Is Love a Lie?
What is more common than talk of love? The word is overused. So much love is false. Billy Joel sang truth in “A Matter of Trust”: Some love is just…
How Well Loved Are You?
“Mom always liked you best.” That was the signature line of the comedy act, the Smothers Brothers. In an interview by PBS, Tommy Smothers recalled how it started. He was…
How Do Sump Pumps and Sacrifice Work?
One year at our farm at Wildrose, we reached the peak in a long period of historically high precipitation. Sloughs ran over. Fields were saturated. Few crops were planted. By…
Will We Ever Hear the End of It?
You have seen a kid like him. One day, he is trying too hard to please everyone. The next, he doesn’t give a rip what anyone thinks. One minute, he…
You’ll Have To Draw Me a Picture
I almost flunked out of high school. The first time was in algebra, trying to solve polynomials. “Solving” means finding the roots of many terms. My translation? Trying to make…
The Saddest Face I Ever Attempted To Paint
Artist Francis B. Carpenter said Abraham Lincoln had “the saddest face I ever attempted to paint.” His law partner said Lincoln’s “melancholy dripped from him as he walked.” His life…
One Word in Absolute Darkness
With the oil boom, it seldom is dark anymore at our farm. There is usually some light from gas flares. It’s not like the experience of darkness we used to…
How Can We Expect Baptism To Work?
The first time my Dad sent me out seeding alone, a feeling of pessimism overcame me. That night I said, “How can we expect a green, leafy, lush crop from…
Who Goes with You into Surgery?
One of my vain ideas was to reach 60 without being an inpatient of a hospital. Didn’t work. Two Januaries in a row, I was hospitalized. I was a suffering…
Who Volunteers for Humiliation?
At Landsberg, Germany, as the U.S. Army occupies and loots the defeated German town, Capt. Lewis Nixon carries on his quest for Vat 69, a Scotch blended whiskey. He has…