Texas Ingenuity

Imagination is bigger in Texas, too. This collection of inspiring and often quirky stories highlights dozens of examples of innovation from Lone Star history. The Hamill brothers devised a better oil well to reach gushers at Spindletop. The first Neiman-Marcus store opened in Dallas in 1907, revolutionizing the retail fashion world. Astroturf emerged at the Astrodome in 1966. Fritos and corn dogs are just two ubiquitous snack foods claimed as Texan originals. Houston native, and civil rights activist, Congresswoman Barbara Jordan rose to national prominence as a voice of unity during the Watergate scandal. Author Alan C. Elliott details these and many more lessons in success in Texas Ingenuity.

This book is a collection of informative, and sometimes quirky, stories about Lone Star innovators, inventors and inventions. Each story emphasizes a Texas connection and shows how Texas ingenuity, determination or sheer dumb luck made the person or product famous and successful.

Elliott presents a collection of informative and sometimes quirky stories about Lone Star innovators, inventors, and inventions. Each story emphasizes a Texas connection and shows how Texas ingenuity, determination, or sheer dumb luck made the person or product famous and successful.

Texas Hill Country is a rugged and hilly area of central Texas known for its food, architecture and unique melting pot of Spanish and European settlers. The area's rich history is filled with quirky and fascinating tales about this landscape and the animals and people who have called it home. Clay Coppedge has been gathering Texas stories for over thirty years. This collection of his favorite columns includes his best Texas-sized stories on Hill Country history. From the legend of Llano's Enchanted Rock and the true story of Jim Bowie's famous knife to one rancher's attempt at bringing reindeer to the hottest area of the country and an oilman's search for Bigfoot, Hill Country Chronicles has them all and more.

A moving collection of essays on aging and happiness Drawing on more than six decades' worth of lessons from his storied career as a writer and professor, Willard Spiegelman reflects with candid humor and sophistication on growing old. Senior Moments is a series of discrete essays that, when taken together, constitute the life of a man who, despite Western cultural notions of aging as something to be denied, overcome, and resisted, has continued to relish the simplest of pleasures: reading, looking at art, talking, and indulging in occasional fits of nostalgia while also welcoming what inevitably lies ahead. Spiegelman's expertly crafted book considers, with wisdom and elegance, how to be alert to the joys that brim from unexpected places even as death draws near. Senior Moments is a foray into the felicity and follies that age brings; a consideration of how and what one reads or rereads in late adulthood; the eagerness for, and disappointment in, long-awaited reunions, at which the past comes alive in the present. A clear-eyed book of memories, written in eight searching and courageously honest essays, Senior Moments is guaranteed to stimulate, stir, and restore.