Every Good Boy Does Fine

In the late seventies, celebrated pianist Val Cliburn inexplicably disappeared from public life. No tortured artist in hiding, Cliburn is having the time of his life sitting around his Fort Worth mansion in his bathrobe.

by John Davidson

The Longest Ride of His Life

When Randall Adams was sentenced to death ten years ago, the Dallas community thought a cop killing had been put to rest. But it hasn’t.

by Gary Cartwright

Coots: A Field Guide

A crusty, cranky, curmudgeonly species of bird is proliferating within our borders. And maybe that’s good.

by Jim Atkinson

Home, Home on the Road

If it fits on your dashboard, you can take it with you.

Blind Justice

Should a judge’s friendships survive his election to the Supreme Court of Texas?

by Ken Case

Heads, We Win, Tails, You Lose

Highly partisan justices are at the center of the Supreme Court scandal.

by Paul Burka

All Aboard for Copper Canyon

Try North America’s best travel bargain—the Copper Canyon train ride. For $9 you can see Indians who run down deer on foot, Mennonites who speak German, and the most spectacular scenery in Mexico.

by Barbara Rodriguez

Business

The Old Man and the Vines

My father’s Panhandle grape patch gives him a new cash crop and a new pride as a farmer.

by Fryar Calhoun

Behind the Lines

Dallas on the couch.

by Gregory Curtis

Movies

Trailer Trash

Everyone in Raising Arizona has a libido for the ugly, and the guys in Tin Men can’t see past their hood ornaments; Hollywood Shuffle loses its hip mind; Street Smart has a crazed, electric menace.

by James Wolcott

Art

Romancing the Stone

Using a circular saw and a shrewd commercial sense, Plano housewife Sandy Stein chiseled a new life for herself as a sculptor.

by Michael Ennis

Popular Music

Fruit of the Vinyl

A good record store is more than just a supermarket of sound.

by Jody Denberg

Reporter

Texas Monthly Reporter

Houston ignores its AIDS crisis, Dallas restaurant gossips chew over hard times, San Antonio headline writers get their due. Plus: Chuck Robb’s blooper, Larry McMurtry’s sniffles, and Shearn Moody’s new taste in nightlife.

by Alison Cook

Roar of the Crowd

Getting an airline off the ground; achieving your children’s education; cruising through adolescence; rambling through the Valley.

The National Tour of Texas

Travels through the Trans-Pecos—splendor in the Big Bend, the greening of the Alpine grasslands, today’s version of profitable ranching, escape from the rat race in South Brewster County, innkeeping Indians in Van Horn—to El Paso, way out on the edge of Texas.

by Dick J. Reavis

Puzzle

An initial foray.

State Secrets

Hobby may be a Hartbeat from the president; the feds dump nuclear-waste workers on the Panhandle; Cisneros’ future remains rosy; Kath Whitmire’s doesn’t.

by Patricia Kilday Hart