Tag: father
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Yes, But Why Can’t You Go Home Again?
It’s a cliché. It’s a meme. It’s been repeated a hundred billion times by three hundred billion people. “You can’t go home again” I’ve read Thomas Wolfe’s book by the same name. It was a long time ago. I may be wrong (correct me if I am), but I do not recall Wolfe ever saying…
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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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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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John Tumbledown’s House
I pushed the button on the camera and heard the shutter snap. I captured my son midway through his pirouette in the field, in the field in front of the old farmhouse. Something caught my eye just as the mirror flipped up in the camera. Something in the farmhouse. I lowered the Pentax slowly from…
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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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Pacific Northwest Interlude: It’s Almost That Time Again
I’ll be waiting when you’re ready to love me… I’ll put my hands up. —Adele from I’ll Be Waiting. I’m sitting at the kitchen table of my daughter Erin’s house. I just made a Scrabble move against her. She’s sitting at the breakfast counter making Scrabble moves against me. It’s not that we don’t talk,…
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