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Looking back at my musical memories and penny deals with Columbia House
By John Toth The Bulletin I was watching the “Today Show” on NBC when they ran a story about Columbia House shutting down. Yes, that Columbia House - the one that used to send me tapes and CDs for only a penny. I became a member when I was a teenager. I got my first order of records for a penny. Then I changed to cassettes and eventually to CDs. I mailed in my selections every month. I still have most of the records and all the cassettes I bought from Columbia House. Sometime
Aug 313 min read
From the Brazos to your bathroom, every drop has quite a Texas-sized story to tell
By John Toth The Bulletin I admit it: I often take water for granted. I turn on the bathroom sink’s warm-water tap and run it at full blast until the water warms up. Then I wash my face and do all the morning rituals. Yes, I brush my teeth while the water is running. I am that bad. It’s not my fault; I don’t like cold water. I have never given much thought to how that water made it into the pipes. Most of us don’t. But it was quite a journey, and a small army of people is res
Aug 243 min read
Annual wellness visit rings up memories of Ted Nugent
By John Toth The Bulletin I haven’t been dreading it, but I was also not looking forward to my annual visit to the doctor to make sure that all my vitals are still in the “alive and well” category. Sharon - my partner in The Bulletin and my life - decided to get our annual wellness visits at the same time to save a little gas and do some shopping afterwards. Sharon’s doctor was on one side of the clinic, and mine was on the other, which required that we go to separate waiting
Jul 273 min read
Celebrating the mosquito: 45 years of fun, family, memories, small-town pride
By John Toth Editor and Publisher Once again, people will be flocking in the sweltering July heat to the Mosquito Festival in Clute to enjoy a good, old-fashioned, small-town good time. It all started in 1981 as just another community summer festival. While there were good people working hard on making it a success, there was no way they could have known how this event would gain so much momentum. I’ve been around for most of it and watched the festival grow each year as it s
Jul 213 min read
I bypassed publishing gatekeepers to launch book
By John Toth The Bulletin After about a decade of on-and-off writing, I got my book published. I didn’t submit it to publishing houses and waited for rejection letters or a letter of acceptance. That’s how I peddled articles to magazines when I was in college. Things have changed a little since then. After I hired a professional book editor, Newsboy Marketing & Publishing, we decided to skip that step and take control of the publishing process through Amazon and various other
Jul 63 min read
Thirty-two years later, still publishing
By John Toth The Bulletin Thirty-two years ago this week, Sharon and I published the first Bulletin. It was eight tabloid pages, black and white. We didn’t know how long we’d last in the then-crowded Brazoria County newspaper market. Before we took on this endeavor, I worked 12 years for the Houston Chronicle covering Brazoria County and adjacent areas. I lived in the county and reported on events happening here. Sharon, the Bulletin’s co-publisher, was free-lancing for the C
Jun 293 min read
Why The Bulletin kept its most-outdated device
By John Toth The Bulletin Do you still have a fax machine? We sort of do. Do you use it? We sort of do and don’t. Why would anyone keep a fax machine around these days? Ours came in the form of an all-in-one printer that includes a fax function. We have had that printer for a long time, and it still works on cheap third-party ink just fine, so that’s why The Bulletin still has a fax machine. We also have a fax number (1-866-844-5288). We used to have a dedicated land line ju
Jun 163 min read
Gas lines, $500 cash and a surprising loan offer: This veteran journalist looks at his car options
By John Toth The Bulletin A financial institution mailed me a letter letting me know that I have been pre-approved for an auto loan for the purchase of a new vehicle. Being pretty old-school when it comes to buying cars, that came as a surprise, since I did not inquire about a loan and have not thought about buying a new vehicle. I had been pre-approved for $100,000 at 5.95% interest rate. Maybe I am just too old- school, but $100,000 seems to be high for a new car. I didn’t
Jun 93 min read
Why we love giving away free tickets to our readers
By John Toth The Bulletin You all know that summer is my favorite time of the year, no matter how hot it gets. I probably like the heat more than many others around here, which is why we are going to help some of our readers to cool off. If you’re reading this column, you have already seen our Page 1 promotion for free tickets to Moody Gardens’ Palm Beach Water Park in Galveston. We are giving away a bunch of tickets to help you get through the summer heat for at least one da
