The days between Christmas and New Year’s provide an intermission, I think, a necessary break in the drama of life between the big productions of the current year and the coming attractions of the year ahead. During this interlude, I slow the pace, even often… Read More
Christmas has come to my Mother’s residence. It doesn’t take much to evoke the beauty of the holidays here because this place is stunning all by itself. It could easily be mistaken for a Grand Hyatt or a Ritz-Carlton. Decorated as it is for the… Read More
Fall weather comes to South Texas all of a sudden and late in the season, with a cold front from the north that we Texans call a norther. A norther blew in this week, with temperatures dropping form the 90s into the 50s virtually overnight.… Read More
The storm hits and the drama of it all dominates the media: wind-blown newscasters hold fast to the nearest pole as they report on nature’s fury; rescue workers wade through waist-high water as they search for those refusing to leave; ravaged evacuees huddle in make-shift… Read More
Photo: A home in the Harvey floodwaters; photo by Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg The rains start gently, tentatively, as though they need to practice after months of prolonged drought. Over the next day or two, they build into steady showers — not unwelcome, mind you, since… Read More
I’m grumpy. It’s hot. It hit 106 this weekend. I know, I know… it’s San Antonio in the summer, so of course it’s hot. I was born and raised down here, without air conditioning I might add, so I should know about hot as well… Read More
It’s hot — most days over 100 degrees. It’s South Texas. It’s July. Of course it’s hot! For people in more northern parts of the country, summer brings welcome relief to the gray, cold, heavy days of winter that seem to linger too long. Summers… Read More
Texas may be known for many wild things, but the best, by far, are its wildflowers. Every spring from early March through April, highways and hillsides in Central Texas and the Hill Country are blanketed in blue and pink. More than just the official state… Read More
I am a writer, so I write. Everything. I make lists, jot notes, keep a journal; I pen letters, copy directions, record major events. And yes, I write down New Year’s Resolutions, every year. And then, at the end of every year, I go back… Read More
Four months into WWI, in early December of 1914, Pope Benedict XV called for a temporary Christmas cease-fire between the Germans and the British then fighting on the Western Front. The warring commanders refused, but late on Christmas Eve, the soldiers themselves created a spontaneous… Read More
the narrative thread 