College Students at Habitat Laredo for Spring Break

We had a “2:00 am call” experience this weekend involving 25 Habitat for Humanity spring break college student volunteers from Mass. A drunk female driver collided with one of their rental 15 passenger vans on Highway 359. They were traveling to Habitat’s Office having been told to evacuate the Tierra Prometida Habitat subdivision because of a fire at a train derailment that was producing toxic smoke. (All 26 Habitat families at TP had also to evacuate). A few lessons re-learned—the van driver and front passenger were not critically hurt because they were wearing their seat belts when the front airbags deployed. Laredo has an excellent Fire Department/Paramedic response time—as fire equipment and ambulances arrived in minutes of the accident—as well as several Sheriff’s deputies. The drunk driver, a woman in her 30’s or early 40’s was handcuffed on the scene, and after being examined at the hospital (against her will) was taken to jail. Five of the college volunteers were transported to Laredo Medical Center’s Emergency Room—and later they reported having been treated promptly and with great professionalism by the Fire Department Paramedics and the LMC Emergency Room staff. The Habitat Laredo Staff also responded in the middle of the night to provide the unhurt students with temporary housing and meals. The Endicott College students and their two advisers have demonstrated their resiliency and dedication to serve, as they have stayed on to finish the week helping to build houses at Tierra Prometida, and in true “Texas style” have “gotten back on their horses” after the bad fall!

From February through April, Habitat for Humanity of Laredo hosts approximately 400 college student volunteers from the U.S. and Canada.

Washington's Birthday 2012

This year is the 115th year of celebrating founding father George Washington in Laredo, Texas. Yes, Laredo was in existence when Mr. Washington was leading our Revolution, having been founded as a city in 1755. (For those of you that might have missed most of your history classes, or texted your way through them, the American Revolution officially started in 1775 in Boston--Massachusetts. Laredo celebrates for over a month, with pageants, parades, shows, carnival rides, and a some-what famous Jalapeno Festival.

For kids of all ages, Laredo Community College held it's "Family Fun Fest" this past Saturday, 2-11-12. The place was jammed on a cool but sunny afternoon. The kids, of course, ignored most of the planned activities and just enjoyed running around the grass, sticking their hands into a fountain pond next to the Chapel, and jumping off assorted rocks and platforms! A big exception was the line for face painting. The smaller ones could also be seen on ponies with their proud parents holding on tight to them.

Today, Sunday, my favorite WBCA event was effectively grounded by rain and unusual cold--the very popular Air Show. First time in at least 15 years that the sky was not bright blue for watching the stunt pilots, Air Force Jets, and aircraft of all sizes and shapes. Very disappointing.

This coming Thursday is the Youth Night Parade, and Saturday the grand 4+ hour major parade. I've walked and rode in a few of the Saturday events--always watched in person by thousands of locals and visitors. I remember one that was so packed with spectators, that even the garbage dumpsters provided a place to sit--ugh!

So happy Washington's Birthday Laredo.

Lincoln Highway, Route 66, and the Pan Am Hwy

The first cross country designated continental road was the Lincoln Highway--starting on the east coast at 42nd Street in Manhattan. It crossed the Hudson River and became Route 27 in New Jersey, going right through the center of my home town, New Brunswick, on its way to Pennsylvania and the west. I was reminded of this bit of history by a recent Public Service TV Special named the "Lincoln Highway". A more well known road was Route 66--starting in Chicago and winding through the southwest, including the Texas panhandle, and ending in San Diego. Parts of Route 66 still exist, especially in New Mexico, and the road was featured in the movie "Cars".

Laredo can claim another iconic, though less well known, highway--the "Pan American". In these days, starting as IH35 at the Canadian border, and continuing south through Mexico and down to the tip of Chile. Vintage 50's cars have had annual road rallies from mid Mexico to Nuevo Laredo (before the unfortunate continuing violence shut the race down). On the Laredo side, the real life version of Burt Reynold's fictional movie race "Cannonball Run"--stopped to do laps at what was the Uniroyal track.

The Pan American Highway once ran down San Bernardo--Laredo's original "strip". Perhaps we will see a positive resurgent of this icon as a tourist destination with its growing Mexican curio shops. In any event, we are still defined as a city by the highway of "international trade".

It's 2011 in Laredo

Time flies, especially when life is full of memorable experiences. It is already June, 2011, and we are in a 90 plus day drought, reached a record of 112 degrees yesterday, and finally finished another City Council election. Last year we had our 2nd "100 year" flood in little more than a decade! This year we may still be saved from our terrible dryness by the hurricane season. As to the "hot" ---- from elections, I have already seen walls painted with campaign messages for the November 2012 city elections.

