Jan Edwards
FOR San
Bernard Director
PR
Representative
Original OC
member
Greetings
from River’s End!
The spirit of
Christmas fills the air and
spills over into our lives
and our hearts as I write
this. We’re busy making
preparations to welcome the
holiday season – hanging
wreaths on the deck,
decorating the mail box,
making and sending annual
Christmas cards, decorating
the Christmas tree and
buying and wrapping
presents. Of course, Roy and
I also take time to
watch our favorite Christmas
movies.
Roy’s favorite movie is
Christmas Story. The
first time we saw that
movie, I thought Roy was
going to literally die
laughing. He knew every one
of those kids in the movie –
and even lived similar
experiences to the story
line. The desire for the
perfect Christmas gift - a
Red Rider b-b gun - and the
parental concern that it
would “shoot your eye out”,
washing the mouth out with
Lifebuoy soap – all
rolled up in memories of
Christmas past. But its
lesson was not lost on us –
that the love of a family,
no matter how crazy it got,
would prevail and everyone
would have a happy holiday.
I like that message, but I
like the message of my
favorite movie, It’s a
Wonderful Life, even
better.
Long
suffering George Bailey
soldiered on in a life he
felt he must lead in order
to help everyone he loved –
and then, as his world fell
apart, he felt as though his
life meant nothing and what
he contributed to his family
and community has gone
unnoticed and unappreciated.
But, his guardian angel
proved to him that his world
would have been a much
sadder place without his
having lived. His life had
indeed made a difference.
Such an inspiring movie! I
know what is going to happen
every year I watch it, and I
still cry at the end. Even
if I am overwhelmed with the
holiday rush, that movie’s
message makes me feel
renewed, and I rededicate my
life to doing what I can to
make life around me a
better place to be.
And this
year, that message makes me
think about what is going on
up and down the river these
days. What would this
community be like if there
had been no Friends Of
the River San Bernard?
This young organization is
truly a gift to the river
and the community – and it
has made huge difference.
Because of
this organization, people
who normally would have
never met are friends. There
are new security lights at
the public boat ramps at F.M.
521 and F.M. 2611. People
helped the San Bernard
Wildlife Refuge folks
prepare a new bird
sanctuary, the Betty
Brown Unit, and helped
with the Kemps Ridley turtle
watch. F.O.R. Has adopted a
2 mile section of highway in
TxDOT’s Adpot-a-Highway
Program and helped clean
32,000 pounds of trash out
of the river at the Spring
Clean-up. We’ve had a couple
of boat parades to add to
the community fun.
F.O.R. Has
worked in conjunction with
the Houston Galveston
Area Council to begin
water quality testing of the
river from New Ulm to the
mouth. For a year now, we’ve
met our neighbors at
Breakfast on the Bernard
on the first Saturday of
each month at Dido’s.
We have acquired and
refurbished a Community
Center on the river for
meetings and community
events. People in our midst
have been nominated for and
received acclaim in The
Facts’ “Citizen of the
Year”. We’ve brought our
river’s plight to the
attention of the world in
over 250 newspaper and
magazine articles as well as
political entities both
statewide (Brazoria County
Day in Austin) and
nationally (looks like the
United States Corps of
Engineers in Washington,
D.C. Is taking over opening
the mouth of the river).
In recent Facts, there’s a
story about the discovery of
a cistern in West Columbia
located in the area which is
known to have been the first
capitol of the Republic of
Texas and was most probably
the cistern that served the
capitol. It is in the
process of being excavated
and dated and the developer
of the land where the
cistern was found has
dedicated land for a park
and $50,000.00 to develop it
to preserve the memory of
the lost capitol building.
It is good to see the area
actively preserving our
past.
I too, have
been busy this year working
on my personal history
puzzle of the area. In
researching Carrie Nation’s
story and Jean Lafitte’s
story in our area, something
started to happen for me. I
realized that the history of
the area has been told in
vignettes - little pictures
of events that can stand on
their own. They have been
spoon fed to us one at a
time, but they each only
tell a piece of a bigger
story. But this year, I took
the pieces of the puzzle
that stuck together and laid
them out. Then, as I wrote
down a time line of events,
I started to fit the outside
pieces of the puzzle
together, thereby creating
“the big picture”. While I
am still putting pieces
together, the bigger story
it tells of the area is much
more rich and interesting
than the “Reader’s Digest”
version we all settled for
in school and it makes me
want to find more and more
pieces.
I have James
Taylor’s Christmas CD
playing in the background
and the words to one of the
songs hang in my head. The
words refer to a child’s
quest for an appropriate
gift for the Christ Child,
but I think they can also be
applied to the river in this
season of joy. I think they
are appropriate to share
them with you here:
What then can I give him,
empty as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I
would give a lamb.
If I were a wise man, I
would know my part.
What then can I give him? I
must give my heart.
Our formerly
dying river is electric with
anticipation of things to
come – and I truly cannot
imagine what life on the
river would have been like
without all the things that
happened in 2007. It’s a
wonderful life, and it has
made a difference - in all
our lives.
Now, what’s
happening on the river?
Probably a lot more than I
know. There are puzzles to
solve and stories with happy
endings on the verge of
coming true. So until next
year, here’s wishing you a
wonderful life, fish in the
river, a warm fire, exactly
what you asked Santa for
under your tree and time to
enjoy them all. And with a
little help from our
guardian angel, maybe we
will all be witness to the
opening a most wonderful
gift next year – the river
mouth.
MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!
