We Interrupt this Program.....
I’ve kept personal notes to a minimum here but come this morning with a bit of a pleading. In about five weeks, I will have been writing on Substack for three years. It has been wonderful finding regular readers and getting their feedback, but I was hopeful of a broader reach, which is what every writer wants. Growth, however, has been flat for the past three months, though I am very grateful for the quite engaged readership I presently enjoy.
I’d like to ask, however, that if my work is worthy of your recommendation, that you might spread it around and share. I’m looking for more subscribers. My goal is to keep this completely free by having the people who can afford a paid subscription underwrite the work for those who cannot. Toward that end, I’ve offered samples of the work below that can be shared to get in front of more people. My interests are not just politics but cover history, travel, literature, the environment, and a general human interest.
There’s a chance I may have improperly branded this effort by calling it “Texas to the World” because I certainly do not constrain the work to simply this state, which is evident from the samplings below. These include a piece on the Titan submersible tragedy and my personal connection to Newfoundland, a feature on what is possibly the finest baseball diamond between the East and West Coast out in Alpine, Texas, a takedown of religious zealots, a solo motorcycle ride to look for a favorite poet of my youth, an essay on how time rushes away with friends in the West, the story of my first airplane ride, which was in a thunderstorm across the Grand Canyon, and, of course, an expository piece on the glories of Big Bend.
If you haven’t read these, I hope you will find them worthy of your time and interest, and that you might take the time to share them with anyone you think would enjoy the material and be a possible subscriber, paid or free. And thank you for your support and friendship. It means a great deal to me. - JM
A Port in History's Storm
Below us, just before the dune line, wild Mustang horses were grazing on the tall grasses bending in a morning breeze off the Atlantic. We were with friends on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, standing on a deck with coffee and watching the sun rise out of the sea. The summer weather and location were idyllic, and then the phone rang.
Best of the Pecos
(Howdy friends - just wanted to say thanks for your subscriptions and comments and suggestions. I continue to be thrilled by the support for my writing. If you aren’t, I hope you will consider becoming a subscriber, and sharing my work with your friends. This week, I decided to take some time off from deconstructing our politics and the people who would…
Jesus on the Jumbotron
“Look at the tyranny of party-- at what is called party allegiance, party loyalty-- a snare invented by designing men for selfish purposes-- and which turns voters into chattels, slaves, rabbits; and all the while, their masters, and they themselves are shouting rubbish about liberty, independence, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, honestly unconsc…
Looking for Mr. Brautigan
(This little operation is two years old today, and I wanted to thank everyone for the inspiration and support. I hope you will continue to read, share, and subscribe, if you haven’t, and maybe even upgrade to paid, which I am supposed to ask, frequently, I am told. Also, let me know if I need to write more narratives like this or keep my focus mainly on…
The Rushing Minutes
“Well, you know we’re probably too old for this Maybe the rest of the world is too young We drive five hundred miles to get loose and get wild And stay up ‘till the last song is done.” – Gary P. Nunn, Terlingua Sky
First Flight
“Remember thy creator in the days of thy youth. Rise free from care before dawn and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played…” – Thoreau
West with the Light
"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous." - Aristotle The first time I was in Big Bend National Park I was a wee, skinny lad on a slight motorcycle a long way from home. Oddly, though, I felt comforted by the absence of human endeavors and a sky that curved more than any my youthful eyes had ever beheld. There were emotions that over…
Based on what I'm seeing on Notes, others are flatlining as well. It seems the "follower" option vs the "subscriber" option has been thwarting some of that. I seem to get followers that never become subscribers. I'm just a tiny fish in a big internet pond so I don't expect to grow as fast as someone with your breadth of knowledge and writing but it is still frustrating because I also came to Substack for the broader reach.