A friend gave me The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin for my birthday. I have been reading it slowly, savoring each clever turn of phrase. Franklin has been an object of fascination since I was a child. Decades ago, my mom gave me a decanter that once held McCormick bourbon, which she bought at a garage sale. The decanter is a full-color statue of Franklin, quite nicely done. His head was attached by a removable cork stopper. The decanter was empty, but ol’ Ben has occupied a proud spot in the many houses in which I have lived.
While I have read several biographies over the decades,...
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The fall semester is halfway over, the weather has finally cooled to tolerable temps, leaves are starting to turn, and, thus far, I have survived my first foray into teaching an Introduction to Digital Photography course at LeTourneau University. Having a full classroom of bright, eager-to-learn students certainly helps, as I navigate through building a course from scratch. Next semester will be easier; this semester’s students were forewarned that they were the guinea pigs. To the best of memory no one has ever taught photography at LETU.
Photography is how I managed to climb up the next...
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I was perusing old newspapers online the other day and learned about the Great Sun Storm of 1859. The newspapers.com site was marking the 160th anniversary of the event. Here is what happened:
The night sky of August 28th, 1859, in much of the United States, was cloudless with a new moon just forming. In Vermont, eyewitnesses at 7:30 P.M. reported “a large fire behind the mountain.” Soon spires of green shot up from the behind the same mountain, which coincidentally is part of the Green Mountains range. The Vermont Chronicle in Bellows Fall reported, “the heavens were lighted up with a display...
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I began watching “24,” the action-drama series starring Keifer Sutherland, several weeks ago, indulging myself in an episode or two after I leave the library late at night and come home. The show was created in 2001. It definitely feels dated. The premise intrigued me; each show is predicated to consume an hour in real time, so an entire season covers just one day. There are eight seasons, covering eight really long days. I learned this when I was not-quite halfway into the show.
I am nearing the end of season four and Sutherland, as Jack Bauer, in the line of duty is about halfway through...
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In the nearly four decades that I have been writing and occasionally getting paid for it (although mainly I made a living editing and making sure the bills got paid at whatever newspaper I ran) an Associated Press stylebook was never out of reach. It is the go-to manual of style and usage for newspapers. I have largely adhered to its precepts even though I no longer write for newspapers. Thus, I view with a modicum of alarm some recent changes to the s
tylebook recently announced. Other changes make sense, and I have conformed accordingly.
I attended the University of Missouri School...
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It looks like the Boston Red Sox are not going to make the playoffs this year. Last year’s World Series champions, for the fourth time in 15 years, suffered this season from erratic pitching and a disastrous eight-game losing streak in August. It isn’t mathematically impossible for them to grab a wild card slot, but nearly so. The team this week fired its club president, a certain sign it is time to regroup and rebuild.
I don’t mourn the team’s fall from the elite, not wanting to be greedy. I’ll definitely be rooting for the Houston Astros when they likely play the Yankees for the American...
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I have switched to working a night shift at the Estes Library at LeTourneau University two days a week, getting off at 10 p.m. This frees me up to teach an Introduction to Photography course on Tuesday and Thursday. It is the first time in anyo
ne’s memory such a course has been offered at LETU, so I am starting from scratch building the course with a full class of 20 students. It has been fun so far as we finish our second week. More on that in the weeks to come.
By the time I get home, take out the dogs, shower and plop down in the easy chair to watch a bit of television, it is usually...
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The nation next week will largely ignore National Newspaper Carrier Day, which takes place on Sept. 4. As print circulation of newspapers plummet, the number of hardworking folks who get up at 2 a.m. to make sure the remaining loyal subscribers to a daily newspaper have a copy lying in the driveway, when they arise, is also decreasing. I still subscribe to the local newspaper and have an excellent carrier. She places our paper on top of the brick mailbox each morning to make sure it doesn’t get wet when the sprinklers come on, or an early morning thunderstorm sweeps through. Bless her.
The...
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I could be handy, mending a fuse
When your lights have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings, go for a ride
Doing the garden, digging the weeds
Who could ask for more?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four?
When I’m Sixty-Four — The Beatles, from “Magical Mystery Tour
I have long anticipated poaching those lyrics on this day, though I haven’t been in a hurry to arrive here. No sense rushing matters. But today, Aug. 23, I turn 64. To continue lyrical larceny, what a long strange trip it’s been.
Sixty-four. Jeez....
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RIO COSTILLA, NEW MEXICO — This 10,000-acre park near the Colorado border is filled with lush pasture through which the Rio Costilla — Spanish for “rib” — meanders its way down from the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, eventually joining with the Rio Grande del Norte. The park is a portion of what originally was a much larger Spanish land grant in what is now northern Taos County. It is part of an 80,000-acre tract owned since 1942 by the Rio Costilla Cooperative Livestock Association.
Fat black Angus cattle graze alongside the banks, while anglers cast lines into the swift-flowing...
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