As do many of us, I own a smart phone. Mine is beginning to act too smart, anticipating where I’m going, and when I’ll arrive. I got in my car to head to the CrossFit gym the other day, as I do most weekdays about lunchtime. My phone buzzed and announced that I would arrive at the gym in seven minutes and that traffic was light.
Who asked? Not me. For one thing, it’s Longview, Texas. Odds are overwhelming that traffic is going to be light, even at noon. Second, I do not schedule gym classes on my phone calendar. There’s no need. I know what time class starts and whether I am going...
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“Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me.”
— Fred Rogers
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Fifty years ago, a children’s show titled Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was added to what would eventually be known as the Public Broadcasting Service — PBS. The Rev. Fred Rogers, an ordained Presbyterian minister, had been producing and appearing in a number of children’s television shows in Pennsylvania for 15 years. Rogers had a degree in music and was an accomplished pianist and song composer.
My two oldest daughters watched and loved Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. I remember them sitting...
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For the past week or so, thunderstorms have rolled into East Texas about 3 p.m., lasting at most an hour. After, the air is so heavy you can almost taste it, but at least it’s not 100 degrees. The heat will soon return, so no complaints from this quarter about these brief, soggy respites.
Sometimes it rains, sometimes not, but thunder invariably rumbles. The family mutts, Sam and Rosie, are usually sound asleep on one couch or another, their heads resting comfortably on pillows. How dogs understand that pillows provide a comfortable resting place fascinates me. These two have the run of the lower...
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I spent a summer morning hiding out in the library, looking at 1933 microfilms of the Longview newspaper, trying to get a sense of this town 85 years ago when in the midst of the oil boom.
When I have a few hours to spare, I dive into microfilms, no specific purpose in mind just yet. Here’s a sampling of what I found the other day:
The paper reported in January 1933 that the newly sworn-in district clerk, Dozier Skipper, Jr., while organizing old court files discovered that the first legal action filed in Greg County was by a woman seeking a divorce. Mrs. Samantha Harty sought a divorce...
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