Clearing the Road

“Clearing the road.” That is one of the many Biblical images during the Christmas season. The Gospel of Mark tells us that John the Baptist did that for Jesus. The gallery of my life is full of portraits of people who have cleared the road for me. One person came to mind recently. His impact […]

In memory of Susan Shaughnessy

My writing routine, and I use the word “routine” instead of “discipline” because it’s nowhere close to a discipline, is to read a short section from a book about writing, and then do “Morning Pages,” a few pages of free-writing in a spiral notebook. I begin each entry with “Morning Pages,” followed by the date, […]

The Splash we Make

My dad died 7 months ago. Hard to believe. His death did not make a big splash. He slipped from this life hardly rippling the water. Only a few people knew it when it happened, and there were few to inform once it did.  Had dad died any time in the past several decades, his […]

Tying your shoes

On July 24, 1982, I watched Frank Shorter tie his running shoes. That’s it. At about 7:30 on that warm, clear Saturday morning, I was preparing to run in the Bix 7, an annual 7-mile race in Davenport, Iowa, part of the Bix Jazz Festival. It was during my pre-race stretching and nervous walking around […]

Dad’s furniture

I decided that Saturday was the day to put Dad’s bedroom furniture in the front yard with a price tag on it. He died 5 months ago. It seemed that every week during that 5 months involved closing out or finalizing some part of his life; terminating utilities and his phone plan, closing out his […]

Dad’s hands

I have always admired my dad’s hands. They seem a little large for his body, they have visible tendons running to each finger and a network of veins going in all directions. They are strong. When he and I participated in a zoom meeting to assess him for his long-term healthcare insurance, the representative asked […]

Oh, to be woke!

Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis are the two most vocal Republican governors who have declared war on “woke education.” Kevin McCarthy says that the nation can save lots of money by getting rid of wokeness in the military. He promises congressional investigations into how a woke agenda is making our military weaker. I guess being […]

Learning to shift gears

I learned to drive a stick shift with my best friend, Randy, on a Sunday afternoon in the summer of 1965. His dad’s ’53 Chevy had a push button starter, a three-speed manual transmission (“three on the tree”), and a weak battery. It was a spare car from Randy’s grandmother who no longer drove. The […]

On complaints from old white guys

In two recent opinion articles in the Reporter News, the authors complained about the general state of affairs in our country. One writer (March 3) suggested that immorality and the decline in religious belief were undermining our democracy. He included a list of things he considered immoralities.The other author (March 17) included a laundry list […]

Lent 2022: Projecting on others

I have been in Urbana, IL for the past week. I came on my own and Judy stayed in Abilene to hold down the fort. In my absence she has had to manage a developing crisis of our water heater that is showing all the signs of old age and need for replacement (leaking.) I […]