My younger daughter Sophia and I drove an hour or so east of our home yesterday to watch a college softball game in Lexington, Kentucky. It was a good day. Sophia was chatty, and we had our usual conversations about the source of tofu and other deep topics. My mind wandered a lot to the […]
Just to cross the finish line upright in a marathon, you’ll train forty or fifty miles a week. You’ll do one or two training runs of twenty miles or more. You’ll train in ice storms and stifling humidity. You’ll run with sore knees and twisted ankles. You’ll do it all for the race’s last two-tenths […]
The happiest land is the world is one none of us can easily reach. It’s tucked away in a hidden valley in a faraway part of the world that does not appear on any map. By happenstance, a hiker entered this remote place on his way to climb one of the highest mountains in that […]
An excerpt from The Savior of Turk. After I died, I figured I’d possess a clear memory of my whole life, from the day I popped out of my mama’s belly till they put a sheet over my head at the hospital. In eternity, I had in mind that I’d go back and forth over […]
I was nine or ten the first time I heard my granddad pepper his speech with cuss words. I could still point out within a five square foot area where I stood in his barnyard when he let loose one of those forbidden four-letter words in my presence. I had crossed some invisible line of […]
Is it redundant to use my left turn signal if I’m already in the left turn-only lane? That’s like a double negative. “I ain’t never seen nothing like that never in my life.” Quadruple negative. Nicely done, Ron. I will not use my turn signal. I am a rebel. Rebel, Rebel. That reminds me of […]
Dear advertisers, Just a few suggestions I ask you to consider. First, I direct my attention to you, Local Business Owner. I ask you kindly to refrain from using your family in your commercials. I am sure your children and grandchildren have prodigious talents, and they will someday discover a cure for low-grade acne. However, […]
Interesting take on grammar in writing. Where do we draw the line, or should we? Grammar Nazi reductionism, Indie Authors and the dreaded one star reviews (an essay by Tom Conrad)..
There is every accounting for taste I didn’t like the latest movie version of Le Miserables, even though it will win 23 Oscars, including “Best Musical Number by an Aussie during a Suicide Plunge.” So sue me. I much preferred the 1978 version with Anthony Perkins. Because it was a TV movie, it wasn’t up […]
Words are good. Knowing lots of them helps you win at Scrabble and finish crossword puzzles with a pen. But something happens, usually in high school and definitely by college, where we think we have to use big, five-syllable words when we write, even if it’s an email to a colleague. We use words we […]
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