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Category Archives: Family
The Wisdom That Does Not Cry
Wisdom is not a monopoly held only by adults. There is so much we can learn from the deep wisdom of very young children. May we stoop from our greater height, bend our ear close, and listen. Continue reading
Collateral Damage
Throughout history humans have sought easy answers to complex issues. When things go wrong, how can we protect the most vulnerable: Women, older people, the poor, and our children? Continue reading
Posted in Autobiographical, Backyard Nature, Childhood, Courage, Dementia, Family, Home, Ideas, Knoxville, Op/Ed Thoughts, Women
Tagged 1918 influenza outbreak, 1918 Mid-term Election, Alfred E. Smith, Covid, COVID-19, Democratic Party, George Maloney Home, Joe Biden, Kingsport, Knox County Commission, Knoxville, pellagra, pellagra psychosis, scapegoat, scapegoats, Spanish Flu, Tennessee, Texas, The New York Times, University of Alabama, World War I
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Smiling Like a Showgirl
A letter to my 14-month-old granddaughter during the coronavirus of 2020. Continue reading
Posted in Childhood, Courage, Family, Ideas, Joy (Joie de General), Love, Uncategorized
Tagged Benefit Your Life, Bess Kalb, Bobby Bell, Cordelia Montgomery, Farmacy, hepatic carcinoma, Kentucky, Knopf, Knoxville, Nobody Will Tell You This But Me, People magazine, Sing a Song of Sixpence, Tennessee, The Jimmy Kimmel Show, The New York Times, Union Avenue Books, Virginia, Walter Crane, West Town Mall
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Sixty Years On
Who’ll walk me down to church when I’m sixty years of ageWhen the ragged dog they gave me has been ten years in the graveAnd senorita play guitar, play it just for youMy rosary has broken and my beads have … Continue reading
Posted in Autobiographical, Childhood, Courage, Family, Home, Ideas, Love
Tagged Elton John, Sixty Years On lyrics, Stage 4 bone cancer, Stage 4 cancer
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The Attic of Our Lives
I thought I had gotten away from that long-ago house. You would think marrying when you are 18 years old would be enough to snap the thread, but I guess it is not so. A few months ago I visited … Continue reading
A Man of Value
Values over riches, people over things: remembering my father and dealing with the grief. Continue reading
Posted in Autobiographical, Beauty, Blooming, Childhood, Creativity, Dementia, Family, Freedom, Happiness, Ideas, Knoxville, Love, Music, Tribute, Writing
Tagged Anderson Cooper, CNN, Einstein, Gloria Vanderbilt, grief, Knoxville, loss, Stephen Colbert, Thanksgiving, The University of Tennessee, Toyota of Knoxville
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Coming Home to Myself
For the ones who had a notion,A notion deep inside,That it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive . . . Bruce Springsteen, “Badlands”, 1977 A few months before Bruce Springsteen wrote his elegaic anthem “Badlands”, I left my … Continue reading
Posted in Alzheimer's, Autobiographical, Bruce Springsteen, Childhood, Courage, Creativity, Dementia, Education, Family, Freedom, Happiness, Home, Ideas, Knoxville, Love, Music, Op/Ed Thoughts, Tribute, Women, Writing
Tagged Badlands, Bruce Springsteen, Carroll County, Darcas Nickaline Montgomery Allen, Dear Sister, Home, Kentucky, party line phone, Prestonsburg, Virginia
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Secrets: An Inheritance
Secrets: Cancer of the soul. Continue reading
Posted in Autobiographical, Childhood, Creativity, Family, Home, Writing
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His Heart’s Eye Is Open
I grieve for each passing year that Daddy is not here to fervently hope that Clemson can beat Alabama for the NCAA football Championship. I grieve that he missed by 11 months seeing his great-grandson Lincoln’s endlessly fascinating face. I … Continue reading
Posted in Alzheimer's, Autobiographical, Childhood, Courage, Family, Happiness, Ideas, Love, Op/Ed Thoughts, Wonder
Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Childhood, Daddy, East Tennessee, grief, life, Lincoln, Mary Oliver, New Year's Eve 2018, sorrow, The Uses of Sorrow
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What A Woman Needs: It Starts with Damn . . .
[On November 30, 2014, I wrote the following blogpost about how I grew up in a sheltered, no-cussing household, but found that, as I got older, I needed a few choice words to illustrate my life. Four years later I find … Continue reading
