On the same evening, a few days ago, I experienced both excellent customer service and its polar opposite – lousy service based on silly rules. I’m not naming names here, since my aim is to neither denigrate an establishment nor provide a free plug. This is more an exercise in comparing and contrasting two events that occurred with a few hours of each other.
When traveling to a large city, all of us have a dizzying array of choices as to where we dine or book a hotel – constrained perhaps by cost or convenience. But even within budgetary constraints, the options are practically endless....
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There is no advantage to getting older. You don’t get smarter, you don’t get wiser, you don’t get more mellow, you don’t get more kindly; nothing good happens. Your back hurts, you get more indigestion, your eyesight isn’t as good, you need a hearing aid. It’s a bad business getting old, and I would advise you not to do it if you can avoid it. It doesn’t have a romantic quality.
— Woody Allen
I take issue with some of Woody Allen’s assertions above. There are advantages to getting older, such as the senior discount at the movie theater, and 50-cent coffee at McDonald’s....
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It’s time for the annual review of books read in the previous year. I use the Goodreads app, which allows one to catalog the books finished, what I’m currently reading, and what is on the to-read list. The social-media app is owned by Amazon, which is well on its way to controlling the world.
Like Facebook, one has “friends” on Goodreads, who spy your name on the list and decide to join your online book club. I welcome all but don’t spend much time searching for friends who are on Goodreads. The app’s primary function for me is to replace the handwritten list of books read, which...
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If silence was golden, you couldn’t raise a dime.
— Mose Allison
That line from one of my favorite blues singers, now gone, came to mind the other day while filling up my car. As soon as I swiped my credit card and punched in the billing zip code, a small video screen built into the pump lit up. The Gasoline Pump Celebrity News began broadcasting, with a young woman seated in a television studio breathlessly telling me what famous star was getting a divorce, or getting married, or possibly both. One can’t even buy gasoline with a screen shouting at you.
If it’s not celebrity “news,”...
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As 2019 draws to a close, we are barraged with “Best of the Decade” lists. One of the New Yorker’s film critics published his favorite movies of the past 10 years. I have not seen any of them and have only heard of a couple. Variety did the same with music albums, presented by three critics. Of the 30 listed, I had actually heard of about half the artists and own the work of one on the list — Kacey Musgraves, an East Texas native.
And on it goes. WalletHub ranked the least-caring cities of the decade, with Birmingham, Alabama taking the top (or low) spot on the list, edging...
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AUSTIN — As my Beautiful Mystery Companion and I trudged the Lady Bird Johnson Lake trail on an abnormally warm December afternoon, we approached the edge of Zilker Park. During the Christmas season, it is the site of the Trail of Lights, the city’s massive celebration attended by as many as 400,000 folks during its two-week run. Although the lights weren’t visible in the late afternoon, the song blaring from the speakers came through:
I really can't stay, baby it's cold outside
I've got to go away, baby it's cold outside
At the time, it was 81 degrees. A sheen of sweat coated...
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I ain’t gonna study war no more.
— Down By The Riverside
The chorus of that old spiritual, which predates the Civil War, has been running through my head lately. It’s likely the result of the subject matter of books I recently finished, and the photography course I completed teaching earlier this week.
Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War, by Karl Marlantes, is the most gripping — and emotionally difficult to read — account of that conflict that I have read. Marlantes served as a Marine in Vietnam. The book jacket says he received the Navy Cross, Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation...
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DALLAS – We wandered about the 19th floor of the Adolphus Hotel on Thanksgiving eve, not knowing at the time that the ghost of a jilted bride who hanged herself when her groom-to-be skipped out has allegedly haunted that floor since her death in the 1930s. We had the 19th floor to ourselves, since it consists primarily of meeting rooms, some fancy (I guess) suites, even a wheelchair lift since the floor is split-level. We didn’t see a ghost; we didn’t see anybody.
My Beautiful Mystery Companion and I weren’t staying on the 19th floor, just wandering around this grand hotel. When it was built...
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Outside the LeTourneau University library windows, at the front entrance, there is a canopy of oak trees. They have provided me hours of enjoyment during this vibrant fall foliage season. After the time change, by mid-afternoon, the sun had sunk low enough to filter through the leaves, heightening the intensity of the colors. Burnt orange is my favorite leaf color, of course. But I also enjoy the shades of red and yellow visible through the windows. While working my shifts at the front counter, I can simply swivel around and savor those autumn colors.
I teach my photography class in the library’s...
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Miss Geneva was laid to rest Saturday under a cloudless November sky, a steady breeze skittering leaves across the church grounds. Ebenezer Friendship Baptist, the modest country church she attended for a lifetime – 76 years — was full, as befitting someone who had attended thousands of services, weddings and funerals there. Miss Geneva cooked countless pies, casseroles and other culinary delights for church events. The preacher, who has held the pulpit just six years, wiped away tears while delivering the service. That doesn’t happen very often at funerals, at least in my experience. Too often...
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