Reflections from the River

Veterans’ Day is the day our nation thanks its veterans for what they have done for our country. This Veterans’ Day of 2021 let me, as a veteran, thank our country and the state of Illinois for what they have done for me.

As Billy Joel sang; "Only the good die young."

Why is it so difficult to get rid of stuff? I’ve read Marie Kondo’s book on paring down possessions and want to follow all its prescriptions. But somehow the stuff just hangs on.

Valor and sacrifice, twenty years later.

Otherness  Every now and then in life you meet someone you just know is going somewhere. Someone who is smart and talented and has the ability to talk with anyone. Someone, who with all those gifts, doesn’t have an ego that gets in the way. I had lunch with a person like that last week...

Kabul fell  Eerily like Saigon fell forty-six years ago...

With the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, my mind returns, as it does most days,  to the soldiers that I trained, equipped and ordered to Afghanistan during the five years of that two-decade long war that I commanded the Illinois National Guard...

She left me without a word, MS Word that is...

A good Samaritan on a dark, rainy Italian highway.

An old house. An old yardstick. An old legend.

Writing about sports sounds like a dream job to lots of folks. Imagine...going to sports games for free, sitting in the press box, access to the locker room, interviewing players and coaches and fans. Watching games, then writing about it. And getting paid, although not much, to tell the stories. What a life! Except I hated it.

Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Veterans’ Day. The holy trinity of American patriotic holidays. As Independence Day approaches let us remember and think about the final clause of the thirty-one words of the Pledge of Allegiance. “With liberty and justice for all”.

A curly-headed girl from Belleville, Illinois, and an hour with Colin Powell...

Sometimes you've got big shoes to fill and eyes watching over you remind you of the right thing to do.

Some life lessons are hard. Ethical lapses by people you thought honorable are some of the hardest.

Tales are meant to be told, not read. There are few who cannot hear, although many who do not listen. And even more who read, but do not understand. This podcast tells of old tales and new prophets. (c) William L. Enyart Email: bill@billenyart.com

Great mentors have blessed me through life with the occasional bits of wisdom that have proven benchmarks. Here are two of those hard-earned bits of wisdom and one lesson learned from them.

This morning, the fog fills the river bottoms from Illinois bluffs to Missouri hills. Above, blue-sky peeks through but from my perch halfway up the rocky bluff I see nothing but the gray fog swallowing all that lies a hundred yards away....

Harbinger of spring. The crocuses of Abend Street.

Falling in love with old brick streets and the houses that populate them.

Some people measure their lives by their kids' birthdays. For others, it's their wedding anniversaries. For some, it's their jobs. For me and all those other working -class boomer guys li me, it's the cars we drove. Here's the (mostly) true story of the Mighty Blue Max...

Oh the surprises you find  when you get your DNA tested to see where your ancestors came from...

Now don’t get me wrong, I love bacon just as much as anyone, in fact, there is no smell in the world better than that of bacon frying in the morning. You can have your roses, your Chanel and even the smell of sun on a beautiful woman’s skin. I’ll take the scent of bacon crisping and popping in an iron skillet...

Sometimes even having eyes in the back of your head isn't enough to protect a bicyclist from the broken bones and bleeding body parts...