Curtis Shelburne

I might as well just admit it: I am not a good door-knocker.

Knock, knock. Who’s there? Probably not me, or you’d not have heard the clatter.

I don’t like to make noise. I like peace and quiet and assume…

When my first grandchild, a beautiful little girl, was born, I was surprised to learn that grandchildren are born with an integrated GPS. All of mine have come thus equipped.

The Grandpa Positioning System can be initiated with a…

I’ve been thinking about ordering some hats. Caps, really. Baseball-style caps. Something like those famous red ones that are emblazoned “MAGA.”

But those won’t work for me. Oh, we can discuss the message, but I don’t plan to. Not…

Well, here we are again. Monday morning. At least, in my corner of the universe. I mean, of course, as I’m writing this. I don’t know when you’re reading it. Whenever it is, I do very much appreciate your…

Lazarus was dead. Of that sad fact everyone was now absolutely sure.

He had been barely breathing when Mary and Martha, his sisters, had sent the urgent message to Jesus to beg the Lord to return to help the…

“I think I made a mistake.”

Those, I’m told, were the words on a note a dying 20-something-year-old wrote to his nurse before he expired. He was referring to his, as it turns out, suicidal decision to attend a “COVID…

Wow, it’s a good thing nobody can hear what I’m thinking right now. An “open mike” transmitting from my brain might show how incredibly jumbled it is today! I’m sure the funeral directors’ and, of course, the families’ minds are…

Idealists, and, specifically, idealists who are also zealots, scare me. Laser-like focus not only cuts, it blinds. Even if a person is “correct” on an issue, tunnel vision is by definition partial loss of vision.

Idealistic zealots think that…

“The drips and the crickets.”

My brother Jim has long said that those are the sorts of things that finally drive you “over the edge” when you’re already under stress.

Along the same line, we might recall an agricultural…

Well, I guess the turtle was right, and rain was on the way. If you can’t trust a turtle, the epitome of slow, faithful plodding, who can you trust? Not flighty or flitting, manic or depressive, just one step…

The segment actually aired several years ago, but I still remember a fascinating piece 60 Minutes produced on sleep. (About sleep. Not while sleeping.)

Since sleeping is one thing I’ve always been particularly good at, I was immediately interested…

By writing today’s column, I am breaking a promise, one that I made to myself. I didn’t make myself take an oath aloud or sign anything. I suppose it was less a promise than a mental warning not to…