ROCKWALL,TX. (August 19, 2014) Pappaw taught me how to change oil. Often I rode my go-cart in his “back 40” between the peach trees and the potato patch and then he’d wave me in, “Give it a break, Scotty, and let’s change that oil.” He loosened the plug to drain it and made me touch […]
ROCKWALL,TX. (July 16, 2014) Compared to her older brothers, my daughter is unique: they are athletes; she’s an artist, barely noticing a ball. They are rough, a little wild (Huck Finns and Tom Sawyers around here); she is quiet, shy, and reserved (Becky Thatcher). We’ve had her involved in art classes, but she needed something […]
ROCKWALL, TX (June 22, 2014) In summer, we have movie nights nearly every evening, and sometimes the kids will join us. We’ll pop popcorn and settle in for a late night. It’s brutal on Angie and I the next morning (I teach summer school right now) but it’s fun being together. One evening we watched […]
ROCKWALL, TX (May 14, 2014) Last summer I discovered a hot spot, a honey hole, a bastion of bass and bream. Every plug I tossed, fly I cast, and worm I flipped seemed to get hit and the most beautiful fat bass and bream fought on the end of my line and nearly high-fived and […]
ROCKWALL, TX (April 11, 2014) I slapped the last touches on a chicken coop the other day, having designed the thing from the ground up and pieced together every board of the poultry palace. Like all building projects, I ran into an unanticipated challenge. Basically, I needed to rip (or cut long-ways) a skinny board. There […]
ROCKWALL, TX (April 11, 2014) Spring weather has hit and I’m lovin’ it. I’ve been cleaning up fallen limbs and straightening up the deck whileIreland, my first grader, plays with her dolls in the dirt. The pastures behind us awake with crows cawing while they mob an invading hawk—the sounds and sights of nature awaking from […]
(February 11, 2014) I bragged the day I was scheduled to work with Angie McGinnis. I dialed my best friend and rubbed it right in his face. We worked concessions at a local ball field, which meant busy weekends as cowbell-ringing parents and uniformed tots packed the diamonds playing all-day tournaments. Brad and I typically […]
I don’t know if I could make it as a kid these days. Many of the junior highers I teach need a personal assistant with the myriad of lessons, and practices, and select teams, and personal coaches, and trainers, and workouts. Those practices and trainings aren’t for naught, either, so every weekend is packed with […]
(December 8, 2013) Like most men, I avoid shopping sprees, sales, or any outing that calls for hours of store after store and rack after rack of browsing, and after 20 years of marriage, Angie and I have an understanding; I don’t go on shopping trips and she doesn’t watch ballgames (unless it’s our kids […]
ROCKWALL (November 10, 2013) Unprepared for the interview, I rehearsed my words while driving to the high school. My family’s future rested on this final meeting. No teaching contract, no income, and we’d lose everything. After finally discovering that educating teenagers was my path, there was but one obstacle: to teach, I must coach. It […]