I was out buying tomato plants for the garden the other day and it brought back memories of my thirteenth Summer. I was in Boy Scouts and took on a project to teach crafts at Ashton Woods Convalescent Center a few miles from my home. I remember being excited to get to teach leatherwork and […]
Communication – the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, signals, writing, or behavior. Most of us begin this process from the first time we point at something to indicate we want it. After we slowly master “Mama” and “Dada,” we eventually grow our vocabulary and with the right training we become equipped […]
When I was a child, my parents instilled in me a lengthy list of expected behaviors for a man in training. Behaviors such as stand when shaking a man’s hand and look him in the eyes, a woman’s hand is taken not shaken, a promise made is a promise kept, speak truth and dispel lies […]
One of my favorite feelings as a kid was achieved by walking barefooted through the cool grass in the early morning. I think for most of my childhood, shoes were simply an accessory wore when you went to town. Otherwise, there was nothing covering the bottoms or the tops of my feet. The bottoms were always […]
The sweet smell of honeysuckle lightly drifted over the back porch steps as I sit at the top of a thirty-step descent to the ground below. At three-years-old this was a surmountable achievement to navigate these without tumbling to the bottom. And in reality my mother was always watchfully standing by looking through the porch […]
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” the book of John tells us. There are many professions that include in their description the possibility that their duties might place the person in harm’s way while serving others. Some we see regularly are police and firefighters. […]
As I turned the key and the engine on the gray Murray riding mower was balking, I sort of knew it was going to be one of those days. With a little prompting though I was off and running. Many people love to mow, although I started mowing other people’s yards at about age nine, […]
There are people that you meet in life sometimes become professional associates, some become friends, some become family. As a child, I didn’t find it easy to make friends. Not because I did not try, but because I didn’t easily fit into the childhood molds and thus it took the other person to have to […]
I can remember going door to door as a youth collecting canned foods to place in paper bags with the blue letters marked upon the sides – Goodwill. This organization was one of the many that our family moved the young people in my circles to do work to benefit. When parents work to instill […]
Today most folks don’t give a second thought if they get their clothes dirty to go and change into another outfit. Of late, I have found myself babying a electric dryer as I have been trying to get parts to keep it working, so I am a little more cautious about how many clothes I […]
