Being alone is something I chose.  And it suited me well.  For a while.

A few nights ago, I made a pot of Brunswick Stew.  I was asked to do that for some good friends - my family really. 

I was alone in my apartment, stewing chicken and onions and potatoes.  The aroma was, well… it brought back memories.  A whole pot full.

My brother is 9 years older than me.  Maybe 8.  Honestly, I’ve never been able to remember that.  But I do remember the Friday nights or Wednesday nights before Thanksgiving or other nights when he would return home to Jacksonville from being a student at Elon College in North Carolina.  Those were the nights I remember smelling the Brunswick Stew aroma from my mom’s kitchen.  It was a standard “welcome home” meal.  I usually smelled and tasted the very same thing the times I returned home from college and elsewhere.  I’ve done the same for my son.  Once or twice.  Most times with my son, it’s the aroma of Mama’s spaghetti he wants most. 

A couple more of my youngins’ returned home from college last weekend.  To their homes with their Mom or Dad.  Zach and Sammie.  Their mom cooked some stuff for them to take back to school.  She asked me to make Brunswick stew for them.  So I did.

It smelled good as it was cooking.  Just like it did when Mama cooked it so many years ago.  But as I worked and cooked and worked some more, and stirred the stew and smelled its juices simmer, I noticed some things missing.   The main ingredients.  There was no Mama or Daddy or sister or brother to share the smell.  There was no son coming home.  There was no Zach or Sammie coming to my home.  Their mom wasn’t here either.  There was no one.  Just me.  Mama’s Brunswick stew recipe calls for others to smell it simmer.  I discovered that a few nights ago.

This is the life I chose.  I left Zach’s and Sammie’s mom a year and a half or more ago.  She is back in my life somewhat these days.  I hope she returns full force soon.  After she overcomes my leaving her the way I did. 

It’s just too damned hard to fix Brunswick stew when you’re alone.  You know?

For Mama's recipe and more, click HERE for "More Lunacy."

It’s quite fitting that Hurricane Earl has formed in the Atlantic. I’m no meteorologist, but I think I can predict fairly accurately that Earl will be inland and over Atlanta, Georgia next weekend. It kind of has to. That’s where I will be next weekend. At a football game. And that’s where I was when I met for the first and only time my dear Uncle Earl. In Atlanta. After a football game.

And, kind of like a hurricane, almost as suddenly as Uncle Earl entered my life, the man left. I only ... << MORE >>

Sometimes we just lose our confidence. I surely do. From time to time. From minute to minute even. About a year and a half ago, I lost it big time. Well, I lost it long before that. Last year I faced the big time.

I’m a middle aged video producer. When I began my career over 30 years ago at television stations and advertising agencies, I was a young and creative hot shot of sorts. At the very least, my work ...

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Thanks for checking out TheLunarReport.com. If you are reading this, then you likely know that I am taking the week off. Since you are here, I hope that you will take a few moments to browse the site, read a few things, and enjoy some stuff.

If you like what you see, or if you know someone who would enjoy this, I hope you will consider sharing the site. People seem to like these. I sure love doing them.

And. Thanks!

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The phrase, “death with dignity” has puzzled me for quite some time. What the hell does that mean?  Just to cover my bases, I have asked my son to make sure I am wearing my suit and my teeth when I die. I don’t know how he will manage that. But that’s my take on “death with dignity.”

What about “life with dignity?”  Where is that idea?  Where the hell is the contract for that?

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That dear old woman had a pretty strong grip that evening. It took me a while to pry apart the small knotty fingers of her arthritic hands at the Twin Lakes’ Assisted Living dinner table and slip away to return to my busy young-adult life outside that place. Even as she said to me what she had said to me hundreds of times over the years, “Please don’t go,”  I left anyway. I can still see her old and sad eyes. I can still feel her grip. It was the last time I saw Nanny alive. That was ... << MORE >>

Dean Smith, former basketball coach at the University of North Carolina, said in a news conference one time after losing a pretty important college basketball game, “There are a billion people in China who don’t even know we played tonight.”   I got his point.   It was a good one.   But I don’t much care for the way he downplayed the importance of Carolina Basketball.   More specifically, Dean Smith Carolina Basketball.

Coach Smith’s health is not so good these days.   I thought it was time that I share a very special Lunar Report ...

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What began as a simple tomato war between brothers decades ago has now come to this. Harassing emails from the son of one of those brothers who rather subtly accused me of neglect. Well, I stood up to that son. “Patience is a virtue,” is what I wrote him back. I guess I told him!

Joseph, or “Big Coon” as they called him, left Graham, North Carolina in 1956. In 1962, he found his way to Florida, hundreds of miles from the nearest North Carolina homegrown German Johnson tomato.  
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They called all those folks piled into a bus or truck or something, “Jeter and his bunch.”  That’s what they called them in the tiny town of Graham, North Carolina. Years ago. When my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles all knew Jeter. And his bunch.

All I remember about “The Bunch” is hearing that when folks saw Jeter’s overloaded vehicle heading their way, the response was always the same. “Oh Lord. Here comes Jeter and his bunch.”
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All the man wanted was his home office back. He wanted his desk, his computer and enough room to situate his new chair in front of his old keyboard. That’s all.

He had used that keyboard for several years. For many years before it was a typewriter and telephone. And face-to-face engagements never scared the man.

He had a very successful career with that stuff. He was a pioneer in his field, I’ve been told. ... << MORE >>