Topic: Family

The road home: A journey of memory, hope

By Rev. Charles Moreland | January 6, 2008 |

While in the U.S. Army for 20 years, I identified my home of record as St. Louis, Missouri, where I was raised on the south side in a home where my parents both worked full time to make ends meet. Life wasn’t a battle for survival, but it was a struggle from pay day to pay day.

Though now a Tennessee resident, when I speak of home I still focus on Missouri, especially the Ozarks where I was born and spent six formative years of childhood.

Recently I returned to the Ozarks near Fort Leonard Wood. There for three days, I faced an epiphany, an experience of both sadness and joy. Experiences that brought me closer to reality. Something happened that was unforeseen and unanticipated, something that wasn’t on my list of objectives for this trip. The result was a new personal “awareness” and sensitivity toward my own well-being. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion, Spirituality | No Comments

Holiday thankfulness: Life, love, laughter

By Michael Covington | November 21, 2007 |

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season so far. I’m sure that like me, you’re still not truly ready for the season. Since it’s upon us, I’m forgoing my typical article this week for something else instead. This week, I’d like to take some time to share with you all my list of what I am most thankful for. I extend an open invitation to all our authors and readers to write and share something similar. After all, Clarksville Online is here for one clear and single purpose, to share.

The first item on my list is my family. I have a loving partner of over two years. Christian is more than I could ever want in a partner. He’s my best friend through the good times, he’s my rock through the bad times, and he’s my shoulder to cry on through the sad times. Most people wouldn’t notice at first glance, but he’s the most sensitive and caring person I’ve ever known, and I love him more than he’ll ever know. His cousin John who lives with us is one of the greatest men I’ve ever had the privilege to know. He’s one of those rare souls you meet who you can always count on to get you through whatever is going on in life. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion | 1 Comment »

‘Serendipity,’ friendship fuel change

By Christine Anne Piesyk | October 20, 2007 |

Twice in the past fifteen years I’ve answered a very specialized call for help from a friend in New England, a friend of thirty years standing who works hard, writes harder, and panics rarely. He panicked, with good cause. And so I found myself On the Road in America, in pumpkin season, in the northeast, house hunting.

Fifteen years ago, I found Jesse a fabulous apartment in Deerfield, Massachusetts, an oddly-shaped studio in the upper tier of an even more oddly-shaped ultra-modern house, set in the woods on the edge of small cliff, decks extending out to the edge with a view of the Pioneer Valley. Birdfeeders everywhere. An occasional misguided moose in the cow pasture several hundred feet below. Steep dirt driveway that made icy winter driving “interesting.” But after seven years, ownership, and zoning shifted and that apartment was suddenly a thing of the past. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Opinion | No Comments

Iraq war and another deployment changes everything for family

By Debbie Boen | September 14, 2007 |

Over the weekend I met the most wonderful couple. They had a new baby and had a lot of great ideas about nutrition and similar interests in the outdoors. He’s going back to Iraq in January.

“Oh, then you’ve got a little time,” I said.

What a stupid thing to say. It really eats me up to meet someone as neat as that and know that we (I) am sending them back into a war. Bush said that he wants permanent bases in Iraq.

He has no intention of leaving. We’re paying over $450,728,500,000 (I can’t even say that amount) on Bush’s war. Some 71,720 to 78,296 civilians have been killed; how to picture that? Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City filled to the max (Google it).

And we blame the Iraqis for having a civil war. Who wants them to be in a civil war? Mr. Bush does. Stay the course. Our soldiers dead, 3,774 (the bloodiest summer yet) and 27,767 wounded.

But all of them are wounded. You can’t go occupy a country with 71,000 people dead and how many injured and not be wounded by that. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, Politics | 4 Comments

The moment

By Bill Larson | April 3, 2007 |

Georgia10 at Daily Kos wrote the following piece which I modified slightly for presentation here.

Four years after Shock & Awe and counting, the time has come for us not to just support our troops, but to save them.  To stop sending them by the thousands into a civil war, and to bring them home. For a reminder of just what home means, I offer this:

In war, tears will flow as well as blood. Widows and orphans will weep as flags folded by heroes are placed with reverence in their hands. And then there are moments like that. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion, Politics | No Comments

Happy Thanksgiving

By Bill Larson | November 23, 2006 |

It’s the yearly day of thanks. Not that I don’t give my personal thanks every day of the year, but on this special day we do it as a nation. We gather with family and friends and feast on turkey and other delicacies. There are always those who are unable to gather with their loved ones as much as they would like to be there. We should take a moment out of our day and remember them, pray for all of them all.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3346422489703378056

This is a classic butterball turkey commercial from way back in 1959, just a bit of turkey history to share with you all today.

Sections: News | No Comments