not-so-sticky

Bob in September 2009. My father, who suffers from the late-stages of early-onset Alzheimer's, has not been able to live with me for some time. Simple tasks I once took for granted - like eating, walking, talking - have become real challenges. A man who less than two years ago walked all the way from Kingston to Bloomington, albeit unintentionally, is no longer able to stand unassisted. Only five years ago, he had still regularly rode his bicycle over the New York border from his home in Cambridge, New York to West Arlington, Vermont, which only stopped after he had misplaced several bicycles. Even though Bob's no longer living with me, his presence persists.  Throughout the house, objects seem stranded. His wallet, once full of business cards and cash sits empty and discarded on the top of a shelf in the kitchen, its contents lost and the shell dismissed long ago. Bob's wardrobe. At the end of an upstairs hallway, next to the room where my father slept, is a

Postcard of High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. The year was 1988! My father drove us from Kinderhook , New York to Atlanta, Georgia in his Isuzu Trooper , which lacked both an air conditioner and a radio, for our vacation in which I recall as an ungodly hot summer. It was the summer before my freshman year in high school and the last thing I wanted to do was to ride with my father in a hot car across the country. He wouldn't let me use my Sony Walkman! He wanted a fully functioning co-pilot: awake, alert, and counting mile markers along the Interstate! In the back of the Trooper was Bob's mini-cooler stocked with Bob-delicacies: aerosol cheese , crackers, and soda, lest we become overcome by hunger on the road! We stopped at many rest stops, collecting bundles of tourist brochures and maps . We had quite a collection, which I would peruse through every evening, back in our motel, plotting out the next day. I was in charge of finding coupon deals for the next Econo

The @Amtrak conductor announced we’re about to arrive at our “final destination.” What could he know..?

"Warm beer, cold food" And they were good.

Art by Lil, Age 5. Lil: "Their world got killed so they're looking for another world." Me: "They look fairly happy for having just lost their world." Lil: "They're on their way to their mother, who has blankets and food..."