My name is Ryan Self, and I am an only child. It's a confession I usually hesitate to make because it means I'll have to respond to a number of misconceptions about only children, "Oh, you must be really spoiled," or "Gee, you must have been really lonely growing up" being common ones. I may not understand a few of the odd traditions some ... [Read More…]

"They think he'll walk again," Renee's voice wavered, almost imperceptibly, as she strung together five words no one wants to say about their little  brother. From my dorm room in Abilene, 300 hundred miles away, I continued to listen as my typically matter-of-fact friend became uncharacteristically silent over the phone. This couldn't ... [Read More…]

I tasted my very first Girl Scout Cookie when I was in second grade. My older sister had recently joined the classic American organization popular among young girls and naturally my mom bought a few different boxes of the cookies. It was a Samoa, or Caramel deLites as they are also called, and after just one bite of the hexagon-shaped cookie, I was ... [Read More…]

Public restrooms wrecked my faith in humanity. The whole idea of sharing a toilet with hundreds of my closest strangers has always made me a bit queasy, but once I started to notice how many people left the restroom without washing their hands my faith was shattered. People I saw at school and church on a regular basis  would walk out of the ... [Read More…]

The buzzword for 2011, at least so far, seems to be bipartisanship, with America's "reds" and "blues" both promising cooperation and civility. However, history dictates it won't last. Responses from Congress and President Obama to the tragic shootings in Tucson, Ariz., earlier this month were commendable. The assassination attempt on ... [Read More…]

Barbarossa By Matthew Woodrow When I was younger, I really liked cars. I even had a bed frame that looked like a racecar. Preparing for the day, I would get to drive at high speeds, I would race around the house pell-mell, never looking where I was going. Being the awkward, gangly boy I was, I often ran into things. My mom would yell at me, ... [Read More…]

It had been a long week. My sophomore year I had been working eight-hour shifts the entire week leading up to Christmas as a checker at the United Supermarket back home in Lubbock. For hours I would check out lines of customers, usually several people long, that stretched well into the aisles. The stress level of the customers grew as we all ... [Read More…]

I was nervous. I was anxious. Questions of success and failure loomed in my head and even caused a few tears here and there. Yes, I may have just been six years old, but these were real concerns in tumultuous times. Yet when the day came, I donned my new red and blue plaid jumper, took one last look at my mom and dad, sighed a deep breath of ... [Read More…]

This Thanksgiving gave me ample time to think about what I was thankful for. I had to work on Black Friday at my job here in Abilene, so after a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with my Grandma, I made the drive back to the Big Country. My roommates and I discovered a couple of weeks ago as the first real cold front came in that we had a gas leak. ... [Read More…]