Weekly Newspaper and Tourism Guide for Ward County Trans Pecos, Big Bend of West Texas

Opinion

Monahan's Well

And that's how our attempt to end the West Texas Drought of
'98 failed. There was nothing else to do. We came on home
after that, 16 hours on the road, to tend the grass in the
front yard which Nancy and Doc had kept alive while we were
up North prospecting for rain.

We found El Dorado and enough rain to water West Texas for a
thousand years. It rained and it rained and it rained up
there in Missouri. What we did not solve was the logistical
problem of how to get that snortin' rain out here where we
want it and out of Missouri where they don't want it because
they have plenty of water and they really don't need it
anymore. Yes, we failed. Why?

First thing, unless you have Pecos Bill for a ramrod, it is
pretty close to impossible to drive storm clouds where they
don't want to go. Pecos Bill, the wildest and bestest cowboy
to ever ride through the desert, might even have had
trouble. True, he did rope a cyclone once and ride it North
but that might have been easier than what we tried to do.
Roping a tornado might have been easy compared to rounding
up a lot of storm clouds with lightning for horns and then
trying to drive them into West Texas.

It started out easy. Let's face it. With the way storms are
up there in Missouri these days, getting a bunch of clouds
together is not all that difficult if you're driving a
semi-new Chevy Corsica with no dents. Missouri storms love
to throw hail at dentless, semi-new automobiles with Texas
plates front and rear - especially if they're white and a
little sandblasted. We figured we'd drive those rumbling
clouds all the way back to the Permian Basin. It worked
until we got close to Oklahoma City when one of the lead
bulls must of noticed that Texas this-a-way sign on the
Turnpike, came to a screeching halt, bawled and bellered and
headed North. We couldn't have caught those storms if we had
been on Widder-Maker, Pecos Bill's old horse, and we sure
couldn't turn them in a Chevy Corsica although we tried, we
surely did try.

So we didn't bring any rain back home and in that we failed.

But we did bring back some intelligence.

There is water in Missouri as sure as there is gold in
California.

The problem is getting it here.

What we propose is some of our local Oil Patch service
companies get together and put their engineers on the
problem. The Missouri and Mississippi is running high. Maybe
we can build a pipeline and siphon off some of that water.

We can't drive storm clouds but we sure might be able to
change the flow of the Mississippi or Missouri - just a tad.

The best there ever was

Those plans at the Sandhills, trustees of the Friends of the
Sandhills, were told on Tuesday night, May 19, include a big
bash on or about Dec. 5 that might, just might, include
Nolan Ryan and Little George Bush, who is the governor of
Texas.

Nothing is certain but it was said that one or both of the
men might appear. It depends on scheduling and a thousand or
so other things which must fall in place.

There is talk about a possible giant barbecue that would
feature Ryan and Bush, whose daddy once was president of the
United States.

Now, if it boils down to one or the other, there is no doubt
which one of the two men we would rather have visit Monahans
and we do not wish to denigrate George Bush the Younger,
even if he is a Republican, even if he is a politician, even
if he has done a passable job as governor of our state. We,
although we never have met him, think Little George probably
is a pretty nice guy and there is no doubt he takes a good
picture.

But if Nolan Ryan could come to Monahans, we definitely
would pay to see him talk and celebrate the Sandhills State
Park in the Christmas Season. If Nolan Ryan would come to
Monahans