I’ve been working diligently to merge all my blogs into this one. I decided a while back that I really can’t manage a jiu-jitsu blog, a Maine blog, two of my old blogs and this one at the same time. So I thought putting them together would be in my best interest. And I think […]

Through part of my childhood when I was a kid, I slept on a mattress that was made of 100% foam. It wasn’t like the mattresses we see today. The ones that have seven layers of heaven – springs, padding, memory material, air pockets, water and gel. The ones that are now over a foot […]

There were two occasions when I found myself living back in my home town because of the old man and his wife. I cared for them and I cared about learning more of what the old man had to teach me. After his wife passed away, he was only too happy to see me again. […]

Over the years, and after I left the town I grew up in, I would call the old lady on the telephone. She was much better at talking on the phone than the old man ever was. My visits with the old lady had become visits through the telephone and my visits with the old […]

I remember sitting in the old lady’s room in that rocking chair. Sitting there with my hands tightly clutched to the rocking chair arms. My legs crossed with my right foot resting on the left. I would rock in that chair as I watched the old lady rest on her bed. As she told me […]

I never knew there was a woman inside that big white house. I never knew there was a woman lying in a bed near a window on the top floor. A woman with iron-gray hair. The old man and I talked a lot through the years after our conversation at the pond. We spent most […]

We sat together again on the same stone bench, only this time it was raining. It was raining hard – actually, it was pouring. We sat together on that bench in silence as we had the day before, but with one major difference that made the moment so much more memorable. It was raining. It […]

The next school day wasn’t a good one for me. It wasn’t necessarily a bad one either, but it wasn’t the usual day where I would excitedly hop off the school bus and run to my locker in anticipation of seeing all my friends. I remember it being much more somber. Not a lot had […]

“Nothing ever changes unless there’s some pain.” That’s what he said. I didn’t hear him at first and didn’t understand his words when I finally did hear him, but after a few instances of him muttering the same thing, things became much more clear. “Nothing ever changes unless there’s some pain.” That’s what he said. […]