“Accept—then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.”
–Eckhart Tolle (b. 1948). German-born spiritual teacher and author of The Power of Now and A New Earth, whose teachings focus on presence, acceptance, and personal transformation.
A few weeks ago, over cocktails and conversation, my neighbor—an IT guy with a philosophical streak—offered a twist on the old “glass half full or half empty” dilemma. His late wife, Jody, always saw the glass as half-full, but as an engineer, Gary sees it differently:
“Just get a glass that’s the right size for what you’ve got.”
At the time, I nodded politely and filed it under:
“Clever things other people say that may or may not linger in my memory.”
Turns out, I remembered.
A few mornings later—cue ominous music!—my tablet powered up with all the charm of a sulky teenager and promptly informed me that Microsoft had done me the favor of wiping my PowerPoint app into oblivion.
This, mind you, on the eve of speaking to the Mary E. Wilkins Freeman Society—an international gathering of scholars and fellow literary sleuths—about a woman who has occupied both my imagination and my file drawers for over fifty years. The event was titled An Hour with Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Brent L. Kendrick. The tech test was hours away. I clicked. I reinstalled. I cursed. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
And then I thought of my neighbor.
“Wrong glass, Brent.”
I hauled my all-in-one PC upstairs to the better WiFi zone, and boom—there it was. Slides intact. Calm restored. Presentation saved.
Turns out, sometimes you don’t need more water. You just need the right-size glass.
Since then, I’ve been thinking more about the right-size-glass concept, and I can think of several other times when I applied it unawares.
There was a time, for example, when I thought my glass had shattered completely. Not cracked—shattered. After Allen died, I wasn’t sure there was any vessel left that could hold what I’d once poured so freely: love, joy, even hope. For a long while, I didn’t try. But healing has its own quiet rhythm, and eventually, I realized I didn’t need the same glass. I just needed one shaped for the life I have now. It took a while, but recently I’ve found one the right size to hold who I’ve become. To hold who I am. Now.
Long before that right-size-glass moment came the time when I first moved to my mountain. I wanted a cabin in the clearing—so I cleared a wide swath of woods to make it so. I cleared far more than I could have imagined, and certainly more than I could realistically manage, especially now at my age. Some days, it feels like my glass is half empty, like I’m falling behind. But the truth is, I just need a different-sized glass. If I choose—as I have chosen—to let some of those cleared areas return to their wild, natural state, I haven’t lost anything. In fact, my glass is now full—full of birdsong and the wisdom of knowing when to stop clearing and simply let things grow.
I think we can apply the “right-size-glass” concept to more than gardening and grief.
Let’s begin with a few low-stakes moments—the ones that test our patience more than our purpose.
● Cooking substitution. Out of buttermilk? Use yogurt and lemon. Different glass. Same outcome.
● Gardening workaround. Tried planting in the wrong spot? Don’t mourn the wilt—move the pot.
● Home décor puzzle. Wardrobe too big for one wall? Move it to a room with a larger wall that showcases all of its Shaker joinery.
Some shifts, though, aren’t minor—they’re wake-up calls. Still, the right-size glass helps.
● Travel plans. Canceled? Money’s tight? Plan a “staycation” with the same sense of purpose.
● Exercise limitations. Can’t run anymore? Try swimming or yoga. Same vitality, different vessel.
● Friendship shift. Someone pulls away? Focus on others who consistently show up.
● Career detours. Passed over for a promotion? Use the freedom to explore a side gig or project with heart.
Or let’s move on up a little higher to some emotional and existential applications.
● Creative droughts. When the writing won’t flow, ask: is it really writer’s block—or just the wrong-shaped glass for the ideas trying to come through?
● Life plan upended. Divorce, retirement, illness—what happens when your “glass” shatters? You pick up what still holds and find a new container for your spirit.
● Shifting beliefs. Formerly held faith, politics, or ideals evolve? Refill your life with what still nourishes—and let go of the brittle framework.
By now, I’m willing to bet you’ve started thinking of your own moments—the ones when you didn’t force what no longer fit, but quietly shifted, adjusted, adapted. Maybe you pivoted. Maybe you paused. Either way, those are the moments that reshape a life.
So, myDear Readers, consider this your open invitation to rethink how you hold disappointment, change, resistance—or anything else that life sets before you. Not by pouring harder into what doesn’t fit, but by choosing a different container altogether.
Here’s to finding the right-size glass—for your spirit, your strength, your joy.
“The pursuit of historical truth requires rigorous attention to evidence, but also imagination—an ability to see beyond the silences.”
—Eric Foner (b. 1943), Columbia University historian and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Fiery Trial.
It began with a clue. A slip of language. A name tucked too neatly into silence.
For years, The Humourist was one of colonial America’s most compelling mysteries: a sharp, satirical voice that burst onto the front page of The South-Carolina Gazette in 1753 and 1754—then disappeared without a trace.
No signature. No farewell. Just a trail of dazzling essays and a question no one could quite answer: Who was he?
What followed, for me, was part scholarship, part sleuthing. I tracked language patterns, pored over wills, newspapers, shipping records, and marginalia. I followed leads from Charleston to Edinburgh and back again. And finally, I solved the puzzle, and the answer emerged:
Alexander Gordon—a Scottish-born antiquarian and early Egyptologist, who would eventually serve as Clerk of His Majesty’s Council in South Carolina. A man educated in Enlightenment thought, fluent in satire, and bold enough to take aim at power in a bustling port city where reputation was currency.
The mystery is solved. But Unmasking The Humourist doesn’t just name the man—it restores his voice.
This authoritative and definitive edition brings Gordon’s essays back into circulation for the first time in nearly 270 years, fully annotated and critically framed, with a scholarly introduction that explores Gordon’s identity, influences, and the forces that led to his disappearance from literary memory.
Why These Essays Matter
The Humourist columns are more than colonial curiosities. They are early American satire at its finest—witty, incisive, and rich with transatlantic influence. Gordon’s essays place Charleston on the literary map, not as a provincial outpost, but as a vibrant participant in the Enlightenment-era conversation about politics, identity, and the press.
This book marks a breakthrough in how we understand the American essay tradition. It challenges the idea that colonial literature was all sermons and pamphlets. Here, we meet a writer who was sharp, worldly, and unafraid to poke fun at hypocrisy—whose pen was as powerful as any pulpit or platform of his day.
A Milestone Moment
Today, I submitted the final corrections to the publisher, along with keywords, pricing, and metadata. The next step is the printed proof—then, in due time, the book itself.
It’s a strange and beautiful feeling. Emily Dickinson said it best:
“After great pain, a formal feeling comes.”
This project has spanned decades. It has taken me deep into archival records, across centuries of silence, and finally into the steady light of historical clarity.
And Now?
I’m proud to share the cover—front and back. Because The Humourist, like all great stories, deserves both.
Launch Details?
Not quite yet. But soon. The typeset is locked. The voice is ready.
This fall, a long-lost satirist steps out of the colonial shadows—and into the modern light.
“To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow—this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.”
—Elizabeth Gilbert, b. 1969. Author of Eat, Pray, Love (2006), A modern meditation on love, loss, and the sacredness of being seen.
YOU—MYDEAR READER (WHEREVER YOU ARE) What Age Can Finally Teach You About Love
You’ve heard it over and over again, so often that no one wants to hear it anymore. But here I go, tossing it out into a yawning world once more:
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
To which I reply—
Balderdash! Phooey!
You’re not a dog. And you’re not old. Well—not in your mind, at least. You may be 77–just like me–but in your head, you’re somewhere between way back when and right here and now—and on most days–just like me–your way-back-when wins.
All right. Fine. I confess. I’m into time travel. Say what? You are, too? Excellent! You might also be a lifelong learner who loves staying on top of things—especially new things, just like me. I have been learning forever, but I won’t bore you with details about my past adventures. I don’t have time to rehash the past, and even if I did, I wouldn’t want to.
These days, I’m too excited about something new that I’m learning. I’m sharing it with you right here, right now, hoping that it will help you learn something new, too. It’s quiet, but it’s rad. Really rad.
I’m learning to love in new ways.
Here’s what I’ve come to believe so far. You can’t really learn these lessons when you’re young. You have to reach a certain kind of readiness—the kind that comes with age, with experience, and with edges—softened with heartache and suffering. Only then can you flip the old cliché on its head:
You can teach an old dog new tricks.
