
July 1983 Issue
Features


The Gambler
Jack Young was the eighties’ oil boom in the flesh. Unfortunately, he also personifies the aftermath of the bust.

Ask Jett Rink
The quintessential wildcatter fills you in on free enterprise and Texas after oil.

And Yet the Dream Endures
Don’t give up! There’s still money to be made finding oil. Up in Graham the Creswells are striking it rich with the help of Jesus and, er, creekology.

1983: The Ten Best and The Ten Worst Legislators
We just rate them. You voted for them.
Texas Primer: The Ranch Gate
These days it seems every five-acre ranchette flaunts a gate worthy of the XIT.

Chilly Scenes of Dinner
The old tin tray, it ain’t what it used to be. Today’s TV dinners have become “frozen cuisine.”
Columns
Lady on the Edge
Photographer Carlotta Corpron moved to Denton in 1935, and the burst of avant-garde work she produced is, so far, unsurpassed in Texas.
A Knell for Eric
An Abilene man recalls the pluck and pain of his stricken son in This Is the Child. An El Paso professor creates a lovably uncool detective in Dancing Bear. An Austin meteorologist blows hot on Texas Weather.
Those Raucous Babylonians
This spring both of Texas’ top symphonies staged the late William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Fest. Dallas held back, but Houston made merry with the splashy biblical spectacle.
Jazz in Camouflage
The music of tenor saxman John Handy is rooted in Texas and the blues, and he uses his distinctive sound to lure more listeners to jazz.
Wookiees on Parade
Return of the Jedi is a star shower of new creatures and old favorites that leaves you wowed but underwhelmed. Breathless is suffocating. WarGanes starts out with a bang and ends with a whimper. Flashdance has a certain twinkle.
Reporter
Texas Monthly Reporter
Saving the Fort Worth Stockyards; remembering the Hondo Hurrican; suing for peanuts’ rotting your brain on MTV.
Miscellany
State Secrets
Briscoe’s beef; new wave health care; a bright idea for Houston Lighting & Power; the case of the lagging law school.