Al Reinert

This article appears in our February 2019 “Love Letters to Texas” collector’s issue. Subscribe today. Frantically squealing and moo­ing, as if somehow aware of their destination, two cows and four calves lurch and bounce through an August Monday morning in the trailer towed by J. B. Haisler’s half-ton Chevy pickup. The cows are ten and twelve years old, the calves about five months, and none has ever before left the cozy 230-acres of pasture that now lie fifty traumatic miles behind them. The c…

An Astrofable The county commissioner was positively indignant at the way everybody, particularly the news media, kept calling the new county facility by the wrong name. “The county built it and the county paid for it,” he loudly complained to a packed hearing room, “and, dammit, the county owns it!” Growing purplish, the commissioner blustered that “People by God ought to start calling it by its right name: The Harris County Domed Stadium!!” “Well,” soothed the agreeable Judge, “you can call it…

This night life ain’t no good life, But it’s my life.” * Willie Nelson wrote “Night Life” more than fifteen years ago—before he’d even moved to Nashville let alone returned—and sold it for $150. Of all the songs he’s written—literally hundreds, including some great ones—it’s probably been recorded by the most performers, more than seventy at last count, ranging from B. B. King to Rusty Draper to Frank Sinatra. A classic barroom lament, the sadly proud confession of a loner’s desperation, it touc…

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