“It’s a lamp unto your feet and a light for your path,” Lori said as I stepped out the back door into the early morning’s darkness. I carry a flashlight with me when I walk before sunrise. It’s no ordinary, puny flashlight. It’s more like a robust baton, heavy-duty enough to use as a defensive …
Lori grinned as she read the text message. “What does it say?” I asked. She had just read another birthday text message, this one from her nephew, Jackson. “Happy Medicare Day!” I couldn’t suppress my laugh. Lori had been celebrating her 65th birthday. Facebook friends and others had messaged her, wishing her well. The 65th …
“Could you tell me where the sizes 7’s are?” Lori asked a young man standing at the store’s counter. We were in the mall, where a well-known shoe store offered her many options. “I’m sorry, I’m ‘off the clock,’” he responded. He wasn’t being sarcastic or angry; he just matter-of-factly commented, “I’m off the clock.” …
It’s how the Looney Tunes Cartoon hour would conclude on Saturday mornings. Porky Pig would poke his head through a curtain fashioned into the image of a drum and stammer, “Th-th-th-th-that’s all folks.” It signaled to my 7- or 8-year-old mind that the fun part of Saturday morning was over. It was now an ordinary Saturday. …
Our son, David Jr., was always a happy child. When he was but three or four, I nicknamed him my “Happy Tiger,” so playful and joyful was he. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when early one Easter morning, before dawn, David, then 7 or 8 years old, awoke me with a shout. I was …