Being Texan
July 1, 1982
What Texas Means to Me
God created Texas, and then He created people who would love it.
Features
Being Texan
July 1, 1982
The Store That Made Jonesville Famous
And other great country stores of Texas.
News & Politics
July 1, 1982
The Texas Edison
A Dallas engineer you’ve probably never heard of has done more to change our daily lives than almost anyone else alive. How? He invented the silicon chip.
Border & Immigration
July 1, 1982
Immigrants
From all over the world, people are coming to Houston to find a better life. For a few of them—immigrants from Poland, Nigeria, and El Salvador—this is what it’s like.
Texas History
June 30, 1982
Texas Primer: The Ghost Town
The lost hopes of places like Belle Plain haunt Texas’ prairies.
Music
June 1, 1982
A Singin’ Fool
George Jones really lives the way he says he lives in the songs he sings.
Art
June 1, 1982
His Name Was Forrest Bess
He was wildly eccentric, he lived in a shanty on the Gulf, he subsisted as a bait fisherman, he had bizarre notions of eternal life. He may have been the best artist Texas has ever produced.
Critters
May 31, 1982
Texas Primer: The Horny Toad
It’s everybody’s favorite reptile, and it’s disappearing from Texas.
Being Texan
May 31, 1982
Growing Up Fast
Every parent with a teenage kid knows the fears: drinking, drugs, and rebellion. For the Cartwrights, those fears all came true.
True Crime
May 1, 1982
The Case of the Campus Crusader
Multiple-choice question: UT’s Tom Philpott is (a) the best professor on campus, a selfless reformer, and the victim of an assassination attempt; (b) the worst professor on campus, a publicity hound, and a nut who staged his own shooting.
Feature
April 30, 1982
Oil Chic
Sounds like a joke, right? Cowboy chic was funny too, until it caught on.
Feature
April 30, 1982
James A. Baker III, Politician
How a Houston boy forgot his family’s advice about staying out of politics and became the White House chief of staff.
Texas History
April 30, 1982
The Autumn of Alamo Heights
Welcome—well, sort of—to San Antonio’s dowager bastion.
Style & Design
April 1, 1982
The Architects
Welcome to Houston, the cutting edge of architecture. The local boys are turning a gentlemen’s profession into a business, the stylish out-of-towners are creating a new aesthetic, and neither group is filled with admiration for the other.
Politics & Policy
April 1, 1982
Trial by Technicality
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals confirms your worst fears about lawyers and judges and the impotence of the criminal justice system.
Being Texan
April 1, 1982
Texas Primer: The Tornado
The air is muggy, the sky turns an eerie green, then you hear a sound like a fleet of freight trains. Beware, Texas, it’s that time of year again.
Politics & Policy
March 1, 1982
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Next President of Mexico
On the surface, Mexico’s presidential election looks a lot like ours—rallies, placards, speeches—but the outcome there is never in doubt.
Country Notes
March 1, 1982
Texas Primer: The Tumbleweed
It’s only a humble weed, but just try to imagine West Texas without it.
Libations
March 1, 1982
BYOB
When liquor by the drink went into effect in 1971, Texas changed forever.
Libations
March 1, 1982
Drinking
Saint Paul said that a little wine is a fine thing. He must have known something.
News & Politics
February 1, 1982
Waiting for Mommy
If you leave your child at a day care center, you are hardly unique. If you know what your child does there all day, you are indeed unique.
Business
February 1, 1982
The Beer That Made Armadillos Famous
For years no one would drink Lone Star beer because rednecks did; then one enterprising man figured out that if it was marketed right, everyone would want to drink Lone Star precisely because rednecks did.
Being Texan
February 1, 1982
Way Out West in the Land of Cotton
People still think of cotton as a Dixieland crop, but the heart of the nation’s production is on the dry, flat, and windswept High Plains of Texas.
Texas History
February 1, 1982
Texas Primer: The Hughes Drill Bit
This clunky piece of machinery made Howard Hughes very rich. It is the first in our series of things that every Texan should know.
Feature
February 1, 1982
The Book of the Century-And-A-Half
Governor Bill Clements lassoed James Michener to write a tome about Texas. It’s due out in a couple of years. But that’s too long to wait, so we decided to write a version of our own.
