Don Campbell
My Jail Time
For four summers, bridging my last two years of college and my first two years of law school, I worked as a Deputy Sheriff in Dallas County, serving as a jailer in the county jail. The full-time jailers were required to take their vacations during the summer months while students, like me, and some teachers…
THE GREATEST
My first job after finishing law school was to work as the law clerk for Judge Ben C. Connally, the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, in Houston. Like most law clerks, my principal duties were assisting the Judge with legal research and writing. But unlike most law…
JONES FIELD
I lived at an airport for almost 3 years. I made one flight during that time and it lasted about ten minutes. The impression it left has lasted a lifetime. Jones Field is an airport situated about 2 miles north of the town square in Bonham, a rural town in Northeast Texas. It opened as…
CHAPTER ONE
The three boys were wearing masks of the type used by bandits in many western movies, except these were not made from true bandanas; they were handkerchiefs borrowed from their dads, white and barely large enough to be tied behind their necks. In fact, one of the boys was unable to secure a fast knot…
THE PRESIDENT COMES TO TOWN
The President of the United States, Harry S. Truman, was coming to Bonham, Texas, my hometown, to make a campaign appearance in his race against Thomas Dewey in late September of 1948. I was 8 years old at the time and had absolutely no interest in seeing the President and even less interest in listening…
BAD WESTERNS
BAD WESTERNS A couple of friends with whom I routinely exchange opinions and commentary, mostly no more serious than whimsical badinage, will occasionally stimulate a brain cell which has been tucked so far into my mental recesses as to deny access for decades. Such a random strike occurred recently while reading one such message about…
Where the Truth Lies
With all the claims of lying, fake news, fraud and worse during the latest presidential election and its contentious aftermath, I was reminded of an argument visited many years ago to the effect that truth has been historically overrated and falsehood has had an unfair press. More particularly, lying is said not to be an…
WRITING WRONGS
Some time ago, I embarked on a campaign, no, a mission, to right the wrongs done to our rich heritage of clever and colorful sayings, maxims, idioms, witticisms, adages, postulates, guiding principles and good-old-boy commentaries (collectively, “Axioms”). Whether these injuries to our language were inflicted by the passage of time, unauthorized modifications, ignorance, indifference, misunderstandings…
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