From The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, by Dorothy Gillman, 1966 I can still see the dog-eared paperback clear as day on the guest bedroom nightstand in my childhood home in Memphis: a mystery novel by Dorothy Gillman titled The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, my great-grandmother Gracie’s reading selection on that visit. On the book jacket a woman … Continue reading A Family Memory: Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax and Surprise Connections
Tennessee
Frozen Moments: A Memory
Impressionist-like landscape Leaving work last Friday afternoon, and even a couple of moments earlier in the week, I paused to drink in the landscape around our office campus, so eerily quiet just now. It always possesses a bucolic beauty, even on the bleakest winter days. But at some point when I was too preoccupied with … Continue reading Frozen Moments: A Memory
Journal Entry: The Pandemic Inspires a Conversation
Before all this happened, I was already reflecting on this notion, that in the intervening eight years between living through the kind of loss I think of as the emotional equivalent of blunt force trauma, and life as it is right now, my take on things has changed. Not everything. Some losses were undeniably horrible, … Continue reading Journal Entry: The Pandemic Inspires a Conversation
Thanksgiving Journal: Family Ties
Today when my irreverent twenty-something video messaged me, I explained I was making cookie press cookies. He watched me mix in the flour and work the batter until the dough was the right consistency to extrude through the press. I said the last time I used this little device he was still in elementary school, … Continue reading Thanksgiving Journal: Family Ties
Journal Entry: We Have Cicadas!
And the photographic evidence is right up ^ there. Last Saturday morning Scoutie and I struck out on our usual city run, which takes us down a couple of tree-line pathways that wind along the Walloomsac River in a sort of parklike setting—same river in fact that delineates the southern boundary of our property—before we … Continue reading Journal Entry: We Have Cicadas!
Travel Journal: Knoxville in a Day
I feel less connected to Knoxville every time I go back there, a thing that makes me all kinds of sad, but also somehow helps propel me forward, make my peace with where I am now. Don’t get me wrong: I shall never be a proper Yankee, but will remain forever a Southerner, wherever I … Continue reading Travel Journal: Knoxville in a Day
Travel Story: We Feed Goats in Chattanooga
Goats were not specifically why we traveled to Chattanooga (we got there by way of Christiansburg, VA, thence to Knoxville before finally arriving), but the goats proved an entertaining and comical diversion one sultry evening on Missionary Ridge; they also made splendid subjects to photograph. I’ll get to them. A theme that popped up again … Continue reading Travel Story: We Feed Goats in Chattanooga
Travel Story: We Visit Fallingwater
Let me start backwards with stories of our Way Down South trip, that is to say, start at the end, while the images and sounds and smells from our special day at Fallingwater haven’t yet faded or grown too stale. We drove out of our way to tour this exquisite Frank Lloyd Wright house, widely … Continue reading Travel Story: We Visit Fallingwater
Travel Story: Road Trip to Tennessee the WPA Way
Looky what came in last week’s mail. The only thing better would have been stumbling across this in a Vermont antique store or at a local tag sale. Well, that, and maybe a first edition, instead of this third edition. I did locate a first edition in excellent shape in another online vendor’s inventory, evidently … Continue reading Travel Story: Road Trip to Tennessee the WPA Way
Parenting Story, Part the Second: When A Thousand Miles Separate You From Your Sick Kid
Turns out, the universe was listening last week when I suggested it’s impossible always to protect your child. Especially when he is 26 and presumably the captain of his own ship—and he lives in Tennessee and you live way up in Vermont. Five o’clock a.m. on Wednesday came the messages, one after another, lighting up … Continue reading Parenting Story, Part the Second: When A Thousand Miles Separate You From Your Sick Kid
