Good morning, class. Let me start the semester by assigning your term paper. Research, write, and Bring To Date the address delivered November 4, 1954 by Dr. Frank Conselman. PhD, World War II Colonel, consulting geologist. Conselman–a great wit, pilot, but mediocre sailboat racer. A friend I was fortunate to know during my years in Abilene. Dr. Conselman’s address, “Uranium—Oil’s Newest Competitor,” was delivered in Abilene, 1954. West Central Oil and Gas Association may have
BAWL for Cindy
If you publish a birth announcement for daughter one, then you publish a BAWL for Cynthia Elam the next year. As a string correspondent for Time magazine, I could also make $25 if I sent an accepted West Texas story idea to sister-publication, LIFE picture magazine. Needed the money with another mouth to feed. Many photographs for this edition, which took less time and were quicker than writing words.
Marching Orders
Haven’t been sleeping well at my old folk’s boarding house. However, marching orders haven’t changed. Still try to love my neighbors as much as myself. And a cheerful countenance counts. No. Not a preacher. But for years I belonged to a small congregation in a large university town. Our small congregation, 300 counting babies and a few graduate students, chose to furnish our own preachers. You can find some experienced speakers if four of your
When to Land
Betcha every one of we old airplane pilots have more than one story about air-traffic controllers—the Federal Aviation employees in the airport tower. The people who radio you when and where to take-off and land. Already wrote about the Abilene tower controller whose radio stopped a two-engine commercial airplane from taxiing into our Maxine beginning her solo flight. A few years later from the same control tower, a rookie controller got confused. Some thirty private
Siesta
As I age, I find a little nap–siesta–before dinner most enjoyable. Depends on whether you’re Texan or Mexican, of course, when you nap before dinner. Briggs Todd told me this cross-the-border story back in the 1960s. Briggs was president of the state bank in Abilene, also the district governor of West Texas Rotarians. In that capacity he led a delegation to dine with Rotarians in Mexico. In the chosen ciudad, Rotarians met each week for
Water Boy
When I saw “mandated breaks for construction workers,” I remembered my second boyhood job as ‘water boy assistant.’ You didn’t need to pass a regulation to tell Oscar Rose to keep his construction workers well-watered on hot West Texas days. Mr. Rose knew a few minutes every hour drinking water from a water bucket would keep his hands working. His son, Earl Glenn, was a year older. He often hired me to help make the
Writing Lyrics
“I was walking with my walker to the Old Folks Boarding house waltz.” When not writing fiction, I dabble with writing lyrics. Goes back to my Sea Scout days when the bow crew from Abilene sang to close the evening campfire: Good night Sea Scouts, where ever you are. And in our dreams we’ll sail again. We will pray to God and then we will drift away in sleep. There wasn’t a prize for campfire
Latin Longevity
If you want to practice the Latin you learned–in school? church? Italy?–read the book How to Grow Old. You can read Latin on the left page. On the right page, read English words translated by an old Roman Senator named Marcus Tullius Cicero. When? March 44 BC. About the time when Julius Caesar should have listened to the “Beware the Ides of March” words of Bill Shakespeare and stayed in his basement. On Cicero’s page
Not a Luddite
Back in the days when rowdy Englishmen protested progress by blowing up newly-invented steam engines, they called the resisting hoodlums “Luddites”. Skip two centuries ahead, and now we’ve got protestors calling for the government to regulate this new computer progression called AI, Artificial Intelligence. The University czars fear high school students will use words stored in computers to write entrance-exam essays. As if they didn’t know many parents already add and correct words their adolescent
Deadlines
During World War II, the question wasn’t if I was old enough to work part-time at the newspaper. The question was “can he spell?” “Does he drive a jalopy that will get him to work?” Recalled my 16-year-old experience when I read there was a shortage of teen-age workers, especially for summer jobs. Also read: putting teenagers to work can go a long way toward increasing their earnings later in life and keeping them out of