Saturday, August 1, 1998

Our party animal

With great amusement, I read the front-page article in your Sunday edition about Gov. George W. Bush.

We have elected as the governor of Texas a fellow who was "an enthusiastic participant in a college party atmosphere" and a "party animal" at Yale, according to the news article.

He then returned to Texas and failed in two business ventures. His successes, if you can call them that, have been aided financially by his famous name and his father's friends.

He got the taxpayers in Arlington to finance the building of a baseball park. That pretty well sums up his past experiences, and we were gullible enough to put him in the governor's mansion! Once in office, he vetoed legislation which would have given Texas the right to choose their own doctors when they are a member of an HMO.

I believe we need a real Texan who can stand on his own feet as our governor, not some irresponsible "Party Animal," who must depend on his daddy and his friends to bail him out.

And now this same George Bush wants to be Present of the United States? May God help us if we can't do better than this, both in Austin and in Washington, D.C.

CURTIS SMITH

Abilene

A dishonor

The front-page story on Gov. Bush this morning read "After graduation from Yale, George W. Bush became a fighter pilot for the Texas Air National Guard in 1968, thereby escaping the war in Vietnam."

This is low-grade journalism and a dishonor to Bush and the Texas Air National Guard. It suggests that Bush was a coward who hid in the ranks of the TANG to avoid Vietnam.

The truth is that our Texas Air National Guard is not the resting place for cowards. the TANG has served bravely in WWII, the Korean conflict and, yes, the Vietnam conflict. It has also served during the Gulf War.

DAN GRAHAM

Abilene

The zoo cares

On Thursday, the 16th, the wind blew a bird's nest out of one of our trees. We found two baby birds in the nest. We did not know what kind they were or where the nest came from, so we couldn't put them back in their nest.

Our dove was sitting on two eggs, so we put the baby birds with her. The next morning we called the zoo and asked them what we could do with them, since we had no idea.

They told us to bring them to the zoo. When we got there, the zoo had just closed, but we found some people who took them to the part of the zoo where they keep other baby birds. The zoo called us this past Saturday and said that the birds are house sparrows. They are flying, and the zoo people let them go out at a ranch.

We would like to thank the Abilene zoo for taking care of the birds.

KADEE, KRISTY AND KARLA MEADOR

Abilene