The Mayor said this week that Laredo is good and improving. Wish we could say the same for our sister city next door, Nuevo Laredo. The situation, especially in Northern Mexico, is really sad with many innocent lives continuing to be lost. Even so, trade from Mexico through the inland port of Laredo is growing, oil and natural gas drilling in our "Eagle Ford Shale" region is exploding, and Laredo Community College is continuing with it's five year renovation and expansion master plan.

Even with the really warm, even for Laredo, weather, the grills are fired up with carne asada, the pachangas come alive at the ranches, and Laredoans survive!

Christmas 2010 in Laredo, Texas

Beautiful blue skies with crisp temperatures. Reading about blizzards about to hit Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston while the temperature on Christmas night managed to only hit 32 degrees in Laredo. This sunny day, with flowers still alive, remind why living in South Texas is almost heaven--at least till summer!

Of course we ate tamales on Christmas eve, and Santa did make it for cookies and milk. Best wishes to all in the snow, be safe, and make some snowmen and some awesome snowballs.

Election Time in Laredo

South Texas has a colorful history of past elections. Lyndon Johnson's political career received a needed victory with the discovery of ballots in an "extra voting box" in the nearby town of San Diego, Texas. Our most recent Sheriff's race needed at least 3 re-counts to settle. At least one Webb County race in the 1980's was decided by one vote!

So as we approach our November 2, 2010 election day we have entered into what some locals call Laredo's "silly season". First though, a bit of history. The Laredo elections of the 1980's, for example, seemed centered on "pachangas" and bloc voting. A pachanga, especially a polical pachanga, is a mainly masculine get together for heavy doses of beer and carne asada (fajitas, mollejas, etc.) Of course the object is to rally your election supporters for the big day.

Bloc voting consisted of, for example, hiring buses to bring your voters to the polls--sometimes with the encouragement of some "walk around money" given to induce your would be voters to get on the buses. If your supporters weren't quite sure where to mark their ballots, they might be be given a special string. The string was the length of the ballot, with knots tied where the voter should mark the ballot.

Some of these practices continued into the 1990's, but were gradually replaced as we came into the 21st century with some distinctly Laredo election strategies. Since the City of Laredo prohibited elections signs until a certain date ahead of the election, Laredo politicians invented the "political message on the wall". First, just the name of the politician, and nothing else, would be painted on as many walls and fences as possible(the City forbade any political message until the legal
date for the campaign start). This was successfully contested as a violation of constitutionally guaranteed "free speech", and now the walls and fences are huge campaign signs.

On election day, and during early voting days, a political candidate's supporters stand around polling sites (at the appropriate legal distance from the site) waving signs encouraging citizens to stop and vote for their favorites. The number of these folks with their signs vary, but usually enough to make you wonder if its worth it to drive or walk yourself through the gaulet of competing supporters!

This year in Laredo, we seem to have many more candidates for available positions, and what seems to be an endless amount of televised "debates" between these opponents. Of course, all the candidates are for more services, less taxes, more economic development, cutting out the waste, and all are "for the kids"!

So enjoy election time in Laredo, and as we always say "vote early and often".

The Summer of 2010

Whether you believe the climate is changing or not, Laredo, this summer, certainly had some weather experiences to talk about! The first Atlantic hurricane of 2010, Alex, meandered up the Rio Grande on the Mexican side, but dumped mega tons of water upstream. As a consequence, The river at Laredo was 43 feet above flood stage on July 8. This was our second "100 year" flood in only 12 years! On August 27, 1998, the Rio Grande in Laredo flooded to 32 feet, bring the water to the bottom levels of the downtown bridges. The flooding this year did much more damage--with over 250 homes badly affected, and destroying the Laredo park area along the river. International traffic was disrupted for days, and international rail service ceased for 5 days as an overflowing dam in Mexico took out a vital rail bridge. Local faith based and non-profit groups have formed a coalition with the City of Laredo to help those who suffered loses, and to plan for future such events.

The South Texas Food Bank was able to meet the most pressing demands for food relief, and the community supported the Food Bank's "Empty Bowls" fund raising event on August 25. Featured at the event were a large variety of bowls painted by local and regional artists--sold by auction, and a performance by the famous 70's rock group, "Three Dog Night."

With continued serious drug cartel violence in our sister city, Nuevo Laredo, many would be visitors to Laredo are staying away--under the false assuption of danger in Laredo, Texas. Laredo has been, and is, one of the safest cities in Texas and the U.S.. So on a happier note, the 17th Annual Logistics and Manufacturing Symposium, held on the 15th through the 17th of September, drew outstanding speakers from around the U.S. One of the best, Mr. John Adams, director of economic development for the state of Florida, returned for this event. You might notice that the inspiration for this blog is his quote that "More happens in Laredo in a week, than in most cities in a year! It was good to have John back in Laredo.