Bespoke

Youth

  • The Heavens Dark Matter and the Andy Warhol Swing

    Once in my youth, I felt heaven unreachable, sterile, a place of thou shalt not have fun, and my fervor was not equal to the pill-box hatted lady sitting in the pew in front of me blocking my view of… Continue reading

  • Telling Our Stories with Both Hands

    Karen and I have twenty-three children ranging in age from fourteen to thirty-three. We aren’t on the hook for college education on all of our children since twenty of them are nieces and nephews. But we do feel like they’re… Continue reading

  • Dancing Around the Costume Chest

    Back in the days when my kids believed in Santa and my words had the force and weight to either bless them or crush them, our daughters and son indulged in make-believe, dressing up to become the character of their… Continue reading

  • Flashes of Wonder

    If I wrote like my wife talks, I’d write narrative like a kid writing home from summer camp, “I had oatmeal for breakfast and we played softball and I outran all the boys in a foot race and we had… Continue reading

  • The Funniest People I Know: Ralph Rowand

    I left home in the stifling heat of August 1977 at the same time Elvis left the building for good. My destination was Searcy, Arkansas and Harding University. I had no inkling that the friends I made in college would… Continue reading

  • Mosquito Dancing in the Fire Hall

    My wife Karen was born in Trenton, New Jersey and spent most of her childhood in the small town of Tabernacle on the edge of the pine barrens about halfway between Philadelphia and Atlantic City. I first visited her home… Continue reading

  • Caddying for the Younger Generation – Part 2

    I sat on my hotel bed the night before the opening round and read about notable players including a golfer from Shreveport named Hal Sutton who had already won the Western Amateur that summer. I’m playing with Hal Sutton who… Continue reading

  • Limestone School part 6 walking home

    As John Welch’s arm exploded through the safety glass just above the brass push bar he realized the race had been won and the battle lost. Our third and fourth grade classes routinely made the sixty yard sprint across the… Continue reading

  • The Boy The Man & Gravel Baseball

    I’ve always loved baseball. Even though it’s a team game, I found solitary ways to embrace it’s poetic rhythms. I was a baseball Walter Mitty, transported to Busch Stadium in St. Louis. I straddled the mound glaring at the batter… Continue reading

  • Limestone School part 5 the neighborhood

    I grew up alongside Kevin Arnold of the Wonder Years only without a Jets letter jacket. Those neighborhood landmarks and watershed moments and the guys I ran with, through the streets and adjacent woods just a couple blocks north of… Continue reading