(please just delete if not interested in my rambling) I saw on the Dallas TV news last night a report of kids on a lake and falling through the breaking ice. They got out safely. The was video film of the kids scrambling and one of the girls crawling on the ice to get back to shore. The small lake is in the Palos Verdes park in Mesquite, only about 1/4 mile from our house when we lived in the Palos Verdes Addition in Mesquite for 18 years. We have been to this small lake many times with our children and grand children. Once it froze over very thick when we lived there. We all went out on the ice. At one point I could look down into the clear ice and I could see a crack. But the visibility of the crack make it clear to me the ice was close to a foot thick, so we stayed out it and had a lot of fun to the kids and to me. It was important to me because I hoped my children would remember this experience as I remember when my dad took us kids out on our frozen pool in Red River Co around 1945 as mentioned earlier. I was glad the ice there in Mesquite was much thicker. This must have been around 1980 to 1986, don't remember the exact year. This small lake is also within about 100 yards of were a jet fighter crashed around 1979 to 1982. We were very thankful it hit in a clear area, within 200 yards of home and a middle school. My wife and children thought the sound of the plane must be a tornado and took cover in the bath room. I saw the two pilots parachuting to! safety. My wife says it was a warm day and the windows were open and she remembers the curtains being gusted with the wind force when the plane crashed but she did not know what it was at the time. This is all just on the south side of I-30 and about 1 or 2 miles east of Loop I-365 (LBJ) and a little west of Broadway (Beltline Rd) in Mesquite/Garland. Jim Giddens Paris, Tx