I don’t have to use a walker to pump my gas.

December 11, 2009 by The Clever Kris · 2 Comments
Filed under: Deep South, Everyday, faith, humor, life 
No snake eyes for me.

I have realized, lately, that I am, at best, a third cousin once removed from my own definition of self-awareness. I like to think I'm savvy and a smooth operator, most of the time, but I had a bit of a bitter pill to swallow yesterday, when, on my way back from Scooba (perish the thought!), I had to stop and get gas. This is hardly a new thing for me, but unlike my usual stop-and-gos at the Scooba Junction gas station, I had neglected to look at my gas gauge until I was in Brooksville, about twenty minutes north. I had no choice but to pull...

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That one time I rode on Amtrak.

October 30, 2009 by The Clever Kris · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Everyday, family, food, humor, life 
Here comes Christmas!

I never really bought into the sentiment of those Lionel train commercials. Have you ever seen those? Their propaganda touts this concrete belief that Americans have some highly wrought love affair with trains. They're usually spread all over the airwaves around this time, each year. Because nothing says Christmas quite like the stumble-trap of a miniature railroad system circling hour after hour around the base of your tree. My grandmother, she’s 93 as of yesterday, and she had this train set that she would year-in-year-out place around the Christmas tree, letting it silently circle on its tracks, beneath the Douglas Fir.  Inevitably, she’d forget...

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Faith for five dollars…and Tennessee Williams.

Contrary to popular belief, I do not cry stone tears. Anymore.

I did something nearly unforgiveable, today:  I cried in class. Don't worry, no one saw me. The lights were off, and most were, I'm happy to say, engrossed in the video documentary I was showing on Tennessee Williams.  I counted three sleeping students, but I only heard two of them...so I let them rest. They're athletes and all, you know. I've seen this A&E video on Williams a hundred thousand and six times, but today, today, the story resonated in a deep and tragic way, wholly new to me. I suppose it's the stress, I'm saying it's the stress, but whatever it was, it touched...

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