Category: Memories
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A Missing Image But Still A Memory
The photographic frame, measuring 3″x5″ sat on the flat surface of the headstone. It’s a small quiet Catholic cemetery on the edges of the village of Saranac Lake, New York. The winter snow was gone but no grass or Spring flowers had the courage, or time, to begin their life again. Cemeteries are full…
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A Brief History of Chains and Chainmaking
I am holding a very special letter in my hand right now. But, first… Whether we realize it or not, chains play a very important part in our lives. Indeed, chains have, throughout history, helped to hold the very fabric of our changing civilization together. For example, I was astounded to learn that the metal…
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Pushing Chalk: Recollections on a Classroom Life
Hey, teacher leave them kids alone. -Pink Floyd “Another Brick in the Wall” 1979 “What is a rock?” I actually asked this question of my Earth & Space Science class of ninth graders. It was probably my third year of teaching. I was in a public school near Wilkes-Barre, PA. There were thirty kids in…
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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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The Night They Pulled The Plug in Louisiana
It was a long time ago–perhaps the late 1960’s or early 1970’s. It was the wrong time, the wrong place and the wrong evening to be holding a pair of tickets to a Steppenwolf concert. I attended college in the deep south in the mid-1960’s. In itself, there’s nothing strange about that. The problem was…
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Dad
On this day, January 24, my father was born. I don’t know the day of the week or the time of day. All I know for sure is that it was 100 years ago. My guess is that it was a home birth. My grandfather, Michael, would likely have been pacing the floor of their…
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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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Coal For Christmas: A Holiday Story For You
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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A Random Meeting On The Famous Steps
I’m in New York City on or about December 6, 2013. We happen to be staying at the Hotel Pennsylvania, located on Seventh Ave. just across from Madison Square Garden. Our hotel is booked solid, so we must move to another place in order to extend our stay for two more days. We go out…
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How Soon They Forget
There I sit, in the corner of the yard, like a ’51 Chevy that had a broken axle and no one had the $65.00 to repair it. I’ve been dusted off, washed and parked out to dry. The thousands of smashed bug bodies on my forward surface are gone. That’s ok, I don’t like bug…
