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Back to the Past

With Henry Cisneros out of office, opponents shoot down a tax increase, and San Antonio retreats to 1980.

“Texans Never Cry”

The Lone Star State had top billing in many a grade-B western, and the proof is in the placards.

Behind the Lines

The guilty set free.

Bold Strokes

Drawing from its extensive Texas art collection, Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts has assembled a concise survey of a vast subject.

The Land, the Roots, the Myth

Whether it wells from the high pine walls of East Texas, the haunted valleys of the Hill Country, the violent uplifts of the Trans-Pecos, or the salty, low-relief vistas of the coastal plains, the Texas myth shapes and claims us all.

Work and Reward

For some, work is its own reward. For others it is a compromise, a trade-off to some ulterior purpose. And yet it is the work that defines us. There is something in the doing that gives us stature and makes us whole.

Passion and Adventure

Texas was founded by risk-takers, place-makers, and folks on the run, and their spiritual descendants are our common stock. Our heritage is not a concert for the fainthearted, but if you hear the music, you’ll want to dance.

Family and Friendship

Our search for identity is really a search for familial bonds. By our children and our parents, by our forebears and our closest friends, by the reflections of those with whom we surround ourselves, so shall you know us.

Boom and Bust

When oil and real estate boomed, a lot of Texans rode the tiger. But the beast turned, and those who weren’t devoured faced the prospect of limping back. It has been a long but not uninteresting trip.

Talking to Texas

Forty-two extraordinary tales from forty-two ordinary Texans.

State Secrets

Touching bases at the Pentagon; the next lawsuit after school finance; the hidden battle for control of the Legislature.

Roar of the Crowd

Steering clear; bucking the system; finding themselves.

Smart Parties

Entertainer John Armstrong applies the scientific method to children’s birthday parties.

Strike Up the Bands

The bands play on and on and on in Austin.

Update: Stubb Moves Again

Stubb’s barbecue, with a side order of blues, hits the road again. Destination: Lower Greenville.

Kimbell Conundrum

Architects are up in arms over plans for the Kimbell.

Muckraker of The Big Bend

An Alpine weekly digs up all the news that’s fit to print—and then some.

Hope and Despair

Face it, life isn’t fair. The cards fall in random patterns, and for every winner there is an uncomfortable number of losers. But what goes around comes around, and in the seeds of calamity we often find new beginnings. Mary Margaret Adams. To Russia With Love. Letty Banda. Be It

Talking machines.

Buttermilk Pie

Drew Allen, a co-owner of San Antonio’s Liberty Bar, came across this custardy buttermilk pie recipe in an out-of-print forties cookbook. The pie was powerfully sweet for modern taste buds, so Allen halved the sugar to come up with his restaurant’s most popular dessert.4 ounces frozen butter 1 ounce cold

The Codependency Conspiracy

Codependency leaders preach that we are the victims of a psychological plague. It remains to be seen whether they are selling us a valuable insight or merely a bill of goods.

Money, Media, and Magic

Three crucial elements that will determine the outcome of the Texas governor’s race.

The $76 Million Divorce

The eldest son of Trammell Crow used his money for drugs, guns, and high living. His wife spent a fortune on personal trainers and self-promotion. Now they’re squaring off in an L.A. divorce court.

Lost in Space

Locked away in NASA’s storage vaults was some of the most glorious footage ever filmed. I thought turning it into a movie would be a snap. Ten years later I’ve revised my opinion.

The Price of Peace

With the cold war fading into history, Fort Worth’s General Dynamics now has to regard peace as not merely an ideal but an economic reality.

The Truth About Texas Beauty

She might have long legs, blond hair, and eyes as blue as a Panhandle sky. But a Texas woman isn’t really beautiful unless she works at it.

Darness at Noon

The day the lights (almost) went out in Texas; why Gib Lewis’ reelection is crucial for Democrats; more trouble in the supreme court.

Roar of the Crowd

Mapping the desert grandeur of Big Bend, pondering the problems at a Dallas high school, tearing down for moving up in a Houston neighborhood.

Juvenile Justice

Peer pressure dispenses juvenile justice in Montgomery County.

Old Age, New Age

San Antonio’s mail-order Mayans were New Age before there was a new age.

The Long Dry Spell

Coasta Bend farmers are desperate for a rainy day.

Crispy Critters

Carnivores have their steakhouses, herbivores their sprout spots. Now insectivores can munch their way through the Aztec menus in Mexico City.

Chalk Talk

Horizontal drilling has not only hit pay dirt in South Texas-it has also revived oil-patch wheeling and dealing.

Looking for Sam.

Swamp Thing

Snapping turtles are cantankerous, grotesque, and savage. And those are just a few of the reasons I like them.

The Call of the Wildman

To find their true masculine selves, wildmen dance and sweat, bond and meditate, renounce their mothers and grunt, “Ho!” I thought, “Hmmm.”

The Bucks Stop Here

The troubled Parks and Wildlife Department is supposed to protect the state’s natural resources. Instead, it protects its friends and, above all, itself.

A Slaughter, A Smuggled Painting, and A Raid

A customs seizure raises a perplexing question: Who owns our past-Texas or Mexico?

State Secrets

The right angle for striking oil; making book on the Bush library; a roving eye for GOP money; reining in rogue cops.

Roar of the Crowd

Discovering the hero in every person; getting off the ground without ever leaving the airport; paying our respects to an ancient tree.

Upscale Garage Saling

Shopper Ethel Sexton is dressed to the nines in her garage-sale finery.

Sultan Of Stink

Tim Johnson came out smelling like a rose when San Franciscans detected broken gas lines.

Bon-Furor

Bonfire-crazed yell leaders Keving Fitzgerald and Brant Ince foresee defeat for fire’s foes.

Texas Primer: The Windmill

But for this ever-so-practical invention, Texas history as we know it would be gone with the wind.

Take It Off! Take It All Off!

With liquid diets, the pounds just seem to melt away. But what it takes to keep that unwanted weight off is sometimes even harder to swallow.

The 1990 Bum Steer Awards

A year of antagonistic attorneys, beleaguered Bushes, costumed cacti, dead dogs, espied Elvises, falling Fledermause, garbled grapes, hemline histrionics, imprudent impeachings, journalistic judges, kinky kindling, legislative largesse, mock McMurtrys, novelist’s nooks, overrated Odessas, phantom pharaohs, qualified quail, Ruby’s revolvers, spurious spies, tardy transcribers, U-charistic Uthanasians, vandalized vans, weird wieners, X-onerated

Going By the Book

When his luck ran out, A.W. Gray ended up behind bars. Now he’s on a winning streak as a crime novelist.

UT goes lite.

A Child’s Garden of Texas

The young—and even the not-so-young-can travel back through the state’s glorious past simply by opening up any one of these fourteen children’s classics.

Teardown

Houston’s West University area was just a quiet, unpretentious neighborhood until the bulldozers moved in. Now everyone’s trying to keep up with the Georgians.