The view outside my study window is once again a canopy of green that nearly blots out the sky. My time spent in this study, enjoying this view, has come full circle through the seasons. On this morning a cold front is beginning to push through, promising to push temperatures down 20 degrees in a few hours. A thunderstorm is brewing. The rumbles send the dogs scurrying so close to my chair that when I roll back from the desk I risk running over one or the other of their tails. They don’t like thunder and seem to blame it on me. Both Sam and Rosie cast baleful looks my way, as if to say, “Make...
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When our daughter decided out of nowhere to try out for cheerleader, I was silently skeptical. She had little gymnastics experience and admittedly couldn’t tumble worth a flip. All she possessed was great desire and enough athletic ability to have landed her on the Longview Lobo freshman volleyball team. Now she wanted to change course and try cheer. OK by us, but failure might be an option. Not in her head, I quickly learned.
She started taking weekly private lessons about three months before tryouts. Soon, in addition to hearing a volleyball bouncing off the wall of her second-story bedroom,...
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AUSTIN — It is strictly coincidence that I ended up testifying before a House committee of the Texas Legislature on April Fool’s Day. That august body, which meets for 140 days every two years, is in full warp speed with the session more than halfway over. I volunteer for a group that fights for freedom of information, open records and open meetings. That usually means battling a whole slew of bills each session against lawmakers trying to add more loopholes to make public records private. We win some, we lose some.
Sometimes the measure is well intentioned but misinformed, at least from...
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Pecan Grove San Gabriel (Click on the link to the left to see a photo from the ranch.)
SOUTH OF THE SAN GABRIEL RIVER — It is a glorious spring morning for a ride through the pastures, two dogs flanking the pickup as my acquaintance drives slowly down the dry ruts to show me the place that her father bought in the mid-1940s, just under 200 acres as I recall. The wind seems to blow constantly this time of year in Central Texas. Wildfires are a constant danger as the drought continues. There is plenty of grass left on this farm, because she sold off all but nine of her cows after the brutal...
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I was feeling faintly flush with cash, having received a bit of lagniappe, so I decided to saunter down to the bookstore and browse the bargain bin. I needed a break from either working on my own stuff or reading heavy history — preferably a novel for under $10 in either trade paperback or hardcover. I have quit buying small paperbacks because the type is too small, I tire of trying to hold them open, and the paper quality is crummy. I have become a book snob in my near-dotage. Besides, shelf space is at a premium until I get busy in the shop, and building a bookcase is way down the to-do list....
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It is spring break week in East Texas. Mother Nature decided to cooperate with glorious weather — crisp mornings, warm afternoons, brilliant skies, redbud trees blooming in front yards, azalea blossoms beginning to make an appearance. I’m grateful my Beautiful Mystery Companion and daughter Abbie received a respite from school, the former as a professor, the latter as a high-school freshman. We have no grand plans but will get away for a few days as a family.
For me, this week has been a time to reflect on how life has turned out, at least to this point. It seems minutes ago that we were...
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I’ve been hauling a lot of stuff around the last few weeks. My brothers and I cleared out a storage unit that held boxes of photo albums and the last of our late parents’ possessions. We at last tackled the emotional task of dividing up those items. That meant I also had to move the stuff I had stored in the same unit to a smaller space.
I am not being imprecise by calling it stuff. Much of it defies more specific categorization. It is stuff I am loath to part with because it might come in handy some day, but don’t have space for at the house. A couple of old doors that someday I plan...
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Let us pause now and give thanks. A blaze in the 54-year-old pit at Louie Mueller Barbecue in downtown Taylor was contained before it could do any serious damage to this venerable institution — except to the pit, which was destroyed. According to the Taylor Daily Press, the cause was “the byproducts of cooking in the pit that just overheated and took off.”
In other words, spontaneous combustion.
The fire erupted the first time at 4:45 a.m. last Saturday. Firefighters put out the blaze with little difficulty. But it flared up again the next morning, while Taylor firefighters were busy...
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We had put off this task for nearly two years, sorting and dividing the last of our late parents’ possessions. My mother died nearly two years ago, my father two years before her. In 2007 we had taken on the difficult job of dismantling our parents lives. We sold most of their possessions, moved them into assisted living, and stored what needed to be saved — photo albums, much of my dad’s artwork, some furniture in a storage unit. The artwork he created, originals and prints, went into storage as well, save for some pieces for the apartment and later nursing care facilities in which they...
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In nearly 31 years of writing a column every week, I have written my share of stinkers and a few of which I am fond. Most land somewhere in-between. I can say straight up that my favorite column was published five years ago, a few weeks after I moved back to my hometown of Longview. You’ll understand why in a moment.
The piece was titled “Unpacking a Passel of Books.” It was about how I enjoy unpacking boxes of my books after moving. Doing so is a way to reacquaint myself with old friends who have stuck with me through life’s winding roads —1,500 or so volumes collected over a lifetime...
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