OXFORD, MISS. — The earnest young man at the admissions office of the University of Mississippi — Ole Miss —explained the origin of the town’s name. Oxford, named after the British university, was created in 1837 in order to persuade the Legislature to fund building a public university there. The boosters hoped the name would help. It took 11 years, but in 1848, Ole Miss accepted its first students. Today, Oxford remains a small town of roughly 21,000 residents. Ole Miss is modest in size as well, with about 18,000 students.
We came here because our daughter Abbie is considering attending...
Read more...
Autumn is taking its sweet time getting here. That did not stop me from making a pilgrimage to procure a load of firewood from my brother-in-law’s farm near Jefferson. Besides, I needed to get some lumber for a future woodworking project with a friend. That is where it is stored, inside a rustic horse stable. It was a lovely day, cool enough to drive our 1965 Ford truck and fill the bed with well-seasoned red oak. The truck doesn’t have air-conditioning, and this was the first chance to drive it without rivulets of sweat obscuring my vision.
My friend accompanied me. We drove through the Northeast...
Read more...
I bought a new guitar four months ago. It’s my second resonator, with the shiny cone, the kind made famous in Paul Simon’s “Graceland.”
Mississippi Delta was shining like a National Guitar…
This one is made by Gibson and is called a Dobro Hound Dog. It is made from maple and has a sweet burl finish. The Hound Dog contains an inner pickup so it can be plugged into an amplifier. I do not play well enough yet to amplify the missed strings and mangled chords that emanate from this sweet instrument. Just ask my dogs.
OK, Sam and Rosie are not great communicators. They limit their...
Read more...
LBJ LIBRARY, AUSTIN — In the Great Hall of this 10-story structure on the east side of the University of Texas campus, four floors of glass walls dominate. Encased in those four floors, in red file boxes with a gold presidential seal, are the papers of Lyndon Baines Johnson. LBJ while serving as president, vice-president, Senate majority leader and congressman pushed through more landmark legislation than any 20th-century president, with the arguable exception of Franklin Roosevelt. Among those achievements: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Medicare and Medicaid, the Higher Education Act, Head Start,...
Read more...
Dr. Geoffrey Canada told this story the other morning in Longview, to a crowd gathered in the Belcher Center on the LeTourneau University campus for the Poverty Conference, sponsored by the Junior League. An acclaimed documentary called “Waiting for Superman” was produced a few years back, in part featuring his work creating the Harlem Children’s Zone. Canada was raised in the South Bronx of New York City, a tough neighborhood. His work with his team cleaning up and taking back 97 blocks of Harlem and serving thousands of kids over the past 30 years is the crux of his story.
Canada said...
Read more...
Our daughter Abbie bought a selfie stick a few months ago. This allows her to take self-portraits from an extended reach using dramatic angles, since the stick telescopes out several feet. Her iPhone is locked into a frame with a cable leading to a button on the handle. She photographed her entire senior class of a dozen or so students with the device, which cost her $7 or so at Walmart. It’s a compelling image. I worry that a Walmart-purchased selfie stick is a bit flimsy to hold a smart phone that cost several hundred bucks, but so far no disasters.
Being a visually creative young woman,...
Read more...
Being of a certain age, and with a family history of colon cancer, my doctor browbeat me into undergoing a colonoscopy in late April. This occurred three years before the warranty expired on the last one. Actually, the procedure is not a big deal. The prep, however, is not a stroll in the park. In fact, there is only one location to which you will be strolling. Likely, you will walk briskly.
I am certain many of you reading this know this. For most of you under the age of 50, you will find out soon enough. That is not the point of this story. It is what happened after that boggles me, and makes...
Read more...
The two hurricanes struck three weeks apart a decade ago. Hurricane Katrina devastated a large swath of New Orleans and the surrounding area, of course, after making landfall Aug. 29, 2005. Thousands of people either fled or were evacuated. Many ended up in Lufkin, where I lived at the time and published the paper. The evacuees filled the civic center, local churches and other spaces. Local folks did their best to make them welcome and meet their needs. Three weeks later, Hurricane Rita made landfall near Sabine Pass and headed up the Texas-Louisiana border, the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane...
Read more...
I attended a Court of Honor recently for a young man who became an Eagle Scout at 16 — an impressive achievement. Eagle is the highest rank in Boy Scouts. Only 7 percent of Scouts make it to that level. It takes grit, hard work and the ability to finish tasks. To make Eagle Scout in just five years is even more rare, since one must be 11 before joining a troop.
The young man thanked his parents, fellow Scouts, all those who helped him arrive at this milestone in his life. And then he thanked his grandfather, who sat beside him at the head table. His grandfather became an Eagle Scout nearly...
Read more...
When not working at endeavors that help pay the bills, I burn daylight repainting our house’s exterior. The heat has abated to a manageable level, so I hope to finish before it gets too cold for paint to stick. This is a big project — a two-story dwelling with a couple balconies, several levels of eaves, and faded gutters. There’s a lot of surface area to cover. A commercial painting company likely would charge at least $10,000 to paint the exterior. I hope to get out for about $400 worth of paint. I’m using the same color, which makes one coat sufficient.
I have been painting houses,...
Read more...
