Knee Deep

While we thought we had clearly established our boundaries in our sunken rec room, subtle changes were in the air. Our once loyal toy poodle seemed suddenly much happier around our G'ma. Jealousy and outrage mixed, setting in motion a diabolical plan to win back our TV space, the man cave of our youth.   

The rec room and its replenishing oxygen was starting to take on personal meaning for us and had slowly evolved from a depressing lower umbilical to the rest of the house to a major pipeline offering safety and lots of TV. While our sliding entrance to the rec room also offered Olympic hopes, the arrival of our grandmother from Ohio had a magnetic effect on our pet poodle but threatened our nuclea...

When my parents bought out first house, they loved the big back yard, the friendly neighborhood and the proximity to a good school. My brother and I, on the other hand, considered the sunken living room not only the best selling point, but a secret passage to a subterranean culture, and a shelter from an impending global disaster: The Greenhouse Effect. 

If bears had slippers they might never come out of hibernation. Why? Because slippers automatically turn off the alarm clocks inside us. Our circadian rhythms slow when we put on our house shoes, and deep down in our soles, our feet let out a long sigh when are slippers come to rest near us. Therapy dogs beware: in the future you will all be replaced with a good pair of slippers.

We all are products of those voices who took a chance on us, those that saw something bright in our future and taught us what becoming better looked like. In this short story in a week celebrating Martin Luther King’s Jr.’s birthday, the author replays the role of one encourager whose skills were simple, but whose hands were big. To have a dream, one must first be willing to use what we are given.

If you had an art teacher when you were a kid that didn't like your creations, you might be inspired after you read this to get out the old paint set and pick up where you left off. Be careful though! Lurking within every creative process, every art work, is a ravaging imagination, full of quirks and...duh-dum....a large side order of mystery! 

I'm a list maker. So, when it comes to making my New Year's resolutions, out come the 3 X 5 cards. Several authors, however, suggested an alternative to the ubiquitous list, something that feels a little less like a vulture circling overhead, and more like, well, a walk in the park...have a listen here and check into the new year with a new kind of resolve.

Processing Christmas in families is... well...a lot like processing any other day of the year. And yet, some of our most important Christmas moments, the ones we reminisce about, are the ones that took years for us to process. Families and Christmas. How are they ever going to be able to sit in the same room together?

Last week I began a story set in Ketchum, Idaho, where several of my buddies and I had taken a leave of absence from college, cowboy hats and all. Living out west was a culture shock but working at the ski resort was no vacation. As Christmas day moved quietly towards us, homesickness crept in. We found ourselves on a desolate hike home after a night of broom ball, isolated, cold and acutely aware...

We didn't want college. We wanted adventure. An Idaho ski resort sounded like the ticket for one semester, but as tourists flew in to party for Christmas, we scrapped by as maids at a ski resort, and looked over our shoulders for another more serious threat.

Not in the mood this year for all the holiday hoopla? How about adding some fig newton to your pancake recipe or wearing an oversized Christmas band aid on your forehead? Here's ten tidings that will gift you with some new energy and some out-of-the-box ideas that will put a little jingle in your snow boots. You might even find your inner Christmas child along the way!

  Feeling handicapped by a fear of failure? Like Matt Damon said in We Bought A Zoo, "sometimes all it takes is just twenty seconds of insane courage." We sometimes get over our fears by firing first and taking aim later, because eventually one of those shots is gonna hit pay dirt. Put your seat belt on for this one, because in this episode, we are going for a wild ride. Oh, and by the way, you ma...

The holiday season is creeping up on us like the second hand in a scary movie. No one hears the ticking sound until the camera zeroes in on the gothic clock on the wall and the last few seconds tick off in slow motion. Will we make it out of the holiday Twilight Zone before the clock strikes twelve? We may, but it will take some strategic maneuvering at the grocery store this year. 

A sleuth figure slips through the night, and all evidence points to a return of Mr. Pumpkin, the vigilante gourd representing Pumpkin Nation. Math and science seem to support the sudden flip-up in last week's podcast of the author's pumpkin pie at a local diner, but you can crunch the numbers yourself. Hostilities have been stirred again, and Mr. Pumpkin, one spicy character, wants a piece of the...

The neutrality of pumpkins, long thought to be associated with their lack of taste and character, reveals itself as an immutable law of both nature and eating pumpkin pie. Equilibrium, when upset, can have an inverse effect on pie wedges, and our ability to stay mentally stable.

Want to know how to live to be 100 years old? My father's legacy isn't his longevity, but his ability to appreciate the freedoms that avail us all as Americans, to honor them by serving and ultimately to be willing to sacrifice when up against adversity. 

Orange. Is it a word emblematic of a season, or is its colorful history disguise for something more sinister at Halloween? Orange. Say it again. Orange.

Ordering a drink at a local coffee shop comes with the details of heartache, and an almost forgotten birthday. A betrayed trust brings pain in double shifts, but we are reminded that, even though pain is inevitable, we don't have to suffer alone.

Congratulations go out to the author, who received an insurance award celebrate Unknown Level of Achievement. When he receives word for his new insurance status in bold letters on a huge manilla envelope, visions of stardom, fame and fortune are anticipated, and humbling.

Witnessing Hurricane Ian's devastating path and  subsequent  destruction of life and property in Florida, we can take pause to be thankful for our own ephemeral  well being. Perhaps we can take time, to pause and reflect on God's ultimate power over nature, and see his hand in the mercies that rise from overwhelming loss. 

The author recounts a near disastrous spider encounter and generational benefits of good spider mental health.

Two cowboys lament over having to give away their cattle on a lonely and desperate cattle drive in the Old West.

This episode tells the story of Carter, my grandson, who has taken to wearing his shoes on the wrong feet!

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