I know what you may be thinking: dementia sounds like a pretty heavy subject for a song. But hear me out. This song grew out of people I have listened to, cared for, and come to admire. Their stories stayed with me, and eventually, I wanted to put some of what they taught me into music. Many years ago, I became a Texas-certified Long-Term Care Ombudsman. As a volunteer, I regularly visit local nursing homes and advocate for residents. Much of what I do, though, begins with so

One evening, I was sitting nearby while Lynda was preparing dinner in the kitchen. She probably thought I was watching the little kitchen TV, but I wasn’t. I was watching her. And for some reason, a thought came over me: What if God took her home tonight? What if this were the last time I would ever see her standing there, chopping carrots on the cutting board? That thought sent my mind in several directions at once—which, for me, isn’t all that unusual. I’m a little ADD. I b

Follow this link to a song about time and growing old. I used AI to write the song and produce the music. https://youtu.be/LLVItHCzu28 As I enter my "twilight" years, I think back on those younger years when Lynda and I had more years ahead of us than behind us. It is a little unsettling to ponder the idea of ending this life and beginning another. But, at the same time, it is exciting to imagine a life in Paradise with a new body. When I was in my twenties, I worked for Cate

The link above takes you to a song about my hometown, Paris, Texas. The memories are mine. ChatGPT helped me shape them into lyrics, and an AI music app called Suno created the music and vocals. Let me say up front: I have little musical talent. But I can write, and I have plenty of stories about growing up in Paris. For this song, I wanted a country sound with a little ’90s heartland flavor and a male vocalist. Before asking AI to help, I sat down and wrote the backstory—the

When we lived in Kenya, some of my favorite moments came from being in a Masai boma, surrounded by fellow missionaries and Maasai pastors. Life there moved at a different pace, slower, simpler, and I almost always had my camera in my hand. Over time, the villagers grew used to me, used to the quiet click of the shutter as I tried to capture pieces of their world. One day, a group of American visitors arrived from a church back in the States. They came bearing gifts, bags of c

All I ever knew him as was “Old Man Edwards.” He lived just behind our house when I was growing up in Paris. To us kids, he was something of a mystery—an eccentric old man with a gift for carpentry. Day after day, under the hot sun, he built small clapboard shacks, only to tear them down and start again. Nothing was wasted. He saved every board, every nail. I don’t recall ever seeing him throw a single one away. As I remember, he had been a World War I veteran. Back then, the

In her younger years, my mother, Evelyn Ragan, turned heads. She was a natural beauty—graceful, confident, and full of life. She and my dad were newlyweds just before he shipped out to North Africa during World War II, and they were deeply, unmistakably in love. Like so many couples separated by war, they found ways to stay close across the distance. Mom would send him letters, of course, but also photographs. Plenty of them. Some were what you might call her “swimsuit shots,

At first glance, the photo looks like nothing more than an ordinary snapshot from another era—maybe the 1920s or ’30s. The Christmas tree is a little scraggly, the room slightly cluttered, nothing especially remarkable. Just a moment in time, frozen like so many others. The boy in the picture is my father. The house belonged to my grandparents. And, as Paul Harvey used to say… now for the rest of the story. My dad, as I later learned from more than a few reliable sources, had

I’ve always thought I knew what art was. It was the sculptor, hands covered in clay, slowly revealing a form that wasn’t there before. It was the painter, brush in hand, layering oils onto canvas until light and shadow felt alive. It was the photographer, someone like me, waiting for just the right moment to press the shutter and capture something real. Even a tattoo artist, I’ve believed, turns skin into a living canvas. That all made sense to me. Until recently. Because now

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I have photographed birds in East Africa's Serengeti and in my own backyard. I get an adrenaline rush in both places. When I first started shooting back yard bird photography, I would routinely set up my large Canon pro-rig on a tripod, attach my heavy telephoto lens and remote shutter, and off I went. Well, not so much. Above, I photographed this image of two Cardinals in a tree near my driveway. I am pretty sure the foreground bird is the mother Cardinal and the background

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