Residents will see a .48-cent increase and businesses .69 cents.

The city did not have a choice in approving the rate increase because of the current contract.

Council member Pat Isaacson said: “Every council member said the same thing. ‘We don’t want to vote for this, but we don’t have a choice.’”

Weaver cited personal reasons for the move.

Former mayor Duane Smith was tapped to fill Weaver’s seat. Smith will finish Weaver’s term, which ends in May 2013.

TOOL – Tool City Councilman Dennis Jay Candage died at his home suddenly, early Tuesday.

Candage has served on the Tool City Council since May, 2010.
He and his wife, Nancy, were married Nov. 6, 2010. The couple resided in Paradise Bay.

Candage had lived in the area for 40 years, always active in the community.
“He has always worked to give back to his community as long as I have known him,” Tool fire Chief Mike Grant said.

Grant is also a city police officer and said the department received a call at about 2 a.m.

First Responders went to his home and Candage was transported to East Texas Medical Center emergency in Gun Barrel City, where he was pronounced dead at about 3:30 a.m.

“Candage was in the city offices Monday and he seemed fine,” Grant said.

Candage was a member of the Tool Volunteer Fire Department, he served on the Building and Grounds committee at Providence Baptist Church and was caretaker for the Tool Cemetery. Arrangements were not yet made by presstime Tuesday.

The problem is that a large number of seats went begging for a lack of support by the very residents the TVFD works so hard to serve! It pains me to see that large communities like Key Ranch Estates, Beachwood and others located within the service district of the TVFD just don’t seem to care! When an event like this one is staged every year, there is absolutely no reason why the performance shouldn’t be completely sold out.

Chief Arnold and his volunteers work extremely hard to provide the very best fire and first responder services for everyone South of the lake spillway, so let’s get behind them and show our appreciation for their efforts!

Gilbert W. Betts
Trinidad

My heroes have always been “you,” the people who are organized, have their lives in some semblance of order, like beds made, morning dishes washed before noon, and some sweeping concluded where it is mostly needed, this before noon also. I usually tell myself I’ll do one of these later, much later.

Every drawer in your house is neatly arranged with you knowing exactly what is in which drawer. If someone asks me where something is, and I reply it is in the kitchen, and he complains he can’t find it. I say, “If you can’t find it, you don’t need it anyway.”

I’m not a complete loss. I have a drawer for eating utensils. The drinking glasses are behind one door, dishes to eat on behind another. There is one junk drawer and one drawer for plastic, foil, wax paper, so forth. But under the cabinet I’m still trying to get like articles behind the same door.

I love spontaneity, but it’s been conquered here. Experts say a restaurant’s cleanliness in the kitchen can be judged by the bathrooms. Walking to our door for entrance is our dead giveaway. And I work on it. But we’ve always had a house that needs fixing. We say we’ll make a certain improvements then act as though we are in our fifties and have years of time.

You, there, smiling, my hero, drive in a car cleaner than ICU in a hospital whereas I might could live in mine happily a week if I were covered in a snow landslide. Every time I depart the auto, I dispose of all I can. I can’t keep up, never could, never will.

And if grandchildren and grown children know I am not Miss Tidy and probably will only decline, these I love encourage the problem to grow. Some have clothing left here for years, but if it is in the school’s colors, I cannot discard it. Sentimental me.

Please don’t think of me as a hoarder; even my husband believes our items multiply in the night. But speaking of husbands, in the area of clutter, we are alike. Only I think like items go together; he sees no sense in my rule. He collects little things on the side of a road, busy or not, saying I bet I can find a use for that some day. Red gas cans, all sizes, are at any clearing in the yard. I pretend they are rosebushes, just late bloomers. On trash day, I place one can a week in the bottom of the biggest trash hauler and cover it with more trash. He would throw away my favorite dress if he knew.

You probably can have guests over for a meal, get the table cleared and the dishes washed before anyone knows it, and then sit to chat.

Since no kin helps me, I always say, “Leave every thing as it is. I have all week to clean it up. Let’s talk. I love to talk.”

Yes, you’ve always been my hero, and in the marriage of men and women, I suppose my husband and I were put together as no one else could have stood us.

When I worked, some other workers complimented me on being a multi-tasker, students working on different items; I saw it as saving my week, my job. Days just went that way sometimes then. Now I can’t talk and look at something at the same time. One topic at a time please and could you speak up?

And white is a color you wear well. No spots on the front of your blouse even at the end of your day. A miracle. Then an updated calender hangs somewhere appropriately with your events and appointments on it. You always write something down, anything slightly important, AND YOU CAN FIND IT THE NEXT DAY!

My husband, when employed, had secretaries who handed him what he needed, had his briefcase ready for his next meeting of the week, and he was ready to go. Had I been going to a smaller meeting, my important papers would still be on my desk or in my car. I had to depend on students for information.

The only good part of me is having you come by, asking me if I have time to ride with you to the next town for something and maybe a cola. At any time I ‘m ready. Whatever I was working on takes second importance, and I like that quality.

Remember Gary Morris’ version of “Did you ever know you’re my hero” of the eighties. Our family has used it in weddings, celebrations, etc. But never as I have used it today. Maybe it’s my theme song because I depend on others so much. Remember, it takes all kinds. Surely, I’m not the only “One of a kind.” I certainly don’t want to be around anyone like me. Oh, the trips back to some place to retrieve my purse.

I have recently misled you on a couple of things, and since I don’t have anything else to talk about this morning, I’ll take this opportunity to clear those things up. I know there are probably several more, but I can’t think of them right now.

