A Dog Will Change Everything
Yesterday I was a guest on a podcast about people who are trying to make a difference in the world. The host was a quiet high school student and he was incredibly personable. I loved his pacing and his desire to do what he sees as a small thing to help our hurting world. Of course we talked about dogs. Not the book, except to mention I'd written a book, but we didn't even share the title which is fine with me. I told my story and how I went from saying I'd never have a dog to doing what I do. Pretty wild story when you think about it. One of his questions prompted me to say that I'm not a dog person. I love my dog, but I'm not a stereotypical person who would adopt any and every dog out there. I told him I have a problem [...]
Sing
When I was nineteen I developed a massive goiter. They never did find out why this happened to me, but in my second semester of my freshman year of college, I spent a week at KU Medical Center and additional time at the local hospital in my hometown. On April Fool’s Day, which was also my mom’s birthday, my doctor removed over half of my thyroid gland and two of my parathyroid glands. That afternoon he removed my mother’s hemorrhoids. Not the happiest of birthdays for her. At the time I didn’t know about the importance of the thyroid but people made sure to send me the Reader’s Digest containing the article called “I Am Joe’s Thyroid.” And all these years later I can tell you it’s been quite roller coaster because it’s a really important gland. What I also didn’t know was that I would not be able to [...]
God Don’t Like Ugly.
My mother was a woman who could cut through the heart of things with just a few words. She had eight kids and countless foster boys and had a neighborhood filled with kids who called her Mama. I can still hear this little 5'2" under 100 pound woman saying these words. The same words I said to my kids and I'm sure my siblings said to theirs. "Don't be ugly. God don't like ugly." My boys played soccer and basketball growing up. After each game the two teams would line up and walk towards each other and shake hands with each other and mumble, "Good game, good game." The losing team members weren't as enthusiastic, but they didn't call the other players names or ridicule them or treat them like they were complete morons. At the end of the season the winning team got a large trophy and each player [...]
A Shared Soda
While getting my car repaired a few years ago a darling little couple walked into the waiting area. They were in their late 80s, she in a pair of pants that were far too baggy, [...]
Lift Every Voice
Every year I sang with the Hawaii Vocal Arts Ensemble HVAE we did a Black History concert at Chaminade. It was, hands down, my absolute favorite concert of the year. We didn't have a large [...]
My Wish
Yesterday was a long day. We set off with Coconut around 9:00 to drive to just north of Chicago to see my father-in-law. He's ninety-eight and not doing well. He's got congestive heart failure needs [...]