Sunday 11 December 2016 REVIVE US AGAIN I'm not a dog person. However, the novel, The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein (Harper Perennial, 2008), makes me want to scratch any dog's ears. Enzo, the dog who tells the story, reveals what it's like living with a human family, Denny and Eve Swift and …
Author: John Bender
Hi, my name is John Bender, retired and loving it. I'm writing to help interested people cross bridges to and from the past. Stories from the past can shed light on life in the present and illuminate the future. We've got a lot of living to do. Let's do it!
Who goes there?
Sunday 4 December 2016 REVIVE US AGAIN #2 It's a fitful time, a time fraught with ill political winds, fiction masquerading as fact, climate upheaval, seasonal change. It's also a time for reflection. First of the season snow arrived today. Nice flakes are falling this Sunday evening. Thank a Salvation Army bell ringer when you shop--and give. The week, not …
REVIVE US AGAIN, introducing a theme for winter
27 November 2016 REVIVE US AGAIN #1 "Hallelujah, Thine the glory. Hallelujah, Amen, Hallelujah, Thine the glory. Revive us again!" W. P. Mackay (1839-1885) in 1863 wrote that refrain in "We praise Thee O God." I have yet to check out the context of the then times in Scotland, but I do know this Presbyterian preacher, …
Continue reading REVIVE US AGAIN, introducing a theme for winter
Beauty abounds, hallelujah!
Featured image: The super moon, seen from our driveway, early Monday shivering morning, 14 November. You don't say #12, Wednesday 16 November 2016--Words. Actions. Words, actions, words, actions, words—the two are inextricably connected, whether we like it or not. I am deeply troubled by the words and actions in the campaigning for Election 2016. I’m dismayed …
Roast potatoes and gravy
Featured image: Frozen in flight, a sculpture between Montague and Whitehall, Michigan. You don't say #10, Wednesday, 9 November 2016--On election day, while waiting for our car's tires to be rotated, the conversation among three of us customers started as harrumphing about the political ads still running on TV, but soon turned to a tastier topic: food. Simple stuff. …
If colors could talk
Featured image: A diminutive door to a fairy garden in a giant tree at Oxbow County Park. Good to know the fairies have a garden and a home--and a patron. You don't say #9, Friday, 4 November 2016--Actually, this week colors did a lot of talking. Sunday: walk around St. Joe Manor, Elkhart Monday: walk before …
Indiana at 200
Featured image: These goats and a flock of wild turkeys were finding good pickings in this harvested field of corn in Westfield. All around Westfield, subdivisions, shopping centers, hotels, restaurants, and a big sports complex--one building with three regulation size soccer fields--are sprouting up in former corn and bean fields. You don't say #8, Saturday 29 …
A morning to warm up with a shutter
You don't say #7--Saturday 22 October 2016--It's morning. Not at all early. The sun shone on trees across the river before being hidden by clouds. I've opened the two greatroom shutters to bring more of the outside in. The bales of straw that Christina and Ricky used last Saturday as seating for their backyard wedding …
Corn, corn, corn
Featured photo: Last days of blooming for our Gerbera daisies. You don't say #6, Saturday 15 October 2016--"Corn, corn, corn, it makes me feel forlorn, on the farm, on the farm; corn, corn, corn, it makes me feel forlorn on the hinky, dinky Double D Farm. "My eyes are dim, I cannot see, I have …
Lesson from a pop-up camper
Featured image: Sunrise over Mackinac Island, Tuesday 4 October 2016. You don't say #5, Saturday 8 October, 2016--At lunch on Monday in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, the waitress seated a young family of four at a table near us. They were subdued. The dad told the waitress their pop-up camper failed to pop up Sunday night. …
It's About Now 