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Doris “Dorie” Miller

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November 1, 2018

Mess Attendant First Class Doris “Dorie” Miller was born in Waco in 1919, the son of a couple of parents…

NO F***ING GOOD

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November 1, 2018

One of my all time favorite movies is “Scent of a Woman”, starring Al Pacino as a blind veteran that…

Boerne Performing Arts 2019 Season

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November 1, 2018

Keep Calm and Carry On… a motivational poster produced by the British government in 1939 in preparation for World War…

Auntie Marj’s Guide to Surviving the Holidays

Well readers, can you believe it’s time for the holidays already? How did this possibly happen, what did we, enter a time warp or something? Here at HQ we haven’t even put away slip & slide! Of course, we still haven’t cleared up last year’s Thanksgiving paraphernalia either and there’s a stack of Dukakis yard…

Old Timer

We’re going to talk about one of the most controversial topics in all of Boerne. One that separates people, has led to gunfights, and has almost torn the entire town apart. Gateway Loop? Growth? $chultz’s beard? Nah. We’re going to talk about the River Road Park and Old Timer’s demands for how to fix things…

Publisher’s Letter – October ’18

Dearest EXPLORE reader, I knew a guy earlier in my life that was really the life of the party. He was extremely outgoing, the girls loved his charm and confidence, and when he entered the room the lights got a little brighter and the volume was turned up. He lived in a nice area of…

Badass of the Month – Santa Anna

There is probably no more famous villain in all of Texas lore than that of Generalissimo Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón , otherwise simply historically known as SANTA ANNA. Yes, THAT guy. The one that killed all the soldiers at the Alamo. Hated by the entire population of…

Old Timer – Sept 2018

God bless the Boerne Star. They did what is one of my all time favorite annual issues, which is their “BEST OF” issue. Now, MOST of the categories contain legit winners. From “Best AC Company” to “Best Housekeeper”, I am sure that these categories are won by companies that truly are some of the BEST…

Publisher’s Letter – September 2018

Dearest EXPLORE reader, Coach Stan Leech retired from coaching this past month. He was my basketball coach from ’90-’94 and I couldn’t even begin to start laying out the memories from those years as they would be an encyclopedia. Boerne was a different town in those times, and we were all just a bunch of…

From The Publisher

DEAREST EXPLORE READER, James Robertson is a factory worker in Detroit. Each day he wakes up and begins a 21-mile journey to his job that pays $10.55/hour. He has no car, so James walks that distance each day. At the end of his 8 hour shift, he reverses course, and completes his 42 mile roundtrip…

Unwanted Guests

For a long time I’ve been wanting to tell you the story of a Connecticut Yankee who, before he became famous as one of the first American landscape architects and the guy who designed New York’s Central Park, the grounds of the US Capitol building, the Biltmore estate in North Carolina, university campuses all over…

Old Timer

You just moved to Boerne? That’s great! When you’re done unpacking and installing your enormous security lighting system, I need you to come back to this article and review a few things that we all need you to understand. As Boerne’s newest citizen, PLEASE take at least a few minutes to recognize how to assimilate…

From The Publisher

Dearest EXPLORE Reader, When I was in college, I worked at the Rainbow Play Systems showroom on weekends in Lubbock. It was a pretty cushy job, I liked the owner (who was also named Ben), and the pay was pretty good. I could get a fair amount of studying done in between customers, and I…

I Give Up – Spiritual

I had a rough idea of what I wanted to write about for this month’s column, and as I frequently do, I hit Google just to help me find some inspiration and to hone my thoughts into the message I wanted to pass along. I like to simply review some verses and devotionals about the…

Old Timer

Ah, good ol’ Boerne local government went and surprised itself yet again by trying to sneak a giant monstrosity CVS drugstore onto the corner of River and Main. You know, the most visible intersection in the entire town. The entrance to our entire Historic District and currently the most congested intersection in town. Yes, that…

From The Publisher

Dearest EXPLORE Reader, I’ve wanted to write this particular Publisher’s piece for a while (as in years) but could never quite sculpt it in my mind in a way that made any sense for you, the reader. In fact, now that I think about it, I believe that I’ve been kicking the topic for this…

That Which We Cannot Control

This column isn’t for you. I’m writing it for me. Because I need to hear it more than you do. Or maybe there’s someone out there as messed up as I am. If somebody had told me 5 years ago “I suffer from anxiety” I would have resisted chuckling at them. “Really? Anxiety? What are…

From The Publisher

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November 1, 2018

Dearest EXPLORE Reader,
I just went on a long motorcycle ride. I have an old and cheap Suzuki cruiser (big and heavy) that I like to cruise around on. I bought it primarily as a money-saving vehicle because of fuel costs with my truck, but having spent the better part of my life in the saddle of a motorcycle, I find it more therapeutic sometimes as opposed to my penny-pinching purpose. It’s still cheaper than therapy, right?

