Original Leisure & Entertainment

Years ago, about the time Russia was opening up more to tourists from the west, three of my colleagues from the university decided to take a few weeks of their summer and travel there. They didn’t have any itinerary; they would just go and hope for . . . 

Dewey Decker showed his new business cards to the other guys at the Mule Barn Truck Stop’s philosophy counter, and each member of the world dilemma think tank got to keep one.

Steve, our owlish-appearing cowboy, scratched his head as he studied the . . . 

I heard the katydids tolling your death knell last night. In fact, the lonely, haunting dirge has sounded out for weeks now. They are singing of change, and cold, and a white, creeping death that will come to summer and singer alike.

You don’t look . . . 

Mrs. Forrest has always been a compulsive feeder. Before she retired, she was cooking for the Mule Barn truck stop’s customers, and is singularly responsible for about three flabby tons of avoirdupois on this nation’s truck drivers, and may have . . . 

Okay. I’m going to be honest. I’m not quite sure how to begin this article. It’s not that I’m drawing a blank. I’ve actually thought of several different witty, sarcastic, pleasant, and shocking openers. Oh, the anxiety…literally …this . . . 

I loved cold winter nights when I was a little girl. After the dishes were washed and put away, the zinc water buckets were filled up from the pitcher pump down at the Virginia office building (and I can still hear Mom saying, “Larry, have you brought . . . 

I was an offensive guard on our high school football team. We had a good line. We worked hard and practiced hard. Our backs were incredibly talented, but too often, because of their talent, they didn’t practice to their full potential. Often their . . . 

Fall weather is trying hard to enter our hills, with a few premature yellowing leaves drifting down from trees that are beginning to look tired and worn. Robed in regal purple, tall ironweed rules the meadows and fields, while wild sunflowers lend . . . 

In 1992, Morill Worcester’s wreath company had 5,000 leftover wreaths at Christmas time. Rather than disposing of them, the company had them sent to Arlington National Cemetery to be placed on the graves of our fallen Heroes. And so began Wreaths . . . 

School was ending for the summer, and my roommates and I were all preparing to go our separate ways. Jim was getting married, so we all made plans to meet again at his and Michelle’s wedding.

Bruce suggested that we all pool our money and buy one . . . 

I was studying my card when the guys walked in for coffee.

“What did you get?” asked Doc.

“D-24.”

“Just one?”

“Yeah. The boys caught me when I was kinda short, so I only got the one this year.”

“They hit me for ten,” Doc said. “In . . . 

The Katydids were hollering loudly last night, just as they have been for awhile. Their quarrelsome din echoes back and forth as they declare, “Katydid!” and the answering cry comes back, “She didn’t!” I can hear my Dad say, “Jist six weeks . . . 

 . . . 

In the mid-9th century in our country, anyone who had occasion to “eat his words” by humiliatingly recanting something would be said to “eat crow.” In the United Kingdom they “eat humble pie.” The “unpalatability” of crow seems clear . . . 

Autumn seems to have stretched forth her hand and is displaying her beautiful flowers in our hills. The official date on the calendar is weeks away, but you can see her in the bountiful patches of black-eyed Susan’s that grow on the road banks and . . . 

“Sanctimonious siphons, it’s hot!” said Dud, sitting at the philosophy counter and turning over his coffee cup for action with a single smooth move. Dud is a regular at the Mule Barn truck stop’s legendary world dilemma think tank.

“Epithet . . . 

My brothers and sisters have settled far and wide across the United States. This makes it hard to get together due to the cost of travel and hotels.

My mother bought a small condo that is somewhat central to many of us, and has invited us to use it . . . 

July 4, 2016 will be one holiday that will live on in the memories of many people. Some folks are calling it a thousand year flood, and I’ve never seen anything like it in my lifetime.

I wrote in my dairy on Thursday, June 23, “Boy, what a rain! . . .