Taken for a Ride
As my 75th birthday present, my sister-in-law gifted me airfare to join her in New York City. Her instructions, sent by email, were to take an Uber to the downtown hotel. I had heard often…
As my 75th birthday present, my sister-in-law gifted me airfare to join her in New York City. Her instructions, sent by email, were to take an Uber to the downtown hotel. I had heard often…
For many, so many years the women of the Tribe of Man had one purpose. It was to marry and produce offspring for their husbands. The wives had no riches of their own as…
She watched from the window, the view changing, just as she stayed unchanged. In the past, her clothing changed often but now she wore the same red dress day after day, the shoulders becoming sun-bleached,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
A downtown parade was among the most exciting events of a childhood spent in a small Texas town. In our old family albums are photos taken by my grandfather of the…
I still flash on embarrassing memories that make me cringe inside, especially those that happened during the years from 12 to about 18 when we are all most vulnerable to self-criticism. My sister and I,…
It was bone cold, the wind sending chilly gusts around our legs and up loose backs of our jackets. I pushed my muffler up to warm my nose. We were three American visitors steadily working…
This is the third and final part of the memoir of George Olsson Short, whose family love of baseball was a feature of his boyhood in the Texas of the 1920s and 1930s. After earning a…
This is the second in the series of three parts which are a compilation of the writings of George Olsson Short, whose family love of baseball was a feature of his boyhood in the Texas of…
Snake stories in Texas are hardly rare. One story, however, deserves recounting. A caller to the shelter said she had seen a “huuuge” snake go under their house. With its large front porch, it was…
In the old Hebrew Cemetery in Corsicana, Texas is a headstone with only two words on it, “Rope Walker.” Almost nothing is known of the man in the grave except the manner of his death. …