Why I Watch Movies

I went for a jog with my daughter today and it was chilly. I thought we should wear long sleeve shirts, but she wore a plain, short-sleeved shirt so I felt to do the same. I couldn’t be shown up by my daughter. It was cold. The wind was blowing stiffly, and there was the … Read more

On Trees, Chain Saws, and Axes

My house is on a wooded lot. It was a mess of cherry, ash, maple, and thick underbrush. The only way to get through it was to crawl through the poison ivy. The neighbors from the adjoining subdivision had taken to dumping trash and dog poop in the low area at the back. It was … Read more

Parenting Story

This past weekend, I spent the better part of Sunday at a soccer field. Not just a soccer field, but a soccer complex with eight large fields. As part of a tournament, my son was sideline judge for six games. I drove him there before eight A.M.; instead of going home to just wait to … Read more

The Cardboard Box

I splurged on myself once, and spent a week in Iowa City at the Iowa Writers Program Summer Workshop. Very different from the famous one, but it was very good, and the class was led by Robley Wilson, then editor of the North American Review. The workshop was about a dozen people, and it was … Read more

The Black Dog Shall Have His Day

I have just added an article that was a speech I delivered for Toastmasters. The speech is called: “The Black Dog Shall Have His Day,” and is memoir-ish and the kind of thing I like to blog about. It’s about an aspect of my emotional intelligence that was, heretofore, only privy to my classmates from … Read more