Writers may write alone, but essays are completed by readers. Brent L. Kendrick (b. 1947)
Today marks the halfway point of 2026, and I’m delighted to share a milestone.
During the first six months of the year, The Wired Researcher has been viewed more than 17,000 times.
When I embarked on this new chapter inventing myself, I wondered where I would find the conversations that had sustained me for so many years in the classroom. I eventually discovered that they hadn’t ended at all. They had simply moved online, where every Monday morning another essay leaves my desk and finds its way into the world.
Some essays make readers laugh. Others invite reflection. A few stir memories. Every once in a while, one seems to touch something I never anticipated.
What pleases me most isn’t that one essay did well. It’s that readers have embraced essays about humor, language, gardening, relationships, cooking, aging, memory, and the unexpected moments that make ordinary life extraordinary. That tells me you’re returning not just for a topic, but for the journey.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for commenting, sharing, and encouraging me week after week. Writers may write alone, but essays are completed by readers.
Here’s to the essays that have already been shared—and to those still waiting patiently for Monday morning.
To you, My Dear Readers, I am grateful beyond measure.
“There is always one more shot worth believing in.” —Brent L. Kendrick (b. 1947)
My feet were planted firmly and deliberately on the ground, slightly wider than shoulder width. My body, relaxed and balanced. One hand rested at waist level atop the mallet handle while the other settled lower, wherever comfort and habit had taught it to belong. The mallet hung naturally between my legs, its head poised just behind the ball. I lowered my eyes and followed an invisible line from the center of the ball toward my target. Everything aligned—the ball, the mallet, the distant wicket.
I knew exactly what would come next. With a smooth pendulum swing, I would send the mallet forward, hopefully striking the exact middle of the ball with the center of the mallet head. Just a clean, controlled stroke followed by an easy, unforced follow-through.
Before the mallet could complete its journey, my eyes wandered across the court. It sloped. It dipped. It rose unexpectedly. Grass gave way to patches of dirt. Dirt surrendered to weeds. A ball aimed carefully at a wicket might obey the player—or it might obey the slope. Every shot demanded adjustment. Every turn required patience. Success depended as much on adaptation as skill.
The course occupied a small clearing below the house, tucked among towering trees and surrounded by gardens that had spent decades settling into the mountain. From some spots, the Shenandoah Valley peeked through the foliage below. From others, the trees enclosed the court in a world of their own. Sunlight filtered through the leaves overhead, scattering patches of light and shadow across the grass. No two shots looked quite the same.
A croquet purist would likely find fault with nearly everything about it. The ground wasn’t level. The grass wasn’t uniform. Roots lurked beneath the surface. Gravity inserted itself into nearly every decision. Yet the court possessed a certain stubborn charm. It was not the court one might design from scratch. It was the court the mountain allowed. It was the court that Gary designed, determined to play here on the mountain.
My body remembered this. It had known this posture longer than the mountain had known this court.
To reach that court, I had to climb up a steep flight of concrete steps and walk through a loosely hinged metal gate that opened onto a long expanse of turf, cut close and tight. The starting point was a little way ahead, not far from the double clothesline stretched tight between two iron T’s. It was a narrow yard behind a white, clapboard colonial house across the road where I lived. Looking uphill beyond the fence, I could just barely see the roofline of a small cottage midway up the mountain. Looking to the end of the yard, the grass seemed to end where a fence had once been and where a grove of white pines towered over their needled floor, shading the two-story brick house in their midst.
The court began at the start of the clothesline, continued across the grass, and double-diamonded its way through an expansive and steep pine-needled slope behind the neighboring brick house, where the air turned cool and sharp with the smell of pine. On that court, too, a ball aimed carefully at a wicket might obey the player—or it might obey the slope. Every shot demanded adjustment. Every turn invited improvisation. Success depended as much on imagination as skill.
“You’re taking too long,” Gary called.
The mallet met the ball with a satisfying crack. My burgundy ball started confidently toward the waiting white wicket before surrendering, inch by inch, to the quiet persuasion of gravity.
Gary, shaded beneath his floppy blue sun hat, watched it drift off course and laughed. Beneath the broad brim of my straw hat, I laughed too. There we stood, two old men peering from beneath oversized brims, smelling of sunscreen and freshly cut grass, both convinced that the next shot would surely behave itself.
It didn’t.
Our next shots were even worse. Both balls gathered speed, raced gleefully downhill, crossed the boundary, and disappeared into the weeds. We looked at one another for a moment, then burst into laughter—the kind born of disbelief, optimism, and the certainty that we’d simply climb the hill and try again.
We retrieved our balls, walked back uphill, and tried again.
The older boys—home from college for the summer—were already waiting, mallets in hand. Impossibly slim in their side-tabbed trousers and white T-shirts, bronzed and unworried by the sun, they stood with the easy confidence of boys who belonged to the game. The air around them carried the faint, exotic drift of Jade East. Word traveled fast in a small town. They knew. Before I had even reached the gate, the squabbling began—whose team I would join, whose side would have me. I stepped into my place among them, planted my feet, lowered my eyes to the ball, and looked toward the waiting wicket.
That summer lived inside those arguments over me. I was one of them—not the youngest tag-along, not the kid from across the road, but a player worth having. Damned good, if the squabbling meant anything. The laughter came easily there, too. Cheers rose when a ball slipped cleanly through a wicket. Groans turned into laughter when it didn’t. Before the echoes faded, someone was already settling over the next shot, convinced this one would be different.
The wicket waited.
So did the slope.
So did the laughter.
