Category: Opinion/Reflection (2018-present)

(NOTE: I delivered the following eulogy at Bob Morris’s funeral on Saturday, September 10, 2022, at Northridge Church of Christ, Shawnee, Oklahoma.) I spent 20 years as a technical writer and editor and have spent much of the rest of my various careers writing and editing – hundreds, probably thousands, of various types of documents over Read more . . .

(Scroll to the end for links to my previous 14 blog tributes to Joanna since her passing.) Joanna and I celebrated 44 wedding anniversaries before her passing in February 2021. Today is our 46th . . .  only, she is no longer here to celebrate with me. But I know she is nearby, for the Read more . . .

(Scroll to the end for links to my previous 13 blog tributes to Joanna since her passing.) It was a year-and-a-half ago today – in the wee hours of February 14, 2021, around 1:30 a.m., as I was driving back to the hospital in Fort Worth – that I received the worst news of my Read more . . .

“What a difference a day makes . . . twenty-four little hours . . .” sang jazz artist Dinah Washington in the 1960s. Oh yes, and some days make more of a difference than others. Some days change the world and enter the popular vernacular as a shorthand code for those changes: July 4 (1776) Read more . . .

In August 2014, in recognition of George Mason’s 25th anniversary as senior pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, I wrote a personal reflection about the influence of Wilshire and George Mason in our lives – Joanna’s and mine – since we joined 10 years earlier. I encourage you to go back and read what Read more . . .

Between 54-year stints in Philadelphia (1901-1954) and Oakland (1968-2021 and who knows how much longer), the American League’s Athletics (“A’s” for short) played a largely forgettable 13 years (1955-1967) in Kansas City, Missouri’s Municipal Stadium. In 13 years, the Kansas City A’s had nothing but losing records. From 1955-1960, when there were only eight teams Read more . . .

It was 25 years ago today – March 4, 1997 – that Daddy called me, around 1:30 in the afternoon, and said three words: “Bill, she’s gone.” Mother had struggled with various ailments in the years before that – a bursitis attack in September 1992, followed by a stroke that November, and then a bacterial Read more . . .

It was 60 years ago today – February 20, 1962 – that astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. For decades now, women and men have flown into outer space on missions – especially trips to and from the International Space Station – with little to no fanfare. Oh, there have Read more . . .

(Scroll to the end for links to my previous 12 blog tributes to Joanna since her passing.) It was this Saturday last year – on the last weekend of January – that Joanna and I received the phone call from the transplant institute, notifying us that a kidney was available and that Joanna was 1st Read more . . .

(Scroll to the end for links to my previous 11 blog tributes to Joanna since her passing.) Over the past year, I’ve often been counseled, by friends who have experienced deep grief in their own lives, to journal my feelings regularly. Some have advised that this would be helpful to me, in time, to look Read more . . .