A year has passed since our family became engulfed in a horrific tragedy. My father-in-law, Harris Teel, was stabbed in the heart two days before Thanksgiving while sitting in a waiting room at the Good Shepherd day surgery center in Longview. Nurse Gail Sandidge died on the scene, and three others were wounded. Mr. Teel — who was 82 and in good health at the time — died nine days later. A suspect awaits a capital murder trial, another ordeal this family will have to face. My wife and her three brothers lost their father; our daughter and her cousins lost their Papa. The one thing I am more...
Read more...
I bought a new vehicle several weeks ago, here in Mount Pleasant, another small SUV similar to the Ford Escape hybrid I have driven for nearly eight years. It has 190,000 miles on it but still looks and runs like a new vehicle. I loved that scamp, but it was time to hand it down to our daughter Abbie, who passed her driving test with flying colors and is now legally running around town. It is passing strange to see her head out of the driveway on her way to school in my car. The first time it happened, I thought someone was stealing it but then remembered she had her license.
I changed make...
Read more...
Sam and I walked in the early morning darkness the other day after the first blue Norther blew through. I was bundled up against the wind, Sam frisky and tugging against the leash, clearly enjoying the drop in temperatures. Leaves skittered across the pavement, which made a naturally skittish dog occasionally flinch. Even after more than two years of affection and living the good life, Sam still bears psychic scars. He was clearly mistreated before my Beautiful Mystery Companion found him lying up the hill in the street in 2012, with matted smelly fur and a look of resignation in his eyes. He had given...
Read more...
Several times a week, I get emails from the Texas Real Estate Inspectors Association offering various continuing education courses at convenient locations. I haven’t bothered to unsubscribe to these missives. Sometimes it’s just easier to hit the delete key. Besides, it serves as a reminder of my ill-fated attempt to change careers in late middle age, when it looked like this newspaper gig wasn’t panning out anymore.
Two-and-a-half years ago, I was unemployed and loath to move from Longview, since my Beautiful Mystery Companion had a good job as a professor and our daughter was happy in school....
Read more...