Hands settled comfortably on well-worn mallets.
Feet found familiar ground.
Eyes followed an invisible line toward a distant wicket.
Everything aligned.
The mallet. The ball. The wicket.
And for one suspended moment, before the swing began, there was only belief that the ball would find its line.
“The writer who goes hunting ideas too aggressively usually returns with nothing but metaphors and poison ivy.”— Poor Brentford Lee. Reluctant naturalist and persistent thorn in his writerly side since 1947.
“Phooey!”
I swear on a stack of books yet to be written that’s exactly what Poor Brentford said.
And get this. He had the nerve to say it smack dab in the middle of a conversation with Gary while I was explaining that maybe, just maybe, I’d come up with something to write about while gardening.
“It’s not easy coming up with all these blog ideas.”
“But you seem to have more ideas than there are days.”
“I don’t know about that, but I came up with one right now. You’ll see.”
I wouldn’t be the first writer, of course, looking for something to write about.
I guess, truth be told, we all go hunting for material.
And precisely at that thought I heard:
“Phooey!”
Luckily, Gary did not hear Poor Brentford who was just getting started.
“It goes without saying that you’ll start your catalogue of examples with your Lady.”
“Of course I will. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman was notorious for writing about the people and happenings where she lived. And who, pray tell, knows that better than I?”
“Oh, Lord,” Poor Brentford moaned. “Must I listen one more time to your recitation of local influences in her Pembroke, People of Our Neighborhood, The Debtor …”
“Stop it. Stop it right there. That’s not fair. You know fully well that I don’t think I’ve ever said such a thing about those novels, but I could. She did.”
“What, then, were you going to corner me with?”
“Well, I was simply going to say that Freeman owned up to her literary heists.”
“Right. Sure, she did. Like she owned up to being ten years younger than she really was.”
Poor Brentford, I could tell, was a little more cantankerous than usual, so I decided to shut him up with proof.
“Here’s what she wrote a friend, and I quote, word for word: ‘Monday afternoon, I went a-hunting material too: We went to an old lady’s birthday-party. But …’:
He interrupted me mid-sentence.
“I’ve heard it before. Heard it all before, word by word: ‘… all I saw worth writing about there was a poor old dog who had been chained thirteen years, because he bit a man once, in his puppy-hood.'”
Poor Brentford was right, of course. I’ve written often about that poor puppy and how Freeman gave him a new life as Caesar in her “A New England Nun,” unaware perhaps that his resurrection in that story was linked inextricably and forever to sexual repression.
But was he kind enough to let me do it one more time? Of course not.
“You need to get new examples that will grab your readers’ attention the way that poor puppy grabbed Freeman’s heart.”
Before I could agree or disagree or even ask what writers he had in mind, he gave me a litany that lasted so long I needed a fresh shave. And get this. He had them all neatly organized by categories. It was disgusting. I mean he started off with the obvious, writers like Freeman who really did go looking. The way Henry David Thoreau did in Walden. Or Hemingway as he chased wars and bullfights and deep-sea fishing. Or Joan Didion’s notebooks capturing her fleeting impressions. He even had a list of counterparts across the Pond but before he could bless me with Dickens and his kith and kin, he lost his train of thought and started telling me about writers who made use of strange incidents.
● Frankenstein grew out of a ghost-story contest during a rainy vacation.
● Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland began as an improvised story told to amuse a child on a boat ride.
● The Metamorphosis reportedly sprang from the absurd question: what if a man woke up as an insect?
● The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was inspired by a dream.
I listened attentively, storing up those examples with every intent to use them in something or other one day or another, but I stood up and objected vehemently when he had the nerve to expect me to follow along with his discussion of the intertextual path that some writers had taken as they wrote famous works based on other folks’ famous works. Ulysses parallels The Odyssey. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as a spin off from Hamlet. I had heard enough. More than enough.
“All right, Poor Brentford. Let’s make a truce. Let’s sign a pact. Let’s forget that I ever mentioned my hope of finding a blog idea to write about.”
I paused. He paused. We stared at one another.
“If you do, you’ll be sorry.”
“It won’t be the first time, I’m sure. But if you’ll excuse me, I have to garden so that I’ll find something to write about.”
“You’re wasting your time. When’s the last time that you ever went looking for an idea and found one?”
I started to reply, but he cut me short.
“Did it ever occur to you that you’ve got this writerly thing of yours all reversed?”
“Thing? Writerly thing?” Spit it out. What’s your point?”
“My point,” Poor Brentford said, with the air of a man who has been waiting his entire existence to say exactly this, “is that you didn’t find your ideas. Your ideas found you.”
I opened my mouth.
“Don’t.”
I closed it.
“Take your Lady. Do you honestly believe you went looking for Mary E. Wilkins Freeman? Or did she reach up out of some footnote or bibliography and grab you by the collar in 1973 and simply refuse to let go? Because last time I checked, she still hasn’t.”
I said nothing, which, as Poor Brentford knows perfectly well, is as good as an admission.
“More than fifty years, Brent. Fifty years she has had you. And you have the audacity—the sheer pomposity—to sit there and tell Gary you went looking for something to write about while gardening. How generous of you. How magnanimous. How utterly beside the point.“
“And then there’s Alexander Gordon.”
He said it quietly, exactly the way Poor Brentford delivers his most devastating blows.
“You didn’t find The Humourist. The Humourist found you. He waited. Two hundred and nineteen years, give or take. Sitting in the only complete run of the South-Carolina Gazette in existence—survived earthquakes, fires, wars, and hurricanes, mind you—and then reached up out of a footnote in 1973 and grabbed a graduate student by the collar. And here you are, fifty-some years later, still in his grip. Still writing. Still talking about him at libraries.”
