Editorials

I can’t remember what day it was last week, but I had just started for the office one evening, and I saw what looked like a World War II bomber buzzing the area around the square in Llano. I hurried back home to get my camera, but by the time I got back outside, the plane was headed toward the airport.

You might not be able to tell by reading the rest of this week’s paper, but I had a great week last week. The reason you might not notice is that I was feeling pretty mellow (exhausted, actually) after I finally got my Spring magazine done, and I did not really get much work done.

First, the good news: I finally got the Spring 2010 edition of my Texas Hill Country magazine safely to the printers! There are all kinds of good things in it, including quite a few Llano-related items, and we should have actual magazines sometime next week. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I spent almost all my waking hours (and most of my hours were waking hours!) focused on the magazine.

I know there have been busier weekends in Llano, but last Saturday I was having trouble remembering when. There were crowds in the streets all afternoon, with the very successful “Desserts of Llano,” the goings-on at the Red Top Jail and the Country Opry with “The Whites,” from “O Brother, Where Art Thou.” That evening (in addition to the second Opry show), there was the Eastern Star dance and auction at St.

Once again, it’s been an amazing week. Perhaps the first thing I should mention is the progress (or lack thereof) on the new Marble Falls hospital. I talked to Mike Jenkins, president of the Llano County Hospital Authority Board, and he assures me that the unsuccessful land deal in Marble Falls “does not affect Llano.” He is confident that Scott & White will find another property and get the new hospital built; in the meantime, the merger with the Llano hospital will co ...

It’s that time again. I’ve procrastinated enough that the upcoming deadline for the Spring 2010 issue of Texas Hill Country magazine is becoming an emergency situation. That, coupled with been writing too much the last few weeks (although I did not include the poetryreading event at Fuel Coffee House; it will be over by the time you read this), has convinced me to keep this week’s column as short as I can.

I have to confess; despite my mild-mannered exterior, I’m really quite a trouble-maker. At least that’s the opinion of seven or eight impatient ladies at the U.S. Census Bureau who couldn’t answer my question Monday morning. As their blood pressures rose, each one would pass me along to the next, who would profess ignorance just as sincerely as the one before. My question was really quite a simple one, but I could tell it made them uncomfortable.

If I had written this column last week, I probably would have titled it “Peace on Earth,” because (for a couple of days) there seemed to be absolutely nothing happening in Llano. Stores were closed, streets were empty and people were indoors (for a couple of days). Of course, there were Christmas Eve services at several of the churches Thursday night.

I met Nita Frazier about two weeks after I arrived in Texas, in March of 1992. She was the manager of the Dairy Queen in Goldthwaite, and I think my kids enjoyed her friendly welcome as much as they enjoyed the ice cream. We couldn’t afford to eat out much back then (even at Dairy Queen), but we had a chance to see her several times over the next four years, before we moved to Burnet. I guess that’s part of the reason that Nita was so supportive when I first started the Te ...

One of several things I forgot to write about last week was the historic celebration at the newly-expanded Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg. That turned out to be one of the highlights in an amazing week for me; please bear with me as I tell you about my adventures. I should interject here that I got an advance copy of Jenny Taylor’s new CD from her brother, Justin Simpson.