Tag: odessa

Truly our collective individuality is wonderful

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My Grandpa Rod was an accountant, but even he had questions when it came to doing his own income taxes.

When he called the help line, he never asked questions he needed answered, not right off. He asked several to which he already knew the answer. If the person got them right, then my grandfather asked what he didn’t know. If the person got the first questions wrong, he thanked the fellow, hung up, and tried again with someone else.

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Either the rabbits go, or I do

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It began harmlessly enough. One over-sized rabbit downtown commemorating I don’t know what for tourists to come and take their pictures next to.

In the ’90s, Jack Ben was even popular enough to make it in a promotional commercial for the state of Texas. A middle-aged couple talked about the Alamo, the San Jacinto monument and that “big ol’ jackrabbit in West Texas.”

And I dealt with it. He brought people here, which was good for the economy, and Jack Ben and I kept our distance.

Then in 2004, some slobbering imbeciles or consorts of Satan got the bright idea to make more of them, more of these 6-foot-tall bunny abominations, and place them all over town.

I hate that horrible hare and all his Jamboree progeny. I hate them, and I can’t stand to see them around anymore.

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I used to work nights at a gas station

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Because I worked alone and because the manager opened most mornings, it was my responsibility to make sure everything was clean and ready to start the new day. In theory, everyone cleaned whenever they got a chance in their shift, but in practice it was rare.

Our public bathrooms were outside, and even though the doors had keys, by the end of the day, especially, the bathrooms were as gross as you’d expect. Transients and carnies seemed to use it to take showers (both men’s and women’s just had a sink, toilet and mirror). In a way that’s anatomically impossible to happen on accident, feces, urine and used toilet paper could be just about anywhere. And for hygienic specifics that need no elaboration, on occasion the women’s bathroom would be far worse than the men’s ever could.

All of this was in addition to the expected grime and trash from the traffic of dozens of people who knew they didn’t have to clean up after themselves.

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My dad is a terrible pastor, but he preaches peepholes

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As many people know, my dad is a man of the cloth. That cloth is usually shorts and a sweatband, but then he is the Running Preacher, after all, so this isn’t much a surprise.

As pastors go, he’s really not a very good one. Terrible, even. Most people don’t know that about him. He’s never made much money at it, never been interested in being the boss when it comes to church affairs and never had any sort of political ambition at all, including within the Southern Baptist Convention. (I wish there were more terrible pastors.)

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To be perfectly honest, nobody is

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The implication of the phrase “to be honest” is that when you don’t say it, your statement is a lie. And the sad thing is, this is probably true.

The Cynic philosopher Diogenes is said to have walked through the streets of Athens, waving a lamp in broad daylight, proclaiming he was looking for an honest man. Apparently he never found such a man in Athens, and when we hear this, we’re not surprised.

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Libertarianism is right and beautiful

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I love July Fourth. Not so much the holiday, I suppose, but what it represents. The sentiments and ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence are something almost holy.

The government doesn’t rule by rifles and cudgels but the consent of the governed. The state doesn’t exist for the benefit of the rulers but to take care of the needs of the people. Other nations around the world remind us of what we here take for granted.

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Vaya con Dios, Coach Neely

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Mike Neely, longtime president of the Odessa YMCA, is retiring.

Maybe you saw the article in the paper or, like many, knew him personally. I didn’t, or at least I never knew anyone by that name.

There was a Mike Neely who seemed to practically rebuild the YMCA during the past 10 years, but I never met this Mike person. I only ever knew one guy named Neely, and I always call him “Coach.”

Before he took the job at the YMCA, he was a seventh-grade coach at Bonham Junior High, and his first and last year there was the first of my three.

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A short history of everybody for the past 13,000 years

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Editor and fellow columnist Gene Powell reads much more than I do and usually does the book reviews. Well, I’ve read two books, written by different authors for different reasons, and written years ago, but together they’re histories of the world, part one from 11,000 B.C. to A.D. 1,500, and part two from A.D. 1500 to 2000.

No, they’re not related to the Mel Brooks film. Sorry.

Jared Diamond’s book “Guns, Germs, and Steel” is based on geographic determinism, why where people are from resulted in the state of the world today.

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You don’t have to be a gardener to get a green thumb

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“To be a gardener, it isn’t enough to love flowers; one must hate weeds.” – Anon.

I’m no gardener, and find flowers to be only so-so, but I do hate weeds.

In the trunk of my car I keep a hoe and a pair of work gloves. The other day, I was talking to a friend in a restaurant parking lot after a meal. I kept getting distracted and finally told him to wait a moment while I got the gloves and pulled up an especially egregious thistle sticking up through asphalt nearby.

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Pixar really is the best there is at what they do

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On Friday, the latest 3D-animated Pixar film “Up” came out, and I was in the audience to see it. Of course I was.

Now, I love words. Well, I love lots of things, but I’m a writer and I love words in particular. As a copy editor, I’m virtually awash in them, although it’s less easy to love them around deadline. And even if I don’t read books or literature as much as I should, I appreciate them and their place in the world immensely.

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