After the Flood

Natural disasters are not all bad. At least there’s free food. The Red Cross Disaster Relief truck came to my parents’ house around two o’clock on August 18, 2016: Day 3 of the cleanup in the flooded parts of Baton Rouge. Some other parts of South Louisiana still...

I Will Keep Singing

July 18, 2016 The first indication I had yesterday that all was not well here in Baton Rouge came from my pianist at church.  She walked in for our usual pre-Mass warm up and reported that she had seen at least a dozen police cars responding to something on Airline...

When Great… Just Ain’t

I’ve never been the kind of person who feels obligated to respect a book (or other work of literature) I don’t like, no matter how vaunted its reputation.  I have more than a few quarrels with Shakespeare, starting with the fact that Romeo and Juliet are both complete...

Reading Backwards

“Now ordinary people are born forwards in Time, if you understand what I mean, and nearly everything in the world goes forward too…. But I unfortunately was born at the wrong end of Time, and I have to live backwards from in front, while surrounded by a lot of people...

Just the Right Amount of Sick

One of the most frustrating parts about being a singer is that minor illnesses take such a major toll on the voice.  I will never forget that morning during my first semester in grad school when I woke up with a sore throat.  After four years spent earning my Bachelor...

Easter – as a tree

April 27, 2015 – a freak thunderstorm, the likes of which we hadn’t seen around here in quite a while, knocked down a tree in my backyard that had only just gotten big enough to finally give us a little shade.  The trunk was completely split – not...