My longtime friend Stewart Horn was born on July 3, 1942, and he lived a long and full life. He died on September 23, 2022. I first met Stewart when, at the age of 12, I joined Boy Scout Troop 112 in Tullahoma, Tennessee. Stewart, Pete Mulloney, Fred Hollenback, Chuck Millard, Carlton Sivells, Bucky Jackson…

Today on my 78th birthday, I’m remembering that saying from the Sixties: Don’t trust anybody over 80. Oh, it was 30, not 80? Hmm, maybe my memory’s not what it once was.

Even though both my Mom and Dad’s Texas forebears were staunch Southern Baptists, I don’t recall going to Sunday school or church during my early childhood, and I was never baptized (which according to their dogma would have included complete immersion in water).

In the Sixties, autumn in Tullahoma (TN) revolved around the high school football team—the Tullahoma High School Wildcats.

I am sad to write that my friend Robert Todd passed away at 2:25 A.M. on June 27 after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer.

Fifty-six years ago, New Year’s Eve 1963, I was slogging through six or eight inches of wet snow toward an evening at my favorite watering hole, the Roman Room. A junior at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, I was trying life as a normal student having been kicked off the UT football team after…

Early in 1999, Shonnie, in her professional capacity, was setting up at a health fair at the Asheville Civic Center. While we rather liked being committed to one another but not married, we’d discussed matrimony from time to time. Since I was leaving town for a few days, I was moved to pop the question,…

Shonnie and I were married at Bend of Ivy Lodge outside Asheville 20 years ago tomorrow, May 30. In honor of that occasion, over the next few days I’ll be posting a few episodes from my memoir-in-progress that tell the story of (1) how we met, (2) our wedding weekend, and (3) the life we…

It was a warm June evening in 1961, the night of my graduation from Tullahoma High School. I’d just returned to Tennessee from playing in a high school all-American football game in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and was feeling cocky and impatient, eager to get the post-graduation celebration underway.

In 1943, I entered life a unique, loving, vulnerable, entirely authentic little being. Before long, however, in reaction to the insensitive, thoughtless, or ignorant words and actions of the mostly well-meaning grown-ups around me, I gradually began to change.

My friend and former brother-in-law Harry Nelson has died.

Hi, I’m Bruce, and I’m a recovering racist.

To be able to run through the forest, strong, quick strides, uphill, downhill, breathing in my surroundings, fully present, conscious of my connection with the web of life. No concern for money, or possessions, or my standing in the social pecking order, not even my own mortality.