Occasional Writing: Columns, Guest Editorials, Rants

I missed being born on Mother’s Day by about six hours.  I’ve always been a little slow, so my tardy entrance shouldn’t come as any surprise. Immediately upon my arrival, my parents dubbed me Ronald, for no good reason that my mother, who chose that handle, could ever come up with.  Her own name was … Continue reading A story for Mother’s Day

  You want to know what I miss? I miss intermissions in movie theaters. You remember those; at least some of you do.  When half way through the show the word “Intermission” would spread across the big silver screen, the theme music of the film would start to play, the house lights would go up, … Continue reading Give me (and your reader) a break

When the middle of April rolls around, as it insists on doing every year, two things nag at me. You’ve likely already guessed that the first one has to do with the Internal Revenue Service. But the second is an annual remembrance of a much more pleasurable experience. Shortly after my first book came out … Continue reading The writes of Spring

  We talk too much. Did you know that?  It is a common trait among most people that, given the opportunity, we’ll just ramble on and on, as if we have to take a running start at whatever it is we want to communicate and can’t just come directly to the point.  And then, when … Continue reading Clutter

There are bookstores and bookstores and bookstores. Then there is THE bookstore. Shakespeare and Company, located at 37 rue de la Bucherie in Paris (France, not Texas), faces the River Seine and looks out on the majestic flying buttresses of Notre Dame cathedral.    I’m betting you’ve seen it, even if you’ve never been to Paris.  … Continue reading The creme de la creme of bookshops

Steve Allen, who some of you may remember as the original host of the Tonight Show and others won’t remember at all, used to host a show on PBS called “Meeting of Minds”.  I loved it.  Every week four or five actors and actresses portraying famous folks from the past would sit down at a … Continue reading Here’s my magic table; who would sit at yours?

            Every now and again I sit at a railroad crossing for what seems like an hour - and is probably more like four or five minutes - as an almost unbelievably long freight train lumbers slowly by in front of my car.             Sometimes when that happens I tap the steering wheel and fume … Continue reading Good stories often travel by train

I’m always dubious when I hear somebody proclaim that there are just two kinds of people in the world. Tom Robbins, the author of “Still Life with Woodpecker” might have said it best: “There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and … Continue reading Numbers vs words

  I follow this simple rule when I write a scene involving food: I want my reader to be hungry when they’ve finished reading my description. David Westheimer, the author of Von Ryan’s Express and My Sweet Charlie, who I had the good fortune to befriend when he was at the end of his writing … Continue reading Writing about food

[Today marks the 80th anniversary of the New London school disaster. The following article was first published five years ago.] One day back when I was a knobby keened lad, I sat in the front passenger seat of the school car watching the East Texas piney woods drift by.  The school car was an old … Continue reading A long journey