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...
by Phil Houseal | Sep 2, 2020 | All Articles, Events, History, Music, People of the Hill Country, Philosophy, Venue
9/2/2020–You can’t keep a good dancer down. Recently I heard there was a gang of dancing rebels operating a “dance easy” in Fredericksburg. Apparently this loosely connected group of five or six couples gather on a weekly basis to… wait for it… dance in...
by Phil Houseal | Jun 24, 2020 | All Articles, History, Philosophy, PR Tips
June 24, 2020–Note: This column is not a metaphor for any current situation, nor is the writer responsible for any lesson readers may take away. M&Ms have always been my favorite candies. So much so that when I was banished overseas for two years, it was one of...
