My father enters the diner. Elton John's song Crocodile Rock fills the restaurant. He sees me in a corner booth and starts to make his way toward where I'm seated. He's careful to let the waitress pass with a tray full of food. He wears a heavy flannel shirt and jeans. The temperature is supposed... Continue Reading →
Oh, I didn’t see you there
I waited my turn for my lunch order to be finished. I drank my coffee and skimmed WordPress comments on my phone. The big guy next to me had his back turned towards me. I could see that he wasn't paying much attention to anyone else. He kept moving towards me. I inched my way... Continue Reading →
A skinned knee and bruised ego
When I first learned how to ride a bike, I would wobble to the left and then back to the right. Like many kids, I looked like I was going to fall at any moment. My upper body wasn't strong enough to properly steer and my legs were so short that when I would start... Continue Reading →
Selma to Montgomery
The men and women who took up the 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama on March 21, 1965 knew they were risking their lives. They understood that they might not make it back home. They saw with their own eyes what happened to protesters in two earlier marches. On March 7, 1965, the first... Continue Reading →
I hurt myself today
I write today on the Heart of the Matter in my story, You don't have to Try, about how I stumbled across Colbie Caillet's song Try for the first time and how it moved me to put down my guard. I stopped worrying about fitting in and instead focused on just being myself. In the... Continue Reading →
Becoming a hermit
When Pat, a family friend, lost her husband in the mid 1990s, she found herself rudderless. She couldn't get out of bed. She had a tough time moving on from the loss. They had been childhood sweethearts. They had spent a lifetime together and when their kids were finally out of the house and on... Continue Reading →
A little bit of potty humor
The waiting room of the medical office was packed with patients. Most came with someone to drive them home after their procedure. The office was like an assembly line of sorts. One patient came out and three more went in. One of the nurses explained that the center performed 80 to 100 colonoscopies a day.... Continue Reading →
Trying on new shoes
Two couples live next door to each on a cul-de-sac on a peaceful suburban street. They're friendly and everyone waves to each other as they come and go. They've each been married for twenty-some years and have two kids, a boy and a girl. One house has a Golden Retriever, the other a Labrador Retriever.... Continue Reading →
And then the magic happened
When I get frustrated with life, I like to remind myself: Stephen King received 30 rejections for his first novel, Carrie, before finally being published in 1974, and selling over a million copies in the first 12 months. Steven Spielberg was rejected three times to attend film school at the University of Southern California. He's... Continue Reading →

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