March 1987 Issue

Top Gun

Texas Air chief Frank Lorenzo took an airline with no profits and limited prospects and built it into the country’s largest. How? By betting like the sky’s the limit.

Hey, Mom, Have I Got an Assignment for You

Once kids did their own homework. Now ambitious parents do it for them.

My Sister Is Missing

Had she joined some cause? Was it suicide? Or had she wanted to disappear? After months of searching, I found the answer.

The Inside Story

A new breed of home-delivery specialists will bring everything from dinner for eight to a masseur to a dog trainer to your door. Here are more than a hundred to try.

Petticoat Junction

All aboard for this spring’s flounciest fashions.

It’s a Dirty Job, But?

Does the delivery business really deliver? Our author spends three grueling days watching rented videos and ordering pizzas to find out the truth.

A Human Focus

Newly discovered photographs taken by Russell Lee bear compassionate witness to the lives of Spanish-speaking Texans in the forties.

C. W. Post

At first he couldn’t stand the strain of trying to get rich. Then he couldn’t stand the strain of being rich.

Home Ain’t Where My Heart Is

When I was growing up, Arlington didn’t have air conditioning or Six Flags. But it did have Albert’s Pool Hall and twenty-cent Jax beer, and that made all the difference.

Slim Pickens

Boone, T. Boone Pickens’ autobiography, is most interesting when it names names and tells tales, but such moments surface only occasionally and sink quickly.

Behind the Lines

Pardon Me, Boy, Is That Tex Beneke?

At 73, this Fort Worth jazzman still sings “Chattanooga Choo-Choo,” but he wants new songs, more gigs, and younger audiences.

Epic Embroidery

The action in Platoon is brilliantly sustained, but The Mission falls with a stately thud; The Bedroom Window aspires to be as spellbound as an Alfred Hitchcock, but The Defense of the Realm is the engrossing thriller.

The Bullock Alumni

Caught between the budget crisis and the power of Bob Bullock, politicos are hiring the comptroller’s savvy ex-employees in self-defense.

Staying in Line

A group of dancers from Garland, aged 57 to 90, would rather rock on than rock in a chair.

Texas Monthly Reporter

Sneak a glance at our inaugural notebook to find out why Clements’ speech didn’t fly, which city had the most imperial ball, and who triumphed in the guv’s snub. Plus: Mad Maxian Car #3, space tombs in the sky, and ZZ Top’s song scuffle.

Touts

The National Tour of Texas

The Rio Grande Valley never had a valley—except in the minds of developers who invented its name.

Puzzle

Blots

The Quidnunc

Waiting for Perot; sizing up Texas’ legal egos; switching undies with Bobby and Laura Sakowitz.

Roar of the Crowd

Bum Raps.

State Secrets

A busing controversy at the prison system; the high cost of free rent; the GOP goes to town; a well-known private eye loses his license; rotten eggs at Bentsen’s breakfasts.