Last Labor Day weekend we were in Frontier Anglers in Dillon MT chatting it up with the owner, our good friend Tim Tollett. I don’t know how I could have missed this over the past few years but for the first time his ring caught my eye and I asked him if it was new. [...]
Have you ever heard of Arlie Duff? He was a middle school teacher and songwriter from Texas, prominent in the 1950s, and garnered the nickname “The Singing School Teacher.” He only had one hit song of his own as a singer, Yall Come, an upbeat country staple that has been covered by a coterie of [...]
My friend Joe Willauer, who is a board member of the Big Hole Watershed, asked if I would talk a little about the organization’s efforts and asked me to share exactly why I love the Big Hole River. One might assume I am going to wax on with poetic descriptions of the Swiss-like mountainous views, [...]
The Professor and I celebrated our second anniversary yesterday in Alabama with a Sunday drive down to the beach. I always love the beach during winter, but since it was about 70K degrees, it really just felt like a spring day without any crowds or traffic (i.e. heaven.) Speaking of heaven, we kicked off our [...]
The more I learn about Hank Williams the more fascinated I become. This Alabama music legend with a tragically short career captured the hearts of millions with his magnetic onstage performances, wrote one poetic hit after the next, and lives on in honky tonk lore as an icon and near cult-like figure. As I was [...]
Running the gauntlet from Thanksgiving to New Years is a fun ride but let’s be honest, it leaves me feeling dizzy, out of control and a wee bit nauseous. We have officially entered that phase where any new appointments, projects, lunches all have to be scheduled “after the holidays”. My thoughts are jumbled, as if [...]
I’m in a massive time crunch before I leave town in the morning so I have been racking my brain with what to post on my way out the door. Let’s see, what’s been happening lately? Hmm…I wonder, I wonder. Well, Hostess is closing its doors, Austin has been consumed by Formula 1 racing all [...]
Turns out my favorite Belizean food is traditional Salvadorian food. You see, I have recently discovered the magic of The Pupusa. It took me a while to conquer the pronunciation but the gastronomical lovefest was instantaneous. More on that in a moment. First things first… I may have already mentioned that we stayed at the [...]
The Southern Coterie website recently posted about a new-to-me music duo called The Secret Sisters, a lovely harmonizing pair that hail from Alabama. Which made me think about all the good music that comes from the yellowhammer state. Hello Muscle Shoooaals? (I don’t have time to hold your hand on this, if you don’t know [...]
Last weekend was hardly the first New Orleans rodeo for this group of 40-something moms, not by a long shot. Some in our group are nawlins born and bred, some live there now, others have a vacation pad there, several are Jazzfest regulars, others went to Tulane, and some of us just choose to spend [...]
Flyfishing is my only real hobby simply because I can’t figure out how to claim honkytonking as an actual hobby. Cause then I’d have two. I love old honkytonk music, and I mean I L-O-V-E love it. Not to brag, but I know it pretty well too. Luckily my husband loves me loving it, he [...]
When I married the Professor we decided, for sanity’s sake, to keep our respective homes in Austin and Mobile and move into each other’s existing houses instead of muddling through the headache of selling and buying anything new. Cohabitating in two states is tricky enough. Plus we love both houses and both neighborhoods so it [...]
They grow up so fast, don’t they? It’s hard to believe that one year ago today my book, Paddlefish, was released out into the wild for public consumption. What a year it has been! I loved hitting the road for book signings and speaking engagements, seeing old friends and meeting new ones. I can’t thank [...]