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Christmas break is nostalgia’s imitation of real life, cherry-picked memories setting up expectations of holiday bliss. Its onset is like being a kid again, wishes all still intact, the time to see them come true seemingly infinite. Sitting in the carpool line waiting to pick up my seven-year-old on his last day of school, butterflies…
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Shopping Crowds, lines, salespeople, spending money; everything about Christmas shopping gives me anxiety. I remember my friend Matt getting me to go to the market with him when we were teens and thinking, “Why do you want to spend our time this way?” Of course, I was glad that I was my friend’s chosen company,…
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Thanksgiving Play Walking up the path toward the auditorium, a light mist of rain is falling, and I’m worried that Danyelle is going to make us go inside. It’s 7:30 in the morning. “I don’t wanna socialize,” I tell her. “It’s too early.” We’d arrived before the teachers opened the gates so that Cartter wouldn’t…
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It’s easy to miss the entrance to the vet’s parking lot even when it’s not dark outside. Somebody is riding my bumper, and there’s a stream of headlights coming at me from the opposite direction as I look for the lefthand turn off Chuck Dawley Blvd. Normally, Sammy would be whining and panting in the…
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Happy Thanksgiving is overrated as holiday greetings go. I’d take bah humbug any day over Happy Thanksgiving. Nobody expects anything in return for bah humbug. Maybe people don’t expect you to reciprocate their Happy Thanksgivings. Or maybe they do. Either way they’re glory hogs, and theirs is a cheap glory. If you really don’t expect…
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The boys’ faces glowed with excitement in the candlelight. The shade in the dining room was drawn, and the overhead lights turned down low. It was Sunday night; Scotty’s first week of kindergarten and Cartter’s seventh birthday were in the books; and we were celebrating. I could see my boys as clearly as ever, their…
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Dear Elite, As I accelerate into the intersection at Shelmore Blvd. amid a throng of cars on Hwy. 17 carrying solitary drivers to work, I see my five-year-old’s face finally turn away and look toward his destination. He’s in the truck with his mother, on the way to kindergarten. I’m driving the van with his…

