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KUT and KUTX news and music podcasts for Austin, Texas and beyond
It’s been 50 years since the publication of Elmer Kelton’s now classic Texas novel, “The Time it Never Rained.” Kelton wrote 50 books and said this was his favorite — he called it his signature work. It won him both the Spur Award and the Western Heritage Award.
Many Texas literary critics consider “The Time it Never Rained” one of the top ten best novels ever written by a Texan about Texas — that includes our commentator WF Strong.
February 7, 2018
At 60, I didn’t expect ever to fall in love again. I thought that sort of euphoric madness that comes with infatuation was all in the past – reserved for younger people. But I was wrong. When she came into my life, the world stopped – and changed forever. I first saw her in photographs. […]
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January 24, 2018
Plumbing The Depths of Jacob’s Well
When settlers first came upon Jacob’s Well near Wimberley around 1850, they did not encounter a swimming hole. They discovered a magical fountain of beautifully clear water, 12 feet in diameter, sometimes spouting four or five feet above the surface. They named it Jacob’s Well because of its Biblical magnificence. Over the next 70 years, […]
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January 10, 2018
A Handy Guide To The Most Texas-Loving Pages On Facebook
Back when Facebook was new on the net, in order to spur participation on the platform, Facebook made a page for every state and issued a challenge: “Let’s see which state can get to a million likes first.” Texas won and won handily. It wasn’t even close. Given Texas’s galactic reputation for state pride, the […]
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December 27, 2017
On The 20th Century, And The 22nd
With 2018 upon upon us, let’s look 100 years back at 1918, and let’s make some guesses about the coming year. In 1918, there were fewer than 250,000 vehicles on the road in Texas. No driver’s license was required, by the way. Given that there were only about 5 million of us back then, we […]
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December 13, 2017
By W. F. Strong As it is Christmas time I got to thinking about the great gifts, money and property, given to the State of Texas over the years. I’m going to tell you about three such gifts that led to a priceless fourth. In 1926, a bachelor banker died in Paris, Texas… a […]
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November 29, 2017
Texas has produced and nurtured a great number of colorful characters, but none more colorful than the prismatic Judge Roy Bean. He squeezed many showy lives into one lifetime. In fact, he didn’t become the Judge Roy Bean that Paul Newman immortalized on film until he was almost 60 years old. This proves my favorite […]
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November 15, 2017
Jules Verne, Texas, and the Moon
The first word uttered on the moon was “Houston.” That was the first word of the longer phrase uttered by Buzz Aldrin: “Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed.” I know there are those who say that there were other jargon words uttered first in the process of landing such as “contact light,” but […]
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November 1, 2017
I was looking at a list of honorary Texans recently. It is quite a long list. Only about a tenth of them would be known to most Texans. John Wayne – no surprise there. The only surprise is that it took until 2015 to make him one. Chuck Norris, born in Oklahoma, was made an […]
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