When you’re younger, love often begins with the fall—swept up, headlong, into fire and passion. But as you age, as you lean into love again, falling isn’t enough. In the falling, there must also be learning. Sustained, steady learning—about how to love differently.
You discover that love doesn’t always arrive with trumpets and roses. Sometimes, it just quietly walks in—a dimpled smile, a vase of flowers, a gardening trowel, a hammer, a grocery list, a notepad, or even a look of disbelief. No violins, no swelling strings. Just shirts ironed with care. Meals admired with gratitude. The gentle act of sharing space.
You begin to understand that silence isn’t absence—it’s a kind of presence. Two people in the same house, moving at different tempos—one resting, one reorganizing the basement—and somehow, the house hums with harmony.
You no longer expect to always be engaged in the same thing at the same time. You lean into your different skills, your different interests—knowing that when the day ends, you’ll have twice as much accomplished and twice as much worth celebrating.
And when your talents converge on the same plane—when brilliance meets brilliance—you might pull back just enough to let the other person shine a little brighter.
Sometimes, you step back—not to disappear, but to admire. You let the other person lead the dance for a while. And it feels good.
You make room—not just in your heart, but in your home. You move your wardrobe somewhere else to make space for someone else’s dresser. You swap out your kitchen table not because it’s broken but because someone else’s table carries stories too. And now, you’ve got one together.
You learn that your footsteps don’t need to land on top of one another. They can move side by side, on parallel paths, converging when it matters—and that’s most of the time and that’s more than enough.
You watch your partner do something in a way you wouldn’t—folding the towels, arranging the chairs—and instead of correcting, you smile. You let it be. Love grows well in the soil of gentle restraint.
When you notice a difference—how to load the dishwasher, how to water the plants—you ask yourself, Does this matter? Most times, it doesn’t. But the grace in letting it go? That always matters.
And when you catch yourself about to suggest doing something just slightly differently than the perfectly good way your partner is already doing it, you pull back from the familiar impulse to course-correct. You resist the urge to say:
I wonder what would happen if… Have you considered… Somewhere or other I saw…
Because you know—truly know—that your partner has likely already been there and done that, maybe even better than you could have imagined. And even if not, you realize: kingdoms and principalities will neither rise nor fall because of how this one thing gets done. But love? Love will continue to grow richly in the kind of soil that lets what wants to rise, rise.
So you build the cake you’re building. And you let your partner put on the proverbial frosting.
And get this—I’m betting you’ll let out a humongous sigh of relief. You no longer have to rely on the old lines:
Honey, I’ve got a headache. Not tonight.
Why not? Chances are good that you both already know whether tonight is the night. There’s no posturing. No pretending. You listen to your body. You honor the rhythm. You know—Yay or Nay—affection is still there.
So take that old cultural script—the one that said you always had to be “on,” always seductive, always dazzling–and toss it. If tonight’s not the night, it’s not the night. No drama. No guilt. The love doesn’t vanish. It simply waits.
This kind of love doesn’t need fireworks. It needs kindling. It’s not performance—it’s patience. It’s not the honeymoon suite—it’s two mugs on the counter beside the coffee maker. A light or three left on for the night even when far too many lights are burning already. A dinner napkin placed next to yours. A drawer cleared to hold the socks and underwear folded far better than you ever knew how to fold them.
Over time, you start to realize—sometimes slowly, sometimes with the clarity of a lightning bolt—that love at this stage of life teaches different lessons than the ones you were handed in your youth.
It’s not about falling anymore, not really. It’s about forming. Shaping. Inviting.
It’s less about being swept off your feet, and more about standing firmly beside—presence over drama, steadiness over spectacle.
And if you’re lucky, you’re still learning—every single day—that love, like anything worth tending, changes its shape over time.
So, no. You’re not old. You’re ripening.
And if that’s not a new trick worth learning, I don’t know what is.
ME
MyLearningNotesforaWork-in-Progress
I can never be civilized— but I can be reminded that the Romaine probably wasn’t prewashed. I can be inspired to put things where they belong the first time. And I can be organized a little better.
I’m discovering that little by little, bit by bit, I might find my way to An OHIO state of mind.
I’m discovering that when the day ends, and we’re both tired, and I hear,
“Ruby and I walked down your garden path with the steps that go nowhere,”
I don’t need to explain where the steps once led. Instead, I can talk about where they might one day lead.
I’m discovering that falling in love happens faster now— not because the fire is hotter, but because the walls are lower, the noise is quieter, and I no longer mistake caution for wisdom.
I’m discovering it doesn’t matter what we call it— Sex. Making love. We both know the truth: if there’s no heart, no heat, and no brushing teeth first, it’s not happening.
I’m discovering the contours of a body— no longer shaped by youth’s smooth muscle, but by time, by tenderness, by all the sharpened, weathered lines of a well-lived life, and a well-bloomed love.
I’m discovering that what’s heart-healthy for one is heart-healthy for the other — in food, in movement, and especially in tenderness.
I’m discovering that love, at this stage, isn’t about recapturing youth or chasing fireworks. It’s about something quieter. Stronger. Truer. A love that folds laundry and picks out flooring— but also whispers stay when the silence gets long.
I’m discovering that a kneeler protects my knees just as well in the garden as it does while tending the soul.
I’m discovering that Ruby’s not the only one who snores. We do, too, even if we think we don’t. But when it’s the three of us? It’s just another rhythm to fall asleep to.
I’m discovering that I only need to be shown some things once. Like how to fold a grocery store plastic bag into a teeny-weeny triangle for storage. I nailed it. Once might have been enough. (“Wait. Wait. Let me do one more, my Love. This is almost like meditation.”)
I’m discovering that the Henkel-Harris bed really does look better with the bedding tucked inside the side rails. Gracious me—how could I have lived threescore-and-seventeen years without that life-saver of a bedroom tip?
I’m discovering, anew, that sharing is 99% of the joy. The story, the supper, the last bite of dessert—for Ruby, of course. Even the silence tastes better when it’s passed between two.
I’m discovering—more than anything else—that together isn’t just better. It’s braver. It’s kinder. It’s more us. More alive.
WE
Our Lessons
Clearly, you can teach old dogs new tricks, especially if they’re Tennessee Gary and me. We aren’t just any old dogs. We’re two clever ones, willing to learn together. And in case you’re wondering how people react when we tell them what we’re up to, most folks seem happy. Some, wishful. Others, wistful. Sometimes, some look twice. They blink. They tilt their heads. They ask—sometimes aloud, sometimes with raised eyebrows—
Aren’t you too old for shenanigans like this?
To which we say:
Balderdash!
Phooey!
We are not too old for love. We are not too late for wonder. We are not past the season for becoming.
Because when the day is done— the goodnight kiss planted, the I-love-you dreamily reaffirmed—we’re not winding down. We’re bedding down.
And come morning, we rise again— not just from sleep, but into this shared, surprising, still-unfolding life.
What keeps us going isn’t mystery or magic. It’s the anchors that hold love through storms and stillness:
Trust. Fidelity. Respect. Communication. Collaboration. Compromise. Intentional love. Intimacy. Empathy. Acceptance. And perhaps most vital of all: Forgiveness.
So, dare we clue you in on what two old dogs are learning about love—maybe better than most, certainly better than our younger selves ever did?
Do you really want to know the bottom line?
Are you sure?
You do? You really do?
Alrighteez, tighty-whities. If you insist…
Lean in and listen carefully.
We’ll tell you once and once only:
Love at our age isn’t the final act. It’s the encore.
THEN. July 2, 1776: The Continental Congress stood up to a king and voted to declare independence.
NOW. July 2, 2025: I’m standing up to the costume drama unfolding in our Capitol—my words against their charades, my truth against their power.
ACTION NEEDED. This is the most important piece I’ve written all year.
Please read. Please share. Please TAKE A STAND.
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
—Martin Niemöller (1892–1984), Lutheran minister and former U-boat commander who became one of Hitler’s most vocal clerical critics. Imprisoned in concentration camps from 1937 to 1945, Niemöller’s words became a timeless warning against silence in the face of tyranny.
We all know that words matter. But in these politically charged times — when so many people feel hopeless, unheard, and unseen — words matter even more. Words have always been more than sound or scribble; they are lifelines—tied to truth, tossed to the drowning. They can carry us from despair to resolve, from silence to solidarity, from helplessness to empowerment. They can become the bridge that carries us across the moments when our spirit grows weak. In moments like these, words aren’t just language. They are lifeboats we cling to, rallying cries we raise, and sparks that illuminate a path forward.
