By NANCY PATRICK I recently had my seventy-first birthday. (I didn’t say “celebrate” because I don’t enjoy birthdays as some people do.) My birthdays, especially those of the past two decades, have effected a time of reflection and assessment for me.  I think my family must have had some pretty good genes because most of us have lived full lives.

By NANCY PATRICK In my youth, American society did not set aside a month during which to honor women for their contributions to the world. In 1987, Congress established March as the official month to do so. As a woman, I shamefully admit my ignorance about the historical status of women in American society. I would venture to say that

By NANCY PATRICK I want to write a new article, and I have two started. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to pull my thoughts together to finish either one of these papers in progress. As I write one sentence, my mind suddenly jumps to a related idea but one not actually pertinent to that place in the article. My inability to

By NANCY PATRICK Many of us will talk about the hardships of the year 2020 for a long time. This year has indeed made life difficult for more than one reason. Even though 2021 has begun, I include the recent hardships of the deadly winter in the difficult year that began last March when the COVID pandemic began. I had

By NANCY PATRICK As we approach the season of Lent, many people contemplate “giving up something” (sacrificing) to represent the sacrifice Christ made for his disciples. I don’t always participate in Lent, but I’ve thought about it more this year than usual—probably because of the tremendous hardship and involuntary sacrifice 2020 has inflicted on so much of humanity. My retirement

By NANCY PATRICK As an English teacher, I sometimes taught literature written by authors who used a writing technique called stream-of-consciousness. That term refers to the basic idea of allowing a narrator to tell the story without any chronology, structure, or other narrative form.   Stream-of-consciousness resembles live-streaming events online. It captures whatever happens without any editing. I use the term

By NANCY PATRICK Honestly, no one ever labeled me a super-woman, and I hope I have not become an insufferable wimp. I do confess that hyperbole appeals to me; my husband Mike calls it exaggeration and a tendency to see life’s situations as all or nothing thinking.  As a school girl, I demanded of myself that I make all A’s

By NANCY PATRICK You probably remember a comedian named Jeff Foxworthy whose fame rests on his act that begins, “You know you’re a redneck when…” I have never thought of myself as a redneck, but neither had I realized that I might possess hillbilly blood until the recent Nexflix production Hillbilly Elegy aired. If you watch it, Glenn Close’s character