Greetings from Dallas! We are virtually at the halfway mark of the year! Let us be thankful for small mercies and appreciate that we have made it thus far. Gas prices have made a lot of us adjust some of our behaviors – I won’t bore you with tips on these adjustments. I will just admonish you to plan your movement, so you reduce going up and down. Buy groceries and cook more at home – healthier and less expensive than eating out.
I finally summed up the courage to attend a live soccer match, in person, for the first time since 1986. It was FC Dallas playing at home to Vancouver City. We lost by two goals. I don’t know why Dallas waited till late in the second half to play like they were on a mission to try and win. They could easily have won the game, but they were trying to be fancy in how they scored, or they got to the 18-yard line of the other team and started passing the ball around and nobody wanted to take responsibility to take a shot at goal.
Yes 1986, a soccer match between my college in Nigeria (University of Ibadan) and our rivals (University of Ife, as it was then named) ended in a fight with bottles and other projectiles being freely thrown. The State Governor, at the time, had to take cover under his seat. What triggered the fight was the allegation that the Ife Goalkeeper had put a charm inside his post, that prevented goals from being scored against him. The charm was discovered, and a fight broke out on the field, eventually spreading to the stands. I could not afford tickets as a poor student, so I had climbed on top a building with others to watch for free. After that mayhem I vowed never to go watch a soccer game again, so going to the FC Dallas game, was me overcoming a major fear. The other fear I have is of roller coasters, but that one I am not going to attempt to overcome. No Way!
I have not been to Beltsville since August 2020 and I am hoping I can drive up from Dallas (just 1334 miles) for a few days, but I have not made up my mind yet. Would be nice to come and see how the place has changed in the last few years. See my old neighborhood in Beltsville, drive by my workplace in Linthicum and go to my old delivery route in West Baltimore. I may have to wait till later in the year before winter, as using the current Texas gas prices of about $4.70 a gallon, I would have to spend nearly $260 on gas one way, filling up thrice and taking a 45-minute nap to complete the drive in 18 or so hours.
I am glad it is summer again. I bought an ice cream machine at Walmart last year and will be making my own ice cream again, this year. My neighbors are in for a treat. We just moved into our own newly built home here in Dallas, and it has been fun getting to know my neighbors. There is Queen B who works from home, and when solicitors ignore her ‘no soliciting signs’ she goes to her door strapped and armed, and they don’t come back to her door. My next-door neighbors just had their first child, a girl. Happy for them and glad for them. The Hoopers opposite me have a basketball hoop up front, so a few of the young ones in the area, play a little basketball in front there, in 90-degree weather. Then two doors up from me is a Denton County Sherriff…he parks his work SUV outside, so that is a deterrent to would-be troublemakers. Has been fun to see a neighborhood get built from the ground up. We have fun in the development. There is the pool, neighbors have activities together. We just make it fun. People actually look out for each other, and it makes a difference. Only problem are the snakes. We see a lot of them and the other day, a lady, thankfully not on my street, discovered snakes (small ones) in her house. Her young son had been going in the woods to look for them and bring them home. She had no idea how many were in the house, so the house had to be fumigated. So happy my teenagers are scared of bugs, so I will never have to worry about that. Well, have a nice rest of the month.
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