-
Recent Posts
Archives
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
Categories
- "Pets"
- Alzheimer's
- Autobiographical
- Backyard Nature
- Beauty
- Blooming
- Books
- Bruce Springsteen
- Childhood
- Courage
- Creativity
- Dance
- Dementia
- Dolly Parton
- Education
- Fabulous
- Family
- Food
- Freedom
- Friends
- Gluten free
- Happiness
- Home
- Ideas
- Intuition
- John Irving
- Joie de Girls
- Joy (Joie de General)
- Knoxville
- Love
- Music
- Op/Ed Thoughts
- Photography
- Screen
- Stage
- Style
- The Arts
- The Loo
- Travel
- Tribute
- Uncategorized
- Women
- Wonder
- Work
- Writing
Meta
Facebook Fans
Blogs I Follow
Category Archives: Family
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
Leave a comment
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
4 Comments
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
3 Comments
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
Leave a comment
Secrets: An Inheritance
Secrets: Cancer of the soul. Continue reading
Posted in Autobiographical, Childhood, Creativity, Family, Home, Writing
Leave a comment
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
1 Comment
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
Finding Darcus
Since at least 1992, I have been searching for my grandmother, Darcus Montgomery. She gave birth to my father in April 1935, and only four months later–in early August–she died. Naturally I assumed Daddy’s mother died from childbirth complications, and … Continue reading
Posted in Autobiographical, Childhood, Courage, Dementia, Family, Happiness, Home, Knoxville, Love, Uncategorized, Women, Wonder
Tagged ancestry, Darcus Montgomery, family, Knoxville, Latter Day Saints, Mormon, Tennessee
Leave a comment
Under the Influence
A possible way forward in the middle of turmoil and strife: adventure, balance, curiosity, dreams, education, and being found together. Continue reading
Posted in Autobiographical, Books, Childhood, Courage, Education, Family, Friends, Happiness, Ideas, Knoxville, Music, Op/Ed Thoughts, Tribute, Uncategorized, Wonder, Writing
Tagged adventure, balance, curiosity, dreams, Education, Fred Rogers, Great Atlantic Shoe Company, Hannah Gadsby, Jeanette Winterston, John Mellencamp, Lady Vols Basketball, Mr. Rogers, No Better Than This, Save Some Time to Dream, The UT Lady Vol basketball program, Won't You Be My Neighbor
1 Comment
