Category: Memories
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Dear Grandpa
Dear Grandpa, I thought I’d write to you today. It’s been such a long time since we had a chance to sit and talk about things. I have so many memories of you, I don’t know where to begin. It was so long ago. Remember when I was a little boy? You lived with Grandma…
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The Postman Always Winks Twice
Sometime in the late 1990’s, my wife and I drove to Owego, NY to visit my aging father. My mum had passed away in 1992, so my dad was living quietly and alone as a widower in our big rambling family home on Front Street. Room by room and closet by closet, any objects or…
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Forever and a Day
Absolutely nothing lasts forever. Nothing lasts forever. There may be some things that last forever. One thing lasts forever. You’re waiting for me in the cafe. The place beside the old church and next to the cemetery. The only place in the city where I can sit next to the fire and feel warm…on…
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The Pink Flamingos of the Pacific Northwest
I asked my daughter, Erin, about her opinion of pink flamingos. “They have their place,” she answered, without taking more than five seconds to think it over. That place was in a front yard, several blocks from her home in Orting, WA. My wife and I were walking back from a brief shopping trip to…
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An Ice Queen and Prometheus on a New York City Night
A month ago I wouldn’t be able to stand where I’m standing tonight. Impossible. Unless I was willing to share the same physical space with seven other people. I’m looking down at the skating rink at Rockefeller Center. Four weeks ago, thousands of tourists and locals were cramped in and around the small park that…
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Park Avenue on a Rainy Day
I am standing in the rain at the intersection of the Mythical Avenue and Ordinary Life Street in New York City. If there’s a map at your side, look for where E. 92nd Street crosses Park Avenue. That’s where I am standing, safely protected from the speeding traffic, on the landscaped Mall that separates the…
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The Weekend I Took the Moon Rocks Home
Only on rare occasions (once or twice a month) do I check for the black SUV’s in my driveway or parked around the corner on the road where I now live. I hesitate to give the name of the road–I’m not sure it’s in the Big Computer now. We only moved here in December of…
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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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