By Glenn Dromgoole What is your favorite piece of chicken? Mine has always been the chicken leg, the drumstick. At one of my favorite buffets that serves exceptional old-fashioned fried chicken – meaning it is cooked in a cast-iron skillet – when I ask for a chicken leg, the server invariably says: “Right or left?” I laugh. “How about both?”
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By Jim Nichols It was an undergraduate class in Shakespeare, and I was a graduate student in zoology. Several friends recommended the class and professor if I wanted an exceptional experience. I could audit the class at minimal cost, not take tests or write papers, and learn from an unusual classroom leader. I took the bait and was changed in
Read moreTHE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury The event is “brain-etched,” deeply embedded and validated by the calendar. It was May of 1962, all “heady stuff” for a one-year-out-of-college guy invited to make a commencement address. The distance was 87 miles from Brownwood to London in Texas’ beautiful Hill Country, where I would speak at graduation exercises for four seniors at
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Click here to read local Catholic responses to the election of Pope Leo XIV. Click here to register for Abilene events. By Loretta Fulton Catholics from across the Diocese of San Angelo are expected in Abilene this weekend for two events, including an opportunity to participate in the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. The pilgrimage began in Indianapolis on May 18 and
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By Glenn Dromgoole It’s summer, and churches all over town are having Vacation Bible School — and that brings to mind the most memorable VBS of my life. And I wasn’t even a participant. It was 60 years ago, the summer of 1965. In our little Southeast Texas town, where my dad pastored the Baptist church, the church decided to
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By Danny Minton Have you ever tried something so many times that you finally gave up and said, “I can’t do it!” Have you ever told someone you couldn’t do something when you hadn’t taken the time to try? Most of us have probably stopped doing something because it was too difficult or complicated, and we just gave up, saying
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By Jim Nichols My elementary school did not have air conditioning. I knew of no schools that did. We did not have it at home either. In the 1950s, air conditioning was an aspiration rather than a reality. When our family took a summer vacation in our (un-air conditioned) car, we would look for a lunch cafe that had a
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By Nancy Patrick As I sat on my canopied swing in the backyard one Saturday morning in May, the soft breeze gently ruffled the leaves on the three-year-old burr oak tree near me. Another three-year-old tree, a Chinese Pistache, grows across the yard from the burr oak. Both trees are doing amazingly well for our Texas climate. We had to
Read moreTHE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury For the next three weeks, there’ll be too much about me, even if I apologize in advance for citing personal experiences, but they’re the only kinds I’ve had. At their core will be remembrances of commencement ceremonies, mostly where I’ve been privileged to speak. For brief and shining moments, I’ve joined graduates, families and fellow
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Spirit Of Abilene 