He paused for effect. He has always been insufferably good at pauses.
“They found you, Brent. Both of them. In the same year, no less. And they have never once seen fit to release you. How breathtakingly, magnificently pompous to think that you in your infinite wisdom found them.“
I sat down, flummoxed.
“What on earth am I supposed to do with that? I don’t have all the time in the world, you know, to come up with ideas.”
“Maybe,” Poor Brentford said, “that’s the whole point of this writerly thing I’m trying to help you understand.”
He settled back with an expression I hadn’t seen before. Not smug. Not cantankerous. Almost kind.
“Ideas,” he said, “are not sitting around waiting for you to come find them. They are, if you’ll permit me, already in motion. Floating. Drifting. Looking for the right home. The right mind. The right heart. They pass over some people entirely–perfectly nice people, mind you, and perfectly intelligent people–and move on. Then they find someone like you and they simply settle. Take up residence. Refuse to leave.”
I started to say something.
“Freeman settled in 1973. Gordon settled in 1973. The same year, Brent. Do you think that was your doing?”
I did not.
“Ideas are not hunted. They are not chased down like a rabbit hopping through your briary ravine.”
He folded his hands with great finality.
“They arrive. Always have. Always will. The only question that matters—the only question that ever has—is whether the writer is the kind of person who opens the door and makes a home.”
“The first porch is where you find your voice. The second porch is where your voice finds others.” —Poor Brentford Lee (b. 1947. Keeper of two porches, one mountain, one dog, and an inexhaustible supply of things worth saying—none of which he has to say alone anymore, thanks to his partner, Gary.)
Dear Faithful Readers,
You’ve been here with me on the porch since—well, some of you since the very beginning, back when I built it as nothing more than a place where you could pull up a chair and talk with me about the joys, challenges, and discoveries of research. We kept right on doing that from 2012 to 2021 when I decided to make the porch a little more fun by bringing you weekly creative nonfiction essays.
I’m still at it. Nearly 750,000 words later. Yes, you read it right. Foolin’ around in bed every night with ideas and words adds up. I’m spurred on by you, my Dear Readers, whose numbers keep increasing annually! Last year, we shared more than 35,000 views right here on the porch.
But I’ve built a brand-new porch, and I want you to be the first to know about it.
Don’t worry, though. I’m not leaving The Wired Researcher porch. It will remain open virtually forever. Same Monday mornings. Same voice–mine, with Poor Brentford’s voice chiming in from time to time. We’ll both be there, waiting for you.
I just heard someone shout out:
“So, why are you building a new porch? What’s that all about?”
Well, for starters, it has better lighting, and it might just bring in more neighbors for all of us to visit and exchange ideas.
I’m counting on you to check it out. I’ve named the second porch The Kendrick Chronicles.
“Where on earth is this new porch of yours?”
Gracious me! You know that I like to take my time–slow and easy like. In a sec, I’ll give you the link so that you can check it out for yourself. And when you do, go ahead and Subscribe! From that point forward, my essays–ever goldern new one that hits the world, every Monday morning like a neighbor who always brings something worth reading and never overstays his welcome–will find their way directly to your Inbox.
You can find this new porch of mine in Substack. Here’s the link:
“What will I find when I get to this new porch of yours?”
Why, gracious me! You’ll find a comfy chair with your name on it and a handful of your favorite essays with my name on ’em:
● Redbuds of Remembrance
● Learning to Love in New Ways
● I Am Afraid
● Poor Brentford Cleans the Wax Out of His Ears
● Two, Together
● Glimpses of My Mother’s Hands
● The Ghost of Palmyra Church Road
● Truths Half-Told. Letters Half-Burned. A Legacy Waiting to Be Fully Heard.
● Carrying the Bags of Colonial America’s Humourist
And get this. If you subscribe, next week you’ll get an essay about a kitchen disaster beyond belief: “Oh, No! No Sourdough!” And the week after that, “What We Know. What We Believe.” It may be the most complete thing I’ve ever written about who I am and what I believe about what comes next.
So go on now. Pull up a chair. Same voice. Wider porch.
“The pieces of the puzzle come together seamlessly; better still, Kendrick’s investigation informs and enriches the Humourist essays, illuminating their historical and literary contexts.” —Publishers Weekly
Publisher’s Weekly Cover, December 15-22, 2025
I knew the review was scheduled to appear. I’d marked the date. I’d even ordered copies in advance.
Still, nothing quite prepares you for the moment when the work arrives by weight.
Nineteen pounds, to be exact.
The box from Fry Communications sat innocently enough at the door, but when I lifted it, I laughed—an unguarded, surprised laugh. This wasn’t an email notification or a discreet PDF link. This was paper. Ink. Volume. Evidence that something quiet and patient had crossed a threshold into the world of objects.
Inside were stacks of Publishers Weekly—the December 15-22 issue, fresh from the press. And there it was: the review of Unmasking The Humourist, resting calmly among other books, other arguments, other claims on a reader’s attention. No fanfare. No special lighting. Just…there. As if it had always belonged.
The review in context.
That may sound small. It isn’t.
For writers—especially those of us who work in literary recovery, archival research, and historical attribution—most of the labor happens far from spectacle. It happens in libraries and databases, in footnotes and marginalia, in moments when you are unsure whether the trail you’re following will narrow into clarity or vanish altogether. There are no crowds for this kind of work. No applause when you discover one more corroborating detail, one more pattern that holds.
