Do I fear Armageddon? All the time, although probably not like you imagine.

I was a child in the 1960s, raised on civil defense drills and assurances of mutual destruction. I don't remember whether I really believed the Soviet Union  was the Evil Empire. I don't remember whether… Read full post »

Like several other posters here, I grew up with guns. My father was a sportsman; when he died last summer there were perhaps 20 sporting guns to divvy up, plus some assorted others. I have, locked up, a .22 Colt Woodsman pistol, a .22 Ruger Bearcat revolver, a Browning… Read full post »

 The house, 40-some years ago

We live in an old house in an old town that was never, by anyone’s estimation, rich. We don’t have fancy Victorians; we have functional homes — err, sort of.

Our house was originally a one-story L-shaped frame house. At… Read full post »

 A postcard for a sister-mom

Yesterday a poster here shared some frustration over her children. The response was extremely supportive, except for one person who said something that must surely have felt to the original poster like, “It’s all your fault; you’re inadequate… Read full post »

My husband and I received a note today from a man who just buried his wife of 60 years. Instead of the standard note thanking us for cards, flowers, food and prayers, this one just says, “Thank you for eating cherries with me when I needed a friend.”

I… Read full post »

I was very near the center of the 1993 outbreak of a "new" disease, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, in the Four Corners, so I'm not quite as prone to panic over the swine flu as many people seem to be. Here are excerpts from a presentation I sometimes gave to a university… Read full post »