Category Archives: Uncategorized

From a column a meeting, from a meeting a friendship

IN 1992, NOT long after I had started writing a column for The Houston Post, I received a letter from a reader named Michael Dale, who was very much in disagreement with something I wrote. Unlike most of the ranting … Continue reading

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Bidding farewell to a man who loved laughter

I HAVE MANY photos of my brother, Alejandro Palomo, but these four show how I choose to remember him: a man who adored his family, a man who loved to tell stories, a man who loved to dance, and a … Continue reading

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Activist to the End: She Didn’t Shut Up

A FRIEND died yesterday. Ann Chapman, whom I first got to know in the early 1990s after she wrote me a letter in response to something I had written in my Houston Post column, died early yesterday, at her Corpus Christi … Continue reading

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Seventy-Five Random thoughts on my 75th birthday

TWENTY YEARS ago, when I turned 55, I posted this entry. I updated it and reposted it when I turned 70. Here is an updated collection of random thoughts: As a kid, I would read western comics and invariably I … Continue reading

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Juanzqui’s Pollo con Chayote y Fideo

I got a number of requests for a recipe for this dish, of which I posted a photo on FaceBook. Here it is: What you’ll need: 4-6 whole chicken thighs, or any other parts of the chicken. (I used to … Continue reading

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Speed Queen, North Dakota, 1983

[In the summer of 1983, I talked my Houston Post editors into letting me travel with a migrant family from Crytal City, my South Texas hometown, to the area between Grafton (where I was born) and Grand Forks, ND, where … Continue reading

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Twenty-five tips for being a good writer of opinion pieces

Sometime ago I was asked to speak to a class about opinion writing. This is what I told them: Have something to say and don’t force the reader to wait until the last paragraph to find out what it is. … Continue reading

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Something about her was familiar

[Going through some old papers, I came across this column I wrote for The Houston Post in March 1985, more than five years before I got my long-held wish to be a columnist for that paper, and about six years before my … Continue reading

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Really, Really Quick & Easy Enchilada Sauce

CHEESE ENCHILADAS is one of my favorite dishes, and I (of course!) like them the way my mother prepared them, by dipping a warm corn tortilla in the hot chile sauce she had made with red chile powder, then briefly … Continue reading

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Tasty Reading: Denise Chávez’s ‘A Taco Testimony’

I JUST FINISHED “A Taco Testimony,” by New Mexico novelist Denise Chávez, a perfect read for this time of year when the memories of the holidays and all their warmth linger and still pull us back to the things that sustain … Continue reading

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