Unmasking The Humourist grew out of precisely that kind of sustained attention. The essays at its center—satirical, incisive, mischievous pieces published pseudonymously in the South-Carolina Gazette in the early 1750s—had long been admired but never convincingly attributed. Their author hid in plain sight. The work demanded patience: weighing tone against context, tracing bureaucratic fingerprints, listening carefully to what language reveals when you stop rushing it.
And patience is not fashionable. We live in a moment that rewards speed, certainty, and hot takes. Literary recovery is none of those things. It is slow, provisional, and often lonely. You work without knowing whether recognition will ever arrive—or whether it even should. You work because the work matters.
That’s why seeing the review in Publishers Weekly mattered to me—not as a trophy, but as confirmation that the argument held. That it made sense beyond my own desk. That it earned its place in the broader conversation about early American literature and satire.
What struck me most wasn’t pride. It was scale.
The full review.
Here was my book, not elevated or isolated, but contextualized—surrounded by other studies, other voices, other claims. This is where scholarship belongs: not shouted, but situated. Not proclaimed, but tested.
There’s something grounding about that.
I spread the pages out on the table. I read the review again, this time with the odd sensation of distance—as though I were encountering the project for the first time. The reviewer understood what I had tried to do. Better still, they understood why it mattered. That’s the quiet victory every researcher hopes for.
And then there was the sheer physicality of it all. The stacks. The heft. The knowledge that these copies would travel—to libraries, to colleagues, to readers I’ll never meet. Work that had lived for years in notes and drafts now had mass. It could be lifted. Shared. Passed hand to hand.
Research takes time. Recovery takes patience.
But sometimes—blessedly, unexpectedly—the work becomes something you can actually lift.
And when it does, you pause. You hold it. You let it be real.
You took me by surprise again this morning. As always, when I awakened, I checked my Fitbit to see how my heart did overnight. Then I checked WordPress to see how my readers were doing.
And there you were. Another thousand views. A quiet jolt to the chart. Numbers climbing when I wasn’t looking.
You’ve been dancing higher and higher since October, when I passed 15,000 and figured I’d reached my high-water mark. I even wrote a piece of thanks back then, thinking I’d said all there was to say. But now here we are—December 11th—and this little corner of the internet has gathered 25,053 views.
I’ve done nothing different. I have no flashy headlines. I have no trending hashtags. I just keep following the same rhythm: writing essays born from memory in a home filled with love. I just keep foolin’ around with words and ideas.
So why now, after all these years?
That question hangs gently in the room with me. It’s not demanding an answer. It’s simply inviting a reflection. Maybe something shifted in the writing. Maybe it’s more expansive. Maybe it’s more lived-in. Maybe it’s a voice carrying a steadier warmth now. Maybe it’s grief that’s softened into grace. Maybe it’s love that arrived not with fanfare, but with a quiet hand stretched out in invitation. Maybe it’s all of those things. Maybe. And add to all those maybes one more. Maybe it’s readers sharing with readers.
Gary, of course, doesn’t ask to be written about. But his presence is here, between the lines, in the patience of a paragraph, the steadiness of tone, the way I’ve learned to let silence do some of the talking.
Ruby, on the other hand, insists on being written about, whether she’s nosing me away from my smartphone or curling up in solidarity as I revise for the twenty-fifth time. She is, as always, the keeper of the tempo, the mistress of the move.
So this isn’t an open letter to public stats. It’s a letter to something deeper. It’s a letter to what it means to keep writing when no one’s watching, and then to wake up and find that someone was.
My essays aren’t meant to dazzle. And I know: they don’t. They’re just small acts of holding up the light, one weekly reflection at a time. The fact that they’re being read, now more than ever, tells me something I didn’t expect: quiet honesty still finds its way.
Thank you, Sudden Surge, for reminding me that patience has its own reward, that consistency is a kind of faith, and that somewhere out there, readers are still pausing to linger with a slow essay from the mountain.
I don’t know what this upturn means, or where it leads. But I do know I’ll keep showing up with my smartphone in hand and love at my side.
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922). from his The Captive (1923), the fifth volume of his seven-part masterpiece In Search of Lost Time. Proust’s exploration of memory and perception reshaped modern literature.
Somewhere I saw it. Everywhere, maybe. Nowhere? Wherever—it grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let go.
It was the gripping question:
“What would you tell your 18-year-old self?”
It lingered—since forever. Or yesterday? Either way, one morning not long ago, I tried to get rid of it by tossing it out to others—as if the orphaned question might leave me alone once it found a new home.
The replies were as varied as I expected, and as humorous and matter-of-fact, too:
“Buy stock in Apple and Amazon.”
“Be good at life; cultivate a well-rounded lifestyle.”
“Be patient; trust in God.”
“Serve God better.”
“Stay young; don’t age.”
“Be friends with your mom. Spend more time with family. Don’t let important things slide.”
“Don’t worry about impressing anyone other than yourself.”
Almost always, their offerings included a request to hear what I would have told my 18-year-old self. As a result, the question dug itself more deeply into my being, as I stalled by answering:
“I’m still thinking.”
It was true. But I knew I had to answer the question, too, not for them, but for me.
Several possibilities surfaced.
The first was rather light-hearted:
“You don’t have to have it all figured out. Just stay curious, kind, and honest. Don’t waste your energy chasing approval. Learn to cook, listen more than you talk, and remember: dogs and good people can tell when your heart’s true. Oh, and wear sunscreen.”
