Uncategorized
-
Good songs survive time because they are strong. The lyrics speak to us even after the passage of time. This morning, while listening to Johnny Cash’s Cash Unearthed produced by Rick Ruben, the stories my grandparents told me came to mind. My great grandfather owned a farm in Allentown, New York in the 1880s. My
-
by Carl ten Hoopen Chocolate and beer slip uneasily into essays. They are topics that glide easily to our attention when pushing a cart down the grocery aisle, attending a hockey game, or dining at the Queen & Beaver Public House in Toronto. My thoughts have unraveled on beer. Chocolate, as beloved as it is,
-
Censors sneak up right before your eyes in broad daylight. They aren’t figures lurking in a dark alley on a rainy night waiting to mug you as you make your way from a subway entrance. The censors wear tailored suits. They act quickly. A few people look up at the glass and steel towers housing
-
Friends & Taking A Vacation I am often surprised when asked if Carl ten Hoopen is a real person. Be assured that he is. Any doubts that you have may be due to the photograph he asked me to use on this blog. I thought his request odd, but no less peculiar than the title
-
This morning, I received a letter from a friend in Canada. He was polite, as he typically is, but I could hear the anger when he asked, “These are Congressmen?” His question was raised in response to a letter six members of the U.S. House of Representatives addressed to Canada’s ambassador to the United States,
-
In the American imagination, small town, rural living offers a slower lifestyle in close knit communities, and affordable living. This idealized perception misses the deeper reality of humanities place in creation. Wendell Berry succinctly captures this when he observes: “Old Chinese landscape paintings reveal, among towering mountains, the frail outline of a roof or a
-
This morning was hospital day. This is when I make the mortgage and car payments for the doctors. A friend of mine always receives hugs when she meets with the nurses and doctors. I was greeted with a cheerful, “Good morning. Did you bring your wallet?” A hug would be nice, but, unlike my friend,
-
Scene: A dust swirl drifts across a field. Through the dust we see a ranch house. Two children are playing in the yard. A young woman is milking a goat. An older woman cooking on a grill and oven outdoors. She turns her head, raising a hand to her forehead, shading her eyes. A worried
-
One morning⸺ it was on the fifteenth of May⸺ I was returning from visiting a colleague in Oxford when I entered that well-known door on Baker Street. Violin music, played with fierce energy, wafted from those rooms Sherlock Holmes inhabited. Mrs. Hudson greeted me. She appeared distraught. “You have to make him stop, Watson,” she
-
June 14th will be remembered in history as a turning point. The assassination of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark. The attempted assassination of Minnesota State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. This was the day millions of Americans gathered to protest the Trumpian regime’s policies that violate both the rights
Charles van Heck's Woodhull Journal 