More than two years have passed since I taught my last class at a hagwon in Daegu. It is human nature to remember the good and forget the bad, and I am no exception. Some of those kids, I loved them dearly. In fact, I think about them almost...
In the fall of 1978, I was back in Texas after spending most of the previous 18 months in Kentucky, Michigan and North Carolina. While working at yet another meaningless job, I decided to offer my services as a basketball coach. Somehow I...
During those long-ago growing-up years, my brother seemed quite certain about the identity of his favorite baseball player: Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees. I liked the Mick too—what was there not to like?—but it was clear...
In the mid- and late 1960s in our section of east Dallas, there were a limited number of ways for an energetic boy—girls just did not do this stuff, sticking to baby-sitting chores—to earn money. I washed cars, but that was...
I recently finished Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life by Richard Ben Cramer and thought I would do a book review of sorts. I read the 515-page tome avidly, underlining and annotating as is my habit. DiMaggio was the subject of numerous...
During my childhood in Dallas, the Civil War was less than a century in the past. It seemed that a lot of people did not want to let go—as if that were such a wonderful and glorious time. The Confederate States of...
In the spring of 1977, I had decided to leave Texas—at least for a while. Behind the wheel of a blue Ford station wagon, I headed in a northeasterly direction. I spent a couple of days in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It was a nice...
I was nine years old and excited if not perplexed when, on April 1, 1962, I opened the sports section of the Dallas Morning News. It contained an article with an accompanying photo which pleased me greatly. Of course, I knew that Roger Maris...
When I was a sophomore at UT (1972), I occasionally ran a few laps around the track at Memorial Stadium and I did so again during a semester at Stephen F. Austin State University (1975). My first race took place four years later in Denton, and...
I did not like Dr. T. Wiley Hodges. Nonetheless, after more than four decades of spinal health I am forced to admit he was highly adept as a surgeon. The circumstances under which I met him were as follows. In the summer of 1969, Don...
During my final two years at Hexter Elementary School, I was a member of the “accelerated class.” This is where teachers—using criteria of which I was not aware—determined who the smart kids were and put them...
“My duties as a father are just about done.” Those words were spoken by my boss, Kyu-Pal Choi, as we sat in his office on Friday afternoon, March 18, 2011. He said them because his daughter, In-Sung, would be tying the knot on...
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