Opinion

Dear Neil: I have two young red oak trees in our yard. The leaves on one of the trees are turning brown.

I come from a family of fighting men. My cousin Adolph was a paratrooper who landed at Normandy on D-Day, and the parachute he used - stained with blood and dirt - was turned into my cousin Helen’s wedding dress.

Up to half of Border Patrol personnel in Texas have been pulled from the field, with a record low 12 officers attempting to cover a busy 245-mile stretch of the Rio Grande. As more agents are assigned to deskwork, “Morale is in the toilet,” said the Border Patrol’s union.

Dear Neil: We have a beautiful pecan tree in our yard. In the past year, several patches of bark near the base of the tree have started to degrade. The rest of the tree does not seem to be affected. I don’t believe equipment damaged the trunk. Any advice would be appreciated.

In these days it is important to lift up one another and encourage one another in all that we do. Instead of being the problem, it is best that we be part of the solution by lifting up one another with word of praise. Hebrew 10: 24 reminds us to “consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.”

Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service is partnering with the Texas Department of Transportation through the statewide Drive Sober No Regrets impaired driving campaign. AgriLife Extension and TxDOT remind drivers when celebrating the Labor Day holiday to always plan for a sober ride home before they start drinking. Even one life lost is too many. Remember, a designated driver is not someone who is the “least drunk,” but should be a sober driver who has not consumed any amount of alcohol.

There’s a sinkhole created and expanding near Imperial and TXDOT is fixing to spend $35 million dollars to move a road to get around it. The sad part is that after the road is moved, the environmental disaster is still going to be growing and polluting our groundwater near Imperial.

In 2019, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said that the first thing he did when he arrived at his office was to check the previous day’s border apprehension totals. Under 1,000 was, Johnson said, “a relatively good day,” and over 1,000 was “a relatively bad number” because that “overwhelms the system.”

Dear Neil: Our container lemon and lime trees have curling leaves. I’m also seeing lines on the leaves.

If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.