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MOLASSES MOBILITY
Upon reflection, it may be that this essay should be properly entitled “Molasses Immobility.” But we will get to that question a bit later. It may well be that readers of Ezra’s Essays are unfamiliar with the term molasses. I always try to be helpful in these circumstances and here is what a reference source…
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POLK SALAD (SALET)
This essay has to do with a vegetable or a weed that appears in the springtime and is uncultivated. It grows along hedge rows and along the highways and when it reaches maturity, it is quite poisonous. Also this essay is an exercise in nostalgia. It has to do with my mother, who departed this…
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CHRISTMAS PONDERINGS
This is being dictated on Christmas of the year 2012. It is near noontime and the house where we have lived for a long time is quiet now. The children who carry the Carr surname and their husbands and children are involved in festivities in Florida and in Texas. So in these peaceful surroundings I…
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THE MUTE BUTTON
When I was born in 1922, there was one radio station offering broadcasts of music and news. That was station KDKA in Pittsburgh. You may recall that at that time there was no such thing as television. That remained in the never-never land of things to be yearned for. When I was about 12 or…
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MAYBE LILLIE WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG
The Lillie in the title of this essay is my mother, to whom you have been introduced before. Lillie was born in Pope County, Illinois on the banks of the Ohio River in a community called Lusk. It was not a town at all. It was simply a landing spot for the folks who traversed…
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A PAIL OF HOME BREW
During the period of the 1920s, there was a resurgence of thought pioneered basically by Southerners. It resulted in the banning of the sale and use of beer. The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution banned the manufacture and sale of alcohol and came to be known as the Prohibition Act. Prohibition was widely flouted. It…
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DIRECT DEPOSIT?!!
On very rare occasions an incident will happen that demands to be written about. In this case, I am led to believe that if this essay is not written promptly, an indescribable act will be committed on my front porch. The incident in question took place on Friday morning before the start of the Labor…
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THE GIs
In the summer of 1942, I enlisted in the American Army. When I took the oath to become a soldier, automatically I became a GI. The term GI means Government Issue. The uniforms that we wore, for example, were Government Issue. There was no such thing as buying a fancy uniform to serve. The covers…
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SONIA GOES HUNTING
As most Americans will recall, there are eight Associate Justices on the United States Supreme Court. One of them is Sonia Sotomayor, who originally came from the Bronx in New York City. Now it is important for readers of these essays to know that no self-respecting fox, raccoon, squirrel, or rabbit has ever inhabited the…