Author: maryanncrum

    “One thing. Just do this one thing,” I kept telling myself as I was playing golf recently.    Not 10 things, or five, or even three. Just one. I simply needed to keep my head down and my eyes on the little white ball at my feet. Why, oh why, was I having such… Continue reading Just One Thing to Do

    Elections are certainly necessary and important … like dental surgery sometimes is. Dental procedures, however, don’t last for months. During political campaigns, as we’re relentlessly bombarded with robo-calls, tacky TV ads and mountains of junk mail, all we can do is mentally bite down on a stick and wait for it to end.    When… Continue reading Hope That Transcends Elections

    Good news, poultry fans, here comes another chicken story.    In my last column, I wrote about our chickens’ misguided desire for more freedom than they can handle. One day after that column was published, Bailey the very big dog did indeed frolic too roughly with one of our birds who’d roamed into the… Continue reading The King Always Has Another Move

   Because 2020 hasn’t been crazy enough (eye roll), my husband and I decided to pile a bit more cray-cray onto our plates in the form of eight new chickens.   We’ve been chickenless for a while now. Our last batch of hens got too old to lay eggs and we didn’t feel called to run… Continue reading Freedom Can Be Hard to Handle

   We hear a lot these days about being “woke,” which a trendy online dictionary defines as “the act of being very pretentious about how much you care about a social issue.” Now, class, let’s use “woke” in a sentence: “Most people don’t care about how climate change is affecting musk oxen in Greenland because… Continue reading I’d Rather Be Awake Than Woke

   To know or not to know? That was the question. I chose not to, and came to regret it.    I’m talking about being tested for Covid-19. Of course I am, because hasn’t that been our national obsession for years now? Oh, wait, that’s right—it’s just been a few l-o-n-g months.    Anyway, I woke up… Continue reading Ignorance Isn’t Always Bliss

    “C’mon, Gram, let’s run!” 4-year-old Sadie said as she was herding me upstairs to see her rock collection.    “I think I’ll walk. I’m not very good at running,” I said.    “Why not?” she asked.    Knowing my granddaughter didn’t need to hear my many tales of orthopedic woe, I said, “Because I’m kind of… Continue reading It Isn’t Hard to Brighten a Day

    I’ve admitted before that when it comes to my grandkids, our house is pretty much the “Land of Yes.” Within reason, that is. I mean, it’s pretty easy for them to coax me into one more cookie or a few extra minutes playing video games, but I’m not about to let 4-year-old Sadie… Continue reading We Can’t Stay in the Land of Yes

    I recently watched a 12-episode docudrama whose main characters were all involved in the construction of the Titanic in Belfast, Ireland, in the early 1900s. It was good, but there was a certain pall cast over the whole thing because no matter how much I wanted a different ending, I knew the massive,… Continue reading Don’t Go Down With the Ship

    In the old days, thrill-seekers had to go skydiving, bungee jumping, or to Walmart on a Saturday for their adrenaline fix. No more. Now all we have to do is turn on the news if we want to test the upper limits of our nervous system.    I’m sure I don’t need to remind… Continue reading Move Over, Bob, We Need Jesus