by Phil Houseal | Mar 3, 2021 | All Articles, History, People of the Hill Country, Philosophy
Mar 3, 2021–For the nth time, I’m reading Nine Years With The Indians, the book about Herman Lehmann, the last Indian captive on the Texas frontier. It tells the story–in his own words–of the 11-year-old German boy who was captured in 1870 and lived with the Apaches...
by Phil Houseal | Feb 3, 2021 | All Articles, Events, History, Music, Philosophy
Feb 3, 2021–On the morning of Feb 3, 1959, 14-year-old Tom LaVille opened up his bundle of newspapers to deliver like he did every day. But this morning was different. There, on the front page of the Mason City Globe-Gazette, was the news that Buddy Holly, the...
by Phil Houseal | Jan 6, 2021 | All Articles, History, Philosophy
1/6/2021–It’s now been a couple of weeks since Christmas and a good time to reflect on what all those “educational” toys teach us. Frustration. Slinky How many of us saw those commercials where the sleek slinky coiled spring gracefully navigated stairs and leapt from...
by Phil Houseal | Dec 22, 2020 | All Articles, Food, History, Philosophy
Dec 13, 2020–What is your favorite worst holiday food? Food you are supposed to like because everyone else does, but you don’t, really. Every holiday, we are coerced to eat and drink strangely colored concoctions (green beer?) and alien textured foodstuffs in the...
by Phil Houseal | Oct 14, 2020 | All Articles, Education, History, People of the Hill Country, Philosophy
Oct 14, 2020–As a marketing gimmick, I once tried to come up with a clever mascot for a university’s fictional athletic program. I couldn’t do it. I brainstormed the most insignificant or annoying animals and plants that would make a tongue-in-cheek T-shirt that...
by Phil Houseal | Sep 15, 2020 | All Articles, History, Philosophy
Sept 16, 2020–I remember being quarantined. I was 8 years old. I had chicken pox. All kids did back in the early 1960s. But mine was particularly painful. Not because of the disease. But because it happened the week of our big farm sale. We were moving from the farm I...
