Tag Archives: Family Stories

Poor Brentford Cleans the Wax Out of His Ears and Finds Meaning in the Noise and Music of Mistakes

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As 2025 comes to its close, Poor Brentford makes his last appearance of the year, offering a final benedictus and inviting us all to lean in, mishear boldly,
and sing in broken harmony “One Lane Zion.”

This is a true story. A confession, if you will. It’s the kind my mother used to make before coffee, after coffee, or frankly whenever the mood struck her to entertain herself and whoever else happened to be within earshot.

She’d sit at the Formica-topped, chrome-legged kitchen table, coffee cup in hand, her pinky raised just so, and say, perfectly straight-faced:

“When the Primitive Baptists sang ‘On Him I Can Depend,’ I was absolutely certain they were singing ‘On Him I candy pin.’”

Then she’d pause—just long enough to make you look up—and add:

“I always pictured the Lord wearing a peppermint-striped robe, a nice big bow, and candy pinned all over Him. It was a sweet, sweet comfort to my soul.”

That was my mother. She could turn blasphemy into blessing before breakfast.

I guess mishearing runs in the family. Maybe it all started with her. As I grew older and older, I swear on a stack of leather britches that everyone all over our little coal camp was mishearing things but making sense of them anyhow. Somehow.

When I was little, I guess I always thought everyone heard what I heard. I mean when our little congregation would launch into that grand old harvest hymn, I was sure as heck they were “Bringing in the sheep.” What else could they be bringing in? Say what? Sheaves? No way. We had sheep in the hollers of West Virginia. I had seen one or two, and I was certain that someone needed to do something with them especially when the cold Sheep’s Rain started to fall. It made perfect theological sense to me that the faithful would gather their flocks and present them to the Almighty before supper, or some hungry days, maybe even for supper.

But Lord have mercy. Wait ’til I tell you what my oldest sister swore she heard when the church sang “Oh, How I Love that Man of Galilee.” To this very day, she swears she thought they were praising Galileo. That works, too. Love is love, after all. I just hope she didn’t think that Jesus had a telescope and a strong interest in planetary motion. He didn’t, did He?

So there we were—a family of devout mishearers, certain our Creator managed sheep and celestial calculations all before breakfast.

Our unpainted cinderblock church sat in a dirt field without a sign or even a sign of grass right at the bottom of Pool Room Hill and by the time a hymn rhapsodied its way out the solitary window that someone painted-shut, it was anybody’s guess what the congregation was singing. The hymnals were worn thin, the pianist kept on keeping on with that clickety-clackety thing she did on the ivories, and half the folks sang from memory or eyesight blurred by coal dust and exhaustion.

Here’s an example as good as plenty. “I’ll Fly Away.” Poor Brentford’s dad who didn’t darken a church door in those days, swore what he heard it come up from below was loud and clear:

“I’ll Find a Way.”

Wouldn’t that make perfect sense for a coal miner like him to hear lyrics like that, especially in a coal camp where folks never expected wings anywhere except outside in the chicken coop or inside on a dinner plate. All they hoped for was a break in the company line, a way to keep supper on the table, and the roof patched till payday. Finding a way was its own kind of flight. And Lord knows he found a way.

But then came “In the Sweet By and By,” which Poor Brentford swore was “In the Sweet Buy and Buy.” He figured Heaven must have a company store too, just like the one in Ashland, only this one sold mercy by the pound and grace on credit. Maybe the angels might even mark the bill “Paid in Full,” but till then, you’d better keep your script handy.

One Sunday, right after his daddy got a payday and got back home from playing cards, he heard the choir swell into “Where Could I Go but to the Lord?” But land’s sake. What do you think reached that poor child’s ears? “Where Could I Go but to the Store?” It landed with hard conviction. In a camp where the store kept both your debts and your dinner, the line between salvation and supplies was never quite clear. He pictured the Lord behind the counter, apron dusted in flour, handing out hope with provisions and trusting somebody somewhere to settle up.

In places like that, meaning bent itself toward survival. Hymns, promises, even Heaven had to pass through the same filter as supper and credit—what will keep us going.

