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Mrs. Dorthy Rauth

A few years ago, shortly after I bought my Ford Expedition, my wife needed to go get something out of the car. Rather than giving her my keys, I gave her my “code” to unlock the doors. I rattled it off like it was a phone number. “It’s very easy to remember,” I added. Landi… Read more »

Meeting The Family

Catfish has met a girl. He met a really nice girl, a girl he likes a lot. I know he likes her a lot just because he told us about her. At first, I somewhat doubted whether or not the girl actually existed anywhere but in his imagination. However, we saw photos of the two… Read more »

Random Christmas Memories

Yesterday, while at the lab waiting to have blood drawn, I reflected a little bit on Christmas through the years. Random thoughts came to mind, in no particular order. I guess I actually started down this rabbit hole on the drive to the lab. While driving in standard early Monday traffic, I remembered Christmas from… Read more »

Indian Mall

The Indian Mall was, for half a century, the crown jewel of North East Arkansas shopping. Paragould, Batesville, Blytheville, nor West Memphis had anything even remotely like it. It was cool, air conditioned indoor shopping on hot summer days and warm dry shopping on cold, rainy winter nights.

Kill Ball

As an underclassman, I remember fear the first time we all walked onto the basketball court in Junior High to play kill ball. I had never played before. Most of the ninth graders were nine feet tall. Eighth graders werent that tall. They were only eight feet tall. Seventh graders, we were tiny. We were… Read more »

Interacting With The Spirit World

In Fall of 1991, I moved from Memphis, Tennessee to Allentown, Pennsylvania. After living in an Embassy Suites hotel for a few months, I finally committed to an apartment of sorts. It was actually the upper floor of a place called the Mauch Chunk Hotel. It was 200 years old and was located on Mauch… Read more »

The Best Thing About Waking Up

I have an ax to grind with the weasel who first conceived the idea of putting images and messages on coffee mugs. You know, coffee mugs that have pictures or phrases on them commemorating places you’ve been or offering some funny observation. Those are the ones. I have about fifty of them, and I can’t… Read more »

Friday Night in Pensacola

Have you ever been to a bar or restaurant that was so good or so much fun that you almost didn’t want to tell anyone about it so that it didn’t get overrun? I knew a place like that in Memphis and now I’ve found one in Pensacola. Upstairs above The District Steakhouse, there is… Read more »

The Importance of Reading Instructions

Recently, my wonderful wife and I have been reminiscing about the joy of trying to teach teenagers to read the instructions that accompany new things. Some things are complicated to operate, and kids tend to ignore the instructions and just begin messing with the ‘thing’ until they either break it, or it works. With Ipads… Read more »

Boxes of Crap

Boxes of crap always pose unseen dangers for me. I keep mementos. I have a spirit ribbon from a Douglas MacArthur Junior High football game in 1972. I’m sure it meant something at one time, but I seem to have killed the brain cells that held that memory. I can’t throw it away because I… Read more »

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Latest

  • In Memory of a Friend

    Moments of clarity. Singleness of thought. Focus. In a world broken up into 12 second sound bites, we have few moments of clarity. We are torn from one screaming crisis to another until something gives us pause, and we take that moment to think. It is sometimes said that youth is wasted on the young…. Read more »

  • Womens Volleyball

    Nearly everyone I know has spent at least a few minutes watching the Olympics.  My wife and I have watched more than our share of swimming.  Last night, we watched Women’s Beach Vollyball.  It brought back memories of a picnic and a volleyball match in Memphis many years ago. I was young, maybe 28 or… Read more »

  • Beware the Hookers

    I was excited about going to a casino, especially a casino in the Bahamas. I had never been to a casino anywhere, and all I knew about them I had learned from watching James Bond movies. I was excited at the prospect of playing roulette and baccarat surrounded by beautiful women. I was going to… Read more »

  • A Wedding Toast

    Laugh loud, laugh long, and laugh hard. Smile. Have a short memory and a big heart. Lift each other up, and help each other down. Eat a hotdog, and drink cabernet sauvignon in the rain. At the end of the day, be a hug and a smile. Be a harbor, not a storm. Be a… Read more »

  • The Old Man at the White Horse Tavern

    He was old and broken, but unbowed in his wheel chair.  The lady who brought him in could have been his daughter, but she wasn’t.  She was very pretty. For several weeks I watched her wheel him in for lunch each Wednesday at the White Horse Tavern.  That’s the bar in the Village, NYC where Dylan Thomas died. The old man… Read more »

  • Me, Boo, and The Goob

    No one could possibly enjoy raising kids more than I have.  Each and every day was an exciting new adventure.  We have had funerals for bunny rabbits, and created glow in the dark skeletons.   I coached every recreational league sport known to man.  I have probably spent years at Six Flags, Dorney Park, the Jersey… Read more »

  • A brave new world

    it begins.