LISSA’S: Glad to Leave Behind

There are so many things I will be glad to leave behind when I leave Texoma.

RUDENESS ~ Yes, the world is full of rude people. But I haven't found so many rude people in one place until I came to Texoma. Wow.. are people that miserable here and don't realize it? Hmm... Road rage is a common activity here too. People looking for a fight.. that should be Texoma's slogan!

OKLAHOMA ~ I live in Whitesboro, Grayson county. And if you look at a map of this place, it shows to be in Texas! But maps MUST be mistaken! Everyone here seems to think this is all just a part of Oklahoma. I can't wait to move, so that I can be back in Texas again! You have (a grand total of) 2 tv channels here. The news on both really suck. You have KTEN (nbc) out of Oklahoma and KXII (cbs) out of Texas. Both report mostly Oklahoma stories. 9 times out of 10 it's Oklahoma related. When there was a storm in Oklahoma, the news was all over it, but they happen to forget about the huge line of storms stretching over 5+ counties in Texas. My aunt asked me if I heard about a tornado 2 counties to the east of us the other night. Well this was news to me! Of course I never heard about it! It didn't happen in Oklahoma. There was a time last year that wildfires were bad. You know the news was all over the 2 small fires in Oklahoma, but the 4 large fires in Texas didn't matter. And the reporters are so unprofessional! KTEN cannot control their sound. When a news anchor starts talking, the sound gets really loud, then so quiet that you can't hardly hear it... then it's like someone is trying to fine tune it. It never stays at one level. And the KXII idiots.. omg, I've never seen such a circus! The anchors there are always messing lines up, they can never put the right video with the story being read! I've seen a kindergarten class more organized than this!! Lisanne Anderson couldn't even remember a simple tv icon (John Ritter) for the end of one of her stories. She kept flubbing the name, her lines and looking to the crew off camera for help. What an idiot..... And Charlie Haldeman needs to blow his nose before each one of his stories! The idiot sounds like his nose is stopped up everytime he talks!! *UGH* And that UGLY, missing link David Reed just all-around makes me want to puke.. from his high squeeky, irritating voice to his ugly ass face and nasty hair! *BARF!!!*

LOCAL COMMERCIALS ~ If it's one thing that really puts me into a fowl mood, it's the local commercials for Texoma!! I would rather listen to a continuous sound of nails being run down a chalkboard!!! Most of these comapnies around here try to make their jingles as if it were a real song to be played on the radio! Just some of the jingles that get under my skin are: Choctaw Casinos (I mean really.. what IDIOT made the word "Choctaw" into a verb?? "Everyone's goin' Choctaw'in"... please!!!!!!), Preston-Dalton Siding and Windows, Cable One, Advantix Home Health Care... and the IDIOT local sales people who come on giving their sales pitch, like: Rocky from Carter County Dodge, the old fossil from some pool and billiards place on hwy 377 in Whitesboro that points at the tv and says "I want your business", and the ridiculous Orkin commercial with the life sized cock roach and mouse the morning after "some party"!

COUNTRY MUSIC ONLY ~ Anytime you hear of a concert, you know that it's going to be country music. They will not let anything else play. Even the Vice President of the Denison Art Council was on the news talking about some event happening. She said that she wanted a variety of music to play here, but when she listed off the acts, it all involved country music: Country/Americana, Country Caberet and a blend of country, classic rock and blues. You know Texoma, there is more variety to (real) life than just country!!

TEXOMA EDUCATION ~ I have 2 step sons in the Texoma school system and it scares me. I do not want my boys growing up with the low morals and standards that this region is proud of. It shows everyday in this area. Bill and I were at lunch one weekday afternoon in Gainesville and there was some high school class there eating luch as some reward. We overheard one of the teachers tell a student.. and I quote: "People change when they make a lot of money. It's better not to." What the hell kind of education is this?!? Ah, Texoma education, obviously.. because it is IMPOSSIBLE to make a lot of money here. But I do not want to be in an area where making money and being successful is being used as a scare tactic and being planted inside a child's head! It's no wonder people can't see how much in poverty Texoma really is! They were brought up to believe that poverty is where you should be.

DENIAL ~ So many people are in denial here. Everytime me or my family talks about moving out of here to the suburbs of Houston, we get criticized. According to Texomites, "there are daily hurricanes, daily flooding, the tempreature is hotter and so much crime! But in Texoma the weather is beautiful everyday, it never floods, there is no crime, and why in the world would you want to live in a weather disasterous place?" Okay, let me explain it again (to the IDIOT Texomites) that believe this. I know that there is crime everywhere. Especially in Texoma!! Several times a day, there are crime stories in Texoma from drugs to murder.. and everything in between!! If purses get snatched, cars get broken into and tires ripped off of a car in broad daylight in a busy Sherman Wal-Mart parking lot, then you got a problem. Yeah, that's all JUST the Sherman Wal-Mart parking lot!!!!!!!! Face it Texoma, you're proud of your crimes here! Okay, I know there is a lot of humidity in Houston. But when the temperature reaches over 100 degrees (which is at least once a year) in Texoma, it only reaches between 90 and 95 degrees in Houston. And yes I have felt plenty of humidity here.. on top of your 100+ degree temperatures! So it's not like you are without it. Our wind mostly comes from the cool Gulf waters.. ahh, so refreshing. Where does Texoma breezes come from? Cow pastures and farms... Hmmm... not very refreshing... And as far as hurricanes go, there is plenty of warning for hurricanes. How long do you have for a tornado? Minutes? Hmmm..... And as a FACT, tornados are more common than hurricanes. Do the math (if you can). Texoma is not flood free. Anytime it clouds up, there are reports of floods. Another serious denial that Texomites have is cleanliness. Everywhere you look, it resembles the city dump. People here cannot see this. They think it's okay. I guess if you are trash, you can't see the trashy conditions you live in.

