Martin Wiles: Gone but Not Forgotten
In our area of the United States, hummingbirds arrive in late March or early April and hang around until mid-October. A few weeks before their arrival, I hang three feeders for the scouts who arrive earlier to find so they can tell the later arrivers. One feeder outside our back-porch window, one outside our dining room window, and one outside our kitchen window. Almost anywhere we sit or stand in the house, we can view the beautiful little birds feeding. …
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Martin Wiles: Doing the Family Thing
One year before, the app showed my wife and I had joined our daughter and her two boys for a trip to Granddad’s Apples in Hendersonville, NC—a trip we made annually, either with them or someone else. This particular year, things had gotten busy. Had the app not reminded me, we may have forgotten to go. …
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Martin Wiles: First Things First
Firsts are important. On this day, two of my cousins brought a mahogany china cabinet to our home. The reason it was a first was not that it’s the first one I’ve ever owned but because it was the first piece of furniture my mom ever bought with her own money. She purchased it to hold china she planned to purchase as a part of setting up housekeeping with my dad. …
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Martin Wiles: When God Hides
I am familiar with hiding. Apart from the normal game of hide-n-seek, my cousin and I often invented other hiding games. We invented imaginary giants to hide from in my grandfather’s barns. If we chose to play cowboys and Indians, one group would hide. …
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Martin Wiles: When Life Changes
My wife talks with her mom nightly, but when her mom called at 8:30 one Sunday morning, we knew something was amiss. …
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Martin Wiles: The Stripping
For the first time in a long time, I had a large garden plot that produced well. When the spring crops finished, I planted purple hull peas. I had not planted them in some years, but I loved them and looked forward to cooking them and covering my white rice with them and the “pot liquor” (juice, for those not from the South). …
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Martin Wiles: The Perfect Guide
My wife and I, along with another couple, found ourselves in Savannah, Georgia, at Bonaventure Cemetery. Quite a few famous people are buried here, but we wanted to see the gravesite of Johnny Mercer—a famous singer—and the statue of Gracie Lady—a young girl who died from pneumonia but whose picture became famous because of this sculpture. …
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Martin Wiles: Be Your Best
Not that I wanted to do anything that would shame me. It’s just that everywhere my wife and I go, we seem to run into someone we know. But we were now in Savannah, Georgia. …
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Martin Wiles: Getting Clean
Only once before had I gone more than three days without a shower—when my daughter and I backpacked for five days and had no way to take a shower or a bath. Washing off in creeks and rivers proved the best we could do. This time, things differed. …
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Martin Wiles: My Brother’s Keeper
One evening, he struck off by himself. Mom and I lounged around in the house, doing nothing in particular. But when darkness arrived and my brother had not, Mom said, “You better go find your brother.” …
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Martin Wiles: Never Doubt
I had heard some of the students say it the previous year, and now I was hearing it again. In the eighth grade, they had been separated from the Honors class, and now in the ninth grade, they were separated from eighth-graders who were taking the same high school course they were. …
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