I’ve been a fan of Abraham Lincoln for as long as I can remember. Probably, though, my love and admiration for him really took hold after I read Carl Sandburg’s poetic, monumental biography of Lincoln in my late teens. Years later I discovered the Lincoln Forum and learned my feelings are shared by countless...
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During a visit to Glenwood Library in Howard County, I immediately noticed a poster with the title, “Choose Civility,” and it listed some principles Howard County Libraries recommend all of us follow. Those two words spoke to me. The more I thought about them, the more curious I became about what a good idea...
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As fall and winter holidays approach, I begin to remember wonderful edibles from my youth in southwestern Missouri. My parents owned a restaurant/nightclub, which resembled a rustic, log-covered country inn. My mother had chosen its name, Half A-Hill, after coming across it in a love story she’d read in the Woman’s Home Companion. The...
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El Dorado County, Calif., is well named. It’s derived from the Spanish word for gold. Sutter Mill, where the Gold Rush of 1849 began, is near the county seat of Placerville (formerly Hangtown), where the back rooms of the Cosmic Café on Main Street still preserve the entrance to a former gold mine. But...
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A few days ago I’d been trying to think of a word that described an exciting experience I’d had this past summer. All I could come up with was a term in astrology like, “an alignment of the stars,” or a confluence of something. But these weren’t right. I just knew there had to...
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About a year ago my eldest grandson, Erik, called from Houston to tell me that he had proposed to Sara, his tall, beautiful blonde girlfriend of several years. They’d decided to have a June 2011 wedding in New Orleans. Tulane University is Erik’s alma mater, and Sara loves New Orleans, too. Our family had...
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It’s Sunday morning in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Rue de St. Ann is empty and quiet, still glistening from the street cleaning, as if it’s getting its face scrubbed for Sunday School. I’m the only customer so far in Pere Antoine’s restaurant, and it’s refreshing to be by myself where it’s silent...
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I don’t ever recall hearing my father’s name, Walter, being spoken aloud. He was Papa to his grandchildren and Dad to his son, Warren, and older daughter, Gladys. I think my mother called him Dad as well. He was Daddy to me and Mr. Hickman to everybody else. “Daddy” gave his age as 45...
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My first memory of Mother was her singing “All the Pretty Little Horses” to me at bedtime. We were upstairs in our living quarters above Half-A-Hill T House, my parents’ restaurant/nightclub near Springfield, Mo. I can remember a tune like “Honeysuckle Rose” drifting up to us from Mickey Marcel’s band down below. The fact...
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Sherwood Forest is alive and well at The Adventure Park at Sandy Spring Friends School. You won’t encounter Robin and his merry men, but children ages 8 and up, teenagers, adults and many seniors can maneuver through the old trees as handily as Robin Hood’s band in the legends of medieval England. The “largest...
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