In the median strip of I-69 outside of San Benito, TX a historical marker few people ever see keeps a lonely vigil as traffic roars by. The marker commemorates the deaths of hundreds of Mexican-Americans at the hands of the Texas Rangers between 1915 and 1917, a period known as…
Read moreA visit to South Padre Island, TX may leave you rubbing your eyes and looking again. A quick once over reveals miles of golden beaches, palm trees waving gently in the breeze, and the warm waters of the Gulf fanning gently over the sand. The place is not crowded. It’s…
Read moreOn June 12th, 1971 a crew painting the Pelican Island Bridge over the Galveston Ship Channel on the industrial north end of Galveston Island noticed something floating in the water. It was the nude body of a light-skinned African-American girl who had died of strangulation. The laces of her Roman…
Read moreWhen people take precautions to ward off evil spirits they’re either paranoid for no apparent reason or they’ve actually encountered evil spirits and are justifiably wary. The entry doors of the Myrtles Plantation in St. Francesville, Louisiana are surrounded by transoms and sidelights fitted with stained glass representations of the…
Read moreIn the beginning, several thousand years ago, the Natchez Trace was just that—a trace, a vague path trampled in the grass by migrating animals in search of grazing lands. Where the animals went, the hunters followed, ancient Americans from the Mississippian culture who trampled a footpath in the trace in…
Read more“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” That quote by the 19th century philosopher Kierkegaard lies at the heart of the novels written by William Faulkner, one of the giants of American literature. Faulkner believed the reality of one’s life experience almost invariably falls short…
Read moreIn the spring of 1967 record producer extraordinaire Jerry Wexler brought Aretha Franklin to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to record a single at FAME Studios. After recording the song, “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)”, FAME’s owner and head producer Rick Hall got into a fist fight…
Read moreDepending on who you talk to, Katie Autry was either a sweet, innocent young woman who was out of her depth at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green in 2003 or a wild party girl who drank too much, engaged in risky sex and flirted with trouble. Of course, to…
Read moreEven before the newspaper story, even before anyone reported it, a man named Urban Raef awoke in the middle of the night with a foul odor in his nostrils. It was so awful it made him sick. He stumbled into the bathroom and vomited until he was weak. His wife,…
Read moreWithout doubt, one of the biggest surprises for first time visitors to Chicago is the extent and quality of its lakefront beaches. Many don’t even realize that Chicago has a developed waterfront, much less that it boasts twenty-six miles of some of the finest urban beaches in the United States….
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