I have no doubt in the world that some of you are nodding in agreement while at the same time saying to yourself:
“Yes. Words matter, but I’m not good with words, and I’m certainly not good enough with words to build a bridge from here to anywhere.”
I hear you. Loud and clear.
But here’s the good thing: In times like these, when every nerve and muscle of our being is tested, we can turn to the famous words of history—words spoken or written in moments that felt just as dark as these—and draw strength from their resonance. At a minimum, we can be uplifted toward a more hopeful place. And perhaps—just perhaps—those words can fan a flame strong enough to make us stand, to speak out, to let our voices ring forth with all the conviction and courage we can muster, even if they aren’t as eloquent or melodious as we’d like them to be.
When our hope wanes as we witness an overwhelming litany of decisions made in the highest office of our land—unleashed overnight without consulting Congress—our hearts can still swell as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.
Colonial Americans didn’t stay silent. They made their grievances known in the Declaration of Independence—taxation without representation, abuse of power, the erosion of rights, power wielded like a whip, the slow strangling of liberty. And they didn’t just grumble. They declared. Boldly. They named the wrongs and named their remedy: a clean break from tyranny.
When our hope wanes as we witness the word “diversity” being rebranded as dangerous, when “equity” is twisted into an accusation, and when “inclusion” is weaponized to divide, our hearts can swell as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.
Our Nation’s Founding Fathers, for all their inconsistencies, still struck a promise into the air—a promise capacious enough to grow. And others carried it forward, naming the vision in clearer, bolder language.
In his 1782 essay What Is an American?, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur offered a radical vision of unity through difference:
“Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.”
This was not a call for sameness, but for a shared becoming—a future rooted in diversity, not afraid of it.
And even earlier, in 1774, America’s first published Black poet—Phillis Wheatley—penned a letter to the Reverend Samson Occom that reads like a quiet trumpet blast.
“In every human breast,” she wrote, “God has implanted a principle, which we call love of freedom; it is impatient of oppression and pants for deliverance.”
And then, with the same clarity, she penned the line that shames us in today’s politically charged times:
“How well the cry for liberty, and the reverse disposition for the exercise of oppressive power over others agree—I humbly think it does not require the penetration of a philosopher to determine.”
She wasn’t just America’s first great poet of color—she was its first great poet of conscience. And her words, like Crèvecœur’s, echo louder now than the noise trying to drown them.
When our hope wanes as we witness emergency decrees, loyalty tests, and watchdog purges—all pointing to a dangerous concentration of executive power, monarchical behavior parading around in a republic’s clothing—our hearts can swell as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.
Our Founding Fathers didn’t fight a king just to crown another in modern garb. They resisted not just a monarch, but monarchy itself—the idea that one man’s will should outweigh the people’s voice.
In 1776, as the revolution took hold, John Adams captured the essence of the American project with unwavering clarity:
“A republic is a government of laws, not of men.”
James Madison, writing in Federalist No. 47 (1788), took the warning further:
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands… may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
And Thomas Paine, never one to soften the blow, wrote in Common Sense (1776):
“A king hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which in plain terms is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears.”
He cut straight to the danger of one man’s whims becoming national policy. Our founders knew what unchecked power looked like. They didn’t whisper. They shouted. And like the NO KINGS protests rising across our land today, they made it plain: we were never meant to be ruled.
When our hope wanes as we witness the slow dismantling of institutional independence—over 160 officials purged from agencies like the EEOC and NLRB, watchdogs replaced with loyalists, courts straining to hold the line—our hearts can swell again as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.
James Madison, in 1788, understood that power itself isn’t evil—but left unchecked, it becomes so.
“Wherever the real power in a Government lies,” he wrote, “there is the danger of oppression.”
He wasn’t warning about nameless bureaucrats—he was warning about any one person or faction gathering too much control, silencing dissent, and bypassing the balance that keeps liberty alive.
And Patrick Henry, fiery and fearless, stood on the floor of the Virginia Convention in 1775 and made no apologies for confronting tyranny:
“Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third… may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.”
Henry wasn’t inciting violence—he was demanding vigilance. He knew that loyalty to country means resisting those who betray its principles.
And now, as the Justice Department targets political opponents, journalists, legal voices, and civil society groups, we know without a doubt. This isn’t democracy defending itself. It’s power consuming dissent.
When our hope wanes as we watch protections rolled back—clean air, safe water, wild land handed over to those who see only profit—our hearts can swell again as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.
From the very start, we claimed a promise—not just to ourselves, but to our posterity. That word wasn’t filler. It meant something. It still does. Climate justice is that promise in action—seen now in rising seas, poisoned wells, and forests burning faster than we can name them. When leaders silence the science and gut the safeguards, they’re not just changing direction. This isn’t a policy shift. It’s a broken covenant.
Thomas Jefferson, a farmer before he was a Founder, believed that the land was not merely a resource but a shared inheritance. He wrote in 1785:
“The earth belongs…to the living.”
But even that came late. Native nations understood long before we put pen to parchment that land is not a prize—it’s a trust. They signed treaties in good faith. We broke them.
And now? We’re breaking faith again—not just with those who came before, but with those still to come. The damage isn’t distant. It’s here. The question isn’t whether we can fix it. The question is whether we will rise and demand that our leaders honor the covenant: to preserve the land, protect the future, and remember—this earth was never ours to ruin.
When our hope wanes as we watch truth itself come under siege—journalists threatened, teachers silenced, libraries politicized—our hearts can swell again as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.
Thomas Jefferson, in 1787, didn’t hedge:
“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Even in their disagreement, our founders understood the power of a free press not just to inform, but to guard against tyranny.
Benjamin Franklin, both printer and revolutionary, warned us plainly:
“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”
And it isn’t just the founding generation we can turn to. In 1949, Harry Truman, no stranger to press scrutiny, said:
“Once a government is committed to silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go—and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens.”
These weren’t sentimental niceties. They were warnings. We don’t need to like every headline or trust every journalist. But when we allow the press to be painted as treasonous, we’re not protecting freedom—we’re abandoning it.
When our hope wanes as we watch universities bow to political pressure—when scholars are silenced, curriculums censored, and the pursuit of knowledge reshaped to please the powerful—our hearts can swell again as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.
Harvard, our first university, wasn’t founded to flatter authority. It was founded in 1636 to train ministers, yes—but also to nurture thought, sharpen conscience, and elevate public understanding. In 1650, its charter affirmed that the ends of education were not just knowledge, but wisdom.
And yet now, we see calls for partisan oversight of hiring and research. Ideological litmus tests. Attempts to turn places of learning into arenas of political control. Harvard, so far, has stood its ground—but the pressure is mounting. And the lesson is not just for Harvard. At Columbia, at UVA, across campuses nationwide, faculty and students are being told to speak carefully or not at all.
Academic freedom isn’t a fringe privilege. It’s a cornerstone of democracy. John Adams, educated at Harvard, warned back in 1765:
“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right… to knowledge as they have to liberty.”
He knew: take away knowledge, and liberty won’t be far behind. That’s what’s at stake now—not just tenure or textbooks, but the freedom to think without permission. A nation that punishes thinking is not preparing its future. It’s protecting the throne of a wannabe king.
When our hope wanes as we watch even the Library of Congress—the nation’s repository of truth—reduced to a partisan pawn, our hearts can swell again as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.
Established in 1800, the Library of Congress was created for one reason: to serve all members of Congress, regardless of party, with nonpartisan, factual information to guide legislation and uphold the public good.
It wasn’t designed to serve the president. It wasn’t created to chase political favor. It was built to anchor democracy with facts, scholarship, and shared access to knowledge.
When Jefferson sold his personal library to rebuild the collection after the War of 1812, he wrote:
“There is, in fact, no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer.”
That was the point: to ensure no lawmaker, from any district or ideology, would be left without the resources to govern wisely.
Today, that founding principle is under siege. Efforts to reshape the Library’s leadership along partisan lines don’t merely politicize a post—they betray the institution’s very purpose. When the branch meant to inform all of Congress begins answering to one man, we haven’t just weakened an agency. We run the risk of surrendering our intellectual compass. Library of Congress leadership—and Congress—must stand strong against the whims of power.
When our hope wanes as we watch a president bypass Congress and drop bombs in secret—our hearts can swell again as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.
