THOUGHTS FOR THE NEW YEAR Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” closes with the lines:       “The woods are lovely, dark and deep.       But I have promises to keep,       And miles to go before I sleep,       And miles to go bef

Hi Mindy, Welcome aboard.  You’re my first guest from Twitter.  Great what you’re doing for your friend. Caroline

HISTORY, ONE LETTER AT A TIME I wrote a letter today to a friend in his 80s.After another debilitating stroke (Blog: 9/25/10) he’s been moved to a nursing home. At such times, only a letter will do to keep in touch because patients in nursing homes may not be well enough to answer a

PROMISES NOT KEPT I’m reading another of the books my friend gave me from her class (Blog 12/27/2010). This one’s called “An Elegy for Easterly” by Petina Grappah. It recently won the London Guardian’s First Book Award. I didn’t choose it because it had won an awar

SEPTEMBER’S SONG December is the month for new calendars. I get free ones in the mail from a few of the charities I support. They usually come with a return envelope in case I want to make one last contribution before the tax year ends. I consider calendars an art form. I have a fri

SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING A friend of mine just finished auditing a course in literature. As the authors studied were foreign and unknown to me, I asked her to recommend any she thought were especially entertaining. She responded by bringing a bag of the books from the reading list with

(Reprint of Doll Purchase was Meant to Be by Caroline Miller, published in Grit, 12/2003) Last December, I drove some friends to a local mall to finish their holiday shopping. My shopping was done so I wandered up and down aisles admiring displays. In one store, I found a tumble of do

MAKING A DIFFERENCE The real, “It’s a Wonderful Life” was originally called “The Greatest Gift.” The short story was written by Philip Van Doren Stern and appeared in the magazine, “Good Housekeeping” in January, 1944. While the film classic, dire

THE LONELY CROWD As I write today’s blog, I am also working through some edits my publisher has requested for my third novel. I won’t reveal the title as I don’t officially have a contract, yet. We’ll have to see how the editing goes. To rewrite a book I thought I’d finished

SEARCHING FOR THE MIND OF GOD Despite the hectic demands of the season, I’ve managed to finish the book I started, “Stephen Hawking: Quest for the Theory of Everything,” by Kitty Ferguson (Blog: 12/9/10). It is a biography of the cosmological scientist who caused a sensa