Author Archives: rbelcher2014

Note: for younger family members of mine who may read this, some of this history might be a surprise, but, for all of us, the good can outweigh the bad! “Hello,” I said into the receiver. It was not time for a scheduled call from home, so I wasn’t quite sure who was calling meContinue reading “Grandpa Andy”

Note: I wrote this a few weeks ago for fun when I assigned this topic to my memoir writers. I wonder if we would have bought that house if we had known we would leave it less than a year later. And what was our motivation? It wasn’t that we had had a child. OurContinue reading “Our First House”

Basketball started early for me. My dad took me to my first game when I was five years old. More than likely, my mother wanted me out of the house, either because she was sick or because she was making a Christmas surprise. For whatever reason, I walked into the biggest room I had everContinue reading “It’s in My Blood”

“Thick Darkness.” Wait—have those words been in Exodus 20:21 all along and I’ve never heard them? Impossible. Yet, I didn’t remember them being there, so I looked up the reference in my NEB. Sure enough, the words are “dark cloud,” words that fit right in with vs. 18, which talks about thunder and lightning andContinue reading “Thick Darkness and Total Light”

Every day, I read the newspaper, even on Sunday. When I was growing up, Sunday papers, because of our conservative religious denomination, were off limits. But I shed that taboo long ago. Newspapers have always brought me great joy because they have articles about everything and the publishers don’t mind spending ink, paper, and timeContinue reading “A myriad of facts, newspaper facts”

“I think I would like to get a real estate license. Wouldn’t it be fun to be able to see inside all these old homes?” I’ve said this more than once when Jim and I were out in our neighborhood walking the dog. The statement was made mostly in jest: I didn’t really want toContinue reading “Interiors”

Her name was Terri, spelled with an “i.” She was one of those rather neurasthenic young women: her fine, thin fingers moved rather quickly as they would push back her fine, thin blonde hair. She didn’t talk much, seeming to be too nervous to speak in a group in the classroom. In fact, she onlyContinue reading “Terri’s earrings”

“I’m a modernist,” I say, “mostly American,” in one situation, and everyone knows exactly what I mean. I am a literary scholar who specializes in the historical/literary period of roughly 1912 to 1945 or a little after. If I’m in a different group of people, they might be puzzling over my moniker: “Why would sheContinue reading “The Center Cannot Hold–or Can It?”

Note: I began to think about this psalm when it was part of the scripture reading for Sunday, January 17, 2021. I am reading from, quoting, and paraphrasing the New English Bible translation, 1970. Vs 1-6: You know me; you know all. You know my thoughts; you know my whole “journey,” “my resting places,” andContinue reading “Musings on Psalm 139”

You’ve seen it, haven’t you? It’s the commercial where several men sit on a blue settee and talk about their wonderful hair now that they have used a particular product. I was halfway listening to this commercial the other night when I heard these words: “I have a great relationship with my hair!” That certainlyContinue reading “Simple Acts of Living”