Jo Ann C. Stribling

Native of Texas; dietitian; longstanding member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, San Antonio; daughter of James and Edna Jo; sister of Sue; wife of Sam; mother of Jay, Jim and Dees; grandmother of Sam, Dees, Robert, Lilly and Ann.

As of this week, officially a nonagenarian. Not many of us get to be that.

I visited her on her 90th birthday, arriving in San Antonio two days before, after driving down from Dallas with my brother Jay, whom I’d visited for a while before that. Besides my mother and Jay, on this trip I saw my other brother Jim; all of my nephews and the wife of one and the girlfriend of another; and my aunt and first cousin.

Work continued during some of the visit, as it always does. And as I always do, I squeezed in a few other things, such as my second-ever attendance at a state fair, a ride on the Trinity Railway Express, a walkabout in Downtown Dallas, another walkabout along a lakeshore, a visit to one of the three spanking-new national monuments, created only this July, and a look-see at a cemetery, because of course I wanted to visit a cemetery.

The day I flew into Dallas, the city was experiencing its hottest October 15 on record, with a high of 95 F that afternoon. The days afterward were still warm, in the 80s mostly, which is a little higher than normal. By the time we planned to drive to San Antonio on the 22nd, heavy rain was predicted along most of the route, but the downpour was sluggish in arriving. All we saw were sprinkles here and there.

The massive rains came on the 23rd and 24th. The San Antonio area caught a regular storm coming from the northwest plus the remnants of Hurricane Patricia, which hit Mexico on the 23rd, and for a while had the strongest hurricane winds ever recorded. Wow.