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I met Nita Frazier about two weeks after I arrived in Texas, in March of 1992. She was the manager of the Dairy Queen in Goldthwaite, and I think my kids enjoyed her friendly welcome as much as they enjoyed the ice cream. We couldn’t afford to eat out much back then (even at Dairy Queen), but we had a chance to see her several times over the next four years, before we moved to Burnet.

I guess that’s part of the reason that Nita was so supportive when I first started the Texas Hill Country magazine. She bought gift subscriptions for friends, told others about the magazine, and started giving me some great story ideas from the Mills County area. The Dairy Queen became my unofficial Goldthwaite office, and I have arranged several meetings and conducted quite a few interviews there over the last six years. In the spring of 2008, Nita called to tell me about a Goldthwaite boy who had recently landed a part in a Will Smith movie called Hancock. “It’s a great story,” she told me.

I was intrigued, and one day that summer, my daughter Amanda went with me to interview the family of Jae Head (the story was in my Fall 2008 magazine, the same one that featured Llano). We were both charmed by this amazing child actor, whose growth had been stunted by a heart defect that nearly killed him when he was a baby, but whose cheerfulness, enthusiasm and energy made him an obvious “force to be reckoned with” despite his small size and youthful appearance.

This spring, Nita called again to tell me she had heard that Jae was making another movie, this time with Sandra Bullock. About a month ago, I saw Jae in a commercial for “The Blind Side,” and told my kids about it. Last week, my son Danny called from Lubbock, and told me that The Blind Side was one of the best movies he had ever seen. I took Amanda with me to Marble Falls to see it Friday night.

I don’t think I have EVER enjoyed a movie so much! Besides the inspiring (true) story line, it was just astonishing to see Jae in action. On the one hand, he was exactly the way we had seen him – hyperactive, irrepressible and quick-witted; on the other hand (if it were up to me), I would definitely give him an Oscar for Best Actor (I’d give Oscars to Sandra Bullock and Quinton Aaron, too – it was that good!). I looked up a review online, and the reviewer said “the real ‘scene stealer’ is child actor Jae Head, the cheerful younger brother of the family.” That is the understatement of the year!

I’m not a movie critic, and the “real” movie critics hardly ever agree with me, but The Blind Side is getting good reviews all over. I think everyone should see it.

Just a little closer to home, I had the chance to follow a bunch of UT students around the Inks Ranch last week while they were making a movie of their own. The short movie, set in the Russian civil war of 1920, is actually a thesis for grad student Nicolas Siegenthaler. He says that he will gladly bring it to the Lantex Theater for a screening when it’s finished next May.

Not only that, but Executive Director Doris Messer, of the Llano Chamber of Commerce, tells me that location scout Kim LeBlanc, of the Texas Film Commission, is searching for a location for a documentary on LBJ (the specs were a early-mid 20th century house on a creek). She got a grand tour of the Llano area, and took lots of pictures of various locations. Even if they don’t work for this shoot, they may work for some project in the future.

Getting back to reality, Llano has been busy with Christmas activities for the last couple of weeks. I was especially impressed by the attendance at last Wednesday’s Christmas Stroll. I’ve attended a few parties and other events, but I haven’t been able to keep up with everything; I hope you are all enjoying the Christmas season, and please don’t take it personally if your event didn’t make the paper this week. Two things I definitely plan to attend this Friday are the Renaissance-themed “ExcelLHS Day” at the high school in the morning, and the arrival of Santa Claus in a helicopter at Walden Court in the afternoon (4:30, I think). I’m pretty sure that everyone is invited to both those events. Also, it’s probably not too soon to mention the Epiphany concerts scheduled for January 2 and 3 at the Lutie Watkins Memorial United Methodist Church. Dana Wright, from the Fuel Coffee House, tells me that it’s a great event, and that this year’s featured vocalist will be Aislinn Deviney, whose mom got the whole tradition started ten years ago. There’s also “a really nice reception” after the concert, Dana says.

I attended the EDC meeting Monday evening, and was very interested to hear of the visit from Stephanie Micas, of the Ketchum company, from Virginia. The purpose of her visit was to assess the chances of raising money for a multi-purpose event center; her initial reaction was very positive. “This will not be a problem,” she told EDC board member Sharon Keilin, “You have a story to tell.” I hope she’s right; her next job will be to find grant money to get the fundraising drive off to a good start.

As most of you know, there is a new floodplain map in the works for Llano County. FEMA was supposed to have had it published twice by now in the local papers, but there’s apparently some kind of holdup. That doesn’t bother me, because it seems to me that it was put together without adequate data, and the results don’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Some of the elevations are as much as eight feet different from the old map (made in 1991); lower in the flood-prone east end of the county, and higher in the west. Of course, I don’t know much about the science, and I hear that they have much more accurate topographical information these days, but I can’t believe either that the old map was so bad, or that this one is so good. Engineer Brad Shaw, of Kingsland, who has probably studied the issue as much as anyone, says that there was a flood in 1869 that was worse than the 1935 flood which washed away the old bridge. The 1997 flood was almost as bad. But I think you’d have to have an awful lot of rain to get the river eight feet higher than that, and it seems to me that the water would be higher in Kingsland, too. Just my two cents.

Apart from that floodplain map, I’m quite pleased with the “state of the city” this Christmas and I’m starting to feel a little better about the state of the country. So “with malice toward none, with charity toward all” (I was going to say “with Peace on Earth, and Good Will to Men,” but that doesn’t seem completely accurate yet) I can cheerfully wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Be sure to keep on reading The Llano News!