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Search Results for: hope

BLAME ENGLAND FOR THAT?

Blame England? For what? For being so green, so lush, so historical with its leftover Roman roots? For having current people renting and living in four or five hundred year old houses? Go ahead and blame England for anything you want and you’ll be able to find evidence backing it up. Just make it good. […]

DEAR MiPERMIT, LOVE LETTER #2 FOR BATH ENGLAND

Dear MiPermit, Thank you for explaining how to park my car in your car park, and how to pay for it online. It was a good plan given the time of day. I wanted to park the car like a normal person, plug a meter, and walk away. Except it’s not that easy. Why would […]

VOTE DAY WITH BALLOT ENCLOSED

Vote day is finished with the ballot in the signature required envelope. It took about five minutes. Using a black ink pen I darkened the horizontal ovals for my people. You’re doing the same for your people? Let’s be clear who ‘our people’ are.

MOTHER’S DAY LADY REVIEW

After one miss on Mother’s Day with sick kids, I never missed another. During the phone call to tell her about missing she decided to tell me the nuts and bolts of my adventurous conception. The date, the name of the motel, the works. What mom doesn’t share that story? I’ve since stayed in the […]

GET MARRIED, STAY MARRIED, HERE’S HOW

When you get married something happens. A woman with an upcoming marriage had this to say: ‘My fiancé is so sweet. He told me it was my day and he’d do his best to make it great.’ Who wouldn’t want to hear that? Did you hear that?

GIVING UP, BUT NOT A QUITTER?

Giving up is different than quitting. Really. Quitting means done, all over, finished. The Day I Quit. Giving up is a longer process. One is a reaction, the other a journey. Who’s got the map?

HEALTH JOURNEY ON A ROUGH ROAD

A ‘health journey’ is a phrase used by people with lots of doctor appointments. If you’re old enough you either take that rough road yourself, or you show up for others on it. Personally, I’ve never liked the term. I like it even less when it applies to young people coming down with old people […]

WRITING ROOTS: HOW DEEP DO THEY GROW

Writing roots are reading roots. Everybody knows that from their first grade if they had a teacher as good as Mrs. Baker. I recall her saying, ‘Our writing is a reflection of our reading.’ I believed it then as I believe it now. (Folding a corner to mark my place in Patrick DeWitt’s novel The […]

PEP TALK? MY BEST MEMORY BEFORE A BIG WRESTLING MATCH

When does a pep talk make all the difference? You’re warmed up, ready to go, just as the coach gives last instructions. As a high school wrestler in my second year, I needed all the pep I could get. Ordinarily you wouldn’t put a second year guy out against a well known mauler, but . […]

FRAGILE MEN CLUB? YOU’RE ALREADY SIGNED UP

Fragile men had no place in Western American history stories about the savage frontier and cruel hardships. Nor in the early industrialization with mighty oil, steel, and railroad barons casting their deepening shadows across the land. Writers found other virtues to extoll other than common frailties. The western frontier needed stories of valor and sacrifice […]