On boots and bars and motorbikes...

'HE WAS MY HERO' Abel Moreno left out early Sunday, Oct. 3, from his Billings, Mont., home so that he’d have plenty of time to cover the many long miles ahead. He needed to make Moulton by Tuesday afternoon, where Abel said he’d promised the local police chief he’d lead up the evenings special National Night Out parade with a showpiece car he’s spent the last few months working on in tribute to his son, Lavaca County Sheriff’s Deputy Dakota Moreno, who was killed in an off-duty traffic accident last year, just three days before Christmas. He was just 24. “I’d love to wake up one day and realize that all this was just some bad dream,” Abel told us Tuesday, hanging back from the crowd seemed to form wherever he parked that car. But some nightmares just stick with you, it seems, no matter how many times you wake. It seems like only moments ago, his dad said, that Dakota was right here, just as healthy, happy and full of life as anyone. “And It feels like about a million years have...

This next poem made several rounds through the submissions process before someone finally picked it up. It was written on Sept. 2, 2016, as part of a poetry writing workshop I took as part of creative writing class in my MFA program. I was beginning to think it would never get published. As far as poetic works went, I always thought it one of my better offerings. But what did I know? I believe I said already that I didn't consider myself much of a poet. This once was proof positive I didn't have a clue, on many fronts, I suppose. If nothing else, it was definitely the most personal for me, at very least. I wrote about what I was experiencing at that very moment, which, in fact, was said birthday. I had no place to even leave a message, considering how everything worked out at the time.  I'm glad it finally found a home... And now, a few words on fatherhood in a modern age: MY LITTLE GIRL by Bobby Horecka © May 3, 2018 my little girl turned 21 ...

Your favorite outlaw and UHV President Vic Morgan on Friday, April 27. Sometimes you can just look at a dude and tell by the pale pitiful sight of him, he needs a lot more handlebar time than he's been putting in. This picture is proof positive for not just one fellow, but two... And sadly, the elder will probably beat the younger to the punch... UHV president and fellow biker Vic Morgan shook a lot of hands Friday night at the university's ring ceremony event held Friday, April 27, one of many such long, drawn-out events I'm sure he's looking forward to NOT having to do any more once he retires this year. And if the pale, pallid complexions on these two is any indicator, it is none too soon. A few hours of watching life go by on two wheels needs to be in the game plan for both of them. And soon. Something a lot of folks my not know about Dr. Morgan is that in addition to captaining the UHV ship through unprecedented expansions in student numbers and facilitie...

And then there was what might someday soon be my first all-original book. Working title at very least. Not sure I’m 100 percent sold yet. In its current form, it tells 21 stories over at least three generations and 260 pages in 80,500 words. I’m not entirely certain all of the them fit with the stories told throughout the collection or the precise order everything will fall just yet, so there’s plenty still left to do: Most notably in just making it less tome-like. But it is pretty cool to see it all printed and stacked there. On the plus side, it left alone near every existing piece I had working in the can and branched of into some previously uncharted territory. It was kind of exciting to see where the stories carried me and how they ultimately align to tell a much larger overall story. At least I hope. Tis the aim, anyhow. We’ll see, I suppose. So a question I’ve fielded a lot already: What’s it about? Well, it being a collection of linked but separate stories,...

UN FATHER HOOD D addy Daddy I have a joke What is it little bit? OK OK It goes like this Why did the        cookie                                                                                     go to the hospital? I don’t know                         ...