One of the fun things my wife and I loved to do was take the next road off to the left or to the right, the three criteria being that the road was (a) a country road; and that (b) we had enough gas to get to wherever the road was leading, and back; and […]
Letter: My 100th Mile
They’re alive, the forests are, the rivers, the mountains, the streams. Something is out there, a connection, an experience like no other. As a ‘setting’ describes that which will hold a precious stone or gem – like a diamond in a wedding ring – forests are settings which hold precious memories of life, and love. […]
Letter: First Day of School – The Dream Continues
As our grandson prepared for his first day of Kindergarten some years ago now, in contemplation of the Big Event he said to his daddy “Wait! Does this mean I won’t be able to play all day anymore?” And now it’s our youngest’s turn. She will exchange her sword for a crayon, her fairytale princess […]
Letter: We All Live, and Laugh, and Love, in the Same Language
As my wife and I approached the border into Tijuana, our van threading the barricades at the checkpoint, both of us, and all the members of our youth group seated behind us for that matter, had the same question. “No sé dónde está el baño?” Later, I would ask that question again, this time of […]
Letter: Tears On The Trail – “A Sacred Journey”
I write a lot I know about my wife, not having her hand anymore to hold, not able to share the events of the day, not huddled together as I read to her there toward the end, not contemplating in awestruck silence the beauty before us as we come around a bend in a trail. […]
Letter: Rings Without Diamonds
“How much farther?” I have often thought on the trail of posing myself that question of other hikers. When the two young ladies asked the question of me, I replied, “You don’t want to ask.” They laughed, I think a bit nervously, and headed on down the trail as I labored on up the ever […]
Letter: One Last Row
The treasure of my life answered my call. “Would you come pick me up? I hit a big metal buoy and sunk my boat.” My partner on this adventure called marriage we launched 41 years ago retrieved me from the side of the road and the day after Christmas that year she helped me re-launch […]
Letter: Where Robert Frost and I Part Company
In Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, there is a lone wagon driver who pauses at dusk in his travel to watch snow falling in the woods. That part I get. To be where beauty abounds, where quiet pervades, where silence is broken by nothing at all because it’s just you, no […]
Letter: Just Walking Each Other Home
Seven years ago yesterday my wife and I bought two of the remaining limited-time significantly discounted “America the Beautiful Lifetime National Parks and Federal Lands Pass” thinking not only was it a good deal (my wife was Dutch and therefore frugal and definitely the brains in the family), but also that we would together return […]