June 1996

Table of Contents

Find the access code — required to read stories online — on the third contents page in the most recent issue of Texas Monthly. Subscribers can also visit our Customer Care page to get the code. Subscribe now and get instant access.

Features

The Last Refuge

For years the dusty outpost of Terlingua has been a magnet for renegades and loners looking for a haven from the modern world. No wonder the brother of the suspected Unabomber holed up there.

Truckin’

On the road with Victor Morales, the schoolteacher turned U.S. Senate candidate who is out to prove he’s not running on empty.

Junior Achievement

Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker—and now Junior Brown? The former community college teacher is the latest outlaw to hijack Texas country music, and he may be the greatest.

The Lawsuit from Hell

How an East Texas attorney spawned the most massive products-liability case ever— one that has cost millions of dollars and involved thousands of plaintiffs and might never end.

The Big Chill-Out

Feeling stressed? Soothe the strain of the daily grind at these terrific Texas retreats.

Columns

Business

Merchant of Death

By pooh-poohing sentimentality and focusing on profits, Houston funeral home mogul Robert Waltrip is making a killing.

Behind the Lines

The Tort Tax

No high diving boards at public pools. No cameras in operating rooms. All this and more, thanks to lawyers.

Cities

Up and Atom

The death of the superconducting supercollider may have been traumatic, but at their core the people of Waxahachie haven’t changed.

Music

The Hole Story

Austin’s Butthole Surfers have always been very strange. But these days, the strangest thing about them is their mainstream respectability.

Sports

The Rites of Swing

It doesn’t matter that his most famous pupil was shark- bitten at the Masters. Butch Harmon is still Texas’ hottest golf pro since Harvey Penick.

Reporter

Reporter

Lost in Space

Ten years after the Challenger disaster, there are still dark clouds on the horizon for NASA’s space shuttle program.

Reporter

Trash Talk

Why the citizens of Alvin are down in the dumps over garbage.

Reporter

In the Red

Texas artists versus Texas galleries.

Reporter

Formidabull

The world’s top riders take the bull by the horns in Del Rio.

Low Talk

Gov, American Style

Ann Richards gets ready for prime time.

Miscellaneous

The Inside Story

Swartz and All

Roar of the Crowd

Grander Tour

The Hill Country is in—but what’s in the Hill Country? Plus: Texas’ top drug lawyer in the court of public opinion.

State Secrets

Beef Choice

Subscribe Now
Food Anthology