Category: friends
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Remembering Susie
Obituary originally posted here. Photo slideshow: https://www.tributeslides.com/embed/CFSIFRAM/dem10727/11m61217470d60e0 Obituary May 14, 1946 ~ August 6, 2021 (age 75) Susie Elizabeth Duncan Sexton, 75, of Columbia City, IN, passed away unexpectedly Friday, August 6, 2021, at her home. Born on May 14, 1946, in Fort Wayne, she was the daughter of Roy and Edna (Lewis) Duncan, who, in her words,…
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In a Sense…a Broad!
As I consider myself nothing nor nobody more than Peter Sellers in Being There or at my liveliest as Inspector Clousseau, it is difficult to make “Susie” sound interesting? I am proudest of being the Mother of Roy, whom I consider the person I would most wish to be. I grew up in a very…
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Bringing texty back (with apologies to Justin Timberlake)
With my modem (“moe-DEM”) taking a powder and my computer consequently on the fritz, I have resorted to texting. Thought this exchange with my son was fairly amusing (typos preserved for artistic effect!)… Susie: Gee rebooted umpteen times still no go sometimes forty eight pop ups that send receive errors happened whaaaa Roy: I am…
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Donald O’Donovan Reviews Secrets of an Old Typewriter
Donald O’Donovan, author of the novels Night Train, Tarantula Woman, & the upcoming Highway, reviews Secrets of an Old Typewriter. Spectacular review! Can be found at the book’s page on Amazon.com here… Here is the full text of the review: Ride on the float in the homecoming parade. Be the homecoming queen. Order a chocolate shake…
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Review of The Highway by Donald O’Donovan
Highway by Donald O’Donovan My rating: 5 of 5 stars THE HIGHWAY by Donald O’Donovan Living in a dying town with few restaurants, we frequent an establishment which originated some 30 years back, propelled by an Amish-inspired bill of fare and once the haunt of the after-church crowd such as the well-dressed elderly and the tackily-garbed over-populated tribes…
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From Bob and from David…
Neat comment and neat review! From Bob Wannberg: “I am not a skilled writer but have the message, love conquers all. Kindness draws kindness, those who have a beautiful heart draw the same; we have a deep love for animals because they show us how humans should be; love and innocence…..we speak for them because…
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hey, some instruction is necessary…
hey, some instruction is necessary to teach quite a lot of human beings about humane-ness…let’s get really busy on this. forget everything else and concentrate on encouraging HUMANE-NESS and thanks for caring enough to EDUCATE…do not ever be afraid to EDUCATE…do not ever be intimidated into stopping the caring and the EDUCATING…and do stop to…
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that’s how life goes when life matters!
From Julie Fletcher, “Susie, you do such a heartbreaking task each day to help them all, I know why you do it but its so hearbreaking to see the abuse all the time, when God looked for the best Earth Angel, he didn’t have far to Go before he found you…I don’t know if you…
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The two most important days in your life…
These comments are grand – thank you so!! From Edward Levine: “Susie, this is a great group…..In order for any group to be great it has to have a leader who is loved, admired, and looked up to…….That would be you…….Any animal lover, compassionate person, or just a good person in general is inspired by…
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when human nature gets in the way of animal/nature
every once in a while, in a facebook animal welfare/rights/rescue group, you come across someone more worried about their respective group’s “rules” than the big picture. these officious animal folks always make me put my tail between my legs, and i whimper and i go away forever. i was probably, in another life, one of…
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because i pursued her trail, i saved her life…
I thought this exchange was so important and worth sharing in its entirety…it ain’t easy…but it is worth it…something wonderful may be around the corner…or someone like our zelda! yes, someone like zelda! (not to mention friends like Mary Beth, Madeleine, Diane, Dee, Tierra, Edward, and Becki!) Here is the exchange… Susie Sexton: what a hateful…
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…and now for a word from our sponsor…
do me a favor? love nature and the environment and all the animals of the world. when that happens, we are all happy people…thus, it is a win/win all the way around…and this month learn to GO VEGAN…thanks for stopping to think and to love and to care and to empathize and to recommend an…
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Lessons Learned in Kindergarten…Twice – published in InD’tale Magazine
My essay “Lessons Learned in Kindergarten…Twice” has been published in InD’tale Magazine This is really quite neat! You you can read it at the this link – the story starts on page 24 – you advance the pages through the arrows at the bottom of the screen after you click this link. You can also download a PDF or print.…
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Oh what animals mean to me…
Oh what animals mean to me —So frolicking, patient and free!Pure of motive and faithful, too!“Brave hearts”: they remind me of you! ~ _______________________ Love these comments! Shannon Basner: “Thank you, Roy. I enjoy your mother’s posts and think the world of her.” Jan Tansel: “Roy – I loved your review [click here to read]. You write…
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Other musings…
last night, i posted a status where i borrowed some excellent words from a lady on a string of a young euthanized dog…i do not want to engage in the posting of the many many tragedies but how do we get the great apathetic middle zone of humans to stop and care and help to…
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thank you for the lives you save…and the hearts you calm
i am sad part of every day and have become a different person since learning to cherish all living beings… and to be as brave as i can for their rights to live…but i do cry daily…i used to look away…now i look at social media posts that a rugged cowboy would wince at and…
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deleting can be fun…and when i myself get deleted i always consider the source and their lack of good taste!
