Category: Real Personal History
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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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The Great Hiking Pants Problem
If a sweater was hanging in an empty forest, would it still be Cobalt Blue? I ponder these kinds of questions…maybe a little too much. Every time my wife suggests a hike, I can find some kind of excuse. And most of them are real concerns of mine. It’s not that I don’t like to…
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How Three Moments From An Evening With Bob Dylan And His Band Will Stay With Me
It was December 1, 2014. The mild afternoon had turned into a chilly evening. A light rain was falling on the gritty sidewalks of the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The marquee of the Beacon Theater on 75th Street told the story of the next few hours in my life: TONIGHT-AN EVENING WITH BOB DYLAN…
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Not Just Another Skyscraper
The Empire State Building has been linked to me, in one way or another, since before I was born. That may sound a bit confusing…but stay with me. I am an American male, raised to hide emotional reactions. But, I can say that the building has made me cry on more than one occasion. When…
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The Day I Saw My Heart
I am well aware that many people have watched their own brain surgery on a monitor. I know people have watched their own heart being operated on…but I am not one of those people. I understand the whole medical thing about blood vessels and nerve endings. I totally get the concept that there are certain…
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Where are the Corn Girls of Summer?
In northern New York State, in late summer, hot sunny days are not uncommon. It was the height of the corn season. I practically left skid marks on Rte. 37 when I saw the corn stand to my right. I had once been scolded by the robotic female voice on my GPS about making illegal…
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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 XV: “The Ghost Who Called My Name-A True Story”
What I am about to tell you actually happened to me. But, do I have the absolute right to say that a “ghost” called my name? No, I cannot. Declaring it an actual spirit from beyond the grave, requires scientific proof…and I cannot offer you any. But, I have no other word to describe the…
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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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