“Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can’t remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing left to remember except the[Read More…]

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” ~ Pericles (sorta)* When my brother died, one of my coping mechanisms (after 1. red wine and 2. blowing out the speakers in my minivan listening to very angry[Read More…]

“Life zips by and next thing you know, you’re laying in a hospital bed.” ~ Grandpa Sam I spent the last few days in St. Mary’s Hospital with my grandfather. In trying to maintain my sanity, I wrote quite a bit. I’m sharing some of those reflections here this week.[Read More…]

“Courage is being scared to death, and saddling up anyway.” ~ John Wayne Hoo boy, y’all. I keep saying I knew what I was getting myself into, and I thought, truly, that I did. I’ve been in and out of the newspaper office since I was 12 years old! Apparently,[Read More…]

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1 I’ve kept a lot of plates spinning for a long time, through good times and bad, through sorrow and joy, through praise and criticism (sometimes all at once). Over the last 10 years[Read More…]

“Go back? No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible. Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!” ~ The Hobbit When all this kicked off a few weeks back, I dreamed of composing an award-winning column that yanked heartstrings for my first official week as editor of the HT.[Read More…]

“A republic, if you can keep it.” ~ Benjamin Franklin Birthdays are a good time for reflection. That’s why this week we’ve dedicated the front page of the Herald Times to reprinting the Declaration of Independence again. Why? Because I suspect that, much like many Christians have never read the[Read More…]

“The great thing about life — the most magnificent thing about being these sentient human beings — is that we have been given the power of choice.” ~ Bryant McGill One of the few benefits of being shoved up against the reality of mortality — our own or someone close to[Read More…]

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” ~ Alvin Toffler Journalism has often been referred to as “the first rough draft of history.” That implies several things: the story, when first written, is incomplete;[Read More…]

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson The preceding quote would ideally be read right before bed, or right[Read More…]

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” ~ Añais Nin According to pioneering family therapist Virginia Satir, there are more than 250 ways to do the dishes. I just finished playing dish Jenga — that advanced skill developed by people without automatic dishwashers that[Read More…]