[inspired by a heartfelt post about Facebook that was written by my good, kind, gracious friend Paul Clifford Schrade…] oh, how i agree about the trivial aspects of the “social” network…as i have never been a “social” animal! ;D your poetic offerings have boosted my morale more than you know, paul…and your animal advocacy keeps me in…
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i choose nature. we can learn from Her!
hey, i love you people — and thanks for sharing dreams, jokes, souls, kind words, deep thoughts, and ANIMAL PHOTOGRAPHS…LIFE HAPPENS HERE! ♥!!!!! we do good stuff…yep~! the present is our present (gift)…we never look away…we stop to help in real time. you folks inspire me daily! our time is never wasted. ♥!!!! …i would…
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some thoughts from a full night of facebooking…
…time to be educating our youth that caring is not unmanly…that peaceful coexistence is not uncool…this is serious stuff. amazing that this is not an outrage to more people. time to step in and step up and educate…this is just plain mean and cruel and what many, many of us regard as a sin. no…
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when we love life we love it all…no compartmentalizing
thanks to good friend Cynthia DeVoe for these marvelous quotes: “Life is life – whether in a cat or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man’s own advantage.” ~ Sri Aurobindo “Animals, like humans, suffer emotionally. We must strive…
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Still going strong…with one size 11 foot and one size 9 1/2
Beth Kennedy, inspired and prolific author of the clever and kindhearted blog I didn’t have my glasses on, wrote these two fabulous posts this week, reminding me how much of a kindred spirit she really is. Enjoy learning about the word “nelipot” here and here. I was born a nelipot, and, condescendingly, a podiatrist foot doctor once informed me…
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Thanks, Mark Zuckerberg! Slapstick.
My lord…or LORDY…fun friends are the best. And I got ’em. A sense of humor is paramount. This world is absolutely slapstick-addled, and those of us who are smart enough to know that can breathe in and out and remember to laugh….a lot! Thanks, social media friends. You are the best, and you are real…
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Writer’s lament: I have completely lost track of the life I once led.
My delightful new friend Aaron C. Wade – a talented photographer, designer, and filmmaker (check out his work here and his movie Possessive here) just asked me this intriguing question via Facebook (love my Facebook pals!). My reply follows… Aaron: “Though I haven’t yet gotten far into your book, I’ve wondered if you ever encountered the situation where an…
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Reindeer games.
My friend Beth, whose blog “I didn’t have my glasses on…. A trip through life with fingers crossed and eternal optimism.” is always such a delight, posted “girl power.” today. “only female adult reindeer keep their antlers through December. that means santa’s reindeer are probably all girls.” I replied, “Makes perfect sense to me…and how…
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Old Friends … Glad I reached out! I can breathe a little today. I can!
Totally convinced that in order NOT to jump outta a 22nd floor window in order to end it all and to fly away, that confiding in someone is a great idea…what a tonic! That way, brick-wall judgmental folks who do never admit that life sucks don’t say after the fact. “WHY didn’t she or he…
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Nomadland. A movie. A review. A life.
Wow, does this beautiful, dreary, metaphorical, meaningful film resonate for days and days after viewing carefully. Nomadland. Mesmerizing, sad, hopeful … no matter what age bracket / demographic crap you happen to be categorized within. If you are very very fortunate, you will live at least until your 70s in this troubled yet fascinating earth…
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“What might have been…” THE HIGHWAY by Donald O’Donovan
Living in a dying town with few restaurants, we frequent an establishment which originated some 30 years back, propelled by an Amish-inspired bill of fare and once the haunt of the after-church crowd such as the well-dressed elderly and the tackily-garbed over-populated tribes of rural families. Then the truck-stop just across the road from this…
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Angels Among Us
Returned from a divine lesson in human resiliency, a lesson which occurred at our truly friendly and fun RICHARD’S RESTAURANT–neither a planned seminar nor a church service, simply diners and staff chatting, most listening intently. An upbeat couple, routinely spreading cheer on a daily basis, shared their experiences combating an unwelcome challenge from a fleeting,…
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Susie, In a Sense…a Broad!
