“What Dreams May Come…”

I’ve been dreaming again. And not just at night. Odd moments of the day find my thoughts drifting toward real estate. I’m not interested in taking any sort of test, hanging out any sort of shingle or driving any sort of potential buyers around to snoop in other people’s houses (but when I describe it … Continue reading →

Final Four, Baby

NCAA Men’s Basketball. It gets me every year, this “madness” through the month of March and early April. I like the Cinderella teams. I like the Big Ten teams, mostly. But I married a Boilermaker, and, well, there are certain allegiances… I’ve often wondered why the “March Madness” label fits. But year after year, the … Continue reading →

“You Can’t Handle the Truth!!!”

Truth. Such a big word, isn’t it? We claim it, clamor after it, say we deserve it. Mark Twain told us that truth is “stranger than fiction,” Shakespeare pointed out that “Truth is truth to the end of reckoning.” Truth is all tied up in morality and philosophy and the future and the past and sometimes … Continue reading →

Crimes & Misdemeanors

I’m a bit of a grammarian. Just a bit, though. I confess my use of commas can be rather haphazard. And, while I probably shouldn’t, I rather admire a good sentence fragment and use them whenever I want. ( see sentence #2 ) I can barely abide a run-on sentence though a longer-than-strictly-necessary sentence does my writer’s / … Continue reading →

Hope

The Resurrection (Easter’s celebration) remains the hope of Mankind. Hope. The heartfelt desire that our circumstances can turn out for our good. Hope. The expectation that our yearnings will be fulfilled. Hope. The promise of eternity. Hope — as Emily Dickinson framed it — the “thing with feathers”: “Hope” is the thing with feathers – … Continue reading →

Two for the Price of One

As an English teacher, I should probably not admit to the near terror I encountered when I realized I couldn’t avoid Emily Dickinson if I wanted to be true to the American canon. She’s a strange one, Miss Emily. Dashes thrown haphazardly about. Capitalized letters littering the lines. Was she merely paying homage to Dickens? … Continue reading →