THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury Way back when, I agreed to serve as judge of pageants held annually in Fort Stockton and DeLeon. I–and another couple of judges–were to select queens of the Water Festival and the Peach and Melon Festival, respectively. It shouldn’t have been “rocket surgery,” but I didn’t realize that I would be detested (or near

THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury They generally give us the benefit of the doubt even when we are dead wrong, wagging their tails while licking the hands that feed them. In their way, they pledge unending devotion, no matter what. One doesn’t have to look very far into literature or incline their ears to very many songs to

 THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury During growing-up years, I don’t remember hearing much talk about splashing on sweet-smelling stuff. Surely it was poetic injustice, what with cotton-picking heating up many of my kin who labored in the fields, not to mention other farm chores that caused streams of sweat that seemed inevitable during half of each calendar year. The

 THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury Higher education gets news coverage in both mass and social media and much, I’m sure, is true. Technology is changing it at warp speed, and the old descriptions we used to toss about no longer fit. We joked that colleges had buildings where “ivy is creeping around on the outside and teachers are creeping around

 THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury Minnie Pearl–queen of country humor for a half-century–”country-talked” her way into our hearts, mostly from the stage of Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry. Nowadays, the $1.98 price tag dangling from her hat is but a distant memory. A character fabricated by Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon, who made Minnie’s hometown of Grinder’s Switch and stories of

 THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury To describe the workouts he directed as “grueling” might be an extreme understatement if the athletes who ran for late track coach J. H. (Cap) Shelton are consulted. Known as the “dean of Texas track coaches,” he served at Howard Payne University–his alma mater–for 49 years. He worked long hours daily in numerous faculty

 THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury My aged Uncle Mort is “up in the air” about balloons. “Until recently, balloons were festive, often gleefully ‘popped’ at parties,” he moaned. “Stick a pin in one now, and folks nearby crawl under tables, look for exits, call 9-1-1 and shield the bodies of young’ uns.” Mort contends that governmental leaders’ confoundment

THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury Central to my Uncle Mort’s colorful life–now stretching over two centuries–are his scatter-brained decisions to “go off fourth-cocked,” even when “half-cocked” action might be preferable. Someone said that he’d be ahead of the game if he’d “keep his gun holstered,” even if his trigger finger gets itchy. Forget the holstered part; that’s simply