Reflections from the River

Late summer signs 03.09.2020 10:08 ↓

Tomatoes ripening on a windowsill mean it's late summer in the Midwest.

Summer of '67 31.08.2020 11:32 ↓

A summer job, a girlfriend with a white convertible and clouds of war on a teenager's horizon. The summer of '67.

The Legend of Bob Neal 25.08.2020 8:06 ↓

Friday night football, Mogen David and fish sandwiches...another legend created.

The Wish Book 23.08.2020 6:16 ↓

The Wish Book, everything you always wanted before Amazon Prime.

Gold Star Mission- riding for a purpose 20.08.2020 9:17 ↓

A five-hundred mile bicycle ride in four days to honor the fallen. A story of veterans seeking solace through remembrance.

The Pink Pagoda 20.08.2020 6:50 ↓

There's trailer living, then there's the Pink Pagoda. A Midwest summer in a single-wide.  

Major General (ret) Bill Enyart speaking to the Veterans and Military Families Council, Democratic National Convention 18.08.2020 4:29 ↓

Major General (ret) Bill Enyart speaks to the Veterans and Military Families Council at the Democratic National convention on improving the VA and reducing veteran suicides.

The Day Summer Ended 16.08.2020 5:04 ↓

 The forty pounds of Kevlar body armor pulling on my neck and shoulders will do little good...

You won't melt... 14.08.2020 6:45 ↓

Summer sweat, summer rain, summer jobs.

I want my Daddy back... 12.08.2020 9:05 ↓

The story of Jill Biden helping heal veterans families from the effects of combat deployments.

It's a family tradition 09.08.2020 8:15 ↓

Fighter pilots on bicycles, Roy Rogers cap pistols, toy soldiers, the gut wrenching sixties, it's a family tradition.

Grandma Dallas' kitchen table 08.08.2020 6:07 ↓

Farmhouse kitchen tables are meant for family gatherings, saying grace, lumberjack breakfasts but not for spittin' watermelon seeds.

Bicycling the Natchez Trace 22.07.2020 7:42 ↓

Natchez Trace. Four hundred forty miles of gently, rolling pavement runs from Natchez, Mississippi, to Nashville, Tennessee. It's a great way to spend several days on a bicycle...if you don't break it.

Military Entrance Processing Station 1969 20.07.2020 11:15 ↓

Spring 1969. America in another of what has become, in the last seventy years, one of its never ending, never winnable wars.  The social divisions, the racial divisions, the political divisions even greater then than today. 

Walking the beans 15.07.2020 7:20 ↓

Not many farm kids today know the phrase “walking the beans”.  Certainly, no town kids do...

Corvette summer 13.07.2020 6:38 ↓

Some summer days just don't work out the way you plan...

The last Scout campout 10.07.2020 4:56 ↓

Mixing day-old donuts and whiskey while winter camping.

The Sweet Williams 08.07.2020 6:47 ↓

Saying goodbye to one of the four Sweet Williams. 

The smell of poverty 28.06.2020 6:23 ↓

Poverty smells. It smells like yesterday’s cigarettes on today’s clothes. Like unwashed bodies. Like stale sweat. Like half-burnt motor oil from aging cars with bad mufflers and rusted out floorboards. Like overflowing toilets and full diaper pails. Like coal smoke and chemical factory fumes.

The recruiting sergeant's good advice 25.06.2020 12:23 ↓

Once in basic military training, we all cursed the lies the recruiting sergeants told us to entice us to enlist, but sometimes they gave good advice...

Growing up country, or the shack out back 22.06.2020 5:01 ↓

Adventures of a three-year-old on his way to the outhouse.

Randy and the Rolex: a Father's Day story 19.06.2020 8:07 ↓

A Father's Day story of the gift from a combat veteran father to his combat veteran son.

Falling in love with Mrs. Michaels 10.06.2020 10:37 ↓

There's love, then there's young love...