It’s a first. First time ….

It’s a first. First time since late May that I haven’t seen someone haying or at least cutting it down. Chopping corn is still on. Hasn’t been 20 minutes since I saw a chopper and truck working a field northeast of town. There must be some corn picking going on as I noticed a couple of fields where the stalks are all laying flat and then Northside Elevator had their dryer running this morning. Most of the soybeans are combined, but still see a few fields here and there that are left.

The temperature has been getting down close to freezing and I think there are frost warnings for tonight.

As for the leaves, most are down. At a distance it may look like nice color, but up close most trees are bare, or pretty close to it.

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I only got one call, but that is enough if it is the right one. A couple of weeks ago I’d asked about the mound south of Loyal and if it had a name like North Mound and South Mound out at Willard. So not knowing, I decided to call it the Ben and Sonia Mound after Ben and Sonia Suda who live on the corner.

Well, it was Sonia’s mom who called, so she ought to know. She had never known it to have a name, but agreed that was probably just fine as I think she told me they have purchased land on the mound.

I don’t want to call Marge old, but she had been around for a long time and from one of the families who were some the first here.

So for now I’m satisfied to think that high spot in the sky has an official name.

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The South Jetty newspaper from Port Aransas, Texas, had an interesting letter to the editor last week. While the paper has been full for weeks telling about all things being done to recover from the hurricane three years ago, this summer they started talking about something new. Yup, even before everything is repaired or replaced someone got an idea for a new facility in the city.

I believe they are calling it a sports and community center and the proposal would be cost free to the taxpayers of Port Aransas. A local businessman there wrote the letter and complained about the same thing that sometimes bugs me in all the traveling we have done through the years.

It is something called “the room tax” and is added to the price of your room along with the actual cost and a state sales tax. The argument is that it is going to be used for community activities, and yes, visitors too, if they are staying in town for a few days.

To pay for these fine new facilities, the city decided to allow hotels and motels to charge a “room tax” and in some cases a pretty generous amount. That’s fine if you are staying in town and can use whatever it is intended for, but what about the traveler, often checking into a motel in the evening with the intent of being on the road early in the morning. There is no chance of ever using the facility.

The letter writer pointed out that it won’t cost the residents of the city anything since all the cost would be paid for by the people staying in the motel or hotels by the “room tax” being charged.

To me that falls in the category of taxation without representation since no one traveling is ever going to be back to use the facility, or even had a hand in deciding how it is built or going to be used. It will be interesting to see how that one flies. I’m guessing the majority of people will say, “Well, they are just a bunch of tourists, let’s sock it to them.”

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If my memory is correct, something like that happened in Milwaukee with the new baseball stadium. Thankfully, the legislature only applied the new tax to Milwaukee County and those counties next to it. Seems like Governor Tommy Thompson, on one of his re-election tours, told the people, I think it was in Dorchester, that was okay, just sock it to them. That statement hit the wire services and Tommy was in a bit of trouble for awhile.

Seems to me I heard or read recently enough money has been raised and the tax has been dropped.

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With all the talk of the upcoming election I think it was my daughter Sue and I discussing the possibility we may not know the night of the election who won the race for president.

Certainly in the days before telephones there was no way to get the results into a central location. I explained to Sue that until Franklin Roosevelt was president the incoming president wasn’t installed until March 4.

It did happen a few years ago when George W. Bush and Al Gore fought it out over the question of ballots. I think it was in Florida and a recount was held to try and figure out how the voters wanted to vote. Something to do with the punch tab style of ballots being used at the time.

Can it get any more confusing than four years ago when the voters of the United States cast three million more votes for Hilary Clinton and she was not declared the winner? The end result ended up in the Electoral College which gave it to Trump.

I can understand if the count is close, but three million votes is no tiny sum.

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The season has arrived. It snowed. Not much, but it sure changed my plans for the day. Sue had driven up so we could have lunch together. Then in the afternoon we planned to drive to Colby to see Shelly. Well, a few minutes after Sue arrived, so did the snow flakes.

We thought it best to cancel that part of our plans as sitting outside in the snow talking to Shelly was just not something we wanted to do. We’ll just have to pick another day.

Pictures even on the television news confirmed that communities further to the north did indeed have the ground completely covered with snow. There was still a few traces here the next morning, but for now, the first snow has arrived.