When I was a little boy, my mom shampooed my hair at the kitchen sink. Part cattle driver and part homeroom teacher, she’d line my brothers and sisters and me into a single file alongside the kitchen cabinet, much like customers at the post office during the holiday rush. Then, with a smooth, swift, and… Continue reading Two or Three Tonsorial Thoughts

As a small child in a small school in a small town, life was simple. Except when the old nuns from Switzerland who taught us insisted each year at Christmas that we learn to sing “O Christmas Tree.” The problem was not with the song, but with the insistence on the sisters’ part that second… Continue reading O Christmas Tree

My mom was a winter person. I am not. Whereas she looked upon winter as the time of year when everything good happens—such as snowmen, Christmas carols, and arctic temperatures—I still look upon winter much the same as a smart bear would. When the weatherman forecasts the first warning of frost, I eat a big… Continue reading Let It Snow!

A tall mulberry tree old as the hills stood alongside a curve in the road to tell us young boys we were on the home stretch. The tree signaled to us, standing watch like a sentinel in the night, as we walked past it on our way back from the river. Over the years, and… Continue reading The Mulberry Tree

My mom never had a pedometer until late in life. By the time someone gave her a Fitbit, she was worn out from all the steps she had taken in her life. In her day, people didn’t need a watch on their wrist to remind them to walk a certain number of steps each day.… Continue reading Hang ‘Em Out to Dry

Somehow, her name was forgotten. Not even her brothers and sisters remembered it. Not that they are to be blamed entirely, not all of them, since a number of them never knew her. The three who preceded her in birth may have known her name, but that is unlikely, since they were only six, four,… Continue reading The Flicker of a Star

Did you know it only takes six weeks to form a habit? That is not by my calculation. That conclusion comes from smarter people than I. The people who study people like you and me have determined that if we want to form a habit--just about any habit--then we need to do it every day… Continue reading Creatures of Habit

Play-Doh and I both were born in 1956. You can make of that whatever you want. I've given it some thought myself. The irony is I never played with play-doh as a child, although we were siblings. I didn't meet my sibling until much later when introductions were made in my mom's kitchen as she… Continue reading The Day God Got Out the Play Doh

My grandmother would switch from English to German when she was excited, disgusted, or didn't want my six-year-old self to know what she was saying. When it happened, I knew something was up. Often, the switch would happen during a St. Louis Cardinals' baseball game. The German phrase most often spoken by her--and which has… Continue reading “We Speak German Here!”

My mom never had a birthday cake when she was growing up. Not that her mother was uncaring or forgetful--she wasn't--but it simply wasn't a thing back in her day. At least not in her home. As a child, I found it difficult to understand because birthdays and birthday cakes always were synonymous in my… Continue reading Birthdays Are Special