And then came the hymn that nearly undid him: “Holy, Holy, Holy.” No doubt Poor Brentford heard “Holey, holey, holey.” He saw it all: Heaven’s laundry line stretched across eternity, robes and socks waving in a golden breeze, each one worn clean through at the knees.

“Makes sense,” he thought. “If you’ve spent your life kneeling, you’ll come through the Pearly Gates with a few holes to show for it.”

Another time, the choir raised its voices for “There Is a Balm in Gilead.” The Cold War was heating up in his early ears and the green window shades were being pulled down every night to keep the Commies from seeing the riches inside all the rickety little houses in the coal camp, and Poor Brentford nearly dove under the pew, sure they were shouting a warning:

“There Is a Bomb in Gilead.”

He scanned the room for a coal mine to run to for safety and muttered, “Lord, if this is the rapture, it’s poorly timed.”

One song though, hit him so hard it nearly made him shut up. It was when he heard one of the church sisters in Christ singing a cappella as best she could but way off key, “Farther Along.” He heard it as “Father Alone.” For once, the mistake didn’t make him laugh. He saw in his mind a weary God sitting by Himself on a cloud, wondering why His children kept wandering off—singing the wrong words but meaning every one of them.

That was the first time mishearing didn’t feel like play. It felt like recognition.

Years later, long after the hymnal pages had crumbled and the ivories had browned, Poor Brentford decided that maybe he should go away, somewhere far away, and get the wax out of his ears and maybe get some schoolhouse so that he could understand things better. Sure enough. He did. You’d never guess what he discovered?

One day, without even looking for it, he stumbled onto a word for what they’d been doing all along. A real word.

Mondegreen.

Turns out it came from a Scottish ballad, where a poor lady was said to have “laid him on the green,” but someone heard it as “Lady Mondegreen.” Poof! Just like that, the misheard lady was granted immortality. Proof! Just like that, a wrong word, held long enough, can become its own kind of truth.

When Poor Brentford learned about that word he laughed out loud. He had been inventing Lady Mondegreens since the cradle and had gone on to fill his whole durn life with saints and shepherds who existed only in the wax between his ears.

And isn’t that just like all of us? The whole world hums along out of tune. You want more proof? Just take a gander at some pop songs:

Jimi Hendrix cried, “’Scuse me while I kiss the sky,” but half of America swore he said, “’Scuse me while I kiss this guy.”

Elton John pleaded, “Hold me closer, tiny dancer,” but we still see him clutching Tony Danza.

Creedence Clearwater Revival warned, “There’s a bad moon on the rise,” though to many of us it will forever be, “There’s a bathroom on the right.”

Poor Brentford’s verdict on ’em all?

“These all work fine. Kissin’, bathrooms, Tony Danza—whatever gets you through the verse.”

But here’s what caught him off guard. He realized the same muscle that bends words into comfort bends meaning too. We don’t just mishear lyrics; we reinterpret life until it sings in our key.

A miner hears “I’ll Find a Way.”

A child hears “In the Sweet Buy and Buy.”

A lonely church sister hears “Father Alone.”

Maybe that’s not error at all. Maybe it’s hope doing what hope does best—repairing what’s broken. Maybe that’s the thing about mishearing: sometimes, by pure accident, you stumble into truth. Because really, what’s faith if not a lifelong attempt to make sense of what we can’t quite hear?

We catch snatches. We fill in the blanks. We call it belief.

Of one thing, though, Poor Brentford is certain. The holey Holy doesn’t wholly mind. Maybe Heaven even keeps a special choir—the Mishearing Saints—singing merrily off-script but in tune with the heart.

Even now, I reckon meaning still passes through the same old filter—what helps us hold on, what helps us make it through the night.

So listen up. As 2026 trollops its way in, go on and clean the wax out of your own durn ears.

When you do, Lord knows what you’ll hear. Maybe you’ll find out why folks have been laughin’.

Happy New Ear.

In Honor of Fathers Everywhere | What My Father Saw

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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 saw his 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.

That’s what my father saw.

A Week Back to the Future

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“Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.”

