My Father’s Bible
Presented to Raymond S. Duff, July 14, 1943, by Mother, Num. 6:24-26. My grandmother sent this Bible to my father when he was in the middle of infantry training in North Camp Hood, Texas. She referred him to a passage in the book of Numbers about God’s protection,...
Summer 1970
Not quite nineteen the summer of 1970, I was a member of The Edward Malley Company’s College Board. Malley’s was a now-defunct department store in New Haven, Connecticut, similar to and competitive with Macy’s. I worked retail that summer, spending the rest of my...
The Way of Nature
Early Thursday morning, as I drove the truck down the mountain, heading to class in Charlottesville, I noticed a box turtle poised on the side of the road. I thought of a previous post I’d written about interfering with nature. Since those of us who live on the...
Memorials and Memories
I was born in the 50s, but my possibility of life had been jeopardized at least three times in the previous decade. Many of us whose parents served in the armed forces during WWII could say the same thing. Three of my father’s assigned units were wiped out to the...
Step Three
“Good boy, Heathcliff, hold still, this will be over soon,” I say as I grapple with the dog nail clippers. He whines and pants, trying to pull his paw out of my grasp. One of his nails is split and needs trimming so it doesn’t get snagged and torn off during his...
Spring Cleaning
One evening in the mid-90s, I sat in the balcony of McFarland Auditorium on the SMU (Southern Methodist University) campus in Dallas, listening to Paleoanthropolgist Donald Johanson. Back in the 70’s, Johanson had discovered the hominid fossil of an...