Welcome to Volume 28 of the Texas Times! 2021 was pretty dull, but we did have our last kid head off to college, made four (count 'em, 1-2-3-4) trips to College Station (did I mention the year was dull?), checked out some totally random and bizarre rock formations in western Kansas, and discovered that the only doctor in the tiny town of Fairplay, Colorado -- located at 10,000 feet in South Park, about 90 miles southwest of Denver -- accommodates walk-ins and does a bang-up job of diagnosing viruses. My advice? If you're north of 50 and had chicken pox when you were a kid, ask Santa for the shingles vaccine.
Family
The kids are all doing fine (see Thanksgiving in College Station picture at the very bottom of the page). They're 700 miles away from us, but the family group chat is running 24/7 and unless they're prodigious liars, things are going pretty well. On the Austin side, Reagan is a senior software developer for Gravity Lending, and Hunter is a support developer for Televet. The fact that Reagan was a religion major and Hunter was an art major (both at Trinity) provides clear testament to the fact that a hoity-toity private school liberal arts education four to six months spent in a coding program after college graduation can, in fact, prepare one for career success. Next step ... dating bliss? If you know any single ladies with questionable judgment and a tolerance for breathtaking quirkiness, let me know. Perhaps lightning can strike more than once for the men of the Wilkins family.
On the College Station side, Hadley is still doing her thing at State Farm and enjoying the work. We helped her move into a new place in July, and she has fully embraced flying solo (with her chinchilla as co-pilot). She also works weekends at Aggieland Safari, which lets her at least partially live out her zookeeper fantasy. As for Hollis, he started at Texas A&M in August after giving serious consideration to Baylor and Oklahoma. He got into the Business Honors program, will be majoring in either Accounting or Finance (Hallelujah), and also is involved in Century Singers. He barely has time to turn around, but neither he nor we would have it any other way.
Paige is still making magic from the KU Dean's Office, with lots of cool new programs and plans and such. Enrollment in the Business School was up around 20% this year, despite the many woes in higher ed across the country. I rode herd over the MAcc and first-year PhD students this fall and will spend the next 8 months (as usual) navigating the turbulent, exhilarating waters of auditing research. On the home front, since this semester was our first go at empty nesting, I planned a couple of weekend trips. Of course, work stuff came up that prevented us from doing anything, but we may be able to spend a couple days in Death Valley after a conference trip I have to make to Vegas in a few weeks. I've always wanted to go there (Death Valley, not Vegas), and Paige is very accommodating where travel destinations are concerned. We're hoping to do something of note this summer, but I've no idea at all what that might look like.
Prohibitions
In recent years, I've submitted candidates for a Prohibited Words List. This year, I'm happy to report that I have been so out of touch with what is going on and what people are saying that I've not really come across anything new that merits consideration. I do have something non-word-related that I think is worthy of prohibition, though: reaction videos. I have only watched about 13 seconds of one of these (just to confirm my priors) but apparently they are a thing. Or maybe they were a thing five years ago and I'm just now hearing about them. That would be about right. Whatever the case, for those who aren't in the know, reaction videos involve people filming themselves watching a video for the first time pretending to watch a video for the first time while they respond spontaneously in a heavily scripted and rehearsed fashion to whatever is going on in the video. And apparently people actually watch these things and find them entertaining. Yes, seriously. I bet when Al Gore invented the internet, even he couldn't have imagined the many and varied uses to which it would be put.
Saddest Commentary on Technology Dependence
This summer, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal titled "Can a Smart Water Bottle Motivate you to Hydrate?" The article reported that "we tested new high-tech carafes that promise to increase users' H20 intake using push alerts, redeemable point rewards, and interactive tops." I am not making this up. Wife: "Are you thirsty, honey?" Husband: "Not sure ... would you hand me my phone so I can check?" One wonders when an app prompting people to breathe will surface.
Best Musical Discoveries
Although I continue to spend most of my music time with Ranger Doug's Classic Cowboy Corral and the British 1940s Radio Network, I did make a few new discoveries this year.
- Madison Cunningham has one of the best voices I have heard in a really, really long time. Here is a sample.
- The Panhandlers are a group of guys from West Texas who are writing songs I very much wish I had written. Most of what they do is good, but I particularly like this one (probably because I married a West Texas Girl).
- In the Irish music space, I highly recommend Daoiri Farrell (here) and Niamh Farrell (here). They're not related to each other, but they're similarly awesome. Paige probably has listened to the Niamh Farrell duet with Niall Hanna 100 times.
The Year in Books
My taste in books is almost as varied as my taste in music, but this year might've been the most directionless to date. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say that the 30 or so volumes I covered during 2021 ranged from Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde to Laura Ingall's Wilder's complete Little House series (my 4th-year PhD student said she was proud of me for graduating to chapter books). Here are my recommendations for 2022: (1) George McDonald's lush and somewhat bizarre C.S. Lewis-influencing fantasies - Lilith and Phantastes; (2) Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology (hmmm, you also definitely should check out Neverwhere); and (3) a cowboy / outdoorsman memoir, James Cook's Fifty Years on the Old Frontier.
But the book that took the prize was Rules of Civility, written about 10 years ago by Amor Towles. While the story is good and has a terrific 1930s vibe, the real appeal is in the writer's craft. It is a book to be sipped rather than slugged. The writing is vivid and incredibly clever, yet I never once had the sense that the author was trying too hard (which is a huge statement given just how much cleverness is on display from beginning to end). Anyway, do check this one out, particularly if you're a malcontent like me who maintains that across virtually every dimension, American Society peaked around 1945.
And finally, from the Completely Missing The Point Department ... This fall we started a great new required class that introduces freshmen to a lot of important issues related to business and capitalism. On opening day, students participate in a game illustrating problems related to the allocation of scarce resources. In this game, instructors remove some chairs from the room before students come in so that a few people have to stand during the first part of class (thereby adding considerable flavor to the discussion of the resource allocation problem). How do we determine who gets to sit down? Are there tradeoffs that could be made? What is the best way to make these decisions? By early afternoon, word had trickled up to central administration that ... wait for it ... the School of Business had scheduled classes in rooms that didn’t have enough chairs to accommodate enrollment. Perhaps next year, faculty teaching the course should provide context through reaction videos.
With that, I'll close. Come see us in 2022 if you're anywhere close. We certainly have enough spare bedrooms now!
God Bless,
Mike and Paige
mw0705@gmail.com
lpaigefields@gmail.com
1118 Brynwood Court
Lawrence, KS 66049
