I ventured out this week to get new nose pads on my eyeglasses. The type used on these spectacles break off every few months. Without the soft rubber pad the glasses put an ugly indentation in my nose, which hurts. So off I went to one of the few business establishments left in America that perform a service for free. Most eyeglass stores make minor repairs gratis — such as nose pads or straightening up earpieces after I have rolled over on the glasses while napping.
A few eyeglass stores have started charging, but there are plenty out there who don’t, no doubt reasoning that I am more likely...
Read more...
A baker’s dozen of dogs sit in a loose circle, about 100 feet in circumference, in the dusty floor of an arena at the Gregg County fairgrounds. The dogs are tethered by leashes to their owners. Both the dogs and owners vary widely in size and shape. There are four German Shepherds, a poodle, one of those bug-eyed carpet dogs whose breed I can’t place, a few Labrador mixes.
And Rosie. That’s our rescue dog of unknown lineage. Rosie is a cinnamon-colored 14-pound dust mop, with a feathery tail and bounce to her gait. She draws admiring glances and frequent compliments when we walk along...
Read more...
In the 18 months I lived in Austin, while my BMC and family lived in Longview, I made the trip back Behind the Pine Curtain about 75 times by my reckoning. Lately I have traveled this route a couple of times a week hauling stuff back in the trailer. At 260 miles per roundtrip, that tallies to 39,000 miles. Sheesh. No wonder I’m tired.
Roughly 90 percent of those trips involved the shortest, simplest route, which is Highway 31 from Longview to Waco, then I-35 to Austin. The exceptions were on holidays when I figured the interstate could turn into a parking lot, or if I was pulling the trailer...
Read more...
This is my next-to-last evening living in Austin. Nearly everything is packed, most going into storage in East Texas until we buy a house. A few tasks remain tomorrow, such as a trip to Goodwill, and loading up the trailer and the SUV with what will stay with me — clothes, toiletries, the computer, a few books. So I am indulging myself with a few hours on the backyard deck, reading magazines and breathing in the scent of the wax-leaf ligustrums that dominate the foliage off the deck.
The smell of this hardy shrub — those in my neighbor’s yard reach the crest of the roof, providing a natural...
Read more...
My Beautiful Mystery Companion and I have begun house hunting in Longview. Sale of the barely lived-in Austin house is imminent. Packing is well underway. Wisely, I have kept boxes since moving away from Longview nearly two years ago. This will be their fourth use in 23 months. Nor will it be the last, since nearly everything I own is going into storage until we find a house. I’m shacking up with my wife, the BMC, in her small bohemian duplex on the south side.
This will be the 13th home I have participated in purchasing, but the first for my BMC. Before we met, she preferred to remain free...
Read more...
I took the slower but less stressful route from East Texas to Austin the other day. I was pulling my utility trailer back to begin loading up stuff in preparation for moving back Behind the Pine Curtain. After two years of living apart, the Beautiful Mystery Companion and I — along with daughter Abbie and Rosie the Wonder Dog — will all live full-time under the same roof. It makes me smile to think about it.
This trailer and I endured a couple of life-threatening mishaps during the last move. First the hitch lock broke and the trailer popped off the ball, luckily without mishap since I was only...
Read more...
I spend a few days each week ensconced in the Briscoe Center for American History at UT, looking at microfilms of Texas country newspapers from the mid-1940s through the late 1980s for a book project. I think I’m chasing a pretty interesting character and hope eventually I can cadge a modest book contract out of this.
While perusing I often become sidetracked by a horrific tale of murder, or a gruesome car wreck, maybe a long-forgotten political scandal involving a county commissioner. In Texas, most political scandals involve either county commissioners or sheriffs, in my experience. These...
Read more...
Nightmarish tales of my ineptness abound when it comes to plumbing repairs. It apparently is a form of handyman dyslexia. When it comes to carpentry, woodworking, even rudimentary electrical repairs, I am— if not Mr. Fix-It — at least his loyal assistant. I can hang a ceiling fan, swap out an electrical breaker, build a coffee table, replace a windowpane or lay down ceramic tile. But if water is involved, my brain turns to mush.
Past disasters are the stuff of legend:
• I stripped the valve off an icemaker tube as the movers literally were bringing in possessions, thus requiring me to frantically...
Read more...
Our 14-year-old daughter was watching another police procedural show the other night. The Abster is hooked on “NCIS” and similar programs that invariably show a corpse cut open on a slab in an autopsy lab. At the moment, she plans to be a forensic psychologist so that she can solve the types of mysteries she watches on television. We are fine with whatever career she chooses, but I likely won’t be visiting her at work. I have no interest in seeing a dead person slit open from stem to sternum.
During the show, a whacky Target commercial came on with folks running around in brightly colored...
Read more...
For Lent I gave up two habits of which I am quite fond: nibbling on dark chocolate and nibbling on my fingernails. I never do both at the same time. That would be messy. I love dark chocolate so it seemed a meaningful item to give up for 40 days. I hope going that long without gnawing on my fingernails — admittedly a bad habit — will shed me permanently of this tic before I break any more teeth.
I have healthy but brittle teeth, about half now topped with crowns. The front ones have been patched several times. Years ago, I broke one dumbly and absentmindedly trying to pull out a watch stem...
Read more...
