A culinary obsession that began decades ago in my grandmother’s kitchen sent me on a quest through Central Texas (and way beyond) for kolaches—not the best ones but the ones that would lead me to myself.
On October 3, 2006, a four-year-old boy named Andrew Burd died in a Corpus Christi hospital. The cause of death was determined to be salt poisoning, an extremely unusual occurrence. Even more shocking was what happened next: his foster mother, Hannah Overton, was found guilty of killing him. But could
The Civil War may be 150 years old, but that doesn’t mean it can’t still stir up a fuss (Confederate license plate, anyone?). Just ask one of the hundreds of very accurately uniformed reenactors who descend on Jefferson every year to die for the cause.
As a kid I was the pickiest eater you have ever seen, and family meals gave new meaning to the words “food fight.” But I gritted my teeth and overcame it.
It was the most shocking crime of its day, 27 boys from the same part of town kidnapped, tortured, and killed by an affable neighbor named Dean Corll. Forty years later, it remains one of the least understood—or talked about—chapters in Houston's history.
For nearly sixty years, a succession of obsessed blues and gospel fans have trekked across Texas, trying to unearth the story of one of the greatest, and most mysterious, musicians of the twentieth century. But the more they find, the less they seem to know.
A trip through South Texas in search of the ghosts of borders past—and a vision for what comes next.
How a mild-mannered database analyst from Dallas became the undisputed king of extreme competitive deep-frying in Texas—which is to say, the world.
In the late sixties, the Capital City was just as thrilling, drug-addled, pompous, and aimless as you’ve heard. Especially if you came from the provinces.
On March 31, 1995, South Texas came to a standstill as the shocking news spread that the hugely popular Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla Perez had been shot and killed in Corpus Christi. Fifteen years later, the people who knew Selena best recall the life and devastating death of a star
They say you can’t go home again—especially when pretty much your entire family has moved away.
Press your jeans, pull on your boots, shine up your buckle, and come along on this two-stepping tour of classic country dance halls, from Tom Sefcik Hall, in Seaton, to Club Westerner, in Victoria.
The child custody battle between the State of Texas and a fundamentalist Mormon sect prompted many people to wonder how 437 kids could have been ripped away from their parents. When the criminal trials of a dozen sect members got under way this month, the question became, Was it really
And you would be too if you were an itinerant Rollerblader with a passion for pirates who’d reinvented the game of college football, brought joy to Lubbock, beaten UT, and narrowly missed a shot at a national championship. And what you’d be thinking is, “Gangway!”
The bust that nabbed Houston’s top dogfighters was the work of two gutsy undercover cops who knew that the only way to infiltrate this secret world was to become dogfighters themselves.
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made history as the first humans to set foot on the surface of the moon. Forty years later, the researchers, astronauts, engineers, scientists, and NASA officials who made the voyage possible remember the day the Eagle landed.
Happy Texas Independence Day! Read five stories about our state's history, including this piece about the battlegrounds of Texas, which tell an incredible story of struggle, sorrow, triumph, and terror.
Or how I came to be known as “the man who put the glitter on Loretta Lynn’s titter.”
Fifty years ago, a plane carrying Buddy Holly crashed in a remote Iowa cornfield. This month, hundreds of fans will gather at the ballroom where he played his final show to sing, dance, and mourn the greatest rock star ever to come out of Texas.
After Randy Reynolds sat on his hands as the Texas Youth Commission scandal exploded, everyone wanted the district attorney of Ward, Reeves, and Loving counties bounced from his job. Everyone, that is, except the people of Ward, Reeves, and Loving counties.
Yes, yes, new baby and new movie—but what Matthew McConaughey really wants to talk about is the cushion of the flip-flop, the skooching of hoodie sleeves, the proper thickness of koozies, and his coming career as the arbiter of redneck-Buddha chic.
Our most iconic oil and gas man, lately a water marauder and now a celebrated windcatter, has saved himself a couple of times in his eighty glorious years. Who’s to say he can’t save America?
On April 19, 1993, the world watched as the Branch Davidian compound, outside Waco, burned to the ground after a 51-day standoff. Fifteen years later, witnesses and participants—from federal agents to loyal followers of David Koresh—remember what they saw during the deadliest law enforcement operation in U.S. history.
