- Daily Life, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Movies, Mrs. Orr, Photographs, Prayers, Reflections
Horribilis Septimana
A truly unpleasant week is behind me now, and I am grateful for the passage of time. A rabbit came by the front door a while ago to nibble some buttercups, and he seemed at peace with his dangerous little world, so I suppose I can try to be at peace as well. First of all, a belated Happy Mother’s Day to all of you mothers among my regular readers. I’d also like to say Happy Mother’s Day to all the divorce-raped single fathers who do both jobs with love and devotion. See, that’s why it’s a good thing that I don’t have a Facebook account….I’d post something like that…
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St. Valentine’s Music
Mrs. Orr and I tend to ignore Valentine’s Day, seeing it as just another Hallmark holiday. We do, however salute each other every February 14th morning, and we even grab a kiss or two during that twenty-four hour period. She is my Valentine, in the old-fashioned sentimental sense of the word, and she is my dear dream. So here’s to you, beloved wife, from one of my favorite singers. And I’m your Valentine, too, sweet Texas girl. ~ S. K. Orr
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Gradual Chill
It was a bringdown to return to work after a four-day weekend, but there were a few pleasant moments, one of which was talking to a woman in her nineties who lives in Van Lear, KY. I mentioned the Van Lear coal mines that the late Loretta Lynn sang about, and the lady volunteered that at this time of year, when the trees and hillsides are bare, she can see Loretta’s old home place from her back porch. She mentioned that Loretta’s brother’s nearby store is still in operation. Mrs. Lynn came from a time that has completely vanished now, and we will never see a world like hers again.…
- Church Life, Daily Life, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Movies, Mrs. Orr, Music, Photographs, Quotations, Reflections
No Rest
The heartbreak of seeing your grandsons incarcerated God offers to every man the choice between truth and repose. Take which you will, you can never have both. — Ralph Waldo Emerson One of the quotidian pleasures Mrs. Orr and I enjoy is working crossword puzzles. We haven’t subscribed to a newspaper in many years, but a friend does, and Mrs. Orr will often bring home copies of the puzzle from the paper. It’s a pleasurable way to unwind in the evening or in the mornings while trying to clear the cobwebs from the head. Mrs. Orr enjoys working the crossword while she’s cooking. Lately, our pleasure in the puzzles has…
- Bluebelle, Church Life, Daily Life, Holy Days, Jinx, Movies, Mrs. Orr, Music, Photographs, Prayers, Reflections, Saints
Memorials
I walked the road the other morning alone, leaving Jinx and Bluebelle to romp in the backyard while I strolled the mountain lane, and I noticed how the gravel at the edges of the road had been ground down by the tires and tires and tires until it resembled nothing so much as gray aquarium rock. If I had one of those glass boxes full of water and marine life and topped with a humming light — I’ve never in my life owned an aquarium, and usually only think of them when I read Loren Eisley, who spent a childhood making and stocking his own — I would scoop up…
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Summer Song
The American calendar tells me it’s Father’s Day, and also that it’s the second day of summer (I rather like Bruce Charlton’s view on the timing of the seasons). I’m not clear on how many churches have resumed holding public worship services, but for those who are open for bidness today, I’m sure Father’s Day sermons will follow the time-honored American tradition of devoting most of the message to telling the fathers what inept doofuses they are, challenging them to man up, and lashing them with pronouncements about what husbandly headship and wifely submission do NOT mean. For years, I’ve wondered why any father would willingly attend these services, knowing…
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Thanksgiving
The birds were thankful today, crowding around the ones in the front and back of the house. Among the doves on the ground were some juncos, which we rarely see here. The day was clear and crisp, and I was glad I had filled the bird bath, because several of the little ones took baths, including a female goldfinch. Odd for this time of year. While filling the feeders in the hummingbird & butterfly garden, I noticed a tuft of Bonnie’s hair caught in the grass between two of the fence staves. Stave The First. Thanksgiving day means its time to pull down a beloved volume of Dickens and step…
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Evening In The Tenth Month
As I write these words, I have a quilt over my legs. The cool night air is sifting through the screens on the windows and doors, and the crickets are scraping their little fiddles out in the yard, tuning up for their final concert of the season. I don’t yet know when the first frost will fall; it will likely be a bit later than normal, since we had such a lingering season of heat. But who can say? The earth in its tilting and turning trip around the sun may play a trick on us yet and dust us with the tiny crystals in a stroke of whimsy. All…
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In Which S.K. Flinches
I’ve lived in the South most of my life, with a few periods of residency overseas and in other regions in the USA, so I’m used to the scarab beetles known as June bugs. But I’ve never understood why they’re called “June bugs,” when they almost never show up until the first week of July. Nor have I ever gotten used to how these things will fly straight at my head, with a volume 11 buzz that sounds like a plague, the kind of plague Apocalyptic John would have described as having been poured out of a phial onto the wicked nations of the earth. All this week, every time…