Bounce Back Blog
Sorry, Mom…Again
With every year that passes, it seems I owe my mother yet another apology for doing or saying something that I, in the superior wisdom of my youth,—i.e., naiveté—once vowed I would never, ever do or say. So, yeah, I’ve been eating my words for a good 25 years now. And...
Harvest
After October’s spectacular kaleidoscope of colors, November’s bare trees and grey skies strike a decidedly more somber note. Much of the gold and crimson finery that dressed October’s trees now lies in tatters on the ground, crunching underfoot. If October is the...
The Overlooked Benefits of Being Inauthentic
I’m writing this at 6:15 on All Hallow’s Eve. Very soon princesses, pirates, witches and werewolves will be upon my doorstep. I can’t wait to oooh and aww over each costume, feigning shock and amazement that such exotic creatures have suddenly, inexplicably...
Happy Birthday, Daddy
Today would have been my father's 96th birthday. He's been gone thirteen years and I still miss him every day. In honor of his birthday, I am reposting the excerpts from my book My Pineapples Went to Houston that I posted on Father's Day. As I said then, my dad was...
Making Good on Good Intentions
Ah, here we are in the most glorious of months, morning air crisp and clean, afternoons bright and sunny. It must be October—or as I call it, Choctober, with 31 uninterrrupted days of Halloween candy sales. Forget crimson, gold and russet, my favorite Choctober colors...
Seasons of Life
Living somewhere on the globe that didn’t experience four seasons would be a difficult adjustment for me to make. As a child growing up in Pennsylvania, I took for granted that life’s activities were largely organized around the seasons of the year. While I never...
The Power of Enough
“Less is more” may be a common expression, but let’s face it, there aren’t too many of us in modern society who willingly subscribe to that philosophy. Ours is a world that worships at the altar of “more, bigger and better.” And to be honest, “less, smaller and...
Dog Days and Second Chances
I don’t need to see Sirius shining in the predawn sky to know we are late in the dog days of summer. Fifteen straight days with highs in the 90s was a dead giveaway. When I was a child my father would invariably refer to the dog days as “the beginning of the end of...
Remembering Daddy
In honor of Father's Day, I'd like to share two excerpts about my dad from my book, My Pineapples Went to Houston. My dad has been gone 13 years now and I still miss him and think about him almost every day. And if I hear a Dean Martin song, I completely dissolve. My...