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Readers may recall my recent column about my gentleman friend’s puzzle snobbery and his preference for what I call “phony” puzzles – you know, those teensy-weensy puzzles you work on your phone? But as the commercial says… wait, there’s more!
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I was thinking about the concept of friendship not too long ago and I came to realize that I have different levels of friendship for the different types of relationships that I am involved in. Not different levels of people, of course, that would make me some sort of a bigot, which I sincerely hope that I am not.
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Once again, my adopted hometown of Navasota knocked it out of the park – this time with the 9th Annual Texas Birthday Bash! Instead of being on-the-job behind my Nikon Saturday night, I was able to sit and enjoy the music and “people watch” with my gentleman friend, and it’s my opinion that the colorful stage lighting could have been powered by the illumination of the smiling faces alone. I know we have readers with a different opinion on mask wearing, but it’s mine that the mask-free happy, smiling faces were a beautiful sight to behold and long overdue.
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How great is it to have a rich uncle? Someone who has your back and takes care of you by slipping you a few bucks every now and then.
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We are now one year into the COVID-19 pandemic, and if this incident has taught us anything, it is that we all need each other. At the beginning, officials talked about “essential” workers and “non-essential” workers. News media was immediately deemed essential because of our vital role in pro viding updates to the community, and we take that role very seriously at The Examiner.
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I was recently at a civic meeting which began with The Pledge of Allegiance and it gave me pause to think about the words of that text and what they really mean. I have spoken those words thousands of times over the years, but I had never really contemplated the deeper meaning of the work itself. Writers choose certain words as part of their craft to convey certain emotions, feelings, and inferences. This was certainly the case when The Bellamy Salute was originally written in 1892 which became known as The Pledge of Allegiance in 1923. Here is my close reading of Our Pledge.
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It is Friday afternoon, and I am predicting a very frustrating week ahead. I realize that I have a vivid imagination and that I expect things to go wrong more often than they do. Every New Year’s Eve I sit on the sofa and practically cover my ears expecting the explosion from a Times Square attack to be heard in Plantersville. It never happened.
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It amazes me to see what has become of the Astrodome. This building, once widely regarded as the “eighth wonder of the world,” has fallen into a severe state of disrepair. The dome long ago stopped being home to Houston’s major sports teams. Now, with no Astros to bang their trash cans, no Oilers to kick in the door (and who now reside in Tennessee), and no longer the host location for the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, there is little incentive for the City of Houston to continue paying for its upkeep.
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