek that is great for tubing in the meandering water past the giant bald cypress trees and pushing past house size boulders and over little waterfalls. It is a delight with your young children on hot summer days.
Families may camp at Garner State Park or rent cabins in Concan. It is spelled right. It is the red necked Texans discounted version of Mexico’s Cancun. You can even get your Concan ball cap and T shirt as evidence you’ve been there.
This short rendition is to supply a little flavor to this insignificant Texas park and to the name of Garner in Texas and to the Concan on the Frio. The two lane US HWY 83 runs past the park and through Concan.
There was not a lovelier stream side in Texas until Wednesday, 29 March 2017.
20-year-old Jack Dillon Young, of Leakey, Texas driving a pickup truck ruined his life and killed 13 people on US HWY 83 near Garner State park. He collided with a church minibus transporting the 13 seniors on a retreat from their home in New Braunsfels, Texas.
The witness Jody Kuchler told The Associated Press he was driving behind the truck and had seen it moving erratically prior to the Wednesday collision. Kuchler said the truck had crossed the center line several times while he followed it.
Kuchler said he called the sheriff’s offices for both Uvalde and Real counties while he followed the truck and told them “they needed to get him off the road before he hit somebody.”
Kuchler said he witnessed the crash and afterward, he checked on both the bus and the truck and was able to speak with the driver of the pickup. The driver said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I was texting.’ Jody Kuchler said, “Son, do you know what you just did? He said, ‘I’m sorry I’m sorry’ . . .
Without providing any monotonous details you may repeat the scenario minus the crash several thousand times each day in Texas. In fact, come ride with me and this story minus the crash can be observed any day if you are on the freeways or toll ways for a couple of hours in the Dallas Fort Worth area. People also sit at a red light and text. When it turns green you will need to honk for them to move. How often? Just drive two miles in Arlington, Texas where there are red lights. I recently witnessed such an occurrence where the startled “"texter”" nearly hit a pedestrian. No one had honked, but looking up from her texting, the startled woman was the only vehicle to move on the green light. Every other driver waited for the old homeless man to cross against the light.
Today safe driving requires constant monitoring of vehicles approaching from the opposite direction and those traveling in your direction. There are so many “"texters”" that wobbling across the lane lines is every where.
The situation has been explained.
Next, a value judgment about driving and texting.
Some research shows driving and texting limits a drivers safe driving as much as being drunk.
The behavior of 20-year-old Jack Dillon Young, of Leakey, Texas meets the following categories.
Careless
Irresponsible
Willful blindness
Disregard for property
Disregard that his behavior risked the safety of others.
Negligence - willing to run the risk
Recklessness negligence - willing to run the risk
Intentional negligence - willing to run the risk
Gross negligence - willing to run the risk
Criminal negligence becomes "gross" when the failure to foresee involves a "wanton
Disregard for human life
Manslaughter
Immorality
Sinfulness
Evil
Unchristian
However, a texting driver does not have to cause an accident for the driver to be culpable for these except in the case of manslaughter and property damage.
Reckless behavior is immoral behavior.
Texting while driving is as criminal as driving drunk,
or firing weapons in the air on holidays,
or racing through school zones,
or selling drugs,
or sexual intercourse with an under age partner,
or being willing to transmit HIV.
The point is that texting while driving places innocent and unaware people at risk -– including seniors, mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, children, and babies; and that does not place a price on property and hardship.
There appears to be more texting while driving than there has ever been driving while drunk.
We have MADD = Mothers against drunk driving.
Where is the lobby for:
MATaD = Mothers against texting and driving
DATaD = Dads against texting and driving
CATaD = Children against texting and driving
None of these anagrams work as well as MADD but each one ought to represent mad groups of people who are having their personal rights violated and every one whom they know subject to serious risks.
We need a law making texting and driving a felony criminal offense with a year jail time and hefty fine for first offenders. The law needs to be there to inform 20-year-old Jack Dillon Young, of Leakey, Texas that texting and driving is a felony offense. Let Texans pass such a law, not just to protect people like the 13 seniors, but also to discourage those who otherwise would text and drive. It is horrific negligence that on the part of the state legislature a simple law prohibiting dangerous behavior could prevent injuries and deaths and discourage people from the dangerous behavior.
Would you like to know what 20 year old Jack Dillon Young might say about such a law? If I were a Texas State legislature I would invite him to speak to the state legislature on the subject - driving and texting. It is tragic that a twenty year old has to kill 13 people to learn the lesson which Texas law makers should have already put on the books.
The old scribe
Garner State Park is named for Cactus Jack Garner (John Nance Garner IV), former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Vice President of the United States of America under FDR, member of the Texas House of Representatives, and County Judge for the Uvalde County in Texas. That is the county in Texas which determines who wins close state wide races as in LBJ’s senatorial election where he came to be known sarcastically as Landslide Johnson.
In his winning election for county judge John Garner was opposed by a woman—Mariette Rheiner, a rancher's daughter. Two years later, on 25 November 1895, the loser of the election married the winner of the election.
