by Phil Houseal | Nov 6, 2024 | All Articles, Events, History, Philosophy, Venue
Nov 6, 2024–Whether you embrace or avoid weddings, the celebration itself is a panorama of the human condition. Every stage of a person’s life is acted out in the drama on the matrimonial stage. At a recent betrothal, I was able to sort the life passages into five...
by Phil Houseal | Oct 30, 2024 | All Articles, Education, History, Philosophy
Oct 30, 2024–Lick a Battery. That is the first of “Fifty Dangerous Things (you should let your children do),” a book that our son gave us. His friend, author Gever Tulley’s simple premise is that we need to go back to letting kids play dangerously. Readers who grew up...
by Phil Houseal | Oct 23, 2024 | All Articles, Education, History, Philosophy
Oct 23, 2024–If you share an idea with an old man and he is for it, do it. If he is against it, do it anyway. An old man told me that bit of advice. And it is good advice. Throughout history, you’ll find examples of men and women of all ages and stations in life who...
by Phil Houseal | Oct 16, 2024 | All Articles, People of the Hill Country, Philosophy
Oct 16, 2024–What do you call a bunch of retirees who meet for lunch every other week, just because? According to the Herald-Zeitung, they call themselves ROMEOs: Retired Old Men Eating Out. They have no agenda, collect no dues, require no initiation, and don’t keep...
by Phil Houseal | Oct 7, 2024 | All Articles, People of the Hill Country, Philosophy
Oct 9, 2024–Once, as he lay as close to dying as he has ever come, he heard from angels. They texted him. It is already an unreal state of being when you exist in that place between life and death. You exist. That is all. You cease to worry about paying the utility...
by Phil Houseal | Oct 2, 2024 | All Articles, Education, History, Philosophy
Oct 2, 2024–Do you know anyone who shies away from going to parties and public events? Maybe you consider them to be aloof or distant. They seem not to be interested in spending time with anyone. They forsake parties, avoid luncheons, never go to movies or backyard...
by Phil Houseal | Sep 25, 2024 | All Articles, Education, Philosophy
Sept 25, 2024–In the 1980s I brainstormed the idea of harnessing the energy of “people walking around” by installing turnstyles on the sidewalks of New York. My theory was that the small bursts of energy generated by people pushing through narrow openings would create...
by Phil Houseal | Sep 18, 2024 | All Articles, Education, History, Philosophy
Sept 18, 2024–Don’t walk under a ladder. Don’t let a black cat cross your path. Knock on wood. Step on a crack; break your mother’s back. We’ve all heard these and other superstitions since we were in grade school. They sound childish and were the source of harmless...
by Phil Houseal | Sep 11, 2024 | All Articles, History, Philosophy
Sept 11, 2024–Have you written your obituary? Believe it or not, that was an assignment I gave to my 6th grade gifted students. The point was to nudge them to think about how they hoped to use the gifts they possessed over their lifetimes, to not take them for...
by Phil Houseal | Sep 4, 2024 | All Articles, Philosophy
Sept 4, 2024–My latest favorite throne tome is Words on Words, a 1980 book by John Bremner that explores words and explains their usage in an irreverent manner. What I like about it is that it presents common words that we think we know, but that we don’t really know,...