James Madison, in 1795, saw the danger long before drones and bunker-busters:
“The executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it… It has accordingly, with studied care, vested the question of war in the legislature.”
On June 22, 2025, under the name Operation Midnight Hammer, U.S. bombers struck three Iranian nuclear facilities—Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. No congressional debate. No formal authorization. No imminent threat. Just one man, acting alone—bypassing the branch meant to check him, using our military not to defend, but to declare.
This wasn’t war by necessity. It was war by fiat—a president bypassing the branch meant to restrain him, using our military not to defend the nation, but to flex unchecked power.
And here’s what should keep us up at night: presidents no longer need troops on the ground to wage war. All it takes is air clearance, a press team to spin the story, and a public too stunned or exhausted to object. When war becomes a solo act, democracy becomes a stage—and we become the silent audience. This isn’t national security. It’s autocracy with attitude and altitude. And if we shrug it off now, we may not recognize the next war until it’s already being fought in our name—with no one left to ask for permission.
And so, to every American who feels the ground shifting beneath us—hear this:
Our liberty was not built for silence. Our independence was not meant to sleep. Our democracy was not handed down to be hoarded or hollowed out.
It was meant to be lived—fought for—spoken into being.
So we rise.
To take a stand against leaders who crave loyalty but abandon law. To take a stand against forests felled and futures stolen. To take a stand against truth trampled beneath propaganda—and the politicizing of the Library of Congress itself. To take a stand against teachers gagged, reporters threatened, watchdogs replaced. To take a stand against bombs dropped in secret and power seized in silence.
We rise with our voices— not to plead, but to proclaim. Not to whisper but to roar.
Because words are not ornaments. They are weapons—sacred ones. They are how a free people sharpen their resolve. They are how we mark the line: This far. No further.
We will not go quiet. We will not stand down. We will not forget who we said we would be.
As we honor the liberty and independence that define who we are, who we were, and who we still must become—
Let us remember, on this Fourth of July:
Take a stand with words. They matter now more than ever.
“Honey, if you don’t know what I mean, then maybe it wasn’t meant for you to know just yet.”
–Imagined RuPaul-meets-Brentism (but isn’t that how most good wisdom starts?)
We’ve all heard the saying:
“You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.”
And I imagine we all know what it means. Regardless of where we go, we’ll always carry with us the (gold)dust from where we’ve been.
It seems to me that the same truth surrounds naiveté. If a person is inherently innocent, chances are good that all the experience in the world will not remove the foundational greenness and unworldliness from that person.
Chances are good–actually, they’re high–that I might just be one such person.
Let me offer up some proof.
Last year, I agreed to do a talk about online dating apps for seniors. No. No. Not for high-school seniors. They know exactly how to score…or not. My talk was for bifocaled folks on the other end of the age spectrum. Senior Citizens facing a triathlon: being online, navigating dating apps, and exposing themselves to Lord knows who or where or how or when or why. At 77, I can relate.
I agreed to do the talk, and then I decided that I’d better do some research.
It was a match made in heaven. I’d get to give a talk, plus I really was on the move–or is it on the make?–for a date. Well. Whatever. I was hot for a date. Let’s just say it had been a while. A long while.
So last year, off I went. I explored bunches and bunches of dating apps. Let me pause to assure you right now–before I expose my naiveté one whit more–that I did so only in the interest of conducting genuine, in-depth research. After all, if I was going to bare all–about dating apps–in my talk, then I had to know all so that I could strut my stuff with pride.
And lo! I had hardly gotten started when I got sucked into a dating app that caused me to flutter. For the life of me, I’m not sure that I even remember its name, and I probably wouldn’t share it if I did.
Anyway, that app nearly gave me an infarction, first from possible joy and then from definite tremors. Brace yourself. R u ready? I landed on this guy right here in my neck of the woods who added RN after his first name in his profile.
Hot damn! I’m gonna get a date with a guy who’s gayAND a Registered Nurse. Joy of all joys.
With a twofer like that waiting for me, I fired off a quick reply.
He didn’t waste any time getting back to me. To my horror, I discovered that his RN wasn’t a medical credential at all. It was a time degree:
RightNow
Say whaaaat? Right now? No way. I swiped left and got rid of him RT (right then), but the shock lingered long.
Is that naiveté or what? Well. Now I know. Now, you do, too. Even at 77, I’m carrying around some genuine innocence, and I don’t even blush talking about it.
But that RN thing set me to thinking. It seems to me that I’ve always been naive, or, as country folks would say, I’ve always been green. More often than not–and with no small degree of irony–down through the years, my most blushing moments of greenness have involved language. Sometimes, it was an acronym, like RN–that I didn’t know but would never forget meeting. At other times, it was a full-blown word.
Let me tell you about two.
Growing up, I had never heard the F-word. Not whispered behind lockers. Not scrawled on bathroom stalls. Not murmured by boys trying on bravado. It simply wasn’t part of my world.
There. That didn’t hurt too much, did it? Nope. I’m ok. Ru?
But the summer before heading off to college, I had to read a list of books for my Honors English Seminar that fall. I didn’t know a thing about any of them, including J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. No problem. I was dutiful. I was curious (yellow). And I was a little thrilled to be reading something vaguely subversive. Holden Caulfield’s voice quickly grabbed hold of me, tugging at some tender place inside.
Then, I got to a page that nearly made me fall down my mental stairwell:
“Somebody’d written ‘Fuck you’ on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy.”
Holden wasn’t shocked by the word. He was heartbroken. He was protective. He worried his kid sister Phoebe would see it. He worried that some other child would ask what it meant. He worried that a “dirty kid” would explain it—wrongly—and the mystery of it would wound them.
Right there. Right then. I saw a brand-new word, standing in front of me, stark naked, showing off all the strokes and flourishes of all four letters. I knew it meant something that I knew nothing about, something that I daren’t even mention to anyone. It made me pause and stare forever. Although the word never became part of my vocabulary, I did something that I had never done. I dogeared the page.
A year or two later, another word in real life was hurled squarely at me, and this time, my greenness shined even brighter not because of the word my friend said to me but because of the word that I thought he had said to me. What I heard and what he spoke were worlds apart.
He was an upperclassman, always reading, always relaxed. I liked him. Actually, I liked him a lot. Don’t get alarmed but let me tell you something: I’ve known that I was gay since I was four. For years and years–certainly, as a student at a Baptist college in WV in the 1960s–I felt like I might be the only gay guy on the planet. I had no script. I had no community. I had no way to ask:
Are you … you know … like me?
One evening, I stopped by my friend’s room–I often did, as did lots of other guys who were our friends. He was popular. He was straight. And I don’t know, maybe he thought I was gay and decided to tease me in front of the other guys–all straight like him. Out of the blue, he looked up from his book and nailed me with his baby blues:
“Every time you come into the room, I get a hard-on.”
But I didn’t hear that word.
I heard heart-on.
And my heart swelled. It fluttered. I thought he meant something warm. I thought that I had moved something in him. I thought that I mattered.
I smiled and blurted out:
“Oh stop. You do not. Show me!”
I meant it innocently and playfully. I wasn’t teasing. I was confident that he would simply pull back his buttoned shirt and show me a t-shirt emblazoned with a huge red heart–just like the iconic S that Superman sported on his chest.
I had no understanding of what my friend had said. Not then. Not in that moment. And certainly not with thatword dropped so casually in a room full of guys, like it was a joke I wasn’t in on yet.
He didn’t unbutton his shirt as I thought he would. He just stared at me and then looked back at his book. The moment passed, thin as onion-skin paper.
Laughter ricocheted off the dorm room walls. All the guys were convinced that I had executed a brilliant put down by demanding:
“Show me.”
They thought that I had deliberately put my friend in his place. Little did they know. My innocence had saved the moment. Their laughter had protected me. The verbal misunderstanding had shielded me.
Looking back, I see that my innocence that evening protected me in ways I couldn’t have known at the time. I could have been humiliated. I could have been ridiculed. I could have internalized shame. But instead, I floated through the moment on a current of my own misunderstanding. I wasn’t wounded. I wasn’t exposed. I was shielded.
My mishearing gave me cover. And somehow, the laughter that followed—laughter I didn’t understand either—wrapped around me like a protective cloak. Everyone thought I was clever. Imagine that. I wasn’t. I was just green. Country green.
And yet, that greenness did something extraordinary. It saved me.
