My honey-do list had become a year longer. It was our anniversary, so we ate inside the fast-food restaurant. My wife deserved the royal treatment. I’ve seen people do some insanely courageous things. My wife has done them throughout our married life. She’s an excellent cook. I wasn’t born to cook. I was born to express my gratitude to those who cook for me. She even … [Read more...]

We’d gotten enough rain to settle the dust and make it possible for me to chew mosquitoes when I walked outside. I remembered going to the local drugstore with my mother on similar rainy days. While she was taking care of her business there, I headed to the free library that the store generously provided. It was called a magazine rack, and there were umpteen periodicals to … [Read more...]

“I’m bored.” Sometimes my lips flapped for no reason, but that’s what I said. I have vivid memories of saying that because it was the last time I ever said, “I’m bored.” I immediately regretted saying it because my father heard it. He had used both ears. He’d grown up in a family with many ears, and the members of that fine family leaned in and listened hard to hear when … [Read more...]

Hubert wasn’t a bachelor farmer. Hubert was a bachelor physical education teacher. He’d never married. He was too busy watching “Wheel of Fortune,” which always made him feel smarter than the contestants. He surprised everyone when, at age 59, he married a woman nearly 20 years his junior. A year into the marriage, Hubert bought an old motorhome held together by … [Read more...]

We have too much or not enough, depending upon our viewpoint and our situation. That applies to most things. A friend uses the email closing, “I wish you enough.” That’s a good wish, but we’d still want more or less. A good reader wrote me about his ravenous rabbits. Their numbers had exploded in his neighborhood, and he was thinking of hiring a fox or two. There … [Read more...]

It would have been dark if not for the full moon. If that moon had been a musical instrument, it’d have been blaring. It caused me to think of the poet Tom Hennen’s book titled “Darkness Sticks to Everything.” It failed to stick on a bright night. I went for a walk in the moonlight. I needed to walk because I had stopped at a bakery and a meat market earlier in the day. I … [Read more...]

“You can keep the extra steering wheel.” I remember the car salesman saying that because it’s not something I hear every day. I was a whippersnapper buying a car that wasn’t secondhand. A few more hands than that were involved, but it hid its rust well, wasn’t haunted, and had an AM radio that could find WDGY and its pulsating rock and roll most days. The car didn’t run … [Read more...]

I had been outside attempting to fence in the mosquitoes. I made a noble effort, but it didn’t work. What it did do was work up a thirst for both me and the mosquitoes – the former for water and the latter for blood. I needed a cold drink of water. I strolled to the kitchen, where I opened the refrigerator door and grabbed a jug of water. It felt sun-warmed, as if it had just … [Read more...]

We weren’t circumnavigating the globe like Magellan. My wife and I were at a flea market in Mission, Tex. Flea markets are more common than fleas in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Alex Tilley had searched high and low for a durable sailing hat that matched his passion for the outdoors. He couldn’t find one, so he created one. My wife bought me a Tilley Hat at that flea market … [Read more...]

I made the mistake of ordering two pancakes from a delightful cafe. I ordered nothing more than the two pancakes. The problem wasn’t that they weren’t good. The pancakes were spectacularly toothsome. The problem was that each one was the size of a manhole cover. They flopped all around the edge of a large plate. If I were the kind to take photos of my food, I’d have taken a … [Read more...]