My Blog
Two Turtle Doves
The best Christmas gift I ever received wasn't a Christmas gift at all, but a spontaneous, compassionate gesture from a friend of a friend. When I was a kid, if you came running into the house all hot and sweaty from playing outside in the Florida heat, it was a good...
Four & Twenty Blackbirds
During our Thanksgiving meal this year, huge flocks of black birds rose and fell in a choreographed, synchronized dance in the field outside our window. It's that time of year here. They are migrating south, stopping for respite in bare cornfields along their...
Faith of Our Fathers
first communion, 1st grade One of my great uncles had 11 children. They came to our house once, some of them having to sleep in our camper out in the driveway. At our house, when one of the five of us deserved a scolding, my mother tended to run all our names...
Ghosts of Halloweens Past
Halloween was not always such a big production. Thirty years ago, it came down to a mad scramble once it got dark after dinner on October 31. Suddenly, it would occur to us that we could go out and beg for candy. In typical last-minute fashion, my brother and I...
See Rock City
I'm a transplant. Growing up as an Air Force brat meant my family uprooted every couple of years and moved to a new place. New schools, new friends, new geography. Although I was born in Japan, we stayed only 6 weeks after my arrival before pulling up stakes...
Stupid Human Tricks (Don’t Try This at Home)
my bendy giraffe daughter The outcome of genetics freaks me out a little. One morning while waiting for the bus, I eyed my sister as she laughed and chatted with her way-cooler high school friends. I was just in the third grade and with my pin straight hair,...