I’m in a McDonald’s restaurant and a man just came in to apologize to a manager for having been rude to her when they had a minor dispute a couple of hours ago. He said he had started thinking about it and was ashamed of the way he acted. So he wanted to let her know that he shouldn’t have spoken to her as he did. She accepted his apology and apologized again to him for the mistake that had been made with his order. They both seemed more at peace after the brief conversation. I really appreciate people who are willing to take responsibility for not meeting their own standards. That can take courage. It’s a lesson most of us need to keep in mind — and that definitely includes me.
Briefly: Search engines are dumbing down online writing
Briefly: How you treat a person in a split second can change his or her dayAUDIO: Drama of ‘family of origin’ seems to follow us for a lifetime
I was about 14 years old when this photo was taken, so my sisters would have been about 12 and 10. That’s Mary on the left and Rebecca on the right, mugging for the camera with someone else’s sunglasses.
I clearly don’t want to be in the photo. Mary seems ambivalent and Rebecca is having fun with it. Something about this seems like a good symbol of my childhood. We were all in the same places and going through the same experience for those years — but we reacted to it in radically different ways.
Even though it’s been decades, I can’t seem to leave that time in my life completely behind. I spent about 90 minutes this afternoon talking with Rebecca about some issues on her mind. It was surprising how many of today’s issues required one of us to ask, “Do you remember when…”
Even though my sisters and I have gone in very different directions — and we have almost nothing to do with one another anymore — we still can’t escape the drama and dysfunction of where we all started.
He couldn’t mold her into himself, but my dad broke Mother’s spirit
$6.6 billion stolen from the feds? Yeah, well, they stole it from us first
I’m drawn to tales of brokenness, rescue and ultimate redemptionLittle girl’s happy ending reminds us not to be defined by tragedy
It was 19 years ago this week that a powerful tornado slammed into Tuscaloosa, Ala., and killed 11 people. One of the most powerful images from the aftermath of that tragedy was this photo of a man carrying what appeared to be the lifeless figure of a small child from the rubble of her home.
The picture was shot by a Tuscaloosa News photographer and it appeared in newspapers around the world after it was carried by the Associated Press wire. The man is Michael Harris and the little girl is 6-year-old Whitney Crowder.
For years, I had assumed she died that day, but I found out Monday that she is alive and has a happy family of her own.
Instinctive desire to ‘do something’ almost always leads to bad policy
Who were you before someone told you who you were supposed to be?
Why does the current concept of ‘human rights’ leave me queasy?