Drooping a Little

Drooping a Little

An early bird robin is on my front lawn. He runs a few feet, stops, and listens, looking for those early worms. He’s not as bright and shiny as he was in April. This time of year, robins have cared for one or two nests of babies and it’s a tiring business. However, he keeps […]

The Best Is Yet to Be

I have a sun dial in my flower garden. On it is an inscription from a poem by Robert Browning, “Grow Old Along With Me; The Best Is Yet To Be.” I’ve always liked that line. I suppose Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning had a wonderful marriage and did grow old together. Some of us […]

A Lady in the Lamplight

Dear children, after some delay I take my pen in hand in answer to your most welcome letter which I received and should have bin answered sooner but there is much of my time that it is almost all I can do to attend to my every day affairs so I hope you will excuse […]

Paw Prints

Hi there. This is Ulysses speaking. I’m a dog. Not just any dog. I have a nose for snooping, and I live with Ned McNeil. It wasn’t always this way. I do not even like to think back to my previous life. Let me just say that it wasn’t happy and it involved being tied […]

Can You Live Without It?

Freedom! Millions have died to obtain it or keep it. Without it, what do we have? I’m just asking. Do we have security from fear of retaliation? Do we have the warm feeling of belonging? Do we have a feeling of superiority? From what do we want to be free? And what is worth giving […]

Awash in a Sea of Books

Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink. So said the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I always felt so sorry for that poor sailor. What a sad picture. But, I, alas, am awash in a sea, not […]