Posts by tedswartz
Older brothers
This is my older brother Tim, on the right. He’s 16 months older than I am, and the picture on the left is taken at our grandparent’s place on the barn ridge. I’m about a year and half, and Tim is ready to turn three. Being a second son has some interesting characteristics; Sometimes a…
Read MoreMy Letter to Bill Irwin
Dear Bill, In 1983, I was 27 years old, married for eight years, one son born, another along the way, working for my parents as a meat cutter in the family butcher shop, mostly thinking I would be there for the foreseeable future. TV guide had a special section each day with highlights for the…
Read MoreThe Ellipses
The ellipsis… I have been in love with the ellipsis since I started writing. Not everyone shares that love. My indiscriminate love affair with this punctuation annoys and occasionally infuriates editors and administrators alike. Here’s the thing…or a thing. It may not be the thing, but it’s certainly a thing. The thing is… …I don’t…
Read MoreGreetings for the Christmas/Holiday Season
Christmas…I love the idea of God entering humbly into our lives…I detest the whole Santa Claus BS…as well as the manufactured War on Christmas: It’s about time we should declare war, or at the very least a “police action,” on civil religion masquerading as faith, and take your inflatable Santas and once a year indignation…
Read MoreThe Story of the Hat
This hat…it’s called a toboggan in certain parts of North America…a woolen hat with ear flaps. We bought them in Ontario for the show DoveTale, written with Ingrid De Sanctis in 1997. They are more common now across the US, but in 97, especially in the lower states, not so much. Something happens to me…
Read MoreWhy I go to church
Someone asked me recently why I still go to church. The question came out of a conversation where the asker had stopped going, a result of several factors – rejection of fundamentalism, hypocrisy of attendees, a middle aged opening of the mind to the possibility of doubt. My answer was in part: “ You never…
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