A New Look at Labor Day

Live! Work! Create! The nature of manifestation is that we humans conceive an idea, then work to bring it into physical reality. Today, Labor Day, is the perfect time to notice this process, which expresses our physical, emotional, intellectual and … Read more…

Into the Time Machine

During the last couple of weeks before my 50th high school reunion, my mind was overflowing with memories, and as they came up, I found it impossible not to write about them. In the month since, people keep saying, “Well? … Read more…

Happy Mother’s Day

Being a mother is a pretty complicated undertaking, no matter who you are or how you do it. I woke up this morning thinking about it, and wondering how I could possibly write anything meaningful on the subject in only … Read more…

Graduation

I was something of a small town political hot potato… Once I understood what was happening, I tried everything I could think of to resolve the situation. This was a tragedy in my young life, and as happens in tragedy, I moved that year through disbelief and denial, into bargaining, through anger and despair, and finally into acceptance. On graduation night, I sat in the audience…The consequences of this situation impacted my life in much bigger ways.

Soundtrack 1964

In 1964, I was listening over and over again to Willie Nelson singing I Remember You. It wasn’t like any of the music he’s known for today. He was writing a lot of music in those days for other people, but he was always experimenting. He played an amazing jazz guitar. Soldier Boy was on the radio a lot that year; it perfectly expressed our angst about the war.

Race and War in 1964

In our little town, as in towns across the South, schools had been segregated since the end of the Civil War. Schools for the black kids were on the other side of the railroad tracks. Even Hispanic students spent the first three years in separate schools, ostensibly to learn English. There were segregated bathrooms and water fountains, and black moviegoers sat upstairs in the theatre balcony. Despite the Brown v. Board of Education decision ten years earlier, 1964 was the year our school finally integrated.