On boots and bars and motorbikes...

Weeklong songwriting retreat for veterans to host first in-person event since pandemic By BOBBY HORECKA , Managing Editor,  Lavacian: Lavaca County Farm & Home , Fall 2022 Published in Hallettsville, Texas, USA, Nov. 1, 2022 We lined up the vehicles getting ready for war just like we’d done 1,000 times before we talked about the mission and what could go wrong no matter what would happen we would stay Army strong…   Staff Sgt. Bobby Henline, in country in Afghanistan Bobby Henline has a knack for making people laugh, though you’d hardly expect it, just to look at him. Mainly because the retired Staff Sergeant always had such a serious look about him, even before the U.S. Army got ahold of him. It continues to be one of his most disarming features, a look he’s mastered as he makes his rounds on stages the world over. Not long before he left the Army, Henline was challenged by a friend to try his hand at comedy. He signed up for an open-mic night, and later, kept at his cra...

A San Marcos mainstay, Bill Cunningham was often seen roaming around the city, donning a fedora and sunglasses, and talking books, history and general coolness. A writer, activist and former Texas State University regent, Cunningham died Thursday. He was 69. He was remembered by friends and loved ones as thoughtful, witty and well-loved. “Bill was kind of an icon in San... https://www.mystatesman.com/news/local-obituaries/writer-activist-and-san-marcos-icon-bill-cunningham-dies/1sU8170kfoJf6ocRXpcpKP/ -30- I ran across that bit of news, wishing a buddy of mine from San Marcos a happy birthday. I came to find out he's libel to be locked up for the next three to five (if he's lucky--something about lugees and cops, again, and a string of other litanies--strike two for him). Another friend told me that shortly before he told me he's off to Georgia soon. The same fellow, in fact, who introduced me to the other fellow in the news obit. I'm just getting old, I ...

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,...

You met my dog, Hico, in my last installment. We were talking about how you could pick up on all sorts of things from a dog's bark, if you learned how to listen. And as promised, allow me to introduce said possum. (Don't get too attached to him.) And here's where we left off: There’s the choppy, the-puppies-are-missing bark, usually in concert with some other hound (or hounds), clear across town. You can almost make out each dot and dash of their canine Morse code, passing on their messages in a sort of doggy dictation. Then there’s the throatier, stouter “BA-ruff!” she slings at most passersby. It’s the this-is-my-yard-so-you-best-keep-walking bark. Works like a charm, most days, especially when you toss in that tremendous leap of hers. Few and far between are those who loiter on my block. Finally, you’ve got the break-out-straight-jacket, aliens-have-landed, ninjas-are-on-the-roof bark. It’s about five parts wolf pack, three parts Rottweiler and two parts get-your-ass...

James HETFIELD - Full Show at Acoustic 4 a Cure - 15 May 2014 - Fillmore...