father's day
June 30, 2009
- If you read my book you know that my father was an abuser. He was an alcoholic and abused me physically and mentally for years. I told many tales of what and who my father was in my book, and the hell he inflicted on my soul. But I also forgave my father, for my father did the best that he could do given his circumstances.I don't know how many men could have survived what he survived. I won't go ...
- Continue Reading » 6 Comments
June 29, 2009
- When the preschoolers said in Sunday School that we'd be having our annual dinner honoring fathers down at the picnic shelter rather than downstairs, I thought surely they were wrong. Surely we wouldn't eat outside because surely it was too hot to eat there, but they were right and I was wrong on two counts. We did eat outside, and it was extremely pleasant. I imagine our church hostess ...
- Continue Reading » 3 Comments
June 28, 2009
- Paul E. MannDad:I haven't spoken with you in so long. Things are such a mess. And I need your help.I seem to be crying too much, feeling overwhelmed and broken. I don't really think anyone cares about me. Everyone will say they do...but they don't. Not in a real way. Not in a lasting way.When you left many years ago, I thought you went to be with a better family, with a better 6 ...
- Continue Reading » 0 Comments
June 21, 2009
- I put Ponds Cold Cream on my face, lather it all over until I resemble a mannequin in a store front window. White face. Blue eyes. I don't bother to wipe it off. I let it sit, soak into my sun drenched skin where it settles like a sticky web. Day. Long day. Summer. But you do that kind of thing in Summer, with all the windows open and lazy dinners outdoors and everyone in a good mood. Lathering ...
- Continue Reading » 3 Comments
June 21, 2009
- The last father's day I celebrated was in June of 1977, two months before my father died. I have a vague memory of sitting around the dining room table with him, opening gifts. Even though no one had told me the outcome of my father's illness--he was suddenly a skinny, frail man--I knew it was not good, and my child self knew that this celebration was different.He laughed, we made merry. ...
- Continue Reading » 0 Comments
June 19, 2009
- My birthday and Father’s Day coinciding. Five children, five grandchildren…Reflecting on the "if only" moments in my life. No regrets, but journeys I made, some of them without exactly knowing why I was making them, leaving a thoroughly advantageous position (teaching in the Writing Program at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, for example) to go, as much on whim as anything else, to spend ...
- Continue Reading » 6 Comments
June 16, 2009
- I had several choices on Saturday. Clean the garage, wash the car, or go to the golf store and waste hours looking at a bunch of stuff I couldn't afford.... It was crowded at the golf store. I like it when it's like that. The salespeople are too busy to pester you, and you can play with the putters all day long. I have won many imaginary tournaments on that little carpeted green. I was ...
- Continue Reading » 2 Comments
June 10, 2009
- Okay..I'm going to do this. Seriously, every day for a week I've been saying, "No politics today, John. Take a break, get your heart rate down, there's other things going on in the world."Then the government goes and does something to remind me what a bunch of ass-clowns we really have running this country.That's right, I said it. Ass-clowns.No, I don't know what the hell an ass-clown ...
- Continue Reading » 0 Comments
May 31, 2009
- Since it's almost Father's Day, I will answer this question from my DIY autobiography book. If I had any trouble with my father while I was young it was in this area: My dad was a Methodist minister with an unbelievable passion to save the world in the 1960s in the era of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. He moved his family from Kansas to a black Chicago ghetto to help fight for ...
- Continue Reading » 2 Comments
May 5, 2009
- Clever and inexpensive. That's my M.O. It's only right that the Good Morning America segment that ever-so-quickly profiled my journal this morning did so in a segment called "Clever, Inexpensive Mother's Day Gift Ideas."A tip you already know: respond to PR queries, even if you don't know who is behind the query. It could be Sally Blogger with 3 followers or it could be Tory Johnson ...
- Continue Reading » 1 Comment
