So Many Blessings on a Sunday in Texas

I spend far too much time here focusing on the myriad negative aspects of our society today, so I hope readers will allow me the indulgence of doing an entirely positive piece today.

I’m afraid it won’t become a habit, since there seems to be less and less good in America with each passing day. But enough about that.

On Sunday, the Little Wifey, Miss Terri, and I took our two granddaughters to see the traveling Broadway production of “Annie,” and it was just a delightful experience despite a mishap Terri had with an earring. More on that later.

Our grandchicks - I hesitate to call them little girls anymore since the oldest is 12 and the youngest turns 10 this week - have become the center of our lives now. That was purely an intentional outcome. When I was presented with a chance to take an early retirement in 2016, we jumped on it to move from Houston to our current home in Mansfield, just south of Fort Worth, to be close to them and the rest of our nuclear family.

What a blessing this move has been for us. I’ve been fortunate to be able to continue to knock out a living using the only useful skills I have left in life, which are writing and talking, mainly about politics and energy. Terri, who is younger than I, was able to fully retire at the end of 2019, and, after lifetimes of hard work and raising a family, we are lucky to live in a nice home in a nice part of Texas (God Bless Texas, by the way) just minutes from kids, grandkids and in-laws.

Our blessings overflow. Growing up, I could have never dreamed of such an outcome in life. I’ll plan to write about all that sometime, too.

We love the theater, and have traveled often to New York City to take in major productions there in years past. That all ended with COVID, I’m afraid, as that city has become such a hopeless, hapless mess that we no longer feel safe going there. A real shame, not just for the residents there, but for our country, since the Big Apple has been such a showcase for American life for many decades.

Fortunately - so many fortunate things in our lives - thanks to the efforts decades ago by Lee and Perry Bass, members of Fort Worth’s powerful Bass family, the city is home to Bass Hall, which ranks as one of the finest theaters in the country. Bass Hall is home to the Broadway at the Bass program, which hosts many of the top touring productions each year, and we’ve been supporters and season ticket holders for the past 6 seasons.

“Annie” was great, as these touring shows almost always seem to be. I say “almost” because there are always one or two productions each year that don’t live up to on-Broadway standards, like the awful, woke production of Rogers and Hammerstein’s classic “Oklahoma” that came through town last season. What an absolute atrocity that was. But I digress.

Luckily, there had been no effort made to update “Annie” or changes to make it more relevant to modern times. While the references to the New Deal and J.P. Morgan and Harold Ickes and Louis Brandeis no doubt whooshed right over the heads of all the hundreds of young folks in the theater, the production values and choreography and amazing singing voices held their rapt attention. The grandchicks and their peers had a great time, and everyone went home happy.

About 3/4ths of the way home, the Little Wifey let out a gasp and announced that one of her earrings had fallen from her ear at some point during the day. These were not just any earrings, mind you, but a pair of diamond hoops I had bought for her as an anniversary gift from Tiffany’s during one of our New York trips years ago, back when we had some of what we call “stupid money” available to spend. A real heirloom with a lot of sentimental value to us both, made even more relevant to the day given the scene in “Annie” where Daddy Warbucks pulls out the little blue box to give the orphan the gift of a necklace.

It was 4:30 by then, and we had the whole family coming over for Sunday dinner, which we do most weeks (another blessing), so there was no opportunity to rush back to downtown Fort Worth. So, Terri pulled out her cell phone, Googled the Bass Hall phone number, and left a voice mail at the customer service desk, hoping against hope an honest person might find the earring and turn it over to lost and found.

Terri wasn’t especially optimistic about that prospect, but the thing is, I honestly was. Throughout our lives, we’ve had quite a few similar instances, and other than a cell phone I stupidly left in a public bathroom stall in Lake Charles years ago, the lost items almost always have been found by some honest American and turned right up at the relevant lost and found. Looking back, I have to say it has been a significant factor in my ability to maintain some hope for humanity and our country.

Sure enough, at about 8:30 as our family is involved in a heavy discussion about all the goofy things that are happening in the grandchicks’ schools, like a new proliferation of kids pretending they’re cats and other furries with the indulgence of their own useless parents and school administrators, Terri’s phone rings. She answers, and on the other end is - seemingly inevitably - the theater manager.

The earring had fallen out in the ladies room, and had been found and returned by some honest American - this one on the custodial staff.

Folks, if that doesn’t help to restore some hope in humanity, I don’t know what to say. That single earring could have easily been pocketed and pawned for thousands of dollars and probably made a real difference in the life of a person who is likely working for not much more than minimum wage.

As a result of this happy outcome, we will be upping our sponsorship level for Broadway at the Bass, and offering a nice reward to its custodial staff today. We no longer have much “stupid money” to access, but this money won’t qualify as stupid at all. After all, what price does one place on another restoration of faith in humanity?

So many blessings in just one day in Texas.

That is all.