07-30-01

A lot of things have happened since the last time I sat down to write.

I will briefly give you a summary of the happenings.

I must let you know that a fire started in the middle of my tipi a few weeks ago. Jackie was frying fish, our weekly treat of fried food, when the peanut oil in the skillet popped out onto the burner and caught on fire. The fire jumped out onto the wallpaper and walls and burned the curtains and the vinyl floor covering.

Before Jackie could get my attention which was less than 4 minutes, the blaze was going strong and the melted poly vinyl chloride fumes were so strong that I couldn’t get in to stomp the fire out without losing my breath.

When the fire broke out, I was in the back of our property with a friend, Agapo, who was helping me install an air conditioner; Agapo came to our rescue with a water hose, he was creeping along on his knees dousing the fire with the water from the hose using his thumb to control the pressure of the water.

A neighbor called 911 and summoned the fire department who came within a couple of minutes and finished extinguishing the fire and removed the burning furniture out side.

My friends, I cannot and do not have time and space to tell you the reaction of my lungs to the smoke and the hurt that this fire has caused Jackie and me, after all this was my grandfather, Wood Goin’s house. My family has lived in the house about a century and many things came to my mind as I still see the outside walls standing.

I am so appreciative of the Aubrey Volunteer Fire Department’s volunteers and the ambulance crew that gave Jackie and me oxygen for about an hour to help us get our breathing back to normal and get all of the smoke out of our lungs.

Cherokee Chief Hicks

On another note, I received a letter from the State Cherokee Chief Hicks that he is going to include in his next report some new findings concerning Chief Dwali, who was in existence about the time that Sam Houston dropped his support of the tribe in East Texas.

This was a very disappointing time for the Cherokees, as they were the legal possessors of part of Texas from the Sabine River to the Trinity River. I will include his report at a later date.

Present Day Tipis

It seems that the Cherokees are becoming very prolific in the Aubrey area, a new Tipi is up and under construction by one of Aubrey’s construction builders and is in a very photographic state of condition at the time of this writing.

The tipi is a very affordable type of architecture that was not available when the tribe was more active in this region (no buffalos now).

Also there were no tax appraisal districts in the news headlines back then, as well as no tax collecting agencies to sit around and play with money and try to determine just who and where the next gold coins go.

I was keeping up with a little of the more current events last week, when I discovered that the town of Aubrey increased by $7,000,000 in valuation from the Denton Appraisal District which according to my calculator and fast mental calculation means that there were seventy $100,000 tipis built in the town limits.

You know I was taught to count in the Aubrey school system and I just can’t count 70 new houses going up in the year 2000. Perhaps I would be better served if I were shown instead of relying on my mental condition.

On another note there is a group of Denton County residents concerned about the taxing evaluation on a state wide basis and are trying to organize a tax reform. The group is called The Citizens for Tax Reform and will be meeting on August 9, 2001 at 6:00 p.m. in Aubrey. They already have petitions being circulated to call for tax reform and are trying to get 2 million signatures state wide.

For more information, contact Fern Bugg, the Aubrey Area Chamber President.

More on all of this next week if my computer stays full of ink and I can keep my electricity turned on.

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