When we say “it’s a dog’s life” these days, it is usually taken to mean living a pampered existence. That is not how the phrase, which dates back to 16th-century England, originated, however. Our canine companions did not have it so great 500 years ago. They lived in crude kennels and subsisted on table scraps. Thus, the English described poor folks living in squalid conditions as living a “dog’s life.” People whose lives were headed on a downward trajectory were often described as “going to the dogs.”
It has only been in the last century that the fortunes of dogs have improved....
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Fifty years ago, on Good Friday, a 7-year-old girl was found with a scarf tightly bound around her neck in Allenstown, N.H. a few blocks from our home on Valley Street. Susan Fanny was in the next-door home of a 48-year-old woman, Loretta Fanny, first reported to be her aunt. It was determined a few days later that Loretta was actually a second cousin.
There was no school that day, because it was Good Friday. I was home alone, not uncommon if my mother had errands to run. My dad was at work as always. This was a small town of about 1,000 people, considered safe, where neighbors watched out for each...
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I have followed with great interest the dustup over the attempt to change Stephen F. Austin State University’s logo. I spent nearly 20 years total in Nacogdoches, first as a student, then running the newspaper a little more than a decade after graduating. I know many of the folks involved at the university in making the decision that sent thousands of alumni, students and other ’Jack backers to their keyboards to register their protests online. I taught journalism part-time at night there for nine years while working at the paper. And I followed with great enthusiasm the Lumberjacks’ fine...
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I recently read Robert Gates’ memoir, “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War,” an engaging account of his tenure as secretary of defense under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, from 2006 to 2011. It is quite unlike any political memoir or autobiography I have read — utterly unvarnished, plain-spoken and as candid account of Gates’ years serving two presidents during two wars as one could possibly expect.
The advance reviews made a big deal of Gates’ criticism of Obama’s leadership in pursuing the war in Afghanistan. Bob Woodward in the Washington Post notes Gates concluded...
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CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. — My fascination with astronauts and the space program was launched when Mercury astronaut Alan Shepherd rode on the back of a red convertible in a parade through downtown Pembroke, N.H. in 1961. He had just become the second person and the first American to reach outer space, as it was quaintly called then. The United States and the Soviet Union were on a race to the moon. I was hooked on all things to do with rockets, launches and splashdowns, and especially the brave men who were strapped in to tiny capsules and sent soaring into the heavens. (Women wouldn’t get their...
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COCOA BEACH, FLA. — Finally, the day of the wedding arrived, though it still seemed as if the appointed hour might never come. My son-in-law Matt and I spent a few fascinating hours touring the Kennedy Space Center visitor’s complex at Cape Canaveral, driving over in the Mustang convertible he rented. My Beautiful Mystery Companion, daughter Abbie and I got dressed well ahead of time, in casual attire (though the women, of course, looked stunning), and then walked over to the pier on which the ceremony would take place. At 4 p.m. my oldest daughter Kasey would marry Jeff Willett and take his last...
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COCOA BEACH, FLA. — Winter is loath to leave this year, beating back spring’s attempts to pop up in its customary time frame, which is generally by late February in East Texas. The result has been a confusion of blooming trees knocked back by ice storms and below-freezing weather, pollen falling and daffodils blooming while rooftops glisten with frost.
Just last week another ice storm swept through, delaying and canceling school. The dogs freak out when forced to go outside to do their business on a carpet of ice and snow. Rosie and Sam look at me like I have lost my mind when I suggest...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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