Despite my frustrations with our state’s politics, I love our flag and think it belongs to Texans of all persuasions. Trouble is, I can’t seem to find a pair that fits.
Swimming before sunrise became a necessary ritual for novelist Elizabeth McCracken during an uncertain time. And then came the strangers.
My family’s shack on an island in the world’s largest hypersaline lagoon has brought us closer to the fishing—and to one another.
I used to feel ashamed that I didn't speak Spanish. Now I understand why my parents didn't teach me.
The characters might be fictional, but to the Latinos who see their own families reflected in them, it’s a relief to see them say what we wish we could.
A writer learns the hard way—the hardest way—that in Texas the answer is: not much.
I didn’t wake up one day and think, “I’m going to traipse around the woods and eat raw things.” But over time, I learned how to fill my pantry with delicious (and free!) foraged ingredients.
If we’re going to honor the real Selena—and find a way to carry her with us—we need to imagine what she might have done if she had lived a full life.
Just as my husband and I were moving away from the city, we found ourselves embracing our adopted hometown.
My father always pampered his pets. So when he fell ill and moved in with us, it was no surprise that his corgi came to rule our home. What I didn’t expect was for Trilby to care for me after Dad was gone.
I never knew my father, a decorated World War II pilot who died before I was born. But a trek at age 67 to the site where his airplane crashed brought me closer to him than I’d ever dared hope.
How Lubbock’s prairie dogs taught me the meaning of home.
A dank cabin and a loyal dog—and, eventually, a loving daughter—turned Texas into home.
Thirty years after Roe v. Wade, I'm still that lawyer.
I REMEMBER ONE SUMMER when there were snakes galore on Lake LBJ near Kingsland. We have five kids in our family, and we’d all go swimming in the lake, but when we’d see something in the water—and couldn’t tell if it was a turtle or a water moccasin—we’d jump out.
The art of throwing punches, the science of skipping rope, and other reasons why boxing is a hit with me.
My son ended his life after three years of madness and unbearable depression. Who am I to say he did the wrong thing?
If Ross Perot is president, he’ll be judged by how well he plays hardball with Congress. Here’s how he played hardball with me.
As much as I hated playing football, I hate watching it more.
Once kids did their own homework. Now ambitious parents do it for them.
A museum in Texas is the last place Jacques-Louis David would expect to find his late masterpiece, but we’re glad it’s here.
The son’s ultimate selfishness is to see his father only as his father—not as a man. But on our first fishing trip in 25 years, I began to see my father—and myself—as the grown men we’d become.
It may be hard to believe that you can drink two fifths a day and not only function but function well. But I did it. For a while.
It wasn’t the classiest place in Pharr to grow up, but it had tough truckers, sassy waitresses, and some of the best fry cooks in the Valley.
Warm spring days call for giving in to new clothes and a neck-baring hairdo.
Life is tough all over, but especially for Juniors.
Kids, house, husband—these are the natural enemies of a well-ordered day.
God created Texas, and then He created people who would love it.
Camping gets you back to the basics: blisters, chiggers, and, yes, deep satisfaction.
For a man and his daughter out for a pleasant day’s fishing, the first sign of danger was a man’s hat floating silently down the stream.
You learn one clear and not so very grim lesson by looking death in the face.
You can always spot a smoker. He fiddles with matches, his shirt pocket bulges in a tiny rectangle, and fumes emerge from his mouth and nose. But what should we do about him?
Strawberry sodas, vanilla Cokes, grilled cheese sandwiches. That’s what we love about soda fountains.
Fast food is tasteless and vulgar. There are other good things about it, too.
Abilene, Abilene, strangest town I’ve ever seen.