Business
January 1, 1982
Trust Me. Just Sign Here.
Whenever you buy or sell a house, hundreds of dollars of your money goes for something called title insurance. Title insurance is a great deal—for the title company.
Health
January 1, 1982
The Saint of Falfurrias
Supplicants in the Valley worship at the shrine of faith healer Don Pedrito Jaramillo, more powerful in death than he was in life.
Politics & Policy
January 1, 1982
The Lord’s Work
Rusty Hardin is a prosecutor. Most of the time, his job is to put people in jail. This time, he wants a man dead.
Business
December 1, 1981
Let’s Get Serious About Toys
They used to be virtuous and wooden and they were good. Now they’re commercial and plastic and they’re great.
True Crime
December 1, 1981
The Black Striker Gets Hit
The life—promising beginning, overripe middle, bloody end—of Lee Chagra, the biggest drug lawyer in El Paso.
Style & Design
November 1, 1981
Power Plays
Wait! Don’t buy that gas-slurping motorboat and energy-squandering food processor for Christmas. We modestly propose some thrifty alternatives.
Critters
November 1, 1981
The Hog Chronicles
The city boy moved to the country and life was good. And then he bought four pigs.
Being Texan
November 1, 1981
The Fundamentalist
He’s the man with the Word, and the Word is for you.
Music
November 1, 1981
The Attack of the Electronic Beast and Other Pleasures
Four performers in Dallas are making a new kind of music that combines precision, grace, and crazy humor.
News & Politics
November 1, 1981
Heavy Breathing
Houston’s air may be a slow killer, but the state and the feds spend more time battling each other than fighting pollution.
Business
November 1, 1981
The Truth About Carnivals
A carny’s life is an endless ramble from one small town to the next—and that’s why he likes it.
Critters
October 1, 1981
Bats!
They’re ugly little things, but you’ve got to respect them.
Texas History
October 1, 1981
The Failures That Made Texas
When it comes to flops and fiascos, Texans can outdo anyone.
Business
October 1, 1981
Losing Big
Everybody knows the story about the young Texan who goes into business, works hard, and makes millions. But what happens when his luck runs out?
Politics & Policy
September 1, 1981
One Woman’s Tiny Problem Confronts Dallas City Hall
Vesta Cawley turned to the city bureaucracy for help with a problem that didn’t matter to any of the other 900,000 residents of Dallas. But it should have mattered more to city hall.
Sports
September 1, 1981
Carl Lewis and the Exquisite Science of Jumping
All this twenty-year-old University of Houston student wants to do is jump farther and run faster than anyone else ever has.
Politics & Policy
August 1, 1981
The Deal That Didn’t Work
Parceling out three new seats in Congress sounds like an easy job, but the Texas Legislature tried for two months and couldn’t do it.
Music
August 1, 1981
Trial by Piano
Why knock yourself out for two grueling weeks at a piano competition in Fort Worth? For $12,000—and a string of concert bookings money can’t buy.
Being Texan
August 1, 1981
Play (It One Last Time With Feeling) Land
Before Six Flags, before Astroworld, there was Playland.
Travel & Outdoors
August 1, 1981
The Perfect River
From giant freshwater prawns to bikini-clad coeds, from ancient Indian artifacts to swimming pigs, there’s something for everyone on the San Marcos River.
Being Texan
July 1, 1981
A Simple Man
Archbishop Patrick Flores acts like a country priest, but he has a tough job: he is the most powerful Catholic clergyman in Texas, and perhaps the most powerful Mexican American as well.
Tacos
July 1, 1981
I Remember Masa
The last word on tortillas: how to make them, when to eat them, and why they should be in every artist’s studio.
News & Politics
July 1, 1981
Space Cadet
Astronauts used to be dashing pilots. Now they’re doctors, scientists, and . . . sanitary engineers.
Best and Worst Legislators
June 30, 1981
1981: The Ten Best and The Ten Worst Legislators
Nineteen people you voted for and one you didn't.
Travel & Outdoors
June 1, 1981
Get Out and See the World, Kid . . . or Bring the World Back Home
These gifts should activate the wanderlust in any recent graduate.