Sitting on the porch this 2022 July 4 afternoon when daughter served a ‘popsicle’, ice with syrup encased in plastic. Whoa. Thought frozen popsicles came on a stick. Also think shaved frozen ice packed into a paper cone, your choice of syrup on top, was invented before they froze ice around a stick. Back when my mother-in-law Ila took orders for your color of syrup. Children with a quarter to spend while celebrating the summer
42 at Age 93
Couple of ladies at our old-folks boarding house got up a four-handed domino game of 42. Been longer than 42 years since I last played, but I remembered how to shuffle the dominoes, draw seven, set them up so the other three players couldn’t see, and sound my bid. One lady told us how 42 started. God-loving Texas parents didn’t want their boy playing with cards and learning about poker. Or playing Whist, a forerunner
Naming the Pet
The son—named Kelson, who his mother Maxine said from her hospital bed of pain, “name him anything you want”—asked: “What are you going to name that dog?” That dog, tongue extended in a pant, was a 20-inch-tall statuette given by my second daughter Cynthia, in exchange for a horse—yet to be delivered. And as readers know, children and animals must be named. The Golden Retriever who sailed with us was Captain Jack. The Calico cat shipmate we
Journaling
“Writing and reflecting” was the title the newspaper put atop a printed letter that read “I’m on a mission to bring back journaling.” Author (10 books) David Thomas praised the teacher who made his son keep a ‘journal’ she read and critiqued. What you’re reading I would prefer to call a ‘journal.’ Not an essay, nor a blog. After 25 years as a paid journalist and a TV editorialist, four different universities assigned me to
Identical Twins
Yarns about identical twins came when a daughter and son married. Then a blog reader and writer wrote a similar one. You can’t tell a difference between Jack’s twin sons by previous marriage. Even with recent beards, they are now physical ed teachers who look alike. Their high school teacher couldn’t tell a difference either. She consulted their father. Mister Wood, your sons are in different classrooms, but they each scored identical answers to my
Boarding House
At the “boarding house” where I now live, they go by a fancier name “senior assisted living.” Like my two previous boarding houses, food is good. While the privileged at my 1950s college days were eating at the fraternity, sorority or team tables, I located a “pitch ‘til you win” luncheon boarding house. Enroute to afternoon classes—-no well-educated senior signed up for morning classes—-I ate at the widow’s food table. She furnished us a bunch
Squirt-Gun Mob
Remembering that my first published fiction appeared in our school newspaper. Spring 1945, Abilene High School newspaper The Battery, page three. I have English teacher Selma Bishop to thank for this author’s launching. She assigned a personal experience essay. I wrote about the incident: As I drove, Bill Williams leaned out the back window and sprayed water on people waiting for the bus. The victims took my car license plate number. Noon next day (my
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.
Bolshoie Mac
In 1995 when we arrived in Yekaterinburg Russia, some of the Ural State University journalism faculty took us to lunch. They apologized for the poor quality. Good manners kept us from agreeing. Probably the countries’ best restaurant, they told us, was in Moscow, a day’s train ride to the west. Opened by Chicago’s McDonald four years ahead of our curriculum changes assignment We heard Russians were standing in long lines to order a ‘Bolshei’…translates as
Sailing Becalmed
You would think a color photograph of two 18-foot sailboats, spinnakers flying, featured on the cover of every Southwestern Bell phonebook serving a city housing over 108,000 people would be an easy computer lookup. Nope. Don Hutcheson took the picture. Set up his camera on the east shore of small Lytle Lake east of Abilene. Instructed John Crutchfield’s crew and Dick Elam’s crew to sail our 18-foot Flying Scot sailboats downwind in front of houses