With the passage of years, the arrival of each month seems to come more quickly. The next week begins before the last one has had an opportunity to end effectively. Every other day is a Saturday and time for going to an evening mass and dinner out. This was evident until early in July 2024, when the cogs of time jammed to yield an epoch rather than a series of repetitive hours.
The first notification arrived as a message from Eagle Trace’s management about a major break in the community’s water line. A flooded street resulted in a blockage requiring a circumnavigation of the entire complex in order to leave or enter it. On the other hand, the real damage was a loss of water pressure in all of the community for the next two days. Staff were, however, very accommodating as, twice a day, they brought a bucket of water to allow a toilet to be flushed in each apartment.
Fortunately, the water pressure was restored before the fireworks exploded on the Fourth and the winds of tropical storm Beryl approached the Gulf Coast. During the weekend, this category 1 hurricane struck Matagorda Bay, south of Houston, and quickly passed over the area. Nevertheless, its winds were inordinately strong and did extreme damage to the area’s power system. For reasons still under debate, CenterPoint Energy was not able to restore electricity to most of its 2.3 million customers until days, if not a week, afterwards.
Apparently, Eagle’s Trace is accessed by two central transformers, one associated with the new neighborhoods, another for the four older buildings, including our own Pecan Grove. The original residents found themselves living in darkened apartments with room temperatures in the high eighties! Many sweated together in the central living room and dining areas. Karen and I spent several days in the lounges of Mockingbird Plaza, one of the newly opened residences, readily accessed by a five-minute walk from our unlivable unit, to which we returned for a nightly baking. Once again, the ET staff provided meals and assistance to hundreds of residents. By the second weekend of the month, it appeared we had survived the current major problems of our life in a retirement community. Most of the city, however, had more tragic experiences with fallen trees, crushed houses, and closed businesses.
During this city-wide chaos, there were personal problems I had to address. One issue may have been associated with the lack of appropriate sanitation during the first days of the month. I developed a week-long sore throat, cough and low grade (100◦) fever. Fortunately, most of the COVID-like symptoms ended before Beryl’s effects were fully in place.
Karen, herself, had her own issues. Having lost her balance, she fell in our apartment and required the aid of quickly arriving security staff to help her stand, a feat she could not accomplish on her own and one for which I could not offer assistance.
With the decline of my flu-like symptoms, other ailments appeared. For an unknown reason, I developed a sprained left wrist and arm. Although I could still steer the car to make a trip to Kroger’s in order to replace the food lost during our week-long lack of electricity, this action became limited as a result of a stiff neck and unturnable head. Fortunately, there has been no other need to leave the grounds. After all, there was now a functioning television to watch. On the other hand, the TV-content was suddenly very limited.
On Saturday, July 13, as we were recovering electrical power, the national event for the week was the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump, during his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A young sniper had managed to clip the top of Mr. Trump’s right ear. He fell behind the podium, as his followers gasped in horror. Moments later, he was resurrected and, with triumphal arm raised in the air and with a determination to continue the fight, he was escorted by surrounding Secret Service members to a waiting car which drove him to a local hospital.
The wound was superficial, requiring no sutures, but only a well-observable bandage. Tragically, a bystander had been killed and two others had been wounded in the attack by a twenty-year old man, who had no apparent motive to shoot Mr. Trump. He, himself, was killed. Of course, members of Congress, especially the Republicans, interrogated the director of the Secret Service. Their commentary quickly led to her resignation. Continuing investigations by Congress and other governmental offices, has produced limited information about the assailant, Matthew Crooks, a registered Republican who had contributed $15.00 to the Biden campaign! Somehow, he had managed to find a location on a rooftop only 148 yards from Mr. Trump’s podium.
During the week following the attempted assassination of Mr. Trump, the Republican Party met in Milwaukee to nominate him, officially, as the Party’s Presidential candidate for 2024. By Thursday, he was unofficially coronated by all of his former rivals, one of whom, J.D. Vance, a Senator from Ohio, he had now accepted as his running mate. Their leadership of the news cycle did not last very long during this strange July 2024.
A week latter, on Sunday July 21, Joe Biden, the current President of the United States, announced he would no longer seek the nomination by the Democrats at their own convention in August. Since late June, following his inept debate with Mr. Trump, many leaders in his own party had called for him to step aside. Despite those who have been concerned about his age (81 years) and health status (currently with diagnosed COVID-19), Mr. Biden had repeatedly affirmed his intent to remain in the running. However, sometime during this weekend, he decided he would no longer seek re-election. A few hours after his original announcement, he endorsed Kamala Harris, his current Vice President, as his replacement on the ballot. Before the end of July, she should announce the person who should replace her as Vice President in this year’s election.
At the moment, the national media are overcome with conflicting reports and opinions relating to the coming campaign for Trump-Vance versus Harris-TBN. Some people believe Kamala Harris, a multiracial woman, should be replaced by a more traditional candidate. However, she has suddenly obtained the backing of a significant number of the delegates who will select the Democratic candidate and, given the fact the Party’s campaign funds were increased by 81 million dollars within twenty-four hours of her backing by President Biden, it is likely she will become the official nominee when their convention meets next month in Chicago.
During the past week, the Republicans have already called for Harris’ impeachment as Vice President on the grounds that she has not invoked the 25th Amendment calling for the President’s replacement, which they believe is mandatory, since Mr. Biden, not being in condition to seek re-election, should no longer be able to serve as President.
The remainder of July is still ahead, no doubt with more surprises, in addition to those of a hurricane, an attempted assassination and a decline of a Presidential candidacy. Thus far, there have been several other notable events.
On Saturday morning, the day before Mr. Biden’s announcement, CrowdStrike, an international cybersecurity resource headquartered in Texas, released an update for their world-wide software programs, which crashed millions of computers around the world. Airlines, hospitals, banks and other companies using this software continued to have problems, even after the computer code error had been corrected.
Additional news coverage has been associated with the death, on Friday, July 19, of Sheila Jackson Lee, Houston’s Congressional representative over the last three decades. She had been known for her outstanding leadership in equal rights and being instrumental in the establishment of Juneteeth as a national holiday.
Another event, scheduled for the end of the month, may bring its own turmoil and dissension. The summer Olympic Games will open in Paris. Although the physical abilities of thousands of international athletes will be demonstrated, there are significant possibilities of political demonstrations as well, given the current war between Russia and Ukraine and the Israelis and Hamas, the Palestinian military organization. It was fifty years ago, when the massacre occurred at the Olympics being held in Munich. These quadrennial games dedicated to peace have often had their own political entanglements.
Although the events of this month have been dramatic, albeit even tragic for many, there have been other significant, personal occurrences for the month. In early July, our grandson, Gabriel was scheduled for several essential surgeries and is still undergoing hospitalization. On July 19th Samantha, wife of our grandson Jordan, gave birth to their first son, James. To maintain the strangeness of his month, it should be pointed out that exactly one year ago, on July 19, 2023, Kirby, our granddaughter, gave birth to Kipton, her own firstborn. Consequentially, among our ten great grandchildren, two of them now share the same birthday. Two other great grandsons, Shiloh and Liam, have the same birthday as their own fathers. A great granddaughter, Lila, has the same birthday as her aunt. And finally, another great granddaughter, Rory, shares her birthday with her grandfather, Christopher. So, more than half of our great grandchildren have birthday partners.
Evidently, for our extended family, the cogs of time stick together for their own strange reasons. Nevertheless, may the result of their turning be more positive than negative, beyond the month of July, 2024.