Essays, thoughts and stories about interesting people
TO JACK
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If I wept a million years/
Would it bring you back to me?/ "No," he whispered from far beyond/
Those wispy clouds hanging over me/ "That can never be."/
But maybe, just maybe, after a million tears/
I'll finally be set free...
A sweet little feral cat has adopted Paddy and me. She's been staying on my patio ever since I bought this place. I thought she was here because she loved us, but oh no, not so. There was a bird's nest under my rolled-up patio shades. Little did I know until today that this sweet-looking cat is a cold-blooded murderer. I saw her slaughter and eat three tiny birds this morning. I paid the Handyman from next door $5 to get rid of the nest because the thought of flapping birds in my face while a cat runs around and kills more baby birds freaked me out. Now, the cat is back, and it sounds like she is burping. Ewww...
I joined a friend yesterday as she made her bi-weekly Meals on Wheels rounds. It’s been many years since I delivered Meals on Wheels in Dallas with my young daughter in tow on Thanksgiving. Our deliveries were mainly to the elderly living alone in public housing. I vividly remember how happy they were to see two faces at their door. The meal was secondary. Fifteen years earlier, I was a frequent visitor to “the projects” in South Dallas as part of my caseworker job at Dallas County Mental Health and Mental Retardation. While the government-provided apartments were small and unadorned, they were sufficient to house a family. Again, the people living in those apartments were no different than you or me, but life was undoubtedly more of a struggle. I always felt welcome in their homes and never felt unsafe in the neighborhood. Oh, I’m aware that people of all economic levels live in var...
I must have been around six or seven when my father decided to shoot a wild turkey for our Thanksgiving dinner. He also thought our hunting expedition would be the perfect time to teach my older brother and me to shoot rifles. We were enthusiastic wannabe hunters, so the three of us went on a bitterly cold November day in the Texas Panhandle to find a turkey in the Canadian River bottom. The Canadian River, a tributary of the Arkansas River, begins in the Sangre de Christo Mountains in New Mexico and flows through the Texas Panhandle on its way to Oklahoma. When it reaches the drought-prone Panhandle, the river becomes a trickle of water in many places. Yo u might think of the Panhandle as flat, and you'd be right, except for the area around Borger and Phillips. Palo Duro Canyon, the "Grand Canyon of Texas," is located 75 miles south of my hometown. Since the Panhandle is over 3,000 feet above sea level and semi-arid, much of the land is unencumbered by trees and...
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