The most important lessons you learn will be outside the formal leaning structure. My second fall in college I toured the west with a singing group. Our classroom for three months and hundreds of miles was a bus. We had no privacy. We had to be with the same people for hours at a time. […]
Easter Sunday in America
I have to admit to some quaint ideas. I still feel an inner warmth and get a little misty-eyed when I see a picture of a family walking to church on a spring morning. In these warm fantasies the sun is always shining, birds sing, and the walk is lined with daffodils. The trees are […]
Number Four Birdshot
Purring through the dark on a long trip one night my Dad got to talking. He told me a shocking story about our family. During the depression chickens were mysteriously disappearing from the family farm just north of Chatham, Ohio. Times were hard. Money and food were scarce. After a number of chickens disappeared they […]
My Adirondack Chair
My Grandfather named things. He named his cows. He named his tractors. He even gave my Grandmother a nickname. She had a perfectly good name when he met her. It was a beautiful, appropriate, honorable name that fit her perfectly. Her name is Grace but grandpa always called her Tiny. My Dad acquired the habit […]
Don’t Trifle
I was just finishing some yard work when I saw a Hispanic man drive up in a pick-up truck. A young man was with him, later I found out it was his son. I smiled and waved, he smiled a waved back. They unloaded some equipment and went to work. I finished packing my things […]
Cement Block House
We used to live less than an hour from the heart of the Ohio Amish Country. The countryside there was pleasant to see and we frequently drove the back roads in every season and watched the progress of growing things and family life. My day off was Monday. That was usually our day to wander […]