A wooden rabbit wearing a dinner jacket, hands in pockets, striding forward. Mounted on a crude wooden box, he’s been taking that stride forward for more than 85 years. Grandpa made it while he was in the hospital. The Missouri State Hospital, called the St. Louis Insane Asylum at the time. Part of his recovery, […]
Dad’s Hundredth
July 30 would have been my dad’s 100th birthday. He was determined to make it to 100, but he died three months short of his 98th. In fact, he was determined not only to make it to 100, but he was planning to preach a sermon to some church congregation on his 100th birthday. I suspect his plan […]
The Box
It’s a crude wooden box, something you might find in a junk store. Not an antique store, a junk store. Measuring 16” wide, 11” deep, and 9” tall, it has a hinged top and a metal hasp to keep it shut. There may have been a small padlock on it sometime in the past. Made […]
The Anti-Christian Bias Task Force. The WHAT?
We are a nation in which a privileged majority (Christians) can now claim victim status. That seems to be the irony and absurdity of the new White House Anti-Christian Bias Task Force. This is not a Christian endeavor, but a clear case of pandering from both sides. The president is locking in support of gullible […]
So long, “Deep State”
My heart goes out to the thousands who are losing their federal civil service jobs. Trump and his loyalists say they are getting rid of the “deep state.” To do that they are firing thousands of civil service workers for doing their jobs. We will soon find out the administration is not getting rid of […]
What little we leave behind
These past couple of days I continued the process of throwing away dad’s stuff as I’ve been doing since his death over a year ago. Dad was a historian at heart. He loved to dig into the background of things, he documented events, and he saved the paperwork. I just went through several notebooks that […]
Thinking of not voting?
To the 30 and 40 somethings who are not planning to vote this year, think about it. Deciding to not vote would be like trying to punish the old high school teacher you despised by refusing to study for the final exam. No one is hurt by that choice but you! Up until a few […]
Someone is sitting at MY table
–An excessively detailed account of a fleeting moment of near insignificance that highlights the enormous importance of place and consistency. A few years ago, when my early morning attendance at Starbucks was more regular, when the Baristas knew me by my first name and my order of dark roast, and the other early morning customers […]
The old shaving mirror
I don’t particularly like to shave. It’s just one of those necessities, once or twice each week to keep from looking to scruffy or if I have somewhere to go that requires looking civil. Recently, however, a shave was more than a shave. Judy and I were vacationing at the cottage in Maine, my favorite […]
I tossed out some papers today
I threw away a bunch of papers today. A simple but difficult task. The simple part was pulling a file folder, flipping through it, and tossing it and its contents in a pile to discard. The difficult task was looking at the pages in many of the files one last time, remembering the significance, and […]