—A. A. Milne (1882–1956), English author best known for creating Winnie-the-Pooh and stories that continue to shape how we remember childhood, love, and the quiet power of small things.

It was a portable Remington Rand typewriter in a gray box lined with green felt. In 1956, my parents went to Lilly Office Supply and bought it for my sister Arlene, who was taking high school typing. After graduation, she “went away”—not far, but far enough to feel exotic to my boyhood mind—to become a medical technologist in a residential hospital program.

She returned home often, always bringing—unbeknownst to her and to me—pieces of my future.

One of the first that impressed my ten-year-old spirit was her interest in tropical fish, no fancier than fan-tail guppies but fancy enough to ignite in me a lifelong love. My one-hundred-gallon tropical aquarium speaks to a piece of my future that settled in and endured.

I’m not sure, but next up might have been some of the exotic recipes she cooked when she came back on visits. I remember one dish in particular. Arlene called it pepper steak, but it wasn’t French au poivre or Chinese stir-fry. This was hers—flank steak pounded thin, rolled up tight, and packed with cracked black pepper. Lots and lots of pepper. She baked it low and slow until the whole kitchen smelled like heat and adventure.

I was hell-bent on loving it. It was different, and Arlene made it. That alone made it holy. My mother, no stranger to bold flavors from coal camp kitchens, loved it too. She said Arlene had a touch. That dish lit a fuse. It was the first truly “foreign” flavor I fell for—and from that bite forward, I was hungry for worldwide cuisine. It was a piece of my future that still lingers on my adventuresome culinary palate.

What else? Once, Arlene brought home one of her Mahalia Jackson albums—a 12-inch LP—titled In the Upper Room. I remember the cover, but even more, I remember the sound: Mahalia’s voice rising from the vinyl like a sermon on wings, wide-mouthed and full-throated, her vowels rich and trembling with conviction. That mouth—large, commanding, joyful—seemed to carry an entire congregation inside it. You didn’t just hear her sing. You stood up straighter, somewhere deep in your bones. Her singing resonated naturally with me. I had fallen in love with Black Gospel in my early coal camp years, and even though we had moved away, now I could enjoy Black Gospel on my own record player. Notes and chords from that piece of my future still rattle my rafters every morning as my soul feeds on Black Gospel fire while I bike indoors or garden in the sun.

Arlene brought many other pieces of my future back home when she visited, all held tightly together by my realization that she was living the good life, maybe because she had “gone away” but definitely because her education had opened doors. As a medical technologist, she could go anywhere in the world. Bluefield (WV) was nearby yet far away. Richlands (VA)–just across a mountain or two–was ever further away. Richmond, which in my young mind was further than the stretch of my imagination, was clean across Virginia.

When she came back home, she arrived in style.

How well I remember her 1959 BMW 507 Roadster, white as a wedding glove, low-slung and impossibly sleek. The chrome trim shimmered like polished silverware, and the twin kidney grilles gave it a kind of sly, knowing smile. With its long, sculpted hood and tucked-in waistline, it didn’t sit on the dirt road in front of our home—it posed. And yet—for all its glamour—it was so feather-light, I once watched my brother Stanley and my brother-in-law Lemuel lift it off the road and set it gently in the yard, as if it were a city toy that had wandered into a grown-up mountain world by mistake.

Sometimes, instead of driving home, Arlene would fly. I can still see her coming down the steps of the plane, with a look on her face fiercely defying the engine’s turbulence to disturb her sculpted bouffant—a chin-length hairstyle with smooth volume at the crown, gently curled ends, and a sleek, side-swept part. It was polished but not overdone, and it framed her face with effortless elegance, just as it did her heroine Jackie Kennedy, who made the hairstyle fashionable.

Arlene had exquisite taste in clothing, too—expensive, yes, but timeless. She didn’t follow fashion; she curated it. Her closet was a study in fine fabrics: tailored wool skirts, cashmere sweaters so soft they seemed to hold their own breath, and coats that whispered elegance with every movement. She favored deep, dramatic colors—navy, charcoal, forest green, black—tones my mother thought too somber for a woman her young age.

