A Tale of Childhood Wonder and Lessons Learned — I was about halfway along the path when a familiar voice called out: “Where’re you going?” It was Laurel, the girl who lived two houses up from me. The path led under big, old pin oak trees and past a stand of younger pines that separated our neighborhood from the…

Divisions among people seeking the same end goal harm us all — A lot of Progressives are complaining because the Congressional Democrats and President Biden did not get all they ‘promised’ into the Relief Act. And that is true. The President and Democrats in Congress did not get the promised $2,000 one-time payment or $400 weekly payments to the unemployed and, perhaps…

We stand upon eons of life, never knowing it. “Man, this stuff grows fast,” I said as I swung my machete to cut down weeds and young saplings that had overgrown the path since the last time we’d been to that part of the creek, just a month before, but…

Words have meanings not to be confused with what one thinks they mean. — “Logic will get you from A to B, imagination takes you everywhere.” Albert Einstein “Let’s stop here a minute,” Johnny said, then rolled his bike to a stop in the cool, shaded green grass near what we called the catapult trees. He unstrapped his canteen and took a quick swallow…

There is more to climbing trees than just the climbing… “It’s good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven’t lost the things that money can’t buy.” — George Lorimer Johnny’s…

The summer magic of new sneakers “A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” Lao Tzu I laced up my new sneakers, the only pair I would get this year, this summer, then stood and felt the bounce in them. …

There are more uses for a bit of loose change than can be imagined. “Hey, Roland,” Johnny called out as he skidded his bike to stop, throwing up gravel in front of my house where I was sitting on the concrete steps of my front porch. “You gotta see this!” …

A childhood attempt to do the undoable “What you know, you know; what you don’t know, you don’t know. This is true wisdom.” — Confucius At the house I lived in when I was a kid the backyard sloped up to a wide, flat area with five huge pin oaks…

When is Soup, not Soup? — “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” — Abraham Lincoln Jake brushed freshly diced sweet onions from the wooden cutting board into the pot, then used the wooden spoon and stirred them in with chopped red and green bell peppers and another dash of black ground…