Overnight Stop

The way that I heard it, during those 1970 two weeks I edited the Edna Herald…. The railroad financier Joseph Telfener, along with John W. Mackay, built 91 miles of track from Rosenburg Junction to Victoria Texas in 1882.    In the middle was Ganado, that translates as “cattle”.  Other depots were named for Telfener’s two daughters Inez and Edna, and Mackay’s wife Louise.  Don’t know who wrote the poem: A man bound for Laredo,

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Smoky

Back in my 1940s days at Abilene High School, the English teachers assigned you to write a book review. If you were a West Texas guy who wanted to write about Smoky the Cow Horse, most often you would find the book was already checked out of the library. Here’s a review a professional wrote of Will James novel: Smoky knows only one way of life: freedom.  Living on the open range, he is free

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Katy Stoplight

Twenty-two years before I started coaching journalism writers at the University of Texas in Austin, I coached Ward–a fellow freshman–on how to compose his assigned essay. Wasn’t first time a classmate asked for help. In high school my experience on our student newspaper and part-time job at the local daily established my credentials.   I often advised “write about something you know well.” My suggestion to Ward was write about your hometown.  Ward answered, “That’s Katy.

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Bruised Bluebonnets

Like the song says, “Beautiful Texas where the bluebonnets grow….” In early spring the flower grows wild in fields, on Facebook, as well as beside the highway.  State Highway Department sows the seeds along the highway.  Winter moisture and Texas abundance of sunshine create shows that slow admiring drivers.   Artists cover canvases with blue flowers showing a little bit of white. At age 65, surrounded by Russian snow, I decided to teach myself how to

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Growing Up in Texas

Growing Up in the Lone Star State:  Notable Texans Remember Their Childhood.   Gaylon Finklea Hecker and Marianne Odom, authors. Good book.  Took the two authors some forty years to compile.  Gaylon Heckler and Marianne Odom interviewed forty-seven ‘Notable Texans’ who remember their childhood.  Bought book. Reading.  Recommend. Personally acquainted with nine of the notable Texans.  The late Dan Jenkins, author, was my late wife Betty’s cousin.  Growing up 1936, the young cousins got in trouble

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1918 in 2020

The year was 1990. We flew to New York, invited to see the premiere of Wharton, Texas playwright Horton Foote’s movie 1918. The Chicago Tribune review labeled the movie as  ‘1918—Plagued by Small Town’s Unmerciful Hopelessness.’ During our present pandemic you often read or hear about the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic that killed more people than those who died in World War I.  Broadway playwright Foote remembered 1918 Spanish flu stories recounted in his hometown

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Born in Jail

Maybe the schoolyard bully boasted, “My Dad can whip your Dad.”     To which our children responded,  “But not our Mother. She was born in the jail.” They boasted true. Maxine was born in the jailhouse. Their Uncle Glenn was also later born in the jail. Maxine and Glenn’s mother, Ila Smith, lived on a Texas Hill Country ranch. And when time came to give birth, she came to Llano. No hospital, but her father Dan McDonald

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Recruiting Earl Campbell

If you watched the recent National Football League draft of college stars, and you were a Texas fan, you waited three rounds to see a Longhorn drafted. Didn’t have to wait but just a few minutes to see Earl Campbell drafted. Back in the 1970s…before Earl was All-American, then All-NFL running back, then voted the seventh best college player of all time, Associate Dean Richard Elam helped recruit Earl…well, sorta. First heard of Earl, a

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Vote Paper Ballots

Iowa Democrats now notorious for their failed Iowa caucus app, a computer reporting application. Their fiasco caught the attention of this old political reporter, candidate speechwriter, and political campaign communications professor. Even read about a professor in Austin who tweeted that “paper ballots only way to hold an election.”  Hah.   She may not know how paper ballots have been manipulated in Texas Democrat primaries. When Lyndon Johnson defeated Governor (Coke) Stevenson in a  Senatorial runoff election,

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‘Frightening’

If you studied your Colonial history, you’ve read about a Plymouth Rock outside Boston. Not far south of South Bend, home of the Notre Dame ‘Fighting Irish,’ there’s a Plymouth Indiana.   I scoffed when I drove by the high school football stadium that labels itself ‘Home of the Plymouth Rockies.’  Didn’t sound like a ferocious name. My Abilene high school chose a belligerent mascot, the Eagle. Of course, we weren’t original. And I have no

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