But Arlene wore them with such composure that you’d never question it. Even in our modest home, she had the poise of someone just back from Paris or somewhere so far away it sounded like it should be whispered.

In my young mind, she had arrived, not only with all the quiet showings of her success but also with the equally quiet sharing of her largesse. She was religious in sending money to my parents—especially as my dad began his retirement from the coal mines—and later to me when I started college.

In all of those ways, I saw in her life pieces of my own future.

But when Arlene “went away,” she left behind one piece that might have had an impact on me—equal to if not greater than—the other pieces of my future that she brought back home with every visit.

Her Remington Rand typewriter in a gray box lined with green felt.

My sister Judy used it when she took typing. And if you guessed that it was passed on to me, you guessed right. Starting with my typing classes and stretching far into the future, Arlene’s Remington Rand began a remarkable journey—one that may be unmatched in the annals of typewriter chronicles.

When I went to Alderson-Broaddus University in 1965, it went with me. I typed all of my papers, including my Honors Thesis, on that Remington.

When I graduated in 1969, it went with me to Washington, DC, where I started my career at the Library of Congress. I typed a proposal for a concordance to Robert Frost’s poetry on that Remington.

Three years later, when I started my doctoral program at the University of South Carolina (USC), it went with me to Columbia, where I wrote all of my graduate papers on that Remington.

One was more important than any of the others. In preparing it, I found myself in Richmond for a week, staying with Arlene and her husband Clyde, a police officer. She was surprised that I still had her Remington and that I was using it even in graduate school.

I put it to phenomenal use that week. Looking back, I wonder what trajectory my life might’ve taken had it not been for that turning-point.

Lean in a little closer and let me explain.

It was my first semester at USC, and I was taking a survey course in 19th-century American Literature. One of the stories that we read was Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s “A Humble Romance.” I had never heard of the writer before, but I was so smitten by her story that I read another one and then another one and many, many more. Aside from thinking that they were extraordinary stories, I was captivated by a pattern of strong-willed women who inevitably never married. I was equally captivated when I discovered that Freeman herself did not marry until she was nearly fifty.

It was a minor aha moment. I had a perfect research paper topic: “Single Women and Gender Identity in Selected Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman.” My professor approved, suggesting that I explore Freeman’s letters for supporting biographical evidence.

To my initial horror, I discovered that Freeman’s letters had never been published. But to my immediate delight, I discovered that Clifton Waller Barrett Library at the University of Virginia had a small collection of her letters. In a flash, I had an action plan. I would stay with Arlene and Clyde in Richmond, make the daily one-hour drive to Charlottesville, spend the day in Barrett Library, and return at the end of each day.

The typewriter went with me on those daily research trips, and during that week, I prepared a transcript of the Freeman letters at the Barrett Library, systematically and methodically using that Remington.

I returned to Columbia the next week and continued working on my Freeman paper and on papers in my other courses, all typed on that Remington.

By semester’s end, I had an epiphany. For my doctoral dissertation, I could locate and edit Freeman’s letters. My advisor loved the idea, as did my committee, but knowing more fully than I the rigor involved in such a project, they urged me to limit my scope to selected letters. I prevailed with my initial proposal. Ten years of research later–with trips to more than fifty libraries across the country, always armed with Arlene’s Remington Rand–I finished my dissertation and was awarded my Ph.D. In 1985, the fruit of my scholarly labors was published: The Infant Sphinx: Collected Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. It remains, as The Journal of Modern Literature noted in its review, “the most complete record to date of Freeman’s life as writer and woman.”

But wait, wait. Don’t go. I need to share a few more details so that you’ll understand even more fully how Arlene’s Remington Rand typewriter and her quiet support during that week in her home all came together, and a life of research dedicated to Freeman found its rhythm—click by click, page by page.

The five decades since have witnessed me not only digging up the past in all the towns where Freeman lived, wrote, and made the rest of the world sit up and take notice but also returning there as frequent keynote speaker, sharing with the towns’ citizens all of my findings, never before shared. Those same towns helped launch the publication of my landmark The Infant Sphinx as well as my watershed edition of Freeman’s Green Mountain Stories (2023), the intended title of her first collection of adult stories, A Humble Romance and Other Stories (1887).

