Middle of the night someone’s in the house. Can’t be the wife asleep next to you. She’ll be mad

It will be a while before Fred’s hometown has its annual food drive, he told me. That’s an important event because it helps stock the pantry at the small charity where he volunteers. Ri...

Covey of nuns without benefit of wimple graciously attired sport coat, turtleneck, skirt scurry through the airport

He doesn’t have to prove anything to me. The Holy Spirit, that is. I’ve always known He’s there, from childhood on, even if I ignored Him for many years. But like others growing older, ...

I bring a milkshake every other we… to an old man in a nursing home, a refugee from Germany who paid me 50 cents to cut his grass when I w… a kid in Chicago after WWII.

When Homer stubs his toe or bumps his elbow, the pain is always piercing but Homer’s a pious man so swearing isn’t for him.

It was stupid of Walt not to show it to Joan before they got married but he was too shy. He had no idea

When you were a boy in 1948 living on a block of bungalows in Chicago right after WWII you had a red wagon you pulled behind your mother

Not a leaf left on the crabapple t… instead little red apples hang like ornaments on a Christmas tree… Little red apples that spend most of the winter covered with sn…

Snow on Christmas Day. As I walk out with bird seed birds cry Santa’s here. Donal Mahoney

The stench came first, the young man remembers. It was as if someone had grabbed him by the ankles, turned him upside down

Three sisters single in their 40s gather 'round the fire on a night of thunder to figure out which sister

Every day the same people at the same table at the rear of the cafeteria. The maiden, 35 at least, is gray at the temples,

In a very crowded bar Fred decides he must tell this fellow something important so he whispers