Month: April 2026

My father spent his high school years living in Corpus Christi, Texas. It was there that he met his two best friends, Bob and Lloyd. The trio would all go to Texas A&M together and remain so close that they might have been brothers. 

I have always felt that my father would have liked to find work in Corpus Christi so that he might live there. I know that he tried numerous times but nothing ever came of his applications. The last time that he attempted to find a way to be a permanent citizen of that city was only months away from the day when he died at the age of thirty three. 

My father loved the idea of living near Corpus Christi Bay and spending time along the Gulf of Mexico. He was at his happiest when he was there fishing, not so much to win a prize or for food but just to feel the ocean breezes blowing on his face. I remember that while he was job hunting there he kept his fishing pole and gear in the trunk of our car so that he might head for the ocean on a whim. My eight year old job was to sit quietly next to him marveling at his patience in waiting for a fish to bite. 

My father was a Mechanical Engineer and he loved to talk about the potential of the future that was to be found in engineering. He liked the idea of building things and marveled at the possibility that the world might one day learn how to desalinate the waters of the ocean in ways so economically sound that nobody would ever have to worry about having enough of the liquid that we all need to survive. Back in the mid-nineteen fifties that idea was still a bit of an engineering dream much like traveling to the moon. 

If my father had lived he would have seen mankind’s ability to move beyond the limitations of our earthly atmosphere. While desalination of water has grown in the Middle East, it still provides only one percent of the water that humans use on this earth. Of late it is finding more and more favor in Florida and California but much still needs to be done before desalination provides humans with a constant source of water from the oceans on a large scale.

I’ve been thinking of my father’s excitement over the idea of bringing water to the people of the world from the vast supply in the oceans. In recent times with global warming there are troubling trends threatening different locales in the United States where the water supply is in danger of drying up. There are already places in Arizona where lovely neighborhoods once stood that have been abandoned because the sources of water became dry.

Now my father’s old home of Corpus Christi is facing a dire situation. Without rain and with the increasing use of water as the city and its industries have grown the water supply is threatened with some believing that there will be none to be had in some areas before the end of this year. Already residents are under strict rationing rules that become more and more draconian as no signs of relief drain the existing water supply. 

The double edged sword for the citizens of Corpus Christi is that they must have the businesses and industries that create jobs but those entities are using a disproportionate amount of the existing water. To use a cliche, they are damned if the do and damned if they don’t limit the water needed to run the refineries and plants that provide the funding that keeps the lights on in the town. Ironically there is water water everywhere in the bay and ocean around them but not a drop that they can drink.

There has been talk of building a desalination plant in Corpus Christi for years but the cost of doing so has always seemed prohibitive. Suddenly the idea is catching hold again but time is fleeting and even if the funding became available today the work would not be done before many residents may find themselves turning on a tap that runs dry. 

Corpus Christi is not the only place in Texas that is being threatened with a shortage of water. Much of the beautiful Texas Hill Country has been so dry that spring and summer wildfires are common. Many of the loveliest neighborhoods are banned from watering grass or plants for more than a few minutes each week. The land is dry and parched which also lends itself to flash flooding when it does finally rain. In spite of the warning signs more and more people are moving into the area and building new homes 

The scientists and engineers are fully aware of the problems but the brokers of real estate just keep ignoring the threats in so many parts of the United States. We take that moisture that fills our lakes and our wells for granted without considering the consequences of what will happen if a dry spell lingers too long. 

There are answers to the problems that we face but they will take inventive souls and the will of the people to expend the funds to reassure the growing population that their homes will not become ruins when and if the water that feeds them is gone. We have to begin thinking ahead of environmental tragedies rather than only reacting to them once they have already happened. The days of putting our heads in the sand are going to create tragedies if we fail to pay attention and to make the sacrifices that are needed. I hate to think of Corpus Christi or any other place on this lovely planet becoming uninhabitable because we were not stewards of the land. I hear my father’s voice growing excited over the possibilities of solving such problems. Perhaps it’s long past time to bring the engineers together on a new project as exciting as going to the moon. Insuring sources of water for humans is indeed a very noble project. 

Sometimes I wonder if my take on the world of today is filtered through the lens of my age and the number of losses that I have endured. At the age of seventy seven I have to admit that in spite of the many ups and downs mine has been a good life, but of late the daily news is more often than not disturbing. I find myself longing for calm and peace rather than stories about wars, shootings, chaotic upheavals of the economy and other bad news. After the Covid pandemic I had hoped that the world would settle down into a long appreciation of surviving with all of us humans quietly focusing on the most important aspects of life. I did not expect the ensuing chaos that feeds the daily headlines and creates continued uncertainty across the globe. This is not how I imagined my last years on this earth to be, but I suppose the pattern is in keeping with the flow of history. 

