Dear editor (and fledgling backyard butterfly farmer), I loved seeing the pictures of your yellow Cloudless Sulphur butterfly in the recent issue of the Messenger Mountain News! We are in the height…
Opinion
When I close the door of my classroom on the last day of school, it always feels like a surreal experience. How can this school year be ending? Didn’t I just meet…
“I hear voices, scary voices. I see scary images and hear scary stories: Children killing other children, children taking their own lives. I can’t even watch the news. My heart is pounding…
As a writer in search of novel ideas that reflect our world and the significance of its past, I have recently found myself struggling to comment upon anything of importance without encountering…
It was long ago and far away, but between 1949 and 1987, there once was a time when American broadcasters actually behaved with a sense of civic responsibility and honored their obligation…
During my days at Malibu Park Junior High School, some of my classmates decided that I should go by the nickname of John Boy. I am almost certain that there were only…
Of all people, George Orwell said, “Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.” What a prophet! If he only knew how “understood” we are getting!…
The frogs have quieted, and the roosters are not yet crowing. It’s that in-between time; the end of night, but not quite morning, a darkness tinged, only vaguely, around the edges with…
I am lying on the floor of the sanctuary at The Church in Ocean Park. I’ve chosen this spot to the right of the altar, near an open door behind the baby…
As the school year comes to a close, I find myself reflecting on the impact we, adults have on the children in our lives. “Children Learn What They Live,” the classic poem…