Longreads

June 1, 1983

Phantom Cat of the Valley

Meet the ocelot, not as pet, not as fur coat, but in its best role—an elusive remnant of Texas’ wild past.

By Suzanne Winckler

June 1, 1983

Funky Riviera

Discover another side of the Texas coast—its peerless beachcombing, legendary beer joints, odd birds (feathered and otherwise), and lovable year-round scruffiness.

By Alison Cook

May 31, 1983

The Long Boyhood of George H.W. Bush

Like the hero of a boys’ novel, George Bush moved from the East to the wild and woolly West. He wanted to prove himself, by golly, to Yale, Procter & Gamble, and the old man.

By Harry Hurt III

May 1, 1983

Larger Than Life

Tom Lea, the grand old man of Texas painting, grew up among giants. No wonder he always used a big canvas.

By John Davidson

May 1, 1983

The Cow’s in the Corn

Or, my life as a Texas gardener.

By Jan Reid

May 1, 1983

Mark White’s Coming-Out Party

The new governor’s first hundred days were great theater, but now come taxes.

Hunting & Fishing|

April 1, 1983

The New Rustlers

Today’s desperadoes are in the bays of the Texas coast, roping redfish and cursing the Parks and Wildlife Department.

Sports|

April 1, 1983

Hell on Wheels

In which John Howard, our toughest athlete, goes after a world bicycle record and hopes america will care.

By Harry Hurt III

April 1, 1983

Hail to Thee, George E. Fischer

Most of the time you’re a nice, ordinary businessman. But for one brief, shining moment you were King Antonio, monarch of San Antonio’s Fiesta and semi-beloved ruler of the one Texas city that still loves a good king.

By Tom Walker

True Crime|

March 1, 1983

Blood of the Lamb

A high school teacher shot up the First Baptist Church in the East Texas steel town of Daingerfield, and the agony lasted longer than anyone could have imagined.

By Jan Reid

Style & Design|

March 1, 1983

Lyndon Johnson, Hairdresser, Prepares for Battle

The long afternoons of the best friend the rich women of Houston have ever had.

By John Davidson

March 1, 1983

The Cutting Edge

Texas' glass artists are leading a revolution in an ancient craft.

March 1, 1983

The Gittings People

Shoot enough portraits of Texans, and you'll have made a portrait of Texas.

By Nicholas Lemann

March 1, 1983

Friends In Deed

Meet some of Texas' secular latter-day saints: volunteers.

By Suzanne Winckler

February 1, 1983

Main Street

It’s Houston's driveway, a twenty-mile kaleidoscope of bankers, punkers, strippers, surgeons, students, grackles, and cars.

By Stephen Harrigan

February 1, 1983

The Year Everything Changed

If you think Texas is pretty much the same as it was ten years ago, you’re wrong. Nineteen seventy-three remade the state overnight.

Food & Drink|

February 1, 1983

Tea for Texas

Can Texans be won over to the antique tradition of tea and little sandwiches in the afternoon? Dallas’ and Houston’s new gilded hotels are counting on it.

By Alison Cook

February 1, 1983

Charlie Brooks’ Last Words

Charlie Brooks was the first man to die by lethal injection, but everyone wondered whether he or his partner was the real murderer. In his last days, Brooks answered that, and other questions.

January 1, 1983

The Making of a Congressman

Twelve ran, Mike Andrews won. A saga of ambition, money, power, courage, and the nature of urban politics in Texas.

By Victoria Loe

January 1, 1983

God’s Happy Hour

Every year communities scattered across Texas hold wet-dry elections. Each one pits the forces of fundamentalism against the forces of realism. This is the story of one such election.

November 1, 1982

Easy Street

Houston’s black elite have come a very long way to live in MacGregor Way, the swankiest black neighborhood in Texas, but they still don’t feel safe.

By Lawrence Wright

November 1, 1982

Mr. Hannah’s Rocket

His first spacecraft blew up on the pad and his primary investor died, but the first free enterprise rocket finally flew from Matagorda.

By Stephen Harrigan

November 1, 1982

The Guardians Who Slumbereth Not

Textbook watchdogs Mel and Norma Gabler are good, sincere, dedicated people, who just may be destroying your child’s education.

By William Martin

October 1, 1982

Jim Collins and the Armies Of The Faithful

Jim Collins is running for the Senate on the claim that it’s better to be right (wing) than to pass bills. If he wins, it will change Texas politics.

Style & Design|

September 1, 1982

The Empress’s New Clothes

What you won’t see from Dallas designers is lots of froufrou. What you will see is a look tailored for the working woman.

True Crime|

September 1, 1982

The Man Who Killed Judge Wood

The end of the Chagra family’s drug empire, a few words on murderer-for-hire Charles Harrelson, and the most incriminating tapes since Watergate.

By Gary Cartwright

September 1, 1982

The Trouble With UT

The university at one hundred; how good is it, really?

By Gene Lyons

September 1, 1982

The Gods of Padre Island

Between watching girls and getting a great tan, lifeguards occasionally have to save lives.

By David Seeley

July 1, 1982

What Texas Means to Me

God created Texas, and then He created people who would love it.

By Stephen Harrigan

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.

By T. R. Reid

Music|

June 1, 1982

A Singin’ Fool

George Jones really lives the way he says he lives in the songs he sings.

By Pepi Plowman

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.

May 31, 1982

Big River

A photographic tour of the timeless Rio Grande, from its origins in the mountains of Colorado to the Padre Island dunes at the tip of Texas.

By John Graves

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.

By Victoria Loe

April 30, 1982

Scarecrow Cops

Anybody can get a job as a security guard. Anybody.

April 30, 1982

The Box

Used correctly, the polygraph can tell whether or not an accused criminal’s claim that he didn’t do it is true. Too bad the police can’t take that to court.

By Jim Atkinson

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.

By Nicholas Lemann

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.

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.

Libations|

March 1, 1982

Drinking

Saint Paul said that a little wine is a fine thing. He must have known something.

By John Graves

March 1, 1982

The Very Rich Life of Enrico di Portanova

Hugh Roy Cullen found the oil and made one of Houston’s great fortunes; now his grandson is spending his inheritance like there is no tomorrow, and suing for more.

By John Davidson

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.

By Dominique Browning

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.

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.

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.