Bouncing around in a pickup with John Brite last week was a welcome diversion. It brought back a rush of memories of afternoons spent in East Texas honking a horn on the pickup to call up the cows. Usually I was hanging out with one of my buddies who had decided to see how much money he could lose in the cow business. A few times they were my cows. I have gotten the “disease,” as John Brite calls it with a grin, and bought cows on separate occasions each of the past three decades. I have learned to never say never, but I do believe I have permanently retired from raising cattle. Few people...
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MANHATTAN, N.Y. — I didn’t expect to visit for the first time both the Big Apple and the Little Apple within the past year, but there are lots of unexpected events in my life these days. The Little Apple is what Manhattan, Kansas calls itself. It is home to Kansas State University and the closest city with shopping and decent restaurants to the town where I ran a small daily newspaper for several months. Y’all know about the Big Apple, of course.
My Beautiful Mystery Companion and I are here for a book-signing for a famed educator. My BMC contributed a piece to the book, a tribute to Maxine...
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An explosion rattled the windows of my home in Nacogdoches on Feb. 1, 2003. I went outside on a brilliant Saturday morning, wondering if there had been a tanker explosion on nearby U.S. Hwy. 59. A contrail in the sky reminded me the space shuttle Columbia was about to pass overhead. Just a really loud sonic boom, I thought, and headed to town to drink coffee with friends.
The television delivered dreadful news. Contact with Columbia’s crew had been lost. Then the phone rang at the store. Pieces of the shuttle were raining down all over town. I was then editor and publisher of the Nacogdoches...
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All the Federales say they could have had him any day.
They only let him slip away out of kindness, I suppose.
“Pancho and Lefty,” by Townes Van Zandt
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GRUENE, TEXAS — The power of story told in song resonates with many of us. We can recall song lyrics learned three decades or more ago — while forgetting the name of a co-worker one happens along at the grocery store, or where you laid the car keys.
Most of us can only regurgitate the chorus of memorable songs without the prompting of actually hearing it played. Somehow, though, if a song is playing on the radio, or being...
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