I dissed it immediately (though it carried some truths). Then I came up with:
“Don’t rush. The world will still be there when you’re ready to meet it. Pay attention to seemingingly insignificant things. They’re where meaning hides. Keep your humor close and your integrity closer. Fall in love, but don’t lose yourself in the process. And when life hands you a fork in the road, check which one smells like supper.”
I didn’t like that any better, though it, too, spoke truth. I was certain I could nail it with a third attempt:
“You think you know who you are right now, but you’re only meeting the opening act. Be kind. Be curious. And don’t confuse noise for meaning. The world rewards loudness, but grace whispers. Listen to that whisper. It’s you, becoming.”
Then six words sauntered past, not so much tinged with regret as with remembrance. Six words. Six.
“Be a citizen of the world.”
Those words had crossed my path before. In fact, I remember exactly when—not the actual date but instead the general timeframe and the location.
It would have been in the early 1980s, when I was working at the Library of Congress. I was standing in the Main Reading Room of the Jefferson Building, as captivated by its grandeur as I had been when I first started working there in 1969.
Above me, light spilled through the dome like revelation. Gold, marble, and fresco conspired to make the air itself feel sacred, as if thought had taken on architecture. Beyond those arches, knowledge waited in silence, breathing through pages and time.
Even now, I can close my eyes and see it: the way the dome seemed to rise into forever—an invitation, a reminder—that the world was larger than any one life, and I was already standing in the heart of it.
As an editor of the National Union Catalog, Pre-1956 Imprints—the “bibliographic wonder of the world”—I knew every alcove, every corridor, every one of its 532 miles of bookshelves, holding more than 110 million items in nearly every language and format. I had walked those miles over and over again doing my editorial research. I had come to learn that knowledge knows no barrier. I had come to learn that it transcends time and place.
At the same time, I decided that I could transcend place, too. With my experience and credentials, I began to imagine working in the world’s great libraries—first the Library of Congress, then The British Library, then the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, then the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma.
I didn’t know where the journey would end, but it gave me a dream, a dream of being a citizen of the world of learning.
More than that, it was a dream untainted by pretense—never by the notion of being uppity. Instead, it was a simple dream. I figured that if I had made it from the coal camps of West Virginia to the hallowed halls of our nation’s library, I could pack up whatever it was that had brought me that far and go throughout the world, savoring knowledge and learning—and perhaps, over time, gaining a smidgen of wisdom.
But here’s the catch. If transcending geography is the measure of my dream’s fulfillment—the wanderlust, the scholar’s yearning for marble floors, old paper, and the hum of languages not my own—then, at first glance, I failed. I never made it to any of the world’s great libraries except the Library of Congress.
However, as I look back through my life-lens of 78 years come November 20, I realize that maybe I went beyond the geographic destinations that I set for myself.
I went from the mountains of West Virginia to the monuments of D.C., from there to the marshlands of South Carolina where I earned my Ph.D., from there back home to the monuments, and, from there, at last, to the Shenandoah Valley and college teaching that took me internationally via Zoom and tapped into Open Educational Resources that did away with the restrictive border of printed books.
In a sense, then, although I didn’t cross country borders, I crossed the borders of ideas, with my voice carrying me farther than my feet ever needed to.
I’ve managed to live generously, teach across generations, write with empathy, research with joy, garden with gratitude, cook with curiosity, and love with intentionality. In all of that, I have been that citizen of the world—not by passport stamps, but by curiosity. By compassion. By connection.
Maybe that’s the truth I’d offer my 18-year-old self:
“You don’t have to travel the world to belong to it. You only have to live with your eyes open.”
—Terry Tempest Williams (b. 1955. American writer and environmental activist whose lyrical essays explore the intersections of personal narrative, place, and ecological stewardship.)
Something snuck up on me yesterday.
I was talking on the phone with my 90-year-old sister when I glanced down at my smartphone, saw my WordPress dashboard—and nearly did a spit take.
Over 15,188 views this year already!
That’s already more than all of 2024, and we still have October, November, and December to go. Apparently, my little mountain corner has gone global again—and I couldn’t be more grateful.
To every one of you, My Dear Readers, who reads, comments, shares, or quietly lingers over a sentence or two: thank you. You’ve turned this space into a community of curiosity, compassion, and laughter. Every click, every view, every thoughtful message reminds me that words still matter—and that connection runs deeper than algorithms.
Your Top 10 Favorites of 2025 (So Far)
Every year tells its own story through what readers choose. This year’s list made me smile. It’s a mix of reflection, resilience, and rediscovery—with a dash of irreverence (because, well, it’s me or Poor Brentford Lee or maybe both).
● “I Am Afraid” — A wake-up call for our country—and a reminder of who we still can be.
●“The Place: Charleston” — The launch of my Unmasking The Humourist: Alexander Gordon’s Lost Essays of Colonial Charleston, South Carolina.
There’s still more to come before year’s end—new essays, reflections, maybe even a few surprises that have been sitting in my drafts waiting for the right moment. Perhaps even one or two guest posts by our famed and acclaimed Poor Brentford Lee.
I can’t promise I’ll always be profound, but I can promise I’ll keep showing up with authenticity, honesty, humor, and heart.
Thank you, My Dear Readers, for being here, for reading, and for reminding me—every day—that a single voice can still find an echo.
Benjamin Franklin had Poor Richard. TheWiredResearcher now welcomes a guest contributor: Poor Brentford Lee, who has agreed to sanctify our troubled times with a bold mix of satire and sass.