Cactus Jack Garner described the Vice-Presidency as being "not worth a bucket of warm piss". Garner was re-elected to the Seventy-third Congress on November 8, 1932, and on the same day was elected Vice President of the United States. He was the second man to serve as both Speaker of the House and President of the Senate at the same time.
Newsman Dan Rather was at his ranch the day JFK was assassinated. Cactus Jack is both famous and a little notorious in the political world of his day. His ranch had a constant stream of visitors. He was Will Rogers funny and witty.
Now, about the Frio River – It is a cold rushing, spring fed creek that is great for tubing in the meandering water past the giant bald cypress trees and pushing past house size boulders and over little waterfalls. It is a delight with your young children on hot summer days.
Families may camp at Garner State Park or rent cabins in Concan. It is spelled right. It is the red necked Texans discounted version of Mexico’s Cancun. You can even get your Concan ball cap and T shirt as evidence you’ve been there.
This short rendition is to supply a little flavor to this insignificant Texas park and to the name of Garner in Texas and to the Concan on the Frio. The two lane US HWY 83 runs past the park and through Concan.
There was not a lovelier stream side in Texas until Wednesday, 29 March 2017.
20-year-old Jack Dillon Young, of Leakey, Texas driving a pickup truck ruined his life and killed 13 people on US HWY 83 near Garner State park. He collided with a church minibus transporting the 13 seniors on a retreat from their home in New Braunsfels, Texas.
The witness Jody Kuchler told The Associated Press he was driving behind the truck and had seen it moving erratically prior to the Wednesday collision. Kuchler said the truck had crossed the center line several times while he followed it.
Kuchler said he called the sheriff’s offices for both Uvalde and Real counties while he followed the truck and told them “they needed to get him off the road before he hit somebody.”
Kuchler said he witnessed the crash and afterward, he checked on both the bus and the truck and was able to speak with the driver of the pickup. The driver said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I was texting.’ Jody Kuchler said, “Son, do you know what you just did? He said, ‘I’m sorry I’m sorry’ . . .
Without providing any monotonous details you may repeat the scenario minus the crash several thousand times each day in Texas. In fact, come ride with me and this story minus the crash can be observed any day if you are on the freeways or toll ways for a couple of hours in the Dallas Fort Worth area. People also sit at a red light and text. When it turns green you will need to honk for them to move. How often? Just drive two miles in Arlington, Texas where there are red lights. I recently witnessed such an occurrence where the startled “"texter”" nearly hit a pedestrian. No one had honked, but looking up from her texting, the startled woman was the only vehicle to move on the green light. Every other driver waited for the old homeless man to cross against the light.
Today safe driving requires constant monitoring of vehicles approaching from the opposite direction and those traveling in your direction. There are so many “"texters”" that wobbling across the lane lines is every where.
The situation has been explained.
Next, a value judgment about driving and texting.
Some research shows driving and texting limits a drivers safe driving as much as being drunk.
The behavior of 20-year-old Jack Dillon Young, of Leakey, Texas meets the following categories.
Careless
Irresponsible
Willful blindness
Disregard for property
Disregard that his behavior risked the safety of others.
Negligence - willing to run the risk
Recklessness negligence - willing to run the risk
Intentional negligence - willing to run the risk
Gross negligence - willing to run the risk
Criminal negligence becomes "gross" when the failure to foresee involves a "wanton
Disregard for human life
Manslaughter
Immorality
Sinfulness
Evil
Unchristian
However, a texting driver does not have to cause an accident for the driver to be culpable for these except in the case of manslaughter and property damage.
Reckless behavior is immoral behavior.
Texting while driving is as criminal as driving drunk,
or firing weapons in the air on holidays,
or racing through school zones,
or selling drugs,
or sexual intercourse with an under age partner,
or being willing to transmit HIV.
The point is that texting while driving places innocent and unaware people at risk -– including seniors, mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, children, and babies; and that does not place a price on property and hardship.
There appears to be more texting while driving than there has ever been driving while drunk.
We have MADD = Mothers against drunk driving.
Where is the lobby for:
MATaD = Mothers against texting and driving
DATaD = Dads against texting and driving
CATaD = Children against texting and driving
None of these anagrams work as well as MADD but each one ought to represent mad groups of people who are having their personal rights violated and every one whom they know subject to serious risks.
We need a law making texting and driving a felony criminal offense with a year jail time and hefty fine for first offenders. The law needs to be there to inform 20-year-old Jack Dillon Young, of Leakey, Texas that texting and driving is a felony offense. Let Texans pass such a law, not just to protect people like the 13 seniors, but also to discourage those who otherwise would text and drive. It is horrific negligence that on the part of the state legislature a simple law prohibiting dangerous behavior could prevent injuries and deaths and discourage people from the dangerous behavior.
Would you like to know what 20 year old Jack Dillon Young might say about such a law? If I were a Texas State legislature I would invite him to speak to the state legislature on the subject - driving and texting. It is tragic that a twenty year old has to kill 13 people to learn the lesson which Texas law makers should have already put on the books.
The old scribe
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