It didn’t save me from truth. It saved me from thetoo-muchness of it. It saved me from knowing more than I could hold at the time. It saved me from rushing into meanings I wasn’t prepared to carry. It saved me from being someone I wasn’t ready to become.
Now, I’m old enough and seasoned enough to know that innocence doesn’t prevent hurt forever. But it can delay it just long enough for us to grow strong enough to bear it. It can stretch the veil of childhood a little further into adulthood, letting us stumble forward with a safety net that keeps us from breaking into smithereens.
I guess the bottom line is that while some people grow up quickly, I didn’t. And I’m grateful. I used to think I was the only green soul who didn’t catch the drift, who didn’t get the joke, or who didn’t see the neon sign blinking right there in plain view. But over time—and Lord knows I’ve had some time, plus—I’ve come to believe I wasn’t the only one wandering through the orchard a little slow to pick the ripest fruit.
I’ve come to the conclusion that there are far more of us than I ever imagined. I’m talking about folks who didn’t know what the F-word meant the first time it rang out like a firecracker. I’m talking about folks who heard hard-on and thought heart-on—and answered with a “showme.” I’m talking about folks who walked through the world, always assuming everyone meant well and most things weren’t coded for something more.
Sure. Innocence like that can get you in trouble. You miss a signal. You say the wrong thing. You walk away from something you didn’t even know was being offered. Or was it? But more often than not, innocence like that saves you. It lets you grow at your own pace. It buys you time. It keeps your heart soft while the rest of the world’s toughening up. That’s not foolishness. That’s grace in slow motion.
And when the meaning finally lands—when you finally do “get it”—you don’t feel duped. You feel ready. And you look back and laugh, and you don’t redden at all when you share those moments, just as I’m sharing here without a tinge of blush.
It seems to me there’s a kind of wisdom that comes only from a place of not knowing too soon. And bless your little heart, I’ve lived there most of my life.
If you’re reading this and thinking, “Mercy me! I thought RN meant RegisteredNurse, too,” or “I didn’t hear that word until college and didn’t dare say it out loud until I was grown,”—well, honey, pull up a chair and sit a spell with me, and we can while away an hour or so, side by side.
“What will we do?”
“Lands sakes alive, darling! We’ll talk.”
We’ll talk about all the pages we’ve dogeared down through the years and why. We’ll talk about people who believe what others say is more important than what they imply. We’ll talk about people like us who listen with their hearts before they learn the rest.
And when we’re done with all that, I’ll lean in real close and tell you once more that my innocence always lets me see beauty first. I’ll tell you once more that my innocence always lets me feel awe. I’ll tell you once more that my innocence always lets me believe in heart-ons.
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
–Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968). More than a civil rights leader, Dr. King spent his life demanding justice for the marginalized and calling out moral silence wherever it lived. His words still hold us accountable.
We’ve had a lot of rain lately here in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, in the shadow of the Nation’s Capitol. And with it, a whole lot of fog—literal and metaphorical.
It’s put me in a reflective mood.
It started one morning when I was scrolling casually through the headlines. I sat up and took notice when I saw:
“Estimated Cost of Trump’s June 14 Parade? $40 Million.”
Not as bad as the $95 million that had been projected.
But still.
Forty. Million. Dollars.
For a parade.
Let’s be clear. My reflections aren’t a swipe at the military or the veterans who’ve served with honor. I respect them deeply. I always have.
What leaves me flummoxed—furious, frankly—is that we dropped forty million dollars on smoke and swagger.
● Not for healthcare. ● Not for housing. ● Not for education. ● Not for the aging. ● Not for the homeless. ● Not for the hungry. ● Not for climatejustice? ● Not for Diversity, Equity, andInclusion.
Not for [inhale, DearReader, and name one or two things that you would add to the chance to spend $40 million well and wisely for the benefit of humanity].
Not one penny went to any of those things.
Instead, we spent it on a parade. And not much of one at that.
Mind you, I’m not against a little razzle-dazzle. I’m not even against a lot of razzle dazzle. I love a marching band. And I’ve been known to twirl a dish towel like a drum major when I think no one’s looking. But this wasn’t Macy’s Thanksgiving. This was missile-forward, masculinity-on-wheels, smoke-and-flag showmanship—aimed at impressing whom, exactly?
And all I could think was:
Icould do a lot with that.
I started Googling some numbers. These aren’t fantasy figures that I’m about to share. They’re ballpark estimates based on real programs already out there doing the real work.
Education
I spent twenty-three years in the community-college classroom. I know what $40 million could do when it puts on a blazer of determination and joins hands at a table that includes all the diverse stakeholders waiting for their lives to be transformed:
● Two years of community college for around 15,000 students. That’s 15,000 young folks trading fear for futures.
● Salaries and benefits for 500 new public school teachers. The ones fighting ignorance and inequality every day.
● After-school programs for 100,000 children. Imagine safe spaces, hot meals, books, and someone who actually listens.
● $20,000 for every public school in Virginia. For libraries. For music. For classrooms without walls.
● 400 endowed scholarships that would change entire family trees. Can you imagine such a forest of hope?
Or, How’s This? Give It to Me.
That’s right. Just hand it over, every copper penny of that $40 million. I promise to use it wisely—and a little wickedly.
I’d found a rural writers’ residency here in the Shenandoah Valley—where ideas blossom, meals come with flaky sourdough biscuits, and the only uniform required is pajamas and nerve.
I’d start a learning center for older adults who want to tango with AI rather than fear it. There’d be cakes, cakes, and more cakes. And, yes, I’d teach the class. For free.
I’d fund free college courses for anyone over 70. I know firsthand that curiosity doesn’t age—and neither should opportunity.
I’d create a cozy grant for storytellers who need time, space, and soup. You bring the plot twist; I’ll bring the pot and the lentils. And the mic. And the computers with printers and some really good paper. Maybe even some vellum. Everyone has a story to tell. And everyone’s story deserves to be shared.
And yes—I’d upgrade my Wi-Fi. But I’d pay for that perk out of my own pocket. I can’t possibly imagine a future on a buffering screen like mine.
But Let’s Go Bigger. Let’s Go National. Let’s Get Serious.
What else could we buy with $40 million?
HEALTHCARE
● 13,000 diabetics could get insulin for a year.
● 8,000 people could have cataract surgeries to restore sight and dignity.
● 4,000 new therapy slots could be created for those in need of mental health care.
● Mobile clinics could motor in to rural Americans who don’t have a doctor, let alone a parade.
HOUSING
● 800 tiny homes for unhoused veterans.
● 6,500 rental assistance grants to prevent families from being evicted into the street.
● Thousands of critical home repairs for aging Americans clinging to the roof over their heads.
Or simply this: $40 million could give dignity back to the people living in tents and doorways.
People say we have a housing shortage. We don’t. We have a compassion shortage.
FOOD & NUTRITION
● Feed 60,000 families of four for a month.
● Provide 20 million school lunches.
● Stock rural food banks for a year.
CHILDCARE & EARLY LEARNING
● 1,500 toddlers in full-time childcare for a year.
● 4,000 Head Start slots—the kind that change lives before kindergarten.
INFRASTRUCTURE & JOBS
● 20 miles of roads resurfaced.
● 1,000 community clean-up and green jobs created at $40K/year.
● 1 million trees planted in urban neighborhoods, providing shade, oxygen, and hope.
ADDICTION & PUBLIC SAFETY
● 100,000 naloxone kits to reverse opioid overdoses.
● 500 addiction recovery beds funded for a full year.
And that’s just the start.
$40 million could fund addiction clinics, community gardens, clean drinking water, and elder care.
It could stock classrooms with books, shelters with blankets, neighborhoods with trees, and rural towns with Wi-Fi.
It could buy wheelchairs, job training, clean clothes, bus passes, internet hotspots, warm meals, and cool air in heatwaves.
Forty million dollars could meet people where they are—and remind them they matter.
Instead, $40 million gave us a parade of tanks.
And flyovers.
And swagger.
I suppose there’s a place for showmanship. But if you ask me—when you’ve got $40 million to spend and a nation full of potholes, potholes in minds and hearts and homes—it might be time to fund possibility instead of parades.
You know what else? I’ll bet that if you asked the uniformed troops who were supposedly being honored, they too would vote for funding a world of forever possibilities instead of one day with a parade.
Because the real power? It isn’t missiles or marching.
It’s in meals, and music, and morning classes.