Approved by ole Ben Franklin. Improved by Poor Brentford Lee
“Forgiveness is divine—but FramilySaid™ is faster and comes in gummable gummies.”
-— Poor Brentford Lee (b. 1947). Unlicensed. Unfiltered. Unapologetically adopted. Known for saying the quiet part loud, he’s back by popular demand (and at least one cease-and-desist letter). Seasoned expert in nothing but experience. Sourdough connoisseur. Self-declared inventor of emotional supplements. Hangs out somewhere between a heavenly blessing and A HOMEMADE biscuit (preferably sourdough).
Years and years ago, in one of my brilliant moments—you know, the kind that arrive somewhere between misplacing your glasses and finding your purpose—I concocted a miracle elixir. An emotional balm. A psychological salve. A chewable sacrament.
And I’m convinced—when it’s finally patented, mass-produced, and widely distributed—it will relieve the world of all its wounds and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Or, at the very least, it will help you forget them for a little while. And really, isn’t that what the world needs most right now? Not advice. Not enlightenment. Not deep therapy.
All you need is Forgetfulness.
Chances are good that if you’re reading this—and have not forgotten—you’re an Oldie-Goldie who still remembers when love was all you needed, and your hips didn’t pop when you bent over.
But friend, times have changed. Now what the world needs isn’t just love—it’s a little bit of blessed, blissful forgetfulness.
So in the spirit of rock legends and gospel truths, I offer you an updated version of the Beatles’ classic. Hum along. Or gum along. Or just pretend you know the tune and clap on the offbeat:
All You Need Is Forgetfulness (Redux) (with apologies to Lennon & McCartney—and gratitude, too)
There’s nothing they can say that can’t be un-heard No shame so deep it can’t be deterred No burn so old it can’t be un-spurred You can let it go
All you need is forgetfulness (Da-da-da-da-da) All you need is forgetfulness (Sing it like you mean it) All you need is forgetfulness, forgetfulness Forgetfulness is all you need
(Slide whistle optional. Biscuit in hand, sourdough preferred.)
Yep. That’s it. All you need is forgetfulness. Not the kind that sneaks up on you in your golden years, when you can’t remember who you bit when you meant to kiss or where you were going with your pants unzipped or where you’ve been with a bowl of popcorn when you went to get strawberries. No—I’m talking about on-demand forgetfulness. Reliable, immediate, with controlled-release options for holidays, family reunions, and any Sunday when your phone rings before you’ve had time to check your Fitbit to make sure you made it through the night.
That, My Dear Readers, is where FramilySaid™ comes in.
They mean well. They always do—those “bless your heart” people. But sometimes, what your framily says can lodge itself right in the soft tissue of your soul, like a splinter from the communion table.
That’s why I made FramilySaid™—not FDA-approved (yet), but clinically proven (by yours truly) to dull the sting of being emotionally ignored by people who should know better. In gummable form, naturally.
A Quick Word about the Name.
FramilySaid™ is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a mountain prof’s fusion of friends, family, and the things they’ve said—bless ’em.
Because sometimes, it’s the people closest to you (by blood—or, in my case, by adoption—history, or shared casserole) whose words linger just a little too long. Who don’t mean to hurt you but somehow do. Who support you privately … but not publicly. Who say “I love you” but never with the clincher: “justtheway you are.”
When they speak and zing you with their petty little barbs? FramilySaid™ can help you. Un-hear it. Un-feel it. Un-bother yourself entirely.
A New Kind of Relief.
I developed this product in a dimly lit, emotionally unstable lab located precisely between my kitchen and a moment of near-epiphany. FramilySaid™ is the first over-the-counter solution specifically designed to help you temporarily forget your people. Not all of them, bless ’em. Just the ones whose “support” lost all its elasticity because you’re doing all the emotional heavy lifting.
Get this. FramilySaid™ is so hip that it comes in gummy form. Flavors include Denial-Drop Cherry and Emotional Support Butterscotch. Easy to chew. Easy to swallow. No dentures? No problem. Just gum it and go.
I just heard a panicked soul (bless their heart) blurt out:
“How can I get me some?”
Well, bless your little heart. It’s so simple. Go online–or use your phone app–and in just a few clicks you’ll be consulting with a doctor named “Jeff” who is definitely certified but not necessarily licensed. Within days or maybe even as soon as yesterday—Poof! A discreet brown package arrives at your door—just like your sex toys arrive, but with more dignity—and fewer batteries.
Anyway, from that point forward, you’ve got protection from friends and family. Take FramilySaid™ when the text message lands wrong. Take it when the smile feels fake. Take it when someone who “loves you no matter what” leaves your partner off the guest list.
Take it. Just take it. Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it.
Now go ahead. Swallow your truth with a buttery sourdough biscuit, included free, one for every FramilySaid™ gummy included in your order. Remember: Cheaper by the Baker’s Dozen.
Now breathe. Breathe again. You’ve got this.
Situations When You Might Need a Gummy.
Situation #1. You call with good news—any kind of news, really—and they respond with:
“Oh, that’s… nice.”
You smile politely. Take a FramilySaid™ gummy. Let the world blur at the edges.
And what would Poor Brentford Lee do? Why, he’d just sigh and say:
“Law me, child…”
And then he’d smile sweetly, fold his napkin with precision, and add demurely:
“Well, bless your little pea-pickin’ heart. Would you pass the sourdough biscuits?”
Situation #2. You share something meaningful—a photo, a milestone, a moment—and get nothing but a thumbs-up emoji.
You chew slowly. Cinnamon apathy floods your tongue.
