Matt Boutte

November 21, 2020November 23, 2020

Dirt, Sky, and Water

In recent months Peter and Veronique have both written compelling, thought provoking essays about nature and about wilderness. Ironically, or perhaps naturally, I too have been thinking about similar topics for the last many months.

One of the many ways Texas is unique among states in America is that 95% of its vast acreage is in private hands. Only 5% is owned by state or Federal agencies and even at that, public land is often geographically remote and almost always behind a gate. Texas, for all its size, doesn’t really have the open public land present in so much of the country.

September 17, 2020September 17, 2020

Your Crisis or Mine?

We are careless about the words we use and the way we use them. I don’t mean the evolution of language over time, the entrance of slang into our lexicon, or even the rampant misuse of there, their, and they’re, even though that last one drives me mad…but not angry.

August 30, 2020August 30, 2020

I Ran Today

I ran today.

I didn’t want to, but I knew I needed it. It was hot, 97 degrees in the Texas Hill Country. Barely a cloud in the sky, with a blazing sun and higher humidity than normal. Too hot to be out running, truthfully, but I did it anyway.

August 8, 2020August 18, 2020

On Kindness

Most Friday nights my wife and I eat dinner at the same place. We sit at the same table with the same waiter and order the same cocktails, the same entrees. We’ve been doing this long enough that they know us. They know our habits and have been known to call and ask if we’re coming if tables begin to run short. We’re not alone in this. There are many people who frequent this particular place regularly and have been doing so for years. And so, it came as a surprise on a recent evening when walking up to the front door we encountered another regular patron berating the manager for their policy requiring masks. This was not a reasoned argument for or against the effectiveness of wearing masks against the spread of coronavirus. This was closer to a toddler’s temper tantrum thrown by a grown man who, by all outward appearances is professionally successful if not well adjusted, verbally abusing a hospitality worker as if it was his God-given right.