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A LITTLE MORE FROM THE GRANDPA IN AMERICA
Those of you who read these essays may recall one called “Thanksgiving 2006.” That essay recorded our joy at our ability to help two hardworking immigrants from Costa Rica. The cast of characters on the Costa Rican side included the parents, an eight-year-old boy named Esteban, a six-year-old boy named Fabian, and a five-month-old daughter…
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LAGNIAPPE FOR READERS
A little lagniappe for all my readers: If you were to wander into a diner and order a tuna sandwich, you might be surprised if it is served with some pickles on the side. The pickles are something extra which is the essence of lagniappe. Similarly, if one drives in to a service station to…
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A LETTER TO MY READERS AND FRIENDS
Last December when I wrote the essay “Sing No Sad Songs for This Old Geezer,” it was intended primarily to tell my friends about the onset of blindness. Your responses have been overwhelmingly generous and I am deeply touched. I am not that good and not that courageous. The situation now is very much like…
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Letter to Kevin 6/15/05
Kevin – Judy and I were delighted with your response to the letter and the essay about Mencken. I am not surprised by your mother withholding it from you. She may well have referred my letter to the FBI or to the Texas Holy Roller Diocese before she let you read it. Basically, from the…
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A LETTER TO A FRIEND CONCERNING LIFE AFTER BLINDNESS
Word has reached these ears that you have expressed the view that life would not be worth living if blindness ever occurred to you. This letter is not meant to chastise or to criticize that point of view, because the author has had many of those same thoughts in recent years. I fully understand the…
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A REPRISE ON DIGNITY AND TEARS
Those of us who write essays recognize that when an essay demands to be written, it will be done. You may remember a recent essay called, “A Matter of Dignity.” In that essay, it recounted the story about how Matthew Pepe, my old friend who installs driveways and sidewalks, saw the problem of my taking…
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A COLLOQUY WITH TOM FRIEDMAN
Under ordinary circumstances, your old essayist attempts to keep his correspondence separate from the essays that are produced here. In this case, however, Tom Friedman, the New York Times star op-ed writer wrote a piece that should not be condensed or treated in the Reader’s Digest fashion. Friedman’s piece was so wrong and so provocative,…
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FROM THE FRIENDLY WHITE HOUSE TO YOUR HOUSE
If you were alive in January of 2001, you may recall that George W. Bush ascended to the Presidency of this country. He got there by virtue of the ugly fact that the Supreme Court was counting the ballots. At the conclusion of the ballot count, Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia issued his ruling…
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HOWELL RAINES DOESN’T LOWER THE BOOM
In a recent editorial, I criticized – very mildly – his belated discovery that Mr. Latrell Sprewell has been up to no good by choking his coach. The fact that his coach is patently awful doesn’t mean that he is a candidate for garroting. Today, I find an editorial that seems to say what needs…