Recent Entries

• Winter is here, but this past Fall was the most colorful one I have ever experienced, and I had visitors to share it with

  December 18, 2024

  The leaves fall, fall as from far, Like distant gardens withered in the heavens; They fall with slow and lingering descent. And in the nights the heavy Earth, too, falls From out the stars into the Solitude. Thus all doth fall. This hand of mine must fall And lo! the other one:—it is the law.&hel...

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• “Lola de Valence”: A mysterious painting that captured my youthful imagination

  December 10, 2024

  This entry is going to take me back almost more than 50 years to my high school days in New Orleans. I am not sure why, at this time, the particular person I am going to write about, or the painting that accompanies this piece, have been on my mind. But I think I may…

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• The YouTube Universe and its Time Travelers to the Past and Future

  December 6, 2024

  We are legion.  For some of us YouTube is IT!  We’ve arrived at the one destination on the Internet that has it all.   Its vast riches are there for the taking.  Naturally, there’s a lot of junk, but the Art of the Internet is to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff…

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• More on a subject that preoccupies me even more in old age

  November 28, 2024

  Twenty-five years ago in my journal, I wrote this about a conversation with a co-worker: Someone, oh so gently, implied recently that perhaps I dwell a bit too much in the past, and that is an interesting thought. But to that I have to say this: “Well, yes. I return to the past in my…

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• Letter to a young photographer (actually, a comment via YouTube on the Internet)

  November 21, 2024

  Photography is my passion in life. I have always, since I was a kid growing up in the suburbs of New Orleans, taken photographs. This includes taking all my own photos during the years I worked as a reporter and editor at small weekly newspapers in North and South Carolina. I loved it, and loved&...

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• Sasanqua camellias adorn the nature sanctuary that always lets me escape the madness of the world outside

  November 14, 2024

  The world is too much with us… William Wordsworth The past month has been very stressful. The burdens of the world seem to oppress and overwhelm me. Now more than ever I rely on the nature sanctuary that is close by and whose paths I have trodden for 30 years, soaking up the quiet and…

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• A Whopper of a Tale, But True

  November 5, 2024

  Long ago, before I ceased eating at fast food restaurants, a Burger King Whopper with fries and a Coke was my favorite fast-food meal.  Thinking about those delicious, large flame-broiled burgers  that I always ordered with everything on them including extra mayo, brings back very distinct and pl...

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• A tale of two balconies, separated by a lifetime of living and memories

  October 29, 2024

  I never had a house that was my own. For almost my whole life I have rented apartments and have been quite content with that. Although I am a porch person by sentiment and nature, I only once lived in a house that had a porch and that was for ten years at my mother’s…

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• A creek that nurtured my soul and lifted my spirits during bad times

  October 18, 2024

  When I lived in southern Mississippi, there was a lot of turmoil in my brief time as an instructor at the university there, and I had to tough it out for a year. It was the most toxic and miserable work environment I have ever found myself in. But there was no getting out of…

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