Uber is a ride-hailing company with a cute sounding name. The service is popular when wanting to save time, avoiding the worry of a place to park. Recently, our granddaughter offered an intriguing suggestion. “Granddaddy, you should drive for Uber. You’ll meet new people and hear their stories. Plus,” she added, “it’ll be great fun.” I did, picked up my first fare .. and then I ran the numbers.
Life Experiences
Handkerchiefs Are Not Only For Blowing
The men in our family have always carried handkerchiefs. Not the fancy silk models perfectly placed to impress, but the functional variety kept at the ready for work. These simple squares of fabric offer more than the obvious benefits. They can hold back your wife’s tears at a wedding, clean ice cream off a grandchild’s cheek, and polish your glasses – as well as become make-do as a sling, tourniquet, bandage, signal flag, washcloth … it’s a long list. But I found one more to add to it …
Today He’s Clean and He’s Sober
Todd Hastings was in lock down at a city hospital where he’d been for nine months after a massive stroke from Wernicke’s encephalopathy. His years of substance abuse, along with excessive drinking, had led to a thiamine deficiency, that brought on his stroke the night he was arrested. Fortunately, the officer called paramedics instead of simply throwing him in the drunk tank. After almost a year in Carolina Medical Center, with most of his memory lost in the damaged areas of his brain, Todd started his eight-year trip to recovery.
Memories of Christmas Past
My memories of Christmas all run together – like one big happy dream. The family gathers for good food on the table, with gifts to share, then everyone leaves full of The Good Spirit hoping to make the moment last for another year.
Stepping Out
I’ve always had a love affair with cars. It goes back to my youth. Growing up, there were three junkyards within a few miles of my home. There may not be many junk yards for cars near you today, but there are other yards where the discarded and marginalized are kept.
Make A Beginning
Everything has a beginning, but not everything gets to start again. Today, my mother’s afghan is starting over – making its new beginning. Mom crocheted the afghan years before I was born. She kept it on the back of our living room sofa, always ready for use. There were never any, “Do Not Touch” signs in mom’s house …
When A Story Moves From Good To Best
I judge my stories as “good” when they have a reader. It moves to “better” when the story affects someone, then all the way to “best” when a reader takes action and creates their own story. My 16 year-old grandson took my 70 year-old experience and moved it into his life. Then he pondered what it meant and how it would shape the stories he would tell his grandchildren …
A Mother’s Love Is Everlasting
Kids do stupid things. They’re busy living each moment, never thinking about the future or the consequences of their actions, and how those consequences can last a lifetime. Fortunately for me, a mother’s love overlooks a lot of stupid.
The Perfection of Imperfectness
I can still see the surgeon, dressed in his operating scrubs, as he told us about the steps he used to repair our child’s walnut sized heart. Thirteen years later, I asked my son if he would like to have the scar hidden with some type of cosmetic treatment. “No Dad! Chicks dig scars!” was his immediate reply. Thirty years later, I’m still inspired by how wise and enduring those words were. We all have scars. There’s a vast variety of them in our lives. Some are physical and some emotional. They can be self-inflicted, other-inflicted, or purely accidental.
Just Another Golf Lesson
Golf has been good for me. Along with being a relaxing walk in the countryside, this ancient game has given me things I never picked up in school. The most obvious was how there’s only one set of rules, and how the rules apply to everyone. Rich and poor, men and women, left handed and right, everyone plays from the same book. If only that philosophy carried off the green and into the world.