And what would Poor Brentford Lee do? He’d lean back, fan himself once, and say:
“Why, don’t you worry that pretty little head of yours nary one bit.”
Then, with that same cool smile, he’d add:
“Well, bless your little heart. Would you pass the sourdough biscuits? I need me ‘nuther one”
Situation #3. You confide in someone you thought might be a safe space. Instead, they tilt their head like a golden retriever hearing static and say:
“Well, as long as you’re happy.”
You double your dosage and erase five awkward conversations from memory.
And what would Poor Brentford Lee do? Why, he’d just sigh and say:
“Law me, child… we are officially rationing warmth now.”
And then he’d smile sweetly, fold his napkin precisely, and add demurely:
“Well, bless your little heart. Them sourdough biscuits sure are good. Can I have just one more? Not the whole basket. Thank you kindly.”
Situation #4. Someone finally asks:
“How did you two old geysers meet anyway?”
But get this. Their tone sounds more like a customs agent than a curious soul.
You suddenly feel like a suspect in your own joy. FramilySaid™ softens the interrogation.
And what would Poor Brentford Lee do? He’d lift one eyebrow, cross his silverware, and murmur:
“Law me, child. Love ain’t no interview.”
Then he’d smile–all teeth, all grace–and whisper at his loudest:
“Well, bless your little heart. I think I’ll have another sourdough biscuit—maybe two if you’re feeling generous.”
Situation #5. On one of your hardest days ever in your entire ancient life, you look up at the sky—not metaphorically, but really look—and ask:
“God? Really? After all I’ve done to live with grace, to love deeply, to forgive… and this is still where I land?”
That’s when you reach for the God-level dose. FramilySaid™ won’t answer the prayer. But it will quiet the ache long enough for you to refill your hope.
And what would Poor Brentford Lee do? He’d blink once, breathe deep, and say,
“Law me, child. Even Heaven can ghost you sometimes.”
Then with a reverent nod upward:
“Well, bless your eternal heart. Hand me a biscuit. The everlastin’ kind.”
™ … ™ … ™
Final Notes from the Founder.
Every time you take FramilySaid™, you’ll forget for a spell. You’ll feel better for a spell. Might smile, hum a tune, maybe even whistle while folding your fitted sheets.
But eventually—inevitably—you’ll sit real still. And your heart will tap you on the shoulder and say:
“This ache? It don’t need numbing. It needs naming.”
And you’ll remember:
“It wasn’t the forgetting that healed you. It was remembering the friendship and kinship you truly deserve.“
So go ahead. Declare what you need. Claim your joy. Refill your prescriptions for love, laughter, and a little holy audacity.
And if someone still doesn’t get it?
“Well, bless their little hearts. Just hand ’em one of those perpetual sourdough biscuits and smile like you mean it.”
Coming Soon from the Maker of FramilySaid™.
Because sometimes one generic gummy just isn’t enough, the Maker offers you some specific options:
● SisterStrength™ – For passive-aggression that’s been simmering since the day before forever.
● CousinClear™ – When you can’t remember which cousin sells snake-oils and which one married his ex’s sister brother’s husband.
● UncleMute™ – One dose silences three stories about the Civil Wah he and his kin are still fightin’.
● MatriarchMax™ – For that layered guilt, always served hot, always with a side of pie—and a smile.
● HolidayProlonged Release™ – Kicks in during grace and peaks after the second round of green bean casserole.
A Final, Final Word from the Maker—Yours and Mine—The Big One Who Always Gets the Last Word.
Forgetting isn’t what you need, child. Remembering what you’re worth? Dagnabbit. That’s exactly what you need. That’s the real prescription. (Signed, sealed, and delivered by Poor Brentford Lee, totally unlicensed but highly seasoned.)
While you’re remembering, just reach up and hand me a sourdough biscuit, swallow your pride, go ahead and make up with your low-down, no-good Framily. And then? Move it. Move it. Move it—as fast as a tumbleweed in a windstorm.
And don’t forget Poor Brentford Lee, sitting here, there, and everywhere–all smiles–saying to himself for no one else to hear:
“Law me. Won’t you lay one on me? No, no. Not a biscuit—though they are mighty fine. Just a blessing, child. That’s all I everneeded.”
Poor Brentford Says
“Your worth doesn’t need a witness. Show up for yourself. That’s the real feast.”
“The act of writing is the act of discovering what you believe.”
— David Hare (b. 1947.) British playwright and screenwriter, whose works probe truth, belief, and the human condition.
Sometimes in the hush of evening, when the lamp spills its amber light and the world grows gentle, I watch. His head tilts slightly, caught by the glow, and suddenly, the years loosen their grip. The lines that life has written across his face soften; the jaw loosens, light as breath; the mouth, so often set in quiet thought, curves with the ease of youth. His eyes, clear and steady, seem to brighten from within, carrying a spark that belonged first to a boy and then to a young man. Slowly, the present thins. I see him slipping into his past. Fifty. Thirty. Twenty. And then, for the briefest moment, the man beside me becomes the eighteen-year-old he once was—time erasing each layer, revealing what was always there: the young man, quietly returning.
As I glance elsewhere in the room, I see an artifact from his past—one that has crossed time and threshold to find its place in ours: the grand piano. Massive and unyielding, it took four men to wrestle it off the truck and ease it through the doorway. Yet here it rests, polished wood catching the lamplight, waiting.
