Back to old style blogging about my day — What today is all about. It’s about reading Apple News and finding out the Stimulus Package, whatever they want to call it, won’t be enough to stop the evictions. It’s about knowing we’re safe after spending three years in PTSD-induced poverty. Finally getting compensation from the VA, the Air Force…

The deaths are not real and other madness — This is a honest to God conversation I had yesterday with friend, a young man who sat over ten feet away from me, on my front porch, telling me why Covid is not real. He agreed to social distancing and sitting outside because I told him it was the only…

True story, happened yesterday — My daughter Jane went surf fishing last weekend. Came home from the beach, rinsed off the salt water from her wading boots and left them on the front steps of her house to dry — about ten feet from the sidewalk. Two hours later, they were gone. These were distinctive…

Fiction: the stuff of legend — The deer camp is about five miles from Thornton. It’s a hunting “lodge” in the middle of a passel of acres of pine plantation mixed with old growth forest. There are no other houses near it. This is Arkansas. The South. USA. The wood frame farm house, built around 1910…

Living in the moment — An odd time to stop taking anti-depressants, that’s what my therapist said. But he went along with it, helped me to titrate my dosage down to naught and let me talk about myself through the change in my mental state. I’d become numb over the years. …

World War II and one member of my family — On December 3, 1944, my Aunt Helen wrote a letter to my mother. Mom was in Cincinnati, Ohio and Helen was following General Patton’s Army though Europe. She was a Red Cross volunteer. Young and idealistic, Helen joined the Red Cross seeking adventure. She wanted to contribute to the war…

GiaB prompt #3: seasons — essay — Mom said “colors in nature match, always” and it’s true. The greens and golds, the reds and oranges of autumn never clash. It’s true in pottery too. Clay sucks up a glaze the same way nature offers her palate. All colors combine into a concrete whole. Each season appears with…