I like to watch master chefs on television do their thing. My favorite is Jacques Pépin when he has to chop an onion. No one chops an onion faster.

I wish he had never come out from behind the stove, that spider I stepped on at 4 a.m. He was a big one bothering no one.

If you arrive too early at the public library and stand on the steps with Mabel till the doors open

A row of lilacs covered with a summer snow. Ten white butterflies. Donal Mahoney

Neighbors were happy to see Fred and Opal come back for the annual block party. Old Bill asked Fred why they moved and Fred said

Two people so different can view the poor through different lenses and offer a solution but not the same solution

Old Tim writes poetry now in his heaven of retirement. He’s had nice jobs over the years but swears retirement is better.

Natural Family Planning has its ups and downs so to speak but it often works quite well. But when the calendar

An old friend lost an old friend the other day. Jim said they were both getting up in years and he just happened to outlast Herman. Jim was black and Herman was white but that had never...

Bill would come every Sunday to his mother’s house after a tough divorce. He’d bring his laundry for his mother to do and then he’d devour the roast beef dinner she always made for him....

If smiles had echoes all the world would hear Grandma’s bouncing off the stars Donal Mahoney

It’s pretty simple, really. The world will end whether we believe the Bible is a myth or truth. If the Bible is the truth,

An hour a day, sometimes more, I chipped away with mallet and chisel on a block of marble

The others, of course, are more ra… but less apt to show it. Whenever I strike, I never romp o… I stand with the wrist that I’ve… from the lady locked in my teeth