January 22, 2024 - Thinking back on my “schooling” in San Augustine, Texas, I recall that I was not allowed to use anything except a #2 lead pencil in my studies. At least, not until I entered the fifth grade under Mrs. Margaret Wade. Of course, I was allowed also to use crayons to produce several colorful drawings during these early years. In Mrs. Margaret’s class, things changed.

December 26, 2023 - Have you ever been told by your spouse that “… you must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed today?” I think we all know what that expression means, don’t we?

October 18, 2023 - Have you ever heard someone say about a person, “He’s as stubborn as a mule?” Or perhaps even you have been called “mule headed” by others. I think we all know what the meaning of the word is, but are mules really stubborn? If someone is stubborn, it means that they are contrary, unwilling to change, or unwilling to do things that are expected of them. Some people say that the stubborn person “walks to the beat of his own drum.”

September 1, 2023 - Anyone who has camped out in East Texas has probably had this experience: You’ve spent the evening sitting around the campfire after a satisfying dinner. A nice gentle breeze cools the evening air as you settle down for a night of blissful sleep. Then, it starts - “Whip-poor-will, Whip-poor-will”, the sound of a bashful bird serenading you.

August 23, 2023 - When is a bicycle path not a bicycle path? That is the question that my wife had to decide a number of years ago in Colorado. I had taken a new job in 1974 with an insurance company whose home office was Littleton, Colorado. We moved there in January of that year, native Texans in a foreign country, whom the natives teased about our “accent.” I never felt that we had any detectible accent, but the Colorado citizens felt differently.