Memoirs
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The Pencil Seller
When I was a boy, I used to see an old blind man outside the Kress’s store on Main Street in our town. He would sit on a little chair outside the back entrance, wearing his dark glasses, his white cane propped against his leg. He would hold out a tin cup and would extend a fistful of white pencils in the other hand, all the while hawking his wares with his impeded speech. He would say “PEN-suls! PEN-suls!” over and over. Every once in a while, some benevolent soul would stop and say “I’ll take two,” etc. and drop coins into his cup. The old man would nod in…
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Draws Near
From now on, to the end of this blog, I’m going to try to just put it all down as it comes to me, for good or for ill. All I can do is place my memories and my thoughts on the palette, and daub from there. *** I went to the landfill today to dump our accumulated week’s worth of trash. It was pleasant to cross over the mountain, down through the pass and into the valley where Daniel Boone labored and fought, all without a 401(k) or a Facebook page. The mountains still have a tinge of green on them, owing to the presence of good conifers, and…
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Paw
He was not my kin, but perhaps someday I will find that he was, after all, one of my people. My only connection to him is long gone from my life, an ill-fated romance birthed in high school. But she introduced me to Paw, and so I am somewhat indebted to her for bringing me into his eccentric and loveable orbit. Paw was what we used to call a coon-ass, born and bred down in Louisiana’s swamp country, that murky and mystical patch of America with its legends and lore, its distinctive patois and food all a part of the myths of the Cajun people. He and his wife, Granny,…
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Almost A Lot of Things
The other morning I bent to get a watering can so I could give some of my wife’s porch flowers a drink. When I looked down at the can, I saw movement inside. A butterfly was marooned inside, flapping its wings with less-than-vigorous motion. I reached in and scooped the little fellow up, then held him before my face. I have no way to prove this, but I could tell that the butterfly was exhausted. I held him on my hand for a minute, then called to Mrs. Orr and asked her to hold him on her palm so I could have some perspective for a photo. She whispered to…
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Nearing The End of April
The days are longer, walking in with soft daybreaks and shuffling out with glowing coral sunsets, and the early, surprising heat has modulated itself back to where it should be, and it would be easy to unwind at least eighteen of the hours of the day outside under the dome of pollen and barnswallows and floating spider webs. I’ll get this out of the way first — I haven’t even tried to work on my memoirs for a while. There are some things, some images and events that are too evocative of too much rawness, and my instincts tell me to sidestep them for a little while until it’s time…
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Memoir 4
It’s no wonder I turned out like I did, given the arid terrarium into which I was hatched. My sister, older than me by almost two years, resented me from the beginning and never hesitated to show and tell her dislike for her younger brother. In our teen years and into our twenties, she used to tell me that she hated me, that she used to wish I would die when she would watch me in my playpen or running through the yard. I was never shocked by her admissions or her venom; they made perfect sense because I saw and felt them every day. And though we have largely…
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The Ides of Memoir
As I grow older, I live more and more in the past. And so I have decided to try and return to setting down my memoir, though in a different fashion than in the past. Previously, I started and stopped a memoir focusing mainly on my mother and my relationship with her (see here, here, here, and here). For reasons I won’t delve into here, I have decided that this focus was not conducive to regular effort, and so I have decided to start again. I feel the need to record my memories of certain things, places, people, and events that have remained clanging around in my mind, and I…
- Books, Church Life, Daily Life, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Lectio Divina, Memoirs, Photographs, Quotations, Reflections
No Warmth, No Comfort
Dorothy Day reveals in her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, that she craved the deep faith and the spiritual discipline she observed among the poor and the immigrants with whom she lived in New York City during her young years as a radical socialist. Many a morning after sitting all night in taverns or coming from balls at Webster Hall, I went to an early morning Mass at St. Joseph’s Church on Sixth Avenue and knelt in the back of the church, not knowing what was going on at the altar, but warmed and comforted by the lights and silence, the kneeling people and the atmosphere of worship. People have so…
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Like The Corners of My Mind
I planted the phlox last night, evenly spaced along the rock wall in the front garden. I think they will do well. I also planted a pot of English lavender, bought because I liked the soft frondy leaves and the thick, forest scent, and another purplish flower whose name I cannot recall. Right now, a curtain of rain is drawn across the farm, and everything, including the potatoes, is getting a good watering. The miniature azalea is in full bloom. It has a few dead spots inside, and will require some brave and judicious pruning. I want to take photos before I get at it with the shears. And now…
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Hard Old Life, part iv
Mother, I was watching my dog this morning and thought of you. Jinx is his name, and I’ll risk saying something foolish and declare that I think you’d like him if you knew him. He’s goofy and affectionate and spastic, with eyebrows that Laurence Olivier would envy in their expressiveness. He’s the clumsiest dog I’ve ever seen, and the most graceful when he leaps and runs, seeming to be more deer than dog. He spends long periods sitting in front of me, staring into my eyes, and if I put a blanket across him when he’s on the floor, he falls asleep in about eight seconds, which is why I…