The best part of this essay would have been if I had been up early enough to hear it aired today on WVTF Public Radio. But I can still listen and so can you because the radio station has it posted on their website. You can hear me reading it HERE. It was probably the […]
The following aired as a WVTF radio essay on June 15th. “Mom, what do you want to be when you grow up?” My son Josh asked me once when he was a little boy. I smiled and indulged him with an answer, “Probably a farmer.” Both Josh and his younger brother Dylan regularly gave thanks […]
The following essay is the one that recently aired on our local PBS station, WVTF, and it appears in its entirety here. You can listen to me reading it at the WVTF website. When I first started blogging in March of 2005 many people asked, what’s a blog? Less people ask me that same question […]
-A WVTF radio essay It was probably the last time this year that I or my husband will mow the two acres of grass that surround our log home off the Blue Ridge Parkway. But that wasn’t the best part of mowing the lawn this past weekend. The best part was the perspective it gave […]
“I heard your Mother’s Day essay on the radio! Good job!” Rob, the owner of Oddfella’s Cantina said to me as I was coming through the Cantina door on my way to meet my husband for lunch. “It all started with you, Rob,” I surprised him by saying. He looked confused, so I explained. Two […]
The following is the uncut version of an essay I wrote about my mother that aired on WVTF Public Radio on Friday. For some behind-the-scenes details on the writing of and recording of it, see Things That Make Me Need Extra Deodorant. You can go to the WVTF webpage to hear me reading. Last December […]
The steep switch-backed descent from Bent Mountain into Roanoke is enough to make a person queasy. I could hear the watch on my wrist ticking as I drove down it on my way to the WVTF Public Radio station to record my latest essay. Resisting the urge to distract myself, I did not turn on […]
“ “Wherever you are is the entry point.” Kabir The following essay about living in Floyd is one which aired on WVTF public radio this past Friday and first appeared in my book, “Muses Like Moonlight.” It appears here in its entirety. For the radio reading, I cut paragraph 5, about Bo Lozoff, in order […]
When “Life in the Rural Fast Lane” was originally posted at “Loose Leaf” on April 5, a reader humorously asked where the accompanying photo was (in reference to the line where I say that because I have no visible neighbors, I can garden topless if I want to). More recently, the essay appeared in the […]
Technically, the first day of summer isn’t until June 21. But who really thinks of June as a spring month? My blogger friend, Fragments Fred, recently asked his readers, “When Do You Know It’s Summer?” Although, my childhood is the source of my most vivid summer memories, some are continuous and transcend time and age… […]
Elvis Presley? No, it’s my dad in Germany during WWII. These days my dad spends his time playing the lottery, whistling down grocery store aisles, or patronizing the local video store. I like to brag that he has more movie videos than a video store does, and when I told him he should be […]
The following is the essay I wrote about my father, which aired on WVTF Public Radio for Memorial Day on Friday, May 27. The radio station cut this version slightly to fit in their 3 minute format. I had intended to post the old black and white photo of my dad in Germany during WWII […]
