More than 40 years ago, I bought a copper weathervane from a fellow in San Augustine who had opened an antique store of sorts. I say “of sorts” because the weathervane was brand new when I bought it, for perhaps $20. The same guy, over the five years I spent there running The Rambler newspaper, sold me a handsome book cabinet that houses my collection of presidential biographies and other histories. It now anchors a corner of the living room. I also bought a massive blueprint cabinet that is down in the shop, filled with my late dad’s artwork and my photographs.
That rooster weathervane,...
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The other night, I watched A Complete Unknown, the biopic of Bob Dylan released last year. It stars Timothée Chalamet as a young Bob Dylan. The nearly 84-year-old troubadour and Nobel Prize winner posted that he was pleased with the film and Chalamet’s performance, which indeed was impressive. Dylan even read the entire script aloud before production, wrote “Go with God” on his copy and signed it.
I was more intrigued, largely because of the memories it invoked, with the performance of Ed Norton as Pete Seeger. Norton had to learn how to play the banjo to play the famed folk singer, and he did so quite...
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With bushhog season about to commence here at Three Geese Farm, it was time to remove the box blade attachment and attach the bushhog, also called a rotary cutter. I used the box blade during the winter months to lay down and smooth two pads of crushed limestone on which the chicken coop and adjoining greenhouse were built, plus patch a few rutted paths used by the tractor. I bought 15 yards of limestone and 5 yards of river rock from a fellow who delivered it to the gravel parking lot down the hill from our house, which is home to a natural gas well. The gas company built the parking lot, which...
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Let me tell you about Tater, the coolest, chillest cat I have ever known.
When full-grown, Tater weighed more than 16 pounds. His belly nearly dragged the floor. He was orange and white, a Texas Longhorn cat who loved to talk. He didn’t simply meow but chirped at his human companions. Tater would lie on an ottoman or chair, enjoying the morning sun. When someone walked by, he would raise his head slightly and go: Row, Row, Row! (rhyming with wow, not mow). It is a bit hard to duplicate in words, so that is the best I can do.
Nothing fazed Tater. He took the arrivals and departures of other...
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Spring has erupted at Three Geese Farm, the trees raining pollen under a nearly constant wind, coating everything outside in yellow powder. Mollie, our white Maltese, has a tinge of yellow from going outside. Washing vehicles is a fool’s errand until the pollen ends. The driveway is filled with drifts of oak clusters, resembling seaweed washed up on a beach.
But the flowers. The Carolina jasmine climbing the black chain-link fence that keeps the dogs confined showers yellow blossoms that decorate the ground. The azaleas are popping out in front and back, now in their fourth season. During...
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I was sitting in a Dallas doctor’s office the other day, reading The Atlantic on my phone since I forgot to bring a book. This was about a week before that venerable magazine — founded in 1857 — made headlines when its editor-in-chief was accidentally put on Signal, an encrypted messaging app, with key members of the administration’s team planning an attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen, including the vice president, CIA director, director of national intelligence and secretary of defense. Elect a clown. Expect a circus.
The Atlantic is now owned by Lauren Powell Jobs, widow of Apple co-founder...
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I first noticed a niggle that a health threat was on the horizon in late February 2020 while on a trip to Fort Worth. My Beautiful Mystery Companion and I popped in at a Texas Press Association conference so I could briefly meet with some folks, say hello to longtime colleagues, and enjoy a couple of days in Cowtown. News of a mysterious new virus out of China was beginning to spread. A few folks at the conference mentioned it, wondering how widespread it might become.
By early March, talk of what came to be called COVID-19 was beginning to dominate the news. A high school friend and I met at the CrossFit...
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I find myself talking to our dogs more than humans most days. I’m not sure if this is normal behavior or not. Nor do I exactly care. Truth is, with the exception of my family and a few friends, I prefer conversation with the pups to people. The pups actually pretend to be listening, cocking their heads and looking at me intently as I babble away. People, not so much.
We have two, sometimes three pups, depending on if granddog Teddy is visiting, which he does about half the time. Teddy, a year old, is half Havanese, half Maltese — a Havamalt. He is seriously smart, a problem-solving pup....
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I guess time just makes fools of us all.
— Father John Misty
It is no longer possible for me to deny that there is far more in the rearview mirror than ahead in the windshield. I am determined to spend time wisely. This might be an exercise fraught with failure, as Father John Misty (Joshua Michael Tillman) notes in his Dylanesque song, which you can listen to here. That song, which I love, strikes me as a version of the Yiddish expression: Der Mensch Tracht, Un Gott Lacht, or Man Plans and God Laughs.
When I was younger, rarely did time go by unplanned. I was a project guy, who spent...
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DURANT, OKLAHOMA – The Choctaw Casino & Resort towers over the flat landscape outside Durant with the 21-story Sky Tower and the 12-story Grand Tower bookending the casino, which boasts thousands of ways to lose money at slots, blackjack, poker, craps, or roulette. However, we are not here to gamble, although I did “invest” five bucks on a quarter slot machine. That was gone in about one minute and served to remind me why I retired from gambling more than 20 years ago.
We were here to see the Red Clay Strays, a terrific band from Mobile, Alabama. The Grand Theater at the casino holds...
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