Ezra's Essays

Category: Family

  • PRESENTLY AND/OR THIS-A-WAY

    This essay on the English language was inspired by a preposterous source. The someone who inspired this essay departed this vale of tears more than 51 years ago and was generally known as my father. He was a laconic man who used country speak to convey his thoughts to the outside world. Country speak is…

  • GRIM NEWS ABOUNDS

    This is only the third day of June, 2009 but we have had enough bad news to last a lifetime.  On Monday of this week, General Motors filed for bankruptcy.  At about the same time, Air France lost one of its airbuses on a trip from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.  Both of these events…

  • I DECLARE

    If my mother had lived, she would now be 131 years old.  But of course she didn’t live.  Curiously as I grow older I am given to thoughts about my mother.  I suppose we enjoyed a normal relationship as much as could be expected under the circumstances.  My mother came from Golconda in Pope County,…

  • THEY NEVER BETRAYED ME

    This is intended as a long overdue tribute to my friends, the Italian people.  Specifically, it has to do with the United States Depression starting in 1929 and secondly, it also has to do with the War in Italy which involved United States forces from 1942 to 1945. In my mind, there is a clear…

  • WHERE SHALL WE GO NOW, MY FAMILY AND I?

    As a general proposition, I often warn my readers about the essays that appear on these pages.  And so it is that in this case, I will tell you that the essay that follows is about Irish music and also about my father.  My father could not sing worth a lick.  That applied to Irish…

  • RED (OR BLUE) BANDANNAS

    Those of you who were raised in the precincts of America’s great cities may well have missed out on an article of men’s wear that is usually associated with hard work and/or country ways.  Again, if I may use my father as an example, I would like to cite one article of his clothing that…

  • LAMENTATIONS ON “I WISH”

    I keep two identical dictating machines on my desk.  The left one is for dictations that I turn over to Mrs. Eva Baker for transcription.  The right one is for notes about future essays.  Recently I recorded some notes on the subject of lamentations which was a subject I wanted to do an essay on. …

  • THE DOCTRINE OF UP

    This essay, which I hope you will read, has its genesis in a remark made to me by a nursing aide who attends to my needs at night.  This lady, who was born in Ghana, said to me, “Would you like for me to cover you up?”  She could have said, “Would you like for…

  • EVERYONE GOT HONORABLE MENTION

    As a general proposition, by the time my essays have been dictated and reread twice in the proofreading process, I grow sick of them and want them to be completed and mailed.  In the last series of essays, I thought that two or three of them were worthwhile.  One of them had to do with…

  • BITS AND PIECES; ODDS AND ENDS

    On my desk I have a tape recorder into which I dictate notes about future essays.  It is an audible tape recorder in view of the fact that I can no longer see to write and writing is incomprehensible to me.  After I have dictated a series of comments into my notepad, I usually publish…