The descendants said it best themselves. The English at Jamestown were the first Illegal Immigrants. Recently, a friend with whom I share membership in the proud Granaderos de Gálvez asked me to speak to her Jamestown Society. As a topic I suggested the impact of the Spanish on Jamestown, a rarely mentioned topic. The speech […]
It is easy to become a recluse in retirement. Flatbottom has done it successfully. He says he spent all his working life being sociable and he won’t do it anymore. He enjoys my brother-in-law but has lost touch with his own brother. He will go to Dalia’s Christmas Party, but it’s the only party he […]
A number of years ago, when we first arrived in the United States, wide-eyed and amazed at the wealthy new world around us, a friend bought us our first television. Thank you, Mario Gottfried. Or not. We could lie on the couch or lounge in the arm chairs and watch hours of TV at a […]
Yesterday a dear friend, Raul Avalos, and I spoke about Immigration to the ladies of the United Methodist Women. Not a topic one would normally associate with them, but they were game, and curious, and willing to try to understand. Like Marines in Afghanistan, however, if you’ve been there, you don’t need an explanation. If […]
There were 180 of them. One hundred eighty seventh and eighth graders from our local Middle School. Short, tall, thin, fat, happy, sad, friendly, unfriendly, walking in clumps or alone. Verging on adulthood, staring at high school in the Fall, and after that, who knows? And we volunteers had agreed to help entertain them for […]
Yesterday, as I ate lunch with two friends, a young woman came into the restaurant with a scarf covering her head. No need to ask. Cancer and its dreaded attendant–Chemo therapy. Still she smiled a cheerful smile, laughing with her friends as they ate lunch. With courage, she was fighting to live as happy a […]
Who knew there was a 300-acre paradise hidden down at the end of Old Fish Hatchery Road? I was looking for places that our new Sam Houston State University faculty had never been. I wanted to create a practical tour with places that the faculty might need – license plates, driver’s licenses, both post offices, […]
“I’m sorry, I can’t come. I have to take care of my mother.” I’ve heard this from others on occasion and I scoffed. Certainly they could find a way to attend the meeting or the party or the festival. Surely someone could have taken care of the elderly parent. Or somehow they could have left […]
Wait! Where’d the peace and quiet go? Gone are the halcyon days of getting to sit with the Hospice nurse calmly watching Mom sleep and waiting for the end. Nope. That’s definitely not happening. Now that the Witchdoctor is here, we are scrambling to keep up with the new routine. […]
I lie in the big, comfy bed beside her hospital bed, waiting. Waiting through the night. Waiting during the day. Perhaps it is something as mundane as waiting for her to wake. Or waiting to fix her breakfast and then waiting for her to want to eat it. Waiting for her to speak lucidly, other […]