On boots and bars and motorbikes...

County sheriffs from across the Lone Star State descended on the Texas border town Edinburg last week to hear from a definite favorite among the law enforcement community, especially when it came to handling the situation down at our southern border into Mexico, a situation that those same lawmen will tell you has gotten completely out of hand under the leadership—or lack thereof—of the current presidential administration. More than 1,000 supporters from across the Texas Valley region were already gathering along the expressway near the South Texas International Airport at Edinburg on Tuesday, June 29, where former President Donald Trump was set to conclude his tour of the region with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.  "It is a crisis of a monumental scale. Border Patrol agents - I spent a lot of time with them today - they are overwhelmed, overworked. Dangerous cartels, they are making millions in human trafficking and taking advantage of the fact that all resources are being used to bas...

If there's one thing the Rev. Bryan Heyer says he knows to be true, it's that members of Sts. Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church in Shiner know a thing or two about community service. They always have, and most likely, always will. “Our church was literally built by the service of its members,” Father Bryan said. “In fact, even the building itself stands testament to that service. It’s tradition of serving that continues on strong still today.” Anyone who might question that fact only need lay eyes on their beautiful landmark red brick church building in Shiner, each stone of it built from the ground up by the hands and backs of local parishioners, who spent the better part of two entire years, from 1920-1921, making sure every element of it was simply perfect. And this coming Sunday, July 11, parishioners from all over, both past and present, will have the opportunity celebrate those many years of service, when Father Bryan and Victoria Diocese Bishop Brendon Cahill come toge...

While many enjoyed the much anticipated opening night of Luling’s Watermelon Thump after its coronavirus-inspired hiatus in 2020, several young men were hard at work well into the night proving that watermelons aren't always fun and games in their hometown. Fact is, if you ventured past Mikesh Produce Thursday evening at Luling’s Original Farmer’s Market, just a couple of blocks from the Thump festival grounds off North Magnolia Avenue, you could've seen firsthand that watermelons can be lots of terribly back breaking work. Especially when a load of about a thousand arrives right at sunset, filling the entire length of an 18-wheeler flatbed, and the only way you have to get them off involves you and about a dozen of your closest friends and relatives forming a man chain to pitch the big devils off the truck one by one, pass them along hand-by-hand, and then stack them layer by layer in massive piles on every available tabletop. Just watching them made my back hurt. Fortunately,...

You just know that somebody, somewhere, had to be thinking it real hard if not actually saying those precise words when it all went down.  “Honey, have you seen the kids?” To which, a usually reasonable response might be, “Oh, they’ll be back shortly. They ran down to the coffeeshop to grab a bite.” Still, things were anything but “usual” last Wednesday, June 23. “We have kids around our shop almost all the time,” says Amy Bishop, proprietor of the Shinerville Coffee House. “But these weren’t your average, run-of-the-mill kids. In fact, they made for some rather unusual visitors at our shop that day.” Unusual, indeed, for in the middle of town, the middle of the afternoon, the middle of the workweek, a pair goats came wandering up to her coffeeshop door, nibbling on her potted plants as they peered in the windows with curious goat eyes to see what they could see. She had no idea where they came from. Or, more importantly, where they needed to get back to before they becam...