It’s in someone whispering, “I believe in you,” with a scholarship check in hand.
It’s in turning the lights on in places that have lived too long in the dark.
But we didn’t choose any of that.
We chose a spectacle.
We chose to posture for the world—while the world watched a nation that can’t feed its children waste millions playing dress-up with its military.
It wasn’t patriotism.
It was performance.
History saw June 14, 2025, for what it was—a flag-wrapped, reality-show distraction from the real work of freedom.
“I tried so hard to do nothing that I accidentally did everything I needed.”
— Poor Brentford Lee (born 1947 and born again today).
Long, long ago I learned to not complain about the weather. For me, it was not a hard lesson to master. I love weather. I love how it arrives unbothered by plans, how it doesn’t ask permission to shift. Rain seeps, sun scorches, wind whispers or howls—all of it a steady reminder that the world turns whether I make a list or not. Seasons don’t hustle. They don’t perform. They simply become what they are, and in that quiet becoming, I find permission to do the same.
And so it is that I often find myself luxuriating in my bathtub–sunny days, rainy days, snowy days. Any day in any weather will do for a good old-fashioned soak. It’s especially good in a real tub like mine. Cast-iron enamel. Please tell me that no others are manufactured. Or if you tell me that they are, please have my smelling salts handy.
Let’s be clear: my bathtub is not clawfoot elegant, but it’s deep enough to pretend. When I slide in, I tell myself that I’m taking time to be. But I know the truth. I’ve turned soaking into an event that I do.
Usually, it’s not much of an event or a do. It doesn’t need to be since I don’t need much. Water. Hot. Always hot. None of this lukewarm nonsense for me. If I’m going to bother drawing a bath, I want it to steam like a sultry Shenandoah Valley morning, rolling up from the tub like fog curling along the Seven Bends of the Shenandoah.
Getting the water that I need is not as straightforward as you might think. No. It’s not. Even though I live on a mountain, I do not draw it from my well. It’s pumped from my deep well and flows through copper pipes indoors, as befits a mountain man with a porcelain tub. And, of course, mine has proper porcelainturns—white handles, chrome collars, and bold Hot and Cold lettering, like a tub straight out of a 1950s film noir. Hot, thank goodness, does bring hot. Cold brings cold. So far, so good. But to adjust the flow, I have to turn both knobs left. Why? Because my plumber, bless his well-meaning hands, apparently installed them backwards. I think. I always thought I turned the hot water knob counterclockwise to turn on the flow and clockwise to turn off the flow. The cold lever is opposite, clockwise to turn on the flow, and counterclockwise to turn it off. It is something like that. Right? Damned if I know anymore. Apparently, I’ve spent years turning one way, only to be met with the smug silence of a faucet that refuses to gush or blush. In this tub, turning is just plumb wrong.
I guess it’s a small metaphor for life, really. Just when you’re sure you’re doing it correctly—hot water flowing, intentions pure, and everything else on course—you realize the universe wants you to turn the other way.
But before I turn the other way and step into the tub–which is, I must warn you, the stage on which I will be soaking, ruminating, and possibly overdoing it for the rest of this essay—I must direct the stage lights toward something magnificent. Close your eyes for a sec. Okay. Now open, look down, and let your eyes feast upon my …
… bubble bath.
Yes. I do use bubble bath. Lord knows it’s not for the scent—though I admit, I have a weakness for sandalwood. And lavender. But let the record show: I allow lavender only in the tub. Nowhere else. A mountain man like me has standards and has to stand by them.
I tell myself that it’s not for the fragrance. It’s for the foam. Even though I reveal to you, MyDearReaders, far more than I should, I want to assure you that I do have a modicum of modesty. A bubble here, a bubble there—tastefully arranged to preserve an illusion of decency. Let’s just say the bubbles know where to gather.
Yep. That’s about all I need for one of my regular soaks. A tub. Hot water. Bubble bath.
But let’s face it. Every once in a blue moon, a mountain man needs a little spice. I’m no exception, even though I confess to being more than a little exceptional.
It’s on those blue-moon occasions that I line up a full production. Then, believe you me. I don’t just take a bath. I stage a bath.
I arrange things just so on my Broadway altar: mug of chamomile tea (because sometimes wine in a stemmed and fluted Baccarat feels like too much doing), one candle (the fancy one that I don’t even own, but begrudgingly burn anyway), and three colognes that I don’t own yet, each vying for my American Express card that I do own. Imagine. Three bottles lined up like contestants on The Bachelor: Mountain-Man Bathroom Edition. It’s far more than cologne drama. It’s downright Shakespearean. It’s The Mountain meets The Globe.
It opens with a cologne smackdown.
Baie 19: (sniffily) “Let’s not pretend I’m not the one Poor Brentford truly wants. I’m rainfall and memory. I’m the whisper of longing on damp skin. I’m practically poetry in a bottle.”
Oud Wood: (with velvet growl) “Poetry’s lovely, dear, but I’m seduction that lingers. I’m cashmere confidence. I’m what Tennessee Gary leans in to smell twice.”
Patchouli Absolu:(swaggering) “Children, please. I’m the heartbeat of the forest and the soul of a vinyl jazz LP. I’m Poor Brentford in full earthy glory. He doesn’t wear me, he becomes me.”
Baie 19: “You smell like a commune.”
Oud Wood:“You smell like wet pebbles.”
Patchouli Absolu: “And you both smell like insecurity.”
ME (overwhelmed on one of my rare occasions when I know how it feels to feel overwhelmed, which is not overwhelmingly often): “You’re all exhausting. No one’s coming over. I’m about to confess my sins to the lefty-tighty, righty loosey faucet and cry into the loofah that I neither have nor want.”
They fall silent. I choose. None. Scentless, I splash around in the tub like a mountain man who moonlights in musicals.
Then what do I do? I lean back, all the way back, and I start confessing. The bubbles gather ’round in all the right places like gossiping parishioners. The faucet stares. Ruby settles nearby with the look of a creature who’s seen this show before, seen it all before, all too often.
I speak.
“Forgive me, tub, for I have over-functioned.”
Drip.
“I said I was going to be. Just be. Instead, look at what I’ve done. I’ve curated a still-life. I folded the towel just so. I fluffed my own ego like it was company. I …”
Drip. Drip.
“… I checked my smartphone. Three times. I told myself I wouldn’t, but what if he texted? What if he sensed my aching soul? Oh, do not ask me, “Who?” You tease. Please be still. Surely, you know exactly who. Surely, you do. You do, don’t you?”
Ruby raises one eye and promptly closes it again. Even she doesn’t buy my shameless shenanigans.
“And yes,” I whisper, “I lit the special candle that I don’t have. The one I said I was saving. For what? For when? Who knows. I guess I was saving it for this moment of low-grade thirst.”
Replies? None. Not one. No, not one single solitary reply. I suspect judgment. Is that what exfoliating looks like? Is that how it feels? Judgment?
I confess one more thing. Doing this being thingy that I’m supposed to be doing ain’t easy. But what’s a mountain man to do when he be soakin’ in a tub?
The very question made some of the less bashful bubbles pop, just as I brought on stage everything that I’ll need to play out my after-the-rain weather act—the one I fully plan on doing.
I’ll harness my weedwhacker around me like medieval armor and march into the yard. Oh. Don’t get alarmed. I’ll don all my clothes so that the scorching sun will not be led into temptation. No doubt the overgrowth in the lower yard and along the rutted road will wave at me and thrash about, like green adversaries, defiant and smug.
And I, in true Don Quixote theatrics at their finest, will tilt my weedwhacker and tackle it all, tackle it all already, as I have tackled it all already so often already in the past.
And I will be noble.
And I will be productive.
And I will be heroic.
And I will let the rains come and the winds blow. Ruby, smarter than I, will bolt for shelter. But I will stay. Drenched. Steaming. And—without even trying—I will finally be. Just… be.
Wet. Ridiculous. Peaceful. Winded. My trusty weedwhacker by my side. But I will have achieved being.
That is the theme, isn’t it, of whatever it is that I’ve got goin’ on in this here tub? Right? The daily tug-of-war between doing and being.
I want to be at peace, but now I’ve done gone and plotted out all the steps and ruined it.
I want to be still, but now I’ve done gone and ended up writing about the stillness.
I want to be the mountain man who soaks in sandalwood and lavender in a porcelain tub with porcelain faucets that can’t figure out which way to turn.
