Every year our oldest daughter and her husband come from California for their vacation. And every year, our son-in-law brings a new USA flag with him. This act of kindness is not random, but has been a tradition for 38 years. Our kids will soon arrive and a new flag will proudly wave in our front yard. The old tattered one will come down. It bears the history of last year. The fierce winds of winter gnawed on the threads and chewed the fabric. Strings are dangling, colors have paled, but it stil…

My daughter said, “If you don’t get up from your computer, you’re going to lose your freedom.” Those words put a fire under me. I’ve got to do whatever it takes to keep healthy. Go figure. Eighty-four years old, and I’m just now deciding to take care of my health. I’ve painted with oil paints laced with lead for 46 years. I loved the smell of turpentine. It didn’t bother me. I breathed that stuff. All those little habits and things in life we do will eventually catch up with us. Seems like today…

For Father's Day, my grandson, Creede Wylie, wrote this article as a tribute to his dad and his grandpa, Ben Wylie. I want to share this with others who know them. Are you a real man in today’s social climate? Individuals tussle with the idea that the term man should change. I’m not mad about the participation trophy culture, but I don’t believe you can earn a title by just taking part biologically or through image. Being a man constitutes particular traits that are often unspoken. During a game…

Pagosa Springs is like a magnet. It has a certain appeal that brings long-time guests and part-time residents back every year. They feel at home with good, honest people around them, and where everybody knows their name. Shopkeepers remember them. They frequent their favorite restaurant and find their table waiting. That’s the cham of Pagosa. We stay the same and they come home. It’s like “Cheers.” It’s a place where people come searching for their identity and they find it here. Not at the Bull…

Palm trees in Colorado. It sounds crazy, but not any crazier than the world we live in. The Lord said to Joshua, "You are old, advanced in years, and there remains very much land yet to be possessed." I take this scripture to heart. I look around and echo those words, "There remains very much land yet to be possessed," and I add to the sentiment. What a mess this world is in. I thought I was winding up, but there is much to do and little time to do it. I stopped by a favorite bookstore. The conv…

“Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail.” – Charles Dickens’ famous words in A Christmas Carol. On a recent Monday morning I woke to a dead, dark house. And of my own knowledge, I can attest that everything in the house was as dead as a doornail in Marley’s coffin. I sat up in the blackness, a blank clock stared back at me. An electric blanket, as cold as Pagosa’s winters, lay stiff as a…