It was almost midnight when the banged-up Dodge Neon began weaving from one lane to another along North Central Expressway, traveling so slowly that it was impeding the normal flow of traffic. As the car approached the Lovers Lane exit, it barely escaped a collision with a fast-moving 18-wheeler, then…
It began as a bright, promising September morning on the sixth floor of the Dallas-based American Airlines headquarters. Staff members were sipping coffee and mingling as they anticipated the morning’s operational meeting. Soon they would be discussing routine items such as flight schedules, maintenance updates and weather conditions at airports…
They were, to those who knew them, young and bright and quickly gaining ground in their race toward the American Dream. Gary Faison, an on-the-fast-track disc jockey for radio station KKDA-AM (730), had long aspired to fame and had begun to receive it, at least locally. Gina Cotroneo was prospering…
Seated on the front row of a crowded Philadelphia courtroom last week, John Maddux, uncomfortable in the slacks and sports coat he’d been wearing for the past two weeks, finally broke into a broad smile. For the reserved man who prefers the jeans and solitude of his rural Alvarado home,…
CEDAR HILL–On ordinary days as the arrival of autumn begins its faint whisper through south Dallas County, they go about their lives like most in this slow-moving suburban community of 30,000. Dr. Paula Brumit welcomes patients who arrive at her small strip-mall dental clinic with a smile and first-name greeting,…
On a recent August evening, 16-year-old T.J. Davis retreated to his room, stretched his 6-foot frame across his bed and stared silently at the greeting card that lay on a nearby end table. Finally, he picked it up, propped it against one of his textbooks and began to write. The…
It has become a tragic summer litany. Elizabeth Smart is kidnapped from her Salt Lake City home at gunpoint. In Stanton, California, a stranger asking help in finding his lost puppy takes Samantha Runnion. In St. Louis, 6-year-old Cassandra Williamson is last seen riding off on the shoulders of a…
You need not bother reading this, Stephen King. Nor you, John Grisham or Mary Higgins Clark or you folks who crank out all that warm and fuzzy “chicken soup” drivel. You brand-name authors, rolling in high-dollar advances, celestial sales numbers and permanent spots on The New York Times best-seller list,…
For the 11-year-old black boy growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, in the ’60s, the steel industry mecca he called home offered a never-ending series of confusing, often humiliating, lessons. Public drinking fountains and rest rooms were marked for “white” and “colored”; blacks were not welcome to sit among whites in…
A hot, dusty Rio Grande Valley day gives way to twilight as people sit in their yards, shaded by wilted mesquite trees. Smoke from outdoor grills hangs in the air, children choose sides for street games and laughing toddlers dance under the spray of a garden hose. A couple of…
The winding footpath that once connected the next-door homes of the two men is now overgrown, lost in a tangle of waist-high weeds and the shadows of the ancient oaks that green this serene Cedar Creek Lake area. Tom Cherry, wandering his back yard with his dogs, points toward the…
To friends and music business associates, 43-year-old Ty Thomas is a former member of a popular early-’90s alternative pop-rock band from Dallas that called itself The Crossing; a gifted but frustrated musician who dropped out, only to recently return as a songwriter with a larger-than-life dream. To another generation, however,…
Twice in the life of 60-year-old Jose Antonio “Tony” Villegas there have been epiphanies that pointed the course for the mission he now religiously pursues. First, had the man in the leather coat not fired a shot that shattered his car window on that Chicago night back in 1979, he…
“What do you know about the Dixie Mafia?””Nothing…They’re not like the organized crime families. There’s a bunch that deals drugs. There’s a bunch that hijack trucks and commit armed robberies…They’re not associated with each other. The only thing they have in common, they’re all violent criminals.”–from Tishomingo Blues It is…
“Sometimes it gets a little crazy. A couple of years ago, our owner hired this guy to ride a buffalo onto the arena floor every time we scored a touchdown. We forgot to tell our players about it, and one of them got run over. Busted a couple of his…
The winter darkness was fast approaching, normally the signal to Dallas’ street people to begin seeking safety and shelter. Their retreat would have to wait, though, as people like Sundance and Sweetie Pie, Big Chief and Lonnie began to gather with a hundred or so others in a parking lot…
ALPINE–Out in the heart of the sand-blown Trans-Pecos region of Texas where, as an ancient cowboy poet once wrote, “the rainbows wait for rain,” things literary generally take a backseat to the dreary essentials of survival. There’s just not much time for leisure reading when a well needs digging, fences…
Lonnie Barber, janitor-driver for the New London School, watched as young children climbed aboard his bus, laughing and horseplaying. The elementary school students–released 10 minutes earlier than their junior high and high school classmates–were in particularly high spirits that springlike Thursday afternoon of March 18, 1937. The next day had…
“I’d like to thank Bob St. John for reminding me of a lot of stories I’ve been trying very hard to forget.” –sports columnist Frank Luksa In the landscape of local journalism, the Distinguished Soup Nose Award has for years remained a closely guarded secret, its winners reluctant to brag…
“It is not known precisely where angels dwell–whether in the air, the void, or the planets. It has not been God’s pleasure that we should be informed of their abode…” Voltaire There were carols and warm holiday-season embraces as those who had come gathered near the Christmas tree to contribute…
In the black pre-dawn of a 1998 summer morning, Carrollton resident Jack Laivins was munching on an apple and trying to find an early newscast on his car radio as he drove toward work along Keller Springs Road. At 4:30 a.m. on that July 23, the technical specialist for the…
The yellow school bus rolled into the oncoming December darkness, headed toward Abilene, carrying with it a cargo of teen-age boys who just hours earlier had been celebrating the rewards of an undefeated junior varsity football season. Our prize had been a trip to Dallas and the historic old Cotton…
