JEFFERSON, TEXAS – This town of about 1,850 residents dates back to the early 1840s. Jefferson, in Marion County, is about 40 miles northeast of Longview, and was named by its founders for Thomas Jefferson. It quickly became an important riverport, sitting on the edge of Big Cypress Bayou and Caddo Lake. The first steamboat to arrive in Jefferson was the Llama, which traveled from what is now Shreveport across Caddo Lake and into Big Cypress, there into town. The steamboats shipped cotton and other products downstream to New Orleans, coming back with visitors and potential settlers.
These...
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I mentioned last week that I have started graduate school to obtain a certificate in archival management from the University of North Texas. I have also been enrolled in another type of school. Graduation is next Friday, then the next session begins. The six-week dog obedience course that Gatsby and I have been enrolled in has made huge changes in both of our behaviors.
Gatsby is the latest member of our family. He is nearly 11 months old, a cavapoo, which is a cross between a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and a poodle. These are normally high-dollar dogs, and Gatsby is a beautiful dog with...
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I started graduate school on Tuesday. Prayers are welcomed.
The last time I took a class for credit was in 1986, when I commuted weekly from San Augustine to The University of Texas at Austin. I needed to make up an incomplete so I could write my thesis and get my long-delayed master’s degree. This required asking for an extra year of grace, since I was bumping up against the six-year deadline. I drove 265 miles one way every Wednesday morning after getting out the paper, took the class, usually spent the night with my 50-plus-year friend Frank, got up early and drove back to start working...
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Another year, another passel of books read. It is time for my annual review of what I read in 2022. It seems like I just did this the other day. Time is a bandit.
According to Goodreads, the app I use to keep track, I read 50 books totaling 21,474 pages last year. That is down a dozen books from 2021, though the total page count was up almost 1,000. Fewer books with more pages, obviously.
* The longest book was Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire, by Caroline Elkins, at 896 pages. One does not come away with a stellar view of the British empire, on which the sun never set during...
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HÜRTH, GERMANY — This city of 60,000 nudges up against the southwest border of Köln (Cologne to most of the world). In early times, the Eifel Aqueduct, built around 80 A.D. by the Roman Empire, provided water from the hills of the Eifel region down to what is now Köln but was originally called Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium.
Glad they changed the name. That is a mouthful.
The water flowed strictly by gravity for about 60 miles. Originally, the stone aqueduct was entirely underground to protect it from freezing weather. Now, one can find small sections of the aqueduct preserved above...
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AMSTERDAM — This is the Bicycle Capital of the World, a fact quickly brought home by a three-story parking garage solely for bikes outside Amsterdam Central Station, with 10,000 parking spots. We took a high-speed train from Hürth, Germany to here. We (me, my Beautiful Mystery Companion, daughter Abbie, daughter Mere and son-in-law Matt, who live in Hürth) sprung for first-class tickets for the three-hour ride and essentially had a private cabin with ample legroom and minimum hassle. I will take a train over a plane anytime, if possible.
Nearly all sidewalks in Amsterdam have bike lanes...
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HÜRTH, GERMANY — Germans love their Christmas markets. Over eight days, my Beautiful Mystery Companion, daughter Abbie, and I browsed, nibbled, sipped and gawked our way through towns in and around our temporary headquarters — a pleasant hotel a five-minute walk from daughter Mere and son-in-law Matt’s apartment in Hürth. That city adjoins Köln (Cologne), a much-larger city and home to one of the largest markets in Germany.
Our first Christmas market stop was to the Bonn Christmas market. Most trips started in the late afternoon after Matt got off work and could ably serve as both...
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SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC — We are crammed in the outskirts of steerage on what my friend Albert would call a doublewide jetliner. It is a Boeing 777, now flying at 35,000 feet and 600 mph toward Heathrow Airport in London. That is our first stop before taking a short, even more-crammed flight to Cologne, Germany. That is where middle-daughter Mere and son-in-law Matt have lived and worked for a little more than a year. My Beautiful Mystery Companion, daughter Abbie, and I are on our way to visit for 10 days, a trip that required considerable planning. I took charge of the flights and hotel....
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We went in search of a Charlie Brown Christmas tree last weekend in the woods of No-Name Farm. It was my Beautiful Mystery Companion’s idea, to which I readily agreed. She drove the Mule while I rode shotgun as we bounced through the forest, looking for an appropriate tree, preferably a pine. The chainsaw was in the back of the mule. Hardwood trees dominate these 57 acres, but scraggly cedars grow throughout, never reaching significant size since the hardwood canopy keeps the sun from reaching them. There is a scattering of mature pine tree. We hoped we might find a pine sapling near one of them.
No...
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The Christmas cactus is now in full glory, red and white blossoms popping out all over, blooming about a month earlier than its name indicates. It sits on an antique wooden chair in front of my desk, alongside a plant called a painter’s palette, or anthurium. That plant’s bloom is also exquisite, very shiny, almost as if it were shellacked. Both plants were presents from one of my Beautiful Mystery Companion’s brothers. They have lasted, indeed flourished, for years thanks to my BMC’s talent with plants. If it grows, she knows how to care for it. I simply follow orders, lugging plants here...
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