Stories

Six Words: Intensify, Studio, Oven, Stubborn, Multiply, Recession

The artist’s studio near Terlingua
gives a view that changes with the seasons,
not the way views change in the Texas Hill Country
or the Piney Woods,
where trees change colors
and drop leaves
and sprout new ones.
Not the way bluebonnets
and Indian blankets
and other colorful wildflowers
appear in spring along Texas highways.

No, out here in the Big Bend area,
colors and textures intensify,
recede,
multiply
as the sun moves northward,
then southward.
Temperatures change from oven-like highs
to freezer-like lows.
Some people think the views change
because of the changes in the length of daylight.
Others think the changes
depend on the temperature.
Still others think
it is because of change itself.
All tend to be stubborn
in their opinions.
To the artist
and the occasional guest,
the reasons don’t matter at all.
It is simply that it happens
that brings them here.

Six Words: Housewife, Indulge, Academy, Congress, Perfect, Duty

Given these words, my first impulse was to write an R-rated story about the perfect housewife who would know her duties, including engaging enthusiastically in marital congress, as if she were a graduate of an academy of housewifery. As you can tell, I’ve restrained myself and did not indulge my first impulse to write that R-rated story. This probably comes close enough.

Six Words: Oppose, Intensify, Banish, Border, Terminal, Definition

When I was a junior and senior in college in Chicago, a fraternity brother, Neil, was dating a cute, thin young woman named Bobbi. Bobbi often had a cough, and occasionally was ill for extended periods of time. Neil was a year ahead of me in school. I didn’t know him or Bobbi well and I was focused on school and ping pong and my own social ineptness.

Read More »65 Roses (After the Miracle from article in April 2024 The Atlantic)

Six Words: Facade, Notion, Despise, Rocket, Multimedia, Habit

Many, many people around the world got in the habit of using Twitter to get instant news, to read opinions, and to post their own opinions. And then Elon Musk got the notion that he should buy Twitter and change its name. With Musk, it is hard to tell what is genuine and what is a facade. But what is true, is that many people despise him and would like to see him put in one of his rockets and fired off to Mars. Undoubtedly, he’d recognize the opportunity to make it a multimedia event and to accrue even more wealth. I have to admit, though, that in Musk’s case, he and his giant ego really is worth billions.

Six Words: Characteristic, Rotation, Satisfied, Article, Unfair, Earthquake

As the reporter whose rotation put me on duty during the uncharacteristic earthquake in the area, I thought it was unfair that I would have to write many articles about the event to keep the publisher satisfied, rather than helping people recover.

Six Words: Wilderness, Essay, Design, Advertising, Compartment, Rider

I suppose for many people educated in America, if they are asked if they know who Thoreau is, they would say something like he is a poet and an author who wrote essays about the wilderness. If you look for books by Thoreau, the cover design of older versions is almost certain to include a tree, while newer versions often contain a picture of him. Trees are featured in advertising for a movie titled Henry David Thoreau: Surveyor of the Soul, which is about his time at Walden Pond and his impact on environmental issues and on civil rights.

He built a cabin in the woods at Walden Pond, that had only a single compartment. You can see a one room cabin today by riding out to Commons Ford Ranch Metropolitan Park here in Austin. It probably belonged to one of the original ranchers. There are many questions that arise when you see an actual one room cabin. One of those question is how did families living in a one room cabin have more than one child. I wonder if that is a question that Thoreau pondered, but only abstractly, since he never married nor had children.

Six Words: Deadly, Trustee, Voucher, Expectation, Brilliance, Conservative

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has fought for school vouchers, even though the state legislature has rejected the idea multiple times. Public school board trustees are universally opposed to providing vouchers for students to attend private or religious schools. It is conservatives that argue in favor of vouchers. Their argument is that parents should be able to choose the schools that their children attend. Too often, they want their schools to be able to choose the type of students they’ll encounter, or schools that can teach a particular religion, or schools that reject points of view that they disagree with. They want to create their particular types of ghettoes.

Opponents to school vouchers, and I am among them, think that school vouchers would be deadly to the public school system and, over time, deadly to American democracy and the American melting pot. Vouchers would drain money, and thus resources, from the public school systems. The brilliant concept of free, public education doesn’t just educate students on the basics. It exposes them to a range of ideas and perspectives and cultures. It creates the smorgasbord that America has held as an ideal, even though we too often fall short of that ideal.

Because of the free, universal public school system we have an expectation that “We the People of the United States, can form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty”. I think that could even become a slogan.

Six Words: Tourist, General, Fascinate, Girlfriend, Ecstasy, Distortion

Working in a Disney Store isn’t like working in a general department store. Working in a Disney Store gives a distorted, but a fascinating view of locals and tourists alike. You can see a parent bring their young daughter and her girlfriends into the store and the girls can be in ecstasy at the site of plush mountain, or various outfits.

Six Words: Understanding, Foster, Misery, Supplementary, Auction, Merit

No one expected the art auction to lead to such misery. The auctioneer claimed it was just a misunderstanding that shouldn’t merit the acrimony that followed. The description of the art piece and its provenance seemed accurate. It was the supplementary information, in the footnotes that fostered the charges of fraud. Why wouldn’t the buyer believe the auctioneer and think this was a coup. After all, the auctioneer pointed out, the painting really did look just like all the of the online pictures of the Mona Lisa and who reads footnotes!

Six Words: Admit, Attraction, Activity, Mosaic, Economics, Preference

I attended a college that is best known for engineering and architecture. That is the main attraction for students who attend the Illinois Institute of Technology. We tend to have a preference for math and science. Activities like football or wrestling are not typically a high priority. The student body in engineering colleges tends to be a mosaic of skin tones, hair colors and accents.

IIT required engineering students to take several hours of liberal arts courses. Although I got my best grades in those courses, I didn’t know why they were required. But I do admit that the course that I remember best was economics. I even remember the professor’s name. He was Dr. Brown and his often repeated advice was: “don’t perpetuate the maladjustment. If farmers can’t make enough money because prices are too low, don’t give them subsidies. Shoot some farmers and burn some crops.”