Category: Melancholy Thoughts
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This Old House
There is so much to be done when your last surviving parent dies. My father passed away nearly ten years to the day and I can remember so much of the aftermath that my brother, wife and I had to deal with. The lawyers, the probate, the will, endless medical records, phone calls, funeral arrangement…
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Losing King–Losing Thea
The email from my daughter, Erin, came on the evening of January 16. It’s title was short and full of foreboding: “Thea’s gone.” A few hours earlier she had written that she and her husband had taken Thea to the “doggie hospice”. Now this. She described how her big black lab mix, Thea, had to…
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How I Forgot My Pain While Walking Down Broadway
I took a baby step over the curb and onto the sidewalk. I poked along like an aged dog. Several days after my back surgery…they said: “Get up. Get out. Walk a little. You’ll get stronger.” My back hurt. It was a #7.5 on the Great Medical Scale of 1 to 10. My only thoughts…
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Epitaphs: Part V–A Desert Grave
As a rule, this post is about unusual and interesting words, the last words, the final words that are carved onto a headstone. In this case, there are no words. Perhaps there is a name and a date, but the face of the stone was difficult to see. I was held back by a fence.…
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Travels 21: You Can Still Get Some Kicks On Route 66
We’re tucked away at an RV park in Albuquerque. I can feel the shadow of Jesse Pickham and Walter White all around me. I stopped at the check-in desk and asked where I could get a local newspaper. She gave me directions. I’ll bet you get a lot of questions about “Breaking Bad” from the…
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Travels 18: The Call of the Desert: or If I Can’t Stand the Heat, What Am I Doing in Death Valley?
A man who refuses to acknowledge his god is unwise to set foot in the desert. Count Anteoni from “The Garden of Allah” (1936) I think it’s the isolation that attracts me to the austere places on the planet. I love the North because of the intense bone-crystalizing cold. The water-logged plants and animals without…
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The Man in the Steel Armor: A Monologue
Some would think that it would be a boring existence to stand for decades in a plexiglass box wearing a suit of steel armor. Let me assure you that it is far from the truth. I find it fascinating to watch the gawkers, the curious, the historians, the lovers and the caretakers as they stroll…
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Epitaphs: Part IV
A few simples words about Mortality It was a damp and warm day in mid-August. I stood over the gravesite and heard the locusts singing in the nearby fields. The stone was smooth, given its age and I had to drop to my knees to read the delicate epitaph on the lower half of the…
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The Whistle-Stop Girl of Montana
The gentle swaying of the coach of the train was lulling me to sleep. I had spent the night at Union Station in Chicago waiting for the early morning departure of the Great Northern, bound for Seattle. It was a long lay-over and I was tired. After watching the western suburbs of the Windy City…
patrickjegan 