Life
If you're an empty nester as I am, you probably began taking stock as soon as your last kid left home about what you did right and wrong in child rearing specifically and in marriage generally. As old as I am — and I was there when the earth&
Life
THE BANJO IS A RUBE The banjo is a rube, long-necking into town and defensively keyed up to glib impertinence. It is the village infidel, wise-cracking the bowed heads, plucking from crinkled knees to tapping toes the Sunday zombies into sin. It is a guerilla, starved down to the desperate
Events
Life
“I sing the body electric,” said Walt Whitman. “I sing the body figurative,” says me. So stick with me. Have you ever noticed how many figures of speech — comparisons and descriptions — are based on parts of our bodies? Well I have. And because I have copious spare time and no
Life
As befits a romper room rock star, Velvet (“Miss Velvet”) Collier concluded her 25-year reign as the “Storytime lady” April 24 at the Kingston Springs Library to a packed house of young enthusiasts and their grateful parents. Well before the program started, pre-schoolers were roaming inquisitively around the room, many
Life
Addresses alone seldom convey a sense of splendor and majesty. Oh, sure, there's some glitter attached to “10 Downing Street” and “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” but that's about it. While it may take a “heap o' livin'” to make a house a home, it just
Life
In spite of being terrified of speaking in public, I've always been drawn to acting and stage production, partly by the actual performances, of course, but mostly by the nuts and bolts involved in bringing a play to opening night. I'm kind of like the circus
Life
The concept of the “butterfly effect” is that a small stimulus — say the flapping of a butterfly's wings — can with time, distance and accretion result in a large consequence — say a tornado. Ray Brack was our family's butterfly. Between 1960 and 1970, I had taught writing,
Life
I don't know how I came to love words more than material objects. But that's how the cards fell. To me, words were palpable. I could pick them up, hold them to my ear, twist and turn them this way and that until I got just
Events
Having soldiered through a series of user-discouraging cold snaps, the South Cheatham Public Library rolls into Spring with a varied menu of events under the leadership of Jennifer Ensley, who assumed the director's post last August. Ensley has a part-time staff of eight, including Rachel Zook, who serves
Life
Whenever some guy boasts that he's “gone outside” his “comfort zone” to deliberately risk life and limb, my instinctive response is “Better you than me.” I did not spend years constructing MY comfort zone (which boasts climate control, cushioned furniture and a well-stocked bar) to depart from it
Life
On this bleak arctic evening as the wind rattles my door like a debt collector on commission, I collapse into an easy chair, a flagon of medicinal brandy at my elbow, and commence leafing through a volume of the greatest stories ever told. I refer, of course, to my checkbook.