Somehow we humans have a very difficult time getting along with one another. While it seems easy enough to me if we just work together and allow people to be themselves, that is quite a pipe dream when set against reality. The truth is that we have a finite amount of resources and opportunities that fuel the problems that we keep having with each other. The story of our beginnings as told in the Bible tells us that the first man and woman lived in the kind of paradise that most of us would truly enjoy but even back then they were tempted to take more than they had been given. Their original sin follows the rest of us for all time. 

Even if this is only a metaphorical story created to warn us about the flaws of our human emotions it is still a powerful explanation of our tendencies to never be satisfied with equality for all. The same jealousies that pushed Cain to kill Abel are present in the wars that we humans have inflicted on one another throughout history. While our natures have the capacity to be kind and loving we always seem to have someone or some groups among us who lie and cheat and steal and want to dominate rather than just living in peace. Mankind’s inhumanity to each other creates problems after problems over and over again.

Sometimes those problems manifest themselves in very personal ways. Humans sometimes hurt those closest to them in emotional and physical ways. In an almost cyclical repetition wars seem to spring up over and over again when we grow wearing of trying to understand each other or when greed for resources overpowers our will to compromise with groups and nations that see the world very differently than the way we do. 

I am admittedly the kind of person who prefers detente. I am more than willing to share and listen to ideas and philosophies that are very different from my own. I have been fortunate to live in the United States of America, a nation rich in both material and human resources. I view our country as a delightful salad of many colors and beliefs. My way of thinking is mostly to live and let live, but of course there are times when evil has to be curbed but doing so should not impose limits on how the majority of good people choose to be from day to day. 

We boast that we have freedom to speak our minds and to protest things that we believe are unfair but then we engage in culture wars that demean those whose thoughts about how to live are different from our own. This is especially egregious when the limitations on our basic liberties are legislated by those who govern us. There are very good reasons why the founders of our nation created the Bill of Rights. We should all want to protect our liberties even when we have disagreements. When I participate in a “No Kings” protest I am not being unpatriotic. In fact, I am celebrating my right to express my concerns. Nor am I being hateful when I critique the president and his overreach in unilaterally creating tariffs or declaring war. I am using my rights as a citizen when I point out the problems with ICE. I am not being anti religion when I worry that Christian Nationalism is moving into classrooms and being used as a cover for threatening people whose beliefs do not jibe with theirs. 

I have many friends and relatives whom I dearly love and would fight or even die for whose political stances are the polar opposite of mine. I want to be able to explain to them why I have developed my own feelings about how our government should work rather than being accused of being unpatriotic and even sometimes being tossed aside. I am sickened by the group speak of those whose politics worry me. When I hear the same sentences being echoed over and over again I worry that too many are being propagandized rather than treated with honesty and a willingness to have adult conversations about what we need in this world to grow and prosper rather than eternally feuding. 

I am weary of the fighting that is tearing the world apart and specifically turning individuals against each other and yet here we are. Just as Joseph Goebbels used his propaganda to turn ordinary Germans into believers of the fascist Nazi movement. I see much of the all present media using emotional tactics to influence our thinking rather than showing us facts that help us to identify and accurately assess problems. When people tell me that immigrants are raping and killing as though it is a given that large numbers of them are criminals I want to hear real statistics which they can never provide. They have been bombarded with generalizations that play on their fears and emotions. When I hear outrage over trans women hurting young girls in sports or bathrooms I realize that a tiny percent of the population is being used to stir up unnecessary trouble. Fear and want are fuels of propaganda.

The truth is that the vast majority of immigrants are hard working family members. The criminals are outliers, exceptions who can be arrested without creating chaos for those of good will. The truth is that few people have ever encountered a trans individual and the numbers of them who participate in sports is so small that they represent less than one percent of the athletes. It would be so much better if we were to attempt to understand that these souls are mostly kind and well intentioned rather than than pariahs who must be wiped out of our society. 

I know that we humans have the capacity to get along if we are willing to stop the quibbling and to select leaders who demonstrate a willingness to work together rather than to drive us apart. There will be blips in the process because in the grand scheme of things there will always be broken souls driven by hatred, greed and a lust for power. We would do well to avoid any group that survives by turning us against each other. We should shun them not our fellow citizens.

Somehow all of the examples of history that should have taught us to beware of any movement that takes aim at certain groups have yet to keep us from being manipulated by power seekers. When will we learn?