New Rockford Transcript - Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883

Recently, my wife and I accomplished a task almost as daunting as giving our cat a pill or teaching our youngest daughter to drive without committing widespread curb trauma. In two days, we managed to move our two older daughters (and several cargo c...

Are you tired of financing a tank of gas? Are you afraid your armpits might burst into flames if you leave the air-conditioned confines of your home? Or maybe, like our family, you blew a decade’s worth of vacation savings on a trip to New York Cit...

Dear Generac standby home generator, I want to apologize for calling down multiple elaborate curses upon you for being so expensive as you sat loitering beside the house almost completely idle for the three years since I financed you – despite the...

Every year in late spring, parents of college students all over America travel to university campuses with stylish IKEA storage bags or (in our case) cardboard boxes that once held bulk orders of toilet paper and tortilla chips. When the parents...

When my three semi-grown daughters were young (and since I work in the lucrative world of public education), we’d spend our spring break holidays riding bikes to the park, making dad-sized pillow forts in the living room, and raiding the gift shop...

Along with identifying as “Swifties,” ignoring the reported Chinese threat of bad dancing posed by TikTok, and pretending that plant-based meat is actually edible, many young people in America are engaging in another fascinating trend – not...

 One of my fondest childhood memories of Christmas in the 1970’s was riding around in the family station wagon, “Bessie,” to look at Christmas lights while I whined to my parents about needing a snack – again. There was something magical ab...

I've experienced a lifelong identity crisis, of sorts, because of my name (or names), and I've actually kind of enjoyed it – most of the time. The controversy began in 1970, around the time that I made my almost 10-pound newborn debut (sorry,...

East Texas is hot, and not in the way you compliment your wife when she's mad at you for performing an epic cannonball while she's lounging by the pool with her laptop. For the past few weeks, Texas (and much of the world) has been suffering through...

Raising three daughters has come with many delights, challenges, prayers and moments standing in that certain aisle at Target trying to figure out the differences between “ultra,” “Infinity FlexFoam,” “overnight,” “sport,...

I usually avoid discussing politics in my columns, mainly because I would rather not be disowned by family members, unfriended by friends, or doused with milkshakes and other beverages by complete strangers at the local Whataburger. This time,...

Ever since our local mayor issued a COVID-19 shelter-in-place-and-go-completely-cocoa bananas order, my family and I have found ourselves cooking more than we have for our entire lives. We’ve even been following recipes and using the actual...

As we adjust our daily schedules to the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic, many families are suffering from acute boredom. Students are suspending their homeschool teachers without pay for excessive grouchiness, children are traumatizing their pets by...

On a recent frigid day in February as I was entering Target to defrost my nose hairs and purchase a designer toilet brush, I noticed that they already had an array of skimpy women’s swimsuits on display, which dredged up some disturbing memories...

Following all of the frantic seasonal preparations, including at least 15 trips to Walmart for more almond bark, the abrupt conclusion of the festivities can come as quite a shock­— and not just to the digestive system. I often suffer acutely from...

Yes, I am one of “those” people. About 30 minutes after Labor Day has officially ended, I feel a strange compulsion to binge on my mother’s iced sugar cookies shaped like snowmen while listening to Nat King Cole croon about chestnuts. I...