I used to write letters. Letters that traveled here-and-there in envelopes with a USPS stamp. I still write letters. But not all that many, and not all that often. I don’t have to buy all that many “forever stamps” these days. My Dad’s side of the family has always written lots of letters. I don’t…
Birthday week of 2017 was a doozy. Music. Sunshine. Friends. Food. Family. Frolicking. Revelry. Reminiscing. More music…and a tad bit of introspection. We had been in Orygun less than 3 months when Jackson Browne released “The Pretender.” If I had a “ben franklin” for every time I have played the album since I bought the…
I can hear John Crudele’s voice in my head like it was yesterday, but it was almost 20 years ago. Cancer took away JMC, his wisdom and his perfect answers over 3 years ago. But I’m pretty sure that if could ask him the very same question today, that there would only be a slight…
I had a walk-and-talk with an Army buddy one day last week. Tim is not the only person who ever called me Willie. He was one of several guys at Ft. Bragg that laid that one on me because of a basketball player named Willie Wise. Shelly and I spent a night in Wooster, OH…
It’s been 43 days since June 27 and my last post to this blog. On August 1, 2017 I saw a great show by Ryan Adams at The Pageant in St. Louis. The first four lines of the 3rd song of the evening pretty much describes my state of mind since my 6/27/17 post: “I…
Sgt. Joe Friday apparently never said it, but this piece will be the Jack Webb version: “Just the facts, ma’am.” {Apparently he did often say: “All we want are the facts, ma’am”and sometimes “All we know are the facts ma’am”} It was the years 2000 and 2001. It was the years of the presidential election…
On Saturday, March 18, 2017 I spent a few hours at the viewing for my late Uncle Joe, dead too soon at only 77. He survived the “widow maker heart attack” (which has a 90% kill rate) for about 30 years. It took three decades for a complete closure of the left anterior descending coronary…
March 13, 2017. Weather sucks. In the mid-thirties for the high temp.. My “early garden” is probably toast. Fuck me. But it will all be good. Nothing ventured…and all that. 5 bucks of seeds and i’m back in business. I’m gonna go cover my garden as soon as I post this. I repeat: Fuck Me!
I’ve got a lot of questions….and I have had for as long as I can remember. I probably always will have more questions than answers. I remember a time when I was probably 5 or 6 years old. The older of two boys who lived next door to my Grandma Ruth was doing chores, including…
In early 2011, my marriage of 37 years ended. A few months later I moved back to Missouri…and I was traveling lightly. I never expected to live in the Show-Me state again. After we left MO over 40 years ago, when we had to pick our first password (probably for an ATM in Corvallis), we…