AUSTIN — For the first time in 16 years, Susan Combs’ name was not on a statewide ballot in the Republican primary held a few days ago. After two terms as agriculture commissioner and two more as state comptroller, Combs elected not to run this time. That opened the floodgates for a bevy of candidates, since she was widely expected to run for lieutenant governor — especially if David Dewhurst didn’t run. As it turned out, the Republican primary had a crowded field of folks — most of who vied to prove they were Tea Party aficionados before that was cool in the Grand Old Party. Dewhurst...
Read more...
The email landed in my work inbox the other day. Kilgore College will host the 51st annual East Texas Regional Science Fair starting Friday. Project are available for public viewing right after lunch. I plan on moseying over there to take a look. After all, my science fair project has a lot to do with me becoming a newspaper photographer in high school — a step up from working in the mailroom stuffing circulars into the papers. That had been the second rung on the career ladder from being a paperboy, as described in last week’s piece.
For my tenth-grade science project, I decided to demonstrate...
Read more...
Nearly every Thursday afternoon when college is in session, I run a short delivery route for the student newspaper, of which I’m the adviser. I deliver papers to three locations at the Longview center before heading home, while a student worker covers the considerably larger Kilgore College campus.
The first time I did this last August, it occurred to me that I had come full circle.
Forty-five years ago, I began peddling newspapers downtown for the afternoon edition of the Longview paper. As soon as I got out of school at nearby Foster Junior High, I rode my banana-seat bike to the office...
Read more...
Our little piece of the Pine Curtain recently experienced a semi-snow day. A mild ice storm earlier this week prompted the administration to close the college campus at 3 p.m., cancel night classes and delay opening the next day until 10 a.m.
I reckon, at least looking at the 10-day forecast, this is as close as I will get to reliving the childhood indulgence of a snow day.
This winter I have jealously observed as cities to the south and west — places where I used to live, such as Lufkin, Nacogdoches and even normally arid Austin — have been whacked with winter storms that closed schools...
Read more...
Identify theft is a hot topic lately, with cyber crooks swiping millions of credit card numbers from Target and other retail outlets. Certainly one can’t be too careful when most of us conduct much of our business online, relying on passwords to access bank accounts, credit cards and even Netflix. I am quite cautious, using several passwords and never having the same one for, say, the bank account and my email. I have a mental image of this army of unshaven weasels hiding in dark rooms, hunched over screens trying to break into my account so they can run up a tab with amazon.com and cost me untold...
Read more...
I bought my first Pete Seeger album in 1971, when I was 16, most likely at the Howard’s store on Mobberly Avenue in Longview. That is where I bought most of my records as a teen, in this discount store that was precursor and later victim to Walmart. From our house on South Twelfth Street it was an easy hike through the Letourneau University campus to the store, where I would flip through the record bin to spend some of my paycheck from the Longview News-Journal. I had recently been promoted to part-time photographer. I don’t recall that meant a raise in pay, but it did increase my hours.
I...
Read more...
For years I’ve been collecting snatches of conversations I’ve overheard here Behind the Pine Curtain, phrases and expressions that mark this place as somewhere unique. Sometimes I think the language is all that is left to distinguish one region from another in this age of commercial homogeneity. One can be plopped down in a shopping district of a mid-sized town in Iowa, Georgia, Texas or Colorado, and — except for the weather and the accent — not notice any difference. You will see a Home Depot or Lowe’s, a Target, Wal-Mart, a smattering of food chains, a dozen or so clothing franchises,...
Read more...
A recent New York Times article recounted how a group of elderly Korean men are getting grief from McDonald’s management at a store in Queens, New York because they spend too much time there socializing while spending hardly any money. They might shell out $1.39 for a small order of fries to split among them, but mainly they are there to gab and presumably get away from their spouses. Now that might be an stereotype, but there must be a reason these men are willing to risk having the police called on them to overstay their welcome at a Mickey D’s.
Old men — and women — socializing at a McDonald’s...
Read more...
DALLAS — Inside the NorthPark Center is a sculpture titled Fountainhead. Images of folding currency stream down the sides, an endless river of money descending in two-dimensional form. The sculpture resembles a smaller version of one of those fake rock walls one can pay to climb, often in malls such as NorthPark. The purpose of this sculpture, I later read, is to encourage people to donate money to worthy causes. That was not immediately obvious. I figured it was an altar to spending, which seemed fitting. That is what the hordes of folks crowding this place the weekend after New Year’s were...
Read more...
Working at the car wash
Working at the car wash, yeah
Come on and sing it with me, car wash
Sing it with the feeling now, car wash yeah
— Rose Royce
|———|
That banal disco song runs through my skull each time I head to the self-service dog wash I recently discovered, with a smelly pooch riding shotgun and looking concerned. Especially if it is Rosie, who hates traveling and pants so incessantly that she leaves drool all over the seat. Rosie is possibly part Yorkie, certainly part Nervous Nellie. She does not like change of routine and equates a car ride with being boarded or suffering...
Read more...
