by Phil Houseal | Jun 14, 2017 | All Articles, Events, Music
June 14, 2017–No current artist comes close to keeping alive the sound of traditional country music more than Mark Chesnutt. But if the straight-talking Texan had continued with his first music gig, he might have ended up as a rock drummer instead. “I played drums in...
by Phil Houseal | Jun 8, 2017 | All Articles, Events, Music, People of the Hill Country, Philosophy, Venue
June 7, 2017–When Terry Theis first attended the Kerrville Folk Festival back in 1978, he, uh, bypassed the gate. “Yeah, I joined up because I finally got caught sneaking in,” confessed the Harper engraver and accordion player when I interviewed him outside Threadgill...
by Phil Houseal | Jun 1, 2017 | All Articles, Events, People of the Hill Country, Venue
May 31, 2017–It’s the kind of meeting even people who hate meetings will attend. Invite everyone you know–and don’t know–and ask them to bring a favorite bottle of wine to share. No agenda, no minutes, nothing to vote on, and barely anyone who claims to be in charge....
by Phil Houseal | May 25, 2017 | All Articles, Education, Events
May 25, 2017–I spent the last week watching a thousand students take a test. A field test. Because the tests took place in the middle of a field on a working ranch near Willow City, Texas. It wasn’t a paper and pencil kind of test, although hours of calculation were...
by Phil Houseal | May 24, 2017 | All Articles, Philosophy
May 24, 2017–When is enough enough? I’ve been trying to quantify the exponential futility of doing more. One easy way to visualize this is knot tying. If the sole function of making a knot was to, say, fasten one object to another, we could achieve the goal in many...
by Phil Houseal | May 18, 2017 | All Articles, Education, People of the Hill Country, Philosophy
May 17, 2017–I always wanted to build a bonsai tree. So when Dietert Club Ed offered a class, I signed up. Nine other wannabe tree makers shared my interest. We were a diverse group, with several retirees, a couple of younger ladies, and one millennial. Instructor...
