Often less than a trickle, that creek was a haven of life to us kids.
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On the 20th anniversary of the best day of my life (the day I married Beth Kiefert, and she became the now-celebrated Beth Darnell), it’s a sincere pleasure to invite you to enjoy this second installment of “Hoot Owl Holler.” In this video presentation that uses more footage shot by my dear cousin Bart Ridings, you can hear some of the fun-loving wise-cracking from our loved ones who gathered together on May 23, 1992, in Greenville, Illinois, for our wedding. Also shown are too many others who are no longer with us: They are all missed greatly. On we proceed…
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Thinking back on my life 20 years ago, I have to say that today seems so much simpler. I wrote about that key personal era in “Arc of the Poet Part 6,” and although I think it makes for interesting reading, recalling those days is rather bracing for me. I had so much to prove to myself and the short list of others whose opinions really mattered to me, and although I was confident in my strengths and abilities, I was unsure about so much more. While I had come very far with the gifts provided by my family, as…
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Growing up, I had two wonderful grandmothers: Beatrice Travis-Ridings or “Granny Bea,” who passed away just a few months before Amelia was born in 2001… and Eileen Darnell-Houser or “Grandma Bam,” who left us in 2009. Back in 2010, I wrote about Granny Bea, and this post on Grandma Bam is long overdue. My life has been keeping me very busy lately. Outside of my daily activities focused on taking excellent care of my family and clients, free time has been extremely scarce. This week, my father celebrated his 70th birthday — and with my stepmom, their 36th wedding anniversary…
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Arc of the Poet Part 1: Life Poetry Part 2: Tour de Force Part 3: True Love Part 4: Spinning Out Part 5: Wake-Up Call Part 6: Serious Dreams Part 7: Home Stretch Part 8: Feedback Part 9: Dear Departures Part 10: Good Poetry Part 11: Rewrites Part 12: Resistance Part 13: Fame and Fortune Part 14: Ramblings Part 15: Being Nearly a year after our spectacular wedding, May of 1993 found me, Beth and pretty much everyone else in our family continuously thinking about my brother, his daily perseverance in recovering from his July ’91 diving accident, and his…
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Arc of the Poet Part 1: Life Poetry Part 2: Tour de Force Part 3: True Love Part 4: Spinning Out Part 5: Wake-Up Call Part 6: Serious Dreams Part 7: Home Stretch Part 8: Feedback Part 9: Dear Departures Part 10: Good Poetry Part 11: Rewrites Part 12: Resistance Part 13: Fame and Fortune Part 14: Ramblings Part 15: Being We kept the afterburners on and blasted into 1991, with me clawing my way forward professionally and growing up further alongside my sweetheart. I wrote an original short script for producer/director Bill Waxler, and his plans to produce it…
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Eventually I came to feel that I could become famous, and accomplish all my lofty personal ambitions, through poetry.
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I’ve written here before about my “Ramble” creative writing project. On Dec. 30 of 2009, I sat down to write a Ramble entry for my late grandmother Beatrice Ridings, who was widely known to many as Granny Bea, Aunt Bea, or Ms. Ridings. I had two wonderful grandmothers who have now passed on, and luckily for me, Grandma Eileen Darnell, who we called Bam, was also tight with Granny Bea, so on more than one occasion, I was able to enjoy them both simultaneously. At long last, I have published a separate collection for Grandma Bam, and below, I am…
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Ramble #10 by Roger Darnell Every step of my life, you have been here. Our shared life experiences as siblings is what made me want it for my children… even with all we have been through, bro. I really can’t imagine my life without there being a big brother, and you being him. And now, on the verge of you achieving something monumentally spectacular and completely self-driven, I am awestruck, and exceedingly proud. Rock on. Ramble January 17, 2008: #17 January 18, 2008: #16 February 1, 2009: #10 April 27, 2009: #9 October 3, 2009: #8 May 9, 2010: #7…
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The ‘Bumper Crop’ series has at least one more entry, but requires a bit more work on my part before I can post the rest of the story. In the meantime, I wanted to share something from a more recent work. After we moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains almost exactly seven years ago, I found my creative writing energies more or less depleted. Soon, being a father added a new dimension to my life, and the one creative project that stayed on my agenda was to write an epic poem for Amelia, detailing the first day of her life…