These days, I’m working on Dolly: Life and Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. Vol I: The New England Years (1852-1901). Vol. II: The New Jersey Years (1902-1930). I have no doubt that three towns will welcome me back when Dolly is published. Randolph (MA), where she was born. Brattleboro (VT), where she launched her literary career. Metuchen (NJ), where she died.

But let’s move past all that Freeman stuff.

For now, let’s keep the spotlight on the woman who went away when I was a boy, returning home with a passion for tropical fish and gospel records, pepper steak and black wool coats, fast cars and high-flying planes, and all the other things that the good life had to offer–giving me something far more. The dreams. The belief. The typewriter.

For now, let’s keep the spotlight on my sister Arlene, who always brought home—unbeknownst to her and to me—pieces of my enduring future.

What If I’m Not Who You Think I Am?

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“Today you are You, that is truer than true.
There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

–Dr. Seuss (1904–1991; American Children’s author and illustrator who used humor and rhyme to convey timeless lessons on individuality, kindness, and resilience; the quote is from his 1959 book Happy Birthday to You!)

How totally presumptuous of me to assume that you think you know who I am. But if you’re one of my faithful followers–or if you’re just an occasional reader–you probably know more about me than you care to know or than I care for you to know. Be that as it may, whatever you’ve read in my posts is all true, even if exaggerated occasionally, hoping to make you think or laugh. And, yes, sometimes I tell the truth slant so that I don’t razzle dazzle you with reality:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind — (Emily Dickinson)

The reality is this: I know who I am. But growing up as a kid, my siblings tried to teasingly convince me otherwise by telling me that I was adopted.

“You don’t look like us.”

“You don’t act like us.”

“You don’t talk like us.”

“You don’t walk like us.”

“Yep. You’re adopted. Brentford Lee Murdock.”

Imagine that. Making me doubt my own genetics. The nerve! How dare they tell me that I was adopted in one breath, and then without batting an eye, tell me in the next breath what they insisted was my real surname: Murdock! Well, their teasing never bothered me one bit, not one slightest chromosome. The way they walked, the way they talked, the way they acted, and the way they looked, I was glad to know that they were no kin of mine. None. Not one gene whatsoever. OMG! Did I just say that? How utterly nasty of me, if not downright, vicious. Well. They teased me then. I tease them now. Touché.

Candidly, I think they were just downright jealous because I was not only the youngest, but I was also the only one born in a hospital, one named after a Saint, no less. They were born in a coal-camp house. Not me. I was fancy-schmancy from birth, and, unlike theirs, my birth certificate is fancy, too. My goodness. I pulled it out just a few minutes ago. It’s gorgeous, gloatingly so. 8 inches x 12 inches. Parchment. Real, feel-good parchment. Enclosed in a smooth, velvety envelope. It even has my cute little newborn footprints on the back, labeled Left and Right. Beside my left footprint is my mother’s left thumb print. Beside my right footprint is my mother’s right thumbprint.

Adopted? Right. I could have extracted that certificate in a moment’s notice, proving my identity to my teasing sibs, because I knew exactly where my parents kept it. I never bothered. Some things just aren’t worth the bother, you know. When you know who you are, you know who you are. And believe me: I am who I am, and I have always known who I am, and I’m sticking with it. Besides, time was on my side and proved it for me without my having to do one single, solitary thing. As I got older and older, and balder and balder, I started to look more and more like my father. Today, I could nearly pass for his twin when he was my age. But so be it. I still don’t act like them. I still don’t talk like them. So you can rest assured: whenever it’s convenient for me to do so–in times of family disputes and in times of family disagreements–I simply look at them ever so innocently and I remind them, ever so teasingly:

“You are not going to drag me into your petty little family battles.

“I’ll have absolutely no part of it whatsoever. No part whatsoever.

“Have you forgotten? I haven’t. I’m adopted. I’m a Murdock.”

Without a doubt, I’ve always known how to use being adopted to my advantage.

However, it always struck me as rather unusual that I exhibit the exact same physical traits as my adoptive parents and my adoptive siblings.