I’m back from about 4 hours of toodling around backroads, listening to some light music, feeling the wind, looking frequently up into the sky to marvel at the clouds. Basically, just BEING. I don’t do as much of that as I’d like anymore, but from time to time, I still try to stop long enough to recognize the moment, remember the smells, feel the sun, and if I’m feeling particularly light-hearted, even smiling as a pretty woman walks by. Yes, sometimes we must all remember to live, even when we think we’ve forgotten how.

I rode and rode today, and I unpacked all sorts of issues in my helmet as I cruised along. I shook my head at my thoughts, I laughed inside my helmet, and I had to shake out negative thoughts a time or two. But rest assured, I just spent almost 4 hours thinking about this article.
One thing that you’ll learn if you ever try to write professionally is that your ideas and your inspirations are like vapors. They come to you, and you convince yourself that this great idea you just had will never leave you, and then you are saddened to learn 24 hours later that you cannot remember the details of WHY it was such a great idea. They come to you, and then they vanish as you reach for them. So here I sit, sweaty still from my ride, and I’m hammering this out because my “great idea” that just came to me is still fresh in my mind, so let’s see if I can translate it to paper fast enough.

As I rode today, the overwhelming recurring thought that I kept having was sort of marveling at the fact that I realized that I’ve been writing this little letter (and publishing this magazine) for over 11 years now. That blows my mind. My kids were babies (or not even born yet). I have been sitting down to crappy laptops once a month for 11 years and hammering out these random little letters and doing so with moderate success. I have long laughed that when I think I’ve knocked it out of the park with my writing, nobody says anything to me. When I think that my letter is terrible, sure enough, I get 10 emails from people telling me how much they enjoy it. I don’t know if that means my gauge for greatness is screwed, or yours is, but nevertheless.

I thought about this little column, and its origins. Most of you won’t know this, but my Publisher Letter used to be super dry and boring. “Welcome to this issue. We have a great article on….and a neat piece about…and be sure to check out….” type stuff. It bored me, but I thought that was what I was supposed to do. One day, on a lark, I was sitting under a tree in Luckenbach with my laptop and I just started rambling about the random people that I was seeing. The hippie. The stoner. The biker. The sorority girl. Their stories and why they were in Luckenbach, and about how it just sort of all made sense sometimes for us to sit around as people, drink beer, and simply BE. I dared myself to publish the article as my Publisher’s Letter, and the feedback was loud. People liked it. Facebook didn’t exist then, but I got a lot of emails about how it made them chuckle and think, and I just thought to myself “Well, maybe I have more to say.”

So for 11 years, I’ve hammered these little letters out and some have made people smile, some cry, some have been terrible, and some have been ones I’m quite proud. I tell people frequently that this letter is the hardest that I write each month because there’s no subject matter. I’m not writing about motorcycles or art or music…I like to tell myself that I’m just writing about LIFE. Talk about a broad subject. It sounds counterintuitive, but remove all restrictions upon your writing and it becomes very difficult to hone your message.

I’ve written about my brother. And his death. I’ve written about divorce. I’ve ranted about the ducks on River Road, made fun of local government, told stories about dogs, reminisced about schoolyard fights I was in, and shared secrets about the inner workings of my family. I’ve unpacked religion, faith, love, anger, fear, dread and anxiety. I’ve even bitched about the entire town of Houston. I’ve gone from here to there and back again with this silly letter, and as I rode along a backroad today, I kind of smiled about that. Not in a proud way, but in a “laugh at yourself” kind of way. I mean, I’m no philosopher. I’m not reading Socrates or Plato before bed each evening, and I’m not one to be quoted for my profound brilliance month to month as I assure you that there is little to be had.

