Words To Live By

Like water into the Dead Sea, whatever flows into my junk drawer never emerges. Just today I stirred the contents to see what kinds of "things" would rise to the surface.

"Things I Never Learned." The M. Hohner chromatic harmonica, expensive in its day, represents my only brush with music as an adult. But all I [...]

As I slid from my car onto the Hobby Lobby parking lot, I was startled to see some tiny birds flying low–very low–to the ground. But one incongruity made me wonder: they were only an inch long.

But they were surely birds; my eyes and experience both convinced me of that. Perfectly formed and precisely shaped, [...]

Indian corn, ghost pumpkins, and flowering vines. The discovery of the misplaced seed packets put me in a dither to plant before summer had progressed too far.

I followed the path of least resistance: scrape back the flower bed mulch, drop a few seeds and cover again with mulch. Then hope for the best.

In a few [...]

I fight a persistent enemy almost every day: obsolescence.

Taking the form of 50 to 60 floppy disks I've saved for a dozen-plus years, this old nemesis recently thumped me again.

Computer types know the faithful, friendly floppy disk. Small enough to slip into a shirt pocket, the 3.5-inch marvel sprang to popularity with the Apple Macintosh [...]

I haven't slept in a college dorm room in almost 40 years. But just last week I bought a few dorm supplies–for myself.

I never realized the magnitude of "back to college" as a major retailing event. If advertising is any guide, a successful college experience demands assorted accouterments. Like refrigerators, closet organizers, storage units, shelves, [...]

Cruelty dons many a face. Consider this one: Unbeknownst to her, I signed my wife up for a computer course. Actually, all I really did was call Conway Adult Education Center and gather information. T-h-e-e-n-n I told Mary what to do.

I really didn't know if she would take the course. But I had high hopes.

So [...]

How does one adapt to a hostile world? Four brief sentences from a biography of renowned American illustrator and painter Newell Convers Wyeth (1882-1945) provide a tiny peek at how one man faced four battles none of us will escape.

When 18-year-old N.C. Wyeth enrolled in the Massachusetts Normal Art School, he immediately encountered the first [...]

From the front porch I gaze at lighting flashes in the west as thunder rolls like distant surf. And I hearken intently for the voices of the approaching summer storm.

Through the still air the leaves of the cottonwood across the street gently shimmer. Then without warning, dark, grape-sized blobs spread in an explosive succession of [...]

By her own confession, my wife has a terrible memory for critical details like the whereabouts of the checkbook, the name of a 20-year friend, the destination of the vehicle she is driving. But her brain exhibits a strange affinity for obscure relationships among numbers, dates and events.

Let me illustrate how an old book (Charles [...]

Sixteen hundred years after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79, explorers uncovered the aftermath of tragedy that had swept away the town of Pompeii. Inhabitants were found where death had overtaken them–cellars, attics, streets–in their desperate flights from the tide of volcanic gases and the storm of falling ashes. But the Roman sentinel's [...]