Anyone who knows me knows that I have a deep and abiding love of the game of baseball. Some of my fondest memories revolve around this fascinating game. My earliest memory, of course, involves getting my nose broken by a baseball bat when I was but 2 ½ years old. I have vivid memories surrounding that unfortunate incident — but they are mostly good memories.

I remember being with my Mom and Aunt Laulie at the little store in Jamestown, Pennsylvania, where we bought worms for fishing, and groceries and whatever else we needed back at the cottage. I can…

Adventures and Shared Circumstances

We got the sad news a couple weeks ago that my cousin David lost his battle with cancer and passed away, down near Dallas, Texas. Of my 42 first cousins, he’s now the second (that I know of) to go. He’s the first that was younger than me. I think he was just a few months younger than me.

David’s family, like mine, had 7 kids — I think he was the 5th, while I was the 6th in mine. Both of us were the youngest boys in our respective families. He had 3 older brothers…

Rambling Through Forests of My Soul

Days flip by like pages in a book
Sleeping heart sighs for love that’s not around
Sculptured thoughts form, blunt edges chiseled fine
In the waking hours of morn there are no other sounds.

Through forests of my soul to the water I am drawn,
To watch the river roll neverending to the sea
And see that my own life is somewhat like this river,
Flowing towards the ocean that sets my spirit free.

(A poem I once wrote as a sailor out at sea).

As I awoke at 2 a.m. and couldn’t get…

For a number of reasons, I was laying awake, tossing and turning, my mind drifting to many places in that half-awake, half-still-dreaming state, when I finally gave it up and picked up my IPhone and punched up my old Cowbird account. I started reading some old stories. I read a bunch I wrote during the final days of Cowbird, right before they shut it down to new content, 4 years ago this month, in March of 2017. That was back when I used to write every day. This is my first story since March 12th, only my second story this…

“And here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You need to pay to get out of going
Through all these things twice

Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis Blues again?”

Bob Dylan, from “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”

I have vaccine envy. Yes, that’s a thing. It started a couple months ago, when the facebook posts started popping up on my feed — “Got my first shot!” … “Got my second shot.” “I’m in the clear, I can go out to…

By the time I’d reached my senior year, I didn’t think I could take one more year in the all-boys catholic high school. My four older brothers had all gone to and graduated from there, but I was done after three years. I broke with family tradition and bailed. I just thought it was cruel and unusual to spend one’s prime teen years secluded from girls like that.

I’d had kind of a groovy thing going with Clare from across the street the summer after 8th grade. We’d hang out on her front porch, sitting on the porch-swing together, holding…

I was just re-reading a piece I posted 10 days into the new decade, in what seems like another lifetime ago, January 2020. That was a good two months before Covid changed the world forever.

We were fixing to embark on our second trip of the new year/decade. I’d mentioned that it appeared to be shaping up to be a year of journeys. Well, yes and no.

That second trip was going to be to Virginia Beach. …

I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I’d see you again.

James Taylor, Fire & Rain

I just learned that the guy who was probably the closest friend I ever made on the job in my 40 ½ years of government service, died of COVID last week. Harry was just a few years older than me, but he retired about 8 years ago. …