profiles
Never tell me the odds: Young marriage in an aging institution
Preston reaches for the red Merriam-Webster dictionary in protest. Hurriedly, he navigates the sea of words to the O’s, Oa’s, and Oak’s; he frowns and looks up. Oakier is not a word. He removes his letter tiles and reassesses his Scrabble situation. Twenty-two year old Preston is quite tall, and twenty-three year old Breanna quite short.
The life and times of Greg Mansur
After spending thirty minutes unraveling the story of his childhood with cloudy nostalgia, Professor Mansur reaches for his last sip of coffee. “Next question” he insists, with a slightly homogenized Texas-Boston accent, as he throws the empty coffee cup in the trash.
The modern Renaissance poet
If Albert Einstein and Emily Dickinson had a child, I imagine he would turn out something like Bill Hamlett, perhaps with frizzier hair. Admittedly it’s nine o’clock in the evening and Bill has been working on a new poem for hours, but he seems giddy, almost mad scientist-like.
The essence of Becky Long
If Becky Long were a candy, there is no doubt she would be a Sour Punch Straw. While the outside is covered in crystallized sugar, the inside is like a karate kick in your mouth. Becky is 5’3”, has a flat stomach, a sweet and welcoming voice, a contagious smile and the rare ability to keep a conversation going with anyone she meets.
Homilies
Steven Bell sat in the small bedroom of his apartment on The Drag, a prominent shopping and restaurant strip in downtown Austin, TX. It was the perfect location to live for someone of his stature. A 6 foot 2, 42-year-old African American man who looked as though he were built for the Dallas Cowboys, Bell put on his black cowboy boots and walked up to a full-length mirror. He was wearing black slacks and his cleric.