On Death and Dying
Thoughts from an Eight Dollar Chair I sit in an eight dollar plastic chair on a balmy, late spring day, and I begin thinking about death. I notice that I don’t find the thought particularly sad or dreadful: I just… Read more >
The Houdini Years
I must reveal that I was once the “master of escape.” The chicken wire pen that enclosed a shaded section of our small backyard proved no obstacle to my frequent quests for adventure. Although it was meant to protect my… Read more >
Phonus Interruptae
It sits upon its own invisible extremities or sometimes hangs unobtrusively in a place of perceived convenience. At other times, it attaches itself to the hip of its host while waiting patiently to strike upon his flaccid ear. Although it… Read more >
The Transparent Eyeball: October in Vermont (2003)
“I become a transparent eyeball: I am nothing: I see all: the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me: I am part and particle of God.” from “Nature” an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Becoming the Transparent Eyeball
“G” Street, La Porte, Indiana (1943) The street where I lived was narrow and shaded by towering maple trees. In the fall the maples were clad in shades of red, of subtle yellows, of fading greens, and of brilliant orange…. Read more >
1950 – A New School
Winter had come again, proclaiming the halfway point in my fifth year of school. This winter was especially memorable, and not just because of the stinging below zero temperatures and daily wind blown snowfalls; winters in Northwest Indiana were rarely… Read more >