The Bookmark

 I have a penchant for making bookmarks while I'm browsing online.  I'd like to think it's just the logical thing to do when you find something interesting and want to return later.  They do add up, though, if you don't ever come back to them.... or worse, if  you do come back to them, but find it interesting enough to keep because it was... well, interesting enough to come back to the first time, and naturally, it will be worth it again in the future.  It's no matter, though, as each one of those bookmarks will inevitably be blanketed by dozens more in short order.

I rationalize the habit as being a logical, normal thing to do for anyone online, but I suspect that its roots are thanks to my dad.  He does a similar thing, except his bookmarks aren't on the computer.  They're with physical books, old magazines, printed-out emails, etc.  That adds up as well.  I'm not a huge fan of clutter; I loathe it, to be honest.  Seeing what his workspaces look like as a result of his bookmarks is ... unsettling.  This morning, I thought I'd check out what my digital workspace looked like with all my bookmarks.

The Power of Competitive Spirit

I wanted to take a moment of your time to share with you a lesson about dedication.  I will be pontificating for a while here, but I haven’t had the chance to brag as much this year as I have in the past, until now.

Like all MSHSAA (Missouri State High School Athletic Association) sports, tennis opponents are governed by the size of the school.  There are two divisions in Missouri:  big schools and small schools.  Many small schools do not even have tennis available.  Tennis has a rich history dating far back in time, to the 1500s in France (even earlier I've read).  It is a game that is available to anyone that has access to a racket and a public court.  We are blessed in Belton to have 10 courts available at Yoekum Middle School open to the public 9 months a year (nets are supposed to be taken down in the winter).  But as public as the sport may be, that does not guarantee that all participants have an equal shot at success.

Me at 22 - A Poetic Reflection of My Time in Kirksville

An Intersection Never Reached

            Streets like Washington and Jefferson and other great leaders

                        set the roadmap across this college-town Kirksville

A student living on borrowed time with a borrowed money for a

predicted future and features that can lead to great new leaders

            The irony of repeatedly picturing myself standing literally at the corner of

                        Normal and High Streets

            The smell of last night’s spilled beer isn’t something I’m crying over like milk

because I know that tonight I will get the opportunity to spill again

Escaping into the Pages

I love when a book forces me to look up from a page to assess my own world.  That moment where I am so engrossed in someone else’s world that I lose myself for a bit.  That moment in Richard Wright’s Native Son where a decapitation is seemingly the only possible solution, where I feel Bigger’s struggle so much that if I was to stop reading I would kill off

An Afternoon in Westport

At the corner of Pennsylvania and Westport Road sits Kelly’s Westport Inn, residing in the oldest building in Kansas City, MO.  What was once The Albert Boone Store back in the 1800s now houses one of the more recognizable watering holes in town.  Cattycorner to Kelly’s sits Beer Kitchen, a recently opened taproom of specialty beers.  The contrast between the two could not be sharper.  But it is perfect for this setting:  Old meeting new, relics meeting up-and-comers. 

And the meeting isn’t limited to the buildings and businesses.  In just a short amount of time quite of few people come to recognize others in the area, bumping

The Failure of My Father

My father, for many years, considered himself a failure.  He had a Masters Degree in a field in which he had never become a professional.  He was entirely overqualified for a fairly menial job for the county government. 

He is a loving father who has overlooked that his curiosity has become the foundation for my own education.  His failure professionally never crossed the mind of his two boys and daughter who, growing up, saw him as a wealth of knowledge from which experience was constantly opportunity. 

That possibility would find itself in the most innocuous locations.  I remember

Shoes in the Dryer

You know that sound of wet shoes clumping around in a clothes dryer?  That thump, thump, thump that echoes through whatever room, hallway, or end of the house no matter how many doors are shut?  Ideas do that in my head, round and round, sometimes spilling a story so sensory oriented that I cannot shut my ears to it.  That is what forces me to write sometimes. 

I find ways to deny this force most times, but some times it is too overpowering to deny its time on the keyboard.  It has kept me up when lay my head down to sleep.  It has kept me from being able to concentrate over dinner.  It has forced me out of bed at 3:30am and writing until I had to shower to go to work.  Those times where it has forced me to action have not been enough to establish a habit or a pattern of willingness to compose, so I find ways to dampen that noise.

My earliest memory of writing creatively was in second grade, where I was able to see an entire movie scene falling out onto a page in front of me.