Entries 519
Page 2 of 21
Junior high memories revisited
Years ago, as part of outreach duties at my job, I found myself in a local middle school at a rescheduled career-day presentation that morphed into “social studies night” for parents coming to pi...
The Songs of Our Lives: Alone Once Again,
Not long ago I posted an entry about a favorite song from the summer and fall of 1972, “Summer Breeze” by Seals and Crofts. There were four other songs that last year of college that have staye...
Ageless
This is a poem I wrote three years ago in April 2021, not long after the peak of the of the Covid pandemic with its lockdowns, solitude, and extreme distancing from others so as not to be infecte...
Secrets of life
Secret 65: we should not complain, but always enjoy, and be grateful for the good fortune we still possess. About the secret: In an undesirable situation, or confronted with a loss, the inferior ...
We don’t meet people by accident. Everyone is meant to cross our path for a reason. Kathryn Perez From a letter to my sister and brother-in-law, September 29, 1990: It’s late at night, and I’v...
See the curtains hangin’ in the window, in the evenin’ on a Friday night. A little light a-shinin’ through the window, Let’s me know everything is alright. Summer breeze, makes me feel fine, ...
Creature of the night
When I can’t chase the stories through the night, they escape and get lost. Franz Kafka Diary entry, June 4, 1915 At long last it has come to me. This is what I will write about: the middle of ...
This is the first day so far this year in Charleston that it’s felt like summer. I noticed that “hot heat” all of a sudden.” It’s as if you walk outside and it’s instantly summer. The air sort of...
We do not see Nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts. William Hazlitt Come forth into the light of things. Let Nature be your teacher. William Wordsworth It was a typ...
Close encounters of the reptilian kind
Growing up in Louisiana, I’ve always been fascinated by alligators. There is something about these ancient, dinosaurian reptiles that strikes both cautious fear and wonder in me. And now where I...
Advice for any age: “Be young, be foolish, but be happy”
It’s only April 20, but it feels like an early summer day when those sweet memories of sun and fun at the beach come back to me from more carefree times. Back in the 1960s, we never thought that...
I’ve written often about a special place very near and dear to my heart, Folly Beach, located on the Atlantic Ocean about 10 miles from where I live. It’s a diverse and eclectic hodgepodge of peo...
AUNT BEE: Remember, first you eat the sandwiches, and then you eat the apple pie. Not the apple pie and then the sandwiches. Do you understand? OPIE: Yeah, I understand, even if it doesn’t seem r...
Now they say phone addiction is leading to all kinds of mental health problems among young people. Which is probably true. They spend multiple hours a day scrolling TikTok shorts; keeping up wi...
I mark the summer’s swift decline; The springing sward its grave-clothes weaves. Oh, could I catch the sounds remote? Could I but tell to human ear The strains which on the breezes float And...
The meeting story of my mom and dad in Charleston in 1947, when he was in the Merchant Marine, is legend. My mother was quite beautiful and refined. A Southern girl through and trough from a good...
This past Thursday on a cool March day in early Spring, I wandered transfixed by the beauty of azaleas in bloom at Middle Place Gardens, one of the most beautiful and historic public gardens in ...
Awe and wonder can be experienced everywhere
When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to ...
Second Mill Pond Revisited
It is late at night and I’m tired, but I want to record some thoughts I’ve been mulling over lately. They deal with the subject of memory. I’ve been thinking a lot about that word and all that it...
Time, memory, poetry and mortality
Time By Kevin Time Slow, lonely Tiring, boring, stopped Minute, hand, number, second Lengthened, endless, explored, black, scary Space Poem written by one of my students in the fall of 19...
What exactly is a healthy mind?
A healthy mind knows how to hope; it identifies and then hangs on tenaciously to a few reasons to keep going. Grounds for despair, anger, and sadness are, of course, all around. But the healthy m...
A desert spring and oasis are symbolic of eternal things
There are few natural features of the landscape more symbolic of life than a perennial spring in the desert. In my Wyoming Atlas and Gazeteer, springs are represented by a little circle and curvi...
It’s been four years since my mother passed away in January 2020, just a few months before the onset of the horrible and deadly Covid pandemic. I’m so thankful she didn’t have to endure the poss...
The right recliner chair is pure bliss
How amazing to be vindicated in such a way. I was reading a profile of a talented chef/restaurateur, manager of a notable eating establishment in our city. And, he said that his most valuable per...
The great 19th century French novelist Balzac wrote, “When chilling winter shows his icy face, [camellias] bloom for a world that vainly seeks delight.” But camellias provide that delight like ...
Book Description
Short essays from the interior of my life.
