Loneliness is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man. —Thomas Wolfe ******************************************************************* Well, it’s been a while. More than a while since I posted my last blog. It wasn’t random. There were reasons. And I had no clue back then, of what all was coming at me like a freight train. Guess it’s just as well I didn’t know. It would have made me fret. What, Lord? I’m going to be out of order for how long? Ah, come on. Let’s talk about it. Surely we can do better than that. Let’s make a deal. But there was no dealing going o ..read more

The family is a haven in a heartless world. —Christopher Lasch _________________ I speak now of many things, of fear and sorrow and loss. And joy, too, mingled in, if you strain hard enough to hear it. A tale of how to walk free, near as I can tell it. The heart can never be chained, nor can the mind. Not if we don’t let it. Life is mostly about choices and their aftereffects, right or wrong. However innocent those choices, sometimes the road is stained with blood and fire. Such is the reality of our world. The weekend came up, a few weeks back, and I remember how it felt. There was some exci ..read more

…All things that lapse and change and come again upon the earth- these things will always be the same, for they come up from the earth that never changes, they go back into the earth that lasts forever. Only the earth endures, but it endures forever. —Thomas Wolfe ________________ I don’t quite remember what all went down the first time I met the Amish guy. It was a lot of years ago. He ran a small building crew. He was plain, older, hard core. A South-ender. It was long ago, and I don’t remember exactly what happened or how, the first time he walked in for some pricing there at work. I just ..read more

You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame, back home to exile,…away from all the strife and conflict of the world, back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for… —Thomas Wolfe _____________________ The day came, it trickled in like most days do. The breaking silent dawn, the rising sun. On this day, there were blue skies with rafts of drifting clouds. It was a rare moment. I had seen only one such time before, that came anywhere close to this. It was Tuesday. May 12th ..read more

Did they not, as we, cry out at night, along deserted roads into demented winds? — Thomas Wolfe ____________________ Well, that went south fast. There’s never a shortage of tyrants, all ready to step in and inflict their will on others by force. At this point, in early May, in the year of our Lord, 2020, a choking dystopian fog has settled on the land. It’s impossible to know or to grasp the harsh winter that is now our spring. The aftermath of this event, whatever you think of it, will affect at least all those who were old enough to remember. The world has changed, more than any of us could ..read more

But this is the end, This is the end of the innocence. —Don Henley, lyrics _______________________ The darkness came like a great, pestilent cloud, descending in slow motion right before our disbelieving eyes. We could see it coming, the plague, or what was called a plague. It swept from country to country, you could never be quite sure of what was actually going on. The “news media” went insane, trying to freak everyone out. Vile, vile people, they are. Through all the noise, you could be sure of one thing, pretty much, and one thing only. Something wicked this way comes. I’ve been a “pre ..read more

And who shall say–whatever disenchantment follows–that we ever forget magic; or that we can ever betray, on this leaden earth, the apple-tree, the singing, and the gold? — Thomas Wolfe ________________ It seemed like a safe thing to say, back when the message came. A request from a guy connected to Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online (GAMEO). Soon after Dad died, the guy emailed me. We want to add your father to our database, our encyclopedia. Will you do the short bio for us? We’d like you to. And I thought that would be fine. Sure, I messaged back, relieved that they didn’t n ..read more

Spring, summer, and fall fill us with hope; winter alone reminds us of the human condition. —Mignon McLaughlin _____________________ I remember after we moved to Bloomfield, way back when I was a young teenager, a lot of years ago. We moved in October. I can’t say it was that next spring for sure, but it probably was. Dad was always nosing around, always looking for any little opportunity to make a few bucks. And somehow, he found a hybrid seed corn company up in northern Iowa, a small regional enterprise. He signed up as a dealer. I can’t remember that he ever did such a thing before, bei ..read more

We are the sons of our father, and we shall follow the print of his foot forever. —Thomas Wolfe ________________ It came sliding in kind of sideways, I thought. I wasn’t particularly looking for it when December came. And it came rolling in like a flood, the memories and the loss. I was surprised by the intensity. Then again, there is no road map for such things. You absorb it all as it comes. Or try to. The trigger that set off the charge in my head: A little over one year ago, we put my father in the ground. It was good, the first year without my Dad. And I don’t want to hang on in an unh ..read more

He roared like a lion and cooed like a dove. Hellfire and brimstone. Come to Jesus. –Ira Wagler: Broken Roads _________________________ It was a nippy December day, last week. Outside, the cold winds whipped and swirled. Winter. It’s here, at the door. At work, we were a little short-handed. Deer season does that. Customers trickled in and out. Builders. A young couple looking for metal roofing. And then the bell rang again, as the front door opened. I got up from my desk to meet the man who walked in. A small-time contractor. English guy. I greeted him. It’s been a while. He walked up to t ..read more