Prisoner of Hopes

Category: Perspectives

  • Fly the Friendly Skies?: Travel Goals

    Travel is a passion. The anticipation makes me giddy. New places and new faces call to me.  There is very little about travel that I do not enjoy….except airlines. Airlines make me miserable. If there is a way to make humans more inconvenienced, more anxious, and more impoverished; they have incorporated it.  I don’t fault…

  • Transported

    Last evening, I happened upon a program I had never before encountered. The set was cheesy, a tiny theater set up to look like the interior of a barn. The host looked as if he had just been picked up out of rural 1970 on his way to work at a bank. As a matter…

  • Teachers

    Yesterday many area schools had opening day sessions for teachers. It is the first time in 33 years that I wasn’t at one of them. I hope their day was a celebration and that school leadership reminded them how important they are. Teachers are important to society, to communities, and to individuals. Teachers have impact.…

  • Of Outhouses and Other Surprises When Nature Calls

    Bathrooms. Lavatories. Loos. Water Closets. Toilets. Powder Rooms. Out Houses. Johns. Ladies Rooms. Mens Rooms. Cans. So many names and none of them exactly topics for polite company. This morning, however, I find myself thinking of bathrooms. When I was a kid, my brother used to throw a fit to use the bathroom everywhere we…

  • Echoes

    Central Nebraska.  Corn and tractors.  Tractors and corn.  At Homestead National Park, hopefulness and despair were on full display.  The settlers who came by the thousands to homestead persisted out of stubborn hope for a better life.  They came with almost nothing and built a life out of hostile soil.  Cutting sod for houses.  Using…

  • Moments to Savor: Travel Goals

    Unexpected pleasures.  Little joys.  Small moments in time.  This is what a day consists of… if you are paying attention.  I wander around the campsite and pick up sticks.  This is a necessary scavenger hunt to start the fire that will yield me coffee.  Carefully, placed sticks and some dryer lint start the morning fire. …