[January 29, 2024] Sitting beside my Mom, I remember watching the epic movie “The Ten Commandments,” starring Charleston Heston as Moses and Yul Brynner as Pharaoh Ramesses II. It was a moment in time that helped me see my Mom as a woman of good character and that she made sure her kids understood right from wrong. Indeed,… Read More »
[January 21, 2024] Standing there with my brother Philip, we were mesmerized by the lights, the music, the crowd, and the energy of the Morehouse Parish Cotton Festival – near Bastrop, Louisiana. Like a county fair anywhere else, the cotton festival brought out everyone from miles around for curiosity, amazement, and almost professional entertainment. I was amazed. I’d… Read More »
[January 13, 2024] I wrecked out, scraping my knee into a bloody mess, ripping apart my boot, and tearing up my plaid pants. I was trying to take a turn too sharply and too fast on a sun-scorched day in Abilene, Texas. The paved road surface was soft, gooey-like from the sun’s heat, and you could see the… Read More »
[January 12, 2024] As a kid, I wasn’t concerned about sharing my toys (I had so few that sharing was easy), but I had one personality around age 13 or 14 that concerned my parents. It took me years to fix. I didn’t recognize this childhood problem until I learned how to deal with it the hard way. … Read More »
[January 8, 2024] It was an amazing shot. With my handmade slingshot and an eagle-eyed aim, I knocked a giant fat squirrel right out of the oak tree. The shot was one in a hundred. From where I stood, I could see the squirrel jumping limb to limb, always on the move, doing what a squirrel does. He… Read More »
[January 2, 2024] I was not yet two years old when my parents temporarily sent me to live with my grandparents. My brother Philip was just born, healthy and happy, and yet it still would not be easy for my Mom with two small kids at home, so I was sent away. My mother’s mother was smart and… Read More »
[December 25, 2023] My two-year-old sister Terri spotted the little bird first and called out in the calmest voice, “Mommy, a birdie.” It was a small bird in a small nest, maybe a sparrow or finch, and was hidden within the branches of our new Christmas tree. Now, the bird was flying in a panic inside our living… Read More »
[December 17, 2023] The firetruck went screaming down the street with six or seven young men hanging onto the sides of the truck with one hand, holding their fireman’s helmets in place with the other, as they raced to put out a kitchen fire near my house. I was starstruck at the sight of such a fine display… Read More »
[December 15, 2023] You could almost feel the bat crack when it hit the ball. The softball popped into the infield and, in a normal game, would have been an easy out. But the second baseman was sitting atop his donkey, stretching out his glove, missing the pop-up, and falling off his donkey. The hometown boys sitting on… Read More »
[December 11, 2023] The Satterfield family lived in the countryside on the outskirts of the small city of Bastrop, Louisiana, just west of Cypress Bayou, recently moving there from the town we’d grown up in. Our new red-brick home was in a sunny place with giant oak trees, a child’s swing set, woods in the backyard, and a… Read More »