We pursue the considered life, by looking back — over short distances and long — to piece together the moments that have made us and continue to make us. The memoir lets us ask ourselves: Who are you and why?
“Now and then we had a hope that, if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.” –Mark Twain, S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin’! The Pirates of My Youth by Jack Simons As a child, I developed a passion for jewels and gold – strange, seeing I possessed none, and neither did my parents. In […]
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Instead of Fear by Jack Simons I don’t believe I was really awake when General Douglas MacArthur gave his famous speech at West Point to accept the Sylvanus Thayer Award on July 12, 1962. I had graduated from high school 35 days earlier, and was more interested in girls, Fords and Chevies, college in the […]
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California Dream by Jack Simons A Honda showroom in Monterey, California – January 1966 – not a fancy place, just a concrete slab structure with large display windows set between Del Monte Avenue and the beach – a landscape of scraggly trees and sand-acclimated weeds. In a back room the owner showed us a prototype […]
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The Call by Esther J. Brown 1. They began to call to me in 2009. I remember the day, a late September afternoon in Jerusalem, while I climbed around some limestone tombs south of the Old City walls. I sat on a stone to listen, looking east at the Palestinian village of Silwan, toward Mecca. […]
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Watching Old Movies: Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Jack Simons When I attended Baylor University in 1962, I had to choose one of three dormitories: Penland: the newest and most expensive; Brooks: the oldest and cheapest; Kokernot: twelve years old and middle-priced. I reasoned I didn’t want to live with the rich, nor did I […]
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In the daytime I banged in and out of the kitchen screen door to play. One day a girl’s voice addressed me through the side window of the house next door.
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