My mother always boasted of her English ancestry, and when she really wanted to appear hoity-toity, she chronicled her French Huguenot ancestry. A close examination shows all of us–the whole family, including me as the adoptee–having fair complexion, blue eyes, and brown hair, consistent with my mother’s lineage as well as my father’s since he was also English mixed with German and Dutch. His father was exceedingly tall–6′ 4″–which he attributed to his being part German. His mother, on the other hand, was exceedingly short–4′ 8″–which he attributed to her being Dutch. Say whaaat? Unless I’m mistaken, the Neanderthals Netherlands boasts some of the tallest people in the world. Be that as it may, two of my sisters are short, and I’m certain that they blame their Grandma Kendrick.

Personally, as an outsider, I’m not certain that I give any more credence to all that malarkey than I do their ridiculous claim that I’m adopted. Besides, it doesn’t matter. They’re no kin of mine whatsoever. But with their mixed lineage–oh, I forgot to factor in Irish on one side or the other or both–they could have given me any number of surnames since 75-80% of Americans around the time that I was born came from the same stock. Aside from Murdock, my last name could just as easily have been Butterworth, McGinnis, LaFleur, or Freitag. Or maybe even Vanderpoop. I’ll have to try those on, one by one, with Brentford Lee affixed to the front, before I decide whether any one of them sounds better or affords more advantages than Brentford Lee Murdock.

This is all such fun that maybe I’ll stick with being adopted and be done with my identity once and forever.

But first I have to tell you what I’ve gone and done to celebrate my 77th birthday on November 20. I can’t believe I did it, but I did! And I can’t believe that I’m telling you what I did, but I am. I trust you. I know that you won’t tell another living soul. I decided that once and for all, I would prove to the clan that I got stuck with that I AM adopted. I’ll show them that they need to be careful about what they say because what’s spoken becomes reality.

Anyway, I ordered myself one of those highfalutin DNA tests to prove who I am! It shipped out from Salt Lake City. Then, it stopped in Bridgeport, NJ. I know all the details because I felt compelled to track its journey since, in a way, its journey will be tracking mine. Tracking is part of the fun of ordering anything online, including a kit that might tell me who I am. I confess, though. Waiting for it to arrive in Edinburg made me so antsy that I felt like my pants were on fire!

At last, it arrived, and I opened it ever so carefully. I followed the detailed directions ever so precisely. I wanted to make sure that someone somewhere had enough saliva from my swabbed cheeks so that they could sequence every strand and map every marker of my identity.

I am pleased to say that I swabbed the good swab, I sent my whoever-I-am-DNA back to Salt Lake City, and I have been notified that it’s better than good! My sample met the “high standards” required for DNA testing. Oh. My. I love being validated in high places.

The next steps are fantabulous:

● Extract the genetic information from my sample. Ouch! I hope that doesn’t hurt.

● Isolate, purify, and copy my DNA. Please say it ain’t so. Please say it ain’t so. One Brentford Lee Mudock at a time is quite enough for this world.

● Transform my DNA into a blueprint for discovery. Go for it! Find my bluebloods and make them come out of their closets, even if they don’t want to come out.

● Dig deep into my ancestral roots that span across continents. My God! I thought I was done with weeding.

● Weave a family tree. Woo hoo! While they’re at it, maybe they’ll weave me a hairpiece, too.

● Update me as my landscape unfolds. Hmmm. I guess these DNA folks like gardening as much as I do.

In about eight weeks, I’ll get a report with all of that information and more. Voila! My jeans genes will be transparent for all to see.

Here’s where it starts to get funny. Chances are beyond good that I will never explore my DNA report when it arrives.

It’s not that I’m afraid of what I might find out. I’m not. And I really don’t think that the results would change anything anyway. All right. Perhaps it might validate the outlandish claim that one of my no-kin-of-mine-whatsoever relatives made about being descended from John the Baptist. For all I know about them, they might be descended from Queen Elizabeth I, Brian Boru, Rembrandt, or even John Calvin himself! La-di-da. But why would I care? Like they’ve always reminded me, “You’re’ adopted.” And like I’ve always retorted with all the civility they don’t deserve, “You’re no kin of mine. Not one chromo, Bro.”

