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Category Archives: Happiness
The Essential Question
What can we learn from the life of American singer Linda Ronstadt? The essential questions of life–and a great deal more. Continue reading
Posted in Autobiographical, Childhood, Courage, Creativity, Dolly Parton, Happiness, Music, Screen
Tagged Hasten Down the Wind, Heart Like a Wheel, Jeffrey Friedman, Linda Ronstadt, Linda Ronstadt movie, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, Lloyd Copeman, Rob Epstein, Silk Purse, Simple Dreams, Stokely Athletic Center, Thomas Edison, Tucson
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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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The Day the Music Lived
Buddy Holly’s quintessentially American music could have died with him in a plane crash in 1959. But the power of his idiosyncratic genius lives on. Our music is what defines us and our music is what saves us. Continue reading
Blooming Out of Season
Nearly a decade ago I planted two camellias in container pots just outside the front door of our home. I never thought they would live for long–in containers, mind you– in the mercurial climate of East Tennessee. But my sister, … Continue reading
Posted in Autobiographical, Backyard Nature, Beauty, Blooming, Dance, Happiness, Ideas, John Irving, Music, Op/Ed Thoughts, Stage, Women
Tagged Billie Holiday, Blooming, Camellias, Carmen McRae, Growing, Happiness, Maria Cole, Nat King Cole, Nat King Cole: Afraid of the Dark, Netflix, New Year, Stanley's Greenhouse, Winter
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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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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
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