Amidst all the gloom and doom that is normal fodder for news media worldwide, I wonder if perhaps your readers might be interested in some GOOD news of a local nature.
I arrived in San Marcos on July 3rd, Independence day from my long-time home of Jackson Mississippi. I have perused the San Marcos paper for the last 2 Sundays, and for any who think things are bad here I have an announcement to make. It’s a LOT worse elsewhere!
The police blotter for this last week included a couple of car burglaries, a cat up a tree, and some disorderly conduct in an elevator. The Jackson newspaper doesn’t fool with such minor problems, their blotter usually has several murders (we were approaching 60 for the year thus far when I left) attempted murders, stabbings, shootings, assorted mayhem, and various armed robberies. My home had been broken into 3 times, my family had 2 cars stolen, and one car having much damage done in a botched attempt at stealing it. The wise did not leave so much as a garden hose behind stout locks, monster-gorilla chains, barbed wire, watch-towers with machine guns, and several unfriendly pit bulls. Twice I was awoken in the dead of night by the sound of gun-shots, but no police responded to my 911 calls… I guess the policy is that if you did not actually see a murder, then they have more important things to attend to, like the waitress at the Waffle House.
The housing crisis much bally-hoo’d in the press has a much different meaning in the two cities. In San Marcos, the crisis is finding somewhere to live regardless of reasonable expense (unless you have several hundred thousands of dollars for a house). In Jackson, the crisis is trying to sell a house in a war zone. I had two houses on either side of me sit vacant for YEARS trying to rent or sell, and one across the street. One has been vacant since a year before Katrina hit us with a Cat-3 whallop never to be forgotten. This house has a broken sewer connection which makes for a stinky health-hazard that no amount of calls to the city has managed thus far to remedy. The weeds in the yard stand taller than the average tree here in San Marcos, and I erected a sign in the yard that read “Jackson City Weed Preserve, No Mowing Allowed!”. The other two houses had the air-conditioning units stolen from them twice before they could be moved into. There is a thriving industry in MS of stealing air conditioners and selling them at the scrap yard. There is another industry of building steel cages around the units, but even this can be thwarted by dis-assembling thru the bars of the cage and slipping the pieces thru the bars. I suggested to the city that this problem could be greatly reduced by having only licensed people be allowed to sell frequently stolen items to scrap yards (they also steal all the wiring from any construction project). One house next door even had all the asbestos siding stripped from it, AFTER it had just been re-painted!
Jackson and this area of Texas has one similarity, but with a profound difference, if that makes any sense. I came here because my career is in plastics, in the supervisory/management level… and just like what is in the news here, we have a Nissan plant that has put most of the molders in the area out of business, and the general manufacturing market is swamped with folks all chasing the same jobs that are simply not there. Everyone has gone to near-shut-down, one skeleton shift instead of three or four, and a WHOLE lot of folks all looking for the same work in a place that doesn’t believe in paying people for the work they do. Here, the Toyota plant is in distress, but there is a variety of places to land on ones’ feet. Because this area has had the foresight to diversify and plan ahead. I heard on the radio that half of all jobs created in the US came about in Texas, and I can believe it. I am living testimony to it, and I feel very fortunate that such a place exists.
I feel VERY lucky to have quickly found an apartment here in San Marcos via the “Apartment Experts” on University Drive and a most diligent agent named Brandin Huber who was actually IN the office on July 4th! Some sort of civic award should go to such people, and I was greatly impressed by the whole experience with them.
I absolutely LOVE San Marcos thus far in my limited experience, and feel like much of my life has been wasted by not discovering Texas while still young. I could do without the train traffic which ever seems to find me when I’m in a hurry… one Saturday a simple trip to get a charger for my cell phone ended up an ordeal as I got stuck in the same funeral procession TWICE, and then a train road-block.
Mississippi calls itself the hospitality State, but to me it can’t hold a candle to the folks I have run into here. My new neighbors have made an effort to come introduce themselves, and I didn’t know my own neighbors in MS, in a house I have lived in for 20 years! I lost the antennae on my cell phone and went on a blind adventure to find one… it would have been a lot easier if I had a phone book, but I was having a hard time coming up with one. Went to SEVERAL places in search of the elusive antennae… Thad at the “Wireless” store on I-35 frontage road not only gave me a phone book, but began calling everyone he knew that might have what I need. He sent me to the “Cricket” store on Aquarena Springs Rd… they had an antennae, which they took from a used phone and gave it to me NO CHARGE!
This is truly a remarkable place to live, and all should give thanks for such a blessing in times of turmoil and despair elsewhere. If anyone thinks it’s hot here, they should try MS, with equal temps but 80% humidity that requires a shower before and after checking the mail… and checking every bump in the night to make sure someone is not stealing your air conditioner.
Regards,
Grimplesnarf,
Happy transplant to San Marcos! SALUTE
