Category: Holding onto the Past
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Let It Be
I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea Sometimes I turn, theres someone there, other times its only me… –Bob Dylan “Every Grain of…
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A Watercolor Found
My father never said much about his life. He did have his favorite stories that he would tell us when his four boys were…little boys. Some of the tales were family jokes, like this one: “We were so poor, one Christmas we got a pair of roller skates. We had to wait until the next…
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Coal For Christmas
My father grew up poor. Not the kind of poor where he would walk through ten inches of snow barefoot or go from house to house asking for bread. Just the kind of poor that would keep his father one step ahead of the rent collector. His parents provided the best they could, but, by…
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Two-Tree Island (How Do I Live Without You?)
The physical geography of the place can be hard to describe. One has to see it from the air…from the height of a soaring hawk or eagle, or, better yet, from the seat of a kayak or canoe. But one can get lost in the words…just as easily as one can get lost in the…
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Waiting For All Hallow’s Eve XVI: “Is My Childhood Home Haunted?”
Sometime in 2005, I handed the keys of my childhood home to the new owners. That action was very difficult for me. This was the only home I had ever known from birth to the time I went off to college. But, even in the years since 1965, when I hopped into a car and…
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Waiting For All Hallow’s Eve X: “Those Wild and Crazy Victorians”
Just when I thought I knew nearly everything about the Victorians, something falls into the lap of my experience that amazes and astonishes even my jaded mind. The great Age of Victoria (who ruled England from 1840 to 1900) gave us such interesting societal practices that continue to delight us…and frighten us. The era gave…
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On a Night Like This
‘I remember it was on a night very much like this…’ —Words spoken around 10,000 campfires by a billion storytellers for a million years. I found myself staring at the clouds drifting slowly past the quarter moon. In these early days of autumn, it should be a little cooler, but it was a mild evening.…
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When Life Ends: Still Rich: Still Poor
One of my pastimes is to wander cemeteries. The older the better–and more interesting. The artwork on gravestones is full of imagery and symbolism. I’ve been in classic world-famous cemeteries like Pere Lachaise, in Paris, Evergreen, in my hometown and quaint very old graveyards that sit in the quiet spaces beside churches in England. And,…
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Two Elderly Gentlemen Walk Into A Pub
An older man walked into a pub in Burlington, Vermont on a recent Saturday afternoon. It was minutes away from a heavy rain. The guy went downstairs to the men’s room. He was there at the pub to meet an old friend and he was about two minutes late. As he climbed the stairs,…
patrickjegan 