A David Johnson, of many.
The other day, someone posted a comment on the online version of my column regarding a passing sort of mention to Pentecost.
“I was really digging this until the Biblical reference. Fantastic way to isolate everyone but your Christian readers.”
Continue reading “And the King James Bible turns 400 this year”
The other day I went to the top of a hill and found a piece of glass and large wooden peg in the ground by itself.
(In journalism, every story needs a peg; that is mine.)
Continue reading “It’s a good thing the future can’t dump its trash on us”
The other day I found myself needing the sort of assortment of stuff that once sent folk scrambling all over town all weekend, but now can be had in about an hour at any Walmart.
I shop in the living-alone bachelor way indistinguishable from a man preparing for the apocalypse. I buy enough canned food to last six months, enough soap, toothpaste and toilet paper to last a year. Shampoo, two years.
Continue reading “The uniformity of franchises makes the individual shine through”
When we last saw Your Humble Narrator, he had just brought his vehicle’s resale value down by about two-thirds as the result of hilly terrain, a temporarily mobile home, high velocity and his own slow wit.
Also a guardrail. Also that.
But I was all right, and after checking under the now-bent hood, determined things looked alright, so I determined to drive on. I had a wedding in South Texas to get to, after all, and just hours to cover all the miles.
Continue reading “Something about dead flies and jars of perfume”
People often ask me what happened to the front of my car.
It used to be pretty, but for the past few months, the front near the license plate has been well-crunched.
So I say, “I was dodging a house.” Then they laugh and say, “It jumped right out in front of you, huh?” And I say, “Well…”
Continue reading “It was the bad karma from 10,000 dead butterflies”
The other day, I realized I probably enjoy Facebook a little too much, or at least for the wrong reasons. The social network super giant makes it almost too easy to creep — or rather keep up with everyone you kinda sorta met one time. Or might someday.
But Facebook is a lovely thing, as much as it is a monster.
Continue reading “The cartoon virus makes the world a more colorful place”
The other day someone pointed out that it’s been 11 years now since Y2K.
That is somewhat underwhelming, although impressive that we’ve managed to survive the apocalypse this long without noticing it.
Continue reading “But the shred of wrapping paper clings on yet”
Now, most World War II veterans are battling bad knees and fading hearing, but almost 70 years ago they faced German tanks and Italian bullets and Japanese mines.
Many U.S. servicemen were not able to grow old enough to experience arthritis, and some weren’t even able to be properly laid to rest.
Although Jarrold Clovis Taylor’s family had a memorial in September 1944 and a plaque with his name is in the Ector County Cemetery, his body was never there, and for almost 66 years, no one knew where he or any of the other 77 sailors from the USS Flier had gone to rest.
When she goes to school or turns on the television, 16-year-old Permian student Sandra Chavez is often exposed to a culture that celebrates premarital sex.
“From all of the pressure, it’s really hard to save yourself for marriage,” she said.
But Thursday night at CrossRoads Fellowship, she and about 800 other students were able to hear that it’s OK to wait.
I was at Ogi’s Restaurant and Bar one Friday night, drinking with several coworkers and enjoying the night air on the patio as we waited for closing time. We talked literature, Dan Brown to Mark Danielewski, Ann Rice to Voltaire. The bartender sat down to join now and again, and a stranger overheard us and occasionally chimed in (he favored Mark Twain).
When we headed out after last call, a crowd leaving the Black Gold Sports Bar next door had gathered in the parking lot. Two men, or maybe two groups of friends, were having some sort of disagreement and violent posturing was obligatory on the part of some. People shouted, shirts came off, two guys struggled to the ground, punching. It was a dispassionate British man’s narration away from being a National Geographic program.
Anyway, the cops showed up and the show was over, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes and left.
Odessa.
ADJ 