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Columns
Ma Perkins Moments 12-1-22
Boots
Pickett's Grocery at Greenwood 1-17-22
The
Post Office Drug Store at Saltillo, Texas 11-9-21
Using
the Web to Discover a Family's Past 9-4-16
The
First Armadillo 5-4-15
Pausing
by Reelfoot Lake 11-1-14
One
Poet's Journey to Peace 9-12-14
Alicia Galaz Welden, poet and scholar
A
Young Man Who Went West 12-30-11
My father, Roy Cowser, spent two consecutive harvest seasons in
the cotton fields of West Texas just after he turned twenty...
The
Surprising Effects of Henna 12-10-11
Since I have been bald for more than forty-five years, it is surprising
that anyone would remember that I once had hair.
An
East Texas Psychic 9-20-11
Before I ever heard or read the word psychic, I heard of a man with
psychic powers. He lived on a farm near Mt. Vernon during the years
of the Great Depression.
The
Power We Longed For 8-23-11
In the years just before and during World War II two unpaved roads
led south from Saltillo. Those of us who lived on the road that
started from the east side of town used kerosene lamps and wood-burning
heaters and cook stoves. Those who lived on the road that ran from
the west side had the benefit of power supplied by an Rural Electric
Administration co-operative in Greenville...
Cotton
Production As It Once Was 7-23-11
Reflecting today on the sight of the cotton plants, I am reminded
that one hundred years ago my father boarded a Cotton Belt train
at Saltillo on his way to the cotton fields of West Texas...
Our Time With Zophar 7-12-11
An elderly man with stooped shoulders and a craggy face comes to
my mind almost every time I drive past the little park near the
post office in Martin, Tennessee.
A
Cameo From Inside 6-24-11
Recently for one year I taught first-year composition classes in
a college program in a state prison one hour from my home in Tennessee...
Defending
Popular Music of the 1940s 5-17-11
As a child on a farm near Saltillo in the 1940s, I depended on radio
as the only contact with the world beyond our community. We had
no telephone. The only newspaper we received was a local weekly.
Daddy's
Potato Patch 4-18-11
I grew up on a farm during the 1940s. The farm was located south
of Saltillo in the region of loamy soil just south of the crescent
of prairie land that extends over the eastern part of Texas.
The
Caudles: A Family of Entertainers 3-29-11
A memory of chipped Kewpie dolls and other chalk figures comes to
me when I recall the Arthurs’ farm house...
Saltillo's
First and Only Football Team 2-21-11
In its seventy-five years as an accredited high school, Saltillo
fielded a football team only one year. The year was 1945, the year
I enrolled there as a ninth-grader. The Japanese had just surrendered
unconditionally a week or so before our term began.
Childhood Explorations: Wordsworth's and Mine 1-6-11
After I asked the students in a literature survey class I was teaching
to write a comparison of a few of their childhood experiences that
compare or contrast with Wordsworth’s experiences as described in
Book First of The Prelude, I began to reflect on a few of my own
contacts with the natural world.
Selling
the Calves 11-22-10
In the late 1940s cattle auctions were common in the towns of Northeast
Texas. Each town picked a different day of the week so as not to
compete with nearby towns.
An
Unsolved Mystery from The World War II Years 7-16- 10
While walking across our pasture near Saltillo one rainy afternoon
in 1944, my father noticed a steel bar standing askew in the damp
soil...
Sunday
Jaunts with the Family 6-18-10
Most of the roads were narrow dirt roads. Sometimes overhanging
branches would scrape the top of our car, or a small boulder in
the road might damage the car’s oil pan. Some of the wooden bridges
were in disprepair and probably should have been condemned.
World
War II Musings 5-7-10
By 1942, almost all of the young men in the United States were in
uniform. Most of these men were in hastily expanded training camps,
three of which were located near Saltillo, the town nearest our
farm...
Wash
Day: Drudgery Through the Centuries 4-1-10
When I read Letitia Barbauld’s poem “Wash-Day,” written in the eighteenth
century, I was struck by certain similarities between the plight
of the laundresses in the poem and my mother’s struggle to provide
clean laundry for our family of five...
Special
Delivery 3-15-10
When I began the seventh grade at Saltillo, Paul Dodson, our teacher,
told us that the State Department of Education would present a certificate
to those students who read and reported on thirty books during the
school year...
Red
Wing 2-9-10
Although Betty McCoy was one-half Choctaw, she was once given a
leading role in a school play at Saltillo. That happened in 1940,
the year I was in the fourth grade and Betty was in third. Except
for a few Native Americans, all of us were Caucasians. Black students
attended separate schools in Hopkins County...
She'll
Be Comin' By Greyhound 1-16-10
Probably all of us recall foolish acts that we regret moments or
even years after the incident. When my younger brother, our cousin
John, and I were teenagers, we once privately ridiculed the behavior
of some of our relatives at a family reunion.
When
Hollywood Came to Wharton 12-13-09
I do not regret sending the photographs my brother R. L. took of
Lee Remick and Steve McQueen to the college library in Wharton...
Reflections
on Jefferson, a Historic Town 10-5-09
I first heard my father mention the town of Jefferson when I was
quite young. Jefferson is located approximately forty miles southeast
of the farm in Hopkins County where I grew up...
A
Clerk's Tale of Murder 8-29-09
Years later when I reflected on the experience I realized a person’s
life might end anywhere at any time.
Listening to the Tumbleweeds 8-1-09
My purpose in contacting Willard was to get permission to hear his
string band, the Tumbleweeds, perform at the nursing home. Once
a month the band plays bluegrass and gospel music for the residents
of the home. Willard is the lead guitarist; he is accompanied by
two men on amplified guitars and another on an acoustic guitar.
Each of these three musicians is in his late sixties.
Segregation
in Two Texas Towns 5-28-09
More than twenty-five years ago Bill Moyers won an Emmy for a PBS
documentary featuring the “two worlds” of Marshall, Texas, his home
town. The film focuses on life in Marshall during the Great Depression
and World War II, the time of Moyers’ boyhood. As a youngster, Moyers
was hardly aware of the black community in Marshall, though it made
up approximately 50% of the population...
The
Claims of the Wilderness 5-9-09
"As I stood on the site, I realized that the land that day
may have looked much the same when the Caddo Indians built their
village..."
Memorial
Day Services at Old Saltillo Church 2-10-08
Remembering
Claire Perry 1-15-08
A
Few Degrees of Separation from John F. Kennedy's Death 12-1-07
Forty-four years after John Kennedy’s assassination is a time for
those of us old enough to remember hearing first-hand a report of
that event to reflect on its impact on almost every citizen...
Competing
with Elvis in the Classroom 11-15-07
Elvis Presley and a band called the Blue Notes performed on the
stage of the Humble Oil Company’s recreation building in Hawkins
one evening in January, 1955...
Entertaining
the Rotary Club in Mount Vernon 10-8-07
Familiar
Ground 9-6-07
When I was younger, I could never quite understand how anyone could
be devoted to the town where I was born...
Plumbing
the Past 8-3-07
The
Sounds of Home 6-30-07
In one of his essays Scott Russell Sanders writes that in centuries
past Japanese villagers were cautioned never to wander so far from
their homes that they could not hear the village drummer...
An
Influential Visit 5-28-07
"As a junior, I found myself on the teacher-certification track,
preparing to observe classes at the only high school in Commerce."
Gram
and Daffodils 2-1-07
Recollections
of Talco During the Oil Boom 8-18-06
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