Besides. I know who I am, and I am anchored strong to my identity.

I’m a vital part of the universe, rooted in Nature and connected to Her. I draw lessons from everything in Nature, seeing the world around me as resilient metaphors for growth, transformation, and stability in life. Nothing can ever take that away.

I’m dedicated to personal growth and to declaring and maintaining my authenticity. I have always been the real thing, and I will continue to be. I embrace self-examination and transformation, and I am open to change. Nothing can take that away.

I’m creative in all that I do, whether it’s in writing, cooking, or gardening. I bring a thoughtful, personal touch to all that I do, and I like to think that I can weave philosophical insights into anything and see truths in everything. Nothing can take that away.

I’m comfortable with both tradition and innovation. I value the old and the new, and I am committed to learning from the past while seeing potential in the future. Nothing can take that away.

I’m strengthened by community and my connections with others. Although I am introspective, I cherish my relationships. I celebrate ideas, value honesty, empathy, and the bonds that tie me to all others. Nothing can take that away.

I’m passionate about intellectual curiosity and lifelong learning. I believe that education transforms lives, and I believe that an education is the best investment that anyone can ever make in themselves or in others. Nothing can take that away.

I’m anchored to the world around me. While I am at home right here on my mountaintop sanctuary in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, I am confident that my appreciation of place would make me feel equally at home anywhere in the world. What I find, I’ll make mine. Nothing can take that away.

I’m an integral part of a spiritual tradition that is open and deep, that is inclusive, that respects universal truths, and that leads me to see my interconnectedness with all living things. I kneel before the wisdom of the ages. Nothing can take that away.

Above all else, I’m a man of heart—generous in spirit, passionate in purpose, compassionate by nature, and unwaveringly true to who I am, with just enough mischief to keep life, and those around me, delightfully off-balance. Nothing can take that away.

Nothing–absolutely nothing–that I know now or that I might come to know in the future–can ever undo my identity anchors. That’s why my DNA report will remain sealed, as far as I know right now.

It does occur to me, however, that one thing might push me over the edge enough to make me want to know my genetic past.

The next time that I have a sibling spat, I might open the report so that I can prove to them–and them only–that I am none other than the illustrious and inimitable Brentford Lee McGinnis LaFleur Kendrick Freitag Murdock Vanderpoop.

Sister’s Hands

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“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

—Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948; a leader in India’s fight for independence and a global icon of nonviolent resistance, inspiring movements for civil rights and freedom worldwide.)

Every family has its own revered storytellers. For mine, it was my mother. All the way up until her death at 98, she could tell family stories with a full appreciation of place, with a natural understanding of hooking listeners with an inciting incident, and then of building suspense until the story was powerfully brought to its climax and to a resolution that more often than not uplifted and shone a bright light even on the dourest of plots.

Since my mother’s death, my sister Audrey has continued the storytelling tradition. It’s natural that she would. As the oldest daughter in the family, she lived the stories that she tells us about. What’s amazing to me is her incredible ability to recall how things looked, tasted, and smelled. As she tells our family stories, her voice carries me back in time, weaving memories as vivid as the scents and sounds she describes. Like my mother, she has a natural sense for drawing in listeners with something exciting, even if it’s minor, for building suspense masterfully and for guiding her story to a powerful ending. Her resolutions often uplift, always casting a bright light even on the hardest of hard coal mining times in Southern West Virginia where we grew up and where she still lives.

Since Audrey is my oldest sister, in characteristic Southern fashion, we’ve always called her Sister. On the rare occasion when I call her by her given name, just to remind myself of how it sounds and to see how she will react, she’s convinced that I’m upbraiding her about something or other, as if I, the baby brother in the story, would ever fault an older sibling.

Sister was twelve when I was born. She remembers that she and Brother argued about whose turn it was to rock me. (Yes, that’s what we called him since he was the oldest son. We never called him John.) They became rocking rivals:

“It’s my turn to rock Brentford Lee tonight.”

