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I have come to Gainesville, TX, a smaller town featuring antique shopping, an octagonal courthouse, a historic train station, and a zoo. While reading through various facts about Gainesville, I found the following the most interesting:
Another flood brought Gainesville into the national spotlight when, on September 21, 1981, the Trinity River flooded much of the town, including the local zoo. The Frank Buck Zoo, named for famed zookeeper Frank Buck, lost more than forty animals that day. The one that garnered the attention and love of the world was Gerry the elephant. Named Gerry II after the zoo's original elephant, Gerry managed to survive the flood, after being swept down river, by hanging on to tree limbs with her trunk for 36 hours. At the worst of the flood, the only part of her body that was not submerged was her trunk. Since the flood Gerry (now known as Sissy) has remained in the spotlight off and on. There was an attempt to breed her at the Fort Worth Zoo in the 1980s, but that didn't work out. In 1997, she crushed a zookeeper against the doorway of her barn enclosure at the Frank Buck zoo. While details around the death are still shrouded in mystery, zoo officials labeled her as a problem animal and shipped her off in the middle of the night to avoid protests from the community that had come to love her over the years. After leaving Gainesville, she was sent to Houston Zoo and then El Paso. She made headlines again when video footage of her arrival at El Paso was leaked to media outlets. The footage showed zookeepers beating Gerry with clubs for over an hour. The zookeepers never really explained why they did what they did to her. Thankfully, Gerry/Sissy was sent to an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee, where she resides at the present time. Gerry turned 40 on Dec. 1, 2008. (Wikipedia)
Gainesville is home to many Victorian style homes, antique shops, and quaint storefronts. The town is known for its churches, supposedly the site of the first episcopalian church in all of Texas.
Sadly, Gainesville is also where 42 Texans were hanged after a mock trial by the Confederacy on October 1, 1862, to scare them into loyalty.
I am now only 7 miles from the Oklahoma border. :-) The last few days have been really hard. My legs are tired and I am having a lot of front shint pain. After research, I've found it could be my shoes (which I doubt), or weak shin muscles, or the way I drop my foot, or stepping out too far in front of me (overstriding). All I know is I want to cry sometimes when I walk. I've been icing my right leg now when I get done walking and stretching my shins. And I've noticed walking slower doesn't cause it to hurt as much, but walking slower takes longer.....
Pain, pain, go away....
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