Made Glorious Summer by the Stove By Steve Carr This month we celebrate President’s Day. Holidays are significant to me. They evoke memories and give me pause. When I awake on President’s Day, grateful for the many blessings
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Talk about an offer we couldn’t refuse—a respite from our dreary, between-seasons, Idaho November to sunny Virginia and free board in a comfortable townhouse for a week exploring Civil War battlefields surrounded by moss covered, stone ledge walls.

Our son and daughter-in-law moved to Virginia recently for work, taking our grandkids with them.

“How about coming out for a visit and seeing the sights?” my son said during a Skype call, while we watched green leaves flutter in the warm breeze over his shoulder out his living room window.

And oh, by the way, maybe he and his bride would take a small vacation of their own while we were there, and maybe they’d leave the grandkids with us. “If that’s okay?” Continue reading →

Guess what, a recently discovered species has been named after my brother. Now that’s pretty cool.

This is what I know—which is more than I understand. The genus to which this newly discovered species belongs is unevenly distributed throughout all bio-geographical regions. Despite this global distribution, these animals are seldom collected, likely due to their crypto-biotic lifestyle.

For those of you who are non-zoologists, like me, a crypto-biotic state is one in which an animal’s metabolic activities come to a reversible standstill. Continue reading →

I’m drowning in passion­—everyone else’s passions. David’s passion for golf, Kitty’s passion for Idaho history, Pepper’s passion for her dog bone. Now even the advertisers are rubbing it in. A current ad for an electronic device that does it all, from playing Beethoven (the composer) to walking Beethoven (the dog) asks, “Everyone has a passion . . . what will your verse be?”

I don’t know my passion, dag gummit, and if your fancy computer is so great, why can’t it tell me mine?

Recently, on a flight east, while hunkered in my seat searching my know-it-all tablet computer for my verse, my seatmate introduced himself, saying he was an efficiency consultant for a chemical firm. In the same breath, he said, “So what’s your passion?”

My first thought was, this guy’s trying to pick me up. My reaction was a flush of embarrassment at the flattery—no one has flirted with me since high school. Next, I worried about how to let this guy down easy—after first soliciting a few compliments—for we would be sharing an armrest for several hours. Continue reading →

My summer calendar had been an ambitious one. So, when last Friday afternoon showed promise for a sunny fall weekend and my smart phone didn’t flash frowny-faced emoticon warnings of double-booked events, I felt an old favorite lemonade commercial coming on.

I was transported by visions of hammocks, songbirds, gentle breezes, palm fronds, and juicy grapes. Then I went home.

“What time shall we leave in the morning?” Mrs. Hammock-Hater Carr asked before the garage door rattled down.

Okay, she didn’t confront me with, “Does this dress make me look fat?”

But getting unscathed through this one would require every bit as much tact and diversion. Not a stranger to awkward bewilderment, I raced through my mental playbook, hoping to salvage some weekend privileges. Deference is dangerous, it can lead to quilt shows and craft fairs, but it buys precious time, necessary clues.

“What time would you like to leave?”

“Oh, if we leave by seven, we should be fine.” Continue reading →

My morning ablutions began today with cold water. I can’t remember when I didn’t splash water in my face, eyes wide open, first thing each morning. Call it a ritual, but it serves to clear the slumber from my brain.

During my visit to the privy, my eye caught an Esquire magazine headline, meant, as they tend to do, to get me to look inside. It read, “84 Things a Man Should Do Before He Dies.”

As one who does fast work in that smallest room in the house, I didn’t open the magazine, but left thinking, why 84 and not 101 or 500? And then realized I wouldn’t even read the article before I died.

I did check my emails.

Three messages gave me pause. My college roommate’s mother endured a twelve-hour surgery for esophageal cancer.

My selfless and intuitive New York friend and personal “editor” wrote from a hospital room where she stands watch and demands attention for her mother, who has pancreatic cancer.

The third came from the administrator of a prostate cancer support website. The same site I discovered four years ago, after my own diagnosis and before surgery, the site where hundreds of men share experiences, hope and advice. The site that helped me feel not alone. Continue reading →

I screamed like a teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert, then fell into a deep depression when my USA team lost to Belgium in World Cup soccer, er, football, in July, which is admittedly more than a little odd, since I wouldn’t be able pick out a single USA player if I had the team over for a barbeque together with the Boise State chess team.

I’d have to ask each guest about his last game (or is it match?) and glean his team by whether or not the win involved capturing the opponent’s queen.

I suppose the loss was especially difficult for me, coming during the week of our uniquely American holiday.

Two hundred thirty-eight years after the fact, it’s easy to forget just what it is we celebrate on July 4th. I’m pretty sure it’s not world soccer domination. Continue reading →

With five brothers, my sister Jan grew up Idaho tough. She also managed to pull off the “Daddy’s Little Princess” thing—dancing, singing, riding horses bareback while shooting the flame off a candle from fifty yards with a six-shooter. Adorable!

Inexplicably, her brothers didn’t always treat Daddy’s Little Princess like royalty. But recently she did give us a royal scare.

While performing a Paul Bunyan stunt at her horse ranch, she found herself on the wrong side of a tree as it fell. Badly hurt, she was flown to the city and repaired by a team of super-talented health care providers. She won’t be riding horses, or anything else, for a while.
Continue reading →

According to my nephew, Taylor, fifth-grade girls still chase the boys at recess. “Do you let them catch you?” I asked.

“No way.”

Because I volunteer for the Red Cross, people ask me if climate change is “real” and which health insurance plan is best. Because Dad taught me to stand up straight, look people in the eye and have an opinion, I answer their questions, despite going to work in flip-flops during June snowstorms, all the while unaware if my health insurance plan covers frost bite. (Taylor, I’m guessing it doesn’t cover girl cooties.) Because I answer their questions with a knowing air, I’m occasionally asked why I don’t run for governor or Boise State’s football coach.

Running is hard work, I tell them.

The first time I ran for anything was fifth-grade recess when I ran for my life, chased by a pack of girls led by Vicky Skinner. What self-respecting boy wanted to be cornered by a pack of baying females? Did I get caught?

No way!
Continue reading →