“No, it’s not. You rocked him last night.”

Sister reminds me often that I was rocked a lot.

I’ll have to take Sister’s word for it. I don’t remember.

My earliest vivid memory of Sister was when I was six or so, around 1953. Looking back and recalling a studio portrait of her from around that time, I think she looked just like acclaimed Hollywood star Rita Hayworth—elegant, with soft waves of hair framing a radiant face. She had a quiet beauty, captivating yet unassuming.

Aside from being a looker, Sister was an impeccable dresser. I especially remember her soft cashmere sweaters and her perfume, probably Chanel No. 5 or Arpège by Lanvin or Youth Dew by Estee Lauder. The next time we talk, I’ll ask her. She’ll remember it and all the other fragrances that she thought about wearing but didn’t. To give her fragrance story an added scent, she’ll explain all the details behind her perfumed choices. Then I’ll be able to smell her perfume again, just as I did when I was a kid, and I will know.

I remember two other things about Sister from my early years. It was then that she started her tradition of gifting our Mother heart-shaped boxes of Whitman’s Samplers every Valentine’s Day. They were magnificent, with tufted velvet tops and satin ribbons lending a touch of elegance to our coal camp home. Inside, layers of chocolates offered a variety of flavors like caramels, truffles, and fruit creams. The lavish packaging, combined with the rich selection of chocolates, made opening a Whitman’s Sampler a special Valentine’s Day event for my Mother.

Also, around that time, Sister patiently taught me how to embroider on pillowcases. I was immediately captivated by the array of colored threads—so vibrant and alive in my small hands. The soft yarn felt like magic as I pulled it through the fabric, creating tiny, neat stitches that transformed the plain cloth into something beautiful. Each new stitch felt like a secret unfolding. I marveled at how these simple threads could bring flowers, shapes, and patterns to life. The rhythmic motion of needle and thread became a calming, almost meditative ritual, sparking a lifelong appreciation for craftsmanship.

I remember other things about Sister as well, but this story isn’t about the things that most women born in 1935 lived their lives doing. I could say that this story isn’t about endless labor, both inside and outside the home. I could say that this story isn’t about scrubbing laundry on washboards, hanging clothes on backyard lines to dry in summer sun and winter freeze. I could say that this story isn’t about mending torn seams by hand or pressing starched clothes with a heavy iron heated on a stove. I could say that this story isn’t about cooking tonight’s meal and wondering about where provisions for the next night’s meal would come from. I could say that this story isn’t about waitressing for decades on less than minimum wage while hoping for just a little more than the nickels or dimes or quarters left behind as afterthought tips. I could say that this is not a story about hands carrying out daily chores with unwavering strength and care.

In reality, Sister did all of those things. But she did one thing more, and it matters most in this story.

For five decades, Sister’s hands served others whose hands were not strong enough to take care of themselves in their final years.

For them, Sister’s hands were a source of comfort and strength in the hardest times. Her hands were the ones that soothed fevered brows and prepared meals that nourished more than just the body. They carefully arranged pillows, tucked in blankets, and held on during the darkest moments. They brushed away tears and wiped the sweat from a forehead when words weren’t enough.

Her hands folded laundry, served meals, and held on when strength was needed the most. Whether it was a gentle touch in passing or the firm grip during a time of fear, her hands were always there, ready to offer love and care. Sister’s hands held those who needed it, day after day, year after year, never asking for anything in return.

Sister’s hands offered all of those comforts to our father in his final days, and to Brother’s
wife, caring for her with tenderness. They lovingly attended to our mother until
the very end, and they held her fiancé as their shared future faded away. Lastly,
they cared for Brother—our parents’ firstborn and her first playmate—offering
him unwavering love and support as he faced his final days.

On this special day, as Sister turns 89, her hands still carry the same love and strength they’ve always given.

When the time comes for Sister to cross the Great Divide, her hands will be clapping jubilantly, knowing that on the other side will be those she loved so much and served so selflessly. They’ll be there waiting to greet her once more, to applaud her decades of selfless love, compassion, and service, and to gently wipe away the tears of reunion and celebration.

This is the story of Sister’s hands.