What attracts you to something or someone? Oooh, Shiny! From flashy cars to solid gold toilets, from she-or-he’s cute to pretty eyes or great figure, we are culturally conditioned to be captivated by charms that glitter, and charms of a suitor. From infancy. “Babies,” writes Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, “can’t tell a diamond-coated Rolex from a […]
Letter: Stay Tuned
Do you have a ‘it-wasn’t-supposed-to-end-like-this’ story? Sure you do. We all do. A fire destroys all you held dear. Cancer takes your life-long traveling companion. The one who promised “to love and to cherish you until death do you part,” departs, maybe for someone else, leaving you alienated, isolated, rejected. An unhappily-ever-after story is likely […]
Letter: Who Are You Going to Call?
Is there a Red Phone to be used only in emergencies on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office of the White House? When your neighbor’s house is on fire, waking you up from a deep sleep in the very early morning, do you remember the three-digit number to call? When a cat gets its […]
Letter: Salamanders In Your Boots
By David Anderson, with a splashing puddle full of thanks to Marloes Deeterink. What is it about puddles and raindrops, blue rubber boots with green frog designs, and yellow rain jackets with hoods not up that beg for a leap-flying, pigtails-scattering, peals-of-laughter-the-air-splitting, water-and-mud-splattering (them and us and the camera lens) kersploosh that is so beautifully, and […]
Letter: Need To Get Away?
If you are planning on visiting Mount Rainier this summer, you’re going to need a reservation according to the National Park Service. Evidently there are too many people all at once wanting to get away from it all only to discover everybody else does too. Where do you go when your heart is overwhelmed, when […]
Letter: A Walk In The Woods
Two days from now will be 10 months since I lost my wife of 50 years to cancer. Lately I have been encouraged to think not how much I miss what I had with her, but to be happy, joyful even, that I had her at all and for so long and, even more importantly, […]
Letter: She’s So Far Away
It’ll be cold again this evening; they say there’ll be more snow. Odd since the sunrise this morning gave wonderful promise of a beautiful day, the sky clear, barely wisps of clouds drifting across the brightening sky. Not that snow isn’t beautiful. It is after all most certainly true, that there’s something about a world […]
Letter: Yellow Roses
Clutching his arm as they enter the restaurant she whispers, “What beautiful yellow roses!” He smiles. “They are, aren’t they?” Indeed, there on the reservation desk stood a bouquet of yellow roses, intermixed with white baby’s breath, stunningly beautiful in a vase tied with yellow ribbon. It is their anniversary and he has requested a […]
Letter: How Do You Know If It’s Real?
Has the ever popular Volkswagen Beetle really been around since dinosaurs roamed the earth? Are telemarketers trustworthy? Members of Congress, car salespeople? The answer to all of the above is a resounding: ‘no.’ The bottom-dwellers of the 2023 Gallup poll which ranked professions based on honesty and ethics were telemarketers, members of Congress, and car […]