Category: Time
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My Son’s Beard
I saw him being born. Later on, I saw peach fuzz on his adolescent chin. A few years later, when he moved in with us, in New York City, I think he borrowed my razor. Yesterday, I stood next to him at The Beacon Bar. I sipped a beer, he had something I never…
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My Father’s Books
The 1950’s & 1960’s On Sunday nights, in the house at 420 Front Street in Owego, NY, there was usually an empty chair in our living room. My mother and three older brothers would gather around an oversized wooden console that housed a Black & White TV. The Ed Sullivan Show was about to come…
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Another Time Around
[Our front deck table.] It all happened so fast. One minute, the flies fill the skies, the frogs croak down by the lake, the fan is kept on all night (a rare thing here in the North Country) and I spend my outdoor time swatting mosquitoes. Tonight, we’re told of a frost warning. The fan…
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Sleep And The Birch Tree Clock
[Our Limelight Hydrangea.] I look at the clock. It’s 4:35 am. I can’t sleep. I begin another chapter in the book I’m reading. I go into the kitchen and eat a cracker. I sip some Tonic Water (it helps my leg cramps). I go back to bed. I can’t sleep. I take a little pill.…
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Of Time and Distance: A Departing
[Corfe Castle] Yesterday, in the late afternoon, I sat on unmowed grass leaning against a stone wall. I was on the grounds of Corfe Castle in south Dorset. The mason who built my backrest had fitted the stones into their places over 1,000 years ago. There was still a strong sun in the west and…
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BREAKING NEWS: Cartoon “bad boy” Goes Berserk–Pictures At Eleven
[Source: Google search. Copyright:North American Syndicate] So, this will likely be the last story I will file in my so-called stellar career as a reporter. I pulled the night shift of all things…at my age! I’m standing in the drizzle on the safe side of the police crime scene tape. It’s yellow, just like in…
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Two Trees
A man and woman have four children–two boys and two girls. The same seed…the same egg. One boy grows up, attends college and eventually becomes a doctor and later joins Doctors Without Borders. His brother sits in a small cell at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, NY. He did something unspeakable to an eleven…
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Gathering Dust
I was dusting some items in our home the other day. If you find that unusual, you should see the amount of dust that can accumulate in a house that was empty for almost six months. We weren’t even here. So, where did it come from? And, it’s not that we keep an unclean home.…
patrickjegan 