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Rivulets of sweat traced muddy trails on the dusty face behind the mower. Dogged by heat, noise and grime, the boy's body language screamed: "I hate this job!" I understood. Summer jobs tormented me, too. During my early teens I also mowed lawns. But they had to be the right kind. Our little mower's 2.5 HP Briggs & [...] When friend Keith Bolton politely inquired whether I had used Texas Instruments calculators during my employment at that company, he greatly underestimated my foothold in antiquity. In those days before the invention of handheld calculators, the slide rule reigned as the engineer's tool of choice. Manufacturers hawked their wares with the fervor of TV salesmen in [...] The announcement in this morning's paper about the annual Fourth of July celebration at the Conway Human Development Center has cast me into a reflective mood. As a boy, our son, Barrett, had one persistent question beginning mid-June each year: "When are we going to the Celebration?" Visions of the Celebration's food and fireworks (punctuated by [...] Regular readers know our daughter Jenny, who died unexpectedly in October 1995. So in honor of Father’s Day, I share this brief essay about her that I prepared for a writing contest. And to that I add a few journal snippets from Father’s Days past. Last week I heard the early morning wail of a train. Though trains are commonplace in our city, fleeting years and evolving circumstances have diminished their importance to me, and I seldom notice them anymore. Our son was 19 months old when we moved here, and for a brief but pleasant span of years trains played [...] As we passed through downtown Farmerville (Louisiana) this past weekend, I silently scoured the storefronts. Then from a memory reaching back about 20 years, I recognized the object of my surveillance. "There's where we saw Santa Claus in the rocking chair!" This peculiar scene has endured not because of Santa (a December fixture), nor because of [...] On Monday mornings I endeavor to inflate a small idea in a full-blown column. But today, as I riffled an old book seeking a pithy quotation, four scraps of paper tucked within the pages interrupted my pursuit and shuttled me onto an unexpected sidetrack. My routine seldom varies: gather notebook, pen and reference materials; sit in [...] Four years ago, during our last foray into their domain, the dinosaurs began peering menacingly over the horizon from about 15 miles out. With bodies looming larger by the minute, their fierce stares dared us to come closer. Having no choice then but to continue on our chosen path, we defied their threats and soon found [...] A few weeks ago, my wife's cryptic comment sent me scurrying: "All I want for Christmas is for you to pay attention to what you see and write a little diary of the details." So I tried to oblige–and enclose a few observations herein. –Maudie Nell soaks in the river of sunlight flowing through the kitchen [...] I gaze at two differing pictures of Christmas. The first, a photograph my wife discovered tucked away in an old book, hints of the 1940s. It's Christmas morning, and five smiling children radiate the pleasure of having a few simple gifts arrayed before them, fully satisfied. Curiously, I recall but one Christmas present of my own [...] |
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Copyright 2012 James McAlister - All Rights Reserved |
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