Labor Day is just around the bend. When I was growing up that meant school was about to commence. Now it means classes have been underway for a couple of weeks, and most students and parents get a three-day weekend. Labor Day also means summer’s days are drawing down. Already, our oak trees are beginning to shed leaves, presaging the arrival of autumn. Eventually, slowly, fall arrives. This is East Texas, after all.
I got to thinking about my first day of public school — Sept. 5, 1961 — 55 years ago. The school district in tiny Allenstown, N.H. did not offer kindergarten at the time, so my first...
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People can lose their life in a library. They ought to be warned.
— Saul Bellow
A few weeks ago while in Beantown, I slipped into the Boston Public Library to make a pit stop. When one is a tourist with a pea-sized bladder, knowing where to find clean public restrooms is a survival tactic. I am quite adept at this, though it does not appear to be a marketable talent. I guess I could develop an app that allows visitors to find the best restrooms, but that likely has already been done. And I have no idea how to create an app anyway.
The Boston Public Library’s main branch is in Copley Square...
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PROVINCETOWN, MASS. — We are standing near the top of the tallest all-granite structure in the United States, looking out into Provincetown Harbor on the tip of Cape Cod, the slim crooked finger of land that curls out and up from Massachusetts, as if to beckon visitors. Below us, as we climbed 252 feet to the top of this narrow tower, lies this picturesque village, whose population swells from about 3,000 year-round residents to 60,000 during the summer.
Below us is Long Point, the end of the crooked finger that forms this peninsula. On Nov. 11, 1620, the Mayflower, with 102 men, women and children,...
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FENWAY PARK — I love to write that dateline. It means I’m back in one of my favorite places on the planet, whether it’s to watch the Red Sox or take in a concert. Fenway is a shrine, a coming-home place, a venerable, idiosyncratic stadium that I have visited for more than 50 years. I plan to come back for, optimistically, at least another 30 years.
Longevity is in the genes, so I like my chances of continuing the tradition of showing up here most summers. My late mom’s older sister, Aunt Irene, who lives nearby in Bristol, Connecticut (most everything is nearby from a Texas perspective)...
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The Summer Olympics kick off Friday night with the Opening Ceremony in Rio de Janeiro. I will probably watch a bit of the pageantry, since we will be holed up in a hotel room in Dallas, preparing to fly out early the next morning for our annual dog-day sojurn to Boston. More on that in coming weeks.
I listened to an NPR story the other day that piqued my interest about a particular Olympic event I would like to catch on either TV or streamed online: badminton. Badminton has been a Summer Olympic sport since the early 1990s. Asians and a few Europeans have dominated the roster of medalists. No American...
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It came as no surprise that V.G. Rollins planned his own wake, “The Last Scoutmaster’s Roundtable — Cracker Barrel,” in advance of his death in mid-July at 87. Mr. Rollins, as we Scouts always called him well into our own middle age, planned everything. He is best known as Scoutmaster of Troop 201, whose cabin remains at Teague Park. Under his nearly two-dozen years heading the troop, more than 50 Eagle Scouts were pinned, including my youngest brother, Gregg. (I only made it to Life, becoming distracted by cars and girls.)
In the Great Hall at First Baptist Church — where my grandfather,...
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HOUSTON — The dream began in early 2009. My middle daughter, Meredith, and her future husband, Matt, drove us about 10 minutes north of downtown, up Hwy. 59 to look at a house they were negotiating to buy. It was a Victorian-style home with a pair of turrets and robin’s-egg blue horizontal stripes below a red roof. The house was visible from the freeway. I had noticed it for years on treks to Houston. The home, built in the early 1980s, was located on an acre of land and contained two very large metal buildings. The neighborhood is working middle class. This was where one day Matt — a mechanical...
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AUSTIN — We have returned to a familiar city to see it through the eyes of an 11-year-old boy — our nephew, Connor. This is his first trip to A-town. Connor is a bright, inquisitive boy possessed with an old soul in some ways. He talks slowly and seriously, adores his cousin Abbie, and loves spending time with us. He’s my chess opponent as well. Connor is inching closer to the time he will checkmate me. The last time we played, the game lasted more than an hour before I finally wore down his defenses and defeated him. His day of victory is coming.
As we pulled into town, we pointed out the Austin...
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Kasey, my oldest daughter, texted me the other day rather randomly: “In no particular order, please tell me your top five books.”
Now that is tough. I took the Bible out of contention. That is an obvious choice for a Christian. So I sent her a response after I wandered around the study, which has walls crammed floor to ceiling with books. The list I sent Kasey consisted of my five favorite novels — books that I have read more than once. I thought I would share it with you in hopes it sparks similar list-making that can be shared with me and others. So here goes. Remember these five are only...
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AUSTIN — My oldest daughter, Kasey, is visiting friends in Austin, having escaped the humid climes of the Florida coast for a few days in the dry heat of Central Texas. I took off work early last Friday to make the five-hour voyage to A-Town. I once made this trek nearly every weekend, heading back to East Texas after the workweek ended. I still head here for one reason or another at least a half-dozen times a year.
I have sworn off I-35, permanently and irrevocably. The last three times I took that route — Hwy. 31 to Waco, then I-35 to Austin — a wreck turned the interstate into a long,...
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