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A happy ending worth reporting

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  • Originally published May 19, 2008 at 4:02 p.m., updated May 19, 2008 at 4:02 p.m.

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,

“To talk of many things:

of shoes and ships and sealing wax,

of cabbages and kings.”

‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’

Lewis Carroll

I thought I’d play follow-up on some recent stuff we’ve seen, here and elsewhere in the news. I often receive messages from folks who want to know why I haven’t followed up on some past columns. Well, here goes:

VIETNAM ‘LOSS’

When I wrote recently about the fall of Saigon and the final U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam so many years ago, I commented that at the time, I couldn’t believe the American military had been beaten by a “rag-tag” army from the North.

In reply, I received a lot of messages from men who fought that jungle war, and they were adamant that they hadn’t lost that war. Some said they had it almost won when they were withdrawn, while others said they had to fight it under restrictions from Washington and the Pentagon that made it impossible to win.

I agree with that, and if I cast any aspersions on our fighting forces, I apologize. They fought with as much valor and stamina as Americans have ever fought, and they deserve our thanks to this day.

AMBER IS HOME

Jeanne Welton wrote to let me know that Amber, the old Chesapeake Bay retriever she brought home from the Devereux School rather than see her put down, has been adopted.

Amber was the focal point of the Sunday News to Me column, and it didn’t take more than a few hours for a “very nice lady” to adopt her, Jeanne said.

She assured me that Amber would receive all the care her aging little body needs and all the love her big heart can hold.

I love happy endings. Don’t you?

ROAD RAGE

I got only a couple of suggestions on how to cure road rage after writing recently that I suffer from it, as do so many Victoria drivers. One suggestion came from a Buddhist who had some common sense advice on keeping the anger outside of me. Hard to do, however.

But mostly, I got e-mails and calls from people giving the reasons that they got angry behind the wheel. ‘The stupid drivers in this town,” or words to that effect, seemed to be a popular cause. “Idiots that don’t use their turn signals” was another. And the list went on.

But this modern malady rages on, so to speak.

Jim Bishop is a senior editor for the Advocate. Leave him a message at 361-574-1210 or jbishop@vicad.com or comment on this column at www.victoriaadvocate.com



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