
July 1982 Issue

Features



The Texas Edison
A Dallas engineer you’ve probably never heard of has done more to change our daily lives than almost anyone else alive. How? He invented the silicon chip.

Immigrants
From all over the world, people are coming to Houston to find a better life. For a few of them—immigrants from Poland, Nigeria, and El Salvador—this is what it’s like.
Texas Primer: The Ghost Town
The lost hopes of places like Belle Plain haunt Texas’ prairies.
Columns
A Generous Helping
Houston’s Stages theater gave new writers a push and established writers a pat when it put on a Texans-only playwrights’ festival.
Little Alien Lost
No one should pass up a close encounter with E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid doesn’t wear well. Conan the Barbarian is nothing but muscle: Annie is nothing but bustle.
The Kid Is Blowing Them Away
In the footsteps of Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, and other trumpet greats comes twenty-year-old Wynton Marsalis. Judging by their latest albums, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and fellow veterans are doing all right too.
Angst Amid The Kiwi Fruit
Young caterers in Dallas are vying to hire the preppiest staff to serve the spiffiest food at the classiest parties.
Main Street Religion
The power and charm of the Reverend Charles Allen go beyond his own church, First United Methodist of Houston. Simple, standard churches like First Presbyterian in Brownsville are the solid rock of American religion.
Reporter
Texas Monthly Reporter
A job crunch hits Odessa; an all-business mayor shakes up El Paso; the Rangers fold (again); a Houston homeowner wars with his neighborhood association; grads commemorate an all-black high school.
Miscellany
State Secrets
Slums for sale, hardball at the Herald; bye-bye, Nueces Bay; hello, mudslinging.