'I'd no excuse not to grok the fact, or traffic in illusions of not growing old. Or denial of encroaching senescence. Or flipping the bird at Mister Death. It would halt nothing of my body's fade, of our decay. I was, perhaps, whistling past my future graveyard.'
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POEM | “Fridays”
I mark out my life in the passage of a flood of Fridays, the signposts zooming by in Friday cat posts by a favorite blogger.
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IT’S A MOTHER’S DAY THING: One Rant, One Song, One Memoir
She had the greenest of thumbs, a bright intellect and dreamed of being the kind of writer that Toni Morrison, a hometown contemporary, became. What to do when your mother — in the late stages of Alzheimer's — is moving mutely toward her departure from this life?
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‘WHAT IF YOU KNEW HER?’: The Protest 7 Years after the Kent State Massacre 50 Years Ago
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Kent State shootings, in which four students were gunned down on May 4, 1970. As a student journalist, I profiled a protest seven years later on the Kent campus, where the memories remained raw and more than a thousand converged to protest.
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3PHOTOS: Peace & Geese & Hillbilly Hotdogs
I have settled on the title of my collection of essays about weird and wonderful sights in West Virginia: 'Please Don't Write on Hotdog.' Here's why.
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IN THE TIME of CORONA: Who Gets My Beloved Guitars
Dear Family: I come to you on a matter of some urgency. That is to say, the disbursement of my three beloved guitars, should 'The Rona' get me. This is who should become the adoptive parents of Michele, Gilda, and Blue ...
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3PHOTOS|NO.1: Images Outside the Pandemic Box
I've wanted to start a simple series here at TheStoryIsTheThing, called "3Photos." The aim is to lay off the sprawling essays, the tangentialism, and attempts to be wise, but which may just be a bad case of P.A.W.S. (Pseudointellectualism At Work Syndrome).
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HAVANAGRAMS: It’s ‘Complicado’
What do you get when you drop into Havana, Cuba for two days and start turning around to snap photographs in every direction? You get complications.
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SONGS of COMFORT, SONGS of HOME: “Bring Sunshine When You Come”
A song for families that have lost someone in this pandemic. And for the many people putting their lives on the line to save our lives, plus the helpers who run to the disaster, instead of away May all see sunshine soon.
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Somewhere, Not Nowhere
QUOTE of the DAY: "The challenge, these days, is to be somewhere as opposed to nowhere, actually to belong to some particular place, invest oneself in it, draw strength and courage from it ..." Read on at the link.
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VISITING ITALY IN SPIRIT: ‘The Key To My Grandfather’s House’
Take a trip to Italy in spirt and in solidarity during this time of global pandemic and lockdown. What unites us is that we are all immigrants of one kind or another. Here is one family's tale out of Calabria. What's yours?
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HERE COMES the TSUNAMI: Getting Ready for Loss in a Pandemic
A huge wave of dying and grief is headed our way from the Covid-19 pandemic. And for that we must be prepared to share the burden—and share the joy, even—of coming together even as things fall apart.
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Nature’s Not Sheltering in Place
t looks like the violets have returned from wherever violets over-winter. They are small, but distinctive. Kind of like the Pekinese of the front yard. Meanwhile, out on the deck the cardinals are just as prevalent as the violets. Flitting about like there's no tomorrow. Maybe for us. Not for them, it looks like.
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“SKATEBOARD MAN”: Bruising Tale of Determination Caught on Video
Take a few lessons from Skateboard Man. Not quite so much about how to skateboard. But about how to be determined! To skateboard through life. It's tough out there downtown.
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The Long Life of a PopCult
As we settle into self-containment and life constricts to several rooms, I wish to look around and note folks still publishing worthy original content online. Back in the Days of Yore, pre-Plague, when we were all young and innocent and didn't tweet-rage or sh*tpost, there were these things called 'blogs.'
