“I still really want a football,” Elias said last week. “What happened to the one you got for Christmas?” I said, helping myself to more pasta. “I didn’t get one for Christmas.” “What? Yes you did. It was on your list and I got you one.” “Well, WE did,” Paul said. “That was from both… Continue reading ‘Tis(n’t) the Season
Category: Life
Dad’s Seat
My brother and sister and I went to Uncle Fred's funeral last week and sat in my father's pew. We didn't grow up with Victorian era Church of England assigned seating. We grew up with women on the left and men on the right, everybody singing four-part a cappella harmony. You don't need a piano… Continue reading Dad’s Seat
The Winter Dregs
My peonies look dead. Dead dead. They look like snapped-off twigs somehow sticking up out of the ground. I noticed them especially today because a coworker mentioned that spring was coming and soon I'd have peonies again. I usually take some blooms and put them on my desk; it's where I spend most of my… Continue reading The Winter Dregs
Between
I went to a funeral yesterday. I'll go to a funeral tomorrow. Two uncles died last week, one from each side of the family. I'm sad. Part of me feels like I'm making too much of it. One was 80, one 94. Both had been sick. Neither death was exactly a surprise. But I think… Continue reading Between
Here I Am
My father went to New York City in his twenties. He was the ninth and final child of a dirt-poor country butcher, the sixth child of the butcher's second wife. He'd grown up in rural Ohio, before the big roads were paved, when one side of State Route 585 was brick and the other side… Continue reading Here I Am