Dinner in the Field and other stories
I find you can discover your strengths at any age. For example, I find I’m a better writer than I am an editor. I have a full-length draft of a memoir that I’ve devoted countless hours to, and it’s finally finished. I’m anxious to move on to new material. But finishing the book is not the same as completing the project. Doing it right, I’m told, entails a less than...
Road Trip Five
On Sunday morning I drove through the Talledega National Forest at sunup. There’s nothing flashy about that national forest; it’s deserted, quiet, and beautiful. Perfect for a Sunday morning. My two lane was such that I was chasing east into the rising sun much of the time. Often the sun streamed down the hallways created by tall straight pines on both sides of the road forming a narrow column of...
Road Trip Four
The road trip as a metaphor for life has been worn out and overdone. But it got that way because it rings so true. Travel and life go hand in hand. In our heads, life is a journey. It feels linear. One road leads to another. You come to forks in the road and make choices. Decisions that seem trivial at the time can change the course of our lives....
Road Trip Three
When I got to Tennessee it was apparent my trip had changed. I was in the hills. Towns were small and commerce appeared to be at low ebb. Antique stores abounded but looked from the outside to contain very few actual antiques. I would classify them as junque stores. I went through Dover, Bear Spring, and Carlisle only to find myself headed towards Tennessee Ridge, where I seriously doubted the...
The Road Trip Takes a Detour
Writers’ conventional wisdom tells me this; every story has background, but you don’t have to tell the whole story. In fact you shouldn’t tell the whole story. The background, that bigger story, is probably only important to you and not your readers. I was never good at following advice, nor have I often been accused of being conventional. And so I offer you this today, a detour from the current...
Road Trip Two
My Dad, born in 1909, used to talk about the Tennessee Valley Authority and big government public work projects like Kentucky Dam created by the Corps of Engineers. He was solidly behind and spoke fondly of all the initiatives FDR undertook to create jobs and make life better for America’s poor. He told stories about the TVA. He said the government sent agents into those Kentucky and Tennessee hills to...
Road Trip Day One
I didn’t leave home as early as I’d hoped. The Flaherty family was in a mood to talk, drink, and have a good time on Thanksgiving, so I didn’t sleep as much as I’d hoped. Too much time in the shack, where we got into the whiskey and cigars, played old vinyl records, sang along, told old stories, laughed. You get the picture. I left for Florida at 9:00 a.m....
Be Very Thankful
I had a work flashback this week when I was thrown back into the world of acronyms. I thought I was visiting a nursing home and found to my amazement that I was instead standing in an ICF-MI. This is proof that you never know where you’re going to find yourself. Excuse me for being obscure here. It’s just evidence of how social workers working in Illinois with bureaucrats and...
Imagining a Warmer Day
Tuesday, November 18, 2014, it was 8 degrees at 6:30 in the morning. That’s the coldest temperature on record since 1903. Heck, it was 5 degrees in Red Lake, Ontario 1100 miles north of here, not unusual for them. But Thanksgiving is next week. It’s not supposed to be that cold in Illinois. Not only was it 8 degrees, but the wind was blowing so hard I had to shut...
Procrastination
After I stopped working I thought some things might change. I was chronically late for most of the thirty four years I worked at YSB. It was a busy place, and I liked to stay busy. I used every bit of time before grant deadlines, sometimes driving the grant to the city where it was to be mailed on the day it was to be submitted. By 5:00 p.m.. By...
Out with the Old, In with the New
This blog post was held up by an unforeseen circumstance. Not only was I busy building a woodshed the last two days, I was waiting for final results in the election of our my representative in Illinois’ 76th district, where incumbent Democrat Frank Mautino was running against Republican challenger Jerry Long. Frank is unofficially ahead by about 342 votes out of more than 34,000 votes cast. Long is not conceding...