Idle American: An Aggie who did good

He’s likely been a forward thinker since diaper days some 80 years ago.

Glenn Dromgoole, my friend of almost 60 years, probably can trace his can-do spirit back to pre-school tricycle races.

A proud graduate of Sour Lake High School and Texas A&M University, this distinguished journalist, editor, author and entrepreneur has set the pace on many of life’s highways. (He hates it when quotation marks are over used, so let’s dismiss his prejudice forthwith, and maybe backwith, too.)

I dare not compare my feeble efforts to his; such would be a water hose vs. Niagara Falls hydrological mismatch. (Perhaps it’s his kicked-up dust that sets off my allergies - the ones I blame even now - for my paucity of writing awards. Instead, I whimper, pleading for slack cutting, since I ain’t got no awards. A shelf reserved long ago for trophies remains barren, gathering dust, some of it his.

Glenn’s name  is mentioned with the likes of Texas authors J. Frank Dobie, Larry McMurtry, John Graves, Elmer Kelton and A.C. Green - all deceased. He’s still kickin’, always on the look-out for his next book.

This is the opinion of readers applauding his 35 books, numerous booklets, hundreds of columns and now, haikus. (Haikus - a term stolen from the Japanese - have 17 syllables in three lines, with a 5-7-5 word pattern.) He’s also in the Texas Literature Hall of Fame and recipient of the A. C. Green West Texas Festival Literary Award.

(OK, go ahead and admit it. You’ve rarely seen the words literary and Aggie in the same sentence.)

In 1965-66,  he was editor of Texas A&M’s Battalion newspaper, a fierce defender of press freedom. He’d have fought for academic freedom, too, if it had been challenged.

It’s probably well that he’s not editor now. Had current academic freedom brouhahas at Texas A&M University and the University of Texas occurred back then, picketers would have gotten pink slips, and Dromgoole sent packing.

Now age 81, he wrote 80 Thoughts at 80 last year, including such items as: “Way back when, I thought 80 sounded pretty old. Still does. There are so many things I can’t do at 80 that I couldn’t do at 40, either. But I can, still rant, about, commas, that, are in the wrong, place. In dog years, I would be at least 400, but dead a long time ago. My first car was a Chevy Corvair unsafe at any speed - probably because I was driving it. My great-great-great-great uncle, USA Representative George Dromgoole, in 1845 offered a motion (and very long speech) in Congress to annex Texas. He also killed a man in a duel (not about Texas).”

Hit him up for a copy at the Texas Star Trading Company in Abilene, a store that he and wife Carol have operated for 21 years. (She’s there most all of the time, and he, when spirit-stricken.)

Since I’ll be 90 next year, I may write a 90 Thoughts at 90 booklet, even if it’s not as slap-happy as Glenn’s.

Here goes:

First, I’d practice buttoning my shirts from bottom to top. Thus, there’d a better chance of buttons and buttonholes coming out even.

I’ve got 18 months to think of the other 89 thoughts. Why don’t you make your own list, hopefully with some of them instructive?

Why should we be surprised that Glenn would do well? At both Sour Lake and Texas A&M, he made straight A’s! (His teachers claimed, however, that his B’s were a little crooked.)

I close with one of Glenn’s recent haikus from Spirit of Abilene, a weekly online publication edited by Loretta Fulton. She also is a retiree of the Abilene Reporter News, where Glenn was editor.

Here goes Glenn’s haiku thingie, with the correct number of syllables. On first count, I thought it to be one syllable short, but I’ve always been mathematically challenged.

Smile and say thank you--

So much to be thankful for--

Each day is a gift!

*****

Dr. and Mrs. Newbury, married for almost 60 years, reside in the Metroplex. Speaking inquiries, newbury@speakerdoc.com, phone 817-692-5625.

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