As 2018 draws to a close, I can't help recalling another tumultuous and eventful year. It brings comfort to realize our country managed to survive the horrific events of 1968 a half-century ago, though not without scars and lasting damage — both to people and to the nation’s democratic institutions. I feel that way now about much of what has transpired this year. Once again, our country is in chaos. I pray the coming year brings a semblance of sanity, but I’m not putting money on it.
It’s fair to say that 1968 proved to be the most eventful year in my young life. It forever shaped the person...
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Christmas awaits. The hardwood trees are bare, the grass brown. Our neighborhood is awash with Christmas lights. Driveways are beginning to fill with the vehicles of families coming home for the holidays. As always, my Beautiful Mystery Companion has beautifully decorated our house while I wisely stay out of the way. My job is to hang the lights outside, treading carefully on the roof. I then wrap our outdoor Charlie Brown Christmas tree with 300 feet of colored lights and hang ornaments from the branches. I learned a few years back to caulk the top of each ornament, where the hanger dangles from...
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For the first time since I was a kid, I decided to keep a record of the books I read this year. I started a list in a notebook I carry with me, writing down the author and title each time I finished one. Then my daughter, Meredith, reminded me she had helped me sign up for Goodreads, a “social cataloging” website now owned by Amazon. The compamy began in 2006 and soon developed a strong following, now with more than 25 million members. Goodreads allows one to find titles, buy them on Amazon (of course), make recommendations, participate in polls, blogs and other activities in which I take no part....
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I have been using Gmail for my personal account for more than a dozen years. I managed to snare a simple address — garyborders@gmail.com — and have used it for personal business, while maintaining a separate address for work. As with all computer applications, Gmail gets updated on occasion, sometimes requiring me to get used to a different appearance or a slightly different way of finding emails.
For several months, a button appeared in the top right of the screen: Try the New Gmail. I ignored it, content with the old Gmail. I have enough technology issues to confront without voluntarily...
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We gathered for Thanksgiving on a warm autumn afternoon out in the country. A steady breeze scattered leaves across the back patio and down the hill to the pasture where a small herd of cows grazed. My Beautiful Mystery Companion and I were lawfully wed, as the term goes, at the bottom of that hill nearly eight years ago. So it is a special place.
After indulging in a typical feast of over-abundance, some of us sat outside around the pool. Our nephew Connor, now 13, mentioned that he had bought his portable chess set — a compact affair with magnetic pieces. Connor over the past few years...
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Every morning, if I get up before my Beautiful Mystery Companion rises, I am greeted by a quartet of critters. Tater, an orange-and white galumph of a cat weighing in at close to 20 pounds, is perched at the top of the stairs, waiting for me to open the door. It stays closed during the night to keep critters downstairs. Otherwise, meowing and whimpering could commence about 4 a.m.
Once I open the door, Tater bounds down the stairs, the sound echoing off the wooden steps like a small pony in full gallop. His brother, Tot, and the two dogs, Sam and Rosie, join Tater at the foot of the stairs....
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Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together
I've got some real estate here in my bag
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner's pies
And we walked off to look for America
— “America,” by Simon and Garfunkel 1968
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I have been reading tomes about America lately. Recently I finished These Truths, Jill Lepore’s brilliant and sweeping history of this country released this fall. Lepore accomplishes what most would consider a nearly impossible task — telling this country’s history in a single, if hefty, volume.
Her account begins in 1492 and ends with the election...
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Seven years ago today, Cody Norris was killed while on patrol in Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedom. He had joined the Army at 19 and died under enemy small-arms fire in Kandahar province. Cody was my sister-in-law’s nephew. He grew up in the Houston area but loved spending time in East Texas. We met a few times at holiday gatherings. He had followed his older brother, who graduated from West Point, into the military. Hundreds of people lined up for the funeral procession, to honor this young man who paid the ultimate sacrifice. The sanctuary was overflowing. Medals were presented to his parents....
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Over the course of my career as a newspaper editor and publisher, I was called upon to sit in a dunking booth a few times, for one charitable cause or another. Being dunked is not the most pleasant of experiences. The water is invariably cold since the tub was likely just filled out of a water hose, and the sun has not had a chance to warm it. Then, there is the sudden shock of being plunged into the water, when someone bent on vengeance and flush with cash hits the target. Even though one knows it’s coming, the sudden descent into cold water stuns the system. At least it did mine.
I helped...
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While in San Antonio recently, we attended a service at Oak Hills Church and heard Max Lucado deliver a sermon. Lucado is a well-known Christian author with several dozen published books. He delivered a thoughtful sermon based on the accou
nt, in the Gospel of John, of the blind man that Jesus healed. Jesus did so by spitting on the ground and creating a daub of mud, which he spread across the blind man’s eyes. Then Jesus instructed him to walk to Siloam and wash, after which he could see. Though Lucado did not mention it, that is where the term, “Here’s mud in your eye” evolved.
Lucado...
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