But I also want to be the mountain man who hosts, cooks, flirts, loves, writes books, directs theatrical Broadway tub shows, and maybe gets a text from someone–in Tennessee?–who says, “You smell good—even when you don’t wear cologne, especially when you don’t wear cologne.”
And here, mydearReaders, is the moment when the lights begin to dim ever so faintly, the audience leans in more spellbound than before, and Poor Brentford steps on stage–front and center, fully wrapped in his towel (or is he fully wrapt?)–for his soliloquy that he never dreamt of speaking, let alone rehearsing:
“I tried so hard to do nothing that I accidentally did everything I needed.
“I made peace with three colognes I dreamt about, one candle that I don’t own but burn at both ends anyway, a tub with faulty faucets, and me– myself, just as I am.
“I let the bubbles baptize my busy mind.
“And when I stepped out—wrinkled, radiant, ridiculoos—I realized:
“‘I be fabulous.’
“I also realized: ‘You be fabulous, too.’
“So. Listen up. Go now. Take a soak, with or without bubble bath.
With Father’s Day weekend upon us, I’m republishing “What My Father Saw” as a gentle reminder of the quiet ways fathers shape our lives—through their labor, their vision, and the legacy they leave behind.
“A house is made with walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.”
–Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.
Houses come. Houses go. Some we remember. Some we don’t. Usually, though, the house that we remember the most is the one that we call home. For me, it was the house that I lived in from the age of ten (when I started the fifth grade) until the age of seventeen (when I graduated from high school, left home, and started college). We moved there in the summer of 1957.
It wasn’t much of a house. White clapboard siding. Front porch with wooden columns. Living room. Kitchen. Two bedrooms. Screened back porch. Unfinished basement. Outhouse. The woods on one side were so close that the trees seemed to brush against the windowpanes even in the gentlest breeze.
It wasn’t much of a move, either, maybe a mile south of where we had been renting. That fall, I went to the same grade school that I had attended since we moved to Shady Spring. I remember standing in the school yard with Mr. Pack, my English teacher. I pointed to the house, calling his attention to the side stairs that led up to the screened-in back porch.
But this house was different from the others. This house was our home. Well, it would be one day if my parents could stay on top of the mortgage payments. It didn’t have a white picket fence, and it needed lots of “fixin’ up.” But it was our slice of the American Dream.
Fixin’ up was right up my father’s alley. Even though he was a coal miner, he was, in many ways, a visionary. When we moved in, my father saw many things that he could do that would turn what had been a tucked-away summer place into our year-round home.
I remember lots of his improvements because I was his helper. Straightaway, he and I started clearing the adjacent lot. Our home was still in the woods but no longer against the trees. I helped him take the back porch and turn it into a dining room opening into the kitchen. The two of us mixed cement in a wheelbarrow and poured a floor in the large unfinished basement, where my father framed out two bedrooms, a downstairs kitchen, and a bathroom. We tilled the field across the road and turned the thin layer of soil on top of the rock shelf into a garden, perfect for sturdy stalks of corn rising up like sentinels with delicate tendrils of green beans gracefully twining around them. The dry, clay soil seemed ideal for sunflowers, too. Somewhere, I have a polaroid of me kneeling –sun-bleached hair, radiant smile–holding a sunflower so large that it covered my chest.
Looking back at the initial hard work and the eventual improvements, I see my father’s unwavering determination. He saw potential where others saw obstacles, teaching me the importance of perseverance and the transformative power of a dream fueled by love. This house was more than a structure. It was a testament to his resilience and dedication to our family’s future.
But more than any of those memories is the memory of my father at the dinner table. I was the youngest child, the last one at home eating with my parents.
My mother, who always said grace, sat at the head of the table, looking toward the wall at the other end, with a large oil painting of the Last Supper. My father sat to her left, gazing through his bifocals out of the large picture window in the dining room that he had built. I sat to his left, looking toward the window as well, with a golden candle sconce on each side, their glass shades gently casting a warm glow on holidays or when we had company.
I turned toward my father and my mother a lot, usually talking with my mother. My father was, by nature, a reserved man, and after talking about his day’s work in the mines and about his strategy for loading more cars of coal the next day, he didn’t have much to say other than to praise what my mother had prepared for dinner or to respond to something that my mother or I said that required his response. I didn’t think anything about his silence then. I don’t think anything about his silence now. It was as natural to my father as being talkative was to me and my mother.
But as I watched him looking out our dining room picture window, I wondered then–and I wonder now–what my father saw.
No doubt he saw the present.
He had a multitude of snapshot possibilities. In his immediate line of vision would have been our lower terraced yard concealing an elaborate and fully provisioned underground bomb shelter that my father built. Further down the sloped yard was the meandering creek. My father planted an apple tree next to it that still bears fruit. Across the creek, another small garden. One summer, my father erected six or so towering structures, made from large sapling poles. He planted his favorite Kentucky Wonder beans around them. Somewhere, I have a polaroid of him standing inside one of the green-bean teepees. Long, smooth beans hanging down met his calloused, coal-sooted hands, reaching up.
Beyond that snapshot would have been the homes of three neighbors on Rt. 3. We always called it the Hinton Road because it connected our town to Hinton and the world beyond. More important than those neighbors’ homes, though, was the immense towering oak. My father stood beneath it, waiting for his ride to the mines, day after day after day, stretching out to the final day of his fifty-year career as a coal miner, never missing a day’s work.
Looking back, I see my father surveying the tangible results of his hard work and vision. Each tree planted, each structure built or improved, was a testament to his ability to transform dreams into reality. His daily routines, anchored by resilience and a relentless work ethic, spoke to the value of dedication. Even in the most ordinary moments, my father’s presence embodied commitment to our family and our future. His view from the window wasn’t just of our present home. It was of a legacy he was building, one that would endure long after he was gone.
No doubt he saw his past.
His mind likely wandered to his most recent past, the bankruptcy that bottomed out his short-lived dream of being a prosperous coal-mining operator on par with the company-store owner. It prompted our move from Ashland to Shady Spring.
Perhaps he saw his early coal mining years in the late nineteen teens and the 1920s. He was an activist for the United Mine Workers of America and a staunch supporter of its president, John L. Lewis. Somewhere, I have my father’s first UMWA membership card.
Perhaps he saw even further back to Patrick Springs, Virginia, where his farming family had Colonial American roots and where he was born in 1902. Perhaps he saw the day when, as a teenager, he left home and boarded the Danville and Western Railroad. He made his way to Cherokee, WV, to make a life in the booming coal heartland of America.
Looking back at my father’s journey from a farmer’s son to a coal miner to an advocate for workers’ rights, I see a man who never let his circumstances define him. His past was marked by hard work, sacrifice, and an unyielding spirit. These experiences shaped his character, instilling in him a relentless drive to provide and care for his family, despite the hardships he faced. His past was not just a series of events, but a foundation of strength and resilience that he built upon every day.
No doubt he sawhis future.
Perhaps my father saw the day when I would go to college, leaving him and my mother to explore their new roles as empty nesters. They always waited for me and my five siblings to come back home for visits.
Perhaps he envisioned some of his many innovative ideas coming to fruition in the marketplace. He made copper jewelry, believing that it provided therapeutic benefits for arthritis sufferers. (My father’s idea was not far-fetched: copper jewelry began to be marketed in the early 1970s.)
He also had a vision for extension ladders with adjustable legs, designed for painting homes built on sloped yards like ours, and he even built a prototype. (Again, my father’s idea was ahead of its time: extension ladders with adjustable legs for working on slopes began appearing on the market around the early 2000s.)
One of his more futuristic ideas involved cars moving along highways, advancing magnetically to specific destinations designated by the driver at the start of the journey. (This concept, while far-fetched in its time, became reality with the marketing of self-driving cars in the mid-2010s.)
Perhaps my father saw into his final years. I wonder whether his body was telling him early on what his doctors told him later. Black Lung. Third Stage Silicosis. I wonder whether his heart saw a 1982 Golden Wedding Anniversary. I wonder whether his soul foresaw a calm and peaceful passage heavenward a year later.
Looking back at my father gazing out the window, envisioning the future, I realize that he saw possibilities that others didn’t. His innovative ideas and forward-thinking mindset were a testament to his enduring hope and determination. Even in the face of illness and the unknown, he remained focused on what could be, leaving a legacy of optimism and ingenuity. His ability to dream beyond the present instilled in me the same fervor and faith in the future.
