Best Christmas Concert of the Year

How many Christmas concerts or special services have you been to this year? I went to two, which is pretty typical for me. The first was a low-key, small crowd sort of thing, with a single performer on a piano in a mismatched venue that made the crowd look paltry. (It...

Mama Says #11

My mom named her dog “Tagalong,” Tag for short, because since the moment she adopted him he has had trouble differentiating himself from her. Wherever she is, that’s where Tag is. Actually, he’s gotten a little bossy about telling her where she is supposed to be. He...

How to Become an Author

“I want to be an author for my career.” Mind you, I’d only met this nine-year-old boy a few minutes earlier and he had no idea what I do. But we shared an aspiration, and he was the proverbial breath of fresh air for me that evening. He just loves books so much that...

Christmas in July. And December

Years ago, I lived in a town with limited employment opportunities. A woman in our church caught me working on a quilt, discovered I was capable of sewing wearable garments (not any more!), and offered me a job. She was the manager of fabric store, part of a national...

Mama Says #10

My family roots are in the Chicago area. My mom has lived other places as well, but most of them involved cold winters. A couple of years ago, facing the onset of about her fiftieth Chicago December, she’d had enough and moved to Florida. She lives a leisurely,...