I was giving blood the other day for my semi-annual physical. That’s a sure sign you’re on the far side of the 50, when it becomes a semi-annual physical, and having blood drawn becomes a regular ritual. That used to be something I dreaded, but now I’m used to getting stuck with needles.
Now the worst part is fasting, not being able to down a cup of coffee seconds after my feet touch the floor. I get to the lab soon as it opens at 7 a.m. so I can return home and savor that first cup of joe.
As I sat across from the young woman preparing to stick me, my fist clenched and the tourniquet...
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Gary, Texas — It is a gray day in Gary and throughout the Piney Woods, rain falling in sheets at times. I am traveling farm roads over swollen creeks, relying on my phone’s GPS to find the home of a couple I am set to interview, who live a few miles from this small town. My store-bought GPS, nicknamed Gretel because she leaves electronic bread crumbs for me to follow, denies Gary’s existence for unknown reasons. Luckily the app on my phone provides the route. I remember roughly how to get to Gary, but not to where this couple lives. Besides, I have relied on a GPS too long now to be adept...
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A longtime reader of these ramblings recently mailed me a newspaper clipping of a column I wrote nearly 20 years ago. He read it while working for Amtrak in Pennsylvania as a locomotive engineer on the Philadelphia to Harrisburg run. He stopped to grab lunch and bought a copy of the Harrisburg Patriot-News, which ran the column, originally written for the Nacogdoches paper. I was advocating that the United States get rid of the penny because it is a nuisance, cost more to produce than it’s worth, and doing so could help cut the deficit.
The reader, Joe McCarthy, and I have exchanged correspondence...
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Christmas morning began with lightning and thunder and a much-needed rain sweeping in from the west, the noise waking me about 3 a.m. I got up for a few minutes to admire the flashes of light illuminating the trees from the second-story window, watching the sheets of rain sweep across the deck. Then I crawled back into bed to attempt to catch a few more hours of sleep.
There are no longer small children in the house eager to awaken before daylight even hints at arriving on Christmas morning — just a teenager who wants to open presents, but she is willing to sleep in a bit before doing so. So I dozed...
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A few Christmas stories I have told before that bear retelling, plus a new one.
• My earliest memory of Christmas is from more than a half half-century ago. We always spent Christmas Eve at my maternal grandparents’ home in Hopkinton, New Hampshire. The tiny house, built by my grandfather, was filled with cousins bedded down most everywhere. I was lying in my grandparents’ bed, looking out the window, which was narrow and near the ceiling, so you could see the stars if you were on your back looking up and out.
I saw Santa Claus streaking across the night sky and realized I had better...
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For the first time in more than three decades I took on a painting job for pay, agreeing to paint kitchen cabinets for an acquaintance at an hourly rate. Freelance writing is a decidedly hit-or-miss way to make a living, and this was a solid way to pay for Christmas presents. Besides, I actually like to paint, as long as it doesn’t become a full-time, everyday job.
My late dad taught me how to paint as a teen-ager. We must have painted our house on South Twelfth Street in Longview a half-dozen times, or at least it felt that way. Not because of inferior workmanship but because my mom kept...
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This is the first Christmas that my Beautiful Mystery Companion, our daughter Abbie and I have spent under a single roof. And it is the first time my BMC has unpacked her impressive array of Christmas decorations — collected over many years in post-Christmas sales both here and abroad, primarily in Japan and England. On the Saturday after Thanksgiving I cheerfully hooked up the trailer and headed to the storage unit to load up the decorations, all packed away in plastic tubs. I came back with the 5x10-foot trailer loaded, plus my small SUV filled to the roof.
I had already made a trip to the Big Box Store...
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Mattie Dellinger and I first met 30 years ago. I had just begun running the San Augustine Rambler newspaper, a trial-by-fire plunge into country newspapering at the callow age of 26. Mattie was a writer and columnist for the Center paper, 18 miles up the road. We printed there every Tuesday night. In 1982, Mattie was a spry 71 year-old who would quickly let you know how the cow ate the cabbage, her clear blue eyes gazing out from oversized glasses. Mattie stood about five-feet and probably didn’t weigh 100 pounds even after a fine Sunday dinner on the grounds. She clearly knew everybody in her native...
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Once again we gather to give thanks, another year drawing to a close. The days, weeks and months now roar by in a blur. Life reminds me of those movie scenes from the 1930s, when directors wanted to convey time passing quickly and used the device of pages flying off a calendar in rapid order. That is how time feels to me, years flying by. I look up and Kasey, my oldest daughter, who not so long ago sat in my lap reading stories, is about to be oldest enough to legally run for president. She is in her fifth year of teaching autistic children — my once-toddler who would happily wander around at parties...
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I lit the first fire of the season ten days before Thanksgiving. The first cold front had blown through. A light frost threatened in the morning. I have been waiting for this moment since October. Nature teased a few times. I had earlier been temped to open windows and start a fire, to let enough chill inside to fire up the hearth. We do love a fire in this family. This is our first autumn in this home, so we were itching to try out the fireplaces.
Actually, my Beautiful Mystery Companion used the formal living room’s fireplace while I was out of town a few weeks back, and reported favorably....
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