My neighbor Elaine told me a story. She and husband Steve lived in a big house across the street built by his grandparents. The large basement held a walk-in, steel-door safe. The safe’s door had been rusted closed for years, holding mostly memories. One night…

In a small town, gossip is an enthusiastic social activity. Topics surround, naturally enough, religious no-no’s. The forbidden. Whispers about who is having an affair, who is an alcoholic, who has a violent marriage, who has come into money and so many more off-color subjects,…

Honesty can be overrated. In the 1950s, our parents sent their daughters to a “fancy” girls camp in Kerrville, Texas, where campers swam in the Guadalupe River, sang songs around a campfire, lounged under the trees in white Adirondack chairs, and had sessions that lasted…

A story printed in 1920 in the Corsicana Daily Sun satirically recounting a trip made by local Hella Shrine families to Portland, Oregon. (My own great-grandparents, Bige and Molly Tinkle were among them. The photograph was taken on the trip at Pikes Peak, Bige sitting…

This is a bare partial manuscript of a story written by my mother while a journalism student at SMU in the 1970s. I have searched and have been unable to find more of the manuscript. She titled it “PALE DEATH.” I believe it would have…

  A hot summer day spent climbing over ancient Athenian ruins in 1964 became more uncomfortable back in the air-conditioning of our hotel. After the five of us had dragged in, showered, washed the sweat out of our hair and put on pajamas, we ordered…

My grandson’s bus is late…or I’m early. He’s six and someone walks to meet the school bus each day; today it’s me. I settle on the low curb in the available shade of a dried-out bush to wait. It’s quiet, the sounds of rural nature…

A clipboard and pen were poised in the hands of the young man standing in the hotel lobby. He wore khaki shorts above strong, tanned legs, anchored by dusty hiking boots and a whistle on a cord around his neck. I watched casually across the…

This is a brochure I recently created for the Corsicana Main Street Project.  Wolf Brand is part of our family history as well as a part of Corsicana history.  J. C. West was my grandfather, James West my dad.

Texas has always remained close to its Mexican heritage. Just how close that can be in some of the most southern of our 254 counties can at times bewilder even a fellow Texan from a more northern county. Dimmit county is one of the most…