life Archives – Page 7 of 8

The Joy Amidst the Sorrow

On April 1, 2020

What if it took a global pandemic to find work-life balance? And what does that mean when it’s over?

These days I wake up without an alarm, usually sometime around 7 a.m., often to the quiet chatter of our kids playing somewhere in the house. I lie in bed for a few minutes collecting my senses, looking outside at the emerging dawn, the tender, pregnant buds on every tree, the muted birdsong, quiet streets.

Within a few minutes, I remember: there’s a pandemic.

It’s a bit like grieving a death, really. You wake up, and for a few precious moments your brain pulses about, hopscotching from one synapse to the next until suddenly it lands upon the bruised one, the lightning-trigger that drops your stomach. Each morning is a little easier than the previous one. That’s what endurance does for you. How quick the new normal.

From Behind Our Silver Screens

By James D. Hogan

On March 15, 2020

In writing

The world needs us to be good people right now. Can we rise to the occasion?

Sunday mornings, I usually get a short chirp from my phone that’s different from all the rest–it’s my weekly pop-up that tells me how much time I’ve spent with my head down, looking at its tiny screen. I quietly celebrate the weeks when Apple tells me I’ve used its miracle box less than the week before. In the wake of a pandemic and our national pleas for quarantine, I’m guessing those streaks are coming to an end.

Lots of people have spilled lots of ink collectively worrying out loud that our obsessiveness with social media, apps, and the like drives us apart. We are isolated by our devices, self-sorted into silos and echo chambers, spared the humanity of having to look each other in the eyes and come up with something to say. The internet has ruined us, they cry. God save the Millennials!

As the phrase “social distancing” no doubt battles for contention as Webster’s word of the year, isn’t this what we’ve all been preparing for?

Mrs. Wooten’s Wagoneer

By James D. Hogan

On November 10, 2019

In writing

The Jeep Grand Wagoneer’s design virtually never changed, making it one of the few automobiles that connected entire generations of people.

Kelly and I fell in love with the classic lines of the Grand Wagoneer years before we ever owned one. The familiarity and legacy of the car is renowned; the Wagoneer is often credited as the original luxury SUV. It competed with Range Rovers, offering finer appointments to a truck-based platform more often associated with rugged austerity. In the 1980s, Wagoneers became a staple of WASP culture, the preppy automobile of choice for lawyers and doctors and their private school kids.

These days, the cars are symbols of a vintage lifestyle. Put a Christmas tree on the roof rack and a wreath on the front grill, and you have enough Lands End kitsch that you can probably leave the kids out of your holiday card photo. As a kid, and even as an adult, I always wondered about who drives these things and what kinds of lifestyles they might lead.

So when we spotted an old, woody Wagoneer around town, it was interesting to see not just the car but who was behind the wheel.

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