Let us pause now and give thanks. A blaze in the 54-year-old pit at Louie Mueller Barbecue in downtown Taylor was contained before it could do any serious damage to this venerable institution — except to the pit, which was destroyed. According to the Taylor Daily Press, the cause was “the byproducts of cooking in the pit that just overheated and took off.”
In other words, spontaneous combustion.
The fire erupted the first time at 4:45 a.m. last Saturday. Firefighters put out the blaze with little difficulty. But it flared up again the next morning, while Taylor firefighters were busy...
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We had put off this task for nearly two years, sorting and dividing the last of our late parents’ possessions. My mother died nearly two years ago, my father two years before her. In 2007 we had taken on the difficult job of dismantling our parents lives. We sold most of their possessions, moved them into assisted living, and stored what needed to be saved — photo albums, much of my dad’s artwork, some furniture in a storage unit. The artwork he created, originals and prints, went into storage as well, save for some pieces for the apartment and later nursing care facilities in which they...
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In nearly 31 years of writing a column every week, I have written my share of stinkers and a few of which I am fond. Most land somewhere in-between. I can say straight up that my favorite column was published five years ago, a few weeks after I moved back to my hometown of Longview. You’ll understand why in a moment.
The piece was titled “Unpacking a Passel of Books.” It was about how I enjoy unpacking boxes of my books after moving. Doing so is a way to reacquaint myself with old friends who have stuck with me through life’s winding roads —1,500 or so volumes collected over a lifetime...
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Five former newspaper guys met for lunch on a rainy winter day in a nearly deserted Italian restaurant. At one point or another all had worked together. One had been another’s boss, or succeeded this one as publisher, hired that one as editor. We go back nearly a quarter-century working for the same company that owned newspapers in East Texas until three years ago.
We vary in age from 80 to 57. That’s me on the low end. I’m the baby of the group, a rare designation these days. I once was invariably the youngest hotshot in the newsroom, back when I started out in this business. As Willie...
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