There are reasons why people choose to live in the South. Sunshine and warmth being the primary ones. My Southern friends simply are not prepared for temperatures that dip below 50. Most of them don’t own long pants or a coat. Their shoe closet is filled with multi-colored flip-flops. When they sing Toby Keith’s “I”m going to put a boot up your arse..” they are singing about Texans, who are the only people on earth who would wear boots in the South... Read more
“Our Father who art in Heaven,” I prayed, even as a little boy in Sudan, “hallowed be thy name.” I was baptized as a child and learned about God and his will and his Kingdom in Catholic schools. I have always believed that He gives us our daily bread and that He forgives us when we’ve done wrong. I have always been comforted by these words and I have always believed God is the Supreme Being who will... Read more
Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class Danny Dietz Jr. was one of the nineteen men killed in action on June 28, 2005 when Operation Red Wings went terribly awry. Here’s how Marcus Luttrell describes what happened with SEAL team member Dietz in the memoir, Lone Survivor: Jammed between rocks, we kept firing, but Danny was in all kinds of trouble.. I watched in horror as Danny went down, this beautiful guy, husband of Patsy, a friend of mine for four years, a... Read more
Do you know what the right thing is? No disrespect but you don’t have any idea what the right thing is. How do you weigh human life? It’s war. There is no right or wrong answer in combat. Those people who aren’t out there carrying the rifle have no business dictating what in the hell we are doing. If you want to make those command decisions then grab a rifle and come help us. Otherwise, enjoy the freedoms the American... Read more
Willie Nelson before long-term marijuana use Willie Nelson: After long-term marijuana use. Word to the young: Be careful before you toke And for further consideration: Marijuana use and the maltreatment of children: Parents who use marijuana, for example, may have difficulty picking up their babies’ cues because marijuana dulls response time and alters perceptions. When parents repeatedly miss their babies’ cues, the babies eventually stop providing them. The result is disengaged parents with disengaged babies. These parents and babies then... Read more
Before there was the produce farmer who set himself on fire in Tunisia Before there was a Pakistani boy who stopped a school bomber Before there was the Nelson Mandela who set a nation on fire, and then the world There was Bobby Sands. Some say it was Sands who influenced Mandela. Bobby Sands and his words come to mind as children hide in the reeds outside Juba, as their aunties and uncles die trying to cross the river, as... Read more
All this talk of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty has got me remembering Johnson’s real legacy – the Vietnam War. It’s so funny how the lack of institutional knowledge can warp the future. I heard folks talking on NPR about how much Johnson hated poverty. How he lived beans-to-mouth as a young boy and how the insecurity of that upbringing made him vigilant in his fight against poverty. Perhaps that explains a lot of things, specifically how... Read more
I love the start of a race, the opening chapter of a book, the first day of class, that first moment I meet a person who will be a forever friend, the first hello from a familiar voice, the first notes of a tune I love, the first light of dawn, the first twinkling star, a new moon, spanking new shoes with a perfect fit, that first cup of coffee on a winter’s morn, that first sip of ice tea... Read more
My childhood girlfriend was institutionalized following the birth of her first-born. Here she was, ten years later, in the third-trimester of her second pregnancy, talking out of her head again. We were having one of our catch-up phone calls. She from her home in Georgia. Me from my home in Oregon. “I know what the problem is,” she whispered. “Problem?” I asked, holding the phone closer so I could hear better. “Yes,” she replied. “I know why I can’t get... Read more
She bought the buffet from a man who lived in that same prison town where she lived and worked and planted a garden so lush people would drive by the brick house on the corner lot just to hang their heads out the rolled down window and point at the blue hydrangeas big as dinner plates and valentine-red geraniums. I think she said she paid $400 for it. A good deal, she declared, for something hand-crafted that a’way. A... Read more
Karen Spears Zacharias
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