1,000 words

Charley Hogan? He’s nobody. Just a drifter. A bum. Nobody. This is not the whole story, obviously. It’s just a short story about an old man easily overlooked and mostly forgotten.

I was raised on the Brazos River with dreams of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer in my mind and adventure in my soul. I have always found peace in the river…peace like a river.

A gunslinger and a rawboned kid in a chance meeting on the west Texas plains spend an uneasy – and heart-warming – night beneath the stars.

I have always been too proud. Few things will fix pride more thoroughly than a hospital bed and a healthy dose of prune juice.

My wife Donya and I were making babies and having kids while we were still kids in the 1980s. It was the time of Lamaze classes and natural childbirth. Breathe…

My father William David Strother was the artist of the deal. He was a salesman par excellence. This is his story…well, a shortened version of a small part of his story.

The story of Dr. Ted Hicks, a preacher, a man of God, a man on fire.

A Hurricane Katrina victim inspires the insurance adjuster sent to assess her loss (as if he could). “Some through the flood” will break your heart and make you think about the things that really matter.

The ninth in a 10-essay series. “Among my souvenirs” is the story of how author L. A. Holly – Gene Strother – came into possession of one of his most-prized treasures. It is also a story of generational love and a peek at history.

The tenth in a 10-essay series. “Before the Clay Hardens” is a very personal insight into the ways of God and grace and how they trump the mess we sometimes make of things.