My father was larger than life. I was a shrimp of a kid and he, a stately 6’2″. Everything about him was gargantuan: his body, his booming voice, his gigantic spirit… He made his presence known before he was seen. He inspired deep seated anxiety without saying a word. In his presence I averted my …
We had waited restlessly from dim dawn to drizzly dark. It was a brumal October day in Oregon that boded well for a spooky evening of trick or treating. Misty rain and heavy, grey clouds palled over the day like a heavy, wet, grey blanket. It was dismal really. A long crooked line of raked …
I passionately despised baths as a little kid. It was the worst thing ever. I went as many days as I could without one and considered each day a great personal victory. Inevitably, it would fall on my brother Michael to get me into the bathtub. He would start the day off by saying, “Today …
My friend Shawn is a lovable, flavorful character. A mouthful sometimes. A potentially annoying mouthful. He’d traveled to Namibia to visit his in-laws whom he only got to see every few years. Several women were in the kitchen wrapping up dinner – there’s nothing quite like a kitchen full of African women. Kwaito music was …
It all happened so fast, so I’m not quite sure why I recall it in slow motion. My boys were fooling around and laughing. They rarely play together so I relish these times. I was standing by the kitchen about to open the fridge. James, moving at his usual 300mph dashed by the kitchen counter and grabbed an orange then flew …