No one has to tell me on a vacation when it is time to go home.

Data taken from the American Human Development Project’s third national report, Measure of America 2013-2014, showed that Texas is ranked Number 30 in life span, with an average life expectancy of 78.5. Gulp---I turned 67 this past week.

Hanukkah, the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights, is a holiday that can be enjoyed by Jew and Gentile alike. You gotta love a holiday that includes jelly doughnuts. But there are other non-edible reasons to appreciate the festival, particularly if you are an American.

When Lanny and I decide on an anniversary gift each year, it is a joint decision and may range from the practical to the very whimsical. This year, we were both excited to give each other the shingles vaccine. For my birthday the next month, however, I requested something personal. Vacuum cleaners, floor mats, and exterminator contracts are NOT personal.

Unfortunately, some members of the younger generation have never heard these very important words. The grocery store checker may know about thingamajigs and perhaps even a dillybobber but he can’t help you find a doomaflatchie.

Did you ever receive a chain letter? I’m talking about the old-fashioned kind delivered by the US Post Office, not some trivial email that was FORWARDED to you instructions to pass it on to dozens of your “friends.” Great emphasis was always placed on NOT breaking the chain of letters.

I watch in amazement the singers like Celine Dion, Kelly Clarkson, or Dolly Parton, when they’re holding the long notes and their larynxes tremor with vibrato. It’s not the dangle-like-a-punching-bag epiglottis that gets my attention. It’s the TV camera close-up of their bottom teeth. They’re white! I figure they’ve either had dental implants or they’ve replaced their silver fillings with caulk.

This fall, Congress has an important opportunity to create jobs and grow the economy by passing a long-term, comprehensive Food, Farm and Jobs Bill. The Farm Bill impacts every American, every day by providing a wide range of programs that strengthen our nation.

The Marfa Lights viewing area. photo by Russell A. Graves

One of my Elderwriters, the late Jack Frost McGraw, remembered the original Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1918. She was a second grade student at Sherman’s Jefferson School (then on Chaffin St.), and it was a bright November morning. The pupils were engaged in their opening exercises (the Lord’s Prayer and Pledge of Allegiance), when Miss Evorie (the principal) rushed in to announce that the war was over. Students were told to go home to celebrate.

Anyone who doubts that technology causes major changes in human history should go to YouTube and watch the short documentary film entitled “The Plow that Broke the Plains.” Completed in 1936 as a WPA project, it shows what happened to the Great Plains region of the US and Canada after the steel plow triggered uncontrolled agricultural farming, resulting in the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

I thought I was ID-compliant when I went to early-vote last week, but "The Computer" said I was wrong.