Listen, Learn, Decide

Papa (paw’paw’) is my closest grandparent. From my earliest years even I notice he treats me like the lost dauphin. When I stay with him, I get whatever I want, which is, as it turns out, mostly just to stay with him. Some of Papa’s edges are not just rough but gone....

Empty, Needy People

When he seeks refuge at the cave of Adullam, David’s legitimately earned reputation is already mythic: shepherd-protector of his father’s flocks, hero of Elah’s valley, and ten times over the greater warrior than king Saul. Saul’s own daughter and son are more loyal...

The Troubler of Israel

The sun has a cycle.  At solar minimum, there is relatively little activity on our star’s surface; that is, considering there’s an ongoing thermonuclear reaction at its core. But at solar maximum, sunspots, flares, prominences, and coronal mass ejections multiply....

The Only Substance

In 1985, just having moved back to Arlington from college with a wife, a baby, a degree, and a 300 baud modem for my Apple 2C, I am delighted to learn that the Fort Worth Star Telegram offers an online news service, StarText, practically free. Everything about it...

Find Its Own Way

Every drop of my attraction to scripture, astronomy, electricity, and technology has its equivalent drip in my aversion to plumbing. I understand the basic rule: water runs downhill. In my world, that fixed fact is the problem. It seems every bit of water I encounter...

Seeing Boundless Beauty

Because we have completely gutted and transformed the kitchen in our house as we prepare to move in (a dozen years ago), we limit the bathroom remodel to a new shower stall barrier. The worker replacing the dated, frosted, framed structure with a simple piece of clear...

We Couldn’t Afford It

To improve his opportunities as an employee and eventual superintendent in the City of Arlington’s Traffic and Transportation Division, my dad became a licensed electrician. That trade certification did far more for friends and family than for his career (which...

A Needed Distraction

The intensity due a pinnacle of science and engineering’s juncture emerges in my grandson’s furrowed brow and pursed lips. Although only advising, I am as determined for him to succeed as he is to complete the eight stages of the NASA project—eight bags of Lego chaos...

Volume Is Not the Issue

“Product sold by weight, not volume. Contents may settle during shipping.” The consumer notice itself is evidence that people have felt cheated finding the top third of their newly opened cereal box’s wax paper liner void of flakes, puffs, or biscuits. Despite first...

A Single Level

First try: internal sense and eyeball; tap in the nails, hang it, step back, and nope, not level. Second: remove glasses for undistorted adjustment; rehang, step back, and still no. Third: spend 10 minutes finding level, 2 more finding pencil, mark the wall, rehang,...