Columns

Every ten years the quaint Bavarian hamlet of Oberammergau stages one of Europe’s most celebrated theatrical performances, known to millions as simply the “Passion Play.” With almost half of its 5300 permanent residents participating either in the cast, the stage crew or as a member of the production staff, Oberammergau becomes a beehive of activity for one exciting summer each decade.

Time means different things to different people. One of my good friends insists she should get special dispensation, as I do, for being “directionally challenged,” for being “time challenged.” She says she can’t seem to make it anywhere on time and it’s not her fault. She maintains that, just as I have no idea where I am going and get lost easily, she can never arrive for a meeting, appointment, or event on time.

This time of year, most years, I think about a decision I made in 1973 that probably changed my life. I had been accepted to the University of Texas and had a room reserved at Jester Hall. My sister, a high school coach, was working on her master’s degree at Texas Tech.

If you do any driving in Texas, you’re going to have a close encounter with animals. We have plenty of them and barbed wire fences don’t seem to stop all of them. Even the cattle they are supposed to hold get through them on occasion and there is nothing deadlier than a Black Angus cow on a moonless night.

I cannot believe it has been 25 years since Larry McMurtry wrote Lonesome Dove. Texas Monthly is making a big to-do about it in their July issue, so I ratted around in my book chest and found my copy – 1st edition and signed by the author. It has been 25 years, because my son just turned 29 and he was just a little boy when I was reading the book.

A person should never be judged by their relatives. We’ve all got them; those people who somehow jumped out of the genetic bus and took a different turn. Occasionally, they are also the reason family reunions or even funerals can be so insanely funny. One funeral in particular makes me smile in the dark.

Most girls have been guilty at least once in their lives of dating a car. Lately, I found a fat little book in the sale bin at Barnes and Noble named Mighty Muscle Cars that caught my eye in an instant. On the cover was a lime green Dodge R/T Super Bee, just like the one owned by my summer of ’70 boyfriend, Bobby Nick Adair. I was always a car nut.

Good Evening Horseshoe Bay – As you can tell from my salutation, this will be a cocktail hour version of Council Comments. Tomorrow will be a busy day with an 8 o’clock Horseshoe Bay Sports Buff meeting followed by our initial 2011 council budget meeting at nine. Busy—Busy—Busy! Comments will be short this week since the meeting was sorta short and I think and write quicker after 5. Reverend Larry prayed, we pledged and then we honored Police Offi ...

If you’re like I am, you rarely, if ever, step on the scales to see what you weigh unless you’re consciously making an effort to lose weight. Watching the needle waver between obese and obscene is not something I want to witness on a daily basis. The same could be said about monitoring my retirement nest egg.

In 1952, my sister Bobbie Nell was 12 years old when she developed flu-like symptoms and was sent home from school. Our country doctor pronounced it to be the flu, but she continued to worsen and 3 days later was taken to Hendrick Hospital in Abilene where my mother and dad watched her strangle to death for lack of an iron lung, which were all occupied.