An old beer stein with a weathered wooden handle sits on the built-in bookshelf behind my desk. Grammy Bourque, my maternal grandmother, gave it to me more than 30 years ago when I traveled to New Hampshire to visit. I have no idea of that stein’s age, but I would guess it is nearly as old as I am. She and my grandfather, who died at 67 of a heart attack in 1972 while shoveling snow off the roof, kept a set in their basement bar, which also featured a pool table, and a small woodshop.
I imagine my grandfather — a quiet, talented man who built their small house in the country outside Hopkinton...
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The sun shifts during late autumn and winter. Its arc is lower in the sky than it is in summer. My writing desk sits perpendicular to the westernmost of six picture windows in the sunroom. Each window is 6 feet high and 5 feet wide. That is a lot of glass to clean. I am reminded of this when the sun hits the windows in late afternoon, highlighting every smudge and dust speck on their surfaces.
The windows, facing south, provide a lovely view of Pancho’s Pond and the woods beyond. I can spy our aged donkey rolling in the dirt, scratching his back, the longhorn steer calves, Waylon and Willie,...
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I bleed burnt orange most days. The University of Texas at Austin and I have a long, at times complicated, history. I earned a master’s degree from UT, my two oldest daughters graduated from UT as did my middle brother, Scott, and several of my still-close friends. I also worked there for a time. Hence, the complicated history.
But for the past few weeks, since the College Football Playoffs began, I have proudly been wearing red-and-white. Hoosier colors. Indiana University. Their football team, if you have been stuck in a cave since last summer, are national champions as of last Monday, when...
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I started building furniture as a hobby in 1998, concentrating on Mission-style pieces, first popularized by Gustav Stickley in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The name came from furniture he saw in Spanish California missions and emulated in his work — simple, clean lines in contrast to the overly ornate (in my view) furniture of the Victorian era. Stickley later popularized Craftsman furniture, which is considered more carefully proportioned. Both styles still hold broad appeal. Mission style is considered a subset of Craftsman furniture.
As with most hobbies, I went whole-hog for a few years,...
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FORT WORTH STOCK YARDS – On an unseasonably warm Sunday morning after Christmas, my Beautiful Mystery Companion and I stood on East Exchange Avenue along with a few thousand other folks crowded along opposing sidewalks. (“Unseasonably warm” is quickly becoming an oxymoron in this age of climate change.) We managed to secure a spot behind the rope stretched along the street by two world-weary guys who clearly have been doing this for a long time.
“Get behind the rope, please. No sitting on the curb. You must remain standing,” they intoned, over and over.
We were here...
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A new year has arrived, meaning it is time for me to look back on what books struck my fancy in 2025. I will provide some recommendations for anyone interested. But first, some personal statistics:
I read 42 books totaling 16,731 pages last year, according to the Goodreads app I used to keep track. The longest was Ron Chernow’s biography, Mark Twain, which weighed in at 1,196 pages. Actually, though I have the physical book, a 70th birthday present from my Beautiful Mystery Companion, I finished it on my Kindle Paperwhite, which was another birthday present. (I am treated well in these parts.)...
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