Texas Monthly May 2022

ONE OF THE LONGEST RELATIONSHIPS IN MY LIFE HAS BEEN WITH A FERN Staghorn ferns are finicky about nearly everything. Named for its antler-shaped fronds, this genus of tropical plant is not native to anywhere remotely near Texas. But Scott Brown’s grandfather constructed ideal living conditions for his fern at his Houston home and cared for it obsessively. Scott inherited the staghorn, now a massive, natural bowl shape more than five feet across. He reflects on his long relationship with the fern, which is only a few years younger than he is. TEACHERS SOUND THE ALARM ON WHAT’S HAPPENING IN SCHOOLS COVID-19 has introduced extraordinary new obstacles for K–12 educators in Texas—challenges that haven’t gone away more than two years after the first school closures. Forrest Wilder and Maya Mojica spoke with current…

Josh Alvarez, the senior editor who directs our coverage of arts and entertainment, is a first-generation American. His mother, a high school associate principal, hails from Colombia. His father, who founded a wholesale jewelry business in Chicago, was born in Cuba. They were determined that their son take advantage of the opportunities this country offers—and he has done them proud. A gifted student (straight A’s), musician (piano and viola), and athlete (rugby and soccer), Josh won admission to Stanford University. Inspired by trips his parents organized to Europe and Latin America, he majored in international relations. Those family trips also exposed him to the work of journalists, including ones he saw covering protests in Spain against that country’s involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. His first foray into journalism was…

“Unlike most of the Texanist’s offerings, his March column seems to be long on his own verbosity and short on examples.” Film Schooled I read the Texanist column on Texas in the movies [March 2022], and I think you missed the most absurd imagining of Texas: the fifties Disney movie Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier places the eroded canyons of far West Texas on the Arkansas border. DOUGLAS LAYCOCK, AUSTIN The Texanist claims that the wonderful television program 9-1-1: Lone Star is “absurd” and that he can take only so much of it. Well, I wonder why he didn’t provide any specifics from the show that he thinks is so out of tune. Unlike most of the Texanist’s offerings, his March column seems to be long on his own verbosity and short…

Here is why Clinton Manges belongs in a black hat: he is a convicted felon; he has corrupted a judge; he has manipulated two banks; he has resisted paying his taxes; he has resisted paying his bills; he has resisted repaying his loans; he has resisted paying his lawyers; he has written hot checks to the state; he has feuded with friends and business associates. ¶ There are places where a past of that sort isn’t a barrier to political power (Louisiana comes to mind), but before Clinton Manges, Texas wasn’t one of them. ¶ At halftime of the Gunslingers’ game [Manges owned the San Antonio Gunslingers, a franchise in the United States Football League] Manges moved upstairs to the owner’s box, an unadorned section of the press level with…

Paul Burka, who joined Texas Monthly in 1974, a year after its founding, and stayed until 2016, was perhaps best known as “the dean of Texas political writers.” In truth, he could do it all. Though he has now retired, Paul, a great thinker, was also a great reporter and a great writer, a triumvirate that is rare in journalism. He grew up in the baroque, byzantine world of Galveston politics and commerce, honed his intellect at Rice University, and toiled as counsel to the Senate Natural Resources Committee in the Legislature before finding a home at Texas Monthly. No one had a deeper understanding of Texas power—its heroes and villains, its uses and abuses. “The Man in the Black Hat” is one great example of that understanding in a life’s…

The monikers and nicknames we’ve doled out to most fish species tend toward the obvious. You don’t have to be an avid angler or an ichthyologist (a scientist who studies fish)—heck, you don’t even need much of an imagination—to notice that speckled trout have speckles, for example. Gulf toadfish look like you-know-what. And guess what kind of sound Atlantic croakers make? ¶ When it comes to the delicious Archosargus probatocephalus, a species found along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, we have two naming options. Some call it the convict fish because the black-and-white vertical markings on its flat, oval body are reminiscent of the stripes worn by prisoners. The fish’s more common name is a little more creative: the sheepshead. ¶ “It has these front teeth that stick out,” explained…