Young David Kinemon, son of West Virginia tenant farmers, longs to be treated like a man by his family and neighbors, especially Esther Hatburn, the pretty girl who lives with her grandfather on a nearby farm. However, he is continually reminded that he is still a boy, “tol’able” enough, but no man. He eventually gets…

War hero, farmer, and family man, my grandfather was among the last of the old breed. The son of Swedish immigrants, his father had his surname, Bengtsson, anglicized when he came through Ellis Island. Thus Carl “Benson” was born in 1923. Growing up in California during the Great Depression, Carl described how he would make…

The summer I turned 13, my parents put me on a plane and sent me across the Atlantic for a week at my grandparents’ bungalow in Haddenham, England. I was thrilled: as one of four children and nine grandchildren, one-on-one time with my grandparents was hard to come by. I would have an entire week…

Getting older is going to come with many unwelcome surprises. New aches and pains in places you never knew were possible, a sudden appreciation for 5:00 a.m., and the lack of a desire to shave your now pirate-esque beard. Being a father, though, means being indestructible in the eyes of your children, no matter how…

An 80-year-old retired business owner from Anchorage, Alaska, was always haunted by a red stamp on his 1961 high school diploma: “This student met minimum state requirements.” Having toiled to make ends meet, he felt the stamp was unfair. However, with Billy Ray Macon Sr.’s family being aware of this stain on his past, they…

Forty-two years ago, I witnessed something that has softened the blow of losing loved ones. Although I was able to see the inherent blessing it had been to my life, it took years to be able to share this story. In 1979, I was a sophomore in college, heading home for Easter break. As we crossed the Throgs…

Grandfather Randy Long, 72, found a bucket of old baseballs while cleaning out his garage. Moved by the memories of pitching for his son and grandson, Long decided the time had come to give the baseballs a new lease on life. “We’d just go out and throw and they’d hit in that batting cage and…