Did Kari Baker, despondent over her daughter’s passing, commit suicide? Or was she killed by her husband, Matt, a Baptist preacher in Waco and an alleged sexual predator? He says he didn’t do it, but her family insists otherwise—and they say they’ll keep after him until justice is done.
What Samir Patel learned in five years of not winning the national spelling bee (other than the root words of “eremacausis”).
Fifty years after the mythical trip on the Brazos that was the basis for John Graves’s classic book, I followed in his wake. Literally.
In the right light, the ornery octogenarian oilman’s guilty plea can be seen as a victory: After all, he won’t spend the rest of his natural life in jail. But the fact is, he couldn’t beat the rap—and he knew it.
What was it, exactly, that caused Vickie Dawn Jackson, a sweet, soft-spoken nurse at Nocona General Hospital, to become one of the most prolific serial killers in Texas history?
It’s the best thing Jerry Jones could do for the Cowboys.
My short, happy life as a poker player.
José Cisneros, the legendary illustrator of the Spanish Southwest, is 96, almost blind, and nearly deaf. And, of course, he has no plans to put down his pen.
She was our governor, but she was my friend.
In my 86 years I’ve come into the possession of an assortment of firearms: a Colt .32-caliber semiautomatic pistol that my grandfather bought at a hardware store in Cuero; a Remington Model 870 pump, 20-gauge shotgun that my Aggie uncle-by-marriage used to shoot birds; the Winchester Model 06 pump .22
When parents at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School, in Austin—where the Capital City’s moneyed elite have educated their kids for more than fifty years—rebelled against the teaching of ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ it was, you might say, a learning experience for everyone involved.
By preaching that the Founding Fathers opposed the separation of church and state, David Barton has become the darling of evangelicals everywhere—and one of the most powerful Texas Republicans you’ve never heard of.
At 11:48 a.m. on August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman began firing his rifle from the top of the University of Texas Tower at anyone and everyone in his sights. At 1:24 p.m., he was gunned down himself. The lives of the people who witnessed the sniper’s spree firsthand would never
How Conrado Cantu, the sheriff of Cameron County, lived down to people’s expectations of South Texas law enforcement.
Including: the sopa azteca at El Mirador, in San Antonio; the spring-fed pool at Balmorhea State Park; the humidity; elbow room; free advice at White Rock Lake, in Dallas; county courthouses; boots-and- jeans-clad Academy Award–winner Larry McMurtry; and—seriously— quail hunting.
The quest for the perfect author photo (or at least one I can live with).
My father, who had grown up on a farm, used to talk about his family’s killing a pig for the tamales, but this was back in the twenties.
At Westlake, even if your parents wouldn’t spring for Ralph Lauren, you could still work your way into the in crowd.
What tort reform has done to Texans in need would be grounds for a lawsuit—if there still were any lawsuits.
The feds knew him as a prolific bank robber. But the bearded man who eluded them for so long was not who they imagined him to be. And absolutely no one expected the story to end the way it did.
The tragedy of the Von Erichs—the state’s first family of pro wrestling—is well known not just to fans of the sport but to the many groupies who oohed and aahed at the matinee-idol athletes over the years. Still, you haven’t really heard the story until it’s told by the sole
The letter-sweater-wearing, pom-pom-shaking, pep-rally-leading girl next door has been a beloved Texas icon for generations. So why do so many people today— lawmakers and lawyers, preachers and feminists—think cheerleading is the root, root, root of all evil?
Man, do I hate book clubs.
One hundred simple questions—well, not that simple— stand between you and Texas literacy.
She shares that curious fact with you for posterior’s— er, posterity’s sake. What you really need to know about the shopgirl turned shoplifter is that her rehabilitation is continuing apace atop Dallas’ social heap. And thanks to a new reality show about her life, there’s no end in sight.
There was a major don’t-try-this-at-home aspect to my two-day ride on this primitive and unpredictable river. But as scary as it was, it was every bit as beautiful.
He asked me if I was going to be white my whole life. I was, of course. But because of our friendship, I’m no longer the clueless upper-middle-class kid I once was.
