Now that it’s summer and most normal people go on some kind of vacation, I’ve been remembering some of the trips my family took when I was a kid. My dad’s family moved from Texas to California in the late 1930s, like a lot of Dust Bowl/Depression-era families, looking for work in the defense plants, […]
Happy birthday to my son!
Today is my boy’s 40th birthday! Yes, my son is 40 years old. Hard to believe. Just the other day he was this little red-haired rascal running around in Superman pajamas, playing with his Domino Rally, listening to Weird Al Yankovic. Well, he probably still listens to Weird Al. I won’t speculate on the Superman […]
Dates can mark past, not future
Most of us don’t give organ and tissue donation much thought. But there is a group of people in this country — 117,929 people as of 11:09 p.m., April 27, 2013, to be exact — who can’t get donation off their minds. They are waiting. Some who are waiting now won’t make it. So far this […]
Orange irises!
A surprise after no blooms last year!
The Power of Potatoes
A piece from 2004, when my dad was making regular mission trips to Albania and Kosovo. There’s something about potatoes. In spite of all the healthy people who tell you not to eat potatoes because of the high carb count, or that they’re bad because they have no color to them, we’re drawn to them. […]
Innocence, conviction and compassion
If you haven’t read Pamela Colloff’s beautifully written two-part story, “The Innocent Man,” in the November and December issues of Texas Monthly, take the time and read both parts. “The Innocent Man” is the story of Michael Morton, wrongfully convicted in 1987 of killing his wife. He spent 25 years in prison before being released. […]
The Garage
Our house in the Panhandle was an old two-story farmhouse that had been moved into town sometime in the 1940s and rocked with big pieces of rock and driftwood. The mortar between the rocks was covered with a large bead of mortar, giving it an unusual look. Like happens in a lot of small towns, […]
The Homemade Camper Shell
Just a few months after we moved to the Panhandle, 300 miles away from home, I got a new car — a 1994 Saturn. I must have had gas mileage on my mind, because I sure didn’t think about space. I loved the Saturn. When we traded it in for an SUV six years and […]
Little Boy Toys
Ah, the sound of Christmas music on the radio and in the stores as shoppers clammer for bargains. Commercialism, the economy, Black Friday and Cyber Monday aside, I do enjoy getting out all my Christmas CDs and tapes and listening to all the pretty songs that we only get to hear a month out of […]
One Wall at a Time 