Month: January 2004

As a young farmer in upstate New York in the 1920s, Grandpa could only afford a modest diamond ring when he asked my grandmother to marry him. It didn’t look like much compared to the two and a half carat diamond ring that her aunt had been given when she was engaged to the French…

It was only a painfully sprained wrist – good for a few days of sympathy. An ace bandage insured physical and emotional support, but it could not eae the shock of encountering the reality of my vulnerability. The sprain happened late, late, late one night when family circumstances ruled that I had the house to…

The first headlines announcing “mad cow” disease in the nation opened an unofficial hunting season for red meat alternatives. Folks in southern Arkansas zeroed in on venison as a ‘safe meat’, but the menu options across the nation extend beyond Bambi’s relatives. For starters, try the Hunch Back of Cattle-dum, the bison, a truly healthy…

The part Siamese cat lived for two years in a sterile cage at the local animal shelter before my daughter and her husband found it during their search for pets the winter after they married. They also found a kittenish tabby. They took the felines home. Predictably the younger, more frisky cat quickly won everyone’s…