A Life of Words

My good friend and former Dallas Morning News colleague Frank Smith and I will be heading Friday morning to — as many fellow Aggies like to refer to our beloved university — the holy land. We’re making the three-hour drive to join current Texas A&M communications students and former journalism students for a special induction ceremony. (There … More Heading to Aggieland to honor friends for journalism career achievements, catch some big-time basketball

Dad and I are birthday twins, 31 years apart. Well, not exactly twins — his birthday is Feb. 27 and mine’s Feb. 28. He was born in 1930 and passed away in 2014; I came along in 1961 and, thankfully, am still here. As I grew up in our family of four in the Houston … More My dad, my long-lost brother and me: 3 birthdays, all bunched together on February 27-28. How cool is that?

A night with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra — like the one I spent Friday with two friends and former Dallas Morning News colleagues — never disappoints. Far from it, this collection of world-class musicians amazes, captivates, delights and shines from first note to last during every piece in every program. The brilliance the DSO achieves with such … More A great Friday night spent with friends, listening to a world-class orchestra — and a pianist who left us in awe

During all my years in this wondrous and often challenging adventure called life, which will reach 62 years on the 28th of this month, I’ve missed out on a lot of places and experiences. For instance: I’ve never been to New York, California, Las Vegas or the Grand Canyon. I’ve never water skied, hiked up … More It took me almost 62 years, but I finally read the brilliantly poignant, personal story that is Anne Frank’s diary

Kay was recently at her mom’s apartment in Dallas, helping her go through items she wants to get rid of. That’s becoming more and more commonplace as, at 88, she makes every effort to downsize — i.e., pawn stuff off on her four kids. When Kay came home with this small tin, covered by a … More Over 20 years later, a wonderful family memory takes shape in the form of a jigsaw puzzle

A mix of smiles and serious faces. Youthful innocence everywhere you look. A few closed eyes and lots of squinting (why do photographers make us stare into the sun?). All the girls wearing dresses. One poor kid on the front row even sporting a buttoned-up suit coat, vest, and slacks that his parents obviously insisted … More Cherishing a class photo from almost 70 years ago — because of the kid in the flannel shirt on the back row

Our cat Teena, whom we adopted in late October 2012, had to see the vet Saturday. It was nothing serious — just a couple of vaccinations. But because her last several vet visits for various needs have been *really* traumatic — including growling, hissing, caterwauling and biting attempts that necessitated the use of an inhaled … More Thanks to some advance medication help, our cat’s visit to the vet wasn’t nearly as traumatic as they’ve been lately

It seems unimaginable, but in less than four months, it’ll be 40 years since I graduated from Texas A&M University with a journalism degree. I had spent two years writing sports stories for our student newspaper, The Battalion, including a year as sports editor, and still cherish that time as among my most memorable — … More 40 years later, reminiscing about my gratifying days as a Texas A&M student journalist — and the great team of sports writers we had at ‘The Batt’

After a long week of work for our communications team at UT Southwestern Medical Center, late Friday afternoon gave a group of us a chance to have some fun together to usher in a three-day weekend. And then I got to join a couple of my friends/former colleagues from The Dallas Morning News for even … More Gathering with new work friends to celebrate a colleague’s 60th, joining old work friends for a night at the symphony

As Monday night’s sadly lopsided TCU-Georgia national championship game unfolded, I could almost hear them. “See, I told you the Horned Frogs didn’t belong here. They play in a mediocre conference and struggled to win a bunch of their games. They were lucky to get this far.” And they’re absolutely wrong. A lot of those … More No matter the score, we’re proud of the Horned Frogs — who most assuredly deserved to be playing for a title