As my 75th birthday present, my sister-in-law gifted me airfare to join her in New York City. Her instructions, sent by email, were to take an Uber to the downtown hotel. I had heard often of Uber but had never used it. When I emerged…

     For many, so many years the women of the Tribe of Man had one purpose. It was to marry and produce offspring for their husbands. The wives had no riches of their own as they gave their youth and riches to their husbands. So…

She watched from the window, the view changing, just as she stayed unchanged. In the past, her clothing changed often but now she wore the same red dress day after day, the shoulders becoming sun-bleached, the hem fragile. Beside her stood her friend, a toy…

My neighbor Elaine told me a story. She and husband Steve lived in a big house across the street built by his grandparents. The large basement held a walk-in, steel-door safe. The safe’s door had been rusted closed for years, holding mostly memories. One night…

In a small town, gossip is an enthusiastic social activity. Topics surround, naturally enough, religious no-no’s. The forbidden. Whispers about who is having an affair, who is an alcoholic, who has a violent marriage, who has come into money and so many more off-color subjects,…

Honesty can be overrated. In the 1950s, our parents sent their daughters to a “fancy” girls camp in Kerrville, Texas, where campers swam in the Guadalupe River, sang songs around a campfire, lounged under the trees in white Adirondack chairs, and had sessions that lasted…

A story printed in 1920 in the Corsicana Daily Sun satirically recounting a trip made by local Hella Shrine families to Portland, Oregon. (My own great-grandparents, Bige and Molly Tinkle were among them. The photograph was taken on the trip at Pikes Peak, Bige sitting…

This is a bare partial manuscript of a story written by my mother while a journalism student at SMU in the 1970s. I have searched and have been unable to find more of the manuscript. She titled it “PALE DEATH.” I believe it would have…

  A hot summer day spent climbing over ancient Athenian ruins in 1964 became more uncomfortable back in the air-conditioning of our hotel. After the five of us had dragged in, showered, washed the sweat out of our hair and put on pajamas, we ordered…

My grandson’s bus is late…or I’m early. He’s six and someone walks to meet the school bus each day; today it’s me. I settle on the low curb in the available shade of a dried-out bush to wait. It’s quiet, the sounds of rural nature…