Just sifting through the noise.
This morning started with a list. Security cameras needed to go up. The locks in the garage needed to be changed. The filters on the washing machine needed attention again. Boxes from the move were still sitting around waiting to become part of the house instead of evidence that we had recently invaded it. Then […]
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I remember Nadia Comăneci. More specifically, I remember the music. That soft piano theme begins, and somewhere in my mind Nadia is suddenly back on the television. Montreal. 1976. Gymnastics. Perfect scores. Depending on your age, you may first recognize it as Cotton’s Dream. The whole thing seems packaged together so neatly that I would […]
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Camping has changed. We used to call it camping when we threw a questionable tent in the back of the car, grabbed a cast-iron skillet, packed some hot dogs, Cheetos, tea, soda, maybe a few potatoes, and hoped somebody actually caught a fish. Usually nobody caught much. That was fine. We had hot dogs. The […]
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Every day appears, at first, to bring new thoughts, and I complain that everything is so random. Random. What does that word even mean? Random: lacking a definite plan, purpose, or pattern. Well, yeah. By that definition my thoughts certainly look random. One thought appears, another wanders in from somewhere else, and before long I […]
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Who knows what tomorrow brings? Well, that is an interesting way to start. Just one sentence, yet it does two things. It brings back thoughts of a song, and it asks a question: What was left undone that needs my attention? Nope. I have no idea what that may be. Because, as the song says, […]
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We have made love too pretty. A heart. A rainbow. A little winged child with a bow who really should have had better supervision. We turned love into decoration. But love is not decoration. Love is work. Love is sacrifice. Love is protection. Imagine the storm coming. The wind is rising. The house is shaking. […]
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My granddaughters, Chrissy and Rye, both have pet snakes. I have to admit, when the two of them proudly announced, “I have a pet snake,” I questioned my daughters’ parenting skills. “Chrissy, what are you going to do with a snake?” “He’s my pet.” I just shook my head. Well, there went any chance of […]
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Melancholy. What a strange word. It can mean longing, reflection, sadness, the memory of times past. In living my life, it is not a word I have given much thought. Yet here I am, in the midst of what I suppose would be called melancholy. There is a train passing somewhere in the darkness, and […]
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Pull up a chair. This one is being written by your old uncle, the one you rarely speak to, and that may be too bad because you might have missed something. He is a little strange, sure. Around here, we call him Disco Grandpa. He has been known to chair dance, argue with cheese, protect […]
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When I was a boy, there were places that looked empty most of the year. Dry ponds. Cracked dirt. Low spots in the field that held nothing but dust, weeds, and the memory of water. You could walk past them and think there was nothing there worth noticing. Then a spring rain would come, not […]
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