I was looking at some old family photos one day and came across a picture of my father with some other men from my town. They were dressed in the uniforms of the Ceremony Team. The Ceremony Team would fire the final salute of three volleys over the grave of a fallen comrade. In this case it was to be over the grave marker of an unknown soldier. In our little town this particular grave stone was on a small patch of land in front of one of our many towns’ taverns. As is the case of many small...
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I sit on my deck: the place I so love to be; while I survey the yard around me.
Some grass, some weeds, a butterfly bush here, and some tall grasses there; all blended in with nature.
I watch the early autumn; late afternoon sun cast a shadow across my neighbor’s yard.
Oh, did I tell you, they have two new twins. A seismic change has come to the old neighborhood.
We are all old folk here. Our children have children; now as we look over the cliff of old age.
Seven years have passed since I...
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I grew up listening to baseball games with my Dad on our radio that we would bring outside for each game. The hard plastic AM/FM radio was gray in color and had a carrying handle that functioned also as an antenna. We lived in a small town nestled in a valley so sometimes the broadcasts were difficult to bring in. Our house which had been a company house at one time looked much like everyone else’s, had an open porch where we sat to listen. The porch was open on three sides if you counted the...
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It was a warm May afternoon, sunny, but not too hot. It was just a great day to drive.
I drove three hours on the Pennsylvania turnpike hardly paying attention to the road. It seems as though I was on autopilot having done this so many times in the past twenty eight years. How many family gatherings had I driven to? There was Mother’s Day, the summer holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas and even, sometimes, her birthday.
She was lying in her hospital bed, and was glad at the surprise of seeing...
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Opening Day in Major League Baseball is a truly wonderful event. What is so special about this you ask? It is the annual rite of Spring when we gather at thirty places all over the country to celebrate six months of triumphs and disappointments. It is the sign that winter is behind us, and that warmer weather, if not already, here will soon be.
On Opening Day every team is a contender, and with spring training behind us where the games are played mostly for evaluation of talent and the filling...
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I was four and a half years old when I was taken to the hospital; although I do remember lying on the couch in the living room in our old house.
I had a stuffed bear that I clung to constantly. One day Mom decided it was time to wash the germs out of it, and being the good person she was, made the greatest effort to return my companion to me. There was only one problem with that plan. She must have thrown it in the dryer, although, I didn’t think we had a dryer until years later. The bear...
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That introduction given by Ed Sullivan that February night so long ago swept America, and the world into a place that we would never come back. Looking back, I now see that as that moment of the 60’s when all the old was replaced by all the new. John Kennedy’s assassination, a made for television event would certainly not be the last major event of that decade, had come only several weeks earlier. The nation was still reeling from that dark period of uncertainty. The traditional holidays of...
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My house is prone to spider webs of all types, and their creators can be found in most rooms as well as the garage. They come in all types and sizes, and I always seem to find a way to walk into their handy work. Basically if they’re there, I’ll find them.
One day in the laundry room, I spy one of these creatures in a blue crate, sitting on the floor next to the dryer.
“Hmm,” I thought. “Well, another web spinner I see. I wonder how it had got in there. Oh well no matter I’ll squash...
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