Jun 22 min read
Working on cruise ships is less than glamorous
Many keep returning for the same reason I returned to my summer job as a student By John Toth The Bulletin When I was working in a summer camp in my high school and college years, leaving at the end of the summer was not a happy occasion. It meant leaving behind a very comfortable and simple existence and all the friends I made throughout the summer. I had no choice. I had to go back home and start the fall semester. Departing my world for the previous two months was not easy
May 184 min read
Watch out pieces of lumber; I have a nail gun and won’t hesitate to use it
By John Toth The Bulletin I always wanted to own a nail gun but never really had a good excuse to buy one - until now. There is a large workshed next to the Bulletin Hideaway, which has not been getting all that much attention. It has been something like “out of sight, out of mind,” even though it was not all that much out of sight. It was more like, out of mind. Recently, I noticed that this huge, overbuilt structure that serves the sole purpose of putting in there what was
May 113 min read
I’ll always be grateful for what my mother did for me
By John Toth The Bulletin My mother had her poker face on as the border guard entered the train cabin and said, “papers, please.” The train just left Budapest, Hungary, where I was born and lived for the first 10 years of my life. We were poor, but all of Hungary was poor. The country became part of the Soviet Union’s bloc of countries over which it maintained control. My mother saw no future in raising her only son there. At the time, the situation seemed hopeless to her. Sh
May 53 min read
Grandson’s Tee Ball game evokes memories
By John Toth The Bulletin It’s been a few decades since I’ve been to a Little League Tee Ball game, but a long Easter family visit allowed me to attend my grandson’s games. That doesn’t happen all that often, since we live three and a half hours apart. But this time, the Little League schedule and ours crossed paths. I was looking forward to seeing five-year- olds hit off the tee and run to the base, or wherever else they decided to run. A very long time ago, my three childre
Apr 203 min read
Friendships made on cruises fade afterwards
Except for Kevin, who danced up a storm and wanted me to send him the video By John Toth The Bulletin There are a few things that Sharon and I are good at when cruising: We party at night, rest during the day, eat more than we should and meet people. Cruising is like a floating live-away camp. I spent many summers in camps as a child and then worked in them when I was a teen. At the end of the season, we would promise up and down that we’d stay in touch, call or write, and th
Apr 133 min read
I did the dreaded task of changing Bulletin computers
By John Toth The Bulletin Changing Bulletin computers is no tea party, which is why I don’t do it all that often. But when I saw a deal on Black Friday, I could not resist, and now The Bulletin’s main computer is brand new and has all the features that I need - and want. A few weeks ago I wrote about the process of buying this magnificent addition to the Bulletin’s Production Department, which had not been upgraded for four years, mostly because the old computer I was using w
Jan 203 min read
My personal New Year's resolution picks
By John Toth The Bulletin I cannot promise that I’ll resolve to exercise more, because that would give me less time in the gym to play with my phone. So, that’s out. Saving money is great. I like doing that. I have always stretched the life of my cars to extinction and beyond. Making smart financial decisions when you’re young will be rewarding in your later years. It has worked for me very well. Remembering peoples’ names when I first meet them will be a challenge, but I’ll
Jan 122 min read
Krampus shadowed St. Nick in my early childhood
By John Toth The Bulletin When I was a child, and December rolled around, we anxiously awaited Dec. 6, St. Nicholas Day - anxiously because there was a good and a bad side to that day, and the night before. I was born in a country where, for some reason, our ancestors decided that a good guy and a bad guy should visit the children on the same night. After all, what would a celebration of St. Nicholas be without an antagonist? St. Nicholas was a fourth-century Greek bishop of
Dec 1, 20253 min read
Return to sender, address unknown, no such number, no such zone
By John Toth The Bulletin An invoice I sent out in June just came back to me marked as “undeliverable.” Maybe it was, but why did it take...
Oct 6, 20253 min read
Toothpaste becomes expensive once the ship sails
By John Toth The Bulletin I love cruising, but there are some problems that are harder to solve in the middle of the ocean than on dry...
Sep 22, 20253 min read
Pesky calls remind me of past mischief
By John Toth The Bulletin We have been inundated every day by calls to The Bulletin for weeks, but not in a good way. Within the good...
Aug 25, 20253 min read
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