Because I still have family and friends in the city where I was born, it’s easy for me to be a winter connoisseur of Phoenix back yards. In this back yard, my head rests on a pillow in the shade of a grapefruit tree while my belly and legs and feet bake in afternoon sunshine. Birds squeak, a girl behind a block wall beyond the alley squeals while her daddy...
Read MoreBorn on the Fourth of July; A 5 by 9 1/2 foot remembrance
When I worked for the government as a fire lookout, I would watch the distant dandelions of fireworks on the Fourth of July and toast my father’s birthday. Standing in that dark capsule on a mountain top I’d think of him in Europe with the 94th Infantry and wonder how his experience compared to the episodes of the television show, COMBAT, we watched as...
Read MoreWandering in the dark; (when ho-ho-ho gets old)
I know a woman who celebrated Winter Solstice at the South Pole by inviting fellow workers at the station there to join her with wine to watch a DVD of the Peter, Paul, and Mary Christmas Concert. When I pictured it, I imagined them as far from Christmas as possible, almost as if they celebrated on a space ship. Indeed I read a blog where a worker who...
Read MoreSacred is; As sacred does
The San Francisco Peaks practically whisper through the bedroom window of my upstairs apartment near downtown. Along with the tribes that consider the mountain sacred, I believe the rest of us should more frequently name how that mountain touches our lives. I know I count on the peaceful presence of the highest peak in Arizona. Many times a week I look...
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