Typing class from the 1970's at Stepford High School. This is an AI-generated image directed by the author of this post.

I almost missed celebrating World Typing Day. That would have been sad, as typing has been important to my life and career. But maybe how I became a typist is a story worth telling.

Moving Reflections from a Business Writer

 

This article was originally published on LinkedIn on December 27, 2021. It has since been updated to include a tribute to my Creative Writing professor from University of Redlands.

Mother's Nontraditional Career

 

The above squiggles spell out "International Women's Day 2022"​ in Gregg shorthand.

This article was published on LinkedIn on International Women's Day, March 8, 2022. 

Reflections on a '92 C1500 Suburban

 This is a 1992 C1500 Chevrolet Suburban. I bought it in 1995 and finally sold it to a private party in 2006 or 2007.

The Ordainment of Cecil Baker Egerton

Dr. Fred Fernando Brown

First Baptist Church

Knoxville, Tennessee

Sunday, December 30, 1951

 

DR. STOKES:

                  At the direction of the church, a Council of Baptist Preachers met with Cecil Egerton this afternoon. I am going to ask the Clerk of our church, Mr. Russell Parrish, to read the report of that Council. Mr. Parrish:

Churches I have Loved (Most of the Time): Cloudy

Editor's Note: The following is an essay and recollection written by my father, Dr. Cecil Baker Egerton, of his first pastorate in Cloudy, Oklahoma, circa 1950.

I will never forget Cloudy. I learned so much there. I don’t know what the place is like now, but over a half century ago, it was a journey back in time to an America that existed long before I was born. Located on a ridge in the Kiamichi Mountains of Oklahoma, it was twenty-five miles from the nearest paved road. As a young man from the city of Knoxville [Tennessee] who was studying in a theological school in Fort Worth, Texas, going there was like using a time machine to visit a vanished world. The women still boiled their laundry in iron kettles on Monday. People drew water from their own wells. The younger kids attended a one-room schoolhouse, while the older kids rode a bus down to Rattan.

Moving Reflections from a Business Writer

 

In the summer of this nearly-spent year, my wife and I moved into our “forever home”: the one from which we intend to be carried in box or bag when that time comes (decades in the future, God willing). We’ll never move again. And it's a wonderful feeling.

Washing & Drying As It Was Meant to Be

Not long after we moved into our new (to us) house, our appliances began breaking down. It wasn't surprising. The previous owners had gutted our 1940 stone house in 1997, replacing all of the house’s systems, infrastructure, and appliances at that time. So it should be no surprise they were waiting to give up the ghost once we moved in 24 years later.

Remember Bonnie Sue

A reflection on the life and death of Bonnie Sue Egerton, my sister, from COVID-19

Written While Wearing Pants

What’s Changed with COVID-19? Workstyles have been forcibly altered under lockdowns that have been in place in the U.S. for many weeks now (and elsewhere in the world as well). I’ve taken note of some of the major changes that have occurred since.

Just for fun ...

I was raised in the rural American South and Midwest as the elder son of a pastor of churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). The 1960’s and 70’s as I remember them were very different times and filled with very different places from the world as I experience it today. And sometimes it’s staggering to consider how much things have changed. While I enjoy the present with its once unimaginable opportunities, advances and challenges — cultural, social, and technological — it’s sometimes fun to remember how different things were, and just how impermeable and enduring that world once seemed to my youthful mind.

Weddings, Consumerism and Creativity

When my long-suffering wife and I were getting married, we had little money between us, no financial support from either family, and we lived in Los Angeles County where everything was expensive. Here’s my best recollection of how we went about it – granted, a good many years ago.

My Sundays with Ghosts

Source: Google Earth

America's ghost towns lose their populations through attrition, natural calamities, economics, eminent domain, or disasters of our own making. Sometimes they retain a small population, but whatever the cause and the scale of their demise, they become shadows as residents uproot or die, abandoning dwellings, businesses, and artifacts to the mercy of critters, decay, metal detectorists, and adventure seekers.

1 Dinner Pic. 11 Emotions.

You find all sorts of things when you pack up an office. Like a photobook from a company I once worked for. It was printed to memorialize the company’s leadership team as our company was in the closing phase of acquisition. Half a dozen years is a long time in tech, and it adds up to lots of memories.

Stories untold

Oftentimes, the better parts of a story are those left unsaid. Focused, as we must be, on aiming a positive face towards our audiences, we carefully pick and choose what we say to them, leaving content that appears less relevant on our desktops like discarded remains.

Bonnie Sue

Mental Health Awareness month -- each year in May -- began in 1949. I guess it's helped. It just seem to me that we've still got a long way to go.

(More here: www.mentalhealthamerica.net/may)

What not to pack

I was returning home to the U.S. from Germany, and checked into Frankfurt’s international airport. At the security checkpoint, while I passed successfully through the detector, my carry-on bag was flagged for hand inspection. As I stood at the end of the checkpoint a security agent opened the bag and began searching through it.

Remembering Reverend Randollph

In 1965, a Methodist pastor from Illinois, Charles Merrill Smith, wrote a book of satire entitled “How to Become a Bishop Without Being Religious.” A bestseller, the book was apparently aimed—as the author stated in his introduction—at the “young preacher … [as] an inexhaustible source of counsel and inspiration in the days and years ahead.”

A Clumsy Ballerino

Time was, you had a choice of getting your newspaper in the morning or afternoon. The “old” newspaper business is all but dead, gasping in the wake of digital news. And the afternoon papers were first to go in an industry that has been massively impacted by the transition. I was proud to be a part of that old era, and the lessons learned were enduring and invaluable.

High-class Jeep Problems

I’m fortunate enough to own two Jeep Wranglers, both of which I’ve had since new. My “old” one is a 2000 Wrangler Sahara. The “new” one is a 2009 Wrangler Sahara. And the 18-going-on-19-year-old is now relegated to “fun.” I keep it parked in the garage with the tops off (it came equipped with both hard and soft tops), and just drive it when the weather is suitably warm and sunny. (And it's not too far from home, because it's a little unreliable.)