But I write. And people read. And every once in a while, someone writes me and says “Hey man – just wanted you to know that I really liked what you had to say. It meant a lot to me.” As the recipient, I soak it up like a sponge and it keeps me motivated to keep trying to say something so brilliant, so profound…that you’ll tell a friend. But really, I think I speak for writers worldwide when I say that all we ever really want is to have our words TOUCH you. Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t. I don’t know.

Here we sit, 133 Publisher’s Letters later, and I’m still claiming that I have something to say.

I drove little winding roads in Texas all alone, and had only my thoughts to keep me company. I stopped at one of my favorite little jaunts (which is not much more than a shed with a BBQ smoker in the back). I know the owner and he sat down with me and we shared updates on our lives, and bitched about women, complained about growth, and talked football. You know, guy stuff.

As I pulled away with a wave to my friend, I thought, “I wonder what HE has to say.” With that thought and 100 miles of nothing in front of me, I spent some time thinking about how egotistical I can be to think that my words are important. To anyone. They’re just words that I put down on a cheap laptop, and despite my aspirations to inspire the world via my amazing wordsmithing, at the end of the day, I’m just some guy with a little magazine in a little town who happens to write rambling letters that SOME people find enjoyable from time to time. Let’s be honest – I’m not winning a Pulitzer Prize anytime soon.
I’m not trying to be self-deprecating. I really do have a point. Bear with me.

People tell me all the time that they are not writers. People tell me that because I write, but I don’t think I’m a writer either. I just have taken a small talent and crafted it as best I can into something that works. But people tell me that, and to them, it’s almost a surrender to their perceived inability to express some wonderfully deep and profound knowledge or truths. I find that depressing, and as I dodged an armadillo and honked at cows in meadows, I did what I always do: I thought about people for a really, really long time.

People tend to be expressive, or pretty non-expressive. It applies to both men and women. We all tend to think that women are far more expressive, but I have known many that were so guarded with their words that it takes a lot to get them to open up. My grandma was like that – she probably possessed an encyclopedia of information in her heart, but you would rarely get much more than “You are too skinny! Come here and let me feed you!”.

I have known countless people on either side of the coin, but here’s one thing that I’ve come to know for certifiable fact: in our own heads, we have so very much to share. Every single one of us.

I type silly Publisher’s Letters and pat myself on the back about the good ones, and groan about the bad ones. I have friends that want to be bestselling authors and spend great energies crafting their ability to express themselves. But I also know people that are quiet, and stare at their beer at the end of the bar while they quietly ponder existence. Tell me who can unpack what they want to say for me better. The answer: I’m not sure.

The more I move through life, and the more that I learn (the good and the bad), my appreciation for people never diminishes; it only increases. A motorcycle, some blue skies, a little wind noise, and I smiled realizing that I bet if you and I sat down and talked about virtually any topic, no matter how introverted you might be, you could teach me something. No matter how much you would shrug your shoulders, or say “I don’t know” or stare off into the distance, the reality is that I want what you have: perspective that’s not my own.

Slow down, people. Go on a motorcycle ride. Forget about our beliefs that the world revolves around each of us. Think about those in your circle that might know more than you think they do. Not people like me that make a ton of noise and puke out endless thoughts and feelings…but those that might do the opposite.

We all have knowledge. And feelings. And emotions that are simply percolating as they look for a way out. As I drove a zillion miles of Hill Country bliss, I suppose I just realized that it’s yet another way that, despite our differences, we are all the same: we all want to just be heard.

The trick is to listen. Even people like me, who seem to never shut up, would be smart to remember that sometimes the listening is where the learning happens. And we should all learn until the day we die.

Welcome to November. Goodness gracious, we’ve had a little cold snap here, and it’s wonderful. Enjoy this season, talk to your friends, and EXPLORE their minds. The wisdom of lifetimes is sitting all around you every day. You just have to want to find it.

Doris “Dorie” Miller

NO F***ING GOOD

Boerne Performing Arts 2019 Season

Old Timer – Oct ’18

Featured Articles

Doris “Dorie” Miller

NO F***ING GOOD

Boerne Performing Arts 2019 Season

From The Publisher

Auntie Marj’s Guide to Surviving the Holidays

Old Timer

Publisher’s Letter – October ’18

Badass of the Month – Santa Anna

Old Timer – Sept 2018

Publisher’s Letter – September 2018

From The Publisher

Unwanted Guests

Old Timer

From The Publisher

I Give Up – Spiritual

Old Timer

From The Publisher

That Which We Cannot Control

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