Forty years ago this semester I started night classes at Kilgore College. I took nine hours while working full-time during the day at the Made Rite Bottling Co. in Longview. I operated the bottle-washing machine. That duty consisted of perching above the wide conveyor belt and making sure the bottles stayed upright before they entered the belly of this beast. Occasionally I had to pull out a bottle with a broken or chipped neck. When the line broke down up where the clean bottles were filled with Dr Pepper or RC Cola, or back where other workers were loading the dirty bottles, I could steal a few minutes...
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Life and events again conspired to keep me from making it to Fenway Park this season. I can’t complain, since nobody will listen. Instead I drove down to watch the Red Sox play the Houston Astros in Minute Maid Park, accompanied by my middle daughter Mere and son-in-law Matt. We sat in right field by the foul pole in prime home run ball-catching territory.
Back in the day, the Astros for a time earned the nickname of the Lastros, an insult that sadly has been resurrected for a team that has fallen on really hard times. Some of the jokes making the rounds of Facebook include:
• I left...
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While in Tyler several weeks ago I was introduced to Johnny Manziel’s grandparents. That’s Johnny Football, the Texas A&M quarterback who last year as a freshman won the Heisman trophy with an amazing season. He showed great poise both on the field and on camera during what was a stellar opening season for the Aggies in the SEC. Even though I’m a diehard Texas Longhorn fan, by last season’s end I was watching every A&M game televised. Johnny Football had earned his nickname, and he earned that Heisman.
Manziel’s grandparents appear to be in their late 60s, a handsome couple,...
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We gathered in a downtown Tyler watering hole after Bill Martin’s funeral to toast the man who was a mentor, boss and occasional terror to the dozen or so newspaper folks around the table. Martin died last week at 80 from congestive heart failure. Others more eloquent than me have written tributes, including Arnold Garcia, editorial page editor of the Austin American-Statesman. (mystatesman.com) Arnold started out as a reporter for Martin at the San Angelo Standard-Times. You should read his piece; here is my contribution.
I first met Bill when he became publisher of the Lufkin Daily News...
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The Gun Toters
By Gary B. Borders
Texas has a richly deserved reputation as a gun-toting state. In the months following the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings of twenty children and six adults in Connecticut, President Obama and others led failed attempts in Congress to ban assault weapons and large magazine clips and even a modest attempt to widen background checks on gun buyers. A few state legislatures — Connecticut, New York and Colorado — have passed stricter gun laws. At the same time, Texas politicians attempted to make guns more available, proposing to arm teachers...
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I spent a brief time in the forest recently on an untouched piece of wilderness one rarely finds in the South. A young boy was playing in the creek, snapping twigs off tree branches, tossing them into the clear water, clearly delighted to be out in the woods, as was I.
It reminded of my childhood, seeing that boy and the fun he had being out there. As a child, I spent as much time in the woods as allowed, back in a time and place when it was safe for children to roam unsupervised, especially in the summer. I would leave the house not long after breakfast, likely after doing a few chores and pedal...
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