Whatever my father saw–whether his present, his past, or his future–I have not a doubt in the world that he was looking through the same metaphorical lens that he held up to my eyes when he taught me as a young boy how to use a push plow to lay out a perfectly straight row in the field.
“Don’t look down. Keep your eyes fixed on something in the distance where you want the row to end.”
He was teaching me far more than how to plow a straight row. He was teaching me how to live my life in a way that mirrored his. Maintain a clear vision. Stay focused on long-term objectives. Persevere through challenges with resilience and determination.
“Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything.”
–Gordon Hempton (b. 1952), acoustic ecologist and advocate for the power of natural silence.
My Mother told the world, especially anyone who would listen, that I was born smiling. I can just hear her now–well, obviously I can’t, and certainly I don’t remember it from when I was a baby, but you know what I mean:
“Oh, look. Mama’s Little Mr. Sunshine is lighting up the Coal Camp already.”
Her regular reinforcement, of course, kept me smiling, smiling, and smiling. I never stopped. I guess I don’t know how, even though people are always wondering what no-good nonsense I’m up to or what I know that they wish they did.
What my Mother didn’t tell folks is that I was born talking. All right. Fine. Have it your way. Maybe I wasn’t born talking out loud. But I am certain that I was born talking quietly to myself. And when the time came–and I am fairly certain that it came precociously sooner rather than belatedly later–and I heard words roll off my tongue like orchestral notes at the New York Philharmonic, I vowed to keep right on talking, talking, and talking. I never stopped. I guess I don’t know how, even though people sometimes give me looks that seem to say:
“Shut up. Won’t you please shut up. You’re exhaustive and exhausting.”
Like I said, sometimes they give me that look, but luckily, they never come right and say so. If they do, I don’t hear them. I guess people need to learn to speak up, especially if they expect to be heard while I’m talking.
I guess you might say that I’m one of those extroverts who make it a challenge for people who value quiet to be around. Of course, I’m just guessing. But every now and then, I seem to catch a glimpse of someone giving me a look that seems to be a plea for silence. But I don’t know. Looks are just looks. And the more that I think about it, I don’t think any of those people who suffer my loquaciousness in silence–even the many who have suffered sufficiently to be worthy of sainthood–have ever come right out and asked me to be quiet.
Recently, though, I might have been closer than close to that “Please-be-quiet” threshold. But then again, I might not have been. Who knows? Maybe. I’m not really sure. I’m just guessing.
If I really was close to crossing that threshold, Gary was polite enough and gentlemanly enough not to say anything. I’m not talking about my neighbor, Gary. I’m talking about my Gary from Tennessee. It’s not that he’s the quiet type. Actually, he’s quite the talker, and when he gets going, I’ll swear that he could talk out the entire book of Genesis without leaving out any of the beseeches and begats. Of course, he doesn’t talk in Old Testamentese like that, but when he talks, what he says is rich and robust and layered with details known to Adam and Eve and all of their descendants since the Garden of Eden, including me.
At the same time, I know fully well that Gary appreciates quiet. So far, though, that has not stopped me from talking. When he’s here and he’s doing his thing and I’m doing my thing, little dramas might unfold thusly:
Gary: Weeding. Not looking up. Not saying a word.
Brent: “Just ignore me. I’m just going to the compost heap. What you’re doing looks great. What do you think?”
Or, later in the day or perhaps earlier in the morning.
Gary: Reading on the deck. Looking right at his book. Not saying a word.
Brent: “Isn’t this quiet great? So peaceful. So relaxing. The only sound you can hear is the quiet song of a bird singing from time to time. Oh. Listen. Hear that one? Robin? Cardinal? OMG! Now listen. It’s the crow that lives in the pine tree midway up the mountain. See? I can just barely see it. Can you?”
I don’t think my chatter bothered Gary. It must not have. If it had, he would have said something. But he didn’t say anything. Not one word.
Still, I imagine that when he got in his Mazda, drove down the rutted mountain road, and headed back to Tennessee, he sighed a sigh of relief, verily saying aloud to himself:
“Peace. Quiet. Thank God.”
I’m sure, though, that it was a short sigh because it didn’t take too long before he sent me a text message. Or did I send one to him?
Who sent what to whom and when doesn’t really matter, does it? Either way, texting is talking. Right?
I think so, and the message–whether coming in from Gary or going out from me–found me sitting on my deck, listening to the birds, and thinking to myself:
“How incredibly quiet. I can’t believe how peacefully quiet it is, sitting here, me, myself, sipping on my coffee. Sipping. Sipping. Sipping.”
In that nanosecond, Kay Ryan’s “Shark’s Teeth” talked its poetic way into my quiet:
Everything contains some silence. Noise gets its zest from the small shark’s-tooth shaped fragments of rest angled in it. An hour of city holds maybe a minute of these remnants of a time when silence reigned, compact and dangerous as a shark. Sometimes a bit of a tail or fin can still be sensed in parks.
And I sat there, sipping my coffee, cup held high in mid-air—my morning salutation to quiet, my morning celebration of quiet, my morning realization that much of life is framed by quiet.
In art, it’s the white that lets the red pop. The space the eye travels through to find what matters. The breath between brushstrokes. Without it, everything would shout. And nothing would be seen.
In music, it’s the rest that gives the chord its ache. The pause before the resolution. The silence that says, wait. And because you waited, you feel more.
And in me? Despite the smile. Despite the gab. Even I need the quiet that I so often deny others.
Not just to appreciate it— but to let it hold me, steady me, remind me that I belong to the silence, too.
The kind that doesn’t ask for attention. The kind that lets the world be. The kind that lets me be, too.
A crow calling far off. A weed pulled in rhythm. A breath drawn but not spoken over. A book opened without comment.
Gary nearby, not needing to say a word. And I? Nearby as well. Listening. Savoring quiet in silence.
“To publish is to make knowledge public, to assert its value, and to offer it up to the judgment of the world.”
–—Robert Darnton (b. 1939), American cultural historian of the Enlightenment and former Director of the Harvard University Library; renowned for his work on the history of the book and 18th-century France, including The Literary Underground of the Old Regimeand The Case for Books.
Surely, you’ll remember the groundbreaking work I finished earlier this year on one of the greatest literary mysteries in early American history.
The Humourist—a sharp-witted, enigmatic essayist whose satirical columns lit up the front page of The South-Carolina Gazette in 1753 and 1754—had been lost to time, his identity buried beneath centuries of silence.
Through meticulous research—poring over newspapers, historical records, forgotten manuscripts, and overlooked clues—I solved the mystery, unmasking the man behind the essays: Alexander Gordon. His identity, his world, and the forces that led to his disappearance are now fully revealed.
I shared that discovery through this blog, but solving the mystery was only the beginning. The real work—the restoration—was still to come.
Now, after years of refining that research, the book I’ve long envisioned is finally becoming a reality.
Yesterday, I received the first proof of the book’s interior pages. Looking at them is more than a thrill—it is validation. These pages mark the first step toward publication and the return of a long-silenced voice.
Unmasking The Humourist: Alexander Gordon’s Lost Essays of Colonial Charleston, South Carolina is not just a rediscovery. It is a scholarly edition that restores one of the most significant—but overlooked—literary voices of colonial America. The essays appear in full, meticulously annotated and contextualized, accompanied by a critical introduction that explores Gordon’s identity, influences, and legacy.
Why This Book Matters
This is more than the story of a forgotten writer. It’s about:
● The literary landscape of colonial America and its deep connections to the English essay tradition. ● The power of satire to shape public discourse—even in a bustling port city like Charleston. ● The intimate intersection of literature, politics, and history, as seen through the eyes of a writer who was both observer and insider.
For the first time, The Humourist’s essays will step out of the yellowed pages of The South-Carolina Gazette and into the full light of historical and literary analysis.
The Book Will Arrive This Fall
This carefully curated edition will include:
● All of The Humourist’s essays, fully annotated. ● A critical introduction grounded in original scholarship. ● Historical and literary commentary that situates Gordon in both local and transatlantic traditions. ● A call for further scholarly attention to this long-overlooked voice.
Stay Tuned
In the coming months, I’ll be sharing exclusive glimpses into the publication journey, from typesetting to launch. The return of The Humourist is well underway.
The mystery was solved long ago. But this fall, the voice that once stirred Charleston will speak again—with clarity, context, and a proper name.
The Wired Researcher 