“If you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in a Petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can’t survive.” –Dr. Brene Brown After Billy left home, I rode his old 10-speed bike every day. The […]
Repost: Life in Mossley in Lancashire, 1978
The following is an excerpt from My Life In Music: 1978, a post on the blog Imaginary Friends. That’s a well-chosen name for a blog written by a Gen-Xer. Excerpt In 1978 I was living with my mother and sister in a small council flat, and my sister and I went to stay with my […]
A Thanksgiving Story
I used to be a public information officer (PIO) for a large ambulance service. Much of my job involved responding to media queries about “bad calls” that reporters would hear on police scanners. Every day I received dozens of calls about potentially horrible situations, referred to by the industry as “breaking news.” For more than […]
Route 66 Blue Whale
My father lived for roadside attractions along the rural byways of America. He loved to take Sunday afternoon drives and he loved to take long trips across the country. Born in 1930, he was a member of the Silent Generation. He grew up during The Great Depression and hated the Interstate Highway system because he […]
Joe
Oh thinkin’ about all our younger years There was only you and me We were young and wild and free —Heaven, Bryan Adams (1983) Here are some memories I thought I’d share on this Memorial Day. This is a picture of Joe, a young Cold War veteran. The picture was taken around 1987. Wasn’t he handsome? […]
Memories of Gibson’s Discount Center
Do you have any special memories of this song — Heartache by Bonnie Tyler? The year it was released, 1977, my family was living in West Texas, and I had just turned 10. The following summer of 1978, my folks were planning another move, so I went to live with my sister for six weeks. […]
1980s Pen Pals Revisited: Helga’s Pictures and Letters from Germany, 1981
Of Scrapbooks and 1980s Pen Pals Here is my old scrapbook from my high school and college days. The days before mounting squares and acid-free paper were easily found. I glued and Scotch-taped cards, letters, pictures, track ribbons, corsage ribbons, and ephemera to the gray, construction paper pages. This is where I’ve kept Helga’s letters […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- …
- 11
- Next Page »