Author: Ron Ireland
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Remember Me
With the official diagnosis in, things begin to feel real. It’s Hodgkin Lymphoma, stage IIIs. In the coming weeks, I’ll get a port-a-cath installed and start immunotherapy and chemotherapy. I…
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Time is a Meadow
I am in the early stages of my third encounter with cancer. While the cures were painful, the first two encounters did not kill me, and I am confident that…
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Skunked
Dusk is Zelda’s favorite time of day to go outside. Her usual habit is to sniff around the old GMC to see if any varmints are holed up under the…
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They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves . . .
On January 28, 1948, a Douglas DC-3 carrying immigrant workers from Oakland, California to the El Centro, California Deportation Center caught fire and crashed near Los Gatos Canyon, 20 miles…
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Beach town in winter
This account was written at least twelve years ago. I can’t remember. I felt old then. I had no idea then what old really feels like. I walked along the…
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Sentinel crow
Almost every day four crows come by to eat corn, cracked corn, and their favorite treat, yesterday’s bread. Today, they are three, at least three I can see, they are…
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I Look to the Hills
Unable to sleep last night, and not willing to stay in bed tossing and turning, I got up at about 4:00 AM and went outside to the porch. It was…
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Easter in the mountains
It is Easter, 2020, and Virginia is in self-quarantine. At least we say we are. Here in our quiet mountain home I sat on the front porch this morning with…
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Time to pay debts, or at least acknowledge them
I’ve been watching videos of some very talented white people from the U.S.A. and the United Kingdom singing songs in those TV talent contests. It strikes me again that these…
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Pax vobiscum, y’all
Recently, a young person on facebook asked me if I am a Christian. In the political context of the question, it was clear that she thought she knew the answer.…
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The stain
In the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the far southwest corner, is a string of land along the Blue Ridge Mountains. Most of the towns in the region are small, and…
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Of music and idolatry
I’ve taken my political views over to Twitter where I expect everyone to get angry and saved my facebook time for poetry and music, but this is my blog, what…
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Just a closer walk
Here in the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia simply walking out the door into a new morning can prompt an overwhelming sense of gratitude. That raises a question: gratitude to whom,…
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A brief lesson in right wing Christian history
Fact: Paul Weyrich, was a leading light, some say the founder, of what is often called the Christian right, or the religious right. Fact: Paul Weyrich himself said that the…
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Calamity
In the world of American music it’s best to be young. Then critics can say things like “at age 24, he, or she already has the soul of an old…
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Be Here, or There, Now
I started doing Transcendental Meditation on January 13, 1973, and quit the first time I read about TM moving into the boardrooms of America to make managers and bosses more…
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Nobody cares
Competition can be healthy, up to a point. We’ve passed that point as a nation, and probably as a species. We have come to a place where we worship winners…
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Molly, snow, and hungry deer
March 2, 2015 It’s been a hard winter on Big Walker mountain, at least in the last few days. Today was the day we were expecting some thaw, but there…
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Buckets of Rain
From Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” this is one of my favorite songs to play. I do it in standard tuning, not the tuning Dylan used on the record.…
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You have to throw a lot of spaghetti at the wall
Anyone who tries to create anything knows that you have to make a lot of mistakes. I’ve read about, and seen, great works of art painted on canvass that have…
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Needy Time
The video link in this posting is for a performance of an old song that is called Needy Time, Needed Time, or Come By Here, depending on the performer or the time period. At its…
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Old hands, young heart: aging and the arts
I had the pleasure last night of listening to a young musician who is at the point in his development where you can tell he has all the tools he…