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Throughout the year Charles posts images at Flickr while researching new book ideas.
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Every Now and Then…
Posted in The Kitchen Sink on Wed, August 11, 2010
I hear a song that gets me where few others do, or can. This one did and does.
Wow.
(The note I got said this girl was 7. Judging by the absence of her two front teeth, I’d say that’s right.)
P.S. If I get hit by a truck tonight and you all send me home tomorrow (I’m not planning on going anywhere but in a very real sense I’m not in control of when I leave, so...) please ask two people to sing at my going home party: Vince Gil singing “Go Rest High on that Mountain” and this girl.
I Need Some Help…
Posted in The Kitchen Sink on Wed, July 21, 2010
Around my house, I do the floors. As in vacuum, sweep and mop. No kidding. For some reason my friends hear this and they say, “Really?”
“Yes. Really.”
Anyway, my vacuum died.
Latest Pictures from Texas
Posted in The Kitchen Sink on Tue, June 08, 2010
I’m in Texas researching my next book. It involves a Texas Ranger. No, not the baseball player. The law enforcement kind. I came out here, met a retired Ranger named Brantley Foster and he arranged it so I could play cowboy for a day. I did. It’s official. After forty years of life on this planet, I’m finally a cowboy.
Well, okay...sort of.
A Song Inspired By My Book
Posted in The Kitchen Sink on Thu, May 27, 2010
I received an email today from a singer/songwriter in Phoenix, AZ. Ginger Tabot. She told me she’d read my last book, “Where the River Ends” and that it had inspired her to write a song which she has now recorded on her latest album, or cd, or whatever we’re calling them these days. How cool is that! I wrote her back and told her that I have the musical talent of a green bean so to think that my work actually inspired someone with talent is more than I can fathom. The song is called, “When the River Flows.” Listen here.
I"d Like to Apologize…
Posted in The Kitchen Sink on Mon, May 17, 2010
To my nephew. Ben. Yesterday, he was wearing a pair of jeans and I made fun of him for wearing them. I told him that no man in his right mind would ever wear a pair of jeans like that. They were girl-jeans all the way. I could not understand what possessed him to wear such a thing.
So why the apology?
Audio for ‘The Mountain Between Us.’
Posted in The Kitchen Sink on Mon, May 17, 2010
If you’d like to listen to the first seven or eight minutes of Mountain, click the link. It’s a strange sensation to listen to someone you don’t know read a story that started as a whisper on the back side of your brain. But, it’s also reaaaaaaaallllllly cool. Enjoy.
This Was A First For Me…
Posted in The Kitchen Sink on Mon, April 19, 2010
I swear, I was minding my own business. I had just finished a race with my boys and was eating a piece of pizza and laughing with Christy and the kids, when a voice spoke behind me. “Love your books.” Now, put this in context. I don’t really see myself as a public figure. I thought it was probably somebody I knew toying with me…
Commercial for “The Mountain Between Us”
Posted in The Kitchen Sink on Fri, April 16, 2010
The Latest Rives’ism
Posted in The Kitchen Sink on Sat, March 13, 2010
My dad’s from Texas, I’ve spent a good bit of time out there, I’d like to think part of me is from there and I am one of those folks who believes The Alamo is hallowed ground. A few months ago, I returned from a research trip out there where I bought a coffee mug at the Texas Ranger Museum in Waco, TX. It’s now my favorite mug. It says ‘Texas Rangers’ on one side and on the other is a rather famous quote from Davy Crockett. The quote is drawn from a speech Crockett made in his re-election campaign for Congress. He lost and was killed year later at the Alamo. Around my house, Davy Crockett is held up on a pedastal, as is any man who died at the Alamo. One problem: on more than one occasion guys like Travis, Bowie, Houston and Crockett said things I might not want my first grader reading—or repeating. Yet. To be honest, I didn’t know Rives was paying attention to the fine print on the side of my coffee mug.
You see where this is going?
Bluffed and Poofed
Posted in The Kitchen Sink on Thu, March 11, 2010
Rives (7) has his own way of communicating how he feels. If he’s eaten too much, he’ll put his hand on his stomach and say, “I’m bluffed.” Translation: stuffed. If he’s tired, then he says he’s “Poofed.” Trans: pooped, or tired.
Last night he was looking a little run down. I said, “How you feeling?”
He said, “I’m bloofed.”
I looked at Christy. “What’s that mean?”
‘It means he’s bluffed and poofed but too tired and full to say both.”
;-)
And yes, this will definitely find its way into a book. It’s too good.