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This Quilted Shore
It is summer in Ocean City. Biplanes pull banners advertising seafood buffets while below dolphins arc through the surf. The lettuce and peas are out of the ground and the tiny gardens fronting the summer houses are blooming hydrangeas, daylilies and lavender. It is June and summer is still cool and refreshing here. Castle building Karen and I have come here for years, before kids, during…
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The Road to Damascus
One day, when my grandkids are old enough to understand the idea of nuclear war, I’ll tell them a bomb nearly took me out. It happened on the road to Damascus. Not the Damascus where Saul was blinded by a light from heaven. Damascus, Arkansas. I grew up in the shadow of the Cold War. In Oklahoma, that wasn’t abstract. At school we practiced nuclear drills, crawling under desks, covering our…
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Tending What Grows: Life and Death in a Greenhouse
Karen and I were once DINKs… Double Income, No Kids. We were young and relatively unencumbered. Karen taught high school math in Maple Shade, New Jersey. I practiced as a CPA — which meant I spent my days talking about depreciation schedules while wondering why no one invited me to interesting conversations. The partners at our firm were Jewish. I liked them — energetic, sharp, fond of argument…
Lem and the Minie Ball
I like the way old-timers accept the inevitability of medical conditions. My brother is a physician in Utica, New York. Our dad once asked him about bending over to tie his shoes — how it had become difficult with age. The good doctor looked at his father and said, “It will get worse.” Honest, but not very hopeful. Dr. Taylor once advised another patient — an eighty-five-year-old woman who…
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Writing, Baking, and Making Toys
It’s that time of year when I refuse to play golf—the season when the earth tilts away from the sun and the light grows shallow and uncooperative. Cold settles in. The days feel narrower. Gloom has a way of provoking thought. One observation, for what it’s worth: the deeper I journey through life, the less I want to work. Let me clarify.The less I want to work for money. That doesn’t mean I’m…
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The Measure that Matters: A Ripe Life
Jair and the Drum
A boy sat on a low stone wall on the edge of Bethlehem as the fading sunlight sifted through the narrow streets like a handful of warm grain. He stood up and walked into the market between the stalls and jutting rafters that leaned inward as if whispering secrets. Bethlehem was crowded with travelers arriving for the census. The streets were awash with the chatter of barter and the smell of…
Driving Through East Texas and the Garden of Gilgamesh
“Why are we here?” Karen asked this nonchalantly, as if she were wondering why roosters have combs on their heads. I was hoping she was talking to herself—or that the question was rhetorical. But since we were driving to Houston, I was a captive audience. She persisted. “Why are we here?” “Well,” I said, “maybe we’re here because your father stole watermelons.” Let me explain. Karen’s father,…
The Ryder Cup: Between Delirium & Decorum
“What are you doing, dear?” My wife asked me this while I sat watching the Ryder Cup yesterday. “Ahh, just sitting here crying with Cam, Justin, Scottie, and all the lads,” I told her. Then I rewound and made her watch Cameron Young hole a putt to win his match. I couldn’t believe he made the putt again, and I got choked up all over again. At Bethpage, it wasn’t just putts dropping. It was men…
Downton Abbey: a reflection
Karen and I went to the movie theater to see Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. The concession guy apparently decanted my Pepsi into a small cup with a straw—not unlike Carson the Butler filtering wine through cheesecloth—before telling me with a tinge of embarrassment, “That’ll be $7.” I was so shocked that I scanned my credit card and left without a word of recognition for the robbery that had…
Turn the Page
If I could do it all again, I’d be a journalist—back when reporters smoked pipes, wore cardigans, and called in breaking news from pay phones. Journalism runs in my family. My uncle Rudy Taylor, cousin Andy Taylor, and cousin Jenny (Taylor) Dively have owned, written for, and edited several newspapers in southeastern Kansas. I’ve always been a little jealous of them—except on deadline day. I…
For Mom on Her 90th Birthday
I could tell you the things you already know—about Charlotte Elaine Davis Taylor and her ninety remarkable trips around the sun. But legends, as they say, have already been told. So instead, I want to speak of an inner world—the kind we all carry within us, though we rarely invite others fully into it. Because what stays with us most in this life are the evocative moments: the way someone makes…
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Bless the Beasts and the Children
Last night, Karen and I spent an evening at Kiddie Park. Some of the rides from my childhood are still operating. What an uplifting place. It exists for one reason. To make children laugh and smile. Not to mention the taller children like me. And if you are becoming a little jaded and cynical, one can find some form of comfort and balm for the soul here while sharing a cup of soft serve ice cream…
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The Parable of Spud Dinkins
Excerpt from the book Seven Hills: This story is fiction, though it feels true. One of my favorite childhood pictures shows me dropping a dime into an offering plate at Church. Mom, Dad, and my older sister watch solemnly as an unknown man awaits my gift. I always wondered if I plunked the coin or placed it. Garrison Keillor tells a story about a donor who unintentionally added a zero to his…
Seven Hills
I’ve always wanted to write a novel. The working title is Seven Hills (but may change as the arc of the story changes) I’m posting a chapter or two or three to see if anyone loves it or hates it or has advice. This is chapter one. My father grew up near the Tri-State mining district in a tiny community called Timber Hill/Bluejacket, Oklahoma. This is the somewhat fictional setting for the novel…
How Ice Cream Saved the World and Then Ruined It
I was born into a grand culinary experiment—one that began in the hardscrabble kitchens of the Great Depression and evolved through American ingenuity into a postwar paradise of processed food. In those lean years, dietitians emerged as unlikely heroes. While most people scraped by on rations and ingenuity, the stewards of nutrition saw opportunity. With the country hungry—literally—for…
Save the Mosquito Dancer
Albert Einstein said dancers are the athletes of God. If Einstein is correct, I am a pretentious leaping gnome when the wedding DJ plays Shut up and Dance. My feet are on the dance floor, but they are a zip code away from the band, and vaguely connected to my hips. Whoever said dance like no one is watching was delusional or Mikhail Baryshnikov . So I dance like people are watching. I was…
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