For the past 13 months I have commuted from Longview to Mount Pleasant to publish the Daily Tribune. This small newspaper was on the verge of shutting down before the company I went to work for purchased it. I enjoyed the challenge, which was considerable: turning around the paper financially and editorially, hiring a entire staff, moving the office downtown. I get weary just thinking about all we accomplished in a short period of time.
Now the time has come to find a new challenge, probably here in Longview so that I can enjoy our daughter’s senior year in high school. I enjoyed my time in Mount...
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It started as a vague notion of my Beautiful Mystery Companion’s. “I want an old beat-up farm truck,” she said wistfully on more than one occasion. So I began keeping an eye out for something that would fit the bill.
She had very specific requirements. Nothing completely restored and shiny. A four-on-the-floor stick shift. I commenced to looking last summer. Once I did a u-turn on Hwy. 31 to snap a cell phone photo of a 1968 Ford partially restored and nearly flawless, but it was deemed too expensive. And shiny.
Then I found a 1961 International Harvester on a side street in Longview....
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Let us pause to ponder the supersize mentality that has led to the proliferation of monster convenience stores, where gas pumps stretch far as the eye can see. The merchandise includes deer feeders, barbecue smokers, an extensive clothing line, an overwhelming array of road snacks, 80 soda dispensers — and America’s cleanest bathrooms.
That would be Buc-ees, a 60,000-square-foot emporium that just opened its 23rd Texas store in Terrell. We stopped there last Sunday on the way back from Frisco — along with what appeared to be several thousand other curious customers — to get gas and use those...
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Our family of three finally decided to cut the cable, or in our case the satellite dish. The vote was unanimous. Since signing up for Netflix and Amazon Prime, we stream 95 percent of all the television we watch. I had whittled down the offerings and monthly payment for the dish to its lowest level — $34.58, including tax. But we rarely watch the dish, and I hate spending money for services not being used.
So I bit the bullet and called to cancel the other day, knowing it would be an ordeal. Companies of all types structure their customer service systems to make it well-nigh impossible to cancel...
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The opening scene of the first episode of “Newsroom” has stuck with me since I first saw it a couple of years ago. Jeff Daniels portrays news anchor Will McAvoy, the star of the Atlantis television network. McAvoy is seated at a panel discussion in a university auditorium. A student asks the panel, “What makes America the greatest country in the world?”
Others on the panel respond with the usual patter about freedom and the American way, while McAvoy tries to avoid answering the question. But the moderator keeps pressuring him to respond, and he finally does. It is a tough scene to watch....
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