I wrote here a few weeks ago that you can’t really understand COVID-19 until you’ve sat at the bedside of a good friend on a ventilator. I can say now that even then I did not understand it completely until I buried that good friend this past week. Until I watched that coffin being slowly lowered into the ground, as we all …
Thales Latimer Secrest. “Tom” Secrest was my friend for 30 years, yet somehow I never knew his given name. Good thing, too, because I would’ve called him Latimer. He’d have hated it, but he would have grinned because he appreciated cruel humor — even at his expense. Such was the nature of our friendship, and the best friendships, I think, …
Jimmy Dean didn’t write that song about Big John Schlosser. But he should have. And they don’t erect many statues to folks in small towns. But they should. It would take a lot of bronze because John was big. That’s the thing about small towns, they grow bigger-than-life characters like John. Maybe it’s the air, the soil, the sky … …
I was the new kid in September 1970, attending public school for the first time after years of being taught by Catholic nuns. I walked toward the front door on that first day, passing clusters of unfamiliar junior high students gathered in the morning sun, waiting for the first bell. I imagined whispers about this scrawny, shy newcomer. Then one …
Rereading I’m Proud of You: My Friendship With Fred Rogers, on the 10th anniversary of its publication. Favorites from Chapter One “Your wounded heart is a very beautiful heart,” Fred wrote to me during a time of great struggle. “In fact, it has probably allowed you to understand the hearts of all others who are wounded. And whose isn’t in …
When I was in grade school, I had a faithful pen-pal in faraway Ontario. We shared stories of life in our exotic neighborhoods, sometimes amazed at the contrast, more often surprised at how much we shared. Then we stopped. When I’ve moved on to new schools, jobs or adventures, friends and I always assure each other that we’d always stay …