The One About The Horned Toad

I was 9 years old when the series of great adventures with Dad began. He was heavily into building and shooting muzzleloaders, and the first adventure was to Brady, located near the exact center of Texas and home to the state muzzleloader championship.

I remember how I excited I was for the trip, which was in June 1972. (I also remember summer 1972 as a great one in my boyhood for some reason.) I fell asleep in the car somewhere on the east side of Austin. It was a time when young kids rode in the front seat, hardly anyone wore seat belts, cars got about eight miles to the gallon and a lot of people just tossed their trash out of their car windows.

When I awoke, we were well west of Austin, and the Hill Country landscape caught me by surprise. Lots of limestone and cactus. A fox scampered across the road right in front of the car. I remember tasty barbecue sandwiches at some rustic place.

Suddenly, Dad pulled over the car, got out, pulled off his cowboy hat and began stalking something on the shoulder. He caught whatever it was, brought it back to the car and handed it to me. It was a horned toad.

Over the course of the next few days, that horned toad was my companion. He would just cling to my shirt. I kept him in a Folger's coffee can. Not knowing what horned toads ate, I just fed him lettuce and tomatoes.

By day, Dad and I shot muzzleloaders, and by night we sat around campfires as geezers fired up guitars, fiddles and their creaky old voices. It was a world of Texas characters, the kind that humanity just doesn't make anymore.

Sadly, the horned toad died. Regardless of whether it starved or baked to death in the Folger's can, I knew it was my fault. I learned a great lesson about keeping the wild things where they belong. We held a tearful roadside funeral for him on the way back to Houston.

Anytime my boys, 8 and 9, capture some wild thing in the yard, like a lizard or a toad, and want to keep it, I remind them of the one about the horned toad. Passing along knowledge is part of this new chapter. They have reached the age of the great adventures with Dad, and my goal is to make the most of it. From sporting events to camping to just eating hot dogs and watching the Texas Rangers, I know that these are the times that they will remember most.

And if nothing else, perhaps one particular lesson I learned long ago and passed on to my boys will save some poor horned toad from an untimely death.

It's All In The Coats

The collection of a dozen or so coats in the closet these days represents more than various fashions and means of keeping warm.

Hidden in the pockets are personal historical items in the form of event tickets, wedding invitations and funeral programs. One coat has the program for my father's funeral in January 2007, while another has the program for my mom's funeral in September 2008.

Mixed in are a variety of receipts and even silly things such as tiny bottles of soap for blowing bubbles to send off a new bride and groom. A tuxedo's pockets hold flyers from formal events, while a blue-jean jacket's pockets preserve items from more down-to-Earth affairs.

Creating pocket museums in coats has been going on since college in the early 1980s. Coats have come and gone, as well as the myriad items stashed away in their pockets.

Three years ago this month, I interviewed for the Tyler Morning Telegraph business editor position. During a time of industry turmoil, I badly wanted out of corporate journalism and to land in the kind of indepenent, family-run operation I'd experienced and enjoyed in Georgetown and Killeen so many years ago.

It was love at first sight for this wonderful Tyler community, and every day here and at the newspaper validates the reasons for the scenery change.

The suit I wore for the interview in late October 2008 was a bit tight around the midsection, and the suit has sat unworn in the closet ever since.

Until today.

Having lost about 20 pounds in the last month through diet and exercise, I put on the suit this morning to gleefully discover a perfect fit, far more comfortable than it was three years ago. I'll be wearing it tonight for a community event.

A quick pocket check uncovered the receipt for the hotel where I stayed the night before the Tyler Morning Telegraph interview. And, like it was for the community, it equally was love at first sight for this company. A simple receipt brought me back to that moment in time, a life-change symbol almost as powerful as the programs for my deceased father and mother.

More historical pocket treasures await in the coat pockets of a long-discarded other suit that remains fashionable and has been dragged around for years in the hope that I will slim down enough to wear it again.

Maybe some day, many years from now, a program for my sons' weddings will find their way into that coat pocket. And I'll already have the decades-old bubbles on hand to send them off into their new life chapters.