The road that could be seen from Paul McCartney’s window was a very real pathway that inspired the Beatles’ last No.1 hit, “The Long And Winding Road.” It is a road, wrote McCartney, “associated with terrific sadness and also a sense of hope. It is a road that leads to somewhere you never expected.” When […]
Letter: Together
Early morning will find us in a fog-bound pasture where droplets like diamonds cling as if frozen to berries and vines. Afternoons along a river we’ll sit and enjoy the quiet pastoral scene of water unhurriedly meandering past the old, gnarled tree. Life for us anymore is like where we most love to be, wandering […]
Letter: Every Minute of Every Hour
My plane arrived exactly twelve minutes after ten. In commemoration of my arrival, she set the hands of the old clock on the mantle at exactly that hour and minute as a forever reminder of the first time we would meet in person. Previously we had spent tens-of-hours facetiming and laugh now that if we […]
Letter: When What Is Sought Is Found
“How did the wise men know what star to follow and when to stop?” The five-year-old’s question of her grandfather came out of nowhere as they walked along, hand-in-hand. The morning air was crispy cold, a light dusting of snow lay like clusters of millions of stars in the shadows not yet touched by the […]
Letter: It’s The Hap-Happiest Time of The Year
The older couple parked and strolled and sat and watched for a couple of hours or so. Snow was falling, shepherds were approaching, Frosty was waving, the band was playing, and the mayor was speaking. It was The Annual Christmas Parade, the official start to the hap-happiest time of the year. Not so happy, more […]
Letter: The Silver Years
“Only about 2% of older widows remarry,” she read to him from one of the studies she’d found of seniors over the age of 70 who had found a silver-haired soul mate. ‘I am one of them,’ she whispered, and smiled. He smiled back and showed her the photos he’d gathered for an article he […]
Letter: If Gravestones Could Talk
It was confirmed. The land now known as Kentucky had been purchased. It was March 1775. Awaiting this news, Daniel Boone and a group of 30 axmen began blazing a trail from the Anderson Blockhouse just across the line into Virginia from the Holston Settlement (Kingsport, Tennessee) through 200 miles of forested terrain to the […]
Letter: There Wasn’t Much Time
The sun was setting, its reflection interrupted by slender strands of intermittent light and then dark ripples that lay like ribbons upon the otherwise glass-like surface of the water. The scene was irresistible to my dad and I who loved these fishing trips together, brief though this one would be as there wasn’t much time […]
Letter: What A Catch!
Dry flies, streamers, and bead head nymphs. Check. Tapered leaders and spools of tippet. Check. Fly box. Check. Nippers and forceps. Check. Flotant. Check. Strike indicators. Check. Split shot. Check. Boots, wading staff, jacket, St. Croix fly rod and reel. Check. Beautiful day on the picturesque Doe River below the nearly 150-year-old covered bridge to […]