I stopped by the nursing home early last week to tell my mom I would pick her up the next day, to take her to lunch to celebrate her 80th birthday. She looked startled at the news.
“Jeez, I’m old,” she said.
Three years ago, my mom spent her birthday in Good Shepherd Medical Center, bouncing back from once again having received the Last Rites. At the time, I wouldn’t have taken 10-to-1 odds that we would be heading to Cotton Patch Café on a sunny winter morning to mark her birthday with a plate of fried catfish.
She is a tough old bird. That will be her epitaph, in my mind if not on the actual...
Read more...
Although the weather has thawed out considerably since the Great Freeze of January 2010, it is still the Indoor Season. The sun disappears early so yard work is on hiatus. I find nothing better than settling near a fireplace, listening to soft music and escaping into a good book. Here is a quintet of recently published selections that I have read, or nearly finished, since winter began. Perhaps you will find something of interest here to curl up with as well.
• “The Help,” by Kathryn Stockett. If you read just read one novel this year, this is the one. It is the story of a young white...
Read more...
During those dreadful days of August, when sweat pours off my body as I trudge through the neighborhood at 6 a.m, even though the sun hasn’t quite decided to rise above the pine trees, I fantasize about retiring someday to my native New Hampshire. Or perhaps I could split my time between here and there — winters in Texas, summers up north. Not that I know how to afford this, but it has its appeal.
I am terribly drawn to the beauty of New England — the saltbox homes built two centuries ago or more, the beauty of the White Mountains, covered bridges across clear brooks, the rugged coastline...
Read more...
Do you think life goes on forever? You think behind every chance there’s another one? And another one?
It is the worst kind of extravagance, spending chances.
It is the way you spend your chances.
“Hope Floats”
That piece of dialogue comes from the scene where Ms. Ramona Calvert, superbly portrayed by Gena Rowland, dresses down her daughter, Birdee Pruitt, played by Sandra Bullock, who has returned home and spends her days hiding under the covers from the world. Her husband has left her and their two young children. As both a New Year and decade dawn, I’ve thought a lot about second...
Read more...
