In The Cigar Box

Today is the annual day of reflection.   For me two small events that occurred on November 14, the day following the Paris attack, represent the despair and the hope left by 2015. No one was singing the words.   Everyone knew the song and felt its plaintive prayer course through their souls.   Ordinary people gathered beyond the yellow tape encircling the ordinary places people go, ordinary places that became killing fields.   Near the entrance to Bataclan Concert Hall where scores of people perished, Davide Martello pedaled his bike, his grand piano in tow.   He stopped, sat on the piano bench so his fingers could urge the keys to comfort the bewildered, bemired, beleaguered crowd who longed to Imagine .   The night that preceded this dawning day was filled with exploding tweets and posts as the facts, conjectures and theories raced through the same web used to recruit willing killers and to coordinate this attack on humanity.   Searchers loo...

I'm late with this but in keeping with my recent tradition, this post is from our Christmas card for 2015.  It is the latest chapter in our practice of writing a poem and pairing it with an image on the face of the card.  Many past poems have been longer or told a story.  This year, haiku seemed right because the form forces few words to work extra hard in conveying the message.  2015 will be remembered for many things, both for good and ill, but I'll remember it as the year of too many words and too many meaningful messages lost. So, here is a photo of the front of our card with the poem following.  We wish you all the happiest of holiday seasons, Christmas for us,  but to each of you in whatever faith tradition you follow. New snow - new chance for black and brown, mottled and white to sit together. -- td

Of the 675,000 people who make up the population of Kansas City, Missouri, most have homes; they have an address.  But some don’t.  Data from 2011 suggest that about 3500 Kansas Citians are classified as homeless.  Through the efforts of organizations like reStart, Inc., City Union Mission, and the Salvation Army, 350,000 to 400,000 bed nights are available to Kansas City’s homeless men, women and children.  Simple arithmetic confirms that nearly a million person nights are left to be spent on the streets each year.  Our address was Fountain View on the Plaza.  The complex of 500 apartments sat between Oak and Main streets just north of Brush Creek.  The Spanish style buildings were constructed inside a six foot high, wrought iron fence where access is restricted by a digital entry code.   Only a short walk west lay the posh Country Club Plaza, an iconograph of Kansas City.  One hundred and twenty-six steps from the west pedestrian ...

There are days that collapse in a tired sigh more than coming to the end of a day’s worth of activities.   Our day’s sign left Winnie and I slumped into the couch, not snuggled but close enough to touch.   We wound down the final day of our forty-seventh year of marriage.   The television flickered forth a black and white retrospective film.   Peter, Paul & Mary’s harmonies and musical story telling rang out from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.   1963.   Throngs of thousands who gathered in the March on Washington joined with the trio in singing, “How many roads must a man walk down before they call him a man?...The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind...”   Winnie took my hand.   No words were said; none were needed.   Martin Luther King Jr. was about to tell those gathered there, and the world, about a dream that lived in his heart and mind. John Kennedy was president.   Their next song implored those gathered, “It’...

On a beautiful Thursday, I decided to walk to Charlie Hooper’s for a burger and a beer.  It was the perfect time of year to walk through the village known as Brookside to one of the local iconic pubs that helps to anchor this eclectic neighborhood.  Its heavily scarred wooden door was propped open.  Just as I turned to go in, I saw two older guys get out of a slightly rusty 1953 Chevy pick-up truck parked on the street just a couple spots down from the door. I had just sat down when I saw they had followed me in.  “Hooper’s changed hands,” the old duffer with a six foot walking stick informed his partner as they sidled their way to the dimmer regions at the back of the pub.  Things change slowly in Brookside.  That’s the way the locals want it.  But Charlie Hooper’s does indeed have a new owner.  With new owners come changes.    They chose a high top table nestled in the corner just steps beyond mine.  The guy with the walking ...

A dampened, blood soaked towel was wrapped tightly around her head with strong gauze tape meant to compress her ear to cheek and jowl.  When she first saw me her eyes rose in a small smile mixed with embarrassment for her odd appearance.  Eva is our Labradoodle, more doodle than lab, but on this day she was the object of an unprovoked attack by a culprit unknown. What at first seemed a simple puncture was later revealed to be a Y-shaped tear that left a piece of her ear-flap hanging.  When Dr. Golladay tried to shave away the silky fur from around the wound, Eva winced and looked at me pleadingly between a couple of short whimpers.  Clearly this wound was big enough that shaving, surgery and sewing would all be required.  I didn’t want, and she didn’t want me to leave her there but neither of us had any choice. I drove home with Quincy, our Labradoodle - more lab than doodle, who could not understand where Eva had gone, why we left her behind.  ...

Half blinded by the glare on my windshield, I was waiting for the light at 75 th and Prospect to turn green.  On the sidewalk stood an old man, short and a little stooped with three days of stubble on his chin.  He was holding the arm and looking into the face of a tall, stoutly built man.  The big man stared full face into the piercing morning sun and in his left hand clutched the harness of a resting, but watchful, yellow Lab.  I imagine this tall man was blind and out on a training walk – a walk where the Lab was teaching him how to trust his trustworthy dog.  The older fellow kept touching his arm to transmit a sense of security as, step by step, he pushes back the boundaries of his life without sight. My grand-dog, Zip, is a yellow Lab whose name came from the brown streak down his snout that makes it look like his face was zippered together.  He’s just two years old but has become fast friends with my grandsons, loves to run with their dad and c...

On a Wednesday night gripped by icy wet winds, we turned our collars and walked to the church door.   All of the stained glass windows were dark and a lone bulb above the high-arched, oaken doors cast a stark yellowish stain on crumbling concrete steps. “I wonder if the service has been cancelled because of wind chills below zero?”   We had shown up just a couple of weeks earlier for a meeting at the church only to learn that cold, snowy weather led to the cancellation.   We felt like we might have been the only people who failed to get the message.   “You mean like last time?” I asked. With full resolve I grabbed the door handle.   A door that heavy glides more than it swings but it opened.   “There are people here but the sanctuary looks dark,” she whispered – it was as if any sound above a whisper would rend the scrim of solemn serenity and pour cold into this warren of warmth.    Wondering if we were early, or late, I ...

My wife came through the door in a bit of a rush as though being a little late was out of the ordinary for her.   I had a table near the door so it only took a moment for her to scan the restaurant and locate me.   I waved.   She smiled.   As she came toward me, she glanced at the adjacent table where twenty ladies were eating amid cacophonous conversation. With a squeeze of my hand she said, “This is a risky place for a man of a certain age to be sitting.”   She nodded toward the table occupied by ladies regaled in red hats and purple blouses or scarves.   Certainly I noticed them.   Who wouldn’t notice bright red bonnets bobbing above purple blouses? Invisible to this flock of respectable ladies, I got neither a pinch of my butt nor a single come hither look.   They, however, were not invisible to anyone dining at North for a typical Tuesday lunch.   As my wife settled into her chair, I said, “Not risky for me. ...