Upon arriving home one evening I noticed a cardboard box on the floor, near the kitchen door.

“What’s this?” I inquired of Mardelle, my second wife. I answered my own question by looking inside the box. It was a very small, black pup, no longer than four or five inches, not counting its tail. Nevertheless, its length seemed excessive compared to its girth. The poor little thing was laid out on a heating pad that was warm, but shivering of the pup was evident with only a casual look.
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Half asleep I made my way to the kitchen for my eye-opener cup of joe. My quarters are separated from the main part of the house by a small porch where the dog usually sleeps. I noticed that he was not there, but there is a large back yard for him to roam in and thought no more about it. My trip for a second cup was the same. Catherine had left early to help with a garage sale for the Sweet Adelines, her singing sisters. With my eyes unglued I fixed myself a modest breakfast of toast slathered w...(click to continue reading)

www.lcband.org 

Oct. 12, 2014 

I just got home from your worst concert in many a season, and I am worn out.  The performance was marred by many children who talked during the music that obviously didn’t interest them.  When they tired of talking they got up and ran to and fro in the aisles. 

My main complaint is your choice of venue.  The band sounded much, much better in Angele Hall.  I expect you moved to serve a bigger crowd and maybe for lower rent.  But bigger is ...(click to continue reading)

Dorothy Jean seemed to me to be a flaky character, her mind being somewhere apart from her body. Mardelle and I became acquainted with her while working at the Humane Society bingo games, formed by animal lovers to help support their animal shelter. Some of the volunteers stayed around for a social visit after the games.

Dorothy Jean was a somewhat irregular attendee of the games, but she was there often enough to become pretty well acquainted with us. She was a nice looking woman, with...(click to continue reading)

Many times a day a freight train with twenty to twenty-five cars loaded to the brim and beyond with output from the coalfields just a few miles away, came up the hollow puffing tons of black smoke. My family lived across the narrow valley of the hollow from the railroad at the time when I was just learning to read. The loaded freights labored up the grade through the hollow at a speed that any able-bodied person could outrun. But the return trip was a different story; unloaded and down grade the...(click to continue reading)

There were several bridge players among my peers at work. Some played during lunch hour and others, with their wives together with other couples played the game. But that wasn’t enough bridge for some and it came to pass that some of the guys got their heads together and formed a group to play duplicate bridge on a regular basis. Thus a duplicate bridge club came into existence. The club had sixteen regular players to form four tables of play.

As you likely know bridge is a partnership ...(click to continue reading)