Author: abendelow
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Memoir: Protest (1983)
For our protest to matter, it has to be reported. We hope the Daily Pantagraph, or at least the Vidette, will cover it tomorrow.
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Memoir: What I Wouldn’t Do
This ambassador-neighbor would do what I would, but cannot–study my dear offspring and act compassionately for them “on the spot,” not ineffectually hearing about their trials and opportunities weeks or months later, or at all.
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Memoir: Pain management (1973-present)
Whichever hobbyhorse you ride–sports, gardening, music, travel, baking, arts and crafts, your dog or your cat–you ride it away from dukkha.
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Memoir: A thought experiment concerning Dad (1973-80)
How would my father be doing if he were alive and well today, if he hadn’t died at 59 of bowel cancer? I think Dad might have adapted pretty well to the current culture. Several times, I saw him accommodate powerful changes in mores that happened around him in the 1970s. A professional adaptation occurred…
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Music: Window seat behind (2025)
Here’s a song that came to me on a cold day last week in Chicago, when it was snowing in New Orleans. Lyrics: Cold and ugly winter day, grey skies and nasty wind The temperature is sub-zero and it’s snowing in New Orleans. The only blue my eyes can see is the flapping tarpaulin It…
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Memoir: My mother’s glory (1964)
The 1964 photograph shows mom’s hair appropriately covered on her way into church. Once seated next to my father in the pews, all the ladies surrounding her will have their heads similarly covered. Later, in the late 1960s, I notice some women wlll daringly sport lace doilies pinned on their heads–coverings in-name-only, for one totally…
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Memoir: Caught professionally off-guard (1987)
My first year of high school teaching was in the all-boys Fenwick, where I taught English and coached the Speech and Debate teams. I’d brought speakers from the community to my classes –war veterans, businessmen, and controversially, an atheist and a communist–to broaden the boys’ minds about the outside world. While the Fenwick fathers indulged…
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Memoir: What came of a hunch (2020)
“…one day in early November I awoke out of a dream with a premonition: ‘Give Ellie to your daughter Faith. She needs it.'”
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Music: Who’s Driving This Train?
Here’s a fresh piece from the semi-frozen garage: Andy’s and my first experiment with the “blues stick,” the 3-string electric cigar box guitar that my daughter and son-in-law gave me this Christmas. I like the way we don’t need a drum track to keep up our steady rhythm, which feels as inevitable as the train…
The Wikiness 