I was on the last hour of a boring, four-hour drive when I passed one of those stores that sell everything: gas, Chinese food, Pepto Bismo, tax preparation services, and on the reader board they proudly announced: “We have worms for fishing!” Unusual for an establishment like this, they weren’t missing any letters, so it…

I just returned from posting letters in our mailbox, 3oo feet from our house. It’s a cold, foggy day, and over the crunch of gravel under my feet I heard the sibilant song of a little bird. Five little notes. They transported me to spring. I spotted the bird — a drab grey thing perched…

I was visiting a friend in the nursing home last week when I found myself trapped, holding my sleeping friend’s hand, forced to sit in the same room with a Christian television show. Those of you who read me regularly know that I’m not big on TV in any form — corporate network news with…

Sometimes, the truth is so simple that it’s difficult to believe. Take manipulation, for example, which is to control another person’s behavior, generally without his knowledge, and in an unscrupulous manner. The word is not used in a positive sense. Manipulation employs deceit; and deceit is a lie. Deceit, also, is not a positive word,…

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