Agriculture commissioner Jim Hightower discovered that he could help the little guy by becoming one of the big boys.
December 1983

Features

Fie on the cilantro fad, greaseless barbecue, and indiscriminate mesquite-grilling. Let’s hear it for Frito pie, catfish plates, and other gems of Texas’ true cuisine

Yes, Virginia Sue, Texas really does have its own holiday traditions.
In death as in life, the Mexican revolutionary is still causing trouble. This time the border skirmish is over his death mask.
She may be past her prime, but Galveston still clings to her aristocratic heritage and her precarious place on the sand.

December 1941 in Clarksville was a time to celebrate peace on earth amid the rumblings of war.
She may be past her prime, but Galveston still clings to her aristocratic heritage and her precarious place on the sand.
Miscellany
More trouble ahead for Jim Mattox; oil pipeline for sale—cheap; the EPA gets dumped over toxic dumping; raindrops on GTE’s head at Braniff Place.
Banks play domino, Presidio plays it cool, Beaumont plays to win.
Columns
These days the Houston Symphony Orchestra isn’t playing the same old thing. Conductor Sergiu Comissiona battles boredom by playing brand-new works and little-heard older ones.
Houston’s First Baptist Church wants to be number one in Texas, and an eye-popping Christmas spectacle is one way it beckons the faithful.
Listen up, you Monday morning quarterbacks. How much do you really know about the classic triple option?
The last book by native Texan William Goyen, Arcadio is a weird and wonderful fable about a search for self-acceptance and peace.
Terms of Endearment features a Houston setting but also drab cinematography and cramped direction. The sickening Star 80 goes too far; the impressionistic Rumble Fish reaches too high.
Fabled Texas pianist Peck Kelley appears, at last, on a gold mine of an album. There’s lodes more with Red Garland, Pete Petersen, and other jazz whizzes.
Reporter
Masons in trouble; Wally in wonderland; vice in Amarillo; vitamins in Mount Pleasant; Czechs in print.