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Being young, Coming of age, Death and dying, John Lennon, learning to drive, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, riding a bicycle, saying goodbye, Starting over, Time, widowed
How to ride a bike . . .
"And what is a bicycle? It is trust and balance, and that's what love is. Love is trust and balance." - Nikki Giovanni
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Belfast, Blogging, Brian Baird, cancer, Education, Fathers and sons, favorite teacher, Memoir, News, Northern Ireland, Seamus Heaney, Sectarianism, Social Media, television, The Diviner, The Forge, The Troubles, Walter Kronkite, Writing
credit to a newsman: teacher appreciation day 2022
Once upon a time, before news traveled at break-neck speed to our smart phones and our Cable TV networks, we waited for it. We had no choice, and when “the news” came on at teatime, it was a serious affair that demanded our attention. It was rarely, if ever, about a new animal born at the zoo or a celebrity’s wardrobe malfunction. When UTV broadcaster, Brian Baird, entered our living rooms, in black and white, and with poker-faced authority as he told us something new, we took it as gospel. As my brother says, “You could read nothing in that face. It was all in the voice. The face, if it told…
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favorite teacher, Frank O'Connor, Great teachers, Memoir, Mr. Jones, Music, Short Stories, Teacher Appreciation Week, Teaching, Themes of childhood
in hindsight – for a teacher
There’s no word in the language I revere more than ‘teacher.’ My heart sings when a kid refers to me as his teacher, and it always has. I’ve honored myself and the entire family of man by becoming a teacher. I won’t be the only one to invoke Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides during Teacher Appreciation Week this year. We should honor our teachers and their craft. They’re exhausted – and after three school years navigating multiple challenges and crises wrought by COVID – under-appreciated. Millions of them learned to teach from their homes, to harness the power of whatever technology was available to them to maintain a connection with their…
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Act Two, Castledawson, Family, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Mother's Day, Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Culture, Ordinary Things, Poetry, Rites of passage, Rituals, Seamus Heaney
a dance for mother’s day
It is Mother’s Day in Ireland. I am hoping the flowers arrived and that the florist remembered to write on the card, “I’ll see you next weekend.” It’s been a long three years, the pandemic and its attendant restrictions keeping us apart. As my brother – only 250 odd miles away from her – reminded me, “this thing has made a mockery of distance. I’m only a few hours drive away but I might as well be on the moon.”
