I met Harley Clark in 2005 while attending a 50th anniversary celebration in Austin of the “Hook ’em Horns” sign that his buddy  invented one night while making shadow figures on the wall of a dorm room.  Clark, who was the University of Texas head cheerleader in 1955, introduced the sign to the world at a pep rally where he unilaterally proclaimed the symbol for the Longhorns was now the official hand signal of the university.  Sports Illustrated called it the best-known sports gesture in the world. Somehow I ended up walking in a parade down the Drag in front of campus the Friday...

Washing Chickens and Spiking Lambs

I wandered through the livestock arena at the Titus County Fair last week, looking for photographic subjects. Participants, mostly high school students, were grooming their steers, fluffing up their hair with industrial-strength blow dryers. It was warm and aromatic, a familiar smell of bovines and sawdust wafting through the Indian summer afternoon. As always, being at a livestock show evokes fond memories of my two older daughters — both now in their 30s — and their forays into animal husbandry as members of the local 4-H club. We never tried to raise steers or heifers. That is a tremendous...

Back On The Sidelines

High school football season is approaching the halfway mark, with a half-dozen games left on the regular-season schedule. If one of the teams we cover makes it into the playoffs — and I hope they all do — naturally we will continue covering football. And that means I will continue pacing the sidelines, trying to get an action shot in focus while not getting creamed by a player knocked out of bounds. Before this season commenced, the last time I shot football we photographers still used film instead of digital. As it happens I was running the Fort Stockton Pioneer for the same company I am again...

Adventures of a Word Nerd

I am a word nerd. Etymology fascinates me. I try not to use 50-cent words when a dime’s worth will do, but sometimes I can’t resist tossing in a word that might not be used in everyday conversation. I have learned the hard way to double-check anytime I venture into territory commonly occupied by the likes of George Will — the longtime conservative columnist who has the average reader reaching for a dictionary every few paragraphs. My trip to the literary woodshed came several years ago, when I confused “approbation” and “opprobrium” in a column. I used the latter, which means “a...

Customer Service: An Oxymoron?

I listened the other day to a phone conversation between a customer and a Comcast employee that has gone viral on YouTube. National Public Radio even did a short piece about it. A fellow is trying to cancel his service because he is switching providers. He recorded the last eight minutes of a 20-minute dialogue with the customer service rep. Comcast is the country’s largest cable and Internet provider, and it hopes to buy Time-Warner, the second-largest provider of those services. This would be a merger of two of the most-despised companies when it comes to customer service, according to an annual...

Old Photo of a Young Soldier

I came across an old photo while we were cleaning out files to prepare to move the newspaper office. The sepia-toned print is of a nice looking young man in an Army dress uniform. His tie is tucked into the shirt, cap on his head, and a slight smile on his face. Someone had written below on the cardboard frame, “Staff Sgt. Lee H.C. An inscription, likely from Lee is on the flap of the frame, which seemed to have served as a protective envelope for mailing. It is torn now, but the barely legible inscription reads: To Momma and Auntie. The photo was accompanied by a typewritten piece of blue...

Red-Headed Stranger Still Has the Mojo

My dad is the primary reason I have been a Willie Nelson fan for more than 40 years, harkening back to when I mainly listened to rock ‘n’ roll and did not think country was cool. Country was Porter Waggoner in a silly suit and pompadour, Ernest Tubb and the Texas Troubadours, and Eddie Arnold. My dad listened to Eddie Arnold incessantly, indeed obsessively. Eddie was probably a delightful gentleman, but to a long-haired teenager’s ears it was like listening to elevator music combined with fingernails scratching down a chalkboard. I thought if I heard “Make the World Go Away” one more...

He Wants To GIve Me A Million Bucks

I was searching online for a way to apply for a gas card for the newspaper and ended up in search my newspaper email account by clicking on the wrong box on the screen. An email, hitherto unnoticed by me, titled in all caps (always a bad sign) YOUR OPPORTUNITY FROM EXXONMOBIL LONDON, appeared. It seems Mr. Peter Alexandra needs my assistance. He “overinvoiced” a contract a few years ago. “I need your full cooperation and partnership to re-profile this contract funds amounting to $2.5M to your name as the contractor that executed this contract in Asia few years.” That is exactly how it read;...

Moving During the Dog Days

We are moving the newspaper office next Saturday, on the day coincidentally that I mark my 59th birthday. Thus I will mark the beginning of my final year in my 50s by sweating heavily, trying not to strain my back, and doing what I can to assist men much stronger and younger than me to move desks, filing cabinets, and all the other furnishings — in time for us to open in our new location the following Monday morning. I have worked for 12 newspapers and published 10 of them, and this is only the second time I have helped move a newspaper office. The first time was 36 years ago, when I had more...

Are We Becoming An Angrier Society?

An unhappy customer called me the other day. He had every reason to be displeased, because we had given him poor service.  His approach was to use foul language, which I endured. I figured he would eventually settle down and then maybe we could reason together. I don’t like getting cussed out any more than the next person, but sometimes that just goes with the territory. In my younger years, I might have bowed up and told the fellow to quit using words we don’t print in a family newspaper. But with age occasionally comes wisdom, so I generally let angry customers blow off steam. Eventually,...