As I consider myself nothing nor nobody more than Peter Sellers in Being There or at my liveliest as Inspector Clousseau, it is difficult to make “Susie” sound interesting? I am proudest of being the Mother of Roy, whom I consider the person I would most wish to be. I grew up in a very…
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THE GAME OF LIFE? NO CONTEST! My Attempt at CATharsis — Meow! =^..^=
“Gentlemen, start your engines!” Seriously, if I qualified as a gentleman, I would refuse to start my engine. Not unlike Marlon Brando, George C. Scott, Katharine Hepburn, or Sacheen Littlefeather, with regard to races and/or contests and/or competitions, I am a non-believer. Fighting others to win laurels is an unattractive, pointless endeavor and significant maybe only…
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“THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS” — Navigating in a Sea of Zombies
“Health food may be good for the conscience but Oreos taste a hell of a lot better.” “The technology available for film-making now is incredible, but I am a big believer that it’s all in the story.” “It’s an honor putting art above politics. Politics can be seductive in terms of things reductive to the soul.” ~ Robert Redford Linked…
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“A horse is a horse, of course, of course, And no one can talk to a horse of course?” (A Journey from Competitiveness to Graciousness…and At Long Last, Love!)
“I’d rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human for God’s sake.” ~ J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (Editor’s note: Pardon J. D.’s French!) Time to admit the truth. Choosing authorship as a pastime or a passion or a means of making a living is fraught with frustrations such as:…
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REUNION REVELATIONS
“It’s a shallow life that doesn’t give a person a few scars.” ~ Garrison Keillor Dental floss, Vicks Vaporub applied to both flaky ears, Q-tips, copious facial creams, and tweezers rise rapidly to the top of the list of personal beauty products when tempus fugit(s)! Comfortable yet quasi-tailored clothing — which covers every square inch…
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IN A CIRCLE AROUND MY HOUSE
As I gleefully recall, I honestly believe that Walt Disney’s Cinderella provided my maiden voyage into the wonders of cinema. That event occurred so very many yesterdays ago when American animation would never be surpassed–a uniquely authentic and creative time arguably lost to us in our 21st century. To this moment, whenever our courthouse clock issues forth…
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THIS IS THE LIFE: BLOGS & DOGS!
Attorney and former neighbor Earl Tison, whom I desired to adopt the moment I met him, exclaimed frequently, “Susie, if anybody should start a blog, it would be you!” Computer-less at that particular time, I had no concept of precisely what he might be suggesting, as a consequence of myriad moon-light porch chats at his…
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WHO WOULDA THUNK IT? BOTH A LITERARY- HISTORIAN & AN OLD FRIEND VISIT OUR NEIGHBORHOOD!
Beautiful sunny April afternoons never ought to be spent listening to indoor lectures — while sitting on uncomfortable folding chairs. However, IF some particular orator bears credentials of a Fulbright Scholar, a professorship, a Ph.D, a near Pulitzer prize, a notable recognition from TIME Magazine, and several stunning novels as well as a much loved…
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Who Knew? Ricky Gervais and I on the Same Page!
“The creative adult is the child who has survived…” – Ursula K. Le Guin (borrowed from my Marshall Memorial Middle School Language Arts student circa 1968, Robin Zeigler Walker) “Hey, now you’re acting like…Jesus!” A younger than young feminine voice registered in the highest decibels from the backyard trampoline immediately on the other side of…
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FUR-EVER FRIENDS
Jo Ellen Adams, authenticated “Daughter of the American Revolution”, belonged to my sister Sarah who patterned herself as a kid after the petite, energetic, plucky little girl who lived in the large, elegant, brick, Civil War Era farm house on the outskirts of town. Sarah’s pal seemed to inhabit the original Disneyland and frolicked daily with…
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MOTHERHOOD / DAUGHTERHOOD
To account for four missing decades, I record that a son got born onto an Earth spiraling downward. In spite of this world’s dullness, intermittent confusion and sometimes cluttered turmoil, Roy never failed to impress. Always smiling and polite and fascinated with any surroundings, he seemed to have appeared “out of the nowhere into here”,…
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All for One, One for All
Curmudgeonly humorist-artist James Thurber treated the “war between men and women” harshly, looked askance at human foibles and pomposity in his “Thurber Carnival”, sketched countless hippopotamuses, and could not exist without canines in his life. His famous cartoon of ……humanity scurrying across the page — destination: cemetery – provides perspective as to how short and…
Misunderstood Gargoyles and Overrated Angels 