I know that these are minor things to most people, but for me it's major. I have cut myself off of these people and this place, trying to keep my sanity. Of course being that there is NOTHING to do here but watch tv, that would drive ANY normal person insane! I will be glad to leave Texoma and start a real life!

BILL’S: The Day Life Ended In Texas

Since I have lived in the Texoma region, I have made many trips to Denison. One thing I knew that really stuck out in my mind was the giant abandoned building in the center of town which was the old Denison High School. I remember driving by it several times wondering why they would keep it in such a state of disrepair. But then came the time that the city decided it was time to tear it down. The citizens of Denison gathered together to protect the eyesore. They didn't want to tear it down, but no one was willing to try to fix it up either. The city tried to sell it, but no one wanted it. The day finally came and demolition started. People gathered in candlelight vigils mourning the loss of their biggest rat nest. In the almost 10 years I have been in this region, this building has always had a fence around it, windows broken out, and the building was falling apart. If people really cared, why didn't they try to take care of it? That was always my question. People showed up from all around the world mourning the building as it slowly was torn down. And still I asked myself, why? What is history if you don't preserve it? They had a committee wanting to preserve, but none wanting to donate the time or the money it would need to do something with the building. So, they stood and cried.

But in this hodge podge of feelings and news stories, something slipped by unnoticed. And now just a few months later, I have realized something more sinister has befallen us. You see the day the last person mourning left from the old high school site and returned to her hometown in Missouri, Texas died. I have watched the news, and it has confirmed my theory. There is no longer life in Texas. We are just "wanting wishes" traveling in space thinking we are actually still in a state which exists. Since the loss of the Denison High School, KXII Channel 12, which is located in the mythological place of Sherman, TX, completely stopped reporting on Texas. This was something I tried to bring to their knowledge, but the only response I got was that the people in Oklahoma were complaining that they reported too much on Texas. I spent two weeks and broke down in a chart all of the stories of the news station. I sent the station the chart, showing how almost every story they reported in a two week time period was dedicated to Oklahoma. Again, they didn't care. I thought it was just indifference, but it was only the start.

A few weeks later, I received a copy of the Sherman Herald Democrat. This is the fictious newspaper of this make believe town. As I went through the paper, I found that there was not one single story about Sherman. Even in local news, there were only stories of accidents in Dallas, and the sports page only reported on high school basketball in Oklahoma.

Yesterday, I was watching the news on Channel 12. Come to find out, there were two fires in the Oklahoma area. At my house, it was hard to breathe. For hours we were engulfed in a smoke cloud. Fires were breaking out all over the place, being driven by the 50 mph winds which tormented us. As I listened to the official stations all around us, fire departments were being sent everywhere. Stations from Collin, Cooke, Grayson and Denton counties were all around fighting fires in Sherman, Whitesboro, Whitewright, Tioga, Collinsville, Southmayd, and Gainesville. Grayson County Sheriff's Office was out investigating smoke reports. But like I said, the only fires on the news were in Oklahoma.

So, it became official. Life in Texas has died. With all the high winds and fires, it can only mean that we are living in hell. And the only thing which supported life in Texas was the Old Denison High School.

BILL’S: Wiped off the map

While watching our local CBS affiliate, KXII Channel 12, they took the time to report on this story about how Dallas has changed 40 signs on Highway 75 North from showing that the route went to Sherman to now showing it goes to McKinney. They really made a huge deal about how this would effect tourism and travel from the Dallas area.

First of all, I found it very odd to hear this story. While KXII is located in Sherman, TX, they very rarely report about events in Texas. The majority of the newscasts deal with Oklahoma. So, to hear them complain about an event in Texas was almost mind-blowing. Add on top of that, the report was about their own home city!?!?! This is the station known for the Sherman weather report being shown on a live camera in Denison, TX (15 miles away to the north) brought to you by a car dealership in Gainesville (30 miles away to the west), and that is about as local as it gets. So, why the interest in the local area now?

Secondly, how much does this really effect the area? The only thing in Sherman people drive hundreds of miles to go to is the local Wal-Mart. There really isn't anything else in the area. Which is obvious because of the lack of news that happens here. Unless you want to come see retail and restaurants, there really is no reason to come here, and you pass by several of the same places between Dallas and Sherman anyway. Most of which are in McKinney. The only reason people come to Sherman is to drive through on their way to Lake Texoma or Oklahoma. Again, what difference would the signs actually make?

I just think something is wrong when the only time the news reports about it's own hometown is when the hometown has been, and I quote, "wiped off the map."