My journal of big words and pretty pictures
For some inexplicable reason little kids love to smash pennies. Flatten them into hot, thin wafers embossed with images from vacation spots around the country... maybe even the world. They whine for two quarters and the shiniest, newest one-cent coin from their parents, only to mutilate them with a few cranks of a massive rolling … Continue reading Childhood relics
When I was very young, my family lived in Oak Ridge. Located near Knoxville, in the foothills of East Tennessee, the rural burg was the epitome of small town America. The area, still rolling farmland then, was also very good at hiding an international secret. That is unless you knew its history. Oak Ridge was the national … Continue reading Secret history
Three one four, et al A day to celebrate pie Pizza or apple My grandma Jessie could baked the heck out of some pies. Her coconut cream and lemon meringue pies were legendary. The crusts were light and flaky, melt in your mouth goodness. She died in 1997 at 81 years old. I miss her, … Continue reading Pi Day
The house looks smaller than I remembered. I can see tarpaper under some of the broken roofing tiles. The driveway's crumbling shoulders and huge cracks running through the asphalt are big enough to swallow the yellow Corvair my dad once parked under the carport. Dingy, colorless vinyl siding covers the original stone façade. Looking around … Continue reading Memories for sale
I felt the locomotive before I heard it. Leaning against the greasy pylons, I was awash in the rumbling as it rode along the steel rails, and cascaded down over the wooden scaffold. It was a rhythmic thundering that resonated deep in my bones. This was the timbre of my childhood. Escaping along the trestle … Continue reading Lonesome whistle
At some point in your childhood development, someone - perhaps a parent, perhaps an older sibling, most assuredly a high school nemesis - has flung those fateful words at you, "grow up!" Whether we displayed immature decisions or actions, fashion or opinions, someone deemed our choices inappropriate for our chronological age. Now that I am … Continue reading Grow up
Thin spiral notebook 