The Paper Route
I was just home from watching my 87 year old mother die. For her, that meant the blessing of peace after months of fear and unease. The cruel additives to her illness. For me, that…
Amen
It seems the notices come weekly now As one class mate after another dies. The news relayed by a faithful Bullpup Who’s lived his life in McPherson. Or hers. A pillar now of the community,…
Shake It Off: A Postscript to “Who’s in Blue”
My son-in-law’s girls’ basketball team played their last game of the season several days ago. Most of the girls are young; some almost new to basketball. None were tall or solid enough to deflect opponents…
A Meditation on Cats, Rabbits—and a Pig
Let’s start with the pig. She’s Esther and she lives in Campbellville, Ontario, with her turkey brother Cornelius, her dog brother Phil, her cat sister Delores, and her dads, Steve and Derek. Given to her…
Who’s In Blue
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man…
Fish Out of Water
If I had any doubts, the jig was up the afternoon that our Regional Park Managers quarterly meeting morphed into a Missouri River float trip. We had assembled in moderately rustic facilities at the Beartooth…
Winter 2021
Joy Let a joy keep you.Reach out your handsAnd take it when it runs by. . . . Carl Sandburg What a frightening, discouraging year. We hoped—on many fronts: that the vaccine would bring us…
Birds of a Feather
Yesterday, I stood and watched a magpie winkling bites from the suet feeder Which hangs off my porch rail–made fetching by a tin beak, tail, painted wings, and the wire feet of a northern flicker….
The Competition
No one talks about it. The topic being too close to home. A guilty secret. But, I bet, if you’re over 65 you know . . . That we are racing each other away from…
I Learned This Year . . .
More about growing old and navigating the world. I am 75. And tentative, slow on steps, unsteady on rocky ground. More so after a silly, spectacular sprawl in my living room last spring. The perfect…