my careless contagion

I got in the wayback machine and ended up in 1997 listening to Sixpence None the Richer's Kiss Me. It's a good jam, so I decided to stay a while and explore the concept of the song. It was made popular by the movie She's All That, which was a sort of teen romcom, of which there were about 8 million during the 90s (my favorite of which was probably Can't Hardly Wait, which I wrote about previously).  I know we all probably forgot about such things, but back in the 90s it was okay to kiss a girl. (I cross the street when I see a woman approaching now.) And you knew she was a girl, too. This means, well, let's not get into it. Things are more complicated now. Songs like this are what life is about. These are the moments we live for. The few sparkling moments we trudge through endless years of mundane and downright ugly to experience. Kissing the girl. Dancing with her in the moonlight. Just existing with her in a special moment. Breathing in her essence. I realize I ha...

Perhaps I've neglected this topic. I am getting quite old and with over 550 posts in the bag, I may have forgotten I've already written this. Pardon me. Nod and smile and pretend you're hearing it for the first time. That's me in the photo. I was still in high school, so 1996 or before is my only guess as to the date. I wore a hat emblazoned with South Dakota State University (where I later took online courses). I had that coat up until recently when I finally threw it out before moving back to Nebraska. (Almost eight months now since I moved back, whoa.) The board, covered in snow, was sold a long time ago. I figure this was taken in Colorado. I have no recollection where exactly. Still have the cheesy, crooked grin. Can't help it; that's what God gave me.  When I was in elementary school, on a school trip to Terry Peak in the Black Hills, I learned how to ski. I skied for many years. I became bored with the two-plank setup and decided to try one plank in high ...

No, Nebraska is not for everyone. It's widely derided for being "flyover country," for being flat (it's the 20th flattest state, not even close to being the flattest — Florida), for being "cow country," "corn country," and for having a proud college football heritage but failing to live up to that heritage for, oh, about 20 years. But, hey, I hear they have a proper football coach again. And they've always had some of the finest mollisols on the planet. Nebraska, a heckuva place. I had never seen a blizzard before moving to Nebraska at the age of 10. I had never had a snow day. I got both of those within days of moving there in 1987. I can still recall the wonder of driving around town after the blizzard with the snow piled high in the middle of the streets. We couldn't see cars on the other side of the road! Yeah, Nebraska is not for everyone. Nine years of my life were spent here. These were years filled with many changes, now that...