Five former newspaper guys met for lunch on a rainy winter day in a nearly deserted Italian restaurant. At one point or another all had worked together. One had been another’s boss, or succeeded this one as publisher, hired that one as editor. We go back nearly a quarter-century working for the same company that owned newspapers in East Texas until three years ago.
We vary in age from 80 to 57. That’s me on the low end. I’m the baby of the group, a rare designation these days. I once was invariably the youngest hotshot in the newsroom, back when I started out in this business. As Willie...
Read more...
Ten years ago on February 1, at a few minutes before 8, a sonic boom shook East Texas, followed by a series of rumbles. It was a cloudless, spring-like Saturday morning. I was walking out my door in Nacogdoches, headed to the newspaper office. I had heard on NPR that the shuttle Columbia. I looked up into the sky and saw the contrail splitting apart and thought, ‘‘Guess the shuttle just passed over.’’ I’ve seen the shuttle pass over before, and it’s a lovely sight, a quick flash of orange streaking across the sky from west to east. I figured I had missed seeing the shuttle by just seconds...
Read more...
About four months ago I wrote about Sam, a poodle mix who cleverly captured my Beautiful Mystery Companion’s heart by lying down in the middle of our neighborhood street and looking pitiful. She indeed took pity and brought him home. He since has largely lived in my shop at night and outside in the day — with nightly visits on the couch for an hour or so. We never let him out of our sight inside because of his bad habit of marking his territory. That is a poor habit for a dog when inside the house.
Recently, my BMC persuaded me to train Sam to be an inside dog. He would stay in his crate...
Read more...
I was giving blood the other day for my semi-annual physical. That’s a sure sign you’re on the far side of the 50, when it becomes a semi-annual physical, and having blood drawn becomes a regular ritual. That used to be something I dreaded, but now I’m used to getting stuck with needles.
Now the worst part is fasting, not being able to down a cup of coffee seconds after my feet touch the floor. I get to the lab soon as it opens at 7 a.m. so I can return home and savor that first cup of joe.
As I sat across from the young woman preparing to stick me, my fist clenched and the tourniquet...
Read more...
Gary, Texas — It is a gray day in Gary and throughout the Piney Woods, rain falling in sheets at times. I am traveling farm roads over swollen creeks, relying on my phone’s GPS to find the home of a couple I am set to interview, who live a few miles from this small town. My store-bought GPS, nicknamed Gretel because she leaves electronic bread crumbs for me to follow, denies Gary’s existence for unknown reasons. Luckily the app on my phone provides the route. I remember roughly how to get to Gary, but not to where this couple lives. Besides, I have relied on a GPS too long now to be adept...
Read more...
A longtime reader of these ramblings recently mailed me a newspaper clipping of a column I wrote nearly 20 years ago. He read it while working for Amtrak in Pennsylvania as a locomotive engineer on the Philadelphia to Harrisburg run. He stopped to grab lunch and bought a copy of the Harrisburg Patriot-News, which ran the column, originally written for the Nacogdoches paper. I was advocating that the United States get rid of the penny because it is a nuisance, cost more to produce than it’s worth, and doing so could help cut the deficit.
The reader, Joe McCarthy, and I have exchanged correspondence...
Read more...
Christmas morning began with lightning and thunder and a much-needed rain sweeping in from the west, the noise waking me about 3 a.m. I got up for a few minutes to admire the flashes of light illuminating the trees from the second-story window, watching the sheets of rain sweep across the deck. Then I crawled back into bed to attempt to catch a few more hours of sleep.
There are no longer small children in the house eager to awaken before daylight even hints at arriving on Christmas morning — just a teenager who wants to open presents, but she is willing to sleep in a bit before doing so. So I dozed...
Read more...
A few Christmas stories I have told before that bear retelling, plus a new one.
• My earliest memory of Christmas is from more than a half half-century ago. We always spent Christmas Eve at my maternal grandparents’ home in Hopkinton, New Hampshire. The tiny house, built by my grandfather, was filled with cousins bedded down most everywhere. I was lying in my grandparents’ bed, looking out the window, which was narrow and near the ceiling, so you could see the stars if you were on your back looking up and out.
I saw Santa Claus streaking across the night sky and realized I had better...
Read more...
For the first time in more than three decades I took on a painting job for pay, agreeing to paint kitchen cabinets for an acquaintance at an hourly rate. Freelance writing is a decidedly hit-or-miss way to make a living, and this was a solid way to pay for Christmas presents. Besides, I actually like to paint, as long as it doesn’t become a full-time, everyday job.
My late dad taught me how to paint as a teen-ager. We must have painted our house on South Twelfth Street in Longview a half-dozen times, or at least it felt that way. Not because of inferior workmanship but because my mom kept...
Read more...
This is the first Christmas that my Beautiful Mystery Companion, our daughter Abbie and I have spent under a single roof. And it is the first time my BMC has unpacked her impressive array of Christmas decorations — collected over many years in post-Christmas sales both here and abroad, primarily in Japan and England. On the Saturday after Thanksgiving I cheerfully hooked up the trailer and headed to the storage unit to load up the decorations, all packed away in plastic tubs. I came back with the 5x10-foot trailer loaded, plus my small SUV filled to the roof.
I had already made a trip to the Big Box Store...
Read more...