At this moment, I still hear the sound as his hands moved across the piano earlier in the day—measured, assured, easy. And I heard “For All We Know” rise into the room, each note carrying a hush that reached backward in time. The melody was not just music; it was memory, and it wrapped itself around him, around me, around the room itself. Ruby retreated to the bed, but not fully at rest. She leaned forward, her body stretched long, her head angled as far as she dared—as though even she knew the swell of sound carried us into places layered and deep. She held herself at the edge, cautious not to tumble into the wandering past, into the chasms of memory, beckoning us toward knowing and truth.
Elsewhere in the room, near the piano, another layer from the past peels back. Hanging on the wall is a sepia-toned etching—Salena Gazebo, number 8 of only 200, signed by the artist Carl Johnson. The lines are delicate, deliberate: the curving path, the quiet trees, the pavilion standing open like an invitation. It feels less like a structure than a memory, as if the paper itself breathed it into being. When I look at it, I sense not just the gazebo, but the moments once lived beneath it—the warmth of gatherings, the hush of twilight, the whispered vows of past lovers who lingered there. Dream and truth blur, as though the etching had captured not a place at all but a pulse of longing and a flicker of knowledge, carrying us softly toward knowing and truth.
In another room, on top of the chest of drawers, rest family photographs. Portraits, a chorus of faces gathered through years, smiling, standing, caught in stillness. They look out across the room with a quiet weight, less about who they are than the collective feel they give: belonging, continuity, the insistence that life moves forward even as it circles back. They do not need names to speak; their presence alone is enough.
Nearby, on a table, sits something smaller, more ordinary yet no less enduring: an iron toast holder. His grandmother’s. On his mother’s side? Or, maybe, his father’s? The lineage matters less than the fact that he kept it, carried it through moves and years, never discarding, never forgetting. The metal holds more than memories of bread he may never have seen toasted. It holds a thread of persistence, a reason to keep even the smallest objects close.
In the dining room, on a side table, another artifact gleams in silver relief: The Last Supper, framed, gifted to his maternal grandparents on their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Sacred and commemorative at once, it shimmers with devotion, not only to faith but also to family. The silver has traveled down through generations, carried into his keeping, held as though letting go would diminish more than memory. It is a marker of continuity, of reverence, of love that lasted long enough to be honored.
And then there is the little boy riding a dog—a keepsake that belonged first to his father when his father was a child, before his life was cut tragically short. A small porcelain figure, a child astride a loyal companion, frozen in time. Yet in that figure is more than innocence; it is a bridge across absence, a way of knowing a father he never met. It survived when the man did not, passed on to him as both wound and inheritance, loss and gift. That little boy on the dog rides still through the years, carrying ache and legacy.
Through these artifacts, I glimpse the man I already know and love, his story unfolding in fragments that matter. In the little boy riding the dog, I see both wound and inheritance, a bridge across absence. In the Last Supper, I see reverence, devotion, love honored and passed along. In the iron toast holder, I see endurance, the instinct to keep and carry even what is small. In the family photographs, I see continuity, lives pressed together across generations. In the drawing of the gazebo, I see invitation and hush—the twilight blur where dreams fade into memory and truth. And in the grand piano, I hear the melody that threads them all together—still rising, still echoing, ever playing in the quiet of his soul.
These artifacts matter to him and, now, to me. I could point to others. But I won’t. Yet one more remains, quiet and insistent, the truest of them all—not carved in silver or pressed into porcelain, but carried in ink and idea. His 1965 high-school graduation essay. He was co-valedictorian. He was eighteen.
It rests inside his high-school yearbook, the Bluejay, its cover deep blue and gilt, its pages a mosaic of faces, cheers, and world events already turning into history. And there, slipped carefully between those pages, lies his speech—typed, carried through six decades of moves and seasons. The paper holds its shape, and the words stand sure, preserved as though waiting for their moment to be read again. In its keeping, I see more than memory; I see devotion—the instinct to preserve not only what he did but who he was becoming. It is an artifact, yes, but it is also a testament, held safe in the place that marked his youth and carried forward into the man he is now.
I smiled and whispered:
“Show me what you wrote.”
He lifted the page, holding it in his hands, just as he held it onstage sixty years ago. Soft at first, his voice grew firmer as he returned to the beliefs that had steadied him even then: that learning gives life its shape, that responsibility gives it weight, that hope gives it breath, and that perseverance gives it endurance. Sixty years have passed, yet as he read, I heard not only the boy addressing his classmates but the man beside me—the same convictions intact, the same spirit enduring.
In those moments, as his voice stretched back and returned to me across the decades, I realized that of all his artifacts, this was the richest. My partner, Gary T. Knutson, wrote those words in youth. They carried him into a future he could not yet imagine. And they anchor him still—steadying him in the present, guiding him toward tomorrow. The piano may sing, the photographs may remember, the silver may gleam, the porcelain boy may still ride—but they can only point, only hint. His own words, fragile on paper yet alive in spirit, opened the door wider. They revealed not just what he kept but who he was becoming, and who he still is.
That is the power of words—not just Gary’s words, but all our words. They outlast objects, outshine heirlooms, outlive even memory. In them can be found who we are when all else has been stripped away—values, beliefs, longings, the essence of self, laid bare. And more than that, words do not simply keep; they move. They persuade and console, ignite and endure. They reveal who we were, and they shape who we might yet become. That is their gift, and their power—becoming, in a way, stronger than stone.
Show me what you wrote, and I’ll see who you are—then, now, and still becoming. For words outlast memory and outshine the heirlooms we keep. They carry the essence. They carry the longing. And they proclaim the truths we’ve always held.
The Wired Researcher 