I’m from Houston. I was born here but in my initial primitive years I did not grow up here. We moved around from the early 60s till the early 70s before resettling in my hometown. Half of that time I spent in England. When I left, America was still in the afterglow of Camelot and when I returned, the civil strife of the Summer of Love was winding down. I left when men still wore fedoras and women wore pink polkadot dresses and both wore their Sunday best to fly on airplanes; when I came back, it was long hair held in place with leather head bands and peace signs hanging from necks. Everything was groovy, or so we were told.
Then came disco. Let us forever forget Saturday Night Fever.
Whether it was the shock of me being dropped into the chaos of changing times or the fact that Mom was a diehard Republican, I have always considered myself a Republican. In 1970s Texas, Republicans were still frowned upon as carpet baggers and country club snobs. In 1979, Bill Clements became the first Republican governor of Texas since the finale of reconstruction in 1874. Texans hold grudges—sometimes lasting 105 years.
I was here in Houston when Ronald Reagan had his very own golden escalator moment (it was a golden glass elevator) on the first campaign stop after being officially coronated in Detroit. I shook his hand, as well as Clements’ and George Bush’s. Kind of cool. In a mock-election held in our school in 1976, Jimmy Carter beat Ford going away. In 1980, my fellow students realized Carter was a lightweight. Times were indeed changing.
I’m a Texas Aggie. No, not a Texas A&M Aggie. There is no such thing. Aggie is short for Agricultural, as in Agricultural and Mechanical. Oxymorons from ESPN can’t quite understand that. Regardless, I was exposed to conservative and socialist thought by a very well-balanced staff—made up of mostly conservatives—who held their convictions tight to their chest so we could all decide for ourselves; the way it was and should be again. I earned my B.S. in political science and I’m perfectly qualified to spread BS. Hopefully it won’t be too thick.
Just after college, I first heard a fellow by the name of Rush Limbaugh on the radio, and I was finally able to say, with a straight face, that I was a conservative. So much for my introduction into politics.
I began my career at the Houston Post in the mid-80s with the full intention of becoming the next Woodward and Bernstein (thank God I became neither). I met the woman of my dreams, knew that we couldn’t make a go of it on a journalist’s salary, and I began working as a market intelligence consultant. I wrote hundreds of soul-sucking private subscription reports for 20 years. To this day, I have a total aversion to phones because of the thousands of interviews I completed for those reports.
Around 2002 I was sucked into controversy concerning the public schools’ disciplinary system affectionately known as Zero Tolerance. Before it became cool to storm the school boards, our little group did such things. We also stormed the Texas Legislature which ended with two laws, signed by Rick Perry, supporting our efforts. I declared victory and faded back into obscurity.
During that period, I became involved in politics. I ran for school board twice. I lost both; the second time I gained the most votes—at that time, at least—of any loser in school district history for which I am very proud. I’m not sure that the winner gained the most votes of any winner; it was a 2020-like election where the vote counting was questionable—they ran ballots through twice before realizing the error of their ways. The morning after, I was so damned relieved that I didn’t win. But I learned while it’s great to rattle the cages of the stupid, the real corruption is elsewhere.
I drifted away from politics and market intelligence consulting and finally declared myself semi-retired. I’m not really sure what that’s supposed to be. But if it’s lazy and fat, then I’m all over it.
I had always written fiction, mostly short stories, from the time I was in high school till the time we had our daughter—almost 31 years ago as of this writing. With the appearance of my son, my writing endeavors were officially put on hiatus. I started again around 2004, finishing a novel that put War and Peace to shame. That novel will never be published. I started my second during the Age of WuFlu. At 100,000 words, it is within striking distance of acceptable publishing length for a first-time novelist. Whether it’s good enough for a first-time novelist we’ll have to see. I’m having a bit of trouble on the second draft and so here we are. I need another outlet so I’m not all consumed with the book. That’s what this is.
I gave this a long, hard thought. The Age of Cancel Culture dictates that you must be anonymous with the hopes that the Fascist Fairies with Pixie Dust won’t come sprinkling (and no, that’s not a disparaging comment on gender fluidity). But the concern is that my hopeful novelist endeavors won’t be nuked by some Ivy League-trained sycophant who wouldn’t know a deep thought if they sank to the bottom of the sea. When I was the leader in our little political movement, I instructed people in our group to always use their real names when lobbing grenades from behind computer screens. That kept it honest. So, I will try to keep it honest. I can’t be fearful of speaking my mind, especially when there are real patriots in the world who are risking their jobs and families to just say no.