First of all, I need to let you know that the place where the James Surls Sculpture Garden: a Memorial to Joe Surls is located is NOT where James Surls grew up. Joe and JoAnn Surls raised their kids somewhere around what is now the lower part of Cedar Creek Lake. I think. After the kids had left home, Joe and JoAnn moved to the beautiful place where the Sculpture Garden is being created.

So I’m sorry I misled you about this, but it does give me another opportunity to remind you to mark your calendars for the one day when the Gardens will be open to the public: Saturday, April 28. It will cost you to see it–$25 in advance, $35 on that day—but cheap at twice the price if you consider what that buys you.

For one thing, if things go as planned, it will buy major restoration of one of Malakoff’s most interesting landmarks, the Bartlett House. That is where all the money is going. For another thing, it buys you admission to a second beautiful garden full of flowers and sculpture, at the waterfront home of my very favorite rich people, Barbara and James Stewart. I’m fortunate to have been invited to parties in their gardens, and they are unbelievably beautiful. And there’s more—a free mapped-out drive-about tour all around the area, where many artists are waiting to show you their works, and at the end of the tour all ticket-holders will be invited to have refreshments and watch the sunset beside some kind of fantastic water sculpture at Beacon Hill near Kemp. I’m going to check out Beacon Hill pretty soon so I can tell you what you have to look forward to there.

There’s a whole lot more information you need to know about the Surls Sculpture Garden. That’s why you need to go to www.texasmonthly.com/forum/events/article/6374 and read all about it. If you don’t want to type all that, you can go to my Around the Town Facebook page and find the link to click on. Or if you just hate computers, call me, and I’ll print it out for you.

The other thing I misled you about was the SUPER EASY CHOCOLATE WALNUT FUDGE recipe. It is super easy once you have chopped up the chocolate squares. Before that, it is not, and also not cheap. I must have used chocolate chips instead of chocolate squares when I made this stuff at Christmas. And since I bought the ingredients at the same time I bought a lot more stuff, I didn’t really know what it cost. This time, it took me at least 30 minutes to chop up those 27 one ounce squares. And those squares were on sale for nearly half price, and still cost $8, plus three I already had. And the condensed milk was half price, so it was only $1.60. But the walnuts cost me another $3.50. So my fudge cost me over $13. Plus 30 minutes of chopping, getting little chips of chocolate all over the table and some on the floor. But it is really good fudge. It was for a bake sale…I’ll bet it sold for at least $10.

I was saved January 4, 1970 and I was amazed at the changes that God made in my thoughts, attitude, habits and language. Before January 4th, I could not even say “Good morning,” without a string of four letter words describing you and your family. This story is about just one of the changes God made in my life.

About four months after I was saved, a neighbor, Bob Thornton, who lived half a mile from us (this distance is critical to the story), wanted me to build a barn for him. After we sat down and discussed just what he wanted, we agreed that if he would be there to help me on Fridays and Saturdays, I would work for free.

I figured up the material list and went to the lumber yard; got a cost estimate so Bob could have an idea what it was going to cost. He said we would have to wait a couple of weeks to start because he had to get a loan from the bank. I told him that in the meantime we could get all the dirt work done.

A couple of weeks later Bob called me and told me that the material would be there next Thursday. We had the site already laid out, so the next Friday we started working. The barn was going to be a pole barn with a dirt floor. Therefore, we set the poles, plumbed and braced them, and left them for the concrete to set. This was before the advent of metal buildings. We started tying the poles together with two by six purlins; this was before I was using nail guns, so we were using hammers to drive our nails with.

Bob had an emergency phone call and had to leave; I told him that I would finish the purlins and have things ready to start putting up joist and rafters the next day. It was getting late in the afternoon, and I was getting tired. I had dropped one 2×6 on my foot and had bumped my left thumb two or three times. It wasn’t really hurt, just throbbing a little bit.

I was using my 20 ounce framing hammer, and putting up the last purlin. When I was about to drive my last nail, and it was about two feet above my head, I set the nail and moved my left hand over about eighteen inches so that I wouldn’t bump my sore left thumb. I drew the hammer back and hit the nail, once, then twice. Then I drew the hammer back for the final lick; and I glanced over at my thumb, to make certain it was out of the way, and as I swung the hammer, I hit with all my might, ‘just what I was looking at’, MY LEFT THUMB! “Owwww! Man that hurt,” I cried out. I looked at my thumb, and it was split wide open; blood was spewing everywhere. I grabbed my thumb with my right hand squeezing as hard as I could. I forgot all about my pick-up, I just took off running as fast as I could. I ran all the way home, burst through the door shouting, “Honey, Honey, look, look.” She cried, “What did you do, what did you do?” I had blood all over me and I held up my thumb saying, “Look, look, I didn’t CUSS, I didn’t CUSS”… The Bible says, “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” II. Cor. 5:17.

Mrs. Mullins was a graduate of Malakoff High School and spent 45 years working for Nabisco in Houston before retiring.

Graveside services will be held Saturday, Feb. 18, at 2 p.m.

Please call Earthman Southwest Chapel for service information.

Survivors are her four sons, Johnny Duff, James David Duff, Michael Duff and Robert Duff; daughter, Samantha Ross; four sisters, Judy Ross, Ruth Brannon, Daine Wilson and Sherely Smallwood; 15 grandchildren, seven great grandchildren.

She is preceded in death by her parents, Other Daniel Gregg and Christy Sherrion Gregg; boyfriend, Dave Lindsey; sister, Millard Crushfield.

Memorial Service was held on Saturday, Feb. 11, 2012 from 2-4 p.m. at the residence of Ruby Duff with Bill Beck officiating.