A Life of Words

One hundred and three years ago this week, a baby boy was born in Covington, Kentucky, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, to a young mother and her husband, a railroad worker. The baby was my biological father, although I never knew him and he never knew me. None of us – the three … More To the father who never knew about me, happy 103rd birthday

Although it seems inconceivable, Kay and I reached 25 years as a married couple this week. On 9/24/94, we stood nervously, excitedly, lovingly at the altar with not one but two ministers at First United Methodist Church in tiny Mercedes, Texas, the same beautiful little church where her parents, Caryl and Shelley Collier, had married … More 25 years later, the love knot keeps growing stronger

Heartbroken for the people and neighbors of Odessa, Texas, where I spent the first four years of my newspaper career as a sports writer for The Odessa American after graduating from Texas A&M in 1983. More lives shattered by a gun, including a teenage girl who had her whole life still to seize. More children … More My heart aches for Odessa, where a newspaper career began 36 years ago

Happy birthday to the sweet angel who brought me into the world at Cabell Huntington Hospital in Huntington, West Virginia, in February 1961. Betty Louise had known for months that she couldn’t keep her fourth child, already having two teenage sons and a 6-year-old daughter at home, and as a divorcee months from turning 40 … More Happy birthday, angel Betty

A mini-reunion of the St. Matthew Lutheran School Class of 1974 (8th grade) went off without (or is that with?) a Hinch on Sunday. (OK, sorry, that was awful, and I realize the non-baseball fans won’t get it. But I couldn’t resist. A.J. Hinch is the Astros’ manager.) The reunion was utterly fabulous and memorable, … More 45 years later, a few of us got around to a reunion. A blast was had by all, including the Astros

For much too long, we’ve been losing friends and colleagues at The Dallas Morning News. In my 19 years at one of the country’s most respected and once most robustly-staffed newspapers, we’ve had several layoffs and a couple of buyouts. We’ve had an unending exodus of talented journalists making the difficult choice to move on … More The pain of a newsroom’s loss, multiplied

The last time I saw John Reed – the sharp-dressed guy you see below right with his wife Lisa, my wife Kay and me – was almost 48 years ago. I was a 10-year-old sixth-grader at St. Matthew Lutheran School, on Main Street on the outskirts of downtown Houston. John and I had been classmates and … More One reunion of childhood friends in the books, a bigger one on the way at Minute Maid Park

In the late 1980s/early ’90s, Mike Sweeney and I were copy editing colleagues at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He’d been working in News but was drafted in late 1987 to move to the Sports department at a time of need — coinciding with my being asked to move from the Features desk to Sports a few months … More In the words of the great Bob Dylan … and the great Mike Sweeney

She would hit us with a wooden meat tenderizer, a cutting board, her hands and shoes. Enraged and drunk on wine, she once drove a spiked heel into my right elbow as I reflexively flung up my arm to shield my face. She threw whatever was in her hands or within reach, like the canned … More Please Don’t, Mom