My granddaughter came downstairs the other night long after the rest of the household had settled in for the evening. I was communing with my laptop. She works a couple of jobs and attends college. I’m awfully proud of her. “Grandpa, I need your help,” she said. “How do you address a letter?” I was startled. Don’t they teach that in school anymore? What...
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This week, a legacy essay from Tony Norris. A few yards from my front door stands my favorite tree to pee under. It has ever been so. I imagine a delta rich in potash and nitrogen beneath the pine needles feeding the coyote gourd that twists and spreads downhill in a luxuriant profusion. From this sheltered vantage point I’ve surveyed many a...
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“The North thinks it knows how to make cornbread, but this is gross superstition.” — Mark Twain My editor recently observed that I hadn’t written about corn in a while. He recognizes I’m obsessed with that commonest of vegetables. As the buffalo was to the Sioux prairie dwellers, so corn was to my ancestral culture. My forefathers hacked clearings in the...
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Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Psalm 42:7 (King James Version) The fingernail beach that welcomes the Sea of Cortez into Cantu Cove is about a mile long. During the final days of the old year I stood in the center of its arc and looked seaward. I sometimes get the startling sensation...
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Texas 1960 My sister Kathy was trying her wings a little. She was dating a wild boy. Mama was concerned about her so she asked our elder brother Eldon to have a word. I was with Kathy in the park, an oak-shaded area near the well house where we spent summer hours. Eldon pulled up in his two-tone Desoto and took a moment to light a cigarette before he...
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