When Elmer Perch was seven, he and his good ole uncle with a dagger heart forearm tattoo went for a backcountry drive, and then a walk, and his Uncle Lemmie challenged him to a stick throwing contest. Uncle Lemmie was a giant man with a large beer belly, but when he was younger, Lemmie...
Read more →Nobody likes to sit in a collapsing house. Or on a plummeting plane. Or over a bankrupted business. Or in a foxhole under fire. That’s why there is “practical thinking.” Good happens, but bad still happens too. You try to plan to alleviate or avoid the bad. But it still happens. Cars crash. Cancer...
Read more →I’ve had a pretty good run, as far as my teeth go. I don’t think I had my first recognized cavity until I was 45. I had a first filling go in at the time. Two years later, I had another cavity discovered and filled. Earlier this year, a rear molar went off on...
Read more →Sunday was a Shutdown Day. I just didn’t want to do much today. but the day still went fine enough. In a random act of self-healing, I for some reason depressed the water dispenser lever in the refrigerator door to see if it was working this afternoon, and to my surprise, a decent stream...
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The day started at 5:45 this morning when my eyes opened 15 minutes before the alarm went off. Today was Bosque del Apache day. I was on the road by 6:20 after I got clothes and camera gear together and the cats taken care of for the day and the coffee made. I figured...
Read more →It’s an odd anxiety. It was probably exacerbated by the story about that actor guy it happened to a few years back. For whatever reason, I often drive somewhere, park, and then get out of my truck and begin to walk away- and then I have to turn around and look and make sure...
Read more →Tonight, I was grateful to go to dinner with my nephew Brett, to just hang out and to catch up. As we left from his house, I asked him where he wanted to go. Somehow we decided on Greek food- neither of us ate much of it other wise. We ended up going to...
Read more →It is 11 and the words do not come, denied by drowse and doubt and indifference and fear, some too hot to hoist, the rest too dull to write, the sheet before me a vast white gulf, a deep white crevasse that swallows ideas whole. I can only describe their reticence, which is mine,...
Read more →We’re rolling into the holiday season. I mean, the Christmas decorations are already out at popular retailers. One local radio station leapt straight to all-Christmas songs all of the time shortly after Halloween was marked off of the calendar. It’s a short sprint into the end of the year. Thanksgiving will be here soon,...
Read more →“To write better you must develop your taste for truth. You have to pay more attention to what you really think, feel, see and want.” ― Jonathan Price, Put That in Writing In a state of frustration, she threw the giant question at me. “Who is good?” We had been talking about people and...
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I wasn’t sure what my day would look like this morning, but it became a rich one. Following breakfast and an enjoyable time at church (sermon point: give to bless loved ones in your life, not out of obligation), I visited the Gate of Heaven Catholic Cemetery right next to my neighborhood, chiefly to...
Read more →Today I got a call from my folks around 4:00 to join them and my nephew Grant at Blake’s Lotaburger for dinner. It was a welcome request, because I had not ate anything worthwhile all day until I joined them for dinner. Grant loves Blake’s like I and my folks do, so it was...
Read more →It was a pretty normal quiet Friday today. I did not get up early to write, though. I am kind of faltering at that right now. My mind feels chronically empty. Since baseball season ended, I told myself I would use my time better in the evenings. So far, I think I have watched...
Read more →Sometimes, one of the kindest sounds is the tinnitus within my ears which rings above the silent still of being home, reminding me that solitude is a thin decibal count.
Read more →A friend and I were talking today about the wonders of this modern world we live, which included a detour in which he celebrated the marvel of online dating. I am not familiar with online dating, but he shared with me about some of his experiences. Included in his reflections was his noting how...
Read more →One day he preached a sermon, and then the next he looked at his life, and he realized the only lecture he ever wanted to again offer needed to be spoken in the clarity of his actions, in the honesty of his transactions, in the gracefulness of his interactions, in the gentleness of his...
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