A Life of Words

For a second straight week, Kay and I sat high above the field at Amon Carter Stadium in Fort Worth and watched the TCU Horned Frogs get off to a horrendous start. The unbeaten No. 8 Frogs, playing a ranked team for the fourth straight week, fell behind No. 17 Kansas State 28-10 midway through … More These Horned Frogs, who refuse to lose even when they’re down big, are for real with their new head coach

Saturday was a memorable winner of a day for Kay and me (yes, that really is proper grammar ). As we watched from the top row of Section 406 at Amon Carter Stadium, her TCU Horned Frogs pulled out an epic comeback win over Oklahoma State in double overtime. A few hours later after we … More Being there to see another TCU Horned Frogs comeback and watching the Astros advance to another ALCS make for a memorable sports Saturday

Kay and I have never been much for nighttime/social outings — although we do go out to eat quite often, either as a couple or family, if that counts. 🙂 But with my recent job change from The Dallas Morning News to UT Southwestern Medical Center, finally having Saturdays off for the first time in … More The Love Starved Dogs entertained us with some great classic rock and country sounds. We plan to see them again — and if you’re in Dallas-Fort Worth, you should, too

Kay and I celebrated our 28th anniversary Saturday by listening (not watching, since we don’t have ESPNU) to her TCU Horned Frogs outscore SMU on the radio. Late in the afternoon, we joined our 21- and 18-year-olds for dinner at Shinjuku Station, a favorite family spot in Fort Worth. After that, Kay and I joined … More Spending an anniversary evening with KC and the Sunshine Band — and even though we moved to the groove a bit, we didn’t exactly shake our booties

As I made the five-hour drive Saturday from Arlington to Odessa, anticipation and memories ran pass routes through my head. I pictured the West Texas landscape and the city I remembered from so long ago, when I was a sports writer at The Odessa American in my first job after graduating from Texas A&M in … More A whirlwind trip to the place my newspaper career began, joining hundreds in paying tribute to the late Gary Gaines, a great football coach – but so much more to so many

Coach Gary Gaines sat, legs crossed, on the other side of his desk from me, a green 23-year-old sports writer for The Odessa American, in the fieldhouse at Monahans High School. As I lobbed questions at him and scribbled his answers in a notebook, my old-style tape recorder lay on his desk as backup. It … More A highlight of my brief sports writing career: Getting to know Gary Gaines, a great coach and a great man who deserved better than “Friday Night Lights”

I have news – the sort I never expected to break along my career journey when I graduated from Texas A&M with a journalism degree in 1983. Surely, I figured as a 22-year-old who, within a few weeks, would become a sports writer at The Odessa American, I’m destined to be a lifelong newspaper journalist. … More After 39 years in the newspaper business and 22 at The Dallas Morning News, I’m starting a different kind of gig

I miss Dad. A lot. I miss his life-loving laughs, his broad smiles, the humor that seemed to fill his every waking moment and that he was so eager to share with every set of eyes his own met. My memories are still clear and shining, even though he’s been gone eight years this week, … More Missing Dad for eight years, his uniquely special humor, and sharing letter excerpts showing that side of him

Kay, our two kids and I drove last week to the breathtakingly beautiful Santa Fe, New Mexico area for a few days, our first family trip of any distance or length since 2015. It was the kids’ first time in SF and, for Kay and me, a rediscovery of the history-laden, diverse city we’d visited … More A memorable family trip to New Mexico we’ll never forget — especially the rafting, Meow Wolf and dear friends

Friends, most of whom have known Jason Calloway since they were kids, gathered around Jimmy Kissamitakis’ and his wife Belinda’s backyard pool in Little Elm for hours this past Sunday to share their love for Jason and some of their fondest, funniest, craziest and most heartfelt memories of him. Under the sizzling North Texas sun, they cried, they … More Lifelong friends of Jason ‘Bird’ Calloway gather to celebrate him with memories, tears, laughs and beer